Regular Board Meeting - August 13, 2025

001Good afternoon and welcome to the Wednesday, August 13, regular board meeting of the Savannah Chattam County Board of Education. Uh I really love to see actual people out in the audience physically and those of you who are online. Uh hope you're having a great day. Uh the first thing we'll do is uh I will ask our secretary if uh we have posted the meeting and she assures me that we have. Um, now I would request that you all stand for the the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Kim Aenbach and I am the performing arts specialist for SECPSS and I supervise or I support uh over a 100 dance, theater and music teachers and we have all three content areas um represented here singing the national anthem for

002us today. I think there are about 40 48 of us who could come. Um we are very fortunate to teach in a district that values dance, art, and theater. We know that these people before you are the reason that many of our students come to school. Um we are the application of the core subjects and um a source of joy and hopefully well-being for everyone. So I hope this will be a bright spot in your day and we are honored to perform the national anthem for you. [Music] By the dawn early light, what so proud we at the twilight lasting stripes and bright stars through the fight for the We were so gall [Music] [Applause] through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say that as stars spangled yet. For the land of

003the free [Music] and the home of the brave. [Applause] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Thank you all. Great job. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. You too. Thank you. Let's hear it again for our teachers. [Applause] Uh now ask for a motion to approve the agenda. Uh Mr. Mars, I would like to make a motion that we adopt the agenda as amended. Thank you. announcement. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? I'm Yes. There there's no discussion. All All in favor? Thank you. Thank you. might. All right, our announcements. Uh, we have a capital improvement meeting and I really encourage the public to

004attend these meetings. They are open to the public at our capital improvement committee meeting is uh Tuesday, August 19th uh at 2 pm uh here in the Whitney building. Academic Excellence Committee meeting is Wednesday, August 20th here at 3 PM. We have a ribbon cutting ceremony for a CTA um uh complex at Davis Harris Edwards. Um on Thursday, August 21st, uh at 10:00 a.m., another ribbon cutting at our athletic facility and police annex uh at the Davis Harris Edwards complex uh on Thursday, August 28th at 11:00 a.m. and our September board meeting, which is an I thought there was an is an evening meeting. The informal will start at 3 pm and the regular meeting will start at 6 pm. And and by the way, it is on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday in

005September. Um now our remembrances. Um let's see here. Sabrina Fitzgerald Cooper from Rice Creek School. Um, she was a science teacher. Uh, date of passing 716205. Bus driver Elanszia uh Miller. Uh, date of passing 7925. And counselor clerk uh Lauren Maxwell from Georgetown School. Date of passing 7725. If we all please stand for a moment of silence. And now a word from our superintendent, Dr. Watts. Good afternoon. I'm excited to bring to you the month of August calls for applause. As many of you have already heard and experienced, we started the 2526 school year with an exciting bang. as smooth a school opening as we have had in years. Yes, there have been a few minor glitches that we want to acknowledge, but we did what we do to paraphrase sometimes what Dr. Barnes will

006say. We made it do what it do and it it did great for uh our students and um a special thank you goes to all staff across our district to make that happen. Thanks you. Thank you to the operations staff, transportation, school nutrition and maintenance for getting things up and off the ground. Children were fed well. Meal consumption was up 22% on the first day of school, and that has continued to be pretty consistent across our district. Thank you to our principles and our school leadership teams for making sure that the first day was a great start. Thank you to our teachers who opened their arms and their hearts to our scholars and thank you to our families who partnered with us to make sure every child arrived at school ready to learn. I am

007100% confidence that we are going to have an amazing school year. We had a great kickoff of our inaugural community resource fair sponsored by the Savannah Chattam County Public School System and Parent University. Thanks to the team at Savannah High School for hosting us and thanks to our engagement and outreach team for leading this charge. Tama Trible, Adidel Biles, and Clyde Newton went way above and beyond to organize and marshall this event. Very well done. We have cut the ribbon on two new facilities and a renovation in the last two weeks. We are so excited about these new schools. Bloomingdale Elementary and Windsor Forest High welcome scholars back to brand new state-of-the-art facilities and the early learning center and Henderson at Henderson E. For me got a big makeover. Hats off to our capital projects

008team for their hard work to get these buildings ready for the start of the year. The school district has also been recognized as a 2025 honore by inspire edu. Inspire edu is our partner in helping families across the digital divide. Their basic digital skills workshops offer free interactive instruction to families who wish to increase their knowledge and confidence using digital skills for everyday life, including in education and for their careers. Each family that attends the training receives a laptop as well as connections with the district leadership. Mr. Clyde Newton will accept the award at the gayla in September. Congratulations also is extended to Miss Sheena Boyin for being selected as the American Association of School Personnel Administrators award winner. Sheena was recognized with the human resource specialist support staff award for the 2025 school year

009in region six for excellence in the practice of human capital leadership. This honor recognizes the hard work and best practices of AASPA colleagues into 2025. We are extremely proud to have Sheena on our team. And hats off to Marissa Johnson, assistant principal at Duran Middle School. She is one of 15 educators nationwide awarded a Lead for Change fellowship. The Lead for Change Fellowship is a year-long professional development opportunity supporting educators in cultivating student leadership through meaningful service projects. Fellows receive leadership training and collaborate with a network of educators committed to student empowerment. Congratulations to you, Miss Johnson. And finally, I am immensely proud to announce that the school district has earned Cogna systems accreditation. Cognia recognizes schools and districts across the globe that meet rigorous standards focused on productive learning environments, equitable resource allocation and

010effective leadership. Cogna accreditation is a rigorous pro process that focus the entire school system and its community on the primary goal of ensuring all students can flourish in engaging and equitable learning environments. Earning accreditation from Cogna means that the school system meets Cogna performance standards and it maintains a commitment to continuous improvement. To do that, we had to pass an internal and an external review. This is monumental and it is a great achievement for our school district and I am extremely proud of the work that was done to receive this accreditation. At this time, I would like to welcome Miss Emily Graham and Miss Dolores Bordon to the podium as they will be facilitating our exchanging of the plates uh for the upcoming school year. They are uh the teacher of the year and our

011ISP uh representatives. Okay. Good afternoon board members, Mr. Moss, Dr. Watts, cabinet members, and all who are here today. It has been my honor and privilege to serve as the 2025 district teacher of the year. Serving in this role was insightful and invigorating. From the classroom to the boardroom, there is great work happening across our county. One of the highlights is the work accomplished through the superintendent's professional senate, an incredible resource of some of the best school staff across our district. The Senate worked together last year on a number of topics and were well supported by the superintendent and the cabinet. I hope to see that meaningful discourse of the Senate continue to play a key role in building connections across the district. I enjoyed having a seat on the horseshoe alongside our elected officials

012and having a platform to speak on behalf of teachers. Board members, thank you for your warm welcome and support uh for coming to speak with the professional senate and for continuing to serve the best interests of our Savannah communities. Over the past year, I've met so many impactful educators and committed staff who give their best self day in and day out, including the 2025 district is nurse D. Bordon. To any teachers watching the meeting today, thank you for your hard work day in and day out. You are empowering students to become critical thinkers to be successful and productive members of their community and h to have the dignity and confidence to lead choicefilled lives. I'm excited to welcome Miss Jennifer Hughes as the 2026 District Teacher of the Year. This is a unique and inspiring

013platform, so enjoy it with confidence. It's hard work, but absolutely worth it and an amazing experience. Thank you again for this opportunity to serve. And without further ado, it's time to pass the torch. [Applause] Hi Hi everybody. I'm Dolores Bordon and I just want to let you know that it has been a humbling honor to serve as the instructional support person of the year. Attending the board of education monthly meetings as well as area functions have been very enriching. The Senate meetings are definitely a means for teachers and staff to let their voices be heard. I feel that we did make a difference. Thank you to the very passionate members of the board of education as well as Mr. Wall and Miss Lisa Wilson for their continued support. Congratulations and well wishes to officer Heyman

014um on this honorable journey as instructional support person of the year. This truly is an inspirational experience that I have had and I really thank you all. [Applause] Although Jabari Mr. Hediger, thank you, sir. And on in your agenda, of course, we'd like to uh welcome our teacher of the year representative and our instructional support person of the year representatives now officially seated at the horseshoe. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We do have one item is an action item for the board of education set up in your board of education matters. The district and the board have received a charter petition from the reach charter petitioners. Staff have taken a look at this petition and gone through the process and the timeline for the appropriate review and subsequent recommendation. I'll now turn the podium over to our

015deputy superintendent of schools to bring you a recommendation for this action item. Good afternoon. Reach public school charter petition approval starting in the 2627 school year. Reach public schools submitted a charter petition to open a new startup charter school serving the students, families, and broader community of Savannah Cadam County. The petition seeks to establish a school beginning in the 2627 school year. During March 2025, REACH submitted a comprehensive charter petition to the superintendent and local board of education for consideration by the required petition deadline. After careful consideration of the information provided in the application and the accompanying exhibits and ongoing dialogue with the petitioners, the Savannah Cadam County Public School System Charter Review Committee supports the approval of Reach Public Schools and has recommended to the board of education that we endorse the approval of

016their request at the August 13, 2025 meeting. We have also detailed a number of reasons in support of this recommendation that were provided in advance via board docs. I do want to highlight the committee recommendations included or were based on deliberations during the committee during which time the committee made several observations and arrived at the recommendations below which are intended to guide the planning and early implementation phases of the charter term. Strengthen internal academic monitoring systems to ensure alignment with the Savannah Chattam County Public School System performance standards and expectations. Submit a detailed and timebound board development and training plan prior to the launch of the 2627 school year. Establish and maintain a proactive collaboration with Savannah Cadam County Public School Systems departments in areas such as safety, student support services and accountability. Closely monitor

017student enrollment and staffing to support stable growth and maintain program quality. The Savannah Cadam County Public School System Administration supports the approval of Reach Public Schools as a new startup charter beginning in the 2627 school year. Board action is required at this time. Thus, be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve Reach Public School for a 5-year charter contract beginning in the 2627 school year with the conditions noted above. Thank you. And I have a motion from Mr. Catchmar, seconded by Dr. Bringman. Uh, any discussion? Yeah. So, I'm pleased to uh hear the recommendation from the superintendent and staff. Um, I'm u going to support the recommendation and and vote to affirm um the recommendation. Um, I I want to thank our staff for the thorough and diligent review. Um,

018the board that's sitting out there. Um, great job on the application process. Uh, that was the easy part. Um, you know, putting stuff on paper is the easy part. Standing up what you put on paper is the hard part. Um, what I will say is please use our board, our board and our staff as a resource. We've been through this before. We've got um several operating charters now. Uh we've also voted in the last 20 years or 15 years to shut down charters that were not successful. Learn from their mistakes. Learn from um the successes of our current charter schools. Communication is the key. Please heed the guidelines that they noted today on areas to strengthen and improve. Um and don't hesitate to reach out to any of us for guidance. We want you to

019be successful. We want to build a collaborative relationship. Um, and that that takes um effort both ways. So, congrats. Um, now dig in Hoskins Brown. You don't care. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Thank you. Um, I appreciate and support this recommendation that's coming from the community and in support of staff. I have a couple of comments. um it seeks to use a nontraditional approach to work with a group of high need students in our community and I think that has um a definite value. It reminds me of what Richard Arnold might be if we still had Richard Arnold and and matured that um approach. Um one thing that's unique about it that I also appreciate is that it embraces transients of students attending. Um, a lot of models that come to us are

020like, you're going to come to this charter school and you're going to stay at this charter school. This embraces, hey, you want to catch up a little bit and then go back to your home school and play soccer. Cool. We're for you. We're here for that. Um, and so I'm seeing nodding. So, I I think that's what I was supposed to get and you're saying, "Yeah, I got it." Okay. Um, I I I don't have really strong concerns. I just had a question and kind of a something that um drew my attention on the board of directors. You have a really strong board of directors which I expect is going to grow and I saw that board members can be dismissed without cause and I found that concerning. I' I've not seen that language. Um

021and I don't know I don't know what one has to do to be on a board and then get dismissed without cause. I don't know whether that means you are raising a minority opinion that people don't agree with, but it just kind of drew my attention that you can just be invited to absent yourself for no, you know, for no reason. So, if there's something that I can learn about leadership that makes that necessary, then I would I'd like to learn that. Um um and what I wasn't sure if I missed was the is the potential location of the facility publicly available or is Yes, it's the Old South University. I believe it's off Montgomery Road across from Culver's. It's a hamburger place called Culver's I believe. Yeah. Okay. All right. I don't know a

022lot of streets, but I've been to Culver's a couple times. I can't answer the question about the board, but I know where Culver's. I appreciate you. At least you know to call East Broad East Broad Street and don't call it Broad because if you say broad then we all know that you're not from here. I'm not from here but I'm I'm becoming more and more from here. So I do know not to do that. But yes, that's the location and it is as I noted before the old South University and it is my understanding that it is an existing facility that's in place as of now. Thank you. St. Leo. Oh, St. Leo. I see. I I know we had St. Leo's. I knew about South. Okay. Well, the old St. Leo's University. Thank you.

023Well, again, I think this is a is a creative model. You have some heavy lifting to do. Um, I admire that you have stepped forward to raise your hand and say we want to do this hardest of the hard work. Um, and so I'm I wish you success. Thank you, Dr. Ringman. Uh, yes, I will be in support of this as well. Um, thank you for noticing um a deficiency. Um oftent times uh there's a perception that we want to split charter schools as one school group and public the rest of the public schools is another and and really we're all public schools. There are they are all of our children of Savannah Chattam County. So thank you for seeing that there was a need and wanting to address that need. Um I truly hope

024that this is a partnership. Um, and as Mr. Katchmar said, please speak to us. Um, it is amazing how often um, people will not reach out to us. Um, and we don't find out things until they come to a precipice when a conversation could have been had months before. Um, so please, I know one of you's got my number on speed dial already, so we're good there. Um, you'll find out if you talk to any other charters that um, I'm big on enrollment numbers. if you watched earlier, I talked about them. Um, you've got an enrollment growth model. Um, meet it if the need is there. You know, it drives me nuts when we we've said, um, here take this many students, but you only take 70% of that, but you have a wait list.

025Yeah, that will rub me the wrong way. So, yeah, if there's a need and there's a weight list and you've got seats, fill them. Fill them. um because you have chosen to take on education but also education for kids that are trying to catch up that have had troubles um and I applaud you for that and I hope the best and as Mr. Katchmar and Dr. Hawkins Brown said reach out to us use the resources be a partner and let's all just help the community grow um together so thank you again for this petition Dr. Howard Hall then, Miss Campbell. Yes, thank you. If I had the opportunity to read the um proposal, it was very comprehensive, but what really caught my attention was was um IGP, your individualized graduation plan. The minute a student

026enrolls and enter 9th grade, they will be given a plan with a flexible schedule. So, if they are a caregiver, we have a plan for you. if they have a part-time job, we have a plan for you. This is charter, but it looks like alternative education. And that's and that's what it looks like to me. And I really am excited about it. And your name is Reach Charter. So, reach out to us. Thank you, Miss Campbell. Um, so I love this. I think this is brilliant. Um, some things that I am just a little cautious about is the uh how alternative this feels in some ways knowing that a lot of our kids need structure at the same time. So, some of the just since we're all voicing some of our concerns up front here,

027um some of the fluid grading system, uh if you're going to adopt or adapt our code of conduct, you know, and maybe um let's see what else I have here. Um hopefully you have all the resources that you need to in like the social worker department, etc., where it won't tax our resources at the same time. Um, but by and large, I hope that this succeeds because I think this is exactly what we need here. I think it's an alternative that I've never even heard of proposed. So, congratulations on that. That is amazing. And, um, welcome to the district. I'm thrilled. Um, thank you for bringing this to us. Um, I echo what a lot of the board members have said. Thank you for bringing us something that we needed. Uh, thank you for filling

028a hole. Um, I will also um echo Mr. catchmar and you know um the petitions I'm not going to say it's easy but that's when you get into this it's the easy part. Um one of the things that that everyone who knows me knows that there's one word that I use a lot and that is accountability. I understand that you will be held accountable. Um, thank you and welcome. All right, there being no more discussion, all in favor. All right, welcome to Savannah Chadam County Public School. [Applause] That concludes your board of education matters. Moving on in your agenda to the consent and other matters of today's agenda. Okay, we're having we're having technical problems over here. Y'all can go get a drink now if you want. I'm not noticing who got up first. The

029lawyer. Okay, thank you. All right. All right. Um, I will now accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Moved and seconded. Um, all in favor? Okay. Thank you. You can come back in Dr. Howard Hall. Ah, there Mr. Jackson. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Uh the first item we have is for EPIT specialized educational staffing for teachers and psychology services specialized instruction. The specialized instruction department is requesting contract approval for EPIC special education staffing to provide special education teachers and psychologists for psychological services to students to include psychological and educational testing, observations, and consultations with administrators, teachers, and parents. Due to the vacancies we are currently unable to fill for the 202526 school year, services will be provided on an as needed basis. The cost is based upon current student requirements and

030is estimated at 216,000 for professional services and $561,470 for teachers at a total cost of $777,470. The funding source is various grants, federal grants and state grants. Thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve a contract with Epic Special Education Staffing to provide special education teachers and school psychologist services for a one-year period for a total cost of $777,470. Motion. Okay, it's been moved. a second. Oh, it's been moved and seconded. Uh discussion. Uh I do have a just two questions. Um how was Epic Special Education Staffing selected? Miss Stacy Taylor is going to come forward. No, sir. And I I asked I'll I'll go on and ask the other part of the question. Okay. while we organize the response and the reason I ask is that on another

031part of the agenda we have something that is close to same dollar amount that we used a bidding process and for this there doesn't seem to be evidence of that I just want to know how did we decide and why did we not use a a bidding process like just just want to know yeah and I'll invite our uh finance team also to provide some additional guidance but it's my understanding there were multiple uh contracts and vendors that were reviewed uh from previous years. Uh and so we continue to utilize uh some of those contracted services uh as part of the uh as part of this process. So we've used this particular vendor in the past. Correct. Okay. And are we in compliance with our bid process to not have used a bid process for

032this dollar amount? Yes. from what was given to me from staff. Um, trying to find my notes. This is a vendor I believe we currently use for other services if I'm not mistaken. But let me let me clarify that and I would get an answer to that would be helpful. I just know we we've voted on like copier paper for $100,000 that we've bid out. So, I just am, you know, wanting to make sure that the public feels comfortable that we're being stewards and things are competitive. So, um, thank you for attention to that. That's right. Anyone else? All right. There being no more discussion. All in favor? Thank you very much. The next item was moved from consent for Ignite Reading PBC as a sole source. The Office of Strategy, Innovation, and Performance does

033now request board approval for the purpose for the purchase of oneonone virtual foundational reading tutoring services from Ignite Reading PBC for the 202526 school year. The purchase is proposed as a sole source due to the proprietary researchbacked model that is not available through any other vendor or reseller. Ignite reading provides a science of reading aligned one-to-one virtual tutoring program designed to build fluency and automatic word recognition in early readers. Students who participate in this program will receive 15 minutes per day, five days a week of individualized instruction, deliver via via a proprietary platform with certified tutors trained in structured literacy. Staff recommends that the board approve the district-wide virtual t tutoring service from Ignite Reading PBC for school year 202526. The total annual cost is $250,000. The funding source is the general fund. Thus be

034resolved on upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the soul source agreement with Ignite reading PBC for foundational literacy tutoring services for the 202526 school year at a total cost of $250,000. And I'll also add that uh during the break you were given a small short presentation on the tutoring and the team is prepared to pro provide answers or clarity on any other questions that you might have. I'm making the motion been moved and seconded. Uh discussion Dr. Thank you. I'm sorry. No problem. I I asked that this be pulled from the consent agenda because I thought that it was really really um an illumination of the district using innovative techniques to try to address um challenges from our littlest learners. And you know in reading the application from the uh reach

035charter school and then reading this part of the agenda I'm like we're doing really cool stuff too and I didn't want it to be buried in the consent. I wanted uh the community to see that uh we use our resources to pilot activities that uh reach young people, young learners where they live um using technology and trying to really address um how we meet our our literacy standards with literacy being um what we've called our north star. So, um, I truly truly appreciate staff getting a request like what 12 hours ago to give us some overview of what they were aiming to do. Um, not as criticism, but just really wanting to shine a light on something I thought was positive. So, thank you. We do have some slides that we can go through now

036very quickly if you would like to see us cover the provided quickly. Yeah, sure. Good afternoon again. So um quickly I get that um and I will start talking while we wait for the presentation to be shown but I would like to also take this as an opportunity to the point around the work that we're doing around piloting to invite Shrada Nanziata who you may recall came on board a little under a year ago. I think it was at the second day of the retreat was her first day and actually the work that she does is around strategic initiatives as well as special projects and this pilot is one of them and the work that she's doing is crossf functional in nature. A little bit about the high dosage tutoring pilot. We it uses highquality

037instructional materials and the model is designed to be done during the instructional day. And what's also unique about it is that the reading tutors that the students would interact with virtually have over a 100 hours in professional learning and associated with the literary the tutors they also get a dedicated literacy specialist which is monitoring those students data and communicating directly with the school leadership around student progress so that the school leadership is then positioned to make adjustments and support students as needed. What I also want to point out thinking about innovation is for me it checks the strategy box, the innovation box as well as the performance box. So this is a strategy that we're using to not only advance literacy but also learn about a program and see if it's working before we scale

038it and it reminds me of some of the work that we've talked about related to ROI. And then the other piece is around results. This program, as you can see, has proven results, and I've provided some study information for your review. I've also had the opportunity to speak directly with the chief academic officer in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is a program that they've also used to help increase their reading performance with a subset of schools and they saw great results. A little bit, I'll have Shrada, I'm sorry, because I'm trying to go fast. I'll have Shrada talk a little bit about the key features of Ignite. Hi, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak in front of the board. It's been 355 days exactly since joining the district. I am counting. Um, so

039I'm excited to share a little bit more about high dosage tutoring with you. Um, what is unique about this particular program is that it is daily one- on-one tutoring. So students get the the same instructor consistently to do that 15 minutes of instruction with them. Um it's only 15 minutes a day. Uh and uh the tutors are trained through Ignite's uh proprietary curriculum. Um a lot of them are former teachers. So that there is a huge benefit there. Uh and there is consistent and regular progress monitoring. So schools are receiving data reports from that literacy coach every 14 days. Um we are as a cross functional team planning to check in every 14 days uh to assess that progress. Um and the and we're trying to assess scalability here, but it is a pretty scalable

040program because it is virtual. So this can happen during class time. This can happen during the dig time where students are are receiving uh small groupoup instruction. Um and so it is a highly scalable program. Oops, sorry. uh the way we are talking about selecting schools is looking at both Amira 2425 endofear assessments and I ready end of year 2425 assessments. So we've looked holistically at the school uh at all the all the elementary and Kate schools and kind of rank the need um based on where they landed in terms of the number of students who are uh two or more grade levels below on both these assessments. So we're trying to take triangulate some data here. Uh we are also looking for four comparison schools that are similar demographically um and uh have similar

041results on Amira and I Ready. Uh in terms of selecting students from within those schools that will receive treatment, we are looking for students who are two or more grade levels below in their Amira beginning of year assessments for this school year. So, we're waiting to start the intervention until after we the uh all students take Amira uh and we have their beginning of year uh scores and this will only be for second and third graders. Um what is exciting uh also about high dosage high dosage tutoring is um the opportunity to strengthen our collaboration and our um data orientation. So as I mentioned earlier there is a project team crossunctional project team um including principles uh and including the dedicated literacy specialists from uh the vendor who will check in twice a month on

042implementation and progress. Um we there is also a great opportunity to collaborate with some of our charter partners who are al also implementing Ignite this year. Um Susie King Taylor and Savannah Classical are both using the program. So it'll be great to do some of that collaboration and we are using an ROI lens in this work. So um our director of research and evaluation will be part of the project team and we're thinking ahead about uh uh quantifying ROI and also some other innovative practices using ROI um as we consider scaling. Well that's a quick hit highle overview. If there are additional questions we're happy to answer. Just thank you very much. I really hoped for a couple of bulleted statements about the program and so what you put together was far beyond my expectations

043and I think it really conveys to others why it was interesting enough that I I wanted to raise it up. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Howard Hall. Yes. Thank you for providing this information and I just wish it could be more than 100 but I know it's a pilot and I look forward to seeing the outcomes of this and I appreciate that you all are targeting second grade because many cases the third grade teachers they take the hit when the students aren't reading on grade level at the end of third grade. So by incorporating second grade that's a wonderful target and I'm just looking forward to see how this pans out and review the data. Likewise and we look forward to bringing you updates. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Hang hang

044on. Yeah. I I just want to comment that I hope comparisons are able to be made so that we constantly see the difference between children who are exposed to this and those who we cannot or have not. Yes. Um so that we see in real time what's happening. Right. And and what's also unique about the schools that won't be participating that will be used for comparison, we're going to lift up what programs they are using so that we can put on the table what's actually working because that's really the core of what we want to answer. It's what's working and for who. And once we kind of crack that code, then that positions us to be able to scale. Okay. And I have another challenge for you. the children who are not able the children

045who are not able to attend our preks the f all the four year olds who are out there who we cannot uh enroll um look for a pilot that we could do some sort of technology with them at their homes so that by the time they get to us they're not so far behind because they haven't we haven't been able to uh provide something for them. That is interesting. Shrada and I just locked eyes. We do have something but we we are trying to be narrow and go deep. So we have not advanced that to the broader leadership but there is something and Shrada is probably not locking eyes probably rolling her eyes. She's we have to do it. We have to do it and I'm like wait wait wait. So there are things that

046are on the horizon specifically as we think about the next iteration of our strategic plan. Okay. Thank you Miss Campbell. Um, did I read in here too that it was a hundred students that you're doing this for specifically? And then when when we get an update, is there a time frame maybe in the middle of the year that we could assess its effectiveness and see if maybe we can make way in the budget to push this to some other schools that maybe have some Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. As Strata mentioned, we will be monitoring on a 14-day cycle. And we didn't have a lot of time to talk about the cross functional team, but we're from the innovation side, but it's really our partners in the office of school leadership who will serve as champions, and

047we will be there to support them. Pending approval today. We will meet with them next week to begin the kickoff. We've also had a chance to be knee to knee and elbowto elbow with my colleagues Dr. Raymond Barnes as well as Derek Butler to plan this. And so upon approval, we are positioned to move forward and we will monitor and if it's something that we can scale and is making a difference, we certainly will come back with that and discuss what our next step should be. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Again, thank you. All right. Okay. There being no more discussion, uh, all in favor? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Now the financials. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. The financials that um were in your packet this month is for end of year end

048of fiscal year June 30th. Um at this point we are at 100% we were at 100% of the school year and the fiscal year. Um for fund 100 general fund revenues our local property taxes we were at 105% of budget which is higher than last year when we were at 104.7%. Our total general fund actual revenues were at 101.8% of the budget. It's a little bit lower than the year before when we were at 103%. Our general fund expenditures, actual expenditures for teachers, we're at 101% of budget and other other support salaries were at 93.3% of what was expected. Total general fund actual expenditures, we ended at 93.67% 67% of the budget which is a little bit higher than the year before. And remembering on all of this we are spending the next month month

049or two um finalizing all of our entries and getting ready for our year end audit. So this is where we are as of right now. Um we have two other funds that we wanted to um bring before you today and that's fund 560, our prek program. Fund 560 we're currently showing a loss of $943,000. The fund ended FY24 with a deficit of $342,000 um and then the 943 for this year. So board action is requested on as an agenda item for this month's meeting to transfer 100 one excuse me 1 million72,932 from the general fund to clear the deficit. The other fund that we have is fund 600 school nutrition program fund 600 is currently showing a net loss of $5.9 million. Additional entries were going to be may be posted during the year end

050closing, but the budgeted the budgeted $3.1 million operating transfer from general fund that was budgeted has been recorded. Board action is also required or requested at this month's meeting to transfer the $5.9 million from the general fund to prevent the fund deficit. Have any questions on any of our Dr. Bringman. Yeah. And this is just a continued question from budget time and doesn't truly have to be um 100% answered today, but will be um I'm sure maybe a topic at our workshop, but definitely in the October, November, December moving forward budget um committees that I need to um schedule. Um I see here this is the end of our year. Correct. Right. um that for some reason the state didn't give us as much as we thought we were going to get from them. Correct.

051Based on QBE, is that how am I reading that correctly? That top line where it says that we are only at 92 like that that we did not get as much or we just haven't spent it. Now, which one are you speaking? Um state state QBE that first line number 10 account 10. Yeah, the first page. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Line 10, first page, state QBE, original appropriation 196 million, revised budget 196, but year-to date is actually 180. So, we're at a negative 15 million. Correct. Make that make sense to me. We haven't sp we still have 15 million that we haven't spent. Correct. That's correct. Or no, you're speaking of the shortage in revenue for the state QB. Correct. That's what Yes. That's that that to me looks like we had a budget of 196

052and we've only gotten 180. Correct. Correct. Are they going is the state going to give us the rest of that or is that the state actually shorted us? Am I No, you're comparing the budget to our actual. We budgeted the numbers a year, you know, a year ago compared to the actuals and we just did not reach what was like on FTE. Correct. So that's how that change. Okay. Correct. Bingo. Thank you. That makes complete sense and I knew that y'all would Yep. So there is going to be some difficulty always knowing what that number is going to be. Just like if we drop down a couple lines later, line 13, local property taxes, where you also stated that last year we were at 104%, this year we're at 105%. If you go back a

053couple of years, we're at 101, 100.8. If you actually go look at them, we're always, as I stated in a couple budget meetings ago, and y'all made a nice chart for me that really didn't show me what I thought I had remembered. Um, we always collect more than what we budget, at least in the in the in my mind that can look back a couple years. And I'll do some homework tonight and actually go look at every June um budget financials. And I believe we always collect more property taxes than we budgeted. And that's what I had stated many budget meetings ago. we have to kind of play the game of knowing that we are going to have some flexibility in that state QBE number because it's not always a given. Um, but I still

054think that moving into next year's budget cycle, we can start looking at how we have chronically overcollected uh property taxes and figure out what we truly as a board want our fund balance to be on those times where we collect more. And maybe we can have a bigger, you know, a bigger discussion about how we have to buffer for not always knowing how much QBE funding we're going to get. And I can see how that washes a little bit, but at the property line, we do collect more than what we've budgeted. We've had that privilege over the past few years. It has not always been that correct. Yeah. But at least the last five. Yeah. If I can just chime in, it's probably been the last maybe three or four. Um, and honestly, we give

055most of the credit to the uh tax commissioner's office. The additional revenue that you're seeing for property taxes is not based upon the tax digest. We don't we haven't been able to collect all the revenue for the digest that we get. What we've been collecting and what their office have been good at is collecting delinquent taxes over the last two or three years. And that's what the difference is. They're they've been they have been on it. But we made that adjustment in this year's budget to reduce the amount of delinquent taxes and increase the budget for on time property taxes. Thank you, Miss Jackson. But it still means at the end of the day that we are collecting more property taxes than what we budgeted for, thus building a fund balance. We, and this is

056just me priming the pump not to answer today, will have to decide what we as a board think that fund balance should be. But one of the talking points is overcolction in that line. When I see that as a taxpayer, you collected more than you budgeted, which gives you more money. That's all. Miss Campbell and then Dr. Brown. Then Dr. One other one one thing that I noticed about this too is I did go back I guess one, two, three, four, five, six years and there was one year that we came up a little shorter than even um mostly collecting more from as you said um delinquencies, incumbrances, etc. Um but having the extra revenue uh one thing another piece of it though I think where we're coming up with all this money to put

057into um our unreserved fund balance each year is that we also seem to overestimate what we're going to need like and tell me if I'm reading this wrong. So at the very bottom total general go across under available budget it says 51 roughly 9 million. Okay. So that's how much extra we have. Okay. So when we had our budget meetings I looked through it but we were pretty busy back there in between meetings. But what was it that we said we were carrying over at the last meetings into this year? We were projecting around at the end of the year probably around between 30 and 35 million after we still have some expenditures that will take place for the months of July and August that's not on this report but we're looking at around 30

058to 35 million but that was the basis that we used for the FY26 process. That's why we looked at a lot of reductions and looked at increasing the the vacancy factor because if you look at some of the account lines where there's money left, it's a lot of it's in salaries. Okay. I just I want us to be more mindful of that because I went back to the same years on the same page for the last six years and we it seems that we have a standard of being roughly 6 to9% above. You know, like from conservative budgeting, meaning that we're conservatively holding on to what we think we may need, but it isn't getting spent. It's going into unreserved fund balance. And then when we want to roll it back or roll it back

059a, you know, edge it back a little, we're saying, "Oh, but we want to save it just in case." but we're just going to add more to it at the end of the year. So, I hope we continue to cut and make sure that we're not having this happen. Um, and that the cuts that we made were enough. So, we can talk about that more at finance. If I can interject, one thing that that has been a blessing and a savings for us over the past few years has been the CARES and ARC monies. Those monies finished September last year. So where you're seeing some of your savings here over the past three or four years is because we had the CARES and the ARP monies that we were spending as opposed to the general

060fund. So we need to be real mindful of that when we start talking about cutting and cutting back because some of those those um ideas and plans that we put into place using those funds, we're bringing them over to the general fund um going forward. So, we need to to to be careful with that also. Okay. Dr. Hoskins Brown, then Dr. Thank you. Um, I'm so glad I'm not the only one asking questions about financials this month. So, awesome. Um, so I I'd like to support what was just said about moving things over because I think one of the moving things over to the general fund because we haven't been spending them. What we in a in a in a philosophically ideal world what's supposed to happen is the grant money coming in is supposed

061to augment what you would have used the general fund on. So it would have been general fund money and then grant money for the enhancement for the outcome that the grant was supposed to do. But what we have done as a district for a very long time is to supplant general fund money and say well we're not going to spend that because we have this grant money. And so they've been really kind of fake savings. And we see the consequences in our outcomes when you look at learning outcomes, end of course tests, uh, state assessments because we didn't double stack what those young people needed. We substituted it with grant money. Um, which wasn't the reason I raised my hand, but I really like this discussion and I wanted to wanted to contribute that. Um,

062I have uh one question that came from the last discussion. Don't we spend more per student than QBE? Yes. Okay. So, if we spend more per student via QBE, those numbers on line 10 aren't really a good measure of the exact cost and they're getting absorbed on these other funds on other pages. They may be getting absorbed in other lines in the general fund, but we're spending more than we are getting from the state anyhow. and often we're doing it from these special funds or from federal funds. So, I just wanted to put that out there. Um, thank you for your responses to all my questions that I sent very late last night and I'm not going to ask all of them in the meeting and I'm I know there's some of them that you're

063you're still working on. Um, I'd like to ask that on this first page of the financials that fund 300s be listed or at least 300 series includes these things in capital because none of those are on there and a lot of our transactions are coming out of the 300 fund. So, I'd like those listed on the fund listing as well. Um, I'd also like to ask that we please discontinue the use of various accounts when requesting board action. Um, please don't say we're going to transfer money from various accounts and it's going to add to 2 million. like I please let us see all of the account numbers that I mean if I can just chime in when for that particular item or items we're about to read when we say various account we're literally

064talking about maybe 1,000 accounts. So it is truly various different types of accounts. So it's not just all salaries like we've used before on some this is truly could be salaries, supplies, software. Um so it's truly very success. a a descriptor or something more than various because various is not auditable or tractable. It's it it makes me it makes me itch. So please something more specific. Um, and then here is really the core of why the various account numbers, the various account term is bothersome for me is that we're at the end of the year and that's what we've all focused on as board members is that these numbers are kind of the finite numbers for spending for this year with the exception of the accounts that all of the incumbrances have not registered yet

065like the the title counts where we um, you know, we're still waiting for reimbursement and that sort of thing. But for some of these others, like the general fund, if it was going to be spent by the end of the fiscal year, it's been spent. Those are kind of real numbers. What I want to know is how can we see where the unspent funds from this fiscal year go? um once we go into our new year because we have our new year with the budget with all the line items and those numbers are defined by what we speculated and planned needed to be the budget and then we end this year and we have several numbers and people will see just as Dr. Bringman showed we have several places where there's 12 million left in

066in benefits. There's 2 million left in salaries because of vacancies, but there are other places you can go through each fund and see where 100% of what was budgeted was not spent. Unspent funds becomes a black box that we transfer from for the next few months. And I I don't mind doing that because it's carryover funds. We either collected it from grants that they're not making us pay back or we collected it from the taxpayers and we're spending it in in their interest. I just want better information on how much is unspent. I don't want to learn what was unspent in this year 25 only in June next year when the superintendent does the reconciliation and says this is how much carryover we have. I want to know it earlier as we're making decisions um

067with that money and it doesn't have to be like every single line but um it we need better information about that because those are kind of large sums of money. Um so that's my my biggest request and that's the origin of all my little small questions about the different fund numbers from the email I sent. Okay. and we can we're going to try to at least the general fund get those number to you as we go start with the um finance workshops um by October we will have a roundabout idea of what's left in the general fund money that's left in the general fund basically goes in the fund balance now as far as the other funds for most of the other funds uh federal grants we should not have a rollover uh because most

068of them are reimburseable so we get reimbured for the money after be spent. So they should not have anything that roll over. We just don't spend it. No, it it remains at the state and the state will reallocate it back to us hopefully. That's what we hope for. But it doesn't go into our fund balance. We don't keep it over again. So if that is the case, that's what makes this kind of a program and a fiscal question because as program managers like we have grants that only 66% of a grant was spent. So what you said is that other third is sitting up at the state. It's not been used. we may or may not get it. If it's a single-year grant, then we have to wait for it to be reallocated. Some of

069the grants may be a multi-year grant. So, we will rebudget it for the for the following year as partly the next year's budget. So, come October, November, you're going to see some revised budgets for some of the grants because they're they're for more than one period. But there's we have some state and federal grants out of just one year. If we don't spend it that year, there's a balance that we haven't requested reimbursement for. The state will look at the balances statewide for all school districts. Then they will reallocate it as a carry over or carry forward back to the district. But we have to go through that process with the state. I understood. Okay. Well, I I will yield the the floor back to the chair just by asking. And I think that the

070superintendent un you look like you understand kind of what my concerns are in terms of unused money. I was actually send you an email just to clarify. I think I understand but I'm okay. We can we can talk some more. I basically I want to know how are we managing understanding what we have left over in real time and making sure that people who are supposed to spend the money are spending it. Yes. on what we're supposed to be spending it on and not having no action leftover money and young people that could have been enriched. Yeah, that's one of our KPIs. So, we're we're working on that. Was the second half of your question, which where do those overages go if they're not spent? It was and I didn't that was a question. I

071kind of backed off of it because I don't necessarily need to know where everything went. What I really want to know is from last year, how much was unspent and what are we gonna do with it? And can we know that earlier than the month before we approve the budget? Okay. And if I can add here also, these numbers for a lot of your federal grants are through June 30th. Some of the grants go through September 30th. So you still have we still have a couple of months worth of transactions that's after June 30th, but those grants don't end till September 30th. So you've got some more time in there to spend that money from last year, you know, from from this budget. Thank you. Dr. Howard Hall, then Miss Campbell. Yes. My question segus

072pretty much into Dr. Hoskins Browns and it's what is the current status of our um overall federal funds particularly title one. We know that the fiscal year ends um September 30th. Items ordered should be received before September 30th. So if you have a new principal at a title one school that's left with a budget that was not properly expended. Now they're scrambling trying to expend those those funds. So my question is what is the overall what is the current status that you know of of of our federal budget because it rolls into um the state year but it ends a month later and it's and if there's a significant amount of funding that's poor managing because you shouldn't be scrambling trying to expend federal funds in September. I'm glad you asked that question because I

073asked that of our accounting department this morning. They said that they will have all of the numbers finalized with these grants by August 26. So they are they are finalizing those grants this month. Yep. And and we're pushing the grant directors to be more um aggressive on their spending. um if the principal is not aware of the budget um you familiar most of title one they have these coordinators that are there to assist them so we rely heavily on them because they're the experienced ones um dealing with budgets so we rely on that team to help us out as well and and I'll just add that the school's office has to be looped into this process because they own the principal evaluation so yes we have people that work in different departments that support how

074these funding how this funding is used but at the end of the day the way the principal is evaluated comes from the school's office. So that is a piece that they need they will be looking at on a regular basis with the finance team when we see funds are not being used that's a signal to us to it's a coaching conversation at first and then it can move into an accountability conversation after. So, I'd like to chime in to add more clarity um and build on what Dr. Watts has shared. Um so, this past year, we took a um a more intentional look at the spinown process happening at each school and principal supervisors work directly with the principles to create a spendown plan to ensure that um we can spend more of the funds

075directly on students uh for student performance. So they actually created that title one spin down plan for this upcoming year. We saw some some gray areas um where we had to now look at it even more intentionally. So that is built now into the principal supervisor coaching of principles. So every month they will be analyzing um the spendown plan in the budgets and um holding principles accountable to spending the money according to what was already um identified in the school improvement in a title one spending plan. And the principles also are assigned title one program managers. That's correct. And I'm I'm really um hoping that they are assisting those schools properly to assist with the expenditures. Paul um whenever I get the sense that there's some money available uh I start thinking about early childhood

076because I really believe that all the ills that we face when the children are in grades two three and four a lot of them if we could have addressed them when those children were three and four years old um we wouldn't see them so Miss Taylor here's another challenge Um, I got a call from a parent whose child had uh metriculated at Acorn at Gould, but there was no space for that child in the prek program there. They ended up on a waiting list. So, if we have some money that can be used, please use all of your creative efforts to look at our prek programs. Can we expand and add a couple more prek programs? Can we expand and add some more three-year-old acorn programs? Because all that's going to do is help us

077out and save us money when those children get older. And we talk about having to retain them a year. And you know, think about retention, the cost of retention. So, anything that you find, Miss Taylor, at that early childhood level that can be expanded with some of the money that is not spent rather than it going into, you know, these nebulous funds, please look at that to see what we could do. I want to make sure we for Little Acorns, we can't use state money. No, that's is philanthropically funded. So, we've got to find a a creative way to fund that program, but fouryear-old, but prek we can. Yes, Miss Campbell. Um, along with what Dr. Hoskins Brown was asking for um as far as finding out where we are in these different funds with

078grant money, as far as the local property taxes goes, I'm talking just in the general fund again. um any chance we can get since we estimated 30 to 35 million. I guess that was going to be left over and now we see it's almost 52 million. Can we get uh a tally of what is in our unreserve fund balance? Because I'm assuming this money is going to go there. Is that right? Okay. Um that would be good because I I think if we keep doing this year after year when we could have rolled it back, you know, you get where I'm going. Okay. Um I have a question. So in your presentation there were two requests that you guys had for money from balance. Okay. One was for nutrition food nutrition and then the maintenance.

079Okay. Yes. So that was I guess my question was in nutrition where do why were we how do we overspend salaries? Okay. Overspend is due to salaries. Is that correct? Can can I help jump in right here? So yes. Yes. So, I have had the opportunity to analyze the school nutrition uh revenue and the challenge here that in Megan's opinion was the actual amount of money that we realized. So, when we set our budget for revenue, we set it at about $33 million. That was too high for what could be realized. So, we need to reduce the actual expected amount from the federal side and the local. We are going to do a baseline with C because this is changing how much we're bringing in for 90 days. Do an assessment and then as needed

080change ask for a budget change to make sure that the federal is a realistic projection and if we need to make any adjustments on the uh local or the transfers make that at that time. and the other was for So, do I need two separate motions for that? Those are on your agenda, sir. We're still in the financial reporting section. Yeah. All right. Um, okay. I'm try to get us back on schedule. Uh, the next item, uh, 9.02, 02 bid 25-13 police uniforms, accessories, and body armor. Um, I'm going to not read all of the items. They've been posted to board docs and distributed to board members in advance to the meeting. Um, we had three responses to this bid. Staff recommends the award be made to the lowest responsible and responsible bidder meeting specifications

081and providing the lowest cost. So the actual bid was divided up to the three biders based upon the supplies. Thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve award of bid 25-13 for police uniforms, accessories and body armor to A1 uniforms, Smearina Police Distributors and GT distributors incorporated and an at an estimated cost of 1,97,652 for one year with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. move. Second. Oh, sorry. It's been moved and seconded. Uh discussion. Anyone? All right. There being no more discussion. All in favor? Okay. The next item 9.03. just contract a contract extension for food products and distribution services. Staff is requesting approval for a ratification of a contract extension for Williams Institutional Food at the same terms and conditions for the period of July

0821st, 2020 2020 2025 through December 31st, 2025 at an estimated cost of 4,934,667. The extension will allow for review and evaluation of the new project solicitation. Thus, bid resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the ratification to extend the contract for bid 22-54 food products and distribution services to the firm of Williams Institutional Foods Incorporated for the period July 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025 at an estimated cost of $4,934,667. $7. Have a motion been moved. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? There being none. Um, all in favor? The next item 9.04 is a budget amendment and operating transfer to the school nutrition program. As we talked about earlier, uh staff recommends now request an operating transfer in the amount of $5,900,000 from the general fund in order to prevent a fund

083balance deficit in the school nutrition fund. The transfer will come from various accounts in the general fund to include salaries, supplies, uh software and equipment to a contribution to other funds. is going to a operating transfer into a revenue account in the school nutrition fund. Thus, be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve an operating transfer in the amount of $5,900,000 from the general fund to the school nutrition fund for fiscal year 2025 along with the corresponding budget amendment. Been moved, seconded. Any discussion? Dr. Bringman. Uh, thank you for this. Um, I know and please, no one in budget, no one in district, no one in SNP, uh, take this at all negatively. School nutrition is never going to be a money maker. It used to be weird in our

084budget, and we acted like it should break even every year. It probably shouldn't even break even the way that funding is allocated for it. Um, but with us transitioning to a community eligibility program, which I 100% support it, I still think we should probably spend a little bit of time just to see financially what that change created. I'm gonna be okay with the number because it's food for all, but it just in stewards of funding would like to know if it created a large budgetary difference between how we used to do it and I know that's got so many moving pieces because now we've been able to change some staffing and there's positives there that aren't financially like the lines are moving faster. So, I don't know, but some some way to report on on

085those effects because there's, you know, Yeah. your baseline. Yeah. Thanks. Anyone else? All right. All in favor? Okay. Okay. The next item 9.05. Uh, it's just a budget transfer within specialized learning. The specialized learning department is requesting a budget transfer to cover the cost of speech language pathologist professional services contract account line under the department. Funds will be transferred from vacant SLP account lines under the spe special ed program to that are not being charged. All charges for SLP professional services for the schools will be charged under the department 275. Again, this is transferring funds from vacant positions and their their respective uh benefits to a professional services line within the department to pay for professional services. Thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the budget transfer above

086in the amount of 2 million $356,570 to speech lang language pathologist professional services account line under the sped department and seconded uh discussion. Yes, Mr. Catchmore. So, I'm going to support this, but I just want to highlight this issue because yes, last year and the year before, I raised questions about our salary scale for um speech language pathologists, noted that private sector was paying them on a different scale and we were losing people and now we're spending 2.4 million to contract out for services. So let's take a look at our salary scale and make the adjustment if we need to make it to keep people to recruit and retain. May I respond for a second? Uh Mr. Kashmar, uh we with Evergreen there was an assessment done. You're correct. Between last year and this year,

087we have made a change um by now having them categorized as certified professional just as the school psychologist and behavior analist and I think there's our aiologist. So we have made a change. will see the impact of it but it is a change from what we what you recall as far as where the speech language pathologists were. Thank you. So I remember and maybe it was at retreat but um we had a lot of discussion about uh speech language pathologists and I remember Dr. Bringman had a suggestion Georgia Southern I'm meeting with him Thursday. Oh great yeah that was more on the assistant level. Yeah. So stay tuned. We're working on it. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, any more discussion? All in favor? Dr. Ring? All right. Okay. Item 9.06, 06 a budget transfer and amendment

088for facility upgrades, modifications and equipment in fund 307 and 308. The division of operation long range facility plan has identified additional repairs, modification and equipment upgrades that will be provided for district sites. The division of finance would like to use accumulated funds from savings associated with various salaries, vacancies, and benefits to support this action. Transferring $5.5 million from general fund, $4 million to fund 308 for operations, and $1.5 million to fund 307 to purchase equipment on behalf of the food services department. Thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve an annual operating transfer to fund 308 various project accounts for deferred maintenance and to fund 307 for school nutrition equipment. Second discussion uh doc Mr. Catchmar, I'll just note that um we've got a uh more detailed list of

089some of the funding where this money is going to go. So, it's not just we're not just throwing money at an account without a plan. Yeah. And I do want to point out in the the regular operating budget, we right now we budget about $4.5 million for uh preventive maintenance and repairs. We do have budgets in East Plas for kind of long range projects, but the most of the immediate needs, things that did not make the list, the East Plas 5 list two years ago are the things that break and that we need to repair that happens every other month. So, these funds are used to pay for those type of expenditures. on the things that happen between from year to year. Uh the $4.5 million and this seems like a lot of money, but

090most of the time by April May maintenance and capital projects have spent most of that money doing repairs in schools because things uh as I mentioned one day in cabinet if it's man-made it will break or come apart. So they use these funds to do most of the emergency type repairs and unscheduled project repairs in the schools. Um Miss Hall, Dr. Watts, did you say that you were going to speak to this more specifically at the CIC meeting? um the whole uh facilities situation, repairs needed, how we're going to address that moving forward. Okay. So that we're not discovering these things that need to be fixed and we can handle them more proactively. Okay. So we're not having to do what we're doing right now. Okay. That's what I'm thinking. All right. Thank you, Dr.

091Hoskins Brown. Thank you. Um, a lot of my concerns about our timeliness of assessing issues I made in previous comments, so I'm not going to repeat those. Um, and and I I like that Mr. Jackson talked about, you know, typically we would address this in April and in May. Um, and so my my concern is, you know, when we are doing the assessment and discovering these things, we just approved our budget over the over the summer. Um these are the kind of things that I'm expecting is being detected during walkthroughs over the summer. Um and so but but the superintendent um has heard has heard my cries on that and um is going to is going to look into it and I'm satisfied with that. Um the only thing I would would like to address

092is it's just my own personal philosophy on how we're calling these funds. Um we have at the top of this document uh that division of finance would like to use the accumulated funds from savings associated with salary vacancies and benefits to support this action. Um and I I think I mentioned this um to to some of my colleagues earlier this year. I really want us to stop calling this savings because this isn't this isn't savings. Someone someone paid for us not fully filling these slots. Some teachers worked extra hours and didn't get paid overtime because they had to cover the needs of the young people that needed to be taught while the vacancies were there. There were little people who had substitutes for a whole year and they paid in lack of progress because they

093didn't have a a real teacher. So, this wasn't this wasn't a savings. And it it's um it's it's just it's a way that we should not refer to it um because people put in blood and sweat all year doing the extra work that weren't compensated because we're using these salaries. And we, you know, we can think about them a little differently and we can think about how we could have spent it. We could have spent it on aggressive headhunting. We could have spent it on incentives to bring in people. We could have spent it on recruitment or professional services. But I'm just very mindful that somebody worked real hard because these vacancies existed and I would be offended if I were them and heard this listed as savings because this ain't this is not savings.

094Thank you. So noted. Anyone else? Uh Miss Campbell. Um is it did I hear this correctly this year that um prek and K students are going to be counted by the state? counted by the state in QB for QB. They they are on the facility side. We can we are now going to get funding for the prek students on the facility side. I don't know about the other side. Well, they do not use prek for QBE if that's your question. Okay. But we will receive more funding for them from the state than before for prek. The prek is a grant and it's funded from bright from the start which comes from the lottery. So we're I think we're going to receive some additional funding from right from the start, but that's not QBE funding. Okay.

095So I I guess the question my question is if we have any underutilized spaces in elementary schools like we did at Bloomingdale where we could, you know, is that something we should start thinking about in line with this? Yes. Okay. Identify the space and make the grant application to the state. Awesome. Thank you. say we have to align that however with our ability to recruit and retain the teachers. You know, I don't want to have an classrooms that we open up to kids and we can't fill the vacancies because then it just Miss Hall, you're thinking in terms of prek teachers salaries that we have traditionally made the difference and pay ourselves. Yes. the compensation there there is a compensation difference because we do add and I won't know the specific number Mr. Ray will

096know that. But I'm also just turn uh referring to the workforce to fulfill those needs because when you add classrooms, you're adding a teacher. And if we can't find the teachers to fill those positions, then you just have a classroom full of kids with no teacher and you you get into this vacancy factor thing. It it's a cycle. But our commitment is still always that we're going to pay our prek teachers absolutely what the others make. So there's no change in that. I just don't want to scale prek classrooms faster than I can find the talent for those classrooms. That's been an issue. Okay. Right. And and and maybe like uh we can make that a special recruitment arm looking just for that perfect person who would be difficult to say just for because we

097have so many other vacancies that need to be filled. But if I am correct and Mr. Butler, you can correct me. Didn't we add two pre-K classrooms this year? So, we're just trying to scale slow so that we can meet the workforce need. But did we we Yes. Two pre two new pre-K classrooms, one at Godley and at New Hamstead K8. Okay. And Mr. Butler, did we um have excessive problems trying to staff those two? Were we able to easily find prek teachers for that or we had to really, you know, go to Montana or somewhere and recruit? No. So currently we only have one prek vacancy, teacher vacancy, uh, and two pair of professionals. I see. All right. I just want to always reiterate whatever we can do when they're four years old is

098going to pay off for us when they're eight and 10 years old. So, but thank you for that. And we need a funer for our three-year-olds because we will run out of funds for our Acorns program this year. Mr. Moss, that's so just think about that. A kid goes to a three-year-old program and learns everything that we have to offer and then, you know, uh there's no continuity, you know, so we lose we lose all that effort. So, all right. Um, any more discussion? No more discussion. Um, all in favor? Okay. Item 9.07 East 4 Georgetown K8 um J Dong Construction. This particular item is setting the guaranteed maximum price for the contract for this particular project. It's been established at 29,887,983. It's broken down in the chart that's in the attached agenda item. The

099contract is fully funded, but no budget transfers are needed. staff have reviewed the GMP proposal and now recommend board approval. Thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the GMP of 29 million87,983 for RFP C25-05 CMR services for Georgetown K8 renovations to Jon Construction Company. It's been moved. Seconded discussion Dr. I'm gonna start with you Dr. Howard Hall. I just had a quick question. Are these renovations expected to span one or two years? The actual project itself, the the Georgetown project is expected to be one year. One year expected or will be I'm going to say expected, but we are staying on top of our vendors. We want to do it right. So, we do acknowledge that there are some things that end up delaying us when we find unexpected

100surprises. Um, but our goal is one year. Okay. Dr. Brigman, outside of Forces of Nature, which was filmed here in Savannah, um, the plan is one year away from Yes. The Lion's Den. Um, could I please have next week at CIC the actual plans like what that site is going to look like because we did have some community engagement with some of those and I and I've expressed them some to Cogdale and I've expressed them some to staff, but I just wanted to make sure before we start tearing out things that people are going to get worried about to see them one last time. So, I look forward to that next Tuesday. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Just a quick question. And I think this question may be for Mr. Ray. Uh on the conversation of

101construction, when we look at uh architects and what we spend throughout the year on different projects, uh how many architects do we have uh employed through our campus and how many openings do we have? Very good question. I am not sure on the I'd have to get back with you on the um architects. I know we have at least one architect. I believe zero. So, no architects right now, but I think we've only advertised for the one that we have. Is that correct, Mr. Botra? Yes. So, there's one position right now that we have, and it's it's vacant at this point. So, has it been out for a while or has is there a new post? I'll have to check on that. I just I just don't have that answer at this moment. Okay. Yeah.

102I think according to staff, it's been posted for a couple of times. It's just hard to fill the position. Hard to fill it. Is it due to you think it's due to our salary recommendation or Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. We got honest. Thank you. Okay. No more questions or discussion. All in favor? And the last item 9.08 08 is the budget operating transfer for the prek program in the amount of 1,72,932 [Music] from the general fund. Thus, be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the amendment of the general fund 100 budgeted expenses expenditures and prek budgeted revenues by 1,72,932 as shown in the above tables. been moved. Seconded. Any discussion? Can Mr. Butler tell us where the two new prek programs are located? Oh, he did. I'm sorry. Maybe didn't

103you didn't hear it. Godly. Yeah. Godly K8 and New Hstead K8. Okay. All right. and and the prek program at Winter Forest High School that's in full swing with the new building and all everything set for those children. That's correct. Okay. More discussion. All in favor? All right. Thank you very much. Um we will now have our uh have a few people that have signed up for appearances today. Uh I will uh remind you that you have three minutes. And uh first we have Miss Angelisa Bryant to Dr. Watts and all board members. Good afternoon. My name again is Angelisa Bryant. I am here as a parent who believes our district works best when we trans trans we are transparent, consistent, and committed to fairness for all families. Transparency is not optional. And family engage

104engagement must be more than a slogan on a policy sheet. You cannot promote family engagement while quietly restricting it. For months, I have sought answers about incomplete open records responses and unclear justifications for restrictions placed on my ability to advocate for my child. Parents deserve clear communication, not shifting explanations. We all know retaliation in any form towards any student, parent, staff member must be part of this district's culture. Our children are watching us. They see whether our actions match our words. They see whether we stand for fairness or look away. Because when transparency is optional, trust is impossible. And we must uphold the values our children deserve. We all are educated in different ways here. You are here for all 36,000 children. How easy for us all to forget how we arrive where we sit.

105Still, let us work together. We must come together. Our children again is watching. I ask you again. I've come a long way, but I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to give up because there are children that I see that need advocates to represent them. I appreciate the opportunity and I'll be back until that door and maybe one day I'll be sitting at this table to continue the growth to help our children. Thank you, Mr. Raymond Watson. Good afternoon. You would think this will get easier. Um, first off, welcome to a new school year. As most of you know, I'm Raymond Watson. I teach third grade at New Hamstead KA. Um, I been coming here and, you know, I want to start this year off with, you know, first saying thank you for getting

106us ready for the school year. And I also want to come in and you know start with new year and say that yes I come up here and I um I express thoughts and I express that I believe that teachers should be respected and empowered and that our students should deserve the best. But I want to make sure that it's clear that I'm here to also communicate and have dialogue with each and every one of you as far as like what I believe what teachers are saying that could improve our district. I'm not here just to come up here and trash us in public. I've seen I did that before and I apologize. Um, so I'm going to start this year by saying that, you know, I'm going to speak today and just talk about

107that everybody will receive an email because I want to have we're like a family. You know, you don't want to air your laundry out. We have issues. I want to extend an olive branch to say that I'm here to help. I want to be a voice to help from teachers who are scared to come up here and speak, who are scared of their administration for retaliation. So today I'm going to provide you with you know three ideas that me and other teachers have come up with as a policy proposal obviously um and not not that we expect it to happen right away but just kind of a starting point. Uh first one is based off teachers and protecting planning. Um South Carolina did it. We can't let them outdo us. Um, and then another one

108is geared towards RTI MTSS district-wide policy to our at least our K through2 uh grade levels. Learning to read is so important to our students and I can, you know, I know everybody here believes that too. Today I heard about it, you know, read Senior another program. It sounded great, but I'm not sure how many more programs we can take in the classroom to be honest. You have the teachers. You do. you have the teachers that are willing to put in the tutoring, to put in the extra time. I wish there was a way that we could invest in them. Most of them have extra jobs anyway. So, after school, I don't know how the money y'all know the money side, not me. But, um, and we in order to catch our students in their

109reading dis or gaps so that way they're successful. You know, studies show that 85% of the juvenile justice systems uh, youth are functionally illiterate. We can lower that number. And then my last proposal was results around athletics, middle school athletics to be exact. Um, again, don't want to just sit up here and say whatever, but I'm very concerned about fast p fast pitch softball in this district. When I started here in 2018, we had eight high schools that had a fast pitch softball team. I coached at Johnson High. Currently today, I think we have two. Slow pitch is not offered at the collegiate level for our female athletes. That's just, you know, concerning. And thank you all. I'll get y'all's folder in a minute. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Randy Zurker.

110Okay, let's go. All right. And last, uh, Lorraine Bowers. Good afternoon board members and our superintendent and everyone that's here. I am Lorraine Bowers. On behalf of the Chattam Association of Educators, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for your ongoing partnership with us in hosting the annual spelling bee for our students. Year after year, it has been both an honor and a joy to celebrate the hard work, talent, and dedication of our young students scholars. Your willingness to collaborate with us and to open the door for opportunities like this reflects your commitment to not only academic excellence, but also to recognize and uplift the achievement of our students. The spelling bee is more than a competition. It is a celebration of perseverance, learning, community pride, and literacy. We look forward to continuing this

111tradition and to finding more ways to work together in support of our students and schools. Thank you again for always opening up your doors and having this partnership. To our superintendent, I look forward to meeting with you monthly to cons to discuss concerns that our members may have and issues. I look forward to this continued partnership and to growing. As the president of CAE, you know that our members have concerns within our district and we want to come to you first and voice them before we bring them to the board. So, I thank you for your time. I think for this partnership and spelling be again this year. I hope to see you all there to support our students. I'm Lorine Bowers. Thank you. Thank you very much. When is it? January the 27th at

112Savannah State University. All right. Uh, not everyone at once, but I'll accept a motion to adjourn. All in favor? Thank you everyone for coming out today. We are journed.