Regular Board Meeting - March 6, 2024

001e and welcome to the regular meeting of the board of public education for the city of Savannah and the county of chadam um this live stream meeting uh will I'm sorry this meeting is live streamed uh and thank you all that are here that are present in the room today very happy to see you um I will ask our board secretary uh if this meeting was announced it was announced um we will now have our opening uh exercises with our national anthem and keep all good evening everyone we are so excited to have the islands High School uh chorus with us tonight they are comprised of students in grades 9 through 12 they are directed by our 2025 sccpss teacher of the year Mrs Emily Graham just a little side note here wanted to tell

002you that the director position for Islands unexpectedly vacated at the beginning of this year so Mrs Grant and the students generously went beyond their time limits and shared their talents performing as one course throughout the school year keeping that tradition of Excellence that is expected at Islands high school so we are very very uh fortunate to have them uh perform for us tonight so after the singing of the national anthem would you please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you [Music] so proud We at the [Music] Twilight stripes and bright star through theight the parts we [Music] and the rocket the BS bursting in through the [Music] flag [Music] the for the of the free and the [Music] [Applause] of I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and

003to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you thanks for coming thank you very much let's hear it again for Islands High School [Music] [Applause] chorus as as a as a Bas baritone myself I really enjoyed actually hearing the basis in that choir so uh I will now have uh receive a motion to approve the agenda make a motion to approve the agenda second it's been moved and seconded all in favor okay now make a motion to approve the amended agenda uh that the board approved the motion to amend approved agenda with the addition of item 7.38 athletic department vehicle purchase s swc 9999 DSP oh my gosh do I have to read all these letters s s401 30-1 Transportation purchase of typ a

004micro buses Statewide contract purchase and the deletion of item 6.03 board policy JC daa student tobacco use foryear review and item 7.37 workers compensation settlement sbwc number na a a second we moved in second it on favor that is unanimous thank you very much okay our announcements these are all fun ones uh first of all the annual Tai Island St P St Patrick's Day Parade Irish heritage celebration is Saturday uh from 3: to 5 and yours truly and a few board members will be in that parade so come join us on t uh Wednesday March 13th is the capital Improvement committee meeting here here in the Whitney complex Thursday March 14th uh uh I'm sorry March 11th through 14th is Navy week in Savannah uh culminating with uh jrtc Admiral visit at uh Jenkins High

005School on April 14th not sorry March 14th um of course March 16th is a 200th Year celebration of St Patrick's Day Parade theel parade uh starting at 10:15 a.m. Downtown Savannah and I think most of the board and superintendent everybody's going to be in that parade so come join us uh Wednesday March 20th uh Financial advisory committee meeting here at the Whitney complex at 9: a board accountability committee meeting here at the Whitney complex on March 26 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. on March 27th we will have a board retreat at Georgia Southern on Armstrong Armstrong Ball Room uh from 8 to 5: on Thursday March 28th the audit committee meets here at a 8 a.m. and Thursday March 28th uh the ready to work job fair for high school students is at lure Woodville

006from 8:00 a to 1 p.m. and uh students and parents listen closely Friday March 29th is spring holiday for all students and staff um board member uh president Moss I would like to also remind the board members that we will be um adopting the gsba legislative policies so if anyone has anything that they would like to bring forward as an amendment to the gsba gsba policy uh legislative priorities then that has to be decided on as a board yes versus individual board members so just a reminder um if there's something you'd like to propose to bring that forward and present it to the board officers and we will do that at our next board meeting next month wonderful thank you um uh remembrances uh John L W um date of passing February 14th 2024 he

007was a warehouse supervisor uh maintenance and operations Department Shan Cottingham Elementary teacher date of passing February 20th 2024 he was at Southwest Elementary Aiden Chase Griffin student sophomore at Savannah Arts Academy data passing February 27th 2024 and Marcus hum free date of passing February 28th 2024 he was an elementary teacher at Gould Elementary if we' all stand for a moment of silence please and now we will have our report from our superintendent good evening as we go into the month of March and celebration of the look of the Irish um I would like to uh celebrate um our student of the month I don't think it's Lu that he is in this room and in just a moment you will hear why I say that so our February student of the month is a senior

008at Jenkin High School this outstanding young man is an AP scholar with distinction he is also vice president of the robotics team and serves as a lead mechanical driver he is a member of the model un teams which earned distinguished delegation in 2023 and honorable delegation in 2022 he is also the secretary of the math team and vice president of the National Honor Society this student truly has a heart for community service he has participated in the robotics team Beach sweep and is a key member of the sotober hosting a schoolwide donation drive to provide socks for the homeless he has taken the lead in mentoring rookie robotics team members he's also started a t tutoring program for Coastal Middle School and he volunteers at oatland Island our honored student started his education in China

009his family moved to the United States when he was just four years old and he had to start all over learning a new language after some work in our esol program he began to master the new language and last spring he received a five on the advanced placement language examination wow listen to what his nominator had to say about him Miss Angelina muskin this is what she said about our student he consistently proves he is an active student by bringing in practice work for problems he completes outside of class this reinforces his knowledge and passion for the content which is reflected in his A+ average he shows great initiative in All Phases of the Jenkins robotics program and he will be missed when he graduates when asked what motivates our student of the month to

010dve for academic excellent our student of the month told us this success isn't depend on what's given to you but what you are willing to put in for that success I just want to pause on that one because that might be a good lesson for all of us success isn't dependent on what is given to you but what you are willing to put in for that success please help me congratulate the super conratulations I would love it if his nominator and or parents if they're in the room today I'd love for them to be positive and principal to stand and be acknowledged as well Allan is taking home multiple gifts from our Community Partners gift cards from the Members First Credit Union Georgia United Credit Union Plant Riverside District gelato Savannah Music Festival and the

011Five Spot restaurant plus merchandise from from advertising specialty Savannah State University Georgia Southern University Gulf Stream and Bahama Joe's Allen and students in his L English language arts class will receive printed copies of his favorite book Witch and Wizard The Kiss by James Patterson from our sponsor e shaver book sellers lastly he will take home a portrait by upscale photography provided by our school district again congratulations to Allan his family and and the entire Jenkins High School family a special thanks to his nominator Angelina muskin I'm gonna take a moment because I know Allan won't boast on himself but he's also jenin star student and he's the salutatorian um I've been honored to know Allen since his freshman year online um because he made everybody in that class more Successful by pushing not only my

012daughter but other members of that robotics team engineering program um and at one point in time they both said can we just share it because I think they were pushing each other so hard so it has been an honor to watch him grow into the man he is and I know he's going to be more successful and I was kind of remissed when those weren't in there so I had to make sure that you know we're going to celebrate him again as both the star student and the salutatorian and I look forward to hearing the words he says on I think it's May 21st Tuesday morning yeah there are many more reasons for Applause this month I'd like to congratulate Schuman Elementary School for taking first place in the 2324 Georgia history Festival Statewide art

013contest and Georgia Day banner competition for the Georgia Day this year the student created work highlighted important leaders and topic throughout Georgia's history second place went to May Howard and third place went to gazden elementary school Godly station K8 sixth grader area Bostic is the Statewide Grand Prize winner of this year's Patriots penwriting competition which is sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in ringcon area won a cash prize of $200 from her local level award as well as a beautiful Trophy and a $500 cash prize for her State award congratulations Arya deel Goldson a STEM Academy student at Bartlett Middle School was named the winner of the Regent 8 spelling be competition and will now move on to the state competition next month if you will recall with me that this was the

014student who was named the winner of the chattam County Public Schools District spelling be in January we wish de the very best in the state competition uh for the spelling be next week as he travels to Atlanta congratulations to our 2024 AP honor schools I was very excited to receive this uh information earlier this week 2024 AP honors schools are named in eight categories based on the results of 2023 AP courses and exams new Hamstead high was named an access and support school and an expansion schol School Jenkins High School was named as an access and support School a stem school and a stem achievement School Island high school was named a challenge school and a stem School Woodville Tomkins was named an AP an AP expansion school and Savannah Arts Academy was named an

015AP Humanities and Humanities achievement school as well as a school of Distinction a challenge school and a stem school what an accom lishment for these five schools a little bit more on Jenkins High School the Jenkins Model United Nations team won its fifth consecutive School delegation award at the Georgia Southern Model United Nations last month the Jenkins team brought home the distinguished delegation School award and came in second place among the 15 other schools in attendance congratulations to these students on their hard work and success ESS hats off to Melanie west of Hubert middle middle school who was named the English teacher of the year by the Georgia Council of teachers of English at their annual conference Miss West teaches seventh grade English at Hubert and serves as a mentor to our GSU teachers at

016that school Miss West is described as a purposeful teacher who wants her students to realize the power education can have on their lives the Savannah bananas and wsav are showing our local teachers they are important loved and appreciated and they're now giving and they're not just giving out apples to these teachers this is a banana for the teacher to say thanks teachers are surprised in their classroom with a visit by the players and are given a $500 Grant to use for their classrooms the first Honore was our very own Miss Reagan Dylan um at the STEM Academy at Bartlett the second winner was Carrie Milford who teaches prek at Marsh Point Elementary wsav is taking nominations from the community and plans to recognize two teachers a month thank you to wsav and the bananas May

017Howard Elementary School uh recently hosted a food drive benefiting Second Harvest of coastal Georgia this is the second year that the students at May Howard from all grade levels have gotten together to bring awareness to food insecurity kudos to these very young scholars who already realize the impact of collective together we can and how these Future Leaders will um have shown compassion and learning about community service last Thursday we held the welcome dinner for the next installment of our LEAP program leap stand stands for leading and empowering and advancing parents and it is a program about upskilling and reskilling to provide our parents and staff with opportunities to advance their skills for the workforce we are fortunate to be the recipient of a generous Grant provided by Georgia power that makes this program possible so

018we may we uh can invest in our staff and Community the kanana club of Savannah recogniz the 2024 star students and teachers of the year at a luncheon last month this award is presented to the high school senior at each school who scored the highest on the SAT and and is in the top 10% of the class based on grade point average each star student is asked to select the teacher who has had the most impact in their academic development and all sccpss high schools were represented presented congratulations to these outstanding Scholars and their teachers and the final good news update uh is to wish our Johnson High School Adam Smashers the best of luck as they travel to the ghs State basketball championship game this Friday the Adam Smashers are competing for their first

019state championship since 2013 Johnson will face the defending state champs the Sandy Creek Patriots at at the M Mak centroplex with a tip off time for 300 p.m. the game will also be live streamed on the nfhs network nfhsnetwork.com if you would like to participate visually you can go to that website to watch the game you can also find that link on our District's website we are so proud of our student athletes coaches and administration and we look forward to a great game I am also honored with more good news and a spirit of appreciation today as I join a Statewide celebration to salute the efforts of our local school board um members this month the week of March 11th through the 15th 2024 has been proclaimed by the governor of the state of Georgia

020as the school board Appreciation Week the weeklong observance called calls attention to the contributions of local Boards of Education thanking those who serve and those who demonstrate a strong commitment to Quality public education in our state as constitutional officers of Georgia school board members are responsible for setting policy approving employment recommendations for school personnel and approving contract Awards and budgetary actions as Community leaders school board members also serve as advocates for the children in local public schools and work to ensure effective policy and governance at this time we would like to officially recognize each of our school board members and them collectively for and thank them for their dedicated service to our district we now present a proclamation thank you we appreciate you thank [Laughter] you love that thank you so much for your service

021your and your dedication um I if everyone will please join me in honoring our school board members for this week for the work that they do every day wow all right and with that said I think I am passing it on for an additional Proclamation nope nutrition oh I forgot about professional Senate I think we're ready for that aspect of our agenda before we move on okay um I'm going to read the minutes the professional Senate was held on Thursday February 29th um the call to order was called by Miss Reagan Dylan and Mr Moses mcneel Dr Watts presented the teacher burnout recommendation document with concerns prioritized recomendations and solutions and quick wins that have already been done this document was shared and will be shared or will be shared with the board Mr Feliciano

022Miss B Oliver Mr Heder and Mr Dennison completed a deeper dive into the document and it was a wonderful time for discussion and questions being answered it was a very positive day some highlights that teachers were excited about include a plan for engaging parents and productive engagement a coordinated comprehensive calendar and identifying and exploring the empty ss/ RTI process concerns teachers vocalized a desire to streamline paperwork such as discipline referrals and critical decision forms by using the power school system the district already utilizes Mr Fano assured us that this will be investigated teachers and support staff left the meeting with the assignment of letting Dr watad snow after the report that she presented if there were any other priorities because she is committed and ready to start working on this and knows the importance of

023solving the burnout problem in Savannah chattam County Public Schools teachers and support staff commented on how appreciative they are of the open discussion with our leaders and they recognize the challenging work being done by everybody to improve burnout in sccpss and as tag together we can thank you Dr Watts it was very it was a win-win that day thank you very much uh Mr Iger thank you Mr board president as we continue on your agenda we move on to item 6.01 which is a policy review this is a first reader under the fouryear policy review process uh you'll note that the Poli in that's in front of you at this point was a little out of our cycle on the fouryear policy reviews your mic is not on can we thank you as you uh

024we work through a little technical difficulty on the audio uh so continue in on your agenda item 6.01 this is a policy review for you this is under our four-year policy review process you will note on this particular policy was a little bit all of our cycle of the four-year policy review the last review on this was 2011 so it's very important that we bring it forward to the board also noting that interestingly this policy has been with us since 1987 so this has been longstanding for the board important in the dynamic of the way that we work and provide certain freedoms for our Educators and them being able to use qualified decisions on how they present materials and take unique opinions viewpoints and content that they can share uh to ensure that our students

025are getting the best quality intellectual development uh in the classrooms now one thing we wanted to make sure as we went through this policy though was to clearly establish in there those lines of authority because that is set by the state of Georgia through our curriculum you'll see that the language does say that the board will authorize through the super attendant to set those standards we've also updated this particular content uh to ensure the content is also aligned with relevant course materials and of course uh we left the maturity and the intellectual and emotional levels of students in there as is and that teachers shall be afforded freedoms in the classroom on these presentations and discussions but the key line in there as further prescribed by Georgia law so a few edits in this we

026did look at a few other districts and how this um particular language in this policy section was utilized a little bit of that was mirrored but this had good legal review and cross functional review with our academic team sits before the board now as a first reader thank you any discussion um Miss Kowski I just have a is there an accompanying regulation that goes with this policy no there was not a regulation ever since its in Inception uh it's pretty straightforward clear and I I'm not sure what a regulation at this point would really look like because the the key language in here that it really revolves around is teachers being afforded those freedoms to make decisions in the work that they're doing we thought it was very important that we clarify that in the

027correct context because the curriculums as set by the state of Georgia uh and as prescribed through working through the superintendent uh keeps that particularly in line okay thank you uh Dr Howard Hall so this policy is pretty much in um correlation with SB 377 with divisive concept policy so I'm glad you raised that thank you Dr Howard Hall that was a interesting narrative that we went through actually with our our legal team that that raised that we ought to be careful that we don't conflate this particular policy section with other areas that are already established uh in our policy codes and that have come down on recent state law rulings uh for that that was one particular area you'll see that the really way for us to get around that is to ensure that these

028things are being done and prescribed uh per state law so it it is a bit of a challenge for us if we start trying to cross reference every single other policy section or something like that could be made you have divice of Concepts you have parent Bill of Rights we already also have policies out there that set forth a process for registering complaints and things like that uh so we got to be careful that this stays in its wheelhouse and really is directed toward the Educators and the work that they're doing in the classrooms H Dr H BR just to follow up on what Dr Howard Hall said so that is accommodated in the phrase as prescribed by Georgia law yes ma'am as those laws they have been changing recently we're four years out of

029a review of this it will allow us to be consistent with modifications in the law while still preserving the intent of this policy you are exactly correct and that is what has happened currently or anything that may happen in the future anyone else okay continue moving along in your agenda we have item 6.02 this is board policy jbb the staff has reviewed this particular policy under this four-year review there are no recommended changes on the policy or on the regulation this policy and regulation are driven by state code and State Board of Education Rule and there are no changes presented for this particular read subject to the board's final review here if there are no recommended changes we'd like to consider this one deemed reviewed under our four-year policy review process comments anyone thank you

030item 6.03 JD JC daa has been deleted from this particular agenda we'll look to bring that back in April and I'll turn the agenda back to the board president for two proclamations thank you very much and first we have Dr briman National School nutrition and School breakfast week a proclamation is now presented for National School breakfast week to celebrate the importance of a nutritious School breakfast in fueling students for Success this special observance during the first week of March celebrates the National School breakfast program and in many ways it gives kids a great start every day thus be it resolved by this board of public education that the week of March 4th through 8th 2024 be recognized as National School nutrition and School breakfast week in the savannah chadam County public school system and that

031every citizen join us throughout the entire month of March to recognize the lasting contributions of our school nutrition staff I'll accept a so move moved and seconded um any discussion all in favor that would be unanimous thank you and our I'm sorry what oh oh from nutrition do we have a representative from oh Hallelujah know that he has got to start there thank you thank you for what you do thank you I'm sure you have a couple fridges you can put this on yes thank you so much thank you thank you thank you thank you for all your effort thank you thank you so thank you appreciate you thank you thanks for keeping our Scholars FK thank you and thank you [Applause] okay uh Miss galski and now we have a national school social counselors

032week this is a proclamation proclamation to celebrate National School social workers week to recognize School social workers who are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interest and talents this year the theme for National School social workers week is empowering social workers social workers Empower individuals and communities helping them to fulfill their greatest potential School social workers are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school they help make our society a better place to live thus be it resolved by this board of public education that we do hereby Proclaim March 3rd through 9th 2024 as National School social social worker week beautiful it's moved and seconded uh all in favor that would be unanimous and let's meet our social workers [Applause] awesome thank thank

033you much soate thank you so much thank you for all you [Applause] to Mr Feliciano yes sir thank you very much good evening uh it is certainly an absolute pleasure to be here today to present the updated the way forward strategic plan to the board and to the community a significant amount of time resources and energy has gone into updating the existing plan and for the benefit of the community I'd like to explain why is the Strategic plan so important to the the work that we do the Strategic plan is designed to be a living document that outlines the board's priorities and objectives it helps to provide the administration structure and Direction on prioritizing efforts allocating resources aligning staff time and money in other words it helps to provide focus and improve decision making when

034moving forward with strategies and action items the Strategic plan also improves operational efficiency by improving the administration by providing the administration with a road map on what is essential to the board and Community it improves transparency promotes alignment it helps to ensure the efforts made point in the same direction the investment made in creating the Strategic plan is worth the effort as it will drive the administration's work moving forward on the screen shows the planning process used to create the existing strategic plan in 2021 a year-long process was spent with Community Focus Group meetings a planning Team Action team multiple board and cabinet Workshops the outcome of the work was the adoption of the way forward 2026 strategic plan and I extend my appreciation for the work and participation of our administrators teachers staff students

035parents and business partners the strategic planning model consists of four phases which are currently which we are currently operating in the last phase fifth component continuous Improvement through the continuous Improvement cycle the Strategic plan goes through a reassessment to ensure it is on the right track we consider any internal and external factors that impact the Strategic plan yearly and make adjustments as needed the updates are then reviewed by the superintendent's cabinet presented to the board accountability committee and then to the full board for review or adoption depending on the level of change on the screen is the strategic planning framework that shows the work of the board and the administration it consists of six components that cover from the board's Vision down to the administration's execution and monitoring we adjusted the arrows from our previous

036meeting to show that the work starts from the left and flows to the right once the board adopts the Strategic plan the administration then operationalizes it by creating strategies tactics and internal kpis in the center where the dash lines are the board and the administration Works collaboratively to Def Define the Strategic priorities performance objectives and key performance measures there are two types of measures within the framework under performance objectives you have lagging kpi indicators these are pretty much stable measures directly aligned to the objective and typically reported yearly the other one is under execution these are the leading kpi indicators that are tracked more frequently act as an early warning system and can change depending on the strategies the Strategic plan is part of board policy ba which covers the vision mission guiding principle strategic

037priorities and performance objectives policy ba is currently on the consent agenda for second read adoption on September 2021 the board adopted the current strategic map consisting of four strategic priorities across the top they cover students stakeholders employees and stewardship under these priorities are the original 13 performance objectives the following factors are the drivers that led to the plan's update being proposed aligning the Strategic plan to address the challenges identified within the superintendent's listen and learn report teacher burnout report and other third-party completed reports in addition to that it's clarifying the Strategic plan to ensure it is an understandable plan the extended cabinet did a lot of heavy lifting to clarify and align the Strategic plan I cannot thank them enough for the difficult work completed on the screen is the proposed updates to the Strategic

038plan across the top is transformation of organizational climate and culture and this was talked about during the the informal session this was also covered in the listen and learn report for climate and culture the Administration has outlined four Key conditions that must be created to achieve overall strategic success the four conditions are a climate that Fosters a positive creative and supportive work and learning environment a culture that values professionalism accountability and respons iess to the schools and to the community it serves a safe welcoming and inclusive school and District environment a school and District environment that supports life work Harmony and employee success these are the key drivers that provide the foundation for growth and achievement climate and culture impacts all the priorities and all the objectives that that are listed the Strategic priorities Focus

039remains on students stakeholders employees and stewardship the performance objectives have been updated to 14 objectives under strategic Priority One students there are four objectives that focus on early learning efficiency and literacy and numeracy learning opportunities for Workforce Development in college readiness and support and services for whole Child Development under strategic priority two stakeholders there are three objectives that focus on Communications relationships and Partnerships under strategic priority three employees there three objectives that focus on recruitment retention recognizing our employees investing in in them and creating a positive work learning environment the final strategic priority four is stewardship there are four objectives that focus on continuous Improvement efficiency facilities and effective departments the budget process transportation and food nutrition services not shown on the screen are the 48 lagging kpi indicators these are provided in your board

040packet and posted on board docs for public access the kpi measures are not provided in smart measure format they provide the context of the measure that the Administration has identified as key indicators to show progress towards achieving the performance objectives the kpi base yearly targets formula and parameters used to determine the measure of being worked on by the administration and alternatively scheduled for presentation on March 28th during the board accountability committee meeting I want to thank the board for providing feedback on the plan to the to the administration and I want to take this opportunity to cover some of the items provided the comment was made on policy alignment uh the good news is we have a continuous review process in place that we could look at policies through the lens with the new strategic

041plan if any policy does stand out we certainly will review it taking into consideration the changes made through the plan that's adopted by the board under strategic Priority One objective d That's provide high quality support and services for whole Child Development the recommendation was made to create a kpi on support services that captures like the front porch social Services healthare Services Wellness Center welcome center and alternative program that's something we're looking internally because we have never captured that centrally so we want to make sure there's consistency on how that information is being recorded so we can look at it as an internal kpi first until we provide that structure and stability and then we can move it to a lagging indicator if need be strategic priority two objective b which is strengthen the students parent

042staff and Community relationships to support whole child here was additional kpis on P PTA and school council uh initially when we started working on the plan we did come up with a rubric to capture all these uh resources that are available for engagement and then we slowly backed out of it and made it into an internal kpi first because one of our concerns we did not want to increase the workload to schools so first we want to identify and develop a rubric to see what information makes the most sense to capture that we can report on the other item under this specific objective was using QR codes uh that's certainly that Stacy jennings's very familiar and aware of and she's more than happy to run around all our facilities and post QR codes to include

043even the the boardroom we can put a QR code here so our public can provide feedback for us uh the other items under there we are rolling out a new website hopefully by the end of the month we'll have it rolled out I know Stacy Jennings is very excited about that and included at that because I talked to her about is it going to provide provide contact information so parents don't have to call the board member who do I call so uh it is going to be a valuable resource we look forward to Rolling it out and it should be easier to find those resources that parents are looking for the other part under this specific objective uh was to post a community calendar a district community calendar of activities uh and that's something I

044also talked to Stacy Jenning about that it it provides benefit to the families to know when the events are occurring throughout the year so they can mark it in their calendar so they don't have conflicting information becomes available so that does make sense the other part of that was do these events because they do tie resources they tie funding do they provide value to our students and parents and that's another component we can internalize and talk about to make sure that it is looked at so that we're just not repeating something because it was there historically strategic priority three Objective C which is enhance employee wellbeing and morale to create a positive working and learning environment uh this one was creating kpis to capture the wellness center because we know the wellness center not only

045serves students but it also exists to serve staff um and we certainly want to look at those numbers there uh the health insurance claim that's something with risk management that we need to look at uh the good news is we are upgrading those processes for risk management and we're putting it on the new munus platform that should be going online in the next month or two so we look forward to looking at how that information can be captured so we can run reports against it strategic priority for objective c that's maintain an effective budget process that ensures an equitable allocation of resources and provides highquality Educational Services this was specific to the kpi measure uh the expenditure efficiency will only be based on General funds it will not include grants um or federal funding okay

046so it only be based on General funds on the screen is a summary of events that occurred for updating the Strategic plan the timeline goes from July 2023 to March 2024 starting with the superintendent's listen and learn entry plan the superintendent committed to 100 active listening days allowing her to capture Rich information and insight beyond beyond our standard reports throughout this process you learn the how the why and the what the superintendent spoke to students staff parents business partners and Community organizations she classified herself as the lead Learner in total there were six focus groups five Community conversations Town Hall meetings 38 School visits and 45 onetoone key stakeholder meetings this was followed by several extended cabinet Retreats and board accountability committee meetings the draft plan was posted to the public for comment and today

047March 6 the update strategic plan is being presented for adoption also listed is the continued work on the kpi smart measures dashboards and Reporting Matrix for the next steps we look forward to adopting the Strategic plan adopting the board policy ba continuing the work on the strategies that you heard this morning or this afternoon on T and tactics continuing to work on the kPa lagging indicators dashboards and reporting dates and presenting this information to the board accountability committee and moving forward with aligning the budget to support the strategies built to support the Strategic plan I will now read the resolution thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approves the updated 5-year strategic plan the Way Forward 2026 been moved and seconded uh discussion um Mr Johnson then Dr H

048Brown um it's not really a question it's more of a comment I just want to thank staff superintendent everybody who was involved in this I know you all taking the um Foundation that we had laid from the original strategic plan improving it making it even better more concise and having actual measur measurable items for us to take a look at and use that dat data point so I just want to say thank you for all the hard work that's been done um as well as for the superintendent for uh the different groups and the different people and from one side of the county to the other and just and listening and not um you know not really talking a whole lot but listening a lot more uh I was told a long time ago God

049gave us two ears and one mouth for for a reason so I just want to say thank you to your entire staff Dr Hon's Brown thank you I also want to applaud the staff and applaud the leadership for the integrative approach to developing a strategic plan um for making sure that it was an inclusive process um and U to to draw attention to the fact that if there's we're often used to seeing strategic plans where every single piece of everything that is going to be done is listed and that's not how we have done this process it's iterative there are um there are strategies there are tactics there other things that are not listed so just to let the public know that there's something in particular that they don't see right here today in this

050document that's because it would make the entire document this big um and so it's part of it's part of the process there are lots of supporting pieces to support this work that embellish different parts of our mission that you may not necessarily see written here but I I think this is extraordinarily done thank you very much M Kowski um also Echo the thanks to Mr Fano to the superintendent to the entire team and also um Mr Fano mentioned it in his comments but we did have a deeper presentation this morning at the informal session so if you want to be able to learn more about the Strat plan encourage you to watch that um and this room was full of of the team that worked on this plan so thank you for that and I

051also want to thank the members of the public who took the time to review the plan and to provide comments um because hearing that feedback from you is also very important and to Dr Hoskins Brown point about the process this is a plan and it is intended to be a living document and so the iterative process of that really does feed into this as a living document that we will continue to evaluate modify and make sure that it is in fact meeting the needs of the district so thank you to everyone for all of your hard work Dr Howard Hall I'd like to also thank the team Mr feliciana the um everyone involved as well as the superintendent one important next step is to ensure that this strategic plan is fit by making sure that

052it's implemented with Fidelity that it's implemented with integrity and that is implemented with trust and I appreciate how we solicit feedback from the community and stakeholders and also our and staff and hope that we continue to do that throughout the year or throughout the years so it will assist us in tailoring the strategies that that's needed to ensure that this plan is successful so thank you for your work anyone else well I would also uh like to thank the staff uh especially I'd like to thank Miss Stacy Taylor um for your amazing work on this uh Miss Taylor is new to our to our team uh but uh she's sort of been working behind the scenes but we see what she's been doing and this is pretty impressive um and we thank you um so

053any has it been moved it has been moved and seconded uh any other discussion there being none uh all all in favor yes let's move forward nice okay that's unanimous thank you Mr felano final thing on the board's agenda in board matters is the adoption of your fy2 budget calendar the board had uh discussed this particular calendar and dates of of related matters for the fiscal year adoption of the fy20 2 budget process during the recent finance committee meeting I will make note that in this particular document you will see that we did make a change back to an original presented time of May 15th for an evening budget hearing for 6:00 p.m. rather than 11:00 a.m. on this particular day of May 15th is the annual coveted May Day so we have historically participated

054in that venue and we didn't want to put a conflicting uh date on there where the board would not be able to participate in that historic event with Mayday May Day is traditionally held on May 1st so that's where the confusion lies due to some conflicts this year with the planning committee the date is May 15th so that is the only modification to the calendar we are asking that the board officially adopt it for record so we can appropriately post them per the requirement of Georgia open meeting law it's been moved uh have a second please yes it's been moved and seconded okay it was moved by Michael Johnson it was seconded by either Miss Hall or Miss galski Miss Hall we'll take credit uh discussion we just move in holidays so when Christmas next

055[Laughter] year no you know I got to R you Kurt all I know is that we're showing up in the morning for a meeting then we got to come back here in the afternoon for a meeting I am sorry staff sir sorry all right any other discussion okay uh all in favor all of Post David am to have it in the right after okay I will now accept a motion to approve the consent agenda oh oh was uh moved by Dr Hoskins Brown second Ed by miss catchar any discussion all right all in favor all right all you're in favor okay yeah all opposed right 81 thank you very much if the motion passes uh on move to the next thing I know what's coming on thank you Mr Ray sir good evening good evening

056again um want to thank you for allowing me to speak um on the way forward the Strategic goal three and this is um looking back at our previous um iteration I know we're going through a a new version which you just saw but this is our previous version that we're going through at this time I want to before I start I want to make a few comments as we think about the next two slides two three and four remember this is a look back to last year this is also reflection on what we were trying to do last year to impact um the future or to impact change and so to impact so I just want to make sure we're looking at it that way and I do look at the teacher burnout that's looking

057forward so when I get to that point we're looking into the future so I just want to kind of give that as a starting point to at the same fix Point as we go through this um as you can see the recruitment selection intention and develop um and talent development um these are our strategies that we have this was our um key performance indicator you can see some of the outcomes go over some of those 85% of teachers return 80% of our U paid resident teachers um were actually hired by the district um you can see some of those others as well and certainly as we get through if you have any questions our teach our teach um Savannah National teachers we retain them at 97% you can see of our our non-classified sorry non-school

058based employees were 91% and our school based employees were at 88% so you can see some of those numbers there of what we were able to retain Foster positive climate and culture based on uh openness Equity um honesty and transparency you can see there and see what I can indicator was as far as increased the number of survey respondents that indicated a positive culture can see some of what we were able to do last year again to affect um that um positive culture you can see the number of staff that participated in EAP as well Wellness Center kicked off the kicked off well last year and you can see that is also in that particular information going to the recruitment I mean going to the next one where we were trying to grow and maximize

059employee Pathways um and succession plans you can see some of what we did we were able to accomplish having 40 classified staff become classroom teachers um I think there was one secretary there was one or two custodians in that group as well that were able to become teachers you can see some of our other other information that we have on some of our other St that actually moved we were able to do a lot with um helping our snps and custodia and crossing guards with their with our GED program connection with Savannah Tech you can see some of the hiring that we accomplished with our internal employees moving up within the district teacher burnout recommendations so again we're going forward now I do want to give a little bit of background to make sure for

060the public and to remind the board to some degree kind of what we were doing what what is this what does it mean for Teacher burnout the Georgia Department of Education contracted with the Carl Vincent Institute of government um to facilitate the the T the burnout task force craft and published the Georgia teacher they craft and published the Georgia teacher U burnout report in June of 2022 the report the report prompted the state superintendent and Georgia Department of educ to partner with the call vinent Institute of government to follow up to the report by providing technical assistance aligned to voice to the voices from the classroom framework in action the goe extended an offer to up to 12 school districts to receive technical assistance facilitating um through the Institute D chadam was one of those

061um the technical assistance is customized and intended to support districts in the efforts to address the challenges of the teacher burnout this service began in Winter of 2023 and the contract terms ended in June of 2023 our own Sher Goldman State teacher of the year served on a teacher burnout task force and led the state charge uh for Savannah chattam County Public Schools the teacher Senate served as the district task force and began their work in 2223 through the committee work the SEC cpss teacher burnout report was completed in May 2023 in September of 20123 the Carl Vincent Institute met with the Savannah chattam County Public School task force where our own Dr uh Watts um newly appointed superintendent visited and inspired the task force to continue their work the secp test leadership partnered with

062the Cent Institute to identify subcommittees of each of the five areas of the framework action the subcommittees have been meeting regularly um throughout the year and came up with um met period like start came up with the the outcome that you will see as of January 2024 the task force prepared the recommendations um for the district consideration the call Vincent Institute is serving as a facilitator and technical assistance with the goal of building capacity within the school district to continue the work The Institute um faculty does not intend to collect information from participant districts instead the districts will choose and Implement recommendations and strategies as appropriate to their particular needs that's where we go to our subcommittees you can see here I'm just a little bit on it I just come of what I just

063said but this is still the um just wanted to give you some more information on the history of how we ended up up arriving at this point the theme assessments assess assessments was one of the breakout groups um you can see as you look at the recommendations you can see the district actions and I'll read one of the actions which is to facilitate professional Senate conversations around required assessments and current campus assessments to limit School level discretion of administrator non-required assessments provide campus leadership within with assessments awareness and assessment implementation monitoring so these are some of the cabinet and some looking at with the superintendent looking at what can we do to impact assessments and you can see that as one of as our district actions pressure and unrealistic expectations again you can see the

064recommendations that we have and you you can see the district actions based on what we will be doing to impact those recommendations that were delivered by the um the task force or the subcommittee and make sure we're implementing those District actions as we move forward into next year again you can see those um that we have identified that will help to um with the recommendation that you see on the left side um as well with that one again preser preserving time and protecting time again that's a big issue and big um something the teachers wanted from that subcommittee you can see what we're doing there to administer and identify teacher protected time in 2425 academic calendar that's something we'll be working on also each campus will designate at least you know one no meet week

065for each school for each semester for the school year so those are the two of the ideas and you can see the administ administra administration is is exploring requirements related to mtss and RTI process which was um something that was identified in in the time preserving and protecting time as well teacher voice and professional growth again that was a recommendation and you can see the district actions that'll be related to that one of them is the administration will utilize professional Senate to honor teacher voice another is coordinate the development of comprehensive calendar with the district training for 20425 so those are two of the ones that we're doing of the three that you can see and again the cabinet and administration spent time to make sure we were actually responding to these recommendations um and

066so that's what you see as it relates to the um the information at this point here are there any question questions as I go through that uh Dr hins Brown uh Mr katmar Mr Johnson Dr Howard Hall thank you I'll be brief um this report is very helpful um it reflects uh a lot of work and consideration and incorporation of feedback from our our teachers and St I'm very thankful for that um I just want to point out the concept of protected time as being something that is not um just a phenomenon in the education environment um protected time can be extraordinarily helpful in curing burnout in increasing productivity in supporting work life balance um in the Federal in portions of the federal government the portion that I'm in they have created protected time once

067every two weeks and that's a time that it is a no meeting time um so no one can just put a meeting in your calendar and the intention is that you're able to use that time to analyze data or complete projects that you otherwise can't do because you keep getting all these one-hour meetings back to back and you can't even take a biological break so I am true I mean but that's but it's it's facts that people will over subscribe your day and then they want to know why you haven't had a chance to make that phone call or call that parent or develop a new lesson so I'm really really happy to see this and just really want to endorse it as a good practice uh for our team thanks catchmark I appreciate uh

068Dr Watts making this a focus uh early on in your tenure I appreciate the professional Senate focusing on it as well I think all of the uh recommendations and District actions are appropriate I'm going to focus on my pet complaint assessments um uh and you know one's one man's assessment is another man's test um well the strategy the strategy long-term staff who's been here a while did with me was I complained about tests so then they said they're not tests they're assessments so we can we can see where the kids are and you know differentiate instruction and I get that I'm being a little flippant but I get the need to do that um but the when I speak with friends who are teachers the biggest complaint I hear more than anything else is the

069number of Assessments and what is state required and what is District required so my first question is several years ago one of the issues we had was an email will go out on Tuesday to all social studies teachers saying Hey by next Wednesday this assessment needs to be given um that happened a long time ago way before anybody in this room um but so we we adopted an assessment calendar that had to be adopted at the beginning of the year are we still doing that that I hope we still are right we still do that so in the district actions listed here noticeably missing is setting a goal of reducing the number of tests and assessments and what I see here is we're going to have a conversation with professional senate about it um we're

070going to provide campus leadership with assessment awareness and assessment monitoring implementation monitoring and this is the one that's curious to me the limit School level discretion on administering non-required assessments do we still have SCH do we have schools giving their own tests or assessments that are not District we do yes we do just to speak to that Miss um Dr May and I met today and um Miss um Rylander and so we actually have a team that's being put together that's going to address just what you said in terms of reducing assessments but there is information and data we do need to collect because some schools are giving assessment ments and some of those assessments are valid and reliable based on the growth they've seen but we need to know and collect that information that's

071the first thing and then there will be a team to take a look at that so there is a survey that we discuss that will go out to all teachers because we want to hear all of their voices and it's Anonymous and they will be able to do a drop down click the assessments by grade level that they're doing but it'll also be a place for them to indicate any other schoolwide assessments that may be occurring because we do know that there's the potential for that as we are aware that are not District driven so that we can collect all of that information and then as we work together we know exactly what we need to do in terms of reduction understood all I I I just want to ask two things one um make

072let's make sure that the assessment the teachers actually find them valuable and helpful for a long time we would give assessments and then not get the result results back for weeks and so we couldn't differentiate instruction or do anything with it I know that's that part of that is on the state um and the second is if we have high- performing teachers who year after year they're they're kids exceed expectations regardless of what the expectations are their achievement Gap is closed or their scores are high maybe we trust them more on when and how to assess their kids kids because they're getting success year after year after year um I know that's scary to not have a standardized policy here's we're going to do this assessment every month or every three months but one way

073to show teachers hey we care about you we're going to limit burnout is if they're being successful in the classroom maybe we don't micromanage what they do with their kids all the time uh from at least from an assessment standpoint um just something to think about I know it's harder to do that um but that's some some feedback I've gotten from teachers on why do I have to do this every every fourth week when I've been successful for 15 years yes and AC for letting me get on my soap box thank you so I already predicted this afternoon or this morning when academic Affairs and uh assessment met I started off the meeting by saying Mr katchmar will share with us because we have had that conversation and so all of that will be taken

074into account as we design a better assessment strategy that'll meet the needs of our teachers but also give us the data we need to move our students forward thank you Dr Howard Hall yes thank you these are some great recommendations but I also have a pet complaint and my pet complaint has always been classroom management because if you have a teacher who is not successful with classroom management that teacher will surely burn out and in most cases they do not return so we really need to work on strategies to assist those teachers so that they won't struggle in that area because with school culture and classroom management is key exactly very good um Mr Johnson uh couple things one U Mr casmar stole what I wanted to say about assessments because that's turn into one

075of my pet peeves as well um the other one is I'm I hear a lot from teachers and I'm glad to see in here about actually planning for professional learning days um because one of the biggest pet peeves that I hear from teachers is that well yeah we have professional learning days but it's always on the e-learning days and or it's always on like a half day and we really don't get those times to do actually planning and everything else that we need to be doing and we should be doing because now we're having to do professional development on these days because these are the only days that are offered to us so actually seeing in here and hopefully we'll see a time when it's not done on a half day or an e-learning day

076but actually specify days for the teacher so they don't get stressed out while being even more overburdened by having to do their day job of teaching our kids and then doing professional learning on the same day that that's that that's hard mentally and physically so um the other thing is in here about um that I I really appreciated was the communication with two teachers from the community and from parents um ever since we had this little pandemic back you know almost almost four years ago now to the to the day when we closed down the schools um there's been a lot of shots taken at teachers and I see and I'm glad to see that we're going to we try to take a proactive um measures to show the community how to respect teachers because

077they are professionals they are people they're human just like us they bleed red and they cry salt water too um so I just want to say thank you teachers um y'all have a very thankless job a lot of times and if it wasn't for you none of us would be here so thank you thank you um Miss Hall um I just want to ask Miss Dylan since we're the furthest removed from the classroom I'd just like to hear her two three sentence assessment of all of this are we on the right track as far as you're concerned um I know you had something to do with this are we on the right track yes okay this team has come to the Senate meetings when I read in the report we've had open discussion I think

078the word is transparency and everything we've talked about I feel has been addressed and listened to and valued so the professional Senate is thrilled and thank y' all for the support together we can love it together we will okay um Dr BR I'm not going to complain um I wanted to say congratulations on getting 50 classified staff to become classroom um teachers um we talked about culture a couple times today um if somebody is working for us as a classified teacher the culture has got to be good enough yes and your training in those alternate pathway teaching information sessions has to be good enough for that person to go yep I'm going to take a chance I'm going to I'm going to go out of my comfort zone and they keep telling me I can

079do this um so I'm glad that we're growing our own because those individuals it would be interesting I don't know how many years we've been doing this to track to see what rate we retain retain them at that's true if it you know yes people move but and just so you know I mean we're not doing as good this year but we at 34 I believe this school year so almost 100 in the past two years okay yes Miss Kowski um first I have to say I have the best seat in the house because I get to sit next to miss Dylan and see her reaction and that just warms my heart so much to know um that she as our teacher of the year really supports and is excited because I think that is

080the first step towards this this culture that we're talking about so thank you to miss Dylan and to miss Dennis Goldberg um Goldman um who have put the work in to get this done and I also want to Mr Ray mentioned it but you mentioned that we're one of 12 districts in the state that received the assistance yes to get this done correct and I think that's worth celebrating yes because it demonstrates that the state is recognizing us as a leading District in being very proactive in addressing such a critical issue and so so I think that is something for us to really applaud and celebrate and to continue to be a leader across the state in how we address these chronic challenges and education and that we can share this with other districts across

081the state and be recognized for the work that we're putting in and to continue to monitor our progress and continue to be an example um to other districts across Georgia we get beat up on an awful lot and I think this is a beautiful example of we have been consistent in our conversation since Miss Dennis first served on that Statewide um committee and we have carried it forward to the local level we are putting the plans in action so I'm just grateful to be a part of this District leadership that's really taking the plan and putting it into action and also I would remind The Bard that we're also part of the Georgia leads which is kind of connected so the Georgia leads as we think about teacher burnout and think about what teachers have

082complain or teachers have concerns about is the advis valuation system current evaluation system and how they're being evaluated well we're trying we're out front as being one of the pilots to try to and what's going to and we're actually the largest school district in it so think about it from a Metropolitan Center but we're the largest school district within it so they're valuing ours because we have different U we have all the student populations think about the smaller District that don't so they need our information so yeah we're the we're Trailblazer in that too and so we'll be you know be the ones when it does come out we can really say we were the ones that really helped the Georgia leads become what it is okay anyone else thank you very much that's fantastic

083moving on yes Mr Jackson good evening good evening um it is evening the first item I have is a budget amendment to add a budget for the cops hiring program Grant the US Department of Education has awarded sccpss $78,500 total for physical years 2024 through 2028 cops hiring program Grant the grant provides funds to the campus police to advance the practice of school community policing through the hire or rehire of five additional career Law Enforcement Officers the cop hiring program will be utilized by campus police to hire and rehire career Law Enforcement Officers necessary to increase the jurisdiction School communities policing capacity to prevent and disrupt crime and violence this Federal grant has a reimbursement portion of $538,000 $924 or 75% and a matching requirement of $179,600 or a 25% funded locally for the total

084Grant Award of $718,000 564 the matching funds will come from the FY 24 accumulated campus police vacancies the matching requirement reflects the total matching Grant amount for the 5-year period of the Grant you can see the budget related items in the charts below thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve an operating transfer to fund 584 and the budget amendment of $78,500 Grant uh it's been moved by Dr Hoskins Brown seconded by Mr Johnson any discussion no uh all in favor and that is unanimous thank you very much and where you going Mr Jackson oh and More in financials good evening everyone the financials that were reported to you in your packets cover the time period July 1 through January 31st we are 58% of our fiscal year and 50%

085of our school year has passed um for fund 100 our local property taxes are currently at 65% of our budget has been collected um that's about um 4% higher than we had last year at the same time at this point at this point we believe that our fin that our final tax collections will be close to um our budgeted amount for the year our total general fund actual revenues collected we're at 62% of our budget compared to 59% last year um fund 100 general fund expenditures actual expenditures for teachers through this period we're at 40 almost 48% of the budget which is a little bit lower than the 49% we had last year the same time other supporting salaries were at 40% of the budget um and that's lower than we expected and it should

086be at at about 50 to 58% at this point of the Year our total general fund actual expenditures we're at about 48 45% of the modified budget and that's higher than our 44% last last year this time the only other fund we want to um highlight this month is um School nutrition fund 600 to get to it um School nutrition currently we're showing a profit of $516,000 for for the for the year um year to date um in that $516,000 um we have budgeted $3.1 million for the year um to be transferred from fund 100 to 600 to help subsidize some of the expenditures for school nutrition um this year through this point we have um transferred only half of that um $1.5 million so at this point um School nutrition is where we're expecting

087it to be um basically covering themselves with the expenses that we've been having um do we have any questions on any of our funds any question questions thank you okay thank you good evening evening I'm uh pleased to present to you the East flast update uh for this quarter and to um tell you about the projects some of our key projects that we have going uh first let's look at our finances we've uh looked at this cost report a number of times in a lot of different detail and so I won't necessarily get into a lot of detail with it but however it does show that we are going into our eighth year in East Blast 3 and I should make a comment about that because those who were on the board back when Co

088did hit us do remember that we slowed the projects down we weren't sure about our Revenue at that time and so not to get ahead of ourselves and to spend all the money and not have the revenue come in we did slow some of the projects down now those projects are all fully funded they're engaged and now we are are carrying them out so that's why this Blast has maybe gone out a little longer than what some of the other ones previous ones have had and certainly that we're um expecting to see an eastl 4 so again the important thing when you look at this all of the receipts all of the revenue is all cash flowed out and uh this program e E3 program is on budget and will'll finish on budget our E4

089budget we've just started the uh third year into this one and we have some very major expenditures that we anticipate in the next year two years as the key projects the bigger projects are all underway now all the new schools all the additions some of the major additions that we have going on uh have all been engaged and so this is going to uh be a very busy time into E4 and again we are able to look at what our revenues are we are able to look at what our potential cost are based upon our schedule and to cash flow those out to make sure that we're not overspending so right now E4 is also on budget uh we did not put the program schedule in this particular presentation in cic we do have the

090program schedule so you have uh better look at the projects the schools that we're working in and the number of projects that we're doing in each of those schools this is a little different look at it as far as where the majority of our work is located right now in closeout construction design bid areas and then in the planning so close out over $200 million when the K the K12 is in there and hopefully next couple of months that will drop away and that will be a much more realistic figure and then as we bring these projects up with construction and finish those larger ones up we're able to free up some of our res resources and one of our resources actually is Architects so once we're able to move these projects along free up

091these resources design resources we'll be able to bring these projects up out of planning and put them up into uh design build the 6 through2 complex uh is in penless final inspections Furniture right now is offsite being stored that installation will start on March 18 another thing that is going to occur and uh we expect in early April will be the installation of the solar panels This is the first project where we're putting a very large solar field up on the roof of this school and we will be doing the same thing in uh Windsor Forest and same thing in Bloomingdale so this is going to be our our new mode now to uh to minim or to maximize wherever we can put solar fields and roofs obviously are a very uh good place to

092put them otherwise they're taking up a lot of other property on the on the sites just a quick question uh for schools that have already been built do we still have that same option to go back and add solar panels should we feel that it's um a positive way to go yeah yeah and I think that's a that's a good point something that I do think we want to look at of course we want to make sure that our structures are going to be able to support them and we want to be sure that we're not compromising any situations as far as our roofs are concerned you know one issue that we always have on older projects is roof leaks we don't want to create those either so we want to be very careful with

093that but I I think it's something that you know the the district just really starting to get into is this uh our solar panels and installation of those I think you have what of your I would like to add to that that technology is changing the new roofing material technology is changing right now we have looked at couple of companies which have come up with a newer product which is roofing material which can support the solar panels but they're not readily available in the market yet so in a couple of years we'll be ready to do all that and whenever we'll replace a new roof we'll be able to do that thank you there they're also they're also shingles that are solar panels now so you don't have to put solar panels on top of

094shingles they're integrated into one I'm waiting for that to come out commercially yeah all right so we'll we'll be watching for all of those types of things for sure kind of got away from shingles though and the metal roofs more than the shingles Dr Hall due to co I know the price of steel and everything tremendously increased what about furniture furniture still a huge increase in the cost of furniture as well yes yes very much so uh compared to the E2 projects uh what it takes to actually furnish these schools now yes that was a a very large increase also technology has gone up I mean you you know that in the last few years costs have increased and that's every part of construction and sometimes one of the other things that uh we're struggling

095with right now and and not just us but U you know every owner is resources subcontractors we can get contractors to bid but they have to get their subcontract bids and that's where sometimes we run into problems because they just can't get those subc they're busy they're extremely busy Miss Miss um Mr I just want to say that I'm very happy to see that a lot of the furniture that we are procuring is coming locally because and that's one of the big thrusts that we have that we want to support our local businesses our businesses who vote East Bloss into existence so I'm very happy um to see that and also if something breaks down we don't have to wait for someone to come from North Carolina or Tennessee to get it fixed we have

096somebody right here who can take care of it so I'm very happy to see that yes correct um also just to let you know there are some modifications that need to be made for the 612 they're not anything that's real made but we're in the process of putting that together also that work uh wants to be completed this summer and uh we are going to have this school ready for uh Mercer and Groves to move in and begin uh school on August 1 having uh a lot of having a lot of meetings with those two schools right now to coordinate the moves over and to bring in the technology and all this required for starting up a new school so it's going to be a a very busy summer the athletic fields and the Fieldhouse

097uh this is a pretty nice picture because you can kind of see where the Fieldhouse is going to be located now on site there's two buildings off on the side here which are concession buildings and the restrooms and uh they're just starting the footing foundations over here for the grand stands they be on both sides and obviously the field is going to be in the center so uh this project is uh is moving along we'll hopefully be able to pour the slabs uh in the next week or so they're getting prepped and uh the other one that it doesn't show here is the baseball fields and and that's over towards the railroad tracks um we've been encountering a lot of very poor soils over there one thing that had occurred when we built the K12

098we had to dig out a retention Basin a temporary retention Basin and now we have to fill it back in of course in order to make the fields and we have to dig another hole over back by the railroad tracks for the new retention those soils are terrible back there and then trying to fill in of soils that were uh a pond at one time is is again uh you know causing a lot of additional soils work and so we had um dollars in the GMP to cover because we knew that there was going to be some bad soils we had some soil reports that were showing that that um and so we're just trying to minimize what the uh you know extent of that work is going to be and and making sure that

099uh we can get that done and get those fields done properly Windsor Forest High this Project's coming along real well uh a lot of masonry slabs are all poured and uh it is on schedule for uh the July 25 uh completion one comment about the permit we did have a initial meeting with the city last week and talked about those trees that we need to have taken have to have removed and um I think we made some good progress city is going back now internally they're going to be discussing this uh with the Departments and uh we'll wait for their response now this is a process that needs to occur obviously when Architects submit designs to the cities all the Departments have to take a look at them and they have to approve them and

100it's uh quite common that there are some departments that have some problems object to it and it's up to the design professional our Architects our Engineers to go back to modify drawings whatever it makes be s satisfy the city so that we can get permitted so that's where we are at right now with this Bloomingdale Elementary School the new replacement school pretty much the same situation uh lot of masonry going on uh this project is also on schedule to complete in August and just one comment we did have a number of meetings with City Council with the mayor and we did get a very positive response from the city of Bloomingdale they are allowing the contractor to do early morning pors and these are going to be very very controlled but what it's going to

101allow them to do is to make larger pores and that will keep them on schedule because if they weren't able to do that then they would have to make smaller pors and it would extend the schedule out so that was a very important uh decision I as far as cooperation that we got out of the city and uh so that's going to certainly uh help help that project out uh tremendously Godly station again one of the major additions that we have going on with that school uh on schedule structures going on enclosure work work uh the metal roofs will be soon installed brick is going on in the exterior same thing with palaski uh this is going very well also picture shows uh the masonry pretty much completed Roofing is going on all the steel

102has been erected over the gymnasium that's open on this pitchure and so this project is also in line for August uh completion the EV charging station we are again experiencing a lot of problems with soils now one thing about this project we are right next to a wetland area and so we knew we were going to have some issues but to the full extent of what it is right now it just could not have been anticipated we've have gone out and under the advice and counsel of our soils engineers and uh and and and the engineer themselves have gone out and stripped areas taken tests found out that it wasn't adequate strip a little bit more bring in more fill and you know we could continue to do that but what instead we did was

103took a look at the pavement section itself and we made modifications to the pavement section thickened the concrete uh a little bit more on the base so that if the soils aren't real good on below the concrete that will be able to span across it we'll still have a good uh solid base the buses these electric buses are much heavier than what a standard bus is and so that is causing this to have a little more concern then what it would be if it was just a a parking lot for automobiles and so this is taking a little longer of course when it rains that makes things worse and so we have been fighting through some of the recent uh rains that we've had and then making sure that we get a good solid base

104uh so that that parking lot is going to uh hold up well and so this one is uh I have April 24 completion that still is pending yet it's still wide open yet they they do not have put any asphalt down or any concrete down uh they're they're putting the foundations in for the canopy structures and so um we'll we'll continue to monitor this one closely and then the phase one projects that we have going on that satisfy the long range uh facility plans these are projects that are critical to us to make sure that we complete these projects uh on time so that all of these various moves can take place Henderson for me is out to bid right now we'll be taking those numbers on uh on March 7 and uh and then

105of course all of the moves that have to take place all the department school at Henderson moving over to Schuman all of that is in place in in working through Largo Tibet uh when that school ends in May to uh have to prepare that ready for the stem and uh the other one that's that really is a a critical one for us is to put CG uh the Coastal Georgia in Iowa hope and so there's some good re there's some renovation work that has to take place in one of those classroom Wings Of course that can't happen until after school is out uh we have that project out for bid also right now so we get a contractor uh we'll have them ready to go and get started with that just as soon as school

106ends and then the Montgomery site uh again you folks that have been here for uh for many years know that Montgomery has been used for quite a number of projects number of Swing schools and so that just needs to get updated cleaned up and get it ready for JG Smith uh our HVAC projects the the critical ones Coastal Garrison Savanah High all scheduled equipments getting uh ready for delivery to those projects um there some of these projects are going to be very extensive Garrison is one and so that school will just you know no power nothing it's just going to have to be uh a lot of work taking place in order to replace that HVAC system uh Roofing projects again a lot of those are completing gold is a very critical one for us

107we put that project in design and we'll be pushing that as as best we can the practice fields obviously there's still some small things that have to be done fine tuning of the scoreboard we're going to put some benches out there um Johnson we just completed some additional sidewalk or some fencing work uh so as we find out that when we put these fields out there in order to enhance those campuses around those fields there's some extra work that needs to take place new Hamstead of course we wait till we get good weather which in April hopefully we will have those temperatures so that we'll be able to do that track uh resurfacing out there and then we still have that Woodville Tomkins uh practice field that we have to put in and we're also

108going to be putting in at the uh GMG project um and then just some other projects again lots of lots of things happening in uh in programs uh however these are our major ones and that completes the report okay uh Mr Johnson Miss Hall um I'm just wondering if we have uh any updates on the fencing around the track at New Hampstead that project is going that fencing is going to need to be bid okay and so we're going to have to put a bid package together and of course it's a 30-day bid period Etc so that is being put in the works now okay uh I I'm I I hear what you're saying I'm just wondering you know if somebody can answer knowing that this has been brought up a couple of times why

109is it now going to bid there was it was first thought that we would be able to do this project with a annual contract for fencing but we just weren't able to do it because of the cost because of the price when a project is over $100,000 we have to put it out for bid and so that's what is occurring at at this one okay I'll ask additional questions offline okay um Miss Hall you go back to page 15 for a minute um I'm sorry which one 15 15 I see under Savannah High you have scoreboards needing final adjustment additional benches but Mr May and I have been there and talked with the coaches about the need for the softball and baseball fields to be upgraded um as when I was there a month ago

110it was not the surface was not um usable by the kids for the spring season so I just want to make sure that that is still in the works and that Mr May has been in tou with you is working on that okay and also irrigation for those fields irrigation yes sir okay thank you Sean so in the last three months we've talked about the baseball and softball fields at Savannah High Johnson um I know Islands had a problem last year we haven't put in fields yet at The Groves complex I would I think I suggested it a cic meeting we we start looking at cost for artificial turf for those fields um I don't know if we could take a look at that for the GMG project if there's contingency left and we can

111afford it um but we have had a historic problem with maintaining natural grass playing surfaces doesn't matter what it's for and we've had continuing problems with baseball and softball so if if there's money in the contingency for that project out there um in Garden City let's take a look at it and let's start planning for E5 if the citizens support it that we overhaul the remaining natural Turf surfaces and put in um the uh more resilient playing surface please thank you okay it it wasn't part of the budget obviously so that's why why we have to kind of work out them this was all planned four years ago or longer so I get it um but we can start planning now for yes definitely two years from now definitely thank you very much okay um

112I obviously don't know what to doing here okay um let me also pick up the uh the quarterly change order report these are change orders from October through December of uh 2023 you see that the majority of these change orders are associated with the practice fields and again as we put these practice fields in we find out to in order to make these fields work well with the campuses put enhancements to them we land up doing some additional fencing additional concrete uh Etc so you'll see a lot of those change orders that are in there and there also are some uh due to unsuitable soils at Johnson we had some unsuitable soils that had to be removed in order to put that field in and um there also are a couple of other ones in

113here due to uh unsuitable soils I would like to also make mention of this last one number 23 uh for at New Hampstead K8 this particular uh change or order was reported to the board on um the third quarter of uh 2021 however the amount was incorrect there was a error and entry and so when the error was found because we are updating the PO um we saw saw that it was a $52,000 change and anything over $50,000 per board policy needs to be approved by the board and so this particular change and I won't necessar get to a lot of detail with it but we were doing terazzo on the second floor at that facility we wanted to make sure that it wouldn't crack at the joints and so there was quite an extensive

114search research that was being done in order to get the proper products materials in order to do that where there would not be cracking and that was held back uh so consequently when it was finally found the right process to do it uh we wanted to get the contractor going right away again and so the superintendent did approve that change order and uh so consequently it was a ratification and you you did have that on your consent but I just wanted to make that clarification you any questions so do we need to vote on this ratification no okay good Hallelujah continue yeah we don't vote on the report but we vote on the ratification we do vote on the ratification if the request is for us to ratify it today yes we have to vote

115on I I'm I'm sorry I believe that was on consent agenda it was on the consent agenda that's guys that change order 33 was part of the consent agenda that the board already reviewed yeah all right you thank you sir I'm back and the next few agenda items all of the items have been posted to board dogs um board members have received them prior to this meeting and hopefully everyone has had a chance to review them so I will try to run through them pretty quickly the first one is a um change order number one for the grow athletic field and Fieldhouse construction project um with Mite construction as GMP this is change order number one in the amount of $750,000 staff recommends board approval of GMP change order number one for the grows athletic

116field and Fieldhouse construction and the superintendent's report supports this recommendation thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve GMP change order number one in the amount of $750,000 for the additional construction needs for the Groves athletic field and Fieldhouse construction project to magnite construction and increase the contract GMP to to 30 m717 moved and seconded uh discussion all right the item hey hey whoa whoa vot we haven't voted yet man thought it was a vot all in favor all right I like unanimous said my head I heard a vote so I'm sorry the next item um uh is the funding to support that change order for the grov Fieldhouse is a budget transfer in amount of $750,000 from e 3 unallocated thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the

117superintendent that the board approve the budget transfer as noted seconded um discussion no one oh yes I just like to say that it's I'm grateful that we had this type of money that we could actually use for this accommodation from East floss 3 since it was unallocated so that that was a blessing in the skies because this was very unexpected this amount to be transferred so the money is there and I'm glad that it is because it's needed for the campus police facility we need that so I will be voting yes anyone else all in favor it is unanimous thank you you're on a roll okay the next item is another transfer within East PL 4 for the Henderson fory renovation budget staff request a following a budget transfer within East PL 4 this transfer

118from unallocated from the UN unallocated account we'll provide funding for the upcoming construction work um that was mentioned earlier in the report thus be resolves upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the budget transfer as noted in amount of 9, 800,000 moved and seconded by H drown uh any discussion all in favor thank you very much the next item is for RFP RFP c21 03 backup generator installation for multiple sites this is the beginning of I'm sorry did we drop this one is this the aiv contingency I think I think you I think you jumped one I mean E4 is this 9.07 or 9.0 I'm sorry it's SK one I thought so you're ahead of yourself must late Pages make sure that is it yep budget amendment e spot 4 yes budget

119amendment pass East PL four collections have exceeded anticipated budget the budget amendment is requested by operation to add additional funds to the east PL 4 contingency account and update the revenue Source budget allocations to reflect the additional Revenue this action is is requested to align re Revenue Source budget with final anticipated recognized amounts additional funds will be added to the revenue lines listed below above and we will increase the expenditure account line for contingency to $77 million thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the budget Amendment and allocation of additional funds to each plot four contingency account moved and seconded any discussion all in favor unanimous thank you the next item is for RFP c21 d03 backup generator installation for multiple sites this is really the beginning of phase

120one of a number of phases of the district seeks to install backup generators and automatic transfer switches at all schools that do not currently have a backup system my God these projects will be completed in a phased approach the first phase we'll serve schools with it servers where existing survey work and a large part of the design has been completed staff is now recommending requesting approval to award the contract at a total cost of 2,463 n46 to Georgia Power Company pending approv approval of eser funding we we're currently uh requesting to pay this from ARP and we're just awaiting for State approval to do so thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the award of contract to Georgia Power Company under the RFP c2103 energy conservation Services contract

121to phase one of the backup generator and automatic transfer switches at the schools identified above pending State approval of exer funding for the project at a total cost of 2,463 n46 mooved by Dr husin Brown seconded by Mr Johnson any discussion all in favor thank you very much the next item is RFP 24-7 technology project products hardware and software annual contract the purchasing department has received a total of six proposals in response to RFP 24-7 technology products Hardware W and software annual contracts staff recommends a split award be made to Ay Jones educational Solutions who's the current provider and CDW government LLC for an estimated annual amount of $4 million the initial contract period is for one year with the option to renew for four additional one-year periods thus being resolved upon the recommendation of

122the superintendent that the board approve the split Award of rfp2 24-7 technology products hardware and software annual contracts to a ay Jones educational Solutions and CDW government LLC for a one-year period with four additional one-year renewals in the estimated annual ual amount of $4 million uh moved by Dr Howard Hall seconded by Dr bringman uh any discussion M Dr bringman yeah um on the estimated annual amount what is the overage that's allowed in that estimate before you have to come back before the board you know estimated to be $4 million but are we the most part we we project the estimate at the on the high end um pretty much anything above that $4 million or get once we get close to the $4 million we will come back to the board okay thank you

123thank you any other discussion all in favor thank you very much I believe the final item is um something we mentioned during informal meeting meeting for the transportation department to purchase of a few type a micro buses on a Statewide contract the Department of Transportation is requesting board approval for the purpose of type a micro buses from the established Georgia Statewide contract staff is recommend recommends approving the purchase of six type A micr buses to meet the district's need to to expand student transportation options the types of buses are listed below thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the purchase of six type a micro buses from yansy Bus Sales and servicing utilizing State contract s swc 999999 SPD s swl 20 20 d001 as identified in the chart

124above at a total cost of $687,000 moved by Dr by Miss Hall seconded by Miss Kowski any discussion yes M Kowski quickly I'm super excited about um this diversification of our transportation options for the district and look forward to seeing uh more Innovations like this any other discussion all in favor okay thank you you voted yes right okay good EXC huh we we good on that are we we're good okay before we move for forward I know we're getting ready to have appearances may I ask a question or make a statement sure okay um I would like to go back to the beginning of our um uh board meeting and congratulate uh Johnson High School on making it into the championship as well but but but also but also in connection to that I would

125like to uh uh celebrate Savannah High School who made it to the final four I would like to acknowledge them uh but but a couple of weeks ago uh Johnson and Groves High School had a a basketball game that resulted in an incident and my community as well as many citizens in Savannah chattam County Public Schools district has been asking about uh what measures are we taking to ensure safety uh for our students as well as uh workers and employees and parents that attend these events um I know that we may not have a response at this moment moment but I do know that we're working on them and I would like to suggest that in the future uh we take time to have a presentation for maybe Athletics or campus safety on the measures

126that we're taking and implementing to ensure safety for our students okay and Community absolutely and thank you very much and Mr Smith since you are on the agenda planning committee you can do that it will be my pleasure all right all right um now we have now we listen to you um okay Miss Salia Singleton okay all right uh Mr Caesar AR Arosa okay you have three minutes thank you so much uh bo for allowing me to come here uh tonight uh my name is Cesar Roan with Heroes overcome and heroes overcome is a program that goes into the schools uh I actually go into the schools in front of the students to uh uh please please please get on the mic please yes we're live streamed uh and to present to the students a

127message of Hope is what you got in there from the school to the world all students prepar to be successful and productive citizens when I heard uh the the students who was here today and the success that he has achieve in life that brought joy into my heart because that's what I do when I go into the schools not like this but I suit up as Captain America as you have the folders in your in your labs and when I go into a school as I did this past Friday to Building Bridges uh what stood up the most is Second Chances uh the the slogan that uh Building Bridges has and what I did uh when I go into a school uh and in front of the students I grab a phone book oh and

128I rip it in front of them to get their attention I got your attention now because uh my heart is after the students and uh what I tell them when I go into the school never let go and to hold on tied to their dreams and that is my mission uh uh uh my first school here in chadam County was Building Bridges I've been in Liberty County Schools Brian County Schools sharing the message of Hope as Captain America and and I walk when I go into a school suit up as Captain America that is the way that I get their attention and to tell them I said never let go to hold on tight to the dreams and that's what that child did I believe when he was elementary school he had a dream and

129so did you and that's why you're sitting here today tonight because you had a heart for students and that's why we all here for them and that's what I do what I do but I thank you so much I really do appreciate uh the the the appearance that you let me have here tonight to present this message and I need your help I need your help to get me into the schools in chattam in chattam County uh to present this uh enrichment program uh this is my wife Mary and she uh she will share with you uh hello everyone yes please count on the mic oh I'm sorry uh yes it's very nice to meet everyone um I work a lot with Stacy Jennings I am the vice president for the YMCA of Coastal Georgia

130we support this program in our after school care program that's in your elementary schools and a lot of times the principes will see the program that we're doing in the after school and say how can we have that program in our schools so that's the whole idea we came to present just to see if we could get the superintendent to back this important program and we can certainly give any other information that you need on the program and how we can get this into the school but it reiterates the character development traits that the school is reinforcing okay so I gave your information to miss ball Oliver and I would encourage you to speak with her after the meeting wonderful right thank you so much than and I believe I took a picture with you

131a while back yes I remember that I remember that well thank you so much thank you very much thank you so much everyone thank you for what you do yes thank you I was not dressed as here uh leave it alone all of you okay uh next uh Mr Maurice middleberg ah okay Mr Moss distinguished members of the school board Dr Watts thank you for the opport Unity to to provide this brief presentation on the challenge of reading proficiency I am here representing Justice unit Savannah together or just just is an Interfaith Coalition of 22 congregations in Savannah and chadam County our mission is to pursue Justice in our community as mandated by all our faith Traditions I chair the social justice committee at congregation Agoda aim which is a founding member of just because

132of its enormous impact on life opportunities the deficits in Reading proficiency among sccps students is one of the two priority issues for just we do not need to belabor the severity of the problem according to the Georgia Milestones assessment for spring 2023 more than 42% of students in every grade from third grade through 8th grade cannot read at grade level the percentage of students who cannot read at grade level ranges from 43% in fifth grade to almost 60% in sixth grade accordingly we wish to commend and encourage the priority accorded to improving reading so passionately articulated by Mr moss and Dr Watts we commend the board and Dr Watts on hiring Shere Goldman as the literacy Effectiveness officer and congratulate Miss Goldman on her new position while we do not purport to be experts in

133the field of reading education we have nonetheless worked hard to understand what works and what doesn't there is a vast body of research going back decades that underpins what is called the science of reading our understanding is that the board Dr Watts and miss old men are committed to applying the Core Concepts strategies and methods to be found in the science of reading we strongly support this strategy which is essential to the primary pillars articulated by this board Student Success academic achievement and life Readiness we are cognizant of and applaud the steps already taken by Dr Watts in her short tenure to improve reading proficiency however we recognize that organizational change is always complex and fraught with potential pitfalls the movement to a science-based approach to reading education will depend upon more than its obvious

134merits meaningful change will require a well-defined strategy Resources commensurate with the task new skills appropriate support for teachers regular assessment and public reporting as well as a culture shift thank you sorry three your your time's up we have three minutes okay thank you I'll I'm going to be very brief we're certain the board has already thought deeply about these challenges and we're interested in learning from Miss Goldman how the change process will be implemented we hope you will see us as a partner and supporter uh in this effort absolutely thank you very much thank you all right um okay um Mrs Elizabeth I mean Eliz Elizabeth Ramirez oh she is here hello thank you for having me here good evening um sorry I'm a little nervous and my English is not so well so I'll

135try my best I'm here as a concerned parent my I have a sixth grader in West Chad Middle School um I've been to the school a couple of times to get this problem resolved I got a issue with some teachers um bullying and um sorry I brought it down cuz I'm very nervous um in sexual harassment with my daughter I had a student Expos himself to my daughter and spoke to her in a very very disgusting way that she has never heard the this kid told her that he would do so many things to her sexually and show her um pornography from his phone and supposedly uh the school computer which I talked to the principal he said that this can happen on the school's um computer but um I wasn't able to look at

136the computer and see if it was true or not um this kid has been caught again watching pornography on a school um computer I don't know what they did about it I went to the principal um he said we will take care of it but no no one got back to me about it um also my feel like C my daughter don't want to go to school no more there's a teacher is calling her her really bad names telling her she will get nowhere in life it breaks my heart because I work a lot to send my daughter to school have a better future than I do and um to see her crying every morning telling me she don't want to go to school no more she doesn't feel safe in school it hurts me

137a lot and I've been to the school and trying to get some help but I don't get it I don't get the help I don't know because if I don't speak my my English is not great I know I understand um there's also the parents that come to me because I speak a little better English than they do they still do nothing about it um my daughter's been threatening to get a jumped in school and um on the bus we had an accident to inent where the kid said he was going to bring a a gun to school I reported it that they did nothing about it a few months later um the the kid got into a problem with the bus driver where they actually brought a gun my daughter called me crying that

138she didn't want to die cuz they were shooting at the bus no one said nothing about it either no one emailed the parents about what was happening I just had I couldn't even go look for my daughter while she called me on the phone screaming and yelling that she didn't want her to die and principal did nothing about it then think call us didn't call the parents with that had students on that bus and um I want to see if y'all can help me with it or do something about it I I was really afraid I was going to lose my daughter that day my parents were able to find my daughter that day they brought her home safe to me I couldn't go look for it cuz I just had a baby a week

139before this happened so I wasn't even driving at that time um my daughter no longer ride the bus she doesn't feel safe on the bus I also have a a six-year-old in kindergarten he got punched in the face got a tooth knocked out of his mouth boss driver did not inform me of what happened she just left without saying anything I went to school I emailed the of the people from the bus that did nothing so I really need your's help we hear you thank you we hear you thank you Dr was has it y yep all right uh Mr Alejandro deaso thank you worked on that good evening um thank you for having me and to have this opportunity to talk to you again uh Mr Moss uh Dr watz and uh representatives of

140uh the schools um I came here tonight to to talk a little bit um well as you know I uh I'm a parent of uh a student of chadam County I also work for a nonprofit organization that Oates for U migrant families and students um I've been hear these kind of stories over and over and over again a year ago we submit a report about these issues that are happening and we we hear a very good response and I'm very happy with the response that you guys gave it to us you you're doing a a great great job uh allocate you did a great job allocating some uh funds towards uh tackling these issues with the language barrier and also the um culture sensibilization because this is happening um the struggle that these families are

141happening keeps going and unfortunately because of the language barrier a lot of um person who works for the schools don't listen to them don't want to listen to them we know we have the the uh language line but people in the front refuse to to help them refuse to use that um today I wanted to talk to you about the promise of a Multicultural Center uh that was part of this uh response to their rep that we we submit to you guys um we haven't he anything about it and it's uh it's kind of sad because we were so happy to hear about this Multicultural Center that will that will uh put together uh communities right to what we're trying to do is just make aware that this is happening and I know your people

142that listened because I know that I've been I he I see you guys working and and you are doing a great job I'm happy that we can allocate a that kind of money for a Fieldhouse which is important but a community Cent a Multicultural Center is also important so the people who lives in in our communities know more about us and feel more um they need they need to know that we are humans just as the rest and we belong we want to belong and we want to be heard I hope um we can talk a little bit more or you guys can bring uh the the Multicultural Center which is going to be a great a great opportunity for integration um and in cases like like like like this uh parent to come today

143uh tonight is is very important to to take in in in consideration I will make a follow with Dennis watts and to to bring all this that is happening thanks so much thank you okay um that's everyone I will accept a motion to adjourn sove so move moved in seconded all in favor speak no you didn't yes I did I sent email the day time to speak Mr herbine you have three minutes good evening one and all my name is Pete robine founder of the organization teach our Reverend Christian Heritage our schools need to implement a freedom oriented a curriculum Freedom needs to be a curriculum all in of itself to include history Civics and economics the nape report shows a continual decline in history Civic and economic literacy I'm asking all of you to

144call me please let's work together one onone and a whole or small groups of any any size and let's work to discuss and formulate such a curriculum I understand that standards and policy are drafted at the state level but I just want to remind you that local representative government is a tenant of a free Society most of the Grievances in the Declaration of independent were about representative government and we know that the further away from the people that government gets the less transparency we have and the less accountability we have this is especially true with the school system it is nearly impossible to speak with any body at the state level with the Board of Ed this is why we need to meet locally and discuss this curriculum locally and work from the ground up

145and then send this curriculum package to the state this is how a free Society works we work on the ground level and then we send up our recommendations to the state so please I'm asking you to call me let's get together there's no harm in having a discussion is there of course not right and we meet in small groups or as a whole but we work together and work with creating a curriculum that encompasses history Civics and economics that teaches freedom what's wrong with that thank you very much for your time thank you very much got you I'll send you all an email tomorrow and please reach out no sir we have answered you several times we yes we Have No we're done meeting adjourn no no move to a journ move to we've already

146moved to ajour but we didn't vote we we did let's just vote all in favor all right we're out