Regular Board Meeting - January 10, 2024

001e you good afternoon good afternoon afternoon welcome to the regular meeting of the board of uh public education for the city of Savannah and the county of chadam um this meeting is live streamed um and we will first I will first ask that this meeting has been announced it has been okay all right we will open with our national anthem so if you'll all stand good afternoon we are honored to have a chamber group from the Savannah Arts Academy Mastery band um they will be performing the original Armed Forces arrangement of the national anthem today they are led by Mr Brian aen who has been teaching for 3 years in SEC PSS and 27 years total just a couple of side notes here this is a representation of 13 out of 40 students who have

002made District honor band this year to um be held in February okay and our two guys in the center Campbell and William um have are also active participants in the Savannah Music Festival Jazz Academy as well so would you please remain standing after the national anthem for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you la a I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all let's hear it [Applause] again I will now accept a motion to uh approve the agenda I make a motion that the agenda is printed or modified be approved with the following revisions deletion of item 7.19 RFQ 22-03 Design Services for woodwell Tomkins lower HVAC Renovations project we moved in seconded um

003any discussion all in favor and is unanimous thank you make a further a motion to approve the amended agenda to amend approved agenda to add item 9.06 budget amendment project prevent Grant movement seconded all in favor okay announcements uh January 15th of course is uh the holiday for uh Martin Luther King Jr day uh we have a capital Improvement committee meeting Wednesday January 17th it will be here Whitney at 9:00 a.m. uh Tuesday January 23rd we have a board accountability committee meeting at 3 pm here at Whitney Wednesday January 24th we have a finance advisory committee at 9: Thursday January 25th we have audit committee meeting at 8 a.m. Saturday and and note this date Saturday January 27th is our Student Success Expo and stem Festival it will be at the Civic Center from 10:00

004a.m. till 3:00 p.m. and that is Saturday January 27th Friday February 2nd at various locations throughout the district uh is our uh read United today and February 2nd uh is our teacher of the year Gala it will be at the Marriott uh Savannah Riverfront from 6:00 p.m. to 9900 p.m. and now we will have our superintendent report Dr Watts Happy New Year to everyone excited to provide a good news report we have many uh reasons to celebrate and acknowledge all the positive things that happen in our district and I'll start with an with an acknowledgement of Johnson High School Johnson High School hosted its first college acceptance lunch in in December this was a culmination of the hard work and dedication of students who applied to colleges early in November uh during postsecondary options month

005students were accepted into 52 colleges and awarded over $2.6 million in scholarships excellent also I'd like to acknowledge and gradul and congratulate the first class of green hrum house youth guides students from Savannah Arts Academy's AP US History Class are volun volunteering to serve as dosent at at The Green mildrum House a National Historic Landmark the students are trained to give tours and are sharing their knowledge with visitors to our city well done Scholars more than 50 middle school students from schools in Savannah chadam County Public School System participated in the induction ceremony for for our junior Police Academy uh in December I had the honor and pleasure of being there uh the program provides students with an introduction to law enforcement um which allows them to explore career opportunities that can help guide them

006to um a future career possibly in law enforcement and along with that I'd like to just say that yesterday January the 9th was law enforcement appreciation day so if you have a family member or a friend or a person that you know uh please reach out to them and acknowledge and appreciate them and then obviously we would like to Ann acknowledge and celebrate and demonstrate our appreciation for those that serve here in our uh Board of Education Police [Applause] Department any of them in here yes there's okay great eight students in the medical and applied Health Professions program at Beach High School have earned their photomy certification these students have shown Mastery of their skills and have worked in the onsite Medical Clinic in partnership with St Joseph's Chandler hospital where they supervis where they

007were supervised by by an onsite nurse practitioner these students completed their clinical rotation and all of the other necessary criteria to become certified and they are now Workforce ready this opportunity for students is made possible through the office of College and Career Readiness and the Career Technical and agricultural educ education programs in our school district also a big hats off to Grove's High School Beta Club the bettas donated $630 uh collected from their pink out service activities in addition students participated in blessing bags for the homeless as a service project throughout November and at the beginning of December betas at Groves collected toiletries snacks socks and gloves the blessings bags were donated to the social Apostle for distribution in the community great work Rebels great community service work the Georgia Council on economic education announced

008that Woodville Tomkins high school has earned top prize in the Georgia stock market game for the third consecutive year student winner Jimmy slack began the season with $100,000 and just in just 10 short weeks he turned that into $22,000 uh in equity this is Jimmy's second time winning this overall state competition in back-to-back seasons of the stock market game Jimmy and teammate Jamina won the spring 2023 competition with $248,000 in equity becoming a two-time winner is extremely unusual um at first in recent Georgia stock market game history Woodville Tomkins teacher John Cook leads the students in the stock market Game Challenge way to go Jimmy um and thank you for all the work that Mr cook does to instruct Jimmy and students like Jimmy we'd like to recognize this fine student with a certificate from

009the board I'd like to call Kimmy slack forward at this time Jimmy Jimmy Slack [Applause] you need to get a card conratulations great thank you [Applause] Jimmy got several job offers as he made his way around employment in the future will not be a problem speaking of excellent students I'd like to transition now to our December student of the month our student of the month for the for the month of December is a fifth grader who attends Haven Elementary School this outstanding student is a member of of the Junior Beta Club the drama club the chess club The Haven news crew and girls who code she has also won the remarkable reader award and the super scientist award our Honore is an exceptional student who embodies the essence of hard work determination and a positive

010attitude she strives to do her very best and has a genuine enthusiasm for learning with a 92% grade average her performance in all subject areas is nothing less than impressive school is important to her she puts the hard work in to perform at the highest levels she also really enjoys learning and her thirst for knowledge is inspiring to her classmates and keeps them uh striving for their best as well listen to what Miss Jeff said about our students student I have so many positive things to say from the moment she gets to school to the moment she goes home she has a can do attitude and a beautiful smile on her face I was her kindergarten teacher when she first started at Haven and now 5 years later I have the privilege of being her

011teacher for the gifted program she was and continues to be a true leader of her grade level she is a kind friend to all all a respectful student in the class and a shining example to her peers when asked what motivates her for academic success this is how our student of the month replied I am motivated to do well because I want to go to college if I do my job at school it also makes my mom's job easier I want to make her happy and I want to make her proud of myself happy and proud she says please help me congratulate the superintendent student of the month for December 2023 nicori Morris she's from District 5 she is from District Five conratulations nicori is taking home multiple gifts from our partners gift cards from

012Members First Credit Union Georgia Credit Union Plant Riverside District gelato Savannah Music Arts Festival um the cry oh she's crying she's she's beautiful the Five Spot restaurant plus she's taking home merchandise from advertising specialty Savannah State University Georgia Southern University gstream and Bahama Joe's noori and students in her English language arts class will receive printed copies of her favorite book Mac beid spy Mac undercover by Mac Barnett from our sponsor e shaver book sellers lastly she is also going to take home a portrait by upscale photography provided by Savannah chadam County Public Schools again congratulations nicori we are so proud of you and I know your mom is so proud of you as well um to your family we'd love for you to please stand yes please and also the teachers pleas stand family the

013teachers and I'm going to take a personal privilege is this are you your mom yes will you please come we want to shake your hand okay and the principal baby keep me the example distri District Five I'm so sorry to uh to to prolonged the meeting but I just I just had to say this uh she is a member of District 5 and I'm very and I'm very very happy about that but I want you to catch this she cried because we celebrated her as if she received $1 million and that goes a long way just telling a student how good they're doing patting them on the back and pushing them forward into their great futures I believe that we need to do more of that from this seat as well as from every seat

014in the community of savan chattam County Public Schools thank you thank you so much it was an honor to be able to recognize her at this point in time I would like to turn it over to our professional Senate representatives to see if they have an update for the board well you know December was a short month and we were not in school on our usual week so we did did not meet during the month of December so no report happy New Year happy New Year there is coming there's more coming oh we definitely have more to come we'll see you in a week that's right so I'll hand it back to our board president at this time thank you oh my man I'm I teared up a little bit there sorry guys um Mr

015Adar oh yes thank you sir uh I would be remiss if I didn't mention our student of the month's teacher who nominated her is here miss Jeff our former teacher of the year way to go Haven all right continuing on your agenda today as we move into the Board of Education matters we do have two policy items to review these are both 4-year policy reviews that we concluded and are ready for presentation to the board the first one item 6.01 this is a first read and there are changes that are recommended to the policy and to the regulation when we went through this we realized that much of the current practices that uh we following under supervision of students which interestingly is primarily about the safety of student athletes as it pertains to the heat

016index and we do follow that very closely for the safety of students primarily from stipulations of the Georgia high school Association and also uh quality information of exercise science from the American College of sports medicine and it is been updated to align with our current practices and best practice that we're currently doing in the school district exhibits have been deleted as the exhibits are determined to have been outdated and not in line with our current modern technology for tracking these procedures first reader for the Board of Education thank you yeah I'm sorry yes Mr Kowski so um I appreciate that the importance of certainly protecting our our athletes and our staff during extreme weather under the on the policy it states that the readings shall be taken a minimum of every 30 minutes is that

017regardless of the conditions or is there if the conditions are such that they don't have to continue to take them because that seems if there's not a threat of so it it it's tied to actually the heat index so of course you know when they're in basketball practice and it's November unless we have some extreme circumstances with weather which could happen in Savannah um they do not do it then but it's really during the high the Heat season I and that was my qu I really what I was getting at like do we not need to have something in policy that if it's not a certain reading that's not required the conditions exist if the conditions exist or something conditions exist yes we do share that in our athletic handbooks but it's not in here

018so we can we can take a look I would suggest that as a please yes move on subject sorry uh Howard Hall Hoskins Pro no okay I did but I now okay Dr Howard Hall then Dr bringman yeah my question was regarding the standardized process for documentation of of the data is there something standardized that we're doing throughout the district that should be documented here whether not as digital or or um or manual logs being used so yes they do have a tracking system where they have to track all of that information so all of the coaches um have to use that tracking system and the ads and Athletics have access to that our athletic department and our school ads and I know it's not highlighted it's reference it's not really outlined in detail as

019far as monitoring or watching at risk players but I assume that that's from previous injuries perhaps asthma diabetes high blood pressure uh sick of cell and I also mental health is that now becoming a a major concern to watch atrisk players as well I just I thought about it when I saw the um the reference to to atrisk players yes it is and actually as a part of what they do with athletic training now they've actually been bringing in trainers to work with our coaches and our athletic directors to be able to identify signs and to support those students as well as it relates to mental health as well as we have our Wellness Center who's able to work with them so that they can identify uh those students as well and we also monitor

020them based on what we have on the physical from their doctors to include all of those conditions you mentioned uh uh Dr bringman and then Mr Johnson and we're probably all just picking this regulation to death but under number three I would love to see how each School manages who the coach is or the designate that is actually in charge of keeping the record just so if an event happened we would know who was supposed to be held accountable who was supposed to be actually te checking this and I concur with uh Dr Howard Hall on do we have a protocol piece of um you know either documentation that's paper or documentation that's digital yeah so that then and if that's just spoken to in the regulation rather than just see manual I don't know

021I just think I I know we're doing this because there are incidences every year unfortunately across the country so we're trying to hold people accountable and the incidences will still happen but if we can make sure that we are doing everything we're supposed to do to try to lessen the risk um I think we should also lessen the risk on there being a hiccup and somebody not following the protocol thank you thank you um Mr Johnson um yeah my question is actually on the the policy not the regulation where it Str struck out the initial compl complete medical history and physical exam required for all students prior to participating in Tri outs practiceing games um is that some where else in policy or regulation or are we just taking that out for some reason so

022it's actually number one in the rig um we repeated an initial complete medical history and physical exam is required okay so I missed number one to the rig and to m grabowski's point about the date it's not in the policy but that is in the rig as well on number three but we can move it to more front facing if needed okay anyone else okay moving on thank you Mr board president moving on in your agenda item 6.02 this is also a 4-year review this is policy CGA classified Personnel compensation there were no changes to policies on this four-year review and with that subject to the final review here by the board we'd like to deem this 4-year review complete per the specifications of board policy bde questions nope all right okay this is second

023reading no this would be the uh first pass of the four-year review with no policy changes and no comments from the board will deem this officially reviewed and complete per policy bde thank you very much okay uh in accordance with article six of the board's bylaws officers shall be elected at the first meeting this is our first meeting of the year uh in January of each year the positions are vice president vice president uh protm secretary the superintendent serves as Treasurer and secretary ex officio of the board the Chief Financial Officer serves as assistant Treasurer each term is for for a one-year period I will now call for a m for a motion for the election of officers Mr katchmar so historically we've rotated our officer positions to give board members experience and Leadership and

024um broaden our depth and not only because of that historic practice but also because I I think they'll make good officers I I wasn't meaning to be flippant but I I actually do I actually do mean that um I I nominate Miss Grabowski as a board vice president uh Reverend Smith as board vice president protore and uh superintendent as Treasurer and secretary ex official okay it's been moved and seconded any discussion great uh oh I just want to say that I think this is been a good practice because what it has done has given each of us a chance to be in that situation and to really um understand all the Machinery that goes on behind the scenes so I think it's served us very well and I'm glad to see us continuing it there

025not being no more discussion uh all in favor I and is unanimous uh also as is also customary during the election of officers in January that we approve the secretary our secretary serving the board is Tamika Edwards so to make that official it's been moved and seconded all in favor yes come on Michelle's doing a great job today yes yes yes and so everyone understands this is not Tama thank you all right ah uh pursuant to article eight duties of officers the board president shall appoint as special I mean appoint all special committees and designate the chairpersons thereof as this customary during our January meeting I now announce the 2024 community community committee appointments uh academic Excellence chair Dr Tiner Howard Hall members Mr Paul Smith Miss Denise Grabowski Dr David bringman and Miss Cornelia

026Hall board accountability committee Dr Deon Hoskins brown chair Mr Michael Johnson Mr Todd rhs Mrs Cornelia Hall and Dr Tanya Howard H Hall audit committee chair Mr George Woods our members are Dr Deon Hoskins Brown Dr gerre Robinson Mr Josh Keller Mr Richard Sanders Mr Mario Hillyard Mr Michael Johnson and Ms Wendy Owens Capital Improvement committee Mr Sean katmar is the chair members Mrs uh Denise galski Dr David bringman that is misspelled uh Miss not Mr Miss corelia Hall and Mr Michael Johnson and finally our finance committee Dr David bringman as chair members Mr Sean katmar Mr Paul Smith and Mr Michael Johnson and I'll will accept a motion to approve I move to approve it's been moved by Miss Hoskins Brown and seconded by Dr oh you don't appointments oh their appointments had a

027surge of power there no uh so those are your committee members thank you oh yes delega Lea zone is Miss Denise galski yes Miss um this since uh and I totally agree I feel that uh you and the superintendent's decision to change the sub uh committee the equity committee into an initiative to spread Equity practices across the board correct could you speak to that for just a minut absolutely i' like everyone to know oh absolutely absolutely so uh in the past we have had an equity subcommittee Equity is something that should permeate every every fiber of everything that we do uh in our school system so everything will will fall under Equity lenses from Finance to uh to to Capital Improvement academics accountability audit all of it we are totally committed to equity and we

028decided that we didn't need to separate it it needs to permeate everything that we do thank you all right all right I will accept a motion man we're getting through this agenda today uh I I know I shouldn't have said anything doing so well okay uh I now accept a motion to approve the consent agenda it's moveed uh moved by Mr Johnson seconded by Dr dror M graly uh any discussion yes sorry I have some edits for an item in the consent that I will pass to miss Finch purchasing yeah okay sure okay uh all in favor of approving the consent agenda thank you all opposed any extensions and one exstension okay yes next to our uh Student Success academic achievement and life Readiness uh we have a quarterly report from Susie King Taylor [Music]

029good afternoon everybody um I am Dr Medina the interim School director for Susie king um happy New Year happy year um this is our student attendance report it has not changed much since the beginning of the year we are holding study at 94% for our Kinder through fifth grade and 95% for our Middle School campus our tis and leaks are up today and we are currently completing our middle- ofe conferences our student discipline report is also similar to the beginning of the school year we have too few to report for current student discipline reports this is our I ready reading middle of year diagnostic data which I am very excited to share with you we have seen a lot of growth and progress with our Scholars from beginning of year to middle of year this

030is also the first year in Suzie King that we have seen progress at middle of year instead of regression um so you can see our early on grade level and mid or above grade level is at 40% from 16 in K through through five and we also saw growth in Reading at the middle school from 14 to 24% we did have an enrollment decrease so our numbers are not the same but still very excited about the growth this is our math data um for Kindra through fifth grade you can see that we also showed growth um and move some Scholars from three or more to two grade levels to one or grade and early on and we consistent at middle school as well and this is everything that happened in December at sktc we had

031um our Scholars who displayed the most growth and I ready went to Chick-fil-A um to celebrate their performance and growth so that is them on the stairs we had a um a Polar Express day and all of the staff dressed as characters from Polar Express and a huge PBIS party to celebrate the upcoming holiday break any questions any questions anyone Dr Howard Hall thank you for your report I noticed on your student discipline report that is nothing being reported so is that does that mean that there are no we have fewer than 10 to report so we have at Kinder through fifth grade we have six and there are four in Middle School okay thank you yes thank you very much you're very welcome you all have a wonderful day thank you we will have

032a report from academic Affairs good afternoon you did receive um your updated graduation cohort report we made some additions this is our 2023 graduation 2023 cohort graduation rate report just want to remind everyone on how the graduation rate is calculated the four-year cohort rate computes the percentage of students who enter nth grade during a given school year and earn a regular diploma within the four years for high school grades 9 through 12th and it is adjusted based on students who transfer out during that 4-year in or out so basically you have the number of student students in the cohort who received a regular diploma divided by the number of students who entered the cohort in 9th grade that year and you subtract out those students who have what the state considers an acceptable transfer code

033or unfortunately who may be deceased and that is how they calculate the graduation rate want to share with you the difference between our graduation requirements and those of the state Georgia State Board rule sets forth the graduation requirements as 23 units of credit that a student must earn in order to attain a diploma they also provide for the fact that an Lea a local Education Agency may actually increase or require more from their students as it pertains to graduation but they cannot do less in our district under regulation IH f-r r two we require 24 units of credit for a student to earn a diploma as well as we require that they complete 20 hours of community service so we do require the community service hours as well as one additional unit of credit in

034comparison to the stake requirements we also have our graduation pathway set up as a college pathway and a ctae pathway and the biggest place you'll see that difference is is that in the State Board rule there is not a requirement around World Language and in our graduation requirements we do have a requirement for World Language want to take this opportunity to talk about some differences now when we start talking about the graduation rate we the next few slides will talk about graduation rate versus Content Mastery and readiness and so we want to point out that the graduation rate is a standalone indicator or component of the ccrpi for our high schools Content Mastery and graduation rate are two different components on the ccrpi but we also want to recognize that they are closely intertwined but

035they are not the same uh so with our graduation requirements these are the state identified number of credits that a student has to obtain to receive a high school diploma and as shared with you earlier the local educational agency can require additional uh they can require additional units as well as in our case community service under graduation requirements there is no mandatory State identified assessments for graduation so students have the ability to take a course more than once to obtain credit or they may may have the opportunity to demonstrate Mastery of specific standards standards not mastered to receive credit for the course it is a standalone indicator in the College and Career Readiness performance index so again it is a standalone component Content Mastery is measured by our students performance performance on the end of

036course Assessments in high school those four assessments are algebra that course is typically taken at 9th grade biology some 9th some 10th American literature and US History which typically are taken in the 11th grade our end of course assessments provide information about how well the students are mastering the state adopted content standards a minimum score is not required for a student to receive Credit in the course or to graduate high school so while they do have to take the assessments that is mandatory there is no minimum score required for them to graduate from high school or get credit in the course but the assessment does count for 20% of their final grade in that course so there is a 20% require uh calculation in their final grade with this assessment it is used as the

037academic measure that we see on the College and Career Readiness performance index want to also point out that while when we discuss our graduation rate we'll see the great progress there Content Mastery is the area of primary focus for our high schools it is one of our primary focus areas then we have the Readiness component and the Readiness component for ccrpi with our high schools has five indicators the first is reading at or above grade level and that's the percent of of our students in grades 9 through 12 that take American literature and typically that's an 11th grade course you may have it taken another grade level but that's the typical is 11th grade and they're demonstrating reading at or above grade level so that measurement comes from the American literature assessment in high school

038also student attendance and that's the percent of our students that have been absent in high school less than 10% of the days enroll we have accelerated enrollment and that looks at our 12th graders that are obtaining credit for dual enrollment advanced placement International Balor or Cambridge courses then we have pathway completion as another indicator and with our pathway completion that simply looks at the percent of our 12th grade students that completed an advanced academic A ctae Fine Arts or World Language pathway we also have the College and Career Readiness indicator and that's the percent of our 12th graders that are entering our technical system of Georgia or our University system of Georgia without need for remediation or looking at their act and sat Readiness score two or more AP exams passed two or more IB

039exams passed or they have um they've passed an aligned end of pathway assessment that results in the students receiving a national or state credential also they include work-based learning and Military Readiness which is measured by the ASVAB all of those components make up the College and Career Readiness indicator that is a part of the Readiness overall component for ccrpi for high schools if you look you'll see a chart that we have here Readiness component score for the state is 71.4% for the district it is 65.4% so we are six points behind the state to further break down those different indicators that make up our overall High School Readiness score you have here the at or above grade level reading uh the state is at 68.75 the district at 63.4% of our students at our above

040grade level you see our largest area of focus within the indicators for Readiness is our student attendance and that is something that we have been working on since we returned to full in-person learning postco we also have our accelerated enrollment pathway completion which is above the state and then our College and Career Readiness measure which is about a little bit less than one point within the state's uh score as well want to point out we included for you a 2019 retrospective at which time preco we were outperforming the state slightly in terms of our Readiness score and so of course we are working not to get back where we were but to exceed where we were in terms of ensuring that our students are ready so what are we doing as it relates to supporting

041our students on the road to graduation and you'll see some specific things that will directly tie to graduation that Mrs Morel will be sharing with you but what I will focus on are those pieces that are part of Content Mastery as well as the overall Readiness so as it relates to our Content Mastery because as we said while they are different components of the ccrpi we recognize in high school they are all interrelated and Content Mastery is our primary focus and so we have professional learning to support our staff and so we are working on student engagement our expectations for teaching and learning to the rigor of Standards with professional learning around teacher Clarity that focuses on critical thinking problem solving and establishing strong learning intention among some other items and we're working to ensure

042that our teachers are trained in the use of the new math standards as well as implementation that includes modeling and use of math manipulatives during during that training we have the light cell literacy program in our high schools and that informs interventions and supports for our students who may be struggling or not uh reading at or above grade level we also have collaborative planning and District level support is received for our schools as well as they have academic coaches on site at many of our high schools around lesson planning actually modeling lessons and identifying various resources for support we have coaching for our leaders and our instructional staff to include assistant principles and academic coaches as well as department heads in the buildings and then we are refining our formative assessment system for high school

043as well as on the horizon we have our secondary literacy plan under development and the textbook adoption so our on time support structures for Readiness which still actually also work for graduation rate as well we have opportunities for our sixth and seventh grade students to explore career clusters and postsecondary options we also have a high school 101 course that includes ninth grade advisement and course registration for our eighth grade students and we also take our eighth graders on tour of high school career Pathways by providing rotational field trips at the high school so that they can actually experience and see those Pathways and we have worked with our schools to design Master schedules that really focus on instructional support and credit acceleration and so our Master schedules are flexible and they support students want to

044point out that students can earn 32 units of credit over four years of high school but remind you 24 are needed for actual graduation and so by having this type of schedule it provides an opportunity for course retakes dual enrollment advanced placement courses multiple pathway completion opportunities as well as opportunities for work-based learning and apprenticeships we have summer school that's provided for students through policy idca governs that um we continue with our swarm process and we have Twilight which provides after school opportunities for students to attain units of credit our school-based supports as it relates to Readiness we have individualized advisement and counseling support services our our counselors at the high school continue to work with students on those graduation plans uh to include transcript analysis as well as their advisors those plans as I

045stated start in the 8th grade we have House Bill 400 which is the bridge law it's where our ninth and 10th graders are provided the opportunity to take a career aptitude assessment we use you science here in the district with our schools provide after school tutorial they have additional opportunities for the recovery of Standards not mastered through their school-based Twilight structures as well as Saturday school and while we work to help design and maximize use of the M maximize the master schedule and their resources the schools really use the master schedule for instructional support and student flexibility here's where you might see them double block classes to give additional math support or to give additional support for students who are taking AP classes on a 4x4 schedule so that it allows for a year-long instruction

046it's an opportunity to retake courses that may not have been match mastered and they are able to provide in some schedules instructional based study skills courses now we'll have Miss Morel our associate superintendent for secondary schools good afternoon good afternoon it is my pleasure to share in this slide of course that we are trending upward with a 89.1% graduation rate which of course that indicates our 1.5 increase from our previous school year we continue Savannah chanam County public school system to outperform the state as well as our comparison group of course this is the ninth consecutive year the district's graduation rate has exceeded that of the state Savannah early college and Woodville Tomkins maintain a 100% graduation rate Groves Jenkins Beach School of liberal arts excuse me school of liberal studies at Savannah High Johnson

047and Islands improved their graduation rates this past school year grov achieved the greatest increase with a gain of 7.5 points compared to last year New Hampstead Savannah arts and Windsor Forest declined by 1.4 2.2 and 3.6 points respectively if you bring your attention to the left side of the screen we certainly want to celebrate not one but three Gates Millennial Scholars we have maai West Jordan hasell both representing W Tomkins high school and then of course tanayia cheeks representing New Hampstead high school and we certainly want to continue to celebrate those Scholars because many schools and school districts don't have this bragging point if you will so certainly we give kudos to all of those students and we're looking forward to more Scholars hopefully this school year in terms of continuous Improvement strategies of course

048our schools continue to have weekly and bi-weekly graduation team meetings to include a review of our swarm process that continues to be a value ad and very successful on our campuses our school counselors of course have high school graduation plan meetings with students parents and Guardians to include transcript analysis and post-secondary planning of course our attendance team meetings with monitoring support and interventions is a key component I certainly want to um bring our attention back to what Mrs B Oliver alluded to when she discussed the ccpr Readiness as uh the attendance of course is one of those indicators so with that being said our schools are very intentional as it relates to their school Improvement plans and they are certainly have strategized to make sure that that's included in regards to strategies interventions as well

049as robust supports and of course our town hall grade level meetings which our students love of course with our administrators and our counselors focused on academic achievement this is where there's opportunity to take a deep dive into what is a GPA the grade point average of course attendance College and Career options as well as Georgia Futures and Georgia match I certainly want to take an opportunity to celebrate the fact that this is the in Aral year of Georgia match that has been launched across the state in Partnership of course with Georgia Futures as well as the Georgia student finance commission this of course of course Very simply stated provides our students an opportunity where they of course know the schools in the state of Georgia where they qualify for acceptance of course they have to

050apply for admission but students are able to know as early as this fall a letter was of course mailed to their homes to be shared with students and parents so now they actually know what's a good fit what's a match for them in terms of colleges and universities even if they may not select to go on to college or university they still know what's a good match right based upon their GPA and also an opportunity to save money by attending college in Georgia and then of course we have our no grad Left Behind meetings with our parents and our students oh yes this is the slide everyone has been waiting for it is of course to share the class of 2024 graduation schedule we will continue with our third consecutive year of of course with

051the inm market Arena we will start on Monday May 20th 2024 with three different graduations each day of course with the time slots at 9:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. then of course on Thursday May 23rd 2024 we will conclude with two ceremonies of course we'll have the school of liberal studies um of course at Savannah high school at 9 a.m. and then combined ceremonies of CA as well as Savannah early college at 1 p.m. thank you do we have any questions at this time I think we do um you know what go ahead Dr bringman uh thank you I got like a couple slides uh you brought it up but it was started on slide three with the graduation requirements um I I get this question a lot like we have a high

052graduation rate and I always remind parents and constituents that we require 24 units the state ask for 23 and a student that just attended normal fall in Spring of each year would actually be in class and able to acrw 32 correct just tell me if I'm wrong and they have the ability to go to Twilight if they needed course recovery and that happens during the normal school year but they also have the ability to go to summer school all four Summers correct they can go after their senior year if they were not successful in so so when people want to say that the graduation rate is inflated it's not because students have quite a number of opportunities for credit recovery quite a number of opportunities for credit recovery I think summer school they can get

053two yes two so that's eight another year eight so there's 16 and then Twilight I'm sure we could fill some gaps there and I'll just say another two they've got like 18 credits that they could get outside of the normal school year that's almost wait a second enough to graduate so understand that these students that we think shouldn't be counted in our graduation rate are passing classes eventually okay is that something to to it it's good we're getting them there we would love for them to pass it the first time so that takes us to the next slide that fun ccrpi thing it changes all the darn time uh my first question would be are the five categories weighted the same and they do like that overall Readiness component score are those five categories weighted

054the same I don't think they are correct no they're not okay good they shouldn't be um some of them are odd that they're even in here like accelerated enrollment is great for some students but I don't think a district as a whole should be ranked by that because then we should just force students that might not be ready for AP or dual enrollment to do that and then unfortunately they're unsuccessful but we get to count that we had a certain number of them in correct because it's not a it's not a success rate it's just a percent that do it which is mindboggling um it's also fascinating to me on the College and Career ritting this portion down there at the bottom that the state at best is doing 52.89 so none of us in

055the state are doing a good job of marking all the Box that they have there and that doesn't mean that the student isn't prepared for college or career they just might not have done those things yet people take Gap years it's a good year probably for some people to grow up in Jimmy who made a gazillion dollars in the stock market I would have loved to have given him a 100 hundred grand before those 10 weeks um might not meet any of these I'm sure he's going to because he's probably in one of the pathways but he might not but he's proven himself in that that he's got some Financial wherewithal that I don't understand um so again that's a a really weird one for me to to talk on and think that it should

056be lumped into this big overall score and then the reading at or above grade level being that's the EOC correct for American lit correct yes so that's all we base it off of right EOC so uh I'm going to take like the the the stance that one of our um directors this morning talked about how he does a pretty good job at Building Bridges because he was expelled I remember going and I I still would do it probably you do well in the class you've got that a you go into oh this EOC only counts 20% I don't have to pass it man I need to make like a 55 on this thing to make a a in this class every student calculates things down that way and other students go into the EOC and

057they go I don't care let me color a Christmas tree so again these numbers are just not the best way I think to Define how successful a teacher is a school is or a student so there's uh David bringman two cents on that so um I'm sorry I just bring it don't tell an old chery to coach that um are you are you a clover I just wanted to actually um come back and say I wanted to clarify something that when you see these five indicators while they may within each indicator have a different calculation because of the data across the board the five each weigh 20% to make up the sum total of Readiness so that's actually worse um so and then my final my final thing which is away from this Georgia match

058is great do we have any ability to speak to those people that have instituted that because it really bothers me that that our Flagship universities that our public do not have to participate in it they have standards they could have those standards inside Georgia match it could match with students and it could find the student that doesn't think they're successful enough to go to a Georgia or Georgia Tech and they could get that letter and it just really bothers me not not even just as like a board member but as a person paying taxes in our state that our Flagship universities don't have to play the same game that's a good game as every other and I think is it Georgia Military I there's one other one I can't remember but that those two schools

059get to opt out I guess they just don't have to spend the resources or the time to tell a student that took the SAT and did well and has a high GPA they don't have to click a box and say send a letter to so and so who might be from a disadvantaged family that doesn't think they could make it but lo and behold we're send so if we have any voice to Georgia match please let them know that that that is a disservice to what could be some of our students that just automatically tell themselves they can't do that because of the situation of life that they're in so there are three opt out and yes um we don't have that voice you know we continue to be concerned about that but would like

060to acknowledge our local universities Georgia Southern as well as savan state and as well as Savannah Tech and how uh especially Georgia Southern and uh Savannah State we are in a collaborative with them and they have shared the great um benefits that they see from this they're kind of just sitting back and waiting but they absolutely love the new Georgia match yeah it's a whoever whoever's brainchild it was is wonderful it just is unfortunate that we have our two flagships in another school that get to say we're not going to send those letters and and I'm sure there were some parents that got those letters this I got it I'm sure there were some parents that got those letters this past semester and they opened it and first of all they were probably just as

061proud as we were of norori when she walked by but they also had to have a conversation that might not have ever happened before this was something that was instituted so it's wonderful because it's going to change definitely somebody's life if not multitudes across our state each year because a student will be able to see like I already meet the requirements all I have to do is fill out my paperwork in November when it's free um to go to this institution so that's great I just I hope there's enough push back to tell Georgia and Georgia Tech be inclusive of every Georgian so and I can't remember the third or i' call them out hang on okay uh Hoskins Brown the Miss Hall thank you I I I appreciate the report um and but I

062wanted to ask Mr bringman did you say that you didn't like accelerated enrollment as a measure because it didn't quantify completion yeah it's just a percentage so but isn't that good that that it it gives us credit for investment in accelerated programming that doesn't hinge that credit on the completion on the test score correct I think our district does a good job of telling students that are going to be probably successful in it to take it where if we wanted to make that 100% we could just tell a we could fill every single one of those classes with students just to have seats and then we would be able to count that a that this percentage of our population is doing AP does that make sense like because it's just seats in the classroom is

063what counted we could take student we could just take any student no it's percentage earning credit not just opportunities offered it's not just enrolling them but they have to actually yes not then what is credit then what is credit because credit on AP is a weird thing too because a three doesn't get you credit one place and and and a but you still you still go to you just pass passing the class credit or a exam credit no no no that's why and that's why I ask you because it's my understanding of this is the ex the earning the credit is you pass the class and then College and Career Readiness that later measure is you got the credential so we get double points if a kid finishes the class and passes the test thank

064you see that's what happens when it's hot up here yes so accelerated enrollment means bernardet took um AP Langan and she passed the course you get credit for her College and Career Readiness she took the AP laying exam and made a five and you get credit for that as well it has to be a five well I'm using a five as an exam could be three four but I would have made a five Bern bernad only got five okay Miss for for bringing me back to the water H I was just going to say to Mr Brigman we can certainly push back we can ask Senator mow get our local legislation to look at that to see why you know if they can possibly make that happen because you're right if that affects five kids

065that would be something so it's worth it's worth trying thank okay Mr katmar so on that note higher ed is Big Business and Georgia does not mandate that a percentage of admitted students be instate students and some schools that have National reputations if you look at their enrollment foreign and out of state students have exponentially increased so that's a big issue as well I don't know if that's one of the drivers for the Georgia match optout option but I suspect it may have something to do with it um one comment and a question um I was uh reading I it was either in the Wall Street Journal in New York Times this week about School attendance being a problem Nationwide and I saw our data here you know we went from 91% before covid to

06656% postco and we're post postco yeah we're not even postco we post postco and if you're not in school your Readiness score isn't going to go up you're at or above grade level reading is probably not going to grow up you're not getting the accelerated enrollment credit you're not completing a pathway now some of these kids are thriving in remote school and online but that's a fundamental issue that we really need to address and I'm not saying the district is doing something wrong because I know I know what we've done on ATT tendance since I've been on this board and we have put in a Yan's effort and a y woman's effort on that um but that's a problem 56% and then if you also look at the accelerated enrollment at 74% versus College and

067career redness 51% not every child who's in an AP class takes the AP test M and I still haven't figured out if that's a child decision a family decision a teacher decision a school decision and I don't think we tell I don't think we block anybody from taking it but I think we also pay for a certain number of tests and there may be guidance hey I don't think you're ready for this you know maybe you don't take the test so there 51% at College and Career ready versus 74% accelerated enrollment my take away from all this though is we got to fix attendance first that's our second Northstar um if we're going to have one and then my question is this for for years I and several people on the board have advocated to

068have to mandate a financial literacy class before you get out of high school um I know we knew we do Junior Achievement in middle school for most of our kids that has positive results I know the state passed a mandatory financial literacy requirement two years ago I think we're rolling it out this year or maybe we did last year my question is is that added are we going to add that to our 24 credit requirement or is it just a mandatory class as part of your Social Studies or history credits how are we handling that so we have not looked at making it a separate requirement to increase our requirements to 25 units we have not discuss making it a separate graduation requirement of course it's mandatory and it has to be taken so that's

069something we'll be revisiting we're actually revisiting if you remember we talked about this in the fall the overall requirements because we have to come back as well and talk about the EOC because while we are still accounting for that test being 20% of a student's final grade and in the fall of this year the state decided that it can actually be downgraded to 10 10% it is up to the local Lea to decide between the 10 and the 20 what percentage we would like for that exam to count in those four ELC courses and so we did not want to change Midstream on our families because that information came out after school was open and later but we are um looking at that with a group of counselors and principles to determine what that recommendation

070will be that we will be bringing back to the board and then I'm going to let Miss Morel speak a little bit to um AP and the changes that we've that we've seen since we've been back as it relates to those exams but and before we do that let me ask something about the end of course calculation since you were talking about it I saw it said passing the end of course test is not required for graduation correct but we count it right now is 20% so if you get a d on the end of course test but it brings you to an F on your average are you passing that course in chadam County you are not okay so you still have to pass you still have to pass the entire course to get

071the credit so depending on your grade when you go into the end of course test and then depending on that score you could have a you can failed the test as we've shared and be making an 85 on the course you failed the test with a 68 you still will pass the course I okay I see I see kids doing that math too yes Howard HW yes thank thank you for for your report I know that there are five indicators that we use and you did a great job on the Ford indicators to provide opportunity for Success now Miss B you you have a wealth of experience and years in high school and as Mr casmar mentioned about he referenced that attendance what do you see is the major problem problem and what it's not

072a whole lot you can do as as far as providing opportunity for that particular indicator as opposed to the other four but I know that that is a concern and is not only a concern at the high school level it's concern at the middle school level as well and it could be a concern at the elementary level so can you just talk about um the trends that you've noticed throughout the years that's going on with with the attendance so I will tell you as you said as an old high school person I think that and we go back to that ugly word the the the co word but um pre-co we had done a mammoth job as Mr katchmar said as it relates to attendance and the importance of attending school and then we went

073into covid and it was so it was the virtual world and the online options and so and working with students and families and the social emotional piece all of that played into it so Upon returning to school it has been a challenge for some to understand that the modality is face Toof face instruction and so you need to show up and I'm just speaking real now as that High School person um and it does trickle down and be in school and face to face and I I see a headshake because it it trickles down to middle school so working with that mindset has been our challenge since then um and so we um beseech our families to actually partner with us and to get on board and many parents are looking to us sometimes the

074School principles to help with that as stated every school pretty much has that as a focus area in their school Improvement plan but at the end of the day I'll tell you as a high school person as a principal of middle AR High it is a collective responsibility but we have to start at home getting them to school because you're right we can't impact any of those things unless they're with us and receiving instruction we do a great job on support and all of those pieces and wrapping our arms around them to help them be successful but we need you to show up and be present in that moment with us so we have to work on again here's that how they're all interwoven and connected that whole Content Mastery piece where we talked about

075student engagement right and making sure that we're doing our due diligence in that area so that I am showing up but bernardet wants to show up as well there's a hook there's a reason that I want to be present in your school every day and so that is our responsibility to deliver on that end making it where our kids want to be engaged but also our family's understanding yes we need you engaged and at the end of the day there's not much you can do well I won't say that cuz then Jay-Z will make me look bad so I won't say there's not much you can do without a diploma but we know in order for our kids to be successful because everybody's not going to leave high school and be JayZ and make a

076billion for our kids to be successful we need you to show up attend school get that high school diploma we're not saying you got to go to college but we are saying we have a plethora of options we can prepare you for whether it's enlisted enrolled our entrepreneurship we have all of those options that we've talked about just add the engagement piece is so important um when I walk classrooms a lot of times even when kids are showing up you see heads on desks uh earphones on um kids come out of compliance not necessarily because they see relevance and meaningfulness in school and I think as we consider being future oriented as a district we have to understand that the old model the way in which we all came to high school does not necessarily

077align with our current and future generations of children we are dealing with new types of kids that have different things that we never had as kids exposed to us yet the high school model has not changed very much still walk in every school you see a classroom with a teacher with 25 to 30 kids in front of the class um so I I do believe it is a partnership but I think we also have to think about what does High School look like and it's next generation of kids and how we create schools where kids see relevancy and meaningfulness you want to come to school when you're an athlete cuz you know you got a game on Friday you want to come to school when you're in the band CU you know the band's going

078to be in the stands playing the night of the the basketball the football game or you're a cheerleader or you're in the Beta Club so how or in art we talked about art this morning so really creating the those environments where kids want to be in school because a kid can come to school but they have mentally dropped out they're coming out of compliance they're not really coming to um enjoy the benefits of an education so that they can move on and be successful in in life so um that's one of the things I hope to be able to bring to the district is how do we revisit models of instruction we also have to think about that in terms of teachers teachers are not going into the profession now the way they went into

079the profession because the next generation of teachers are very different they don't think like I thought you get into it you do it for 30 years teachers now get into it g into and they are gone and um the model in which we have now does not appeal to this generation of Educators so I think there's a lot of work we can do around attendance um and I'm excited to explore that further okay um so our teacher of the year actually has a I hope it's allowed that I can make a comment um every day I get an email from a student I don't have a ride to school I want to be there that is an issue with our choice schools that is truly I'm witness it every day affecting attendance I don't know

080you know that that's a difference if you look at all of those choice schools I don't know a solution but just to give y'all another heads up I mean and you could go and pull stem's data but I you know there's three students every day they've missed at least well over 23 24 days because nobody can drive them to school um Miss Hall just very quickly also I'm hoping that we have a good relationship Mr bringman with our business community so that employment opportunities aren't pulling our kids away from school I know that um many times I see people working in these Frontline positions and I tell you they look like they're about 15 16 years old and it's during the school day so I'm hoping that we have some sort of uh mechanism to

081make sure that our employers are working with us and not hiring our teenagers outside of the hours they should yeah and so for those that are enrolled and with us I will tell you that our work-based learning teachers do a great job of monitoring that and making sure that if you are enrolled in school and you are working that schedule fits in with the courses you need to actually graduate so our ctae work-based learning teachers do a really good job in that piece okay so I have one question under the um hang on under College and Career readiness percentage of 12th graders entering tcsg I guess that's Technical College or USG without remediation without remediation our total is 27% what does that mean so I'm going to you have to go in when you go

082in when you go into the ccrp hit the button and it it will give you all the scores so I'm going to let Dr may break down the calculation so that it comes out accurate from a data and accountability person let me pull up that section so I can provide you that information so if you a College and Career first indicator without remediation so if you hit the blue button it will give you the total breakdown so while she is doing that I'd like to have the opportunity because I think we we were having that conversation we wanted to finish answering Mr katar's questions we ended up going down a different path he asked about the AP exams and the actual testing of AP yes so one thing that has Chang with advanced placement um

083one of the things I do want to highlight where we're talking about advanced placement the Savannah chattam County public school system this summer participated in APAC um which is the first time back for the AP college board AAL conference we actually had probably more uh participants with teachers AP coordinators principles um and other support staff members that not only presented on the national stage and shared our Savannah chattam County Public School System story but also of course collaborated and learned a lot of best practices one of the things that college board has done most recently is made a big shift so around a lot of the different conversations that we're having today they too realize just like the international bleared World they realize our students want different options they want flexibility and the like so

084as it relates to AP what they've done now um even some of our schools of course will engage in digital exams like they did last year some of them are growing in terms of the administrations as well as it relates to enrollment in the AP classes in order for students now of course if they're sitting in an AP class they enrolled they have to register for the exam in order for them to have access to the resources and materials that includes the classroom teacher so AP classroom is something that college board actually rote out maybe about at least approximately three to five years ago so what college board did was streamline the curriculum if you will um from the breath to go more in depth um and also to make sure that all teachers there

085was a Level Playing Field if you will across um all of the nation and so with that being said that has of course afforded the opportunity for if you are enrolled in the class in order to show up and be able to take assessments you of course need to sit for the examination so that has actually helped us um by having AP classroom okay so I wanted to clear that up Dr May y yes so per that statement what that means is you have to look at the tcsg requirements and you have to match those to so first and formost this is a lagging indicator so we're talking about the 12th graders that would have completed the previous year and for those who went into those technical colleges whether they met their criteria for entrance

086into the technical college without remediation at the technical college okay what is what is USG so that's the university system same indicator but it's the university system so according to the U us so it's either the technical system so those are two so you have to look at their criteria and those are going to be different there's a different set of criteria for the technical colleges versus the university system of Georgia so there will be additional requirements with the university system of Georgia versus the technical college and that's just for our students to meet their entrance criteria so when they say without meeting remediation it would mean remediation at their site which me and so I think so so I'm trying to understand so yes sir are they saying that our kids are the only

087way that that our kids will make it at those those schools is they would need remediation for those requirements correct and that would be yes but of course you also have to take into account that only takes into account those students within our district that have opted to go either to Technical College or college within the state of Georgia so that percentage is going to only reflect those students who are pursuing a 2-year or 4-year degree within the state of Georgia and then you have to look at whether that student once they have graduated from the district and moved into either site meets their full entrance criteria without additional remediations what that means is um a number of colleges will require so if you do not take the SAT or the act for example because

088you can opt out that is optional at a lot of colleges they may have you um as part of their admission criteria sit and take something that's known as an acup Placer if you do not meet certain levels of performance on that acup Placer you will be earmarked for either taking remedial math or remedial English so those are the two courses so without really needing remediation and either English or math so 70 70 73% of our kids would need remediation no sir because 100% do not go to no I'm I I'm talking about those kids that apply hang on those kids that apply and and go to the university system of Georgia those forget everybody else those kids that go are you saying that 73% of those kids are in need of remediation so I'm

089sorry can I jump in I think what needs to happen is that when we do this presentation in February we need to actually research that indicator to dig deeper and give you that data based on the way that the state reports it okay okay so I have I think that would help that's fine no that's fine I have one more and Sir can I add one thing before you move on and and the reason why I was shaking my head no and I would not want to say that 73% of our students require remediation at all is because that is one of the components of the College and Career Readiness note the OR at the very end so it's for those who choose I understand yeah understand no no I understand that okay here's one

090that bothers me military read Readiness score based on the ASVAB uh Dr Mary I hope you're looking at this right yes sir what is that percentage the new for this year for let's see the ASAP score that was the new one that was added when we did the actual when the state did theend in terms of the qualifying score to meet military Readiness it is an asab score of 31 no but no what is the score on on the Readiness the percentage many students do we have that meet that was the percentage of students in who completed the asab I um I will be able to provide you that percentage at a later time no but no according to the ccpi only 1.5% of our kids are passing that right but it could be we

091also have to take into account we have to go back and provide you the actual number it been fact um I I do want to note that very few of our students in fact elect to take the asbab as the option there for most of them it would be act um sat some other but it would not be asbat we have very few who in fact complete that okay all right all right so I I I I guess in general what I'm saying is this I all about our our graduation rate I salute us for having an 89.1% graduation rate what I am more concerned about is our College and Career Readiness score because that's what it is it's not a piece of paper it's what that piece of paper represents and so I would

092you know we've got work to do I I I think you know we're up to 65.4% that's fantastic but I just you know we know we can do better and we're working on it right Mr chair yeah I I would ask that we look at this in academic Excellence this is that's kind of where we're able to dig down into these things I personally have seen students who have a high school transcript of a B+ who hit the acup Placer and it knocks them down twice so that measurement of you're not College ready because you didn't pass the acup Placer is not accurate um for for all students it's how did you do on that test that day versus what did you truly absorb what's your cumulative knowledge so it's very difficult to dis still

093our progress into a yes or no response to were they ready or not on the basis of that USG I understand so and and I and I think you do but I I I I admire what you're trying to get to you're trying to get to how are we doing and how do we fix it sitting on the college side I'm like that's broken and I'm watching smart kids come in who are being defined as not College ready when they absolutely are and I'm seeing them do things that accuplacer and other tests say they can't can't do but this is really something terrific for us to chew on in academic Excellence if we can find a way to um get get onto that agenda okay Mr katmar uh the related question is you know we

094teach according to the state adopted content standards and those are what we test on I'd like to know are they aligned with the assessments the university system and the technical college are providing and if they're not that's something to know um but then if they're not maybe we up our local standards so that they're aligned with those at least for those kids who were going to college but it it's why we used to test why we used to give the Iowa Test 15 years ago and then we got away from it because kids were killing it on there showing great you know progress and then not doing well on the Georgia standards because they test something different at the end of the day a test one day is a test one day um so I'd

095also like to know alignment because that'll tell us something about what we're producing as well thank you and so to that point our final wrap up will be to remind that we'll have our ccrpi uh presentation where you'll see much of this again in February with Dr May and her team and I hopefully we'll be able to dig deeper into the High School portion of this through our College and Career Readiness index but understanding that that is why we brought you this information because while graduation rate is a different component the three components still work together as we produce our graduates and that is the graduation rate and those requirements Readiness and Content Mastery they're all interwoven and they're all important as we turn out our students for postsecondary options so thank you Dr bringman

096on that I would love to see the attendance Broken Out by school but also by cohort and then if we could get like the seventh and eighth grade cohorts that are going to be becoming high school to see if it's if it is one of those Co things that like you know um Dr Watson I's children were freshman covid you know as they went through what was there attendance rate the students that were in middle school during Co and has that is is there some statistical anomaly that that's even worse coming or or have we already seen the worse or is it geographical um would be interesting to know because yeah that yeah they got to go to school thank you guys thank you all right financials can I actually have questions good afternoon everyone

097I'm trying to remember my short class in um making this large can I have some help CL control l l good I did it um the financials that we will be um sharing with you today are the November the supposed to be November numbers excuse me just a minute let me see [Music] yeah doesn't like that we got here you got your not you know [Music] to the numbers be that you should have copies of are for our November um year to to date numbers um in fund 100 our total revenues for the year to date we're at 50% of um our budgeted revenues our local property sales taxes excuse me our local property taxes we are currently at 55 almost 56% of budget um compared to last year we were at um we were

098at 56% our total expenditures so far year to date we're at 28.2% of budget for our teachers um and that's a normal range for what we would expect this time of the year our um par actual par professionals and um teacher assistant we're at 32% of budget which we are expecting about 30% our total general fund expenditures year-to date we're at 32% compared to 31% last year overall um for this time of the year we have nothing negative to report as far as our financials go we're on target with um with all of our um all of our numers ERS um we finished up our audit last month so we will be able to report those to you um this time next month um so at this point with all of our other funds they

099are on target at this time also um I will take any questions that you may have um at this time any questions okay thank you um there he is okay we going to the next agenda item and I do apologize because I could have swore I downloaded the correct month um but so that's on me um we have agenda item uh general fund interest the division of finance does now request approval to increase the general fund fund 100 interest income budget from $650,000 to $3 million in October 22 2022 the interest rate for our income was 2.8 6951 per in October 2023 the interest rate on our income went up to 5.38 31% the interest rates have increased in the past year therefore we are increasing the interest income Lying by $2,350 th000 thus be

100it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the budget amendment of 2,350 for the interest income account line mentioned above uh move moved by uh Mr gatar seconded by Dr Coston BR uh discussion all right all in favor that's unanimous thank you the next item is for bid 23-53 gasoline and diesel fuel for charam County and other various agencies this is a piggyback agreement we have with the county of Chatum to purchase fuel staff recommends approval to use chattam count East bid 23-53 gasoline and diesel fuel for Cham County and other various agencies to purchase gasoline and diesel fuel for District vehicles at an estimated cost annual cost of $3.1 million thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the district's use of chadam County's bid

10123-53 d6b gasoline and diesel fuel for Cham County and other various agencies for an initial performance period of one year year with four additional one-year renewal options at an estimated annual cost of $3,100 th000 um motion by Michael Johnson second by Connie Hall any discussion all in favor oh wait is it okay Dr bringler is a 3.1 million our portion our that's our portion so are included in the various agencies that's our portion 3.1 million is our portion okay um is there a way to figure you don't have to tell me now but I would love to know by buying it this way what we actually get locked in at or is it a floating amount we get that to you yeah yes I'm glad we're actually playing nice with other municipalities though that is

102that is nice yes any other discussion all in favor all right pass this unanimously your first official duty all right uh moving on long range facilities plan no not yet that's it yeah yes the next thing is our long range facilities plan yes play video first um oh okay good afternoon good afternoon this proposal for long range facilities plan Phase 1 action school year 2425 in accordance with board policy FD facilities long range planning Parson environmental and infrastructure group was contracted to provide an assessment of District facilities for the development of a long range facility plan lrfp the assessment has findings for each facility's physical condition along with the Deferred maintenance cost and facility condition index scores information through this assessment reports each school's educational suitability including demographic Graphics enrollment capacity utilization and Technology Readiness

103based on this assessment and other considerations including Financial impacts legal mandates Transportation Route efficiencies population shift and programmatic impacts the district has developed a plan that seeks to optimize the usage of facilities improve the configuration of attendance boundaries and strengthen the effective of programs for implementation beginning school year 2025 District staff have reviewed facility data assessed the tender boundaries configurations held parents meetings and presented information for Community stakeholders based on continued analysis and consideration of feedback received the district now seek seeks approval for the proposed recommendations to improve capacity levels at identified schools and strengthen the use of District resources the phase one proposal provides recommendations for the renovation repurposing reconfiguration or closure of certain facilities further recommendations are offered for modifications of attendance boundary lines at identified schools this approach aligns with the district

104goals to address capacity concerns utilization rates and improve Pupil Transportation Services thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the proposed recommendations for school reconfigurations and attendance boundary modifications as identified in the long range facility plan phase one for implementation beginning school year 2025 phase two addressing future projects will be submitted for future considerations okay um uh Michael Johnson uh moves it's been seconded by Miss Hall we do have have someone um from the public that wanted to speak on this I don't know if they're still here or not um Mrs Lena Ali and she is not here okay any other discussion Mr catmar so the longrange facility plan that's on board docs is 67 Pages we've looked at kind of a pull out from that that's what we

105saw this morning I I saw some of the proposed maps in what's on board docs so I'm number one I'm going to support this and I'll say why in a minute but I'm supporting it with the understanding that what was rolled out this morning at informal is included in the 67 page document and if there's a conflict what we saw this morning in informal is is the plan it is okay second um um we looked at this plan last month there was Community feedback there was Community participation um there was uh a board delay District staff went back um kind of scrub the plan some more and I think we have a better outcome now um and I know we've said this before but I wanted to say it during the regular board meeting thank

106you to District staff yes um for the extra time and effort put in in to reimagining this and taking all of the issues into consideration um including feedback from families um I think this plan is the best result out of a lot of choices that we didn't want to have to make but we're being forced to make because of growth on the west side and because of other challenges as well what I particularly like about the revised plan is that we've built in um flexibility for future growth um and for unknowns and and what I want to say is this plan has specific components including grandfathering options for students over the next three years in certain schools but we may have to revisit this plan next year or two years from now if some of

107the assumptions we were making over the last few months and up to today turn out not to be accurate or if like has happened there's a new Hyundai plant coming that we didn't know about four years ago when we were planning our original East blast and doing our original planning so I think this is a a great result um I hope we can keep it as is over the next three years and Beyond but given what's happening in Western chadam County there may be tweaks down the road and we just have to be patient and maintain the willingness to be flexible to best serve our kids our families and our staff if I might you you're correct Mr Mr catmar and just like the local facilities plan which is a five-year plan that we have

108to file with the state we review that annually just based on changes of what needs to be taken into consideration so certainly once this is adopted it doesn't sit on the shelf and we just implemented we'll continue to do our due diligence and Analysis and making sure that we're meeting the needs of the districts and if there is certainly a need to bring changes forward we'll bring those recommendations back to you with the supporting documentation thank you uh apparently Miss hly did come back in Miss [Music] hly yes please sorry I thought it was later no worries have three minutes all right hey good afternoon yeah um I'm Lena Ali I'm here to speak on behalf of immigrant families and the sccpss I would like to bring attention to the long-term facilities plan and the

109continued updates that have been made to it it's great to see that yall have been listening to the constituents and making some updates to the plan uh today during your informal meeting you brought up the needs and we completely agree uh based on the conversations we've had with Hispanic paren parents we work with a lot have uh a lot has been unclear the past few weeks about the execution of the plan uh before fully deciding on the plan or making a vote we ask that you have a more transparent process and have more information readily available with enough time for Public Access uh for example a summary of the long range facilities plan from November 1st is currently easy to find on the SEC PSS homepage but the 67 page Phase 1 document with updated

110information is not easy to find and it's not offered in Spanish yet um it was shared as an attachment to the agenda today uh also since a lot remains unclear we still have the following questions please consider this uh before implementing the major changes this potential plan we have on students uh one how is the district planning to share the updated adjustments with families who don't speak English and how can they approve their feedback and how can they provide their feedback uh two what will happen to the DLI dual language program at Gold three you have mentioned there will be a grandfathering process will this be an option for elementary students if not why not uh four will enough staff be hired before moving of students um to ensure students get the classes they need

111uh we don't want a repeat of what happened to some ESL students from Groves High School five if the student remain at Gold how long will will it take for the required repairs to be made or for a new building to be built six if if the GMG multicamp campus is now being considered to be 6 through 12 what happens with the funding that was set for gold prek through 5 although these changes are POS hopefully going to help address the transportation and overcrowding issues our district is facing I ask that the board members prioritize uh transparency and keep in mind the children being impacted thank you for your time thank you very much okay anyone um Mr Johnson um I know staff is I'm pretty sure that the rest of the um my board

112members know that I was when the when this um plan first came out I was probably the loudest um antagonistic person when it came to this plan um however like Mr what Mr cmore said um we kind of Pumped the brakes a little bit staff went out we had a town hall meeting out in the sth district and staff really listen to the constituents out there before that staff listened to the constituents from and the families from gold Elementary as well there have been a whole lot of different um versions of this plan and I and I have to agree with Mr cashar that this is the best plan that we can do with what we have today um is it perfect no is there is any plan going to be perfect no are you

113going to make everybody happy no how however this brings in this this plan it understands the history of the areas areas mainly affected in West chatam it understands grandfathering and put puts that human element into the plan and it shows that the district is willing to listen to the people it affects on a day-to-day basis so with that being said even though if this was going to be voted on last month I would have voted no but due to the changes and due to the hard work of staff I will be voting yes and I hope the rest of my board members do as well thank you very much okay uh Dr Howard Hall then Miss Miss Hall yeah you did but how would Howard had something to say for okay all right well M

114will be very quick um I think this shows oh are you who you call goad goad okay I'll second the tradition used to be that the first person to speak on the action is the person who made the motion and the second person to speak on the action is the second that kind of died and so she wasn't being rude she was just falling back in a tradition it's all good it's all good now who would you to speak go ahead Connie Hall miss Connie Hall all right okay I just want to say um in in tune with what uh Michael was saying and Sean that I think what this shows is why I've always said that we're a board of Distinction we did not hang our OS on the fact that we made a

115decision that we could not ever change we saw different data more exclusive you know inclusive data and all and that led us to decide yes we can make some changes here that are going to be good for our citizens so I commend us on that and I want the public to see that we are a board who can make a decision see where it needs to be upgraded corrected whatever and we're eager to come back and make it right so I want that to be a part of the record absolutely thank you Miss Hall Dr Howard Hall yes we often we often hear the term data driven decisions this sounds good but we have really displayed what it really looks like because there's two types of data you have your quantitative and qualitative this is

116a very good example of how we utilize our qualitative data by listening to our constituents to our students teachers parents not only listening to them but taking surveys having small group meetings M writing notes listening to them oneon-one conversations and that's made a very huge impact and we I like to thank the team for your hard work with this we know that there is significant growth in West chadam County that has always been a a concern for me from the day I was elected to serve on the school board we know that in West chadam County it continues to grow grow there is not going growth there is growing so I would like to continue us with this for us to continue as we work through the phases that we really do consider determining where

117a new high school will be built in West chattam County simply because we know what's going on with the growth we have to first of all determine whether or not it would be Northport windworth or the POA area we have to determine the design and most importantly how we're going to pay for it but overall I am very thankful I appreciate the work that's been done and this is what diversity looks like when you communicating effectively thank you thank you very much uh M Kowski then Dr bringman um thank you so thank you also to the team to the staff for all of your hard work and for um as many of my colleagues have said for listening for the parents who are going to be um I'm very grateful that we now have the

118grandfathering option that has has been Avail made available to our middle and high school students for the parents that are going to be evaluating those options I hope that you will truly consider all the options before you um I know the I think the impulse for a lot will be keep your child where they are and I'm very grateful that we have that opportunity but I also think there's a lot of um misperceptions about many of our schools we heard some of those misperceptions that are last meeting and I think that our schools all of our schools offer diverse opportunities and it may well be that the new school to which you are being zoned may be a better fit for your child I'm not you know I'm grateful that we have that opportunity to

119provide that flexibility to our families I'm just saying I think there's opportunities to evaluate those decisions with open minds and I hope that our parents will do just that and thank you again to the team for your hard work and your dedication to this process Dr bringman yeah I think we all want to say thank you um some of the people that haven't been thanked I would say all of the parents that came to to small town meetings that came to board meetings that wrote emails um H and phone calls and phone calls um I'd like to thank uh the board members that that took the brunt of this uh Dr Howard hall for what she did for her constituents Mr Michael Johnson for what he did um Miss Hall and Dr Hoskins Brown have

120also um had us pump the brakes on changes that were following but but we're going to have you know it's phase one there's going to be other phases so we've time um but I loved that we listened we we met when we didn't meet here we're we're also meeting in in smaller groups with the districts St so I I don't even want we'd have to have a meeting to figure out how many meetings were were were were made to come up with the plan um and for this really to be um our superintendent's first big change you know and uh stealing some of Dr Howard Hall's um discussion on data driven you know she was looking at it at the beginning I'm sure from more of a quantitative because we had a lot of problems

121issues that could be solved just with numbers um and then that quantitative morphed into a lot more qualitative um I'm sure she's learned a bunch about the district which is going to help her um so a a great process that is going to transform the district but also I think has transformed our board um helped our Community hopefully to understand that that as as board members have said we listen we change we're willing to change we're willing to to pump the brakes um and I know that everybody on the staff that worked on this is never going to be congratulated enough for the hard work to have to go back and erase everything off of the PowerPoint and erase everything off of a dry race marker and everything off of a map and recount all

122those students and where they would go and the countless hours that were put into it but I'm glad that we have the staff that will do that because they're thinking about what's best not just on a number being counter side but what's best for our community moving forward um so thank you to everybody really thank you this is this is a win thank you all right I me as well everybody go ahead doc ctin Brown I won't say the same thing though um I'll simp say that no one worked a 40 or even a 60 hour week um while working out this issue so thank you to the staff for the effort that they put in um I think one of the main lessons that we learned from this is um there is strength in

123humility and I think the district has shown that um that that we don't have a problem being humble and saying okay you know what we need to we need to think a little bit more and the other thing is is that we should not assume don't ever assume what people know we should not assume what we think the community knows and the community should not assume that we're making decisions knowing everything that they would have us know because obviously what's happened in this case is we got some information even after the initial information we got some more that made us reflect so communication is always valuable and it's okay to say to someone are you thinking this are you doing this are you taking this action with the awareness of this fact this fact that

124is important to me as a parent or this fact that is important to me as a taxpayer um and if you are can we talk about how I'm feeling and experiencing this that may be important I think we demonstrated and did that but I just kind of wanted to say that more explicitly we can't assume what what we think people know and the criteria upon which decisions are being made that's why we have this forum that's why there's a microphone there that's why we hear from you in all different types of formats so thank you thank you everybody for fully participating in all of the processes available um that got us here and thank you for the team thank you very much any more discussion there be there being none I will call the vote

125uh all in favor of accepting the the phase one uh facility plan please raise your hand it is unanimous oh thank you very much okay and you thought we were done we're not um okay so now for Larry Jackson has some good news yes we do have some good news on December the 18th 2023 Governor Brian km announced a onetime $1,000 State retention payment supplement for K12 Educators School support staff and state employees the district will grow up for tax implication to $1,350 for four-time employees and $675 for part-time employees to pay for their additional Monies to gross up the retention supplement and to provide the supplement to all employees an additional use of free ,8 128,129 will be needed from fund balance the general fund portion Ed includes a grant of 4,497 18 from

126the state and the use of fund balance of 3,828 177 of fund balance to pay the general fund portion Bri from the start is providing a $1,000 retention supplements for Georgia prek lead and assistant teachers teacher eligibility for the supplement payment was based upon the prek roster data as of December the 20th 2023 the total amount of the prek grant is expected to be $1 14644 that amount is shown in the chart below included in positions that the district's plan to to support we calculated 5,632 positions 3,631 point4 positions are being paid by the Governor State Grant the 136 positions by the prek briak from the start but the district is picking up the tab for everyone else that's either a general fund not QBE earned or paid for out of another grant for example

127tile one tile 2 Etc there are 1,864 point6 positions that the district is paying for locally I do want to point out some criteria that we're using for the payments we're including all active employees whether they're fulltime or part-time as of December the 18th 2023 and there is they will expect to see this pay the supplement on their paychecks that are dated for this Friday the 12th all resignations and retirements that were effective prior to December the 18th were not eligible however all new hires and all temporary employee contracts that started after December 18th through today's date will be evaluated after 90 work days and they will be eligible for the supplement to be paid by April 30th of 2024 anyone hired after today would not be eligible for the supplement now with all that

128being said thus be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board of approves the amendment of the teacher and support staff retention supplement budgeted expenditures and revenues by 7, [Music] 877,000 to pay the additional Monies to gross up the retention supplement and to provide the supplement to all employees an additional use of 3, 828,000 $177 will be needed from fund balance also upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approves the amendment of the teacher and support staff retention supplements in fund 560 for prek budgeted expenditures and revenues by [Music] $146,400 as shown in the above tables uh Mr Dr bringman and seconded by Mr Johnson any discussion Dr bringman oh on December 18th y'all were just as surprised as I was when Governor Kemp announced this but I loved knowing

129at the time that the district would make right I got telephone calls that day I knew I couldn't say anything I said I'm sure we'll have some meetings in the past we have done X Y and Z I will we advocate for that just hold your horses um because typically these are only for state funded positions so thank you Mr Jackson for for for getting everybody to understand that if we would have just given out the money that the state gave us that would be $1,000 to a lot of our employees but there would have been $1,864 of them that wouldn't have received anything because they are funded purely by our local tax dollars or by grants or probably some other buckets they wouldn't have received that funding that means a kindergarten teacher on one

130side of the hall that is funded at the QBE by a state position and the kindergarten teacher across the hall that the district has said we want smaller classroom sizes would have been treated differently and that's not right and I love knowing that when I put my head on the pillow on December 18th that that wasn't going to happen here because our district would make it right I was even more excited when I had my small group meeting to discuss this budget that the district said we have enough money and fund balance to actually make this as close to possible a true1 th000 bonus okay I am a state funded position I teach I got my $1,000 and he got taxed down to 600 and something I was still happy okay cuz it wasn't in

131my budget for the year so anything is is is icing yeah gravy but it was so so for me to sit down and y'all right off the bat go we're going to level this up so that for the vast majority of our people and some of them might actually get a little bit more than a thousand because it's really hard math to do all individually that most people at our district when they get this are going to get a full, after taxes that's all awesome it's awesome that we have a fund balance that we can do that for our employees because they work hard for us so thank you to District staff because again this wasn't something that I'm sure on that day Larry was not like I need some more work let me find

132some more work and then Brian Kemp was like here's some more work um and and you knew that we would ask so you're like I better just already start building it for everybody and figuring out where we have that funding so thank you to all of your staff that made this happen to HR having to probably do all head counts to figure out when people were hired there's just so much work that goes into doing something right for our employees and I am happy to sit here with this in front of me today to know that checks are going to hit Friday and people are getting a Christmas bonus to start off January so thank you so much to the staff for making it right for making it easy for us to go I I

133I if you vote no against this I will see you in the parking lot just let us get out of [Laughter] okay any other comments oh about Mr Johnson then Dr Howard Hall uh real quick um he took a lot of what I was going to say so I also say ditto to Dr bringman but another that I do want to mention is that I've actually had a few people who went on board dos and who knew that we were going to be using some fund balance uh we've been told um by outside agencies that we probably need to be using some of our fund balance so because this is a one-time expense I and do I would like to spend $3.8 million no but what if we have the money and we have and

134we need to spend the money so let's spend it on the people who make the district work and that's our employees um one thing also that I do want to mention which has I don't know if it has been mentioned is that um according to the governor's office and everything else is that this was not the bonus was was also not for elected officials or and it wasn't for central office people it was for those employees who are actually on the ground to do who do the everyday work who have the who touch the the students who touch those kids to make those lives better so this use of fund balance I I do not have one issue with it um it it also shows though that we still have way too much money in

135our fund balance and that is um I would love to figure out a way to get the fund balance to where it is and I know that's a finance committee um job as well as possibly figuring out a way to um roll back the military as much as possible so we're not having to have too much on the fund balance next time Dr Howard Hall I won't be long at all this is just the importance of us recognizing the diverse contributions of all of our employees because we know that there are three funding sources we use the state federal and local and according to to the governor is only state all of our employers are are important to us we value what they do and thank you for the new term grossen up gross it

136up anyone else all right in fear of being beat up in the parking lot no just just kidding see there just okay okay Aon Rogers okay uh all in favor raise your hand unanimous thank you and there's more one more good news item the US Department of Education has awarded secc PSS this was off the agenda we thought this was no no we're an agenda agenda okay the US Department of Education has awarded sccpss $4 million for a 5-year project prevent Grant to support Target schools for physical year 2023 through 2028 the grant funding will be used to address the impacts of community Violence experence by students at the five identified Target schools Hodge and gasten elementary schools Duren and Myers Middle School and Beach High School this includes professional development for school staff at

137each site hiring a community Navigator and hiring social workers to support designated schools will actually be one social worker per School additionally students will have increased access to mentors Mental Health Services small group interventions and Cor ation of Social Services the division of academic Affairs requests the board approve the budget for the grant funds for both expenditures and revenues as proposed in the chart below thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approve the budget amendment of $4 million for FY 23 through FY 28 project prevent Grant okay uh by Mr Johnson seconded by Miss Bowski uh any discussion good all in favor that is unanimous thank you very much okay okay all right so we have several people that have uh signed up to speak today um once again we

138uh we do have a time limit of of of three minutes and I have just discovered that I have a mute button um just kidding um so first we have Mr Muhammad Absa good evening even evening uh first let me introduce myself I am Muhammad na Abu originally from Syria now I am American citizen well I am in a very critical situation after uh a lot of uh people spoke about uh success of Education about the success of students I'm sorry I'm going to speak about one experience which is very bad that happened in one of the schools to my daughter I'm going to speak about a drug addiction and drug dealing in our schools I don't mean all schools it is a private experience I don't mean all the schools of Savanah maybe you

139deny it maybe you agree with me maybe you you you don't want it to to speak about it but it it is a special private experience that happened to me and to my daughter we came to Savana 2017 uh she went to primary school she was an ordinary girl she was successful in her uh class and uh after she moved into intermediate uh School the problem began the problem she began to skip the classes and she was C many times in the restroom smoking uh I don't know what kind of smoke and uh maybe she is using drugs or something else I don't know about these things so she became very violent she became always skipping classes and uh when she is in high school she shifted three schools from one high school to another

140uh because of her bad behavior because of her violence because she was always coat in the restroom uh using drugs so I began to collect some information she didn't tell me anything she hid everything she didn't tell me anything so I went to some Syrian students to find find out why my daughter goes to the restro why is there any problem concerning what is the problem in the rest rooms so a lot of the Syrian fellows that I know they are from different uh high schools they told me that there are small gangs uh in these schools they uh sell drugs they use dirty methods such as bullying such as forcing especially weak students to buy these drugs and this of course causes violence at home violence in the school and she had a quarrel

141with one of her classmate and her finger was broken so she be my daughter became very violent I know this doesn't happen in all schools of Savannah and I'm sorry I'm speaking about my own experience and I hope it is not the there in all uh schools but uh to my mind if there is such a problem I have some suggestion to solve this problem sir you're we're over your time I'm sorry okay if you'll leave that with our officer no either I say it give me one minute to say the suggestion solve this problem or go ahead go ahead go ahead okay uh uh now uh teaching some parts of the Bible that improve and correct the students behavior as a period every week I hope it will correct the behavior of all students

142and uh this is good uh putting cameras uh and smoke sensors in the restroom this is will make uh the uh uh drug dealers are afraid uh there should be a kind of uh uh uh cooperation between the board of teaching and the administration of the school and the detective department a special phone number should be given to every student to call the the defect uh uh staff or office uh to encourage the student to inform the uh office detective office about the name of the small gang that distribute drugs at uh the schools and uh the and uh this phone should be true otherwise the caller if it is false uh call it he should be put in prison uh uh the teachers should fight using uh uh you know uh they should fight

143drugs by speaking about the harm and the destructive uh consequences of the dictated uh drugs and encourage students to inform the board of teaching uh about the uh these uh uh gangs uh and uh I'm I I hope that the school the board of the school will take St measure with the co with the cooperation of the board of teaching that uh the security guard of the schools should be chosen by the detective department carefully and they should be brave and devoted to their job without fear because a lot of teachers even principal they are afraid of the gangs outside the the school there are big gangs that they cooperate with the small drugs dealer uh uh uh that's everything that I have concern thank you very much and thank you very much thank you

144thank you sir okay uh Mr Rick roony president boss Moss board members Dr Watts uh I'd like to talk about what I think are the top three priorities for 2024 some of this you've talked about already today number one continue the implementation of the science of reading we've started with Alexia training uh letters training for administrators and coaches now it moves to teachers this is very strong start we have to continue with that uh next step I think is the curriculum selection when Kareem Weaver was here last fall he talked about uh curriculum selection and he advised three main criteria number one a demonstrated proof that the curriculum teaches children like our children number two it's easy for teachers to use and three that it's complete it doesn't need add-ons this is a huge uh

145change we have underway cultural methodological and it's going to take uh strong management and perseverance and follow through for a number of years so that's priority number one number two is connected uh Implement a mediation plan for the 10,000 students who are in our schools today who pass through third grade not reading a grade level there's 10,000 of them 10,000 kids and if they don't get help their lives are not going to be good it's going to be a mess so I haven't heard or seen any plans regarding that the third thing and this is something you talked about already today is uh address the dismally low attendance level uh in the report the district put out last September it says I quote missing more than 5 days of school each year regardless of the

146cause begins to impact student academic performance five days so the data that's presented in the attendance is 10% that's 18 days so three and a half times the level that affects performance is what we're measuring on and how are we measuring last year 25% of our students were absent more than 10% of the time in high school it was 45% that's nearly half the kids now I think this is related to the 10,000 kids who passed through third grade not being able to read a grade level if I couldn't read a grade level I wouldn't learn I wouldn't like school I'd feel it was a burden I would feel dumb I would act out I would quit school I would drop out whatever so attendance and read in I think are very related now this

147is a problem the district's recognized you talked about it today there's a task force headed by Dr Miller Fields to address it I think this is an area that can be helped beyond the school itself with Community organizations so I reached out to Dr Miller Fields and offered to see if we couldn't get community organizations to help in this area whether it's churches or Civic groups or clubs or mentors or whatever I think we make a difference so in conclusion three priorities science of reading implementation got to stay on it number two we've got to figure out something to do with these 10,000 kids and number three work the attendance problem thank you thank you Mr rone all right uh Mrs Beth materon good afternoon Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's

148books Scholastic hosts about 120,000 Book Fairs annually according to the publisher which began the practice in 1981 the fairs which generate about $2 million in profits shared with schools in Gifts of books reach about 35 million children annually in 50 states and internationally Savannah chadam County Schools uses Scholastic as a vendor for Book Fairs in many of their schools today I want to share newly available information on Scholastic as a public service announcement since it may not be known to the board superintendent or especially parents unfortunately Scholastic Book Fairs no longer have the reputation they had in the 80s when they were founded in October the following quote was released by the company quote there is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 US states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in

149schools because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools where books can be purchased by kids on their own these laws create an almost impossible dilemma back away from these titles or risk making teachers Librarians and volunteers vulnerable to being fired sued or prosecuted unquote while Scholastic considered making these types of books optional they have decided to continue to offer these books in their fairs Georgia is one of these states that has a law restricting divisive Concepts such as racism and espousing one's personal political beliefs which is also reflected in the savannah chattam County Board policy my question for the board and the superintendent is what type of screening procedure is in place for removing these books that violate law and policy at each School level before children shop in addition Scholastic according to their own

150publication offers 53 gender identity books titles for 8 to 12 year olds and Eight titles in the picture book early reader level gender identity subject matter isn't age appropriate for these respective age children again what is the policy for screening the book fears for these titles before students attend the fairs I'll end with a warning and a request parents please be wary of what book titles are being offered in the Scholastic Book Fairs you may want to attend with your child or opt your child out I ask the school board and superintendent to consider other book fair options to replace Scholastic these other options offer transparency for families critical thinking skills for students and fundraising for schools I will leave you a handout with several options from which to choose and I'll close with a

151quote from a librarian in Detroit Michigan who switched to an alternative to Scholastic what a relief to have a book fair where I don't have to screen every book for questionable content thank you very much thank you very much and I'll leave these with you okay and finally m o gay I don't think she's here she got detained all right thank you okay not not everyone at once I'm Sorry Miss Miss Hall I see some visitors here that I thought had signed up to speak are you were you planning to speak today oh okay I just oh okay thank doing Ultra call um uh uh I will accept a move to adjourn moved by Miss Kowski seconded by Miss Hoskins Brown Dr Hoskins Brown all in favor I thank you everyone