001now here we go [Music] greetings i'm coral hollis with the savannah chatham county board of education police department for safety and security purpose is essential that i provide you with a public safety briefing in the event that we experience an on-scene crisis or emergency first and foremost you need to know where the exit doors are located when directed the public should exit through the doors to the left or the right behind you expeditiously the exit for the cabinet member and board will be behind me through the small doors to the right that leads to the hallway where the bathrooms are located you should ask either the left or the right based on the instructions given by campus place all should go to the assembled area that will be designated by campus police at that time
002if 9-1-1 needs to be called the responsibility will alive with campus police or destiny also if we are in need of an aed prior to arrival of ems that will be located on the left side wall adjacent to the exit door it will be the responsibility of campus police to utilize that or destiny upon the arrival of ems it will be the responsibility of campus police or security personnel that are outside at the time to spot and direct them if we experienced a small fire you should find the fire extinguisher behind me through the small doors where the restrooms are located to the left adjacent to the exit doors thank you and have a great day good afternoon and welcome to this regular board meeting of savannah chatham board of public education this is wednesday
003april 13th 2022. we welcome you to this meeting we had the informal meeting uh uh earlier today and and got a glowing report from our external auditors about um the way our funds are being handled by the district and so we're pleased about that we welcome you this afternoon uh this meeting is being streamed and so whether you're in a different location or here with us we welcome you we're pleased that uh you could be with us today we have a busy and full agenda and uh as we begin i would ask the secretary of the board if proper notice has been given and the advertisement done as it as is required by the law and ms david screen assures me that it has so i say that we are legal and you are welcome
004here uh i'd like to introduce mr whitehead now for these um to introduce the person who will be singing our national anthem good general afternoon teacher at kylo folk school this is his first year here teaching and after the national anthem if you would please remain standing for the pledge [Music] what's up [Music] was [Music] let our flag [Music] my [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] could i have a motion to approve our agenda from dr tony howard thank you dr buck i move that the agenda be approved with the following revisions pull items 9.02 transportation update schedule 9.03 bail schedule fy2223 revisions to items 4.02 deaths items 5.01 recognition superintendents student of the month item 6.02 request to appear before the board item 7.02 policy
005dcj emergency change to the budget for your review and item 8.02 raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine uh zero also like to call dr howard hall for a moment to amend the approved agenda thank you i move that the approved agenda be amended to add item 7.13 resolution celebrating former board member larry laura you heard that motion sucked by ms heinz all in favor raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine 9-0-0 moving on i have several announcements one is that the board accountability committee will meet in this room on thursday april 28th at 3 30 p.m here in whitney complex and i also uh need to announce to make certain that it is in our uh
006written record that we have received a letter of intent from to submit a charter renewal petition for the taipei island maritime academy charter school it stayed march 22nd 2022 and it was received on that same day in the board office likewise we have a letter of intent to submit a charter renewal petition for the coastal empire montessori charter school that was dated on march 22 2022 and was received in our board office on march 23rd 2022. board members do you have any other announcements tonight hearing none um it is always customary that we uh recognize those former employees and students who have uh because of accidents and illness passed away in the last month and there are several this month it's always particularly sad to have to note the loss of a student wesley sean
007dietrich and quit back the second he was an 11th grader at woodville tompkins high school his date of death was april the 1st 2022. we had a retired paraprofessional carol robertson robinson i'm sorry whose daddy to death was uh april 10 2022 and she was at coastal middle school um and then for us on the board particularly mr larry lauer who was a district board member from district six from january uh january 1st 2013 to december the 31st 2018 passed away last month and in honor of his life i am going to ask the song to read a resolution on behalf of the i would board like to say before i begin reading this that um mr lauer's friendship was an unexpected gift to my life if there was ever anyone who was utterly different
008from me it would have been him and he turned out to be just an angel touching my whole existence so um i'm very honored dr buck to get to read this this morning resolution in celebration of former board member mr larry lauer whereas our community lost a valued individual and leader on march 18 2022 with the passing of mr larry lauer and whereas his lifelong commitment to public safety and service will be remembered by his strong will commitment to excellence and work to improve the outcomes for all and whereas his work is remembered as a public education advocate with an unwavering passion for continuous learning through improved offerings and services standing firm for the advancement of public education as a means to improve the outcome for all and whereas larry served as a member of
009the board of public education from january 1st 2013 until december 31st 2018. and whereas his commitment to service continues through leadership roles as a member of the pop board of public education holding board officer positions including vice president and vice brandon pro kampur chair of the board's budget committee and a member of the charter compliance academic excellence board accountability academic calendar transportation and audit committees and whereas his dedication as a public servant for the people of our community provided beneficial impact not only to his leadership decisions but for all whom he had contact with and now being resolved by way of this resolution on the 13th day of april 2022 that the board of public education recognizes the achievements and contributions of larry to our school system the county of chatham and the city of
010savannah and to the great state of georgia and be it further resolved that the board does hereby express appreciation and gratitude for those contributions and for the lifetime of service given by mr larry lauer thank you it is not necessary but i would ask that our unanimous vote be given to uh issuing this information on behalf of the board mrs howard hall makes a motion in the sign seconds all in favor of that say i i and we thank mr bauer for his wonderful service and for most of all his friendship to all of us but as uh as we talk about mr lauer i would also ask we not forget the paraprofessional and the student who were also recognized today like as you stand as we recognize all of them thank you my pleasure
011at this time to recognize our superintendent dr anne lavette for her reporting for other items of businesses officers and members of the board and to our staff and those who are visiting with us today it's my pleasure to share the following report i'd like to begin with our student of the month our featured student of the month representing the month of march attends the stem academy at bartlett and is in seventh grade she has consistently earned high honor roll every quarter and she opted to take a course considered to be difficult by many economics and personal financial literacy honors course where she achieved 100 for the first semester always attentive and organized she's ready to learn each and every day her extracurricular involvement includes the cross-country team which is fourth in the district the award
012of excellence and photography stem reflections national junior honor society swimming and band tennis saxophone she has also participated in the lion king as a school play her love of animals led her to do volunteer work at the pegasus writing academy which provides equine therapy and savannah her long-term goal is to attend college to become a marine biologist gracious gracious resourceful positive are only a few of the numerous adjectives to describe this exceptional leader she treats her peers and teachers with empathy and respect and has taken a clear stand to support her fellow classmates against bullying she states i am determined to get high grades in order to be accepted into the arts academy i know that my seventh grade gpa will help me obtain that goal our student of the month will receive multiple gifts
013for our community partners savannah schools federal credit union um a piece of certificate from donald's pizza a gift certificate for cupcakes from j suite creations and her class will receive printed copies of her favorite book sponsored by our friend eshay for booksellers in addition our student of the month will take home a portrait by upscale images photography provided by savannah chatham county public schools it is indeed my pleasure and it is certainly a point of pride to introduce to you the superintendent student of the month for march 2022 she's coming forward francie tetter [Applause] congratulations a very long time here to celebrate her today also we have dr cave her principal we are always pleased to recognize our students and we are delighted francie to have you with us today we offer you our strongest
014congratulations and we look forward to future uh opportunities to celebrate you and your work again congratulations to you your school family and your personal family congratulations [Applause] the georgia department of education awarded herd elementary school with esteem that is science technology engineering art and mathematics certification on march 24th 2022. if you were on spring break and you were watching the news you probably saw it flash across several times heard elementary became the first steam certified elementary school south east of macon and the first steam certified elementary school in savannah chatham county [Applause] georgia state school superintendent richard woods has named five savannah chatham county public schools um advanced placement honors schools for 2022. these include jenkins high school and new hampshire high school they were named ap access and support schools jacobs high school was
015also named ap stem school sabana arts academy was also named as an ap school of distinction ap humanities school and ap humanities achievement school and an ap stem school so savannah arts has several uh designations in that area islands high school was named an ap humanities school and an ap stem school and what phil tompkins technical and career high school has been named an ap expansion school congratulations to all of our ap schools five savannah county public schools students were chosen as governor's honors program finalist over 3 200 students were nominated for the program across the state our finalists include kate bossler of ireland's high school in science michael wood high school and science maestro ali of academy students have been chosen as alternates sharon lee on violin and ansley mckee in voice congratulations to
016all of those students john w hubert middle school fccla students that is our family in consumer sciences of students the old home economics and we need to make sure people understand that we still teach family consumer sciences we just don't call it home anymore state um conference sixth grader elon dennis competed in a sustainability challenge and earned a bronze medal seventh grader maurice robinson complete competed in the state only competitive events toys that teach where he placed second eighth grader anthony albright competed in the chapter service project portfolio and earned a silver medal alexis monroe also an eighth grader competed in a chapter service project display and earned a silver medal alexis and anthony will advance to national competition in san diego california congratulations to all of our students from hubert middle school [Applause] the
017school of liberal studies at savannah high school hosted a 3de pop-up shop that marketplace on march 25th so if you're watching during the spring break you also saw that i think it was also featured in savannah morning news that marketplace pop-up allowed our 3de students to showcase their entrepreneurial talents three 3de uh 11th grade students have worked to create business plans and engage with business coaches while working through case studies to prepare for their year-long projects 21 savannah county public schools elementary students were among more than 300 students across georgia who participated in this year's state science and engineering fair which was held at georgia college in millersville we are proud to announce that students from windsor forest elementary garrison k-8 and hurt elementary school brought home awards the island's high school future followers of
018america senior veterinary science team so yes we still have future farmers of america in savannah that senior veterinary science team placed third in the state competition which was held in perry georgia students had to compete had to complete a written test perform handling and clinical practice practicums and identify veterinary tools animal breeds and both internal and external parasites the team consisted of abby van alex king castro katyana boland and taylor tomlin abby van bremer also placed second in an individual is competition one of four districts across the state to benefit from a new initiative called equity through education it's a grant that has been funded by georgia power the program which also includes clayton county public schools diary county school system and richmond county school system represents a 3 million investment that will address specific
019needs for improving career readiness and multi-generational economic stability savannah county public schools will use the funding to implement a k-12 stem steam track enhance early learning and also address barriers that impede post-secondary or career success we are grateful to georgia power for their continued support and for this special opportunity we'd like to offer special thanks to all who made navy week a success in our district we appreciate the navy technicians the medics and the divers who gave educational stem and fitness demonstrations and the us naval meteorology and oceanography command staff who presented on atmospheric and oceanic oceanographic science the capstone of the week included a visit by no other than rear admiral susan breyer joiner navy enterprise networks and cyber security division director we're admiral's brian joyner as a native of savannah and a graduate
020of hershel v jenkins high school class of 1987. it was a spectacular week for our students our staff and our community we'd like to not only thank the navy for making this an inaugural opportunity for savannah but for bringing our rear admiral uh back to the new jacobs high school but also for exposing our students to the number of career opportunities that are available through the us navy so we wish to offer a very special thanks to the navy for their uh opportunity to share with their students and families in savannah we appreciate also the work of nurse tiffany fordham at white bluff elementary who successfully submitted a request to firehouse subs for a grant and was awarded a grant of over 23 000 to the district the grant will supply an additional 11 aeds
021and updated cpr training equipment the supplies will enhance our ability to provide safe sites for our staff our students and our visitors so we often will take a look under emergency situations much like in our emergency briefing today we want to know where the aed is or where the defibrillator is all of those tools are really important we'd like to thank nurse ford for applying for that grant i'd like to offer special thanks to our new hampshire students who met with me last week as we do with students regularly um this time they had an opportunity from campus police as we typically do but they also had an opportunity to give some feedback to mrs bonaparte about school food service they had a lot to say um they gave really good feedback and we always
022appreciate hearing from them about how we're doing and what we can do to make their experiences uh better we'd also like to offer congratulations to our unit our jrotc unit at hershel v jenkins who gets to retain the superintendent's cup after their competition this past weekend saturday all of our units competed for the superintendent's cup which is like 20-part competition they take it very seriously and um this year because they won again we want to remind everyone that we continue to ask for your support as we start to close out the school year we will have our books blankets and family fun which is probably as big as our expo that event will be held on april 30th at daphne park all of our families will receive a reminder about that event where we establish
023and celebrate literacy um throughout the district those are a few highlights of what's happening over the past month i'd like to this time offer um an introduction to our local teacher of the year but our state teacher of the year ms sherrie bonder goldman who has gotten married since you started last congratulations she will offer a report on professional senate thank you so much i'm happy to be here today to report on the continued work of the superintendent's professional senate and to brief the board on some of my activities as georgia teacher of the year over in the recent weeks um our last senate meeting was held virtually on march the 14th and was moderated by mr nesbitt of the year the meeting included updates and discussion on the fiscal year 2023 budget from mr
024larry jackson the senate also heard details from mr feliciano on feedback that was provided to administration regarding district assessments including map um this summer gmass eog retesting and i ready assessments for school year 23. and another key topic that was discussed was teacher retention and mr ramon ray provided the group with updates on some of the strategies that the district is implementing to address staff retention and wellness and recruitment and with retention wellness and recruitment as a key area of discussion locally i did want to share more with the board on this topic since it is also being discussed among state leadership um on the same day as that march 14th senate meeting i was actually participating in a state task force meeting in atlanta regarding teacher burnout and in response in response to teacher
025burnout i i worked with state superintendent woods to pull together a task force of teachers from across the state to help us identify the major factors that are contributing to teacher burnout in georgia and to determine possible solutions and strategies that can be implemented on the school the district and the state levels to increase teacher retention to provide teachers with the support that they need and deserve and to elevate the level of recognition for the professionalism of teachers um with the help of the carl vinson institute of government at the university of georgia we are now in the process of putting together a report based on the discussions with the task force and i look forward to sharing that report with the full state board of education with you all at meetings in the near
026future um i've had some pretty incredible experiences in my role this year as georgia teacher of the year but i'm not sure that there's anything that i'm more excited about or proud of than being able to share this with you and with the public and with every single teacher in the state of georgia who i'm advocating for and representing um it's really my hope that this work is going to inspire and reinvigorate and support teachers around the state um i'll be sharing further insights about the teacher burnout task force during the speech next thursday morning at the georgia school superintendents association meeting that will be taking place here in savannah and i very much look forward to doing so as a proud representative of our district and of the 118 000 teachers in our state
027so thank you so much this concludes my report thank you ms goldman dr thank you for the opportunity to serve i certainly appreciate the opportunity to do so at this time and that concludes my report great thank you very much mrs goldman uh it continues to be our pleasure to and honor to have you represent us all across the state and we appreciate what you do and what you stand for and and uh we had a wonderful report on english as a second language this morning and i know you're an integral part of that for us and so thank you for your service moving on we have a briefing before we have uh appearances before the board good evening please remember the most useful comments are those that are related to policies over which the
028board has jurisdiction all comments shall be made in a professional manner that is not disruptive to me guests should avoid name calling towards staff and board members and should avoid using please follow the instructions of the board chair who presides over the meeting the board uh chair reserves the right to call anyone out of order who violates the rule of public safety public appearance excuse me we appreciate your interest in a public school system thank you sir as we get ready for our um the next part of our agenda with appearances before the board just one or two things i would like to remind people all myself one is i know that originally we had several people sign up because of their concern about bell times and transportation uh and you may have heard as
029that how the motion with the agenda those items were removed from the agenda today so there is no vote taken on them uh we will continue to work on transportation and bill times uh we valued what we heard as we presented what we have been working on and so we will continue to uh work for work on that again one other uh thing if i could mention you've heard sort of the rules and regs for making appearances before the board i know that it is uh election season and some uh both on this board and in our audience are running for office this five minutes before the ebola before the board is not a turn or a chance to make a campaign speech nor to declare your candidacy for office and so if you are
030speaking in general terms about agenda items uh and those sorts of things you are certainly welcome to speak but i will call you out of aura as i am supposed to do if you start to speak on your own behalf as a political candidate i know that you'll understand what i'm talking about thank you the first person that signed up is kelly ledbetter and i believe that am i not saying right um see your savannah and that is that linda wild brian oh y'all hey all the woman brian this is not about politics [Music] and they're standing with me because we have this new exciting thing that we want to do and share with you i've been talking to dr q and kurt and he told me that we better not come here talk about
031politics so i already got that warning and so what are we gonna do we're gonna take a word so we have this awesome program that the city and our community project uh partners it's called lift and it's called leading into the future together and so we want you guys my community warriors to stand with us and so it's about i'm going to just be really quick but y'all got to let me say the names of these partners and so what we want to do is everybody lawrence and i have uh did a lot of the back-to-school stuff but in light of this pandemic we don't even know if some of these kids are going to be able to come back to school so what we're going to do is [Applause] so in the is district
032i had five schools right uh and parents were calling me because they lived in my district but because they lived in choice schools they didn't have the transportation to get there and we understand that and so these wonderful people um to show you how serious we are we have some bus cards that we're going to be able to donate to uh dr q and kirk and so those mothers who don't have money to get to school and so in that conversation i ask these cute community departments if they will stand with me to present that to you but also let you know that we're going to be having the best pep rally imaginable for these kids we need to make sure and sure them up that we have uh programs that we have events that
033that we have everything that's going to keep them safe and out of harm's way we want to make sure that that last day of school is one that is very important to them and one where they know that they can count on people who say they are walking and talk and so again thank you for this opportunity we're going to get the logistics together we do have a hard date it's may the 21st at the civic center and we're going to offer um some job opportunities and all these people are saying that they need jobs young people um they're gonna need that money you know to get back to school to buy the clothes and i don't know if you want them to speak but they about how we can how we the public can
034support the purchase of those tickets to help fund it so so if they could just say their names mr ledbetter has a couple of minutes where he's going to show the the um the partnerships and the community projects that we're going to have from the city and thank you for your time for your energy and all that you do to make kids want to be uh productive citizens in services and i just wanted to announce that as uh your school season ends and as summer begins we have a lot of job opportunities with our with our summer camp uh we're looking for lifeguards as well as camp counselors we do have a hiring event this saturday at 3401 edwin street and i can provide you with the details of that but um we are anticipating
035a busy summer and so we'll have plenty of opportunity for uh for youth to to come and work with us and hopefully provide a great summer program thank you next good afternoon i'm lawrence bryan president of the lp3 foundation and i think this event is going to be an amazing event first of all they don't have a job fair and what's that's gonna do for the kids is it's gonna give them something to do during the summer we want them to continue to learn during the summer and the job is going to help them provide close to school they all like to wear sneakers they can help their parents provide that and you know they just need to know that we care about them and this is a real preventative measure because of the fact
036that we always react after something happen so we want them to know that we care about them and this is going to be amazing thank you thank you very quickly what we want to do is give young people a reason to come back to school in the fall thank you thank you mr hi i'm jen davenport i'm with the savannah area chamber of commerce and we are so excited to partner with you in the city of savannah to do what we can to help our community and our youth thank you so much for what you do thank you very much thank you very much thank you for watching [Music] [Laughter] [Music] about this yeah it's going to be a great thing for the city of savannah county thank you so thank you all very much
037out here so officer mayor van johnson ultimate chairman nick palumbo district four leggett two kirk mayor tim commissioner bobby lockett councilman woman karen williams from cooler representative representative they have tickets to uh representative ed jackson j melvin city of savannah lawrence bryant third president of lgbt young chief of community services john bush officer neighborhood second engagement kelly ledbetter jennifer davenport chamber of commerce and westbrook montana action care parent attorney anthony burton attorney wade herron attorney joe uh irwin ty whiteley alexa frame joy morton from savannah chatham sustainability coalition brenda curtis johnson president of enough barbara neil president of mom's alberta uh joe michelle pastor president of pax tony and davina jordan from awol uh leona brown and herbert from uh boy scout troop number 21. urban um art um larry and olga williams from dominic's
038world kenneth and medea klopp bishop frank and gwen wilson oh my temple number 21. margaret and rick ellison for russ tennant to hacker myers uh carla b from prime america financial services leslie [Music] and our two uh illustrious storytellers lillian grant baptiste and joyce beth mccann so we have a lot of people who are committed we we need the children we're going to be making some more phone calls but no we end this fight together thank you so much [Music] [Applause] thank you okay thank y'all very much we appreciate you moving on on i have three different lists of speakers going here the next one on my list is uh ms beth margerone who will speak on uh sexually explicit book policy okay thank you thank you man good afternoon welcome on march 2nd ms
039tanja brunch a program manager for instructional technology and media services presented on the selection and maintenance of books in the media center centers for savannah chatham county public schools during the informal school board meeting which preceded the public school board meeting on slide six of that presentation she defines what materials should be allowed in the media centers of savannah chatham county public schools i quote from the slide in general material harmful to minors based on sexually explicit or sexually graphic content should not be included in media content held and maintained by the district for student use and access sexually explicit material is media content that depicts or describes nudity including sexual or excretory activities or organs in a lascivious way sexually graphic content is media content that is primarily pornographic or psego massachusetts in nature
040media content includes video audio photography illustrations graphic images and written text unquote the school board action team which i represent concurs with this definition and wonders since this is district policy why haven't all of the books we have exposed over the past several months been removed we have verified that while some of these we have identified have disappeared from the destiny online card catalog many titles still exist in addition we continue to identify books that would fall into the category ms brunch described as not belonging in media content that the district houses and maintains as an example of one of the most egregious violators of district policy genderqueer by maya kababy which shows in pictorial form and narrative description how to give oral sex between two boys may still reside in islands high behind the
041desk for students to a book that includes pedophilic acts and was identified by february public speaker wasn't in the deacon's library even in audio form however in my open records request i obtained an email from ms bernadette paul oliver associate superintendent of secondary schools sent to anne lavette from march 2nd of this year confirming an audio version of lawn boy did exist at jenkins through sora a school teaching app on the day we presented our credibility is important to us so we wanted to clarify the accuracy of our statement through an open records request we've also been made aware that law envoy is available as an ebook to students through the access supported by the family student tab of the savannah chatham county public schools website which gives an option to use the live oaks
042public library site barbie fields of woodville tompkins confirms the hoopla access of long boy according to tammy kemp lead program manager for instructional technology and media services as it relates to monitoring access to live oak's books it is the parents responsibility to supervise what their children are exposed to parents need to speak a live librarian to discuss what controls they have over their collections how can parents do this if they aren't even aware of the possibility of their children having complete access to a public library site on behalf of the parents of savannah chatham county public school students i request that the district follow their own designated policy for quote-unquote reading of books that fall into these sexually explicit and or sexually graphic categories so clearly defined by ms brunge on march 2nd in addition
043i request that an email be sent out to all parents explaining the potential access of live oaks public library and allow the parents to opt in their students if they so choose thank you for your time thank you very much you're welcome our next speaker speaker is mrs grimes who's going to talk about bumblebees on the run just [Music] thank you welcome ms grahams well good afternoon everyone good afternoon i want to thank um dr buck and our superintendent dr amavet and all of the wonderful board members for having me here on this afternoon to share with you something very special to me my name is lashawn grimes and i am the author of bumblebees on the run and this is an amazing book that my mom and i that we came together and wrote
044to doing the pandemic my mom is not here today she's 80 years old she's like oh my not feeling my best at this point but she would have loved to have been here she sends her love and her regards um during this time so that we can talk about bumblebees on the run now bumblebees on the run was like i said earlier it's a book that was designed between my mom and i during the pandemic and we want to give tools to children ages three to eight years old to help them learn their forty pre-primary sight words so inside of our amazing book bumblebees on the one as you can see here there are forty pre-rumored dog sight words that are underlined throughout the entire book and that amazing so children ages three through eight
045or pre-k through first graders they will get the opportunity to learn these 40 pre-primary sight words which is very crucial for learning how to become a fluent reader and one of the things that we've been talking about across chatham county we've worked with several uh daycare centers as far as avant learning academy we actually did a partnership with them from august until february august of last year until february of this year and actually giving sight word instruction on how to teach children those four first 40 pre-primary adult site words and it was a success one of our students mrs jade williams she's a she was a pre-k student and she learned all 40 of those words and now she's actually reading some of her sister's material who's in first grade so we know that bumblebee's
046um is an excellent book for children in pre-k through first grade and we're excited about what's going to transpire with bumblebees on the run and so when you open the book there are several all the forty pre-prepared cyphers underlined in this story all of the forty people someone just read basically the first page of the book it says the honeycomb is full of busy bees making honey so those first two words that the children will learn will be the and is and throughout the book you will see that all of those first pre-produced words are underlined in the story and not only are they underlined but guess what it's in a beautiful story about the queen bee and the honeybee all working together to make honey and children get so involved with wanting to learn
047about oh my gosh what do bumblebees do do they pollinate where do they live what's their habitat so not only can you teach the sight words to those students ages three to eight years old but you can also incorporate stem as far as with science and what i did here and i'll make sure that each one of the board members get one of the little toolkits that i made what you can do the teachers which is very crucial because we're all about stem and making sure our students are learning science technology engineering and math so what we can possibly do with bumblebees on the run they're going to learn their sight words those first 40 pre-primary words and then you can incorporate science with it as far as having a week talking about bumblebees around
048the world that would be social studies around the world and i did talk about that in the little toolkit here bumblebees around the world and so that's very important when we're talking about connecting bumblebees on the run with other subjects so you can connect with science and i talked about here introducing the students to what type of bumblebees exist bumblebees need wildflowers so you can actually divide the week into talking about the science connections with literacy through bumblebees on the run so day one you can have an introduction to bumblebees day two bumblebees need wildflowers day three where do bumblebees live day four differences between bumblebees and honeybees day five how do bumblebees see so as you can see here you can incorporate science and also social studies with our wonderful book bumblebees on the
049run and one of the things that we wanted to do one of our goals is to share this book with children across shannon county to make sure that they're reading proficiently before third grade because in the state of georgia it's only two thirds of third graders who are reading at the third grade level and so we want to make a difference in chatham county and abroad to make sure that our third graders which is very crucial our goal is to make sure that all third graders are reading proficiently effectively by third grade with no struggles because if they don't learn how to read they can't lead [Applause] the next speaker out is uh mr peter robine is here next uh mr brian condon as he's here was he in yes sir welcome hello my name
050is brian condon and today is my first time to speak before the board i was going to bring up the shocking language in some of our library books but that content has been addressed over and over by other speakers and parents apparently to no avail sure these books are filled with smut but we're really what's really disgusting is this board doesn't care one bit about what parents think in fact the board is designed to practically eliminate parental involvement meetings are held at two o'clock when you know that working parents cannot attend questions don't get immediate answers it takes days for that one person who asks the question to get an answer everybody hears the question but nobody hears the answer except that one person then there's the opt-out last month ms garbowsky and dr lavette
051made it clear that the book list just like the panorama sel survey is an opt-out not an opt-in situation it takes a lot more effort again on the parents part to do the research and opt-out rather than to do nothing and by default to opt in so you the board have made it to where parents can't go to meetings parents don't get answers and the burden is put on the parents to do all the opt-out research is there anything else you can do to further distance parents i imagine some of you are or have been teachers if you were to give your students a test and they answered only one of nine questions yet failed right during the last several board meetings a list of nine books with what many parents deem as inappropriate content
052was brought up last month ms grabowski proudly claimed that she felt an incumbent upon herself to read one of these books and it was misrepresented she didn't say which book it was or how it was misrepresented but she read one one of nine books just like that student who answered only one of the nine questions ms garbowsky demonstrates how little effort this board puts into concerns that so many parents and community members have expressed ms garbowsky is failing our students failing the parents and failing the community unfortunately we have at least six members of this board who are rubber stamps to the same failing woke agenda last month we had four student speakers the most profound statement came from the first student to speak at 53 minutes 21 seconds into the video he states every
053day i hear profanities in the hall and the halls of my school it is scarier for me not to hear these profanities in the hall due to how common it is for high school students let that sink in that statement shows how sick and broken the school system is that profanity is the norm school is supposed to be a place to foster love of learning but a look at what it has recently become we need nationwide change in our school systems to focus on reading writing math and science and to truly partner with parents that change begins at the local level with school board elections our current school board is failing our students but parents have a choice at the ballot box on may 24th find the new candidates who will put education first who
054will respect students and parents we need those people to help fix this broken system parents get out there and vote thank you sir um miss gay ms cheryl gay okay just a second letter [Music] thank you um so in january i was one of the people who presented some of the on some of the books we talked about and like we just referenced in march some of the students from one of the schools uh came to speak in support of the books so first of all i want to commend them for being proactive it took me half a lifetime to summon the courage to ever be able to speak out in the way that they did that last week so that's pretty impressive but i do want to correct a few misconceptions that they might
055have had about our critique criteria and choosing the books they imply there was a racial element to some of our choice and this is 100 untrue our criteria was content solely the race or sexual preference of any of the characters or authors was irrelevant content was what was we were looking at and as i was thinking about it one of the really burning questions that arises from me is why do the authors choose minority characters as a vehicle as their mouthpiece for their seeing writings because those words in the books they're the author's words they're knowing the characters words characters creations by the authors and it disturbs you they choose minority characters to represent that way i think that's a really big problem um some of the board members here support these books um but
056i'm just going to read one more i'm going to do some spelling but i i'll just be honest for the life of me i don't understand how this book is still in the system um as of this morning i have some screenshots to verify it the digital catalog shows that groves islands and windsor have one copy of a book juliet takes a breath so i'm going to read some i'm going to spell some and learn what your period feels like before it's out of your body masturbate to eat cramps connect your blood cycle raging flower empowering your p-u-s-s-y by empowering your mind harlow brisbane end of quote this isn't an isolated passage taken out of context this is this is all through this book um when we spoke in january this book julia takes a
057breath with the islands jenkins savannah high coastal middle and ellis k through 8. so it appears to be based on the digital catalog had been removed from jenkins savannah high coastal and ellis and added groves in windsor and silent islands and i will close this growing up if i had come home with this book and read my parents they would wash my mouth that was so and i kind of think that's probably the same case for most of y'all and if your parents if you're fortunate enough that your parents are alive today i don't think you would take this book and read it in front of them it is available to our children and i think this is outrageous and this is by any standard of decency this is not acceptable content from myers this
058book this is what particularly offends me as a woman and i like to see this right now thank you very much man [Applause] uh next miss uh like all sims is that miss sims this piece speaking of defects protocols [Music] uh next uh ms minsky [Music] welcome back good afternoon thank you all for allowing me to speak today my name is gina clifton mintzy i was born and raised in oregon city and i attended the chatham county schools of sprecs mercer and i graduated from gross in 1979. i am 100 one owned dbe business and i will be celebrating 27 years of construction business with clear and grading demolition and hauling and underground utilities here in savannah this november prior to my business that i started back in 1995 i helped manage a family business
059which was clipping equipment which we served a lot of the industries along the savannah river and we also had a waste business which i helped build up and we sold to republic waste many years later so business is nothing new i've been in it for many years i have uh dealt with many superintendents foremans owners top superintendents um you name it i think i've just about seen it all but anyway over the 27 years um i've had the privilege with you all to do almost seven schools here in savannah and i find myself very blessed and i thank you all for that opportunity for including the small business and minority owned businesses to be a part of these projects it's been a lifesaver for my company and um just want to tell you thank you
060for that and but moving forward and you're probably wondering why am i here today i've had the privilege of working on new hampshire and also my alma mater gross high school but when i'm here today about is the money that i'm owed and i think you all receive some of the um information of what's owed to clinton construction and i'm telling you from a small business point it has been detrimental i finished new hampshire back in january we jumped hurdles to help get through during holidays working weekends holidays and i knew that it was imperative that this school get open when cppi came to savannah i want to tell you we had a really good rapport with them they liked us so much they asked us to do a private job over in south carolina
061which we really didn't have time for but we had such a good working you know rapport with them that they in a relationship we did it then comes along um grows this is going to be bid and so we sat down and we worked on those numbers hard like i said at the time everything was good but i understand during the process of new hampshire they had several internal problems with changing the people and i can tell you it changed drastically for clifton construction my employees and also the pay schedules of you know what went on and so i didn't know if you had a chance to look at it but as of now clifton construction for both jobs is owed over a million dollars it's actually a million twenty seven thousand six sixty two
062seven and that puts a really financial strain on a small business um i've talked with cppi on this on new hampshire which we finished in january there are over 240 thousand dollars on that project i had vendors that i still left you know they're still owing and are calling to pay we fronted a lot of money with trucking that went on with you know these jobs uh truckers want to be paid every week i can't wait 69 days to pay these people and i've had vendors of use for a long period of time they're calling you know they're they're in need of their money and you know i'm being told the same thing sorry about that um i've talked with them about it and it all goes back to the school board they haven't been
063paid therefore they can't pay well that gets sold after a while and i'm here because things are tough for me financially with my company um i've lost some employees because of some of the treatment this that is going on and for the first time in 40 years um with the clifton business i actually walked off of the job i pulled all my equipment pulled all my people off on march 4th because i could not get an answer from git for getting paid for new hampshire it was always the same thing you're not you're not doing anything and i'm like how am i not doing anything i've done the work i'm finished i've been checked off everything's completed at new hampshire and the response has always been you're not open until it's paid never heard that
064one before i've done the work i was checked off everything was clear it was carried over the animosity it was so bad and the environment grows um trying to deal with them having employees there's going on our jobs after we have cleared and reintegrated everything you know and ask them please don't ride on doing donuts on that things like that it's just been one thing after another the harassment the environment became so toxic that i decided for the first time ever on march 4th on that friday to pull my equipment pull my people because i lost eight ten people during that time um of that job had employees begging not to go back out there um some had been cussed that bust you name it never have i experienced this in all the years i've
065been in business and i've dealt with a lot of people i've addre like i said we had a good rapport with them it's only towards the very tail end when new hampshire had changed farms where people came in and they were yeah i actually thought it was kind of toxic there for a while because they were under so much stress that it has carried over into this new job which grows and i was scared to go any further i'm over a million dollars oh i can't keep going you know as a small company a small business owner so i'm just here today to see as a small business owner and a dde what can what can be done you know the school board to help small businesses and minority owned businesses this is how i've
066watched it over the years a lot of them can't sustain staying in it because they're paying all this money up front and they're waiting 60 90 days um you know small businesses can't do that so i don't know if there's something that needs to be changed in the contracts that can be done i don't know or with uh you know y'all dealing with the um contractors that come to town but i'm never going i know you are very aware that uh the project is ongoing and and yes uh the superintendent and our staff will continue to uh work with the vendors and the contractors and the company to try to make certain that whatever needs to be worked out is work out the board honestly does not get involved in this part of it other
067than you've now prized us and so we are informed but we don't normally get involved in the day-to-day operations obviously of that but we appreciate your being here today and we will continue to work to make certain that everyone is uh entitled paid what they're entitled to be paid the only gets built and we can have students in there as quick as possible right okay you know do you know when possibly i can tell any of these vendors with some of the jobs like new hampshire that's been on my part you know it's been done signed off on when i can tell some of these guys because they're i would tell you that if your contract is with cppi that you contact them and you also i am i well but you perhaps want to
068also let mr naught vanessa noah kayla our associate superintendent know what's going on and please make certain business and not anybody at a different level okay okay thank you very much uh next um uh brooks is that cahill brooks is that okay welcome mrs brooks um so these books i'm just kidding i'm not here to speak on books language used in school unfortunately most of the children in these schools deal with issues much larger than the content of books that they don't read or care about and cursing is so ingrained in society that it's not an issue of the board or parents um this is a matter of life and death and a future for the children of the city um hello my name is i am a community organizer who has reached millions of
069people received awards from activist and entertainer uh mr harry belafonte team vogue the sclc naacp and the urban league alike i have a platform of over 400 000 followers where you teach restorative justice and ensure resources for my community and i can say with a thousand [Music] i was in the gifted program since kindergarten and was plainly put one of the smartest children for miles around my area but in the same breath um i was suspended a countless amount of times from grade k through eight what my teachers did not know was that i suffered an immense amount of abuse and trauma at home i was subjected to the worst of life outside of school and forced to go to school and face humiliation at the hands of students teachers and administrators alike as a
070student here i was violent i fought cursed and was suspended at least over 50 times i did not know what my future would be and i honestly did not care and the children around me were equally violent and lost many or most of whom that i attended iss with um are in prison or have been in prison and i'm only 21 years old we had no empathy for each other no sense of community no emotional intelligence or self-control and this translated to countless fights arguments bullying known as flaming up and problems that bled from school to the bus and the streets and the communities in which we lived this behavior came to a halt for me when walmart purchased our housing division on the south side and forced us out through gentrification and my family
071was forced to move to dawn georgia what i thought would be the end of my world became the beginning and dawn and i excelled i felt seen hurt and valued i knew that when i messed up i would be hauled out to the principal's office chastised and immediately thrown away i was spoken to like a human and given time to process my emotions and forgiven and allowed the space to grow and learn in savannah i felt back in the corners in which i would literally have to physically find my way out of i went from being a student who was suspended well over 15 times a year to a young george or excuse me a young george's author winner president of pep club an honorary world student i felt hope and like i had a
072future why these drastic changes occurred school discipline reform here in savannah black children make up 53 of the according to the governor's office of student achievement the current means of disciplines are iss oss detention and expulsion these means are isolating and reminiscent of the prison-industrial complex that oppresses the same communities every day and plainly put we need to begin the process of reforming the way we discipline children and address harm in our schools i'm calling for the board to begin conversations with our community that will lead to restorative and transformative justice process in school i'm calling for you all to be preventative rather than reactive instead of fine-tuning um your discipline process less work to teach emotional intelligence empathy patience self-acceptance and kindness to children these principles prevent bad behavior in the first place imagine
073how different our schools would look if we had a mediation prayer room in every school instead of detention and that in lieu of expulsion we had explanation and we teach our children how to feel and regulate their emotions so that when they are met with the very real violence outside of school that they face every day that they can act in a way that was taught to them in school and my organization and i went to liberation crew has done their research and would love to work with you all to instill tried and [Music] we already have contracts with the mediation center and and work with restorative justice with them but please give us more information so we can at least examine that yes the member of ours is employed there so we know thank
074you thank you ma'am i have two speakers left i'm sorry um last speakers are first one is miss burrison and then mr pageant and those are the only names i have left [Music] welcome mrs person good afternoon good afternoon my name is trey berson as a resident of district 5 a past scc-pss paraprofessional employee and a mother of a child who will be attending district 5 schools in the near future i have vested interest in the success of the sec pss school system especially in district 5. unfortunately the reading and math proficiency scores for the school system are embarrassing they were well below state average before the pandemic and fell even further during distant learning let's take a few schools in district 5 as examples the best performing elementary school in district 5 is pulaski
075elementary which shows a georgia milestone reading proficiency of 22.4 for its student population in 2019 before the pandit and a reading proficiency score of 10.3 at the end of the last year of 2021 after the pandemic let that sink in the best schools in district 5 has only 10 percent of its students who can read a proficient level now let's look at haven elementary the lowest performing school in district 5 using georgia milestones for 2019 and 2021. before the pandemic only 7.5 of the students at haven were reading proficient after the pandemic only 3.1 percent were reading proficient contrary to what has been expressed by some board members studies confirm that it is next to impossible to catch up students to grade level after grade three there have been incremental gains but not a catch
076up this is why the school system efforts and dollars need to be super targeted to k-3 for extensive reading support when i look at slide five on the board debt from february 20th of this year which shows the disbursement of the american rescue plan funds that were granted due to covet by the government i noticed that one of the three largest expenditures under supplemental learning was the creation of three senior officer administrative positions to take tune of 1.7 billion dollars in contrast only three learning specialist positions were created with a much smaller line item or two percent of the total funds granted when is the school system going to start prioritizing dollars on classroom support instead of administrative top heaviness i would like to request a response from the board that shows the short and
077long-term plan too short of the poor proficiency scores across the savannah channel school system i will leave the speech with you today so you can have my contact information thank you for your time thank you mr my speaker today is mr patrick keith pageant hello hello welcome how's everybody good good afternoon my name is keith badgett and i'm a lifelong resident of savannah currently living in the 6th district i'm a product of savannah chatham county schools having graduated from windsor forest high school and obtaining an advanced degree at savannah technical college i currently run a local painting company after following employment with large companies such as jcb golf training and boeing and a little over half a dozen years as a department at savannah technical college as a past graduate of the savannah chatham county
078public school system and an educator recognized by the technical college system of georgia i continue to regularly follow the news about our school system specifically district 6 my own district turning out students who are work ready and college prep ready is really important to me and based on some information that i read i have a few questions from the board just one question i'm sorry savannah chatham schools boasts about a 90 graduation rate between 2020 and 2021. neighboring counties such as brian county and effingham county also boasts about very similar graduation rates my question is how can savannah chatham county be comparable to the graduation rates of ebbingham and bryant county when the school digger site has abiham ranked at 25th in the state bryant county ranked 23rd and saint but savannah chatham county schools
079ranked 152nd out of 193 districts as it relates to statewide performance it would appear that savannah county has great inflation or internal pressure to pass students based on the statistics as graduation standards are set at the state level and the same for all students if this is true students ability to be work ready or college prep ready will be jeopardized i would appreciate a response that might explain this anomaly i'll leave my speakers with gentlemen make sure the officer gets it over here sir that's our last speaker moving on to the board of education matters our lessons are going to lead us thank you sir board of education matters we have a host of policy reads for the board to consider these are first readers for the board's review item 7.01 is policy efd this
080is a new policy and it's being created and brought before the board for review in support of the district's continued work to enhance information security efforts you've heard uh this is the first read are there any uh immediate and quick changes or comments that you have i would ask you there eight or so three six eight please um make your own notes and if there are real changes that you want to make let the staff know but otherwise i'm going to move us through this pretty rapidly and do you have anything about this efd remember here's the first read and we'll vote next month moving on to item 7.02 this is a four year review policy d c j emergency changes in budget updated primarily to align with the language of policy dci which sets
081budget transfer thresholds and authorities for the superintendent you know that in this particular policy those numbers now match would like to provide information for the board apologize for a typo that was previously submitted the numbers that are in this policy revision both should be 150 000 to align with the dci threshold of budget transfer appreciate mr johnson for raising that for us we have fixed that typo and posted it to boradox i would uh also just ask as we consider changes i believe the board president whoever that person is should be along with us chief financial officer and the superintendent the ones making that emergency decision so uh we had it before being proposed to be out but we can discuss it at a later date if you wish any other comments and more numbers
082questions i just wanted that was the one comment i had so i just want to also support for that change i just want to clarify your suggestion this is being eliminated does it mean that it has to be unanimous with those three individuals there are a simple majority of those uh i had no idea about that i just thought that the board representative needed to be a prize of the action being taken okay i am i do believe that the board president needs to remain i think that it is possibly a challenge or maybe um others can consider whether or not you're going to be able to get um the unanimous decision among those three on every single emergency and whether it's needed and without flavoring the point of my own feeling about things like
083this there's never been like a formal vote taken two or three or whatever but we can certainly discuss that so any other comments from board members moving on 7.03 this is also a four-year review policy idca which is summer school uh timely action for us here we're trying to to bundle this these changes up before the end of the school year as we advance into summer school uh some clarity language has been added to this particularly uh to define uh certain aspects of the policy as to what the rationale is for having summer school and also you'll note that the previous language did not include any reference to elementary schools so we created that section in the regulations goal for us to have the ability for students to take additional tracks or courses that would
084make them work college or career ready that they might not be able to get or fit into their schedule during the normal school year any other comments and remember that is a policy and a regulation moving on policy jcdaf item 7.04 on your agenda first reader under a four year review this is updated to account for changes in uh new technologies to consent continue changes in technology and also provide clear language on the controls and management of student devices in the classroom for your review first reader one of my question excuse me my question is why are we um why are we moving why are we moving away from school science technology especially when textbooks are being somewhat phased out can you repeat that question i couldn't quite understand why are we moving away from
085school assigned technology and then i just added especially uh when textbooks are relatively being phased out and we're using online practices more or less all right thank you i understand your question now um we're certainly not moving away from that what we want to do is provide the opportunity for students to use their own technology that they feel more comfortable with because that's what they carry forward into their future careers so if a student wants to use their own devices we certainly allow it if they do not have a device we will provide it for them yes thank you any other comment from boardrooms have a 7.05 for your review first reader this is jtca physical examinations uh tied to eye ear and dental examination simple change on this one there was an old reference
086in there to as and a georgia public school we strike that language because this is a local policy it was probably an old copy-paste error but we want to make sure that we're focusing our policies locally the only question i have about this is this policy and i'm sure it's been here forever and i never looked at it like that but it just seems to me giving a student and parents 120 days before they have to present anything is an awful long time in today's world where most things are electronic and likewise disease and things like that happens very quickly so and uh know we're probably stretching together 120 days thank you we'll double check into that sir we'll take a closer look at it there's a way to tighten that up and certainly well
087that's right that i want to write that too that's why i put a question mark we'll review it from a legal standpoint moving on next one is policy jra this is student data privacy complaints uh you'll see that this is uh tied into references to the federal education uh rights and privacy act particularly if someone has a complaint we clarify language on in here in the process to lodge that complaint and also clarify for which the person for which the district you should be contacting to do so any comments okay have some then make certain that the staff nut gets those so that we can make the changes and vote next week next month item 7.07 is also a four year review first reader this is gbpa professional personnel qualifications and duties really clarifying language
088of meeting qualifications when certification or certain licenses are needed and specifically as required by the psc and also the local school district any other questions are concerned so if i understand this correctly this is for any position within the district and we're going to require that the licensure is received prior to employment right yes primarily what we didn't have was the secretary of state side of certification for example our nurses it's just adding language to say that the license has to be held by the person for the position so same with our teachers which is on the professional standards commission side we just didn't have any language in there related to the um secretary of state our social workers may have that as well um so we're just actually covering everything okay any other comments
089questions foreign 7.08 on your agenda this is being brought forward to the board just to allow us and superintendent have clear authority and understanding on when we have um relations going on between our students and our staff one thing that we find is there's a greater opportunity for engagement beyond the classroom uh in today's day and age particularly surrounding the world of technologies and social medias we've certainly gone backwards as we've come forward any uh comments or board numbers moving on policy jbc awarding units of credit these eyes this is not necessarily a four-year review we're going to call it a mid-year review we did need to bring it in front of the board because there were recent changes in the state board of education rule the changes are only on the regulation side however
090but you will see that we did pack the policy and regulation together uh for for a review opportunity as well but the only change was primarily in regulation and primarily to clarify the language is written by sboe rule on the definition of accredited schools thank you i don't have any questions about the changes in the accreditation language i think that's helpful because then as it changes in that section we won't have to revise this again but i am reading this as a parent of a child transferring in that took online courses and my question is how do we differentiate between the online companies in the policy in section c3 courses coming from companies offering online courses from the courses that are allowable in general guidelines that also say online providers so just some language that
091clarifies the difference between the no-no companies and the accepted providers any other questions next moving on to gsba legislative positions sure passing this along for boards action this is the annual review of the gsba legislative uh positions of course as you'll know the legislative session is coming to a close but annually the gsba does gather information from all districts across the state of georgia and sets their platform which they will carry through the remainder of the year in the engagement uh with a delegation or with legislative officials so looking for the support of the board the information has been provided in advance as posted to board docs so thus being resolved at the gsba 2022 legislative positions now be approved by the board i have a motion to make by anyone mr garbowsky's move about
092how it was seconded uh anything you want to say i just i'm curious why we are it seems like we're a little bit late because i remember discussing this on the gsba call where we reviewed these positions and i know we discussed it as a board quite some time ago yeah so this question has come up before the timing is somewhat awkward on it uh the gsba again will carry this language as their platform throughout the remainder of the year and into the the fall and the beginning of next year's session as well one thing that you'll find very interesting here is that much of the language is really written in in a very overarching way uh they talk about local controls as supporting those kind of mechanisms uh so so you have a strong
093platform to speak from that you can go under some of these umbrella type of positions uh the other part is you'll hear this this information extensively during the june conference when the legislative updates from laws go into specific place now you'll know as well when the law goes into place then there's further review by the georgia department of education which often generates an sboe rule and sometimes that rule language can be influenced somewhat uh or or be given guidance based on the support of these particular language components so the timing is awkward still poor and even the document itself is in my opinion is like let's start with a want list of every board member we've got to have at least two things that they each like something through the committee there would also be
094a further discussion on april 25th with the goc meeting that i'll be attending um regarding these issues as well any of the comments and board members you've heard the motion to support uh the gsba legislative position all in favor of your hands please one two three four five six seven i'll oppose uh one and opt extensions is that one so uh mr johnson seven one one moving on to proclamation from i believe it's like mr larry all jackson good afternoon everyone um we're bringing before you the board of directors these objectives were actually presented to you last october uh during a budget presentation and they're actually budget objectives have been developed in the preparation of the recommended budget for fy to fy 2026. they have been shared with the board there are on the board
095website for public record thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the budget objectives listed above for use informing the fy23 through [Music] member have got conscience brown i just want to know that since we've been talking with uh cognia this week and their review of the program at jenkins um i'm really happy to see this kind of action on the board because this is the kind of um this is the role that we have in connecting our decision making to what's happening um at different sites um and i know that sometimes they do check on us and see how we're doing all in favor of that motion raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero now we're moving on
096to national school libraries the theme for national library month april 2022 connect with your school library promotes the idea that libraries are places to get connected to technology by using broadband computers and other digital resources libraries also offer our students opportunities to connect with media programs ideas and classes in addition to books to recognize the valuable contributions of our school library media technology specialist the board of education would like to proclaim the month of april 2022 as national school library month the spirit resolved that the following proclamation be adopted whereas april 2022 has been designated as the 37th annual national school library month and where school libraries provide materials for teachers and students that will encourage growth and knowledge and where school libraries provide materials that will develop literary cultural aesthetic appreciation and ethical standards
097and where school libraries provide materials that reflect the ideas and beliefs of religious social political historical and ethnic groups and their contributions to the american and world heritage and culture and whereas school libraries provide books to encourage students to read for pleasure and are considered a fun place to go and whereas school libraries provide materials to meet individual needs varied interests abilities social economic backgrounds and maturity levels of the students served and now therefore be resolved that the month of april 2022 be proclaimed national school library month proclaimed this 13th day of april 2022. you've heard the i'm going right let dr hoskins brandon make the motion since she read it and mr johnson you can second uh any other thing you'd like to say about god's friend miss johnson um is that i remember
098when i was in um school as a young child i did not like to read um then i got to then we had to go to the school library back in elementary school and um the librarian came up to me and asked what grader going into the library and finding those books that i love my son uh he actually loves going to the media center at his school he checks out two to three books a week the media center at charles ellis has done a great job of finding those books that are meaningful to him that he loves and he enjoys every single day thank you mr johnson mr saying in the library at johnson high school that um an author wrote um that he's hoping that heaven will be a huge vast library and
099i agree to that anything you talk about something that affects a child's life and turns it you know into a wonderful trajectory it's having a good library one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero manager for instructional technology and media services um and i just want to introduce three of our wonderful library technology specialists lmts's [Applause] come on is yes yes yes she's retiring um for representing our middle school she is not retiring so she and i will both be back together next year amy yara and representing our high school simpsons houser who is also retiring this year [Applause] i just want to thank these ladies for what they do and all of our library media staff thank you so much thank you thank you thank you uh uh
100anybody have anything to say all in favor of approving the consent agenda raise your hands please one two three four five six seven all opposed all same one so motion pass seven zero one moving on to a strategic goal for fiscal responsibility and resources we've got financials to discuss mr jackson okay laughing again um i will briefly go over the financials for the period ending february 20th 8th 2022. uh all funds well actually for general fund revenues are still pretty good a little bit ahead of collections on local property taxes why should we contribute that to some of the rising caution and property in the area and especially commercial property which i love to have um spencer's a little bit behind in his expenditures uh after we've been behind a little bit behind expenditures the
101last couple years which again as i mentioned that pretty much what has been happening to us put money into fund violence because unfortunately we have a lot of vacancies and uh industries and we don't have staff there to actually spend the money uh at the school school sites so as the general pharmacy are pretty good at this time of year uh school nutrition is actually still doing pretty good um unfortunately i think we see the presentation that on like this year where we're getting a lot of support from the federal government with providing free lunch we're here that's going to go away next year so we're we'll be kind of getting back to regular business and school food service next school year but so far we're doing pretty good school food service and we should
102be able to add some money to fund and student nutrition funds and the last one just for information workers compensation fund um is used to account for activity associated with workers compensation we charge a small percentage 0.68 toward payroll activity in the district for all payroll accounts that goes into this particular fund to pay for um workers comp activity any questions regarding the financials uh thank you mr jackson just uh hearkening back to our informal just congrats again to you and your team on a great audit and um um the kudos from the auditor it's a lot of hard work uh culminates in in that kind of compliments from the otters so um you know given our thought our discussion on fund balance and where we've come in the last few years i would prefer
103to continue to err on the side of maintaining a larger fund balance given recessions ice storms solar eclipses hurricanes tornadoes pandemics uh locusts coming every seven years whatever else is out there but i just from my perspective keeping a more healthier fund balance is good for the district you want to get that out there and then um it was interesting you talked about nutrition because in looking at the audit one of the things that's my favorite document that we get every year it gives us a great synopsis of what investments we've made in particular areas for a decade and one of the things i noticed was many of the budget line items for many of our areas have increased but nutrition has stayed flat um and i've said this before historically we had a uh
104a goal of trying to be self-sufficient in school nutrition based on revenues based on grants etc and i'll say again noticing the investments we made there piggybacking on the comments you've made i think we need to as the board invest more in school nutrition so that we don't continue to have recurring issues with staffing um with having to move money all the time we just need to have a hit the reset button on our mindset about how we handle that and what our goals are yes and i'm glad you mentioned that as a primer for next month board agenda since you mentioned fun violence one of the things that we're bringing for you is um an expense you know when our great governor decides to give uh incentive bonuses and he pays only for the
105state employees we have to use that fund balance to pay for that difference so we're going to bring some more detail about what our cost is going to be next month thank you any other comments from board members yes sir moving on to [Music] 14 items here the first one [Laughter] the board has received the the agenda items the upcoming agenda items all the items have been posted on board docs the first one is for a budget transfer from the first high school that's been resolved upon recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the transfer funds from e3 when it's the first high school addition account to 83 wins the forest high school new school accounts [Music] any other board member all in favor of the resolution raise your hands please one two three
106four five six seven eight nine you put your hand down sorry quite sure okay motion passes nine zero zero moving [Music] the superintendent that the board approved the transfer funds from e3 k-12 multi-campus equipment except bus and computer account 2 e3 k-12 multi-campus equipment expendable non-computing anything from you ladies zero moving on the next item is a approval of a budget transfer the board actually approved this transfer last october but because of actual system constraints within units we weren't able to get a process like we wanted to and and we waited for the auditors to get here to give some guidance so they recommended that we just do it again as they knew budget transfer um thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved and operating transfer to contribution to
107other funds to create cafeteria modifications building safety modifications emergency equipment and security projects heard the resolution mr johnson moved second wisconsin anything he signs anything any other board member comments all in favor of your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero and just as a side note some of that money that when you fall this is five million dollars the next item again is the uh budget amendment for title one to amend the budget to match the actual grant approval thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the budget amendment of the federal tithe one a grant fund for 1750 acquired 22 budgeted revenues and sprinters by 2 million two hundred thousand eight hundred and seventy six dollars as shown in
108the above table johnson move dot com uh all in favor raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero the next item is the budget amendment for the telegram consolidation fund 400. previously we talked about how we use pond400 to consolidate funds from some of the federal grants so that we can use those administrative expenses across grants um instead of for that one particular grant for instance if a title one has a administrative position administrative budget that staff can do more than total one when we consolidate the funds into 400. again this change here is based on recommendation from the auditors in a way that we just account for that so no really additional funds or expenditures we're just changing where we account for it thus
109being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that board approved the budget for the tower grant consolidation of 1 million 357 thousand and nine dollars resolution is there a motion of that effect moved by mr cashmark hall any we saw anything board members anything all in favor raise your hands one two three four five six seven eight nine question passes nine zero zero the next item is the modification for bid c22-06 interchange court improvements this is an item that we want to go ahead and um get the contract signed prior to board meeting so that we can be locked into cost for that particular project thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board ratified this award approval and award of the c-22 to assist interchange court improvements to jw oliver construction
110at a total cost of one million nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars i'm so happy for all the people who work there my fellow board members i'm glad it's coming any other comments all in favor from board members raise your hand please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero the next item is a georgia power contract for hvac renovations for garden city elementary school thus far resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the contract with jordan power for hvac renovations for garden city elementary school for a lump sum some pricing of 3 million for 64 248 dollars signs moves like i said second son any comment other than board members any questions or comments hearing none all in favor of motion raise your hands
111please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero moving on another georgia power contract hvac renovation for duran middle school thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the contract with george power for hvac renovations for duran middle school for a lump sum pricing of 3 million six hundred 673 thirty-eight have these three dollars in a row they're all falling under this similar georgia power arrangement i think it might be helpful to explain going through georgia power versus an end like a direct big contract like we normally do i don't know if mr caker we actually did if you noticed it refers to a master agreement and i think what we need to probably do in the future is include that master agreement number
112and the actual um date that we went through with i think about 20 schools that we were but there was a process that we went through and as they come up for the opportunity to only reference the name as a master agreement but there is a process that they have to go through thank you and i believe this is the last power contract hvac renovations for myers middle school that's been resolved upon recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the contract with georgia power for hvac renovations for myers middle school for a lot some pricing of 3 million 584 dollars between the board of public education and chatham county in support of public safety operations where the board of public education police or campus police department seeks to enter into agreement with chatham county
113for entry and continued engagement in emergency communications center for certain public safety operations inclusive of e911 services the board has received in advance the documentation documentation and closures uh with this particular agenda they're also posted posted to board docs for public consumption where all these stipulations of the agreement are included the term of the agreement is for one year for the date of execution includes no more than 10 one-year renewals thus being resolved upon recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the enclosed intergovernmental agreement with chatham county utilizing a consolidated public safety system to support the district's continual and efficient operations for public safety to explain to us how this governmental agreement affects our students and staff and our educational community doc um thank you miss hall but i'm going to defer to chief
114so he can tell you specifically how long we've been working on this and why it's going to work good thank you so much this is an initiative we've been working on way before kobet it gets us into the 911 center uh in the 911 center it's a consolidated emergency communication center with all of our local state and federal agencies within chatham county primarily our local municipalities it gives us enhanced response times seamless responses to incidents when things happen it doesn't matter whether it happens in one count one municipality or the other there's going to be information if there's an active shooter incident whatever agency is available is going to respond to that incident especially when time is of essence it also provides some cutting-edge technology with a cad system with say computer-aided dispatching meaning information
115can come directly to a device regarding an incident that we need to know about in a very timely manner it gives enhanced documentation and accountability uh it also gives us a county-wide records management system so someone has a threat in one municipality and they're a threat in all of ours we have schools located throughout chatham county this information and receiving it is critically uh important it gives us the ability to dispatch respond and communicate through mobile data terminals which is ndt's to talk with all of our partners throughout the county that have seamless and timeless communication to make sure that when incident occurs we have rapid response very timely response so that we can address the threat in front of us so just so unclear we're we're agreeing 165 000 over four years is that
116right um integrate or be able to help us with expanding our handling care initiative and to the other municipalities through the caution absolutely absolutely that that information will create all those talking to each other instead of each other so that definitely would help us enhance that and we have expanded uh him with care anyway but now it means that the others who may not come on board will now be able to come on work i think that's an important initiative that anytime we have the opportunity to share um why handle care is so important that we can take the opportunity to do that thank you the last two it's kind of pages to read the very last two pages um oh okay okay so that's two pages of it any other comments from board numbers
117moving on to the last resolution on february 2nd the board approved the award of rp 22-01 construction manager at risk for this arts academy additional renovation project to ignite construction company incorporated with an initial study cost limitation of 20 million dollars that's been resolved upon recommendation of the superintendent at the border privilege change order number one to magnetic construction company to provide a gmp of 22 million 180 000 for the construction of the savannah arson academy edition and renovation project raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight paul post that completes our business as i see it board members staff members for a profitable day this has been uh i'm proud of you all and important to feel proud to be a part of you do i have a motion to
118adjourn this song second from doc heisters brown all in favor say aye aye thank you you