001are we ready good afternoon if i could call this meeting door this is the regular board meeting of the savannah chatham board of public education on wednesday november the 3rd 2021. i welcome you all to the meeting today i will ask our secretary and mayor david brown if it has been advertised in accordance with all the laws and statutes she assures me that it has uh some of you uh maybe joining us uh through the streaming or on your computers in other ways and we welcome you all to our meeting today if you would stand as you're able and we will say the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice
002for all could i have a motion to approve the agenda for my vice president announcements item 6.01 appearances item 8.21 rfqc21 and that item 8.14 be pulled you've heard the recommendation uh the motion is there a second but how all in favor are accepting the agenda is amended raise your hand please motion passes of the any other agenda items that need to be made moving on several announcements we have an academic excellence committee meeting on uh tuesday november 16th at 4 00 p.m in this room we have uh a fair dismissal hearing scheduled on wednesday november 17th at 9 00 a.m here in this building and we have an accountability committee and equity subcommittee meeting on tuesday november 30th at 3 30 pm in this building those are all of the announcements that i know
003about board members are there any others that i've missed it is a customary uh at board meetings that we recognize those past employees who have passed away since the last meeting today i recognize edward tony cope who was the executive director and retired from oakland island wildlife russell cena a band teacher retired from mercer middle school marie folker special ed teacher retired from groves high school and monica washington a current bus driver for my transportation department would you stand with me as we honor these individuals thank you always a pleasure to uh introduce our superintendent dr anne levitt thank you dr buck officers and members of the board that give me pleasure to share our good news report so we will start with what has happened in the last 24 hours i'd like to offer
004a special thanks to board members for their support of our espos for resolution thank you also for your continued uh efforts to educate the public about these plus form by attending community meetings upon request and also for attending school uh pta of the meetings upon request would like to offer a special thank you to our community team of community leaders and supporters who did an awesome job of getting the information out of esports corps to our communications staff to our capital projects team to everyone who made a tremendous difference and getting the voters to come out and approve our east plus 4 referendum by 74 percent as i indicated in my conversations with the media but more importantly our conversations with community members and the staff is a an indication of support for our future
005our students our current students and our future students but also the indication of continuous support for ensuring that our students have the most exceptional experiences in our buildings and at your space i have left you a bright and hopefully shiny penny to understand underscore the power of the pennies so again a big thank you to everyone especially the voters of chatham county who felt it important to educate the support of our children and also their belief in our willing in in our ability to deliver promises made promises thank you so much [Applause] and other good news um arts now has awarded a 2.78 million dollar assistance for arts education grant which was of course sponsored by the u.s department of education for its project stem plus art of integrated sailing or sale garden city elementary
006and gadsden elementary schools will be becoming a part of the program through the savannah county public schools partnership with the project the focus of this project is to develop and test the use of arts integrated lesson lessons that are aligned with the third through fifth grade content standards that's the georgia content standards for math and science the program does promote our education for students and teachers through activities such as professional learning development and dissemination of accessible instructional materials and very very strong and active arts based programming we are excited about this opportunity to support these additional schools you might be aware that arts now has also partnered with three schools over the past three years and so garden city and gaston will be joining them in the summer we're so excited again you heard a
007lot about steve last month so you uh are reminded of this effort as well we're also excited to announce the receipt of a 500 000 grant from the us department of defense education activity sccps students have connected to fort stewart hunter army airfield 165th airlift wing and the coast guard station and those students are enrolled of course in our districts uh station k school southwest elementary and southwest middle school have all been involved and this particular effort will support 351 military connected students the grant will facilitate stem power hours and integrate technology into our math and science curriculum where students will engage in hands-on learning in activities in science technology engineering art math and health savannah county public schools has also launched a new app that will allow families to monitor daily school bus information
008including where a school must is on a specific route but here comes the bus app which is probably displayed on our website it's available for any family who utilizes district transportation parents can quickly see where their child's school bus is on his daily route the app will deliver real-time tracking data and notifications our annual ready to work job fair was held at savannah mall on october 7th high school juniors and seniors met with over 30 local representatives for information about career paths and career readiness our ctae team and our friends at savannah mall as well as our employees provided a fun and hopefully profitable event for our students on october 6th the anti-defamation league kicked off the no place for hate back to school initiative with amanda gorman an american writer poet activist and national
009youth laureate who delivered her poem the hill we climb at the inauguration of u.s president joe biden hubert middle school's eighth grader jakai bush was selected to participate in the interview portion with miss gorman being via a zoom interview jakai was among thousands to present a question to ms gorman and was the only student from public schools to participate jacaya is feeling very very special at this time we are so excited [Applause] but that's not all megaback an art teacher at old charter school recently completed an amazing journey last year she applied to be a docent for the crystal inflation in paris megan was accepted among the applicants from around the world and spent several weeks in paris to be a part of our history congratulations to her [Applause] three sccps students four recently announced
010first district recent winners of the 2020-21 young georgia authors writing competition though when the authors are irene park a fourth grade student at garrison school for the arts for i am maeve morgan a sixth grader at garrison for the um arts for her work summer and meredith need a sophomore at human arts academy for etched into a canvas the students were honored recently at a celebration on october 26th the stem academy at bartlett and coastal middle school have been redesignated as a lighthouse school to watch by the national middle school association for 2021 through 2024. live high schools are considered national model middle school programs and are chosen on the basis of academic excellence developmental responsiveness social equity and highly successful organizational structures and processes join me in giving coastal and stem academy a big
011round of applause for being redesignated and trust me it is a very rigorous process center park credit union and the savannah urban garden alliance you might remember we started an alliance with them an agreement with them uh partnership with them several years ago they have partnered with six scpss elementary schools to create a recipe cookbook documenting the student's first vegetable garden the project picked kicked off on october 20th at butler elementary school students from butler went to fort elementary heard gould elementary brock elementary and hodge elementary schools will participate in a recipe writing contest and 15 students will be selected to have their recipes published along with their artwork the georgia department of education has re has released our school year 2020 2021 graduation rates and savannah chatham county public schools has improved its cohort
012graduation rate rising from 89.7 to 90.1 percent this marks the seventh year in a row that our district has both graduated a higher percentage of students than the year before and surpassed the graduation rate for the state of georgia i could not be prouder of our students and staff who work hard every day in pursuit of the significant indicator of success this was very difficult last year when it was hard to keep us all on track but they made they maintained when they persisted eight of our 11 high schools in the district either improved their cohort graduation rate over the previous year or stay the same of those who increased their rate the largest increase was seen at the school of liberal studies at savannah high school with a seven point increase over the 2020
013rate we can also boast yet again that two of our high schools in the district maintained a 100 graduation rate it is the sixth year in a row that savannah early college high school has met that goal and the fifth year involved that would bill tompkins technical and career high school has done the same congratulations to all of our high schools recognizing very clearly that graduation is a preschool process we want to offer a special thank you now to st joseph who has worked with us offering the vaccine for specifically for students with parent permission but also for staff who might have wanted to take advantage of that opportunity uh we have a very special relationship with st joseph and appreciated them making arrangements to come into our high schools to offer that service for
014our students i also want to take a few moments and thank um our student senate for meeting with me last week i had the pleasure of meeting with eighth grade students from each of our six through eight schools and also with our ka schools they were a little shy this week but they have some homework and i suspect that they will bring lots of information for our next meeting what was a little scary was that i can remember some of them from early elementary that was a little scary right and then i had the opportunity last friday to start with our high schoolers and we started with the high school senate and our meeting at uh herschel jenkins high school where they certainly had lots of information to share and i've gone from those senate
015meetings and talked to various staff about things that the students want would like to see um particularly for the middle school they would like to have more opportunities to be engaged in the choral activities they were very clear on that and they're also outlining some ways that they think that we can make this a better year for them so we are certainly listening to our students and it is my pleasure to introduce you to our student of the month our future student of the month for the month of october is a 7th grader at myers middle school he is described as having a friendly disposition and a talent for bringing the best out in people especially his classmates he demonstrates leadership consistently and shows patience and compassion in the school building his nominator said he
016exhibits strong academic performance in all the subject areas last year he began with mostly b and c averages and then the year progressed he improved his quarterly grades to all a's by the fourth quarter his commitment to a type of school that comes into the middle of a project or assignment and is ready to assume a leadership role by assessing where the group is brainstorming an action plan and ensuring its execution according to the nominator so he would fit in quite well with us he demonstrates leadership within the school he builds respectful relationships with students and adults and displays adaptability and initiative in the classroom he has participated in the jazz band academy last year he also shows responsibility for taking care of his younger extended family members when we ask him what motivates him
017to strive for academic success he simply states my family we are proud to introduce to you the superintendent student of the month for october 2021 mr makai white [Applause] keep it up so you see mackay has his [Applause] is a very special star student we are so proud of him thank you for making sure that he was here to be recognized today we believe that this is one of the many times that he will be recognized and we know that it is because of your support that he has succeeded he is taking home today several gifts and he has a few more coming um all together he will receive multiple gifts from our community partners including a 50 gift card from the savannah school's federal credit union and members first credit federal credit union makai
018and his class will receive printed copies of his favorite book that is sponsored by our supporter of e-shaper lastly makai will have a personal portrait done by upscale photography that is provided by savannah county public schools again congratulations to makai his family thank you for being here today we appreciate it and look forward to hearing great things so in addition to student senate uh for middle school and for high school we also had our first official uh professional senate meeting and mr nesbitt we'll round out that report he'll provide a summary of that meeting for us mrs dennis is with the state board of education this week mr naspet we appreciate your presence and thank you so much for being there at the meeting and thank you for your continued leadership good evening good evening
019good evening good evening officers members of the boarding superintendent doctor today the superintendent is counted this is my pleasure to report on the first monthly superintendent's professional senate meeting of the year i'm particularly excited to report that the meeting was held at hash k-38 school it was called order by our superintendent dr jovette who welcomed everyone to our first in-person in-person meeting since the beginning of this pandemic i'd like to thank uh scuba president dr buck and several of the superintendents canada for joining us that day uh i'd like to particularly thank the principal i think miss newton newman newman and the staff for even a good time the meeting began with a presentation from mr jackson who briefly explained very detailed about the american recovery plan funds he explained to us you know how
020these funds are received uh what we use them for how we use them how they are distributed how much is allocated briefly and he detailed in detail explaining to us exactly how they were used and how they are used we again had another presentation by ms [Music] she again went into detail of explaining us the power of the painting she's excited we're all excited about the power of the painting so she went over that as well mr hedger came up after that um and gave us a draft uh presenting us with the draft of the 22-23 calendar school calendar and and just one of the few suggestions on uh what we thought of the calendar for the most part the senate members were very supportive of the bearing of the calendar on the current framework
021but no major uh changes and felt that consistency was very important as the ups and downs of the pandemic has created a lot of uh much of the disruption there were a few suggestions which you have and you can read all right there are also two questions that were presented to the senate um some share out questions that we got a lot of feedback on um one of the questions was we were asked what have we learned and accomplished operating under the pandemic and i just want a few points uh that i want to particularly emphasize one of them was that staff staff learned how to connect with families and a lot of other ways that we didn't imagine zoom everything else and all this stuff although we have some technical difficulties they all work
022they all work and um we learned those kind of things staff learn how to truly adapt and they are better positioned to make adjustments to circumstances one particular thing that stopped me in this meeting i think we all know teachers and staff are more flexible and more dedicated than most people realize they are very much more dedicated and more flexible another question that was presented what is the state of learning right now one of the questions that shout out to me was there must be more focus on mental health of both students and teachers this pandemic has been challenging to all of us and we all have endured a lie but we are all still in the fight and we're in fight together another thing that particularly stood out to me was that uh foundational
023phonics instructions and awareness to suffer due to reliance on technology that's one thing we particularly need to pay attention to scl we need to pay attention to those things those things are really needed seo social emotional learning mr hager responded to a few questions one particular question from one of the members about holding in-person parent-teacher meetings and mr herger politely referred to us or referred to the official district guys were referring to the visitors on campus how we can make appointments and how the visitation needs to be small we're still doing um temperatures and still wearing math so that was something that was brought up as well mr ray as well was asked the question the question was regarding when mass will no longer be required i believe he eloquently asked answer the question we
024constantly don't know we're still looking at numbers he said more than that it's in the report but happily he answered the question all right and he answered it correctly but if the meeting was closed as we always do miss dennis and i make sure we um tell the members that they are the voice for their side-based schools remember to remember to if anyone had any questions if anyone had any concerns to all your foreign from the board we really appreciate uh dr levitt and everyone here thanks thank you very [Applause] dentist much us and staff very well um want to take just a moment to not only thank him for his service but also thank all of our teachers and staff and principals everyone from the crossing guard who will recognize uh next week but
025all of our employees have done an exceptional job and we just want to remind you of how important they are to us and our children we're all enjoying in-person instruction we are moving along well and just appreciate the opportunity to serve our children so thank you for your dedication thank you to you for your continued support that is my report sir [Applause] and our agenda is uh we have several members of the public who will speak to us today i would uh let the board know that the list that you have in your book is not the order in which i will be moving because as people have come in who signed them up at that time so just know that this order is not the correct one but the first person i call them
026for five minutes is dr barry craig croico right crown cow okay uh so thank you and then dr beck good afternoon doctor could you introduce yourself sir [Music] thank you for communicating with me in my 30 years of clinical practice treating mental health patients with sleep disorders we regularly use emotional processing techniques uh so the global concept of emotional intelligence is something is extremely important uh obviously it can enhance um the education of children emotional intelligence could probably help a lot of people in this room a lot of politicians government officials maybe even some people in the media so i'm a strong advocate of enhancing healthy emotional intelligence the problem and the question is what exactly is the s-e-l variant that we're getting here and i specifically use the word variant because in addition to
027the pandemic virus we have we also have a virus going around insinuating itself into various institutions in society called critical race theory crt the board has told me that crt is not going to be practiced the problem again is what is the slp variant because it's well known well described that the soe process has been a stalking horse a gateway to bring crt into a variety of institutions not just schools so that is that is my concern and i hope you all receive my handout this is an sel handout this is from an organization by the way called center for reaching and teaching i happened to notice that its center for reaching and teaching it actually is crt so there's a number of elements that use crt nowadays not sure why that is a little
028bit suspicious nonetheless if you look in the top left hand corner it says practice restorative justice okay so who's who's going to be restored and what's the justice build capacity to make amends um who's going to make amends to whom um is there going to be a 12-step program incorporated into this program you know the ability to become not a great psychotherapist but a good therapist takes a lot of years takes a lot of training i'm not at all suggesting that teachers can't be involved in this process i'm talking about what exactly i can't read what the sign says that somebody's thank you thank you um i i really i don't know what we're going forward with in this process when we have all these terms which actually overlap microaggressions trauma-informed practices these overlap with
029critical race theory theory and therefore if it takes clarity to find out what is actually going to be put into the schools that's why i'm here that's why i'm trying to bring to your attention that there are many of us who are concerned about what is the oversight where are the outside groups of objective observers and parents that are going to be monitoring the use of sel in the school system because there is a real and legitimate concern that crt which is in many circles viewed as a marxist socialist progressive left-wing agenda is not something that parents and many members of the community want to be seen used to indoctrinate young children into an ideology that is child abuse and i'm here to ask what will be the oversight what will allow people to actually
030see with transparency and accountability what exactly is happening with the use of sel so it does not morph into crt thank you very much for your time thank you next is dr angelo ugh dr beck welcome thank you good afternoon i will be brief today i just want to speak a little bit on the sccps policy of transparency um has been an issue for many families this year and prior it's my understanding based on words straight out the district's website that the district's goal is to quote enhance and target communication to engage and connect families and stakeholders in partnership and quote to provide timely and concise information transparency has been missing in the selection and implementation of the panorama social emotional learning survey and platform on that note there are a few questions that need
031answers parents have asked some of these questions and even emails but have not received responses i know that this meeting we are unable to discuss any of my public comments however i'm asking how the answers to the following questions emailed to me within three business days i wish to bring this here as a matter of public record did district officials feel that there would be a controversy with the panera survey and is that why there is an opt-out form why weren't parents blasted with notifications about the opt-out forms like we were about everything else some information was posted on the district's web page but only after the survey had been administered at some schools and some parents still have yet to receive any information why were parents not notified that the opt-out deadline was extended
032to october 25th why were signed opt-out letters not honored for students at some schools and children were told that the surveys were mandatory going against parental decisions is the sign opt out good for all future surveys and seo lessons can families choose to opt out as the program goes along with all the controversy surrounding panorama will the district stop using the survey and find a company that is less controversial would the district be willing to work with the georgia doe to find an appropriate survey to truly ensure the emotional well-being of all students lack of transparency breeds distrust look we just want information if there's nothing to hide we expect you to be forthcoming on a different note in the interest of improving transparency we requested to approve at least two board meetings to be
033held at six pm to allow for more of the public to attend over the past two years there's been an increased amount of interest in school board politics next year is an election year where five seats on this board will be up on the ballot there are working parents and taxpayers who voted you into these seats who would like to have an opportunity to speak to you directly and look you in the eye before they cast their next vote thank you for your time i look forward to the answers to my questions i will leave my email address with the account officer back here um who can give it to whoever the appropriate person is in the district next speaker is mr reese james mr james welcome sorry if you could state your name and
034make your presentation please hello i'm rich james i'm with ironworkers local 709 and i represent 961 members and their families we cover 48 counties 35 of them in georgia eight in south carolina and what i'd like to speak with you today about is our apprenticeship and having the opportunity to come into your school systems and present our trade i believe uh there's some students that would be a perfect fit in your school for our trade uh some real brief statistics according to the us uh labor and the american police society the average age of a construction worker is 45 and a half years old the average age of an iron worker is over 40. the average age of a welder is 55 and only 20 percent of those welders are under the age of 35.
035so there's a great need uh we're projecting there's going to be a welder deficit by the year 2024 400 000 welders uh iron working is expected to grow at the rate of five percent from this date to the year 2029 and i'm working is supposed to experience a five percent growth uh and of need of 10 600 approximately iron workers every year over the next decade so how do we prepare people for a career in the ironworking trade we have a four-year apprenticeship we have a motto it's called earn why you learn there's no cost for the training that's hands-on training that's the textbooks that's the classroom training but there's also pay that they'll receive when they're getting the on-the-job training job learning uh what they're gonna make is every year that they successfully move
036through the program their wages will go up the wages for a first-year apprentice with their package is 21.73 to 24.56 an hour that includes healthcare for them and their entire family by the time they hit their fourth and final year they'll be making anywhere between 39 10 and 43 58 an hour when they graduate they'll be making anywhere between 40 43 and 45 15 per hour that includes a 13.80 in our benefit packages healthcare pension and annuity so here's our ask that you would allow us to come into the school system and present our trade to your students and let them see the great opportunities that they have next i'd like to quickly talk about our contractors uh they have a proven history of quality work and impeccable safety ratings number one they provide livable
037wages with benefits safe working conditions they financially support our training center and uh they're utilizing us the local hiring of ironworkers out of the savannah area who are safe skilled productive and highly trained uh so i'd like to say that the request for the contractors is when any time there's a taxpayer-funded project being built by the savannah shannon county school system that our local union would be notified so that we can then pass that information on to our contractors and then have the opportunity to bid on these projects another thing i'd like you to consider is language in the bid package that would require the contractors building the projects use apprentices that are being trained in a state registered apprenticeship program you're all about education i believe the workers on your project should be being
038educated i believe they should also include in that language requirement for the workers to have industry recognized safety certifications such as osha aws certifications for the welders and i believe that this will be a benefit to the taxpayers and their families is going to reduce uh rework project delays potential litigation as a result of worker injury last of all i'd like to invite every one of you we've had a couple of you come to our training center and we really appreciate that but an invitation to all of you to our training center to see how we train apprentices and what's available to your students i'll be sending out another email to you uh probably tomorrow so be looking in your box for that invitation thank you thank you very much sir it makes certain that
039you uh leave your contact information with the officer please yes sir i've done that i'm sure we already have it but just to make certain we appreciate your interest thank you the next uh person is ms margerone your draft name is good afternoon i'm beth masharoni presenting for the fourth month in a row to discuss operational decisions unilaterally made by superintendent levitt school board input is precluded by their bylaws for decisions deemed operational by qualifying the mass mandate testing for extracurricular activities and purchases of student emotional learning materials also known as sel from panorama education company as operational board input is bypassed school board bylaws need to be revised immediately to rein in and levest dictatorial power over our city and county students and teachers we need a school board with power not one that
040is impotent or is allowed to remain non-committal versus showing their hand through voting as a result of my open records requests left at my last visit i've confirmed the following in april 2021 the school system purchased using cares one money totaling over 95 000 a contract for a license from panorama education company which was co-founded by mayor garland's son-in-law zan tanner the same merrick garland who asked that parents at school board meetings be branded as domestic terrorists i received a copy of the panorama contract and the check electronically signed just last thursday 10 28 by superintendent and president of the school board dr buck this contract includes a social and emotional learning platform license project management support and equally concerning professional development called the foundations program by procurement policy any purchase over 75 000 must
041go through the rfp process my open records request has determined that this 95 000 purchase was made on a sole source basis without explanation of this deviance from policy when questioned by parents and the board about this purchase superintendent states the school system isn't teaching crt but instead social emotional learning often referred to as s-e-l however if you take nothing else from this presentation know that s-e-l is crt in sheep's clothing as proof listen to a quote from ceo and co-founder of panorama education company in an open letter entitled our stand against systemic racism quote a reimagined education system is our anti-racist protest unquote panorama company generates its curriculum materials in collaboration with the controversial harvard graduate graduate school of education based project called reimagining integration diverse and equitable schools known by the acronym rise
042whose goal is to quote ensure that all students understand the role that institutional racism and other forms of oppression play in our society unquote the rides book list 2021 includes white fragility white rage and how to be an anti-racist further one of the objectives of a panorama professional development opportunity entitled sel as social justice dismantling white supremacy within systems itself is quote to explore actionable strategies for using sel as a vehicle for social justice and advocacy in your community unquote couple this with the recent job posting on the school system website for a social justice coordinator position at the susie king taylor charter school whose responsibility is for teaching students about the six tenets of social justice through the learningforjustice.org standards and writing finally a family of a member of a fourth grader from a
043top elementary school in the city came to me alarmed at an event that recently happened in the student's classroom hear the email redacted with names and places account of the student per the family member the class was separated into black and white students the teacher had white and black dolls in the front of the room the kids were asked to pick out which dolls represented bad either a bad person or a bad thing the kids picked the black dolls i asked him if black kids also picked the black dolls and he said yes then the teacher explained to them why they picked the black dolls the teacher said they are taught this in every movie or show because the bad person is always black black represents bad unquote this focus on race left all of
044those nine and ten year olds white and black ashamed and traumatized by the color of their skin as condoleezza rice eloquently said recently black kids need to feel completely empowered and to know that they are beautiful in their blackness but in order to do that i don't have to make white kids feel bad for being white all parents and board members please demand accountability from anne lavette for attempting to sneak crt into our school system i leave you with one word virginia where a peaceful patriotic parent rebellion changed history thank you very much thank you man next speaker is a sign up irish smith um yes as you speak okay um iris smith i really didn't intend to come and speak but i have grandchildren and i'm concerned about crt and sel but i am
045not here to ask anything about that or speak on that i just had one question because her parents said work and i'm still working as well i had to take the day off so i could come to the board meeting my question is why is it scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon when most parents the majority of parents are working and it's hard for them to take vacation time sometimes they may not even have vacation time to take to attend a board meeting if they want to learn something or speak for their children or anything else so that is next speaker is christy hamer this is another walk-in third miss hamer hi hey you might remove your mess so that we can get you on the mic better can you state your name please
046ma'am and you have five minutes my name is christy hamer i am a new resident to georgia i have this is my fourth meeting that i've attended second time that i have spoken last time i spoke i mentioned that i had come to finish what jfk started and what i meant by that was i believe severe censorship is happening across the country and world and when my children were turned away from this school back in august i feel like they were denied education now since then we have started homeschooling and i have had to change careers in order to make money to stay at home and homeschool them this basically what happened is i'm driving uber and lyft and i'm picking up a lot of people across the country who fly into savannah airport to
047come here to get away and see see savannah it's full of history and it's beautiful and what i'm learning from these people is that there's a red wave coming across the nation and i don't know if a lot of you truly don't know this um or if you're just part of the problem because demons and angels exist they do and we need to give this world back to god and until that happens there's going to be a decline in every single thing that happens around the world so i don't know if you watched the news yesterday but it's it's starting to happen it happened happened in virginia and it will happen in georgia so i think that you should probably find a church and a preacher and maybe repent for your actions because god is
048watching god is on the move and i i presented last week or last month some a website that you could watch i i it's hard to get to these two o'clock meetings it really is and there the first time i came here president buck said it really doesn't bother him if a handful of people come in here and complain about masks or vaccines or or anything else unless there's 22 000 parents that come here you know he was there was people calling the school board there were people talking at the school board meetings about what was happening and nothing nothing's happening we've had people come in here and talk about having this in a bigger facility we've had people come in and talk about crt and sel and people holding baby dolls in the classroom
049asking which one's bad i mean i don't know what your position is here on this board but something has to be done and if you can't do it we will elect people who can come may so please reconsider your positions and know that while there may only be a handful of people coming in here to speak everyone there are 22 plus thousand people there are probably a hundred million people on this wave and they will come in here and they will speak eventually and you better try to find a bigger place because you're not gonna have enough room here to hold them all i know it's probably a really hard thing for you guys to be on this board you probably hear a lot of negativity van johnson told me one day when i first
050moved here that he didn't know anything about censorship so there is censorship going on there are doctors there are lawyers scientists all kinds of people that come to rallies that i've been having the four months that i've been here and if you want some more information about those rallies you can come and you can listen they're free and they're right here in savannah you can find me at g-a-r-y-c-h-r-a-s-t-y h-a-m-e-r gmail.com thank you thank you very much oh i have something for each of you if that's okay thank you give it to the option and you'll get it up here next speaker is brad bayer from the philharmonic and we're going to talk about music education um mr bear members of our school board my name is dr brad baer and i'm community initiatives manager of
051the savannah philharmonic i'm here today i want to thank you for your time and opportunity to speak with you about our museum education initiatives although many of this year's programs have been slightly delayed due to some of the necessary safety precautions we know that we will eventually have the opportunity to once again work with our community students and teachers in person and are excited to continue the work of building programming which helps to provide access to high quality music education for all students at all schools we at the southville recognize the privilege which we hold and are grateful for the opportunity we have to help complement the hard work of our district's incredibly dedicated music educators while we are truly grateful for the position which we are in uh and trust which our community has
052placed in us we also recognize that it is not only our privilege but our ethical responsibility to deepen our commitment to equitable music education programming across all of savannah we also do want to recognize the high level support that the district gives to the performing and creative arts within savannah and thank you for the investment music and creative and arts education is an essential part of a student's social emotional development and the collaborative performing arts teaches students not only to reward uh the rewards of individual achievement but the importance of democratic communal participation more so than any other subject within schools i would like to share with you a little bit about this year's offerings from the staff hill and how we've tailored them to fit the needs of what we've identified in the different
053schools at the elementary level we have created a structured but adaptable assembly program called fill the schools with music which brings the savannah philharmonics musicians directly into the students schools for assembly presentations the presentations are offered in each elementary and are accompanied by in-class curriculum developed alongside sccps educators and will be completed before the sad bill assembly we've also learned a few students get to physically see all the instruments that they can choose before they uh the day or the week that they have to make the final choice to learn it um so we've created a traveling hands-on program called musical safari which will help to get more elementary students excited about the possibility of participating in instrumental ensembles for our instrumental musical education programming we have four new programs which we're really excited to
054offer as an end subject success in learning is directly related to the quality and frequency of instruction so to help complement the work already being done in our instrumental we are significantly expanding our small group instruction offerings to any school which requests our assistance the instruction time engages musicians and teaching artists to work directly with students and their teachers in their schools additionally access to quality instruments makes a significant impact upon the success or failure of any musician this is especially true for beginners if a student's family is unable to rent or to afford the rental or purchase price of an instrument this coffee creates an insurmountable hurdle therefore we're dedicated to working with uh different music teachers to ensure that all deserving students will have access to quality instruments through our brand new bed
055tucker music instrument library in the fall semester many students of the savannah will audition for state workshop student musicians would access individual instruction often perform better than students who do not so to love the playing field we've created youtube videos of sapphire musicians performing every instrument and every excerpt and put them online to give students an oral model and the opportunity to play along with um with professionals we released about a month ago and collectively we had over 10 000 views finally in may we're uniting student musicians from all over savannah to participate in a brand new savville all-star ensemble this two-day festival features rehearsals coaching and final performance with all led by our music director katara ryden with the implementation of these programs at the bannon hill philharmonic stress deepest commitment and investment in
056equitable music education and programming we will work alongside our district's teachers to help unite our community through music lastly i do want to say that we appreciate everything currently in motion to help the community's arts organizations re-establish our weekly programming in the schools on behalf of the savannah philharmonic i would like to thank you for your time your consideration and for your support of the performing arts institute thank you thank you dr bailey we appreciate you being here and we look forward to continue association with the full mind thank you sir thank you next is a mr ms burleson i'm not sure how to pronounce the first name ma'am first of all i can't hear you but suddenly we hear you at this point and if you will leave the questions and someone will answer
057them for you they will not be answered while you're here today okay okay that's fine can you hear me now yes that's bad yes sir thank you all right so my first question is should the school board or a board of education have any jurisdiction of choosing for the child on what dean as they see fit as good or bad physically mentally or spiritually or should it be within a parent's decision my second question is are the parents well informed of the sel programs or the panorama surveys being taught to their children at the school or given to them during school times or how often this means or the surveys given throughout the school week does this program benefit in children's best interests or only certain people how will this improve the children's basic skills
058that they need to navigate through everyday life in 2018 america's education is ranked at 27th place in the world and that is a significant decline ever since 1990 when we were in the sixth place in the world honestly these babies need need skills any trade they do not necessarily need to be bombarded with a lot of this unnecessary propaganda they also need some guidance and i honestly think that right now bombarding them with so much unnecessary uh programs is not best in their best interests we have so many kids that are reading below grade level there are so many kids that aren't able to do basic math there are so many kids that need help in these basic fields so to put a program on them that you're going to be able to comprehend is
059just outlandish so if you could i will leave my information with you to answer those questions for me and thank you for your time and you have a wonderful afternoon thank you ma'am you also but if you'll give your questions to the hofstra and leadership information someone will get back to you quickly thank you next speaker is i'm not okay and the last one i answered most of his questions when he wrote this good afternoon ma'am hello as we are all aware while 2020 was a huge disaster for our children's education team sports remained open and active for old chatham county students with no catastrophic statistics for the least sports and arts represented a huge mental and physical support for all our children throughout the pandemic as we are all celebrating and glowing over the
060incredible graduation traits of chela county students let's not forget that all tests and school work occurred with open textbooks and internet access during all tests which back in my day musical cheating but in today's environment we celebrate effect students are smart enough to know how to look for answers with all that being said our district's results are the following several school district average testing ranking 3 out of 10 which is in the bottom 50 of public schools in georgia average math proficiency proficiency is 31 while rating is 31 the top-ranked published fully in china county are savannah academy and jacob g smith elementary school sport and art and extra activities have proven over the years to be a beneficial pdd that has always been supported by both parents and schools teachers who enjoy training students
061building teamwork and healthy behaviors through team sports arts and class it's a win-win situation for our students parents and schools kids get to do what they are passionate about schools get to use the private training families invested their children for the benefit of running and growing their sports and arts departments as we are all concerned in the summer about the deaf variant i was very pleased to see the weekly statistics from sccps dragging sculpted cases in our school district the following data was collected from your website as i'm sure everyone is aware of however i will read it for the parents that you make it impossible to attend a monthly school board meeting by scheduling scheduling these school meetings during normal working hours from eight to five we started eight six with two thirty positive
062students and thirty six teacher students a13 341 and 38 8 20 4 16 and 73 827 453 and 80 93 345 and 69 910 230 and 37 17 150 and 25 9 24 105 and 21 10 1 76 8 10 7 62 10 10 15 48 4 10 22 32 and 0 and 10 29 24 students and five five teachers that represents 0.07 for the students and 0.09 percent for the teachers 24 positive cases is an amazing statistic that means 99.93 of our children are healthy in schools of course as any parent i agree our children's physical and mental health social interactions are primordial for our children on 10 721 sccpss partnered with a no-name llc from a different state hci a community to find them in florida with no medical background no medical experience
063or knowledge called it the singaporeans llc newly founded company in an effort to mitigate the transmission of kobe 19 for a specific group of students sports and band not class not theater maybe other sports no teachers involved in this no no one else even though the data clearly show a positive thread of less and less positive cases in the schools where kids sit for six plus hours less than six feet aboard and to the best of my my knowledge not many schools do temperature checks daily upon arrival i personally address concerns about a free part of these weekly tests for the families with private health insurance like ourselves free is not free for some of us excessive unnecessary tasks but under our insurance were reserved into higher premiums i just signed my new premium last
064night last night and our session increased over two hundred dollars for next year services for students need to either be free for all without any insurance requirements or personal information or parents need to be given the choice to either provide weekly testing for your children home tests or pcr tests from local providers that offer pcr tests without any insurance information needed also as my children are both minors i should be present any time when somebody is conducting any testing on my children this is why i do a cds if i go this is what i do at any medical appointment nobody can touch my children without me not being there as testing occurred for a couple of weeks that shows that cases continue to drop and sports and banks do not represent a coveted search
065in our district we have never received any scientific research data at our school district to justify in any way this initiative however the financial benefits for the llc that is conducting these tests force tests on our children are making a quick and easy profit of our insurance companies and cares act resulting in future financial murders for many families ma'am you need to finish up please yes thank you for interrupting me uh why are parents not allowed to test your kids anywhere else and forced you this company whose decision was made and what medical experts were involved is it really for our children's safety or for money can we re-evaluate this initiative involve families in decision-making that affect our children and our partners we are here and we are willing to listen as long as you're
066willing to be transparent and allow parents and taxpayers to voice their opinions right now you're not and then that makes parents not trust you or your decision making just the fact i had to email my address meeting is another way to showing parents you don't trust them thank you thank thank you ma'am our last speaker will not be coming in he'll be standing in the queen back there okay [Music] thanks for all right [Music] first now [Music] you guys are much the fascists that's who you are this masked lunacy do you remember when i spoke here a month ago i brought you the paperwork you remember that did anybody bother to read the paperwork or 100 pages did anybody rather read it i'll repeat from last month it's been on the cdc website for over
067a year public information for over a year your knucklehead should know this for over a year the most conclusive studies ever done about the efficiency we're going to mask from 1997 to 2020 by dr lavette thanks for sticking around [Music] the 300 dollar superintendent of schools just left three hundred thousand dollars that woman takes home she should voluntarily reduce her salary to no more than twice the median income of chatham county which should be about seventy thousand dollars nobody should be in this sport should be making more than twice the average the median salary of any of of uh any person in this county it's outrageous three hundred thousand dollars that woman makes of our tax dollars back to the mass you guys are so funny you look ridiculous it's been on the cdc website
068for over a year the most the most expensive studies ever done regarding the efficacy working at face mask from 1997 to 2020 that information has been on the website the cdc website for over a year and those studies conclude that wearing a face mask do nothing to stop a virus i told you this last month and the month before i put you to the paperwork last month and here you are still wearing face masks you look ridiculous dr buck be a leader take off that stupid mask it looks ridiculous but we know what you're up to is you're prepping the scene last week the cdc voted a 17-person panel presumably most doctors they voted to approve the advisor vaccine for children as you've heard from earlier testimony today with common knowledge the the the survival
069rate for with chilling up to age 19 is 99.997 you better kids are getting struck by enlightenment dying from the culprit this is all a scam so that you can force the vaccine on children that's your next move this reason you guys are so stuck in the mud with your vaccine and with your mass and so then you can the next step will be to force children to get the vaccine by the way the vaccine what they call a vaccine is not a vaccine it's not even a vaccine they call it a vaccine but it is not a vaccine it is a gene therapy it uses mrna technology which has been out for over 20 years that puts a spike protein on every cell in your body people are dying from this chronic vaccine up
070until warp speed came on that mrna technology was never approved because to do so would have to pass animal trials all right a few seconds so the mrna technology was never approved by the fda all they did was extended the emergency use authorization the reason the mrna technology has never been approved it's because it has to pass animal trials and every time it's been tested on animals 100 of the animals died 100 of the animals died this is what you guys want to inject to our children think about that get over your mass you guys look stupid you're a bunch of fascists we look is [Music] um you just used it up uh moving on um mrs haggerty thank you mr board president as we move on into board of education matters we do have
071a number of policy reviews for you the first two on the docket today our first readers they are a four-year review policy edca item 7.01 has been updated to clean up unnecessary language that was in this policy get us better in line with policy language formatting and of course make clear that the inspections and the safety requirements are established as per the overarching agency of the georgia department of education any questions on policy edca mr johnson i actually have just a quick comment i do appreciate staff again um simplifying and shrinking the size of the policy any other comments on edca it's a first read all right moving on to policy mca cnca on your agenda this is a four year review also a first reader very minimal language here in your policy code book
072this one was much outdated with that language that referred to an adequate program for education which we do not have in our language anywhere and we have appropriately updated that to reference title 20. questions or comments on policy mca another first reader moving on to policy gbrb but it was determined that there was a necessary update required so that we could get in line with being able to observe the june 19th federal holiday which would be a part of our work calendars and that falls under the area of code section for your policy to gprb holidays while we were doing this we also thought it was very important to add some clarity in here under the fair labor standards act as to when that is actually appropriate other questions or comments all right moving on
073to item 7.04 7.04 this is the working draft of the academic school year calendar for 22-23 interestingly as you'll see as we put together the agenda for today this does have a bit of a connection to the policy action that you just read and reviewed under gbrb because this particular calendar is a matter of information we do list all of the holidays on the academic calendar it's important that we do that so that parents can plan whenever we are in the educational semesters going on throughout the school year so that was uh one connector that is tied to this specifically one thing we wanted to indicate was this calendar is built under the framework of the existing academic calendar that we're currently in which last year as it got adopted was very well received among
074families among our staff as well one thing we wanted to do was take this in front of our professional senate you heard the professional senate this morning or this afternoon for mr nesbitt report as far as the framework generally goes there were a few days that we were able to move around based on their feedback for uh natural breaks that occur and specifically when you do a little break in the calendar is the use of the e-learning days e-learning days were very popular and a necessary component for us and the work that we did to navigate the early impacts of the pandemic of course the current calendar that we're in was adopted prior to that did not have e-learning days embedded in it of course we didn't want to go back and change the current
075calendar we're in to minimize disruption but as we look forward to the future one of the things that we see as a real benefit is using e-learning days as a part of our operational framework is strategically plotted on this calendar to also be tied to a half day what that is is it allows opportunity for teachers to do professional learning or other matters that are very important to the classroom teachers in a half day format because we often hear that they like more planning days throughout the year but we've got 10 applause day bringman miss heinz mr johnson uh thank you for the calendar love it um as i said the last time we talked about calendar i would love to see this just copy and paste into the next couple years and we can
076approve them in a batch so people know what's coming um and then my other question was do we really still need um designated makeup days with the ability of the district now with one-to-one e-learning days thanks i'm going to actually refer to my colleague mr ray on that as we've had extensive discussion internally in the planning of this calendar we do feel that there is value to include the designated makeup days because what we recognize is the e-learning day is something that you can easily get through if you have a minimal disruption so one of the things you'll note that's changed on this is the language of the disclaimer at the bottom states that the e-learning day may or the makeup day may be required if there is substantial disruption to the instructional day or
077impact of the district and as i transition to mr ray for the clarification on that i'll just give you an example think about hurricane we need to evacuate you may lose power you've got to get on buses for some as we have partnerships families are leaving the market who knows where they're going you could lose two or three days right there in itself where you're not able to be learning electronically that will be able to do today that we couldn't do but it's still going to be the hopefully we don't have day that would most likely be online or now it would most likely be online but it also depends on what type of situation we run into if it's a hurricane matthew [Music] in those days so we lose days to make up days
078are we actually saying it could be a physical presence day or an online day where i'm kind of just saying why don't we just use the powers that we've learned in the pandemic and made it online [Music] think as we experience with this extensive hurricane impacts it could be more than that um that they came up with the changes that they made they suggested for making on the calendar and i thought that was very good very good input johnson um appreciate the all the work that's been put in here on the calendar i do know that from past experience to the calendar committee how hard it is to juggle everything and inevitably you're gonna you never you're not gonna make everybody happy um you're gonna make basically everyone's gonna have to compromise on something um
079my biggest question that i have that i've already been answered was about the half day on the e-learning on the e-learning days um so i do appreciate um staff for giving me the answers to that and a lot more understanding on that so i just wanted to say i do appreciate all the hard work i just want to make sure that the schools especially those that don't use the um e-learning platform before we get into these e-learning days maybe have a refresher with the students and the teachers on how to use the um the platform thank you very much thank you i just wanted to build upon what dr bringman was talking about it that they could be e-learning days uh but we do have populations that are not served well um by you know
080by e-learning and so i would like the superintendent to have the discretion to across the district maybe there are certain groups that would come back in person particularly those that receive special services in the schoolhouse that wouldn't get it um that way so i i like the idea i like the the policy slant of trying to encourage and maximize the use of e-learning i'd like for the district to have the flexibility to differentiate when that's the best approach um yeah i appreciate the thought behind adding learning days i think it keeps everybody refreshed to the extent a professional development day as well the one thing i would say is this it's also a significant child care issue not only for parents but for teachers as well and especially teachers who are in school conducting the
081e-learning remotely they have child care issues as well so all i would ask is you know if this is the ultimate calendar there's plenty of notice given out before school starts and multiple times in august and again reminders in december or january about the days in february so people can plan other comments from anyone [Music] as a former teacher this calendar is just simply awesome when i look at fall break then you have full week thanksgiving break and full two-week winter break and so forth i think we've come a long way with developing these calendars so i committed the communities that have worked with the teachers parents students to actually establish these calendars it's really a great calendar any other comments moving on oh we have to vote on this no no no sir that
082was a first reader so we'll bring it back to the board for final adoption on the december 4 meeting 7.05 is the first reader talking about the oakland island visitor center good afternoon in accordance with board policy a team has been appointed by the superintendent to provide a recommendation for the name of the oakland island visitor center the proposed name will be read to record during today's meeting the naming of the visitor center building as is i'm sorry the name of the visitor's center building as the edward anthony tony kope visitor center is now being presented for board review the persons on the oakland island wildlife center naming committee are and the vet superintendent venesha butler retired oakland island employee connie hall board member of district 3 vanessa miller deputy superintendent sean kashmar board member
083and vice president district four have immersed the savannah county public school director of oakland islands and michelle hodges the secretary to the superintendent i worried about mr cope edward anthony tony cope was the creator and long time director of overland island wildlife center and passed away friday october 8 2021. mr copeland was a former educator with savannah chatham county public schools and retired after 30 years with the system in 1973 a large track land on open island was declared government surplus for a year mr cope and savannah board members travel to atlanta and washington to lobby for the opportunity to establish an environmental education center on the site in august 1974 the facility officially became the old flynn island education center with mr culp as its first director the site was later renamed the oakland
084island wildlife center a native of savannah mr cole provided endless contributions to the city he was a teacher baseball coach and administrator he also was active in the community serving three terms as president of the savannah symphony and as a member of rotary club east leadership savannah and leadership georgia the wildlife center hosts hundreds of school children and visitors annually savannah school system is fortunate to have such a rare tool in its portfolio of educational sites to commemorate and honor tony cope renaming of the oakland island visitor center is being presented for board action so this is just the first reason we do not need a motion we will be voting in december but i would hope everyone will support this tony happened to be in my rotary club and we wouldn't leadership samantha leadership
085georgia and many other things together so he was a wonderful guy um many of you i'm sure already know that but his uh his wife passed away two weeks after he passed away she was in ireland with him and she was in bad health already but uh moving on please thank you for president 7.06 is a recommendation for contract amendment to be read into record for board action by mr david feliciano good morning i'd like to inform the board that we have two representatives from susan king taylor charter with us from the back is governing board member mr hoffman and the uh school leader dr chattan mr president before you is a request for a two-year extension of the existing five-year charter contract of suzy king taylor community school the existing contract in place ends
086june 30th of 2022. throughout the renewal process the administration collaborated with the chartered petitioners and saw guidance from the state department of education due to performance deficiencies and the impact of the covert pandemic on school year 2020 and school year 2021 the administration supports the two-year extension with additional terms and conditions this will provide the charter school with three consecutive years of school operations beginning with the current school year 2022 thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the amendment to the charter contract and extend the charter term for the susie king taylor community school charter school by two years to conclude on june 30th 2024. you've heard the resolution is there a motion to that effect moved by dr bringman second by mr cashmore um dr anything i would
087just like to thank your board and leadership for working with the district to come together on this contract plan play in all of this and they have to meet all the requirements of that plan as a condition of potential renewal after the two years and what what's the specific specific role because of the pandemic there isn't sufficient data to make a decision on the outcome so they're in support also to uh for all designated schools in georgia they're just going to continue that their designations and allow for additional years to see any performance changes okay thank you so that builds their database is that great yes sir okay um mr johnson um i will approve this recommendation i support it i just want to let the um let you know over there take the time
088make the necessary improvements and come back in a couple of years and start how well you are doing any other comments from board members hearing none all in favor of motion raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero thank you folks for being with us you've had a long afternoon i'm sure is there anything you would like to say real quickly uh you don't feel like you have to but sure come up here sir first and foremost thank you for uh the audience listening to us considering we presented and improving uh second i would just like to address the community members of spanish community general i heard several comments from the audience some things mentioned to you king taylor we have my opinions come we
089welcome all public participation it's on the counter we have meetings we uh we welcome and invite discussion if you have comments concerns questions we'll discuss it we'll take another consideration if you don't then maybe now before you don't consider what we do there is not the appropriate place to do it come talk to us we'd be happy to talk to you thank you thank you sir we appreciate you moving on to legislative priorities thank you mr board president officers of the board of superintendent board members presented before you is your 2022 legislative priorities for adoption these matters have been reviewed during the previous board meeting on october 6th and were further reviewed and discussed during the 2022 legislative breakfast was the with the chatham county delegation so now the information before you have been previously
090provided in your packets and is posted to board for public consumption that the board adopted legislative priorities for use as a framework to advance the needs of the savannah chatham county public school system in our work to ensure a high quality education is provided for every student thank you you've heard the presentation uh we need to approve this is there a motion to approve it dr tyson's grand move ms krabowski seconds dr brandon comment ms grabowski any comment i just want to thank the state legislators that we were able to meet with during the breakfast i think it was a very productive conversation conflicts i look forward to future opportunities certainly i want to congratulate miss evan jackson on her victory and look forward to working with her as our newest state representative as well
091so thank you for the hard work to the staff on honest and look forward to continuing to work with our state uh legislature thank you [Music] we didn't agree on um but we spoke civilly with each other um and we can see different viewpoints and it's nice to be able to meet with those individuals from our community to understand that we are all in this together to make savannah county a better place for all citizens johnson yeah you got me um i just want to say that um these other pirates a lot of what we do every single year um and i'm going to beat this dead horse against us for the record i love qbe um in 1984 it was um passed we didn't have seat belt laws in um we now have a
092computer and calculators and phones and faxes and emails and everything else in our pockets um there's probably more there's more power in our cell phones than there were vehicles back then so we need to modernize it we need to make sure that the folks in atlanta call your state representatives let them know that you support our legislative priorities so that way they can work with other representatives and state centers from around the state to get these things passed to help benefit our students and our children thank you mr justin any other comments heard the resolution all in favor raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine question passes nine zero zero moving on to american education week proclamation and mr johnson is going to read that american education week proclamation
093whereas public education is the backbone of our republic providing young people with the tools they need to maintain our nation's precious values of freedom stability and equality and whereas by equipping young americans with both practical skills and intellectual abilities schools give them hope for and access to a productive future and whereas public education employees will be the educators substitute educators administration staff custodians teachers bus drivers clerical workers food service professionals skilled trade workers health and student service workers security guards technical employees or librarians work tirelessly to serve our children in communities with care and professionalism and whereas public schools are the foundations of neighborhoods and communities bringing together adults and children educators and volunteers business leaders and elected officials in the common purpose therefore be resolved that we the board of public education for the
094city sudan and the county of chattanooga proclaim november 15-19 2021 as the 100th annual observance of the american education week okay this this third day of november 2021. uh you've heard the resolution uh uh all in that emotion he made uh is i have a second please suck it by dr brown in favor of the resolution raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine uh motion passes i believe uh miss beeson lindsay is here to thank you to uh receive that proclamation [Applause] elementary teacher humans thank you [Applause] next is a retired educators day proclamation that will be read by dr howard hall and it will be presented to mrs irene retired educators in georgia's proclamation more than 140 retired educators have devoted their time and talents to public education
095in our state fostering academic development of millions of outstanding citizens in the state of georgia and whereas retired educators touched and influenced the lives a generation of young people motivating and inspire their students to use their innate talents and abilities to the fullest prompting them to become responsible contributing citizens and thus be resolved by the board of public education at the day of november 7th 2021 as declared by the government of the state of georgia be recognized as retired education and savannah's channel county public school system and that every citizen join us throughout the entire month of november raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine now we ask a veteran board member and a retired educator to come forward and accept the proclamation on behalf [Applause] thank you thank
096you thank you [Applause] give it back [Music] author and retired educator [Applause] thank you very much moving on um we need to approve the consent agenda as i asked for a motion about the consumer agenda i would make note from the public that their questions always ask about the consumer agenda and those are items that have been fully vetted by the superintendent's staff and by the board that are thought to be able to be voted on in a sort of a lump group as opposed to individually because discussion has already been held at various uh with questions asked so that is why the consent agenda which is by the way i recommend and approved means of national school board and state school board uh of doing business can i have a motion to approve the
097consent agenda approved by a motion by ms grabowski second about mr one two three four five six seven all opposed uh any extensions two so the motion passes seven zero two moving forward to uh strategic goal four we have three items the first one this is the physical responsibility and resource goal the first one is financials and then we have a budget transfer and a contract welcome mr jackson good afternoon everyone i won't be before you long as you all know we're still in the um really the first true month of revenues for the 21 22 school year as we look at the end of september so we have three months of operating expenditures as far as the revenue to the general fund um we've collected about 19.2 million which is just a little bit
098less than 21 million we collected last year um but other than that the revenues are pretty much on target the revenues vary from year to year just depending upon uh taxpayers and how they pay their property taxes um so that will vary from year to year expenditures are pretty much on on target as we look at the other funds we don't have any other concerns um but as you know this time of over the next couple of months we've received a lot of new grants new federal grants so we're going to be bringing a few of them before you in the next couple months but at this time we don't have we won't don't have any concerns about the other farms that thank you mr jackson and i apologize for not sending this question uh
099earlier um i'm looking at the salary line on page nine for title two that is expended at 372.2 and then and my question is is that because we build some support there that's going to get moved from the cares line or um because the there's a line for salary support on page 10 under cares one and two that's only at 19 so i'm wondering if did we build title two and we're going to make a move somewhere actually we will move the expenditures the way the the benefits show up not only in the in the title programs but all the grants they are billed every month so during the months of july august and september you show expenditures um for benefits even though you won't truly show as much as salary expenditures but the salary
100expenditures will eventually catch up with the with the benefits but there are some benefits that are in these particular grants that will get moved uh to a prior year or they will get moved into the new grant once we adjust the budget okay thank you and then on page 25 under special programs what is local other is the third line on 25 that is at 192 what is local other that one i will probably have to do some research okay that's right um it normally refers to local local revenue of all special revenue that we have in the district it could be building around trolls it could be our tuition fees but give me a chance to do some research on that when i get we've got an answer to you okay thank you do
101we have any update on our ara grants um process for submitting for the well we are still awaiting approval for care 2 budget we've been back and forth with state that should be now um we're actually in the process of collecting some additional survey information from the uh teacher senate group who we met with last week we gave gave them an additional week to get some information to us we're going to review their their information um next week get some additional ideas then put together a recommendation to cabinet and the superintendent but we're trying our best to get a budget together and hopefully get into the state by the first of december for get the application tuesday by the first of december giving us uh here's when we'll turn around and tell you yay or
102nay all of the budget items to ensure that we can include them in the grant um as i told the the professional center group today unlike the city and the county they have a lot a little more flexibility than we have um they're not their applications or their funds are not reviewed by a state agency so we have to submit our applications to the department of education to make sure that they are in um can be approved by the state that they're in within the guidance given by the federal government along with for instance they ensure that we don't include items just like capital improvement items that could be in our um facility applications so those are the type of things that the state checks for um so once they go through all that that
103vetting then they will get an answer to us all right thank you yes any other comments or questions um i would just like to compliment on you but i must admit when i started looking at this material on saturday yes i didn't see the report on monday so on sunday as i was going through it and near the end i saw it but anyway i really like uh i like your print and the graph is beautiful i could follow it better much better yes as i mentioned in the previous meeting we're still working on the reports we're still trying to learn the system but we realize there are some things that internally ourselves is going to have to program to make it look pretty and user friendly yes ma'am any other comments specifically that we
104could call um yes there's a a um statement that we that all of the school districts go through and right now but there's a person that that receives the application and make sure that we are in accordance with all of the federal guidelines similar to tyler1 you are correct thank you mr jackson are you reading the budget [Music] for espos free new hampshire k-8 school project the transfers needed to provide additional funding to accelerate the work and cover cost of construction staffing consultants and technology as required for completion you see the transfer in the agenda before you thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the transfer of peace three new hampshire kh2 funds for the acceleration and completion cost of the project ms johnson one question i'm sorry i
105did not ask this um prior to it just came up i just popped in my head i guess um do we know how much more money besides this million that we're probably going to have to put towards the new year okay thank you brown any other questions from board numbers hearing now in favor of approving the motion raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes 9-0-0 moving on to the last agenda item which is uh when's the first high school design contract uh yes uh this agenda item was presented to the board prior to this meeting and it's available online as we pointed out to the board we have would like to go ahead and begin the design phase for women's forex high school this recommendation um addresses
106the design professional services thus being resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the contract international with for design services for the winter forest high school project under rfqc 18-05 on-call architectural and engineering services annual contract in the amount of two raise your hands please one two three four five six seven i'll oppose any extensions so the motion passes seven zero two and um i have you have anything else miss john jackson no sir i have nothing else uh miss you moving journal mr basket go grace oh