001hey sir yes okay this one yes oh and we are i wanted board members to know that over the next few weeks as we start to reopen 208 and some of our facilities you will also see the superintendent and several of us have met and you will start to see this room change a little bit also going back to getting some public in here with us socially distance um we will um move staff around some so that we can put some public in here and so just be aware of that coming as we move forward you all ready to start good afternoon that uh i could call this regular meeting of savannah county board of education to order on wednesday june 2nd 2021 this is our regular board meeting uh and the meeting is also
002being streamed if you're watching from your computer uh at home uh your phone we uh welcome you we're glad that you're here with us and uh we do have a full agenda today as we proceed i will ask ms davis brown if this meeting has been advertised in accordance with the state statutes she assures me that it has so we have done what we need to do to make certain that the public knows about the meeting uh at this point i would ask that you stand with me as we pledge allegiance to the flag of the united to the states for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you superintendent and i have uh pledged to each other that come august at our board meeting we will
003have singing the national anthem in here like um [Applause] [Music] approve the agenda with the following adjustments revisions to item 4.01 announcements 6.01 requests to appear before the board 8.06 appointments 8.07 reassignments and salary adjustments 8.22 rp 15-74 item 9.09 a tentative adoption of the fiscal year 2022 budget and 9.10 tentative recommended fiscal year you've heard that recommend recommendation for the approval of the agenda as amended uh that motion was made second second by mr johnson uh any discussion from any of you here known all in favor of the uh accepting the agenda as amended raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero so the amended uh agenda is uh approved um we have several announcements um i have it and i lost it um
004there's a um notice a public hearing on our budget which is wednesday june 16th that's two weeks from today at 6 00 p.m here in this complex that at 6 30 at that same date and time place is the special call board meeting to approve the final adoption of the budget and the millage rate we also have an audit committee meeting on june 24 2021 at eight o'clock here at whitney uh all june 23rd meetings are cancelled um and uh i know no other means board members anything i want to announce okay thank you it is um it is our custom to recognize those who have been employees of this savannah china district who passed away since the last meeting and this month we only have one mr kennedy brown a bus monitor from the
005transportation department which you stand as we reflect on his service to the district thank you we've gone it's my pleasure to um introduce and present our superintendent dr ann levitt who has served operational report and also the good news talking about welcome thank you dr box offices and members of the board it's my pleasure to share the following items with you school is out regular school is out extended school it will be we'll begin tomorrow with our summer embrace program and we're excited about all of the young people who will have an opportunity to extend their school year with meaningful activities i'll begin by sharing with you again that sherry dennis i'm an esl teacher for hess k.a school has been named a finalist for a state teacher of the year ms dennis is in
006her 11th year of teaching and she's preparing as we speak her speech and getting her materials together for the next level competition i'm excited and very proud to have her representing savannah county public schools as she moves forward as a viable candidate for state teacher of the year we're also excited to announce that our school nutrition program has been deemed a 2020 vision district by the georgia department of education school nutrition program the georgia department of agriculture and georgia grown a collaborative effort began in 2015 to increase the presence of more nutritious locally grown foods in georgia's school cafeterias savannah early college high school junior corey strada jr has been named a bank of america student leader for 2021. this prestigious program helps students to enter the workforce through skills building and leadership development corey
007is among 300 young people from across the country who were selected as student leaders for bank of america largo tibet has earned the lighthouse leader in me designation students are engaged in three tenets they are academics leadership and culture the program impacts both staff and students and i would also say families as every day we see instances where our students are showing those leadership characteristics they are employed they are taught to employ the seven habits of happy kids based on the popular happy have seven habits of highly effective people savannah high school student a senior taylor goodly won a thousand dollar scholarship for h r bosch children of associates premier scholarship by demonstrating innovative ways of improving our local community so ten thousand dollars for that savannah high school senior taylor godling our stem students
008remain in the news our stem academy of barbara 8th grade student edna luna recently won second place in the international ocean film festival's middle school category with her film black ocean and was awarded the global audience prize also from stem 8th grade student alice shafer received the grand award in biochemistry in the junior division of the georgia science and engineering fair her project won first place for biochemistry at the regional science fair earlier this year before advancing to this level and yet again seven sixth grade students from the stem academy of broadway have been named the winners of the recent albany state university nasa student video challenge the school of humanities at julia gordon law school was named a family friend family friendly partnership school for 2021 one of only five schools in the state
009to receive the honor in 2021 out of 2300 schools in the state the school is recognized by the department of education for his work to establish a family-friendly and welcoming atmosphere moving on i'm not sure if anyone missed it but the savannah sports council honored two of our families at the 2021 sports award luncheon uh coach tim jordan savannah high school basketball coach ed athletic director received the john f hodges award for outstanding achievement in sports in savannah and sharon frazier valedictorian jenkins high school was awarded a one thousand two hundred dollar scholarship for accomplishments in the classroom and on the court and our sealants are out of this world literally a past designed as part of the annual student astronaut challenge was imprinted on face mask and has orbited earth on the international space
010station thanks to carol and bob nichols the nichols are the in-laws of astronaut commander shane cambro and are also still not supporters it's nice to have really strong connections our youngest babies kindergarten through third grade learned about fire safety thanks to a partnership with the hartford insurance company the junior fire marshal program from hartford it is a life-saving fire prevention and safety program turning millions of kids into everyday heroes the junior fire marshal training academy deputized our scc pss students as junior fire marshals and presented them with certificates of completion and their badges and helmets last month we spoke about school and district leaders making a difference in student safety through safe routes you might recall that it was during that very meeting that we were advised that chief enoch was being recognized we have
011recently learned of another award that recognized an entire school the safe roster school program has made gould elementary school the school partner of the year the annual award highlights partner schools organizations and individuals that have done great things with bicycle and pedestrian safety events outreach and engagement with students and their communities connect savannah best of edition scc pss was recognized in several areas in the annual coveted connect savannah best of awards categories that recognize various communities and businesses as voted on by their readers today we wish to recognize as savannah's best alfred maguire was voted as best [Applause] academy was voted the best public school and the runner-up was and our very own dr dionne hostas brown was voted best school board member and [Applause] we also wish to offer a special congratulations today to
012dr valerie cave who was named unanimously voted on unanimously by the carlton county school board as the next superintendent we are delighted for her and meeting this achievement and we are looking forward to hearing great things about her work we're ready at this time i'm pleased to provide a brief operational update many of these uh points you may have heard already but we think it's important to have these points on the record and someone is moving quickly to make sure that we take care of that um while we're doing so you know i just wish to point out um how grateful we were that each of you were able to join us at one point or another for our graduation ceremonies it was really exciting to have our students be able to walk across the
013stage the last day of school was may 21st 2021 academics and i want to say regular school period um our academics will continue with summer learning embrace which actually starts tomorrow and you'll hear a little bit more about that as we move through this and again our graduation ceremonies um and all of our bridging ceremonies were successful we had lots of love and joy during that week and it was just really helpful to see people in such a celebratory mood after um quite a challenging year our technology returned in inventory is a priority for us we want to get those devices in so that we are ready we'll talk about why that's important um as we move forward here you'll see our young people engaged to see um our young man in front of hitter
014city forming school probably celebrating the school is out but he has a backpack of learning materials we have provided for our young people grades pre-k through two have each gone home with books that they can read over the summer to support their reading practice and um rotary our rotary clubs and savannah provided the books for our third graders so we're very happy to see them get ready for the summer and then of course the class of 2021 we have 1964 graduates in that class we are still calculating the scholarship dollars you will see a listing in the savannah morning news june 9th of all of the universities and the branches of the military that young people are engaging in at this point you know my point to them when they're ready to graduate is that
015i'm ready for them to be enrolled in a post-secondary institution enlisted in our armed services employed full-time or any combination that rob and dr howard hall has suggested that we also include we want them to also be ready to be entrepreneurs so they are indeed ray special congratulations for um our 2020 graduates who participated in our rainbow ceremony we had about 125 young people who participated who came back and um just very exciting to see them all there they had their one year of life outside of high school dr buck gave them i think some really good advice including advice from our 2021 graduates so we're very excited to have them join us i want to offer a special congratulations and thank you to our savannah state university partners who helped us this year and
016also to mrs ball oliver and her team for doing a great job [Applause] so for the second part of the school year that starts tomorrow um we are extending our learning opportunities for summer embrace which begins tomorrow you'll see here the number of students that we have registered for section one seven thousand seventy students we have 630 671 teachers and assistants employed remember that included in this number are also our students we have about a hundred students who have qualified to work with us this summer so we have you know four years depended on summer 500 so this school board has some 100. um these are our own students who have been deemed capable of working with young people this summer they many of them are studying to become teachers so what a better place
017for them to start than with us uh 793 of those who have signed up will also be using before and after care summer session two we have 820 students registered 127 teachers and assistants employed we also have students who are working in this group as well and 125 of those are using before and after care please note that the total number of summer learning offerings in both sessions is well over 1200 offerings so thank you very much [Applause] we did have some young people show up for class today they are eager and ready to begin um uh to receive them they've had a few days off now so they're ready to get started with uh part three actually um i think everyone knows that we are planning for a five-day in-person return um august 4th
018this will be a transition year we are transitioning back to some of our familiar operations we expect that certain safety protocols will remain and we will include those of course by following the information about cdc guidelines and recommendations and they will be included in the back to school announcements student and i should say staff on social and emotional well-being will remain a priority and virtual learning options will be available through our e-learning academy for those students who are hoping to engage virtually we are asking those parents who prefer online learning for their children if they have not already to register um through june the 18th for service through the e-learning academy we've had a few inquiries about that and we are trying to customize as much as possible but the primary place for students who
019are looking for exclusively online will be through the learning academy we are planning for a five-day return and you are aware of the governor's orders last week when the school year 2021 begins we fully expect the wearing of mass to be optional for staff and students certainly we are also not allowed to ask people whether they are vaccinated or not i think those of us who are sitting up here and most of the staff uh clearly we all kind of know each other's status as we were celebrating with over again our vaccination uh shots but clearly the governor's order prohibits us from asking someone if they've been fascinated some parents have registered concerns about that but we've also said to them that it is our expectation that they will in the fall they have the
020right staff and students to wear a mask and we will see that as a regular part of their wear if they wish to do that and many parents and staff have expressed a concern and we expect that us people will where we will be wearing masks i'm fascinated very proud of it last shot was on february the 6th i think most of us know that day if not we have our card but there are lots of people who have not made that personal choice so we will be making sure that this information is widely available so here are things that are a priority for us getting ready we do have an intentional effort plan to reach our families and ensure that they are enrolled and ready we'll be doing lots of reach out student registration
021begins june 14th for new families but to tell the truth we've been registering new families all along and in-person assistance is available at the student and family service center which is at 400 east broad street and the number is 395-5584 administrative placements will be done on limited basis our intention is to make sure that our students populations are settled this is the time we want to make sure that we have a good handle on where students are at the beginning of the year and we'll we will review any uh questions um or any cases on a much and on as needed basis um technology heard me uh point out that we'll be collecting maintaining purchasing as necessary um any technology that we need and we'll be distributing those and we'll have a publicized schedule for
022doing so transportation um all throughout this past year we have been talking about transportation transportation continues to be an area of concern we can expect some challenges uh social distancing aspects have not been clarified for us you will recall the cdc said very clearly they would be making some suggestions regarding public transportation and i would suggest that that means for schools but also for other means of public transportation um the staff is working on a plan for us we don't want parents to be surprised that we will most likely unless things change will most likely not be able to transport the 26 000 students that we have transported typically so we want everyone to be aware of that and we'll give you additional information we are continuing to seek partnerships that will allow us to
023legally transport children and i will keep you up to date on where we are with that and of course we keep saying it because we want to make sure no one's confused five days a week opening day is august 4th unless there's some weather event or something we expect the students will be there and we will function in a manner that is as close to the pre-covet operations as possible to just make sure and there will be a yard sign campaign so we'll have those out across the city so that there's no confusion lots of communication lots of calls just so that people know when we would like to start school five days a week um transmission rates we thought we would never see green but we are seeing green um daily rate is no
024longer reported but you also see the community transmission index is even making some improvements here so we're now at 79 as of may 31st and of course is hurricane season when i said earlier that we were going to make a conservative effort to get our devices out to our children i want to say you know we we want to get past the point of having to bring suggested dates to you for makeup we want our young people to be able to continue their work when they are at home with their devices then they are more than likely going to be able to do that so hopefully that's what we will get to be we are poised for any possible instructions last year we planned for the pandemic and prayed that we didn't get any bad
025weather there were districts across the country that had that experience we are continuing to work with the county and with our own staff to make sure that we are ready for 2021 a likely range of 13 to 20 main storms um could possibly be in our area so we want to make sure that you're aware of that as well we've already started preparing for the year but our distance learning platform is in place and most students will be familiar with that we'll continue to make sure that parents are ready and know how to respond during this time period and that is my report for the questions of the superintendent before we move forward mr johnson um thank you for your report doctor i do want to say i was um very optimistic when i saw
026page six about where you put fully expensive awareness to be optional for um staff and students so um i do um appreciate you putting that in your update uh mr about thank you also for your report um and i know this is not a surprise to anyone on your staff or any of our school principals or faculty but um with a return uh to five days a week in the fall many of our students and families are very anxious to see their schools many of those who haven't been in that school before um and open houses are typically planned at the school level um but it would be you know just encouraged to the extent um i know there's so much on everyone's plate but to the extent that we can share information about open
027houses which i realize there's still some time away um that families are very anxious to actually be able to go into those school buildings that they have not been able to see in person before especially for students well thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about that since the principles have been establishing their open house dates i'm not sure if they're published already uh that is a key communicator for us when we get to our back to school phase which will be uh very extensive in the month of july leading into that august 4th day the associated superintendents have been talking with their schools and they do have a plan for open house dates and trying to do it on a staggered schedule as well especially to focus on those great bands where
028you have transitions like those entering ninth graders or uh children going into middle schools where they're going to school they may not have been before so i'm going to give them more time where they have access to getting into the hallways so that's being formulated and i believe a recommendation would come from the associated superintendents to the superintendent for final approval and then we will be broadcasting that on all of our communication channels for your detailed report today and it's been long coming and you and your staff have worked very hard this past year to make sure that all children receive the kind of education that the best that they can under the circumstances in which we experience so uh i look forward to the beginning of the year and a lot of parents i
029know welcomes back so we're looking forward to updates is actually a snapshot of a very um robust comprehensive plan we need the public to realize that this has been going on since since last summer planning on august 4th of this year commended the staff and everyone involved with our plan because these operational updates gives the public a very good snapshot of how hard we've been working towards all the stores thank you uh dr lavette i wanted to uh commend uh you and the staff on the success of the graduations i thought um they were beautifully done um we certainly had wonderful weather with one two hour exception and even that was perfect because with johnson high school being orange and blue to have to move in the states arena which is orange and blue looked
030like we had planned it very carefully so but i thought graduation outside went very well i thought it was well planned and i commend you and your staff for that secondly uh i just wanted to say one thing and i will probably have more to say about it with mass um i certainly support uh choice of parents in wearing a mask are not wearing a mask i would only say that part of the obligation in my opinion is that if you're not going to wear a mask and you're not going to require your children to wear a mask that you have indeed been vaccinated and inoculated because to not have the vaccine after making that decision a potential situation in a school building that could become very problematic for us i have four grandsons not
031in this district because they don't live here my four grandsons are under the age of 12. they're not able to get a vaccine yet my four grandsons are still wearing a mask in school for that very reason i know it is a personal decision but i hope that you will not just consider your own likes and dislikes and what you think is being in think is being imposed on you and and trying to keep everyone safe together thirdly um i wanted to re-emphasize what the superintendent said about transportation um those of you who have followed this district for quite a while will remember prior to the pandemic that we put forth a hub system after spending almost two years of studying the hub system uh we got tremendous pushback from parents who did not find
032the hub system to be convenient for their children or for their family because of social distancing and because of the cost of gasoline and because of moving people around like we've done in the past we must make some changes for the future and the superintendent said it but august the 4th is not very far away and we bust i believe before the pandemic 32 000 miles a day or some such thing but please please understand as we put forth new requirements and ideas to understand that many of you were very concerned about your child not being in school now your child is going to have the opportunity to be in face-to-face school but some of you may have to help with getting your child to school so thank you uh moving forward uh any other
033comments from obviously um just thank you very much for your support and understanding it's been a very uh challenging year but i think i choose to focus on our ability to adapt to be flexible to persist and to demonstrate resilience our children have learned a lot in fact as a part of the beginning of school our student senate members will be issuing comments and advice to our staff and to our families and they've done so very very eloquently and i believe you will find it useful to hear directly from that thank you thank you for your support we have uh moving on to appearances we have two speakers uh today one is a parent who wants to talk about masks and crt and that's miss megan holbrook uh if we could miss holbrook yes welcome
034good afternoon everyone my name is holbrook i'm a single mom a resident of savannah for the past seven years as far as work i am a degreed electrical engineer and i have worked as a systems engineer in the aerospace and defense field for close to 20 years i myself am a product of public schools i have attended public elementary schools community colleges as well as university university although these schools were in the state of connecticut i've always believed in the public school system so when i reloaded relocated to civilian i trusted the public institution to educate my daughter with this pandemic under control and the plans to return to school face to face five days a week in the fall i would like for my daughter to return to public schools i have learned that
035chapman county public schools wants to incorporate critical race theory or crt into the curriculum and i am just saying no from my research i gathered that crt is just another marxist practice that attempts to judge a person by their skin color instead of the content of their character being a systems thinker i look at things from a broader perspective and i conclude that crt is another attempt to cancel culture it takes away an individual's free thought by forcing the young mind to believe that they are privileged because they are white or they are being discriminated against because they are black this is not always true this fuels conflict hate envy hardship and distress it's another way to break down humanity no this blatant form of racism should not be taught in schools you cannot fight
036discrimination with more discrimination we will not allow you to indoctrinate our kids we can think for ourselves and we do not need you to tell us how to think or how to raise our children with the majority of the schools here in this district across having grades of c or lower the focus needs to be on teaching these kids to be proficient in reading and math how about an effort to focus on helping our kids read at grade level or higher why don't we devote some energy to expanding vocational and technical training so that these kids who are not college material can be set up for success and a lucrative career in the future bring back home economics shop for our boys and girls focus on cultural studies a second language as well as music
037and band i will now be thinking about mass as far as mass as i mentioned i am an engineer so i know a little bit about science universal laws and nature third grade science learn we learn the respiration life cycle we get plant co2 and oh they gave us oxygen if this life cycle is broken for a long period of time what happens both humans and animals and chips perish this is a universal principle there's no way around this oh why are we doing this to ourselves oh because the media told us so or because a politician told us so wake up television is exactly how spell tell life to your vision now all you up here on this piano are highly educated with fancy degrees from prestigious ivy league colleges what happened to the
038critical and logical thinking you had to think something wasn't right when after deciding dr falchi the overlaw overlord flip-flop with the science now i know a lot of people may have lost people independent however the fact of the matter has not changed this virus has a 99.7 survival rate governor kemp recently signed an executive order last week prohibiting the kids to wear masks masked mandates in school vaccines are available in those vaccines are available for those who want them and mediation practices are now in public those should continue to wear masks if they please but they should not be forced to wear masks kids are not super spreaders of the virus as originally thought in fact they have a higher survival rate because their bodies have not been around to be polluted with everything that's
039going on in the environment and they're not suffering from these viruses as much as other people and other people would call morbidities so we should not be holding this against our children these masks have set our kids back they have they give problems they've created psychological issues they're harming a hard time learning facial cues the cdc and the president also announced that anyone vaccinated can remove their masks honestly anyone who wants to be massless in the classroom should be free to be massless vaccinated or not parents absolutely can decide what's best for their child knowing the risks the risk of in-school transmission is low employees and students should be free to make decisions on their own without fear of retaliation master no longer need it no mass mandate of school it's also an effort to
040keep everybody healthy never pick up a mask again put down the junk eat more vegetables turn off the tv do research and question everything thank you very much mr sobral we appreciate your interest next speaker is miss seaver welcome receiver hello before we start i wanted to make sure that everybody was aware that i had prepared a powerpoint presentation to display to everyone but i've been told that that's not going to be allowed to be displayed but every single one of you school board members have a copy in front of you so i'll just have to go along with the speech that i prepared i am genius i'm going to start now i am genie i'm a mother a grandmother businesswoman child advocate and community advocates activists i have three issues to discuss on behalf
041of some teachers staff and taxpaying citizens of the chatham county one the mlk day letter i want to follow up about the district-wide email sent out by our superintendent on january 15. the email was supposed to be a tribute to reverend dr martin luther king but the superintendent turned the occasion of celebrating king's legacy into an inappropriate and partisan political statement instead of celebrating our similarities she encouraged to resent and trust one another making political partisan statements is explicitly forgiven by state personal board rules it is also no tribute to dr martin luther king her political smear was condemning the events at the national capital on january 6 without mentioning thousands of similar more sustained rights committed by supporters of causes she supports by singling out only january 6 she indicated all trump voters as
042unpatriotic violent and dangerous in fact the superintendent made no attention at all to the thousands of black lives matter riots that have served our nation for many months they destroyed looted burned to the ground thousands of private businesses she said nothing 2 000 police officers were injured seriously enough to be hospitalized people have been pulled from their cars beaten in streets people been murdered but she said nothing hearing from many teachers and citizens i wrote an email the state superintendent was asking for her resignation and re received responses of that email from school board members that they were very disheartened one particular facebook page quote inside my world view my personal politics were not mine to a spouse but i was to believe my lion eyes believe me i am not a liar upon state
043superintendent recommendation to take the complaint local i attended the private meeting with school board members i expressed teachers and citizens concerns that the content of her mlk email was inappropriate i was told that i was the only one that the board had heard from who took issue with the email however i was able to obtain a similar complaint that was sent to the superintendent by an unnamed source that letter was read at the private meeting all i got was crickets parents and teachers do not feel they can object to controversial subjects such as critical race theory the mlk email is not the only example of superintendent using her position to push her political views the superintendent also mixes political statements with sccps information on her personal twitter account while she is free to hold political
044views she of all people should be extremely careful to keep her personal and professional statements completely separate she of all people should never force her politics on teachers faculty or students it's the parents job to form their children's worldview as they choose not as she seems fit many people many teachers are devastated by their inability to devote their concerns about mixing mixing radical politics with education time i attended a meeting last week with superintendent woods and local teachers it was heartbreaking to hear accounts of the distress their teachers feel on the job many became emotional as they relayed their experiences all they wanted to do was teach prepare children to be productive members of society to be proficient in math and reading take pride in hard work and show respect for others how do you
045think they'll feel how do you think these already apprehensive teachers are going to feel when you force them to teach critical race theory crt has no place in the classroom the schooling of crt explicitly divides all people by race into one and two classes the oppressor or the oppressed we will not tolerate indoctrination and racism in our schools parents of all races and backgrounds in our district do not want crt issue 3 mass what parents want is the mass to be optional in the upcoming year you as a school board should have no problem approving this as a policy since many of you are seeing mass split mass list at school functions on social media media in conclusion i have with me 213 signatures on this petition asking for the superintendent's resignation parents teachers and
046taxpayers who have believed have signed believe the superintendents mlk email reflected poor judgment for someone in her position as statements in the email respectful and diversive there are signatures of constituents from every one of your districts as many of you are aware i am running for lieutenant governor in the great state of georgia georgia and my key focus is on education i will advocate to teach i will advocate for legislation that crt is never taught in our georgia schools let's do what we can not allowing outstanding educators like gif lockley to get away our teachers our children deserve the best together united we can and need to do better in savannah chatham county public school system thank you for your time and i also have um a copy of the speech and also a copy
047of the presentation that i attached and the official signed petitions of all 213 residents thank you give them to the officer behind you he will bring them up to us we appreciate your questions comments we appreciate your interest ma'am that's it no questions no comments okay thank you moving on um to the board of education matters assume that i had my mask on first one um and mr um you want to take us through these quickly yes sir thank you mr board president uh policy jvc school admissions primarily you'll see in this policy change uh cleanup language um this is not necessarily a four-year review but we didn't know there were a number of outdated titles and language references here so you have that before you uh as a first read any comments discussion anything.com
048i just have an edit i'll pass it to ms david brown thank you any other edits or concerns or questions but um it may have been answered already and uh at the end of this cycle why can't parents be notified and i think we kind of done this today why can't parents be notified here that providing transportation may be revisited for parents that are able to transport their children to and from school jvc school admissions and evidence young variety it why can't parents be notified here that providing transportation may be revisited um for parents that are able to transport their children to school all right that's something they can certainly look at and make a determination on our census is the and what we do is we also during the choice program application period we're
049very clear in the booklet that we put out in the web materials that we put out that transportation may or may not be provided depending on district resources [Music] moving on wanted to um that the process is that the discretion of the superintendent certainly respect that process but i would um i do think that there are some opportunities to revisit the process by which we do the choice lottery application um and appreciate the opportunity to discuss it as a superintendent at a later time i would i would suggest then if you will put that in writing your opportunities i mean things that you see as opportunities and submit that to them then next month when we get to the second reading we bring it back and we may or may not vote on it depending
050on how everybody agrees to it right any other comments on this one moving forward 7.02 this is a regulation for the board's information you recall that under a four-year process review policy ac was previously revised updated and approved by the board under that four-year review we did indicate we were looking at the regulation and the regulation uh is now before you primarily again with some cleanup language and also to indicate what we would do should we have any alternative grade bands uh which i do call dr alcohol did mention that about great bands such as three through eight we'll also notice we did specifically leave that language along that it is to to reserve the right to recommend changes to great configurations as well to the board any other this is a regulation this is
051not a first read this and unless you have something outstanding we don't vote on it it becomes law i mean well but it becomes a regulation excuse me we don't have nearly as much authority as i thought we did any any other uh thoughts or comments about this since it is a regulation let's have a go moving forward thank you sir moving on to item 7.03 this is a policy and we are recommending administration recommending the deletion of this policy due to its outdated nature in the language and its redundancy we have gone through this under our four-year review and did note that in previous policy action and updates uh as in conference with the board of attorneys uh we do cover the management of audio and video taping for students and staff specifically under
052policy jg and also jcdaf therefore we believe that this is outdated and redundant and should be deleted first reader i'm just uh anybody that this was adopted in 1983 i'm glad that we're removing it i wish that we had caught it when we did our policy review about two years ago but i appreciate the leadership team um thank you mr johnson um thank you for this um kind of gonna echo a little bit what dr hoffman brown said but as i've always said you know i'm all in favor of getting rid of policies um and want to make them smaller even though this one was a short policy it's donating pages for the book any other this was first reading we will vote next month moving on item 7.04 this is the four-year review of
053workers compensation you'll know that this is the regulation for the board's information on changes that were made the policy side which was under the four-year review had no changes so it goes to consent for the board to attest that the administration did review this policy in accordance with our policy review requirements so we're bringing forward to you just the regulation side that does have the updates we do have some specific uh language components that were recommended by legal to very clearly state on the job and work related accidents we also didn't know that there was some language material here in the regulation that spoke to students optional accident insurance which really does not fall in this code section area and it also is a benefit that we provided the district we didn't see a need
054for it to warrant it to be in regulation so that was taken out um clarification and regulation any other comments from board members remember this is a regulation you're now moving on to administrative regulation thank you sir 7.07 again this is a for you review the subsequent uh policy side that was tied to this one did not have any changes it remains in consent for the board to attest that we did review it there were updates on this particular regulation side that also included some specific areas in it that would update the language to particularly align with the way we reference uh conduct in the code of conduct manual so you'll see that that area was where the primary updates were we'll also note that under the components on the graduation area which is part
055d grades 9 through 12 for standard grades for school subject complication of high school grades uh was pointed out by mrs grabowski appreciate your reference to this and there were some outdated languages in there referencing 2014 or 2011. the reason that's in there is because that's exactly how it's written under state board of education rule when we switched over to the cohort method so it's been there for quite a while while it does still remain in the sbo rule franklin's outdated and we've talked with the team leaders and we believe that that's a good catch but we could certainly outdate that or delete that because it's outdated thank you any other comments from board members 7.06 administrative regulation gbi again four-year review this one also timed very well with the recent legislative updates that required
056us to create new policy to provide an appeals process for teachers who don't agree with their evaluations now of course we created a new policy a previous board meeting for that we recognize that there is a need to also mention that code section under this associated policy gbi gbi also is up for a four year review policy side did not need any updates it remains in consent for the board to attest that we did review it on the regulation side we did add that component about teachers having the ability to ask for an appeal should they choose as stipulated by the new state code language and we also provided some cleanup to better um capture the process for which the board works through the superintendent's evaluation regulation hearing none moving on to first read on
057naming of facilities policy fdc name facilities regulation states that before adopting a name for gyms wings media centers auditoriums or labs the name should be presented to the board at one meeting and voted on by the board at the next meeting a team was approved by the superintendent to provide a recommendation for the naming of the new auditorium being constructed on the campus of alfred eli beach high school the committee met with board member irene hines serving in an ex-official capacity and unanimously recommends that richard r mull senior be the name for the auditorium we will present this name for the board's final action on july 14 2021. no action will be taken today this is put forth under our recommendation but if you have comments we can hear them thank you i appreciate the
058diverse committee the diverse team that considered this i thought that was that a really good job was done in constituting that group i was wondering did the committee was the committee aware that the old auditorium was named richard yes most just want to hear from you any other comments about this we will be voting at next month's next month meeting on july 14th moving on to the consent agenda um mr uh kashmir do you have a recommendation to approve the consent agenda i do but i'll be singing so maybe someone else should move to the group again okay uh [Music] agenda all in favor of approving the consent agenda raise your hand one two three four five six seven eight all opposed any extensions motion passes eight zero one as we move on to uh
059goal five i'm going to take the progress of the chair and move us down to 9.09 and 9.10 first uh because those have to do with budget budget approval and then after that i'm going to ask that we consider most and we'll talk about it right now uh we don't need any kind of action acceptance fiscal year 2022 budget for all time in accordance with loan and policy staff presents the fiscal year 2022 budget for all funds for final adoption before adoption the budget consists of five components to the general fund budget general obligation debt budget special revenue fund budget capital projects fund budget and other funds budget the challenging budget under consideration reflects a message decrease of 0.75 meals for a total combined village of 18.131 meals 18.131 meals for maintenance and operations and
060zero meals for general obligation bond debt the fifth co year 2022 general fund budget expenditures and other uses total 465 million seven hundred and six dollars 478 for seven hundred six thousand four and seven eight dollars this budget will receive 304 million four hundred forty five thousand two and forty thousand revenues from local taxes 149 185 164 dollars in state revenues and 11 million 700 8 000 in other local revenues 3 million six hundred twenty four thousand one six one dollars in federal revenues and a use of fund balance of nine million one hundred and seventy one thousand nine hundred and thirty six dollars the estimated tax millage rate for calendar year 2021 is 18.131 the ad valorem tax revenues were calculated using an estimated net maintenance and operation digest of 15 billion 670 million
061236 thousand 432 dollars for calendar year the general obligation that budget the fiscal year 2022 john general obligation debt jill bond debt budget expenditures total zero dollars within the estimated avalon tax military fecality year 2021 is zero the admiral alarm tax revenues were calculated using an estimated net bond digest of 16 billion 234 million 444 251 for the calendar year 2021 special revenue funds budgets the fiscal year 2022 special revenue funds budgeted and expenditures and other users total 131 million 217 938 the following budgets are included as part of the revenue special revenue funds the following budgets in the chart following are included capital projects fund the fiscal year 2022 copper projects on budget dispensers or 52 million dollars this budget is based upon estimated costs to be incurred between july 1st 2021 and june
06230th 2022 for approved project thus being resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board tentatively adopted the following budgets february 22 2022 during the farm budget of 465 million seven hundred six thousand four hundred seventy eight zero general bond debt special revenue funds for one thirty one million two and seventeen thousand for 52 million you've heard the recommendation is there a motion of that effect moved by dr hopkins brown second by mr johnson.com just want to thank the leadership for their hard work this is um uh the first time that we're able to see this kind of work done under the conditions that we've had and also with the reversal of the military that is something that has been requested by the community and if you witness our process and many of the
063different iterations in the past with budget committees and multiple meetings and workshops around budget you wouldn't imagine that this level of work and consensus around it could be generated without that but you accomplish that and thank you thank you but if jonathan anything yeah i also want to echo i appreciate all the hard work and i'm actually looking forward to going through this big binder page by page because you know i will mr jackson um and i'll let you know any questions that i will have and as you might have um but i also appreciate being able to put this budget together um and being able to do the increase for staff as well as being um looking at was attentively right now uh mowing the military by 0.75 um i know it's not as
064much as some of us would like to see however it is a step in the right direction so i do appreciate the hard work that you and yourself reported to this any comments from other board members hear none all in favor of this motion raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero moving on to 9.10 recommended tax value under georgia law the border of public education for the city of survival and the challenge county council challenge is a recommended authority that exercises the power to call the levine authority the challenge county commission to levy property taxes to carry out the purposes of the board of education and in accordance with the law and policy it is necessary for the board to alternatively adopt the recommended
065calendar year 2021 middle class for both maintenance and operations and general general obligation bond indebtedness and their corresponding levies on taxable properties the calendar year 2021 military use of the projection of revenues for the fiscal year 2022 are budgeted at 18.131 meals for maintenance as .75 decreasing meals and operations and zero meals for general obligation debt for a combined military of 18.131 meals the proposed military for maintenance and operations is in a is in compliance with the rollback rate calculated by the tax assessor as required by ocga 48-5-32.1 and such will not be required to be advertised as a tax increase above the rollback millage rate tentative adoption of these militaries is required at its time to meet statutory time timelines for military adoption accordingly staff proposals proposes these miseries to be tentatively adopted thus
066be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board of public education for the city of savannah and the county of chatham as provided by law thus hereby tentatively recommend to the county commissioners and ex-official judges thereof let there be levied on the dollar of all taxable property in china county georgia a general fund tax edge of 18.131 meals a general obligation bond debt tax of zero meals and an aggregate demand rate of 18.131 meals in the year of 2021 for the support and maintenance of public education and that staff be directed to advertise such tentative recommended military as required by law further recommendation mr johnson makes the motion is there a second seconded by dr bringman mr johnson anything um i am in support of this as i said before it's not quite
067as much as i would like to see it however i do know that we can't be overly aggressive with the military not knowing what will be going on in the future um however i do appreciate all the hard work that was put in to be able to get the maximum amount of a decrease for um to help with a property i'm hoping that the public will realize this wonderful benefit to them and that they will remember that a big reason we're able to do this is because of the long support we've had from them in our east lost i projects i just would like to re-emphasize uh what ms hall says because i dare say there are very few school districts in the country that have a bond debt tax of zero meals and that's
068because of all the pennies that come into us through esplas so i agree 100 any other comments all in favor of motion raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine congratulations the board passes motion nine zero two i would i'd like to move back up now to items nine through nine 9.01 through 9.09 uh board members several of you have requested that we take some of these uh i take these in a group this is what i would like to ask you to do i have no objection we will have probably a lot more of these in july because it's the time of the year when we are doing annual renewals on a lot of things i'm not trying to rush you at all but i would i will run
069through this list if you have a question about it raise your hand and then we will discuss that one as a separate vote okay 9.01 the quarterly splash report service is an update for information i thought i was going to smooth that right i would like to wait and do it in july if we could and and i would say to the public it becomes increasingly important as we have another east spot on the the ballot in november that public go online and look at our esplos report because it is so vitally important for you to know what we're doing and what we're spending this money on again i take great pride as part of this board and this staff group of what these pennies have accomplished and what we're able to do for many
070vendors in this community but please i would like to move on with that unless so because y'all made me feel sure 9.02 budget transfer any comment any questions about that 9.03 new playground equipment yes ma'am she needs to pull that okay sorry 9.04 9.05 9.06 9.07 9.08 okay could i have a motion to approve 9.02 through 9.09 with the exception of 9.03 mr cashmore makes that motion mrs johnson's seconds anything that's catchment all in favor of that motion that includes several different actions raise your hands please one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero now let's go back to 9.03 on june 3rd 2020 the board approved the bid award i'll bid 2020-21 play on the playground equipment and contract to play works places llc out of canton georgia
071for a one year period with the option to renew for an additional two one-year periods at that time the staff would like to exercise the first renewal option for a one-year period with all terms and conditions remaining the same thus be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board approved the first annual renewal of bhc 20-21 play mr johnson mr baskey thank you my question was um two parts one is as this contract is used for the individual schools do those schools have the opportunity to provide input into upgrades or changing out of their playgrounds on their campus or is this standard the the actual award of the the equipment this addresses the award with the equipment right the facility staff works with normally working with the administrators to determine what is needed
072at that particular site yes okay okay and the second part was i know that there's um i believe strongly in the value of the physical activity um that's offered by recess and so i know there's been a lot of changes in the way that some playground equipment is is designed in providing more free form play do you know if the center offers some of those more free-form types of playground equipment or is it more standard kind of swing set slide that is a good question how about researching it to get that information to you okay i apologize [Laughter] is raise your hands one two three four five six seven eight nine motion passes nine zero zero and now i am just thrilled to present miss vanessa miller who's going to give us an exciting east
073class no welcome thank you you received a copy of the report in your packet if you have any specific questions related to any of the projects the slides will be more than happy to answer those questions i would i would have a question about new hampshire ka can you briefly let's not go true that we have made some modifications um in collaboration with the contractor relative to the schedule that move-in date communicated with the community and with the staff relative to that project had an opportunity to actually meet with the um the staff from the contractors staff relative to where we are how we're going to make a valid attempt to to catch up on any particular parts of the project had an opportunity to meet with the design professional as well as our cmas
074on the project we never like to have to delay a project some of it was related directly to our rain days weather days we bought that schedule before you we're making sure that we continue to work again collaboratively with the contractor making sure that all efforts are made to ensure not only we maintain the existing schedule but we ensure quality on the project as well and we'll answer any additional questions all the questions from board members that i love looking at all these different colors of these walls and hallways it already looks very inviting it's going to be a beautiful facility we want to again while the schedule is important to us the completion date but quality is going to be number one that we're looking for we want to be able to access the
075building we don't want to see an extensive punch list at the end of the project we talked about the change orders and informal sessions so quality is at the forefront of this project i hope we'll be soon playing catch up with reuben cuttings and all that absolutely we're looking forward to getting back to that because that's so important to the computer community and what we do when people come to fruition on a budget i do have one quick question on the savannah arts academy renovations on page 29. it looks like it's a little bit behind schedule not terribly i do still anticipate that um that will be able to move through construction in the schedule that's we're experiencing with the cost of construction right okay in all honesty we're having those discussions internally because we've
076seen a significant increase in the cost so you may see us come back and revise some schedules um to slow just some of them down in an attempt to see if we can see some better results and call so we're doing some analysis now and in total disclosure this is one of the projects that we have had a discussion about well i think that makes complete sense and it's very understandable thank you for that explanation yes because we're out in front of what we're experiencing relative to the cost of construction but those ones that are in schedule and consideration we're doing again some analysis on a project by project basis and a part of our bi-weekly meetings with the superintendent we're looking at those costs we're having those discussions and do you have any updates
077regarding the relocation expenses of that guy wire that was our relative to what their requirements are as to how and what they can release to us we're still continuing to vet that cost we're hoping to see some negotiated discounts but we are doing our indulgence and we will continue mr uh of before we um start experiencing the cost increase in construction we don't see a major delay any delay i was over there a week before it is also exciting every time i drive 21 that's every day sometimes twice a day um i look over to see what's going on this morning i saw two cement trucks that was exciting because i've been sitting under the house of um dirty in the bulldozer some of the demolition is going moving forward jenkins it is a phased
078approach and that's what we want the community to understand there will be a brick distribution but because it's phased we don't want you to run as soon as you see the first building go down and say oh i need my bricks we'll coordinate it just as we did with the groves high school we'll announce it and make it available safety is first um well thank you so very much and i really like what's going on over at beach high school that uh auditorium is wonderful you need to wait until you get inside of the building we look forward to uh getting there as soon as possible anything specifically you want to ask about hall seconds that we be adjourned all in favor say aye thank you very much you