001Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. N. welcome each one of you as well as our uh uh online guests as well. Uh at this time uh I'mma call this meeting to order. Today is March the 24th and the time is 6:07 p.m. At this time, I have two young ladies, uh, Tatiana Greer. Is that correct? And Leila Boone. They're going to lead us in a pledge of allegiance as well as a moment of silence. So if you all come up, >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic of which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, >> Mr. Bacon, if you will come forward.
002Good afternoon, board members. We want to definitely u salute our pledge students this evening. Let's give them a round of applause. They did a great job. So, Mr. Bacon, if you will present these lovely ladies. This is Tatiana Greer and Leila Boone. There's Miss Laya. And so guys, if you all will go out in the middle and Mr. Bacon is going to stand right there. And thank you, Mr. Basley. We'll take a picture. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Karfin. All right, let's give her another round of applause. Thank you. We have wonderful students at JES. Are they still here? Thank you, young ladies. Um, at this time, can I get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? >> I made that motion. >> Oh, I second the motion. >> All right. The motion has been properly made
003by Mr. Rouse, second by Miss Black Shear. Is there any discussion? Okay. All in favor, raise your hand. I >> Okay, the motion passes unanimously. Uh, Miss Blackshere, would you please read the ethics statement? >> Yes, sir. >> In accordance with regulations set forth by the Georgia Ethics Commission, it is the duty of every board member to avoid both conflict of interest or interest of such conflict. Does any board member have any non-conlict of interest? Seeing none, Mr. Chair, we will proceed with our agenda. All right. Thank you, Miss Black Shear. Uh, do do any of the board members do you have any comments or remarks at this time? >> I just would like to say um thank you uh Tweets County Public Schools uh for showing us so much love for board appreciation week.
004We really, really, really appreciate it. Y'all show up and show out every year. So, thank you for your support. We appreciate you guys. And everybody, you look good out there today. You look great. I really do. >> Thank you, Miss Blackshere. Uh Miss Blackshere keeps us in line. Uh Mr. Bacon. Yeah. >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to remind all the parents that um milestones while we have uh spring break next week from March 30th to April 3rd. um milestones are in the course test and then the grade tests are right around the corner and please make sure your students are in school on time and they're using that time to practice. These tests are really important determining their future. Um also good news for our juniors and seniors this week. Um Friday the 27th will
005be our junior senior prom at the high school. Um it is called a magical night in the kingdom. Yes. >> Wow. Yeah. So, um >> yeah. So, on Friday, March 27th, um I'm very proud to announce that our juniors and seniors will be um making their debut. So, um hope they enjoy that, Miss Jenkins. Also, I had quite a few parents um contact me on the superintendent's ear. I've been trying to call everybody back. I'm about 10 parents short. But one of the things that the parents did mention to me several times is about safety and about bullying and uh and about other issues that we've been having in the school system. We're not going to hide from them. We're going to be honest about them. So, one of the things that we've done for
006the remainder of the year using the security grant board members is that we have a third officer that we will have for the remainder of the school year. um and it was off our security grant provided to us by the state of Georgia. Uh the other thing is we will implement a a anonymous bullying app for the students and hopefully that'll be available where they can tell their problems and their issues and that will come anonymously to a person and that will be handled um discreetly. And also, as you've known, if those of you keep up with our media pages, um we've hired a social worker to start handling some of our attendance and other issues that our staff and faculty and families are having. So, we're serious about making sure that you're safe and
007your kids are well adjusted. Just give us that time. Um that's all, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Mr. Bacon. At this time, can I get a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda, which includes the minutes as well as the district request. >> I move that motion. >> Second. >> Okay. The motion has been properly made by Miss Black Shear and second by Miss King to approve the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? If there is none, all in favor, raise your hand. Okay, the motion passes unanimously. Okay, at this time we're going to move into our business agenda and uh we're going to hear from Dr. Griffin Stewart. She's going to introduce our soon our young Georgia authors. Good afternoon, Chair Kstarin, Vice Chair Rouse, board members, uh, Miss King and Miss Blackshere, and, um,
008Mr. Butler. Um, before, and to our superintendent, Mr. Bacon, all of our stakeholders listening virtually and in person, good afternoon. It brings me great pleasure to share our Georgia Young Georgia Arthur winners for the 2025 2026 school year. But before I can share that exciting news, we are a district with a vision and a mission. Our vision is generating excellence, one team, one goal. And our mission is to inspire, challenge, and prepare all students to compete globally. Strategic goals align to this presentation. Number one, learning and wellness for all. And number two, excellence ahead, academics, facilities, and opportunities. Just a little bit about the young Georgia authors competition. It's designed to encourage students to develop enthusiasm and expertise in writing to provide a context to just celebrate um the fact that our students are writing
009and it's also about recognizing student achievement in arts and academics. This prestigious competition has been engaging Georgia students for more than two decades and is open to any student currently enrolled in Georgia public schools grades K through 12. The competition is sponsored by the Georgia language arts supervisors and the Georgia Resa Network with support from the Georgia Department of Education. So board members, I want you to know there is a lot of planning that go into the young Georgia authors and there is a timeline that we follow. So from August through January, our teachers and students are practicing writing instruction in all K12 classrooms. January 2026, leaders and the master teacher, Miss Dinard, attended a virtual meeting to discuss the Yanjar Arthur's timeline and writing collection process. So at that point, our teachers will start
010pulling those writing samples because writing is all year. January 2026, teachers receive the Yonjar author's information in terms of the rules, the rubrics and expectations, and it's shared with students. And so students have an opportunity to write and they have various writing samples they can write. They can write a poem, they can write a short story, whatever they would like to express their writing. In February, the judging process um took place at the school level. Um in February, the end of February, first place district winners writing submissions were submitted to Middle Georgia. And then in March, the first and third place school level winners were recognized with a small token of our appreciation for being the winner. And now we're here at the board meeting to recognize our school level first place winners. So without
011further ado, students from JES, when you hear your name call, please come forward. Our students will be draped with a nice medallion for celebration as well as a certificate of recognition. So, we'll start with our kindergarten student, Evelyn Martin. The name of the writing piece, it ducks. So, Evelyn, if you're here, please come forward. Evelyn Martin. All right. Our first grade student, Kinley Walker Carpenton. Carpenton. The day I got a robot. Carpenter. I'm sorry, Mom and Dad. Carpenter. So stay stay up here, sweetheart. Stay up here. Thank you. Second grade, Kinsley Harris. The cat love fishing. Kinsley Harris. >> There you go. Our third grade winner is Tatiana Greer, A Day with My Mom. Fourth grade is Leila Boone, polar bears. And then last but not least, our fifth grade student is Adeline Ko and
012it's a bird that lost their feather. So, Mr. Bacon, if you would take a picture with our winners and then we'll have a second picture and then that second picture. I'll wait. I'll wait for this first picture. >> Let's give these beautiful young ladies a round of applause. Oh, guys, wait for just a second. Wait for just a second. Wait, wait, wait. Any parents, school officials, um please come forward to take a picture if you would like. Any parents and school officials, we would love for you to join this picture if you would like. >> No parents, parents, school officials, we would love for you to join this picture. Come on down. Congratulations. >> One, two, three. Let's give our JES students another round of applause. Parents, thank you so much for supporting our school
013district. So, now we move to our middle school students. We will start with sixth grade. And our sixth grade winner is Dazzlin Johnson. Wicked Pranks. Dazzling Johnson. Our seventh grader is Juliana Wise with stars. >> Stay up there. Yeah. Thank you, Juliana. And then our eighth grade student, Alyssa Newsome. Insomnia. Alyssa. All right, Mr. Bacon, if you would take a picture with those lovely ladies. And then if we have parents, school officials, if you would like to take a picture, please come forward at this time. Okay, let's give our middle school students another round of applause. And bringing up the rear, our high school students, ninth grade, Jordan Molina, Zombie Apocalypse. Our 10th grader, Aalei Wilson, Lovesick. 11th grade, Jaden Jones. Red Clay Roads. Jaden Jones. >> And then our 12th grader, Malik Bale. My
014modest proposal, Malik Bell. All right, Mr. Bacon, if you would take a picture with our handsome senior, >> Jaden. Jaden Jr. stand correct. In a couple of months. >> Okay, Jaden, if you would remain. Okay. So, after we have school level winners, we take our samples. >> I'm so sorry. Thank you, Mr. Rouse. I'm moving too fast. School officials, parents, please come forward. Take a picture. We would love to have you. >> Thanks, Mom. Hold up. Let me get Round of applause. Jaden, if you would stay, if you would remain, Jaden. You remain Jaden. We're excited. >> So, just quickly after we have school level winners, we submit all of our first place winners to Middle Georgia. And we our student samples are with Jones County, Bib, Peach, Monroe, House, and just to name a
015few. So, we um have a rating contest at the second level. Miss um Dinara who serves as our master teacher. She sits on that panel and helped rate. And so I am excited to share that at the second level Jaden Jones was in third place. And so let's give him a round of applause. Very good. So and Malik Bale who could not join us this evening. He was our senior and he was in second place. So let's give Malik a a round of applause. in his absence. So, I want to thank you parents, school officials, board members for supporting our students in writing because writing is truly an academic skill, but it's a life skill. So, um that's all I have. Board chair, are there any questions? >> Thank you very much. I like good
016news. >> Don't bring me no bad news. Uh, Mr. Bacon. Uh, let's see. >> Good evening, board chair Christophen, Vice Chair Ross, board members, families. Um, tonight I'd like to give you a update on our four-prong stabilization plan. But before I do that, I'd like to remind everybody that we are a district with a vision generating excellence, one team, one goal with the mission to inspire, challenge, and prepare all of our students to compete globally. This presentation covers strategic goal uh one, learning and wellness for all, two, excellence ahead, academics, facilities, and opportunity. Three, doing things the Twig's way, four, growing and sustaining our village. and five a premier people first organization. As you know, we have instituted since uh January 19th the four-prong stabilization plan and this is our second update. Um this is
017our 60th day of implementation. Our focus has been financial stability, transparency and operational progress. Prong prong one. our current fiscal year. Uh we have new financial structure in place which was approved by the board once our CFO left uh resigned. We have a CPA. We met with the Georgia Department of Audits to clarify our financial positions as well as our audit status. Our FY23 audit. We have a DRA in draft form. We're waiting for the final form and then we will go to the FY24 audit to follow. um really soon. This Wednesday, we have secured and closed on our $ 1.5 million TAN for our cash flow st stabilization. Um the district is now current on all vendor payments due to spending reductions and improved oversight. And as you will see tonight in the next
018presentation by Dr. Whitaker, we have a new financial reporting monthly reporting um format that will improve our transparency. Prong two, all of our returning employees have been issued contracts. We're align we have aligned our staff with our current aotments. We have not received our midterm allotments as of yet. The schools have um started and mostly finished advisement process for next year. um they had a meeting scheduled today but uh due to some other things going on that will be done on Thursday and we will start our hiring process for all of our teachers for next year. Prong three strengthen our financial footing. Uh we have you will see a new budget timeline at our next budget uh our next board meeting and we have gotten input from our new financial team on how that's going
019to work. and our central office restructuring is underway. Uh, as stated several times, we're in the midst of that. And our social worker services have been restored um due to your generosity um last board meeting. On prong four, our financial distress audit findings indicate that we may be at risk um to deficit funding. district is preparing for potential state requirements as as needed and we're working proactively with our auditors and state agencies to ensure that we're in compliance um when need to be. So in summary, we have a new financial structure and team. We have a TAN that will sustain the district. All our vendor payments are current. We have improved transparency in which you're about to witness this evening. Our staffing and scheduling are on track for next year and we are strengthening our
020student support services. Are there any questions? Questions? Thank you, Mr. Bacon. Um Dr. Whitaker. Thank you for having me board. We um have tried to come up with a more transparent, user friendly um appealing, informative um approach to your monthly or your uh board financial reports. This is a work in progress. We plan to um add to adapt as you deem fit. If there's something that just doesn't make sense to you or if you feel like you would better understand something, then just please let me know. We um we want to make improvements and we won't this this is our first draft, so don't feel like we can't we can't make any adaptations that you that you deem fit. Um we're going to start by going back over a revised December. I know December was
021presented to you but there have been some revisions made and this is using the new template as well. Um if we start with just the general fund one of the one of the main revisions to the December presentation was um the TAN originally the TAN was included in local tax revenue. Um in November it was actually included in local tax revenue as well as the TAN line. In December, it was removed from the TAN line, but was still included in local taxes. So, this revised December statement, the TAN is on its own line. You'll see the $874,500. That revenue is on its own line. Um, and your local tax revenue, $4,9,000, is just property tax revenue. So, that does not include the TAN anymore. that that's the main revision to this schedule from what you
022saw in December. Um, we've added a current month column. So, column F would be the the revenue for the current month and then the expenditures for the current month. There weren't um significant changes to the year-to-ate expenditures. You'll notice um school safety and security. If you look at that line, there were um there were higher year-to- date expenditures than we could account for. So, you'll notice the the month expenditures is a negative number. So, that's that's why that's negative. At the bottom, we've added um a couple of extra lines. So, you have excess revenue over and under expenditure. So, you'll see for the month of December, you collected $2.3 million more than you spent. And this is mainly due to your big property tax. You get a big chunk of money for property taxes in
023December and January. So, so that number is um very high for the month of December. That's not normal. That's because you get that big lump sum then. Um, and then if you look at column F, that is your monthly revenue compared to expenditure. So column C is year-to date. So that's everything that's happened through December 31st. Column F, current month, is what happened just in the month of December. So in the month of December, you had $1.585 million in revenue collected above what you spent in December. So December, your expenditures are are pretty normal. They're pretty average. There's nothing crazy going on in December, but revenue is high in December. So that's why you're going to see a pretty significant positive balance there. And then at the bottom, we have a fund balance. We're we're
024going to begin to track your fund balance. Um so you'll have your beginning fund balance and then the changes in fund balance year-to- date. And then that'll give you an ending fund balance December 31st, 2025. You'll notice though I have an asterisk and it says beginning fund balance is still being verified for accuracy. So we are waiting on the FY25 audit to be finalized and then we're waiting on the 24 audit to take place before 25 numbers can be finalized. So, I didn't want to prematurely put a number on there and then, you know, during that audit process it change and you be caught off guard. So, we're working on getting a number that I feel comfortable that I feel like is is an accurate representation and it'll it'll keep that asterric as long as
025we haven't had the audit completed. But, I do want to get a better a better number before I put it on the spreadsheet for you to see. So that that's forthcoming. And then you'll be able to every month you'll be able to track what that ending fund balance is. So that's December for general fund. And then you'll notice there is a separate sheet for if you want to look at capital projects next. Yep. So if you and you can go in a different order, it's fine. Um, but you'll notice that there's a different sheet for each fund. Now, each it's called a component unit. So, each fund will have its own sheet, its own tracking, its own um keeping up with what revenue is coming in and what's being spent. Capital projects in December. So,
026in December, it everything all of your expenditures year to date were lumped into one big category. You'll see when we flip to January, you'll see that I've actually broken it out by function. So, we'll be able to track it a little bit more accurately by function. Um, but for your December uh report there, there were no changes from the December that you've seen prior to this one, other than just the formatting. The year-to- date revenue and expenditures are the same. um debt service those uh year-to- date figures are the same as well. So you won't see any changes from the from the December that you saw prior. And again, if any of these reports, if you feel like there's a better way or um a way that you would comprehend it better, please by, you
027know, please let us know and we can make any kind of adaptations that you that you see fit. Um, and school nutrition year-to- date, uh, revenue and expense for December are the same, too. So, the only changes for those are just the formatting. So, I just took the December financial reports, put them into a new format. Um, the the major updates were at the general fund le level. Let's flip to January 26. Let's do Jan general fund for January 26. So January 2026 uh general fund. So for January 2026, if you look at the top of column E above the percentages, you'll notice uh 58%. So 58% is where we would expect to see ourselves at this point in time compared to budget. So we are seven out of 12 months through the year. We've
028we've gone through seven months. So you would expect to see yourself at about 58%. Um local taxes is is a outlier because you get big big lump sums of money in December and January. So we would actually hope to see that number higher and I calculated so local tax revenue year to date compared to budget you're at 82%. I calculated out what we received in February through June of last year. And if that holds true, we will collect another 1.2 million in tax revenue through the end of the year, which would put us a little above the 100% mark for our budgeted local tax revenue. So 82% I feel good about. I feel I feel really good about that percent right now. Um, and then of course we're a little bit high for state QBE
029and for other state sources. Um, I looked at your QBE midterm aotment and your actual QBE aotment is actually 5,81,000, not the original 4.9 that was budgeted. So the original budget was a um a budget. It was a projection. and your actual QB aotment is at 5,81,000. So that's why it's tracking slightly higher than 58%. So you're at 60%. So at the end of the day, you'll you'll receive um 5,81,000 in QVE revenue. Other state sources, um that fluctuates as grants are a as we receive grant money. So that one can fluctuate too. So 66% is is perfectly normal. Where the 58% really comes into play is in your expenditures. So if you look at that same column E down in the expenditure section, you'll notice at the very bottom, total expenditures are right on
030target. They are at 58%. But you have some categories that are a little higher, some are a little lower. Um there are no category no functions that I saw that are um over to a point of concern. So if say you had um say you had media services and it was at 78%. Then we would want to dig into that and I'd want to have an explanation for you. I would I wouldn't present that to you and say here it is. So I would have an explanation for that. But all of the categories that we have right here, I mean, um, there are a couple that are higher than 58%, but we're able to see where there's maybe an offset in another category or it was a a one-time purchase that's not a normal recurring
031monthly item. So, so all of your expense categories in the general fund level look good. you'll see that um column F for the current month excess of revenue over under expenditures. You'll see where that number came down significantly because you didn't get that huge tax tax check in um January like you did in December, but you're still year to date you're still at 2.2 2 million almost $2.3 million of excess revenue over expenditures year to date as of January 31st for your general fund. If we flip over to capital projects, so 20 um six January 26 capital projects. So this is where I was telling you that um for January I decided to break out your expenditures for capital projects. It's just a more accurate representation. Um so the the first line, your local taxes
032is your splash revenue. And one of the first things you'll notice is that your splash revenue for the current month of January was $1 million. And that's not normal, right? So, um, and and the board has been aware of some of the things that are going on with that sales tax revenue and the and the collection and how it's we've gotten a couple of, uh, large dollar amounts. So, what you'll see happen um, next month in the next reporting is that that excess money that's not normal, we're going to put it into Georgia Fund One into an investment account until we can get some more clarification. But you know that that is showing you that revenue that came in the total loss revenue because it's divided between capital projects and debt service. So you put
033some of it towards debt service to pay your bond. Some of it goes towards your capital projects. The total amount was 1,173,000. So a million87,000 of it is is represented here at the capital projects fund level. And then we had no capital project expenditures that came out of the capital projects fund in January. But if we flip to the debt service, so if we look at January debt service, you'll see for local taxes, you'll see that um other $85,500 represented there. that totals that totals the uh 1.17 million that was received for splast revenue. Um, so one thing you'll notice on the debt service is that the budget was $589,250, but we have in January I attributed um additional funds to debt service because we really needed to budget for the principal plus two interest
034payments because there There is a second interest payment due in June. So they'll there'll be an additional $79,250 which will be your interest payment that's due in June. So your year to date compared to your budget will be more than what you originally budgeted for because we'll need to allocate SPLS funds in order to cover that interest payment due in June. So next month um your budget of $589,000 your year to date will end up being $668,500 so that we allocate enough to cover both interest payments. So that's why when you when you look at the percentage to date of budget compared to what's been collected, it's at 111%. It's because it was underbudgeted based on that interest payment not being included. And then if you look at expenditures for debt service, the only thing
035that's been paid year to date is the is one interest payment and then your principal and your second interest payment are due in June. If let's uh flip to your special revenue fund. Special revenue fund for January. Your special revenue fund is um your federal grants, any state grants, um basically anything outside of just your general fund, your debt service, your splust, school nutrition has its separate category. Special revenue is going to be mostly grant reimbursement type grants, mostly federal grants that are on a reimbursement basis. So, in a perfect world, your year-to-ate revenue and your year-to-ate expenses are equal. In a perfect world, we don't live in a perfect world. So, a lot of times you'll see expenditures will be greater than revenue because it is a reimbursement grant. So, you spend the money
036first, then you ask for the money to cover what you spent. So, you spend the money up front. And so typically expenditures would be slightly higher than revenue and then when you draw that money down it it balances out. Um I had a hard time with this year to date um backing into what was previously presented. Um, I I know one big piece to the puzzle is that the prek grant, which I I typically would include the prek grant as special revenue, but it's not been included previously. So, I chose to not put it in to make things more complicated. But, um, so the prek grant is not included in special revenue. And there's still, uh, possibly some a couple other grants that have not been reported in this fund. previously, but everything is now
037in there. So, all of your special revenue, all of your grants, all of your state grants, all of anything that's um that's got its own fund, its own bucket is in is in here. So, it's all in there now. And uh another step that I'm going to take is to verify this uh revenue and expenditures against your federal grants, against your consolidated application, against your D147 drawdowns just to just to have that additional uh detail level. Um and just to ensure too that that these year-to- date numbers are accurate. I don't want to present anything to you and then later have to say, "Well, that wasn't quite right." I don't want to have to do that. So, I want to make sure that these are accurate. Um, so, so going forward, I'll probably present a
038little more detail. So, right now, everything is just thrown into federal grant admin. In the future, we could break that out by function. Um, we could also break it out by grant by the grant itself. So right now everything's just lumped into federal sources. Um so I mean that's an option if if the board thought that that was something that would be helpful. We could break it out by the actual grants themselves. But for now for the month of January, this is um this is what we have right now. And then we'll also work on having a beginning fund balance for that as well. Um, typically for your special revenue funds, your fund balance is zero. So, you have to end the year with a zero fund balance. You can't have money left over in
039those special revenue funds. You have to um if you if you spent more money than you've drawn down, then you have to set up a receivable for the money that you haven't drawn down. So, so that fund balance should be zero at the beginning of the year. And we can uh we can verify that and make sure that that is true. But that's what that's how it should be. It should be zero. And then the last uh statement of revenue and expenditures is school nutrition. So, school nutrition has its own fund, its own component unit, and it is um it's its tracking in line for your other state sources, which would be all of your school nutrition grants. It's right at 55%. Which is slightly lower than 58. However, your expenditures are also lower. So,
040your expenditures are only at 48% year-to date compared to the budget. So I'm okay with your revenue being slightly less because your expenditures are a good bit less. So So you're still revenue in excess of expenditures. You're still $62,692 positive. Do we have any questions about the revenue and expenditure side of it? We're gonna flip to the balance sheet next. >> That's fun. Yeah, once you digest it, let it settle and digest and and certainly it's it's a lot to go over and especially in a new format. So, you're looking at all of this for the first time. So, if we look at the general operating account, yes, perfect. Um, so this is a new um financial report that we thought might be helpful to the board and it is uh it's a balance sheet
041but it is on the cash basis. So it is a representation of the cash that you have on hand the cash that you would have the ability to spend. So you have your your actual cash that you have in the bank and then we subtracted the payments that you've made but have not cleared the bank. So your outstanding checks and then if you have um receipts or deposits that have been made that are not reflected in your checking account yet that would be added back. And at the at the bottom it gives you an actual cash on hand balance. So the fund balance would be the actual cash that you have the ability to spend. And then at the very bottom where it says unrestricted days cash, this is a formula that tells you based
042on the amount of cash you have on hand and the amount of expenditures that you had this month, how many days could you go with that cash? And you'll notice it's 4.71 which is very low but we know we we know that we're working on that. So ideally our goal would be 45 days. So we would like to have that come up to 45 days and we would feel comfortable with our cash flows with our cash flow situation if that number gets up to 45 days. Um but I mean that's not something we can fix overnight. So that's something that we're working on, but we thought that might be a good metric, a good ratio to be able to easily what's what is your cash on hand? 1.71 or what's your cash on hand? Oh,
043we're up to 50, you know, so we know we're we're making improvements. So, um, we just thought that might be a good metric that the board might um, be able to just have a quick quick glance at. Um, I like the cash on hand basis. rather than just a traditional balance sheet that um I feel like a cash on hand gives you a better representation of what we're dealing with in the moment and also um with with us trying to improve your cash flow situation and trying to improve that. This is a a better representation of of our ability to do that. And if um if you see something that you would like represented differently or added to, then you know we can definitely sit down and make that happen for you. So you'll see
044there's there's three of these balance sheets. You have the general operating account, you have the splast account, and then you have the school nutrition account. So these don't exactly coincide with your revenue and expenditure reports because for example your general operating account all of your general fund all of your special revenue fund all of that goes into the same bank account. So that's all represented in the general operating bank account. Your splast is both your debt service and your your splot your capital projects. So you have your capital projects and your debt service represented in that SPLOS bank account and then you have school nutrition has their own separate bank account. So you'll see three of these uh balance sheet reports. You'll notice splast if we switch to the splast one you'll notice that um
045if you look at cash on hand you have 195 days. Well, that's because you have an extra million dollars sitting in the bank account. Um, so with that extra money, so next month, what you'll see is you have your checking account money, but then we'll move down to the investment line. We'll move that extra money that we're putting aside that we don't want to spend yet. We're going to put that into the investment account. So, it'll come out of the formula for cash on hand because it's not cash that you have readily available to spend. So, that'll go on the investment line and it'll come out of that um unrestricted days of cash and then um we just have one more for the school nutrition bank account. So, do you have any questions about the
046balance sheet or do we need to digest that too? Yeah, perfectly understandable. Well, let me uh while we're waiting, um the the 1,086 days, 85 days, I don't have my glasses, but for the that's sitting in a u interestbearing account, It it so in January it was not yet. We had just gotten the money in January and February is when it >> it'll go in there. >> My question is how long does it take before you real before you understand and know was this a major mistake or is this legit? >> Yeah. And I I'll let Mr. Bye can fill you in on some of that too because he's been in a lot of communication with other entities who we've been trying to get more information. So got >> so as of right now um
047Mr. Chairman our lawyers have drafting um some letters to the department of revenue. So there are questions that we need to answer. One, what happens when we cap at 6 million? Do we have to pay interest if we have to pay it back? what are the terms if we have to pay it back? If it's if we're in a new splice, do they hold that in a lean? So, there's a lot of questions that we don't know um because very few districts have ever been in this particular position. So, hopefully once they write them, they get us the the legal a legal finding on that, I'll give that back to the board. Mr. Black, you had a question with the FY2 >> with the FY25 audit and and the format I I do like it,
048but you know, we just got it, so it's it's a new format. So, of course, um I would like for us to get it in a timely manner, too, so we can make sure that we look over it. Okay. And also, um with the audit, the FY25 audit, do you have a timeline of when it will be finalized? Do they No. >> Well, the 23 audit should be done this week or this coming up week. Um it was supposed to be done this week. So, that's the 23 audit. >> Okay. Once that audit is finished, then the Department of Audits, the state department of audits is going to do the 24 audit. And she said that they could get started just as soon as we could get it to them. So, we have to wait
049for 23 to get done. And then they're going to give us um just a very short window of opportunity to take the 23 audit numbers and if there were any adjustments, carry that over into your 24 financial statements. So, she's going to give us just a little window of time to say, "Okay, well, you know, the 23 auditors made these adjustments. We need to make sure it's in 24." And then give them the 24 financial statements. And then as soon as that's done, they are going to immediately pick up your 25 audit. Um, she said there are a few things that they can do simultaneously, but not very many at all. So they're just going to to schedule them back to back. So just as soon as one's done, the state department of audits will
050pick up 25 and and do it just back to back. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions later? Thank you very much. And then let's see what do we have here. Okay, Mr. Davis. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board, and good evening to all of our viewers out there. I want to start off by saying thank you for letting me share this data with you of the progress that we've been working on on JES. Uh so I'm excited to share with you everything my teachers have been doing. So we're going to move through uh the first slide up here. You know, we have two benchmark assessment tools that we use at JEES. We use the I Ready benchmark assessment and we give that K through five and we give it K through
051three times a year and we give it K through I mean fourth and fifth two times a year and then we give our beacon assessment and those two tools are utilized. The beacon is for our third through fifth grade and that's a great way for us to check our progress throughout the year. If you look at the next slide, in the fall, we took the I Ready assessment and 14 of our students scored in red of our third graders. Now, that means red means two or more grade levels behind. We took it again at the end of February and that number of 14 went down from 14 to eight students that were two or more grade levels behind. Yellow students are one grade level behind. Our students, our numbers went from 17 students to 15.
052Look at our green. Our green were on grade level. We increased it from 15 to 22. And then we had eight above grade level when we took it. We kept that number at eight and actually added another one above grade level. Now, this is mid year. This isn't the end of the year. We took this before we left for um this one we took in February. So these are scores that we still had the teaching in February, March and April before the milestone test. If you look at the next one, this is our math score for third grade. The initial I ready, we had 23 students in the red. That number we dropped from 23 in the red to 12 in the red. We went from 25 students in the yellow. That number grew to
05329, but that's where that 12 that were in the yellow moved up to there. Now look at our green. We went from six students on grade level to 10 students on grade level. And we had three stripe students that were above and those stayed strong. We had three students again when we took it again in February. Now our fourth graders now they did not take it again at the end of February. They only took it in they took it at the beginning of the year and in December. So this is just from the beginning of the year till December. We started with 27 students in ELA in red. We went and we went we changed that from 27 to 16. So we almost cut that number in half. And then yellow we went from 14
054students in yellow and of course those ones that turned red moved up to yellow. That number went to 26. uh we had two that were on grade level and then in December we that went up to three and then our strike we had seven students that were above and that number went down to three and I was a little bit alarmed at that but we looked at the data and a lot of those were one or two questions just over the line and so one or two questions made them a difference of green or stripe there so they were still in the upper green there so that number range was based on just maybe one or two questions All right. If you look at our math fourth grade, 27 students, uh, those 27 students went
055down to 16. Uh, 21 students in yellow went up to 24. Our green students went from two to seven. And then our stripe students, we went from zero above to two above. And now that's from the beginning of the year till December. All right. You're going to look at the U fifth grade scores. ELA 27 students. That number stayed the same right about 26. And I went and talked to those fifth graders and we kind of had uh these data meetings with them. And the fifth graders told me they said we were tired. We didn't take that test seriously. So I actually had a come to Jesus meeting with them. And I I really talked with them about how important testing was. And you're going to see when we get to the beacon test because
056you're going to see the scores change a little bit after we had that little meeting. Uh our yellow students, 16 students went to 14. Our green three went to six. We had three above. We rose to four above. Now that's from beginning to Christmas. And then our I Ready benchmark scores for fifth grade. If you look at for math, 28 students went to 22, 18 went to 10. Green, we had two students, we went to four. And then we went from stripe one student, we rose that to two. Now the next data you're going to see is our beacon data. Now we don't have two two numbers to compare with that but we have realistic numbers with kids. So in December we only had three red students in December. Those are the ones on the
057milestone that will score the zero if they're in red. We only had three. Look at our math. We only had zero zero students in red for our third grade. are yellow. 51 and 23. Those are your students that you expect to turn to green because this is mid year. Look at look at our green. Two ELA were on grade level. But look at this math. We've been working on those foundational skills, those math facts, and we had 27 that scored on grade level or above in December. Look at our fourth grade. We had 10 students in red in ELA. We had nine students in red in math. We had 36 and 27 in our yellows. And then look at those greens. We had two, but look at that math. We had 12 students already in
058December that were scoring on grade level. And a lot of those yellows are going to be moving up because remember this was just December. Look at our fifth grade. We went 10 students in red. Now that was that remember that I Ready group? We had 26 and 27 in the red on I Ready. Remember that pep talk? That number went to 10 and went to 12 and then those students rose for that 37 and 26 and look at those ELA students. Four students on grade level in December but look at that math 12 students there. So we expect a large portion of the yellows but with four more months of instruction to move up to the green. Now what patterns did we see? First of all, we had our students were struggling with our basic
059math facts, our addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 40% of our students last year on the milestone and stored a zero in the writing portion because they either copied and pasted or they didn't have good sentence structure. Look at the next one. 147 students have missed more than 10 days of school so far this year. So, attendance is still an issue. uh students were not trying their best on assessment due to lack of intrinsic motivation. So those were our problems. So what did we do? We hired Dr. Derzy to walk work with our math teachers. We hired Dr. Holmes to work with our science teachers. Middle Georgia contracted with us and they started working with their teachers with a writing program to have unified writing across all grade levels and to create writing rubrics. We have
060collaborative planning protected on Wednesdays. We started doing tier 2 intervention during our ILT time. So, not just I Ready instruction. The teachers are taking small groups instruction and working during ILT time with you. Uh we have rewards. We start I started paying students for the highest increase in test scores. We started giving $20 prizes. It pays to learn at JES and the students started trying their very best. We started announcing the highest growth. We started announcing the highest scores. And the students have a challenge to try to beat themselves. Our teachers started using cyclic homework which means it reviews the standards every single week. They don't lose anything. Those math facts are holy cards. That's a math fact thing like this. They work on their 100 math facts in under two minutes. They do it
061in addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. Uh we we started actively regrouping our students, which means we use data and it doesn't matter what group they're in. If the data shows us they need to be in another group, we change them weekly. We change them monthly. We change them to match where the data is. And then we started our data talk with our third through fifth graders. Now we have the utilization of the milestone blueprint that told us how many questions are going to be asked, how much emphasis do we need to be put on that. We we did protected writing block. We did our UFly training for third grade. Uh we started an attendance task force. We started sending letters home at 3:5 and 7 and we started having attendance meetings to fix the attendance.
062Uh we had milestone practice starting in February. We started it earlier than we did last year. Now this last slide is what I'm really excited about. This compares last year's mile scores milestone scores with what our predictions are this year using a calculation app that Bobby Smith gave me for the milestone. If you look last year at the end of the year, 44.25 was our ELA all student total. If I put in our Beacon score in December, we beat it by 45 in December. Look at our math score, 54.37. By December, we scored 60%. So, we've already beaten the end of the year score last year by December. Our ELA score of 44.25, 25. We beat it with 59 and that's putting directly in our I Ready scores and our Beacon scores exactly by the
063number count that are showing right now. And then our mass score is 54.37%. That's not quite as high as it needs to be, but remember this is December. We're not expecting to pass it by the end of the year. Our goal is to have that 50.8 score. If we look at our data, we put it in and they tell me this is realistic data. You put the numbers in, it shows you what our scores should be. We have surpassed everything except for one area by December. So, we are expecting great scores. And I just want to say thank you for your support. My teachers are working hard in the trenches each and every day. And if you have any questions, I I really want you to ask those. You can meet me privately or we
064can talk about any questions that you have. But I just wanted to share with you the progress that we made. I just have one question. >> Yes, sir. >> How closely does the uh you said the beacon and the I Ready? How closely have you over the years? >> Does it match the actual test? >> All right. My leadership team this past summer, we actually did uh a comparison analysis. We did a core group of drawing 20 students and we compared the beacon and the I Ready and they matched right along with the milestone test. The difference that I did last year that I'm not going to do this year is when I projected Beacon scores, I projected it on the top end. These scores are projecting the Beacon scores on the bottom end of
065the range that they have. So these scores that I'm giving you here, last year there was a range from yellow to green. And if it reached green, I was projecting green. This one, if it was yellow to green, I took the yellow score. So these are realistic scores and the predictions that Bobby Smith shows me. He says it's in within 2% of what we can expect on the CCPI if you put in the data by real numbers. So, if you see those printout sheets like this, you will find all those numbers in there. And that's by putting in the exact numbers that we had on the I Ready and the Beacon. So, hopefully this is showing I'm excited about the results and I hope it's showing real live data. But what I did is I
066did do the beacon on the low end instead of the highend. Last year if they were yellow to green and they passed green, I tried saying we expected them to make green, but this is realistic scores. >> All right. Are there any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank y'all. >> Board chair and vice board chair and great board members. Again, this is um an opportunity to share the state of the school data for the middle school. I just want to start by saying, of course, we are a district with a vision and we are generating excellence, one team, one goal. Our mission is to inspire, challenge, and prepare all students to compete globally. Of course, we've coined the mantra, Cobra's ready, always ready, striking for excellence is what we do. So, I'm about to
067do a quick data walk through you, which was definitely an abbreviated version from what we do there in the school. What you're going to see is some data information related to I Ready Beacon. As Mr. Davis says, this is the data that we constantly rely upon to see how our students are progressing. You want to know how we're doing. We want to know how we're doing. I overloaded you with information. So, if anybody's asking you what the assessment reveals, what you know, you're going to see it because I gave you all theformational sheets so that you can share with our communities and those that are very concerned about the movement of the school. I'm going to jump right in. We did a B beginning of the year and the middle of the year assessment using
068our Irated data. Our growth for our sixth grade students was not as we expected which prompted us to start moving very quickly to come up with a plan to work on improvement in the various areas. This is reading. You'll see that there's minimal growth here. Our students I don't know if it's excitement of middle school or what would be the major challenge but we definitely felt like we need to plan intentionally to move those students and start getting them ready for the milestone experience. And so we did that after that second in second assessment revealed that there was minimal growth. We did start to celebrate when we got to seventh grade. Seventh grade here you're going to see there's an 8% growth when it comes to students who are three grade levels behind. Mr. Christopher,
069when you spent time with us, you notice that the financial ski the foundation skills and that's in reading and math will continue to be a challenge, which is why throughout the years, you're probably going to see about 50% of our students are progressing. And then 50% of our students are showing growth, but they may not be growing at the expected rate because of those financial skills have to be embedded. For the seventh grade, you saw for reading there was a 7% increase for students that were about above or on grade level. And you'll notice that when you look at on grade level and above grade level that 9% from 2% to 9% when you're looking at the black to blue is how we've moved. When you look at eighth grade I rated data the data
070shows the progress that has been made over time. Students who were multiple level grade multiple levels behind are actually growing in that building. There's growth and an improvement process improvement across all grade levels. I'm excited to say that we have about a 42% of our eighth grade students who are performing at above and on grade level. I'm not going to go through these data sheets because you've had a chance to look at it, but what I am going to share is that some growth trends that we're seeing in the building is that we've increased our opportunities to improve the academic task. We're heavily relying on our bi-weekly assessments. And as Mr. Davis says, once we start looking at the blueprints, the blueprints really tell you how many questions our students are likely to encounter. They
071also tell you what the particular areas are and so we want to be intentional about making sure that that information stayed in front of those students, those standards and those process for mastering learning. We also were intentional about grouping. We sat down when we had our a asynchronous day and we looked at every single student and for many of them it was a disruption of their whole schedule because we wanted to make sure that those students that needed to be remediated had an opportunity to get that extra learning or slow down the pace of learning so we can build in those financial skill foundational skills as well as accelerate accelerate the learning for sixth grade math. Again, we're looking at that sixth grade student. There is a challenge when it comes to learning when they
072migrate from the middle from the elementary school to that middle school. Again, we in increased our intentional focus. We guided and asked parents to help us with making sure that students were using their hour ready time appropriately at school and when they were off campus. Then we went to seventh grade and again it started to look like there was some movement there. What I want to talk about mostly when you look at it is that on grade level there was some increase right there. We didn't lose any kids in that progress in that process. When you talk about seventh grade data, our above grade level students stayed as they were. We did talk to Mr. Davis about what was he using to increase students foundational skills. And we brought that holy grail process over to
073holy grading process over to a holy card process over to Twigs Middle High School. And again, it definitely helped to help our students with those skills that they need. When you think about foundational skills we're talking about your ability to say 3 * 3 is nine and and repeatedly those are foundational skills that you're going to need when you start to do any math problem outside of JS when you get from the fourth grade beyond. You got to be able to do that. Then we looked at our eighth grade and again we started to say there's some excitement. 12% of our students move from three grade levels behind. They moved up. You'll look at that number. We started off three grade levels behind. For eighth grade in math it was 43% of our students. We
074moved up and now it's 31% of our students. And you'll keep seeing the trend how we're moving in the right direction. Again, you had a chance to to scour over the I already assessment data that we broke down. Here's what I want to say. The milestone practice is important. We noticed that if students had an opportunity to really really engulf themselves with those informational texts as it related to ELA, it's not the social media contacts that they're going to have, but this is really looking atformational text and gleaning the information. So when you say something like they're learning about the growth in Georgia when they move from Atlanta to Terminus and all those different names, students don't really want to learn that. But what we have to do is keep saturating with that. Here's what
075we noticed. There were some challenges. Students had to have scaffolded experiences. Teachers had to spend more time with them. But for even for math and and reading, we made sure that we took time to oversaturate them with the experiences so that this data that we have, which is just a midpoint, can look dra drastically different as we conclude this year. Getting ready to move into the DRC, Mr. Baz, you can move forward with that because I know the board members had an opportunity to read it. But when we talk about the DRC beacon, one of the questions you ask is how likely it looks very likely. The DRC is the DRC beacon is one of those assessment that the students get a chance to practice what the milestone would look like. In fact, there's a
076speaking and listening part. The beacon assessment this year gave them a speaking and listening part. Everybody had to have headphones and then listen to it and then make some determinations according to what they read. And so we gave our our students an opportunity to do that. In the past, we did it twice. We regrouped in February. We had a chance for our students to go into those different learning environments. And now on tomorrow and Thursday, they're gonna have a beacon for the third time. We want to see if it's working. So they had it in in the beginning of the year. They had it in the when we came back and then now they're going to have it once more before we go into milestone. And when we come back from fall break, from spring
077break, we're going to be doing the same thing. We're going to be moving those groups to make sure that we have the right kid with the right teacher getting the right pacing of those lessons. So, I gave you again a lot of beacon reports because if anybody's asking you about the beacon reports, you too will know exactly what it looks like, exactly what it says. You'll get a chance to see what areas being tested, what the predictions are, and what it says. Now, I want to move into what Miss Rearen shared with you guys in reference to the CCPI. Miss Rearen shared with you that our CCPI for mastery for ELA. ELA we increased by 46% but she talked about for mastery for ELA we'd have to have it was at that point it was
07856%. And so when you look at our beacon results from fall to winter you're going to see that our students are growing. When you look at the math data you'll see that for sixth grade students that needed support was originally at 38. There were 38 students that needed support. We moved that number and now there's 28 26 students that needed support. Now again, that's when we took it at the midpoint and here we are getting ready to take it again. You'll see that same type of growth when you look at ELA for our sixth grade students. It was 27 of those students that need support and then we moved them up to 18%. And again, I broke down the data that you had an opportunity to see. Look at seventh grade. seventh grade. We don't
079know what's the major challenges that are going on here, but what we can say is that intentional exposure to thatformational text did slow down a momentum, but I know we'll gain it back when they get that information in front of them in the milestone. And so, if you're looking at the comparison between fall and winter, put heavy attention on the blue and you'll see the movement that's being made at Twigs Middle High School. Again, middle school. Again, I tried to break down the data for you because I knew you would be looking at it independently. I'm going to move you right to eighth grade for fall and winter. And again, I gave you something that you can be excited about. There's movement that's happening in the eighth grade. You'll see that if you're looking at
080the blue, the blue is where we last tested. And if you look at the black, that's where we were when we began. Again, again, there's excitement there. If you look at the ELA, those students that needed support in math, there was 33 students that started off is 26. We started off with ELA, there was eight, we have 12 now. We worked on that. again that saturation of information saturation of information and we got a chance to explain to you the milestone data when Miss Reen said content raster overall we had a 43.5%. Again when you looked at ELA 56.7% is what we scored what was reported for our movement this year. We did the same thing calculating our data as Mr. Da Mr. Davis did. And you'll notice that at the midway point, we were
08153%. If you'll go to the next slide, Mr. Basel, you'll see that at the midpoint, we were 50 53%. Our goal last year we met was 56%. I think we'll be well on our way. And again, this is just a prediction to see where we were and where we're going. We needed that information so we could definitely expose that information to the teachers so they could overexpose the teach the students to the information. I want to say one more thing that happened when we talk about the math that CCR PR CCPI score was 45%. 45% according to what was reported. We took the assessment. One thing Miss Sanders and Coach Cumins did this year was that they went ahead and moved through all of the standards for math so that we could be intentional about
082repeating. So we're in constant repeat mode now. Meaning they're going to see that information over and over and over again. So again, when they get to the milestone, there should be no challenge. 45% was the projected number. We're at 50% at the midpoint. I do think we will deliver good. I think our students will do well. We still need our students to practice while they're home for spring break. Leaving us is always a challenge. We get really nervous because if they're not practicing every day, they can lose a skill every time that they're not with us. So when we come back, we'll have the results. You'll hear the community and families talking about, "Oh, they moved my child again." We did because you have to keep making sure that the student needs are important when
083it comes to learners learning. Any questions? >> Are there any questions? Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Uh, Mr. Davis, I want to see that little board you got. You said a whole board or something. >> And I'll tell you, I have been dethrown of the addition. They challenge me. They beat me. I get to take him out to eat for lunch. And I had a fourth grade boy dethrown me. I didn't think I was going to be dethroned because I'm really good at math facts. He beat me in addition. But I have a girl that beat me in subtraction and division. And she didn't just beat me. She woke me and uh so she's actually been out to eat twice with me because she has earned it. Uh she has earned it by beating me. But
084we do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They put a a piece of paper in the middle so you don't have to run photo copies. That's why it's called the holy part. The answers go in the holes in the middle and you just throw the paper away. So it's quick. It's five minutes. The students pass it and grade it. And they need to do all that in under two minutes. And I've got about 60% of my fourth graders that are already on division, addition, subtraction, multiplication, working on division. My fourth graders are showing up and showing out. They're faster than my third and fourth graders that they've been doing. It's just repetition. >> Thank you. Holy colors. Let's see what else we got here. All right. We want to thank I believe that's the last I
085lost my agenda. You got your agenda in? Give me just a second. I believe that ends our business section. Give me just a second. Yes. So, that concludes our business agenda. And at this time, uh, we're going to move in. Can I get a motion to move into executive session? >> Second. >> Okay. The motion has been properly made by Miss King and second by Miss Black Shear that we move into executive session. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. I want to thank everybody for hanging out with us tonight. Some of you look a little tired. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Data. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Baby, do you feel Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. I la. I can't.
086Don't mind. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Okay. Can I get a motion to return from uh executive session? >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay. Okay. The motion been properly made by Miss King, second by Mr. Rouse. Um, any discussion? All in favor? Raise your hand. Okay. The motion passes unanimously. You there, Mr. Butler? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Um, at this time, um, can I get a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation for the new hires, the renewals, the resignations, terminations, as well as the transfer appointment transition, trans transfers, appointments, and transitions. >> I made that motion. >> Okay. Can I get a second? Second. Okay. The motion been properly made by Mr. Ralph,
087second by Miss King. Uh, is there any discussion? If not, all in favor raise your hand. >> Okay, the motion passes unanimously. Um, now can I get a motion to adjourn? >> I made that motion. >> Second. The motion been properly made by Mr. Rouse and second by Miss uh Black Shear to adjourn. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor raise your hand. >> Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you all for being here and y'all be safe going home.