001board meeting to order. And at this time, I'll uh take a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion we approve the agenda. I'll second that, Mr. Chairman. We have a motion by Mr. Subtles to approve the agenda. We have a second by Mr. Schuford. Is there any further discussion? At this time, uh, all those in favor, uh, signify by raising your right hand, which is an eight vote. Mr. Barksdale will be a little late. Family illness this evening. Okay, at this time we will now have an invocation. I invite you all to join with us or engage in a moment of silent reflection. Lord, we come before you. Ask that you be with this meeting. Lord, let us uh do the right things for kids. Let us be an advocate for the things
002that we can do for them and help them with their future lives. We ask for these things in Jesus. Uh we ask for these things in thy name. Amen. Amen. Okay. At this time, uh Mr. McGinness, will you introduce the NJC? Uh yes, sir. At this time, we're going to have the presentation of colors with highc when they post the colors. Y'all please stand. Colors. Alt right base. Colors. Salute. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Order colors. Ready. Cut. Post. Ready. Post court. Arms forward. March. At this time, item number five on the agenda is a superintendent remarks. And Dr. Grid, I'll turn it over to you, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Thank
003you, Chairman Frank, and members of the board. I want to also thank all the folks that are out there in attendance with us tonight. It's good when you look look out and you see the whole basketball team sitting out there. That's usually a pretty good feeling. So, we don't want to just just recognize the basketball team. We've got a wrestler in the house, too. And, you know, those are competing sports at times, so we like to have them on opposite sides from time to time. But, we're we're proud of all you guys and kids. We've got lots of things to recognize. And uh I'm just going to kind of read through a few things that I'm really really proud of. Uh tonight we have so many things to be grateful for. We are recognizing some
004amazing accomplishments as we begin the final stretch of the school year. It's hard to believe that we're only a month away from our first graduation. Mai and MC will graduate their students on May 16th, followed by Summit Academyy's first ever graduation on June 3rd and McDow High School's graduation on June 6th. We began this school year with an incredible speech from Missy Tester. She is the national teacher of the year for the 2425 school year. She visited our schools and spoke of the resilience at our opening day convocation. On that day, little did we know that 2024 2025 school year would have some of the difficult challenges in store for our community that would absolutely require a great deal of resilience. On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helen arrived at McDow County on the heels of
005nearly 12 to 15 inches of rain the day before, tearing through our towns and community, displacing many students and families, leaving Old Fort Elementary School with standing water and six to eight inches of mud left in the school. The storm carried a school bus out of the parking lot more than a mile down the stream. 10 school days later, McDow County Schools reopened for students in all of our schools except for Old Fort Elementary, which took a few more days while we readied Pleasant Gardens Elementary for an additional for the additional students. After 14 missed school days, we had all the students back in school. Our staff, many of whom were dealing with hardships at home due to the storm, showed up and gave their all for our students. The month of October, as I
006look out across the group from here, you all know what I'm saying when I say the month of October. The month of October, as described by our leadership team, was one of the hardest working months that they have ever endured. Our staff worked at school, at home, and in the community, supporting and uplifting. Our students worked just as hard, showing growth and attendance in many of our schools, putting in extra work in the gym, the range, the wrestling room, and band room. spending many hours after school with their clubs, honing their interests. Our coaches, teachers, and club sponsors worked hard to create an environment that provided our students an outlet outside of the hurricane. They won state championships, made it to a final four, placed in national events, and even had the North Carolina high
007school ladies basketball coach of the year. Resilience is a word that I've used throughout this year. And at this point, folks, I think we need to consider a different word in Mcdow County. As we begin to close the year, I believe it is important to change our language to that of perseverance. This year, we've overcame adversity and struggle, and I am proud of our students and staff for their many lessons, for their many lessons in perseverance and leadership. We have a room full of recognition here with us tonight and I'm honored to share with you their many accomplishments. Please join me in giving these students, staff, and team a round of applause tonight. [Applause] All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and jump right into some of our recognitions this evening. The first one's
008no stranger to this boardroom. I think we had him here just about a month or so ago when he was a McDow High School state champion at the wrestling tournament at 215 pounds. It's pretty pretty awesome that he's back and it's under a little bit of different circumstances because we're proud to talk about Hayden and his accomplishments and certainly what he did at the state was, you know, a really really big deal. But then there's this little thing called the high school national tournament and that's the senior nationals and that's open to any student who has qualified and won or placed in their state championships in the USA. That happened to be in Virginia Beach just over spring break. Uh Hayden placed as an all-American in that placing fourth place. Uh and I want to
009I want to talk a little bit about about that because I was texting back and forth with dad the whole time that that was going on. Uh and and just just talk to you a little bit about what that looked like. Uh so during that tournament, the first few days, he he didn't give up any points. Um he wrestled a match and didn't give up any points, but still lost the match. Now ask how that can happen. You have to know a little bit about wrestling to be able to talk that language. Um he actually was actually disqualified in a match. And I'll tell you why. And I know he's pretty he's still pretty sour about it. He should be. Um, so when uh when you when you return your opponent back to the mat,
010you can't slam them to the mat. Well, when you pick them up, right, they're not supposed to hold on to you. They're supposed to, excuse me, they're supposed to defend themselves, defend themselves. Well, this this player did not do that. Did not do that. So, what I feel like was a terrible call. And I watched the video numerous times. And I also watched a a coach tell a student uh just to stay down. Now, from a wrestling coach's perspective, that is not what you do. We don't teach our kids to do that. We teach them to get up and go on if you can. If you're injured, you stay down. Uh when I saw the student smiling with the smile on his face because he knew that Hayden was about to get disqualified in that
011in that round that would have put him on into the quarterfinals uh to leave him in the championship round. Um, I was pretty frustrated as I as well as I know Hayden was. Um, but but to describe to you what happened next is what I want to talk about because that's one of those situations. Hey, you know, I was the state champion. I've done what I need to do. I'm just go ahead and go to the house. I'm fine. I don't I don't need to keep wrestling. That's not what Hayden Haynes did. Hayden decided that he was going to come back. We call it in wrestling running the gauntlet. So, he had to come back through the constellation round. Um, and that was a series of matches. And my favorite picture was when he had
012his head gashed open and it was all bloody and he still had his uh had had the tourniquet on it. I call it wasn't a tourniquet, just a head wrap on there and he's smiling ear to ear. And that was after he won his uh match that would go into the constellation finals. Folks, to be in the top four in the nation is extremely impressive. Hayden, we're incredibly proud of you. I know your mom and dad are proud of you. I love your mother's shirt. I'm so proud of you. We're looking forward to seeing what you do at Appalachin State. Hayden, come on up. Let's Let's give Hayden [Applause] Miss Finley. Come on up. Well, good evening. Um, I'm always happy to come and recognize our outstanding CTE students. Um, as you know by now,
013CTE loves acronyms. So, we're here to recognize a student from FCCLA. FCCLA is a CTSO, which is a career and technical student organization or a club such as DECA, FLA, and so forth. FCCLA stands for Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America, and it's a student-led organization. Nine youth leaders are elected annually at the state leadership conference to make up a state executive council and serve a one-year term as the representative body of the North Carolina FCCLA. This year, Mr. Sarah Berles applied. She had a lengthy application process, including two essays, a leadership profile, and three recommendation letters. As she attended the state conference, she had to give a speech and answer an impromptu question in front of over 800 students and adults. She participated in a networking event and afterwards the FCCLA chapters voted.
014She was elected into the state executive council as the district 7 state officer and is now the vice president of community outreach for North Carolina. She will be traveling to many conferences and leading FCCLA events throughout the coming school year. So, at this time, we want to recognize Miss Sarah Berles. I also want to recognize Miss Stacy Shaw. She is the FCCLA advisor and our chapter was recognized as a membership madness all-star, meaning that we have doubled our enrollment this year. and we appreciate her taking the time to rebuild the chapter and create this opportunity for Sarah. This is also the first time that McDow High has had an FCCA FCCLA chapter um at the state office level. So, we're extremely proud of Sarah. Thank you. Next up, we have Miss Baker. I'm make sure
015I've got both these. Sorry. Good evening. I'm Michelle Baker. I'm the director of advanced learning and differentiation. And I would like to give you a little information about the Governor's School of North Carolina. It is the oldest statewide summer residential program for gifted and talented high school students in the nation. The program is administered by the state board of education and the department of North Carolina public instruction through the office of advanced learning and gifted education. Each summer, selected students are invited to the Governor's School to help build a learning community during a 4W week, sorry, residential session. These students will attend June 22nd through July the 19th. The Governor's School is a fully immersive uh residential learning experience with a rich schedule of events and time for students to interact and learn from each
016other. Classes are held Monday through Saturday. Girls, I hope you knew that the emphasis in is in all disciplines is on contemporary text, composition, artistic expressions, issues, and ideas, and the theories that flow from them. North Carolina high school juniors undergo a local and state nomination process to attend Governor School. Students apply locally to be nominated at the district level and then district nominees compete against over 1500 students across the state of North Carolina. There are only 800 prestigious seats available at the Governor's School. This year, McDow County Schools gets to celebrate two students that were selected to attend the Governor's School. Cora Dattle is a student at McDow Early College and will attend Greensboro College Governor's West and was selected in English. In her essay, where she was asked to identify a 21st century
017topic in English language arts, she discussed AI in both it as it being both a blessing and a curse for creativity and weighed out convincing pros and cautions for using AI. We also want to recognize Savannah Wilson from McDow High School. She will be attending Meredith College, Governor's East, and was selected in theater. This is also the first time McDow County Schools has one student that's going to be going into the arts governor's school. Savannah also has to respond had to respond to the same essay prompt um about an arts topic. Savannah passionately defended that theater arts programs in rural areas and rural rural schools are often overlooked and underappreciated. Congratulations to both of these high school students. It is an honor to recognize their hard work and boastw worthy selection to attend Governor's School
018this summer as representatives of McDow County Schools. Dr. Griff, if we could uh I want to say something to uh all of these kids, the recipients. So proud of you. Super proud of you. But I really want to tell you this. Make sure that you look at your mom and dad tonight and tell you tell them thank you. I'm looking at the students that are in here right now and I know every one of the parents of these students and I know for a fact incredible parents and in a society and in a time today trying to raise kids it it's very tough to keep them in in one lane. So I want to commend you parents too for what you've done for your children up and down the interstates and the and the things
019that you've done to keep them uh safe and put them in the right way. Uh Hayden, I thought you were playing rugby when I saw the pictures, but I knew that wasn't possible right now. Uh but again, thank you parents to uh of the students. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Frank, Mr. Abernathy, and members of the board of education and honored guests. Today, it is my great honor to recognize an outstanding leader and coach from McDow High School, Coach Zack MacArthur. Uh, Coach McCarthy, come stand right up here. You have to be standing while why while I say all this. Coach MacArthur was recently named Women's Coach of the Year by the North Carolina Basketball Coaches Association. This prestigious honor was voted on from coaches from across the state and marks a major milestone for
020our school and community. Under coach MacArthur's leadership, the Lady Titans have had an extraordinary season, 30 and one record, the best in school's history. The MAC season uh and tournament champions um were our Lady Titans, and that's the first time since 2014. We were also the 4A West regional championship game appearance, the first time reaching the state's final four since 2008. Since taking over the program in 2021, Coach MacArthur has compiled an impressive 75-34 record. Over nine season as head coach, his career record stands at 163 wins to 72. He is a proud alumni who has returned home to build a championship level program. This state level coach of the year award is the first for McDow High School. Coach MacArthur will always have the honor of coaching will also have the honor of coaching
021the West Allstar at the annual East West All-Star game in Greensboro this summer. While no McDow player were players were selected to the NCBCA all-star team, which I believe we should have had, but they didn't ask me. The Lady Titan Titans team accomplishment speaks volumes about their collective strength and resilience. Coach MacArthur has instilled. Coach MacArthur's dedication, leadership, and passion have not only elevated the Lady Titans basketball program, but has also brought pride to McDow County Schools. We are thrilled to celebrate his success today and look forward to even greater accomplishments in the future. As we honor this incredible coach today, I can't help but think about how proud we are all of him. And even so, more so how proud his mother, Coach J. MacArthur, would be. I can only imagine her looking down
022at him, his family, and his team with a huge smile, overflowing with pride at all his accomplishment. Her legacy clearly lives on through him. So, Coach MacArthur, um, please join me in congratulating Coach Zach MacArthur, the 2024 NCBCA Women's Coach of the Year. Congratulations. [Applause] Coach in the middle. [Applause] So, M. Coach McCarth, if you will please join me just for a second. Um, when when you're named the North Carolina Coach of the Year, you know you know how to speak and you know you can talk about your team. So, one of the things that I've asked Coach McCarthy to do is be able to say a few words about this very very impressive team tonight. Yeah, he he asked me just now, just a second ago. But that's all right. Um, you know, I
023couldn't be prouder of these girls. Um, there's a lot more that goes into this than just showing up and playing a game. Last spring, we marched back and forth to the weight room over and over again. Last June they played I don't know it was like 22 games in a month. Like it was crazy. Their dedication and commitment is what does this like I know I won this award but that has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with them and my coaches. They're they're just phenomenal. Everything that they do and the effort that they put in, it's really about them. It's not about me. So I really would like for you to give them a round of applause and them come up and get a picture of just them. Come on,
024girls. Come on. Come on up. [Applause] girls, we want you to know we really appreciate you. uh the efforts that you guys put in this past year uh phenomenal to be able to uh to see the crowds that you brought out and and really I want to I want to talk about that opening speech that I had when I when I wrote that opening speech I had all you guys in mind with the fact of what that meant. um during a time when our when our community really needed a connection, uh the ladies basketball team really helped to bridge that and bring us together as a community. And that's something that um you know, years from now, y'all can really really think about um and and it may not may not resonate with you as
025much right now as it as it might will at a later point in time. But for the adults sitting in the room, I think you know exactly where I'm going with it. It was a special time. It was a it was a special privilege that you all gave to us and we are certainly grateful for that and appreciate what you did this year. And it was so much fun to go down to uh Wake Forest to watch you play as well. And I don't know when I talked to uh Q Tucker uh one of the things that we had talked about and you'll appreciate this Mr. Subtles. Uh Q Tucker had been talk and she is the uh president of the North Carolina High School Athletics Association. She had been talking about which conference we
026might need to be in uh to play with McDow High School. And one of the things we said was, "Well, we need to be in a conference that travels well." Well, when I went down there, I didn't say it to her. Q. Tucker said it to me. You weren't kidding when you said you traveled well because when we look behind us, we had four bus loads full of kids down there to support our girls. So, we're incredibly proud of you. And I just just as a community, I know I you guys may not know right now what it meant, but it was very very special this season. We thank you, Miss Miss Dell, if we could too. I want to tell you you ladies this as a player. When you saw the big crowds when
027I saw the big crowds coming out and I knew people had jobs, I couldn't understand how people could work all day and then come support a team and not have a kid on the team. And last year when my daughter played for coach MacArthur and stuff, I was there a lot and I could see his coaching ability with the other coaches, but I saw something phenomenal. And when I came to the games this year, you answered the question for me. When you see athleticism and desire and drive and heart playing in a game, you want to come back and watch. Regardless if you got kids or not, you want to come back. You ladies change my thoughts of women's basketball for the rest of my life. I want to come to so many games uh
028seeing Kinsley get hot or Kamora's defense or all this stuff happen. I'm like, man, these girls are absolute great athletes. So, I want to thank you personally just for giving me the love for women's basketball by watching you play and how you went about it today. And for you girls that are returning, the bar is setting now, so you better you better get after it in the wait room. But thanks for for doing that for us for the county. Absolutely. So, next we're going to be recognizing our certified employee of the month. she could not be here, but of course I'd like to ask Miss Rayfield if she could step up to accept this award on her behalf, but I'd like to read this to you. Is that I'm honored to announce Marlene Duncan for
029the employee of the month award. Miss Duncan is truly a rockstar in the classroom, bringing an incredible amount of energy and passion to every lesson she teaches. Her hands-on, engaging science activities captivate her students, helping them not just learn uh but truly understand the material. Thanks to her dedication, her students consistently excel and show remarkable growth. Beyond the classroom, Miss Duncan's impact continues to shine. Every Sunday, every summer, she plans and leads Camp Invention, a program that draws students from across the county to experience exciting, creative learning opportunities. She also organizes unforgettable field trips for her for her fourth and fifth graders at Pleasant Gardens Elementary, giving them the chance to travel beyond the county and even the state to explore and learn about places they might not have the opportunity to experience. Her positive
030attitude, creativ creativity, and unwavering commitment to her students make her not only an outstanding teacher but also an invaluable asset to our school community. Is with great pride that I present um this award to Miss Marlene Duncan for her welldeserved recognition. Next up is Mr. Jacob Lidle. Mr. Lidle, if you step on up. He's gonna have to send them. I told him he had to give a speech, but I was just joking. Mr. Jacob Lidle. Um he was recognized as employee of the month for a classified position due to his exceptional commitment, reliability, and leadership during a period of significant transition within our district. When our team faced challenges and staffing challenges, Jacob stepped up without hesitation, assuming increased responsibility and ensuring that our facilities continue to operate smoothly and safely. Mr. Lidle not only
031maintained his regular duties with consistent excellence, but he also took an additional task, often going above and beyond what was expected. Whether it was coordinating repairs, managing schedules, assisting others, or proactively identifying, resolving issues, Jacob has shown remarkable initiative and dedication. His calm, dependable presence has been a source of stability for the team. He has set an example of professionalism, teamwork, and pride in his work, earning the respect and appreciation of both colleagues and leaderships. In his time of transition and uncertainty, Mr. Ludle became a key pillar of support, showing what true leadership and work ethic looks like. It is with deep appreciation that I nominate Mr. Jacob Ludle for his welldeserved recognition. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Congratulations. Reading test. Okay. At this time, item number eight on the agenda is the North
032Carolina uh school administrators uh North Carolina Association of School Administrators uh 2025 Raymond Sarba Leadership Award and uh this is it right here. But I want to tell you a little bit about this and uh Dr. Grit put me on the spot tell about this. But uh Dr. Grit went off on his uh time off for spring break and went to the conference and uh they said you really need to be there. And the association recognized the 11 hardest hit superintendent their school districts in western North Carolina for the aftermath of Hurricane Helen. And and I I want to say this. I I got a page and a half to read. you're not going to read it, but I just want to tell you great things that our school system did, and this is just
033off the cuff, but uh Dr. Grit jumped right in there. And for a man that hadn't been here that long, that's pretty good. And what a lot of folks don't understand is uh you know all of a sudden these people coming in these fuel places to stay and uh a command center and our staff, not just Dr. Grit, our whole staff man these places. They provided meals. Uh I'm going to brag on Mr. Marsh as well. set up a bus service up in uh for Baxter to get those folks to work when they didn't have bridges and things to do it. It's just phenomenal what they did, these 11 superintendents and their school districts, the whole districts. And uh I want to tell you this too. This past weekend, I had to work down for
034the Lake Lure Police Department. They had an Easter egg hunt and the uh United Cinjun Navy came in and provided that Easter egg hunt at uh Lake Lure Classical Academy. They had 3,500 eggs on the field along with prizes. They had their mule teams in there that they used those mules to deliver supplies throughout western North Carolina. And and I'm going to tell you, they did it and didn't charge a thing. You know, I mean, this this whole program that they put on Sunday, it's just phenomenal what people do in Western North Carolina when when things are really really down. And I am so proud to live in western North Carolina. I've lived here my whole life and I just think it's it's awesome that I live in such a place where people are so
035caring and so giving. And I'm just I'm just proud of everybody. But I'm more proud of of McDow County Schools than any other because I'm I'm part of that. And I am so proud of Dr. Grit and your staff. And I and I'm going to tell you, I'm proud of the board because the board really supports everything you do. Whether you like whether you know it or not or realize it, we do. And so Dr. I know. Won't you say something because uh you're you're so deserving, but I know it's your staff that that made you great. Okay. And the board. Thank you, sir. Thank you. It this really was an award that was uh that that I received on behalf of our staff. Um it is a leader. It's written in their leadership award.
036It doesn't say my name in it at all. As a matter of fact, when the team when we got the award, um I I text back with the team and said this is we really need to be able to present this to our principal group and those leaders who were who were part of that. So, uh just the principles who were here today, you can kind of see this is a a little bit of what we'll be doing with you guys on Thursday, just recognizing the efforts. Um we we've had we we've talked a lot about the hurricane for a long time, but we've got folks sitting on that back row that um paddled through water. uh to to open up a distribution site. I had his wife explain to me that that I you
037know I should have never asked him to do that. I didn't realize what I'd asked him to do. I just said, "Can you come work?" And he said, "Yes." Um across the river to get there. Um never ask Mr. Carson unless you know he's going to be safe. So that was note to self. He's going to run through a block wall. Uh Mr. Spivey coming down uh 70 to get to get there as well. and all these folks uh coming from their home uh to be able to help and participate in uh Helen and and to be honest with you uh the days matter. Uh and and what matters is when we got our students back in school. Um and that's one of those things that I I am still proud of to this day.
038Uh the level of commitment that it took from you guys to get our students back in school. um because we we were one of the first districts to get back after having pretty pretty significant damage and the other places they're reasoning for not going back and now they're all asking us how we did it. One uh we had we maintained water and sewer at our schools. So there was a reason why we could go back. Bunkam County they weren't that fortunate. Um and our and several neighbors Mitchell County, Yansy County, uh that was the reasoning that they couldn't. The other reason that they couldn't is because they had shelters in our in their schools. In Mcdow County years ago, somebody had enough thought to say, "We don't need to have the shelters in the schools.
039We need to have them in our churches, our YMCA's, and other places because school is critical infrastructure." Uh, so Mr. Marsh and I actually went down on sat on a panel to talk about that and and people were uh a little bit shocked by it because the norm is to have schools as your uh shel primary shelters. Um, but I can honestly say, um, that when you put this team out there, they will show you why schools are, you know, best served not to house a handful of kids, but to house all our kids. And I just want to thank our staff for the amount of work and effort that went into um being recognized and we'll do this again Thursday. I'm very proud of you guys. Thank you. a board. Let's stand up and
040give them [Applause] all. I'll tell you what, I couldn't be more proud of of the system than than McDow County for what they did. I just it I still can't believe it. and and Miss Bennett lost a lot of property, but she was still down here right at the call. And and I mean, you can't put a price tag on that. We we couldn't pay you folks enough money, I I'll tell you, but we do appreciate it immensely. Our next uh item number nine on the agenda is report from our great teacher representative, Mr. Joy Hill. And I want to say this, uh I've been on Mr. Hill. I told him he's got to start eating with us again. and uh he told me tonight he probably would. He's he's got a lot of cats
041and dogs he's got to take care of. But Joy, we do appreciate you and sir, we're looking forward to what McDow High School's got on the agenda tonight. Well, thank you. And I will try to make it next week. I promise. The meal is always great. I just take it home with me. Well, tonight I am presenting on McDall High School, which is of course our largest school. Uh so, buckle up, buttercup. It's going to be a long one, but we deserve the time and attention. All right. So, Dr. Grit uh mentioned in his opening opening remarks two words uh resilience and perseverance. And I would like to add a third word to that. There a bit of a correlary to those two words. Unity. Um if there has been a theme, an unofficial but
042but resonant theme at the Dell High School this year, it has certainly been unity. Our Titans has stood united uh through triumph and adversity. Now, we just heard all about our Lady Titans. Uh the Lady Titan basketball team advanced to the NCHSAA for a Western Regional final. They lost to Lake Norman, but what a season. Our Lady Titans finished the MAC Conference regular season as undefeated tournament champions. And I wish they were still here so I could uh give them another pat on the back. Uh throughout all throughout the Lady Titans season, oh, sorry. There we go. Throughout the Lady Titans season, our McDall High family was unified and alive with team spirit. Our cheerleaders had their hands full as they led our pep rallies and our blue crew rattled the gym whenever and wherever
043our ladies competed. Two bus loads of Titans traveled to Winston Salem for the regional final. Veterans Memorial Coliseum was, in the words of one superintendent, a wash in a sea of blue. Blue as far as the eye can see. I think that's what you said, Dr. Gro. Our Lady Titans are not alone in their success. Sorry. From women's golf to a state championship in wrestling, Titans stand unified in their drive, their attitude, their sportsmanship, and their overall excellence. In addition, let's see. Great teachers and counselors require great administrators. Great students require great teachers and counselors. Great athletes require great coaches. And I will add to my prepared words. We all require great custodial staff, cafeteria workers, and district uh leaders as well. But McDall High, we have all of these in abundance. The North Carolina
044Basketball Coaches Association named Zach MacArthur Women's Coach of the Year and this his fourth season as a Lady Titans head coach. Has he gone? That is too bad. Did his wife leave too? Oh, I was going to throw in some comment about his greatest achievement would be marrying up, but he spoiled it. All right. Uh, Coach MacArthur, well, as we heard earlier, coached the West Allstars at the annual East West All-Star game in Greensboro this summer. And of course, Chad Davis, pictured there with Hayden, uh, who's been head coach for wrestling for five years, was named the Mountain Athletic Conference Coach of the Year for wrestling. This vote was unanimous. Titan unity is transgenerational. Members of our Titan Athletic Advisory Council lent their support to future Titans, which is how we see the the little
045ones. in December when North Cove was visited by former Carolina Panthers and the Carolina Topcat cheerleaders to celebrate the sixth annual Joy to the Carolas. Miss Bennett might be mad at me for saying this, but we do have a sneaking suspicion that some members of the Titan Athletic Advisory Council were there specifically for the Top Cat cheerleaders. And who's to blame them? All right. Okay. uh Titan Unity. Let's see. Oops, sorry. One signing ceremonies for collegebound athletes have become a weekly event at McDall High. It is thrilling to see friends, family, and educators come together to celebrate the tradition of the scholar athlete and to show support for Titans who have excelled in that tradition as we send them on to future glory. And if I may wax philosophical and poetic for a moment, discipline,
046perseverance, an ordered, healthy life. These are practices indeed worthy of Apollo, of Artemis, of Titan and Olympian alike. However, where there is order, there must be chaos. For every Olympian, there is a vulpis. Look it up. for every Apollo a Dion Isis. That is to say, there is that which forces us to halt, to contemplate, to ask ourselves the inevitable existential question, what is this? What is this thing I'm watching? And in Mcdow County and for all of McDall High School, the answer to those questions is always the mystery NHS pageant. I have seen it a couple of times and I still am uh let's I I uh am impressed. Let me put it that way. This year's Mr. MHS was an immense success, raising an impressive $32,000 to support four Mcdow County school families
047affected by Hurricane Helen. What distinguishes this pageant from previous years is the collaboration with Wataga and West Henderson high schools, which bolstered our respective donations. And there is our senior job Marsh who took the crown. Uh and now uh to our NJOTC uh section of the presentation or as I call it everything everywhere all at once. I mean they really are. You've might have noticed. So, these are uh for Sergeant Miley's words, NJRTC's personal mission this year was to get us into the community's eyes and show we were more than just competitions. Uh we see depicted clockwise, a former cadet signing with the North Carolina Army National Guard. That's Graden. He's my second period class. Our orienteering team taking third at RS Central. I have no idea who those people are. They're covered in mud.
048verbal discourse in the classroom o over topics from Presfield's warrior ethos and challenging physical therapy physical training sessions with first sergeant Miley uh our academics team again first sergeant Miley's words our academics team took fourth in the region our reinvigoration of physical uh training standards has the most fit cadets in recent history our drone team placed first at a meet in Pisa First Sergeant Miley conducted some collaboration on leadership ethics with Mr. Hill and our rifle team is ranked 17th in the nation. And point of personal privilege, I invited First Sergeant Miley to come to talk to my uh fourth period to interact with my fourth period class on philosophical matters, questions of morality and and ethics. As we prepared to read uh McBth, we went to the uh beautiful outdoor uh classroom in the
049woods between MHS and uh West and it was really it was just a wonderful event. Okay. NJRTC rebranded their image and gave some identity to their students. They visited a Freedom Writers historical site in Aniston, Alabama and challenged themselves with new physical uh training methods. They ventured into public performances with their drill teams and tapped in uh into more hands-on curriculum with survival training. All these of the previous images and content were done while using while sustaining our community service, re-emphasis on our unique academia and expanding our presence to the public. And there they are doing some more things. Everything everywhere all at once. All right. All right. Here we have some images of uh the faculty and students hard at work responding to Hurricane Helen. Uh and you've already heard a great deal about
050that. We'll say that our school became a distribution center. Uh primarily is really for our students, but we took in so much um inventory, shall we say, that we had to move things out of the classroom and into the basement. and there was not room to move in there for the longest time. We're only just now uh getting that inventory under control. Uh all of that um you know the assistance that we were able to receive and to provide went to our students and to uh their families and community members and members of our faculty and staff as well. McDallhigh is thrilled to welcome Patrick Helil, Lindseay Williams, and Monica Veron to our student services team, as well as Michelle Robertson, who has returned to our student services team for a second year. Our student
051services department provides students with academic support and individualized future planning to prepare for future success. Counselors do this through intentional scheduled minute meetings with every student for each semester. Got that? They meet with every student every semester council. Uh moreover, they maintain an open door policy to welcome any student at any time, whatever the need. They offer a safe place for emotional support and assist in navigating personal and social responsibility. Again, through open door availability. They work as a team to ensure that all students needs are met every day regardless of whose case load on whose case load that student's name appears. And we would like to congratulate Mr. Hulu, who just became the father of twins. He did not send me a picture. Uh, Titans, educators, and students alike are unified by a deep
052commitment to engaged and active learning. At any given moment and in any given classroom, you will find students delving into text, grappling with concepts, learning life and careers, career skills, exercising the body, or indulging in performing and fine arts. Students engage with the material with their teachers and perhaps most importantly with one another. In order to facilitate active and engaged learning, teachers practice strategies such as uh KWL gallery walts and seminars. Teachers continue to learn and practice literacy strategies in all disciplines and to use languagerich classroom strategies to foster excuse me to foster success particularly among our English language learners and indeed for all students. And there we see some more some very engaged students and some more. And some more. They were caught off guard when I pulled up behind them in the parking
053lot, announced my presence by blowing the horn very loudly and then insisting on taking a picture. Um, I don't think they like me. All right. But they're certainly afraid of me. Okay. Uh you see our R2-D2 there. Have you seen seen RGD before? This Mr. Menish's uh is it the graphic design graphic design class made that? That is a fully operating R2-D2 that comes out on special occasions and rolls around the school and and uh projects messages of um need and hope from a galaxy far far away. So it really is impressive. All right. More active and engaged students. All right. And this is our future farmers uh club. Miss Bett, what what prize are they winning here? Do you remember? Award on the wall, but they did a study on all the to grow
054crops. They were talking about um ways that agriculture can help the community, especially now after the hurricane and all that. They've done a large study on that. Thank you. Sophie Voris's floor culture classes have, among other beautifification projects, brought a of dut a bit of Dutch charm to our campus. They planted six stunning beds of tulips at the upper end of the student parking lot. Uh I took this picture the day after a storm. They weren't quite as stunning the day after this storm, but they are recovering. I think Queen Willil willamina herself would have been proud of these right of the Netherlands. Okay. All right. At McDall High Mcdal High School, Mr. Rogers is leading students in the carpentry 1, carpentry 2, and construction core classes through the hands-on tiny house project. There you
055get a good view of the tiny house in process from the top. All right. And there from the side. I have to say I make a point of passing by the tiny house every day to watch the progress and it has been amazing. It's been amazingly fast and it's amazing the the the teamwork and I I am very impressed with Mr. Rogers for being able to take one construction career during first period and another during second and another during third and make it work somehow. Uh I I'm considering uh buying that tiny house myself. Probably not. Oh, then we have our firemen. What did they do this weekend? Miss Bennett, I I forgot to get the the language for this one. Skills USA, right? Right. These two young men um they work for fire department
056in our community. So they not only do this but they're actively you McDall competed in the livestock evaluation CDE on Tuesday at the hunt horse complex in Raleigh. Team members evaluated beef, cattle, swine, sheep, and goats. They look like they're having a blast. Students in Miss Sherry Rock's cosmetology class used uh beads to model the different bonds of hair, hydrogen, salt, and dulfide. Thank you to our leaders for reading with students at Nebo Elementary School as a part of the Chick-fil-A million book giveaway. We love to see our students enjoying reading. And there we see students doing and uh a principal doing all kinds of she's she's uh she's she's all over the school. Uh but uh here they are in the their visual arts classes. You can see some of the projects that they've
057made over the years that are on display and uh in front of Miss Rock's classroom. It's certainly worth coming by to see them. All right. In January we had our uh talent competition. Um Savannah Wilson who was here earlier uh sang she won second place and she will attend Governor's School in Theater as we learned earlier. Daniel Young who is um just if you know Daniel Patrick's son you know that he is a just a a miracle of a human being and boy can he play a saxophone. uh in first place this year went to Elvin Tapia Gomez who uh is he's becoming a bit of a legend around the school as he walks around the halls. Never he never stops playing. It's just it's every morning as he's changing classes. It's just a a
058joy to be in his presence. He brings so much to the school. I could not take my students to the talent show uh because it was full. So, after he won, I asked him to come and do a private little uh show for my fourth period class, and he did. And that it was just uh it was a real treat. I believe he's going to I was told today he's going to join the Marines, but if he doesn't do that, just keep an eye on him. He's going to be a famous musician. All right, speaking of people who are everywhere, uh we have some amazing costumes from spirit week. Uh you will notice obviously who the most spirited person in the school is. She's wearing a fringed hat in the upper right and uh dressed
059like a cast member of square pegs in the second photograph. Very very 80s. Right. All right. One size does not fit all. All right. Right. Um I think that this picture as well as any other really captures the essence of how of this year at McDow High School. Uh you see there are students from every sort of background, every group in our if if we artificially impose groups, you know, kind of categories on our students, we have them all there standing in the circle supporting one another um as they all strive to be their very best. We're very proud of them. It's been a great a a challenging year and a great year at the same time. And one more. I thought it appropriate that we uh that you see the image for which Joe
060Cash posed. Um when in doubt, we look to Joe Cash. All right. Thank you. [Applause] Well, I'll tell you what, that's gonna be hard to top. Mr. Chairman, may I have one question? Sure. Miss Bennett, your tiny homes. What do you do with those? Do you do you do you do sell them? Okay. Just wanted to know. Are they auctioned or do you do 10% over cost? Get with me and I'll tell you a secret about that stuff that I learned the hard way when I was up there college. Mr. Chairman, I got a question too and maybe Mr. Marsh or Miss Bennett can help me out. The kid that was in the picture for athletics for UVA wise, is he playing football or is he a track? He looked like a lineman. Okay. For
061football, he looked like he was. I really wanted to say we're on the Mcdow High School train. Uh McDow High alumni. Gary Bass is the new head coach there was named last year. He was a standout football player at McDow High School and Kataba College and he's now the new head coach. So to see Gary come back and sign one of our own is absolutely amazing. So congratulations. I was hoping that or defense, one or the other. I mean he could do either one it looked like to me. But and he was also a very good Let's not forget scholar athletes. He was a very good student in my honors English class last semester. Very good student. I know to go to UVA wise you got to have decent grades. He's kind of terrified [Laughter]
062without just a little bigger than you, right? His mullet is bigger than Okay. Item number 10. Uh, Mr. Hill, you better talk with Mr. Barkell there if you're planning to buy that because he's got something up his sleeve. Yeah. The funny thing is I lived in San Francisco for 20 years. So when you call that a tiny, it looks like a mansion to me, you know, after having lived in an apartment the size of this screen. Yeah. For 20 years. I tiny don't know about. Okay. The next item number 10 on the agenda is request to address the board public comment. And we have two that have request to address the board. Anna Cwell and Ron Sinclair. And what would it be the board's pleasure on this? I'll entertain a motion on this. I'll make
063the motion we listen to them. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Subtles and a second by Mr. Schuford to allow these folks to speak to the board. Is there any further discussion? All those in in favor signify by raising your right hand which is unanimous. Okay. I'm going to give you of course Miss Cole will be the first speaker but I'm going to speak to you give you a few ground rules very quickly. And uh public comment is a time for the board to hear from folks regarding issues related to the McDow County School District. We ask that folks be mindful that we encourage families of small children to attend our meetings and watch our meetings online. We respect the right of speakers to give us their viewpoint on any issues related to the
064schools. However, we do not balance those rights with the rights of families of young children when it comes to public comment. We ask that speakers make their points without making explicit comments. It is not appropriate or permissible for teachers in our schools to read explicit material to young children, and doing so in public comment is not appropriate either. In addition to public comment, the public is welcome to send the board emails through the superintendent. All speakers are reminded of these additional rules that we ask you to honor. No speaker may be disruptive. No person personal attacks on board members or employees. No explicit comments. Employees and student concerns and other complaints should be addressed to the superintendent after the meeting rather than in public comment. No campaigning for office or endorsing candidates. Speaking in public
065comment may not protect a speaker who defames any individual. Okay. With that being said, our timekeepers, Mrs. Dattle and Miss Cwell, uh you have three minutes uh address the board. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to address the board this evening. I'm going to try to get through this without coughing and I apologize for the cough drop that I've got in my mouth. Um my name is Anna Cwell and my husband Tom and I moved to Marian just about two years ago. We're retired and we have no children or grandchildren who either are going or will go to McDall County schools. Our concerns are as citizens of this county, a county we believe we all want to see grow and thrive. As children of public educators, products of public schools, public school parents,
066my husband and I believe that a solid, equitable public education for all is paramount to the success of McDow County. As programs that support our state and county are dis dismantled at the federal level, we should all be concerned by the impact on the children of McDow. That is why I'm heartened to see our state legislature introduce bills that support all North Carolina children. And I'm asking that you as the board and that everybody listening reach out to our reps in Raleigh and ask them to support these bills. The bills are House Bill 815, Senate 744. This is the Voucher Accountability Act. This will ensure that schools that are accepting school vouchers are held to higher standards and accountability that are equal to the public schools and private schools that are accepting state money. This
067bill also includes um information that prohibits discrimination in the acceptance of students. House Bill 807 takes many steps to improve public education, like increasing teacher pay, increasing supplements for students with disabilities, requires the state board of education to establish a process for student tablet and device repairs, and provides funding for new inventory. House 713 and 744 provides for breakfast and lunches free for all students. There are several bills addressing improving the teacher pipeline. House 943, House 531, Senate 643. These all are ways that are going to encourage teachers to want to join North Carolina schools, including McDow County. Now is the time to call while these bills are in front of our legislature and are going through the process to be heard for final vote. Finally, coming at me. Okay. Finally, I would also request
068that as the board, you report out at a future meeting about how the federal cuts are impacting our schools, the measures that you all are going to take and are being taken at the state level that we as citizens can support to bolster our schools and our children. Thank you. Thank you very much, ma'am. Our next speaker is Mr. Ron Sinclair. And Mr. Sinclair, you go ahead. And you spoke several times, and we're glad to see you, sir. Well, thank you. It's good to see you as well. Uh, I'd like to talk about something that uh is near and dear to my heart, and that's arts education. I wish that I had Savannah Wilson's uh essay in front of me to be able to help say what I would like to say. Uh everything is
069coming from the heart here. I have watched children and youth find themselves through music, through visual arts, through theater. And these are kids that would have been lost otherwise. I was one uh decent athlete. I played college ball at least one year uh baseball and u what I was was a music major. Um music helped get me through high school. It was a tough time for many many reasons. And I have worked with kids, children and youth, uh, in the church job that I had for 25 years full-time that found their voice, found their themselves, their strength, who they were, and knew how to deal with others because of the foundation that they were getting in the arts. It's great to see the success that we have with the athletic teams. That's wonderful. But not
070every kid is athletically inclined. Not every kid is able to be a top-notch scholar. Uh not every kid can be a great musician or great artist or an actor. But when you support those activities in an early age, particularly in elementary education, then it lays a foundation that affects the rest of their educational lives. Um it's been proven that music and arts foster creative learning. They foster creativity. They foster strength in other uh subjects that they give the opportunity for students to excel in a way that they would not otherwise. We have only two full-time music teachers in Mcdow County elementary schools. One at Glenwood and one at West Marian. Why are those the only two? I know that Macka is supporting uh the arts work here and they're doing a good job with a
071very limited budget, but folks, that's ridiculous. We need to be able to to take care of the needs of every student in this county, not just those who are athletically inclined. So I ask for your willingness to be able to address this and for your willingness to be able to look a little bit deeper in the needs of uh those students who are not athletic or great scholars. And I will mention one more thing. On April 22nd, which is Tuesday night of next week, the racial equity group will be meeting at the McDow, the Maran Depot. like for you all to come. We'd like to see you there. Thank you, Mr. Sinclair. I I want to I'm not making a comment, but I want to say something on uh he told me one time, Dr.
072Grit and I talked to him and he he I said, you know, I love music. I wish I could sing. He said, you can sing. And I and I appreciate that. I've never forgot that. Thank you, sir. Okay. Uh, unfinished business. Dr. G, I'll turn it back over to you. All right. First up tonight, we've got a report from Mr. Marsh of the facilities update. Thank you, Dr. Grid. Good, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, um always a pleasure to come and update on the status of the many wonderful things that's ongoing uh throughout our school system, particularly my directorate with Mr. Garvin Shrinks retiring here recently. It has uh it has been a daunting task to keep things moving forward. But what I have found um much like we all saw
073during the hurricane is that tough times often create opportunities for others to excel. That's exactly what's happening tonight by recognizing um Mr. Lidle. Just a a small piece of recognition there because there's some folks doing some wonderful, wonderful things throughout the county, not just in my director. Uh but I'm very pleased with their efforts. On Monday of last week, as the board's been briefed, uh we received notification that there was active flooding at Eastfield Global Magnet School. It was reported by Mrs. Elliot, and we were very happy. Um, you know, again, it just comes from her getting out and doing what principles do, right? They get there before everybody else. They get there and they open things up and they walk around. They talk with their custodians. And we're very happy that she was there
074to do that because she let us know that there's some water. Um, after being notified from Mrs. Elliot was immediately able to contact my members of my staff who were dispatched uh to the scene and were able to identify the issue or the cause of the the water being introduced into the school and immediately were able to stop the flood. Um when I reported to the scene shortly after 8 o'clock and there's a couple pictures that I'll present here tonight um that Mrs. Elliott provided. I was busy. I wasn't able to take pictures, but um I I want to talk about the effort that I saw firsthand and that was from and I've already spoken to um uh Lieutenant Harkl Road with the Mir Police Department and with Chief Lawrence because one of the first
075individuals I met was Officer Padet who is the SRO there. And uh not only was he asking what he could do, uh but he didn't shy away from the squeegee or the broom that was thrust into his hand and right alongside me and others of my staff began for about the next two hours to push as much water out of that school as we possibly could. And I I just want to here again another example of what's been alluded to tonight. Uh just some really great folks in Mcdow County doing some awesome things. Um, we're able to get a hold of Dr. Grid and keep him up to speed on what it was was going on. I think I at some point I was able to give him a little FaceTime and so he could
076see the the the flood of water coming over the push broom as I was I was shoving it there. We were able to contact our insurance adjuster and explain the ongoing situation and we just really appreciate uh Mr. Brian Hood who quickly responded there and so gave us the go-ahhead along with Mrs. rampy just to do, you know, do what you need to do, give us the information as quickly as you can get it to us. Um, we were able to contact a local restoration company who came out within an hour, took a look at the damage that we had and the process of remediation and restoration began within two hours of of us being able to get the water out. Um, and so this morning when I let the school, dehumidifiers and fans from
077the restoration company had actually been removed because they've been there over the weekend. um which we're able to check on those over the weekend, but they've been removed. And so tomorrow I'll be meeting with uh project manager there to discuss what the next steps are. Um some of the um insulation from an interior wall had to be cut uh and uh some of the gypson board and um it had to be taken off of the walls and so that'll obviously have to be remediated. There's some you know some cabinetry, some ceiling tiles. Garrett, if you can show the next one. um some ceiling tiles. So what you know the first floor was what you saw just a second ago. This is the second floor. Um and so this is a very basic concept of engineering,
078right? Water runs downhill. And so it ran downhill and did what water does, saturated ceiling tiles, which fell into the floor. There was no students uh or faculty that were involved in any kind of incident. Nobody was there at the moment. Um and Mrs. Elliot quickly found homes for those folks. So, we were able to dive in and do this. But this is this was throughout the entire downstairs. Uh thank you, Garrett. Uh Pleasant Gardens and Old for Elementary students uh continue to share space and and and I'm sure our principles could talk about in far greater depth than I could, but there I just want to say I appreciate the board's involvement, members of the board who have been out to take a look at the school along with my me and my staff
079and members of the executive cabinet. there's, you know, been no shortage of oversight there. Not that the principles need it, but it's always nice to let them know that we care and let them see that we're there for them. Uh, so I know Mr. Sheerford is a PG representative. Certainly, I don't think I've been there too many times without seeing you. So, I appreciate the work there, sir, and support. Um, our staff reported to Pleasant Gardens Baptist Church on a couple of occasions to work with them on some plumbing issues as we continue to lease some space there for our prek. Uh it's incredibly important on our part to be good stewards, good neighbors, and we want to make sure that we're doing the right things while we're there using that. Uh the temporary classrooms
080that were leased 12 as a 12-month lease, that agreement, I'm beginning to work with those folks to start setting up a recruitment of those and to collect those certainly not before we're done with them, but uh by the end of that 12-month lease. An assessment of Pleasant Gardens uh is obviously ongoing because we're seeing it every day, but a full-blown will be performed at at some point and efforts will be made to restore the effective school uh as much as we possibly can. Um for Old Elementary School, we're standing behind our original comment when I've been So, it's 90 days today that I've been on board and 90 days ago I reported that we'll be opening in fall of 2025. And I see zero reason to deviate from that. Uh if I did, I would
081have reported it. Um I would continue to update Dr. Grip, but we're going to schedule a meeting between um him, Mrs. Ward, and Mrs. Rayfield at some point to discuss uh any issues that they may have, but also as they begin to lean forward for plans for summer school, uh remediation, maintenance, and then transition of staff and students to um their homes. Um inspection and testing. This is something that uh when I came on board, you know, Dr. Grit and I sat down and we talked about plans and things that we wanted to to to move forward on. And it was my belief that at some point I needed to be able to stand in front of the board. I needed to be able to stand in front of parents. I need to be able
082to stand in front of guardians. And most certainly, I need to be able to lay my head down at night on a pillow and know that children were going to go back to a place that was safe. Uh and tonight I'm proud to announce to the board that there have been three inspections that have been conducted by licensed professionals on all Ford Elementary School. The first one was a structural inspection that was completed by the original engineering firm that built the school. Uh Taylor and Viola uh were very very kind to come up. I toured the school personally with their engineer. Walked every single classroom and the third floor um mezzanine area. Um they conducted some observation and then we went into the third floor mezzanine uh conducted some more uh various uh low-level tests
083and went back and did what they do which was conduct an assessment based on Taylor and Biola's information that they provided us on documentation. The school has been deemed to be structurally safe and will not be an issue for us to move our students back into when the time comes for that to happen. The second one that I felt strongly about was conducting air quality test in the school. Uh we were able to by by just really a herculean effort going to remediate the amount of water and mud that collected in the school within 3 days after the actual event. But as you begin to tear into removing up the LVT and then the other things that had to be pulled up off the floor, I was a little worried about what kind of air
084quality are we going to have for our kids. um and air quality testing engineers uh reported um environmental solutions group uh they toured the school. I walked every single room with the school with the engineers, showed them the office area. Their primary concern was to identify any areas in the school that might be considered as food for bacteria because that's where they're going to be. That's where they're going to be breeding and that's where they're going to potentially be growing. They focus a lot of their efforts in and around the office area, which is the area that has drywall, which makes sense. This is something that bacteria can eat on. It's a little harder for it to eat, block, and paint. And so, um, they conducted their tests, provided us with a official documentation stating
085that the air quality in all for elementary school is satisfactory. The final testing that we wanted to do was was based on just a summation that there was a tremendous amount of water that had come through the area. Um we didn't know where all the water had come from. Uh we knew it came from the top of the mountain, but we weren't sure what all it met between there and our school. Um we asked an engineering group uh local that we as a school system and the county has a lot of uh experience working with Kataba Valley Engineering and testing to come out uh toward the property with CV ent. Uh they produced I believe it was 25 samples from around the area. These were not depth type samples. In other words, there was no
086device because what we were we already knew that the the ground itself had already been cleared, we were talking about what had been brought in and introduced from a sediment standpoint. So, they were able to take 25 different sediment samples. Um, after they did took the they took the samples, they had a metric that they used to test each one and it came back high in two areas. And so, what I asked him to do was just very very simply make it to where a dumb old naval engineer could understand it. not just a testing engineer. And so the they were found to be two areas that were outside the limits of North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality or NCDEQ. And so we asked number one that they just take the sample batch that they
087provided to us and send it to NCDEQ because we wanted NCDQ to tell us if there's remediation required and if there is then we'll make that happen. Um, based on the engineers thought process, they didn't think there would be because the samples that were out of the limits were in the front parking lot area where most of the vehicles that pick up and drop off children come and go. And these areas were essentially combustibles that had not been combusted. In other words, uh, basically you were talking about your car exhaust would leave a sample that might be something that that would have picked up. So, we're it's already been sent out to NCDEQ. When that comes back, we'll provide the board more information. But at this point, uh there was no other bacteria that was
088noticed that was outside any limits. It was just a very simple non-combustible type sample. We'll take a look at that and I'll provide that report at a later date. Remediation is ongoing inside the interior of the school. Uh, as we had talked on a number of occasions, the HVAC units that were on the outside of the school, uh, mini splits, for lack of a better term, uh, obviously were destroyed. I've contacted, uh, this week, I've spoken with personally a local HVAC company who has provided a quote to be able to purchase those and insurance company is standing by to approve it. So, we're going to get moving on the purchase of those. They'll be installed upon arrival. These do not support classrooms, hallways, uh, cafeteria. They're more things that that Garrett and I care about
089of like closets that support technological equipment and those types of things. And so they're they're they're a low level area and it won't necessarily impact what we're going to do as far as moving students at a later date. But obviously, we want to get them replaced. Uh, flooring. I reported before that we were nearly done and now I can tell you that all of the LVT throughout the entire building has been replaced and the terazzo still remains covered. The gymnasium floor looks wonderful. Uh the walls, as I'd reported previously, we had near um nearly finished all the painting, but now McDall County School staff has finished the painting was over 65 gallons of paint that was expended by our staff and it looks absolutely top shelf. Um, the only areas that have not been painted
090are the cafeteria areas and the auditorium because they are currently full uh of materials that were removed from classrooms. The exterior work um that was uh on tap to be completed by facilities personnel, army corp engineers, and aspirate management is complete. Uh if you've gone by and seen it, you've seen that we're now we're in the middle of grass cutting. Um, so we've got so much of the grass that was sewn that's starting to grow back wonderfully and that's going uh the playgrounds will have to be remediated and cleaned, but I'm waiting on this sample to come back from NCDQ before I put the people under my charge out there um to be cleaning it and digging through it. So that's the last aspect of the exterior that we'll that will need to get done.
091And that completes my report, sir. board. If I may, I just want to uh point out one thing that uh Mr. Marsh neglected to say today. He did he did mention that he's only been with us for 90 days. Um but what he did not mention was um and we talked about the PG uh remediation that we've got to take place. Um but we also got word today of about a $4 million additional funding coming in from the state. Uh can you talk just a little bit about that, Mr. Marshian, uh how how that came about? Yes, sir. You caught me a little off guard. wasn't obviously wasn't planning on talking about that. So, um, one of the things that that Dr. Grid asked Mrs. Rampy and I to do was to take a look
092at some opportunities that were out there. We know there's some funding that's available in Raleigh. Um, and certainly would qualify in a number of different ways. There were two areas that they were providing particular funding. Uh, one was in uh sports um field or facilities remediation in areas that have been damaged. Mrs. Rampy and I spent better part of an hour in her office one day working through a grant um and did some calculations um and the bottom line is is that we requested and have been granted the full amount of $3 million to remediate West McDow Middle Schools baseball field parking areas and um the football practice facility there across from Lowe's. I'm just just very very thrilled about that and I certainly couldn't done it without Mrs. Rampy. Um, the second piece was
093a grant opportunity that provided uh funds for remediation of facilities. Um, and we felt like this was a great opportunity to look at something for Pleasant Gardens. Um, and so we were we found out today that the full amount that was requested in $1 million for remediation of Pleasant Gardens Elementary School has been granted for a total of $4 million. Um, and again, these are grants and so we're just we're just very very uh honored to to receive those. And so, sir, yes, sir. Um, $4 million deserves an ovation. Good. Good. Really good job. Very good. Uh, thank you for the additional environmental testing that you did and I I appreciate that. And uh, would you tell Jacob Lidle for us that we thank him for his work and tell him he's got about the
094best attitude of anybody that we've that we've seen and we appreciate it. I will, sir. On all counts. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I want to make sure I say again, Mrs. rampy if there's if there's any credit here that she's got as much of it as I do. This was a team effort and this just goes into really to speak about you know in the 90 days that I've been here being able to work with Dr. Grit's executive cabinet they're absolutely outstanding. Um, the ladies on that cabinet, I'm telling you, I just boy, they number one, they keep me straight, but number two, you talk about professional and caring. Um, from from the my years of military service to teaching to the University of South Carolina to working with the county, uh,
095I don't know that I've ever encountered a more caring team than them. I'm really humbled to be part of it. So, well, we're humbled that you're with us. Does anybody on the board have anything for Mr. Marsh while he's up there? Donnie, I know you got something about those fields, so go ahead. No. Yeah, I want to I just want to commend you. I mean, thanks for doing that. Taking the time. I know the grants are are really important. You got a job ahead of you now. Not because I went to East McDow, but uh trying to make East feel somewhat happy once they see three million going into West. Uh okay, where's ours? So, us getting creative to try to make sure we take care of East because it is an older older school
096and facilities. But, um, maybe we go let East play over at West to get, you know, over there together. I love Mr. We can do it. And I want to make it clear that that didn't happen because I love West so much. It have because a cat catastrophic event uh occurred near that. And so, uh, we still back in the day. He still wants me to work on it. Yes, sir. We'll work on it. I can't work on the flood, but we'll work on the other part. That is good. But, thanks. Thanks a lot. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Marsh. Up next, we've got Miss Hamby and a group of principles that are going to be giving us a present, an update on the low performance schools. Mr. Henning, welcome. I got here
097as late as I could. Perfect timing. Good evening, Mr. Frank, Dr. Grit, members of the board. It is my pleasure to introduce to you four outstanding educational or three outstanding educational leaders even though we have 15 outstanding educational leaders. But tonight we have three special folks that are going to give you an update on where we are. You heard uh from them at the beginning of the year when we talked about schools who had been designated with a low performing status by the state. Of course we do not feel that our schools are low performing. We feel that we have a little work to do, but that is such a label that does not truly reflect the amount of work that is going on in each of our schools. So, we wanted to give you
098an update on the progress that we have made. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you uh Miss Tracy Whitman. She's going to be first. Uh second up will be Mr. Adam Wisman. And then uh hitting a home run tonight uh for our team will be uh Mr. Edwin Bobby. Thank you, board. I will let um you know that Miss Hamby told me I had two slides tonight, but I told her I had enough information for 22 slides. She's put the kibos on that and I also have a timer set. So, just so you know, I'm going to talk really fast because I have a lot to say. Go ahead, Garrett. Thank you. So, I really have just given you a bulleted list. I'm not going to read you the bulleted list because I
099know that you can all read. But what I want to tell you is we are working really, really hard at East Meal Middle. I've got some amazing educators and we are seeing growth. We started using PowerUp last school year with a reading initiative last school year and that has netted us growth in reading. Uh it's improved our reading scores and on check-ins and on EOGs. One of my a lot of positions I've used as a reading interventionist. That reading interventionist uh provides tier three interventions for students. So um you'll see one of those bulleted items say that we don't pull students out of their core academic classes. So what that means is there's no reason a student has ever pulled out of ELA, math, science. So those intervention times that happen every single day. We've
100got 40-minute intervention blocks. Those are the times we provide interventions, not during core instruction time. One of the things we do at East um that I'm super proud of is we have really embraced the power of AI. And so let me talk to you very briefly about that. Um, what I was finding is when I was doing teacher observations that the questions that the teachers were asking were maybe more low-level questions. So, we would call that a depth of knowledge one question. And I'll give you an example. In one teacher observation, the teacher asked 22 depth of knowledge one questions in a five minute period. But that is not what you are seeing on an EOG. We're seeing depth of knowledge two and depth of knowledge three questions. And so we are using AI to
101ensure that we are that the teachers are asking those depth of knowledge two and three questions. And so what that looks like is they may upload um a reading assessment a reading passage into AI and ask it to come up with standard align some standards and come up with some depth of knowledge two and three questions. What one of my sixth grade BTS told me is she said I told my students babies I've done a lot of thinking for you this year. Now it's time for you to do the thinking. um as she's pulled out those depth of knowledge two and three questions. So, we really are embracing AI um in using it to support learning at East Mdal Middle and I'm super super proud of that. Um I don't have a lot of time
102so I'm going to go quick. We have expanded our enrichment programs from science olympiad to Lego robotics. We have a steam club with a partnership from the factory in Rutherford so students can stay after school on Thursday for steam club. Of course, the YMCA. One of the things that's really important and you'll see it on the next slide. One of our data points about the Y, we have students that go to the Y at East Midtown Middle after school every day and students that attend the Y are achieving a 90% pass rate on their EOG tested subjects. That is a huge huge improvement. So the Y is free for our students Monday through Thursday after school and you can see that on this data point. Um we have made huge growths in reading. Um we
103were up last year. We continue to push and push and pull. And if you look at that second um focus, collaborative and impactful by uh bi-weekly MTSS meetings, we meet uh bi-weekly at East Muttown Middle. And we've really focused a lot on our um our middle cohort and our lowest cohort of kiddos. They have they are all growing. They are all growing. Every single one of those kiddos are growing. So we have had to turn our focus now to that higher cohort to ensure that we get the growth and proficiency out of them. And my time's up, so I'm gonna stop stop talking before I get the call from somebody. Thank you. Do you have any questions for That's a good report. That's very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Great things
104are coming for East. We can tell. Good evening, members of the board. Um, thank you for the opportunity to share an update. uh from North Cove Elementary over the past few months uh we have really did full steam ahead with their PLC's. Um we do have a weekly PLC if uh just for that um acronym that is professional learning community. So that's opportunity for our teachers to get together collaborate on lesson planning also looking at data. So, in addition to our weekly PLC's, we have two data PLC's a month, and that's where we look at common assessment data. We also look at check-in data, and we do check-ins uh three times a year. And so, during these PLC's, we are using real-time data to shape our instruction and focus on increasing the depth of knowledge
105and our questioning. Just like Miss Whitman talked about, we're also using AI to help uh make teaching more efficient and also why work harder when you can work smarter. So in grades three through five, our teachers continue using school net to build common assessments that intentionally include depth of knowledge level two and three questions. uh that is uh a greater percentage on their EOG of level two and level three questions. This also allows us to assess student thinking at a higher level and make more informed instructional decisions. And school net is um a test creation platform uh provided to us by the state. Uh it does share a data bank with EOGs and checkin. So it really helps us uh present uh learning and assessment uh with our students that closely mimic the EOG. Uh
106that data is also being used purpose purposefully. Our win time that's what I need time that's our intervention time has been structured using data from our beginning and middle ofear check-ins and common assessments. uh teachers are using this information to create targeted remediation groups. As a result, we are seeing measurable gains in our students and our targeted students are making progress and weekly common assessments are reflecting that growth. We are also grateful to have three part-time tutors who are making a big impact in our small groups in grades first, second, fourth, and fifth. And it's showing on our NC check-ins. Our third grade students saw a 12 percentage point gain in math from beginning of the year to middle of the year. And our fourth graders saw a 10point increase in reading. We're also fortunate
107to be supported by two phenomenal district partners. Uh Miss Carrie Franklin, she's our state district reading specialist. She's working weekly with our teachers on the science of reading and often co-ees to model strategies with their teachers. Uh Michelle Baker, she supports our teachers every other week and backward planning and digging into student data. uh leadership walkthroughs. Um I do those daily and that gives uh my team valuable insight into instruction and allowing us to respond quickly to staff and student needs. And our staff is also embracing the power of AI uh to plan and create meaningful instructional materials. Also, our Eureka math implementation is moving forward and teachers are gaining confidence. Next week, all of my K5 teachers will participate in another professional development session paired with instructional coaching to ensure fidelity and alignment with
108the North Carolina standard course of study. Uh in short, we are seeing progress. We will continue to stay the course. And just like Dr. grit summed up uh our year resilience and perseverance. Uh I am proud of the hard work of my staff and my students and we're doing every day uh work to reach our goals. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you have any questions for I'll try to be brief. You'll notice on the slideshow, we have last year's data uh on the left. Uh and it shows that we were about uh 6 and a half% below the county level in reading, about 8% below in math, and 3% below in science. Uh if you look on the bottom of that, you'll see our EVOS for last year. Uh sixth grade
109math was a positive 7.94 and then we struggled with some of the rest of it. Uh the next piece of data is our uh star testing from fall to winter. And so sixth grade uh grew about 10 points in both reading and math. Seventh grade math went down a little bit between the fall to the winter. Uh but then eighth grade math came up tremendously and then seventh grade math and eighth grade reading did well. Um, and so this is my first year at West. And so I've started with uh a process and what I what I tried to get the teachers on board with is building a foundation for success. Okay. So everything we've done this year is about putting the foundational pieces in to build for the future. Do I hope we have
110growth this year? Absolutely. Do I expect growth this year? Absolutely. Uh teachers have been amazing. They're doing what we're asking. Uh, I was asking Miss Whitman if she would define bi-weekly. Uh, sometimes that's twice a week, sometimes that's every other week. Uh, my teachers are currently doing four PLC's a week. Uh, and I'd love to get to the point that we didn't have to do four a week. Uh, and hopefully we will get there, but what we're doing is we're setting the foundation. And so, schoolwide non-negotiables, we teach bell-to-bell all day. Lessons are aligned to the standards. And we, just like Mr. Hill mentioned earlier true engagement by students active engagement. So our PLC's both content meet twice a week. We have MTSS that meets weekly and we have grade level uh PLC's as well.
111So we are looking at data to drive our instruction. Currently we're tracking 16 different data points every day in our school to see how we're doing. And just a couple of those are common assessments and then lesson planning. uh talk about backward design in just a minute. Go ahead, Garrett. So, looking at our teachers for last year, 17% of our teachers were highly effective and 41 were needing improvement and effective. And so, we've worked with those teachers uh to help increase their effectiveness in the classroom. Uh and then if you look down there, our school overall performance grade was a 48. And we do expect that to climb dramatically um because teachers are doing the work. So continuing with our improvement initiatives um our discipline matrix uh we are holding kids accountable uh but we're
112loving them through it. Uh MTSS we're training the staff we're developing guidelines and interventions. We've implemented wind time across all three grade levels and that is every day for every uh student. We do interventions, remediations, STAR, EVOS check-ins and assessments. Uh big one for us is the backward design lesson planning. Uh thank you to M Miss Baker and others, but we are working on that. That is a work in progress. Um if you've not been trained in doing that, it takes a little bit of getting used to. Uh and so some of the teachers are doing that. Plus, they're submitting their lesson plans to me weekly so that they can be evaluated to make sure that they're do they are following the standard course of study. Uh we're working on our school culture um is
113a big thing involving teachers, students, and staff. We're developing a PBIS matrix to reward the students that are actually doing what we want them to do, not just punishing those who are not. And so that starts up. We took some students to lunch. Uh I learned a few things. Uh Miss Whitman's been so kind to walk me through middle school. um giving students the opportunity to go somewhere. We didn't we offered them the opportunity to go. They bought their lunch. I thought we'd have to buy their lunch, but it turned out that they don't mind. They'll buy their own. Uh we've restarted PTO and we're focusing on MTSS as a true form of school improvement. And so those are just a few of the things we're doing. Um a lot more to come, but we're
114starting to see some growth and that's important. And um again, I cannot say this enough. The teachers have responded well. They're doing everything we're asking and I'm excited for the future. guys. Thank you, uh, principles. We certainly appreciate that. Um, coming forward and talking about how you're taking your school forward. That takes a lot of courage. Um, and leading through leading through change, too. Takes courage. So, we appreciate you. We know what you're doing and look forward to watching your schools grow. Uh, next up, we've got a final read of policy from Miss Amy Dattle. Good evening. Um we are requesting action on our policies tonight. These were um from our fall policy updates. Um they were for the first read during last month's uh board meeting. And so um I just want to see
115if there's any questions and then um request action to approve these policies. Okay, there any questions? With no questions, uh I'll entertain a motion to approve the U fall 2024 PLS updates. So move second. We have a motion by Mr. Abernathy and a second by Mr. Barksdale to uh on the final read except fall 2024 pls updates. Is there any further discussion? With no further discussion, all those in favor signify by raising your right hand, which is unanimous. Thank you very much, ma'am. Appreciate it. Thank you, Miss Dattle. Mr. Henning, I know your office has been busy on some policy updates, so board don't uh just just know we're going to be bringing a whole lot more back to you here shortly. Um we'll have another round coming out. Um we actually have them from
116the state, so I know they're in y'all's hands at this point, but we'll be expecting another round here very shortly. We don't enjoy torturing anybody. Absolutely. All right. Next up, we've got our new business. Uh and tonight we've got Miss Rampy. She'll be going over our county budget request. Okay. Before I get started, just want to Can you hear me? Oh, just wanted to let you know that this is starting with the same exact uh presentation that you saw in the March board meeting and also what you saw at the county commissioners. Uh but for a review, wanted to go over real quickly um to let you know that our expenses by purpose and expenses by object in general, we are a large percentage of our budget is instructional services. You can be 76% and
117about 83 to 85% of our expenses are in salaries and benefits. We received this year about 10.2 million from the county, which was 2.89% of an increase from the prior year. And you can see the history there as well. Also, our key factors that we talked about last time was we do have budgeting in a rears this year, which means we are funded on last year's ADM. So, we are not getting adjustment after that second year of uh I mean second month uh once we know our student count, we are not getting adjusted once the school year starts. So, that is a positive impact from the state. We are looking at about 93 less students uh this coming year for funding. We're anticipating about a 3% salary increase. This is just for budgeting. Until we
118know what the budget is approved for, uh we'll know exactly. But right now, we're budgeting 3% salary, 5% benefit. And the change for this budget that we're talking about this month is our low wealth reduction. And we'll show you that impact in two more slides. This is the exact slide that was presented in March and to the county commissioners. I won't go over every line item, but basically with our reduction of 93 students, our 3% salary and 5% benefits, that was going to be about $1.2 million in reduced funding for us and increased cost. So, we had um identified five positions that we were going to reduce uh which was around $375,000 worth of savings. We were anticipating um asking the county for approximately a 3% increase which was about $38,000 and that would leave
119us a little over $500,000 that we would make need to take from our fund balance to balance the budget. As soon as the county commissioner meeting was over, uh, we received our planning aotments. And in those planning aotments, we did receive an updated low wealth aotment, which was a decrease of $976,000 that we're anticipating for next year. Obviously, that is a large change uh in what we are anticipating for our budget. And so what this slide is is that exact same budget, but adding the $976,000 there underneath the salary increases. That changes it from 1.2 to 2.1 million deficit that we would need to address. The cost uh reduction that we're looking at is we're reducing by 10 positions and some other savings at about a million dollars. Uh, still if we're leaving the county
120funding at the 3% level, that would leave us with $867,000 that we would need to take from fund balance in order to balance the budget for next year. And that is including the 10 position reduction and other cost savings as well. So, so Miss Rampy, tonight I know one of the things that we had talked about was asking the board to do an approval for our budget request, but folks, I just want to be honest with you. Um it I in my opinion I think it might be best to consider um holding off on the budget until we've had further talks with the county because as you can see the the low wealth funding uh that came in in our a lotment was significantly lower and to speak to Miss Caldwell um tonight. You know
121one of the things you mentioned was uh talking with our legislators about about different things. This is definitely something that we're having conversations with those folks about as well as um really, you know, what will those salaries be? The Senate budget was scheduled to uh be out today. I didn't see this afternoon if it actually made its first appearance to to come out, but um some of the Senate budgets were actually higher um than what we had projected even. So, um you know, we're we've got a lot of moving parts on that. Um, so I think I think holding off for just a few minutes um, you know, until we have an opportunity to speak to the uh, county commissioners a little bit more uh, might be a better might be a better plan. And
122I know Mr. Schuford, chairman of the finance committee, I wanted to certainly hear your stance on that as well. Well, I certainly agree with you uh, Dr. Grit. There's due to the new information that we have and and the careful consideration we need to give this and some make this u and have some u discussion beyond this meeting. Uh I make a motion that we table this until the meeting. Any decision on this uh on the budget? Okay. At this time I second that motion. I second that motion. Um uh just one second here. Okay. I'm uh glad to uh present the uh motion by Mr. Shuford. And the uh motion is to table the budget request at this minute uh tonight till we have further discussion with the county commissioners and and uh come
123back to the board. And of course we have the motion by Mr. Schuford who's the chairman of the finance committee. And then we have a second by Mr. Paul Baker who is also on the finance committee. And uh so we have the motion, we have the second. Is there any further discussion on on this particular motion? Mr. Chair, is that uh discussion going to be held with the entire board or with the superintendent uh be the one responsible for that? Go ahead, sir. Um, we've asked for a meeting uh ahead of our joint education meeting uh with uh chair and vice chair of both boards uh as well as finance director uh and county manager and myself. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any further discussion? Okay, with no further discussion and we all know what the
124motion is. All those in favor of the motion signify by raising your right hand, which is a unanimous decision. Thank you, Miss Rampage. Thank you, Mr. R. Okay. Okay. At this time, we'll entertain any reports from board members and we start with Mr. Subtles with curriculum and instruction or anything else you have, sir. Yes. Let me um I just want to give you a little bit of a of a teaser of what's coming up. Uh, I want to say this. Miss Baker and Miss Hamby had me in their office and uh, at first I felt like when my daughter and my wife were trying to attack me for a cruise, a $6,000 cruise. So, I was trying to read between some of the looks and the smiles and all that to see what was really
125going on. But to listen to these ladies, man, they are educated uh, basewise kids uh, support and really when I left there, I was pumped up. I was ready to play. But uh there uh with Miss Baker and it and I want to give her credit if that's okay, Miss Hammy. With Miss Baker's ties of what she's done at Eastfield uh Global Magnet School in the past six years has really opened up an opportunity and a door for McDow County Schools, which is going to be at no charge. We'd be the only one in the state, the model school with possibly two. Um have an extra coach, a teacher at no charge for math. Uh when they told me it was math, I got a little excited because that was my favorite. So if it
126been science, I've been like, "All right, what are they talking about?" Uh but I was excited when I left there. I don't want to say too much because we want to bring it to the curriculum committee to really understand it and hear it. Uh my wife's been teaching this to me for two years on what it was because I didn't understand at first. But uh these ladies did a marvelous job. Um, like I said, I don't want to spoil it, but with Eastfield Global Magnet, just to so you know, over the last five years, they've went from 46 proficiency in math to 68%. The state average is 57. So, they're at 68 already. So, we know this philosophy is working. I think that's why she was offered this um this this grant um and and
127the extra teaching to show that, hey, this stuff does work. So I don't want to spend but uh the curriculum committee I'm going to text you and ask you to meet the first week in May so we can have the presentation and then bring it back to the board for transparency. We really don't need a vote on any of this stuff. But one of the things as a board we like to do is understand what our kids are are being taught. And so I think that's important that the curriculum committee comes back and we talk about this and really get you to understand it. And I I think you'll be excited as I am about the opportunities. And congratulations to Miss Baker and thank you and Miss Hammy for bringing it to me. You didn't
128sell me a cruise, so it was good. Thank you very much. Anything else? M. Okay, Mr. Barkstdale with building and grounds. Yes, just briefly. I want to apologize for getting here late. I had a little bit of a emergency situation. Um, first off, I had a whole list of things that I'd like to go over, but unfortunately I left my notebook at home. But I one thing that I wanted to say is thank you to the executive committee and Mr. Marsh. Uh, I will tell you I've been working closely with him and I don't think when he took this job he realized it was going to be a 247 day job. But uh without a maintenance director, he has been unbelievable staying on top of everything. And I just appreciate working with you and Dr.
129Grit. I know it's been very difficult, but y'all have pulled through like champs. So, thank you. Anything further, Mr. uh Chairman, if I could uh Mr. Bart stuff if we could because we mentioned this I think maybe last year before talking about just uh the board talking u well buildings and grounds first talking about the idea of maybe cameras uh now that cameras have gotten really cheap cameras in some of the schools and throughout the things I always keep thinking back thank goodness Miss Elliot was there for the flood that happened because if she's not what could happen but if we did have a camera somewhere in that school and we're seeing water on the floor maybe we catch it before Uh there's just so many things that could help us with the cameras and
130with them being cheap now maybe buildings and grounds we could go back and look at the idea of putting some cameras in our schools for vandalism, bullying, teacher protection, student protection from anything. So if you can look at that. Thank you. I do know that there's several systems out there being that we have a water issue it seems like here in this county uh that will warn you and it's it's set up that people set them up with their um hot water heaters and I think that um speaking with Garrett we could probably work something out very easily but I think that's an excellent idea. Thank you. an early warning system on water and fire. Well, I I tell you, I I really appreciate the collaboration with all the board members. This is great. We're
131we're definitely moving full steam ahead and Mr. Schuford with the finance committee. I know that you've already hit us with some doom and gloom, but uh Miss Rampy, thank you for your report. Yes, thank you. Uh Miss Helms, uh I hope you got good news. Yeah, nothing really to report. Miss D just presented what we talked about last. So, good. And uh do we have an idea from legal when those will be reviewed the policies that they're reviewing or what? Yes, sir. I I anticipate those hopefully um coming out in in our May potentially in May. So, we'd have an opportunity to pull together another policy committee meeting and have those. We have most of the policies uh back already. Uh they they've got just a handful more to review. Am I is that fair
132assessment? Yes. Yeah. And the goal would be May um with the first read, June with the second read, and have everything in by fiscal year time of July. Um that that that's the plan as of now. And if you know, give or take a month depending on when we get those back. So, yes, sir. All right, Mr. Schuford. Uh, now you going to get us some good information from Head Start because we all went over there and got quizzed and we probably uh I don't know if we helped our situation any but we didn't hurt it at all. Well, we certainly didn't hurt it, Mr. Chairman. I think u Dr. Delaney and her staff over there to be commended. This was a federal level um audit. It was actually conducted by a third party, but
133um um my uh lady is very knowledgeable and educated us some too. But Dr. Lane has done a great job of presenting what she does uh to us and keeping us posted. Um, and I uh I'm really uh appreciative of the opportunity to serve as a liaison for Head Start and seeing the impact that um Head Start has on well from from birth to preK or kindergarten actually. And um that's uh you're looking at an impact of about 300 300 students total there of 180 just in the head start I think early head start. So anyway uh I just uh was glad to be part of that. The board did a great job. Uh no one dropped the ball there. We were going through a good little testing situation and uh No, no. But u
134I think we were we're so well prepared we we uh we couldn't have. So, um, my hats off to her, Dr. Delaney and her group. Okay. Thank you very much, sir. Uh, Mr. Baker, Mr. McGinness with NJOTC, I know you guys went over and met with those folks. Have you got anything you want to report to the board? Um, yeah, they're wide open. Um, as Mr. Hill alluded to earlier, um, they pack their calendar, excuse me, 365 days a year there's something going on. Um they've got several things coming up. Um they've got the leadership camp which uh that's been an institutional county for back when I was going through the program. Uh and the things that these cadetses learn going through there and the skills they carry to the community and the crossover um
135ROC and some of the other uh like STEM and some of the other um things we got going on on campus. Uh it's substantial and uh they've got a good core of cadetses. Um they've got several field trips coming up. Um they're just rolling right along. Um one thing we had kind of talked about um it was kind of like um we was discussing their target ranges and some ways to kind of go about implementing that to maybe save some money here and get some programs going. That's a discussion for another time. But uh they've got a lot of really good ideas. They've got some really good leadership and uh I think they're going to make us very proud and just continue that tradition. Uh, I've got nothing but good things to say about them.
136So, that's all I had. We were able to observe them for about and talk to First Sergeant Miley and uh, Master Chief Corman Carlson. Always get his name wrong. He said, "It's like you're crossing, Paul." And and uh, they were uh, drilling and uh, trying to they were deciding on who would be the cadet commander for next year. And it was it was really impressive how they did that and how they they worked together and uh we really learned a lot, you know, as we spoke to them and watched that and uh it was it was just really impressive. And you know, uh, every now and then we're having one that's joining the military. And, uh, that's that's a big deal. We need a strong military. We need some strong, good people that understand law
137and order and command and the whole discipline. They learn all of this and they and they take it to another level and they serve us and and we're just we're just thankful to have them. They are doing a great job as Derek said. Anybody have any further for the board? Okay. Item number uh 13 on the agenda is the uh approval of the consent agenda and as you all know that we can pull any portion of that off and vote on it separately or we can approve it all as as a whole. And at this time, if anybody wants anything uh pulled to the side, we can do that. If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the whole consent agenda. Mr. Mr. Frank, if I may point out one thing that's on there, sir.
138I just want to remind the the board and we did put it back on there, but you've technically already approved um um by board poll vote uh the FCCLA uh trip and that young lady was here tonight. So, she needed to go down there and get that award and we were between meetings, but I do want to remind you that one, it's not necessarily have to be approved tonight, but it is on there just so we can make sure we had it uh in the minutes. Thank you. You're welcome. And I I'll tell you what, we're going places. Anaheim, California. I don't know if you looked at that. Uh I I tell you, there's a lot of opportunities for our students. And and you know, they're just not only moving throughout the world, they're moving
139here in all across uh United States as well. And that's that's quite a opportunity for them. Okay. At this time, I'll ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Mr. Chairman, I'll second it. We have a motion by Mr. Schuford to approve the consent agenda. And we have a second by Mr. Subtles. Is there any further discussion on the consent agenda? With no further discussion, u all those in favor of the consent agenda, signify by raising your right hand, which is unanimous. And at this time, uh, I'll entertain a motion to go into close session. Make a motion to go into close session. Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Barkstdale to go in close session, a second by Miss Helms. Is there any further
140discussion on going into close session? Mr. Chairman, just Yeah. And I will Okay. And uh at this at this time before we uh vote, I will cite those reasons. And motion for the board go to close session pursuant to GS143-318.11 for the following purposes. uh under subsection A1 to prevent disclosure of privileged or confidential student information pursuant to 20 USC 1 uh 1232G FURPA and GS1815C 402E include student discipline and student transfers and releases and under subsection A1 to prevent disclosure of privilege or confidential personnel information pursuant to GS115C-319-321 including employee matters and under subsection A5 to discuss the acquisition of real property and under subsection A5 to discuss the terms of contract for employment includes discussing contract terms for new employees. And with all that being said at this time, all those in favor
141of going into close session, would you signify by raising your right hand? Okay, that is a unanimous vote and it's uh 8:07.