001Pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together today. Please grant us wisdom, patience, and clarity as we make decisions that impact our students, staff, and community. guide our words and actions so that they reflect integrity, compassion, and a shared commitment to what is best for all. Amen. Good evening and welcome to the February 9th, 2026 Dorchester District 2 Board of Trustees meeting. Um, at this time I would ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda and meeting minutes. >> So moved. >> Motion made by Mr. Guthrie. Do I have a second? Seconded by Miss Powell. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion [clears throat] carries. Seven in favor. All right. The next item on our agenda this evening um is our district highlights and we've got
002Mr. Brian Bohannan to bring us those. >> Good evening, Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Dhy. Board members, tonight's district highlights are a perfect combination of academic, athletic, and staff achievement. Back one more. Beautiful. [snorts] That's all right. For our first highlight, please welcome district content specialist Dr. April Simmons. >> Good evening, Dr. Wimberly. Mr. Dodie and members of the board, we are very excited to be here tonight to recognize our district spelling bee winners. The students here tonight have already accomplished so much. They have won their class B's, school B's, and finally they have placed in the top six at the Doorchester 2 spelling bee. These six students will represent DD2 in the spellbound spelling be sponsored by the post in Courier Tuesday, March 10th at Charleston Southern University. Here are our finalists. Amelia Hawkins, grade seven
003at the Bose Middle School. [applause] >> [applause] >> Emerson Kolowski. Grade eight, Rawlings Middle School of the Arts. [applause] >> [applause] >> Alexis Antley, grade six, Dose Middle School. Kendall Verinique Rush, grade six, Alustin Middle School. [applause] >> [applause] >> Briana Brown, grade 8, River Oaks Middle School. [applause] >> [applause] >> And our spelling be champion, Michael Cade, grade 8, River Oaks Middle School. [applause] It's way [applause] Cute. I got him. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Dr. Simmons. Congratulations, spellers. If you want to play along at home, I believe the final word this year was contiguous. Good luck. Our next highlight shifts from academic competition to athletic excellence. District athletic director Mr. Tyrone Drake regrets he wasn't able to be here tonight, not feeling well. I'm going to cover down in his absence. Competitive wrestling
004demands discipline, resilience, and mental toughness, especially at the state level. This year, one of our middle school students achieved something truly remarkable. Competing in the 84 lb weight class, this athlete earned middle school wrestling state championship, winning at the highest level of subvarsity competition in her very first year in the sport. As a female student athlete capturing a middle school wrestling state title, this accomplishment is rare and reflects not only athletic skill, but courage, determination, and commitment. Please join me in recognizing from Greg Middle School, 7th grader Taylor Delk. [cheering and applause] >> [applause] [applause] >> Congratulations, Taylor. For our final highlight, I'm pleased to welcome Natasha Fields, who serves on the board of directors for the Palmetto State School Counseling Association. Miss Fields. >> Thank you. Good evening. The Palmetto State School Counselor Association
005is dedicated to advancing the profession of school counseling and annually we set out to recognize those who have demonstrated their belief in and support of school counseling programs that have an impact on school counselors and our students at the local, state, or national level. Here are thoughts of our two 2026 advocate of the year. Professional development under Miss Mercer, Mrs. Mercer Brown's leadership has been transformative. Instead of offering generic workshops, she has taken the time to gather feedback from counselors at every level and design learning opportunities that match what we actually need. Her lessons or excuse me, her sessions are power powerful and purposeful, relevant and grounded in best practice. One of the many reasons counselors across the district trust her guidance. Another said, "Data use and impact reporting have also grown tremendously because of
006her vision." Mrs. Mercer Brown has integrated practical user-friendly methods for counselors to track outcomes, highlight results, and advocate for change within their buildings. She empowers us to use data not as a compliance measure, but as a tool for storytelling and improvement. This shift has strengthened schoolwide advocacy efforts and helps counselors demonstrate the value of comprehensive school counseling programs. The Pimeto State School Counselor Association is proud to recognize Miss Gelia Mercer Brown as our advocate of the year. [applause and cheering] >> [applause] [applause] >> I don't know. Congratulations, [applause] Galia. This concludes tonight's district highlights. All right, the next item on our agenda this evening is our public comments on agenda items and we do not have any. So we will move right to our board committee reports. Um, first up we have our policy committee,
007Miss Bates. Thank you, Madam Chair. Currently, we don't have any new policies up for reading, but we do have our upcoming schedule now that we're back in swing. So, as you can see, it's up there with our upcom upcoming meetings, and I don't have anything else to share unless Miss King wants to add anything. All right, that's it. >> All right, thank you very much. Uh, next we have our finance committee, Mr. Lee. uh finance committee met uh just briefly before uh tonight's board meeting. Uh highlight from that, we'll hear about tonight some unexpected but rather significant maintenance uh that we're going to have to pay for in terms of uh HVAC units and whatnot. Uh but good meeting. We've established a schedule to take us through uh the budgeting process all the way through
008the middle of the year. will revise our schedule going forward uh after we get through that episode uh and continue going forward. Um >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. And then last but certainly not least, we have our facilities committee, Mr. Farnsworth. >> Um you got it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh we did meet earlier this afternoon as well. Uh we have a facilities report that we'll be getting a little bit later this board meeting. Um, couple reminders. Board members, if you will, um, keep in touch with your calendar. We have, uh, facility walkthroughs happening over the next uh, couple months. So, if anybody would like to join and can join, please feel free to uh, to be a part of those. And then our next meeting will be March 9th for facilities and
009anything for Miss Powell. >> All good. >> All right. Thank you very much. I apologize that was not last. We actually have a report um also from our governmental and community relations committee uh Mr. Lee. So after uh >> uh reigniting this committee that was around in the past trying to re reinvigorate that uh we had an initial meeting and start putting together our thoughts around a charter and a vision uh looking at trying to present a two-year view looking forward about all the various government community relations things that uh we want to intentionally uh go after. You know, there are a lot of stakeholder groups uh around our schools uh our school system. Uh certainly the obvious ones, county council, legislative delegation, the state and everything else, but there are a lot of other
010organizations that influence uh our our district and we want to have positive relation uh relationships with them as a board uh and want to be very intentional about uh what we're doing uh in terms of DD2. And um we've completed kind of an initial identification of some key stakeholder groups. There are more than meets the eye. And so we're really thinking about how to get some things going. Certain of those groups uh we'd like to meet with sooner rather than later, but the practical reality is certain things will take precedent, i.e. the budget and so forth. Uh so Miss Bates, any comments? No, I look forward to working with Jim here and seeing how we can continue to have dialogue and outreach with our community and our legislative delegation and our county council and all
011the stakeholders involved. I think um we're we off to a good start. So, I'm excited. >> Great. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you for your commitment to that. We appreciate it and we're all looking forward to being part of um some of those conversations. Okay. Next item on our agenda is our board chair's report. And just a reminder of a couple things and couple important things we have coming up. Um we do have the SCSBA annual conference February 19th through the 22nd. Looking forward to some great information from that and working with y'all there. And then we also have our board winter retreat which will be um right after that that Monday following. Um right now it is scheduled for 2 to 5. Um, and I will be reaching out um, uh, to work with y'all
012to ask for your input and planning the agenda for that. So, be thinking about if there are things you would like to have included um, because I will be asking for that very shortly. Um, and then just as a reminder also, we have the CASPA National Conference March 13 through the 15th. So, we've got a few big things on the calendar. Certainly not the only things though. All right. Any questions about any of those events or anything else? Okay, great. Thank you. Well, we will get into our superintendence report with Mr. Dohy is our next item. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. And this evening, um, we're going to have Mr. Thchink, director of data analytics, come up and talk to us about our winter map growth. And I know we talk a lot about projects
013and things, but academics are in the forefront. And uh, when we look at uh, the NWA, this is NWA winter map growth rate. We take the NWA in the fall, the winter, and the spring. And uh when we look at this, it's a it's a tailtale sign of kind of the growth that we're making. And a lot of our teachers, when you're talking about elementary, middle school, they use this data to help drive some of their instruction to see how well our students are performing in math and reading. And so, um I'll let Mr. Schmank talk about, uh the data that we have in the winter and kind of share, uh his thoughts. So, thank you, Thad. >> Yes. So, excellent. Um as Mr. Mr. Jordy said first of all madam chair members of the
014board Mr. Jordy um as Mr. already said is we take it three times a year. First time first time of the year is more for um kind of a screener making sure we we place kids correctly in interventions and winter time we're using is to make minor adjustments look at students who are making progress and to reward them and to find anybody that we make need to make adjustments with. And then in the spring we use that data u not only to give an evaluation for the entire year but also to start planning the next year for curriculum and other purposes. As you can see here, you know, I well, first of all, you know, I try to always stay uh without a motion when I'm presenting data, but we do have a lot of
015good information to um a lot of good information to present tonight. So, that's good. As you can see here, the average RIT score, and I want to talk about a RIT score just for a moment, which is this is not a measurement of uh achievement. This is a me measurement of readiness. What are students ready to learn? And what's good news is you can see that over the last four years we have consistently um increased the level of readiness in our students to be able to learn. So we're in both ELA and math. And um I know that doesn't seem like much, but three RIT points for an average is actually um something to be to take note of. So we're very happy with that consistent um and constant progress. the this next slide here.
016I'm sorry I had to bring my own. My eyes are my eyes are going. This is our ELA um the achievement quintiles. So this is just basically showing you how the students are distributed in into the various groups. So we break you into five different groups from really nice and high to a little on the low side of achievement. And one of the things that we can note here for ELA that we're very excited about is you can see a de a decrease in the number in your in the red and the orange. So, a decrease of your lowest achieving students. And what's nice is is that's not just pushing through to average, it's pushing all the way through. We can see an increase in um high average and high as well. So, that that's
017what you want to see. You don't want to see them bottlenecking, right? So, again, really good um movement there. And on the the next slide, and this is um this is math, and this the same thing. You can see the distribution. And once again, we're also um excited that we're seeing all of the the yellow, blue, and green um bars grow as well as the the low and low average decrease. Again, that's that's what you want. Um that's really kind of textbook of what you're looking for. Um on the next slide here, we have our fall to winter map growth quintiles. What this is saying is that if you The last one was was achievement, right? So, how are how are your students overall achieving? And this is more of a measurement of how like
018who's growing. And we're really excited about this this particular chart for our ELA because you can see again we break you into five different groups. And uh our lowest group there and we went from what 27 um percent being in that low group last year to just about 11% 11 and a half% this year. So, we're really excited about that. That means kids are really moving. Last year was a tough year for us in ELA because we had a new curriculum and so this is the second year of that curriculum and we're excited to see um that movement. On the next slide here we can see this is the same thing again. This is how well students are growing. Again love to see that low uh bar is significantly shrinking and everything else is increasing.
019And we are particularly proud of this one because this is the year where we're getting new math standards and using new math resources. And so um even you know despite having to use lots of new pacing guides and curriculum resources, our teachers are working very hard and um we're we're still seeing a lot of wonderful progress with our students. This next one is sort of a different way of measuring it. Right? So instead of just showing you how students are are kind of divvied up across the board into different categories, this is just kind of boiling it down to give me one number, right? So in this situation, zero is expected growth, right? So if you have a zero, it's actually a good thing in this on this particular chart. Anything above that is what
020you what you would like to see. So over the last three years, we've had consistent positive conditional growth AC, you know, in in math and in ELA, we've struggled, but look at that. Um, for this year, really a sizable difference there. And I know that 0.25 doesn't seem like maybe much, but the scale is usually pretty small. You're only talking usually negative three to positive three, and it's a it's a distribution. So those are your tails. So getting that movement in the middle is what you're looking for. And again, we're we're really happy with that um that ELA result. And then I believe this is the last slide here. We like to also take a look at Lexiles and quantiles and just again it's writ achievement. We've talked about we talked about growth. Lexiles mainly
021focuses around students vocabulary and the uh the quantiles is sort of like your numerousy ability in math. So you've got lit you've got your vocabulary on the one side and kind of numeracy on the other and we're also really happy to show that those have been slowly moving up across the district over the last three years. So um overall good information. You know sometimes we get a mixed bag of data. What's nice is all these slides are all pointing to one thing which is nice slow steady progress. >> And the other thing I'd like to to reiterate is, you know, when you have a well articulated curriculum tied to the state standards and then you're assessing that and what we're doing um you can see that the growth that we're having and a lot of
022that's tribute to what our teachers are doing in the classroom with that new curriculum led by our curriculum and instruction team, Mrs. Barker and her group, they have done a phenomenal job of trying to make sure that we're using the curriculum resources that that we have provided. Also, um when you're looking at that, um you're thinking of NWA and we take it three times a year and it's great for teachers to use this especially when they go and have especially at the elementary when they're having parent teacher conferences. Where's my son and daughter? Where were they at last year? Are they growing? And it's a nice way to use this data on the RIT as what uh Mr. Mr. Schmank said is you can use that and it shows progress. The other thing that Mr.
023Schmank we really started using him a lot more in the last few couple years is he's been meeting with principles to go over a lot of this data and so they're able to articulate what this data means and then they're able to take that data and then put a plan together um when they're meeting with their teachers and then um their their teams. And so they've done a really good job of working with their curriculum instruction team of doing this. And so it just doesn't come just like oh the the data is great. There's a lot of work that's being done behind the scenes for us to be able to get some of this this data to look that way. So it's come with a lot of work from our teachers and our administrators and
024our support staff. So thank you. >> So quick question and really out of curiosity you know these the data set here appears to be basically every student elementary and middle school. If if I were to ask the question underneath all of this data, if are there populations that we know we need to focus on more in order to continue that growth? >> So this data reflects our kindergarten through 8th. Um I do not include the 9th, 10th, and 11th because it's not [clears throat] really reflective the entire population because we only really use it in our interventions in the high school. So it's very few students. It's a small N as we would say. Um but K through eight um it really depends. So we have yes we we do have some pockets of students
025um and I would say it differs by school and it's very difficult for me to sit here and give a general statement. Um I don't want it to be misleading about any one particular subgroup. Um but we do uh yes we would we would at the school level typically break down because let's just take you we you know the the five strong ones you know the your ML students your special education populations. Um we're looking at um typically like your different genders. We're looking at your ethnicities. So we're we're slicing the pie in many different ways. So I want the public to be assured that you know we do look at that data. But even let's just take for example inside of your ML population. The ML population at one school versus another school, the
026characteristics of that population are so different. So for me to make a blanket statement about ML would be very difficult. Um some of them you know you you you're talking about poverty, you're talking about resources, you're talking about um the the how sort of how migratory they are or you know a lot of influx out you know outflux. So there are very you know a lot of movement involved. So again every every school's different and we look we try to look at every subgroup through many lenses and not just the lens of that one broad subgroup name. >> Yeah. And that's perfect. And that is kind of what I was alluding to, the fact that I think that's what we do better than any other district, I would argue in the state is that we're
027able to drill down into those pockets, into those subgroups um at the school level and and really kind of drill in because that's that's how you know we we've already set the bar here and so now we got to get to here and and that really takes digging into those into those suburbs. And I and I appreci I appreciate the the the uh the comment there. And to take it one step further, we do look at the trends, but at the end of the day, I know it sounds maybe a little controversial, but we also put those subgroups aside because I think one of the things that we do best is that we just look at kids. We have lists of kids. We don't really care what those subgroup checks are next to the name.
028we're just looking at you and we're saying how can we make you know your your experience better and um for example today I met with one particular elementary school I worked with three different teacher groups and that is all we did we drilled down and said okay who's doing this who are the names who are the list for who are you going to go back and congratulate who do we need to maybe put into s into read 180 you know who do we just need to have a little you know little chat with about uh resting and not really challenging themselves and so every kid is getting a comment next to their name so that they have a targeted approach for every single student. I know that seems crazy with 26,000 students, but that's just
029where we make the difference. Kind of piggybacking on that, I don't know that crazy is the word I would use. Um the level of diligence to do that in a district with 26 27,000 students is not to be unrecognized. Uh but that said, so am I to infer from your comments and whatnot that you as you're using this data and you're meeting with the schools, yes, you're interrogating those special groups because we rack and stack kids in 10 different ways. But I I like the comment about the point that look at the end of the day, it's about children, >> okay? It's about the individual kid and what we're doing for each one of them. So my my question is is what do you see in these trends, okay, overall that we need to focus
030on or that the board needs to focus on to help make sure that this continues in this direction? That's a that's a complicated question. Um it's about an hour's discussion but the you know the short of it is there are again it's very hard to say that ML students or special education students or females or whatever the subgroup might be um need a blanket statement. Um, I think one of the things that uh we appreciate most about our leadership is that they're trying to look at each school and each group inside of that school separately to figure out, you know, what's equitable isn't always what's equal. And I I really do appreciate that. And I um you know I I appreciate that there's sometimes some school gets an extra allocation or an extra resource or
031an extra who knows what because that particular population at that particular school is what's calling for that. And we like the action plans too because we're always asking ourselves what's the end plan, right? How do we get out of that extra help so we can move that resource someplace else? So um again to give a broad sweeping statement um would be difficult uh because it's we have you know 26 schools and 26 unique u personalities of each school and needs of each school but to help just I guess line item help that would be the best way of describing it line item help. The other thing I'd add to this, when you take the NWA, every child can grow. And so this is a test that's adaptive. And so what I mean by that, if
032the child gets the question right, it goes to a harder question. If the child gets it wrong, it goes to a an easier question. So it's adaptive. And so what's great about this is it shows every child can grow. And so when that our teachers are using, that's just kind of that triangulation of data. You look at the SC ready, that's kind of the autopsy because what have they been doing all year at the end, but when you take NWA, you're taking it three times a year. So, I can progress monitor throughout the year and I can see, okay, is this child growing at winter? The other thing that our schools are doing a really good job is um our students are taking ownership of their own learning. What I mean by that is students
033are now knowing what their their rate is. And so, a lot of schools, what you call PBIS, they're they're trying to say, "Hey, are you growing?" And so every student is taking ownership of that and we're trying to get kids to understand this is what we're trying to do um to get better each and every day. And so it's all about growth is kind of what dad talked about earlier. It's not about this group or that population. It's about each individual student growing. And so that's what we love about NWA. And in NWA is then coincides with read 180. So if we know a student has a certain RIT um then we know that they can get a tier three or tier two intervention. So um you know it's it's it's been it's a great
034tool to use but it's not the only tool we use. Um we use formative along the way and so some other way things that we do in the classroom but um NWA is a great thing great tool that we use to help monitor that progress. So I just want to say thank you to THAAD because you know he is really getting into the weeds and they're drilling down. You can see how specific they are and we have that motto what what gets monitored gets done and so we're really trying to monitor this for every child. So, I I appreciate that. >> I was just going to say I thank you again, too. I I really love map like being able to dive I wish like every board member who's not as familiar with it, but
035um I've gotten to utilize it with my student at home even. And it's just really neat because like you were saying, you get to see the group overall and each grade and school overall, but you really do get to see the individ individual growth of each student and target each student individually and make sure they're growing. And it's just a really really good tool. So, this data is awesome. I appreciate you and all you do with it and yeah, thank you guys. >> Thank you very much. >> The next items we have there on the the report would be a uh a motion to replace the HVAC units at Flowertown Elementary and Newington Elementary School as presented. It's in your board packet. And so um just asking for board's approval on that. All right, board
036members. This, as Mr. Dhy said, this was included in our packet. We also did discuss this in our facilities and then again briefly in our finance committee meetings earlier. So, at this time, um, could I get a motion to replace the HVAC units at Flowertown Elementary and Newington Elementary School as presented? >> So, moved. >> All right. Motion made by Mr. Lee. Do I have a second? Seconded by Mr. Farnsworth. Any questions or discussion? >> Madam Chair, I would just point out this is not an insignificant expense and these are some of the challenges that we face as a school district um not only in this specific acute situation but based on the age of some of our equipment and uh our schools. Um and and this is a real challenge that we have to
037deal with. We're fortunate we're able to deal with this one right now, but um Agreed. All right. Yes, I agree. Thank you, Mr. Lee. >> Any other questions or discussion? >> Okay. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. >> Motion carries. Seven in favor. >> Yes. The the next item on our agenda is 7C, the renovation of the Fort Doorchester High School gym. Um that was presented also in our facilities uh meeting. And this does go this project is above the $250,000 threshold. And again, we're hoping to have a new floor done sometime between March and May. And uh I know we're having issues on that floor. We're having to tack down the boards uh quite frequently at Fort Dorchester High School. So again, asking for board approval uh this evening. All right. Thank
038you, Mr. Dohy. Board members, at this time, I'd ask for a motion to approve the renovation of the Fort Dorchester High School gym floor as presented. Motion made by Miss Bates, seconded by Miss King. Any questions or discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we'll call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. >> Our next item on the agenda is our facilities report. Uh this is a lot of same same information that you heard um before, but uh we want to talk a little bit about our facilities update and I'll turn this over to Mr. Jeff Smith, director of facilities maintenance and Mr. Tony Soul's capital project facility. So, Mr. Smith, >> good evening. Um just wanted to give a brief overview of a few things that have been completed or that are currently um uh under
039construction and uh one of those being Windsor Hill. We've actually got two projects going on there. The U HVAC replacement is complete. We um still have some heat strips that did not come in for one of the units in the media center. So we have some temporary heat in there currently, but uh those are about I think it was about a three to five week lead time on those heat strips. So once they come in, we'll be able to get that fully operational. And otherwise, I think there's, you know, fine-tuning the system, uh, new controls and making sure everything works correctly, but so far so good. A few growing pains at the beginning, but otherwise, I think we're doing well now. Um, also the roofing project, we did a final punch list. It was one
040of the smaller punch lists I've ever seen for roofing, so it actually went really well. So, that should all be wrapping up and we should be able to do closeouts on that uh by the end of this month. Uh, the great middle school gym floor. So, we started that project over break. uh ran into some issues and so we'll be completing mostly it's just down to the logos and repainting the st the the logo in the center and that'll all happen over spring break. Um so that will finish up before we get to the summer the uh summer high school tennis courts. So we have the design in progress. We've already uh got a survey in process as well. So that's going to be over at the uh softball location at Austin Middle School. So,
041that's what we're shooting for and um well underway and we're hoping to have final plans sometime before we get to summer so we can get that out for bid and hopefully have it done sometime relatively quick. It shouldn't be a long construction process. We're hoping the uh Newington Elementary and Beachill playgrounds that was all done during school for the most part and they've all been completed now. So, that's all complete 100%. Let's see. Oops. Okay. Uh, some other things coming up. So, we had a meeting last week and the Austin Middle School roofing project is going to be kicking off the end of the month and we also are having a kickoff meeting this week for the restroom renovations because we're hopeful that we can get some work done over spring break and utilize some
042of our downtime between now and then to get some things done. the roofing and exterior envelope package. That's about 80,000 square feet of roof that we're going to replace at Greg and that's uh all the bid documents have been completed. So, we are just uh finalizing some things on our end to put it out for bid on Skibo. So, that should happen this month. Also, we should have out for bid a new asphalt contract which will allow us to do several big projects that we have coming up. One being Fort Dorchester High School's entire campus getting repaved and obviously Windsor Hills getting redone as well. So quite a few things we need that project for. Not to mention Mr. Souls has got a road that we have to pave at Ashley Ridge that we need
043this contract for as well. The big one that's going to be this summer, I keep saying it because it's going to be it's going to be a lot is the Newington ceiling grid. It's going to be a massive project. We have to do abatement. We have to do duck work, ceiling tile, lighting grid. Um so all that's going to happen this summer hopefully maybe split into two phases depending on what our contractor thinks then we select. But, uh, we're expecting to have that out for bid by the end of this month, early March. And, um, that'll be great to get that one going and get it off our or at least get it in progress. And that's all I have right now for an update, but start with Mr. Souls, unless there's any questions. >>
044Super quick question. Did we already do Flower Town? Did they do the the ceiling? >> So, so we decided we have to do both. Uh, Newington when we did our surveys, they have some stuff above ceiling that we need to take care of first. So, Newington's going to happen first. And also it would have been very tough to do two buildings at the same time. So we're going to knock out Newington first and then move on to Flowertown. There's a chance we might been to do something at Flowertown this summer depending on um how a few things play out, but we're going to try to put our focus in getting Newington done. >> Beautiful. Thank you. >> Good evening. uh referendum projects are are going well. Uh the ponds, there's a a continuing conversation going
045on there. It's uh we a weekly conversation between the county, the district, and the developer out there at the ponds. And uh hopefully we can reach some sort of agreement, hopefully sooner than later. Uh the Somerville Elementary edition is going very well. The block on the second floor is about completed. We're ready to start some structural steel for the roofing. Uh hopefully this week weather will let us get there. Uh the above ceiling mechanical, electrical, plumbing, that's all going in on the first floor. Up on the second floor, they're working through on the inwall stuff doing the electrical rough ends, plumbing rough ends. So all that's going well and uh we're we're well on track for a for a midsummer completion on that one. Circleville High School gym. The fire and egress modeling analysis is
046in progress. I just got an email about 10 minutes ago, right before the meeting actually. Uh the results look fantastic. So, we can hopefully get on with the design here hopefully tomorrow. So, and the construction documents, they'll be uh submitted hopefully in the the first part of uh June. >> [clears throat] >> Ashley Ridge High School additions and renovations going well. The new band room, the block is already up. Uh they should be starting a steel uh this week or next week. The in wall rough end for the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing that's all being done. They've already started some above ceiling work in the hallway that we had to uh uh complete. That's already being worked on. The schedule completion date for the band room is May 25th. Uh the demolition for the new
047weight room, which was the old band room, is nearing completion and they're going to start the the slab and the footings on that this week. And that one is scheduled for completion the very next week and in in June 1st. Ford Doorchester High School classroom edition, the strength training room, the permitting is complete. The pre-qualified contractors have all the bidding documents they need and the bid they will submit their bids to us on the 17th of this month. and that will be brought back to the board uh later in the month for approval. Uh the Knightsville Elementary School campus upgrades, uh the kickoff meeting was held last week and uh we're having another meeting for programming to find out exactly what Miss Sver needs in her building to accommodate a new wing. Uh we're talking
048about a new a larger kitchen, cafeteria, multi-purpose room for that school. uh upgraded their uh their mo their media center. So, it's it's a lot of moving parts on that one. So, we're trying to work early with the construction team and the design team so we can have all the pieces and parts together so it'll that will flow smoothly through. So, other CIP construction, Oakbrook Middle School, we're just waiting on a hydrant to be tested and that'll be a done deal. Oak Brook Elementary edition. Uh the roofing is completed. All the MEP is going in above ceiling in and the permanent power will be turned on this week and we're supposed to have an above ceiling inspecting is scheduled for the first week of March and hopefully shortly thereafter we'll have a final inspection on
049that one to wrap it up. The bus maintenance facility at Oakbrook, uh the pre-construction meeting, we got that scheduled for next week. Uh we're working with the contractor and the design firm to coordinate some things that need to happen out there. Possibly move the building a foot or two this way or that way just so we can get the uh plumbing and everything to flow right. So then that was uh we don't have a completion date scheduled for that one yet because we don't have a start date scheduled for it. So hopefully within the next month or so we'll have a have everything nailed down on that. And I think that is all I have. Any questions for me? We got a lot going on. Jeff's got more going on than I do. He's got
050a lot of a lot of small stuff going on that turn into big stuff. >> Well, thank you Tony. Thank you Jeff for the update. Uh we'll move on to our last item is 7E. It's a student enrollment recommendations. Um there's a few in your board packet and asking for board approval on those. >> Okay, board members, we did receive that information in our packet. Is everyone okay with proceeding in open session? >> All right, great. At this time, I'd ask for a motion to approve the student enrollment request as presented. >> So moved. >> Motion made by Mr. Guthrie, seconded by Miss Bates. Any questions or discussion? All right, hearing none, we'll call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. All right. Thank you, Mr. Dohy. The next item on our agenda this
051evening is our public comments. All right. And before we begin, I am going to read the public comment procedures. Public comments are welcomed and encouraged. However, the board will not take immediate action or respond to public comments at this meeting. In order that the board may conduct the meeting in a civil manner, public comments should not include gossip, defamatory words, or abusive and vulgar language. The board reserves the right to terminate any presentation which does not adhere to these guidelines. Comments must be regarding programs, policies, or procedures. No specific names are to be used in comments. Comments regarding an employee or student will not be heard in public session. Group addressing this groups addressing the same topic should select one speaker. Comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker. Okay. And our first public
052comment on a non-aggenda item for this evening is Miss Kayla Cassidy. >> Hi. Okay. How are y'all doing today? All right. So, I'm here tonight. Oh, I guess my keys don't want to be here. I'm here tonight because the district's no bullying policy is not being enforced. And my children have had to pay the price for it. My daughter, who is 13 years old, she was bullied starting fifth grade at Newington Elementary. She is now in seventh grade, and she is home uh homeschooled. We reported it to the principal, to the staff. Nobody did anything. I was told by the superintendent's office that unless my child spoke up for herself that I could not speak for her. Basically putting down the fact that I couldn't be her voice. Um, when they did decide to actually
053pull my child aside and talk to her about it, the school decided it'd be a good idea to put her in the same room with her bullies and then question her. I'm sorry. I don't know if y'all feel this, but that's intimidation. That should never have happened. The bullying followed her to from Newington over to Greg Middle School. And I'm going to just say this, I didn't stay silent. From the first day of school, I walked in there, spoke to the principal and the counselors, and explained to them what had been going on the year prior. Nobody listened for months. I reached out reported repeatedly the bullying continued. I asked for help. I asked for intervention. I asked for everything. And nobody listened. No one listened. No one acted. And no one stopped. Instead, what
054I was told was everything that my daughter had gone through was just girl drama. Let me be very clear. Being shoved in hallways, hair pulled, pushed up against lockers, names calling, rumors started, and just being torturing towards children, that is not girl drama. That is bullying. My daughter in April of last year attempted to take her life because the school district refused to listen at that point in time that summer following which would have been her seventh grade year. This year is her seventh grade year this year. She attempted again because she was too scared to go back to y'all school. So, we decided to homeschool and then not too long ago, she attempted again because depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts and stuff don't stop just because you take a child out of school.
055That's something they continuously deal with. That's something I continuously have to deal with. I don't want any parent I don't want any child to have to go to sleep and wonder whether their kid's going to wake up the next morning or not. That's what I deal with on a daily basis. And now I've got two boys that are being bullied on the school bus and a teacher and a staff member telling me that the student sits too far away from home for it to be bullying. I have emails. I've got voice recordings. I've got everything that I need. And I'll do whatever it takes to be my child's voice even when somebody is telling me that I cannot. That is why I'm here today. Not just to be their voice, but to be the voice
056of other people and their children that can't stand up. Thank you, Miss Cassidy. All right. Next, we have Mr. Jason Brocker. Good evening. Well, I understand that a single voice should come up for a single topic. I had nothing to do with the previous speaker whose name I'm not allowed to say. We've come a long way and yet not, which is really interesting. So, in the future, I think you're going to be hearing some more stories like that that you've not been allowed to hear before. I've been in touch with many other families who would like to come share their stories, only they've been afraid to. I would ask myself, why would somebody be afraid to stand up at a podium and speak to people? Well, if somebody looks at the last several years of
057my efforts at speaking at a podium, they would say that it doesn't matter that nothing happens. You can come up to this podium dozens of times. But one of the interesting things um about the the preamble to public comment is that the board understandably is not allowed to directly comment to the speaker. The understanding is that there should be a followup to the speaker to their concerns. And I'll be honest, I have had some follow-ups. I haven't sat down and and crunched the numbers on them. If I were to napkin math it, I would say that I've had about 10% success out of hundreds of attempts for conversation. That's not even in the last year and a half. I mean, that's over multiple years, several administrations. Normally, I'll prepare myself with notes and look at
058your agenda and figure out what I can speak about. Again, the agenda didn't have anything with substance to be able to speak about. I mentioned that months ago. I've not got any feedback about that. So, I'm not really sure what else to do, but I think maybe you have an idea of what else I need to do because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. I've been here time and time again wearing the same shirt every time. It's odd that nobody asked me, but on May 9th of 2024, I bought this shirt for my son and told him, "I'm sorry, they don't have a small. You'll have to get a medium and grow into it." >> Thank you, Mr. Brocker. >> Right. The next item on our agenda is our executive session. So
059board members, at this time I would ask for a motion to convene into executive session for personnel related matters for the purpose of hearing a student discipline appeal and for the purpose of receipt of legal advice. Motion made by Miss Bates, seconded by Miss Powell. Any questions or discussion? Right. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. motion carries. Seven in favor. We are in executive session and we will return. All right, board members. At this time, I would ask for a motion to return to open session. Motion made by Mr. Lee, >> seconded by Miss Bates. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. We are back in open session. All right. Board members ask at this time I would ask for any motions from
060our executive session. >> Madam Chair, make a motion we accept the personnel recommendation for executive director of our special education department. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Farnsworth. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Miss Bates. Any questions or discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. motion carries. Seven in favor. Do I have another motion? >> Madam Chair, I make a recommendation to uphold the student uh the sorry the decision the district decision regarding the student appeal. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Bates. Do I have a second? Seconded by Miss King. Any questions or discussion. All right. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. Right. board members. At this time, I would ask for a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion made by Miss Bates.
061Do I have a second? >> Seconded by Miss King. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. We are adjourned.