001and guidance to make the best interest the decisions in the best interest of all 26,000 plus students in this district and we ask for continued prayers and blessings um for the health of everybody all our students staff teachers and administrators as we head back to the school for the start of this year in an aftermath of the storm and flooding um in your name we pray amen un stes right good evening and welcome to the August 12th 6 PM regular board meeting at this time I will call our meeting to order and I will ask for an approval of the consent agenda so moved all right I have a motion from Mr Guthrie do I have a second okay second from Miss Powell any discussion okay hearing none I'll call for the vote okay and
002the motion carries seven in favor thank you okay and now we will move into all our favorite part of the meeting our district highlights yeah good evening board chair wimbley superintendent Dr Robbins and board members at this time I'll turn the podium over to Dr Michelle ainer for this highlight and return to close it out good evening Dr Robbins and Dorchester 2 school board members as the principal of Somerville High School I am honored tonight to help recognize PJ L morlando for being named South Carolina's Gatorade Player of the Year in baseball with which honors the nation's most outstanding high school student athletes as well as being selected as the Major League Baseball's overall 16th draft pick for the Miami Marlins now just those accomplishments alone are impressive but they are not his only achievements
003in July of 2023 PJ participated in and won the high school Home Run Derby at the USA baseball high school All-American Game on the Major League Baseball Allstar Weekend in Seattle Washington that's a lot not long after that he was off to Taiwan to represent Team USA with 19 other nationally selected players for the u8 world baseball cup PJ was also named a scholar athlete from the South Carolina High School league which recognizes outstanding senior athletes that maintain High academic standards needless to say he is an impressive young man who I am proud to have as part of the Green Wave family PJ could not be here tonight as he's currently in Florida with the hammerheads a Class A affiliate of the Marlins but his parents Perry and Christin morlando as well as his sister
004lanaa morlando are here tonight to accept his recognition in his honor he also sent us a couple short videos since he couldn't be here there's I wanted there's [Applause] [Music] was you be the man cuz a brand that the fans trust so even if they B that's don't never slow my PL up [Music] already the [Music] morning all go till the morning we dream so long anybody ever [Music] wonder hey what's up P Mando here I just want to say thank you Dr Robbins and the school board for recognizing me tonight sorry I couldn't be there I'm here in Miami playing for the Marlins Lowa baseball team um I'm praying for all you guys I know the storm hits you pretty hard thank goodness it missed us um I'm so thankful for this award I'm
005thanking for my family being able to go and receive this award for me tonight thank you so much go fish [Applause] we [Applause] makes you just puff your chest up a little higher when you're on team dd2 doesn't it congratulations again [Applause] okay it is my honor to also highlight some more examples of dd2 Excellence Dr Priscilla Johnson please join us up front yes Dorchester School District 2 is proud to announce that Joseph rpai elementary school has received a $1,000 stem scholarship from the national Lieutenant Governor's Association as one of 12 schools nationally to win a scholarship Joseph Pi will put the funds towards grade level steam interdisciplinary units during the 2425 school year the scholarship will help students focus on solutions to world problems with Hands-On learning and Technology while fostering creativity and curiosity
006d2's focus on Steam education science techn techology engineering arts and Mathematics reflects a commitment to Preparing students for success in fields that are driving Innovation and economic growth steam education emphasizes critical thinking problem solving and collaboration skills that are essential in the modern Workforce we are preparing today's Learners to be tomorrow's leaders congratulations Joseph rpai elementary [Applause] Sydney Kirk Al Al Alan Evans is it Sydney Kirk Sydney thill is the steam coach who wrote the grant [Applause] thank you all right thank you so much we appreciate youall being here great great District highlights as usual um okay now we will move on to the next thing on our agenda which are public comments on agenda items and we have none this evening um and so that will bring us to our board chairs report and
007um this evening we do have some board members to recognize um some boardmy Institute recognition um and I will hand it over to Miss Hughes for that thank you our SCS ba um representative thank you chairman Wimberly and thank you board and Dr Robbins this is always an exciting time because I get to come and stand in front of you and give some awards it's always fun to get Awards but I first of all before I do that I want to make sure that everybody understands um who you have sitting in front of you there are very dedicated people that go to these conferences and they learn they spend hours and hours and hours in these conferences sitting in these meetings trying to learn and bring back information to benefit our school district which is
008going to benefit you as teachers and as at administrators as well as the bottom line benefit our students so everything they do day in and and day out is for the betterment of Dorchester District 2 and our students which ultimately we all know is what makes our community what we are today so thank you very much for all the hours that you put in from South Carolina Schoolboard Association we appreciate all the hours and all the time and taking away from your families and that it's it's a lot but thank you very much so first of all I'd like to present to Miss Kelly Bates she has reached a level two in The boardsmy Institute okay and next I have Mr Evan Guthrie he has reached a level two as well and Miss Cynthia Powell
009last but not least she's reached a level two as well [Applause] by the way before I forget they will be receiving a pen as well it goes with the level two just because of the storms I guess things were a little bit delayed and they haven't made it here yet so we will give them their pin after thank you Miss Hughes and congratulations Miss Bates Mr Guthrie and Miss Powell and we appreciate your commitment to continuing your education okay next up on our agenda are our board committee reports um and we will start with our policy committee Miss Bates yes thank you madam chair um currently we don't have any new policies or policies for any readings today but we do have two meetings coming up one will be August 26th at 5:00 p.m. before
010a regular scheduled board meeting and then the following one will be September 23rd at 5:00 P p.m before our regularly scheduled board meeting these will be the last policy committee meetings until after the election um that way we have time to work through those policies and that's really all I have unless you have anything to add Miss pal all right thank you all right next we have our finance committee do you have anything for us this evening Mr committee doesn't have anything but I guess the budget got passed is there any news um I guess go a quick update on Miss man okay perfect we're all good okay all good news all right no news is good news okay very good all right um facilities committee Mr Farnsworth um nothing to report tonight just uh
011we do have referendum updates which I know Dr Robbins is going to update the board on uh shortly okay sounds good great all right thank you all very much and that does lead us into our superintendent report Dr Robbins thanks Madam chair um before I get into um the bond resolution I just wanted to um share publicly where we are with now what's being called Cyclone Debbie uh first and foremost just a huge shout out to our Community Partners um I had a couple opportunities to visit the new eer Mercy operations center it's state-of-the-art Dorchester County should be very proud we had a lot of outside entities that came down to assist us as we were a disaster um County location so but where we stand right now we we've gotten some pretty good reports
012back in terms of the water has finally crested in the Edisto and the Ashley River which means that our flooded areas can now run off into the rivers and then out into the harbor there are still some Road issues and at the this point we feel like we're still safe to look at Wednesday as our first day of school we do know that travel is always a little slow and congested the first day anyway and so 61 um 165 and 17A will be a little slower than normal just because of some of the lane closures but again we think we're in a good position to be able uh to open school the one thing I did want to share also is and I believe our elementary principles were going to shoot this out as well
013first of all Kudos um to our elementary schools they they pulled off meet the teacher um in some of these scenarios with great attendance I believe Beach Hill and Knightsville meet the teacher as tonight and so we have been able to provide that opportunity for our families for those families that couldn't attend uh our principls are diligently making alternate arrangements so they can still have that um that opportunity as well but Wednesday is technically our early release or what we call PLC Wednesday uh where um students get out at the elementary school 30 minutes early we're going to maintain that schedule but with this caveat typically the first three days of school we start to release students about 30 minutes early anyway in the elementaries to help them understand the procedures to get to the
014car rider line to get to the the bus and the appropriate bus so we'll maintain that 145 schedule on standing it takes us that 30 extra minutes anyway those first few days we do that so that we can get the buses out and moving and get them through their routes so they can get to the middle schools and the high school on time uh I believe my first year here we had some challenges with transportation we had high school kids that were sitting on campus waiting on buses at 5:00 in the evening and so by going ahead and maintaining that schedule we will be able to to run those routes it also gives us an opportunity since we won't really be conducting a a PLC that day for the extra hands on deck to assist
015students getting to the proper location so you know those first couple days if you've never been in an elementary school that's what I call control chaos but it starts to work its way out and our principles have good plans in place so you know hopefully that will um ease people's minds that we think that that's going to be a good solute so happy to answer any questions yes I also just wanted to give a little shout out cuz I know I see Miss lainer in the audience and Somerville high school I know hosted a walk the schedule on Sunday as well for all their students and I thought that was awesome I know a lot of families felt good it put their hearts at ease and I heard a lot of positivity about it so
016shout out to you Miss leviner so happy to answer any questions or yeah um no no question but just some some commentary and I do want to as well um extend gratitude and and thanks um not only to Dr Robins but County leadership um that that Emergency Operations um platform they they they have a lot and and I think you know at the end of the day there's no there's no good answer it doesn't matter what we do it doesn't matter what the county does um there there's always going to be somebody that finds wrong in what we do um so I just want to say that I appreciate um the level of care because again folks don't understand they they forget that hey this part of town looks great but then our upper end
017of the county is is underwater um and so for a school district of our size that that really puts some constraints on what we can and can't do so I just want to say thank you um for that and and as well to our District staff uh because folks don't realize you know every little change it may seem like a minor change oh we're going to move meet the teacher night or we're gonna um you know do we're going to cancel athletic events or whatever it looks like even though it's seemingly minor when that snowballs at the district level and and I know the amount of Zoom calls the meetings the the actual stuff that has to happen to make these changes happen um is is a is a gigantic undertaking so so to our
018staff and and to the the entire District I just want to say thank you um for being able to uh shift and and go with the flow if you will so thanks everybody okay so my first item on the agenda is our uh annual Bond resolution our sko Geo bonds um that we um bring to the board for approval and I'm going to ask Tina she's going to walk you through you have the resolution and she'll share with you how we build that in to our capital projects and Technology plan good evening Madam shair board members and Dr Robbins um this evening we are bringing you as Dr Robbins said the SC Geo Bond resolution um this is for not exceeding $37.5 million and this will cover um the first year of our capital projects
019that we had listed on the spreadsheet that the board has already seen um on the spreadsheet if you can recall we had a column for the um capital projects fund monies which that's what this is we also had a column for the Tiff projects and then also for the referendum projects I was going to tell you about that in just a second as well so for our capital projects we use the um preliminary Gant chart that we received from the architect um Rhonda worked on this um schedule for us she um spoke with Mr souls and we um have come up with the projects that would be funded for this first year um until next year when we receive another pot of money for our 8% so this um not to exceed 37.5 million is
020to cover our equipment acquisition payments for this year as well as our um installment purchase revenue bonds um and then the 8% capital projects fund money for the $20 million that also includes um $6 million of technology that we receive every year and $1.5 million for some um technology renewals and e- rate projects um and then we'll have a small little bit left over for in case there are any emergencies we we've really projected out for the next three years what we'll do with this 8% money but something always comes up so we have that little buffer in there as well um so for this resolution um I'll just read the very first part of it um so a resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of not exceeding $37.5 million in general obligation Bonds in
021one or more series in one or more years with appropriate series designation including a tax exempt series and a taxable series if appropriate of school district number two of Dorchester County South Carolina authorizing the South Carolina Association of government organizations to facilitate the sale of the bonds under its General obligation debt program so if you would be so kind as to pass a resolution for that so we can get these monies um the sale is to take place in September and we would receive the monies in early o okay thank you miss m um board members you did receive that resolution in your packet ahead of time um and so after that explanation from miss m I would ask for a motion to approve the resolution as presented okay motion made by Miss Crosby do
022I have a second all right seconded by Miss Hughes at this time do we have any discussions or questions for Dr Robbins or miss m okay hearing none I will call for the vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor okay great thank you um the other item that I had um Dr Robbins and I were talking earlier um we've done some planning with our financial adviser about um our first issuance of a bond anticipation note so we could work on that third column in the spreadsheet the referendum projects so again taking the um the Gant chart and working on a a summarized um schedule thank you Miss chce um we came up with a projects that would be in the next um year just for this one year of a ban Bond anticipation
023note and projected funding that's needed over the next 12 months will be $56 million so we don't need a um a resolution for that you yall have already approved that once when we pass the referendum yay so just wanted to bring that to y'all about the um the sale again would be in September and we would get the funds in October well we won't get all of the funds that we will sell the B we will sell the uh state and local government treasuries and a bond and a bank will be the holder of those and we will make draw Downs probably every month but we'll make that sale that kind of leads right into the referendum update uh so there are really three main items I I know that um it probably seems like
024not A lot's going on I always try to paint pictures and so I equate it to like a duck where you don't see its feet but the feet are moving real fast underwater and so it's all about getting things in place uh we've worked really closely um to put the Gant charts together for all these projects that were a part of the bond referendum so that they're established and in place so the biggest things right now U for us to really get started on this obviously you heard the financial piece so that we can start drawing down Monies to make payments when we start the work but is to hire the construction project manager so that person will be responsible for overseeing all these projects over the next 36 months also working alongside our finance
025department and business development team on tracking the expenditures of funds uh and working closely with our cart which I'll talk about here in a second so the interviews for that position we put an RFP out will be on August 20th they'll come back we'll we'll make a decision try to narrow it down and negotiate what that rate would be and then and hopefully we will have a contract recommendation to bring to the board for the August 26th meeting once that person is in place we really wanted to feel comfortable we had a person in place to start helping us uh work through the construction management risk or the CM at risk services so we have our interview for um the CM at risk services on August 22nd with the goal of bringing a contract recommendation
026to the board on September 9th that CM at risk project is the ponds project so that's the elementary school in the ponds and then once those things are aligned then it'll be time for us to enact our citizens advisory review team I've got a letter drafted ready to go out to them um once they organize themselves they work independently and so they'll work with the construction manager they'll work with the contractors they'll work with our maintenance teams as well uh and bring you all reports quarterly reports those will be public meetings that will'll advertise I take that back they'll advertise um and they'll choose the location in the times in which they feel is appropriate for them more than likely it'll be in the evening but they'll start um form forming and organizing on September
02716th so that's kind of where we are you'll start to see things a lot more rapidly now we will have a um referendum update every board meeting we'll you'll start to see some activity on the link on our website site uh and we'll use all of our modes of communication to try to make sure we maintain our transparency you know throughout this process uh I have two questions for you the manager role the construction project manager I'm assuming in their contract well we have um some Clauses dealing with I guess you would say accountability measures you have to deliver XYZ by this date those those types of issues are you talking the CM at risk or the construction man no CM a risk that's the whole point of having a CM risk but as far
028as the actual project manager how how do we measure their performance to make sure so the way I've always you know it's it's more of a report they are the conduit what another um title I use for them is owner's representative and so they are your eyes and ears on the ground and they will provide you with probably how often we meet they will provide you a updates as well that will be independent from the carts updates so they will give you the specific reports on progress and they'll tie that into the the Gant charts um and the timelines and the budget you know and they'll work like I said they'll work really closely with our finance team as well as with u the construction management or risk groups that are in place so that's
029how we gauge it I mean to look specifics at the contract for um Clauses for productivity I can't really recite those to you um but I can definitely get you a copy of it okay and then that kind of leads into so so the cart this um review team um so it's so that's not a board created review team no so what do we or do you know what their level of authority is what what are we asking them to do they're just an in independent oversight group and so the really biggest thing for them if you look at the kind The Narrative we created when we went out for the referendum they're going to look at and make sure that we're doing what we said we were going to do with the money in
030essence and so um they true will work with our construction uh construction managers and our contract contractors to make sure one we're we're on time you know they're just another set of eyes two the money that's being expended so when we do draw Downs uh for our bond money that we're spending the money on exactly what was in the ballot question okay and then do we know who that will be made up of that team yeah you guys should all received a copy of the members of that team we probably did I just don't remember see that I mean I actually have a copy of it with me right now tonight yeah if I just take a look at it at some point yeah um yeah yeah and again I think you just have to
031be very careful and and I will tell you when we did our referendum years ago I was part of um the the quote unquote oversight advisory committee and and that can become its own Beast if you will and so you have to have very very definitive roles on what their roles and responsibilities are their their levels of authority versus our level of authority as as an elected body right um because especially if they're going to the project manager and saying hey you're you're or they're going to Tina and they're saying hey you're you're drawing down money you spend it on this tile we don't want that that's that's it's really not yeah and I I I think it's drawn out to your point I think it's drawn out and spelled out in kind of the
032narrative um that defines them and it will be important to lay that Foundation when they have their first meeting so there's only six of them and they represent different sectors of our community whether it's the business Community um whether it's people that have been members of the chamber you know and we tried to hit all three different specific parts of Dorchester count or Dorchester School District too so um yeah but to your point making sure that they know what their roles and responsibilities are and so just the final point there because I I don't think we've taken it this far yet but we should we may want to look at actually defining that and having our board vote on those Ro roles and responsibilities for that I would almost say committee um just to make
033sure that everybody understands the the lanes that they need to be in MH yeah we still have a little time before they originally organ you know officially organized who from the district will they get information from uh they they'll get information from the construction manager so this person that the person we hire they'll get uh information from Mr Souls our director of facilities and they'll get information from Miss manier yes you miss man our CFO so that's who they'll gather all their information from you know so project timelines current status of project so just so you I know some of you have been through this before when you go into a project you have Gant charts and part of what the contractor has to do is they update you in construction meetings on where they
034are in this process one of the nice things about a CM at risk project is there aren't change orders so and there's a guaranteed maximum price you know it makes that part of it a little bit easier but that's where they'll get their information through those meeting minutes those construction meetings and again we'll have several of these things going on simultaneously you know it won't be just building the ponds it will be you know the 10 classroom additions and some of these other things that are taking place so I I can share with you all where we are I mean what I've shared with you already in terms of the outline and then bring it back and you guys can have discussion on it and I'm sure you know this but I'm just I I'm
035just a little paranoid because in lie of the last situation that we had and I know why Mr Farnsworth was um explaining a little bit about what he was talking about as well but um we've made we we need to definitely make sure that even in the construction manager um his job description that everything is detailed there and that everything has to come through the superintendent for approval before he does anything and and um because we we had a not so good situation and we want to make sure that we don't put ourselves back in that situation again so ye yes ma'am and I've heard a little bit about that and and have you know fortunately for me I have been in a lot of construction projects with construction managers so I will be very
036integrated into this whole referendum process for those specific reasons because I'm also your eyes and ears um and working through those processes so and again the the contract itself you will see how the provisions are laid out in there before you ever approve it um and and again we can we can have more conversation on this we're not in a we're not in a hurry you know it's not a fire uh right now we just trying to get prepared moving forward and just give you an update on where we are I just want I have seen the list that you gave us of those person that's a part of cart um this is my first rodeo with a building project so when you said there's a narrative that outlines whatever it is that they're responsible
037for I haven't I don't remember seeing that so if I could get a copy of it that would be great so I can kind of gauge thank you I okay anything else good turn it over to um Mr dhy our Deputy superintendent and our academic team there are several folks that have worked on um this the whole uh compulsory attendance and seat time recovery um Provisions that we've been dealing with they put together the plan last year and then we were doing some followup this year to see what we were able to do moving forward but also I believe um yeah Mr ham You Can't Hide back there he's going to share with you some of the successes we've seen with what we did Implement what the board approved last year so Mr dordy I'll
038turn it over to you uh Madam chair Dr Wimberly board members Dr Robbins uh kind of want to follow up a little bit about seat time recovery and proficiency um one thing that we want to go over tonight is that state compulsory attendance law seat time requirement they all kind of go together and they're intermingled so it makes it kind of very hard hard to decipher when you're talking about proficiency and what's that look like so uh tonight you're going to hear from myself also you're going to hear from Christy seander assistant director for high schools Kelly perver assistant director for middle schools and then also you're going to be able to hear from Katie Barker our um our academic um Chief and then also we brought all our high school principls and we have
039a couple designes that worked in um for retrieving some of these these credits and just to let you know this past year was probably one of the first years we really since Co really started tracking seat time requirement one thing that the state does they go in and they pull our power school data and when they see students that have fs and they don't see fa which means failure for attendance they're going why don't they have an fa there and so that rate made us really look at this plan last year going into last year and how we're going to really kind of enforce that and so this year we did and we're going to be able to kind of talk about what our plan is um what is a proficiency and I know you'll
040have some questions we'll be able to answer those questions at the end and so want to kind of go what that uh compulsory attendance law is that is a law and where students have to come to school um there are they get they have three unexcused advances in a row or a total of five unexcused advances at any point in the school year so what is unexcused unexcused is when a parent does not call in they have 48 hours to call in otherwise it becomes unexcused also we have where parents will go take their kid to to a dentist appointment and they do not turn in the note then that becomes unexcused and so our staff our administrators and secretaries are doing a much better job trying to get those notes back so they don't
041look like you know they're unexcused absences so that's what that is um you can go ahead and flip the slide and then regarding attendance rate so when you look at that all the absence affect the students on time graduation or their failure to graduate we know that when they're at school um they're going to be educated they're going to do better when they are in class in in a seat um with a teacher and so when you look at this this is where this gets a little tricky and where the seat time goes in with the attendance law and so when you're looking at field trips School sponsored trips those are excused those are waved when you look at College visits Juniors and seniors they have up to three college visits per year those are
042waved and then you have extracurricular activities School sponsored athletic clubs and art programs so those are ways so everybody can get up to 10 absences a year now five of those once you get past five and you're going to learn about a little bit more about this is then where we have they can appeal to the to the principal and sometimes that could be medical those are approved most times and then what happens if a students start missing past those days and you're going to be able to hear from some of the people in the front lines today so when you're looking at that attendance um the attendance now will go into seat time and they're and again they're in inter twin and that's why we're going to talk about the state compulsory attendance law
043and now we're going to talk about a little bit about um what you're talking about absences and excuses and so I'm going to turn that over to um Christy seander and again she's our direct assistant director for high schools and she deals a lot with the curent units of credit so I'll turn it over Miss cand hi good evening um I just wanted to go ahead and start with what does our current board policy look like with regard to attendance and seat time what do is required from us um what you're seeing here on the board is from board policy JH and it spells out pretty specifically I mean this is exactly in line with what the state is saying that the student must be in attendance at least 120 hours to earn a Carnegie
044unit so for us that's most that's all of our classes in high school and then some of our classes in middle school where students in seventh or eighth grade are earning a high school credit so in the case of a regular year long class like in Middle School that would be 10 days in the case of most of our high school classes where students are meeting 90 days either a full semester block or an AB schedule year-long that would be five days and then we do have some for um what we call uh typically a quarter class or a half period or excuse me a half unit of credit that would be your government and your econ those kinds of classes the number for those is going to be three days go ahead and so
045this year when we or sorry last year when we looked at our seat time recovery we really looked at all absences that's what the state requires so it could be excused unexcused medical we take all absences into account when it comes to seat time it's a little bit different from treny where as Mr D was just saying it's where they're focused a little bit more on unexcused absences whereas seat time the state says all absences are created equal um during this time if the student reaches the maximum the five and I'm just going to kind of speak to the five days because that's what we see most of in our high school credit classes once they reach that threshold after that then they could owe seat time um this is a again the state requirement
046to say that they want to be able to fulfill that 120 hours so principles do have the a availability and the authority to consider circumstances during an appeal process so if there are students with outstanding um you know circumstances like you know medical issues or things like that they can take those things into um into account when they make those decisions but really ultimately at the end of the course if the students have not completed their seat time requirement they are issued an fa or a failure due to attendance that will show up on a student's report card and transcript and the student grade will be averaged in as a 50 so the student if they needed that credit would just need to reach retake the course okay um in the case of um you
047know the faas being issued if a student is able to clear up that you know the seat time requirement then we do change that fa back to their numeric grade but as Mr Doty mentioned this was something that we really have not been doing since before covid and it really was raised as a red flag when we had um an audit of some of our transcripts and it was seen that we did not have any FAS so this could be for a student who would have otherwise passed a class or it could be for a student who would have otherwise failed a class and the same would be you know issued across the board so now I'd like to turn it over to Mr Maurice Canon who is our director of secondary schools to talk
048a little bit more about what the state looks for so and maybe I heard incorrectly they have three College visits per year or per semester per year I believe okay it says per semester on here is it semester okay oh if it's a okay so technically it all depends on whether or not it's a semester class or if it's the entire year the 10 day okay that clear it up the other one was so how much seat time are they allowed to make up come up with I I don't know that we really have put a cap on it sometimes it becomes numerically very difficult for a student to complete seat time if they've missed just a huge number of days and and I'm not sure if you guys really know if you're talking to
049teachers and folks in this school that we're really concerned about our students in the absenteeism that's really rampant um not just for us it's a nationwide concern um so what we really do is to have our schools do interventions early with students to catch them as they start to kind of get into that danger zone I know that Mr Hammer will speak a little bit more to this because he really is our boots on the ground person doing this um in a in a high school you know every single day um but we really try to meet our students early start to flag that attendance is the ones that are kind of getting into the um into that danger zone to intervene with them to have attendance meetings to discuss why are you being absent
050how can we get you into school consistently so that we can see an improvement in their attendance so that hopefully between first semester and second semester there's an improvement because ultimately we really want students in our classrooms good evening my name is Maurice Canon and as noted I'm the new director of secondary schools um I was asked to share information regarding the possibility of utilizing a proficiency plan um to um work towards seat time recovery and the team um we had deep discussion uh regarding the role of a u proficiency based plan and our district we do have a proficiency based B plan currently in place in our district um our plan as it currently stands um supports and focuses on credit recovery as well as initial credit and mostly those are opportunities for students
051who are falling behind to um get back on grade level to get back on track so they can graduate on time with their peers and their um class cohort um as well as to U recover class um classes that they may have failed may not have been successful in um their first time through um also considering a proficiency plan um according to Laura McNair um from the State Department of Education she serves as the academic accountability specialist um she gave guidance to our team that the current proficiency based plan that we have in place in our district does not address seat time um recovery so as it currently stands for our students to um be forgiven or wave their seat time we do have um certain practices that we're discussing such as using the ilt
052time inside the high school Saturday ummies um to accommodate for seat time on recovery um and that's all I'm going to say about that right now um but do you have any questions um specific to proficiency based plans okay thank you good evening my name is Brent hammock I'm an assistant principal at Ford doorchester High School I really want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about this this is something I'm really passionate about uh I know my counterparts Ashley Ridge Lauren Townson and AJ Glover at Somerville High School would feel the same way um last year when we really started talking about what the fa means for our school and for our students and teachers we really wanted teachers in our community to understand that when you're part of a classroom it's not
053just about the academics it's about the exposure there's a lot of stuff that happens in a classroom beyond the numerical grade that ends up on a report card or a transcript the communication that you have with an expert in their content knowledge for your teacher or those interactions that you have with the peers those can't be replaced by making up time somewhere else so we really try to set that tone in terms of protecting and valuing teacher time in the classroom and helping students become uh better educated so that was a little bit of a hard pill to swall at first and we said this is not going to be something that's solved in two weeks two months it may take two years but if we hold the line and we hold our kids Community
054accountable for what the expectation is for the state we're going to see dividends pay off in the long run so when we looked at our endof year data um you can see that first bullet point up here uh I will say that those are switched we did see an improvement of 40% um in attendance I mean that's probably the most impactful intervention I've seen at our school since I've been there uh if you can can improve your attendance by 40% that's that's huge um what I'm also really excited about is if you look at our cutting class referrals in the year 22 23 school year that was our third highest defense in terms of all discipline referrals and that went down by 60% and even though it went down 60% that was our second uh
055greatest number of discipline referrals last year so not only did we reduce it by 60% but that means all of our discipline issues went down considerably too that made that made it up the rank to number two so when we talk about what our teachers have seen they've noticed an increase in attendance just on a general level beforehand the engagement that students are having in class um we look at uh where we ended up on our eoc's and our our academic scores throughout the school year we saw gains in almost every single area because kids were coming to school and they were they were going to class because they didn't want to miss because they didn't want to make up that time and I think the state does a good job by calling it seat
056time recovery and not Credit Recovery or content recovery it is a deterrent to help kids make sure that they want to come to class so they can get that content knowledge so if we go back I'm sorry um if we look at all those things that have kind of paed to Our Success um I I think where we're going as a district is making sure that teachers instructional time is protected and I think when we talked about the cell phone policy coming up for our school um our staff was sort of emboldened by what we were able to accomplish last year by having a policy and holding to it and they can see uh long-term results when we do the right things and we are communicating with our students about what the expectations are and
057holding them accountable to those expectations thank you good evening I am just going to wrap us up and a lot of these things have been discussed in some detail by the rest of the team but I just a few things Mr hamri shared kind of the school Reflections and um feedback from their teachers and these are just some other things that we have considered and discussed with princial um and teachers from the district level so and Miss cander kind of said this is that we are seeing um even excused absences whereas before maybe excuses weren't getting turned in and things like that we're just seeing that those excused absences are being cleared cleared up in a more timely manner than they would have before which just we're not here to talk about ssops but really
058just that takes a load off of them and they're a valuable part of our team so just all the way across the board um that helps our system run smoother also um we did consider um looking at an electronic component and not to say it is impossible but the way that it is right now for a student to use um course course courseware for example um would be be hard to separate that time from what they're doing in the classroom so to use that alone as a seat time recovery option would turn it be become very cumbersome for the teacher to monitor that and we certainly don't want to add more work onto our teachers plates and then last just and I think Mr hamr kind of you know made this point over and over
059again is that we're seeing that seat time recovery and knowing that that is going to be there really is incentivizing student achievement from the beginning and as they realize that it's time that they're going to have to make up that they are coming to school more often missing less school if they have to miss school being more intentional with those absences so that is the end of our presentation and we as a team are happy to answer any questions you may have I don't necessarily have any questions um I just want to say thank you to Mr Hammer because I know being a Fort Dorchester mom you are a rockar are um at seat time so I appreciate you Applause immensely and I definitely know like there has been dialogue um and I don't ever
060want to Discount I wholeheartedly believe there is a great benefit to it and I do believe it incentivize kids to show up I still do feel there is room for tweaking in some areas and I know that there are limitations with the state department um but again I really appreciate I know you guys have looked into this and all the different aspects of it and I don't ever want like some of the questions or things that I try to raise to get lost in the weeds of at the bottom line is I understand that it is effective for students showing up and so I don't ever want to take that away or you guys to think that I don't see the value in it um so just thank you again and thank you for being
061such a rockar at for I really appreciate you and what I'd like to say is on behalf of the teachers thank you for recognizing how much of an impact that would have on the time that they need to do other things and so I'm sure the teachers say thank you and um continue to do that and we'll continue to recruit and retain thank you thank you I have a question sorry okay can we just can we just clarify um someone I don't whoever from the team um so what does the seat time recovery look like currently like what you know when we have these students stud and first seat time recovery what will be happening does that make sense what I'm asking expert okay can you also add on to your response how you're going
062to incorporate the ilt moving forward yes um so I can speak on behalf of what we've done at Fort Dorchester um so last year we were able to offer about 13 hours of credit recovery option uh every week so I mean if a kid missed three days uh that week they could come in and make up all that in the next week so uh we would have time where they could come in an hour hour before school we ran three hours concurrently with evening school and we did three hours uh concurrently with uh Saturday school uh moving forward this year we will not have the Saturday school option but we will likely uh run the ilt option to make up for that time where two periods could uh be equivalent to one hour so essentially
063it be going down from 13 to 12 but essentially giving kids that opportunity that they can make up three full days of a four period absence day uh every week and and when they're in there for that seat time recovery will they be working on the things that they missed from the classes that they were absent from does that ideally yes um they are always encouraged to be working on their score but let's say that you may miss um days in October but you don't get around to making up your seat time in December um our staff that monitors uh make sure that they're on task on something if they are off Tas they are invited to to leave uh because it is an opportunity for them to come in and and do their schoolwork
064um so we always try to make sure they're working on something productive okay thank you I was at one of the middle schools and on a Saturday and they were having seat time recovery so is that only for those middle schoolers that have high school credits or are we doing anything for those that are in the middle school that they miss a lot of classes and is there anything available for them to make up some of that work yes ma' so that they too won't be failing so um hello I'm Kelly pvis assistant director for middle schools so I can definitely speak about our middle schools one of the uh the initial Focus starting back year one um when high school had to really take a huge bite of it middle schools some of our
065middle schools have every single eighth grader in a high school credit course like Rawlings Middle School the Arts every student's in a level one F and performing arts class those classes requ re iring um seat time could look a little different especially when you're coming to performance-based courses um we do offer academic overtime for students that need to make up any work uh in Middle we did offer those on some Saturdays and Miss PA I know you've been there on Saturdays to see that we're trying to move to some before school or after school only just due to paying teachers to be there and having staff mandated with quality instructors uh students first priority is to make up any ass missing or assigned work that they need and beyond that sometimes creates enrichment opportunities for
066some students depending on the course they're in uh sometimes that looks different you could be working in a group on a stem project if it's something that's a math science-based um sometimes you're working in a small group and sometimes you're in a setting where the teacher is working with them so yes we are trying to think about that in all of our classes but the main focus for awarding the Carnegie credit which is what we alluded to earlier is that you have the seat time law requirement but then you have the requirement and the law for awarding Carnegie credit and just like a great middle child we're stuck in the middle for all of those things and so again our priority is getting the work made up and making sure kids have their missing work
067now sometimes that missing work is what Mr hamri alluded to we can't recreate all of those things that happened in that missing work so if it was a discussion or a Socratic seminar those are really hard things so on paper it looks like you've made up things but we are trying to um increase that activity and engagement sometimes it looks like a student reading a book but it could be for a specific purpose um so yes so our number one priority is the Carnegie unit courses and secondly we do offer that time for students to make up any missing work for um what we call academic overtime or after school tutoring now I will say this at the high school level the team the administrative team um that works with this specifically I do want
068to give a plug for them since I get to work a little bit with them they are researching some programs that could allow us to monitor our tutoring time better and so if we are able to capture that that will help um um us monitor students signing up for a specific purpose and where they go in the building and to capture those minutes so it's not so cumbersome and falling on our admin team especially at high school when you're talking about quarter classes and semester classes and some year-long AB classes so it makes it a little difficult we sort of at middle school have a little bit of an advantage to that because we are pretty much on a traditional schedule so we do have an advantage so I hope that answers your question it
069does thank you thank you guys Madam chair next item I have tonight is our safety report and I'm going to ask Mr Gatt our director of safety um to cover that report for you all tonight all right good evening Dr Robbins uh Adam chair in the board um just want to kind of give you guys an update of some successes that we had last year and some things that we implemented um and how we are going to um expand that some of these programs and build on them for the upcoming school year um one of the very first things I want to talk about is something we did early in the year last year which was the um purchase of the open gate weapons detection units um each school got two units uh we added
070ended up adding one more and because of the success that we feel like we've had with those uh through the referendum we're planning to add those to the middle schools um this year as well so I want to talk just a little bit about what that looked like last year and where we're headed with it this year um we did just kind of for reference um tracking the data a little bit back in 2122 uh we had three um Firearms incidents where uh weapons were found in the school building um themselves uh one was in the fall and two of them were in the spring uh the spring generally when you look at the Trends um Nationwide the spring generally tends to be uh the the time of year where you start to find things
071like that um that's when a majority of school shootings occur um so it's really kind of interesting to dig into that if you ever have time to do some reading um there's some good reading out there for that um but the next year in 23 24 um we had a little bit of a spike uh we ended up having I think we ended up with eight um total incidents um that that occurred excuse me that was 22 23 um and then involving nine students again there were a couple in the fall the rest of those were in the spring um this past year we had two um they were both at the beginning of the year and they were both before we implemented the weapons detection units and Chester um the way we started with
072the weapons detection was we started using them at our athletic events trying to figure out you know what that process was going to look like um because if people get slow getting into the games that's okay we don't want them to be slow getting into the schools uh we did try to do um at all three high schools on the same day get everybody in and scan every single person that came in um as you can imagine it's not like the airport where people arrive slowly for their flights over time and you have you know six or seven different stations with 20 TSA agents it just doesn't work that way in the school buildings uh furthermore what we found was that we could not cover every door or entry in our schools um we found
073that if somebody wanted to defeat that all they have to do is go around to another door and wait for text one of their buddies and you know their buddy will come open up the door for them so we found that that really wasn't an efficient and effective way to use these um very expensive and very good units that we had purchased so we started um to the public or to the students it looks as if it is random uh they may show up in the hallways um you know when students are in class we might set them up on a hall way and pull those classes out and walk them through um you know one class at a time have them leave their book bags and walk Chester through uh while the the students
074are walking through the weapons detection systems and really the beauty of it is we can walk them through with their backpacks as well and they don't have to empty anything out um we might wait until class is in session and anybody that's in the hallway is running errands going to the bathroom trying to sneak over to the vending machine uh we might scan them when they're walking through we may set it up for all of the people that are arriving via car uh car rider line we may set it up to get everybody coming in off the buses um we might set wait till partway through the day and catch everybody coming back from voke so they never know when we are going to have them which makes it very very difficult uh for them
075to get around it and defeat um what we're doing so to them it looks random to us it's very targeted we're having discussions okay we did it this way this day we want to try it this way the next day um so forth and so on we did not keep any logs um this year because we were kind of Hit and Miss trial and error trying to figure out how it was going to work this coming school year we're really going to try to track the data um the requirement has been um previously that they're going to set these up at least three times um throughout the week uh all of our all three of our schools actually end up doing more than that but we want them used at least three times during the
076week on different days um we want to really want to track that data to make sure that that is what's occurring um we also want to track what time of day we're using them which hallways are being um you know scanned are you know how often are we doing it for bus riders how often are we doing it for car riders so that we can really start to collect that information uh after we purchased um the units and after we got Chester uh we did not have a single gun found inside the buildings and I know a lot of people say well then how do you know they're working I would say that that's exactly how we know they're working uh we don't want to find any guns inside of our building we want them
077to be a deterrent enough that they seem as though they're useless um we kind of talk about that with fire drills you know we do fire drills all the time and the last kid that died in a school fire was in 1959 so why are we still doing fire drills well so we're ready when they come um the same thing with these weapons detection units uh we want to make sure that they are a deterrent um we did find one firearm after school and that was actually an adult um that was trying to bring it into uh one of our after school events it wasn't even one of our students so um we we feel pretty good about the weapons detection systems as a deterrent um and we feel pretty good about Chester uh Chester
078spends all day um 180 days a year uh at a minimum um in our schools he rotates uh from school to school generally speaking he spends much more time in our M Elementary I mean excuse me our middle and high schools uh because those are where you have the biggest um threats of students bringing and things like that but he does make visits to our elementary schools as well um I've been very impr impressed with officer Gamba in the way that he utilizes Chester um I I walked to school with him a few times just to kind of see what they do throughout the day because I wanted to know you know how is Chester being used and is he capable of finding things and what I found out was Chester's always training so um
079Gamba officer Gamba has these little pieces of cloth that have gun residue on them and when kids are in the building or kids are in school he will go around um he'll lock Chester in his car and he'll go around and hide the these little pieces of cloth uh throughout the school and then as Chester is walking through the school you know the hope is that through his training Chester will end up finding him um and I was very impressed that as we walked through the school you know Chester would alert to back when we had a Few Lockers still in the buildings last year um or a closet like a custodial closet um Chester would you know alert to it and you know we'd open up the door and sure enough there would be
080sitting right on top of the door knob or you know sitting in a locker and those types of things um he'd also stick them in backpacks um and stick him in different places throughout the building uh so Chester's always working um he's always out training so I feel pretty good about um Chester and his efficacy as well um and being able to pick those things up um and I will say it's kind of funny um there are a couple of us within the district uh that that are armed um in security and I have seen Chester alert to uh both myself and another individual um that that kind of got his attention so um it it made me very happy to find out that you know he did he did smell it and you know
081he had no idea I don't even know if officer Gamba knew that that I had my my uh firearm on me that day so um it it it shows that Chester is doing his job he's working and again I hope Chester never finds a gun um I hope that these weapon detection units never pick up a gun um that is the ultimate goal of having them is to have the deterrent so um there's also a picture up there a a kind of a side effect that I really didn't think about um if you look on that that blue table those are all of the Vapes um that we found through using our weapons detection units um over 300 um Vape devices we were able to recover using our metal detection um units we can set
082the uh sensitivity down so you there are different levels of sensitivity um that you can use um and set it so we can set it all the way down to where it detects Vapes and those types of things so when we're doing like a at a football game we may not want to do that cuz that's really going to slow things down it's going to pick up on lighters and Vapes and those types of things and really what we're looking for going into an athletic event is weapons uh but in a school setting when we're pulling one class out at a time we're going to set it to The Vape detection setting um so that we can pick up on some of that so some of these are things we pulled off of kids or
083pulled out of their book bags some of them are things we found stashed in the uh bushes right outside of the school when they found out that we were running them that morning uh some of them are things we found in the in the B baths when they you know they went to the bathroom and they like came out and they said oh there they are in the hallway setup you see them run back in um then you find it in the trash can so um you can see that's working I think that's you know when we're talking about um you know obviously we want to stop guns and and other weapons from getting our schools but obviously Vapes uh have become a very very serious um issue and a very uh popular topic for
084us to talk about that was kind of a tertiary um result uh that we came up with and found throughout the year was like oh great we're finding things like that too so um I'm pretty excited about where we started I'm pretty excited about where we're headed with these I can't wait to get these units in and get them into the middle schools it does take some time as you know guys know with the um referendum process getting through all of that and figing out how we're going to spend the money and then the procurement um it does take some time and then once they're ordered um it's generally 8 to 12 weeks for those to get in uh but I am excited that they are going to be here and we get to implement
085those in our middle schools as well any questions about any of that stuff good um yeah just a few things and and so you know on one hand it it really is it's a shame um you know to be honest that that we have to put these types of measures in place but on the other hand of course it's it's just the world we live in um and so Dr Robbins and I have had you know lengthy conversations that the fact we don't want our schools to feel like prisons um but at the same time we have to find a balance to keep our our kids safe um so just yeah we're and and I think the benefit is you know we're seeing results it it's not just security theater um we we are genuinely
086seeing a decrease um in in incidents so that's that's good news um there were a couple questions I had I know so with the open carry that passed um this past session um but I think there was a priso that came out what's the latest on open car because I think there was kind of a loophole for 18-year-olds holds there there is as far as I know there is still currently a loophole that they are working to did they close it Christie oh did okay yeah so I think we heard about it this weekend um I forget the number uh 165 comes to mind uh but there it sounds like there was a Proviso that was yeah I actually I actually have a meeting with our SRO leadership um coming up next week it was
087supposed to be you know this past week but with everything going on we didn't get to it but it's to discuss that very thing yeah the initial loophole was that anybody that was 18 years old or older could carry a concealed weapon um even without a permit uh and that even reach to if they are in their vehicle they can have it open or concealed in their vehicle um and that even was on school ground so if they were in their vehicle with their with their firearm it could be open um and they could be handling it inside their their car on school grounds um and then if they were to get out of their car the they have to lock it up in the glove box or the console um so fortunately it sounds
088like that was passed I know that's part of our uh meeting that we're going to have with our SRO leadership um and our sro's coming up um early next week once we get kids into school um I wish we would have had it last week so I'd have been uh on top of that but yeah so we uh we definitely I'm glad they did get that taken care of close that loophole talk about an unintended consequence that they didn't quite think through um so it sounds like we we moved back the the only thing and I I actually heard this at our conference I think over the weekend um it sounds like there's some new statute coming down as far as um mapping so mapping of our schools digital mapping that will then be I
089guess maintained at the state level it is yes and we are actually very fortunate so um Somerville Police Department started several years ago uh I want to say this is my sixth year here is probably my third year um in the county um or back here in the district they actually started they they got one of those systems where they could start the digital mapping so the Somerville Police Department had already started that process for us um to do that so we're going to just continue working on our schools and get that done um so that it can be maintained at the state level and that's of course for First Responders emergency response all those types of things so they can pull it up and immediately be able to see where they're going another thing
090in conjunction with that that we're working on is um now that the camera system is complete the installation U we've given access to our Consolidated dispatch um so that if something ever happens they can pull up our one of our schools and look to see at least a general description you know they're not going to know every single one of our buildings but they'll be able to say hey there's somebody in in the main hallway this is what they're wearing you they may not be able to give a a perfect descript they're not they're by room 128 but they'll at least be able to give the police a description from Consolidated dispatch um about what to look for so um our we've we've had a very very good partnership with our law enforcement and that
091was actually them jumping on top of that um to try to get those things done we all check just just to be sure we all check on the mapping and and I'm looking at Tina because it sounds like the statute there's some new requirements there's a requirement and then there's a cost so there's a cost to the district to do it I don't know if that's what we're already doing or yeah we we'll follow up with that perfect thank you all right I'm trying to remember my questions um I know you mentioned that they're able to walk through the metal detectors with backpacks so can you explain that for people at home because I know they're a little bit different than metal detectors they're weapons detecting so maybe elaborate on that a little bit so
092people can understand how that able to happen and you're able to detect them yeah so when you think of a traditional metal detector it's that kind of that square box thing that kind of goes up and goes over your head and it's it's just a magnetometer and it's picking up it's trying to pick up any metal um the open gate system and when you think about Open Gate what I want everybody to understand about opengate is it's in every airport in the country every professional venue um in in our five major sports NFL MLB NBA NHL and professional soccer um they all use open gate when you go to um Disney World they use open gate that's what they use it's not just a metal detector um it it runs um a complete scan and
093it is looking for uh metals or other materials that are consistent with um with certain weapons and it has different settings so I can we can take it all the way down to where it's a traditional metal detector and it's going to pick up your keys and it's going to pick up you know your cell phone or we can bump it up Notch um to where it's not going to pick up your keys but it'll pick up um a solid piece of metal like a vape um or you know something like that or we can go all the way up to where it only picks up you know large Firearms so we can get kind of adjust it everywhere in the middle so what we're looking for when kids are coming into school if we
094were going to scan everybody coming in school we would use a setting that's going to pick up probably Vapes knives guns those types of things um if they have a lighter or something that it may not pick up on that they may be able to get through with that but it's it's a system in which you don't have to empty your pockets you don't have to empty your bag um you can just walk right through the system so if you've been at any of our games um or uh extracurricular activities you've probably seen that in use um so it just kind of clears that up I am not an expert on the technology that they used to do that um I just know that before we purchased them we went through it and walked through
095with all different types of things to see what it would and wouldn't pick up um and every single time it worked exactly as advertised um and it does have some fail safes on it so um like if you come through with an umbrella the way that an umbrella is shaped when it's folded up has very similar similar characteristics to a pipe bomb so it will pick up that because of just the way that that metal is configured within that umbrella so there are some fail safes to make sure that it does pick up um on on everything that it's supposed to um and we'd rather pick up on a few things that it's not supposed to rather than the other way around U one of the other things that it does is if you have
096like your sunglasses case or you have a laptop The Binding where that folds over um the machine reads it like a like a folded over knife um so it will alert to those types of things if you ever get stopped coming in a board meeting it's probably your sunglasses case your umbrella or your your laptop coming in um but it's it's better to uh air on the side of caution and make sure we get everything then then not so but it is pretty it is pretty quick if you don't have a sunglasses case or an umbrella with you generally you can just walk right through and you you don't even have to slow down coming through them yeah I'm guessing that's why a lot of times you had the kids take out like binders or
097something I remember so what we found is the metal um the metal like uh pencil tins so they put their their like colored pencils in a pencil tin it'll pick up the the edge of that um as if it's a folded over knife um anything basically that has that kind of metal binding on it on the edge it'll pick it up so but no we don't have any issues we're actually happy that it's getting those because we know it's it's registering things that appear to be what it thinks it is all right and then you mentioned that we set up the weapons detection about three times during the week how often does Chester go to the schools approximately Chester probably gets to our middle and high schools at least twice a week um to each
098one um he does spend some time in the elementary schools as well but he he gets to each middle and high school at least twice the other thing that I really like about Chester is he's very responsive um officer gam anytime we have the report of something you know we get reports and luckily they all turned out to be false this year um but you know kid will call on the bus you know call call his mom from the bus and hey so and so's got a gun on the bus well we can immediately get Chester there and Chester is sniffing everybody that comes off that bus um the other thing that that we can do is get those metal detectors out those weapons detections out there um very quickly so that everybody that comes
099off the bus you know we we cover that bus and and get those kids off um walk them through that Chester's there um we get him to our middle middle schools a lot um because they didn't have the weapons detection units so we could bring him in and you know he's he's catching the Wake on everybody that walks by so um he's there at least two um he tries to do more but he tries to hit every single school um throughout our district at least once and then the middle and high schools at least twice each week and he spends he spends a lot of time there like he really spends a lot of time um I know a lot of people see him as a therapy dog which he's technically not but he's so
100Dam friendly that everybody loves him so you know if he's working you can't really mess with him but like everybody else he has to have a break from time to time and when he's on his breaks he's he's about as friendly a dog as I've ever been around he deserves love too right um no and then the other thing is I just kind of touch on what Mr farn said is I really do like the randomized approach I think it is more effective and to your point I think that kind of gets rid of that prison-like feeling because you're not it's not like an airport it's not like a prison where you're walking through like feel it's it's randomized so kind of gives you the illusion of it's still being normaly with still the added
101benefits so yeah when we set them up during the class periods when kids are in class and we're just walking kids through there that are out in the hall you know doing you know running errands or doing whatever they're doing um you don't they don't even notice them like you set them up they they they're three feet apart you just hey walk through that and they walk through and never even have to break stde um so most of them they don't even really pay them much attention we're just like hey walk through there and they walk through and go on about their business um you after we check their pass and make sure where they're supposed to be um but yeah they walk through so it's it's very um non-intrusive uh it doesn't give that
102you don't have to empty your pockets and we you know that kind of thing so it's it's been a pretty good system said usually try to do at least twice a week but you can vary that because our kids are smart and well they'll say well they've been here twice already so we're good on this particular day so we want to make sure we continue to vary it yeah so we want to use it at least three days a week some real high school will use it just about every period you know on on a lot of days um they're fortunate because of the size of their school they've got four um they've got four security personnel there and then they also have some administrators that are very security conscious um and have some experience
103with security um so they are very um they're very eager to use them so three days a week is the minimum and and that's not just setting them up one time and running some kids through there we want them used throughout that whole day uh but yeah sometimes they'll do it all four you know four all five days it's really kind of up to them so so we're going to I'm saying that more for the public because I know you know what to do but sometime they think oh well we've been there twice already so we don't have to worry about them but yeah absolutely absolutely it can definitely be more than three three times a day and it's definitely or three times a week and it's definitely going to be more than just you
104know one time during those days all right all right thank you all right Madam chair the next item I have our um Personnel recommendations and we have two for the board's consideration tonight okay um so board members there are two employee recommendations that were included in your packet um do are is everyone okay with doing those in open session or would you like to um consider that in Madam chair I make a motion to accept the personal recommendations as presented okay all right so I have a motion from Mr Farnsworth to accept the employee recommendations second by Miss Bates is there any dis discussion or questions okay hearing none we will call for the vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor zero opposed and it looks like there are no student enrollment recommendations
105correct that's correct so the last meeting we went ahead um with the board's permission and approved the recommendations because we thought we would be back in school so we don't have any for the board's consideration tonight so that's that concludes my report tonight Madam chair all right thank you Dr Robbins um and the next um item on our agenda are public comments and we have none this evening um so at this time um we will convene into executive session for evaluation of the superintendent so I will ask ask for a motion to approve that moved okay motion made by Mr Guthrie seconded by Miss Crosby any discussion okay hearing none I will call for the vote oh um Mr Guthrie made the motion I'm sorry and Miss Crosby seconded the motion I apologize okay and
106the motion carries seven in favor zero opposed we are in executive session for evaluation of the superintendent and we will return e e e okay this time I ask for motion to return so moved sorry at this time I would ask for a motion to return to open session so moved motion made by Mr Guthrie seconded by Miss Powell okay any discussion hearing none please cast your vote okay motion carries seven in favor zero opposed we are in Open session all right do we have any action or any motions coming out of our executive session Madam chair I move that we conclude as a board that Dr Robbins receive a proficient evaluation for the 2023 24 school year I also move that as a result of Dr robins's overall proficient evaluation the Dr Rob Employment
107contract with the district be extended by one year through June 30th 2027 okay thank you Miss Hughes do I have a second okay seconded by Miss Bates any discussion um okay I'll just say thank you Dr Robin for all your hard work this past year and we appreciate you and look forward to you accomplishing some of the things we discussed and yeah that's it I would Dr Rob I would just say um we love you we appreciate you thank you um and and I will say I I think it was a good conversation I I really do I I hope you know um from from me personally I appreciate the openness to the feedback um and and I have zero doubt that that that discussion will be carried forward and and the the heights that
108Dorchester District 2 will reach over the um years are are going to be unbelievable so I hope I hope folks are buckled up because it's it's about to get um amazing yeah I'd like yeah I'd like to make a comment as well um I concur with Miss Bates at Mr Farnsworth um and saying that um we appreciate everything that you've done and everything that you're doing we appreciate your vision um we we appreciate um the relationships that you're building and continuing to build and uh we're looking forward to that Energizer bunny staying energized and focused on the areas that we discussed and and moving us up to the next level so thank you for everything okay app yeah thank you and let's get to Exemplar next year okay at this time we will call for
109the vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor and now I would ask for a motion to adjourn motion made by Miss Bak seconded by Miss Powell any discussion hearing none please cast your vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor we are adjourned thanks