001all of our teachers I just ask that you continue to bless us this school year give us the discernment and the knowledge to lead our students and staff well to make decisions that bring you honor and glory and we just thank you for entrusting us with the opportunity to lead and we just ask that you continue to bless us as we serve in Jesus name amen flag un States naice okay good evening and welcome to the August 26 um Dorchester District 2 board meeting um at this time I would ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved right motion made by Mr Guthrie seconded by Miss Powell any discussion okay hearing none we will I will call for the vote okay and the motion carries six in favor one absent all right
002and at this time we will move to our district highlights and we have Mrs Troy coming on down to bring us the good news thank you good evening good evening board chair um Dr Wimberly superintendent Dr Robbins and board members at this time I will turn a Podium over to Ashley Smith of asy Ridge High School student in action followed by Tyrone drer our athletic director for tonight's highlights good evening board chair Dr Wimberly board members and Dr Robins uh students in action is a service-based club through the nonprofit organization multiplying good each here students from all over the state create an impact project last March the Ashley Ridge students hosted a free education Renaissance in an effort to reignite a love of learning for students across the Low Country their event included interactive student-led
003stations for every subject area free books for all the kids and so much more they also reached a combined total in our club of over 2200 service hours last year additionally these students participated in an end ofe competition requiring them to share their uated on their public speaking answers to on thepot questions from a panel of Judges their implementation of the Saia program within their school and their growth as student leaders I am proud to share that our Sia team was named the top students in action team in the state for the second year in a row couple of our students couldn't be here today McKenzie Ley and JJ gin but please join me in congratulating Laney Broadhead Carson cook [Applause] I did you an alphabetical order Avery [Applause] H and Kaylee tanzola [Applause] all
004right good evening again Dr Wimberly Dr Robinson and bour we have some outstanding student athletes um that um excelled in our 2024 spring athletic state championships and we're going to start with Ashley Ridge Miss Elena Braxton this is Elena's second consecutive state championship in the triple jump she's concluded the season as a 5A state record holder in the event with a leap of 12.2 12.62 M equivalent to 41 ft 4.75 in at the 5A low State qualifier now for the State triple jump her total was 40 feet 10 in .25 [Applause] and that Mark was good enough for her to be ranked number 18th nationally and number two all time in the state of South Carolina Atlanta also competed at the Adidas outdoor national championship in June finished second in the triple jump in 10th
005in the long jump Atlanta is now in her senior year at Ashley Ridge High School [Applause] congratulations next we have Miss Samantha Franklin who is a 2024 state champion in the girls Javelin and she has a 5A state record also of 147 fet and 4 in last season she was also ranked nationally number 33 and plac number three all time in the state of South Carolina history she ALS she also completed competed at the Adidas outdoor national championship in June plac in second in her signature event and for second consecutive year Samantha competed in 37 in 37 Javelin competitions as a Swamp Fox during her career she secured 35 top three finishes in the event and claimed the title of champion on 23 three separate occasions Samantha is now a freshman engineering student at Clemson
006University let's give her a big round of [Applause] applause Fort Dorchester jayen Barry who's the two 2024 South Carolina 5A state champion in male Jain with the distance of 192.5 Ft jayen bar completed his senior year as a four lman having participated in football varsity basketball baseball and track and field jayen committed to the universal of South Carolina in track and field Jaylen was a huge Patriot not only excelled on the field and the court and and in the classroom but also he was found daily working at the front office at Fort and volunteering in the athletic department jayen worked with athletic director Taran Floyd and excited to hopefully come back to DDT fort in the future and to be an athletic director at Fort Dorchester High School USC got a great Patriot and a
007first class state champion and now accepting the award on behalf of jayen is his M Britney silver please come forward with you're here along with track coach jayane Whitfield and athletic director Taran Floyd [Applause] all right thank you and Somerville High School both Somerville High School track and field teams showcased their exceptional Talent this past season with both winning the region title in the boys and girls and the girls also placing State run-ups a standout performer and state champion was Trinity Jones who brought home three gold medals awesome two in individual events the 100 meter with 11.72% point0 two this was truly an outstanding season for Somerville high school student athletes and Somerville High School is excited to see see what the future holds for the Green Wave track next [Applause] season okay let's bring
008everybody up for photos [Applause] once again this is no small feat let's congratulate them one more time and that concludes our highlights for this evening congratulations again and thank you all for being here we'll give them just a second to file out before we move into our public comments okay so as they are finishing up we will move to our public comments on agenda items this evening we have one um Mr Ben Huff greeting board members I'm here to address item 6C on the agenda in regards to the school's facilities the facility I wish to directly speak to are the tennis courts at Somerville High School the courts are a safety hazard to the players they are frequently covered in water due to poor drainage and because they were built over wetlands the courts also
009have multiple cracks and bubbles which create tripping hazards and cause the balls to make unpredictable bounces this has been a frequent problem with the courts particularly in the last seven years two years ago the boys teams tennis team were Lower State Champions but unable to play their playoff matches on their home courts due to the poor conditions the courts were resurfaced a year ago and have already been destroyed by poor drainage the girls tennis team will also have to play a majority of their matches this season away and play their home matches on the town's public courts this prevents the town residents from accessing the courts and prevents many of the girls on the team from playing matches because Court time and space is limited to the town's facility in 2021 the Somerville High School's
010athletic director informed me he was aware of the drainage problems with the tennis courts and said he was working on a solution unfortunately no plans have been made in the last four years on a path uh to move forward for the courts for the Green Wave tennis program I ask that the board please not ignore the tennis players parents coaches and fans of the tennis programs any longer and provide a path forward for Somerville to build new courts and a new location so future teams can celebrate victories on their home courts thank you so much thank you for your comment we appreciate it okay moving on we will next have the board chairs report and um the first item under this are our board goals update so board members um as you recall we met
011August 12th did our um summer board advance and discussed our goals for this year so I believe Dr Robbins is working on organizing all that putting the thoughts some plans together and he will be sending us something shortly um regarding what we discussed and asking for our feedback in finalizing those goals so I just ask that you be on the lookout for that and when you receive it um you can just uh look it over and send your feedback in so we can get that finalized and we will soon have some new goals to add to our board um especially since we checked so many off this past year which is a great thing does anyone have any questions about that or comments concerns okay great I appreciate that um and then the other thing
012on uh under my um report is the scsba law conference I believe it was two weekends ago we were um all able to attend that um the yeah um and um I know the law conference is a good one because I feel like when it comes to laws that is something that it's constantly changing and definitely an area where we have to stay current and keep up so um I appreciated that opportunity for us to um get an update on some current changes that are coming and just a refresher on that um would anyone else like to add anything regarding the the law conference okay great well then we will move right along to our board committee reports um and first up we have policy committee Miss Bates hi um the policy committee had just
013met at 5:00 pm prior to this board meeting we currently don't have any policies for tonight but we um and I don't believe we'll have any for next time but we do have another policy meeting coming up um next month before the board meeting let me confirm that date off hand so sorry I don't have it in front of me um our next policy committee meeting will be September 23rd at 5:00 p.m. and that is all okay thank you Miss Bates all right um finance committee Mr nothing tonight okay thank you very much facilities Mr Farnsworth I'm gonna leave that for Dr Robbins I know during um his superintendence report uh and speaking with him the referendum program is picking up some steam and uh moving forward so good stuff all right great thank you
014Mr fernworth so looks like now we get to the fun of the meeting Dr Robbins you got a lot of stuff for us tonight I do thank you Dr wiml members of the board um got several things on the agenda tonight first and foremost I wanted to start off with a first week of school update um you know it was probably the most unusual start to a school year I've ever experienced um but we did get off and running um I will say that when we look at our first start of a a school year we look at our enrollment every single day for 10 days to get a gauge on where we're at I put the numbers in there that includes preschool numbers always include preschool numbers because they take up seats and space
015in our buildings when we talk about capacity but the number we're at is actually um only about 350 students above where we were last year at this time so and a decline from where we ended the school year I can tell you a couple things uh and we think we'll see some um change in that in the next several weeks but Summerville Prep Academy opened up and there are 32 of our students that are attending Somerville Prep Academy Pinewood opened um another wing and so there are roughly 24 students and we can tell on when they transfer on where those students are going so again it's a little bit of a volatile market in terms of where we are with students and families uh moving into our community and we keep a watchful eye on
016it for us one of the things that I'll share is it allows us to be for the most part fully staffed um with teachers which is always a good thing now we have some specialty teachers um that we haven't filled those positions that are always a little bit of a challenge and we're working on creative ways uh to do that but here's a breakdown that I got from our Personnel Department we have 290 new certified employees this year of those 290 we do have 44 International teachers that we have hired uh we felt like it was in our best best interest to use our own immigration attorney um and those Services if we needed to increase the number of international teachers that we have we do have and I think you'll see this change a
017lot in the future but we have 30 plus alternative route Educators so South Carolina is finally opening up the opportunities for people who want to enter into the profession maybe as a second career and make it a little more enticing for them we have 195 induction teachers and then we have 214 new new classified employees so again that seems like a big number but remember we employ over 4,000 people in in team Dorchester so we feel very good at where we are the work our Personnel department has done and I'll talk a little bit more tonight about our recruiting and retention efforts transportation is usually always a challenge it's it's not without its hiccups we are fully staffed in the transportation department however what we really need are more substitute drivers because with 50 plus
018routes people get sick they're they call off work and when they do it reduces us a driver and without a substitute driver then we have to double route a little more um like any start of a school year our bus routes are going to move a little bit slower um we hope that those are slowly picking up and when I've been on the campuses to see uh how late it's taking our buses to leave especially the high schools because it's a ripple effect they have picked up tremendously and I usually use Somerville High School is one of my gauges for that so I feel like things are getting a lot better and then I would be very remiss um if I didn't mention safety and safety is always you know we always talk about it
019being our number one priority but it's it's not just talk um our Raptor visitor management system uh is going to help us improve our safe environments our open gate metal detectors and the way we use them and you'll start to receive some more data on that as the course of the school year goes on how we utilize those both during the school day but also at our extracurricular activities and then Chester obviously has been very advantageous the reason I mentioned extracurricular activities because it's not a surprise that we had an incident at an away school and and what I want to share with our board and with our community is what we do internally I think is a really good job we have great relationships with our local law enforcement Partners um using the open
020gate metal detectors and having Chester uh roam through our facilities is a great thing the Partnerships we have with the local law enforcement um departments is a really good thing we do have a reunification plan that we use on our home campuses one of the things that we talked about and summer Bill experienced was you know what's our communication plan look like and so tomorrow we're going to have just kind of our own after action review with our high school and our Middle School principles to make sure that we close any gaps that we may have in terms of our safety protocols but it is something we work on with our local law enforcement professionals every single year and I feel good about what our protocols and standards are moving forward when you come at
021least to our events we're also going to talk about what does it look like for us when we travel to a destination that may not have our same protocols and we understand understand you know first and foremost the safety of our our student athletes and our extracurricular activity uh participants so again just know we do have a reunification plan we're talking about the wha ifs um and if Friday night did anything it really made us step back and maybe question you know some of our protocols and do we need to rethink them so I feel very good about it but I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have in light of what happened Friday um I um I do have a question actually it's not about Friday but um I know with our
022International Educators we are still waiting on do we have um definite dates on when those teachers will arrive is it September yeah okay do we know as far as covering those positions right now are we trying to do like long-term Subs where possible or who you know cuz I know it's in some of the core area classes they are all covered okay very good and just so you you know that was it was almost like um I hate to say it but a perfect storm um because it's new that we're doing it ourselves and to do that we have to have a highered institution that authorizes them and so Trident Tech is our higher higher ed institution well they had a retirement and so the request went to you know Dr Thornley and it sat
023there and we really didn't know why it was in kind of purgatory and waiting until our immigration attorney said Hey listen I I have to have this signed so we can proceed and so when we figured it out now that's been you know memorialized we won't have that same issue moving forward but it was the first year trying to get this up and running so awesome yeah yeah I was just going to say the only thing I had regarding the SA is just to emphasize again I really um do appreciate and love the effort that our district has put in for our home games and all the things we have in place as a parent I feel very good about my kids being in our games and in our facilities and I really like that
024you as a district and you Dr Robbins are taking a opportunity to also evaluate the situation when our children are away and to utilize that to continue to improve what we're doing so I appreciate that okay the next thing I have tonight is a referendum update and just want to bring you know I know it seems like wow we passed the referendum and you know what's happening and we're kind of in that little pause fade phase to get things orchestrated um you know the money um will be available to us it's not about money right now to work on these projects it's about getting our Construction Services in place so you know we have chosen several projects including the elementary school in the ponds to be a CM at risk project so it's a guaranteed
025maximum price that particular project we had interviews on Friday um and we have this week to negotiate and we'll make a recommendation to the board on September 9th um the construction management uh process was a little different um so we went through those interviews and I shared with the board chair um and and Mr nworth of the facilities committee a little bit about um our concerns and the markup and the percentage they want to charge um we felt like was really extreme and and we could really do a a good job of trying to hire um even if it's a short-term restricted 36 months um Team within our facilities and operations team to manage these projects based on what we carve out from CM at risk and what are our referendum projects so um more
026to follow on that um but yeah it was it was an extreme amount that we would be paying a construction management firm I've talked to Mr Souls um and you know during the facilities report or even right now if you want to ask him some questions but he and I sat down um with Miss maner with Miss cash with Miss Grace um and honestly a couple members of his team and tried to look at this holistically to see what we could do and stretch these referendum dollars as far as we can and not spend them on services but actually on projects um I feel like we have done a really good job um as a district to prepare ourselves for this uh I think that our cart is going to be advantageous um as we
027move forward just to maintain that level of transparency so that you can see the work that's taking place um and just a little sidebar to that our referendum page is set up really nicely that if you go to it and you click on projects you can see every single building and right now they're just listed but once we get a construction management at risk hired um we do have some Gant charts we'll start populating the when we're going to start when we expect to complete and then picture updates so you can go if your child goes to Austin Bailey Elementary School you can click on Austin Bailey and you can see the projects their start and expected completion dates and pictures of projects in process so um but it's it's slowly starting to get to
028a point you know where you'll start to see a lot of things but right now a lot of planning permit requesting uh and again some of that you'll see in our facilities report as well the first meeting of our citizens advisory review team will be on September 16th we have not pulled them together yet I sent them an invitation we'll meet in mckisic museum just to go over roles responsibilities and expectations but because we didn't have any projects started yet we didn't feel like pulling them together was really necessary um but that's kind of gives you a high level uh look at where we are with the referendum and happy to answer any questions if I can just add on and and so having now been on the board and and done projects both design
029bid bit design bid build versus CM at risk um I I think we might all agree that CM at risk uh was night and day easier uh better from our standpoint and and so for folks kind of watching and and a lot of folks out there probably don't know that that's a foreign term CM at risk construction manager at risk um essentially what you're doing you you're finding a a contractor general contractor large Construction Company um that is essentially taking on just what it says they're they're taking on the full risk of that project so we give them the scope of the project we give them the budget of the project they they take that project on on and it's 100% on them to finish that project on time on budget and if they don't
030that's on them yeah they they took on that risk to begin with so again so we we've had good luck East Edisto was done CM at risk um not not without its uh faults but for the most part I I would just tell you night and day um taking concerns off of our plate um it it was a very very seamless project so good stuff all right I will turn it over um to our academic team and our data team to um provide you with a review of our SC ready and our dd2 performance in 2023 Jordy yes Madam chair Dr Wimberly Dr Robbins and the rest of the board members um tonight we're going to give you a highlevel view of our data that you're going to see uh grades 3 through 8 with
031our SC ready scores and then at our high school you'll hear hear our data about our EOC and our win data and tonight you're going to hear from uh Mr Thad schmink uh Mr schmink Works in our data department and he does a great job of breaking down the data and putting it into folders for our principles um so they don't have the time to break that data and down to analys anal analysis of that data and then what you're going to see tonight after that after he gives his presentation now what the what is the data telling us and so we're going to use that data to drive our decision-making with our academic team and then our academic team is putting together a course of action of things how we're going to improve um
032as they say you either get better you get worse you never stay the same and so we want to make sure we're always striving to improve and so you're going to hear from our team tonight uh I know you probably have a few questions if you save those questions at the very end we' we'd appreciate that because you're going to get to see we might be able to answer some of those questions after you hear thads data presentation uh as our academic team is putting that plan in place and many of those things have already started to occur um we had a lot of those data meetings um when we got preliminary data this summer and we're looking at that data when we put together our academic plans throughout the year and we plan backwards
033and so um at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr schm Dr rimy Dr Robbins members of the board it's going to be with you tonight talk a little bit about our basically three points of data that have been unargued I know everybody's eagerly awaiting our school report card information but that unfortunately will not be un embargoed until the middle of October so tonight we're going to talk a little about SC ready EOC and our career Readiness exam so we'll start with our SC ready as you know this year um we had a pass on the biology or rather science because um the state was retooling so we really only have Ela and math scores to um discuss as you can see we well as you'll see tonight we're going to go
034over the results we're also going to go over how we take a look at those results we're going to slice it a couple different ways so first year you can see we break it down by all grade levels we don't have a um like a one number that you can use um not until the official school school report card comes out so we like to take a look at each at each grade um and we do this for one main reason of we don't want one or two good performances to mask something else so we like to take a look at every level as you can see it's represented by the yellow for both Ela and math we're doing a very good job of outperforming the state um historically we've done that and you can
035see this year we're very happy that our sixth grade math um has um finally beat that state average uh and we're just a slight bit off in seventh grade um of meeting that state average so we feel like we're in pretty good shape but of course um we always want to know well we're beating the average but where does that put us so when we go ahead and we um we rank we do have this information that we can do we can Rank by grade um and you can see here that for the most part with Ela um you know there are roughly 80 uh school districts in South Carolina so as long as you're in the top uh you know 20 or more you'll be in the top 25% the top quarter so as
036you can see there for the large L majority of our grades for ELA we in that we're in that top 25% and for math we're just a little bit behind on that um nothing too surprising for us our Ela has been the stronger of the two um but we're happy to see that our math ranking is increasing over time of course though our biggest uh competitor is ourself um so we always want to make sure um I mean we're glad that we're outperforming the you the average of the state um and we're that we're in that top 25% but how are we doing to our against ourselves here we can see Ela over time and basically what you want to see is you want to see the low category of one shrinking and you want
037to see four expanding uh one would be not met um three is meets four is exceeds so we want to see our green and our blue growing and we want to see the red and orange shrinking and over time you can see that that is generally occurring for our Ela but a little slip back this is our first year but we are also coming off of a record-breaking year last year and yes last year was phenomenal gains um so having a slight uh you know return on that or you know is I I would think to be relatively expected but as you kind of saw in this earlier Slide the the the change the difference over those grade levels over the years really is pretty reasonable and averages averages out um quite well and then
038of course our math we also want to see how are we competing against oursel over time and we're very happy with the results that our red is continuously shrinking and our green and blues are continuously um increasing albeit not at you know uh massive amounts but at least we're consistently moving in the right direction now when we compare I know one of the big questions a lot of people ask is how are we doing you know compare to pre-co so we took if you take our preco average here and we look at our Ela we've been basically recovered from Co for the past two three years uh we quickly recovered out of it um as you can see in 2023 um all of those scores if it's a positive if it's a number over zero
039we're outperforming preco measures so you can see there that not only did we recover from covid but that we are continuing to exceed preco um achievement which is great and then in 2024 you can also see that all those numbers are still well into the positive moving forward in a good direction so we pretty much feel like we have recovered from covid and um we're and the reason for the kind of diagonal color lines there is another way that we like to look at the the data as well is you want to look at cohorts so so for example our third graders in 23 were a 4.01 and in their fourth grade um year in 2024 they actually increase their achievement and so that diagonal um achievement there is showing positive that we're holding each
040of those cohorts are sort of holding their ground as they as they move forward okay now math as you can see we're still in the negative numbers luckily most of our numbers here except for in eighth grade um um are pretty much down into the getting into the single digits and we're definitely nearing zero zero would be getting back to that flat level of equal to what we were doing prior to covid um and as you can see there again those cohorts are are tending to move in good directions although we are definitely um and I think you'll hear speak tonight about seventh and eighth grade math definitely definitely a concern but that eighth grade math I think it was eighth grade math in the state um also saw a little bit of a dip
041so um we're fixing things in sixth grade and now we know we have to to shift that Focus towards seventh and eth um good taking a look at our EOC which basically takes us into our high school as well as some of our classes and our of our honor students who are in Middle Schools um the you can see here again our performance as it compares to the state and we are doing a very good job of outperforming State averages um across algebra English 2 US history and biology it's probably the last year that I'll show you uh English one we've pretty much phased out of using English one Al together um the but again we want to always take a look at ourselves how are we doing against oursel over time are we improving
042and we are very pleased about our algebra and we'll talk about that in a moment but as you can see they're making a lot of gains our A's our B's and our C's all increasing which of course means that D's and Fs are going down over time so we're we're very excited about that um English too as you can see we're kind of kind of holding even um a little bit less on the A's you know but the be and up down so it's kind of a wash on how we're doing there on with English too US history and the Constitution is sort of the same and um mology next slide here you can see just a slight movement in the positive direction so uh kind of holding our own on three out of the
043four and the math is the one that's really really seeing that huge Improvement and it's played out so you know we I commented earlier that we are doing well on beating all the state averages but we kind of know well how well are we just over the average line or or how far are up we again the same um 80 80 districts that we compare ourselves to you want to be in that top 20 and we're excited that our algebra is you know broke into that top 10 um and all of our eoc's are doing very well compared to the rest of the state averages of course how do we Faire against ourselves um you can see there for algebra biology English 2 and history all of those graphs over time are moving in the
044direction that we want to see on the leftand side that average score um even with more students taking the count on the right our average is continuing to increase over the years okay especially in our algebra biology like I said English 2 history just a very slight U movement back then our last Fort this evening is our career Readiness uh assessment which we use when ready to work it's the that's the state product um and as you can see here this is a little bit of the history with this test just to give you some context we used to do work keys then we were then we went to ready to work then we went back to work keys then now we're back ready to work so we've kind of uh flip-flo so we don't
045really have a lot of historical data for this test in case you were wondering but last spring was the time when we first took this in 2023 um as you can see they're um representing the the the zero if in case you're wondering what 0 2 3 4 five is those are the different levels of certification zero obviously meaning not earning a uh a career credential at all um two is the lowest five is the highest credential earned we're really aiming for threes fours and fives so that's why in that second chart you can see there how we've kind of married those two together to show you that in 2023 we had about 60% of our students earning an achievement level three or higher and in 2024 about 54.8% of our students achieving um that
046or earning that credential um another thing I want to say here to try try to put things a little bit into context for the public as well is to say that we have to remember that this is a test that is not mandated it is required for us to offer the test it is not required for a student to take the test also um we also have to consider that over the last five six years this district has done such a great job of making kids aware of what it takes to become either career or college ready or both for the report card the students are really well in tuned and because of a lot that we've done with our CTE our apprenticeships some of our internships there are a lot of these other Pathways
047that students are now using to become career ready so um it's not the the emphasis for some students isn't quite on this test as it used to be given these other paths so again I'm not making any excuses for the the the the decline and the performance there I just think that that putting that information out there in context gives everybody a little idea that um I think we'll still see a good score on our school report card when it comes to being college or career ready and then we also like to slice this to help us across our entire curriculum we also like to look at our math there's three sections to this to this test math data and reading and we can see there that we're doing a um a comparatively equal job
048with what the state and how the state is performing our average scale score is just a little bit higher than the the state scale score um and we use some of this information to drive some curricular decisions that we make at the high school level I do also want to point out that to earn that level 345 that it's not uh your typical average so I could earn a five on math and a two on reading and a four on data and that and average that out that's not how that works you must achieve so another in order for me to earn a level three I have to earn a three or higher on all three data on all three tests so I could be a five in math and a five on um data
049and a two on reading and my my score um unfortunately be at that two level so it's going to be where your lowest score is going to be it's not going to be a complete average out right so just a little insight into that as well okay and again how we how how are we ranking we're again out of those 80 districts we're coming in at math around 24 data around 22 reading around 20 so um somewhere between that we're in that second uh core tile if you will for our performance there across the state okay I think I'm going to turn it over to our curriculum team now to explain our plan moving forward I was going to try to remember it all but there be a lot to pull from my memory so
050good evening sorry for the delay um we are going to like Mr Ry said now that Mr schmink has shared the data with you our intent is to kind of show you what our next steps are because we talk a lot about data and how it drives all of our decisions so we are going to give you a bird's eye with a quick in-depth view at everything that we have planned for this year and then certainly can entertain any questions that you have for any of us at the end so first we just kind of wanted to really focus on some things that we are doing districtwide at all schools at all levels and one of the biggest parts of that is really strengthening our tier one instruction which is building up the instruction that
051happens in all of our classrooms all of grade all of our grade levels really focusing on that instruction that all of our students get we have a saying that you can't in your intervene your way out of a of a not strong core and I think that's what our data really shows us in a lot of areas we spent a lot of time talking with principles this summer we did a deep dive into their data with their whole admin Team every school brought assistant principles and the whole team and we spent three hours with them really not just looking at the number but then digging into which groups of students that is which courses are that which grade levels so that that way they could really be specific in designing goals and areas to focus
052for their schools so that falls under really a lot of what we're doing for strengthening classroom instruction as a whole also we've talked about this last year um but this year we are fully implementing the new state standards in ela so that already brings a major shift and a major change at all levels in all of our classrooms for ELA so that is across the board K12 all new Ela standards full implementation this year we also this year because we will fully adopt new math standards next year across the state we are doing spending what we call a bridge year this year so our K2 classrooms are jumping in because those are our untested we don't have any state accountability Assessments in K2 so those um teachers are starting full implementation this year so that
053way when they roll up to the next grade level next year for full when we it's required by the state they already have those skills and they're ready to roll and then our um teachers and PD coaches and content Specialists spent a lot of time starting last December January really digging into those standards and looking at as we roll up with the standards what skills might students be missing if we don't build that bridge for them so we didn't want them to go from one set of Standards to the next without making sure that we were filling any gaps that students would miss through those so we did that K12 so spending this year at all schools um as a bridge year for our math standard so that we get stronger this year but also
054really set us ourselves up for Success next year um also professional learning communities you guys have heard about that we have been working on plc's and dd2 forever but also really kind of getting back to our roots and making sure we're using that time in the best way that we can thank you to the board for approving PLC Wednesday days for elementary schools that right there gives them an extra 45 minutes to really dive deep into that data and planning and analyzing their curriculum um so that's been huge and also um using those plc's to hold data discussions debriefings after common assessments after map testing after class assessments so they can really look to see what are their students learning what do they have and what do we need to go back and teach and
055what do we need to to push our kids further on some of those skills if they've already mastered them student centered coaching we're super excited about this is a new Initiative for us this year we are working on this with our PD coaches in each building and something that we really came out of last year on need seeing is that our teachers and our buildings really need another coach in the building so someone that can work with all teachers um to help them refine a specific area to help them grow and develop if it's content um delivery or management and really just to be another advocate for the teacher in the classroom when they feel like it's some an area that they want to grow so we're very excited about that it is a training
056that we will spend all year doing so we last week had two days of training with our PD coaches and an administrator from each school and then they kind of have a little bit of work to do over the next six weeks and then we come back and do the next train so we're very excited about those practices that will benefit all classrooms next is continued continued focus on mtss we've talked a lot about mtss that that is our intervention process how we identify students that may need additional support last year all schools developed an MTS AC mtss action plan specifically for their building and we did that again this year so they reviewed what they did last year and really looked for those areas of growth and then developed a new plan this year
057so that will help them continue to identify students that need add support and ways to deliver that um next is instructional School visits we started those those of you that have been around for a while know that we did these a lot before covid and kind of got away from that we moved back to school visits last year so we'll continue those this year um and that is where our whole District team visits schools and we really focus on four areas when we are there math instruction if you go back to that data I'm sure you know why we're focusing on math instruction our digital learning environment mtss and PLC so those big rocks that we know are we're going to see an impact and change in student achievement were then going back and looking
058for those things in schools and then they get feedback on those specific areas and some next steps and things to work on after the visit so we're excited about that and then Ed minum will continue to use that as a different differ iation tool at each level to best meet students needs okay so now I'm going to just talk specifically there will see be some things that will kind of bleed in from area to area but that last slide was really things at all levels across the entire District so now I'm going to talk about level and content area specific things so we already talked about how we have new standards in ela this year so along with the new standards comes new instructional material from the state department so last year we adopted hmh
059we agreed to adopt hmh into reading at the elementary level and this year we we are fully using that curriculum and along with that we had teams of teachers and our PD coaches over the summer work on a weekly instructional planning guide and it's amazing when we had new teachers join the district and during onboarding when they see the tools and the resources that they have available they were kind of blown away so that makes us feel like we are doing a good job providing the resources that they need for the classroom we also part of that new Adoption and the new standards is we went back and we updated our instructional model for literacy so we needed to align that more closely with science of Reading Best Practices we needed to use our high
060quality instructional materials from the state there were some things that we just kind of needed to go back and update since we origin started using the literacy model several years ago we also which in it includes that building vocabulary and those foundational skills which are now included in the state standards and part of the hmh into reading is um there's a structured reading and writing component that now we use for our um literacy instruction in classrooms as well we also for years have used common assessments so we went back and really ensured that those were aligned to the new standard aligned to the way that students were going to be assessed on SC ready also this year you guys again if you've been in dd2 for a while you know that readed 180 is our
061literacy intervention of choice for fourth gr starting in fourth grade well now there's been a change to read 180 used to be System 44 was for third grade and there's just been a read 180 update so now we start with readed 180 um starting in third grade and then it can just adapt based on the skills that the students need and also we we've talked a lot about just the focus on those early literacy skills and in dd2 we now this year have 15 elementary schools that have started letters training we had five start last year and the last 10 started this fall and then we'll continue to use youly um to meet those foundational skills in kindergarten through second grade so for elementary math we have an amazing math academy that is open for
062all of our Math teachers kindergarten through fifth grade it is an intense 3-day training that students can students that teachers can sign up for over the summer and it teaches teachers how to teach math so it really digs into that conceptual knowledge the prerequisite skills that students need to understand and teach as teachers how to teach those skills so that students are ready for the math that they will have that year lots of manipul ative usage lots of looking at the standards and what's above and below the standards so teachers feel equipped to deliver the math content in Elementary classrooms we also have updated instructional planning guides um that include the units in math are the pacing in math is in units and then it aligns especially those grade levels that have that bridge year
063like we were talking about earlier for math we updated our math model again not again for the first time since the Inception of the dd2 math model um and it really the great thing about this model is it puts a lot more autonomy into teachers hands to make decisions that they need to make for the needs of their students so it used to be very scripted where it was this much of a mini lesson and this much of independent practice and small group and and now that's one component but it also is if I know that I really have I just gave a common assessment and I need really to spend some time in small groups teacher has teachers have the autonomy to make the decision based on the needs for their class they may
064not need to do an entire 20 minute mini lesson with the whole group they can spend their time in small group there also is some highlevel um math tasks that students work through that they they seem to be enjoying so far so we're excited about the changes to the math model and then again the common assessments um that have been adjusted to to ensure the bridge year so for Middle School Ela again you're going to see some of these things because some of these things will Encompass multiple levels um this year in middle school they adopted the Step Up from the elementary instructional material so they are using hmh into literature so the format is different same company but the format is different so all of their curriculum the curriculum writing teams over the summer
065really dug into that so that they were ready for that this year in the classrooms part of that means new pacing guides and instructional units for all of the new standards and the new materials um and then again whenever you have new standards everything changes so common assessments and they were really intentional to ensure that those aligned to the depth of knowledge levels of the standards so that that way they were really assessing at the same level that the standards are written the same level that those students will see on SC ready also spent a lot of time um with professional development for teachers on using those documents understanding those standards as well as all of the resources that we get through this from the state department textbook adoption and again we'll continue to use
066read 180 for our intervention in Middle School Ela for middle school math again common assessments were updated for the bridge year because they may be even though the standards haven't been fully adopted they may be teaching skills that they did not necessarily teach the previous year um certainly always using data to differentiate instruction more PD for the teachers to ensure that they know how to use those the standards documents and because the state department doesn't always release information for the bridge year our district team has really worked hard to ensure that teachers have the resources they need so that when the state department rolls those things out next year we're usually ahead of the game so we're excited about that um establish a math PLC Cadre to provide continu support and build teacher efficacy I
067also want to say which we didn't include it up here but we also last year we kind of realized that we have a ton in the Tri County Area have a lot of math knowledge um and when we see other districts who's um might be who other districts who might be some seeing seeing increases in their scores then we want to know what they're doing so we at the end of last school year and they we plan to do it again this year are trying to meet with the tricount area math teams as well also we learned as we were going through some textbook adoption discussions maybe textbooks that other districts had used in the past and not seen success with so we're we're excited about that partnership and how we can learn from one
068another um about what's working and certainly if something isn't working and then we want to stay away from that oh skipped over High School Ela um again because we have new state depart the for high schools we adopted McGraw Hill so different company for our new Ela standards um different materials in high school but they did also um get new materials this year the part of those new materials is that professional development that all teachers will get in order to use the new materials again common assessments have to be realigned and Rewritten um also we're working on um the alignment between CP honors and AP level that that is a consideration at the high school level and again using read 1880 across all levels for our literacy intervention for high school math updating those common
069assessments we also as we talk about the changes to the new standards that will be it's going to be a big deal across the board but it's going to be huge in high school because it will completely change um the order of courses being taught but a part of that is that probability and statistics will be integrated into other courses so that was a lot of getting during our Bridge year now preparing for that oh there is the Tri County math meeting I thought we put it in there um approval of innovative course transition to algebra this is a support for those students that need some additional help to be successful in algebra one and then again just like an Ela aligning the CP honors and AP level math courses and then last is really
070how we're attacking the wi data that Mr schinks shared last and I can't remember if he said this but um when is not necessarily tied to a specific course whereas when we look at our alge EOC then we can go back and look at our algebra courses but the these are skills that students learn across a variety of courses um and across all content areas so way that we were brainstorming and things that we're really going to focus on this year to see an increase in those scores is number one just increase awareness he talked about we have to offer it students don't have to take it um some students see the there is a meaning behind it whereas some students don't so really just bringing awareness to staff students and families we feel like
071is where we need to start for that assessment also practice questions across multiple class classes we talked about it's not necessarily tied to one specific course but problem solving reading diagrams things like that can go across all courses and then a plan for students to utilize test prep to help prepare them for the assessment when it's offered and then including white graduation C chords for students that meet the career Readiness through a qualifying score on win um so those are some things that we have we will start this year as we really focus focus on increasing win scores specifically since they are not tied to a course that was a whirlwind so questions for us sorry for talking a mile a minute but I felt like I wanted to make sure I got it one
072random question and it's on the last thing you talked about because that was a lot of information um for the do we incentivize like taking that test in any way do we offer like students something like if you take this test you get to I don't know something thank you I think Chrissy's going to talk about that but we've kind of talked about we have to really just approach it differently I just know kids like rewards and if there's something to be growns like rewards high schoolers do do still like rewards um sometimes we'll do a push to get kids in to get them tested um sometimes they're sort of kind of like push pull drag or toe just trying to get them in there and get them in the door and get them tested
073but that GR uation cord I think is a good incentive kids want the bling to wear at graduation um so we did start doing this year a black cord for college ready and a white cord for career ready so there of course in addition to the wind um assessment there are more ways that students could be qualified for career ready but if they get a three four or five on the win it automatically gets them that career ready so that's that's something that's very tangible and achievable for them is there anything else we've explored apart from the core just incentivize them to take the test because I mean I know like my kids are going to be super motivated by the cord like mine are going to love that but not every kid might care
074as much about the cord but maybe there's something simpler that could get them in the door I was just curious well I will say that there is um one incentive for students for seniors especially or for students as Juniors they want to be able to have early out as a senior that is a requirement in order to get early out as a senior you do have to have already met your College and Career Readiness indicator so that is a great incentive for the seniors but I I do like the um you know have the chance this year to be able to talk with principes and see what we can other incentives that we can put in place to get kids into the door and get them tested and also have them participate a little bit
075more in some of this test prep but I think a lot of that goes back to the first kind of bullet on the slide was we really need to re-engage people with what the assessment is is why are we doing it how can it benefit you so getting that information back out again not just to students but to families and even teachers we've had a lot of turnover um in teachers and administrators since we started giving this assessment um and I think some people you know sometimes it just takes a little takes an effort to step back and readdress why are we doing it why is it important and that's something that I think we could stand a look at again thank you I appreciate you by way of incentives I think one of the
076things you can do is actually ask the students to give you suggestions a lot of times we like to give people things that we would want and come to find out that's not really what's going to incentivize them to do it so that's the thought yeah I'm looking down there I didn't know if any be say anything so super quick I I just want to say um thank you I I really do I appreciate um the focus on the academic side of the house um you know sometimes and and it's a balance uh certainly for the district we we have to balance operational curriculum Transportation you you name it we have a thousand things to balance but I think what makes dd2 very special what makes dd2 dd2 is our focus on academics um you
077know we we continue preo postco all sort of stuff we we it like for years I think we had to focus so much on well just how do we get kids in school we got to worry about plexiglass we got to worry about masks we got to worry about like the day-to-day operational stuff just just from that and so now the past couple years we're actually able to focus again um truly I think on on academics um which I think is is our bread and butter so um I I did want to ask and and probably for Mr schmink um you know we see a lot of of uh State comparison so the district our district we're we're obviously competing against ourselves for the most part um but when so like the nwaa stuff and
078when you start looking at like National normed Data that that's where I would be curious because again A lot of times we unfortunately hear oh the state of South Carolina is so horrible in education um I think those of us in the education World know that's not really an Apples to Apples comparison so does that kind of make sense like when do when does that data come out how do we look at that oh so NWA data we get um pretty much three times a year we do fall winter spring and of course we are um always sort of fixated on how where our kids are where our kids are going and how we're doing against ourselves um I don't have I always hate to to speak off the cuff about a data that I
079haven't reviewed in the last couple of hours especially the amount of data that I poured over in the last month I don't want to misspeak um I can say however though that you know we pretty much have a um I would say an average spread over the so they break it down into five quintiles you know so 20% group you groups of 20% and our population shakes out right about at the the national Norm so if you're asking me off the cuff I would say that you know we're right with the nation um but I would prefer to be able to go back and collect those numbers and be able to bring back something more specific because again that you know 72% of stats are made up right on the spot right so I think
080Abraham Lincoln said that um is that something we can I'm I'm assuming we're going to include in our academic updates throughout the year as we get those map test scores in and stuff if you if you invite and you're willing to sit through boring data I am always willing to come so yeah yeah I I would think even in in probably like a workshop setting or something like that the the more of this type of material that we can see and hear and understand um the better Absolut absolutely all right thank you I okay did I hear you say that you are collaborating with the neighboring districts yes ma'am I think that's great so you know there's no need in trying to invent something that's already been created and you can share that information and
081um especially when it comes to certain textbooks Etc so Kudos and I'll say in relation to that I think it helped us to feel good about where we are with the transition to new standards because we have already started talking we started talking with teachers and administrators about that a year ago and how that that would overall change things two years from then so that we've been able to develop a plan that we are still implementing now so that it's not such a shock to our teachers and our students we've we've been able to build a bridge there that we can manage manageably stay on top of for our entire District good but thank you yes I actually have a couple I have a couple questions um so first um I thank you very much
082and your entire team because it looks like I mean the the plans I can tell you've put a lot of time and effort into the the plans and I appreciate that I know we all appreciate that very much and it it sounds great um so in regards to that I mean obviously I know we do testing throughout the year besides just the SC ready so kind of looking at all the plans that you have like where do you have sort of built-in checkpoints to see like how is this working is this helpful you know kind of do we need to keep doing this or change courses or you know sure so our um common assessments that we give we start giving common Assessments in ela and math in second grade on that look look and
083feel for students very similar to SC ready um and they're with in elementary school Ela and math and then other courses the other um content areas for middle and high so those are our checkpoints because those are specific to our South Carolina Standards and they're given at the end of each unit so that that way we can see oh these students mastered these skills or didn't Master these and to go back to what I was kind of talking about with tier one instruction that's what we look at to really see are are our instructional planning guides and our pacing guides and the resources that we're using this year are they working for students and that gives us that throughout the year pulse point on student achievement in specific relation to the content that teachers have
084been teaching across those content areas so will the individual teachers will they be using that data to yes ma'am so D at schools hold what we call data debriefings as part of plc's so part of that is where District data is shared so we can look at where we are as a district the school will talk about what their school data for that grade level let's say 8th grade math um and then the teacher will be able to compare where they fall and look at their specific skills and a lot of the conversation about that that might go something like well miss Barker you did not do well in multiplication but miss pvis did great in it so let's look at how which is probably really a thing because multiplication would not be my strength
085um but and so that way it gives starts a conversation between them but then also because we have building level PD coaches and administrators that are a part of those then that information can get carried back and integrated into our district level curriculum so that way if someone else is doing something differently that's working then we want to capitalize on that yeah that's that's fantastic I think that's great um and then another question I had is something that I've heard a couple times just um from people who've asked and I don't think there's any truth to it but be a good time to clarify I mean we have not decreased our instructional time this year have we no ma'am okay we we if we added 10 minutes to the school day which counteracted that increase
086in um recess so we have not at the elementary and we haven't changed the bell schedule at the other level so we have not decreased instructional minutes okay and then one other question sorry um so and I I know I probably should know this but can you just and you can make it a brief because it's probably can you explain to me because I know we had a lot of changes last year just how it works with our PD coaches role and then do we still have interventionists I know and just where they are like I know we share them it's kind of I just want to have it straight in my head sure well I mean that's a great question because last year the PD coach role was a completely new role so you
087know anytime something is brand new it's in development almost so last year um we we had kind of two groups modern learning Specialists which were our technology experts and then intervent District level inter interventionists which were content area specific and then um we merged those two positions into the PD Coach position and place them at schools so there is one PD coach at each school and the intent the most important thing that they do is to provide level content or District level support at the school so that way they're there to support the teachers at their schools but as we got feedback from building administrators from PD coaches from us through observations talk to teachers and things we kind of went back to that job description and refined it a little bit for this year
088so what it looks like this year for all PD coaches at the elementary and middle schools is that they are at their base school which is the school they're assigned to for three days and that's really where they focus on those things like they participate in plc's they plan with teachers they coach teachers those days that's when they really focus on the parts of their job that are tied specifically to their school building and then on Thursday and Friday they not flex days isn't a good because that makes it sound like do whatever you want but that's where they might focus on their District level project so there might be a dle team there might be the team that's working on our instructional planning guides because we worked on them all summer but you throw
089one hurricane in there and you have to go back and change everything so um the only difference at the High School level is because we only have three high schools and there's a smaller number larger number of students but a smaller number of buildings and then rise we they are in their base School two days a week and then they use three days to travel and that a lot of that is because of what they do is so content specific instead of um at an elementary school where teacher one teacher usually teaches multiple content areas so same idea just their schedule is a little bit different does that clarify that it does so they do all content though well so we they are on teams they can support all content yes but they are if
090if for example the ELA instructional planning guide those were written by a group of PD coaches whose e whose specialty is Ela okay but then if I am not an Ela on the ELA team and I'm on the math team I could still walk into a third grade classroom and Coach a teacher because a lot of what we do when we meet with them monthly is to make sure that we kind of debrief so that everyone knows what's going on with all of those content areas and then if it's not something that the key PD coach knows how to support then they just reach out to the people that are on the team to support that specific area Okay so every school has a PD coach yes ma'am and then what about interventionists do school
091do any schools have interventionist anymore or some so interventionist that pulls student yes some yes schools still have intervention they kind of get those with their own with their title money and okay so that might vary from school to school yes so we we every school has read 180 as an intervention and then any additional intervention needs they meet groups yes ma'am additional School funds okay all right so if they don't have like the title money they wouldn't have like a math intervention well so they have they can some schools use different funds yes but they use they that that's not an allocation from us I guess if that makes sense of read 180 how many of our schools like our schools have the math interventionists we can well so middle school has Math 180
092that is our math intervention at the middle school level so all schools have math all middle schools have Math 180 but we can certainly compile that for you I know that's something Miss I'm pointing to Miss Kelly like she's sitting right here um that is something that she gets from schools for their title plan and a lot of that sometimes is contingent upon filling open positions so sometimes it's kind of making sure all of our all of our position our classroom positions are filled and then if they have a person for that position then they'll shift them to that position but we can certainly get that information together for you thank you I appreciate absolutely so just quickly back to kind of Miss wimberly's points there so would you ever run into a situation so
093you have your PD coaches that are it sounds like some of them are content area spec or content specific areas they're their base school three days a week would you run into a scenario where that school's really really really good at say math would I run into a position where that school did better in math because of the PD coach that was assigned there potentially I mean well yes and no I mean they don't necessarily coach just in their area of expertise you know they can coach in multiple different areas um and a lot of what they do that's in their content area specific would be on District level projects so those are the people that write their um the instructional planning guides the common assessments the PD when we have it that's content specific
094so they would still be sharing that knowledge with all schools um but they could if let's say they only coached or only focused on math um when they were observing and coaching and things like that but the coaching that we're focusing on is more delivery of instruction than it is content specific got it but we would certainly monitor de we would know throughout the year if we were seeing that so that we could pull those best practices that we're working and used them well and and so that's my point it it sounds like we're getting to a better place as far as Equity across the district but I think in my discussions especially from last year I think you had pockets of of inequity because previously we had the interventionists at the district level that
095were providing dis District level content if you will right and we still have that but now they're inside of a school building which just presents kind of an individual challenge so I think we we we have to think along the mindset of creating equity for if we're going to have this PDC coach pdc's moving forward how do we do that in a way that makes sense because and and again we haven't even talked about I think there's probably some duplication there when you start to look at what the title one facilitators are doing there's probably some duplication between the pdcs and title one so then we get into that so again I I just from an equity standpoint I want to make sure we're we're doing that as well as we can thank you thank
096you team never mind no that's it I'll just keep that one to myself I think it's raining so I'm not in a rush if you have anything maybe not no when I was in the classroom I just want to say um Lisa cuff birth she was an interventionist at that time and there was I forgot what it was but it was something I needed assistance on and so what she did is she came in and she taught a lesson and then I observed her and after she was finished then she sat and observed me teach the next class so that was super helpful to me and I always found her to be endearing when it came to being able to make that delivery so as long as that's going on and they can decide among
097themselves okay you're really great at this or math or whatever and you all are open to it I think it's whoever can do the job really that matters yes ma'am she has a gift for sure thank you well I I guess this is kind of the fun stuff but that was the fun stuff um and honestly y'all all hopefully could tell by that presentation our academic team is working really hard um to try to improve our score so really appreciate them um I want to make sure that um we have a constant dose of the work that's taking place with our recruiting and retention task force we had another two-hour meeting last week um and I I think we'd be very remiss if we didn't look at the celebrations because you know where you want
098to go but it's also important to know where you started and the things that we've accomplished as a district even in the midst of building this recruiting and retention task force so I've got 11 things on here um that stand out that I think are big um items for us to celebrate you know our Afterschool Child Care Program for our staff has been an amazing support for them you know we instituted last year the 30 minute duty free lunch with our elementary teachers we have cert certified staff um salary staff increase this past year not considering the one the year before depending on where you are on the salary schedule that's anywhere from 6 to 12 and a half% another 4% classified salary increase we put six to 16% in our extracurricular and co-curricular activity
099stien schedule again you've heard our academic team talk about the PLC early release Wednesdays to reduce after school meetings our employee syc Bank kick back off this year and um right now we're trying to get to that 30% threshold um that's required by policy for that to uh to be utilized the cadel partnership which some people may or may not know about um I was talking to Dr Wilson we offer up to about 20 positions for teachers who want to pursue a master's degree where we'll pay for 50% of that um program as as long as they stay employed with us the new to two which is a new branding of our signing bonuses that we continue to do $2,000 for certified teachers $3,000 for special ed teachers our longevity stip and for all staff
100this year we're instituting a jeans variety um in the buildings and then the other thing I didn't put on here that I should have was the work that we did with our um transportation department and their incentives for perfect attendance for double routing and for recruiting people um into the transportation department so a lot of lot of great things that I don't want us to lose sight on that we're doing as a district and then currently we're trying to get to a point where we can get items that we can identify and and Benchmark with metrics and so what we did in this last meeting we basically broke it down into five categories Business Partnership mentorship and support programs work life balance and professional development and onboarding that's to go along with the work we'll
101continue to do with salaries so what we did is we broke the task force down into many working groups and the next couple months we'll start to refine some of those things to bring to the board at least to present to you so you can see what we're working on um and the progress we're making so again I've got Miss pal here um I've got Miss cofell got Miss m who are on the task force that happy to answer any questions for you miss pal basically you covered um what I would have said so good job okay and we're still working yes ma'am so okay um okay with that being said then I will turn it over to um miss m in our monthly Finance report good evening chairwoman Wimberly board members and Dr Robbins
102we are presenting our first um month of this new fiscal year Financial reports this evening um we're still working on closing entries that are related to revenues and expenditures that were specific to fiscal year 24 so as we're working through those um some of these numbers may change um some of our prepaid expenses that were for last year in our liabilities um so it's going to adjust some of these numbers a little bit and so all of that will flow through the fund balance at the beginning of the year um right now the fund balance at the beginning of the year which means we ended 2024 2024 with was 24% that was funny that it's all 24s um um but that number may change slightly but I just um wanted to point that out to
103you um so at this at the end of July 31st um our total assets are 87.9 million um and then with our changes in fund balance our liabilities and fund balance will be 87.9 million as well on our um schedule of revenues expenditures and changes in fund balance um you'll notice that um some of our revenues for local sources our taxes um we've received we've received our June taxes in the month of July so again those were were accured back so it doesn't look like we got any July taxes but we're U basically a month off with um those revenues um we started receiving some of our um state aid to classroom money and our transfer from the eia portion of the state aid to classroom so our total revenues in the month of July
104were 13.3 million um and our expenditures were 5.6 million which again sounds low because we acre back our um salaries for our folks who were on the 12 month um mainly our instructional folks um those were for last fiscal year so those were accured back so it doesn't look like a lot of money was spent in U July it was accured back to June so at the end of um at the end of July our fund balance the change was a positive $7.7 million um if you look at our cash flow statement next um so we work from left to right so we're in the month of July and everything past July is um our cash flow just projection so those are the numbers in blue um as we move through the actuals are presented
105in the um black font so July is all actual numbers um so our beginning balance which is adjusted um to show that the board had approved for us to utilize 4.6 million of fund balance for um expenditures in this new year so that is reflected in the beginning balance looking a little bit different from the 69.3 million that we discussed because it takes that into account um and then flowing through down to the uh again the total revenues of 13.3 expenditures of 5.6 and our monthly gain of 7.7 million so our um percentage of fund balance at the end of July was 25% but as we move through you can see um where the fund balance decreases every month because our revenues come in um um they don't come in evenly every month so we
106get a big part of our um local revenues in the months of November December January when the property tax bills come in so we're working off of our fund balance during that time um until we get those revenues in place and that's why you you'll see the fund balance go down and you'll see that decrease in revenues over expenditures hope that made a little bit of s sense okay good um so we did the same thing for projecting our Our Food Service fund balance um we um we have a plan in place to be able to use some of the fund balance dollars to purchase some equipment um we've been just the supply chain and um just a bunch of projects we haven't we weren't able to do that last year so our goal is
107to do that this year so that we can bring our fund balance down in the Food Service fund so those were the financial reports for this month if anybody has any questions uh I have an ask and I'm not sure if it makes sense um maybe some other board members can can let me know or even Tina let me know on on the cash flow I'm assuming we still have you have last year's spreadsheet like do you have this exact same sheet that says fy2 24 yes could we get a page two she showing that from last year okay sure just to be able to compare year to year on the on the cash flow yeah that would be great um we do um the comparisons for the on the um balance sheet and in
108the schedule of revenues expenditures and fund balance we can print that for you yeah and I don't no no additional work other than just putting a page two just the exact same spreadsheet you saved off from last year I think would be helpful so thank youcome so I actually had a question about the food service fund balance so you said that we are purchasing some equipment with that some replacement equipments and some of our kitchens um we have um a higher level of fund balance than what the state is requires um or allows I should say um right allows you you should only have three months worth of your expenditures as in your fund balance so so are we limited how we can spend that fund balance yes and what are the only specifically to
109um Food Service I mean can we could we spend it on food I mean I I know in the past we've talked about a possibility of you know maybe like some kind of teacher lunch or something like that I mean is that would that be a possibility um those these are funds that are federally made mandated that to to go for student lunches so student lunches or equipment yes those are the only things adult meals are paid for by adult well that's what I was saying we could use it for staff Staffing Staffing oh I see what you're saying yes okay okay kind of Staffing I kind of had a similar question um I know we've talked about in the past possibly since we did have like our fund balance is growing with the food
110service maybe increasing or the tier of like service we get or the quality of food I know if you spend a certain amount of money obviously your food package could possibly be improved so is that something we've considered is there like some you know I I just remember when talking to sedexo you know like there's a cost amount that we pay and that's like the quality of food we get and you know obviously that they they make the food within that budget and buy the food and purchase it with within that budget but if we increased our budget for the food could we have improved the quality does that make sense I don't recall us in our RFP from sedexo that they offer different tiers of food levels they offer a per um per meal
111price that they charge us and like no matter what the quality is not affected by like there's not like a way to improve that based on the amount of money we pour into the program um no it's all good quality food I will digress you're right during the during the process of the hiring process and going through the contract there was no if you pay this tier you're going to get this quality of food if you pay this tier you're going to get this quality of food there wasn't anything like that that's what I was trying to figure out top quality food and they quoted the price right so if there's still a problem with that then maybe we need to go back and address that again so I was asking if there was an
112option to maybe improve based on the amount of money we're putting in or if not then that leads me to that that and that's what I say that was not an option whenever the contract was signed or negotiated that was not I might have misunderstood so I don't not the case so if that has changed then maybe we need to go back and take of that again yeah can I can I add something on Food Service I I think it's always um a good option um with any contracted service like that every few years to go back just to keep them honest um not saying that sedexa is not honest I don't mean it that way I mean it to make sure you're getting the best service possible yeah um if they know they have
113to compete then you know things might change a little bit I'm just throwing that out to the board because if you do want to do that we have statutory timelines we have to follow in order to do that Madam chair I make a motion we accept the financial reports as information okay we have a motion to accept the financial reports as information made by Mr Farnsworth do I have a second seconded by Miss Hughes any discussion further discussion or questions further questions okay hearing none we'll call for the vote I don't think we had that on the agenda as a voting item okay all right then um if you will uh we will just vote by hand all in favor okay six in favor and one absent motion carries all right so next up is
114our facilities report um why Mr Souls is coming up I want you to know we've been dealing with this tennis court issue and quite honestly um we are also in conversations um with a a local Patron on more work not just at the Somerville High School tennis courts but also the Ashley Ridge and Fort Dorchester High School tennis courts as well and that's to get lighting for them through a USA Grant and so we are working on that project it's been initiated for all three locations this most recent rign I was able to go down and uh meet with coach magwood and um coach dford and Mr frell and Mr Souls has been down there to look at the the situation and so you know we can't replace those tennis courts where they're at it's
115just not it's going to you you're just you know continuing to perpetuate the problem so we looked at a different location that would still be very accessible to Summer High School tennis athletes um and to the community and there's a huge field that that is predominantly has been always football um that is a little bit higher elevated that we can run the drainage and we can rebuild these courts so you can see um in your packets and on the screen we had a preliminary design I originally had asked Tony for a 10 Court design the reason why I wanted to see 10 courts was number one if we're going to host major tournaments um it's really nice to have more courts versus more locations but also in tennis you have one singles two singles three
116singles one doubles and two doubles for both the varsity and the JB and I thought you know a lot of places I've been we had 10 courts well that's going to be very expensive and so we have scaled it back to a phased effort where we're working with a design uh company for five courts that we could expand out into eventually hopefully 10 courts um in this next um project cycle so we are working on it we know it's a problem um and we're taking the steps we can to rectify it the soonest and speak if I'm out of line here the soonest we think we could have something that's playable for our athletes at Somerville high school would be in the fall because it's just going to take us that much time to design
117it develop it actually construct it and then also pay for it Tony is there did I miss anything you're absolutely right it's going to take some time because uh you know every everywhere we break ground around here we have bad soil that's just a fact of life and we're going to have to do a Geotech survey that's and that's what starts the brawl rolling with the A&E firm and and get the uh soil samples in and and find out what we're going to have to do to remediate that and then build on top of that and run lighting at the same time but uh more importantly is is drainage uh we we have to have drainage either on the courts or in between the courts and and around the courts as well but it has
118to have a place to drain too and uh so and that that's the problem with the existing part we went down there after after the last storm and uh uh the water table has had risen somewhat so um that's that's the reason that it's in the shape it's in now it just never built in a it wasn't built in a good spot do Dr Robins do you know if there have there been any other discussions at one point the county was talking about um I think like a sports Tennis complex across from the Ashley River Park I I think they had acquired that land and and at some point I thought I heard discussion of like a partnership with the district have we pursued that at all um it was a couple years ago was
119the last time we really heard from them on that and it it's kind of just gone dormant um in terms of um the partnership the we were just looking to make sure we still had courts on our campus so our kids didn't have to get in a bus to try to get to a practice site um I don't know where they are I do know that part of that was through a USA Grant as well and so the only Grant option that we're really familiar with right now is the lighting piece to this to the courts I can definitely Tony or I can Circle back and see if they're still discussing yeah maybe something worth trying and again I think it would be an addition to but but it may be a good option for
120us so okay uh the monthly update uh for the other facilities projects uh the HVAC upgrades at nville and span uh we've got four more units to come in for Knightsville uh currently working on the punch list at both schools working out all the bugs if you can imagine changing out uh a couple hundred air conditioners uh there there's going to be some bugs to work out and and we're getting through we're getting through on that uh be be through with that within the next several weeks uh the partial roof Replacements to Greg and span uh that they had some weather setbacks but they are making some great Headway and soon they will be done with all of the membrane installation at both of those schools uh at chest foror Chester high school media center
121to Kate conversion that was kind of a two-phase project where we went in and we redid the entire reception area to make a more secured reception area that part was completed and accepted and passed by OSF before school started and then we put all the forces on the media center and they're doing really well they're had the overhead inspection the prefinal overhead was last week and they passed that they're going to have the final overhead inspection this week week and uh hopefully we can get that wrapped up a little bit ahead of the estimated completion time um the track at Fort norchester high school that contract has been awarded and uh we're communicating with a company that we awarded a contract to to have a preconstruction meeting hopefully sometime this week hope we get somebody
122down here the Sand Hill portable classrooms and this is directly related to student growth uh we had uh third party inspect last week and OSF has a new process now where they don't have to come out so the third party comes in they inspect it we send a com a finalized discrepancy report to the architect the architect fills out a F9 form sends that to OSF and the last one we did was the uh Community Learning Center within 24 hours of that email we received the co so it it it streamlined the process it took a lot of the uh a lot of the moving Parts out of the way a lot the OSF inspectors they they're stretched in now but they're what they're focusing on now is design reviews and and that's that's the
123great thing about it is we're getting a better review on the design so uh we had a few discrepancies on the San Hill Portables those were completed today we're hoping to get the third party back out there or send in pictures tomorrow and hopefully have the co by the end of the week on those uh on the wing Edition at sandill the CR construction documents they have been submitted to OSF and we're just waiting back for comments for from OSF and that you know that that's always a little bit of a back and forth thing they send comments the architect will incorporate those comments and send them back so hopefully we'll be going out for looking for a Contractor on that project very very soon and like I said the Community Learning Center that's a
124done deal I think they wrapped up the punch list uh last week but we're always we always have a a one-year connection with the contractor when they do a project like that so they uh they'll be there for us anytime we need them the bus maintenance facility at Oakbrook uh they are wrapping up the design of the construction documents now and hopefully we'll have those into OSF for review sometime within the month Oakbrook middle School those documents construction documents through at OSF right now the first round of comments came back last week the architect is going to send that back this week and hopefully we're even closer on that one than we are sandill and and as you can tell most of these projects are are related to student growth our population growth so more
125seats uh we're we're about two weeks behind on the elementary school than we are from the Middle School just because of the the time we discussions we had internally where we needed seats and when so but uh hopefully we'll catch all that up and and combine that into one project for both schools with one contractor uh The Greenway Boulevard sidewalk uh we had the preconstruction meeting out there last week week before last and uh the contractor is going to meet with the town with uh to talk about some storm water stuff uh preparation for that and uh they'll get started started on that as soon as they can and get that uh sidewalk in very soon uh at the ponds uh Dr Robin said the SE at risk uh talks are underway and hopefully we'll
126get that out to everybody sometime in the very very near future and that's all I have do we have the picture that you could update us or send us again of the Fort Dorchester Media Center like the layout the the design the design yes ma'am I can get that to you yeah I don't have it with me right now but yeah no that's fine I appreciate that yeah thank you I forgot anything else what so so when do we think that the um I mean I know you said that the third party inspections completed for the Portables it's s Hill do we think will be we're moving furniture in tomorrow they'll probably have kids in there next week oh perfect great thank you that's our plan we we had uh we had a great plan
127we we were well ahead of it the vendor kind of tripped us up with the late June delivery yeah yeah I remember so we uh the team jumped through hurdles to get those things completed installed within about a month time frame and then I forget who said it throw throw in a hurricane and so and so here we a couple weeks behind but uh all in all we're in constant conversation with Mr Joy and the admin team at San Hill and I'm sure they're just rolling he's being patient he's eager to put furniture and children into the court yeah all right thank you um one last thing do you have a timeline for the track I know there was some issues with the ground and different things like that so do we know if it
128will be ready for track season or when the projected timelines are we are projecting that it will be ready for the next track season we had another hiccup in that whole process uh the first vendor that we had the successful bidder backed out set us back a few days well Pro probably more than that I would say he didn't do us any favors I'll put it that way and so we're pushed a little bit farther down the road on that but uh hopefully we can work with the with a successful bidder and get things going that they should have all the information they need because we did pause for a Geotech survey so they know exactly what they have to do on day one so it's it's just a matter of getting them to mobilize
129and getting equipment on the ground and start tearing track up okay thank you yes ma'am thank you okay board members um for student enrollment recommendations um I believe that information was uploaded into our packets um is everyone okay with doing that in Open Session okay um I'll make a motion to accept it but then I do have a question before we vote on it okay um so I have a motion from M farnworth to accept the student enrollment recommendations as received in our packet do I have a second second okay second by Mr Guthrie can can we get a little bit I don't know if we need to do that in executive session or not um that one looks like an out of District transfer is that common I don't know that I've seen that
130yeah it's it's uh no it's it's a looks like original request because if it's a repeat request it' be yes is that oh well it doesn't say that on there just says that doesn't say what it is the reasonal reason for request yeah I mean because we don't accept out of District enrollments unless it's military only if it's military um yeah but it's from another District I will um I'm going to withdraw my motion so we can talk about that in executive session I I I would make a motion that we discuss this student enrollment request in executive session okay we have a motion to discuss the student enrollment request in executive session do I have a second can you get the paperwork do I have a second I'll second seconded by Mr Guthrie any
131discussion all right all in favor okay and the motion carries is that six in one absent okay so we will hold to discuss that in executive session before we move to that we'll personel do the Personnel um reports um Madam chair can we convene into an executive session when we don't have a item for enrollment recommendations listed on our agenda and Miss Bates is correct I I again I don't know so you would either I don't know if we can get the information table of what that is that that's the first time I've ever seen that type of request okay well I think the the other option is we can hold that student enrollment recommendation for our next meeting and at that point um we can conven to Executive session to discuss it and I
132promise I'm not trying to be difficult I just don't that's an unusual one yeah I'll do I have to talk to team um need to make a motion to hold it right again I I don't know if that's something that can wait two weeks well all we have voted for at this point is to discuss it in executive session we have not voted to go into executive session so we will still discuss it in executive session it will just be not be at this meeting okay but what what does that do to the student right I mean that keeps the student out of school for another two weeks until we meet again correct um um if you all want to go on to Personnel I'll see if I can't pull up our school and get
133some we we can still vote on it it's just I mean yeah do we have some way we can get the information now so that we can go ahead in Open Session and go through it m okay so um maybe we can go on with personnel and then come back to that yes absolutely so all right um moving on to Personnel board members you receive that information in your packet as well and um there are several classified and um certified recommendations in there and then there are two specific employee recommendations so is everyone okay with doing that in Open Session yes okay so um do I have a motion to accept the person that we accept it as presented okay motion from Miss Hughes seconded from Mr Guthrie any discussion in regards to the Personnel
134recommendations okay all right hearing none then we will call for the vote on Personnel recommendations okay and the motion carries six in favor one absent and then I guess pointed privilege while they're vamping here waiting for the information we attended the Dorchester Showdown this past Friday Kelly Bates and I and our beloved superintendent was oh yeah he was summoned to the field on surprise I guess he had to kick um an extra point to raise money for I guess a a Dorchester unified track team and the way it was uh structured as a dd4 superintendent went first and I guess he was a former soccer player that's what I until I heard so like they they say all right he's got this so he he kicked it right through super easy and then I guess
135the pressure was on our superintendent to go next and everybody was watching watching and like is he going to do it is he going to do it and then he actually picked up the ball no he moved it he moved it backwards about five yards so I guess the dd4 Super Nintendo was a little bit closer so you moved it back I saw that I I I did not on purpose he didn't realize a more so that so but yeah he made it everybody everybody went wild raise money for the the Char five track team yeah very exciting so so we were proud of our superintendent is uh athletic abilities good job Dr Robbins he's a returning it's a returning request do you have any more information besides what you shared with me so that
136students been with us since the nth grade okay yeah they have to do they live currently out of the district we're trying to understand why the request yeah story this according to our current records the student resides in an area that is zoned for the school they are requesting I'm not sure why that form says out of District it could be a mistake on the part of the person who made the form um I don't know but it does appear the student is a senior who has been in the district so we're happy to obtain more information um and bring it back to the board at the next board meeting if you all are so inclined to wait um it does appear that the student is currently enrolled in school so yeah and again I'll
137just de clarify and so if they're enrolled and they're in school then I think we just wait till the next meeting the reason this is important to me I I visited um some of our high school folks in recent in the recent couple weeks and and I will tell you especially Somerville High school is bursting at the seams and so one student may not seem like that big of a deal um but one student is a big deal to the High School principles and so that's the only reason um that that I'm kind of hesitant um just just to make sure we're doing it on the up and up and everything looks good well correct me if I'm wrong but if he is enrolled in our school district and he is enrolled and and assigned
138to that school we have no reason to be voting so we don't need to even follow through with that and then if you come back and tell us that that's not the case at the next meeting then we can at that time vote on it right right yeah I I think you can table it and in the short short term he's already at the school the address we have he's zoned for the school what we'll do is like we do with a lot of students we'll do our research to make sure he's actually at that address and he's appropriately in the school if he isn't then that's a different story if he is we'll bring back a followup to you in two weeks if that's okay is that fine okay well then Madam chair I
139guess you need a motion to table the student enrollment recommendation until the next board meeting okay motion to table by Mrs Bates is there seconded by Miss Hughes any questions or discussion okay um all in favor okay and the motion carries six in favor one absent and at this time I will entertain a motion to adjourn motion made by Miss Hughes seconded by Miss Powell oh no I apologize I sorry excuse me in my rush to finish the meeting we do not have any public comments uh this evening my apologies so all right I believe we had a motion from Miss Hughes a second by Miss Powell any discussion okay all in favor of going home um yes I believe it is yes please and the motion carries six in favor one absent we are
140adjourned