001we're going to start our meeting with a little something new to kind of remind us um of why we all are here I'm going to turn it over to Mr Guthrie to share our vision and our mission with us all right so mission is uh Dorchester District School District 2 desires to be recognized as a world-class School District expecting each student to achieve at his or her optimal levels in all areas and providing all members of our district family with an environment that permits them to do their personal best and our mission leading the way every student every day through relationships relevance and rigor all right thank you very much Mr GTH um and at this time I will ask for an approval of the consent agenda so moved motion made by Mr Guthrie do
002have a second seconded by Miss Crosby any questions or discussion all right hearing none I will call for the vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor all right and next on our agenda um we have our district highlights I believe it will be a little bit of a change from what is on there just based on the availability um from my understanding uh the missina brothers were not able to be here this evening but we still have some great highlights to share so I'll turn it over to Miss Troy so um before Miss Troy goes I that's okay um this was an addition and it was embargoed so we couldn't share this information till today the the release um the national release for the National Blue Ribbon Schools happened today at around 11:30
003um but I am very excited to announce that one of our schools is one of four schools in the state of South Carolina that was named a National Blue Ribbon School at San Hill Elementary School and I went ahead and put a little history up there you can see that we've had uh six previous National Blue Ribbon Schools in our district but in order to become a blue ribbon school there's a couple different things you have to do uh one is to achieve in the top 15% academically in the state or you have to have uh close the achievement Gap in the top 15% of the state so sandill as I understand is actually in the top 10% of all elementary schools in the state of South Carolina so you know we have a huge
004um surprise for them tomorrow but definitely wanted to give them and their their students and their staff a shout out tonight for achieving such an amazing honor good evening board chair Dr wimbley superintendent Dr provin and our esteemed board members dd2 is proud to announce that four of our schools were chosen along with 80 other schools Nationwide to be named Justin's Renaissance schools of Distinction Austin Middle School Duos Middle School Oakbrook middle school and Somerville High School these schools are making a positive impact on school climate and culture through executing the Renaissance results Formula which is respect plus recognition Plus reward plus reinforcement plus relationships equal results when everyone feels good about being part of the school Community they participate fully in the tra in the traditions and talk about how things are done normalizing
005positivity and inclusion as I call each school please come forward to be recognized in order to be a silver schools of Distinction a school must complete a minimum of one school climate and culture boosting activity a month and gather and track the data for one goal Austin Middle School receiving silver level Austin Middle School is represented by Dr Beth fiorito Corgan Rutherford Mary alen Foster Claire Dixon and Jane Wright please come forward [Applause] H I don't want to be in the picture [Applause] Duos Middle School receiving civil level deos is represented by principal Mr Brinkley Latoya Johnson Amanda Hoskins mcdermid and Amber Dunn [Music] [Applause] in order to be in the gold the gold schools of Distinction a school must complete two commitment to graduate initiatives recognize student and staffy collect feedback from students and
006gather and track the data Oakbrook Middle School receiving gold level Oakbrook is represented by principal Bentley Bentley Lewis Allison Brown Ken Brown Lauren Foley Ken Kim flood Marlon ker and Chelsea Parsons [Applause] and just so you all know I was drinking some coffee this summer at Coastal coffee and I looked over and they actually presented at the conference as well [Applause] and finally in order to be in the Platinum schools of Distinction a school must complete three commitment to graduate initiatives recognize students and staffulty recognize and reward achievement and grow growth through the Renaissance cards and a Renaissance rally collect feedback from students gather and track data of three goals and network with one other School Somerville High School receiving Platinum level Somerville is represented by Dr Michelle liner tal Miller Journey Hiner Jonathan russan
007AJ Glover and Julia Travis [Applause] never heard of that nice she know she's only got one she trying to get in all the pictures congratulations to our joson's Renaissance schools of Distinction uh Mr Brinkley before you leave I want you to know I spent 30 something years at your school so you know I'm very proud of deos and then sville High you know I graduated from sville high so I'm very proud of you congratulations to all of the winners that representing dd2 We Appreciate [Applause] You All Right Moving On the next item on our agenda is public comments on agenda items and we have none this evening um so we will move to our board chairs report and um under that we are happy and excited to welcome Mr Ralph Hayes the Geor Chester District
0082 Foundation um executive director for his annual report Madam chair Wimberly superintendent Robbins members of the board I'm humbled to be here tonight to share some of the progress that has been made over the past year for the Educational Foundation to benefit the community and Dorchester School District too um I did want to start by saying how thankful I am to work in a community and in a district that is so supportive of the work that we're doing each day um that comes from the leadership ship on the stage the leadership of the foundation board who helps Drive what we're doing and then all of the community and Educators in the building who really buy into what we're doing to try to make a difference each day um so I just want to start out
009uh just kind of showing uh few numbers there for some things that we accomplished this year but the thing that really jumps out to me that I'm proud of is the record number of donations that we had come in this year so was over 1,500 um individual donations that came into the foundation this year to support our initiatives for the school district so we're really proud of that to show growth in the number of people who are engaging with us um the next thing we won a competition with a marketing firm in Mount Pleasant called Trio Marketing Solutions and they came up with what is now our Marquee Campaign which is two for two two for two basically breaks down the barriers of philanthropic giving to where people don't feel like they need to write
010a $1,000 check to support what we're doing by giving as little as $2 per month they can be a part of what we're doing throughout the entire year um so they made an entire web page for us design the logo that's on there and that's really one of our main mechanisms now to push out to the community in being a part of everything that we're doing by being a recurring donor um next really jumping into impacts that we've had in the community um we partnered with Breeze Airlines and we had Harlem Globe trod and Amazing Race star Herb flighttime Dean come in and speak to student athletes and staff at Fort Dorchester High School that was a really rewarding experience to see that um we received a grant from the Cooper River Bridge Run and
011that allowed us to scholarship many students from all through high schools into the meatball run last year we're really excited that we're carrying that over this year and also have students from all three high schools that the foundation's able to cover their fees so they're able to run in the race and represent us and they love it because it's an actual sanction race that they get to count on their scorecards and everything so we're thankful about that um second year in a row we've won best charity for Somerville Journal scene Readers Choice Award um and in the community having a parade uh float that really didn't represent the foundation as much as just dd2 we were so thankful to have many of the teacher of the year recipients from their schools as the people who
012were on the float to really get them some exposure in the community so that they feel and understand the support that they have from those around us um also supporting arts in the community trying to make sure we're utilizing the beautiful Performing Arts Center that we we have at Summers corner so we were able to sponsor the South Carolina ballet to come in and have a mtown show as well as Philip Bowen who is um I could be saying this wrong but I think he's an Appalachian Fiddler is the way he presented himself but he was an America's Got Talent uh contestant and um he also was able to go in and work with the students through collaboration with Jason Walsh and his amazing team of our Fine Arts staff so that was really a
013fun experience to see um going forward from there thinking about what we did directly for our Educators and students um we're really really proud that we were able to support many students to be able to go to conferences and experience that they probably would not otherwise have the ability to um we sent many host of students to their National Conference we sent many archery students to the state and the international competition we sent multiple robotics teams to their respective conferences so really having the ability to Showcase their learning in a setting beyond the traditional classroom um for Teacher support we're really proud that we've been able to carry this over for the last few years where we invested over $15,000 for first year induction teachers as a welcome to the district thank you for being
014a part of the dd2 family and then we we expanded it this year to where we also invested an additional $155,000 for our uh Teacher Appreciation Week where we actually targeted veteran teachers and had the most tenur teachers at every location who were specifically targeted to receive some funding for us um we also expanded our hydroponic Gardens to where traditionally we've had those in classroom serving students with special needs but we partnered with our early childhood classes we actually have five in locations serving our 4K kiddos now so that they're getting some stem exposure before they're even in the traditional classroom um and then helping with professional development working with teacher Forum the last few years that was something that we heard that teachers also were looking for opportunities how they could continue to grow
015and be their best we were really proud to help support the math academy that happened this summer and to also be able to send several Educators to conferences uh where Dr Robbins was speaking earlier where they were actually there as attendees but also presenters to Showcase Dorchester 2 on a large scale to uh to the country um and then transferring through to some of our partners we're so thankful for all these people in many different industries that stand with us to support our schools in all different types of ways uh but I would be remissed if I didn't give a shout out to the second row there where it says Somerville Italian Feast we hope everyone in the community is ready for that on October 5th is the second annual meatball run you can still
016register for that and on October 13th is the Italian Feast we have uh 10 student groups who are performing from all throughout the district who are going to be out there that day and it really is an opportunity to showcase the best of our community and our schools and um that event every year gives back all of the proceeds to the foundation that helps us fund many of those wonderful things we're doing in the schools each year um so just wanted to highlight those things love to entertain any questions thoughts feedback from you as um we we certainly value the partnership and the leadership that's provided by this team to us each year thank you Mr Hayes I think um I can speak for the rest of the board when I say we certainly appreciate
017all the work that you're doing as well as your board um two things that really stand out um I think you know reading here that one in four of our teachers and students are directly impacted by the work you're doing that's a really big deal and so um I think that's phenomenal and then also just looking at this last page with with all your partners um you know getting the financial support from people people and businesses in our community is is amazing but also just seeing you out there building those Partnerships and us getting that just support from our community even outside of the financial realm is so critical for everything that we're doing here in our district and so I think um we're just very grateful for all of that a and I do
018want to just chime in and say I I didn't put a blurb in the annual report but one of the things that I think is going to have the most lasting impact to our benefit to the district is the additional infrastructure that we recently added this year in partnership with the board and Dr Robbins in uh bringing on Miss Kim kahill who is going to assist us with Partnerships specifically extensive backgrounds specifically in Partnerships fundraising and events and so we're really excited for that to help continue to propel us forward yeah we are very excited about it as well so thank you and I just want to say thank you so much um I had the opportunity of following Miss Ashley Wimberly to be on your board and being on that board is one of
019the most enjoyable experience ever not only do we get to give back to our school Community but the group itself is just so much fun even while they're working so hard so just want to say thank you and um as long as I'm here on the earth as much as I can I'mma Be on your board rather as official or not thank you I I we try to hide sometimes I know we can't get away you keep wearing that bracelet so if you get lost they bring you back right yeah I just want to say thank you thank you thank you we appreciate everything that you do for us I know um back some years ago this was just a thought way back in the back of somebody's head never dreaming that it was going
020to be as beneficial as it has been um but we appreciate all the hard work that you do and every one of your staff um it shows every day in our classrooms and sitting here looking at this list of um things that has been given back to our schools and to our children it's just amazing so thank you very much for all of your hard work and your stats as well and absolutely all the credit goes to the people who were in the classrooms every day like like 100% like when you go in and you see that and I know you guys have the opportunity to do that it truly is uh inspiring and and so there's a lot left to do and I'm eager to continue to drive towards that because we we want
021to do as much as we can because honestly they deserve so much I uh I promise I will be brief but ditto ditto ditto um I I took Miss Powell's spot um on the Education Foundation um this term and and to Echo what she said I I don't know that you would ever you would find a more dedicated group of community members all driving toward Wards one goal and um making that Foundation phenomenal Don boss I know he's he wants to stay there in the background Don is um president of of that board this year um so I want to make sure and say thank you for that um Ralph holycow you know I think Miss Crosby myself Miss Hughes remember when we first started the foundation and we didn't know if we were going
022to have enough money to pay a director that first year um we had some some Foles and uh here we are and and so you know for those who don't know the the the impetus of the foundation um I will say it and hopefully everybody knows it by now Dorchester District 2 is still one of the lowest funded school districts in the state of South Carolina I'm going to say that again we are in the bottom 10 of funding uh as far as um school districts in the state of South Carolina so we needed some creative ways to help fund these outof thee boox ideas um that that we just didn't have the fincial wherewithal to do and I said I don't like to go before Tina because she'll come up here in a few
023minutes and start tossing around millions of dollars but I do want to say I had a hard look in the mirror after being here for about a year and recognizing we're never going to raise enough money to be able to increase teacher salaries across the board something like that is probably not a realistic goal for what we're doing but I certainly hope that I can make teachers feel valued and respected and that they know that the community stands behind them and the things that we're doing are things that make them proud to work for Dorchester 2 and honestly um there couldn't be anything more motivating to me each day than to want to do that all right I I would be remissed and I've been waiting but um you know that I love y'all and
024I appreciate you immensely and I Echo everything everybody sit on here but y'all Rock and we just love you so much so thank you for all you do thanks guys uh anybody in the community that wants one of these books there's plenty of them out there by the reception desk and they're available online at dd2 foundation.org thanks guys thank you Mr [Applause] Hayes okay next on the agenda we have our committee reports first we have our policy committee Miss Bates yes thank you madam chair uh the policy committee convened right before this um meeting and we will have policies for first reading at our next board meeting um but we have nothing for today at this time all right thank you very much our finance committee yeah finance committee was able to meet earlier today
025as well and we had a pretty good discussion about the salary rate daily rate employees so we'll have some options uh I guess next month to to be able to review that and then also we did an update on the impact fee study so it was really cool to see that's moving forward and hopefully uh get County Council soon that for approval so we can get some additional funding from Impact fees to build schools all right right thank you Mr Guthrie um facilities committee um actually going turn that over to Miss Hughes for the meeting last week uh facilities committee met uh last Wednesday September 18th at Somerville high school and I am going to actually turn it over to Mr souls and let him give it he's surprised just take your time walking up
026but just give a briefing on the reason for the meeting um why the meeting was held and and the outcome of that please thank you Miss Hughes uh we met uh Thursday and we discussed the uh CM at risk uh solicitation that was sent out on Friday and uh we're hoping to have enough contractors and US participation for that solicitation that we'd be able to to award contracts for all the referendum projects so there there are there are five projects right off the top of my head the there's an addition going in at Ashley Ridge High School there's an addition going in at Somerville Elementary there's an addition going in at Sand Hill Elementary what am I forgetting the Oakbrook projects so that's Tiff money but those are some of the projects that we're going
027to be using that solicitation to uh Supply with uh C them at risk for each one of those projects and that that was the the bulk of the conversation of that that uh committee meeting is anything else that uh we talked about uh I think we did discuss a little bit uh about uh the giveans uh the condition of givan Community School uh you know uh we had to remove uh quite a bit of drywall all the drywall in the school we we had about six to8 inches of water through the ENT ire School in that last flood with tropical storm Dey uh so that ruined a drywall so wherever there was drywall we took all that out up to four feet we had dehumidifiers we had air scrubbers going and we just we cleaned
028the whole building up it's a clean building now just missing a lot of wall when you walk around you see a lot of bare studs from the four feet down uh right now we're kind of pausing for the calls just to make sure that uh what we not really sure what we want to do moving forward and so we're going to take a timeout take a deep breath and and uh and and think it through very very carefully what we're going to do in the future with that facility okay Mr SS can you also give us an update on the process and when we will we should be expecting the uh bids to come in and when they should be coming back to the board you talking about the bids uh so so that went
029out today you should be having on November the 11th I believe something coming to the board to approve the awards for this solicitation for seeum at risk I believe I'm pretty sure that's the date it's the first meeting in November yes October 28th we moved to October 28th so we will have that to you by the end of October and uh that that will be uh the the the process of of receiving all the uh responses uh the interview process and then then the award process itself so all and then what everything that comes together will be presented to the board on October 28th thank you team and uh for your approval and we can move forward there and uh have have a lot of our projects that don't have uh the see at risk
030we'll have that filled in so well I just wanted to make another comment as well this was kind of something that happened all of a sudden having the meeting to try to get this all put together so that we could bring it to the board for the board's approval the last meeting in October and it was for a number of reasons one of which was because of the time frame that we're in and we're trying to get everything done so that we can get students in those schools or in those areas in those schools as well as it's a timing thing um as we talked about before the bond referendum it's a timing thing to make sure that you're able to get the top um construction companies and the the top subcontractors before they get
031involved in all of these other projects that all of these other referendums are going to be taking place um in in neighboring districts so um it was kind of a time crunch so that was the reason for the rush and trying to get it all done but it worked and hopefully we'll have a we will have a topnotch companies coming in for us the end of October to vote on and approve so that we can put shovels in the ground that's that's right we have we have uh several projects that we anticipate having students in this time next year so that's the that's the big rush that's the big rush because there's some of these projects if we don't get them started uh very soon we're going to miss the beginning of the 26 20
032or 25 26 school year well thank you very much does anybody have any questions for Mr souls or comments again I'm sorry for putting you on the spot but it was the easiest way to get all of this out because I knew I'd forget something thank you very much all right thank you Miss Hughes and Mr soles okay next item on our agenda our super superintendent report and so I will turn it over to Dr Robbins thank you Dr wly members of the board good evening I'm going to start off tonight um in a little joint effort so the members of the task force that are here if you guys would make your way to the podium um just a little history back in March at our second meeting in March I asked the board
033uh to support me commissioning a recruitment and retention task force in our school district um we knew we were going into budget season but we also knew we wanted to have a plan in place to really go along with what Mr Haye said to let our our folks know that we value we app appreciate them and so one of the first things we did was come up with you know our vision of what that task force would look like and and I'm just going to read it to you so um if you just allow me to do so but it says Dorchester School District 2 is committed to a coordinated and concerted effort to recruit and retain the most skilled staff this task force was created to represent recruit and retain all District staff in
034Dorchester School District too and so when we talk about team Dorchester we're talking about if you look at the spreadsheet below we're talking about 277 classified employees almost 1900 certified employees for a total of 4,66 full and part-time employees in our school district so we when we talk about recruiting and retaining we're talking about a wide variety of folks that make us special and who we are so with all that in mind we have met since April uh that was the first time we've met met we've met six um times to start talking about how we would break this down one of the Guard um guiding forces that we utilized was the states recruiting and retention task force and some of their bullet points and then trying to individualize that to Dorchester School District too
035so the we broke it down into four focus groups that we're working on and we're going to um actually five focus groups and we're going to present those to you all tonight I did print hard copies for you so that you have them for your reference uh and this group is it's not a we have a goal to achieve um it is a group that we're we hope will be very functional from here on out as we move forward in our district so with that being said I'm going to turn it over to the first Focus Group which is our recruitment focus group and our community outreach and partnership program which honestly goes along lines with the foundation and Kim khill who was going to talk about it Dr Robbins Dr Wily esteemed board members
036thank you for having us um we just wanted to tell you a little bit about some of the work that we do in that task force um our section really focuses on um very similar to what Ralph does connecting the business Community to our dd2 staff um so you'll see a lot of things listed um just how we can do that um so making sure that the businesses understand that there are ways that they can reach our Educators and all of our staff across the district so um if you will click to the next perfect um working with Mr liebrand he has created two different landing pages for us so this particular one tells a little bit um about our business partner program and if you'll scroll just a little bit further down there you
037go there's a carousel of logos so we are this is this page is not public yet but just to give you an idea of what it'll look look like as these business partners are coming into us and submitting their logos we will pop them on there um for some exposure to the community and to the teachers alike if you will um click on the other site yep and this one is um really just a culmination and a collection of all of the discounts offered to Educators in general and um then it will also list further down our local business partners and some of the things that they can do um really talking with Dr leviner and um even before I came over to the school district on what we could do that was creative albe
038it somebody coming to the school parking lot to change your oil a dentist office staying open late because you had to to teach and and do IEPs and and all of the things that teachers do um and then working with the why for all of The District employees to do a discount on their membership and and a um just really being creative with that if you'll go back to that slide and then we have um created this mock draw up of the um will be a a window cling the proud supporter um I will deflect on everyone else on the team for that um who is much more creative than I am but um we will pass those out to the business partners um if they want to be a partner with us we we
039want them to to be proud to show it we want the um the dd2 staff I'll be it a cafeteria worker or a bus driver or um a secretary because good Lord those ladies work their tails off around here um to to see that sign and to ask you know if there's a a discount available for them and to thank them for being a part of our dd2 family so so um anything I missed Kim if I could add one of the things we talked about was the ease at which our folks can go in and receive these discounts and we know you know when you see the cling that lets you know that they're a partner with us if you go to our website you can see exactly what that discount is and what
040we envision is then you're able to just walk in and you don't have to ask do you have a discount for um Dorchester School District too because again by and large people are not going to do that you just show your ID you know they do by looking at the cling on the door you show them your ID and it just makes it a lot less and trusy for folks and hopefully they'll feel more comfortable to take advantage of a lot of amazing discounts that we already have in place you're up next SL professional developers 100% not me um okay so in the professional development focus group we um really talked about wanting to get the Buy in from the individual schools and the individual teachers and staff on what makes sense to them um
041kind of meeting meeting the staff where they are and not telling them hey we have we have done this we we would like to offer this really finding out what they need and and what um is beneficial to them we talked a lot about induction teachers um Cynthia brought an amazing new re recruit to the task force um from being out in the schools she listened to some of the things that he had to say and said you would make a good fit for this and he came in and he was amazing so it was really great to hear from him he is um a newer teacher not an induction this year but he was induction recently and he talked about some of the challenges and some of the things that would have helped him
042and that he um just had some really great suggestions so kind of compiling all of those and and and talking about what we can do going forward and and just what that can look like so um that that particular group is is really making some great Headway I'm Meredith Noah I'm a middle school teacher on the retention task force um this is our work life balance focus group and what's really important about this I think significantly for dd2 is that we offer so much more than just salaries to our teachers and our staff and so we wanted to find ways that creative ways that we could give back to uh the time to our teachers and our staff members uh one of those ways we've already accomplished as a district Dr Robbins talked about how
043we were able to give duty free lunch in Courtyard to our elementary teachers who normally would not have that additional planning time another thing we talked about was working towards that in other levels High School and Middle School uh it's really amazing to have a bunch of different staff members on one task force because we all bring things from people we know and our personal experiences in schools so the main thing we realize is a need for knowing where teachers and staff members at schools are so we can figure out what different ideas we need to fill those areas especially what they need for their work life balance so that's why we have the work life balance survey that we plan to edit and send out yeah no I was actually I did have a
044question I guess about so do we have two different surveys that we've sent out just I just wanted to clarify the professional development survey and the work life balance survey right they're separate uh we have not sent out anything yet as a task force okay are more like to differentiate for our individual schools we're providing trying to come up with tools or structures that they could easily Implement um without coming up having to come up with it on their own so providing schools with what they would need to provide their staff for feedback so the surveys haven't gone out yet but the plan is to send them out to is to everyone that would be the end goal as far as our task force is concerned right now okay do we have a timeline yet
045do you all know if currently we do not have a timeline for that as we just came up we just finalized the survey uh this year the school year so hopefully within the next few months okay great that sounds good I think because I know like maybe maybe not by the end of the school year by next it's okay I didn't mean to put you on the spot it's okay I don't need an exact date it's coming soon um so I I hyper I hyperlink this survey for you all in your slides you can click on it and see what they've worked on and the questions that are asked for that one but we do have a meeting in October so we we'll have it's still in the focus group right now and there's one
046more slide uh our mentorship program and support focus group was really similar to our professional development but instead of creating uh one-time experiences for our Educators and our staff members we wanted to create a mentorship programs that have worked in other districts that extend past that so we're talking about or discussing in our task force different ways that we could Implement that to a ride variet um allowing for everyone to feel seen and heard no matter what their background was as it's coming into the education World um finding someone that is going to get them excited about education just like all of us have been excited so that's really the focus here and what we've been discussing as a task force theia Dr liner you guys want to add anything I was just going to
047to say for the business partner portion we really also wanted to focus on the fact that it's it's a collaboration it's a two-way street we want businesses to gain more business from our teachers and our employees for example if you are a restaurant and you have a slow day and it's Tuesdays and once a month you want to take orders and give us maybe a 10 15% discount order by this time and then we'll deliver it to you we know that some of them I know like for us Somerville nutrition comes to us on Tuesdays we call it t Ric Tuesday and they deliver shakes and energy tees for a discount so I think we've seen dental offices too they will come they will provide lunch for the staff but then they have coupons out
048like free teeth whitening if you come and make an appointment so we wanted to see that we're not just asking businesses give us something give us something we we want to give you our business and so we're trying to facilitate that partnership something I wanted to add is I know it felt a little bit frazzled whenever you asked for a timeline but something that we're taking pride in is just the fact that it is it's definitely a marathon we don't necessarily have the timelines right in front of us what we have is taking each little individual chunk really analyzing it figuring out how we can get everybody's input that's going to be impacting and being able to put out in a way that actually is felt from every certified employee to every classified employee and
049Beyond yes I think I think it's key that um all of our the members of the dd2 family understand that it's not just about teachers in the classroom I don't care if you work with facilities whatever area you work in we want to make sure that you know that you're very valuable to us the other thing is that we will continuously upload new businesses as they become available and I just spoke with someone the the other day and so they're going to get back with me so very shortly you will see something in that particular area I don't want to put it out there until they've confirmed if you know parents teachers custodial if you know someone that is willing to partner with us please make sure you get that information to us here at
050the district office so we can have that uploaded once we've had an opportunity to talk to those people um once more this is for everyone and we have to keep saying that because we often say Educators and then people dismiss themselves and say well I work with facilities or I'm in the cafeteria we're talking uh whatever area you're working in the district we want you to know this is being done for all of us so don't hold back if you have questions concerns make sure you send them to us so we can address them I just want to say thank you all for your time I know it's a lot of extra time that you're committing to doing this and that's all to give back to your co-workers and District family so I really truly
051appreciate all you're doing for everybody I know that it takes a lot of time and commitment so I appreciate it I need to make a comment too and that's just that um if everyone will look and see who is is on this committee and if you have any questions concerns suggestions or things that just pertain to you that possibly could help make your life easier or help to help you in the classroom in some way talk to them because they they are trying very hard you saw the surveys that are out there they're trying very hard to get these surveys out or get them the correct information on there so they can get them out so that they can find out exactly what your needs are what's going to make your life easier or what's
052going to uh give a make a better impact or a bigger impact in your classroom so talk to these people and give them information and they will take the ball and they will run with it that's what they need so don't be afraid email them call them or whatever or just get the information to the district office and they can get it to this group so I got to sit on there one time I don't know if I'll be there for the second meeting or not because somebody kept forgetting to give me the date that the meeting was going to be but anyway um so I'm not calling any names but he he is sitting in the middle of this board um but anyway so um but you know they they have great intentions they're
053wanting and they're working for every one of our employees in Dorchester District too but they need your help because if you don't tell them they don't know thank y'all for all you do last thing I'm look if you don't see yourself in the picture that's because you have not told us what you need we can't give you a lot of money at this time but as soon as our superintendent wins the lottery he's going to donate some of that money to us but until then come on people if it's a book would love to read but you want you don't have the money for it and we can get someone to donate that book we will do it as simple as that but it could be any other thing we may be able to get
054car dealers to help give us a discount they won't give you the car for free but they may give you a discount but we're willing to work on your behalf in order to help you and I'm serious when I say that whatever we can do in order to keep you and let you know how much we appreciate apprciate the sacrifices that you've made we know you could go elsewhere to make more money but you chose to stay here and so we want to say thank you and um until that time come Mr Robins remember Miss pow volunteered your money to help us thank you well I think it's also important just to add and I think this is kind of what all the board members here are hitting on but we do appreciate the work
055you're doing I think I I look at the task force a little bit as a bridge I think one of the reasons we asked Dr Robbins to form this task force was because we want to support you we want to recruit and retain retain being the keyword there but we don't know we don't and we are we know we don't know so that's why you are our Bridge you are our um feet on the ground you're out there you're in our schools um and so um we're relying on you to bring us that feedback and to help us Implement these things that are going to make a difference and so thank you for your time and for your efforts and for being willing to step up and and help us so we appreciate that well
056I I actually yeah I want to say thank you as well because we have spent um several hours together as a group and they are definitely passionate about trying to make a difference also I would encourage people to go um to the web page underneath my task force groups you will see the Proviso the state had you'll see what our um philosophy is and you'll see the members of the task force so you can message them directly you can message me but our goal is to try to capture everybody so thanks again and I will turn it over to miss man for the September Finance report good evening Madame chair Dr Robbins um board members U we're actually presenting the August of 20124 financials in the month of September that's okay um um at this
057time we're still working to finalize our uh June 30th 2024 as we're working with the Auditors and doing our closing entries um so some of the numbers that you'll see here still may change um but we'll report out as of August 31st of 2024 our total assets were 77.8 million total liabilities of 9 million um and our total fund balance was 68 million um I did want to point out again as we're working through our final uh closing entries we will be recording some taxes receivable as you see in August of this year we haven't reported that yet on the journal entry as we had in August of 2023 so just I wanted to point out that as a difference and also the Deferred revenues so you'll see those as a difference but um I
058wanted to point point those two out just as differences also when you look over in the August uh 2024 schedule revenues expenditures and changes in fund balance report you can see in our very first line our local taxes for our property taxes from um the county there's a timey difference there so this year looks like we received more than last year it's a timey difference of when the county has actually sent us our Monies um also our transfer from eia and state aid to classrooms um we had received two payments at this time from last year uh we had only received one so our total revenues at the end of August were $ 28.1 million um it is important to note that we had received 90% of what we had projected for our budgeted revenues
059and last year was 91% so as the numbers changed between our um budget last year of 260 versus 284 when you see that the uh percentages are the same or almost the exact same that means we're we're doing good I think um our expenditures as of the end of August of 2024 were also at 29 million um it's an 88.3% increase over last year's total expenditure number but again the percentage of 90% so we're we're about right on as where we were last year even though we had an increase in the total dollars of our expenditures so for our cash flow statement um we're starting again over on the left- hand side our July and August are actual numbers this cash flow is um activity per month whereas the financials that we just looked at
060show you accumulative totals so if you total these up um all the way over on the right hand side where you see the year-to DAT totals um that equals our totals from our Bal balance sheet we're always going to try to give you a Reconciliation of those statements to what the cash flow looks like um the one thing I did want to point out that I do need to put a Reconciliation is for our fund balance so you'll notice that our fund balance on the financials that we looked at indicate is $68 million um what we're going to do this year is encumber I'm sorry assign the fund balance that um the board has approved for us to be able to use this year of 4 $6 million we're going to sign that and take
061it out of these fund balance numbers so that we're not even considering being able to use that for any purpose because we've already you've already assigned it and promised it for the FY 25 budget so on the um balance sheet that we just looked at that doesn't take that into consideration but I'll show reconciling um reconciliation next month on those reports so that you can see it I hope that makes sense that we can always show the monthly cash flow back to the cumulative on the balance sheet um so as of the end of August um our projected fund balance amount is 21.84% and at the end of the year it would be at this point in time we're um projecting 20.7 one% and we'll talk about that percentage important in just a second as
062we talk about our food service um our fund balance at the end of August is at 4.9 million um we we are um anticipating utilizing some of those funds for some replacement equipment that we've talked about um the supply chain has been slow and our ordering has been a little bit slow to be able to utilize those funds but it's important to for us to be able to use that those funds for um replacing some of the older equipment in some of our schools so that's all that I had on that um but I did want to discuss one other item concerning um fund Bal bance if now is the time for me to do that or did you have any questions about this first I'm sorry let me ask that okay um thank you
063so for um pointing out about the food service fund balance and the general fund fund balance um we have a request to um utilize not just a teacher bar but a staff bar um for the various um schools that don't have in the cafeteria a lane for the the teachers in the staff not just teachers to be able to um um get lunch for themselves it would be paid of the adult meal price um we haven't worked out the exact Logistics of um the roll out of that but the purchase of the equipment even though we do have a large Food Service fund balance that's for the children for the Child Nutrition program um we would need to purchase some equipment for seven cafeteras that don't have the um the equipment for those staff lunch
064bars um those are those would need to come from general fund fund balance um right now we're looking at seven schools that do not have that equipment um when we were talking about it earlier Dr wimbley I was looking at before tax or installation so that made it go up a little bit more um but each each school would require about $31,000 of um equipment for those bars to be rolled out um unfortunately it takes about 16 weeks I think I saw Mr White here it's about 16 weeks is that right yes for those um for that equipment to come in so um if we could get the board to approve that we could go ahead and make that order so that maybe in early spring we would be able to roll out those um
065staff cafeteria bars for the staff to have adult meals Madam chair I make a motion to accept the uh purchase as presented for seven additional schools for the staff lunch bars okay thank you motion made by Mr Farnsworth I'll second that motion seconded by Miss Hughes do we have any discussion I I will just say to me that that's a no-brainer when I when I chat with a lot of our um education educational professionals excuse me um just being able to get lunch at school you think about you know a lot of times Elementary M A lot of them they just don't have time and they can't go anywhere you know they're they're there at the school they're at the facility and so that's that's like a basic um easy easy win for us so
066absolutely there is an adult meal price for it it's not the same as the student price but it's adult meal and it would have different offerings than just what um the students at the elementaries receive I agree with Mr farnworth and I think this is also an example of something that we have heard from our staff a need um at our schools and so um I'm excited for us to be able to to do this and to implement this yeah I think it's something I know has come from multiple board members who have heard multiple times that that is something that would greatly impact our staff and just the culture and having that um so definitely I'm excited for it um I just have a question um I think it's a great idea because like
067everybody else has said we've we've heard about it for a long time and and this is yet another way that we can let our um staff know how much they're appreciated because we are thinking of them so but I wanted to know what kind of bars are they going to be I mean are they just going to be a cold bar are they going to be a hot and cold bar are uh what is it going to be it will be um hot and cold let me make sure there's refrigerated section serving counter um and hot as well right Mark yes great I like that thank you any other questions or discussion okay then at this time we will call for the vote okay and the motion carries seven in favor thank you thank you
068apologies I I did have another question and this maybe for Miss VI maybe for um Dr Robbins do does it make sense and tell me if I'm wrong as we start to get into uh the capital projects for the referendum um would it make sense to have a kind of a schedule of of Revenue and expenditures in our packet each month as as we move forward with that yeah absolutely um matter of fact um I I'll talk about that the I know that's a bridge into the cart process but directly to the board I think would be beneficial yeah so that's a perfect segue into my my next report that's the referendum update um just to to give you um a little status update of where we are we had our first citizen advisory review
069team meeting last week on September 19th really was an organizational meeting um but it was also an opportunity for them to meet our um our general contractor and our architect for the ponds elementary school and then just talk about roles responsibilities as uh we move forward so it was a very productive meeting but one of the things um that we talked about was what how what and how they would present to the board um we will have our own internal U budgeting obviously but they're a separate body that will also uh monitor the referendum proceeds again just to make sure that we are um spending those monies on exactly what we told the community we're going to spend them on uh in the referendum ballot and so you'll start to see that now that we
070are finally starting to make progress we haven't requested the first draw yet U once you start to see those draws you'll get a update every month we're still kind of trying to determine what we're going to do um you know we went out to with an RFQ for a possible uh construction management firm uh it was very expensive you know we have had some conversations uh we talked about how could we do that internally and so that will be a separate report that you'll receive in addition to your facilities or operations report it'll be specific to the referendum and then um you also receive one again which will seem a little redundant but also from the perspective of the cart so you know there's some checks and balances there so hopefully that answer your question
071is that good I'm happy I know we're kind of seems like we're like on the cusp of a lot of things happening but with the RFQ that went out on Friday and five more contracts that are going to potentially be awarded you really start to see things happen here in the next you know six to eight weeks so you'll get us a stronger dose of what's happening with the referendum okay thank you oh yeah I'm sorry yeah okay I apologize before we move on to our next item under the superintendent report I would like to go back up to the financial information that was um given to us by miss m and ask for a motion to um accept that as information only so move okay motion made by Miss Hughes seconded by Miss Bates
072any questions or discussion okay and I think we will vote for that by hand so all in favor okay and the motion carries seven in favor thank you I apologize for interrupting I will let you continue with your no I jumped ahead of you um I'm gonna turn it over to U Mr frell and Mr Souls again and I believe Mr Gatt is here uh for our operations report I don't see Preston and if not well Security's part of operation good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Robins uh we'll start it off with the uh facilities report uh a lot of these projects are are soon to be finished uh the HB back upgrades for nitel and span we're expecting close out documents within the next 10 days uh the roofing Replacements at
073span and Greg Middle School U those two are in the final stages they're putting the gutters and metal all around the roofs up there so within the next uh three weeks or so we hope to have those closed out uh the media center at Fort norchester High school that is uh on the last leg of construction there they're putting paint in flooring down dropping seiling tile they they F they pass their final overhead inspection so all that was is in good shape uh the track at Fort norchester High School uh the contractor mobilized on 911 they've got uh the entire surface of the track stripped off they started putting concrete down today for some of the events around the track track uh hopefully they all get in there and start to Mill the asphalt very
074shortly uh but their completion date right now is 124 of this year so and and they're on schedule right now to to have that make that happen uh the wing at some San Hill Elementary the wing addition we're doing out there the contract of the construction documents rather were approved by OSF we got the building permit Friday right now we're just waiting on the uh storm water permit the the the Swip which is the storm water pollution prevention plan we're waiting on that to get approved by the county it's already been through the uh Folks at uh Department of Environmental Services so that that's on the that's on the way uh the bus maintenance facility at Oakbrook uh as soon as they get those designed documents completed they're going to upload those to OSF and
075and they're very close to having that ready to submit OSF as well uh both of the Oakbrook middle Edition Oakbrook Elementary Edition the middle school edition is about 3 weeks or so ahead of the elementary school just because of the phasing that we we started those projects feasibility studies uh so the middle school project um uh all the all the construction documents have been turned into OSF and they've been back and forth you know the approval process takes a little bit so uh they're very close to being approved in the elementary school uh we met out on site with the town of Somerville last week we're going through the the which trees we can take down kind of thing and so uh but there there that's uh pretty easy stuff the Green Wave Boulevard sidewalk
076they're going to start putting Sil fence in they're going to start the construction they went out this past weekend and roped off that whole area so I'm sure there was some confusion and the parking world at Somerville high school this morning but uh they're going to start that project this week the Press Box at Somerville High School for the softball field the uh design professionals have uploaded some documents to OSF I have yet to see any uh response from OSF yet but uh hopefully we'll be getting some comments from them very soon uh the elementary school of the ponds we had a very very good meeting on Thursday uh that was included The Architects all the engineers all all the specialty Engineers mechanical electrical civil structural everybody you could think of uh included us of
077course as a staff and included our uh selection as a c at risk Hood construction so we were all in the same room at the same time and we were talking uh Elementary School at the ponds and uh and you know it's going to be a process of talking through that and uh hopefully we'll have uh some another meeting very soon in very near future that we're going to be even closer to that uh the permitting process on that is going to take some time we know that and uh we're going to do everything we can to expedite that but uh that's all I have from the facility side of the house any questions for me so I don't see Mr giant out in the crowd but in your board packets you will see your
078safety logs um that have been uploaded you can see um and he's broken it down how they're going to do this by month um with the open gate and just as a reminder right now we use the open gate um at the high schools and open Gates have been ordered for the middle schools as well um a couple of um operational things that we've done that I don't um feel bad about discussing is a lot of times after school starts and we we have started the instructional day if kids are coming in late then that's when we'll move those open gates to the front doors and Screen kids coming through um I do know we have a full-fledged plan to use them um with our bus riders at one of our high schools um in
079the upcoming days I don't want to share that but again trying to be random about how we're utilizing them so again I would encourage you to go through the log um did you want to say anything about the okay um you can look and see how they're being utilized and this will be a living document for you all not only will you see how they're being utilized the number of students that are being scanned you'll also um see the Contraband that's um being identified as well so they they've put that in the report for you as well and then additionally we have talked about publicly um our use of um Chester I guess I should call him off officer Chester um but another log for you that you can see on each day um where
080he's at there are some days he may not be in the district we try to do that uh when school's not in session because he's got mandated Aus training through sled um but you can see where we're using him in those buildings and primarily uh most of the time he is really focused right now on the high schools and the middle schools um and we will use him at extra icular activities and events so um this is for you all to review can you I know that originally the goal or should I say our scans were because we were just starting the year a little bit different um I don't know if you can elaborate or talk about the goal for the amount of scans because I know that's something Preston had talked to me
081about I just think it would be beneficial for the community to see like maybe what our objective is we're trying to hit 3,000 at each location um per month yeah I'm sorry per month yeah not per day um and again random so we may have them set up outside of a classroom after the school day starts we may have a certain hallway that has to scan through them um again once school started we may have them in a entry way uh we may have them set up in a bus rider Loop and we're just randomly grabbing students as they're coming through through again um just trying to keep it random but keep it honest uh at the same time and then we are using them at every um extracurricular main major extracurricular activity at our
082high schools um and it's been unfortunate that you know some people have tried to bring things into our contest and again it it's it's a federal and a state violation to do that on school grounds and so we're doing this for the safety of our community for our students and for our fans that are attending those events and so we're using them that way as well and even at a very heavily attended event like some rille high school's game uh Friday night we're getting people through pretty quickly um so does the 3,000 monthly scans include our athletic events because I'm okay I was going to say that would be easily a lot of people that go one night some of our football games yeah no that's just in inside the schools okay and then do
083we have a similar goal and if you don't have it that's fine um for chest their amount of times we'd like to see him utilize per week po per month I would rather let officer Gamba answer that just simply because um I know it's a fatigue issue um because of the amount of square footage that he's circulating through I couldn't really answer that one wasn't sure okay I will say this too um it's random but if we have a point of Interest then he can be requested as well okay the next thing I have on the agenda tonight is our student enrollment recommendations okay board members you should have received that in your packet is everyone okay with proceeding with that um in Open Session okay do I have a motion motion made by Mrs
084Bates to improve the approve the student enrollment recommendations as presented do I have a second seconded by Mr farnworth any questions or discussion okay hearing none we will call for the vote okay and the motion sorry one more motion carries seven in favor okay Madam chair the last thing I have to tonight are the um our September's Personnel report for your consideration okay board members you also receive that information in your packet is everyone okay with proceeding in Open Session okay do I have a motion so moved all right motion made by Mr Guthrie to approve the Personnel report as presented do I have a second seconded by Miss Bates any questions or discussion okay hearing none we will call for the vote all right motion carries seven in favor and that's all I have
085tonight Madam chair all right thank you very much Dr Robbins next item on our agenda our public comments and we have none this evening we also have uh do not have an executive session um and so at this time I would ask for a motion to adjourn motion made by Mrs Powell seconded by Miss Crosby any discussion hearing none we will call for the vote all right and the motion carries seven in favor we are adjourned sure