001invitation. We have a birthday tonight in the house. So, if everybody will please join me. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Chad. Happy birthday to you. Thank y'all. Hey, Miss Pow. Much appreciated. We will um start with our invocation if anybody would like to join me. As we gather here this evening, let us take a moment to pause and to reflect. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community, to lead with purpose, and to shape the future through the work we do on behalf of our students, families, and educators. As the school year winds down and summer begins, may this season be one of renewal, of rest for the weary, reflection for the thoughtful, and inspiration for the dreamers. Let the energy of these longer days and slower
002moments recharge our spirits so that we return with fresh ideas and clear vision. May our discussions tonight be guided by wisdom, respect, and a shared commitment to what's best for our schools and all those who depend on them. Thank you for the opportunity to do meaningful work together. Amen. Good evening and welcome to the June 9th, 2025 board meeting. Um, at this time I would ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion made by Miss Bates. Do we have a second? Seconded by Mr. Lee. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion carries. Six in favor, one absent. All right, moving on. The next item on our agenda, our district highlights. Thank you, Mr. Bohannan. Thank you, Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Doherty. Board members, tonight we're proud to present three
003district highlights to reflect our ongoing commitment to career net readiness and the arts. I think we may be struggling a little bit with the weather, but we will say nice things about these people, and if they're not here, we'll put it in the mail. Uh, to begin, I'd like to welcome Dr. Dr. Emily Duplantis, assistant director of secondary schools and CTE to the podium. Thank you and good evening board chair Wimberly and esteemed members of the board. Uh my name is Emily Duplantis and I am the assistant director of CTE for the school district. This evening I would like to celebrate two project lead the way distinguished program high schools. This honor celebrates schools committed to helping students own their education by increasing student access, engagement, and achievement in their project lead the way programs.
004Both Ashley Ridge and Fort Doorchester high schools were recognized during the 2425 school year for their outstanding efforts in both biomed science and engineering. Tonight, I would like us to celebrate both schools for this prestigious honor. and I would invite them up here at this time, but I don't think they're here. Um, so we will deliver those banners to their school, but I just wanted to make sure that we publicly recognize them for this great honor. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Duplantis. Uh, up next, we're going to bring Jason Walsh up here as we talk about this is more of a declaration than the Griffin grin. We don't have people to thank, but our district has been recognized. For the fifth consecutive year, DD2 has been named one of the best communities for music education
005by the NM Foundation. This prestigious national award recognizes districts that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to providing music access and education for all students. Now in its 26th year, this program is one of the most respected acknowledgements in arts education. awarded to districts that meet rigorous criteria around music class participation, curriculum, instruction time, funding, facilities, and community involvement. Districts must also demonstrate a sustained investment in building equitable access to music programs across all grade levels. With fewer than 1,000 communities nationwide earning this title each year, this recognition places DD2 among the most dedicated and effective school systems in the country when it comes to fostering musical excellence. A testament to our educators, families, and most of all our students whose talents and commitment keep music alive and thriving throughout our schools. So, that's a big pat
006on the back for the district and we'll bring Mr. to get a ceremonial photo with a certificate right there. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Walsh. Third on our highlights, we have SCMEA outstanding performance awards. Thrilled to announce that four of our schools in the district have earned the South Carolina Music Educators Association's Outstanding Performance Award, the highest honor that SCMEA bestows upon music programs in the state. This award recognizes comprehensive excellence across participation, achievement, and community involvement. Schools earn this distinction through superior performance in region and all state ensembles, their concert performance assessment scores, and solo and ensemble events. Each of these events earns the program points, which then earns them this distinction. And we'll call each school up individually. We ask I think we've got administrators in the room. Come on up, get a photo,
007get a certificate. Starting with Dose Middle School. And I don't know if Mr. Johnston is here tonight. But we've got Principal Ted Brinkley. Come on up, [Applause] sir. Up next, we have Oakrook Middle School. I know we've got directors. Nathan Woods is here. Jacob Arbanella is here. I know Marlon Ker wishes he was here. Principal Bentley Lewis. Gentlemen, congratulations. [Applause] Next up, we've got the River Oaks Middle School Orchestra Program. A special point of pride. This is the first time that an orchestra program in the district has been given this particular designation. Has never happened before. And that's Mr. William Nichols coming up with Jennifer Tracy. Yeah, I'll take one. Sure. [Applause] Fantastic. And then again, I think Fighting the Weather, our friends from Fort Dorchester, um, and band director Cameron Watkins also earning this
008designation. We'll get that in the mail out to them. Fantastic Fort Dorchester. And this concludes tonight's district [Applause] highlights. Okay, moving right along. The next item on our agenda is our board committee reports. And we will begin with our policy committee. Miss Bates. Yes, thank you. Uh the policy committee met prior to the facilities meeting today and so we will have some policies coming for first reading next time and we also have some for first reading today and those are as follows. policy GCC AAA sick leave bank, JLA, Student Accident Insurance, KDD, Media Relations, and KDA, Press releases, conferences, and interviews. So, I would like to bring those out of committee to Okay, the board. Great. Thank you, Miss Bates. Since this is coming out of committee, we do not need a second. So, at
009this time, do we have any questions or discussion? All right. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Okay, motion carries. Six in favor, one absent. And then before I finish, I just wanted to let everybody know that we did add a policy meeting for July 28th at 5:30 p.m. So that will be after our board advance before our board meeting. Okay, perfect. Great. That's it. Thank you very much. All right. Next, we have our finance committee report. Mr. Guthrie, uh, nothing to report at this time. Mr. Lee, do you have any Nothing to add. excited to see the uh budgeting process moving to a swift close hopefully here. You're all looking forward to that. All right. And next we have our facilities committee, Mr. Farnsworth. Um not much to report, Madam Chair. We did
010meet earlier this afternoon. If anybody has any questions, please let me know, but um just rocking and rolling. Good old summer projects. Summer projects. Thank you. All right. Great. Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda is our public comments on agenda items. And we do not have any this evening. So we will move on to our board chairs report. Um and I will as I have been doing just bring your attention to some important upcoming um events and dates. They are listed. We do have we finally were able to schedule our summer board retreat. That was quite the challenge with everyone's summer schedules and travels, but I do believe um Monday, July 28th worked for everyone. So, I am looking forward to that. Hopefully, you all have it on your calendar and um
011we have not decided on a time yet, but I will talk to Mr. Dhy and we will let you know about that very soon. Okay. Sure. Um do we have the convocation date time date just so we can get it on our calendars? We do have that date. Um, I think it's is it July 31st? Is that right? I just didn't have it on my calendar. Yes, July 31st. Okay. It's on the 31st on a Thursday. Yes. Do we have a time? Time. Do we have time? And 9:00 a.m. 8 doors open at 8 a.m. starts at 9:00 a.m. Okay, great question. So, July 31st um starts at 900 a.m. That is another important one that we should go ahead and get on our calendars. Excellent. Um, and then we have two more town hall
012meetings scheduled for this year. One this summer coming up soon, July 17th at Ashley Ridge High School at 5:30. Um, and then also we do have an upcoming SCSBA um conference. It is the school law conference that is August 23rd and 24th. If you are interested in attending, I um I believe registration is open so you can let Wanda know. She can get you registered. and that is in Charleston. Any other questions? All right, great. Thank you all very much. So, next um on our agenda, we have our superintendence report. Mr. Dhy. Yes, Dr. Wimberly and the rest of the board. We only have three items this evening and our first item is our elementary literacy update and we're very excited to be able to share an update with you regarding our letters training um
013regarding our teachers also some of the data that we're seeing um and uh I know that our team has worked really hard and uh tonight uh Mrs. Jessica Farnsworth's going to be presenting uh along with Mrs. Barker and Carrie Ball Hodgej also is helping in this. But uh they've done a phenomenal job of really tacking our literacy especially with the new letters mandate that's come down from the state and they've done a phenomenal job of really trying to make sure our teachers have received all the training. I put together a good training um calendar and also they've updated when next year when we talk about training for our teachers is trying to build in that time for them during professional development during the school year. And so you're going to be able to see that
014our teachers have worked extremely hard and you're going to see some of the data uh that you're going to see from some of our uh progress monitoring tools. So very excited about the hard work that our teachers have done and also see some of our academic progress and growth. So again, I'm very excited about Mrs. Farnsworth with her work. Uh she's put a lot of time into this and also with some of our um manipulatives. I know that they've been working very hard on our manipulative kits. Um and so uh we really appreciate the work she's done and Mrs. Ball Hodgej. Um, those of you that I just want to make sure that you're aware, most of all of our teachers have done the letters training do receive a stipen from the state. And what
015happens is that's not paid through by the district and it's paid by the state. And sometimes uh that gets a little convoluted where they think I've done the training, I need to get paid. And sometimes there's a delay in that. And I know Carrie Ball Haj is actually process every one of those and has to turn every one of those in. So that's a lot of time and effort and so I just want to thank these two ladies here and also uh um Mrs. Barker with what they've done. So I'm real excited for uh for Mrs. Farms to go ahead and present. So thank you. Welcome. All right. Thank you Dr. Weberly, Mr. Dohy, and board members. So um as you know, we have experienced a lot of changes when it comes to literacy um
016not just in our state but in our nation. And if you remember us presenting um towards the beginning of the school year, we talked a lot about the science of reading and read to succeed through the state department. So this year has been about growth and working to make sure everything aligns. And so that's what I'll share with you tonight. So there's three main factors when we look at um best practices. We want to focus on strengthening our teacher knowledge. So we'll start there. As Mr. had already shared um all of our teachers K through three, including our ML teachers, our sped teachers, our administrators are all anybody that works with students that work um in early literacy are all going through letters training. It is very intensive. It does require a lot of outside
017of um work time. So, we're excited about the fact that our teachers do receive the stipen from the state department. um it's very much like a college level coursework and the idea is to build on those foundations that possibly weren't learned years ago, you know, with evidence and science scientific practices changing. Um so, uh I'll share some some data on that a in a minute. But we've also worked on strengthening our PLC's, hosting data debriefings for our teachers and our our schools, and really making sure our professional development is tailored to um align with what we're doing in the classroom. and based on um science of reading and evidence-based research. So speaking of letters, if you want to look at this data really quick and we talk about building teacher knowledge, you can see that
018with our preassessment for units one through four, which is practically all of our teachers have finished this component um in in the district that we went from a 63% score on the pre-assessment to scoring a 95% average score. So, our teachers really are taking the time to study. They've got the books. We do live sessions. They do their own um paste coursework within Lexia's learning platform. And so, you can see that our teachers really are gaining the knowledge that they need to be able to take the this information and transform their classroom teaching. Um for the five schools that started the year before, um they're finishing up units five through eight. You can see again we've got that 74% on that new content and then ending up at about 98%. So that is about where
019some of our school um about five of our schools will be finishing up in December and that's why you can see the numbers are a little lower as far as completion there. Um and then the rest of our schools the other 10 schools will be finishing up at the end of next year. So, a lot of our professional development time has been dedicated to letters. And then our teachers that aren't doing letters, that's been a challenge trying to find appropriate professional development when everyone else that would normally present the professional development is in letters. All of us at the district level, Miss Barker, myself, Miss Hodgej, we're all doing letters as well, just to make sure that we're keeping ourselves current on the knowledge and that we need to make sure our teachers are. Um,
020so that's kind of giving you an idea. So, a lot of you may be fielding questions about the honorarium and so it's really important if you hear from teachers concerned that they finished unit uh units one through four months ago and they've done their W2 or W3 W one of those W's, they did the the tax form and they've done everything that they need to do to get payment. We are really at the mercy of the State Department. Um the State Department is learning really quickly that they probably need more manpower on this. Um, Miss Hodgej has spent countless hours for us as a district going through and verifying these forms, making sure teachers are finishing up doing the post test, scoring a certain score on the post test. If not, they get one free
021try again. Um, so it's it's a lot to make sure that our teachers are getting what they need. But so if you do field questions, just remind them that when it comes to all things letters, we really are at the mercy of the state department. So, a second big factor in our implementation of these new foundational literacy skills are the high quality instructional materials that you all help us vote on. And um we use EUFI foundations for our phonics program, HMH into reading for our core reading instruction, and then some other supplemental programs that we use on the computer and in the classroom to help build student knowledge. So that is something new that we've really been implementing to make sure that our programs and the curriculum that we're using do align with those best
022practices. And then a third factor that we're going to look at tonight with our data is appropriate skillsbased assessment. Um as you remember some of you might remember we we removed DRAS the diagnostic reading assessment from our repertoire of tools. Part of that was because the state department said no more assessments that use the three queuing system. Um, but then we also had to find something to put in that place because we do still want to be able to assess our students knowledge of those foundational literacy skills. So these are the two assessments that we really focus on in the early primary grades to test our foundational literacy skills. Ames web and really great reading which you'll hear us sometimes call the FSS that that's the main one that we took the place of DRAAS.
023So we're going to look a little bit at that data. So first up is Ames Web. Ames Webb has been around for several years. I can't even at least 15 years we've been using Ames Webb to do benchmarks and get that universal screener with our kids, but then also for progress monitoring. It's a K1 assessment for early literacy. We give it in the fall, the winter, and the spring. It's going to assess skills like letter naming, phmic awareness, oral reading fluency. We do administer those one- on-one in person. So, this is not an assessment that they take on the computer. This is with a teacher or somebody from the school. We usually do a team approach where the teacher will bring all their students to the library and there might be 10 different people in
024there, counselors, administrators, and they will help assess. This one is a timed assessment. So, it really is assessing their skills, but also their fluency of those skills. And we can base that data on national norms. So, it is a national test and we can compare how students in DD2 are doing compared to students across the country. And so this is a snapshot of our 2024 2025 data. And you can see that our students started in kindergarten in the fall coming to us fresh, coming to us, you know, some of them go to preschool, some of them don't. And so when we get kids into kindergarten, it's I always call it the great equalizer. It's that time we're trying to get everybody built up and ready for school. And we had 42% of our students scoring
025on track for literacy. The reason we say on track is that they're these are foundational skills that they're going to need in order to be fluent readers. So, we don't want to say that they are fluent readers yet, but they are on track to be a fluent reader um by the by the end of that time. And then in the winter, we moved from 42% to 45%. So, we saw a little increase, but um from what fall to spring, we went up to 61%. So, that was a great jump really looking at that kindergarten data. You can see that the red zone, those tier three students, was getting smaller and smaller as we were going, but also that that green zone was getting larger and larger. So, that's a great amount of growth for an
026assessment that is timed. And we're talk we'll talk a little bit at the another we're going to look at another assessment with kindergarteners and you might be like, well, why is there a difference there? So, I'll I'll explain that and bring that up again. So, with our first grade students, we did see growth as well. So, at the beginning of the year, 42 students Oh, nope. Sorry, I didn't change my page. Hold, please. There we go. 46% of our students were scoring on track and then by the end of the year, we had 55%. I will say the measure that we give to get that data is oral reading fluency and they take they read two passages. And so, even though we might say, okay, well, the growth wasn't as high, the bar was also
027raised. So we see that our students by the time we're in first grade, we're looking less at those foundational skills of just f phonics and phmic awareness and they're having to apply those skills to read passages. So this is 55% of our students were reading at or above the timed words per minute for that passage. All right. So another assessment that we gave this year for our early literacy, this was giving K through two is the FSS or the foundational skill survey. This was the assessment. We worked really hard with the state department and our um PD coaches and teachers to try to find an assessment that could take the place of the DRA. We had been using the DRRA for 20 plus years. Um so we really did have to kind of really dig
028through some assessments and make sure we were choosing something that aligned to best practices into evidence-based research. This assessment is given K2. It's administered at the end of each quarter. So that's a little different than the AS web. It's also administered by the teacher, not really in a team um atmosphere like we do Ames web. It's it's assessing some of the same skills, phonics, letter knowledge, phmic awareness. It is administered one-on-one in person, not on a computer. Um but with this assessment, the t the probes aren't timed. So the student has a little more think time and so you're going to see an increase in scores because our students are kind of given that think time to wait. Um, and we'll we'll address that at the end when we look at the difference. So, for
029our kindergarten data, our quarter one, at the end of quarter 1, we had 14% of our students scoring on track. And that's concerning when you look at um kindergarten. And that was, you know, we were we looked at this data and we were very concerned. We're like, did we choose the wrong assessment? Are we not um providing the instruction needed? But you also have to remember that this is the end of the quarter for their first time, a lot of these students, ever being in school. And so they were they were given skills that some of them are ne have never been asked to perform. And then by the end of quarter four we're at 73% students on track. So we saw great growth. Some of that could be attributed to a lot of it's
030attributed obviously our teachers and the hard work that they are doing in the classroom. The instructional materials that we're providing are starting to really align. We're assessing them on skills that they're actually learning in class. And so we can see that alignment there. In first grade, students on track went from 60% at the end of first quarter to 89%. And this is where you might say, okay, well, on that other assessment, if you remember the triangles, we were only at 55% on track. But to remember that that's a timed assessment, and the only skill that they had to do on that assessment was reading passages fluently. This one does break it down more into um decoding encoding words and it's not timed. So that that might be the discrepancy there. And in second grade, our
031second graders that are about to venture off into third grade where read succeed is going to hold them accountable for that reading learning. Um we went from 52% to 84% on track. So, we feel really good about the data that we're seeing about the the data aligning with the instruction that's happening in class with the programs that we're using in class. And so, kind of one last data point, you you hear us talk about MAP data a lot and and if you notice, I hadn't shared any MAP data yet. MAP really does assess a lot of overall skills. These other assessments are really honing into certain foundational skills, whereas MAP will push you. you might have a first grader that's getting questions that are meant for a second grader or third grader because it wants
032to push and continue to see where they will fall. Um, but we were pleased when we looked at our map data to see if there was a correlation. We know that further down the road we're going to start to see these kindergarteners next year in first grade and in second grade and and we're we're really excited about the plan, the projection that we're seeing with the data. Um, but we were happy to report that all of our grade levels K through five either met or exceeded the target growth. So that little orange diamond represents where MAP felt like that grade level should be at the spring assessment and that purple bar shows where our students were. So we are definitely seeing that all of our grade levels were meeting or exceeding that targeted growth from
033fall to spring on MAP and literacy. So there's that correlation we're really excited about. All right. So kind of in summary, some wins and wishes. Um we are very excited about the alignment. We're seeing that you fly HMH into reading Heggerty and the instructional practices that we're doing in the classroom along with our new standards from the state department um and the knowledge that the teachers are gaining through their PD. All of it's aligning what the what the curriculum is providing matches what we're assessing and it matches what we know is best practices and that hasn't always been the case in the years past. Um we also have improved foundational skills that we know are going to lead our students to becoming better readers. A couple of wishes. We're going to continue to look at
034the uh fluency piece. If we see such a discrepancy between a timed assessment and an untimed assessment, then we know that we want to start working on um the the fluidity of those skills that they are practicing, making sure that we're building up that fluency. Um we want to make sure that our teachers have everything they need, strategies, resources to apply what they're learning during letters into their classroom instruction. Some of this has revolved around looking at our models like you know do we need to make small group time a little longer? Do we need to provide less for this so that the teachers can apply what they're learning in letters? And third just strengthening our K2 intervention practices. Um as we celebrated a I think was at the last board meeting the the 180
035awards and we have such strong reading interventions in third, fourth and fifth grade. We want to make sure that we're building on those K2 interventions because we know early intervention is always best. So, all right. So, I open it up to any questions that you might have about the data or about what was presented. I'm sure there's tons of data we're not seeing. Um, do I understand this correctly that the last of the second grade uh shows us, you know, 84% of our second graders are on track um based on the uh untimed assessments and whatnot. Is there any correlation between that and what we're seeing in our actual scores in third grade? Uh because it seems our student achievement scores are are less than that. I'm just kind of curious because I don't know.
036So right now what we can we can say that um some of the preliminary data that we have that's come in for third grade reading just we started summer reading camp today. That was very exciting. Um and some of the preliminary data shows that we had less a less a smaller percentage of our students coming back not met than anticipated. So we do see um some of that projected carrying over into third grade. Um one thing to remember is that the new standards just started last year for K2 and then this year for everybody full implementation K5 the new curriculum. This is the first year of the new curriculum. So I think Mr. Lee like time will tell. We'll continue to track these current second graders and looking at that data and see what we
037find out next spring at the end of SC ready and really look for that correlation. Yeah. Um so you guys can imagine our dinner table conversations about the science of reading. Um I don't know that I've actually had a chance to ever question Miss Farnsworth from up here. So that's interesting. Be careful. Um curious and and so one thing we've talked about and and I think you talked about is really the alignment um between all parties and and that takes time especially when you have such a massive shift uh into the science of reading but I know one thing we had talked about was um at the college level they they were still like teaching three queuing not that long ago and so sometimes these kids come out of college and and then they're having
038to relearn all this stuff. Is is that getting better? Do we know it's I think we'll start to see a shift in that. Um some of the colleges they have their syllabus created, they have their course alignment and then you have a professor that they really have some autonomy on what they choose to teach um at the college level. And so we it's in pockets. Um so we're hoping to see more and more of this especially since the legislation from the state department aligns some of the colleges are having to work to be accredited for reach succeed. Um, but we are that's kind of why letters turns into almost like an equalizer to help fill in the gaps for either a educator like myself that's been in it for a really long time or if
039it's an educator that's fresh out of college. Everybody is needing these this skills to learn and and to fill in the gaps depending and it's kind of helping no matter where you went to secondary. You know, you're coming in and you're getting the same the same information. But it, you know, it was telling. We had teachers that have said, "Okay, I'm getting my masters at a I will unname university and they wouldn't allow me to use some of this stuff because it said they said it doesn't align to their practices." So, we do run into that where teachers are conflicted. They're trying to get their masters from a university and they they're wanting to apply what they've learned in letters and and what we know is best practices and they're definitely running into roadblocks and
040challenges. So I had a question about the the wishes the strengthening K through2 intervention practices. Are there specific plans or you know when it comes to wishes I guess is there certain thing that y'all are hoping to have or is that going to be dependent on the schools? Well like to speak to the alignment we have um with our new MTSS models really coming into play and from the state department and with Mr. Moshelle working in that MTSS position. I think what we're seeing is that at 15 different schools, 15 different elementary schools may be doing different programs and practices. And so we just want one thing that makes DD2 great is that consistency and and the quality assurance. It doesn't matter where your kid is going that they're going to receive quality instruction. And
041so we're we're going to use that MTSS process to really help with that. We have several schools that are trying out different interventions. And so next year really is the year of monitoring those interventions and really seeing where we're seeing the data most impacted so that we as a district can come back and say, "Okay, yes, this intervention, this is approved and no, this one didn't really give us um our rate of improvement that we were really looking for." So we do have a a plan to kind of help with that with consistency. Okay. Are are most schools doing some type of K through2 intervention? Yes, we did. Um, recently Miss Kelly invited us to come help like look through the title plans for alignment to curriculum to make sure that we're not approving something
042on the title side that hasn't been approved curriculum-wise. And we were able to track that um I think at least for the schools that have title one money that they mo almost all of them have some form of intervention um especially a person that they're able to afford to have a person in their plan to provide the intervention. Um, and then strengthening our in in-class interventions. That's a big piece is because the our teachers are the first interventionist. And if you're a school that doesn't have funds to pay for an intervention teacher, then we can make sure that our our classroom teachers have the time, the resources, and the knowledge to provide intervention. Great. Thank you, Mrs. Farnsworth. Thank you. And I want to thank the team. I mean, it's a big lift for that
043implementation, especially when you're talking about a new new progress monitoring tool getting rid of um, you know, the DRRA. I know that was probably hard for a lot of teachers and then going to dibbles and then when you're going into this and looking the tier one instruction how that's improved and so how you guys were able to to implement that. So again what I'm really encouraged about when you look at the national norm the reference that's NWA how well we've done I mean that growth there that that's what it's about and so when you look at students that are meeting their target growth that's it's very very very good. It looks like we're heading the right direction. So thank you so much. Thank you. Yes we're excited to see the alignment. The one thing teachers
044comment the most is they're like, "Oh, the law is matching the curriculum, which is matching the assessment, which is matching my instruction, and that's what we need for our teachers." And it just it even helps with morale. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. And the next item we have up on our agenda is a little bit from Miss Manet about the budget. So, she has a few some good information to share. So, Miss Manet, thank you. Um, good afternoon, Dr. Wimberly board members and Mr. Dhy. As Mr. Lee said, the state budget is winding down. Yay. We got some good news that um the state budget is winding down. So, we should get our allocations specifically for Doorchester 2 very soon. So, we're waiting for that. Um also, we heard um that the county council had
045their budget retreat last week. We received an email late Friday telling us that um county council had indeed um supported the increase of 6.6 mills for us and we said 6.6 wait six seven then we got another email five minutes later said oh correction 7.6 mills we're like so we were very thankful for that extra mill so that did support us that we would be able to raise the millillage to 7.6 six mills. We haven't gotten our final numbers from them yet. Um they should be calculating that to include in their budget um resolution. They go for third reading this coming up Monday night. So we'll be able to bring a balanced budget back to y'all June 23rd whenever we come back. And hopefully we'll have some additional funds that maybe we can do little
046extra something that we can bring to the board for your approval at that time. So just wanted to give you all a little um update on the budget. Um if there are any other questions about that, the next item that we have for you is um concerning community eligibility provision. So during the legislative process this year in Colombia, um Senate Bill 425 encouraged school districts to try to determine and um re and review our qualifications for students who would be eligible to meet um the community eligibility provision where they would be able to receive free meals for breakfast and for lunch. So two years ago, we were able to add 10 schools to our two that we had under the C program. So um we worked with the state department this year and um we
047were able to include all of our schools beginning with the 2526 year that they would be eligible to be included in the community eligibility provision program with the state department. meaning that all students who are enrolled in Doorchester 2 can have free breakfast and free meals beginning next year. Great news. So that will require um a resolution from the board. So we have um included a letter in your packet if you would be so inclined to approve that so that we can send that to the state department to be included in the community eligibility provision program for all of our schools beginning next year. All right. Thank you, Miss Nay. That's great news. Um board members, at this time I would ask for a motion to approve C status um for each of our schools
048as um written in the letter included in our packets. So moved. Right. Motion made by Mr. Guthrie, seconded by Mr. Farnsworth. Any questions or discussion? Just so I'm clear, all enrolled students in all schools in DD2 will now be able to have free breakfast and free lunch. Yes, sir. And the source of these funds to pay for that is coming from where? It will come from the state department. um we're able to um receive funding from them based on the free meal um participation amount that they give to us and we won't have to require any students for on on reduced lunch fees or on paid lunch fees. The state will be able to pay us 100% to cover those meals. Um, it's not each individual student, it's not each individual school, but the district
049as a whole, we were able to to identify enough of a percentage that we would be able to cover the entire district. Just as a follow-up question to that, are are we prepared if participation increases? Yeah, we hope to be. We've already spoken with our new um say, are they prepared? We've already spoken with our new food service management company um who was taking over on July 1 to let them know that our participation is anticipated to to increase because of this. Um so they're ready to go. They're probably excited. Great. Yes, they were very excited when we were able to break the news when we first met with them. So yes, Mr. Lee. Yes. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Right. Motion
050carries. Six in favor, one absent. Thank you. Thank you. And that concludes the superintendent's report this evening. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next item on our agendas are public comments and we do not have any this evening. We also do not have um any need for an executive session. So at this time I would ask for a motion to adjurnn. Motion made by Miss Bates, seconded by Miss King. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Happy birthday. Motion carries. Six in favor, one absent. We are adjourned. [Applause]