001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Good evening and welcome to the April 14th board meeting. Appreciate everyone's attendance. Um at this time I would like to go ahead call our meeting to order and ask for a motion to approve our consent agenda. So moved. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Guthrie. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Miss Bates. Any discussion? All right. hearing. None. We will call for the vote. All right. And the motion carries. Seven in favor. All right. Next item on our agenda this evening are district highlights. And I will welcome Mr. Brian Bohanan, Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Dhy board members, uh, very excited tonight to share some
002wonderful highlights, just a glimpse into all the wonderful things going on in the district. And we're going to start with the Somerville Elementary Turtlebots robotics team. One of only two teams in DD2 to advance to the state robotics competition this year. Guided by coach Sarah Cook and a consistent coach April Jeff, the team earned multiple top honors this season, including second place in core values, third place champions at the South Carolina State Championship. And because of these successes, they've earned an invitation to the prestigious WPI Open Invitational in Massachusetts this June, where they will represent our district among teams from around the world. In attendance this evening, coach Sarah Cook, assistant coach April Jeff, and team members Ethan Slaughter, Merritt Dau, Ryan Hullman, Bailey Wright, Mary Anne Keith, Joseph Lombardi, Cooper Cawill, Clara Whitley, and
003Trible Phillips. A round of applause, please, for the Turtle Box. [Applause] right here. Good. [Applause] Moving right along, we've got Ashley Ridge High School's Mario Kart 8 esports team, affectionately known as Taylor Drift, had an incredible year in the high school esports league. They secured second place in the East region during the fall season, repeating that success with a second place national finish during the winter blitz season. This performance earned them a coveted spot at the HCL National Championships May 30th through June 1st, where they will represent both Ashley Ridge and DD2 on the national stage. Tonight we welcome team members Jackson Walters, Jacob Mullins, Michael Makusk, Isaiah Lee, and coach Samuel Gould Harris. [Applause] more outstanding. standing achievement from Ashley Ridge High School. We've got McKenzie Manning coming up, a senior at Ashley Ridge
004and has been named the 2025 South Carolina winner of the National Center for Women and Information Technology aspirations in computing award. McKenzie has demonstrated remarkable leadership and dedication through her work in robotics and STEM mentorship. She plans to pursue engineering and physics at Barry College while playing on their women's golf team. Her accomplishments reflect the highest standards of academic and extracurricular excellence, and we're proud to recognize her achievements this evening. Round of applause for [Applause] McKenzie. To conclude our highlights, I'd like to welcome up Wanda Gaston for some special service highlights. Good evening, Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Derty, and board members. I just want to say thank you for allowing us this opportunity to celebrate and bring you some good news from the Office of Special Services. So, we are celebrating tonight with our community partners
005who realize that uh not everyone can do this job and not any of us can do it alone. And so they have partnered with us and created some really awesome opportunities to help us create a culture of mutual respect for our students and their families and the staff members who serve them. So I'm going to introduce Kendra Buffman who is the founder and current chair of the special services parent liaison group that came at a time when we really needed them to come and they have stuck with us and we have just gotten better and better. And then also following Kendra, we're going to have Hunter Jackson, who is the current chair of the Somerville Mayor's Committee, and he's going to bring you updates from Somerville Mayor's Committee. I will not get up again, but
006I'll be the person yelling in the back. Thank you, Dr. Gadston. And yes, good evening, Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Dardy, and board members. Thank you for having me here tonight. I was asked to just give like a year-end review. So, I'll try to be as quick as possible, but fill you in on what all we've been able to do this year. As a brief history for the new board members, like Dr. Gadston just said, I saw a need about six or seven years ago to um create some sort of partnership with parents and the district. And um this next month will mark two years since I came and spoke at a board meeting with that proposal and initiative. I myself have been a special needs parent for about 10 years now. So this is a passion
007of mine as well. Since that board meeting, we've had the opportunity to cultivate this wonderful partnership with the district. We have a group of 17 which you can see. I think I got to picture every one of our parent liaison up there in that collage um that I've absolutely grown to admire and they've offered us wonderful ideas, suggestions, um solutions, all of the things and we have held a board meeting or excuse me, not a board meeting, we've held a meeting with district leadership about every other month and then we have also had a liaison only meeting on those off months In the beginning, the main goal was to facilitate supportive connections between special service families and DD2 to offer guidance, resources, and information to parents. Since then though, we've added quite a bit to
008that mission. Um, let's see. With that in mind, if you'll allow me to share a few of those quick updates, our newest initiative that we've incorporated this year that we're very excited about is our first ever DD2 parent or excuse me, PE sped parent educator conference. That's quite a mouthful. And that will be held at Ashley Ridge High School on May 17th. And it starts at 8:30 that or 8 that morning and goes till about 1:30 that afternoon. I believe I've sent you all the invitation to that. So, we hope that you can join us. We will have their keynote speakers, breakout sessions on various sped topics, um a community resource fair, and even food trucks. If that's not enough to get you there, maybe the food trucks will. Um this will be hosted by
009the SSPL group in conjunction with the after that we have worked with the district to purchase 15 new portable communication boards and that is you know little pictures on a board and it will be portable and it will be portable. They will go to all elementary schools and then we also have two that we hope to place in local partner parks partnering with our town and county officials and agencies. So, we're looking forward to that to provide a more inclusive um not only here in the district, but an experience for the whole community as a whole. So, a few more honorable mentions quickly are we are in the planning stages of creating a special needs Olympic or Special Olympics swim team, also helping expand our unified sports to middle schools, and then rallying for our
010robotics teams across the district. so appropriate that some of them were here for the elementary level um that made it to worlds like our high school ones that are involving um our high school age kids all made it to worlds and then also promoting more inclusion not only through the district but the community again as a whole and then continuing support from year one we've continued to offer our support to our unified track which is now inclusive track and That next track meet is this upcoming Thursday, April 17th at Somerville High School and it starts at 5:00 and we encourage everyone to come out and see these awesome athletes at that. We also continue to improve communication between district parents or parents and the district by posting information and sharing resources on our social media
011page and pointing parents in the right direction when they have questions or need some um information and where to go. Um next we have sorry see here we have our biggest probably initiative is our sped staff appreciation day and we decided that that was a must repeat for this year because it was such a success last year and we wanted to do it bigger and better. So, I'm happy to share that we increased our fundraising efforts from 10,000 last year to over $65,000 worth of donations this year. Our community really showed up for our sped educators this year for sure. You will see here we have a by the numbers and um we served over 725 teachers and staff. We gave them each a gift. Then we had lots of raffle items that we also
012gave away. Um, so it was a really big success and that was back in December. Um, with that though it brings us to our presentation portion of the rundown and I think there might be some pictures. Yeah, that was our our sped day pictures that we had from this year. But the presentation for our our donors that we graciously had here are some of their their logos and stuff that that helped us raise that that amount. We um wanted to offer them a personalized thank you card. So, we held an art contest with our sped students to submit artwork and we chose the next slide as our winner and I believe they are here tonight, Mr. Malachi Cummings. Oh, sure. [Applause] Um, and Just really quickly to wrap things up, um I just wanted to
013close and say saying, oh, I'm going to try not to get emotional here. Um while my time as a chair is coming to an end, I have full confidence in the ones that are stepping up into this role next year, and I know they will continue to improve the connections between our special needs families and the DD2 school district. I'm excited to see how the group grows in the future. see the things that they can do to help improve our community as a whole and for all the new relationships that will be fostered from it. Lastly, I have felt nothing but the utmost support and accessibility from district leadership, Dr. Gadston, the board, and many others throughout the district and want to thank them and you guys all for your support. It's been an experience
014I will never forget. So, thank you for your time tonight. And now we have Mr. Hunter Jackson that will speak with you. I really don't know how I'll follow $65,000 raised for our sped teachers. Uh we didn't have an opportunity to clap for the SSPL for that specific thing. So I think we all owe them that. Um, as the father of two special needs individuals within DD2, I know our teachers felt that love and I can't can't say what that meant to them. Um, if y'all don't know me, I'm Hunter Jackson. I am the board chair of it's a it's a lot of words. The Somerville Mayor's Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities. So, while that is a very long name, I would highly bet that nobody in this room has ever heard
015of us, but one of the great things that we are able to do is provide um scholarships for um students within the Somerville area that have special needs. Um I we call them differing abilities. We don't get to choose the name, you know, that's what comes from the governor's committee, but people of othering diff othering diff excuse me, othering abilities. Um this year we're going to give over $20,000 in scholarships to students just here in Somerville. Um we also honor employment sponsors. Um so previous winners have been people such as Publix um Kohl's and different organizations that go out of their way to employ our students of differing abilities. This year we're really really excited to add on some scholarships thanks to the SSPL as well as some other people to uh people that are
016on the certificate track if you will versus a diploma track. So our goal is to reach all people um within the district that uh go forth and just improve their ability and their um participation in the workforce. We've been around for 35 years, believe it or not. I can't believe that 1990 was 35 years ago. I believe I had hair at that time. Um, and may have been four years old. But, um, we still have members on our board that were there at that first meeting. So, we, you know, while we meet once a month, our goal is always to fund raise 100% of that money, as well as a lot of these people up here give money for us to be able to give out those scholarships. On May 7th, we're going to be
017doing a lot of those things. And maybe some people in this room that maybe have walked up on the stage might be getting some of those. But our goal is always to support our partners not only in education but our partners in employment, honor our students, but also honor our staff and our faculty because you know we talk about teachers, we talk about faculty, but it's very very often we give that service level thing and we really want to talk about the awesome things that they do. So, one of the awards that we have that I'm most proud of is that Coco Boyd Award, which really honors um you know, a a an aid in at Somerville High School that made a major um a major impartation on a student's life and their father, you
018know, donates the money for that award. But we also give out several other awards. Um so, we're really excited to be able to speak here tonight, but also to work with the SSPL as well as Dr. Gatson being on our board and uh Mr. Tyrone Drakeford being on our board and bringing that together and well quite frankly in the 21st century through unified tract and other things like that. So I appreciate a chance to tell you all a little bit about us. Last thing, even though we're called the Somerville Mayor's Committee, we receive no money from any government organization. So yes, that's that. So thank you all. Thank you so much. while they're giving hugs. Um, I just want to say Kendra, I remember that first meeting where you came and spoke to us and
019I just was writing up here. One thing I adore about you is that you saw a need. I'm going to cry now, too. Oh my gosh. as a parent, you saw a need and you wanted to be a voice and you wanted change and you partnered with us and you came alongside us and you did some really really awesome big things with that and I think that's beautiful and wonderful that you became part of the solution and joined us with that and so I will miss you too and I appreciate all you did and all you do because I think it's just phenomenal and thank you Mr. Jackson too for all you do and for partnering with us. So, sorry that just got me emotional, but I love you. Okay. I I'm echoing just about
020everything that Kelly said when you stood up there and you spoke from your heart and then afterward you all had the meeting over there and next thing I know this wonderful organization came into being and part of that is also with Dr. Thank you. I'm forgetting what I want to say, but I have subbed in special needs classes and those are some of the most wonderful children to work with. And so I am so glad that you didn't come with just a problem, but you came with a possible solution and you were willing to work with us and Dr. Gatsson was willing to work with you and out of this I am so proud. I talk about you wherever I have the opportunity. you and your partner I I always forget your partner's name but
021the two of you all came to that meeting and I was so struck by the fact that you didn't blame but you said what can we do in order to get this together and in the end our children benefited our teachers are benefit benefiting from this and so I encourage other parents you know you may have a problem but come with a possible solution and let us work together in order to bring about a better DD2 than we even have now. So, Mr. Hunter, I've I've known of you. I've never met you, but hey, you're working with a wonderful group, and I'll do my best to try to be present whenever I can. Thank you so much. [Applause] All right, that is board committee reports don't sound that good. to say that transition was a
022let down. Would be an understatement. Yes. The next item on our agenda are our board committee report. So we will start out with our policy committee. Um Miss Bates. Yes. Thank you madam chair. Uh currently we have several policies that are for second reading today. That is policy EA support services goals priority objectives. Policy EC, buildings, grounds property management. Policy ECB, buildings and grounds maintenance. Policy ED, waste management and recycling. Policy A R J A student records. Policy GBAA, sexual harassment and retaliation for staff. Policy JA E1, sexual harassment and retaliation students. and hello. Policy Ike, promotion, retention, and acceleration of students. And that is all. So I will turn them over to you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you, Miss Bates. So those are coming out of our policy committee. So we do not
023need a second. So at this time, I would ask is there any I would ask is there any um discussion? All right. Then hearing none, we will call for the vote to approve the policies as presented from our policy committee for second reading. And then while we're voting on that, I know we have a policy meeting on the agenda or for April 28th. I wanted to confirm because I have it on my calendar for five, but are we doing the budget at five and the policy at 4? I just want to make sure I tell people the right time. Do you know? Well, we're checking on that. The motion does carry. Seven in favor. Do you know? I have it. Normally we normally we always move the budget up later. So, is it at 4
024or policies at four? Okay, that's what I have. Okay. So, we do have a policy meeting April 28th at 5 PM and that's it. Okay, perfect. All right. Thank you, Miss Bates. All right, so everyone got that policy meeting at 5:00 PM on the 28th. All right, so next we have our finance committee. Yeah, nothing to report tonight, but we're deep into the budget season and more to report and a superintendent report. Yes. All right, great. Thank you very much. Sure. Finance committee does continue to be busy though we know. All right. And then our facilities, Mr. Farnsworth. Um, thank you, Madam Chair. Of course, always busy in the uh the world of facilities. Uh later on in the meeting, we will get more of an in-depth facilities breakdown of of all the projects we've
025got going on. Couple things, if you don't mind, I did want to highlight uh just from from maybe a high level from the facilities committee. Um, we did finish our walkthroughs a couple weeks ago as a committee and so next steps there uh will work with the district to put together um kind of the finalized list of of findings quote unquote findings uh that we'll move forward with and and want to address as a district. Um so those are complete. Uh we hosted a meeting last Monday. We hosted a community information meeting um specific for the property for the elementary school property at the ponds. uh fairly well attended meeting. Um we did get a lot of media coverage um which was good. And for those that were at the facilities meeting uh prior to
026this meeting um we did talk about at at this point um it it's still that project is is really still between the developer and the county. And so at this point uh those two entities are having some interesting uh volleys, shall we say. uh since I know we're going to talk about tennis courts uh later in our facilities report. Um so I will leave it at that and again we do have some further information uh facilities wise but happy to answer any questions or anything for Miss Powell from facilities? All good? Everybody good? Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Farnsworth. All right, that concludes our board committee reports. Um the next item on our agenda are public comments on agenda items. Um and just as a little bit of a change in procedures, I would
027ask that tonight if you have a public comment on agenda or non-aggenda items, if you would please come down the I guess it would be your left side of the boardroom right over here as Vanna is showing you so that you can most easily access the microphone. All right. So, um, we do have some public comments on agenda items and the first this evening is Mr. Ben Hop. Uh, greetings board members. I'm here to address item 4 C on the agenda in regards to school facilities. The facility I wish to directly speak to are the tennis courts at Somerville High School. In an early October schoolboard meeting, we were promised new tennis courts would be ready for the ladies tennis season, which would begin the first week of August. I spoke at a school board
028meeting in February to remind the board of that promise. I'm speaking today because rumors are swirling that the tennis courts may not be ready for the girls tennis season. The recent departure of Superintendent Robbins has been circulated as a reason as well as the phrase, "We want to make sure it gets done the right way." I agree that the courts should be designed and constructed properly and reflect the proud tradition of athletic excellence at Somerville High School. However, this school board has been aware for the past four years that new courts are needed. Why has it taken this long to devise a plan? The boys and girls tennis programs have already missed four seasons of playing on their home courts within the last five years. How is Somerville supposed to grow their tennis program and
029remain competitive in their region and beyond if players have inadequate courts to play and practice? I was told last fall that soil samples will be conducted for the new court site. How long did it take the district to do a soil sample test and what are the results? I have heard nothing from the district or school officials since last fall when they told me the site was selected and construction was soon begin. As excited as we are about new tennis courts, many are concerned that the ladies team will have to forego another season without playing on their home courts. Currently, the majority of matches are scheduled away due to having no courts, and this puts additional strain on our students as they have to miss more class time to accommodate the extra travel travel time.
030The Green Wave tennis teams do not deserve to be punished another season. The assignment to build new tennis courts at Somerville was given four years ago. Somerville tennis players, coaches, and supporters want to be reassured by this board that the tennis courts will be ready for this girls season in August. Will you uphold your promise and do this? Uh, your assignment is due August 1. I have a little more time left. Um, I just want to know that I've been involved in this process for at least five years by talking to many of you individually and through emails as well as many other officials uh within the school system. And I guess I just want more feedback on what's going on. There just seems a lot of questions and I feel like this problem has
031been going on since I moved here 20 years ago with these tennis courts and it's I've mentioned four years. It's been at least 15 years that these tennis courts have been talked about. So we appreciate your uh attendance. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hop. All right. And um next we have Mr. Jason Brockard. So, concerning agenda items, I would like to talk about the superintendent's report, which has nothing following up about the comments about school bullying a little while ago. But, do we really have to play this game right now? Do I have to wait till the end of this meeting before I can say what I need to say? Do we really have to limit me to my three minutes? I've been here three minutes every single time since November. Disrespected, repeatedly snubbed off.
032Do we have to play this game or will you let me speak? Is there anyone up on this board that actually has a heart, not listening to a lawyer, that will let me say what I need to say, or am I still stuck to 2 minutes and 22 seconds and you all just staring at me? Can I talk about school bullying? Can I talk about teen suicide? Mr. Brocker, if you would like to speak on a non-aggenda item, you may speak at the end of the meeting under non-aggenda items. Thank you. I will be back up in a little bit for a continuation of this game. All right, the next item on our agenda is our board chair's report. And um we have a couple things on there for this evening. Um first I um
033several of us attended the CASPA 2025 national conference and so if any board members would like to speak about that I will open it up. Um I was able to attend and um just reflecting back on that it it was a um a great opportunity and I did appreciate that. One of the things um that I have found with many of the conferences I've attended but um most especially with this one is um you know it's it's a great opportunity for for professional development as board members but I think there are several of us up here who do not have a background in education and so I always find it helpful to also attend some of the sessions that specific that are specifically um probably things that uh many of you sitting in the audience,
034teachers, um you know, things that you're probably more familiar with, but for me is um is relatively new. And at this particular conference, one name that kept coming up and I'm sure some of you are familiar with it was um John Hattie. And so I was just absolutely um taken and and very interested in the research that he has done um and attended several sessions that t spoke about things that he um that he has studied and research that he has um collective efficacy is one and um you know a lot of it I hear it from the um professional development side and It's great data, great information, but really it's um most helpful when I find that the things I'm learning really um kind of enforce and and show that what I feel just
035from this school district, the things that we do so well, there's actually data out there that um kind of backs that up. And so it's it's very helpful for me. Um, one of the things that he really that I really love about that is that he stressed about the importance of the teacher. And I do think that is something that I have have learned and seen so much from being involved in this school district and what a difference the impact having a high quality educator makes um in every single classroom. having those quality highquality teachers who believe that every single one of their students can achieve. Um, you know, there is actual data out there that really shows that that makes a difference. Um, and I have certainly seen that firsthand because we do have
036those amazing educators in this school district. And so I I really appreciated the opportunity and I've um already started reading more about what he has to say. But it was a great introduction to something that again for many of you probably already know about but for me it was new and I I really appreciated that. So just one of the many highlights. Um I won't go on. I'll let other people speak if they would like to share something. Um I know there was it was a great conference with lots of great opportunities. Well, one of the things that I I think I went to more than one session, but it had to do with involving our young people, those that are in high school and even middle school, for them to actually take a role
037on the board and I think that is very helpful. Um, I won't talk about it too much until we see what we can do about that. But just think about the fact that we have a number of very smart young people that have some very good ideas about those things that concern their lives while they're here in school. And so I think it's they may not necessarily have a voting opportunity initially, but I think it's very important for us to try to bring them on board so that eventually one day they may be a board member sitting up where we're sitting. So we have to start somewhere. So I am very interested in that possibility. I also attended that session and I thought it was really beneficial to hear younger students or younger people in
038the community and their voices and their desires and and how we can support them. Um it was also really neat attending that session were actually some high school students that were attending the conference. So it was really neat to have them in there as well. Um, and back to the academic piece, that's truly my passion and I'm excited about that to hear how different uh communities and districts are making it work, whether they're super tiny and have, you know, 42 kids in their whole district or they're even larger than us. So, it was just really neat to get some feedback on on how we can grow academically and be the best that we can be. Yes. I I also wrote down John Hattie after I don't even know how many sessions. It was like we
039went through several that were some of them were academic achievements. There there were just various titles but like that was a common theme that were like okay we need to investigate this person and research it more. So I think that was exciting. Um for me um I attended two sessions with a neuroscientist. I cannot say her name for the life of me. It's like Shuketa Kamoth. I'm butchering it. Um, but she's the founder and CEO of EXQ and she talked a lot about executive function and how teaching executive function can directly impact student success, especially once we are no longer their executive function for them when they hit middle and high school level. And so as somebody who both struggled with that growing up and who has a neurode divergent child um and is just
040passionate about finding ways to help kids that struggle with that whether it's because of you know something like ADHD or just not having the right tools in their pocket. Um I thought it was really really interesting and I'd like to bring them in to present to the district to just share more about it because I think it could be a missing piece to a lot of some of the struggles we see. So, I thought that was really interesting. Oh, let me add um Kelly probably won't say anything about it herself, but she along with Ashley, Ashley was her partner, Vanna White and all of the two of them together. But anyway, they presented on the um superintendent's um evaluation and this is something that Kelly actually wrote up with the help of Ash, Dr. Wimberly
041and there was standing room only. I mean there were people could not wait to get in there and I think maybe they need to have additional sessions. The only thing about going to these conferences they have so many good ones going on at the same time and so you have to kind of choose which one you can go to and then hopefully run and catch the tail end of the next one. But by the time I made it to the room, people, it was time for them to leave, but they were still there asking questions and writing down information. So, I say kudos to my co-board members. You did a fabulous job. So, I and I will be very brief. Um, as I always do with our conferences, I I want to say thank you
042um to our community, to the district uh for allowing us the opportunity to uh to attend these conferences. I I do think they're they're extremely important, especially when you look at Cosba and previously NSBA and and when we can interact and um be around folks from around the country um I think is extremely valuable. Um it's very interesting. You know, sometimes we we think that the issues that we're dealing with are are just our issues and and that's it and nobody else deals with it. And what you find time and time again is is people around the country are are dealing with the same issues that that we are. And so um on that same note, we also tend to find that we're doing things above and beyond. Uh we're we're already here when other
043school districts are are trying to play catch-up. Uh so that's always good. uh one theme and and I purposefully um looked for sessions on AI, not A1 on AI, artificial intelligence. Um it it is uh here whether you like it or not. Um it it very very much um is is taking root across the country uh for educational um purposes. And so I think we need to um really look at ways that we can um adopt and and again institute implement um AI into DD2 in in ways that make sense. So I've got some ideas there that that I'll bring forward um to the board. But again just want to say thank you and very very valuable information. Let me self-correct. Self-correct. I got my two meetings two conferences mixed up. I was so impressed
044with the one that she did down in the state conference, Myrtle Beach. So, that was the one. But anyway, I just wanted to go ahead and self-correct before someone selfcorrect uh correct me on that. But Kelly, you all did a great job on that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, board members. Um, also, as part of the board chair's report this evening, we have a reminder that we do have one of our scheduled town hall meetings coming up. Um we April 25th this will be our second uh town hall meeting and it will be at 5:30 and this time it will be at Fort Dorchester High School. So um we are rotating those around the district. Last time we were here at the district office. So we look forward to that opportunity to um engage
045and answer questions. Uh so just be on the lookout. We will have more information coming out shortly to um explain the details of that and how you can be a part of it and we encourage you to um participate and to share that opportunity with others as well. So and board members I know you all have that on your calendar but this will just serve as a reminder. All right wonderful and I believe Dr. Let me go ahead and also emphasize this is the opportunity. A lot of time people say to the board members, we get up and we speak and you don't say anything back to us. Well, we are basically just taking in information. We don't respond. But if you have a question, if you have a concern, something that we can help
046address, that would be a great time for you actually to send it in or to come and participate where we can have a dialogue with you. But um just want to explain that to you because you know I didn't know before I became a part of the board why they didn't answer questions. That's just what the format says. We don't. So um thank you. Thank you, Miss Powell. All right, and that does conclude the board chair's report for this evening. So, our next item on our agenda is our superintendent report. Mr. Doherty, Dr. Wimbley, and the rest of the board members would like to address our academic report. And this evening, we have Amanda Wilkins, and she is a coordinator for GATE, our gifted and talented program. She's going to give an update uh of
047the program across the district. So, please welcome Amanda Wilkins. Good evening, Madame Chair, Mr. DHY and board. I would like to formally introduce myself. I'm Amanda Wilkins. I'm the new gifted and talented coordinator for the district. As I stepped into this role this fall, I do have to say that I inherited a large challenge that our neighboring districts and states are dealing with as well. As you can see, um, we have a large discrepancy in the number of state identified gifted, academically gifted students for students, pupils in poverty and ethnically diverse students. Looking at our data, you can even see that in our strategic plan this year, we did not meet our goal in those two sections. We were projected at 1385 this year for pupils in poverty and we ended with 1355. Our projected
048data for our ethnically diverse students who are state identified as gifted and talented was 1264 and we rounded out at 1261. Now, if you go to the next slide, you can see that obviously we have an action plan in place. And it's been very exciting for me this year to work with parents, with students, with our teachers, leadership teams in the focus areas of education, exposure, and reform. And it all boils down to board that we need to expose our students to higher level thinking, questioning, and problem solving. all students across the board at an earlier age. Students who do well on these state assessments are those who whether it's in their home, in their early childhood classrooms, or in some kind of outside program have been exposed to those kinds of thinking and problem
049solving skills. So this year it's been such an awesome journey to get into those classrooms and work with teachers to not only help them become better educators. Um there is an section in their actual evaluations that they get each year that focuses on questioning, problem solving, and thinking. And those indicators are hard to meet as a classroom teacher because not only are you trying to hit all areas, but you are trying to do it within a short period of time, an observation time. So, how can we do that? We can train our teachers, of course, but give our parents resources to work with their students at home to help prepare them for assessments that are coming up. The district's wonderful because we give multiple assessments starting in second grade for students to help identify them,
050but some are still falling under the radar simply because we are just not exposing them to those kinds of thinking. We also are providing PD to teachers on using untapped data and hearing some of you talk earlier about neurode divergent students and students who do really think differently and need different exposures. This is amazing because it helps teachers. We use a program called the COGAT which is the cognitive assessment. We give it to every second grade student in DD2. And what happens with that data is usually we either identify those students or or they're not identified. But teachers have an untapped resource. There are amazing reports within that system for parents, for teachers. But not only that, they provide reports that are small groupoup reports to show teachers how to work with students, not based
051on if they're good at reading or math or they're weak in those areas, but really it helps them to work with students based on the whole child and their learning style. So, this is something we've been excited about and exposing teachers to, showing them what that data means, how to find it, and how to use it to better their classroom instruction. As for exposure, u we're looking at first grade programs to really help boost those higher level thinking skills so that when they do take the KOAT in second grade, they're they know what is being asked of them and they're familiar with these kinds of questions. We also have updated our current GPA practice. This is something in the reform section that at the end of each year, starting with the fifth grade year, we
052look at GPA as one of the qualifiers for state identification. And now rather than just identifying those who are already partially qualified, we will be uploading all students GPA so that when the scores come in from SC ready in the summer and when MAP scores come in first thing in the fall, we can quickly identify students and get them being served where they should be served. We're also offering more testing opportunities. So, not only can they take the Kogat in the fall, we now this spring have offered spring abilities testing for new students and we'll be offering one in the summer as well. And then, of course, we're looking at depth over acceleration. In the past, it's been skim over, for instance, fifth grade standards, move into sixth grade standards, but we really want to
053go deep because that's how students will show growth. And on the next slide, you can just see this is an example. Um the cognitive abilities page here is a really great resource. We've been educating teachers on this site and how to talk with parents about what this means for their child and h and really using teacher resources to pull reports to better understand their students as whole children. The teaching standards 4.0. If you don't have a background in education, um you may not be super familiar with the fact that teachers every year get evaluated on planning, professionalism, environment, and instruction. And they struggle each year in how to really excel in the areas of questioning, thinking, and problem solving. So, we've been trying to tackle that more the root of the problem than just kind
054of putting a band-aid on the issue. And finally, we've added additional resources to our gifted and talented website, the DD2 website for parents to help them talk with their child at home. There are questions they can ask their children at dinner to help them think more in more complex ways. And finally on the last page, this is just something that makes me happy is that we have been incorporating these practices and strategies that I've been talking to teachers about into classrooms where the children really start to take charge of their learning and it becomes less on the teacher as the kind of the classroom leader and more of just the facilitator as students take charge of their learning which in turn is going to benefit every one of our students. Thank you, Mrs. Wilkins. Are
055any questions from the board um that you may have for Mrs. Wilkins? I actually do have a question. I'm sorry. Can you go back to the the very first slide to the data and and can you explain that to me a little bit? I apologize. No, absolutely. So, our five-year strategic plan and and I came in as this was ongoing, but these are the projected numbers for number of enrolled students who are state identified as gifted learners as pupils in poverty or ethnically diverse students. Okay? And we're, you know, our mission is to raise those numbers and kind of fill the gap, but we have to have a plan. I gota And what's the modern learners one? Modern learners are students who have IEPs, 504s, twice exceptional. Um, and we, as you can see, we're
056doing well in that category. And then I'm sorry. So where did the the projected data come from? So the projected data data was kind of based on we look at the growth over the years and it just is based on that growth. Um but you can see there's historic growth but there's been a standstill. Um these numbers are pulled from powers school from our enrollment in powers school. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Absolutely. So is that average baseline just DD2 or is that across the state? This is DD2. Okay. Mhm. Thank you, Mrs. Wilkins. Thank you. And now at this time uh our second part of our academic uh report, we'll have Mrs. Carrie Ball Hodgej, director of elementary education, and Jessica Farnsworth, assistant director for elementary will report on PLC Wednesdays. This
057was the first year in which we have implemented a 45minute release uh on Wednesdays to help provide time for our teachers for collaboration vertical and horizontal curriculum alignment and they're here tonight to talk you a little bit about that program and how that has went throughout the years. So thank you uh Mrs. Ball Hodgej and also Mrs. Farnsworth. Thank you. Good evening Dr. Wimberly, Mr. Dhy and board members. I am again Carrie Balhaj the very proud director of elementary schools and I have Jessica Farnsworth assistant director of elementary schools my right and leftand everything um we're here to talk about PLC Wednesdays I know you've heard a lot about it throughout the year you've asked for additional information and then we're coming back tonight to share all of the information that we've gathered but really
058backing what Mr. Dhy said the purpose for PLC Wednesdays. Um, you hit the nail on the head when you talked about John Hattie. I'm happy you got to uh experience a little taste of John Hattie. I encourage you to go and do the research and what he says behind PLC Wednesdays and professional learning communities and the self-efficacy and the the collective efficacy, excuse me, from our teachers. just providing them the opportunity to come together to inquiry, you know, look at a problem, try to resolve it together, you know, go back, collect the evidence and come back to the table and see how we can change instruction based on those findings. So again, we have PLC Wednesdays for um faculty meetings, committee meetings for planning um to go make sure our teachers have the time to
059learn new standards, new curriculum, um letters. That's been a huge um undertaking this year. As well as we want to look at retaining and recruiting our teachers and we know in order to do that, we have to give them time and we have to arm them and empower them with the tools they need to be successful. So, a little timeline as a reminder, we came here in January after surveying our 15 elementary school principles and we shared that data with the board. It was kind of a mixed um result and we were all kind of surprised to see that it was not um leaning one way or the other. You had some principles that felt very strongly that it was a good use of our time and then you had some principles that felt like
060it just still wasn't enough time. And so um you all requested maybe that we go back and look and talk to our faculty and staff members about their feelings about PLC Wednesday. So in March we surveyed all faculty and staff members that work at the elementary school, our certified, our classified employees. And so now um we had that data. We brought that data back and we had about 30% participation around that um uh from that which we know with surveys that means they a lot of people were neutral. Usually when a survey goes out if they they really love something they want to respond and if they really don't love something they want to respond. So, um, we met with our principles and debriefed and shared the data from faculty and staff members and, um,
061did a final survey with principles, and that's the data that we're going to share here with you today. All right. So, I'm just going to review what we talked to you about in January. Um, the initial feedback from principles. So, we gave them a scale on a scale from one to five. How beneficial are PLC's? How do they support your mission and vision? So again, the overall um score was a 3.82. So that's that's kind of leading a little bit more towards five, but we're still sitting in the middle. We would like one way or another, right? So we're looking at the benefits. Principles reported some of the benefits of PLC Wednesdays. Again, they're hearing that their staff members, their teachers need more time. We would love to be able to collaborate with Miss Wilkins
062more in our gate teachers and have that vertical articulation, those vertical pieces, have the pets program look at that. All of that takes time, professional development. So um that was definitely a benefit for PLC Wednesdays. Organized meetings is the second piece of that. Um on Wednesdays, we asked um for them to complete a spreadsheet. So every Wednesday they had to indicate how their Wednesday was going to be spent. So, it kind of forced us all as a district to kind of get into a structure on how we're going to run our meetings. Um, next section was reviewing data and making sure that we're adjusting instruction based on those findings based on that data. And the last piece is the collaboration, which is the hugest piece. giving teachers the time to come together to look at
063their data to make plans for instruction and then carry that out and then come back together again and say, "All right, this worked well in this classroom or at this school. How can we come together to improve instruction overall by sharing strategies, resources, etc." So, some positive highlights again were increased teacher happiness, um efficiency, and faculty meetings because we had to get out of there by 2:45. So, we had to be quick, you know, and to the point. Um, and another great thing that we found that came out of this is we want to improve our MTSS, our multi-tered support system for our students. And so really providing that time for staff members to meet. Um, and then we want to look at some of the challenges obviously were time constraints again by the time
064you really were able to get out there and or get into a meeting um, we had about 30 minutes. Um, late buses or student pickup. I think Miss Farnsworth's going to share a little bit more about that, but just the confusion of what Wednesday are we working with? Um, change of expectations. I think when it first came out, we talked about only having it for PLC Wednesdays and faculty meetings, but just we opened it up a little bit more to um committee meetings, um maybe MTSS, different opportunities. So, I know that that was embraced by our principles. And then the last part is not all admin were able to participate. I know coming from a principal role um fires happen at the end of the day, students on buses, um you know, parents coming in,
065etc. So, somebody has to be there for those parents and those students to make sure they're safe and heard. So, again, not all administration were able to participate every Wednesday. So, um and just like always, we want to know how our decisions impact all stakeholders. So feedback from families um from the first roll out of PLC Wednesdays there was a lot of confusion. It kind of happened um very quickly and so families were having to deal with three different dismissal times. We have regular dismissal, PLC Wednesday dismissal and early release day dismissals. Even with parent square being a wonderful way to communicate with families, there were still um times where families the miscommunication didn't pick students up at times and that's what Miss Hodgej mentioned. um you know that left admin office staff certified uh
066classified employees to help manage the office and pick up whereas then they weren't able to participate in those PLC's and we know that our classified employees want to be instructional leaders they want to be in the PLC meetings they want to receive professional development but a lot of times they were the staff members that were left back to handle car rider bus rider and things like that and just not enough notice before the year started a lot of the families the calls that we received Steve, our amazing admin assistants, Christina and Kim, fielding those calls and just knowing that families felt like it just wasn't enough notice from the beginning of the year to to create consistency with pickup with their families. So, um, the next group of stakeholders, so like we said, we took
067it back in March and sent out a survey to all faculty and staff members that work with elementary age students. And we actually had an even lower ranking. So uh 3.16 out of five and this is our certified and classified employees um media specialists, teaching assistants and so on. Um the benefits they did enjoy just like the principles mentioned the collaboration and planning um the time management and um although we don't have contract hours we do try to honor that time and value our teachers time and not keep them too much um after that 245 cutoff. um the meeting efficiency, people had to be really quick when they felt like there was a timer ticking and um the time for professional development, but again the challenges um supervision of students. Some people felt like the
068meetings that were presented weren't relevant to their positions or that they were missing the relevant meetings because they were helping with dismissal. Um time is great, but it still just wasn't enough time. And always what's what's at the forefront of our mind is missing instructional time with our kids. PLC Wednesdays. Um I know Miss Hodgej will share kind of the hours, but with the PLC Wednesday dismissal, we actually miss out on more instructional time with our students. Okay. So, and again like Miss Farnsworth mentioned, missing time with students, but oftentimes it was with the same students because of the scheduling piece of that. So, every Wednesday, if you have ELA and you're a fifth grader, you're always missing ELA. So, we want to make sure that we're being mindful of those decisions moving forward. So
069um again we so we went back to our principles. Now what we shared this information with them from their staff members from the district um let's make a plan you know what um what would we like to see next year because we know that we have to provide time for teachers to collaborate for us to meet um to grow as a district. So we gave them um three choices. We said keep with the after disc much discussion with them they actually kind of came up with some options and we narrowed it down to the three. Um, so we the first option was keep the current model, which is what we did this year, which was 10 early release days plus um was 23 um PLC Wednesdays. I think that's right, with all of the snow
070and etc. So that ended up being a total of between 48 and 50 hours of instructional time that that we lost there. And not lost, I mean, there's a give and take, right? When you're planning intentional instruction, you want to say there's a win. Um, so we had one principal that selected that that option to stay with what we're doing. The second option was to discontinue PLC Wednesday and to keep the 10 early release days. So that would be 30 hours total throughout the year. I want to remind everyone that we use those um early release days for letters and so that was eight early release days out of the 10 alone. So you think about the collaboration, all the other things that need to happen. Um that left little time for that. So the
071third option um again three administrators selected that option out of the 15. The last option was discontinue PLC Wednesday and add three to four additional early early release days. And this is kind of what we used to do um a while back. Um we so making that a total of 13 to 14 early release days throughout the year with consistency making sure it's the same day and that would be a total of 42 hours of instruction um lost. So again it's still better than the first option what we did this year. it's more consistent and it provides them more time um to really dig into the data to come up with a plan of action and to leave with something in their hands versus this kind of peacemealing thing that we were doing before. So,
072it's our current recommendation to discontinue the PLC Wednesday model that we use this year and move to adding the three to four additional early release days. I just want to remind everyone that we have had new ELA standards, new ELA curriculum. We have new math standards now, new math curriculum coming up. Um, you know, letters, we also have fourth and fifth grade teachers that are going to receive the option to engage with letters as well as all 4K teachers. So, a lot of professional development happening in DD2, a lot of rich conversations. And again, what is everyone asking for time? We want to make sure that we're valuing our our staff members time. again, not only um because we want to empower and equip them, but we also want to retain the very best. So,
073anything else, Miss Barber? Any any questions that the board may have on this information at this time? Um not not necessarily a question. I I would just say it's interesting because I think when you look at um the intent of PLC's and and going back to the the statement on time, right? Especially I think at that elementary school level um the gift of time for an elementary school teacher uh is beyond precious. Um they they are go go and and talk about an appreciation for our educators. they they don't stop and they're starting at 6:45 in the morning until late in the afternoon. Um, but it's interesting because you look at the balance of the professional development and and you know what they need because again going back to John Hattie and and collective teacher
074efficacy and um you know those those things that are paramount to student success. So how do we balance that? Um and and so I think going back I I think the model we had previously um worked fairly well. It wasn't as confusing for our parents and and our community. Um so I think a lot of good stuff but but again is interesting because you look at it at face value and you would say oh PLC Wednesdays are a great thing. Um but just the the logistics behind it um I I think got a little convoluted we'll say. Thank you. I have a I just want Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. I just have a fast thank you for taking the time to gather the data uh to analyze it and to deliver this uh
075recommendation. Um thank you and mine almost echo what she says, but I want to add thank you for giving the teachers, those that's working the program the opportunity to give their input and then you actually took action with it. So, thanks a lot. The one other thing I'd like to add uh to Mrs. Farnsworth and Mrs. Ball Haj's presentation and the one thing we'll come back to you is bring something revising the calendar when we look at those early releases. Also, we looked at adding more for our middle school because we were talking about middle school and that continuity as well. So, that was brought up when we did this. And so, again, looking at providing more time for our teachers to do that professional development. So, um, I just really appreciate them taking the
076time with our teachers and our administrators and presenting this data. So, thank you very much. Can [Applause] I I'm sorry. Before we move out of academics, um, Miss Wilkins, could I ask you another question? I apologize. I just was thinking about that data and so I guess my question is just um you you you looked specifically at pupils in poverty, ethnically diverse and then the modern learners but did we see any change or are we seeing any change in the rest of our student population? Are we seeing a decline there as well or is it just in the these specific um populations? And I'm sorry to call you back up here. You're fine. And honestly, it's such a great question because across the board, we're seeing kind of a decline in the number of students
077each year who are qualifying for state identification. And I don't really know how familiar you all are with our identification process, but there are three dimensions that we look at. And so the first would be the academic um portion of it. So that would be like our MAP assessments, SC ready, the Iowa and second grade. Um, but again, the one I keep referring to is the cognitive reasoning. That's our dimension A. And that's the the cognitive abilities test that they take in second grade. That's also each year when we have the spring abilities, the fall abilities, and of course the summer testing. that's the assessment they take that paints kind of a how they think picture. Um, in fact, there's even a nonverbal portion of that test that's not assessed anywhere else. So, that's I
078think that's kind of the struggle is that students are going into taking these assessments and they're seeing like a finish the pattern or which of these shapes would make this big shape kind of thing. And if you're not exposed to it, it's very overwhelming, right? And so that's exposure is such a huge focus for me because we should be working with our K1 and two students, but instead we just kind of blindly give them these assessments in second grade, move on with instruction, and then whoever kind of falls in the pot, if you will, does. Um, but that's not the point. The point of these assessments is not to be in gate. And I want to make that very clear because it, you know, gate is a service. Gifted and talented instruction is how we
079serve our students. Are we looking at how they learn in meeting those needs? So that's why we it's crucial that we have to identify more students because otherwise they're slipping through the cracks and not growing. So, notwithstanding these specific demographics that we're focused on here, you're seeing overall overall numbers are going down. This particular data is from the strategic plan, the five-year strategic plan. Um, we're in year two, we're in year two of it. So, I came into it with the these are the goals that were selected um which obviously are important goals and I think it's a great challenge to try to rise up and and make sure we're su serving everybody but at the same time across the board we need to make sure we're getting those kids identified who need to be
080identified. So, you think it's a a the situation where I mean these are students who were missing potential students? Sure. Absolutely. Um, you know, and and I guess you can kind of look at it if you're in a classroom, say a classroom teacher with 30 students, um, and you really try to hit all of your students with your assessments, but sometimes you miss a student and you think they're getting it because they're pretending to read the story and they're good guessers, right? I mean, it's the same kind of thing where you've got students who are slipping maybe through the cracks, not just with our district. We're talking this is across the board nationwide, but why is that so? Because we're just simply not preparing them. Okay. I did have a question too, just because it
081made me think of it now that you're up here again. Um, did you say because I think previously there's like the three ways that you could qualify. Are you saying that you're including GPA in that as like a fourth qualifier possibly? That's a great question. I because I didn't even address. So the third section is um when you're in elementary school. So we're we're talking from second grade when they first identify through the end of fifth. Students have an opportunity to take the South Carolina performance task assessment. These are only students who are partially qualified. Maybe that like that star test or it's not STAR but it's it's um more similar to like the cognitive abilities test. Um the one thing that I love about this assessment that we give in South Carolina is that
082it is it's meant to kind of catch students who are more visual learners. So for instance, there's a task that they have to do. Maybe it's an analogy task or a puzzle task, but the teacher first models it in front of them and then gives the 15 minutes where they complete their own task. So for students like myself who learn much better by seeing it done, we're kind of hitting those gaps in those students. And that's again how sometimes students fall through the cracks because maybe they just need to see it done once and then they can excel. Um, however, at the end of fifth grade is when we start using GPA in that category instead of the South Carolina performance task assessment. And it has to be the end of the year GPA has
083to be e at least a 3.75 in their core subject areas. And so that's more so as we push into the middle and high school level. How students are qualifying is based on their GPA. at the end of fifth grade. Is that what you just said? So they So move so you take the the sixth grade student who will be newly registered for sixth grade and you take their fifth grade end of the year score. Okay. And that can kind of check the box for them in dimension C. So are we still I mean if we're if we're seeing a decline in numbers I mean are we are we placing students to fill these classes? How I mean what are these classes? We have local placement. Okay. And we are placing students in classrooms because
084I mean I'm going to be very transparent with you. I've been into gate classrooms of 25 students and five of them are state identified. So our recommendation is we of course take students who are partially qualified in one of the dimensions but it's beyond that. you know, at this point, we really need to get to the root, which is pushing, thinking, questioning, problem solving with all students, exposing them to these assessments so that we're getting more students to be where they're meant to be. So, do you think with all this going on, I mean, is it do we consider the way we're the way we're running this whole program? I mean, do we look at Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, in fact, I know Charleston County, I talk a lot with Elizabeth Upgrove and they run their
085sale program. I've heard about that. Um, and so, and she is a DD2 former teacher and so, you know, I know Berkeley County runs theirs the way that we do now. I've been in talk with Greenville, with Bufort. So, there's a lot of research going on in this phase of of me being in this role because really we need to do what's best for our students. Absolutely. But I do believe after really kind of looking at it all that it could just be that we're not exposing our kids enough and that's why our numbers are low. Okay. And so that's kind of the path we're taking. That's sort of something that you're investigating. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Well, I look forward to hearing updates on that then. That would be wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You're
086welcome. Uh my question is how do you prepare the parents prior to them coming in even as kindergarteners? I mean, do you have meetings or sessions with them to explain what it is that you are trying to get from these students, letting parents know that their child has the potential to be gifted and talented and then give them some type of materials or websites or whatever that they can go on and do further studies themselves. I think a lot of time parents don't know right what they don't know. That's an excellent question and I have two two of my own personal children who went through DD2 um second grade took the I use air quotes the gate test as a parent I did not know what that meant except that either they were in GATE
087or they weren't in gate right I didn't know that I could get valuable data from their results and and really how to work with my own child at home and so that is something right now for fall we're looking at as we're talking about signing up for fall abilities, having a parent information night to just kind of what what are you even signing your child up for? Because sometimes parents hear it and all they can think is gate, I want my student in these classes, but they don't really know what it means for their child. Um, and so we started with adding additional resources this year. We did this this spring is adding how they can support their learner at home, no matter what grade. Um, and it's just ways that you can get them
088thinking. Um, asking, as parents, sometimes we don't always know what questions to ask our own kids, like, "How was school?" It's what, you know, you're going to get good. And educating parents on asking your children questions that don't have a one-word response, right? Really asking those open-ended questions is a way you can start at home. So really just kind of providing resources for them and time to have that one-on-one time to talk with me and understand the program better and what it means for their child. But parents get reports sent home for their second graders and look at it and go, I don't even know what this means. Did they get in or not? And really, it's such a valuable piece of paper that they can learn their child better, how their child thinks, how
089to handle situations with their children at home. Um, and so that's really the path that we're on is to get that out there so that they're understanding it's not about getting in gate or not. It's really about working with all children and how we can better use the data that we have at our fingertips to do that and their parents can give them the benefit of being in a gate class. Sure. Because some of the kids really don't really appreciate gate today like they used to. And so I think we need more parental engagement once more in order to help our kids see the value of being in an environment where they are challenged with what they know and able to defend and even to gather from other students around them. So and I personally
090think it's it's challenging for parents when you don't even know what the test is asking. So just exposure and and letting them see samples. That website that says it's cognitive abilities test website. It's kat.com. If a parent clicks on it, they can see sample questions. So they can use those but then model their own after that. Um there's so many resources out there that we're just really not using. see the value and in a way reward them for helping their child reach those particular goals and and really, you know, teaching parents is going to engage the students at home and in the classrooms. I know when I ask my own son a question and it's a yes or no answer, he's like, "All right, I'm out." But if I ask an open-ended question, we can
091sit down in this really engaging conversation and he said, "Mom, you always do this." He's a sophomore at Summerville. And he'll be like, "You always do this. I'm supposed to be doing my homework." But we get into these really great discussions. And I think that's what it's all about because the more we talk with our kids like that at home and with our younger kids in the classrooms, K1, two, they're going to fly through these tests. [Music] Thank you, Mrs. Wilkins. Now, this will move on to 7B, uh, organizational chart update, um, for the board. And this is kind of her action tonight. Um, I know we've talked a lot about our budget process and the overview about, uh, right sizing the district with allocations and also now going to the district office and we
092will be doing some, uh, right sizing at the district office. And this year um we will be going on and if you look this is kind of the uh if you're looking at the chart here uh this is the overall arching organizational chart. And then if we move on to the next slide um as you can see there um we will be eliminating um the military relations position from the org chart for the 2526 school year. Um so you can kind of see where that's at. um that position these responsibilities will be going to the public information office um led by Mr. Bohannan. And then the second position uh moving on is and you can see that's the organizational chart for community relations. And the other one you can't quite see it on here. Um
093we are not filling the assistant director of safety at this time. Um that person is retiring. We will not take it off the org chart, but again, that is a savings for the district as well um at the district office and we're looking at uh saving almost around $250,000 um at the district office when we're right sizing the district. So um again, we'll need uh board approval tonight on those changes on the ORC chart. Thank you. Okay, board members, just to clarify, um we will need to vote um and what we will be voting on is removing the chief of military community relations position from the org chart. Correct. Yes, that is correct. Okay, Dr. Wimberly. So, at this time, I would ask for a motion to approve this. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Seconded by
094Miss Baz. All right. Are there any questions or discussion? All right. Then hearing none, we will call for the vote. All right, the motion carries. Seven in favor. Thank you. Now we're on to 7C facilities report. So I'll bring up Mr. Jeff Smith and Mr. Tony Souls to give us an update on some facilities. Thank you, gentlemen. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Mr. Dy. Just a quick rundown on uh some of the referendum projects, the uh school of the ponds, Mr. Farnsworth gave us an update on that a few minutes ago. Uh the addition at Sand Hill, we ran into a delivery issue with some pre-cast concrete supposed to be delivered a couple weeks ago. That's coming this week. We've got a meeting on Wednesday to discuss how we catch up that
095loss time. And uh I feel very very confident that we're going to catch up some time uh in the pipeline. We've got the Circle High School gym. We're in constant conversations about that, how how we can bring uh our our needs in line with what we have budgeted for that. Uh Ashley Ridge High School addition. Uh we've got the phase one. We've got that already submitted to OSF and a design for the phase two, which is the band room. That's already been submitted to OSF for their comments and approval. So, we'll be hearing back from that hopefully sometime with by the end of by the middle of May. Uh the addition at Somerville Elementary School, uh we've got the construction documents in process of being pro provided to OSF. That should come off uh go
096go to OSF sometime this month. Uh we've already got the pre uh well the demolition phase. We've already got that uh submitted to OSF and that has been approved. Uh we do have to meet with the board of architectural review in the town of Somerville and that'll be on the 6th of May. And that is is pretty much everything going on in the capital improvement world. I'll turn it over to Jeff for the facilities. Good evening. Um some updates for us. We've got uh two roofing projects, roofing and exterior envelope projects out. That's Knightsville and Windsor Hill. They've both got bid closing dates. Uh May 1st for Knightsville and May 5th for Windsor Hill. So those are jobs that we would expect would probably maybe not be completely finished by the end of the summer,
097but definitely it'll get started this summer. The uh Oakbrook Elementary and Middle School, they're getting a uh exterior wall renovation project as well. Probably won't start this summer, but we're expected to have bid documents back by the end of the month. Same thing with Somerville Elementary and their roofing projects. the Oakbrook Middle School edition, as you can see up there, the uh completion dates scheduled for December 11th. Moving along nicely. They've got some footers that are poured at this point. Oakbrook Elementary will be following right behind that. And we're expecting February 13th is their current completion date. The Somerville High School softball field press box, we're still in the bid phase with that. And that, like I said, that's coming out of 8% funds. Summer, I mean, I'm sorry, spring break was really good for
098us. We got a lot of our other products that you see on here done or started. And so examples being Austin Middle School, we got all their lockers removed, excuse me, lockers removed, uh the tile abated and all the hallways painted. We got the same thing done at Nightsville for all their common spaces. And the expectation is that we're going to be able to get all those um painting and abatement jobs done before school gets out. Knightsville will be the only one we'll be waiting on because we have to do panel abatement in the classrooms. And so we obviously don't want to disturb teachers during the school year. The um vestibules, we did get Flowertown and Oak Brooks done. So we'll be doing Austin Bailey and uh Fort Dorchester Elementary soon as school gets out.
099Uh we did identify Joe Pie as a another one that had a vestibial need. So that one's been quoted out and we're just waiting on that one to get started as well. It'll be summertime for that project as well. Um that's really all I have for the project updates and then I was going to talk a little bit about the tennis courts at Summerville High School. So, as you can see on the photos, the the tennis courts at Summer of High School definitely are in need of replacement. Uh the current condition, they have lots of cracks. You can see on some of these pictures where they were they have been sealed in the past or repaired in the past. Next slide, please. So, this kind of shows you an overview of, you know, current courts
100up in the top where they're at now and the proposal of where the uh the new courts are going to be. Um when this was this whole design process started the initial intent was to look for a potential six courts with 10 courts possible down the road. This is kind of the schematic that we our designer and A&E came up with. As you can see on here though there there's going to be a lot of civil work. Basically everything you see there is wetlands. Um the existing tennis courts are actually in the wetlands. So you know obviously we're building these in 2025 versus back whenever those were built. I'm not sure when, but so we have to basically meet all the current codes. So we're going to have to build a retention pond for the
101drainage and storm water. We're going to have to turn the old courts back into nature. So we're going to have to demo those so they go back to a natural environment. Uh we're also going to have to, you know, put in ADA accommodations for sidewalks, ramps, whatever is necessary to get to that point. We did complete the soil testing and the uh geotech uh surveys. So that's all done. We're right now just literally waiting on our A&E firm to complete the design. Once the design's there, at that point, we can then start looking at permitting and working all that on that stuff. With that being said, we originally identified about $600,000 for a budget. Um, our current estimate is going to be between 1.5 and $2 million for this job. So, obviously, that's a big
102change and that's a lot more money than we anticipated originally. So with that being said, if you go to the next slide, not knowing where the funding is coming from and also not knowing with it being in design if we're going to be able to get that completed by August, we do want a recommendation or have a proposal to at least for this year and maybe get us a year and you know some flexibility to do a seal coat repair and repaint of all the courts. Um while we're doing that, Fort Dorchester High School has been identified as having the same need as well. uh not as not as bad a condition as Somervilles, but definitely in need of the same treatment. And um as you can see on there, there's some cost estimates for
103how much that would cost to do that. And uh we would like to get that done, you know, as soon as possible because obviously we don't know where the funding is going to come from to complete the tennis courts and also if we're going to be able to even if we were able to get the money today. We don't have designs finished, so we can't start construction today. And if there's any questions about the courts, I could happy to answer the best of my ability. I know earlier we had a question about the time frame. So, if we're going to move forward with that temporary solution, um, is that a fairly quick turnaround? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It could be done over the summer and and no problem, but obviously it's not the ideal. I
104mean, we we just did these in 22 and if you saw the pictures of Somerville, they there's no question about them needing new courts at some point because that that should have lasted five to seven years and we're at two years in or three years. And that's because we're trying to put tennis courts in the wetlands. Yeah. Water tennis. the reason they can't compete or utilize them at times because of the condition or I am not sure on on that. I I don't I don't know what the reasoning has been for not competing on there. Obviously, they're in they're in pretty poor shape right now. I see their impression. I just wasn't sure if like if you fix them and put like a repair or temporary thing if there was standing water on them if
105that was the reasoning and if so is it possible to do any sort of temporary like drainage in combination with it to help divert that water from sitting on the courts. So in conjunction with a this process here, what they would do is they're they're supposed to basically level it out and build it up so that it gets a positive grade. Um, I don't know if that was done in the the last time it was done, but you there are ways to do that by building the surface up. Um, I know also they do have like a squeegee type of uh tool that they use to squeegee the water off after, you know, when they they're getting ready to have practice and things like that. Yes, ma'am. Yep. As far as drainage around the the
106actual courts themselves though, they're the drainage has been improved around the courts, but you're still dealing with the you know, it's under the ground. It's coming up. So, it's just an ongoing issue. And basically, just like Fort Gorge's track, the subsurface has failed. Any other questions from the board for Mr. Smith? Thank you, Mr. Smith. At this time, we'll uh go to 7D, our 2026 budget overview, and we'll call up uh Miss Manet to talk a little bit more about the 2026 budget. Good evening again, board members. Um thank you for having me again for the budget workshop. Does this work? Yay. That's so great. Okay. Um, we just had a budget workshop before the board meeting, so I won't go into all the detail that we had at the workshop. Um, but um, we
107were asked to provide an overview for folks watching our board meeting. So, um, for the FY26 budget priorities, um, student achievement of course is number one. Um, to have great student achievement, we need teacher quality, recruitment, retention, not just for our teachers, but for our other staff as well. And then of course financial stewardship over all of our dollars. Um just to tell you a little bit about what's happening in Colombia. Um we are here a little section. We are here. We still have a little ways to go. Um the governor's budget that was uh presented at the state level was presented in January. It's been through a number of committee meetings and house floor, senate floor. Um I'm sorry, senate committee meetings and there have been some changes. So from the House to the
108Senate is going to have to go to conference committees so that they can agree upon what those changes were. So we still have a little while to go. We will not know until May um at the earliest what those changes will be. So we are going to give you our most up-to-date information. Um just to talk about a little just a little bit about our sources of revenues. Folks hear us talk about the different funding sources that we have. Um general fund is where we have our money for operations. Um this is where we have unrestricted use of our funds. We get these from local, state, just a tiny bit of federal sources in our general fund. Um local property taxes on nonowner occupied property, which is a big deal. Um our our homeowners in
109uh Doorchester 2 don't pay any operating taxes towards our budget. um were educating their students, but they don't pay any taxes towards their education. Um that was from a friendly act from the state um over um from 2008 a little while ago. Um we also get revenues from um the state. We'll show you what our percentages are from that in just a second. Our special revenue funds that you mostly hear us talk about are um funds that are passed through the state department that are grants from the the federal um department um federal education department and those are um the big ones that you hear us talk about are title one and IDEIDA funds a lot. Um then the from the state level we have education improvement act funds which a big source of that
110is the state aided classrooms which we have to account for in a separate bucket but we are able to use it in our operating funds. Um we can show you those dollars in a second as well. Um so our 8% funding that um Mr. Souls and Mr. Smith were just talking about those are that's from that's for capital projects and cannot be used for any operations cannot be used for teacher salaries is also our referendum funding um those are for our big projects that we have um that are in process now again not for operations. So, of those um revenues that we were talking about, our local property taxes are shown first. Um these numbers are updated from the last budget workshop that we had. Um we got some updated numbers from our county auditor,
111additional $1.1 million. So, we're um realizing 5.5 million based on um assessments and um just the growth in our area, but not from a millage increase. Um we're also receiving some additional funds from um the state. So next year our um revenues, our proposed revenues are going from 284 million to 292 million with an increase of 8.6. Um speaking of our local property taxes, I just wanted to make y'all aware of the um when we when Act 388 was passed at the state, that was for the entire state of South Carolina. um it affected every school district in the state of South Carolina to where again non um where property owners primary residents no longer pay for property taxes. Um so our our revenue that comes from our local property taxes is is on businesses,
112industry, vehicles, anything that's other than 4% properties. Um each year the state allows us to go up on our millillage based on our consumer price index and growth percentage in our district specifically. So over the past few years you can see um last year was 7.3% 10.26% 5.87% um which equates to the number of mills that we could request. Again, we don't have fiscal autonomy, so we um would have to ask for the millillage increase from county council. Um so for this coming up year 2526, the information we received from the state was a 6.94% interest in CPI and growth. Um we know that um costs are going up across the country and and specifically related to our district, 6.94% would equate to 12.4 mills. Um currently we um have 178.6 to six mills and
113we haven't had a millage increase over the past several years. Um, so we can request a three-year look back and we can also request the increase for this current year which is 55.39 mills. Not that we would ask for that. I just wanted to show you the totals and what that equates to. Um, so in Dorchester 2, the value of a mill for our operations, again, we we're very heavily um suburban. We have a lot of homes. So, the value of our mill is $428,000. When you multiply that times the total number of mills that we could ask, again, not that we're going to, we could get $23.7 million. And those mills accumulate and um once you lose them, like on the first two columns, you can't get them back and and you just you
114lose that that funding. Um we are a little different based uh as compared to our neighbors in Berkeley and Charleston in that they have more business and industry and so the value of their mill is higher um and it's spread out across many many district uh many many businesses and industry so they don't feel the the pinch as much as folks in our in our district do and that's that's unfortunate. Um we're going to keep working on that with our local folks, our state folks to to see what we can do about that. So for our revenues, um local taxes first is um 26.6% this is based on our FY25 budget and our total of the state revenues on some various categories of aid, classroom, state in lie of taxes is 72.2%. That's mainly where
115we get our our budgeted money from. So that's why the state budget is really important to us because we receive 72% of our budget from the state dollars from their state um budget. Um for our specific district when you look at the index of tax paying ability for our certain district um the split should be more 70% from the state and 30% from local taxes and we're not quite there yet. Um, so if we were to be able to get some additional millage, that would help get us closer to what um, under act 388, the state, they really expect us to have some local tax um, assistance as well as just the state. Um, our expenditures by function for this current year, um, instruction is big. You can see that is our number one um,
116expenditure in the district. Um then when you add instruction, instructional support, school management, those are folks who are in the schools helping with those students every single day, we're at 77%. Then when you add in transportation and safety who are also dealing with the students every single day, then we're at 84%. That is great um a great percentage. We feel very proud of that, how much we put directly towards the students, dealing with the students. Another item that we wanted to point out is that when we had our salary study presented in August of 23, um, of the 10 districts that Doorchester 2 was compared with, we had the lowest ratio of central office staff leaders to students. So we um we take pride in that we are not topheavy in our school district office.
117Wow. This is a big um a big chunk of our expenditures is salaries and benefits. Um so everything that we can do to put money towards our teachers and our um staff other than teachers, that's where we try to put all of our funds. Um speaking of our teacher pay, um we had a comparison of our um neighbors in Berkeley, Charleston, and then the Orange is Bufort. and we are the first bar on each one of those sections. Unfortunately, we are the lowest. Um, some areas were not as low and as as others. Um, but you can see our friends on the far right of the light blue in Charleston. Not sure that we can ever catch up with Charleston, but we're just aware um their of their salaries are just so much more than
118ours. Again, their tax base is so much different than ours. But if you look at this slide, you can see where um we have taken great strides in where we came just from fiscal year 2018 where our starting salary for someone just coming out of college was $36,000 and FY25 this current year we're at $49,000. Um in this budget proposal we have um proposed to increase up to additional 1500 which would make 50,500. And then if we were able with a millage increase to to increase for another 1500, that would be a 3,000 increase to 52,000. I was going to um let Mr. Dhy help me tag team on this slide right here. Class sizes versus class ratios. Yeah, the big thing and thank you Tina. So when you're looking here, class sizes, class ratios,
119we're able to pick out Dorchester 2, Berkeley, Charleston, the state standard. If you look at those class ratios, one thing we did um because this year we were projected to grow a thousand students in a demographic um study that was done two years ago um then we actually lost 595 students. Four of the 400 of those were in the elementary 195 were in the middle school and we actually grew I believe 89 students to 90 students at the high school level. So what does that mean? So, we actually went down, we're looking at the budget and talking with our um with our administrators and doing allocations, trying to rightsize the budget. And when we right size, we're looking at uh fewer allocations in the elementary, middle school, and high school. That's 52 positions, but again,
120we'll still be able to keep those classroom size that you see there on the screen. And then also eliminating two positions at the um district office. So, it's a total of 54 positions. we're kind of right sizing the district um due to those uh the numbers that uh we did not grow by and then students that we lost. And so that's one way that we're looking to to try to save some some dollars there. Also, when we look at the safety and security at some of our events, um we're going to be looking at some of the events we don't have as many people like volleyball, track, soccer, and some other events that have small numbers. We may not have four um safety and security officers and resource officers. we may have down to three.
121And so just looking at ways and where we can kind of save some dollars again in that general fund to be able to give our teachers and staff the as much money as we can. And so um again trying to stay within those parameters of those uh class ratios and again um it's been a team effort when we're looking at this and uh especially with our principles and our executive team and our district administrators also with our board members of trying to make sure we're giving as much money as we can with our teachers. And I think you saw that in the in the slide before. Uh we've had significant increases. And so and just to point out also um thank you Mr. Dhy that the class ratios these have been in place for many
122years. Um the class sizes were probably smaller this year just because of the additional teachers and the the lesser students. But um we will not go over those class ratios. Those are very important for us to to keep in mind. And the other thing to mention too, Miss Manet, if you know, we do get some additional funding, we do have some other positions that we would like to add back into that budget. So again, that this could all change if we have more students that actually come into the district, then those allocations will increase. Um, again, try to keep those classroom sizes down to where they're at. They're not going over those parameters. But again, if we do get more students, again, we will grow and we'll add allocations as we as we need as
123needed. So, the proposed budget summary based on um the um initiatives that the board has challenged us with and um as Mr. Dhy was just discussing about reducing some of those classroom allocations and at the DO um to include and also our statemandated expenditures um additional classroom allocations for fine arts, for special ed classes. Um these were all of the initiatives that we included. Um so our total for revenues right now we are at 292.7 million. We would need 7.2 million more in revenues to bring us to 299.9 million for our proposed expenditures for next year. Um but again that's with reducing the the class the classroom allocations in the district office and bringing back those um its content specialists and that would be the required millillage that we would need 16.9 mills to get
124us to to that um proposed expenditures. So we still have some more um meetings with y'all. We have a public input meeting um April 28th. Um we will meet with Mr. Dhy and Lisa Sizzler, our budget director, and I are meeting with some um county officials tomorrow, and we'll be presenting them with this draft that we're presenting to y'all. But again, this is like step two. We will have more meetings with the board. Um we'll also be meeting with the county council when we go and present May 12th. um and then have the school board approve the budget when we get when we get the best numbers that we can get from all parties involved. Um hopefully June 9th we'll know enough from the state that we'll feel good about pres about y'all approving a
125final budget. I'm sorry. Those were all of the slides that I had to give y'all an update on the budget. Do you have anything else for me? Thank you, Mrs. Manet. Any questions from the board? So, if I can and and I was sitting up here uh running some data and and anytime we can highlight um really some some glaring differences. you talked about act 388 and and the funding um for education in the state of South Carolina and and I would tell you it's about as backwards backwards as it gets unfortunately and and to highlight that um our neighboring county so Charleston County when we look at total revenue per student and anybody can go pull this data up it's on the um state education website u their revenue per student is 26,000 125
126our revenue per student $14,230. So that difference and and this is why I want to highlight this because this is where the rubber meets the road, right? That difference over 26,000 students is $39 million. That's our neighboring school district. That's that's not somewhere else crazy in the state. that is Charleston County that's directly next to us. Almost double the revenue per student that we get in DD2. And and again, I just highlight that because it really is a shame. And so when folks hear us talking about funding um and and the funding discrepancies and the disparity across the state, that's it. That's it. And and it really is a shame. So, thank you for uh for letting me highlight that. Thank you, Miss Manet. And now we'll move on to uh 7E, the personnel report.
127Chairman, be before we go on, I would like to thank again publicly the work that the district staff is doing to try and work through these things. Uh the the points that Mr. Farnsworth made, notwithstanding, and if any of you have heard me speak before, I have a particularly strong opinion on the way we fund education. Uh and it's not a positive one. But understand looking through and if you can take all that information that was just shared with you as members of the public and go talk and be able to explain that and talk to your friends, neighbors and whatnot. I challenge you. It's it's complex. There's a lot of points, a lot of moving parts in there. But the message I would encourage you to think about, okay, is everything that the the
128district has done to try and control costs, to reallocate, to rightsize, all of those sorts of things, taking into account the additional revenue that we anticipate to receive as is today without raising millage or anything. And then folding in the mandates from the state for teacher salaries, we don't have enough money. Now, my fellow board members are creative. They're very smart, but to my knowledge, none of them are magicians. And unlike the federal government, we don't print money. So, there are some difficult discussions that we have to have. And we would encourage the community to get engaged. We have a town hall coming up next week from Friday. Okay? Get engaged. Ask questions. This is complex. Uh but you you need to be aware of what's happening to your community, to your schools. Thank you.
129And one other thing to point out, uh Mr. Man did not talk about this, but the fiscal autonomy of school boards. Um the boards in uh Charleston County and Berkeley County have the fiscal autonomy to raise the millillage. Um DD2 does not have the fiscal autonomy to do that. That goes through the county. And so I just want to point that out as well. So thank you. And so now we'll go to uh if there's any other any other questions or comments on the budget. Okay. If not, we'll go to 7E the personnel report. Right. Thank you, Mr. Dohy. Board members, um there is um we did receive the items from the personnel report um in our board packet. And so is everyone okay with proceeding with that recommendation in open session? Yes. All right.
130If so, then I would ask for a motion to approve the superintendent personnel recommendations as presented. So moved. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Guthrie, seconded by Mr. Farnsworth. Any questions or discussion? All right. Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Motion carries. Seven in favor. Next on the superintendent's report is 7F, student enrollment recommendations 2425. We do not have any student enrollment recommendations for this evening. Dr. Wimberly. All right. And that concludes our superintendent report. Thank you, Mr. Dohy and team. Appreciate all the great information tonight and all the work that was clearly put into all the presentations. All right. The next item on our agenda is our public comments and we do have a few this evening. Um, just remember again I would ask that you come down the side the left side
131of the boardroom please. All right. First up we have Mr. Joe Brockert. Thank you, Mr. Brocker. All right. Next, we have Miss Kim Sweeney. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I'd like to share another personal story about bullying in the DD2 school district. My daughter's been a student in DD2 since the end of kindergarten. She's now in ninth grade. When she was in middle school and seventh grade, she was repeatedly assaulted on the school bus by a young man she dated briefly. When she couldn't get him to stop on her own, she decided to take it into her own hands and report directly to her school guidance counselor that this was happening. She was encouraged to sit in the front seat so any future assaults could be recorded on the school
132bus video. For context, at that time she was my size and about 40 lbs lighter than me. And this young man was about 510, 160 lb. I never got a phone call from the school. In many situations with bullies, it happened again. Again, my daughter brought it to the school. I did not receive a phone call. She came home and finally reported everything that had been happening to me and her father and I instantly called the police to start making a statement. We were referred to follow up with the SRO since the school bus is school district property regardless of where it's physically located. There was push back from that, but I insisted on a documentation being made in the school files because if this repeated either with my daughter or someone else, I wanted
133there to be a paper trail. Still not in my daughter's school records. Requested the full file. There's no conversations documented, not even the very heated conversation that I had when I was told that my daughter had claimed she didn't want to press charges at age 13. So hopefully hearing another personal statement will help us understand we need more attention to this issue. I'm glad to hear that we're looking at researchbased evidence because that's what should be guiding us in providing the best services for our kids. What I know now is that the zero tolerance policy is not being followed. More work needs to be done. More kids needs to feel safe at school. Fortunately, I'm just dealing with PTSD with my daughter. I haven't experienced her death. We need to do better and I look
134forward. I understand you can't respond to comments here, but I'm looking for some followup because I know this is an issue that's been brought time and time again and I haven't heard any dialogue in the meetings that I've viewed from home about how just looking for followup on the issues that are facing our kids. They can't learn in school if they don't feel safe and they can't learn in school if they're not. Thank you, Miss Sweeney. All right. Next, we have Mr. Jason Brockert. Thank you. So, I had to wait an hour to come back up here. More specifically, I've had to wait over five months since I first came back up here after I got enough over my own PTSD so that I could come here and not actually lose my temper. I have
135been respectful. I have been respectful. You have not been respectful. I don't get the time a day from you. This is from Julian's website. I've got a lot of activity on Julian's website. Since Saturday night, I was able to share the stage in Charlotte in front of approximately 17,000 people and tell Julian's story, but you won't hear me. I'm I'm down to 2 minutes and 18 something seconds. So, I'm sitting here flustered trying to get to my notes to say that, oh, uh, I find it extremely disturbing and the penultimate disrespect that I've been categorically ignored after losing my son to suicide following years of reported bullying incidents in this district, which were inarguably unresolved. So, am I supposed to read from my notes so I can fit into my time limit, or do you
136actually want to hear what I have to say? I absolutely feel that you do not hear what I want to have to say. I have been up here repeatedly and as a board you were supposed to take comments and then as a board respond to them five months. It's been almost a year since I lost my son. It's been almost a year since Lisa lost her son. It's been almost a year since my dad lost his grandson. I have been speaking about this. I've started a podcast. Every single three minute little bit of morsel that I get up here that you won't do a thing about. I've put it on there out to the world. I've said that I am transparent. You are not. I am transparent. You are not. You started with a prayer
137and you said give us the courage. I don't see courage here. I have asked will you hear me more than my 1 minute and 1 second that I have left. Not a single one of you even makes a motion to can we please hear what he has to say. Galatians 6:9. What a hypocrite. Your God has a different view of the world. God's work, please. You're shaking your head at me disrespectfully as you have before. I can do that, too. That's the only response I get from y'all. I'm standing here in front of you today. I have stood here in front of you for years speaking about respecting other people, speaking about now speak up for Julian. Speak up for all of them. Quite literally on my way home a couple of weeks ago, a
13810-year-old in Rowan Oak committed suicide after being bullied at the school. And their parents went to the schoolboard and guess what happened? What would have happened had I been here in June when I asked if somebody would speak about mental health and suicide and he declined. Respect. Thank you, Mr. Brocker. What a joke. All right. Um, the next item on our agenda is executive session. So, board members, at this time, I would ask for a motion to convene into executive session to discuss, excuse me, a motion to convene into executive session for personnel matters regarding the superintendent. So, moved. Right. Motion made by Mr. Guthrie. Do I have a second? Seconded by Miss King. Um any discussion? All right. Carrying none, we will call for the vote. Miss King Oh, sorry. Thought I did it.
139Motion carries. Seven in favor. We are in executive session and we will return. All right, board members. At this time, I would ask for a motion to return to open session. So moved. Motion made by Mr. Lee. Seconded by Miss Bates. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will call for the vote. Can you um she's She's not signed in. The motion carries. Seven in favor. We are back in open session. Oh my gosh. Wanda can do it. I keep typing it wrong. Wanda can do it for you. I give up. You got my time took my time. I was trying to fast trying to get it done. Board members, at this time I would ask for any motions as required from our executive session. Yes, Madame Chair, I move that we authorize the board chair to
140execute an employment contract with Charles David Dohy as superintendent of Dorchester County School District 2 effective April 14th, 2025 said contract having been prepared by the district's attorneys and reviewed by all members of the board and providing for a three-year term of employment through June 30th, 2028 at an annual salary of 210,000. Thank you, Miss Bates. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Lee. Board members, at this time, is there any discussion? I'm really excited and you're awesome. Any other discussion? Yeah. And I see Mr. Lee reach out to whoever wants to go. I I and and I will tell you a few things. Um Chad, f first and foremost, thank you. Um you you obviously have stepped up for our school district uh during a very difficult time
141and so we we are very very appreciative of of what you've been able to do in a very short period of time. Um I too uh share share the excitement uh for what what you bring to the table. From from a leadership perspective, I I look at what DD2 is is built on and and you and I have had this conversation um that that we are very much so built on relationships and and I think when when I think about what the the the guiding light that you bring to our district, um I think about relationships there. That's probably the strongest um thing that that you bring and and that's the most important. We are in a people business whether that's children, our educators, um anybody across the district, we are in a people business
142and and the relationships um are are just so powerful and so meaningful. And so with that, you know, and and I would tell you, um, and I know you guys get sick of hearing me say this, but somehow or another, overnight, I became the the tenur board member. So, I've I've been there and I've done that and and I've seen our district uh through ups and downs. I've seen this through thick and thin. Um, I've I've seen a lot. And and what I would tell you is you you now hold the mantle to a very very very special place. There there is no other district in the state of South Carolina. There is no other district in our country like Dorchester District 2. And and you now hold that mantle. And and so I'm excited
143for you. I'm I'm excited for all of our success and uh can't wait for uh for great things. Thank you. I'm going to talk as long as he did. I'm just kidding. It is almost 4 to 10 and I'm hungry. That's what I said. Welcome aboard. I love you. Thank you. Anyone else? I would just like to say I I agree with most everything Justin said. We we we are in the business of education, but that business is predicated on relationships and you've you've impressed me in the brief time that we've working more closely together and whatnot. Uh how well regarded you are and how well you've interacted with members of the board. I know I can be a bit needy sometimes looking for information. Um, sorry you got a peak on the board, but
144um, I'm really looking forward to working with you to ensure our success and your success going forward. All right. And I um I'm just going to say one thing really quickly um because I do agree with Mr. Farnsworth that this is a really special place. I have been a part of this school district in various ro roles um for 14 years and um I I absolutely love it and one of my favorite things about you is that I think you see that same value and that you love it too and that means the world and so um I just I appreciate you. I am looking forward to working with you, to leading with you, and um I appreciate just your your sense of collaboration and your your willingness for such open communication, and I'm excited.
145Thank you. Okay. Oh. All right. Well, if that is it, then at this time, we will call for the vote. Oh, I thought we already voted. I don't think we Oh, I think I'm the only one who hasn't voted. I was talking and the motion carries. Seven in favor. [Applause] Okay. All right. And at this time, board members, I would ask for a motion to adjurnn. Motion made by Miss Bates, seconded by Mr. Farnsworth, and we will call for the vote and go home. What a great day. I think that one of you should take a picture with the board and our new superintendent on our way out. Oh, you're fine. And um motion carries. Six in favor, one extension. Is that what that is? Or is that a no? Six in favor. One opposed.
146But we are adjourned.