001Good evening and welcome to this evening's board meeting. Merry Christmas and let's see before we Yes. And yes, happy holidays because everybody does not celebrate Christmas, right? But for those of you who do, okay, Hanukkah and all the things and happy new year. All right, so here we are all of the things. Okay, 5:30 p.m. All right. Okay. >> Make a spreadsheet to give it to [laughter] >> Since you like it so much. >> Okay. >> All right. >> One strike [laughter] together. >> All right. [clears throat] >> All right. So, we're going to call the meeting order. Um, Dr. Mark. Oh, we don't have uh VIP's report, but we do have uh this panel is going to come up and acknowledge our donations for this month, and then I'll get right to district celebrations.
002>> Good evening, Madame President, board, and Dr. Wright. I'm happy to be here to sub on behalf of Miss Bllelock to acknowledge our donors for this month. If you would please direct your attention to the screen. Fred Robersonson $500 to Central the baseball team. Stanley and Vineyard Virginia Kazi 40 to Gibbs Kids in Need Foundation supplied teacher boxes to Hall West Rock and Roll Sushi. 100 lunches for the LRSD's dad's lunchon. Dillards Park Plaza gave three gift baskets for LRSD's family engagement activities. Stevens Incorporated donated $2500 to LRSD's annual scholars reception. Sherwin Williams provided $1,500 in paint and supplies to Mabelville Middle. David Smith donated 80 to or for a courtyard canopy at Mabelville Middle. Lessons Learned also donated $80 toward the same courtyard. Honeydew Rescue contributed $9970 to Mabelville Middle for the students and
003staff. >> Janna Iverson donated $51 for school beautifification supplies to Mabelville Middle. And it looks like Maple Middle is going to be mentioned here on out, so I'm not going to continue to say that. But Tina White donated $80 toward the courtyard and 21 in supplies. Hannah Hurst, $200 for beautifification supplies. Tai Automotive, $250 in tire donations. Guyire Springs First Baptist Church, $250 for a field trip. Lisa Low, $660 for water donation for the football team. Lisa Low also gave $280 for grocery donations for the FAC classes. Lance and Sierra Porier gave 250 for food donations. Guyire Springs First Baptist Church also provided $300 for supply donations. >> Mayville is racking it up apparently. Evergreen Living Center, $700 in school supply donations. Lisa Low, $15 school beautifification supplies for the school. Voggel Schwarz Foundation donated
004$50,000 to Rockefeller ECC. We got to we're going applaud all of them, but that is major. Uh this will assist with food, clothing, and student supplies. >> Who are they? Do you know who they are? >> This is a local organization. Okay. >> And beyond that, charitable. >> I'm sorry. Can I just one thing? It sounds like maybe someone needs to mute. >> Can you hear them? >> It might be Miss Callaway. Miss Callaway. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hello, Miss Callaway. Um >> hi. How you doing? [laughter] >> We love you. Look, I'm trying to mute. I'm trying to mute. >> You're trying to mute it. Okay. Thank you, D. Okay. Uh-huh. >> I apologize. >> Stone Pharmacy, Otter Creek LLC, $800 to Southwest. I'm trying to be professional here. Uh,
005AR Securities Department, $4,000 to Southwest High's 4H Club. They also donated $5,000 to the DECA Club. And that concludes the list. Thank you to all of our donors and contributors. WE [applause] All right, in the spirit of applause, we will keep on with um things to applaud about with our celebrations for the month of December. Uh these might have been reindeer robo games, but the students meant serious business when it came to LRSD's most recent robotics competition held at Henderson Elementary held at Henderson Elementary. Students from schools around the state participated and LRC students had some impressive wins. Expect to hear more about that when we return from the break. But thanks to Miss Susan Jackson of Williams and our advanced academics team uh for providing these kids hands-on engaging learning activities for our students.
006This [applause] next one, I'm hoping no one would ask questions with regards to what this actually means, but I'm just going to read this young lady's accomplishments. This is quite impressive. Uh please join us in congratulating Jana Sincar, a sophomore at Central High School on an outstanding academic achievement. Janina's research article nano encapsulated gamma array Xanol enhances fibroblast proliferation migration and reduces oxidative stress in H2O induced cellular aging model. >> [laughter] >> help >> whatever that is. We are very proud of her. She has been officially published in the journal of functional foods. Try repeating that. We won't. We are so proud of our students who even in high school are taking their educational talent to the next level. And it's key that she is just a sophomore at Central. So congratulations to Janina. [applause]
007a huge success at Hamilton Learning Academyy's holiday popup shop last week. Uh I know that some of you had a chance to attend. We are so proud of our young entrepreneurs and their hard work and creativity paid off in a big way. Nearly every student sold out of their products that they created. Uh they were offering everything from keychains to dessert mix to bracelets. It was an amazing event. Way to go student, staff, and to principal Christy Jenkins strong. And I didn't get a chance to go to the event because I wasn't here, but I was there a couple days before and got a chance to buy some beard oil that a student created. >> But the most impressive thing was the the dessert seasoning. I have never heard of dessert seasoning, but it tastes
008very good on popcorn, ice cream. Um, but it was lots of things that the students created. And so, uh, we're definitely proud of the work, um, that is happening at Hamilton. I think you were there, Nico. HAVEN'T tried it yet. >> All right. We're also proud and excited to celebrate a powerful new partnership between LRSD and UAPB through the plant systems career pathway. Can y'all keep it down over here, please? Just making it hard. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um, [laughter] through the plant systems career pathway, students at Little Rock Southwest High School will gain hands-on learning, college exposure, and real world skills at Open Doors and Graduation. Thank you to UAPB for investing in our students futures, and to Terrence Balden for help making the connection. And for those of you who
009aren't aware, we are going to be creating hydroponic farm labs at Little Rock Southwest. and it is water, nitrogen, some it's a way to grow crops all year round. It's not dependent upon um soil and weather. And so we're definitely excited um about this project and this collaboration. [applause] >> Congratulations to our very own the one and only director of child nutrition, Stephanie Walker Hines. She has been selected as a candidate for a position on the school nutrition association board of directors. This is an incredible honor and a reflection of the strong leadership, dedication, and passion Miss Hines brings to LRSD every single day. [applause] We want to give a huge thank you and shout out to everyone in our community for their significant uh contributions to our toy and gift drive. We partner with
010KRK and Fox 16 again this year to support this outreach effort benefiting youth up to ages up to age 18. Additionally, as part of this partnership, we were able to provide two shopping sprees to Walmart for an L for an LRSD staff member and a family in transition who needed a little extra help this holiday season. That story will air tomorrow on KK. We'll share the video after it posts. [applause] All right. And if you haven't been down here to witness our talented students, you have missed a treat. For the past two weeks, LRC students from elementary through high school have provided lunchtime performances for our community. If you haven't been able to make it, there is one last opportunity to do so, and that is tomorrow at 11:30 right here in the boardroom. Um,
011if you haven't had a chance to come, I do encourage you to come because our student performers would definitely lift your spirits and will give you more reasons to be proud of the students that we have here in the Little Rock School District. [applause] And we are coming up on almost our oneyear anniversary in celebration of the launching of Reading in the Rock. And I am so proud of how this initiative has taken place across the city. I was driving somewhere today and saw an ad, a Reading in the Rock ad on a city bus. Um, and so the word is definitely spreading. And so we thank all of our community partners for being a part of this. And of course, most of you know if you've been paying attention to our social media, we
012um participated in the winter uh book distribution drive. Every break, winter, spring break, summer, uh we provide students free books to build their home libraries in uh support of our citywide literacy uh initiative. And I must put in a plug and shout out to the city of Little Rock. Um we were struggling to come up with all of the funds needed for this winter's distribution, but uh thanks to um hold forget her name. Glasco Jennifer. Thank you. [laughter] Thanks to Jennifer for finding some uh funds through grants and other sources to contribute to um what we were able to contribute to make our winter distribution a success for all of our prek through fifth grade students throughout our district. I believe all students selected three to five books to take home and some of our
013students, some of our schools went forth the extra effort and um included books for their middle school students as well. So, we are thankful and grateful for how this uh literacy initiative is taking off across the city. These are just a few photos of our winter distribution events across the district. All right. And on yesterday, was it yesterday? >> Tuesday. On Tuesday, local firefighter Union 34 in Energy Arkansas once again spread warmth and care through their annual Operation War. Every student at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership and Language Academy received a brand new winter coat personally delivered by firefighters and energy employees. What started in 2015 has grown into a cherished tradition made possible by community support and strong partnerships. We're grateful to everyone who helped bring warmth and holiday cheer to our students.
014Students at Carver Washington also received coats this year. And I forgot the number, but they announced at MLK how many coats they have given out since 2015. And I want to say it was in the 900 or 9. Yeah. >> 40 something. >> More than that. >> Or maybe it was 9,000. I'm going to say 9,000. >> Yeah, it was 9 something00 >> just this. Yeah. Yeah, it must have been like 9,000. >> I was talking about total total thousands. Yeah. [gasps] >> All right. And this next uh shout out is happy for him and kind of sad for us. Congratulations to our longtime director of procure procurement uh Mr. Daryl Paradise on his retirement. We had a wonderful time celebrating his 34 years of service, surrounded by friends, family, and colleagues who appreciate all
015he has done for the Little Rock School District. Mr. Paradis will definitely be missed. [applause] And we're wrapping up phase three of enrollment for LRC. This is a time that students who live in our attendance zones but don't attend LRC schools are encouraged to return home. We are saving a seat just for you. When we return in January, that will be the period when students who don't live in our zones are invited to join the LRC family. We are saving a seat for you. Also, more information may be found on our registration page on the website. And last, but definitely not least, as we celebrate the joy, talent, and accomplishments shared this evening, we're reminded that the spirit of the season is about coming together with purpose. With that same sense of commitment and care,
016we now transition into our board business to continue the work that supports our students and staff and families. one more day in 2020 25 and we look forward to seeing you again in 2026. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, we're going to go on to public comment. This is a place in the agenda when we hear from the public, [snorts] parents, stakeholders, and friends of LRSD. We like to hear public comment regarding LRSD issues. We allow three minutes for public comment. Our responsibility is to listen to your comment. [snorts] We're not allowed to respond or have discussion. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. So, I have um I have two lists here. >> One was online. >> Okay. So, we want both of them. Okay. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. Uh Miss Butler. Miss
017Butler. Okay. Good evening, Miss Butler. >> Good evening. My name is Rachel Butler. Um, I am a prek special education teacher with the district and can I just say that it's much less intimidating talking to littles than all of you. So, um, but I have been with the district for six years. I have a current preK3 boy at Rockefeller Early Childhood and a first grader at Roberts. And we have thoroughly enjoyed and gained lots of positive experiences from the district. Um, as I'm thinking through the upcoming implementation of the preschool sliding scale fee, um, I would like it to be considered just the impact that it does have on LRSD employees like myself. Um, and I would like it to be considered for employees of the district to get a discount for their prek students
018enrolling in the district. Um, obviously my own child will be in PreK 4 in the fall, which we have enrolled and we're excited for that and we know how much it prepares him for kindergarten from my older son. Um, I really do think that this is something that can be beneficial for retention and incentive for employees that are currently working at the district and might be thinking of where they want to find a job. Um, I know at any other daycare or preschool program, whether that's private or um, in other areas, they do give their employees discounts. And I think we should follow suit in that. Um, I know there's many employees that I work with that would be excited for this, and I don't think it would have a big negative impact on the
019district, but I do think it could have a very great positive impact for families like myself and for little Caleb and Carter. Um, so I just want to look forward to hearing some discussion about possibly making that change. So, thank you for taking time to listen. >> Thank you. >> All right. Deanna Woods Davis. >> Hello. My name is Dana Woods Davis. I school >> I'm a Little Rock retired uh school district employee. Retired. Um, I'm giving up my three minutes um because the concern that led me here, um, I spoke with the principal on today and we were able to talk through the issue, clear up misunderstandings and come to an agreement. Um, because of that, I no longer feel the need to address this matter. >> I apologize. That's good. I [applause] >>
020taking the initiative. I love it. [clears throat] >> Wonderful. Okay. Um, not that we don't love to hear from our public. We said that, right? Okay, we do. But I just love to hear us take the initiative and be proactive. I love it. Tama washing. Tama washing. >> Good afternoon. My name is Tama Stalins Washington. I had sent a uh a letter to each board member probably about four or five months ago. I'm the young lady that was trying to implement the 7m minute timeout when it's 7 minutes left in the game. It doesn't matter what the sport is because uh I'm trying to become a aneurysm spokesperson for the state of Arkansas uh January 3rd, 19915. My coach refused to let me stop running and I had a ruptured brain aneurysm and a stroke
021and live to tell about it at Fuller Junior High. And so I'm now about to become the aneurism spokesperson for the state of Arkansas. And all I want is a timeout when there's 7 minutes left in the game for every single student. So, I'm bringing it to you all. I I gave a letter and now I'm getting ready to take it to the governor and to the president of the United States cuz it's no it's no excuse for a student to not be able to rest because of a coach because I'm a walking living miracle. >> That's all I'm saying. I work at Baptist. >> So, I see it >> where they don't make it. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Crystal Green, >> you're on the >> Yeah, I was going
022to say >> that's okay. Absolutely. No problem. No, you're fine. And Lee, was that the same issue? Okay, no problem. Rachel, >> same. >> You already Okay, you were on the other list. Yes, you were. And then C camp or >> Cynthia Camp. Okay. You would like to speak? >> Okay. >> Retirement don't mean nothing to me, you know. But uh my issue I have in everything is uh I already email. Y'all probably know me. email the long straight of email concerning metacliffe what I bringing to your attention cart's crew want to intermit one metacliffe okay the uh community does not want that in our neighborhood and everything I was approached by them by a fly in my door and everything and so then I end up getting a certified letter you you know, and
023then we went to the community association. We had a meeting and all this came up and when I went to talk to the community, you know, and everything, you know, reaching out to them, they was upset. They were saying why they didn't know what it was. They gave peoples that stay within 200 or 100 or either 300 within that school and they just they all everybody I talked to they was upset and I told them that by me just retiring fully and stuff I'm able to get out more but what I had initiate when superintendent poor was in there about my plan my proposal. It didn't never go nowhere. I emailed everybody that was on the thread, superintendent, everybody. And it's like, you know, it went out the way. But I know a lot of
024people say when you got money, money talks, you know, and stuff. And she went on to say, I got a 501c3 and everything. It just a long long list of things, but I would just want to bring it to y'all attention. I don't know if the school board to send this. I was going to send it on my thread and email about it because, you know, I I want to leave at least one copy. I got several copies because when I go around talking, they want to know more about it and stuff. So, I told them that I will make copies and I will give it to them as I talk to them. I haven't reached the whole community of Metaclair, but other people's they going talking to them too. But I just want to
025bring this up to her because my proposal that never hit the community only person hit with this and they said that's because money talk. But I want to leave this with >> where you can see it >> and we'll make sure we make copy. >> Okay. And you know, you could have that one because I'm a spokesperson for the community and everything. What I brought to the to you all, it would help the children and stuff. You know what that's going on. It's It's not right. So, I'm going I know my 3 minutes is up, but I just want to leave that to cuz I told him that I will come and stuff, but we will have another hearing on the 8th of January. All of them public comment but I want to say that
026it was not fair because I got this on my door and a certified letter which I went to the meeting I told them I don't want no pause of it because for the fact is that where is my proposal so I guess my proposal just stay in the email but that's all I have to say and I appreciate y'all listening to me >> have a good one >> absolutely >> right anyone else have a public comment that um was unable to sign up. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Um committee report. >> Certified. Certified PPC. >> Hello everyone. >> Hello. I'm real brief. I got sticky notes. [laughter] First of all, I just on behalf of the certified PPC and my absence last month, we just wanted to say thank you for um the additional
027stipens and and policies that you all approved last year and we're really grateful for that. Um the certified PPC has been working diligently with um HR and central office and we were able to support the approval of the 2627 school calendar. Um, we supported the comprehensive compensation committee proposal and we also supported um the proposed changes um to switch out the professional developments for the month of February and March and and we had no problem doing that. So, we were really glad to collaborate with them on those items. And then last but not least, just a short point of personal privilege. You all know I do my mock interviews twice a year and I just really would like to say um thank you for Miss Norma Johnson um Greg M Osiris came um Miss Burgess
028was there Dr. Bradford I really want to send a shout out to Beatatric Varela because she sent me a blessing who was Mirisol Kenchola to work with my Hispanic students in doing a Hispanic um version of an interview. Um, I had representatives from LUAC, uh, Miss Shmikica Montgomery. I had the success coach from Park View, Central Library System. I had a representative from Jack and Jill, the health department, property management, and then our staff and our principal at our school. And that's what I like to see is student success. And so, even if you weren't able to come this time, I do it again in March or April. But I I'll continue to keep sending emails to you all. And if you're able to come, come. If you have things going on, I truly understand
029cuz Dr. Wright was reading in the rock yesterday or he would have been there as well. But I think that we are in a very good place and everything is going really really well. And to each of you, I hope that you have a merry Christmas and a happy happy new year. >> And unless you have any questions, that's all that I have for you. >> I will >> because I didn't. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for All right. Okay. So, we're going to move on to the consent agenda and consent agenda. >> He's not here yet. So, can we >> Yeah, we can. >> Can we modify that? >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. All right. So, the chair will entertain a motion. >> Do you want
030I was going to move about the moving the agenda around you want to do that. Okay. I move that we Oh, look at that right there. [laughter] >> Never mind. >> I move nothing. [laughter] >> All right. >> Don't you look dapper today. [laughter] >> Good evening, board. >> Good evening. I'm here to provide an update from our recent meeting that occurred on the 10th of this month. First, I'd like to give some shout outs to some of our members who have obtained recent accomplishments and awards. Jillian Phillips was nominated for the prestigious Hugo Brown Award. Daniel Curo had a remarkable opportunity to moderate a panel with President Barack Obama who was former president. Trinity from Man High School also attended that event. Austin Bernard who is in Park View arts and uh magnet program.
031He was able to perform very actively in multiple plays showcasing his talents. Michael Moore from Hall is committed to playing basketball at all. And finally, man's football team recently won the championship. Their basketball team is also performing exceptionally well. These achievements just show the talent and dedication that our members have even outside of our meeting dates. A good amount of our meeting was used to talk about improving communication and engagement. We discussed ways that we would be able to send out updates to students about our decisions through social media platforms like Instagram which we will reach out to uh Pamela Smith and having an actual formal way of doing that as we know you can't just go creating something affiliated with LRZ out there. >> Next we discussed the code of conduct and contrasted it
032was the student handbook. We expressed concerns regarding the dress code, noting that it seemed to be more often unfair to female students than male students, and it is very unclear. It is inconsistently used and enforced between buildings and across the district. We advocated for a dress code that is non-discriminatory. We are also asking that you promote that we promote uh as a district the dress code in an entertaining and informative way, whether that be through fashion shows and other advertising. A key point that we discussed next was the LRSC student leadership institute which Mr. McGee and Miss Vessel are helping to collaborate with us on. We are excited to share that we do have some session dates already planned. January 22nd is going to be a business themed session. February 17th is dedicated to a
033nonprofit team and March 31st is centered around a government team. Essentially what these themes are is to help create a student leadership institute where students can like value their time with other people and they have the opportunity to network for community service and engage with leaders that actually are in these fields. So looking up to someone essentially. We also discuss LRC finances reviewing the budget sheet and talking about how the district's money is currently distributed and what the plans are for the future. We are continuing a list of questions for Dr. Right. And other people we have invited like Dr. like Mr. Lamin the director of safety and security. The student advisory board is committed as always to providing highlight to providing and highlighting these changes we make as a student voice within the district
034while communicating these changes. The board and I wish you a happy holiday and a happy new year. Thank you. >> Happy holiday to you. >> Any questions? Nice. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Indeed. >> All right. So, the chair will entertain a motion. Consent agenda. >> I move that the LRSD board of education approved the consent agenda items as follows. 5.1 The 2627 student calendar. 5.2 personnel changes. 5.3 approval of schoolboard meeting minutes. 5.4 community service learning applications. 5.5 donation of property and 5.6 purchasing reports. >> It's been moved and properly second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? The motion carries. >> All right. Okay. All right. Staff culture and department of climate culture and wellness update. >> All right. as
035she is preparing to come up. Miss Goody, are you introducing them? >> Yes. >> All right. >> Miss Hatter may not remember this, but she actually asked for an update maybe 3 months ago >> and it has actually been scheduled a couple of times, but because the agendas haven't been so long, we just kept moving it and moving it and moving it and moving it. So, here we are. >> Oh, thank you. Absolutely. >> Miss Brazwell. >> Yes, ma'am. Hi. >> I'm sure she's back there talking to him about the dress code >> and dress code in a couple. >> Um, so it's my pleasure to introduce this um dynamic team who's going to come up and share just an update uh with you around climber climate culture and well-being initiatives. You all know that
036in our strategic plan, this shows up everywhere. I mean, this team has their fingerprint on work with staff work around student behavior and systems for MTSS. And so I'm gonna turn it over to them to tell us about their work. >> Good evening, board. >> All right. Um I do apologize. I was out trying to get scheduled with uh with your Yes. He he leaned in and let me let me talk to you outside. [laughter] Absolutely, sir. So it is a pleasure to be in front of you. Um, and so what we're we're going to do quickly is give you an update um about our efforts, not only as it pertains to students, but I know you've been waiting to hear about adult forward things that we've been doing, too. But the three things that
037we're really going to focus on are fostering community for students and staff, addressing behavior in productive ways, and supporting staff. And this all spun up not only from the uh strategic plan but also from the stakeholder input from the strategic plan and also uh staff and student input from our um climate and culture survey which we'll be ready to take again in January just so we can see if we've had any movement. So the priority the first priority is fostering community and belonging. And so what we plan to do um is a a few things. One is to try to establish communities of practice at all levels. And that's just going to be a valuable way or a viable option for professional development. And I know you're like, okay, but we already have PLC's, right?
038And so PLC's are really focused on student learning and the communities of practice is really going to lift up uh the opportunities for social learning as it pertains to adults and students because if we're moving towards a culturally responsive uh approach to doing things, the sense of community is very important. We also want to focus on increased uh mental health supports and not to make sure that we're doing things in a proactive way versus a reactive way. And then the increased PD offerings, not necessarily in number, but for the audiences. We want them to be inclusive, not just for certified staff, but also for classified staff, so everyone feels like their their professional learning is important. So what we're going to do is we'll share something and then we'll also give you a few highlights
039as far as some progress that we've been making. So building capacity for uh communities of practice implementation. There was a small team that went out to Bellingham um and we actually learned from the social learning theorist um that came up with the uh concept. And so from that learning cuz we were fully immersed for a whole week for like 10 to 12 hours a day. Um but at the end of th those days we really were talking about how we can make this a reality in our district and make it a again a vi viable option um for professional development. So Lacy's leader, lead lion, went back and charged his staff with being the first um to have a school-based uh community of practice. And so Christina Ray accepted the challenge. She's Lacy's media specialist.
040So shout out to uh Miss Ray. But she and I sat and we kind of teased out what it would look like. And so they have forged forward and so we will be uh leaning on them to provide us feedback as far as having to come up with a um a a framework for the district. >> Uh so network two and three they have actually delved into this work of communities of practice with two problems of practice where they've solved those problems of practice within network two and three during our PTU times. And so prior to number two, good evening everyone. Prior to number two is uh addressing >> who are you? >> Dwayne Clayton. [laughter] >> So productively addressing behavior. So you know learning cannot occur in chaos. And so the MTSS framework is
041the construct in which we're getting camps to really focus on behaviors. So you can see the goals here. We're trying to reduce exclusionary practices by 10% and an increase and 15% for supportive responses. things like restorative practices. Uh with restorative practice comes restorative language. We're already in implementation phases that with PD with district level folks to build capacity at the school level. And then as our illustrious student just mentioned from central that uh the student handbook revisions, they're a part of that process as well. We met twice on uh just their feedback and [clears throat] revisions. They've done surveys about how we can uh make changes in our student code of conduct and then with specifics to the MTSS framework. Nikki and I, we have been going to campus campuses and uh we have agendas
042when we visit to see what their implementation phases and processes are. And so we're going to continue to monitor that through the tier fidelity inventory and then school climate surveys to be able to make sure we continue to move the needle in the implementation processes. Okay, it's my turn. So, just to highlight, I am Nikki Nichols, um, lead coordinator of MTSS and SEAL. So, we're going to just highlight um, right here you just see about three schools, but I'm really just giving a shout out and highlighting all our schools for showing progress in implementing such clear um, behavior expectations. you should walk into most of our schools and be able to see that this year is a year of us getting things in place for um our tier one um piece of the framework for
043um um tier one behavior. And so this is just an example of the flowchart protocol on how we um going to support our students and staff on how we're going to respond to um behavior so that we can be consistent when we're responding to students. and of course using that restorative language. So this is just a example of one of the components that we're creating to strengthen our tier one uh piece for um behavior um the behavior side of MTSS. All right. So the moment you've all been waiting for me. So it was with supporting staff growth and well-being. Um we wanted to focus again um on the culture of just making it a part of what it is that we do and weave it into the frame the the fabric of of all that
044we do. And so the other thing is to make sure that we have some specialized PD um focus on trauma and culturally responsiveness. Uh that was something that came up in the surveys. people are asking for that and it's just so happened that we have a Department of Justice grant that will allow us to do that. Um and so that's that's really a um a blessing. We also want to lean more into cognitive data usage for academics as well as uh coming up with plans for students and helping them to be a part of uh the learning experience and planning and and all of that. So we'll get into that just a little bit. I did want to also just uh highlight the years. For the first year, our target audiences for adult well-being was
045leaders at the building level, at the network level, district level. Uh just helping leaders to understand the importance of this. Shout out to Dr. Wright for um allowing uh the the district leadership team meetings to be a place where we really delve deeply um into that self-awareness piece. Um but then year two was all staff and that was classify and certified and then this is year three with taking those steps towards action of system design. So the communities of practice and those kinds of things and weaving things in as far as target content. Just the first year we're trying to help people to close the stress cycle and stop leaning into negative coping strategies. Um the importance of understanding negativity bias. Right. Year two, the gift of mindfulness, multitasking is not good for us. And
046so the science doesn't support that. I'm sorry, the science doesn't support it. Um, and then of course year three, the communities of practice and promoting trusting relationships. So the first um highlight is the starter kits for staff calming spaces. And so they uh were in or placed in 19 schools. And so those schools were the priority schools that we focused on first. And the goal is to expand to the remaining campuses. But uh we provided that starter kit and folks identified spaces. We went out designed. I was able to to go out and design some but some had a ambassador that took it on and and ran with it. There was a good positive feedback. There was high uh staff gratitude about the usage uh of the concepts of a calming space and um the
047fact that they are willing to shift the way that their class spaces feel and look um to to make sure that we're uh doing things intentionally around um tending to nervous systems and that kind of thing and being really trauma responsive. The next thing is um increased opportunities for those self-care sessions. staff asked for those. And so with that, uh, April is stress awareness month. And so we wanted to make sure that we had a stress less challenge. And so just helping folks to engage in, uh, positive ways to close the stress cycle. And so all of our sessions were uh, interactive and led by myself and other uh, teammates, but also the staff out in the field. So there were schools who were host um, for that. And again, high participant gratitude and asking
048for more. So, we've added October because if you look at the research around the phases of the school year, October is when the staff um go into survival mode. And so, we wanted to uh make sure that folks had solid self-care plans because uh right after survival mode is disillusionment. So, folks are wondering why did they even choose the profession by December. So we wanted to make sure um that we had some some real strategic things in place. The other thing is the cognitive learning profile. I spoke about that earlier as far as engaging in that in a way to to look at the whole child but then also the whole human because the teacher uh had an opportunity to take this um cognitive assessment and any staff member that wanted to. we took it
049as a DT as well um to understand who we are as learners and then how that impacts the learning environment and so um we were able to do that in partnership with mind and a um they actually found a research project opportunity for us so it actually paid for the most um [clears throat] expensive year of implementation which is the first we were able to um assess all of our students and the research uh project also revealed build a increase in math scores at the treatment school. So, yay for for that. The last uh progress highlight is advanced emotional wellness sessions. And these are are not just PD or conferences. This is an actual five-day journey. And it is a uh five-day way or five days of looking at your zero to 18 self. And
050so we've got to have staff members who are committed to a healing journey that will sign up for this. But um when and we have 12 I know it says 11, but we have one to just finish up. Um and so we've had 12 participants for that. And then also there's been great feedback about how it has impacted them professionally. So they come back grounded and and able to respond um in a very centered way versus an emotional way and and more self-aware. And so I know you're wondering, okay, so just one employee like how does that or the 12 like how is that impactful? Well, that one employee uh that that shared her uh experience actually is a person who impacts 60 staff members, 600 plus students and policies and procedures as far as
051how they're um how they're enforced. And so it's important to understand that those um that that one person can impact all of that. So any healing journey is a is a good one. So there are three roles that that staff have been playing as far as uh being supportive of this um initiative and the first is facilitators. So staff are actually facilitating some of the uh adult learning sessions. Second, the leaders are embedding the work into their practice and then third there are ambassadors that are on the campuses to make sure that those staff uh calming spaces are reset every day after use. I also wanted to just shout out partnerships for um our staff well-being. These are community folks that have been in partnership with us and provided um space or inind donations, services,
052um sponsorships to to support the well-being in our district. And then I also know that with anything um I'm not standing up in front of you today to say that we had all the answers, but there are some opportunities for growth. And so one is to create uh content for a library and website uh so that staff has resources right at their fingertips. Right now everything is on a padlet but we wanted to expanded um for that and then also uh collaborating and with the department of teaching and learning to make sure that opportunities for integration um is in everything that we do. Questions? >> I don't have a question. I just want to make a a brief comment before um any questions that board members have. I just want to um thank all of
053you and I'm want to start first with Nikki and um Mr. Clayton. There is hardly a school that I go and visit where I do not hear your names being mentioned in terms of the support that you are providing schools, the level of responsiveness when they call and they have needs. And I think that's a it's like the opposite of how things used to be. [laughter] Um, and so I definitely especially our middle schools. I hear a lot about the uh the support that they were receiving from you guys. So, thank you um for their work and and and I know it's hard for um maybe the board to really grasp like the impact of like this whole team's work, but I'm telling you in our organization um this work has been transformational and year
054one it was all about us and we really started at the uh the district level and kudos to Crystal for really she gets on my nerves a lot. However, um >> a job, >> right? >> She she pushes us uh she pushes us as district leaders to really um be thoughtful about how we're leading, how we show up in the words that we say and not letting um like the craziness of this work um get to us and really teaching us what being what whole and and like being what what being healthy looks like and feels like. And so I know every time I get up and talk um in our DOT meetings, I I don't use the word testify like I'm in church. So I'm always talking about how this work um has literally
055changed my whole approach to working in this district. Um and we're starting to see how that is being trinkled down to other leaders. And so it's hard to really grasp in this presentation like how this work is really impacting how we work in the district. But it has made uh I mean I can't I can't even begin to describe how this work has impacted um how we're functioning, how we're working. We still have a lot of work a lot of work and a um a lot of work to do, but it has made a difference when you learn how to lead from a healthy place versus always being stressed out all the time. And so I just want to say thank you to this team for the work that you do. Um and really for
056I'm not kidding when I I don't see you a lot, Nikki, but I hear your name all the time. So, just thank you for how you're um supporting and showing up and supporting um our leaders in our schools. >> Absolutely. Questions? Questions? Yes, Mr. Bali. >> Thank y'all for being here today. Um not not really a I got well I got one question, but uh I got two comments. I'm definitely glad to hear about the work that this department is doing. uh we talk about creating support for our teachers uh is is very important because uh just the support against the burnout for teachers I know is is really uh helps to boost effectiveness and um helps with the student outcomes as well too and so uh I'm glad to hear uh finally to hear
057about how leadership is like modeling ways for self-care and providing some resources for those positive outcomes. And so I I'm I'm very pleased with the presentation to hear about uh the common places being in I think you said what 12 schools or was it 19 19 I'm sorry 19 schools and uh and that's you know what I'm saying that's that's very important. Uh even our students need safe healthy third spaces as well too but I know we talking about the teachers right now. My only uh real request was I I love the uh the slide to see about the wellness sessions because the first thing I thought in my mind is like a lot of times uh with in these institutions uh we offer retreats and there's rarely any treats in these retreats and uh
058[laughter] it's nothing that people look forward to going to but I know when I hear wellness sessions I know that uh people are taking advantage of those opportunities or want to take advantage of those opportunities. And so, uh, my request is if next time whenever you, uh, are able to be here in one of our board meetings, I would love to hear from one of the teachers about how well these, uh, these wellness sessions are and the common places because I just love to hear from the students about the, uh, students and the teachers about what, uh, the ways that, uh, the district is working to help to improve their mental health. >> Thank you. >> I I s Yes, ma'am. >> U, I have a little testimony. there's a third grader and I'm pretty
059sure that this has an impact on the teaching so the impact is impacting the children and and so she said that um she said you know sometimes I get so frustrated and they get on my nerves. I say really I said what do you do? I go tell the teacher I just need to step outside in the hallway for a minute and breathe real hard and I say so when you do that she said I come in the classroom I'll be so refreshed like okay it's working [laughter] >> Miss Hatter no I'm sorry Adams yes ma'am yes sir >> thank you Mr. Thank you very much for the presentation and for your work. I wondered if if you might be able to give us just a couple more examples of of the impact that you're
060seeing of this work and and and also a as you're doing this work which sounds like it's very much about culture I think you know culture is really a challenge to make a change and lasting change and I wonder if you'd comment on on u on how you're what you're running into as far as some of the challenge of trying to implement this kind of work. >> Yes, sir. So, particularly with the work that Nikki and I do, we're going to all the schools, every secondary school, [clears throat] every elementary school, and we're looking at their behavior matrices, which is the schoolwide expectations. Just like we teach mathematics literacy, it's very seldom that we slow down enough to teach behaviors. >> And so, the schoolwide behavior matrix is tied to tests and leads, which is
061the framework for teachers and school leaders. So around school c affirming school culture which also a part of our uh strategic plan and so when we go in on our school visit we look at their processes and systems we look at their espit school-based intervention team process for students who are struggling so that's the challenge what what are the tools that we pull up when students are struggling and how do we implement them with fidelity so that those students can truly be supported when the hey I do get an opportunity to step outside and count or I do get a chance to go to a common space or I have a buddy person or a mentor. So, MTSS framework gives us all these levers to use as a driver to move the needle when it
062comes to improved behavior. >> Exactly. And and and it's um and so when you go into some schools this school year, and we're hoping that well, we'll know that by next school year, you'll see all of the components. You will see the school matrix. you should see um it being taught and um students um um being reminded of what the expectation is as well as um acknowledged that they are doing it. Um and then of course how are we going to respond which that again ties into the work that we're doing on the student code of conduct with classroom managed behavior versus what is considered an office managed behavior. So that that gives um leaders good time for them to be able to be instructional leaders as well as teachers taking um on um setting
063the culture and the climate for their classroom based on the building wide stuff. And then of course taking that data to see where do we need to be more proactive at? uh what's the what's the high areas, what's not the high areas, and how do we need to maneuver so we're not being so reactive. >> I think Mr. Adams, one of the other challenges is when we try to take something like this to scale, it's not a first order change. It's second and third order change. And so we have to build capacity of staff to be able to have the appropriate tools when it comes to restorative practice. Our entire language and operational language has to change. So that builds uh more PD opportunities for staff to be able to deal with the classroom managed
064behaviors versus the office managed behavior. So it takes a little bit of time to roll it out and that's one of the challenge that we see having to implement the PD is necessary >> and that was getting ready to be a challenge that I I um lifted up because just the time constraints on um our calendar and and just trying to make sure we get everything done with PD um and all of these different initiatives and the second order change that he spoke of. um we're you know restorative practices you've got trauma informed all of those things do take time um that we don't really have so we've been trying to be very very creative around making sure that that happens but then when I uh go back to well let me just stay with
065challenges the other challenge as far as the adult piece is um some adults just lack self-awareness and so it's hard to get folks to understand the importance of a healing journey if they feel like they don't have anything to heal from. >> Um the other thing is, you know, everything isn't trauma. Sometimes we have to heal from the negative conditioning that we've received just in our society. And so with all of that being said, it would also create another challenge as far as if we're asking folks to be restorative, but all they've experienced is the punitive way. >> Yes. >> In their own childhoods and for the last however many years they've been teaching. um we're really asking them to um to push up against a belief system. And so that is a challenge, but
066we are we are committed to to um to making that, you know, helping folks to to make that shift a celebration for the adult piece. Um one of the things that that just kind of bubbled up for me and Clayton can kind of speak to it as a cuz as he had me come over and then I can tell him just y say something. So last October, we were always trying to find ways. We made our faculty meetings to be like adult learning. And so I know October, this the end of a quarter. You're rushing to put grades in and parents want to see the report card grades. So it was an opportune time for staff to get a wellness check. And so when she came over to do the wellness check, it was like
0678:30 and teachers have to go to class and she's got this line of people waiting on her to speak to her about the wellness piece because she really hit some triggers around how we get on the hamsters wheel all the time, burn out and not really take care of ourselves. So adult learners in that space were just really >> uh convicted I would say to really see themselves and so it was very beneficial last October. >> Yeah. So when when he talked about the people who wanted to talk to me, they're all there's so many employees that just want to have thought partnership around this type of work. And so I can I provide that and I um remember speaking to one person and at the end of the conversation she said, you know, I
068have so much hope for my district because they have someone like you in this position in a position like this. And that right there alone um gave me I guess it propelled me for at least about a month and a half. I was like okayoo. But at the end of the day the thought partnership that is a true celebration and um I wouldn't trade it for the world and it happens all day long. Sometimes after hours it doesn't matter for me because that doesn't feel like work. >> Thank you very much. This is also encouraging and really appreciate the additional thoughts. >> Absolutely. Thank you for asking. >> Other questions, M. >> Yeah. Uh thank you for um coming and um informing us about all the work um that is being done because it is
069that is that piece where um in this line of work just any line of work right where we have to look internally and do all of that um selfwork and often times there's a lot of trauma trauma bonding and so it just continues to where it's hard for a person to even understand like what's the issue like you know >> um so I I do appreciate um the questions as well as um what what all you shared and so um I can tell um over the last little bit of uh a a period of time that calls that I would get they would more focus. So when I would say so what's the issue? >> Yeah. >> You know um [laughter] typically it will go into you know we sit and we wait like baking
070a cake right and then we get the end result. Um but I have noticed that some that um I've I've been receiving more direct calls like >> here goes the here go the issue here go what is happening and this is what I want the solution or the understanding or I just wanted to tell you. Amen. I Okay. So, um I I overall I I just appreciate um the work and and and this is a journey and um in the next few years, school years um I'm really looking to see how culture and climate is changing be um to where families and educators are not leaving um because of the experience they're having based on the adults or whatever or else the climate that they're in cuz you know that's typically how people leave. So
071I do appreciate the work that you guys are doing. >> Straw. >> Thank [clears throat] you all so much for being here. Um I love hearing this as well. I go everybody else and I just was curious about if you could give an example of how this work is extending into classified teams like I think about our custodians or our nutrition workers and things like that. if you could talk about that and then also whether or not you are formally or informally part partnering with the MTSS work in the early childhood space that is also going on with Miss Jones. I know she's been working on that from um the early childhood emotional regulation for kids. And I know I've seen that personally with my kids with conscious discipline when they come home and they
072want to do like their um they have like this pretzel thing they do with their arms that they can never quite get right and like some breathing things too. We like we do a lot of like um smell our flower and blow out our candle at my house. Um >> mountain floor before you roar. >> Yeah. All the things. Yeah. We [laughter] just watched a Daniel Tiger about that today. This afternoon. Um but anyway, I just kind of wondered if you could talk about collaborating with those teams and some examples. Thank you. >> Yes. So, one of the I can talk about collaborating with um security every year. >> Oh, great. Okay. I I um do a session about a two-hour session with them and then I also um I actually have a have to
073schedule a meeting with a particular security officer that reached out and wanted some thought partnership. Um but as far as like we've we've done sessions with um secretaries >> um registars we've it's just it's literally we've had a group that we've kind of targeted each time because we don't have enough space for everyone but we we try to target different groups. So it may be registars, it may be attendance secretaries and that kind of thing. So we've done that. >> And so you pull them together virtually or do you do it you pull them off campus and into off? No, not not not during a a contact day. >> Okay. >> No, no, no, no. Not a student contact day. It would be in that pre like on a PD day. >> Yeah. On that
074P prechool PD day. Mhm. Yes. Um and then as far as partnership with Miss Jones, Absolutely. Um that team is actually the team the US team um that is helping in partnering with us to do the trauma um informed sessions. Tris. >> Okay. That was with Nikki Edge. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. that she is, isn't she? [laughter] >> And then did you all need to speak to that as well or >> what about the new grant we just got? >> So, we did just receive a new grant um from US and um it is really to help the AL and ACC um students. We're going to have two um US social workers that will be on each campus. Um there will they will also have an opportunity to engage with a relationships curriculum
075um so that they uh understand the importance of building uh positive relationships and not just with a significant other or partner but like sibling relationships and that that kind of thing that we're really looking at um data as far as the um as far as supporting students that you know because of our fiscal situation there there may not be funds to support those small group of students but that student group is this the group that really needs the support. So um when US reached out with the grant opportunity I was like yes please thank you. Um so we did we were awarded um that and it is over a period of five years. I think it's 3.5 million. Good. >> Awesome. Good. >> Yes. And so um just you know out here trying to figure
076out how we can create >> Yeah. make the world better and make a difference. I would like to shout out our other two. >> I was wondering who they were. I was just our social worker. >> Social uh so she is our behavior supports person and then also our truency um person because we uh we're also glad to have her on our team so that those students we can really wrap around them um and make sure that espit is happening for them um as well on the campuses. So we really we come together as a team all the time as you can see tonight. Um, we you there is not a one person on this team that's more important. The collective voice is the most powerful voice. >> For those who always are inquiring about
077our mental health partners and folks who support our schools, that's Brandy back in the back. That's who coordinates all >> she doesn't like speaking in front of >> I just [laughter] >> I just want to express to you all. I mean, you know my heart. you know, this is the work that I do day in and day out. And so I just applaud you. I love that the cultural, you know, implications of just shifting the paradigm, the internal work, the thought partnerships. I love just the taking the stereotypical piece away so that folks are really intentional about looking within to really change and really really do some hard work to do the hard work. So, thank you guys. so much for what you do and we applaud you >> and thank you. And if you
078have any questions later, please get in touch with us. [applause] >> Well, it's time to go now. >> No. >> All right. Okay. So, uh 6.2 Special Education Comprehensive Audit RFP. >> Miss Steel is so excited to come up and I'm going to quickly pass it over to Cassandra um to just speak about this a little bit, but we also have a couple people online. So, um as you all know, I think we've talked about this more than one time about doing an audit of our our special programs. And so, um that is the process we've been engaging with over the last couple of months is determining our partner. And so, um I think they are on Zoom and here also. I I know Miss Lauren Katsman is there. I see Miss Chopra is there.
079And it looks like Miss Mcroy also hopped on. So, hi y'all. Um I don't know if you can hear us. Thumbs up. >> Awesome. Great. I'm going to pass it over to um Cassandra Still, director of uh special programs to talk a little bit more about this. Good evening. Cassandra Steel, director of special programs and uh I'm just here and excited to present to you the company that was chosen. Um I believe there was six of us um who looked through um a series of proposal of proposals or RFPs that was presented to the district. I believe there were 16 companies around 16 companies total and um we narrowed it down to this wonderful company and we are excited that they're going to be the ones who are doing the audit because they have um
080a wide range of experience with doing audits. I believe it was 40 something they're saying yes that they have already done and um >> 46 okay um of school districts and and agencies across the country the name of the company is urban collaborative collaborative and um they're going to be looking at um those areas that were uh presented in the RFP for them to look at and I think the most crucial for us is the um the financial piece too, but they're also going to be looking at how we staff our programming. Um just trying to make sure that we're doing using, you know, the district's funds and the state funds the best that we can for staffing, our staffing allocations, our fiscal alignment, service delivery, our structures, just everything about special education, how special
081education touches all schools and all students throughout the district. They're going to be, and I'll let them uh talk if you all have some questions. They're going to be on the ground initially with us um going into our schools, talking to our teachers, reviewing all of our records, just, you know, everything that that special education touches in the district to give us a very comprehensive audit of our programming because we want to know if we can do things better. And um as a department, we're excited about it because we truly want to know um you know, we have some challenges and we know that they'll come up with some things that we can do differently. We're looking forward to that. And we also want to know what we're doing well um and doing right and
082they'll be looking at that. So, do you all have any questions um of these ladies while they're online? >> Yes. Director Strong, >> they'll Oh, they'll start in January. I believe that's our u focus point is to start sometime around the middle of January and this audit will go through the end of the school year or around April and then we'll get a report um back to present to the board and to the district and to our community. >> Okay, great. Uh thank you all so much for I don't know which way to look but um thank you thank you all for being thank you for being here and presenting this. Um I'm really I'm very excited about this work and um this has been an area that just kind of give him like life
083experience I feel I feel pretty really committed to um and sort of and supporting kids with special needs in our district and I know um this is kind of looking at I just today listened to last the last board meeting we had where we went through all the budget things that we're about to go through after this I believe um but one of the things was the increase in our number of kids who are in special education and have special needs. And um I know one of the goals is to deliver services maybe more efficiently and effectively and at a at a a a cost that we can continue to afford. How do we um I guess what are some points and some like high points on >> how this audit will help us do
084that? I mean it feels a little to me overwhelming to think about growing. I think it was like from 12 to 18% Dr. Right. Um, of our students that are in special education, is that right? Was that the right state? >> It's 18 to 20%. It's up very high. >> So, it's almost one in five students are in special education in some way. >> Um, but anyhow, um, just thinking about that and trying to help us contain costs in that space, but also continue to support. I mean, are y'all looking at like what are we billing for from an audit perspective from Medicaid? What are we billing payers for? Or are you looking at that kind of thing with revenue or just like how a delivery of services? Are you looking Okay. So, it's everything.
085Okay. >> Miss Catman, do you want to >> I can can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes. >> Hi. Thank you all for having us here. And we're also very excited. And before I answer that question, let me just say that last presentation was amazing and we want to talk to them right off the bat. But um so the first thing I would say is 18 to 20% is really high >> and I would want to look right off the bat at why it's so high. The the national percent is closer to 15. Um so when when we're doing a review, we look at the entire district. So, I'd want to look at why kids are being referred so much or at that 18 to 20% um number and what's happening in tiers 1 and
086two in your MTSS model. So, I'd look there, that's one place we'll look to see why you're at the 18 to 20%. Um, >> I'd also want us to look at the staffing. Is there a lot of self-contained special ed classes or are there more inclusive practices? The self-contained special ed classes often are highly staffed. We see sometimes you may have eight kids and three adults. Um so we want to and I'm not saying that about Little Rock. I'm saying across the country we've seen that. I don't know about Little Rock. Um so we'd want to look at the staffing. We'd want to look at um transportation is another cost that we'd want to look at if kids are being transported out of their home school area. And again, we don't know Little Rock's model
087for um enrollment, but a often times if there's more self-contained programs, kids are being transported across the city and that is a is a major cost. we'd want to look at the number of power professionals versus teachers. Um I think those are the in terms of the costs, those are a lot of the big things I think we would look at um to start without knowing anything about what you're doing already just as a general rule. >> Okay. I just didn't see anything in the RFP about billing or Medicaid or I just I mean when we think about OTPT speech in Arkansas, we have really great laws that help support access in schoolbased settings to billing for Medicaid. Um and I just I I would really really like to see that in here to make
088sure we are maximizing billing Medicaid and other payers for the services we're providing for our students. >> We can definitely do that. We can >> it's just it wasn't in here and I just want to say that out loud here in this space of of I think we need to think not only from a cost perspective but a revenue perspective as well. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Other questions? >> No, it was I think she answered it and then when she spoke about looking why students are being referred and so I was going to ask ask about the identification of students going into SPED. Um my other I I guess an uh piece uh the transportation cost um with us being a choice school um a district and families may you know find that said
089school operates best um for said student. Um, so I would well you know what I I'll tune in and hear about that or call somebody. But um but but I think that that would be interesting to write to see what that cost is and and then the reason on why um said said person is going to said school. Is it a choice thing or is it just at the time that was the best place to go? So >> okay. And and with school choice, we often want to make sure that students with disabilities, students with IEPs, have the same level of choice as all other students. So, we'd want to look at that as well. >> Okay. Any other comments that you all would like to share? you have a comment? >> Yeah, just a
090question about the will there after the audit is completed, will there be uh recommendations for the district to do certain uh changes or uh maybe some maybe some things are doing well, but uh highlight some things that they need to change. >> Yeah. The way the way we do this is we'll do data analyses, look at all your documents, and then come in and do um a site visit with interviews and observations and focus groups. So, we'll collect what we see as our observations of the district, and then we'll share that back with whomever we're working with, the special ed leadership team, I would assume, and then we'll also share some recommendations. So, we'll first with our observations make sure we are seeing the truth and seeing everything that you want us to see. Making
091sure that we've covered everything that we a said we would covered and b you want us to cover. And then we'll share our initial recommendations, but we'll make sure that we work with the district on what those recommendations are and make sure that those recommendations are aligned to the district as a whole. Because one of the things we want to make sure of is that special ed's not siloed. Special ed's part of the whole district. So we want all of the recommendations that we provide to be part of the district as a whole. And so our recommendations are a very big part of this. But they are uh will we create them, but they are co-created also to make sure that they actually meet the needs of the district. So when you get those, they
092won't be new to the people we've been working with. they will have been worked on together for a while. >> I think I would just add Mr. Mason, we we anticipate I mean part of the timeline that we outlined was so that some of the recommendations that are made we can then turn around and and do some work with in 26 27 um but anticipating that some of the recommendations will be a longer term um commitment and work to do. I think uh Miss Katzman brought up, you know, MTSS, you just heard the team talk about that. I mean, one of the celebrations of the team that just shared is, you know, some of the things they're doing in codifying or just making sure that systems are consistent across the district. I think when we
093start looking at our MTSS processes, um we we have work to do there as well, right? Um, and so this is a special ed audit and will have impact I think that will um impact the work of the team that you just heard from as well as the academics team um as well as the the special programs team. >> And if we do our job well and we give the recommendations and the good recommendations, it should help the district as a whole because if you help kids with disabilities and you help those services, everybody's going to benefit. So, it's a big picture win-win. >> Okay. >> One other comment. I'm sorry. >> She had another question. >> Oh, you're good. I just But maybe you'll answer. >> Part of the MTSS work. Um, we I
094just wanted to note that we do have um a very important special education representative on that team as well who was not here who has worked very diligently and was very crucial to the development of the MTSS program. So we are working um with them and we have a a great representative on that team. >> Okay. >> Yes. And >> uh one other just one other piece of information. I um so on the Medicaid front um I know I'm sure y'all are very familiar with Medicaid in the schools at the Arkansas Department of Bed. That is super helpful. Um, I also recently had a conversation with DHS that indicated they were going to look really broadly at school level um, school health and what what Medicaid covers for school health and maybe in supporting that
095in a different way in Arkansas. Um, so I think there are potentially some rules under underway there that may positively impact students here. Um, such as billing for transportation through Medicaid for kids in special ed. Um, being able to bill for some of the work that school nurses do. So, I think just making sure that um that's on the radar too with all of this as far as Medicaid and I'm happy to be, you know, if I can be helpful and have a conversation offline about all this, but um there there's just I think there's a lot of um a lot going on in the Medicaid space that is supporting that kind of access in local communities and might be something really good to bring into this as we're thinking about it in the long
096term. So we just so we don't just if we're trying to get a good balance of access and cost and quality I guess our triple aim in the health care system. Are we thinking about what is coming and not just what is today? That's that's all like I don't want to cut back or pull back on things to make sure we're hitting a bottom line that we're working toward in a way that would negatively impact student access to all the services and supports they need, especially if changes are coming that could better support the f fiscal piece of all of this. So that's all >> that was good. Anything to add, Miss Hatter? >> I I think um Mrs. Still answered it. It was around the MTSS and um you have a the there is
097a special education MTSS person on the team that came before. >> Okay, that answers my question. >> Yeah, absolutely. we're are they're working >> just together to to um implement the process in the schools, especially the elementary schools. Okay. >> In terms of of SBED and MTSS and pre-referral things to do with students before they get to a special education referral. Um and it it's working very well right now. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Anything else you guys would like to add? Okay. The chair will entertain a motion. >> Ready to read? >> I'll read. Oh, okay. Um, the Okay. I I move that the Little Rock School Board of Education approve the proposal to work with Urban Collaborative to complete the audit for our special education program. >> It's been moved and properly seconded
098that the LRD Board of Education approved the proposal to work with Urban Collaborative to complete the audit of our special pro education program. All in favor say I. I >> any oppose? The motion carries. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thanks, Urban Collaborative Team for hopping in here. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Seven, finance and operations. >> Mr. Bailey. >> Bailey. >> What a good time. Now, Mr. Bailey, it's 6:54. We are a good time. We are not going to discuss Miss Tatter's. >> Okay. We're going to look your way when it starts to look. >> It's not just pink. Don't do that. Miss Betty, what did you do with that green suit you had on yesterday? [laughter] >> Crystal. >> Yes. It was like Grinch. I
099think was on [laughter] there. >> It was cute. I'm sad I missed it. >> I brought my best my finest outfit out. There you go. [laughter] [clears throat] >> Well, if you didn't get a chance to come by, we had [laughter] >> Oh, hang on. All the way down. >> See, Dr. >> Oh my word. [laughter] I think >> I think needs to be entered into the official minutes for the meeting. >> We had a festive holiday party yesterday. So, it was a chance for the staff here. A lot of times we're just passing by starting at 6:00 all the way to whatever 6:00 in the evening. So we don't really get a opportunity to visit with everybody in the building, but it was good to have everybody down here and always good around food.
100So yeah, and games and different other things. So >> had a few few of you all come out as well. So thank you. Uh before you we have our November 2025 uh board financial update. The caveat here, it is going to change a little bit next month. Uh we have some more comparisons on there. Know uh director Rose, you asked for some comparisons over there. So we're working on that as well. So, we'll just kind of jump right in. Uh, and and this is pretty much a breakdown for every month. Pages typically don't change too much, but some of your revenue status reports on the first pages after our actual PowerPoint. Dr. Wright, you still sharing my picture there. [laughter] Everybody saw. >> All right. Wait till next year. Uh, summer expenditure status report along
101with the details statement of changes and fund balances here. Uh, so as far as our revenue, uh, revenue looks pretty good right now. Of course, we property tax account, the first account is for all the property tax we received from July 1st through December uh 31st. Uh at the end of November, we pretty much collected uh 98%. I think we were still awaiting about $2 million. So, uh we did get some funds in. I think we may have one more uh payment coming in. So, we'll wait for that when we close out the month. As far as delinquent, we're about, you know, halfway through the year, we've almost collected about half of what we projected for delinquents. And all these are projections here. So, uh, nothing really offkilter right now. We'll kind of tell on
102the springtime. So, you know, the major part 98% that's pretty pretty close. You try to make the best predictions based on your past uh, collections you've had, but it's all dependent on, you know, taxpayers paying. So, we typically have the set values, but just depending on, you know, when all the taxpayers actually uh, remmit their payments. investment uh interest on investment. I'm pretty sure we'll probably hit that. Interest rates still seem to be uh pretty good right now as far as our uh our depository interest rates. Uh as far as expenditure update, not a whole lot. I'll jump into the actual thing in the actual report here shortly, but salary and benefit projections are trending to come in under about 2.5 million. We still are running quite a few vacancies out there for the year.
103We've gone through and cleaned up some of those. Some of those positions we probably won't fill during the year, but some of them have long-term subs in there as well. So, you have some sped position. You have some regular uh aid position. You have some sped aid position, bus drivers, uh transportation, I mean, uh child nutrition and and some security officers. So, uh kind of es and flow in my departments, support departments with people coming and going. But, uh right now predictions probably come in about 2 and a half million under where we actually, you know, budgeted. Hopefully we'll maintain that. So, >> uh, but I mean it's gonna probably be eaten up by this other part right here in the red. [laughter] >> Set you up for the comeback, huh? >> Yeah, the the
104part in red is important. So, security uh we uh and shoot where you look at those powerpoints a 100 times. I left a zero out of here somewhere out here, but it's 1.6 million. So, we'll round that up. Uh 1.6 6 million of uh what you're going to see in the red and we'll look at the report here. What happened on there? We had some uh issues with our billing on my SRO. So, it was a they had I think some turnover in their accounting department just turned over in that. So, uh we didn't get invoices for a while. So, we got invoices. We had to go back and reconcile those invoices safety and security along with myself went and met with them and we finally got them all uh over probably a year and
105a half almost two years of invoices. So, that's what uh put this right here. But I mean we we have the budget up top to kind of offset it. But um we give and we get taken away. So uh we've the good part about that it's all caught up now. I think we have a good plan going forward. So nothing on our nothing on our side. We were requesting but once we got them that's what we owed. So we had to go through and >> did did overtime impact that amount? >> Yeah, there was some overtime on there as well. So um the initial invoices had they were just wrong. So we just had to go back. But uh anything like they call have SOS at games or whatever the wherever they may be going
106for after school events and we're trying to monitor that even more. So at one time principles had probably more autonomy there and probably less oversight from us but we want to make sure that we're monitoring that cuz I mean all the budgets are tight now. We've had those conversations with them as well. So this is really a area where we get no funding for in the foundation funding matrix. So it's no funding for security officers in the matrix. So, uh, anything we spend is above and beyond, you know, what we actually get in from state funding. >> Um, with the on on this with the >> security piece of this, um, particularly at games and things like that, I don't think, um, it may not be a wise um, choice, right, to cut security because
107we are starting to see more and more conflicts because of the cuts in security. And so like we want to make make sure that uh we have our district staff there but also folks who are able to say stop and actually have a consequence behind that um there as well. And so we can minimize the conflicts because we're we are having more conflicts at games than we have than one in past years. And so um >> so one of the things we >> want to be mindful of that. >> Yeah. We really hadn't cut to that point, but we just had an overabundance of folks in areas that weren't justified. So, if you have a 100 people at a game, you don't need 10 10 officers there, 10 law enforcement officer there. I mean, for
108spring sports and different things like that. That's why I said we just >> can't have a blank check. I mean, they they meet weekly to talk about those things, especially if there's a hot spot. So, that communication has improved quite a bit, but definitely we're going to have security there. Uh, what we talk about as well having no tolerance rules. cuz if you tell somebody to sit down and or and they don't they need to go at that point. So otherwise you you run the risk of having you know outbreaks and things like that. So those are all protocols that athletics department is looking at along with uh security department but we definitely take that. So we try to work as best with LRPD as well to make sure we have the appropriate staffing there
109and not over staff. So we're going to probably air on the side of being more safe and having more staff there than not enough in cases. So, but definitely do note it as we jump down to this last part. Uh, y'all keep me longer then. Operating fund balance here. This looks a lot better than what it was >> last month, I believe. So, right now, operating fund balance, of course, we got that major influx of uh taxpayer taxes uh collection. So, it's 65 million at the end of November. Capital improvement fund balance about 66 million as we continue to spend down on those projects. really the only major project going on right now. Uh they're wrapping up the last uh things at over at Central Park View should be wrapping up here soon with the
110auditorium. Of course, we have our our our high school in in West Little Rock. Federal fund balance, you can see it ended negative this time. We're waiting on reimbursement. Uh it's back positive. So, that's just the timing. Uh part of that child nutrition is still uh fairly fairly healthy there with $1.5 million. So, as we look at the chart here, it looks a lot better. Uh, you can notice October 25, you can see that it got pretty slim. You can The orange is actually under the under the thing. So, we actually, you all actually approved the resolution right before we had the uh the buns closed out to spend up to $10 million to get reimbured. So, new legislation caused us to wait additional 30 days before we could close out, which we got closed
111out on November 18th, I believe, on those. So funds are there. So it looks a lot better. You can kind of kind of see where we kind of go up and down through this period of time. So this is our up time right now if you look at the past November's. And we'll start spending that money down until we get additional tax money in April, May. So let me go to that one thing so you can make sure you see it here. 64. So that that's the negative I'm looking at when you're looking at the detail there, the 1.6 >> 84 million there, the security. So that's the piece there. So but no other surprises on here at all. So uh any questions? >> Question. >> Yes, Mr. J. >> Yes, Mr. Mr. Brad, could
112you go back to the revenue slide, please? >> This one? >> Yes, sir. So that on that last bullet point in the interest of investments and it's it's a 73% of projection and we're not quite halfway through the year. So does that mean that you expected to have threequarters of our interest in the first half of the year or is it did that mean we have an optimistic view for what we going to get for the year? >> Oh well it was a very conservative view because one of the things we had was our our capital improvement funds with the the second lean funds on there. It wasn't approved when we got the budget. So, we still had to go before the state board and all that to get approved and it was delayed. So,
113I didn't want to give a picture of having, you know, say a half half a million or 700,000 out there and it gets got stopped. So, it was a possibility that it was going to be stopped at one point. It didn't look as promising, but we got it through. Uh, but you never know about interest rates as well. So, you kind of play that. But that's a good part. So most of that money, the deposits we have, we when we get like the large money, $80 million in for uh our tax revenue, we'll put it out in CDs. We put it out for bids and stuff and get the highest rates and we have it tiered where it's 30 days here, 60 90 as we get payments in. The same we do with our active
114construction dollars. So a lot of interest we learned earned last year was really from my capital improvement fund. So it went back into that, but it was really just a conservative approach just based on not necessarily getting that $75 million of capital improvement just in case we did. So with that conservative approach, would it be reasonable to think that at the year end that we would exceed that? >> We will. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But unless interest rates just fall dramatically right now, what banks are offering and that could happen >> with different things with government shutdowns and everything else that's kind of, you know, been in the horizons and different things. So yeah. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay. need some read. >> I'm happy to read. I move the LRSD
115Board of Education approve and accept the November 2025 board financial report as submitted. Second. >> It's been moved and properly second that the LRCD Board of Education approve and accept the November 2025 board financial report as submitted. No other questions? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Thank you, sir. >> Well, where's going? >> Wait a minute. >> Where you going, Bailey? Oh, it's not you. >> Well, I mean, maybe it's [laughter] >> all the time. Where you going? >> Dr. Are we ready? All right. Yes, sir. Um, Miss Bailey, you can stay up there just in case you're you're needed for something, but uh I need >> uh Pam, you can just go to the uh agenda and as I go through document the from >> 7.2. >> Yeah. And for
116board members, I'm we're on what item 7.2. >> Yes. >> Okay. Oh, yeah. Well, he can put it up. So I don't we don't need definitely don't need to spend a lot of time on this because we went in depth um last week but I wanted to um update you all on some changes that were made based upon last uh two weeks discussion um and some additional work that we've done and part of the reason why I'm trying to do this is because the first thing um if you pull up the budget discussion agenda and you look at topic four there was some um there was some discussion and concern about um trying to get the finished total budget reduction plan done at the end of February before the March election so that this sitting
117board would have an opportunity to um approve and vote on that and not the what the board will look like afterwards. And so I made that change on the timeline. it's reflected on the timeline, but to do that, it really pushes and compresses like everything. So, it is going to be very very very fast pace. >> Um, so, but we'll we'll we'll make it happen. So, I I put some tenative dates in there for community meetings. It's not going to be an opportunity for a lot. We may only have time for two. Um but anyway, just want to bring that to your attention that we did [clears throat] push it up to um go all the way scroll all the way down to um 226 is when the target date for the board to approve
118the budget reduction plan. You can see how everything else is broken up before that. Mhm. >> Um >> and and two, um I don't have it in front of me, um but there was a 60day requirement for public comment. >> Oh, there is >> uh per law. Um >> Oh, >> so yeah. So I don't I I don't have those notes from last time, but I was looking up to see what was the requirement, and it's something about um >> just looking. Okay. >> Well, yeah, >> we'll revisit that. Well, you revisit look at it. >> Um, we've had quite a bit. I'm going to the second uh attachment now, the revenue expenditure, 10 year history. So, we've had some conversations around um sped. So, we we are taking a closer look at some aspects
119of the sped budget. And we don't have to look at this today, but I want you to know that at the end, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of that spreadsheet, um we added a section that we are still working on. Um but I was really interested to know um what is the what is the actual gap in terms of what the district is contributing to all of our sp um when you look at the spit [snorts] revenues um and what we spend and we we have that listed there. uh we started looking at personnel and so if you look at uh starting in 2021-22 we see the number of central office personnel we had dedicated to sped the number of certified staff we had dedicated to sped line 95 is
120around um that I really want you guys to pay close attention to the number of classified school sped personnel and then that last line 96 is the number of 101 pair professionals [cough] so I want to be clear that the the 101 pair professionals that number is included in the number of classified school sped personnel. But we wanted to break it out so that you can see um how many one-onone pair professional pair professionals we have in the district. And from 2021 we had 147. And you can see that it's ballooned to 180. >> That is a lot. And that's not to say that some are not justified, but y'all that is a whole lot of people. Um, I mean it also speaks it also speaks to the trauma and need that our students have
121too. I mean, >> yeah, >> that's what I said. I'm not saying that not all of these are justified, but we have to take a real real close look at um cuz when you look at this revenue expenditure gap, I mean, we you see how that has increased dramatically since 17 from 18 million that the district was paying uh to now almost 30 million. So almost 30 million of our budget is going to uh sped issues. So that is when you see how this looks broken out over the years like it is it's alarming and that's and again I'm not saying >> it's not valid >> that it's not justified and valid but we got to take a deep deep deep look at this to make sure that that that it is. >> I mean
122I Oh go ahead. >> It may be right along though. Yeah. >> Um, at one, okay, with some I I'm trying to get my thoughts together. I'm trying to figure out if it was law or policy, but um the request of an aid u whether it's a scribe, someone to read to them. Um, I would well I would be interested and others may be interested to know what type of service is is is being provided with the 101's is is it for writing? Is it for reading? Is it for something something else? Um, >> just curious about that. That's that's part of what our sped audit is going to to take a deep dive into. But I just wanted to present like the data so you can see um because I I knew we had
123a lot. I didn't know it was this much and I didn't know that we were I know that we were contributing to our spouse. I didn't know that it was almost $30 million. U that's it's it's a lot of y'all. This I I'm also just going to say like thi this to me says we are not when we have I know that in special ed and with 504s I don't know all the details of this but I don't believe you can bill for all of those bill medic and sometimes the school has to cover the cost and sometimes the district I mean the f the special ed dollars cover the cost of of one of the one or the I don't know I had I anyway but it really this really comes back to my
124comment about the audit that we're looking at and the fact that there was nothing about revenue in there. I mean, this looks to me, why do we only have $4,000 in coming in to support our sped program when we are providing a ton of billable services under that with OTPT speech, maybe even some of the PAR services, nursing services. I mean, there's just a lot out there that we can be billing for through ARMAC, through um there's just a lot out there that I think we potentially could be billing for that we may not be billing for. And that that concerns me if we're not really looking at the revenue piece of all that. >> A billing uh I'm not sure if it's still still there, but they had a billing discussion as well. So,
125cuz we have our director of nursing >> that helps with that as well and and they brought sped into it. >> Uh Armac is the one that is handling my office. So, we hardly ever lose any ARMAC money. We usually about 1.2. I took it over probably about 10 12 years ago. >> Uh as far as billing on Medicaid, so a lot of our actual teachers are paid with federal funds. So some of them are okay. >> You can't double. So if you've been paid with federal, you can't bill for their services as well for Medicaid cuz that's too but the OTPT speech. >> Some of them are, but they they need to probably we're on the probably lower end of what we receive. We I think we probably have doubled our billing uh since
126uh Miss Still has hired another person. Uh I mean she's focused on that. So I know the billing has gone up quite a bit. >> Okay. >> So >> I would be interested as we kind of continue on this topic. What other districts our size with a comparable percent of sped students are billing Medicaid? Or if you can get from Armits at the state Arkansas Medicaid and the schools, they have a whole group that does Medicaid billing for schools. If we can get data on how we're doing compared to other schools kind of similar to us in the state, I think that for me would be really >> audit. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think all of that financial piece, I mean, it none of that was in the [laughter] the RFP. And I really think
127that needs to be a big part of this cuz if we're going to look at the last thing I ever want is for a student to not get the services he needs, especially if they're available with a payer source. You know, that is that is something that I am really committed to. So I think we I would love to just make sure we are maximizing what we can do there. I know we do have to pay the match piece of that. Like so that's on average about 30% 30 cents of every dollar we have to pay for a lot of school-based Medicaid services but that's 70 cents of the dollar that we'll be getting from the federal government. So >> yeah service >> I know I know it's not every service. And you look at
128that, one of the things we talked about as well that the uh the actual state and federal uh amounts hadn't grown as the population had grown and needs have grown. So the funding mechanism is still the same >> just say over the last 20 years >> and we're really trying to put when you look at the whatever formula that the state uses to fund sped it is archaic. Archaic here in Arkansas it's archaic. behind and I know as we're having conversations about a new um >> not funding what what are we it's a task force that's looking at um >> the state funding matrix >> yes and so I know there's a big push for them to reook at sped because this isn't just affecting us it's every district in the state who is getting
129the bare I mean we're not even getting >> hardly anything um to to go towards the cost of of providing service to our our kids with disabilities >> right >> and one of the things here that inflates it a little bit that we have to actually provide sped service for all facilities located within the LRSD zones, not just our schools. So, it's all the treatment facilities, the early childhood facilities out there, too. So, we have money that comes in the private private school. Yeah. >> Home school. >> Yeah. Can we get an audit of also of that of how many of the students are are sorry of our how many students are are our district students and how many are students in our school district's um footprint that go to private schools and or um
130homeschool or early childhood programs that aren't not part of Can we get that information? >> Yeah, that should be easy to get. >> Okay. >> And could you add to that? I'm sorry. Could you also add to that um after the October 1 date um how many students that are special ed classified IEP 504 whatever coming into our district after the the the federal drop date the money day of October one. Yeah, probably. I I can tell you just based on looking on numbers, we don't have many that come after that date. Maybe years back, but most of them are are here. They move here because we have all these >> wonderful services we provide, whether it's OT, PT, speech, >> uh the psych examiners. We have a lot of services here. So, >> okay.
131>> All right. A couple of things I want to bring your attention to. Um I'm not going to the staffing formula. Nothing has changed there. But if you can go to the comparison of projected K12 enrollment versus actual >> Mhm. >> So this is just um and it's it's old school handwritten. Okay. >> Um [laughter] but this report um although all of our schools are listed here, uh you this is really only focused on elementary and K8, but um you see what the actual enrollment by grade level at every one of our schools was at October 1st this year. And then handwritten when you look at the elementary and the K8 schools to the right of those grade level numbers are the projected numbers that we use to staff um the schools at the beginning
132of this year. So I think the first one that comes up is um I can't even see this. >> What is that? >> Forest Heights. >> Yeah. Whatever is I don't even know. >> Yes. Forest Heights is Yeah. >> Well, you see the handwritten numbers next to it. Those are the those are the numbers that we projected and that we staff the schools for. If you continue scrolling and you see any school that is highlighted, >> I think the first one that I see highlighted is Western Hills. Um the schools that are highlighted, you see a significant um discrep not discrepancy, a significant gap between what was projected and the number of students who actually showed up. Um and and when we talked about how we although we have closed schools, although we have decreased
133staff, this is an example of we said the school we staffed the school based upon this many number of kids, this many number of kids showed up, but we didn't make changes and adjustments after the fact. And so that's just going back to the explanation we gave before of even though we have made cuts, these are examples of how we don't make adjustments after the fact. And so that's something a practice that we're not going to be able to >> to continue moving forward. And so I just gave you this report so that you can see based upon what was projected and what showed up this year just so you can see what it looks like. Yes. >> Okay. Uh can you um [clears throat] explain or um unpack uh this isn't the practice we
134could we can continue to do moving forward. Is that what what does what does that mean? That means if we staff a school based upon a projected number of students and fewer students, significant number of students actually show up, then we need to make staffing adjustments. >> Okay. And then that uh framework and language will come back to the board for board approval because I would have to adjust the contracts initially right when they signed. We're actually making uh looking at the contracts, making revisions to it to give to the PBC to give to So that will be coming to you before we start issuing contracts for this upcoming school year. >> Okay. [laughter] >> So, I just gave this for your reference. You can look at it later. Um but that's that's our that's
135all elementary. >> The next one um and I I tried to make this as simple as possible. Dr. Lauren did a a great job of providing some um data with our [snorts] secondary schools, but I just took a screenshot of one of the reports and I Yeah, that's the sec. Yeah, >> secondary classes. >> So, here what you see, secondary is a little different than elementary. What you see here is a number of courses where the actual student enrollment is below the minimum. >> Wow. >> Um, so I'll use Lacy as example. Right now, Lacy has a total of 119 courses. um that enrollment in those courses is below the minimum. They have 79 courses with 15 or fewer students and 40 courses with 10 or fewer students. >> So when we talk about making
136adjustments to staffing, this is where the majority of those adjustments will come from. And let me just say this, not every single one of these classes, some of them are justifiably small. Um although you'll you'll see here that AP classes we tend to um want to keep those at 15 but sometimes they can have 10. Um we didn't include uh special classes like ELD sped or reading intervention courses. Those aren't captured here. Um but still that could be a reason why a particular course has a small number of size but we have got to go through and really look at these to make sure um so next year you know 40 classes with less than 10 kids there are opportunities to either number one we could have and I know this is the case we
137have a lot of electives at the secondary level and a lot of those electives may have few kids in them so we are going to either have to not offer so many electives especially electives that don't feel or if we have multiple sections of a particular course, we're going to have to reduce the number of sections and collapse um so that we won't have these large numbers of courses with so few kids in them. And this is going to have a direct implication on teacher numbers. Mhm. >> Um and this is and some some of the colleagues might remember this but um some years ago I can't remember the number but um Central was talking about this very thing and uh Mrs. Russell was talking about um potentially having um like a distance teacher like
138a a teacher LRSD teacher being able to have students um virtually attend these courses. Um so and so my point is that this conversation have been u brought up some time ago. I can't remember what that sometime ago number is, but it may be worth um having that that conversation or asking about that to see what what that plan was cuz I can't remember. I I don't recall it enough to talk talk more about >> we have a very we have few courses now where you know I'm making this up. Basket weaving is offered at one class at a particular time and not that many kids signed up for it at another school but it's offered at the same time. there are a few cases where we do that now. Um so that's that is
139an example of something that we can do um to address all of these um courses with any but this is as you all can see this is a lot of it's a lot and again I'm not saying that every single one of these are not justifiably small um but we've got to take a closer look because when we talk when we when we're trying to get to 12 to 15 million we've cut so much at the central office and we're still going to continue to cut you'll see some some some things we started to do but the bulk of it is not go it This is where >> Yes. >> And and another thing too, right, since we're on this line of um courses and uh things [clears throat] um maybe even partnering with organizations
140that are free to us that offer these courses for free. Um so uh there there are some um other educational institutions that offer courses and maybe we can partner with them to where they're able to students are able to get the course but then it's it's it's not a cost to us and and it's not a cost right to the student and and his families. >> Okay, [snorts] last thing and then I'm done. Um the very last uh link is a draft draft FY27 budget reduction planning document. This is just a direct link from that comprehensive agenda that we looked at last time that had the budget priorities. Um we're just beginning to fill some of these out. So it's not a lot of information on here just yet. It will be continuing to be
141built. This is what this is what we will ultimately bring to you um to approve once it's once it's done. Um, but this aligns specifically to those budget reduction priorities that were on the other document. Um, it's not a lot on here right now. Just just just wanted you to see that it's in development and it's and it's being built. >> Okay, that's it. >> This isformational. Any other questions anyone has? Thank you so much, Mr. Ba. We appreciate you. >> Happy for Mr. Bailey. superintendent. >> Okay. >> Is there any way that we'll be able to mitigate the you've got a you've got a contract until the 10th day of school and we you don't we we're not going to keep you. How how are we going to make that a softer landing for
142people than just abruptly not having a job because the school courses didn't make >> So the course selection process is going now. It's going on now. >> Yes. Um, and in some I'm glad Dr. Lone isn't here because I can I can I still can't lie. Um, but I [laughter] know I'm a softy sometimes when it comes to um making some of those hard decisions cuz I saw some of the so some of this is we knew this was going to happen and you know just trying to minimize as much as possible but that soft stance um is going to have to change uh moving forward. So at the secondary level, I think unless we just get an influx of kids, we only have maybe one or two or three schools where we get an
143influx of kids more so than than than was projected the rest. We do a a pretty good job of of kind of projecting for the most part. Elementary schools are a little bit more volatile. We just don't know. A lot of times where parents are, you know, we we have instances where parents go through the enrollment process. Um but then they choose another school and we don't know until actually the doors open. So it's just >> you don't really anticipate there being any teachers who will find out they don't have a contract when they did thought they did. >> I anticipate there will be some. >> Okay. There will there will be some that either we will have to move or transfer to another school that has a need and there may be some there
144may be some where there isn't a place to move if if if >> Yeah. [snorts] If we budgeted for them and then they've moved things around and there's not a place for these people. They they've had an amount of money budgeted for them. Could we give them some kind of severance or will the state allow that for us to give them you know here's money you get by for the next two weeks? >> I don't know that's we haven't >> I haven't thought that far in advance honestly. >> Um but I think the the key will be to minimize as much as that as possible. Well, I understand. I understand that. I understand that. But I I >> just as sure as sun comes up, there's going to be something pop up that says, "Oh,
145those three people don't get a job." >> And I would just like to make it somehow or another [clears throat] >> lowers them to the ground rather than just drop them. Yeah, >> I don't know if this would be true, but I suspect that most of these most of these low course enrollments I probably will be safe to say that probably 75 to 80% of them are elective courses. These aren't these aren't your core content courses. Um I suspect >> register. >> Um this also kind of has to do with our budget, but did we find out if our hall application was passed the state? >> We were getting ready to u and then there was a medical emergency with one of the panel members and so the the vote >> didn't happen. >> Didn't
146Yeah. So it was delayed car. >> No, I'm here. I got hit in my car. I'm here. >> [laughter] >> No, >> that was a serious um there was a serious issue that happened during the vote. >> No, no, no. Seriously, I'm not I wasn't saying Okay. >> Yeah, >> but so the the meeting ended. >> Yes. >> And so well, it'll be next month. >> Uh yes, they said they're going to table it table it until January. The January >> That was today, right? Or was that today? >> That was today. >> Okay, >> that's fine. >> So, we're behind on our schedule on that due to unforeseen circumstances. Okay. Thanks for the update on that. >> Absolutely. Are we enrolling kids at hall anyway? >> Miss the hall's still an option when they
147go to enroll. Okay. >> Okay. Um chair will entertain a motion. >> Executive session. >> I [clears throat] move the LRC board of education enter executive session for the purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer employee. >> Second. It's been moved and properly seconded. There is no opposition. Uh, we are excused to executive session. >> This question, did we vote to accept the financial report? >> We should have just >> Did we vote to accept the financial report? Did we do that? >> Yeah, we did. >> Yeah. Yeah, we did. [laughter] >> I made No, you made that. Did you make that motion? One of us did. I made that one. >> You ready? I didn't bring my >> I don't know. This one. >> I voted for
148it and it was really And we're back. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and entertain a motion to um enter >> to reenter. >> Reenter. >> You want to do that? >> Yes. We've been here previously. I move that Little Rock School Board of Education come out of executive session >> where no decisions were made. >> Second. >> It's been moved and properly second. If no objections, we uh that is we accept that we are back in executive session. Okay. And we will now uh entertain a motion specific to >> Miss Wesley. >> Specific to I guess the hiring of a staff member. >> Yes, Miss Wesley. Yes. I would like to make a motion that that we that we name Dr. Natalie Coulter as the next uh principal of Roberts Elementary beginning
149in the 2627 school year. >> Second. >> Okay. It's been moved and properly second. Um that the hiring of Dr. >> Natalie Coulter for uh Roberts Elementary. It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppose? The motion carries. All right. Congratulations. Board comments. >> Happy holidays. >> Happy holidays. Um, happy Hanukkah. Happy Merry Christmas. Happy Quanza. And um, you guys have a wonderful and safe uh, holiday and New Year. >> Yes, Mr. Adams. >> Yes. I just wanted to make a couple just brief general comments. I'm really pleased that that um what we're doing this year, what the district is doing and that and I think the board is supporting that we're giving the attention to students who um who we who have special needs and concerns what we're
150doing with AL this year, what we're doing uh with the special education audit. I had an opportunity to go to two of these events at Hamilton in the [snorts] past few months and and the feeling there has been so positive and and supportive. And frankly, you know, fellow board members, I think back to last year when we had a um an employee hearing where we had such a disturbing video of how a student was treated and I and I think about the contrast to to where we are now and we are such in such a better place. The other thing though that that I wanted to add was that I was I know that Miss Hatter and Miss Johnson were were there also on last Friday at the um ASBA conference and heard Secretary Leva
151spoke about the state of things here in Arkansas. And one of the things that I I did really take away from that was how we are doing not just in this district but statewide with our most achieving students because you know he made the point that the biggest gap uh with the NAPE scores which which um between Arkansas performance and national performance was for our students who are in our top 10%. Mhm. >> That that's the biggest gap and that there was in fact for math for it was 11 points >> uh between how our top students performed and how the top students nationwide performed. >> And Dr. Wright and I already had a conversation earlier this week. But it made me think about that it that that would be another thing for us to
152spend some time on in coming months or think about is is how are we doing with that group of students too and not take their needs for granted and see if we could also um take um the level of excellence and how we support them up as as we're also trying to take the level of excellence how we support our special education students and al and our AL students too. So so I'm hoping we can do that too. So, I just wanted to make those comments. >> Well, the other thing I I want I would just want to say is that um >> I know that Miss Smith sent out a message to us earlier this week, but condolences to all the people in the Roberts Elementary community for the unexpected death of one of
153their students this past week and all the people who are involved, the students and the families and the teachers and the counselors and all the support people who came in to help. So, just all the support to them. Mr. Rice, >> uh, everything that director Adams said, uh, I've been talking to the superintendent. I've tried to distribute some books. We need to talk deeply about mathematics and how we're doing it. Uh, immersion is the the secret, the key. Uh, the plans that I've been waving my hands about are the al or Bob Moses algebra project. But what I need people to understand is it doesn't have to be the algebra project. It could be something else but that we need to immerse the kids in mathematics. All eighth graders should take algebra 1. No, no
154exceptions. It should be a required course and and then geometry the next year and algebra 2 the year after that. And then from there on make them take two math courses [clears throat] a year. And at the end they're all going to be ready for college. And our counselors should fall in there and try to find the kids who don't have the the economics to go to college. Find scholarships and grants for them. Again, that puts a lot more pressure on those uh counselors. They've got a lot to do, but they'll get a little more to do. Everybody has to pull when things aren't good. >> Uh in the middle of my little speech, uh I want to wish everybody happy holidays. That's important that uh [snorts] people gather as the darkness is is at
155its greatest. We all need to gather together and watch for the blinking eyes out there in the dark. uh ASBA conference. I attended the first two days. Uh Miss Hatter and Miss Johnson, I think, attended all three. Uh Miss Hatter was uh given an award for master boardsman for the number of hours of training she had. Somebody else was too. Um >> congratulations. >> M she's a master board member now. >> She was and somebody else. >> Don't say child. >> She was so excited. [laughter] I I I I also won the same award. So, we've got a lot of training going on up here, which is good. >> Um I had a third thing. >> Don't recall what it was. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Director Bali. >> Uh yes. So, I just want to
156give a big thanks and a shout out to four women in the community uh for providing some of our students at Little Rock Central High today with some participatory action research surveys. Uh Don Jeffrey from the Little Rock Freedom Fund, Giani Olmedi from the Alternative Tribe, and uh Coffee Davis from Marshall Black Women and Girls. And uh also provided meals for those students and their families today at Central High after they were released. Uh, Paisley Crutchfield from Season by PE. Thank you for your service and your work today. >> Thank you. Um, Miss Johnson, >> well, since we were on the ASBA conference, um, they were talking about the achievement of students and they also said that you have to do what you have to do to make sure that the students are achieving. You
157can't be afraid to stand up and step out and say, "Hey, this is not working. This is what we need to do." They said it's very crucial because sometimes we just let it happen and we don't correct it. And it said you need to correct it so that students can achieve. Yeah, we want them to do great in math. We want them to do great in English. We want them to write well. But you have to make sure that what's in front of them is what they need to get there. So we also have to consider that because you know what, like I always say, it's not their fault. Yeah. So, we have to make sure that we're giving them what they need or put what's in front of them to help them get to
158that place. [clears throat] >> Thank you, ma'am. Dr. Hatter, >> I was just uh going to um say that this um ASVA conference was I and then I think was one of the better ones. Um it was very informative. Uh Secretary Oliv do does that is that is that the way you say his name? Oliva >> Oliva Oliva. >> Okay. Um he is looking to uh do some more transformative things within the coming school year. Um and and for all things and purposes the things I heard they're in the positive um way of going. Uh, one of the things he did um, talk about to add on to the colleagues, it was uh, introducing students to math and 7th grade algebra and geometry. And so they can have two high school or particularly three because
159you can do Spanish um, high school credits and start earning those high school credits um, or earlier. And so, uh, so we all will just stay tuned right to the changes he is looking to, um, uh, make as well as talking to higher ed about the way, um, they are educating teachers to come into the classrooms. And so, uh, there are some hard conversations he he is having and I'm appreciative of of that. The last thing I will say that he mentioned, he talked about waiverss. uh he is not a fan of waiverss and it sounds like I'm advocating for him but but really then when um someone is speaking the right way in the right language you might we ought to um uplift that and and then he is not a fan of of
160of um >> no he's not a fan of of so many waiverss and and then he's trying to help uh write the system as far as that is is concerned >> any other comments yes sir >> uh happy holidays. Merry Christmas. >> All right. Um, comments superintendent. >> I'm sorry. >> Happy holidays. >> I move we >> adjourn. Second. No, I don't think so. >> Okay. >> And Emma, >> no. All I was going to just say is don't forget open enrollment for those who are still thinking about it. That's all. And happy holidays. >> Second. >> Okay. There's no opposition. We are adjourned. >> Sean Burgess, WHERE YOU GOING? >> [laughter] >> GOT YOUR >> STUFF. I know. Uh, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. >> All right. >> I'm sorry. >> Happy holidays. >> I
161move we journ. No, I don't have anything. >> Okay. And Anna, >> no. All I was going to just say is don't forget open enrollment for those who are still thinking about it. That's all. And happy holidays. >> Second motion. >> Second. >> Okay. There's no opposition. We are adjourned. >> Sean Burgess, where you going? >> Got your stuff on [laughter] her. I know.