001Good evening and welcome to our October 30 meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Let's go ahead and get started calling the meeting to order where we do have a quorum and first we'll have district celebrations. And before I get to celebrations, we'll have our uh volunteers in >> public service. Well, you're right. >> Celebrations part one. >> Powerful partners. No way. Yeah. I'm glad to be here. Thank you all for allowing us to do this. As you know, I'm here to introduce to you some of the district's newest partnerships. And all of these are associated with Mayville Middle School. Oh, that's exciting. I know they're excited. We can tag team on this. We have a lot of of partners to introduce to you. Unfortunately, a lot of their representatives could make it. It's a busy time
002with fall festivals and all, but we didn't want to delay in doing this, so at least you're aware. Thank you, Michael Mason, for taking the queue and Dr. [laughter] Wright. They're going to stand there graciously until we have a representative come up. so you have your photograph made with them. But I do want you to be aware of all the partnerships that are going on at the school. First and foremost, we're going to introduce Amazon logist uh logistics uh lessons for life and evergreen living center. And I think it's really cool that Amazon is uh supporting the school through service and donations. and they their um partner rep leader is uh Britney Sanderson and she's engaged in a lot of uh district activities. So, we're proud of that and so thank you Amazon for doing
003your part and we're also excited about Lessons for Life. That's a mentoring program that we has been engaged with the district for years and they have expanded to Mabel Bell Middle School. So, they're going to be mentoring some of their our uh middle school uh females, our female students. So, that's exciting. Thank you, Alexis Wear for bringing that program to our school. And then Evergreen Living Center, it has created a partnership, which I think this is a cool component. Um they are offering u the fine arts programs opportunity to perform at their school. So, you can have the choir during the holidays maybe or the uh art students making birthday cards, but I think it's really nice that the seniors and the students get to collaborate on things. So, thank you Evergreen Living for that.
004Uh we also are introducing Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance to the school and Arkansas Minority Health Commission. Of course, both of these are focused on uh on health in general. The Hunger Relief Alliance addresses food insecurities and provides programs, food resources, and education. So, we're grateful to them. They're also a BIPS board sponsoring organization. So, we love that they're engaged in our our school. The Arkansas uh Minority Health Commission is uh its mission is to ensure all minority or canons have equitable uh access to preventive health care. So they're going to be supporting Mayville with health fairs and providing resources to their families. So thank you Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance [clears throat] and Minority Health Commission. And then Guyer Springs Baptist Church, Nike Community Ambassadors and Life Skills for Youth. And I know we have a
005representative from Guyer Springs Baptist. Come on up, TJ. Introduce your guest. >> Yes. Uh this is Pastor TJ. Um he has been incredible at helping our staff and our students and families already. Uh they took initiative right off the bat and just asked where could they lean in and help with that support. So we are very grateful uh for their assistance. And y'all can get a photo with the superintendent and director Mason. We're glad to have y'all here. You can hold this. No. Oh, is she is is anybody a representative from uh the minority delegator? I'm sorry. >> Did you get Did you get your certificate earlier? >> We need to get that. Okay. Well, you we we'll post the picture and I'll get it. Thank you. See if she came in after y'all are
006supposed to be sn I had this man for 20 years [laughter] but when y'all came in after I started that's not fair. >> Okay. >> Yeah. See, y'all are supposed to be standing up going, "Wait, you're [laughter] getting the photo." Yeah. Hi, Yeah, we have to catch up now cuz I was just speeding through this like lightning. >> Okay, everybody look forward, please. We have She has the certificate. >> Thank you, Director Mason, for getting me straight on all that. See, y'all can see I don't have eyes in the back of my head. I didn't know who was here. Thank you. Thank you. >> I appreciate y'all. >> I'm sorry y'all. No, we're not through. We're not through. We have So, if somebody else comes in, you have to let me know. Uh, the Nike
007ambassadors, they're I love this. Nike is encouraging their employees to work with students in sports. And I love the fact that they're just doing it right. So, thank you Nike for engaging and of course life skills for youth. How long is forever? They've been held in Southwest Little Rock. So, we we we appreciate you doing that. >> Thank you. >> So, I thank thank you to those three uh particular uh partners. Last but not least. And see, I bet Dr. Brooks is like waiting. I'm not in the picture yet, but you are now. Come on. We're introducing your partnership. Uh she's uh B&B um projects bronze closet. We also have we want to give a shout out to positive atmosphere reaches kids because we all know it as park. And we also want to uh
008celebrate Mobile Methodist Church. So yeah, that is anyone in the house associated with that? I did not know about. All right. Glad you're here. Get get up there so Jack can take your picture. But I love this. Dr. Brook started this in honor of her uh design and they helped give supplies to students in need, clothing, uh hygiene products and so forth. So that's pretty special that they're doing that >> for a second, please. >> Thank you. >> Okay. [clears throat] And thank you, gentlemen. >> Thank you. [applause] And I know that Sierra would like to thank her partners in particular. She's the community school coordinator. We're happy to have her new in the district. Yes, I'm actually uh I come here I've been here for about 3 months. Uh so loving Arkansas. I'm from
009Missouri. Um truly enjoying this uh partnerships with our community uh partners in education. Um I just wanted to say thank you all for letting us be able to recognize them. And then as well, it's just been a true blessing just kicking off this school year with their support. um like that has been mentioned, we've already supported at least 172 students uh within our school with just some of these donations and this support. So, we've been very grateful. So, thank you all for your time and we appreciate you. Thank you partners. Thank you so much. [applause] >> Thank you for your time. As I take a seat, I want to give you a gentle reminder about Deb's reading day, November 18th. If you have not registered to read, please join the 300 something that I already
010have, you can do it. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you next month. >> Thank you partners. >> Thank you, Miss Block. And thank you to all of our partners. We're going to continue with our celebrations. We have quite a bit to share as we do every single month. Starting first with um our first student spotlight. is sure to warm your heart and for others your feet. Fullbrite preK students are spreading warmth this October. They collected and delivered over 400 pairs of socks to the van volunteers who will make sure they reach those who need them the most. They refer to this as Socktober. Thank you for the three of you [clears throat] who left. Um donations are still being accepted. So if you would like to uh uh give a donation, uh please
011do so at Fullbrite. We could not be more prouder of these young students who are realizing early uh the gift of giving back to their community. [applause] Congratulations to the Chico Cheetah String Band under the direction of Mr. Aaron Ferris. They were one of the recipients of the IBMA Foundation Arnold Schultz fund grants in 2025 and they use the funds to organize school-based bluegrass and string band programs. As a result of this new opportunity and this grant, Chico may be making history. We can't say it yet, but stay tuned for more information that we'll be sharing in the future. [applause] LRSD is very proud of the students you see here. They represent the Dumbar Magnet basketball team who are proving that they are more than just athletes. every student on the team. Some have represented
012here, some were not here for the citations, but every single member of the team made the AB honor role. Um, and we're recognized this week for citations. >> Go Bobcats. Picture here are Michael Pippens, Aaden Horton, Matthew Joy, Ray Dean White III, and their coach. And of course, uh, principal whose name is Quinton King. Thank you. [laughter] Um, I'll be 50 in a couple months, so charge you too much. >> Yes, >> it does. >> All right, [laughter] you're looking at another representation of more leadership in action. Congratulations to Bailey Woods from Dr. Mary G. Lacy K8 Academy. Bailey was selected as Arkansas's National Beta Club leadership representative. During the recent Beta Club leadership summit, she impressed judges with her teamwork, communication, and leadership skills, standing out among 20 talented students from across the state.
013Congratulations to Bailey and thank you for representing LRSD. Congratulations to the Forest Heights STEM Academy Middle School Choir for their recent accomplishment. These talented vocalists have earned well-deserved spot in the art CDA region 2 all region choir, showcasing their musical skill as well as their dedication, discipline, and passion. So, congratulations to these students from Fars Heights STEM Academy. [applause] Middle school volleyball champions were crowned a couple of weeks ago. And if you have never been to a middle school volleyball match, I guarantee you it is unreal the level of competition. Not just from the students, but from the parents in the audience. I am still shocked. Uh, but congratulations to our middle school volleyball champions, to Palaski Heights, the middle school seventh grade champions, and a big shout out to the Pinnacle Pinnacle View Middle
014School 8th grade girls champs. Great competition from all of our teams. [applause] Speaking of Pinnacle View, the Pinnacle View Skyhawk Sword, get that Skyhawk sword. Thank you. uh [laughter] soared at the 2025 Tiger Cup Invitational at Central, earning first and third place in the junior high quizbo division. Special shout out to a student who is no stranger to us, Pericles Wang, who brought home the MVP medal for the highest average of correctly answering correctly answering questions. So, congratulations to the Pinnacle View uh quiz bowl team [applause] and congratulations to four Little Rock Central High Creative Writing students who were recognized in the women writing the West High School writing competition, a worldwide contest celebrating women's stories and voices. Uh Kayn Chang was a 2025 winner of this worldwide contest. Uh Sadi Alverson and Addison Ringo
015were finalists and Emma Arnold uh was receive an honorable mention. These students will receive certificates, monetary awards, and recognition at the organization's annual conference. [applause] A very proud moment for the Little Rock School District and the University of Arkansas celebrating celebration where both LRC leader and seven students were recognized for the outstanding achievements. Central High principal, the one and only Nancy Russo, received the inaugural, the very first time this award has been given, the inaugural vision leadership award, honoring her commitment to student success and excellence. And also, congratulations to Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School's National Merit Scholar, who was celebrated along several Central High National Merit Scholars. By the way, LRC will also be honoring these students with um at the principal scholars reception, which will take place on next Monday. and board
016members. All of you are invited and you should have received information in your emails. Very proud moment last week when LRSD and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have joined forces to bring an associates degree program directly to LRSD high schools, marking the first program of its kind for public schools in Palaski County. The two institutions recently formalized a partnership, signing anou. This means that a student could simultaneously graduate with both a diploma and an associates degree. The program officially starts next school year at Little Rock Southwest and will expand to our other high schools in the district. [applause] What an incredible honor for JA Fair counselor Mildred Calvin. She's one of only 300 educators chosen for a full scholarship to the 2025 Jumpstart National Educator Conference in Boston this fall. Well, congratulations to
017you, Miss Calvin. And to Gibbs Magnet School's library media specialist, Lorie Gibson. She was recently named one of the outstanding project lead the way teachers for 2526. This is a national honor recognizing educators who go above and beyond to inspire students, support peers, and strengthen their school communities. We are so proud of Miss Gibson. And we also recently recognized LRSD career tech uh director who I thought was here. >> I know who she is. >> I thought she was here. I was getting ready to um her name was right here so I couldn't forget that. Uh Shemica McGomery. She received the behind thescenes award for the UAPB and N National Alumni Association. She helped award 9,000 in scholarships to deserving freshmen. Seven of those nine recipients were LRSD students. [applause] And if you have not
018read, well, let me read it first. Congratulations to our very own Cara Johnson. She is a music teacher at Western Hills. Uh she's also a teach uh teach plus uh policy fellow. Her inspiring oped uh which was featured uh in the Arkansas advocate this week. The oped uh was titled Let's Make School a place for that kids want to be. Uh, Miss Johnson beautifully reminds us that when we lead with passion, access, and belonging, students not only show up and they but they also thrive. So, if you haven't had a chance to check out her OpEd, it is definitely worth the read. [applause] And if you haven't had dinner, we're about to make you very hungry. We have to thank child nutrition director, the one and only Stephanie Walker Hines for helping put LRSD's program
019on the map. Miss Walker Hines is being recognized nationally for the work she and her team are doing to get kids exciting excited about school meals, especially lunch. Miss Walker Hines's efforts are being celebrated in cafeterias across the district and even earned a mention by local food influencer and blogger. We all know him as the mighty rib Kevin Shayen. The Little Rock Food Commission recently sampled a variety of wings during a recent meeting hosted at Central. So, congratulations to Miss Walker Hines and our food service department. And this past week, everyone in the Little Rock community will be proud of the representation at the Council of the Great City Schools uh fall conference. Our staff was front and center leading professional development discussions on the great work being done in our district. We especially want
020to give a shout out to our students, Austin Bernard and Tony uh Hair. I think Tony is here. >> There's Tony. [applause] uh who demonstrated excellence by our students on the national stage. We had a total of seven different presentations um by students, staff members and Miss Johnson who uh actually did a presentation uh around our soon to be launching second language uh uh dual langu dual language program. >> Miss Johnson probably doesn't want me to say this, I'm going to say this as well. Um she is she has earned a reputation at the conference. I think this is maybe her second or third one attending, but she is known as the uh conference karaoke [laughter] dance queen. Um, Miss Johnson shuts down every reception, every party that is held at the conference. So, we
021are so proud of you, Miss Johnson. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] >> The conference as Miss Normma Jean. Um, our reading of the rock efforts continue to go well. Uh, Dr. and Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership and Language Magnet Academy had some special guests from the Little Rock Zoo uh to visit them and to celebrate Miss Bridget Jeffy's fourth grade class who turned in the most reading logs as part of our reading in the Rock initiative. They had close and personal encounters with a tarantula fret and a boa constrictor while learning fun facts about animals. We are encouraging everyone to take the pledge to read and to help. And as we are having conversations around literacy and our third grade promotion, we are encouraging all of our parents to make sure if you can't do anything else,
022not if you can't do anything else, the best thing that you can do is to encourage and make sure that your kids are reading at home at least 20 minutes a day. And on this last day, well, tomorrow is the last day of October, but we are getting ready to close out National Principles Month. And we wanted to create something a little different this year, allowing our principles to show the fun side of their personalities. And some of their personalities are showing loud and clear in uh this little illustration. So enjoy our version of the Brady Bunch photo trend. Many of the faces you see here are the first ones on campus besides the custodial teams and the last ones to leave. Uh we thank all of our principles for what they do every day
023to support students, staff, and parents. Just in case our principles need a feel-good moment, one parent posted on Facebook, "My kids and family have been fortunate to experience the leadership of several of these principles." So, thank you and keep up the great work. [applause] And we are kicking off enrollment season for LRSD beginning next week. Information has already gone out and will continue to be pushed out over uh the span of the enrollment period. A comprehensive message about the process is shared on the district's website under news articles, but you'll be hearing more information about that as we get ready to begin the open enrollment process. And it's just a reminder about the upcoming I love this Java with Jamal. That's me. [laughter] Uh it's where parents, staff, and community members come together over coffee
024and conversation to share thoughts and concerns as well as to ask any questions that they may have. We have had a great turnout for the first two events and looking forward to our next one which will take place on November 12th. This one will be at Terry Elementary from 7:45 to 8:45 a.m. Uh we appreciate man for hosting the first one. Um and for Fidel and company for providing the coffee board members, you are also invited to attend, but you don't have to if you don't, you know, you don't have to come out. >> Some Fidel and Co. >> Yes. >> But these events have been great. This was an idea that came out of our uh family and community um engagement specialist and I was a little skeptical about uh this but it has
025turned out to be uh a great opportunity to connect with parents and the thing that I love most about it is when there are concerns or problems we get an opportunity to address them and correct them right then on the spot. So >> good come out on >> whatever date that's up there >> at Terry. That's it for our celebrations for this month. Very good. All right, we're going to move on forward with public comment. This is a place in the agenda when we hear from the public, parents, stakeholder, and friends of LRD. We like to hear public comment regarding LRSD issues. We allow three minutes for public comment. Our responsibility is to listen to your comment. We're not allowed to respond or have the discussion. So, what I want to do is just pose
026a question. Do we have anyone who has signed up for public comment? I think that Okay, come on down. Anybody else? I think that I don't have my list because I think that people were just signing in. So, it's not um they're not designating if they like to speak or not. So, I think I have I think I have one. You want You have I think I have two. Anybody else? >> Three. >> I have three. >> Is there three? Is Is there an auction? Okay. Okay. [laughter] Okay. So, come on down, ma'am. What's your name, ma'am? I'm sorry. >> Julia Taylor. >> Okay. Miss Taylor. >> Good evening. Good >> to see y'all for being here. Um, my name is Julia Taylor. Uh, I work with Public School Strong and um I um came
027to a meeting in August. I think I was actually a a work meeting um and spoke about um the possibility of the district um implementing a safe zone policy as far as ICE is concerned. Um and I just wanted to come back and bring that up again as um something for the district to consider. Um there have has been an uptick um if you've noticed in the news um of um of ICE spottings and um Aransens being detained. Um sorry I have anyway um a little over a thousand is the is the number of of people who have been um detained by ICE uh in Arkansas at this point. Um and um MicroWatch is a um local statewide group that is working to help with this. All right. and they have signs. Um, and local
028businesses are putting these up. Um, the district might not want to use this particular one, but you could do something similar. Um, although I do think that they will print some of these up for free if um, that is an option. This was another of the materials they gave me. Um, I also have NEA has a good toolkit and Public School Strong has a toolkit as well. um these little red cards there. That's what they're called is our red cards are is something that you could get in bulk and um give out to families. Um it just says basically says I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, etc. Um, I personally know of a few instances in which um, ICE has not been out of school, but uh, our students have
029been affected. Um, so I think it's an important thing for the district to address. I know that this just this board always has the best intentions and um but I think it would be nice to have a formal policy in place and also something that staff can know these are the exact steps. Um this poster just says um and this is I think important for everyone to know ICE or federal agents must present a warrant signed by a judge. The warrant must have the name of the person to be questioned or detained and the place to be searched. So that you know if they do not have that then [bell] then they are not allowed um to sit. Anyway that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And um I I do like as I
030said I have more materials. Um if you all are interested um contact me and I can help connect you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Okay. I think there was a third. Is that correct? >> I'm sorry. >> He's not here yet. Okay. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and move forward to district committee uh report certified PPC. >> Um hello everyone. >> Um new month um new year for PPC. Um we did meet um first of all, hello board, superintendent, everybody. Um we did meet this month. Um I have been elected the chair for this um year for the certified PPC. Um and we have we've been busy. So, the small committees have been meeting. Um, we've had a meeting this week with classified team. So, we're helping them
031get their policies together. Um, as well as we've met um with the compensation committee. So, our meetings are kind of ongoing and um and um just continue to give us patience as we finish working over the classified policies. Um, there has been some proposals that have been brought forth by the certified PPC which you all will receive during your next monthly planning meeting. And there's been a lot of questions about flex hours because we are out of school. Well, the kids are out of school November the 7th. Um, flex hours if um you need to have at least 6 hours of professional development that was taken while you were off contract. So, anything after June the 1st or after work, those 6 hours can be used and they have to be uploaded into Unified Talent
032and you have to request that it's flex or you will need to come to work, maybe do some PD online with Arkansas ideas or something to that. Um, I just wanted to mention that um I am a product of the Little Rock School District. Kindergarten I went to Rockefeller. First, second, and third grade I went to Brady. fourth and fifth grade I went back to Booker Arts and Magnets. 7th, 8th, and 9th I went to Forest Heights. Um 10th, 11th, and 12th, I went to Hall where I graduated at. And so I've had a lot of teachers in my life who taught me trust, honesty, integrity, and things of that nature. So, as I close, I just want to let you all know that if I have anything that I need to say to the
033board, I'm going to say it to each of you. I don't have to talk to anybody individually on behalf of the certified PPC. If I need to speak to someone about the PPC, then I'll talk to the PPC. And so, I just wanted that to be clear because I always work in good faith. I always take what I do to heart. Um, I've mentioned many times before that a lot of issues that come about, it doesn't affect me because I can adapt to pretty much anything in life. So, I wanted to stand here and say that and look at you all in your eyes because if I want to reach out, I know I could reach out to Mr. Bali if I wanted to create a youth summit or something like that. I could reach
034out to Mr. Adams because this is marks the year that my father has passed away and I might even reach out about grief counseling. But if there is ever an issue with the certified PPC, I will make sure to reach out to all of you all about anything that goes on with the PPC. Um, and I will be reaching out to each of you all in a couple of weeks because it's mock interview time. I love working with you all. I think that I have a good working professional relationship with the board and I don't ever want that to be tarnished because someone may think I may do something that I know that I don't do. So, I say all of that in good faith. So far everything has been really really well with our
035PPC and with our new members. We're going to always continue to look forward to working with um HR central office board members even Miss Strong as well. We've met we we spent a lot of time together this week but everything is good and I wanted to let you all know that it's good. >> Any questions or comments? >> Thank you so much for that. We appreciate that. You had something? >> I just have one quick one. Thank you for your uh report. Um I just uh have a clarifying question based on what you uh just said. Um for have have you and I ever talked about the uh AM and PM um scheduling uh prior to any meetings? >> No, not at all. >> Okay. All righty. um because I uh and then I remember
036um uh the report um last last week or last board meeting whenever that report came and so I just wanted to be clear and so um misinformation and um the um a false narrative, alternative facts, lies or whatever um is is not uh spread. So absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Any other questions? Thank you so much. We appreciate you. >> All right. We'll be looking forward to the call on the mock interview. >> Yes, >> indeed. Absolutely. All right. Class 5 PPC. Look. >> Okay, good. Come on now. You're surprising me. I I never knew. >> Good evening, U Dr. Wright, board members. Uh my name is Tangela Jacobs and I have been appointed as the classified PPC. >> Um this is information overload for me but I am willing
037to give it all that I have. Uh I currently work here. I >> appreciate you. >> Thank you. >> I currently work with the district and classified. I do all the classified payroll. So um Dr. Bradford, she had to resign from the committee due to a change in her position and she is graciously um assisting us with the um smooth transition. We had an election and I wanted to recognize our new members and the categories that they represent. Um Tamara Dean Franklin, she'll be representing the AIDS and PAR professionals. April Jackson, she'll be representing child nutrition. Alfreda Johnson, clerical and general administration. Marie Guzman, custodians. Robert DK, maintenance. Patricia Brown, nurses and health. Uh William Elamine, safety and security. And Cara Evans, transportation. And I want to make note that this is the first time
038in many years that the representatives from all categories have been filled. And we're excited about that. Um the policy committee has resumed working on classified board approved policies and we've actually gotten off to a great start. Uh working with these men and women I have learned so so much. Um the committee is now working on salary reviews for both safety and security and nurses. And I wanted to let you guys know that I may not be present at every meeting, but I plan to uh send reports on my behalf. I'm looking I'm looking forward to work with each and every one of you. And if you have any questions or concerns, you can contact me via email, tangela.jacobslrd, or give me a call. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Thank you so much, M. Jacob.
039All right. Principles round table. Did we have the Okay. All right. And then advisory board. Yes. [applause] >> Good evening board members. >> Good evening. >> So, I'd first off like to start with a nice remark that if you see me wearing red, it's because of the red ribbon week day that we have today. So I also see Miss Hatter over there is wearing red. >> I am representing our superintendent student advisory board within our district. I would like to thank all of you for allowing us students to keep this board active. You probably remember that the last board meeting on the 25th of last month's I presented on behalf of our members. We stated that we would give updates monthly after each of our meetings reporting on topics discussed, people we have met, and
040our visions for the district. As you see today, we have kept the promise to keep an authentic voice every month. At our last meeting, which occurred on the 6th of this month, we continued our on our discussion of our already approved leadership summit thanks to Dr. Wright. However, we are joined by the principal of Hall West High School of Innovation, Mr. McGee. He offered to join our ideas that and have a student leadership institute that would allow students across the district to be able to build and work on leadership skills. He discussed how leadership could be involved with the institute by having business and corporate nonprofit community and activism and legislative government. We also recommended having representatives from big companies such as Walmart, Amazon, and Tyson Foods to discuss how they can impact public schools.
041He mentioned that we should have representatives from each high school and that this event should be an annual event within LRSD. Overall, students would be able to take away business skills, community service hours, and representatives from our state, and talk to representatives from our state, such as the mayor and other executives. If [clears throat] students would like to join this leadership institute, we would have an application process with a school approval coming most likely from an administrator. The next portion of our meeting was joined by Dr. right? Our superintendent who joined us to answer questions that we had and follow up with issues that we have discussed. Some of these questions were funding and booster for clubs and organizations, the use of pepper spray, the speed and efficiency of work orders in school buildings such
042as leagues, and lastly, Atlas Sussic. We then discussed the electronic device policy recommending that yonder pouches be used as a consequence instead of mandatory. As we know, Act 122 requires public schools to restrict student use of personal electronic devices like cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, and wireless earbuds. This law doesn't require that they are to be locked in pouches, but put away. We then discussed the idea of having lockers available to students who need them in case they have sports with locker facilities that are far away. Restoring textbooks and allowing for security in the morning and allowing for our security in the morning when students are entering the building to be faster and more efficient. Our next meeting I should mention is coming the 11th of next month. We'd also like to fix how grades are
043very hard to find and how there are huge opportunities to make it easier for both students and teachers alike to navigate. As we know, we currently have a system with schooly and hack or tac, which is both navigated by power school, but syncing can be hard to find the original grade or the current value that is in there. So, we'd like to find maybe a solution to that. in Philadelphia. We'd like to thank the board for allowing two of our members to go to present at the 69th annual fall conference to present how our student advisory board has an effect on our district and how we incorporated in our district is not just an advisory board but an actual voice. Thank you board members from hearing from us. >> Any questions? >> Thank you so
044much. Right. So, we'll go ahead and move to the consent agenda. Chair will entertain a motion. I have a I have um I would like to motion that the September the 25th minutes be removed until it can be videoed to make sure that a vote um was um written correctly. So >> you like to remove what was that? >> September the 25th board meeting minutes to be removed so that the video >> 5.4 is that what you'd like to remove? Okay. >> 5.4 It's just the September the 25th board meeting. >> Yeah. Right. September 25th board meeting minutes only. >> Okay. So, would you like to make a motion with that addendum or >> Yes, we I'd like to motion that they be removed so that they can be reviewed >> to make sure that
045um the vote was captured correctly. >> Okay. Okay. Vote >> on the lawsuit. Frankenberry. >> Okay. >> Just want to make sure it was captured correctly. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Yes, ma'am. Sh will entertain a motion with that amendment. I move that the LRSD Board of Education approve the consent agenda items as follows. 5.2 personnel changes. 5.3 purchasing reports. 5.4 Approval of Schoolboard meeting minutes. 5.5 community service learning applications. 5.6 with the exception of the board meeting minutes from September 25th, 2025. >> I think it was under 5.4. >> Oh, >> right. >> Sorry. I skipped the wrong I circled the wrong thing. I will go back. Can I start over, please? >> Okay. I move that the LRSD Board of Education approve the consent agenda item as follows. 5.2 personnel changes. 5.3
046purchasing reports. 5.4 with the exception of the September 25th, 2025 board minutes. 5.5 5 community service learning applications 5.6 early childhood sliding scale fee sliding fee scale and 5.7 donation of property. >> Second. It's been moved and properly seconded that the LRD Board of Education approve the consent agenda items as follows. 5.2 Personnel changes. 5.3 purchasing reports. 5.4 with the exception of 92525 board meeting minutes. 5.5 Community Service Learning Applications, 5.6 early childhood sliding fee scale, and 5.7 donation of property. All in favor say I. I. >> I. Any oppose? The motion carries. All right, we'll go ahead and move forward to six placement confir >> I don't see Jennifer Thomas where oh hiding >> Jennifer Thomas is our uh coordinator for advanced academics and secretary and so she's going to give an update around
047our AP and concurrent uh enrollment credits. That's my son's second grade teacher. >> Yes. That was my first full year teaching that I had as a parent. >> How was she? >> Yes. How was >> She was very helpful. >> She was a uh [laughter] >> I was involved. >> Yes. Very involved. >> She had my phone number. [laughter] >> That's not okay. Well, good evening. It's nice to see all of you again. I'm Jennifer Thomas. I'm the secretary of the executives coordinator and we have been working toward a great task in the Little Rock School District with making sure that we have no barriers to access for options for education. So now that I have the clicker, what do I press? Okay. Um, it fits along with the strategic plan with increasing academic achievement
048for all students, eliminating disparities in academic achievement for black students, and preparing for college and career options aligned with their interests. Um it also again with the barriers portion, the programs that we offer, we've actually been given um every school a really good look over as far as surveys, finding out what they offer to make sure that everyone has access to what they offer, even in the elementary grades, so that the enrichment can help the student develop to where they can choose other options when they're in high school and then on when they graduate high school. So, these are the results of our 2025 AP exam. Um, if you notice, we have 56% of our students that take the exam earned a five, four, or three. And a 543 is considered a qualifying score. If
049a student earns a 543, they can actually take that class and not have to take that class when they arrive in college. Arkansas has a law where if you take a a course and you pass it with a 543, they accept it at a state school. Now, if they're going to a Ivy League or somewhere out of state, you have to find out what they accept at that particular school. But we're very fortunate that Arkansas has that for our students. Um, if you notice again, 56%, you may say, hm, it could be better. It could be. But I will say when I first started in this role, the data that we collected, it was at 45%. 44%. So I am proud that now we're at 56%. Um, if you notice, Central of course has the
050most students. They have the most qualifying scores um at a 74.7% pass rate. Um, Southwest is at 12%. But I do want to celebrate Southwest because when it was McClullen and Jair, we possibly could get three to four passing AP scores. And now, I mean, they're they're growing. Every year, we get more and more passing scores. And we're at 55 now. And I just want to give them a hand. When I say that, I know that people are like, "Oh, we we're this, we're that." But 55 passing scores, qualifying scores at Southwest is a celebration. Yeah. >> Okay. So, the next part, these are our other celebrations. Each year we receive a report about the ranking of our courses through the state. And these are the courses that rank number one. This year, every year
051we have number one ranking AP courses in our state compared to others. And if you notice, these are courses that have 89 students, 44 students. They have a full load. A lot of places in Arkansas, they're more of a smaller school district. It may be 10 people in their AP class, but we're ranking number one with large numbers. So, that's a celebration. Let's do that. [applause] Okay, this slide is showing the AP student performance by race and ethnicity with the students with qualifying scores. Again, going back to our strategic plan, we were trying to make sure that our black and Hispanic students had the opportunity to take AP, understood what AP could afford them, and then also do well when they take it. The last time I was here, I think I remember talking to
052everybody, how are we going to make sure that they do well? And it's still a challenge, but um if you look at the numbers going across, it keeps increasing. Now, we did have a drop in our Caucasian students scoring a three, four, or five, but that also could be related to different changes in enrollment numbers. But if we look at it, our black population went from 59 qualifying scores in 2021 all the way to 190 in 2025. So, um, students are taking advantage of AP courses. Um, we want to continue to encourage that. And this is growth. So on this um slide you can see the total test takers and the percent change from the prior year. So just looking at the overall um is up 4.1%. Participation in g with gender we notice that
053the females are coming into play with taking the more advanced classes as well. And our males still, you know, they increase as well, more than the females, but we're still celebrating that. Okay. Everybody is still knowing about it. We're spreading the news. And now we're also spreading news about a new endeavor, concurrent credit, which you guys know about. Um, but before I go there, the next slide is referencing the change in exams taken prior um taken from prior years. And then with the scores of a three, four or five um with this we noticed that I believe this year was the largest number of AP exams taken and a student can take more than one. That's the thing. Sometime we look at this as number of students but one student can take all AP courses.
054So they're counted you know within that. But if you notice it's a 10.2% increase in the qualifying scores. So, um, those are celebrations that I would like y'all to just continue to celebrate with us and encourage students that, you know, in the community that, you know, you can do AP. A lot of people want to say it's hard. Why are you taking that advanced course? But, um, you can succeed and save on um, money when you go to college. Okay. So, I mentioned concurrent credit and there is a need for concurrent credit in our our school system. um we have favored AP the most um in past years, but we now know that, you know, all students need the opportunity to gain college credit in high school if they choose to. And this just kind
055of shows a picture of how our state looks. Um you know, when we did the early college credit, uh the early college ceremony the other day, a lot of people uh make comments of, "Well, we've had that before." Well, we did. We had a class or two, but we didn't have it to this magnitude [clears throat] of trying to actually have the early college program. And there's a deficit in our county. Less than 10% take college credit earning courses. So, as I continue, you'll see a uptick even within this year. If you look at central, the number of students taking concurrent credit compared to the school population has increased. Um, if you notice, it's among all races. So, we are still, you know, it's not limited to one race. If you look at Park View,
056which historically Park View has always had concurrent credit, um I think it was because teachers there knew that they were certified to teach it, so they wanted to offer it and it was always welcome. And now we're spreading the wealth, but um so the higher then you'll see higher numbers with Parkview and 2021 is a odd year. It was right after the co I can't say that those courses were coded correctly to show concurrent credit all the time and we see that there but we can see currently we are increasing those numbers and we are doing well with trying to offer as many courses as we have for teachers to teach it. Southwest same thing and I think you'll see an uptick in that in the upcoming years with the early college program. Here's Hall
057which we are working on. Um again to be um a concurrent credit teacher you have to have 18 hours over a master's. Okay that's what schools require and we'll have a partnership with Ur and UCA. Right now there are not as many teachers with 18 hours over a masters in that content area. So that is why there are teachers that are not certified there to teach that. But we are working through ways to still offer that to where the student can participate from the from the college directly. All [clears throat] right. So our current numbers for any advanced course we see concurrent credit with 12th grade having 70, 11th grade 143, 10th grade 25 and then we see AP with 623 in 12th grade 653 in 11th grade. And those are the grades that you
058would see that as an increased number because of course in ninth grade and tth grade they're trying to take their general ed course and trying to get their graduation credits. Um for advanced we which prepares the students for AP and concurrent credit. We have um 85 12th graders which you'll see less because we expect them to take the AP instead of it just advanced. and then 343 111th 460 10th 566 9th which makes sense because they're trying to prepare to be able to take advanced courses and you see the preap numbers. So the things that we've tried to do to strengthen our program is to have level up training. There's a PD that we'll have each month for professional development. Um parent nights and recruitment nights. Um, I just attended Southwest Parent Night the other
059week and had some great feedback input from students. Um, encouraging AP reader, which is when our teachers actually go and read for the AP test so that they know firsthand what's required of them. And then mock reading participation is the same thing. They go through practice test and then data driven decision- making. So we're looking at our in the AP provides the instructional planning reports and that tells each teacher where the weak areas were in their teaching how to increase that every year so that the students do better every year. So that concludes the presentation and of course I added the picture of when we signed in for our early college program at that signing. Okay. Are there any questions? questions. >> Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much. >> High impact
060high impact tutoring the scooting. >> I'm just going to know I'm going to step out for this one because of a conflict of interest, but I'll be back >> after. >> We're not voting on that. on the high impact tutoring. >> They're voting on it. Yeah. >> So, it's director. >> I don't think it's a real conflict of interest like that. It's just that I'm on a board that helped with the application. So, >> yeah. Awesome. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, we talked about this last month. Uh, when we were here, we talked about the different proposals that we put forward as a district for high impact tutoring. Good news is we were awarded two of them. Uh middle school math tutoring for 1 almost four uh million dollars serving 6th through 8th grade students
0611,200 um across all of our middle schools. And the second one was um third grade literacy. That's for uh between 3 and 325 students. Um, and that one was in the total amount of 720,000. So, total over 2 million of awards and we're anxious to get kids going. Um, have been working really hard waiting to get the official notice in the background trying to [clears throat] get ready. Um, shout out to all of our school teams on a pretty quick turnaround. They've been working on rosters and schedules and and all kinds of things to to get kids going. Um it's a little later than we would like to get started, but uh but we are excited to get kids um going and to be able to use as much time left in the year as
062as we have. So um we are asking that you you know accept the two grant awards so we can make it official and I'm happy to answer any questions. >> I just have one quick question. Uh this is a no financial impact right to the district, right? the these are grants coming into the district. Okay. >> Wonderful. By the way, absolutely. Questions? Any other questions? Okay. Should entertain a motion? >> I move that the LRC board approve the DESA boarded iPad tutoring grants for third grade reading with on your mark and for middle school math with Imagine Learning. >> Second. It's been moved and publicly second that the LRC board approve the DSE awarded high impact tutoring grants for third grade re uh reading with on your mark and for middle school math with imagined
063learning. Any questions or comments? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and move forward to 6.3mmies of Central Arkansas Foundation. We have uh several guests with us here today. Marcus, you can go go ahead and come up. Marcus Stewart, who is the uh president and CEO of the Centralmies of Central Arkansas Foundation, >> uh along with the chair of our board, Mr. Bobby uh Gosser, who is the CEO of Baldwin Chair. Um and I know they're going to give a a presentation. Um and I think not I think I know our board is is up to date on where we are. We are continuing um in discussions with them trying to get to an agreement
064and so I've been communicating um with our board and with our staff about where we are but still wanted to give them an opportunity to give the presentation if there was questions. We've got several folks here to to answer them. >> Absolutely. We have clicker first I guess for the president. >> Oh yeah. >> It's coming. >> Awesome. Well thank you. Thanks Bobby for being here. Um President Wesley thanks for having us. >> Okay. Dr. Right and full board. Uh we looked forward to coming to the October 16th work session, but as Dr. Ryan talked about, we mutually agreed in lots of our conversations that it was best to postpone that till tonight. Uh so that he and I and his team and our team could sit could get together and work through any concerns
065that the district had. Um and and we continue to do that and will continue to do that. Um so I'm thankful to be invited here tonight. So, as you will see in your board packet, I believe and hopefully on the screen here soon, there's a presentation in there that that outlines the outcomes that our region has seen as it relates to the Academy of Central Arkansas and the implementation there it is of the Ford NGL framework. And we're proud and excited to share those outcomes with you tonight. Um, and and the opportunities that it's creating for for our scholars. Uh, but I think it's important to first talk about what the Ford NGO model is. um and and take a deeper dive into that and how it truly is a community connected approach and how
066it's transforming the high school experience for all students. So, if we could >> next slide forward there we go. That slide. Um, and so for many of you in this room, and I know there were a lot of you that were a part of the Ford NGL master planning process, or if you've been to a Ford NGL site visit in Nashville or Akran or Louisville, this is a a model that you've likely seen many times before. But what I want to do tonight is break this down um in each of the three strands to give you all a clearer picture into the insight into the work that is required um at the school level and the district level to make this uh model work. um as we we've seen in other successful areas of implementation
067across the country. And so they're transforming the teaching and learning on the far left side that strand and the Ford and I just came back from a Ford NGL leadership conference. So I'm ready to like give you a master session in Ford. So I apologize. I'm going to try to stick to the script here. But the the Ford NGL framework requires that that every teacher facilitate learning through an inquiry based approach connecting rigorous academics with the portrait of a graduate. That was on one of the slides previously. That's that's on slide three. if you're looking in your packet, the district's academic goals and the future aspirations of each unique scholar. This ensures that students just aren't just learning about the world, they're learning in it and learning through it. Within this same strand, the model
068is designed so that every student has experiences with hands-on work-based learning opportunities. Um, intentionally designed, co-designed with your academy business partners and your higher education partners at the table with your your team of educators. These experiences help students earn credentials or certifications, concurrent college credits, and develop leadership skills that are going to prepare them for both college and career once they graduate from our high schools. A third, it's same slide. We're going to be on this one for a while. I apologize. Another critical component to that transforming of teaching and learning revolves around uh the academy teaming as you you may have heard about. And so each academy operates within interdisciplinary teacher teams who share the same group of students in common planning time. This means that your your core content area teachers, the math,
069science, humanities, and your CTE all live under the same academy roof. Um and those teams collaborate to create and strengthen the identity of that academy. They also identify and support students, support individual students um and the interventions that are needed to support them. think your RTI process and ensure that no students slip through the cracks. They co-design lessons that are taught through the industry lens of the academy that they're representing. Meaning you're taking concepts that you learned in math or science and you're applying them directly to how that relates to future careers in your preferred industry as a student. So this again creates those true small learning communities. You'll hear them called SLC's throughout this. uh ensuring that every student is known, supported, and connected to a group of caring adults and that their learning
070is tied to their future goals. The last piece to this would be aligning it to the district's vision and strategic plan. And I think when I look at the academyy's work and the LRSD strategic plan, there is a lot of alignment and and support that this work can do for that. When we think about affirming school cultures, we've already talked about that sense of belonging, belonging to an academy, having that sense of community. We talk about meaningful student experiences with those hands-on work-based learning opportunities, the the enrichment experiences that students are getting that are connected to their future aspirations. Uh valued and equitable school options. Um we're equitable distribution of resources from your from our partners, from business community in terms of students having high quality enriching experiences through this model. And then of course
071with excellence in our talent, being able to support those academy teachers through those small learning communities. um so that will ultimately lead to um a stronger teacher base and and that's a big part of this model. So the result of all that work in strand one is that students graduate ready for what's next whatever that next step is for them. They're academically strong, they're career prepared and they're community oriented. That second strand there uh talks about transforming culture of systems and structures of school. So that's how schools operate. And so when you think about that, this strand demonstrates how the academy model creates a true sense of belonging. I've already talked about how those students are a part of an academy. They have an academy identity and it starts to feel like family if if
072done well. And so when we we think through the wall-to-wall implementation aspect of the model, and I know that's been part of the conversations that that you all have had, each high school includes a freshman academy as well as two or three college and career themedies depending on enrollment size. And so when you take a campus of 2,000 students and you break that down into a school within a school or multiple schools within a larger school, uh from a student lens, you're going from a much more personalized approach. Instead of being one of just 2,000, I'm one of 500 students in this academy. I've shared the same teachers, coaches, administrators, and counselors year-over-year. And they're intentionally designed that way to connect the core academics to the real world application and deepen student skills, both soft
073and technical. Um so that within those chosen areas of their study when we talk about that second strand the superintendent vision is s so critical to successful implementation in strand two um that that vision starts with the superintendent and then extends to every principal academy leader counselor and teachers within that within the district especially at the high schools and they all have clear roles and shared accountability in the successes of the work. So there's a distributive leadership model required of this that creates a culture of collaboration and ownership uh across all within the district. So so that we can see our unique uh roles within the model. Education educator training and support through strand 2 uh the district I heard examples of tonight about professional development plans to continue to to move the work forward.
074You have to long-term plan with uhmies in mind as well with your professional development. that's important to the district with staff attrition rates being what staff attrition rates are currently. Um we know that continuous onboarding for all stakeholders ensures that everyone moves from simply understanding whatmies are to ownership of the academy themy's model and so that investment in educators sustains the model and also drives instructional excellence at our campuses the system alignment and sustainability in the last piece for strand two uh when we look at how do we align systems for sustainability I think that's very critical to the conversation that we're having right it's for themies to thrive the district policies the funding the staffing and strategic plans have to align and support that work if that's the work you're going to do. And
075I think ongoing communication between superintendent and the board around regular updates on themies um and and sharing the work and the vision and making sure that policies are aligned around to support that work. And so that's including all the things that you all know your human your financial your curricular and capital resources all under kind of thaty's umbrella. We talk about data data driven decision- making. I loved the the the charts and graphs earlier about the AP scores. This this depend this model is dependent on a a strong data system that's based off of of data to make our decisions. And to to be able to do that, you need to look at factors in that uh portrait of a graduate. You need to look at the metrics that the district is is charged with
076improving and leading. [clears throat] Um we need to look at student participation rates and those guaranteed experiences to make sure that we're making the difference that we want to make. And we need to look at partner engagement to make sure that all of our partners are at the table creating unique experiences for all of your students. And so those regular regular data reviews uh are continuous and will continue to drive improvement of the work. I think about a conversation that that I just had recently when I look at your AP scores, been in conversations with the college board and they're very intrigued when they see our AP scores going continuing to go up across Palaski County. they're interested in coming here and seeing just exactly how that's happening, how this plays into it and potentially
077supporting that work to deepen it at our campuses moving forward. So, that's just something that is very relevant to the data mindset that we that you showed tonight. The last strand is the transforming the partnerships between schools and the community. And on that that strand, I mean, we know that businesses have been supportive uh of our schools for decades. And this is much more than a sponsorship check. uh you you probably heard that this is much more than going and talking to a classroom. Um this is much more than hosting an industry where those things have been going on for a long time. This is a transformation where we all share in the ownership and we're at the table having conversations to make sure we're all committed to that same goal to move all of
078our students forward. And so that's the ultimate goal with this is to bring everyone to the table to help support students and give them the experience that are going to prepare them for success post high school graduation. So to ensure that happens, the Ford NGO model requires that there be a convening organization uh to lead that work from the community lens. And that's what the Academy of Central Arkansas Foundation was created to do and was set out to accomplish back in 2018 when many of you were in that room for the master planning process. It was never this work has been supported by the Little Rock Regional Chamber, incubated and funded. Uh it was never the intent for it to live there for 7 years. The intent was for it to to be there for
079about three years and then the Academy Foundation be created very similar to a pencil foundation in Nashville that I know some of you have seen to be created to help support that work long term and ensure the sustainability of it. And so um as as we think through that's why the Academy of Central Arkansas Foundation was created. It's allowed it provides that shared leadership from the community. Again, this is not just something this district is doing or this high school is doing. This is something that we are doing as a community and making sure that the right people from a governance structure and all those things that everyone is incorporated into that that conversation. We also are tasked with leading the regional master plan that was created in 2020 which probably in full transparency needs
080to be redone right it was done in March of 2020 and co happened. Um and so making sure that we're leading all in the charge of following what was outlined in that master plan. And so again, it's all around the common goal of preparing students for college, career, and lifelong success. The structure ensures a collective ownership um that that we are all in this together. Our schools don't fail or succeed on their own. It's it's it's work that we're all leading the charge on and bringing those folks to the table for those conversations. The academyy's piece of this um in the partnership lens, we have around a 100 partners that are engaged at our academy high schools directly impacting your students as as we speak. Those partners have invested millions of dollars of time, talent,
081expertise, equipment, and and financial resources directly to your campuses. And in conversations with those executives, uh they've made an investment because they see the vision um and the collective power in this regional approach. And they made those commitments under the assumptions that the school districts and the school campuses were implementing those foundational aspects of the model that I just covered in strand one and strand two. Um, so as I mentioned earlier, those all three pieces to this are foundational to the long-term success of this work and when I when we've seen this thrive here in central Arkansas and in communities across the country that have fully embraced that Ford and GL framework. And so because the data nationally and now we have the data to support that same thing here in central Arkansas. Um, it
082shows what the model is imple when the model is implemented as designed students thrive and our community strengthens. So, as of today, where we where we stand, we are a little over four years into implementation. And our our three of our districts have achieved wall-to-wall implementation in terms of their academy structures. When we look at Little Rock School District, it remains in what we would consider year one of implementation, meaning that only freshman only parts of the freshman model are being implemented at at your academy campuses. And so tonight, I think the conversation, I know we've got agreements and things to talk through, but I think the real the real question to answer is is not simply about approving a partnership with them foundation or not. I think the the question to ask is does
083LRSD and this board have the will and commitment to implement this model the way our our leaders our national leaders at Ford and GL say it should be implemented to know that it's going to transform the teaching and learning and improve those student outcomes that that I know we all want to improve and strengthen those community partnerships and so because without that level of commitment and follow through at the district level at the campus level uh committing continuing the conversation around how many campuses do we partner partner ner with or was it 1 2 3 or four I think is missing the major point that needs to be addressed and so I think the real decision again is is to decide whether this is what Little Rock school district wants to do if that's how
084they want one or more of their high schools to look like and then do are they willing to make that commitment to ensure that every student in the district gets those opportunities that we all said set said in 2018 19 and 20 that hey this is what we want to work towards and so if they do I I I assure you the foundation is is ready and willing to support you at 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine high school campuses and the business community will be there to support you in that work as well. So long as that commitment is is is made by the district that this is what you want to do. And so I just gave you a a 5-year crash course on Ford NDL and all that's required.
085Um I will pause and answer any questions, comments, concerns that you all may have um in terms of the model and what's what we're what we're looking at. >> Questions? I do have some questions, but mine are for Dr. Lauren and Miss Montgomery. >> Okay. Questions at this point, Mr. Straw, go ahead and ask a question. Um, thank y'all for being here. I appreciate it. Um, one of the things that that I is really I think one of the things that as a school board leader, one of the things that's really important to us is having strong partnerships with the businesses in our community that support us. And we're very grateful for that. that I know you all saw probably that we opened with district celebrations which are businesses that have one way of investing
086in and partnering with our schools in a really direct service kind of way and this is very different from that. Um, we are also in a time um of of budget challenges here in the district and we have expectations and and this may end up being questions for some of the the staff too, but we have these expectations with the new um ways that the state is providing letter grades that we have expectations of like career placement and other things after graduation to my understanding of looking through all the all of those new grades for for high school student the new grading processes for high school students. So, all that being said, um I don't see anything in here about helping us ensure things like improvements in our letter grades in the contract. I'm looking
087specifically at some of the things that are in the district commitments and responsibilities and the academy themy's commitments and responsibilities. And one thing I I would really like to see in here, unless I missed it somewhere, is a commitment. And if we're going to invest in this kind of work, that is work we in some ways have to do anyway, right? We have to produce career ready or college ready students um to have have good letter grades and keep doing our job as a board to improve these student outcomes the way they're measured right now. How how are you guys helping us assure that that is happening and how does this model um how is that investment going to pay off for us I guess in in the long term? It's a great question >>
088because we have a lot of things we could I mean we could use those dollars for tutoring for our third graders that may be held back. I mean there are a lot of things I think we could um be thinking about for somewhere between 117 and 200 plus thousand dollars. And so anyway that's a long rambling question but I'd love for you to talk about some specifics. >> I I totally get it and appreciate the conversation. I think when when legislation was introduced and it was dropped and here's here's what it is and now we've got to figure out how to how to do that. Um, in talking with our superintendent and our school district leadership teams, it was the academyy's model is aligned perfectly to set us up for success immediately within that the
089new framework and school accountability. Um, because that is work that had been been being done since 2017. And so where a lot of districts were forced to be reactionary to that work and scramble and figure out okay how are we going to bring business and community partners to the table in a real authentic way that work had already been done and had already been outlined. Um and so I think for a lot of again that requires successful implementation at at the district level and and so we're always a little bit reactionary. We want to move to less reactionary and more proactive as different pathways are eliminated eliminated or or removed from from the state sequence. And so I think that's something that we're all going to have to continue to work together on. But the
090academyy's structure and support from the business community and those experiences are leading would would ideally we would hope are going to lead to those outcomes that are going to lead to students earning concurrent college credit earning the certifications that are high high wage high demand. They're going to put them in a position where they're going to graduate with merit or distinction. >> Okay. Can I add can I add one additional question to that? >> Um Mr. Is it Mr. Gosser? Is that right? Okay. Um, thank you for being here. Um, >> I'd love to hear you talk just for a minute as uh an employer. I mean, you guys do a lot of work with us in general, I think, uh, in the construction side of things, but could you just talk a little bit
091about what what this means to you? I know that when you look through the um the list of partners, they are big names. It's I mean, it's hospitals, it's you know, health systems, it's energy. I mean, there are big partners on this list, right? as an as an employer and a partner in this work. Um what do you feel that you're getting out of this partnership that you couldn't get by working with the district alone? If I may. >> That's a good question. Um I think um it goes back to when the chamber really did a master plan or strategic plan looking at what it needs to be done in our central Arkansas area. >> And from that two of those items were workforce development. >> Okay. and um well going somewhere else with that
092but um workforce development >> and the community partners that were involved in the chamber at the time decided hey this was worth investing in to get it to get it rolling. So Port NGL was the commitment from the chamber and from the districts and from that what we see is more of a cohesive effort with community partners um that can move this forward where we can expose students to workforce that we wouldn't ordinarily be able to have a chance to do. So, one of the things that really is unique about this with business partners coming into play is exposing students to careers early enough to where they can make decisions what they don't want to do so that when they get out of school and if they're workforce ready at that time, we know those
093students have found that pathway because they saw something in this work that they didn't see in something else or vice versa. uh so many times I had three children that graduated from public schools here in central Arkansas. All three of them went to college for the wrong reasons. And so as we're trying to orchestrate their their learning experience, we want it to be in something that's going to provide lifelong careers for them instead of going through any pathway whether it be workforce ready or college ready and then all of a sudden they've spent years in a pathway that's not fulfilling to them. And so we find it as employers that we want students that come out that want to enjoy the work that we do so that they can find life fulfilling um [clears throat]
094a career with what we're doing. So, as a individual employer, yes, we could do that, but we wouldn't be able to expose uh to all the other career paths, all the other um different companies that are investing in this that will know that um we're trying to get them exposed to a multitude because as a freshman and even in the sophomore years, they're getting exposed to a lot of different pathways and they're not choosing at that point to ingrain in in one specific area. So kind of kind of ramble. >> Thank you. >> No, we appreciate it. Director Ro, >> my question is going a completely different direction. >> In two phases, what do you do for $29,000 that we don't do anyway? >> Yeah. And what was the first part? In two >> for
095for $29,000, what are we getting that we don't do anyway? And >> so that is is what we have walked through with district leadership team. that is like I said we're the we're the convening organization for this work. So from a governance structure we are making sure that we are moving towards and forwards with the plan that we all said we were going to do. We are the business recruitment and partnering aspect of the work. And so when we look at those that have been to Nashville, I keep I know you went to Nashville and I know Vicki has and maybe some others. Every time we would go to Nashville, we would hear we need a pencil foundation. Pencil Foundation is a nonprofit that was already in existence, but all what they do is they
096recruit and pair business partners to themies of Nashville. And so they go out and find industry partners like like a Baldwin and Shell, like an Arkansas Children's, share the model with them and then pair them at the appropriate high school campus. They track their investment and then they are able to report that out to to the key stakeholders like, hey, because of Baldwin Shell's investment at Jacksonville High School, they contributed 10,000 hours of time and talent and students got this many experiences. And so every time we would go to one of those, all of our teams would huddle up after and the school folks would say, "We just need a pencil. We just need a pencil foundation to help move this work along faster." And so that is all that Pencil Foundation does in terms
097of Nashville work. And they've been doing it since 2005. And there's a a contract that they have with their school districts. Um them and alignment Nashville, who is also another nonprofit that was created to lead kind of the the CEO champion group of themies. um they both we're trying to combine both of those organizations under one roof because we don't we don't have the bandwidth or the funding to go out and create two separate organizations of 24 people a piece and so that just the business partner recruitment and pairing alone um I feel would justify a lot of that that impact and those those things. The other thing that I would highlight to you is that there are a lot of experiences that are planned regionally that are are time and labor and money intensive
098that we're we're providing and and coordinating. And so the an example I was just working on the the schedule for it today the the academyy's career expo for all 3500 freshmen across the campuses. And so we're able to coordinate all of the resources to get the convention center uh secured and hundred between 80 and 100 employers come every single year knowing that no one's getting a job that day. And it's all about creating an experience for 9th graders as Bobby mentioned so that they can re they've explored the careers in their freshman seminar class. Now let's go engage hands-on and interact with professionals actually in that industry. Hopefully that something during that time sparks their interest and they enroll in that academy at their high school that is closely aligned with that. And you can
099go down there's that experience. There's academy ambassador training which are student ambassadors who are the face and voice of theirmies. Um we do a day of professional development with them. Um so that they are prepared and equipped to do that work. Um we do what what is also proposed in there we've not done before. We've partnered before with be pro be proud in the state chamber. Uh but we told them upfront that when we get to wall implementation at the majority of our campuses we will host our own spring hiring hiring event. And so for those 60 to 70% of your student graduates, depending on where you are, for those that college isn't in the cards right now, we want to create a hiring event with our academy partners at the table and students get
100interviewed, hired, or offered a second interview on the spot. And so that's something that we haven't been able to build to because we weren't at full implementation, but this year is the first year of that. And so that's another event that we think brings an immense value at and is is really labor intensive on the back end of things. Um, and so the the last piece of it is that I think when we talk about the Academy of Central Arkansas, some of this is probably really new to some of you and maybe not, but it's it's one of the best kept secrets in central Arkansas in terms of what it can do. And so having folks on our team that are with your existing partners, not only recruiting new partners, with your existing partners and
101supporting them along the journey, capturing that, telling that story, sharing sharing the Facebook post, tagging the partners, that stuff matters from a visibility perspective. And so being able to support your comm's teams around the messaging and the verbiage, we've packaged commercials before during school choice um specific to each district and communications with with those school uh communications directors. So, I think there's a lot of awareness that that we can help lead the charge with and help share the collateral with you all to share out to your your constituents so that enrollment starts to increase again. >> That was not a very that was not a great answer to be honest. >> I mean, a lot of money shifted to your pocket for things that we'll do anyway. >> And I think that's apprec >> Did
102you Did you have another question? Yes, I did. I had I had another handful of statement type questions. >> Did you have another [laughter] question? >> No, I'm going to speak. >> I wasn't here in 2018. Did you tell them then that it was going to cost $200,000 later? >> Those conversations were had. Yes. >> Me. >> Okay. when the chamber in 2006 the chamber uh wanted to get their fingers into the district's money and they called me I was president of the board at the time they called me down they winded in dinep they told me what they wanted to do and it was it was the the feelers the forerunners of this it's not our job to train workers for you that's your job it's not our job to provide uh corporate experiences
103so that they can come out with high skills, high money. That infuriates me. That's not our job. I'm going to quote somebody. You're going to disagree with every bit of it, but I want people to hear it. I'll tell you who I'm quoting when I finish. And I got this from a colleague. The schools we go to are reflections of society that created them. Nobody's going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody's going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free. Schools in America are interested in brainwashing people with Americanism, giving them a little bit of education and training and skills needed to fill the positions in the capitalist system. As long as we expect American schools
104to educate us, we will remain ignorant. The way we do education is getting worse and worse. when we get more and more calls from the Chamber of Commerce. Well, if they want to run the school district, why don't they approach the legislature? That's not our job and it's not ever going to be our job as long as I can get some breath. >> Thank you. >> Do you mind, >> director? I'm sorry. Uh, >> go ahead. >> Uh, thank you for the presentation. I just got a couple of questions. Uh my questions are more about uh what is the plan to build like a community or citywide capacity uh for these careermies because um I want I would if something were like this were to happen I would like to see a wide range of
105community stakeholders that encourage students to diversify their interests and um explore as many opportunities as possible for careers while they're still kids. Uh and also the second part of the question is more about uh what is the plan for deep employer engagement outside of the big corporations. Um many people are not connected to the chamber as entrepreneurs and business owners because it is a privilege and uh it is a it's it's an acceptance process for that as well. and uh a lot of great businesses and great business leaders in our communities are definitely assets, but they're not always invited to have a seat at those tables. So, um my question on that part is what is the deep employer engagement from people who are not granted those opportunities to present the mentorship and the internship
106opportunities, the guest speaking opportunities that uh don't necessarily have the same type of influence. Yeah, that's a really good question and I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. I I what so I'm not an employee of the Little Rock Regional Chamber, right? I'm a I'm with the Academy of St. Charles Foundation and the that that has been the the approach that because of bandwidth and staffing, we have been responsive to employers reaching out saying, "Hey, we want to learn more about this." It has not been proactive to going out into the community doing information sessions. It's really been reactive and trying to recruit and place those folks in into our campuses. You can imagine a partnership like a US or an Arkansas, those take months and months to develop and coordinate and cultivate
107so that they place at a campus. And so we have not been proactive in going out and reaching out into the the community that's not connected to, you know, hearing about us through a chamber conversation or through a chamber website or through a Facebook post. I think with the additional capacity adding, we've added two partnership managers to this work. the two functions of their job are to recruit new partners and to support existing partners. And so when we know success happens is when a partner who has has engaged in this work says, "Hey, you really need to go talk to this organization or to this person over there because they're doing some really cool stuff and they would be a great partner in this work." And so we there are times where I've had board
108members not on this board call and say, "Hey, there's a small mom and pops HVAC company that would really be a great partner at our campus. Can you give them a call?" And so anytime those connections are able to be made, we will go have the conversation and we would love to plug them in. Um because I it is going to take it's it's not just the the major employers. Yes, those are our most visible partners, but we have partners that are one person shops, two person shops, for-profit, nonprofit. Um I think the goal is to bring more again bring for us to do this work well. Um we need to increase our partner. We need to be talking about having 200 250 partners, not approaching 100. And I and this is what this allows
109us to do to go out and be able to do that work so that students can have a more robust experience in high school. >> Yes. >> Well, that said too, I'll add on to that. Um to be at the extreme level of a partnership with a district, there's not a a price tag on that. It's really just volunteering and giving of time and talent that can stretch through any company. Doesn't there doesn't have to be doesn't have to be a large company to be involved. In fact, I told Marcus that's one of our main goals of the foundation board members is to get out and recruit businesses that we know that have not heard about this to try to get everybody involved um citywide that have an interest on making sure students have exposure
110to their careers. >> Yeah. So, uh I just want to make a statement. Now, thank you for your answers. I appreciate them. And uh because I really when we talk about um careermies and community involvement, I really want us to think about the community centered approach. And I'll just give you an example. um when I was in school, you know, um for the brief time that I did attend Central High School, uh one of the examples that I I would get uh would give right now would be, you know, the fact that um not endorsing anybody, but I'm I'm just saying a business name. Um Khal Produce, the store, many students from Central uh would leave school after school and they would say where they get their after school snack from. Not only that, they
111would employ Central High students because it was in walking distance. It was a part of the neighborhood. And so when I think about community centered approaches and people who support the district, I think of businesses like that. And there's hundreds of businesses in Arkansas. I mean, I'm sorry, in Little Rock that uh do similar things like that. So that's why I'm asking those type of questions cuz when I see it on there uh community connected approach I said centered but community connected approach making sure that we ensure that our local businesses and uh our entrepreneurs our small business owners nonprofits are involved in opportunities like this. But thank you Dr. Johnson. >> Uh [clears throat] yes Miss Montgomery can you come up for some clarity please? >> Sure. >> If only Miss Bluck was here
112so we could have her come up for some clarity. >> Oh You don't get to kill me that can kill me. Doing well. >> How you doing? >> I'm doing well. How are you doing? >> Oh, just great. You know, these gentlemen, they came with a great presentation and it just sounds like that some of the things that they're trying to bring forward. Are we not already doing those things and or with this program complement or slightly conflict with what you're doing? >> Um, I knew you all were going to ask me that question. [laughter] Mhm. >> Uh well, when I think about we've been involved with them of Central Arkansas for [clears throat] about 7 years now >> and the work that we've been involved in has complemented career and technical education since the
113inception um because of the framework of it being community connected and um what I see what's in what has been impactful for our students is the freshman approach you know uh having a course uh freshman seminar where we work with students and in empower them to know about college options, career options, and all about exploration and allowing students to make a choice about their own future. >> And that approach we weren't really using. It was more so um adults picking and choosing four kids. And now we're giving students and parents the tools that they need to make decisions about their futures. And we're offering opportunities within our school district to support those choices whether and as Jennifer my colleague spoke earlier about AP and concurrent credit and all the things. It's not just about CTE
114but I also will say that those things are also a part of what we have to do as a public school entity because we're involved because we're we report to DESIE and Department of Career and Technical Education. All those things are intertwined. But um you know the partnerships that's invaluable. That's something that we did not have. Uh so you know it's that's that's my response. [laughter] >> Yes ma'am. Hannah >> I'm sorry. Did you finish? >> Uh yes. Okay. So you've been working with this organization for seven years. >> Yes. >> Is that what you said? Okay. So now we have a price tag of over $200,000. So what was it from the beginning? Did we have a contract? Did we >> uh to my knowledge this was an a community connected approach where the
115regional chamber and the school districts came together so that we could work together as a region to implement themies of central Arkansas. Now, I wasn't privy to any conversations about cost, but I do know that we did uh pay the uh academy I mean the the Ford NGL Foundation uh to to so that we could adopt their framework so that they could provide us with coaching to so that we could move our community forward and become a uh Ford NGL community. And I think those uh that expense was divided amongst our school districts and I think some business partners even uh supported that work as well financially. >> You had um I have a few questions but I'll ask just um what I'll do is just make a clarifying statement then just get back in
116the queue. Um, so to answer that question, it uh if I remember correctly, uh it and then it was Little Rock that went and got the other districts to get on board and and it was Little Rock school district that actually convinced um the superintendents and created uh this as well as the uh um helped um heavily known with the master schedule. And so Little Rock um is the ones that actually uh led uh the the charge and then Little Rock was also the the spearhead. Um so um and so that's how it happened. And then um and then for the commitment, Little Rock um school board, I think in school year um created a um made a commitment a recommitment right after um the board came back uh right to see the uhmies through.
117And so like we do have have have that standing commitment to see it completely through. And so now there's a shift in thought on how it looks and how it should be done. Um and I'm enjoying listening to um some of the colleagues but um I I would [clears throat] uh really like to have a hear from colleagues about exactly what are the hesitations outside of um the administrations that was shared with their hesitations and we're asking those type of questions around that uh because the work have been done Um I can't imagine how much money from private and business um private and public that have been invested in this over the time with the goal and the understanding of being good partners and um of of this work to once it got to this
118point um you know this is really what it was and and you was there and so at any point correct me when I'm wrong but um that that is my statement I'll hold I do have two other questions but I'll get back in the queue. >> Oh, I'm back. Well, no. Yeah, let's go over. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Uh, prior to this coming and this came uh to uh us before uh we regained a functioning school board. Now before that and let's go back to the last decade. This was a this was a program that started at JAIA. I was there. They built the program and the foundations of careermies. Okay. Now I think my problem is and maybe I am just too old for this. Um I think that that would be a good idea.
119However, the price tag and I think that that's a lot of that's a lot of hesitation here. Why do we have to pay the Chamber of Commerce to do this? I mean 200 what? >> 9,000. >> Okay. $29,000. Now, >> we're paying the chamber. Are we paying the chamber? >> I mean the foundation or whatever. Okay. Now, we had to pay the foundation. Now if the other uh people who are willing to invest in this project, I think they should absorb the co cost and not take the cost out of the school district because we are every time we look around they taking additional money out of our district 50 million 600 whatever. whatever thousand they took again this summer until it seems to me like what's trying to happen is bankruptcy. Um, I think
120program's great, but we started it. Okay. And you all have a lot of things that I think would be excellent, but I think that cost should not come from the Little Rock School District. That's my opinion and everybody has one. >> Okay. Other questions or thoughts? Yeah, you Okay, hold on. Let me just Yes. Adam. >> Yeah, Adam. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for your your presentation and and your work with us to this point. I appreciate that. M Miss McGomery, a question for you. I'm thinking about the district um that you know since we started this, you know, we we have had changes in leadership. We this whole process started when we didn't have an elected board and we we did have an elected board and as Miss Hatter said we
121did vote I think earlier to affirm to go forward with this and I'm thinking about the comment made about where we are um in the adoption and um the comment was made that we you know we've been in it for a number of years but in some ways we're still very early in it and I wondered if you could help us understand what are the factors that have that have us in that spot. You know, are there what kind of frictions have been there that have kept us from being further along the way? it, you know, is it because I don't know how much of that's in um I don't know I don't understand the fullness of of of that difference between how many years we've been in it and how far we've gone in
122incorporating this model that we said that we were going to do. >> Okay. Well, I'm going to yield to Dr. Wright first and then I'll come [laughter] back. >> Thank you. I I'll leave enough for you to >> [laughter] >> uh uh add to since you were here um at the beginning. But first I would like to say the academy concept is not a new concept and forward NGL is just one model of themies. It is not the end all be all. It is not the onlyies approach. So I just want to say that first off. Second, um when when you look at Ford NGL model and everything that goes along with it, there are certain aspects of the model that does not align to the way LRSD was operating when it was first approached
123and even today. And I'll give a couple examples. >> Okay. The existence of metro is one big barrier that interferes with the ability to do wallto-wall and teaming in some capacities. In a Ford NGO model, all the programs that we have at Metro, first of all, Metro wouldn't exist. The programs would be individualized at each school. So there wouldn't be kids selecting programs at Metro to leave the campus and go to Metro. Those programs would be just at the school. There wouldn't be anything. Metro wouldn't exist. >> Another um issue is we had established programs already. Several of our schools already had identities. Parkview had the arts and science magnet programs identity. So when you bring a model like for NGL to a school like Parkview and I can speak a lot about this because
124when I got here I never had a honeymoon because I had to deal with implementation challenges at Parkview with this particular model as soon as I started working here. And it's not to say that the model cannot exist in a school like Park View. However, there has to be a lot of work and planning and alignment um to be done in order for it to be successful, in order for it to [clears throat] work and a lot of buyin that needs to take place with not just the faculty and staff at the school, but with the parents and the community to understand what it is. I can speak from getting here in TW in fall of 22. What I can tell you I saw is there wasn't a real sense of understanding amongst school-based people
125in terms of what this is and what we're supposed to be doing. I don't know the work that was done prior to to um explain it to get buy in for principles to understand but I can tell you when I got here the principles that I spoke to all said to me that they were not involved in the initial planning of this part. So you got PARFW, it never really it didn't get off the ground because of the established programs and magnet programs that were already there and the work that needed to be done to to kind of make it work just wasn't done. Central >> nothing happened at Central other than Freshman Academy since we got here for reasons I think we all know. >> So I think um >> it's not I don't
126know the reason. What's the reason? Well, >> they do also have established magnet programs at Central that have been in place as long as the programs at Parkview. >> Well, I was speaking specifically to the leadership of the school not wanting to do this >> and that was made clear to me when I was here. Um, and I thought that was something that everybody understood and knew. Um, but if not, >> so we we got that. Um, so those were some examples of what has been barriers that I saw when I got here in terms of why the work hadn't moved forward. Southwest on the other hand, from my understanding was built with the academyy's concept in mind. Um, so I think Southwest was the school that had gotten the furthest with implementation, but then
127as a result of all the leadership changes and other internal issues at Southwest, the work just kind of halted and stopped. Um, and so yeah, so and I'll end by saying this, regardless of where we end with um whether we are working with the foundation or not, the work of themies is not going away. I just want to be clear and say that Ford in jail is not the only model. Um, and our commitment I mean we I don't think there's anybody here that would disagree with the purpose and outcomes of what the academy concept is supposed to do. I don't think um or at least I don't. I mean I I uh believe in the concept. I believe in what it's supposed to do. Um and there's multiple ways of getting there. But to
128answer your question, those are some examples of why the initial implementation just has not taken off um districtwide. Did I Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I'd like to just make a Thank you, Dr. Ry. >> Follow up. Um, I'd just like to make a followup that it it seems to me that that this conversation about contract and money is raising some issues that we need to talk about >> that that are beyond what we and you all need to talk about. But it seems like it's what we on our side need to talk about in order to to clarify where we are and where, you know, what was thought where we wanted to go several years ago, but where are we where are we actually here today and where do we want to go
129now? and and it seems to me like we have some work to do and we should take advantage of this opportunity to have some of that discussion so we could be more clear when we talk with our partners or you know about about where we are. I mean that that's what it strikes me Dr. Lauren you sound like sounds like you're giving me a nonverbal about that. >> I think I think we are clear as a as a as a district team about where we want to go. I don't think the issue clarity will >> it's the what um I think piggybacking off of what Dr. Wright said we all agree with um that there are benefits to the academyy's model that there are components of this model that our students want um and need.
130I think the how is where there's some difference of opinion between our district team and the foundation. Um, I actually started this work the same time Shemica did in a different district and then came in and finished well continued cuz we're not finished with Miss Montgomery. And honestly, what we found is there are a couple things. Um, one, eliminating Metro creates an access issue for our students that we agree we don't want to create. Um, and Metro doesn't just serve Little Rock School District students. It also serves other school district students as well. And we can't offer every program that we currently offer at Metro on every one of our campuses. So eliminating Metro eliminates an access that all of our students currently have to Metro. The other thing that I think we are all
131in agreement in is our goal in our profile of a graduate is to offer exposure and choice. all of our students don't want or aren't curious about the same things. And so we don't want a one-sizefitsall model in all of our high schools. And I I think um to Dr. Rice's point when he came in, that is what the communities at Central, the communities at Park View, and even Southwestern Hall said. We don't want the programming in all of our schools to look exactly alike. There should be some guaranteed components aroundmies around concurrent credit around um academic offerings that are the same and there should be some pieces that are different and unique in each one of our campuses. And I think as a team we're all in agreement that that is what um our
132district team says we're striving for because that's what our students and our parents and community members have said that they want. They want choice and we want to provide that choice in our district so that our students stay in our district. So I don't think it's a matter of whether or not we agree with the merits of this program. I think we all do. It is how we implement it in our district in a way that supports what our community and our constituents said they want in our high schools. >> To me that's a really important point Dr. is that that it's important I think for us to have for administration but also the board and administration together to have not only agreement on the what >> but the how >> because this this plays
133in very much to the how. Yes, this is a this is a how conversation and I think that's how that is how why we got to this point because the initial how um when we met initially did not exactly align with what our community stakeholders said that they wanted and the vision that we developed for the profile of a graduate from Little Rock School District based on what our students and parents and families said that they were looking for in terms of choice and options and experiences in our schools. especially I'd be interested in a future how discussion or work session. I think for to me that would be helpful. >> Sounds nice. >> Uh I'm sorry. Let me just uh do a check because we've had a couple of people. I think I've got
134uh Miss Callaway. Did you raise your hand again? Okay. So, I'm coming back around. I think it was strong um Callaway then >> Strong Rose, but I'll let her go. >> I'm sorry. Did you I'm sorry. Did I miss you? >> I guess you did. I did miss you. It was um I'm sorry. It was strong Rose. >> I I'll let Miss Callaway go ahead. >> Okay. And then Callaway Hatter. Okay. All right. You guys take >> Wow. >> Who's wait? >> Go ahead. >> Um I [clears throat] think just thank you so much for all of this clarity. I mean, I know Marcus and I had a conversation, too. I thought that was really helpful. So, thank you for taking the time to do that. And I just want to say out loud that
135I am grateful as a individual and a board member. I am grateful for businesses that care about our schools. I um we get we we have our fair share of challenges in the Little Rock School District and it means a lot that businesses are here um to say we want to we want to be a partner in in LRSD in Little Rock schools. Um, I think one of the questions I have is what is the financial buyin from the businesses that are part of this outside of I know it's a ton of work to get a a partnership together, but what is the financial buyin from a business that wants to be a part of this and have their logo on the big thing that says we're a partner in this work and and first
136answer that and then I have a follow-up. >> Yes. So the the financial buyin, if you will, from the partners y >> to be an academy level partner, there is a minimum inind contribution level that they have to meet to be that >> the director. It's $150,000 of inind contributions in year one and 50,000 in in kind contributions each year after. >> Most partners um achieve that through time and talent. And that that means they're spending a lot of folks >> uh to engage with our students and our teachers. Others have donated equipment that like to to various programs that they see a need and others have given direct contributions to the campus in terms of hey here's here's a check for in terms of like a grant to go implement the academyy's work and
137so that is the the threshold for that when we look at and I did not say this in in the the conversation earlier maybe I should have >> when we look at other really successful Ford NGL communities Nashville Akan Louisville right Fort Wayne Indiana there are a lot of folks there about 40ish of them across the country that are doing this work. Those that are sustaining the work across superintendent changes, board member changes, district leadership changes. Um their their convening organizations, their version of the foundation are funded in equal thirds. A third by school district contracts, a third by grants and other revenue, and a third by corporate partners. >> Okay? And so when we look at the the contracted agreement, I know that's like I I posed this the conversation like I did first
138to talk about is what is the commitment to this work and and not about the finances or the compensation piece of it because you know when we when we talk about those communities doing that, we're we're proposing a rate that is significantly lower. One one district gave their convening organization a $5 million grant to do this work for them. Another one gave them $3.5 million. And so we don't we don't I mean that would be great, don't get me wrong. Like we could do a lot of great great things with that. That's not what we're we're we're after here. We've got a $500,000 award from the state of Arkansas over two years um to help fill out that second third bucket. We've had conversations at at our board uh around what's the corporate fundraising strategy
139look like, right? And and longterm is there enough corporate dollars and fundraising to reduce or eliminate the cost burden on the districts. But this was the conversation, like I said, 2018 and on. We're just now at a point where we're enacting what was identified in that master plan as the next step. >> And so I think you're right. You're at a how conversation. Is this is this how you want to do this work? >> Right. >> And if not, >> okay, we'll be here to support you if you come back in two, three years and say, "Hey, we want back in." Right? I think that's the that's the the crux of the conversation. >> Okay. Okay. That's that is really helpful. I do I do appreciate that. Just understanding and I'm assuming our staff and
140team that works on this does not get to have the inkind contribution option. Is that correct? Like we can't have an inkind contribution to this work for the work that Miss McGomery and all our bar team >> put toward this work. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I Okay. Well, so well if businesses are getting to contribute their $150,000 in in kind Yeah. Yeah, >> then our staff contribution to the collective work can't count for that. Okay. Um, so I guess all that being said, I um I would love I agree with uh Mr. Adams, Mr. Bali. Um I think if we're going to on the how piece, I would love to understand like the student interest and student buy in on this and maybe at that at the school level. And I also um I
141mean we don't have if this is not in our budget that we approved in in was that October, September, September. um we don't have the dollars for this right now. We approved a budget that was $15,000 in the black this year. And I think if we want to look at our foundation that we have as a way and a place where we could garner some contributions that would help maybe us to have the funds to support that, that would be a really wonderful way to help work toward that. But I think in the meantime, you know, really figuring out the if and how. Uh, not that I'm opposed to this, but I do think it is um I mean I just don't know where those what what account Dr. Wright or Mr. Bailey what account
142um in line item on our budget those dollars come out of right now. >> I would just add we we had conversations with each of the four superintendent in December and January about this is this is what's coming up. So that there was time to plan for that, right? I understand things happen and >> so I so I think that we're going to probably >> Those didn't involve a specific amount, did they? >> We talked about the >> per pupil rate that we had discussed. >> So we'll um we'll probably look at a work session for this, but let's hit these last three questions and then I know that we want to hear from security and I think perhaps they have to leave at some point. Um and so let me just go ahead and
143hit these three, Miss Callaway. Then we have uh Rose and then Hatter. Okay. Go ahead. >> My conversation was on finance. Uh where we gonna get the money. >> Oh, your mic. Sorry. >> You can hear me. Okay. Okay. Uh my conversation is on the money. Where we going to get it? >> Okay. So, you can't commit the dollars you don't have. We don't have it, do we? >> What I will say is >> we do have >> no this amount or these amounts were not included in our current budget. >> But >> we do have >> I will say there are things that we did budget for that if this was a priority for the board, we would have to go back and look at what we committed to do that we're no longer
144going to do in order to cover this. Thank you, Mr. Rose. >> I would like to remind the board that six months ago when we were cutting and slashing. >> Now, let me hold on to that. Let me go back a little bit from that. Miss Bllelock is flamboyant and as a result, I think most of the time she doesn't get the credit she deserves for the work that she does in getting business partnerships of the kind that you were talking about, Mr. Balik. Community level partnerships. uh 6 months ago when we were cutting and slashing we were going to just do away with her department and then we decided that we wanted to invest in it rather than do away with it. >> Thankful to Baker. >> It needs to go on. That work
145needs to go on. I don't suppose that y'all have talked to Miss Bllelock don't have to answer that. That's where we've been doing that work. We've been partnering with businesses for a since as long as I've been here and that's a long time now. long. >> We've been doing it a long time without any help from anybody except Miss Blocklock and her department. That's some people that this is uh kind of saying that their work's unimportant and I don't believe that. >> Thank you, Miss Hatter. >> Okay. Um a few things. Uh what VIPS does is very different than what um because VIPS is not um uh doing trainings and bringing in >> uh partners like like this. Um it's more >> anyways but but but you know how VIPS works. So, um, and Tammy
146and, um, Jackie does an amazing job, um, over at BIPS with just a staff of two and very thankful for, um, um, Mr. Baker and the community who came out to help, uh, keep that alive. So, with that, um, my question, I have a few of them. I will first start off with um Miss McGomery is about Metro. Um I haven't heard of conversations around the elimination of uh Metro. So is is that something new that that's coming up? >> It's not new. It's been floated around since we started the academyy's work about shifting career pathways to our to our traditional high schools. It's been in the conversation, but no decision was made to to keep to keep it. >> Okay. What um Metro then we get special funding from Noah from the state because
147uh we then we service multiple districts as well as private homeschool and charter school um students that go to Metro. Uh the last check that um the last time I saw the numbers those Metro is is p is primarily at the time was uh LRSD students. Correct. Yes, it's still primarily LRSD students. We do support students from other uh districts and charter schools and home schools. Um but Metro because we receive vocational center aid, that's how it's funded. And so the Little Rock School District is not doesn't have to pay salaries of the staff at Metro or buy consumable items or equipment or anything uh from as far as that's concerned. >> Okay. And so yeah, but you fund criminal justice and culinary arts, >> right? Okay. So [laughter] just Okay. So um and so
148around that our funding for Metro it is done primarily not not because it's just the not because we serve primarily LRSD students. It's it the funding is there because we have a wide arrangement of different students coming in that um that does not majority make up um LSD. So, >> okay. And and right now we're sitting at what about 70% 80% of of LRSD students attending Metro. >> It's probably closer to 90 >> 90%. And so we really don't have a lot of districts use using um Metro at this just something to think about. % of our students attend Metro. >> No, no, no. 90% of the student of the student body. [laughter] >> And I will say that it's Metro is a career center, right? >> And the whole purpose of it is is
149designed to support students in Palaski County who want access to the skill trades. >> Okay. >> Very good. >> Um and so Okay. Okay. Very good. Um, I was just curious because um I was just curious on what that number is cuz last time I checked it was between 70 and 80 uh% of um those students were LRSD students. So since then it's now 90. My Okay. So my other question is um Okay. So with with ourmies because like you you you sit in a very unique spot because you're able to you work with uh Metro and you also work with themies. Okay. um and the the implementation of it because we have been here for a while. Um and to hear that like we are still at phase one after 4 years. Um what
150have been some of those thoughts? I mean because I mean because we heard um well central was never really part of the the conversation right from the beginning. Park View, there was some teachers that actually put together a plan and and they figured out how how how that will work and then that plan never got used and then a lot of those those teachers are not at um a number of those teachers are not at Park Park View anymore. Um so my question is what has been the barrier from the district um being further along than stage one? Uh well, I think we're further along than stage one. Uh that's a misnomer. Uh because right now what we're doing, we're investing over $500,000 into the academyy's work and just out of from district support by
151hiring u my role. And we have academy coaches at three of our schools. And those academy coaches uh they ensure that we're implementing what we call guaranteed experiences at the school level. And so we uh right now we're offering a freshman seminar class at every one of our high schools um where we're paying for those teachers and that number is not included in the $500,000 amount. And those teachers they implement uh the freshman seminar curriculum where kids are exposed to various career options, college options, you name it. Um and they uh attend the the coaches helps plan all of the guaranteed experiences. For instance, the career expo that's coming up on November 12th. They're working tirelessly to get kids ready for that for that event. They just finished mock interviews for every freshman at our
152school and bringing in partners working alongside um with their business partners to bring in individuals from industry to interview for kids to practice interviewing. Uh at the 10th grade level, they plan industry tours to take our students out if they're in a particular pathway. We want them to go out and see what that industry is like. Um, now where we haven't made great strides is at the 11th and 12th grade level. We uh we're going to try to do job shadowing this year for our 11th graders in a pathway. Uh, [snorts] and we have the ambassador training that's that's put on by uh the foundation. But we're making we're doing a lot of things. Um, but it we're where we haven't we haven't done teaming to that to the degree in which for an NGL
153would like and we have not done uh the wallto-wall implementation. >> Okay. But but we've been clear from the beginning that these are the things that we can do right now in Little Rock School District. >> Okay. And so wait, can I can I add you said something that made um >> and so like you said that you believe that like we we can do all of these things within Little Rock School District, >> which is something that I heard our superintendent say that like we that that like he believed that we could do these things within in-house. So how do you believe that like we can do it with within our walls without the [snorts] foundation and then the partnerships that bring because I heard you say that a number of partnerships have already
154come with it. >> Well the partners were developed because of our work with themies of central Arkansas. That's how we obtain partners for themies and we have branded partners at Southwest Hall and Parkview right now and they help us with some of these guaranteed experiences and coaches also go out and uh recruit partners on their own as well but they follow the framework that was put in place by themies. >> I do want to provide a a clarity on the level one implementation. I think the misunderstanding is that is based on the Ford NGL model which is a wallto-wall academyy's model. Um so if we're looking at that specific framework then yes we are probably at a level one but if we're looking at themy's implementation overall I would agree with Miss Montgomery we are
155much further along than that. We have um pocketmies at Parkview. We have um successful academy pathways at Hall where right now because of the size of hall it's not feasible to be wallto-wall. We have a number of pathways andmies at Southwest with guaranteed experiences and um a lot of for NGL alignment it is just not exactly aligned. So if we're looking at exact alignment, then I think that statement is true, but it it doesn't really speak to all of the work that we've done as a district to implement. So I just have one last question. We offer over 34 career pathways in Little Rock School District. >> Yes. Yes. >> So So we need to move forward. Let me let me let me I mean, we're going to have to have a work session, okay?
156So that we can really have a work. >> Well, and we we need to do that. So I have one last question. Yes. >> There's anything that's burning that's burning. >> Yes, it is burning. It's not really burning, but um >> Come on then. You got >> I mean because this is the whole point, right? I I think that maybe perhaps we should have had a work session a long time ago um around where the board stand um with Metro. I mean not with Metro but with themies because for years the board never had any um issues with and with the with this until these emails start going back and forth to right to the board about us feeling like we could do it the in-house the cost and all these other things. So my
157my my question is >> um okay so uh Dr. Right. You you mentioned that like there are other um models and that this is not the only um model which obviously there there are other models. Um I've seen other models um but is is is there a line of thought about moving away or moving in into a different direction um with [clears throat] a different found foundation or a different model? So neither I and well I'm going to speak for myself. No, I have not taken the time to research other models um per se, but what I do know that we can do I mean we've already increased the number of pathways that we have. Um one thing that the foundation has done and I think you've heard it clear a number of times tonight
158is with the part the you partners that they've been able to identify for some of our schools. Yeah. may be a lift or heavy lift for us to take on that work um ourselves, but if we're going to keep investing in, we've got our own academy coaches at every single school. We have Miss McGomery. Um if that's something that we have to take on, I don't Yeah, maybe a hard hill to climb. Um but I believe we still can. I mean, I think with every career pathway that we have in the district, there are businesses and entities in this area that we could potentially partner for if we didn't have a foundation uh to work for us. I think the the biggest thing for me is not and you know, Marcus and I, we probably
159talked more the last two months than we have since I have been here. Um but the the the biggest issue for me putting the finances aside is that all the training the support that the foundation provides is based upon this Ford NGO model and for whatever reason all of the work that needed to be done to get all of our schools in a place to understand what that is and understand how that is going to look or can look with the way that our schools are currently functioning. that work wasn't done and the way that we are currently functioning and operating as a district, we will never be aligned to that model. And so the professional development that we're paying for, >> the coaching that we're getting, um it's not it's it's not going to
160it's not going to fit the way that we're currently operating. And so now that we have to put, you know, money out of our pockets, yeah, we're taking a closer look at um this partnership to determine is it worth us investing in a model that does not align to how we're currently operating. It doesn't mean that we want that we want to bike away from themies or the academy concept. Yeah, I was just thinking about just just overall being good partners if we're just now really starting to and too I'm just listening to what everybody have said, but if if if if we are just now and or the administration cuz the board we've never talked about this until really now. um if the administration is just now starting to look at the the the
161the value the um the the the return on investment um after I don't know I I we would need to get the numbers of the the dollar amounts but I'm sure it's over millions of dollars from other people money that have been invested into our district with partnership and in kind and now we're hearing what I well what I'm hearing is now because we're being asked to pay into it 117,000 or what 1171 whatever that amount is it is a paid position a high I mean we we um pay [clears throat] people that amount of money in our district but um but but then if we are just now if the administration is just now starting to do a deep look into whether or not this fits and start having these type of conversations because
162we are being asked to pay into a foundation that is doing the work. It seems a bit disingenuous um to just now do monitoring um and then assessment of the work and value that have been paid in by the private and whatever however this money came about to come into the district because we are we are saying that we have to pay for it. So um that that is how it sounds. So, I don't know if that's the way you meant it to sound, but that's how it sound because you said now that we're having to pay, we are looking and it doesn't fit. So, >> so I can go back to my first year here um when we were dealing with this same issue with Park View specifically where we sit here in these
163board meetings, I had the same conversation about the alignment of 4 NGL in this district. We had conversations about why aren't we moving forward with this at Central. We had conversations with why aren't we and we have these same conversations about these difficulties, the barriers and so this conversation just didn't start now. What started now is the foundation is being created or was created just now. Um and so we're having these same conversations that we have again the same conversations that we had in 23 when I was here about that. I asked this board, is this something that this board is committed to do and are we going to keep going forward with this? Because in some schools, nothing was really happening and there didn't seem to be any concern from anybody up here about
164the fact that we were moving forward in some schools, we weren't moving forward in others. And so these conversations aren't new. So, >> is that more of a district issue or is that a board issue? Because that's because that seemed like aation issue. Good. >> Okay. So, Miss Callaway had a comment and then we need to wrap it up. Okay. >> Okay. First of all, I hear you. >> Okay. >> I I hear you saying that needs to be >> Excuse me. >> We had this conversation. Yes, we did talk about it. But first of all, you got to have some money to do that. Okay. Now, in February of this year, y'all missed it because most y'all don't read the Democrat Gazette, but there was a big article in there about all the money
165that was taken from this district. And then the next thing you know, we eliminated programs in Metro. It was in a paper. Y'all don't read paper. But anyway, it was discussed. Period. We talked about this $50 million. The next thing I know, all these programs from from Metro are gone. You had to lay off teachers. You had to close programs. You had to eliminate programs to the point, okay, if you are on your third year in this program, we're going to keep you for a year because we don't have the money because the governor took our money and said she's going to put it somewhere else. That's what happened. We've had this conversation before. many times and I don't want anybody to think that we haven't. Nothing's wrong with your program, sir. Nothing. But our
166issue is the money. The money was taken from this district. Now, all of this that Miss Montgomery that you're saying all of that that is definitely a plan. It that's the plan that should have been implemented. But you can't do that if you don't have the money. Okay, whatever people please understand. We want these comm uh the these uh uh uh uh I lost my mind. Okay, we want all these things to go on and I don't want anybody who's listening to think that we don't. But if you can if your money can be arbitrarily taken and then you have the point where you can just take money from a school district, you kill programs, you try to kill the school district. Okay? There's nothing that says we can't do that. I think that the
167the the the staff, we had the money, we could do all of you. That [snorts] That's no money. $170,000. That's no money if you have it. But we don't have it. That's the point. We could have had it, but that money was diverted to wherever. Look it up. Okay. Thank you all so much. And we will reconvene. No doubt. Okay. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. >> Okay. Okay, we're going to go ahead to the seven. >> Do we have Do we need a Are we okay? Let's go through it. 7.5. >> So, can we go ahead to 7.5? Is that doable so that we can have that safety and security uh brief? >> I move we suspend the rules to proceed with 7.5. >> Second. >> It's been moved and properly second.
168Thank you. Uh do we need all in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Suspending the rules to modify anyone. >> The agenda item. >> Thank you. Anywhere >> seven >> LRP. Yeah. LRPD. >> All right. Uh we're going to welcome up Chief Assistant Chief uh Dyer. Um this is 7.5. It's a safety and security update, but um I know that we didn't have an opportunity a couple of weeks ago, remember? uh to >> 10.5 7.5 >> to uh have the update um and uh discussion with LRPD. So we are bringing it back uh to this meeting uh so that we can talk about a SRO program. I know that there was some questions that we've had around uh the use of pepper spray and so happy to have our partner with us. Chief
169Dire Assistant Chief Dire Am I getting the title right? >> You are. Okay. >> Thank you for your patience. >> What was your name? >> Chief Dire. Okay. Did you have a presentation first or shall we dive right into questions? >> You can dive straight dive right into questions. >> Any questions that you may have? >> Very good. We'll get us started. Can I start it off? I I just have a quick question. Um because the way it's on our agenda, there's nothing there except for safety um like a presentation. >> Um >> what are you here to discuss? Because there's nothing. Are are are you here to discuss the SRO program the are you here to give us statistics? I mean just so I can start formalizing my my my thoughts. >> I am
170here to answer any questions you may have in reference to our protocol when utilizing uh pepper spray OC spray within your school. >> Okay. And so the district >> or any other question you may have in >> Okay then. And so like you're here based on a conversation two or three about two two months ago that we talked about pepper spray being used at central or some school about it. Okay. [laughter] >> Any other question? That's how it came about. >> Any questions you can figure out? >> Okay. So let's go ahead and get started. Thank you. Um regist get us started. >> I I will get us started. Um thank you Chief [clears throat] Dyer for being here. Um I think I'm I'm one of the people I think who's requested that you come.
171Um I had a lot of um constituents reach out to me after a a recent incident um on on the central campus and um where their students um were affected by overspray and crowd control usage it seemed like of pepper spray um during a fight on the campus of Central High School. Um, and one of the questions that we had asked a bit of social of sec of of security, uh, Mr. Elamine was, you know, what the protocols were. And I think that is something that y'all develop, it sounds like, together. No. Did I make that up? No, this is y'all develop. Y'all have the protocol once. So, we we do not allow our security officers to have pepper spray weapons, etc. But when you guys are on campus, your the SRO's are able to
172carry those items. And then also they are are they the people responsible for calling in additional reinforcements from community police officers if and when that were ever to happen. >> They're responsible for calling in uh backup if something like that was to happen. Yes. >> But the the but the SRO's do carry pepper spray and weapons on campus. >> SRO's are they have all the equipment that any other officer would have. >> Okay. >> That's resources just the title. Can you share a written protocol? Maybe not at this moment in time or or describe the protocol that you all have for when you use um pepper spray. >> Well, we have a resistance to response protocol. Okay. >> And within that resistance to response, there are several levels. And if an officer if if any
173incident reach a certain level, the officer has the right to utilize uh u one of their uh I wouldn't necessarily say weapons, but one of the things that they've been that they've been given to make sure that we are able to disperse a crowd um without causing any injury to the officer. >> So you can use this to disperse crowds. You can is that what pepper spray was used for in the instance that was discussed a few months ago when we ma'am it was not because we were not interested in the crowd. I think that was brought up earlier. Uh we were interested in in and making sure that the fight that was going on uh discontinued. Um I think what needs to be understood is that when we send an officer into battle, we
174send them into battle with as many tools that are available. Uh every officer has gone through a significant amount of training in reference to these things. We go over our general orders continuously. Uh a school resource officer is no no different than a patrol officer, a detective, or anyone else that's been certified as a Little Rock police officer. They just happen to work in a school. So when we have someone uh depending on the subject's size uh the amount of people that's involved in the incident will determine whether or not an officer deploys their pepper spray. >> Okay. So that's kind of a game time intuition absolutely uh situation >> down to the second. We don't go in go in with the mindset of I want to spray somebody today because more than likely that
175officer is going to get hit with that spray also. It's not just the subjects that are involved that's getting hit with that. The officer themselves may be affected by that. Um, so we have to make sure that >> it fits, >> right? >> Because we don't want to blind ourselves with all these weapons on our tool belt and someone's able to take some of those weapons off of those off of our tool belt and use it against us. >> Um, [clears throat] you know, I definitely am just to follow up. I'm almost done. This is my last one. um absolutely supportive of of safe school environment and I know um you know we we do have we do have fights on our campus. We all got the data at our last uh work session to
176go look at that at the school level through Aubrey. Um but I think my concern is in in using that in a way that affects that is not used for crowd control but affects a large number of students who are simply walking to class. Um >> it that to that is what was reported to me that students were just walking to class and they were impacted by the pepper spray that we was used to break up a fight that it was near that was that was not not where the students were or were going. They were walking away from that area that were not involved at all. Um is that a typical response? I mean is that a typ typical uh outcome from using pepper spray or is it the type you're using? What type
177of pepper spray are you using? I think there are a lot of different kinds. >> It is absolutely a a typical response. Um >> so when you're talking about the type of incidents that we're talking about, I think that everyone has a hand in this. Okay. >> When we have a fight at a school, I know that people want to stand around and watch, but it will be best for them not to do that. >> I don't think that's what was happening in this instance. Now, >> yeah, >> sometimes >> it does flow. If there's fans blowing in the auditorium, in the cafeteria, wherever this may have occurred, it may catch a fan. It may blow out into the hallways. I'm not saying that it doesn't. Depending on the amount of pepper spray that was
178used that day and and what that's going to depend on is how many people was involved in the fight. We all know that when fights break out at schools, there's normally not two people involved. It's many. So, if we're having to break up a fight that uh has many people involved, then we may have had to spray more than one person. There may have been more than one half second burst of pepper spray. Um so, we have to look at all of those things and and that's what we do when we have an incident like this. There's a full investigation in reference to that. >> Do we want kids to be affected? No. But there are some protocols that can be put into place. you know, maybe we need to maybe we need to look
179at >> when there's a fight on campus, the school security handles that. And if there's a law that's being broken, they bring the after they after they disperse the crowd and deal with the individuals that are fighting, bring them out to the officers if those officers have broken the law. And we'll we'll address it. Mhm. >> Um, but the one thing that I think everyone up here needs to understand is that as many officers go to go to work every day, we expect those officers to go home. >> And we don't want those officers to go home injured. And we all know that when you get into a brawl, the likelihood of that happening, it's pretty high. That's why we give them the tools that we give them to make sure that those that are
180involved in these type of situations are um we're able to bring it under under control and take control of the incident that's going on. >> So, do I apologize for kids being hit with some of the spray for whatever reason? Yes. We never mean for things like that to happen, but things happen and we have to address those those issues. I think similarly to the way that you expect your officers to come home, many of our parents expect that their kids can go to school and not be pepper- sprayed. >> Well, it's not the intentions to to spray kids that are not involved in incidents, but when we're given a tool, we're going to utilize that tool. As I said, the one way that we can get past that is that security handles the incident
181and if there's a need for us, then we're called. But if we have to go in, >> if a if an officer has to go in and deal with that, we're going to deal with it utilizing the tools by our policy that that [snorts] we that our policy allow us to to utilize. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Director, I think I was at um Rose and then um I have Adam, I have Volley, and then Her did you or was it Johnson? Okay, you guys work it out. Who was >> first? Work it out quiet. Okay, go ahead. >> What happened? >> I said work it out quietly. >> Mr. Uh, you said SRO is just title. Do they not have special training? >> They do. >> Okay. How many hours of special
182training? >> 40 hours of training. >> Yes. >> And I hope that a good part of that is about crowd dispersal because they're going into schools. And you said just a second ago that crowds tend to form around fights. So there's training in crowd disperse crowd >> that's that's involved in that training also our special response unit training which most of ISOs are part of. Okay. >> So yes. >> All right. Um you're a police officer and police officers have their own way of referring to things but don't ever say again that we have battles in our schools. >> We haven't had battles in our schools. We haven't had battles in our schools since the early 19 >> Excuse me. Okay. Excuse me. We're not going Excuse me. Excuse me. Let me just respond. Let
183me just please. >> We don't tell anyone in this room how to act. I mean, we don't have the authority to demand that anyone does anything. We can request and ask of any individual anything we desire. But please, let's refrain from telling anyone what they should or will do or not. >> Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I've been doing this for 30 years. >> Over over 30. Matter of fact, I've been doing about 31 years. No, no, you don't have to apologize for some. But let me address this. You can think of us and the way we do things and the terminology that we use, however you want to do that, [clears throat] but nobody outside of my mother tells me what verbiage I can use when I am being questioned. If you don't want
184to use that verbiage, that's up to you, sir. But I'm going to use it by the terminology that we use. So, I'm going to go back here. Any other questions for me? >> Yes. Let's uh let's go down the [clears throat and cough] road, please. Uh Mr. Adams. Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Thank you for coming. Um, two questions. One, you talked about the the the crowd dispersement or the or the crowd control, and I wondered if you would um since that's not the purpose of pepper spray. >> Correct. >> But I wonder if you could uh talk at least a little bit about what the approach is for that in a school. if if there's a crowd and you're trying to disperse them, what would be some of the techniques or approaches that would
185be used by SRO's to do that? And the second question is you mentioned the possibility of uh looking again at protocols about the relationship between what is handled by the SRO's, what's handled by the security. And I'm wondering if is is is that something you think would be a constructive thing to do for us at this point, you know, with um for us to take a fresh look at those relationships. >> Well, to answer your first question, um when I say crowd dispersements, it's it's more along the lines of when we have a a riot or something like that, we're trained on how to disperse a crowd. So when when we deal with lot large crowds, it's normally in a situation like that, we don't consider a school and the and the children that go
186to a school a crowd, they are part of that environment. So we train for that environment. But when you have a huge event happening inside of a small uh place like a cafeteria and there may be I don't know, I don't know how many people break for lunch. which I've been out of school many years, but I don't know. But I know that you may have one, maybe two officers depending on which end of the school they're at. As we know, Central is a really big school and we have three SRO officers that are assigned to that school. Okay? So, when something like that goes on, we don't know how or when or how long it's going to take for that officer's backup to get there. So if we have a huge amount of people
187that's involved or we have a large amount of people that stand around, the officer has to fight through and get to get to the eye of the storm, right? So once we get there, that's the focus. It's not we don't go in and just shoot pepper spray in the air. it's going towards those that are involved because the way that our uh resist to response uh works is that we have officers presence then verbal direction and then we have soft empty hand control which is a part of our correl hand I mean hard we have hard hand control which is when we lay hands on people and that's what we would rather not have to do, right? Because there there becomes issues not only for the student but also for the officer. If I have
188a 5 foot3 officer going going in and they have to deal with a 6'6 offensive tackle, there's going to be an issue. So, we go in with those tools so that that officer as well as that young man or young lady can go home because we got to rise one level above whatever level we're at when it involves any type of use of force. We have the right to go one level above. So when we think about those things, that's what we think about when we talk about um when we talk about the relationship between school resource and uh school uh security officers. Um like I said, I've done this for 30 years and I am the assistant chief over the uh investigative bureau which also houses the 21st century policing model which involves school
189resources. And this is the first time I've been involved with the schools and I' this has been a huge learning curve for me, but I'm I'm I'm in it. Um I love doing it. Um so I think that there are some things there. Uh I know that North Little Rock has a security team that's outside of their police department. They don't use police officers within their schools. Jacksonville is the same way, but you're talking about one school, maybe two. Little L Rock SKU school school district is huge. Um, and I don't really know any other uh any other department whether it's police or otherwise that could handle uh the amount of schools that you have. So we we could probably look at developing some sort of protocol. Uh that would limit the amount of interaction
190when it comes to uses of force and things of that nature. We could probably look at that and limit that um and see about getting the uh I'm not saying that the security don't do their part because they do. We couldn't do what we do without our security without the Little Rock School District security team. um we couldn't do what we do. It's too many kids at each one of these schools for the amount of officers that we have there. Um but when it comes to things like this and the expectation that there may be uh something put into place to where we're not going to allow the officers to utilize the tools because it's a school setting, we can't do that and we we will not do that. Uh, so if that's what we're
191looking to try to get done, um, I don't see that happening. >> That's not That was not my suggestion, sir. >> Well, no, I know. I'm just I just put that out there. >> No, but I appreciate your your thoughts and your elaboration on your thoughts. I think the thing that appealed to me about your comment about the protocol was that, you know, it seems to me that when you have a situation that goes po that goes poorly in some way and if people got impacted who were not involved at all and and all then that that that's a something that nobody wants, right? >> And and if that happens and we look at it, it you know, one option would be to say, you know, we did everything. It's it's just going to happen
192sometimes and that's the best we can do. Or there may be an opportunity to take a fresh look and say, is there something we could learn from this? Maybe we need to maybe we could rethink some things about how we do things to minimize the chances of that happening. I I agree that it's impossible to eliminate, you know, some of these um collateral damage as as you might say, but but but I think that it seems to me like that it might be a helpful thing to think about it as an opportunity to look take another evaluation of how we do things. >> Yes, sir. And and and and thank you for that. Um, we have used uh we've had to utilize pepper spray three times this year and only one time within a school
193setting. I wasn't there. Uh, I didn't see a lot of the video that took place, so I don't know how many people were involved, but that that should tell you. I know we've had quite a few disturbances at some of the schools, but for for me to know that we've only utilized pepper spray within a school one time and it's almost half of the years is about up. Um that speaks volumes to me. That tells me that there's a lot of restraint being being happening with the officers that are involved. So yes, one incident is huge because it did affect people that were not involved, but that's everywhere that we go, any large event, football games, the fair, it doesn't matter. It it takes a while to clear that. And the officer had they they
194they believed that that was the only recourse they had at that time without really really injuring anyone. >> Thank you. Thank you, Director B. Uh, thank you for being here today with us. >> Yes, sir. >> Um, as speaking to somebody that's been pepper-sprayed and me too >> and not >> a couple of times and and not being a part of the issue, uh, I can understand why parents and students would be upset about it. Uh, and so, but um, so my question is, you know, um, two things really. >> Mhm. uh and uh two different things. Um as far as like education, education [clears throat] for our students uh on what to do when a fight occurs? Um, is is anybody from LRPD helping to educate students on on those type of things? Uh,
195so that they understand that it's a there's a time to to stand and there's a time to walk away. Um, and also just non-confrontational ways to show up at the school cuz I personally believe uh we don't need as a police presence every day at school, but that's just me personally. Um, I I feel like uh we can keep our schools safe um and call on them as as needed. Uh but community engagement is I know one thing that Chief Helton has talked about and I think there's uh a lot of times not often opportunities to build relationships with students. And so I just want to know is there any ways that there LRPD is educating students on what to do when a fight or altercation happens? what ways are police officers showing up not
196as uh to uh not in a punitive way but to show up to build relationships and not be viewed as enemies by the students. And the second thing that I wanted to also mention is uh you know there was an incident this summer at one of the the schools here in our community. Matter of fact, the school that we were honoring today during the celebrations, Mabelville, uh where students were over 50 students were uh detained, arrested, and charged uh with crimes that I I still kind of find it hard to understand. And so I I just want to know does LRPD know that our community schools there really isn't a way to be trespassing during the daytime because of the hot spot wifi the uh mission for them to be emotional and social support so
197that if there's another incident where many students show up to community school which is available not only to students but parents and residents in the community where it won't be an instance where they jump to put kids in handcuffs or put people in handcuffs because they're at a community school which I say once again has been a place for students to be in community members after school hours >> during the day. >> Mr. Bali, thank you for your question. Um first and foremost to your to answer your first question, we would be more than willing matter of fact um that was one of the things that I thought about after this instance coming up with something to where we can go to to the principles at some of the the bigger schools um where these
198events would happen. And because it it it it doesn't just need to come from the police officer, it needs to come from the administration, too. um when we talk about um what should happen because a lot of times um in my experience not all kids are going to listen at what police officers are saying. They're they're not trying to hear you at some points in time. Um so it's good to have like a collective effort when we're dealing with this. Yes. I I I think it's valuable to advise students of what they should and should not do. Don't stand around and watch a fight. We get it. You want to see this or see that. You don't want to have to hear about it. Don't stand around watching that because you know what's coming behind
199you. I know that Miss Strong has said that some of the kids that got hit with the spray were not standing around watching it. And I and I get that. But there has to be some sort of protocol put into place that when that happens, if you're not involved, clear the room. If you're not involved, clear the room. Um, and I think that would help us down the line, not only us, the security personnel that's responding also, because we don't have to work our way through people. We can get to the immediate u uh uh uh problem right there at that point in time. We don't have to stand there and look around, do all these other things. we can see what's going on, see who's doing it, and and get it resolved as quickly
200as possible. So, yes, I think that's something that we could definitely look at doing, trying to put some sort of protocol together uh that involves both Lark Police Department as well as Lark School District. To answer your question about the deal that happened this summer, I'm not I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not going to go back and revisit that. We dealt with that. it wasn't it wasn't an issue w with us because there were so many other things that pertained to uh what led up to the actions that were taken by the officers that a lot of people are not familiar with or not aware of um but we have gotten that resolved and moved forward from that um so that's where I am with that one >> okay thank you next
201>> thank you for being here. Yes, ma'am. >> This evening, >> for me, in order to implement change, I need to know what needs to be changed or corrected or or whatever. So, hypothetically, >> Mhm. If there is a fight that breaks out in the cafeteria and you have a security officer, one or maybe two in the cafeteria and you know, how do how do the SRO's get pulled in when you're probably down the hall maybe on the outside? How do you enter into that event? Well, from my understanding, I think they have a radio that for our dispatch, but they also have a radio uh that where they communicate with the school security personnel. So, I think they are radioed, but I'm not maybe Mr. Elamine can answer that. I'm not for sure how
202they're actually pulled into the circumstances or the situation at hand. uh if they are down the hall. Um I don't know how security reacts. I I don't know what the protocol is there. I just know when we get called we're coming. >> So security actually call you to the fight. >> That's what I'm thinking. Or the kids may start screaming. It's a fight in the school in the in the cafeteria. If if it's at central I think central is three floors. If you're on the first floor and something is happening on the second floor, the f first floor, then it has to be a radio. um to where that's happening. That's the only way that uh officers could be made aware. >> So most times when the officer shows up, the fight is still going
203on, but you definitely have security there in the space. Is that correct? Would you say? >> I would want to believe that if if the officers when from my understanding if it's lunchtime and you have a slew of kids in the lunchroom, there should be an officer in there with them at that time. Um, sometimes that can't happen if something else is going on in another part of school. Other times they'll probably be in >> Excuse me. Could you, Mr. Alamine, could you assist in that particular piece because he wouldn't be aware of that because he's not there. So, [clears throat] could you speak to that and then perhaps you guys are able to speak collectively about how that >> Yes. So, the SRO's have school radios just as well as um so they they
204hear the traffic on the radio. So, if there is a fight in the cafeteria and the security gets on the radio and say, "Hey, I have a fight. Uh, I might need some assistance." Well, at that time, the SRO knows that there's a fight in the cafeteria as well as other security in the school. So, everyone's coming to that fight to to u you know to try to mitigate that as quickly as possible. Uh, but during the lunch period, you know, the SRO's are stationed uh in different areas of the school. Some there may be an SRO in the cafeteria because there's a large group, you know, there's a large group of students doing lunch. So, you may already have an SRO in the cafeteria when something uh if if a fight was to uh
205to occur. So, uh that's that's the makeup of the school there. You know, the officers are always the security officers are there and uh during lunch uh there's always an SRO close to the cafeteria. So once it's over, who writes the report? Because I'm pretty sure what you just said goes into the report. >> Yeah. Well, the security officer is definitely going to write a report. >> Uh depending on the nature of the fight, uh the SRO may complete a police or incident, a supplement report. No, we if if we if we had to interact, if we had to lay hands or anything like that, if we had to react to a point to where we had to get involved, then we write the report also. But a lot of times, we don't want to
206bring any type of negativity to the school. So, we'll allow the school district to handle the paperwork for the report. >> Okay? So, when a fight breaks out, there's really no protocol. You have a radio, everybody know there's a fight and everybody that's available is going to come to the fight. Is that correct? >> Correct. I mean, you know, we have security officers there uh and their job is to ensure the safety of the students. It's like, you know, in class movement, the whole entire that's our that's our role there to at the school. So quite, you know, our role as safety security is to if there is a situation, we're going to jump in and and try to address it as soon as possible. But again, if you have school resource officers there at
207the school and they also hear the traffic over the radio because we definitely going to again, we're going to let administration know we need a principal or we need someone here to uh assist us with with this. And so the SRO is going to naturally come and assist us as well. That is his head. >> Okay. Um for All right. And so like uh we have SRO's our LRPD. That makes it easier for me um to distinguish who are we talking about. So we have our LRPD school resource officers in the building. And two, just to take it away from central because we also have Southwest and it's very active. It's more it's active. So um so and so will so since these incidents and fights are just a part of school life. I mean
208um fights happen. Um I think from what I remember from the conversation before the issue was about pepper spray. Mhm. >> And so, and there was a line of thought forming that perhaps some members didn't didn't want that use of pepper spray within the the the school and um for the school district to put some guideline guidelines or perimeters around certified law enforcement officers. And I think we walked away from that. um with the notion of um there there needs to be a conversation and that LR um LRSD uh cannot tell LRPD how to be certified law enforcement um because we are not qualified to do such and we can't legally. [laughter] So my question is you answered the question about pepper spray which is really the reason on why you're here. >> Okay. >>
209Um with the fight situations when when conflict happens in in in in schools. I know at one point there was this thought line that LRPD was supposed to do do school management of brown behavior and then that had to be worked out. Um, so if you hear that there's a fight going on over the radio and there's other and naturally you will come and see about you will come you will intervene and to break up the fight >> but the line of thought with the officers at least from my experience from the ones I talked to it is not to break it up and then charge the students. It it is to bring control to the uh campus to where administration can um figure out what the resolve will be for the infraction. Correct. >>
210That's correct, ma'am. >> Okay. So, I wanted just to talk about the school to the prison um pipeline. I just wanted to talk about that because at one point uh we had a um it was when uh our last chief was here. We had a um a a behavior uh meeting where [clears throat] law enforcement LRSD and some of our community partners came came together and we talked about the number of infractions that are happening. we talked about um how how how how can we better work together and then it was supposed to be a follow-up and a follow-up um didn't happen. So my question from that line of thought is do you think that another convening needs to take place between the LRSD um board and and then our school resource officers with LRPD
211um to come up with I don't know if if we need to but come up with policies or framework around use of force with with within in the Little Rock School District. >> I don't um and it's because protocol is protocol. We can't change protocol for one officer that's not going to be reflective of the the the next officer. When we have issues at any school or where we have to call officers in off the street, they're not going to necessarily know protocol that was developed by the Little Rock School District and the Little Rock Police Department, right? because we have our general orders is about this thick. So, we can't continuously add to that for officers to be aware or try to get all of this type of training in in a 40hour week.
212Um, we have to we have to stand on the protocol that we have now and the general orders that we have now. And hopefully it fits, but like I said, um, as you stated, there have been many there have been some instant some incidents at some of these schools. uh some daily um and we have had to utilize pepper spray once um and most of the time, Miss Hatter, when we're talking about an instance where we have to utilize pepper spray, it's because the officers have gone in and given commands, the officers have gotten in the middle and the fight continues. They have done what they need to do to get to that level. Does that make sense? So it's not like we walk in the door, as soon as we get to the door,
213we start pulling tools off our belts. No ma'am, we understand that these are some somebody's children, just like all the most of the officers out here have children. And we want those children to come home unharmed. And if those children have any harm to them, there better be a good reason for that. The overspray, all I can do is apologize for that. I don't know why or how or what happened, but when it comes to a direct spray of someone, there has to be a level and levels that we follow. And if they don't, the officer is on the line for being disciplined over that. >> Okay. And then the I like two two things they're really quick. But with the pepper spray, um pepper spray lingers depending on the size. Like if it happens
214in the hallway and and there's a pepper spray or else it's not it's a small room. Um you could pepper spray could have been uh um used and then a person's able to come 15 20 30 minutes later sometimes depending on how small that space is and the ventilation and then like you are you are still able to have some type of reaction even 15 minutes um after the deployment. So I I do think that um I I say that just because um although the incident may have been over and students or whomever people are walking in that space, if they walking in that space where it's deployed, it may still be lingering in the air. So I just wanted to bring bring that up because I have walked into a space me [laughter] >>
215and and then I have had a reaction. I do want to the last thing I want to um what I want to end on is um the um positive engagements >> with law enforcement. um oftent times uh law enforcement um that are on our campuses because we have some really good SRO's like we do not see uh pictures and video >> uh like in other states and places or uh even elsewhere in the state no where SRO's is slamming uh well LRPD is slamming down children or or um having um some unpleasant um moments on uh cam but can you talk about the save save our sons um and then how how how that um program by LRPD is in place for our boys uh gyms which is a program in place for our boys
216um our girls yes our girls um and then um there is a summer camp uh that that happens that um uh is youth engagement and then I think um officer Humphrey, I think she had just started a um like like a girls group um as as well. And so can you talk about some of those positive interactions that happens uh with the youth with law enforcement and whether or not at some point um LRPD used to you you are tracking Whitney, aren't you? I am. I know you are. Everybody else might not be, but I know you are. Um uh so the positive engagements and as well as LRPD used to go into and they still may go into high school classrooms and just talk about positive um behavior and just positive interactions and um
217if you could speak to uh no matter if those opportunities um of having our officers go into [cough] the classroom still is still there. Well, you know, it yes, we have several programs in place. Um, Save Our Sons, we we we we started Save Our Sons because of the program that was in in place before it was only uh for uh AfricanAmerican young men because there was a when that was started, there was a huge issue with gang violence. Huge issue. And a lot of the gang violence uh in turn was involved African-American young men. But as we grew and to be the Lur Rock Police Department, we could no longer say the only people that could be a part of this program is African-American young men because we have black, brown, white communities and
218everybody deserves to be a part of this if they want something positive outside of the household. So we open it up to everybody and that's been going pretty well. I think we have somewhere around 78 80 young men that we deal with twice a month on Saturdays. Uh we spend about four hours with them, sometimes a little bit longer. The ones that are part of those programs, we go into their homes, check with the moms, always look at the grades that are being made. Um so we put a lot of time into to those uh students children. Outside of that, the gyms program is a program for young women. Uh I think we have somewhere around 78 young women that's a part of that program. It's along the same protocol. Twice three times a month.
219We will get with them, take them to different events, things like that, and just show them the positive side of being a a person that's uh having a positive reaction to whatever uh uh issues they may be having at home, they can bring those to the officers and we can talk that out with them. Um, when it comes to things outside of that shop with a cop, you know, heroes and helpers, there's just a slew of things. And then there's officers that take it upon themselves to go out here and do other sidebar things with people that they see are are in real need that they need to separate a little bit from the group. It may be instead of 78, it may be five um that are really having some serious issues that they
220need to get away and be able to speak on a one-on-one basis. Um there's a lot of positive things that that go on and and not only that, the the SRO officers that are within the schools, they they should be going into the classrooms and speaking about the positive side of doing what we do. uh coming up with different uh uh tight titles and things like that that we can go into the classrooms and speak about and make sure that they develop that that personal relationship. But at the same time, I I I need to be clear with this. Everyone in here has seen what's going on throughout the nation. >> Okay? And we all know that there are people that are taking advantage of the school system and they're going in and they're hurting
221people's children. And the first thing when I came over here, the first thing that I said was if something like that happens, you're going to be up on your the way you shoot. You're going to be up on all the protocols that involve locking the school down. and you're going to make sure that you are out on post doing your rounds and protecting what needs to be protected and that's the children and the and the and the teachers at this school. That's our focus and we know for a fact that a lot of times people are bringing the issues from the streets into the schools. So I think it needs to be clear that we are protectors. I don't mind being counselors or uh teachers or someone that hugs a kid periodically, but I don't
222want anybody or any of my officers to get it twisted while we are there. I was main purpose and that's only because we've been driven to be this way. We want officers in the schools that don't mind the mother and the father type. But what we've noticed is that the police department is getting young, but the young officers know the streets. The young officers knows what's going on and they know what to look for before it hits. So, we have start getting quite a few younger officers. It used to be you you have 10, 15, 20 years on, you go into school resource if you want to. Now, we got officers with three, four years on going into school resource. So they're they're very young in their careers, but they're very good at what they
223do. And anyone that wants to take on that role, I'm going to give them the opportunity to do that. I don't care how old you are. You can get it done. Let's get it done because I need someone that can not only hug someone, but can get to the incident, whether you drive or run, and can can shoot the wings off a fly if that if that's a need. So, we look at those things and we make sure that any threat that may come into that school off of the streets, we can we can eliminate that threat. Period. Make sure every kid goes home safely. >> Thank you so much for your time. Anything else we need? >> I just have one more question. So, when you do have an event at a school >>
224Yes, ma'am. >> and everything's been resolved, but yet there were some things that maybe if you did it this way or will you consider doing it that way? Do the SRO's and safety and security, do they ever sit down and and dissect an event that happened? Kind of like give give them somebody give them a little, okay, if you try like this, this may work out better for you or andor. >> Mr. Elamine has a direct contact with Lieutenant Ford. I have a team. I have a major, a lieutenant, two sergeants, and then the officers. And so Mr. Elamine or somebody from his team would normally make contact um with somebody on my team if there's a need to do that. I'm pretty sure they converse about those things. I know that's what I get.
225>> Yes, I I definitely meet them. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, I definitely meet with Lieutenant Ford. uh especially when we have uh serious incidents in our schools and we definitely sit and pow-wow and and there are times when I don't agree with what he says and he doesn't agree with what I say. I mean that's just the the nature of it and being prior law enforcement myself I understand where he's coming from but then being in the school setting he has to understand where I'm coming from. So, uh, you know, I get to be po, you know, you know, I'm in a position to be the best of both worlds, but I think that there are times when, uh, you know, we we do come to a mutual agreement, uh, on on
226certain situations and and it's still a work in progress. >> It's still a work in progress. I mean, you know, nothing's going to be perfect, but uh, we are trying to address those issues. >> Thank you. Thank you both. And we expect that you'll continue to work collaboratively to make it happen. >> Thank you, Chief D. All right. Y'all have a good one? >> Yes. Okay. 7.1. Are we okay to go to 7.1 or do we need a break? >> I would like a break. >> All right. We'll break for 15 minutes, please. >> 10 minutes. Five minutes. >> Okay. 10 minutes. >> 10. >> Yeah. We only got one thing left. As soon as she calls us back [laughter] as soon as she calls us to order, I'm going to make a motion. >>
227Okay, we're going to go ahead. I'm sorry. Call the meeting back to order where we continue to have a quorum. >> I'd like to move to suspend the rules once again and move 8.1 forward to now. >> Second. It's been moved and properly second that we modify the schedule to move 8.1 to 853. >> Yes. Go ahead and move forward. Communications MP the marketing update. >> I know that means y'all sorry >> marketing update 8.1. >> Was this a discussion? >> I didn't she she >> Pam and our guest does not need any introduction. So u >> yeah and thank you so much. Good evening, President Wesley Board and Dr. Wright. I don't really want to take up the time because I know the hour is far spent, but I've been very excited to work
228with MHP. We've accomplished quite a bit. We've had several meetings, but I'm going to let Christian Nicholson tell you all about it and the work that is ahead. So, thank you for the opportunity. >> Thank you. Okay, now I got to figure out how to >> Could you tell me your name? Mhm. >> Kristen Nicholson, MHPSI. >> Okay. It's all in one. Okay. >> Yes. One >> I think Pam's getting me there pulled up here. >> Good evening. >> Excited to be in front of you again to give you a progress report. And here we go. Okay. So, as a reminder, our assignment is to create a strategic marketing plan for LRSD. Um, okay. All right. Our assignment to create a strategic marketing plan focused on um brand awareness, brand perception, but ultimately to uh
229drive enrollment, recruitment. So that's what we're working towards. our update today. If we can go to the next slide, Pam, thank you. Here's a timeline. So, we started uh back in July, really August with kickoff with discovery and orientation. We are now in the middle of focus groups. We started in September. We're uh working to wrap those up soon where we're having a series of uh stakeholder interviews. Um so, that's in progress. We will be regrouping in the next couple weeks with um marketing comm's team, Pam's team to discuss preliminary findings. There's been some some key themes that we've found as we've been talking to all these stakeholder groups. And then we'll move into our planning phase which includes uh strategy and positioning uh creative recommendations centered around messaging. Messaging is very important. Then go
230into channel strategy and media planning. How are we going to spread the message far and wide? What channels will we distribute that message uh through? Uh stakeholder mapping. How do we um engage the community? How do we engage those stakeholders outside of media uh media like traditional media, digital media um through some PR and community outreach and then uh the goal is to work towards campaign launch in uh 2026, which will be here before you know it. Okay. So, focus groups, we have been deploying a method called appreciative inquiry, which essentially means we're meeting with your champions, your stakeholder groups that love LRSD. So, we've met with classified staff, we've met with teachers, we've met with principles, and we've met with department heads. We've had a few interviews with you all, and we're working to
231get all of those interviews scheduled. And then we have dates uh scheduled for students, parents and community members which obviously are very important audiences. Um so we've done we will do eight so far we've met with over 50 people next steps conclude the focus groups analyze those findings and then share the preliminary draft with Pam's team. Um Pam has been sharing some competitive um recruitment news blasts with us on a regular basis. We've also been gathering our own intel during this process just to get a good lay of the land on what other districts are doing for recruitment. Um we will then layer on our findings from the focus groups to help inform that message. But really what beyond the message, the distribution channels are going to be very very important. uh we need to
232deliver a message to the right audience about what's in it for them. Why do they want to send their kids to a school district? Because every person, every family has different needs and we have to tap into those needs with the right message and then we will be presenting a full plan in December. So that is a quick progress report. Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. Any burning questions? I just have one over there. One really I mean burning questions. I mean burning I mean do we must we go ahead. >> We must we must. >> Go ahead. Who wants to go? Adam. Go ahead. >> It's burning. So [laughter] >> now I wonder if you could talk a little bit just a little bit. Thank you for all the work. I wonder if
233you could talk a little bit about the community members that you plan to reach out to. So, we're working with Pam to identify those community members. Um, I believe that there are certain groups like your PTA groups. Um, I know that you have a whole department that works with the community outreach and business outreach. So, she's working with those teams to identify um the the best champions. And of course, timing and availability is also a factor. >> I don't know Pam if there's anything you want to add. >> Okay. are is there a possibility of talking to community members who are not LRSD supporters? >> That's an excellent question that I anticipate you would ask because it's very important to this process. So, we have um some tools that are available uh that's primarily technology
234that we can deploy listening. So, social listening uh news monitoring and then we can deploy tools to um gather all that listening and to analyze it. I also actively follow I'm a parent myself although she's a toddler and not quite ready but you know it's never too early to start planning for your kid's future. Uh I'm in several mom groups and we're in the recruitment window now. So everyone's going to these Facebook groups and asking it's time for you know me to enroll my kid. Where should I go? What do you think about this school? This school. I'm actively listening taking screenshots and saving those. >> Thank you. Yes. My question was very similar just that can we help advertise for parents that we know would be interested in participating. >> I personally would love
235that. I don't know the process >> but I think the more uh the more the marrier because we need we need more. >> I think we have lots of families that would be I know in zone 5 there are lots of families who would love to help >> contribute to the conversation. So >> yeah, >> I think the the only thing is we're restricted by timeline. >> Yep. >> Because we do there is a sense of urgency to you know act. >> Could we get that just like your ask and how people sign up or >> absolutely we can get you we have some dates earmarked on the calendar that I will work with Pam to get to you. >> Okay, that sounds good. And just how to sign up. >> Yeah, how to sign
236up and then >> where to go and all the things >> there. [snorts] We we do act we do ask for a certain group size. >> Okay. Um just because with focus groups you want to make sure that there's somewhat of a control and they don't spur the life of their own and become not as effective as you would want from a focus group. But if we do get an overwhelming sense of response, we can always break that up into multiple groups. >> The only other thing I would say kind of to Mr. or Adam's point um is just that I think that that there may be a lot of like um I know in work people talk about quiet quitters or what you know quiet quitting things but people who may be leaving or
237planning to leave the district who haven't really like aren't putting that out on social media don't want to drag the district through the mud but just have made another choice and I do think there is some value in understanding understanding that as a district I mean if those are the folks that are leaving us um I think there is that might just not be something you can get from like social media I absolutely agree and I would advocate for this plan to be a constant learner so that when you're getting those data points next year uh when you're seeing the certain students that may have chosen to go elsewhere to input that back into the plan so that while this is a media plan or a channel plan for 2026, how does that impact the
238plan for 2027? And those data points will be important data points to have those informed decisions for the next fiscal next fiscal year. >> Thank you so much. >> I have a question. >> Oh, you do. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Trying to >> Pam. Do we still have that exit application? >> Do we have exit when parents or families exit the LRSD? Do we still have that program? >> Is that something we can look at? >> I don't know specifically what you're referring to when you say when they're leavingit exit interview or exit form or exit >> that probably was something that was conducted through um student registration >> but obviously you will have an opportunity to have these extended conversations with Miss Nicholson to see what you would like to see as part
239of the plan. So hopefully all of you who have not participated in the conversation uh if you would make yourselves available based on the dates that we provide for you. >> I know we just need a little some options like like the >> we have some dates. We have new dates that are coming your way. >> I tried and got told no. [laughter] >> The sooner we can get those I know my calendar is booked up for like three weeks right now. So it's like mid November. Yeah. >> So that would be great. Have >> have a couple of you have participated right. All right. Thank you. Just >> any other questions? Um, do you guys have something? Okay. >> Feedback, concerns, >> Thank you. >> Are you good? Are you good? >> Okay. All
240right. We're good. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> I looked in. >> All right. Okay. Um 7.1. >> All right. Resolution for local support of 2026 fifth year master plan. Just making sure y'all are sure. It was my birthday before and y'all told me it was my birthday. Then my birthday back again. All right. Good evening. We good. I got several folks in the room that's going to be participating maybe in some of these things. I'm going to try to be as brief as possible here. Get connected here. First one should be fairly short for us. I think here it was. >> You all quit smiling, so you really didn't need to hurry. [laughter] >> Yep. We we only about three and a half hours in so far. So it's >> early early
241night for us position. All right. [laughter] >> It's really way over 71. >> Uh is it going to pop up for me? >> We're backing up to 7.1. >> All right, [clears throat] y'all. >> We did 8.1. >> All right. >> Good deal. Go back. barely peeking over the edge of the >> Sorry, I closed out one of my documents. >> Make y'all wait for >> I love to wait. So before you uh on this agenda item here as far master plan, so we gave two weeks for public comments here and you all had it before you. Uh it has quite a few attachments there. You can see uh when I pull this up, it's going to have actually the resolution along with our committed and planned projects for the upcoming years. Uh typically we
242we try to go out for partnership funding as well. We were successful this past him. uh what you have before you're going to see I think we we talked a little bit about this during the agenda item you have your ADA requirements you have a lot of custodial schedules and everything that is pretty much our plan that how we maintain our buildings throughout the the district there along with any uh plan and committed projects out there um had a twoe comment public comment period I don't think anybody made any public comments the signin sheet tonight was a to help facilitate one of the sign requirements we have to have for signin uh so that's why it was a lot of folks on that signin sheet I tried have have safety and security to help me
243out with those. But unless you have any question, I do have Miss Woodridge here, which is our consultant that helps us with our master plan as well. She works very closely with our uh maintenance operations division. Thank you for being here tonight. [laughter] >> Get up and speak since you've been here so long. >> You can have two. >> I really don't want to. [laughter] >> My name is Joanne Waldridge. Um I've worked with y'all for quite a few years now. I don't know exactly how many. Um but um yeah, I'm the facilities consultant. All things master plan, all projects that go have to go through the state. I I meet with uh Mike Ellis um every other week. We go over every other all new projects coming up. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank
244you. >> You can go to bed. >> The chair will entertain a motion. I move that the LRC board of education approve the attached resolution. >> Second. >> It's been moved and properly second that um the LRSD board of education approved the attached resolution. Any questions or other further comment? >> We should probably read it. >> It's a legalistic thing. >> Well, it's been attached. >> Go ahead. You want to read it? I can read it. You want to read it from here because I don't have my close my Yeah. I mean, have my glasses back. >> Pull it back up. >> I got it pulled up. There we go. Resolution for local support of 2026 six-year master plan and partnership project applications 2729 bianium. Whereas the Little Rock School Board has reviewed and voted
245yes to fully support the school district's 26year master plan and 2729 partnership project applications. And whereas the the Little Rock School Board understands that the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation must approve said master plans and project applications. And whereas the Little Rock School Board understands that when partnership applications and master plans are approved, the academic facilities division through the legislative appropriations may participate in the construction of academic facilities at the state computed wealth index as funding permits. Be it resolved that the Lark school board has voted to dedicate local resources to meet the school district's share of financial participation and approved new construction projects on the six-year master plan and applied for within the 2729 partnership funding bienium. Um and then there is a piece that says does the board intend
246to seek electorate approval to fund the district share? We said no. Does the board intend to dedicate other local resources? And we said yes um May 2027 and then it will be signed by lots of people and there is an attachment with a list of the projects. Okay, it's been moved and properly second as read. All in favor? >> I say I. Any oppose? The um motion. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> 7.2. Thank you [laughter] so much and thank you for your patience. I'm sorry about it being a little ly. Yeah. >> Glad you came. >> Come back. >> All right. So, the next 7.2 resolution authorizing the sale of real property. This is the second resolution. We had a resolution that where we list it. This is 25 Sheridan Drive, formerly Metal Cliff.
247Uh the property appraised at 530,000. We did I think this may be the second or third offer that we got. Uh so this one hopefully is going to stick here is for the the p the appraised price of 530,000. So this resolution gives uh Dr. Wright and myself the ability to to sign whatever documents to close out if he gets to that point of closing. They're still going through the due diligence. Uh it's it's Carter Youth Recovery Center. That's what's going to be go there. So that's the plan there. >> U so I think it's maybe something good for the community as well. So we're happy to >> hopefully get this off our hands if we can. So it's been vacant for about three years now. So um it was two years on the underutilized
248list pretty much on the master plan there. So we had it up for sale I guess the last I need about six months or so or less out there. So >> any questions about this one? I entertain a motion. >> I move it. You want? >> No, you can do it. >> Oh, I just have a question. Um, >> it is for Carter crew. So, do we need to insert their name? Because the way it reads now, >> it's on the >> It's It's open. >> It's on the resolution here. It say where? Yes. The first paragraph here. >> I got it on the screen if you want to look at it there. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Um, well, Mr. uh Rose may want us to read the resolution also. Um, >> it's not
249necessary to read the resolution, dear. It is. >> It's there though for your review for our review. Um, okay. Well, I move the LRC board of education approved the attach attached resolution to execute the sale of excess real property located at 25 Sheran Drive, Little Rock, Arkansas to Carter's Crew Youth Recovery Center. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded that the LRCD Board of Education approve the attached resolution to execute execute, I'm sorry, the sale of excess real property located at 25 Sherton Drive, Lewark, Arkansas to >> Carter's Creek Recovery Center. >> Recovery Center. Um, any question? >> One question. Mr. Bailey, was this built into your budget for this year? >> What the sale? It wasn't yet, but it'll help out. it goes. [laughter] >> No, no, I'm serious. >> It It wasn't. No,
250we we didn't have this offer when we actually had the budget approved. So, we were hoping to >> It's going to help out the budget because the longer it stays up there, it's been vandalized some. It keeps us from having to spend money by safety and security and maintenance operations folks going over there. But, it goes to help out on capital improvement once we get those. No, the reason part of the reason I ask is that, you know, we approved the budget with for $15,000 in the black and if we're selling something for in excess of $500,000 of revenue that we had didn't budget for, >> it'll help out. >> That gives us a little more breathing space than we would have had previously. >> Yeah, it does. Yeah. We typically have put all the
251money that we sold a building back into capital improvement. So, we don't use >> requirement or is that something we just do? >> We just have. Yeah, cuz I mean the need is always need moved and properly seconded. All in favor? Any other question? I'm sorry. Moved and properly seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? The motion carries. >> All right. 7.3. >> This is where I have a crowd of here. >> So, they've been waiting around for this week. >> We have our uh maintenance operation uh some team leads here. We have Mr. Bird and Mr. Robertson here along with our performance services personnel. And uh they're right here. So, I'm going to grab I'm going to just jump in here right real quick. You know, we have a lot
252of mechanical needs out there in the district. We identified some Renew America school grant. Uh we had, I think about 16 schools on there. These are two schools that weren't included on there. That two of well three of our older schools if you consider, I guess, Plasky Heights Elementary and Middle School uh two schools along with Forest Park. >> Uh you all have some pictures there as well. I'm I'm show you all a few pictures there. >> It was bad. >> Bad bad. Yeah. >> Do I need not show you pictures? But no, these are realistic kind of what we're dealing with in some of these older schools. I mean, Central's older school as well. You're going to see these units like here were way beyond their use for life. And I mean, they're not
253getting the air quality that they probably need in these spaces. So, this is >> two projects or three projects that we've been looking forward to. We actually have partnership funding with the state on these. Uh, and I started partnership with very little bit on this. I think it's about 2.9. Mr. Will Black, you can come on up and correct me. Y'all been waiting. I know y'all want to stand up. So, y'all come on. >> Just stretch. >> Just to stretch a [laughter] little bit. He probably has a longer drive >> strategies to keep your honey from going to sleep in this. >> So they provided all these things as well. So you'll see different controls here along with the different schools that we have here. >> Uh I don't think I don't know if I
254need to show you any more pictures. You all probably look through the pictures already at least. So you know there there's a need there. So but I do have they've been waiting here about three and a half hours. I do need them to say a little something. But this is a major project here of about 12.9 and anything bring before you all u has to have board approval of a million. The uh gist behind this is that our energy savings based on what they're going to do and propose is going to pay for the debt service which is all in-house financing and performance service has been with us I have to see how long it's been now 10 12 years probably I believe. >> So yes we looked at our uh major energy hall schools
255several years back and issued a performance service contract and they won it. So that's when we did a lot of mechanical along with the LED project that's just finished I think on this past year. Uh so I'm going to pull up You all have a scope of work out there as well. I don't know if you all how much detail you want to go into those. Uh but I want to let u say not much. So >> So it's my birthday now y'all. And maybe wait. But no, this is a big one. So it's not my birthday. >> Oh my god. >> I got all these presents here to give you. >> I'm so sorry. >> You always spend your birthday in the woods anyway. >> Oh yeah. I will trying to get there. The
256weather's getting right. Uh but you want to just get tell them overview of the project? >> Yeah, just very high level. Yeah. So I'm Will Blackwood Performance Services. I'm business development manager. I've got a couple folks here with me. Robert Gan is development engineer. Michael Thompson's one of our PMs. We had a slew of folks looking at this project. Um initially when we stepped in, we had really just the two uh Forest Park and the Flasky Heights projects that had partnership funding. Uh when we talked to Kelsey originally, he said, "Yeah, we'd love to do that. We don't have the funds for that and I said, "Well, if we can find energy savings to help close that funding gap, would you be willing to talk about that?" And he said, "Well, of course we would,
257but you know, who knows, right?" Um, these guys went to work. I'm not the brain power, obviously. So, these guys go to work um and find not only enough to cover that funding gap, but also in excess of close to $190,000 annually over the finance term, which is 20 years. So, um, >> did you just say $190,000 annually? >> Annually, that's the average. So, that escalates up, but [snorts] yeah, that's the average. That's correct. >> For overall for all this >> well each year over 20 years which is the finance term. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. So the first year gross savings is in excess of $700,000 >> gross. That's gross. >> Wow. >> When you take out the finance payment, you're left with on average for that 20-year finance term an average of about
258$190,000 excess. >> Is that in all of this somewhere? I don't remember. >> It depends on how you structure the finance. you can structure the finance to frontload the savings so your net positive every year you know but it it does acrew more interest that way so that will lower the the amount overall so and that decision doesn't have to be made tonight that the financing piece which is in house we just assign that to a financial partner but as far as how you want to structure the financing you can determine that in the coming in the coming weeks and months so >> that didn't have to be decided tonight >> oh I see that >> yeah back here >> so that's what the cash flows if you look at that as well >> yeah
259I just got there >> if you want to go through that bit by bit. I'm happy to, but if you want to go home soon, I'm happy to not go to bit by bit. >> I just have one Can I ask just one question? >> Ask whatever you want. >> So, my I have a kid at Palasky Heights um who I was just saying that like his we could either have the radiator on or teach last year, I think, in his classroom. So, I mean, it was you were either cold or you you could teach. >> Um so, I'm super excited about this. Is there going to be central heat and air or more window units? >> There will be no window units. >> No. [laughter] >> That's so awesome. Yeah. Okay, that is a
260huge, huge, huge improvement. Yeah. >> And no radiators. Oh my gosh, y'all. >> You have no idea how exciting this [laughter] is. >> Well, good. I'm glad to hear that. >> Um, also live in an old house, so I mean, I know that, you know, they they tend to let the wind blow through, but this is amazing savings. Is there like energy efficiency work done at the same time this is done, or is that just kind of >> So, on these two campuses, there will be some efficiency gains just in the systems that we're installing. That's not what's really driving your savings. Most of the savings come off off of the other eight campuses that we're going to be touching because we're going to be it's going to be involved with scheduling for HBAC and
261such. So that's where the savings really gets driven >> like bad timing when your air comes on and off. >> Yeah. When it comes on, when it kicks off, it can't run all night long. That kind of fun stuff. Um so we have some overrides that will allow some local control for, you know, a couple of hours at a time if someone happens to stay late, but then it reverts back to the schedule so you don't have it just running all night long 24/7. >> Awesome. >> Eliminate that as much as efficiency. I have one question. Um when does >> listen >> when will the uh replacement and the >> um happen? When will the work start? >> So the work in essence the design work will start immediately. Okay. Um but in in in
262earnest the construction piece of that well the controls piece on the eight campuses starts very soon. Um Robert you want >> so come up. >> Oh I'm sorry. Step >> come up and stretch. >> Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Um the work with the control systems would start you know almost immediately within probably two weeks. >> Uh we would also be starting the design process for the HBAC work um very soon. Ideally, [clears throat] we would be sizing equipment uh so that we could get that on order so that we can start work uh you know late spring you know maybe some mobilization and things that don't require displacing students and then once summer hits we'll be you know very engaged in construction activities >> um you know probably a two-year process to get all
263of the work done >> okay so answer your question >> yes it does so wait you don't know if it does >> you saying it I heard you say it, dude. >> I said you [laughter] asked. Absolutely. You as you as you asked when will it begin? He said two weeks. He said all of that expounded on a $700,000. Ladies, come to order. >> There is a [laughter] there is a $700,000 um savings on the front end. You said >> what? What was that? $700,000. I'm sorry. >> That's the $700,000. Mhm. >> Was it a savings? >> Mhm. That's the gross savings. Yes, ma'am. >> Amazing. >> Okay. I I just wanted to circle back. >> Thank you. Chair will entertain a motion. >> Oh, I move I am so excited about this one, y'all.
264Hang on. Not there yet, though. Um, I move the LRSD board of education approve the attached amendment to the to contract in order to the to contract to the contract in order to complete the HVAC projects at Palaskky Heights Elementary, Pilaski Heights Middle, and Forest Park Elementary along with HVAC control upgrades at identified facilities. And that would be the contract with um, what is y'all's name? >> Performance services. Yes. >> Second. It's been moved and properly second that the LRSD board of education approves the attached amendments to contract in order to complete the HVAC projects at Pilaski Heights Elementary, Palaski Heights Middle and Forest Park Elementary along with the HVAC control upgrades at identified facilities with performance >> services. Um, any other questions? >> All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppose? The motion
265carries. Thank you, sir. >> Thank you for making my >> All right. And 7.4. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for sticking around. >> So, I do want too guys. >> So, Dave B is our assistant director of maintenance operating. >> Ben Robinson is everything else there. So, all the electrical, plumbing, and everything else, all the calls, they handle that. So, they all >> Thank y'all. >> Thank you guys. All right. >> Safe travels back to you all as well. >> So my last thing is 7.4 here. Yes, sir. >> All right. So this is our our financial update as of September 202. Y'all ready to roll? >> Yeah. Yes, please. >> Dr. Wright looks so excited. All right. Summary of revenue status reports. is generally the same thing. So, it's not much on here because
266I mean the the fiscal year just started. We approved the budget in September. So, collection is going to be very minimal right here as far as a property tax collection. You see almost 14 million in that uh period of time from the July through September. It's going to get a little bit more in October and hopefully November as well. So, this is fairly boring right here. So, I mean it's good to have money coming in, but a lot of these categories won't have money coming into the uh lot of part of the year. So, but I'll keep you updated on those. Unless you have any question, I'm going to go on to expenses as well. As far as expenses, uh, no major changes since budget was just approved September 25. And this is reflective of
267the expenses we had there. We do have some deficits in a few areas which we will be addressing. Of course, we uh we actually so well, we actually sold bonds. We don't close on them to November 18th. So when that money comes in, we actually put a budget out there for the other pieces on there, the architects and the construction services to get these out of the red, but we didn't want to budget revenue out there before we actually got approval. So uh but we'll get them get them going. Dieseline and gas gasoline and diesel. We did have a we do have more incumbents out there than we have budget. I think that cost is going to go down. We we did add 25 uh EV buses to our fleet. So that's going to, you
268know, allow us to reduce that PO out there to along with the buildings we have on construction. So, as far as fund balance, it's kind of ugly on some of it. I'm going to start from the bottom and go up. Child nutrition fund balance 856. So, that's good. Uh, still having they've spent down quite a bit of money if you gone to several of the cafeterias and things. You'll see some renovations going on, especially high schools and middle schools and other places with uh a lot of a lot of new uh things that make the cafeteria look nice along with seating and everything else. as the end of September of 25, our federal fund balance is negative 117. That's kind of a timing issue. So, as we are waiting on reimbursements from uh federal funds
269that that typically it can be a positive, it can be negative some months, but on this Monday it happened to be negative. Uh we hadn't had any problems actually getting reimbursements in. Hopefully that continue on with you know anything with the government, but we hadn't heard anything negative as of now. So, I think all the allocations are still in place for now. You >> shut down >> right now. Yeah, we're still getting it. Yeah. So, uh, we'll see. I'll let you know if y'all hear anything different. >> Captain Captain improvement fund balance currently as of September was 7 million. We of course that was down from about 100 million that we've uh started the last fiscal year with. So, we spent that money down. We have a lot of projects. I won't say a lot
270of projects. We have some major projects going on right now. We're finishing up uh Park View. We have some renovation over at Central and of course our our Pinnacle View High School as well. Operating fund balance, one of the lowest it's ever been. Right now, this one's pretty low. One $1.1 million. Uh so, and that's what we talk about fund balance getting pretty low at that point. So, you have to really watch all your expenditures there because you want to make sure you're making payroll, but also, you know, looking at those accounts payable. So, it's going to come back up as we get this next uh well, it's up a little bit now because we started getting some of the tax payments. It taxes due October 15th. So, if you didn't pay your tax for
271October 15th, got a little late charge going on now, but pay them as soon as possible. But, uh, we're going to get, you know, quite a bit of money in November as well that that we have to live off for the next several months until we get that that spring money. So, u, that's pretty much it. And you, of course, you can see the you can't even see it on here, can you? Have to make it big or something. >> It's like literally invisible >> right there. So, but you can tell. So, that >> Yeah, it gets us pretty weird. So, I mean, >> my finance department and I, we talk every day to kind of look at cash balances and everything else out there. Although, cash fund balance is a snapshot at that time,
272but if you get it that low, it's messing with your cash balances and cash flow. So, we really have to look at, you know, what was coming in and going out. So, and we're still looking at that as well. So, >> I think you just hang on to that Meadow Cliff money if it comes through. >> You just put [clears throat] it right there on that little gray line. >> Yeah, we'll we'll try our best, but we'll we'll get money in in November. So, the last three months have been pretty stressful. So, >> Mhm. >> I lost all my hair. Any [laughter] questions? You guys have any questions? >> Entertain a motion. >> Go ahead and make a motion. >> Question. >> Ask it in in discussion. >> In discussion. >> Got a question. >>
273Yes, we have. >> Board of Education approve and accept the September 2025 board financial report as submitted. >> Second. It's been uh it's been moved and properly seconded that the LRC board of education approve and accept the September 2025 board financial report as submitted. Okay. Uh any comments or questions? Was there a question? >> I have two um two things. Uh one was I missed what you said on the capital improvement for was it Pinnacle View High School like what did you say? I say the capital improvement fund balance has gone from a you know 100 million we got 100 million down to 7 million and most of this is already been exhausted as well that's why we had to we didn't sell uh so the major projects we currently have on is Pinnacle View
274High School we're finishing up some baseball and and lighting project along with Park View we do have some small other projects going on but I mean those are the major projects that I talked about >> gotcha okay so um question on I seen email where it said that we've been operating in the red for the past three years. My question is um and I know this is for our monthly statement and we are projecting forward and all of those things and we're going to at some point um in the spring have a reconstitution of the district by by its board going going from 9 to 7. Um, so at some point we do need to and two I could we already have a motion but I could make another motion for us to do a
275forensic audit around our finances and um our procurement and things like that to where like we are able to get a clear picture about where are we what have we done um right over the the last three years right to make sure that our board that is coming in knows right where we're at, especially with the reconstitution. And then um I know we keep talking about uh our loss of um finances and enrollment and um the vouchers, but for us the vouchers haven't had much of a impact right on our district. Um so it I I I think um either at the next meeting or so um or even after this motion and then I'm then I uh would would like to entertain the idea of um having an audit a for like a outside
276audit uh done right on our f finances to where we know exactly what where we are right as we're going through another reconstitution. >> I know y'all in the middle of discussion. And I don't know if I can make a comment since this y'all have >> save it till we vote on >> you first. >> Okay. Any other comment or question? >> I had one question for Mr. Bailey about just Yeah. I'm sorry, Miss Callaway. >> Um my question is about the shutdown and with our budget report for this month. I know I made the motion, but I do have a question. Um like I mean how how is the shutdown? I mean I know I talked to Dr. Right. And he said it's we had school lunch and breakfast through the end of November
277and that's it. I >> think so. But we have a fund balance as well. So I'll get an update from child nutrition. >> Okay. >> But so >> I'm not sure where that balance is at now statewide >> cuz it's USDA. I know our state we have a state division as well. So >> right >> they hadn't sent any notices out. I don't think you might have gotten one because Dr. Wright and Doc and Miss Walkahind is actually on the contract. So, but >> I mean that would probably be the the one that we >> most worried about >> worried about is feeding our kids. >> Well, we're going to feed them. >> We're going to feed them. Yeah, I will. Definitely. And you will. I appreciate that. >> Okay. So, um it's been moved
278and properly second that the LRD Board of Education approve and accept the September 2025 board financial report as submitted. All in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Thank you so much. Just quick comment before y'all I guess you make talk about a audit as well. So your legislative audit is required by state law. So I don't know if y'all know how indepth the legislative audit process is. Uh it's a lot more in depth than a private audit typically is. So I mean they're looking at every aspect of your financing your policies. If y'all have a policy up there, they're making sure we're following it based on our procurement guidelines along with einance is a a direct open notebook to a desi as well. So they see all the expenditures they go through.
279So they don't have to wonder about what we're spending money on because they can pull it all and look at it. So I commissioner. So y'all just you may want legal advice before you >> it's redundant >> before you uh get a private auto forensic typically you're looking for something you got to recreate. Yes. >> Um so, um well, I do understand that, but I do also think and too there this will be another conversation that I'll bring up and bring a motion for an outside forensic audit to look at um particular things within our budget. Um so, um >> they'll they'll need to find money to pay themselves. >> Well, we have money. >> No, we don't. we have. So at but but but at any rate uh we then we do need to
280at at um at a future meeting uh we I'll definitely be bringing forth um some language for a motion to do an outside forensic audit right over right over the particularly the last three years um right of our uh district uh operations. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. So, let's go ahead and move to board comments. Board comments. Any comments? >> I I have a comment. I [clears throat] want to um I want to say that Little Rock School District in our uh council of great great city schools did an outstanding job. Uh director uh Norma Johnson also did a excellent job doing her presentation. Uh the Stephanie and uh Dr. Lauren, Dr. Cooper, all the presenters that presented at the Council of Grace City Schools for the Little Rock School District did an
281outstanding job under the leadership of our uh superintendent, Dr. Jamal Wright. It did outstanding. I was so proud. I was so proud to be from Little Rock School District. It just made me feel so proud. >> Yes, that's correct. I did tell that we did what about seven presentations. So, we put Little Rock on the map. You know, somebody has to tell our story. we have to go and tell our story because we got some great things going on in the Little Rock School District and people need to know and then you go and you find out you're not the only one with problems either. So, it was really a great event. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Mr. Adam. >> Yeah. I just want to make two brief comments. One
282was we talked last month about the program that was going to that happened at Hamilton where they did a presentation of art and s and singing and dance and rap and and all and um my wife and I were able to attend that and we were so impressed with the students and the and the crowd support and the the staff. It was just such a positive thing and and I was really encouraged with um the direction it that it all the signs pointed to that how we're doing at Hamilton and alternative learning. So thanks to all the people who are involved in that. The other thing I want to mention was that um just a couple weeks ago all um we did for the first time have a group who walked in the Little Rock
283Pride parade and it was um people who um great thanks to people who organized that. Stephanie was the main person with that, but we had students, we had faculty, we had supporters, we just gave a real strong message that everybody in the district belongs and is supported and um and that was such a positive thing. And one of our participants who um has participated in many of these type of events around the state said that she thought that we may have been the only um public school district who's ever participated in such a parade. And so I felt very proud for our district on that day. >> Um yes. >> Okay. >> I'll I'll jump in real quick. Um couple things. Um I know tonight we voted on the early childhood uh sliding scale fee
284and the um early childhood um 0 to2 program fee increase for the private pay families. um due in part to the changes in the school readiness assistance funding from our state um and looking to expand and bring early childhood to a broader group of people. Um I know there's been some discussion on social media about this. Um I will say I know there was like a conversation that somebody let me know about earlier today and like little rock power women and there have been um just in some online forums. Um, I I just want to say that we are not um we are not looking at these options to hurt or harm anyone and there is a lot of flexibility with the Arkansas Better Chance program beyond just finances to allow children to qualify. Um,
285just a few examples um of uh f parents without a high school diploma or GED. A low birthw weightight baby parent is under 18 years of age at child's birth. immediate family has a history of substance use and or addiction. I mean, child has a demonstrable developmental delay. There are there are more several more on here. Um, a child with a limited English proficiency. Um, so there are a lot of ways that families can qualify for um the ABCs. We have over 1300 ABC slots in early childhood for our Arkansas Better Chance PreK program, PreK 3 and PreK4. Um, so what there and and we did do a survey long ago, about a year ago, a little over a year ago I think about early childhood and asked families and a third said they would
286absolutely be willing to pay and contribute to that if they were able um on a sliding scale and another third said they would consider it. And so um I really hope that this will be a way that we can expand our offerings on this. And you know, as in a time where we are our budget is crunched, it is important that we look at ways um most other districts our size are also doing the sliding scale if they are even allowing families over income um for the Arkansas Better Chance program to enroll at all. Um and we have been paying for that out of our some of I think some of our student achievement dollars over the years. Um and those are, you know, those are being stretched too as we have requirements for our
287third grade reading and things like that. So, um anyway, I just wanted to say that on early childhood um out loud so that folks know um a little bit bit about that. Um the second is that Dr. I asked Dr. Wright this week if um we could get a report from the Friday firm on the invoices for the lawsuit specifically broken out from our other invoices from the Friday firm. um as well as getting a monthly update at our work session on the lawsuit um um or via email, but you know, just make making sure that we are updated on what's happening there. Um and then finally, um open enrollment is about to happen. Um some phases of that come out next week. I know I've gotten a lot of questions over the past few
288days about the information that's come out. So, go check that out. make sure you understand and know um when you do have to enroll if you are looking at coming and joining the Little Rock School District. Um and finally, for those who I know there are folks around the district um gathering food for our families who are food insecure as SNAP benefits get shut off in a couple days here in Arkansas. Um I think Wick benefits for those families with a kid under five go uh we have enough funds to go through mid- November right now. Um, but there are a lot of families whose uh who may their only meals that they're getting may be at our school right now and I know there are some schools doing some local local efforts to help
289bring in food especially as we head toward the holidays. Um, so thanks to all those who are contributing and supporting our families. Um, I am super worried about it. I know our teachers and stu and our staff see that directly every single day and know which kids don't have enough food at home. Um, so if there are ways, I don't know. I just want to say like if there are ways that we as a board can be helpful in that to organize anything else more districtwide or anything else like that. Um, it it breaks my heart to think that kids may go home and not have food to eat at home. Um, so that is all I have. I know that was long-winded, but this there's a lot going on in the world right now
290and um, we are trying to do our best to help support our kids. >> Okay. Well, thanks. Um you you touched on sorry >> no. >> Yeah, but you're good. Okay. So um with first and foremost um um we do have uh a lot of um issues going on and maybe even getting with some of our um churches that have the feed the the programs through Feed America. uh because they uh I'm thinking about three three churches now that give and pull in large um they bring in semi-truckss full of food um to feed um communities. And so particularly partnering with some of those um entities uh to feed um our Little Rock and and beyond um families would be great. Um you already touched on uh early childhood. Uh we have an amazing uh
291program of course with early childhood and um like it was said uh our the the the team didn't um take raising the uh tuition very uh lightly. It's only 5 to10 uh dollars and it it goes up to 20 overall over a small period of time. And uh the other thing I I I do want to uh lift up is is the number of families we have that are um federal uh workers and employees that are uh within our uh district as well as within our city that are um going without uh a paycheck. um some of them are actually working and others are just waiting and waiting on even their unemployment to come in and and kick in um for for those that um um have applied. And so, uh, we definitely need to
292have a sense of, um, uh, compassion, but more of equity, uh, to where, right, if we see that, um, students are starting to act out of character or, uh, something of the nature, just understanding that not only are are we faced with food insecurity, um, we're also faced with um the income, I don't know what to call it, restriction, the income, the the government shutdown. So um so so um so that is something just just to pay attention to. And uh the other thing uh I would uh touch on I got two more things. They're very very quick is um I think next week it opens it up for uh for filings for boards. And so make make sure if you're interested that like you're getting out there and that you're fing uh those um
293getting your uh signatures. You only need 20, get 40. Um but at the same time, just make sure that uh if you are interested, understanding that this is a pol like a legislative uh board and it's a working board and um you definitely need to know how the system works. It's not necessarily a cheerleading board, but it is something that uh you have to understand policies and have a focus on uh something. >> It's not nearly as much fun as it looks. >> No. And plus it's [laughter] and plus it's a paid I mean it's a non-paid board and and so like you you you you raise money you raise money to run, right? If you have an opponent. Um but then once then once once you're here it's just your time and you get
294vip those hours if you're submitting those. Um so um in that just just just know uh yeah just if you're interested if you've been in any type of political workshops and trying to uh get into political office this is a great um uh space to uh understand how government works since public schools are part of is is a government entity. Okay. And then the last thing that I will say um and bring up um and I'll probably let it rest for a little bit is the uh I do want the uh resolution to be brought back for Michael Mason. Um because uh unofficially it have been decided. So I do want it just more official. Um and it is a resolution and no one is disputing that it happened. The um hangup is just doing
295it uh publicly. But uh but but then right if we want more of a harmonious and um just you know just overall good working um vibes then we should not be protecting uh someone that exhibited uh bad and aggressive behavior on multiple times. So with that, uh, I think I'm going to end it on that and but we do have good things happening in our district. Okay. So let's just bring it back to the students. Wednesday at Carver, Washington, I did my first small group. I had five young men and I spent an hour with them and when I left, I was like, please give the teachers what they want. [laughter] So, I'm waiting on MLK. They're supposed to be putting me something together for a small group. But, you know what? It was so
296inspiring. I I just really felt like that's where I supposed to be with that small group. We just did site words. We played uh bingo. We we read a book. We just of course I had to say stop. Sit down. Don't do that. [laughter] But it was just really inspiring. And these were third graders. They were kind of just on a little bit on the low end. And so I'm just trying to help them move up a little bit. And I mean it's I think everybody should go and at least make an attempt to do a small group of young third graders or andor anybody else that need to help. It was just encouraging. I I love it. >> You're welcome. >> I got one last thing good for the people. The um there is
297a and this I'll just share this. Yeah. Uh there is a scholarship fair that's happening November 6 and uh colleges and universities are coming to give away uh money. So regardless if you're in the Little Rock school district or beyond uh you are um definitely able to sign up and bring your students uh most most schools are going to get there in the morning. It's at the fairgrounds in the arts and craft building. Uh so um like I said student uh colleges and universities are coming uh to give away uh scholarships. >> Okay. All right. So if there is nothing else we will stand ajourn. If there is no objection, we are >> ajourned. Ajourned. All right. and universities are coming to give away uh money. So regardless if you're in the Little Rock