Call To Order: 5:30 pm

Invocation: Historical Tabernacle Baptist Church Executive Minister of Operations Reverend Michael Woods

Pledge of Allegiance: North Harlem ES 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen) Before the vote, Allen made a motion “to amend the agenda to include a discussion to address concerns regarding parental notification and consent in Signs of Suicide curriculum?

Special Recommendations

• Kelly Robertson, Principal for Stevens Creek Elementary School. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Jessica Williams, Principal for Blue Ridge Elementary School. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions

1. CyberPatriot 18 Competition

   1. Evans Middle School, 3rd in the state

      1. Tinsley Myers

      2. Dean Rudy

      3. Kaleb Tanksley

   2. Greenbrier High School, State Champions All-Service Division Team

      1. Chloe Bell

      2. Garrett Carter

      3. Daniel Keyes

      4. Colton Mulrain

      5. Yamil Soto

   3. Greenbrier High School, State Champions Open Division Team

      1. Jackson Cluney

      2. Kyan Fleming

      3. Cade Mitchell

      4. Alexander Miko

      5. Alejandro Pascual

      6. Cayden Wamsley

2. Georgia Music Educators Association

   1. All-State Band

      1. Evans Middle School, Daniel Martin (1st Chair Tenor Saxophone)

      2. Greenbrier Middle School, Aric Hilyard (Trombone)

      3. Harlem Middle School, Shane Smolley (Trumpet)

      4. Evans High School

         1. Sophia Martin, Bass Clarinet

         2. Riley McDaniel, Tenor Saxophone

      5. Greenbrier High School

         1. Jackson Banks, Trombone

         2. Kevin Berry, Principal 1st Chair Trombone, All-State Orchestra

         3. Jackson Hutchinson, Trumpet

         4. Rigel Kotas, Principal 1st Chair Bass Clarinet

         5. Eli Ly, Principal 1st Chair Tenor Saxophone

         6. Pancho Mancera, Clarinet

         7. Brian Peek, Clarinet

         8. Mason Rubano, Baritone Saxophone

         9. Noah Torabi, Horn in F

      6. Harlem High School

         1. Palmer F. Bloodworth, French Horn

      7. Lakeside High School

         1. Luke Baker, French Horn

         2. Cole Eichenberger, Cello All-State Orchestra

         3. Peyton Geigle, Alto Saxophone

         4. Roran Griffin, Percussion

         5. Daniel Kim, Trombone

         6. Tavanna Mindingall, Tenor Saxophone

         7. Steven Pang, Clarinet

         8. Avery Park, Oboe

         9. Rand Sayno, Trumpet

         10. Hanyu Su, Alto Saxophone

         11. Isaac Thomas, Bass Clarinet

         12. Harry Zhou, Percussion

   2. All-State Chorus

      1. Columbia Middle School

         1. Connor Ryckeley

      2. Evans Middle School

         1. Gabriela Clawson

      3. Greenbrier Middle School

         1. Jacquelese Bailey

         2. Lucas Beasley

         3. Ace Punke-Bendt

         4. Aric Hilyard

         5. Caroline Jameson

         6. Riley Lane

         7. Amelia Russell

         8. Johnathan Tran

      4. Grovetown Middle School

         1. Kaleb Alicea

         2. Katelyn Higgs

         3. Sophia Lipham

         4. Benjamin LoBianco

         5. Jah Slaughter

         6. Ariyah Smith

      5. Harlem Middle School

         1. Braelyn Benfield, Mixed Chorus

         2. Jayce Chancey, Tenor/Bass

         3. Allie Greene, Mixed Chorus

         4. Lorelei Patrick, Mixed Chorus

      6. Stallings Island Middle School

         1. Elijah Campbell

         2. Zachary VanGroll

      7. Evans High School

         1. Addison Colson, Treble Choir

         2. Sadie Pressley, Mixed Chorus

      8. Greenbrier High School

         1. Kevin Jiang, Mixed Chorus

      9. Grovetown High School

         1. Matthew Rayburn III, Men’s Choir

      10. Lakeside High School

          1. Kashvi Boga

          2. Paige Geigle

          3. Jiaqi Sunny Huo

   3. Music Technology Showcase

      1. Columbia Virtual Academy

         1. Colton Chaffin

         2. Iris Hoberton

3. SkillsUSA State Leadership and Skills Competition

   1. Evans High School

      1. Michael Hutchinson, Heavy Equipment Operator, 3rd Place

      2. Axel Lombera, Mobile Electronics, 2nd Place

   2. Grovetown High School

      1. Colin Davis, Automotive Brakes, 2nd Place

   3. Harlem High School

      1. Crime Scene Investigation, 2nd Place

         1. Madison Pollard

         2. Anslee Rowell

         3. Christina VanVoorhis

      2. Legal Service Test, 2nd Place

         1. Olivia Thacker

      3. Tactical Response Team, 2nd Place

         1. Connor Grant

         2. Brenden Holley

         3. Amaria Rucker

         4. Jaxon Sanchez

      4. Criminal Justice, 3rd Place

         1. Giselle Angel Hernandez

      5. Internetworking, 3rd Place

         1. Jackson Spegal

      6. Job Demonstration, 3rd Place

         1. Annabelle Summers

4. Savannah College of Art and Design Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

   1. Columbia Virtual Academy

      1. Iris Holberton, 3rd place, photography “A Walk Through Nature”

      2. Jordynn Wilson, 3rd Place, drawing “Longest Line”

Board Comments

Approval of Consent Items: A, C, D, E, F. February Financials pulled out. Yay 5, No 0 Februry Financials: Yay 5, No 0

Allen had concerns about the SPLOST 2017-2022 Report. Discrepancy between $800,000 budget for the central warehouse project and the winning bid of $687,700 from Carol Daniel. Clarification provided that architecht and engineering fees (typically 6% but recently as low as 5.25%) are separate from and additional to a general contractor’s bid. The architect is Aces Environmental Services (approved list).

Discussion Topics

1. Inspire School Spotlight, North Columbia Elementary School

   1. “the Dragon Way”

   2. Uses ACE framework (Engage, Enrich, Inspire)

   3. Transformation Rooms for Engagement: Starbucks Cafe, etc

   4. Student Goal Setting

2. NexGen Cyber Robotics and AI Update, LeAnne Gregg and Stephanie Gamlin

   1. Aims to prepare students to be creators of tech, not just consumers, in partnership with cyber field leaders (Ft Gordon)

   2. 3 Areas of Focus

      1. Standardizing robotics equipment district-wid (VEX)

      2. providing professional learning for teachers

      3. creating district-wide competition opportunities

      4. 5-year plan for K12 Robotics and AI Integration

         1. Year 1: Laid groundwork by launching robotics in elementary media centers

         2. Year 2 (current): Expanded to Middle School with 45-day exploratory connections class

         3. Year 3 (2026-2027): Transition from centralized media center access to classroom and club integration in elementary schools

         4. Future Goals: Will include programmable drones and aims to make district a powerhouse in the VEX arena. By year 5, should be mature, with elementary competitions and middle schools hosting qualifiers, likely requiring dedicated support staff

Allen: Brought up concerns about balancing AI literacy with traditional literacy and math, given proficiency scores around 50%. District affirmed core subjects remain foundation. Allen also requested a formal policy on student data privacy. District detailed current rigorous safety measures, including a strict vetting process for 3rd-party software, district-specific data protection, and not releasing personally identifiable student information. The district feels it is “overly complying” with regulations.

Staff Reports:

1. Staff Update, Tony Wright, Chief HR Officer

   1. A proposal was presented to outource paraprofessional staffing to strengthen the district’s financial and instructional models.

   2. The current model is financially unsustainable due to risings costs of benefits. An average para costs the district nearly $54K annually, with the cost of 300 locally-funded positions being a significant burden.

   3. Proposal to transition to a vendor-owned model for new hires through attrition; no current employees would lose their jobs. Outsourced cost is projected at about $29K per position, saving almost $24K. Employees would get a higher wage but not the district’s State health benefits.

   4. Savings would be reallocated to hire more certified teachers, identified as most important factor in student achievement. State funds a majority of a certified eacher’s cost (about $110K total), making them a more efficient use of local funds compared to 100% locally-fundd Paras.

Board members raised concerns about potential for higher turnover (currently about 80 per year annually), loss of employee continuity and investment in students, and quality of staff.

District could revert back to traditional model if outsourcing fails.

Board Policy IHF(6) Graduation requirements - Entering Fall 2008-09 and thereafter. Approve Yay 5, No 0

• Just changing wording to make State standards more clear.

One-time supplement for eligible employees: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• State funded a $2000 supplement ($5.8 million from state). Staff recommends extending to all employees of the school district to be paid on 4/1/2026. ($2.7 million from General Fund)

Building program

1. Resolution to Amend FY2025 Capital Outlay Application. Yay 5, No 0

2. OA Agreement and Mandatory Addendum for Greenbrier High School. Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

A mandatory Owner-Architect agreement addendum to receive State capital Outlay funding for the Greenbrier HS Project. The project’s early cost estimate is $82.7 million, but will change as progress. This is necessary step to proceed with the state. Discussed different bids and expenses.

Superintendent Reports

1. CC Career & College Expo and annual TAP Talks

2. Upcoming Events

   1. Media Specialist Appreciation Week: March 23-27

   2. Assistant Principal Appreciation Week:

   3. National Paraprofessional Appreciation Day (April 1)

   4. Spring Break: April 6-13th

   5. Summer School Registration April 27th - May 22nd

Executive Session: Yay 5, No 0

1. Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

2. Personnel Sheet: Yay 4, No 0, Abstain: 1 (Dekle)

3. Settlement: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: 8:30 pm

Call To Order: 5:30 pm

Invocation: St. Teresa o Avila Catholic Church, Deacon Kerry Diver

Pledge of Allegiance: Baker Place ES 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions

• Boys and Girls Swimming Individual and Team State Championships

  • Boys Individual

    • Bryce Douglas, 2nd Place Overall, 100m Breaststroke (Evans HS)

  • Girls Individual

    • Heba Fouitah, 1st Place 200m Medley & 2nd Place 100m Butterfly (Lakeside HS)

    • Allison Jost, 1st Place 50m Freestyle & 2nd Place 200m Backstroke (Lakeside HS)

  • Girls Swimming Team State Championship (Lakesid HS, 1st Place 4x100 Freestyle Team Relay)

    • Heba Fouitah

    • Grace Gambrell

    • Allison Jost

    • Taylor Marchan

  • Girls Swimming Team State Championship (Lakesid HS, 2nd Place 200m Medley Team Relay)

    • Heba Fouitah

    • Grace Gambrell

    • Allison Jost

    • Georgia Morris

  • Girls Swimming Team State Championship (Lakeside HS, 3rd Place overall)

    • Vera Eichenberger

    • Heba Fouitah

    • Grace Gambrell

    • Katherine Johnson

    • Allison Jost

    • Emily Jost

    • Paige Kessler

    • Taylor Marchan

    • Clara Martin

    • Georgia Morris

    • Kimberly Mullins

  • Girls Swimming Team State Championships (Lakeside HS, 2nd Place 200m Medley Team Relay)

    • Heba Fouitah

    • Grace Gambrell

    • Allison Jost

    • Georgia Morris

• Boys and Girls Wrestling Individual and Duals Team State Championship

  • Michelle Kowalsky, 2nd Place, 120lb weight class (Evans HS)

  • Leonard Gallagher, 2nd Place, 144lb weight class (Greenbrier HS)

  • Shaniyah McDaniel, 1st Place, 125lb weight class (Grovetown HS)

  • Victor Smith, 2nd Place, 157lb weight class (Grovetown HS)

  • 2nd Place, Wrestling Dual Team: Greenbrier HS

    • Daniella Anguiano

    • Alexis Bryan

    • Ava Byrd

    • Reagan Carnes

    • Jansen Drumgoole

    • Journey Drumgoole

    • Malee Head

    • Taylor Hickok

    • Esperanza Huitron

    • Shane Isla-Rios

    • Gabrielle Jefferson

    • Renee Jetter

    • Hannah Kirkland

    • Josie McQuillan

    • Tierra Parker

    • Grace Patterson

    • Mackenzie Shannon

    • Laci Sherrill

    • Kirra Silva

    • Jaidyn Smith

    • Kenya Solomon

    • Elka Stancoven

    • Claire Washburn

Board Member Comments and Acknowledgements

• Board members thanked students, parents, coaches and 4H Leaders

• Board expressed appreciation and community pride. Acknowledged program growth.

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• 2/24/2026 Work Session Meeting Minutes

• Budget Amendments

• Fundraisers

• Emloyee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Particpation Requests

• Lease/Use Facilities

Board Policy IHF(6), Graduation Requirements - Entering Fall 2008-09 and thereafter

• Put it in alignment with state guidance. This will be put out until next meeting, and will vote on it then.

Building Program

• Project Update

  • Lakeside HS: Progress on gym, pictures of roof and new entrance.

  • Evans HS: Close to moving in. Tennis courts in back - paved. Pics of PAC and chorus/band areas. Track around the top of gym, load bleachers from the top down. Pics of Cafeteria

  • Harlem HS: Back area graded. email just went to parents because moving traffic lanes.

• Amendment: Yay 4, Opposed 1 (Katie Allen)

Flynt: Required to receive State capital outlay funds; adjusts to actual state contribution

Allen: This is for the increase from $80 million to $94 million due to athletic Fields and inflation?

Flynt: Yes.

Superintendent Reports

• March - Appreciation for School Social Workers

• The Quest for School Breakfast Month

• 3/12/2026 4-7pm CC Exhibition Center: Career & College Expo

• 3/16/2026 Tee Up For Education

• PreK Registration: 2/23-3/20

• CC Student Art Show, 3/3-3/30

• End of Third Nine Weeks, March 10

• School Bard Appreciation Week, 3/9-3/13

• Early Dismissal 3/13

• Student Holiday/District Professional Learning Day, 3/16

• Report Cards, 3/18

• Special Olympics, 3/27

• PreK Drawing, 3/30

Public Participation

• Janet Duggan

Executive Session: Yay 5, No 0

• Legal Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

• Contract for 190-day employee: Yay 4, Abstain: 1 (Chairman Dekle)

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Invocation: Harlem Baptist Church Children & Youth Pastor Evan Powell

Pledge of Allegiance by Greenbrier and Parkway Elementary Schools 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

1. 2/10/2026 Regular Session Meeting Minutes

2. January Financials

3. Budget Amendment

4. Fundraisers

5. Employee Travel

6. Program/Camp/Employee Participation REquests

7. Lease/Use Facilities

Discussion Topics and Presentations

College and Career Ready Performance Index and Acadmic Update, Associate Superintdent Dr. Kristen Carroll and Steven Cummings

1. Columbia County’s overall CCRPI score dropped by 0.1 points from 2024 to 2025, holding steady while the CSRA RESA region declined by 2.7 points.

   1. Elementary schools scored above state and regional averages but 3.4-point decrease, due to a drop in the Closing Gaps component.

   2. Middle schools showed significant growth with an 8.8-point increase, outpacing a 3.5-point state average rise.

   3. High schools experienced a 1.9-point decline, also primarily driven by Closing Gaps challenges.

2. Content Mastery and Progress

   1. Content Mastery scores rose in elementary and middle schools, with middle schools increasing by 5.2 points - gains across core subjects, especially science.

   2. High schools’ Content Mastery declined by 2.3 points, prompting focused improvement efforts.

   3. Progress scores improved across all levels; high schools showed a notable rise of 6.6 points in 2025, continuing a two-year growth trend.

   4. English Language Arts and Math growth metrics use Student Growth Percentiles to fairly measure student progress compared to peers.

3. Closing Gaps

   1. Targeted 3% improvement but if large improvement one year, it’s still another 3% the next year. One subgroup can really sway the score.

   2. Elementary schools’ Closing Gaps score dropped from 100 to 70.4 points, driven by subgroup performance shifts despite increased efforts in ELA.

   3. Middle schools improved substantially to a perfect 100 points in Closing Gaps, indicating strong subgroup progress.

   4. High schools’ Closing Gaps score fell below the state average, affected by declines in American Literature, Algebra, and U.S. History subgroups. Some gains were noted in Biology subgroups in 2025.

4. Readiness and Graduation Rate Trends

   1. Elementary and middle schools performed above state averages in readiness indicators such as on-grade-level reading, attendance, and beyond-the-core course passing.

   2. High schools improved readiness by 1.6 points with better reading levels, pathway completion, and college/career readiness scores.

   3. Columbia County’s graduation rate steadily increased, reaching 93.5%, remaining above the state average.

   Attendance discussion with Penny Jackson: Data shows that students missing 5-15 days really has an impact on ability of student to achieve at high levels. While they have looked at students missing over 15 days, looking more at 5-15 range because that is a larger number and still has big impact. Looking at ways to lessen that.

Staff Reports

1. CTAE and Academic Pathway Update, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Brian Campbell and Director of CTAE Brooks Smith

   1. Broad CTAE Program Reach and Pathway Variety

      1. Columbia County offers at least one pathway in 13 of 14 career clusters recognized statewide - 155 unique pathways.

      2. Agriculture programs embed elements of energy and natural resources pathways, covering all clusters practically.

      3. Programs offer career preparation with multiple pathway options.

   2. Rising Student Engagement and Work-Based Learning

      1. Student enrollment in CTAE pathways grown since 2019.

      2. Work-based learning increased , supported by partnerships with local businesses and community orgs

   3. High School CTAE Pathway Access and Expansion

      1. Each high school offers CTAE pathways; ie, Greenbrier added Financial Services and Agriculture.

      2. Grovetown HS offers pathways including Cosmetology; Harlem HS includes welding and electrical embedded in agriculture.

      3. Lakeside HS added Audio, Visual, Film & add Culinary Arts next year.

   4. Middle School Interest Surveys Inform Planning

      1. Surveys of 6th-8th graders show Health Science as the top interest, followed by Engineering, aligning student interest with workforce demand.

      2. Survey data guides decisions on adding or expanding pathways at specific high schools, such as potential Engineering at Greenbrier.

2. ACE Curriculum Hub Enhancements

   1. Next Generation Standards Integration

      1. Curriculum specialists embedding Next Gen standards into ACE Case guides, aiming for first semester completion by fall. Examples include science standards on matter changes and digital footprint concepts integrated with teacher resources.

   2. Resource Review and Expansion

      1. ACE Case instructional guides are undergoing thorough review to meet teacher needs and incorporate teacher-submitted resources.

      2. CTAE and Fine Arts curriculum resources are newly added to ACE Case, giving instructional specialists and teachers centralized access.

      3. Fine Arts Curriculum Support

         1. Fine Arts teachers now access updated ACE Case resources, with scope and sequence guides and curricular focus documents available.

         2. Plans include ongoing development of instructional guides and materials for all Fine Arts departments.

3. Black History Month, Associate Superintendent Steve Cummings

   1. Black History is embedded in K12 curriculum throughout year but highlighted in Februrary

   2. Many schools had assemblies with displays, music & art presentations

   3. Euchee Creek - display with historical figures

   4. Decorated classrooms & buildings

   5. Musicians

Board Norms and Protocols. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Building Program Bid Result. Approve: Yay 3, No 1 (Kent), Abstain 1 (Allen, due to lack of information)

Kent: I have a concern, just on principal, that as much as I love all of these beautiful buildings we’re building for the district, I’d like it to be spread out a little bit more, I just have a concern about spending more on these building projects.

Allen: This is almost $700,000 and this is the first I’ve seen of this. All I’ve seen is this spreadsheet. It wasn’t on the SPLOST list, which is why we have to approve it tonight. I would like some additional information, and I’m not trying to micromanage, but is the expectation really that we would approve it based on this spreadsheet?

Flynt: This is something that we have been discussing for a number of years. We have three buildings that have most of our warehouse operations. And even that isn’t all of the materials. It’s cumbersome and when we discussed this with the board a couple of years ago, we put that on the list and have been waiting for a time when we could do that. This is a good time. We’re hoping that once we get this built, when we get through the summertime, prior to moving the distribution operation to one location, that would allow us to do that probably right after the beginning of school or as we move into first semester… Better time because a lot of our operations work happens over summer. Some of the discussion that was going on… That is a large area of a warehouse. One of the concerns is that we do need personnel over there. So by consolidating all of our operations into one location, all of the manpower would be in that location. We do have a lot of storage over there right now, and so it’s not really manned by anybody that is over that, even though we keep it locked up. There’s a lot more than that, but it would be, in our estimation, an excellent use of dollars just because it’s going to help us with inventory of items that we’re buying as they come into the district. We’ll have a better handle on when that gets distributed to the Schools and then inventory control once all that information is in the schools and then surplused out over time. A lot of that is a lot of work for our folks for the next couple of years. It’s gonna take us a little bit of work to get that to happen at the highest level. But right now it’s at a difficult stage because we’re in multiple places and even though we’ve got good people trying to keep up with it, it’s very hard to do.

Baker: Is one of the places the Columbia Road area?

Flynt: Yep. And as you’ll know a couple of years ago we kind of cut a hole in the old gym out there because we needed a little more climate control space. The new warehouse already has the areas where trucks can back up to use the loading docks and things like that. So it’s going to help with processing material and purchases where right now we’re just getting them down and manhandling them into the areas. Right now we are taking some items into different departments because we don’t have enough room in there. Some things get ordered and delivered to people different spots. The idea is for it to be a general distribution warehouse where all items will go through a full inventory control at the warehouse and then be redistributed that way. Not only would we have a very good handle on the coming and goings of all of our equipment, but you know, one person will be handling it instead of multiple departments.

Dekle: Just a little background Board members. Even before you came here many years ago we made a decision to purchase student support center. And yeah, it was an old unused ball bearing factory. We had close to 300,000 square feet of unused space. Our idea of centralizing our old warehouse system and if we went out and purchased land and built a whole new standard warehouse it would cost millions and millions of dollars. Arguably, we’ve already made an important investment and this is just the next step, which frankly has been much better.

Allen: What is the funding source for this?

Casado: We would use unallocated eSplost dollars that have not been assigned to a project yet. And we have more than enough to make that happen within eSplost currently.

Allen: I’m not familiar with this type of spreadsheet. When it says withdrawn, but then it says yes by all the documents, does that mean that the company withdrew it?

Flynt: Yeah, and it depends how that happens. But in this situation, part of the area on the bid, it didn’t encompass all the needs. And so we give the company the opportunity to either update it or withdraw.

Allen: I’m certainly open to supporting some of these projects in the future. I just feel like I don’t have a whole lot of information. If there’s project documents that go with something like this that kind of explains it, that would be really helpful for me to have.

Superintendent Reports:

• PreK Registration 2/23-3/20

• Columbia County Student Art Show

  • March 3-30

  • Opening Reception, March 3

• End of Third Nine Weeks, March 10

• School Board Appreciation Week, March 9-13

• Columbia County College and Career Expo, March 12

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, March 13

• Student Holiday/District Professional Learning Day, March 16

• Columbia County School District Foundation Top Golf Event, March 16

• Report Cards, March 18

• Special Olympics, March 27

• PreK Drawing, March 30

• Spring Break April 6-13

• Rising 6th Grade Student and Parent Night, April 16

• Progress Reports, April 21

• Arts of the Plaza, April 25

Personnel Recommendations: Approve Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: 6:53 pm

Next Meeting Regular Session: March 10, 2026

What stood out to me wasn’t any one comment. It was the quiet tug-of-war underneath the whole conversation: How much is a school board member supposed to question, push, demand, and debate? And at what point does that stop being oversight and start becoming obstruction, or micromanagement?

When I first started attending school board meetings in 2024, the board voted unanimously on everything. There was very little visible disagreement. Meetings were efficient and mostly celebratory. You didn’t see extended debate. You didn’t see much friction. It was like the opening credits of The Lego Movie….”Everything is Awesome” playing in an endless loop.

Since 2025 though, there’s been more questioning, more requests for information, more back-and-forth… And yeah, a heck of a lot more drama.

To be clear, I don’t think questioning the system is inherently bad. Public boards should not function as rubber stamps. Scrutiny and oversight are important. However, this training made something else clear: scrutiny and disagreement without structure can strain an institution very quickly.

Georgia law (OCGA 20-2-61) is fairly direct about how local boards are supposed to operate. A school board sets policy. The superintendent implements it. Both are supposed to focus on student achievement. Individual board members do not have authority as independent elected officials. They only have authority when acting as part of the board as a whole. At the same time though, the law explicitly protects a board member’s ability to request and review financial information. Board members are also tasked with holding the superintendent accountable, but with the very strong caveat…. without micromanaging.

That design naturally creates tension. On one hand, a school board member elected by voters may feel obligated to publicly question, request information, and debate issues thoroughly. On the other hand, Georgia law envisions a collective governing body acting in unison on behalf of a non-voting constituency — students. Both instincts can come from a genuine desire to serve, but they don’t always coexist easily.

Much of the training focused on draft board norms and protocols. There was a huge discussion around agenda-setting authority and the scope of “board items” that have been taken off as an agenda item. That may sound procedural, but it goes to the core of governance. Control of the agenda determines what becomes public debate and what does not.

Some members expressed concern that individual board items were drifting into operational matters or into specific parent complaints that fall outside the board’s policymaking role. Georgia law draws a distinction between setting policy and managing day-to-day administration. When that boundary blurs, accusations of micromanagement surface quickly. The discussion also touched on the risk of referencing individual family situations in public meetings, even without explicitly naming them. Protecting privacy while maintaining transparency is another line boards must navigate carefully.

At the same time though, there is a legitimate concern that agenda authority should not be used to avoid debate altogether. It’s my understanding that in most school boards, the chair works with the superintendent to develop the draft agenda, but the board ultimately votes to adopt it. One challenge is not whether debate should occur, but how to ensure that debate remains tethered to policy rather than individual cases or administrative details.

In a collective body, a decision not to move forward with an agenda item is still a decision. If a majority declines to add an item or does not support amending the agenda, that reflects the will of the board. Continuing to argue the threshold question of whether something should even be discussed can prolong conflict before debate on substance ever begins.

The facilitator also mentioned something that doesn’t always get said out loud: effective school board governance assumes a basic dedication to public education itself. Boards may disagree on policy, but they operate under the premise that members are working to strengthen, not dismantle, the institution they oversee. In today’s climate, that assumption is also under strain.

In recent years, local school boards have increasingly become arenas for broader political debates. Issues that once remained administrative now carry ideological weight. That shift has changed not only what boards debate, but how they debate it. When national political narratives enter local boards, trust becomes harder to maintain. Members may begin to question not just each other’s arguments, but each other’s motives. Without at least a baseline assumption of good faith, governance slows down or hardens into tribalistic factions.

One area where this tension has become especially visible in our board is financial oversight. Fiscal transparency is a core duty of any governing board. However, in complex matters such as bond issuance, certain projections and amortization schedules are not immediately available, and compiling additional layers of documentation can require significant staff time. When requests become increasingly burdensome or extend beyond what is necessary for the specific vote before the board, it can strain administrative capacity and delay implementation of decisions voters have already approved.

Oversight is essential. However, governance also requires proportionality. Not every vote requires every conceivable data point, and not every unanswered question justifies indefinite delay. Boards often must act on the best information reasonably available at the time. The line between rigorous accountability and operational paralysis is not always bright, and disagreement about where that line sits can also quickly fuel distrust.

There is also a philosophical divide over how controversial issues should be handled. Some believe addressing difficult topics quietly and discreetly prevents unnecessary political escalation, as well as protects the district from becoming a spectacle. I get that. Public education has been under sustained attack nationally, and no superintendent or board wants endless culture-war headlines.

However, avoiding open discussion does not eliminate conflict. It simply changes where the conflict lives and where it is discussed. Decisions made behind closed doors on matters families care deeply about may reduce immediate controversy, but they often create long-term suspicion. When trust erodes, it fuels the very backlash leaders were trying to avoid in the first place, and it becomes a festering wound in the community. I will always believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

If difficult decisions are going to be made, they should be made openly, debated publicly, and voted on clearly. We can agree or disagree. That is how public governance is supposed to work.

Which brings me to something surprisingly simple: Robert’s Rules of Order.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here, folks. The board already says it uses it. If a board member wants to pursue something, the language shouldn’t be “Would this board be willing to…?” It should be: “I make a motion to…” Another member seconds it, or they don’t. If no one seconds the motion, that’s the answer. The board, as a body, does not wish to take it up. There’s no need for prolonged argument about whether it should even be discussed. Further, it will be on the official minutes that a motion was made and there was no second.

If the motion is seconded, debate follows. Amendments can be offered. Motions can be tabled or referred back to staff for a more detailed report later. Discussion and debate can be limited in time. Remarks must remain pertinent to the motion on the floor. Then the board votes. Following that structure might feel like herding cats at times, but it protects both scrutiny and efficiency. It prevents rubber-stamping. It also prevents school board meetings from drifting into open-ended hours-long political theater. Nobody wants to sit through a 4-hour filibuster at 6 pm on a Tuesday night. (If anybody needs a refresher on Robert’s Rules, I like this guide at our public library.)

Now, let’s be honest. Learning Robert’s Rules isn’t going to magically fix the trust issues on this board. There is no fairy godmother to “bibbidi bobbidi boo” this situation. However having a shared process, and actually sticking to it, would at least keep disagreements from turning into free-for-alls.

School board elections in Georgia are nonpartisan by design. That doesn’t mean members lack political beliefs. We all have them. I do too. I’m a Democrat and serve as Treasurer of the local Democratic Committee, and I lead the Freedom to Read Coalition of Columbia County. Showing up, speaking, and advocating is part of democracy. However, once someone is elected to a school board, their role shifts. The statutory framework envisions a unified policymaking body focused on students. A school board cannot function as a rubber stamp, but it also cannot function as five separate political stages.

The answer to internal conflict isn’t less debate though. It’s having a better-structured debate. Debate without guardrails magnifies distrust, whereas disciplined debate clarifies policy. The difference between those two outcomes is not ideology, it’s structure.

Georgia law is clear on the roles of the board, superintendent, and individual members. The tools and processes already exist to manage conflict. The real question is whether the board will lean into that structure, and whether every member is willing to operate within it, even when it’s uncomfortable.

School boards are made up of adults, but the work is for students. How conflict is handled is crucial. Modeling how to disagree, how to follow rules, how to accept outcomes, and how to move forward without personalizing every disagreement isn’t just good governance, it’s part setting an example for those very students who are supposed to be the focus.

In a moment when our discourse is highly polarized and trust is thin, that example may matter just as much as any policy vote.

The next school board Working Meeting is February 24, 2026 at 4781 Hereford Farm Rd at 5:30 pm. I hope to see you there.

Facilitator: Phil Hartley, Georgia School Boards Association
GSBA Counsel: Lauren Atkinson (first in-house General Counsel)

District Leadership Present:
Superintendent Dr. Flynt, Administrative Assistant: Amanda Moody
Board members: Chairman Dekle, Vice Chairman Kent, Kristi Baker, Judy Teasley, Katie Allen
Board Attorneys Larry Fletcher and Will Fletcher

Training Focus

Governance roles, legal framework, and board operating norms.

Key topics included:

• Roles and responsibilities of the Board vs. Superintendent

• State governance standards

• Local norms and protocols

• Collaboration expectations

• Communication practices

• Student achievement

Facilitator Background

Phil Hartley: Approximately 52 years representing school boards

Lauren Atkinson: Newly appointed GSBA General Counsel

Governance Standards (State)

• Developed by the State Board of Education

• Not formal rules

• Used as guidance for board training

• Recently amended to include a safety standard

Norms & Protocols (Local)

• Working agreement between board and superintendent

• Not formal policy

• Describes how members function together

• May vary by district

• Not required to be adopted annually

• Often reviewed when membership changes

Board did not adopt a new document for the 2025–2026 school year. Document used as a starting point for communication and engagement.

Statutory Role of the Board

(O.C.G.A. § 20-2-61 referenced)

Core Responsibilities

Establish Policy

Includes:

• Strategic plan

• Budget priorities

• Hiring superintendent

• District goals

Policy described as broad.

Focus on Student Achievement

• Students identified as the board’s primary constituency

Hold Superintendent Accountable Without Micromanaging

• Board sets direction, Superintendent implements

• Board evaluates performance

Act as a Collective Body

• Individual members have no independent authority

• Actions occur only as the board as a whole

• “Individual power — none.”

Governance Expectations

Collaboration

• Board should not operate as separate individuals

• Collaboration required despite disagreements

• Majority decision represents official board action

After a Vote

• Members may state disagreement but are expected to move forward with the board decision, and not relitigate past decisions.

  • “Once decision made… move on.”

Information and Decision-Making

• Board should receive information in advance

• Members should have equal access to information

• Information requests may require board action

• Informal circulation of information discouraged

Information Requests

Discussion addressed how board members obtain information from staff and the impact of extensive requests.

• Concern raised that requests from a single board member for detailed information can be burdensome to staff.

• It was stated that some requests may require significant staff time to compile and produce.

Points mentioned:

• The requested information was not readily available in the format requested.

• Producing the information could require multiple staff members working for several days.

• Concern expressed about responding to a request made by one individual rather than the board as a whole.

It was stated that fulfilling certain requests could be disruptive to district operations.

Discussion included possible approaches:

• If a request is considered excessive, the superintendent could bring the issue to the full board for direction.

• Consideration of whether extensive requests should require approval or support from additional board members.

It was also noted that board members need access to information to make informed decisions. No formal action or decision was recorded.

Trust and Board Dynamics

Issues identified as damaging:

• Poor communication

• Lack of trust

• Re-litigation of prior decisions in public

• Surprises at meetings

• Personal agendas

Use of formal procedures emphasized.

“No Surprises” Principle

• Surprises at meetings described as harmful to trust and governance relationships.

• Applies to both board members and superintendent.

Chain of Command

Board members advised to route concerns through the superintendent.

Examples discussed:

• Parent complaints

• Staff concerns

• Operational matters

• Crisis situations

Board members should not intervene directly at school level.

Student Matters

• Individual student issues handled by administration

• Board should not discuss student matters publicly

• Anonymous discussion may still raise privacy concerns

Example given: disciplinary matters. Prior involvement by a board member could require recusal if the issue later comes before the board.

Public Communication

Board members encouraged to:

• Direct stakeholders to appropriate administrative channels

• Avoid speaking on behalf of the board

• Avoid speculating about other members’ intentions

• Maintain confidentiality

Social Media

• District communications should be led by designated staff

• Comments by members reflect on the board

• Controversial topics can escalate quickly

• Members advised to avoid inflammatory or disrespectful dialogue

School Visits

Members asked to coordinate visits with the superintendent.

Reasons:

• Prevent disruption to school operations

• Ensure administrators are informed

• Clarify whether visit is official or personal

Relationship with School District’s Attorneys

• Attorney represents the school system, not individual members

• Most communication occurs through superintendent

• Direct contact by individual members can create complications

Executive session attorney conferences generally related to litigation or claims.

Training Session vs. Board Meeting

Training sessions described as meetings that are primarily informational.

• Discussion allowed

• Formal action typically not taken

Strategic Plan

Board encouraged to align agendas with strategic goals and student outcomes.

Agenda Structure — “Board Items”

Board discussed a previous agenda item titled “Board Items.” Katie Allen stated the section had been used to bring forward constituent concerns and community feedback. Chairman Dekle stated the section had functioned like an “open mic.”

Concerns noted:

• Topics introduced without prior notice

• Board and staff unprepared to address issues

• Members surprised by items raised during meetings

Vice Chairman Kent stated the public expects to see disagreement and discussion during board meetings and that some debate is expected.

Community Concerns

Facilitator discussed how to evaluate whether an issue represents broader community concern.

Issues described as community-wide typically:

• Reach multiple board members

• Reach school administrators

• Reach the superintendent

• Are raised by multiple individuals

• Come through multiple channels

Issues raised by only one or two individuals may not represent broader community sentiment. Discussion noted that concerns often move through administrative channels before reaching the board.

Management of Discussion

• Limiting discussion during meetings mentioned as a possible approach.

• No formal procedural changes were adopted

Norms & Protocols — Enforcement

Discussion addressed the current norms and procedures document, including whether revisions should be made during the training session and whether the document includes enforcement mechanisms.

Chairman Dekle questioned the usefulness of spending time revising the document given the lack of an enforcement mechanism.

Kent asked the facilitator whether the existing board protocols document was missing elements or contained too much compared to those used in other districts.

The facilitator stated there was nothing glaring about the document. The norms document was described as guidance for behavior rather than binding rules.

Invocation: First Mt. Carmel Baptist Church Pastor Rosco Perry

Pledge of Allegiance: Lewiston Elementary School 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Special Recognition

• Georgia CyberPatriot State Competition Winners

  • Greenbrier Middle School - 1st Place

    • Emma Jo Harper

    • Isaac Lee

    • Mason Rice

    • Isaac Welton

    • Elliot Yoo

    • James Youmans

  • Greenbrier Middle School - 2nd Place

    • Tarik Kalelioglu

    • Sunrudh Medam

    • Josiah Rudolph

    • Tobias Shoemaker

    • Gideon Son

    • Jairus Tutu

  • Grovetown High School - 1st Place

    • Deion Jackson-Henriquez

    • Caleb Johnson

    • Basu Khadka

    • Jonathan Romero, Jr.

• Georgia Junior Beta Club Stte Competition

  • Blue Ridge Elementarys

    • Raghav Thumsi - 1st Place, Spelling

    • Musicology - 3rd Place Team

      • Adelie Baker

      • Athena Cronin

      • Happiness Messan

      • Margaret Roberson

      • Ward Walker

      • Hannah Wimmer

  • Stevens Creek Elementary

    • Vivek Ravel - 2nd Place, Social Studies

  • Evans High School

    • Lillian Miller-Loftin - 2nd Place - Solo, Duo, Trio Vocalist

  • Greenbrier High School

    • Blake Sommers - 3rd Place, Visual Arts Drawing

  • Harlem High School

    • Devin Curtis - 1st Place, Painting Division I

    • Jessica Servin - 3rd Place, Pottery Division II

    • Book Battle Team, 3rd Place

      • Julia Hingle

      • Autumn LaFrance

      • Sophia Middleton

      • Christina VanVoorhis

Board Comments and Acknowledgements: Board members thanked the Reverand, told the 4H Presidents they were proud of their them and their leadership. All the students and parents were congratulated for their accomplishments. Allen thanked the advisors for their guidance. Kent acknowledge the sponsors/partnerships on the CyberPatriot T-shirts and expressed appretiation for all of the community partnerships.

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

1. 1/27/2026 Work Session Meeting Minutes

2. Fundraisers

3. Employee Travel

4. Program/Camp/Employee Participation Requests

5. Lease/Use of Facilities

Permissive Transfer Summary

Superintendent Reports

1. School Year Update for 2025-2026

2. Presidents’ Day Holiday, Feb 16

3. Pre-K Registration 2/23 - 3/10: At zoned school

4. End of Third Nine Week: 3/10/2026

5. Columbia County College and Career Expo, 3/13/2026

6. Student Holiday/ District Professional Learning Day, 3/16/2026

7. Columbia County School District Foundation Top Golf Event, 3/16/2026

8. TAP Talk, 3/18/2026

9. Report Cards, 3/18/2026

10. Pre-K Drawing, 3/30/2026

11. Spring Break 4/6-4/13

12. Progress Reports, 4/21

13. Arts at the Plaza, 4/25

Public Participation

• Diane Jarrett

• Karin Parham

• Great Neuman

• Cara Parker

Executive Session:

• Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next Work Session Board Meeting: 2/24/2026

Invocation: Martinez Baptist Church Minister of Outreach Reverend Perry Ky

Pledge of Allegiance: Stevens Creek Elementary 4H Presidents

Special Recognitions

• Georgia-American Choral Directors Association

  • Grovetown Middle School Chorus Teacher: Victoria Alvarez

• Georgia Music Educators Association

  • Greenbrier HS Band Teachers: Dr. Brian Toney & Rutledge Boykin

  • Blue Ridge ES Music Teacher: Brittany Swann

  • Grovetown MS Chorus Teacher: Victoria Alvarez

• Georgia Department of Education Literacy & Math Leader Schools

  • Literacy

    • Cedar Ridge ES: 3rd & 4th Grade Growth

    • Greenbrier ES: 3rd & 5th Grade Achievement

    • North Harlem ES: 3rd Grade Growth

    • Lakeside MS: 6th Grade Growth

    • Stallings Island MS: 6th Grade Growth

  • Math

    • Baker Place ES: 5th Grade Growth

    • Evans ES: 5th Grade Growth

    • Greenbrier ES: 3rd & 5th Grade Growth

    • Lewiston ES: 3rd & 5th Grade Growth

    • Martinez ES: 5th Grade Growth

    • North Harlem ES: 5th Grade Growth

    • Columbia MS: 8th Grade & High School Growth

    • Evans MS: 8th Grade Growth & High School Growth & High School Achievement

    • Greenbrier MS: 7th & 8th Grade Growth, High School Achievement & High School Growth

    • Grovetown MS: High School Growth

    • Riverside MS: 7th & 8th Grade Growth

    • Stallings Island MS: High School Growth

    • Harlem MS: 7th & 8th Grade Growth, High School Growth

Board Comments: Board members expressed gratitude for all of the hard work of the district, thanked 4H for leading pledge and the Reverend for the invocation.

Approval of Consent Items: Item B was pulled from consent for discussion. Approved A, C-G: Yay 5, No 0

A. 1/13/2026 Regular session meeting minutes

C. Budget Amendment

D. Fundraisers

E. Employee Travel

F. Program/Camp/Employer Participation Request

G. Lease/Use of Facilities

December Financials: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Katie Allen: I noticed that we had added the 2027-2032 splost chart on here. Because we approved those bonds, I just wanted to ask. I see that the bond proceeds is at around $193.3 billion under the revenue and then under the debt, the principal and interest associated with that bond is about $64.8 million. So if my calculations are correct, that puts around $217 million remaining to be repaid for that bond over into futures losses. Right? That’s not documented on this financial report anywhere. Which financial document shows kind of a running debt total for all of our bonds?

Alex Casado: The best place for that would be the financial statements through the liabilities.

Katie Allen: As a board, are we good with only accounting for $64.8 million of that bond debt, even as we’re claiming 193.3 million of the proceeds within this loss and putting the rest of that into future spots? Or is there a way we want to start keeping that in our financials, where we’re looking at how we’re going to be paying that off?

Chairman Dekle: If you want that information, you can ask for it at any time. You don’t even have to wait for a meeting or work session. You can ask for that anytime. I don’t see any reason for us to change the way that we present our monthly financials. Does anyone else?

Philip Kent: Alex, how often are you tracking that? I think that’d be helpful for everybody to know that.

Alex Casado: So you’re only making debt payments twice a year. It doesn’t change daily or monthly even. It only changes twice a year.

Judy Teasley: And it’s only reported at that time, right?

Alex Casado: It will be reported on the financial reports but not necessarily here. That would be a separate request.

Katie Allen: Katie Allen: That’s more of a board question than an Alex question, because I know, Alex is more than happy to draw whatever financial reports we ask as a board. Do we want to start monitoring that every month to have a visual of what our collective bond debt is and how we’re looking at that each year, every five years, how many slots we’re looking into as far as paying that amount off? Because it almost seems like the way I saw this report, why I wanted to ask, is it seems like even as we’re claiming the full proceeds and putting it into our budget to use, in addition to the sales tax of the splost, we’re only accounting under the liability, the expenditure aspect of it, an incremental amount of the payments and then that pushes the majority of the payments into the future and out of sight for us. And so is there a way that we can maybe account for, even though in this five year period we’re only budgeting 64.8 million in principal and interest payments because that’s what’s due in the five years, if we’re going to be using the bond proceeds, 103 million plus the sales tax proceeds, 235.4 million. And putting all of that together in a spending plan, it seems like we’re spending all the bonds proceeds in five years, but not really having a full plan and paying back the full amount of the principal and interest payments. So is there a way we want to keep our eyes on that or is that something that we’ll deal with in 2032 during the next splost?

Chairman Dekle: I don’t think we need to change anything. I think the CFO is keeping an eye on it and he’ll report to us.

Board Policy JAA, Equal Educational Opportunities. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Discussion Topics and Presentations:

• Inspire School Spotlight, Steve Cummings

  • Greenbrier High School: Chip Fulmer (Principal) , Stephanie Fry, Andrea Smock

    • Greenbrier High School reported strong academic and extracurricular outcomes driven by a collaborative, accountability-focused culture. They pointed to expanded AP participation, pathway completion, and industry-aligned instruction, which is supported by schoolwide CER writing, data-informed teaching, and career-focused programs, as key factors behind rising achievement and success in athletics, STEM, and workforce certifications.

• Budget & Legislative Outlook, Alex Casado

  • District preparing FY26–27 budget. Stable state funding but rising employee benefit costs

  • Legislative session began January 12; governor proposed a $2,000 teacher stipend pending approval, which could affect the FY26 amended budget and FY27 planning

  • Budget will be adjusted as needed to align with any state funding amendments

  • TRS employer contribution increasing from 21.91% to 22.32%, adding roughly $1 million

  • Health insurance premiums rising 7.5%, increasing employer costs by about $4 million annually; health costs have doubled over four years

  • About 70–80% of employees are state-funded, offsetting roughly 70% of benefit increases through state revenue

  • Net local impact of benefit increases exceeds $1 million

  • Revenue mix is approximately 60% state QBE funding and 40% local taxes

  • Current millage rate is 16.234 mills, lower than prior years

  • Net tax digest grew 46.57% over five years, with strong collection rates (95–98%)

  • State per-pupil expenditure is $12,155 per FTE, ranking Columbia County 7th lowest in Georgia, up from $11,546 in FY24

  • Budget timeline: full presentation April 21; public input meetings April 28 and May 12; tentative approval in May; final approval June 16

  • District monitoring legislative developments but anticipating funding levels similar to last year

Annual Audit Review

• Independent audit. Strong financial controls and full compliance, with no significant findings

• Auditor John Snyder issued clean opinion, confirming accurate financial reporting and adherence to accounting standards

• Audit covered government-wide and fund-level statements, including detailed disclosures of long-term liabilities and bond schedules through 2037

• No material weaknesses or significant deficiencies identified in internal controls or federal program compliance

• New GASB requirement added liabilities for unused sick leave, incorporated after coordination with district finance staff and noted in audit.

• Audit process allows for minor corrections prior to final issuance and timely communication with board leadership if larger issues arise

• In response to Katie Allen’s question about a schedule, Mr. Snyder clarified that splost project cost reporting: $160 million reflects the voter-approved cap, while $313.5 million represents updated total project estimates including change orders

  • Difference in figures is a legal accounting distinction, not an error, and requires context to avoid misunderstanding

Staff Reports

• Behavior and Discipline Update, Penny Jackson

  • District reports a firm but supportive approach to student behavior, with heightened attention to threat assessment and drug-related offenses

  • Over 99% of students consistently make positive choices

  • Drug-related incidents have increased, driven largely by THC vape use

  • Alcohol-related incidents, fighting, and disorderly conduct have declined

  • Vape detectors have led to higher detection and enforcement of vaping violations

  

  

  

  

  

  • Progressive discipline is used, ranging from detention to suspension

  • Disciplinary hearings have increased, particularly for drug offenses and reentry cases

  • District uses a Behavior Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) process, required under House Bill 268

  • Threat levels are classified from unfounded to high, with structured documentation of concerns and histories

  • Multidisciplinary teams (administrators, SROs, counselors, special education staff) coordinate responses

  • High-risk cases move to formal hearings with documented evidence and due process

  • Academic dishonesty has increased, including plagiarism and AI-assisted cheating

  • District is monitoring AI use and developing classroom policies and guidance

  • Technology presents both new cheating risks and improved detection tools

  • Ongoing teacher training and student instruction emphasize appropriate technology use

  • Communication with parents is prioritized, especially for repeat or disruptive behavior

  • Administrators emphasize due process, evidence-based decisions, and early reporting to prevent escalation

• Special Education Update, LeAnne Gregg and Sharard Pritchett

  • District continuing to expand special education supports through training, leadership, and staffing strategies

  • Ongoing professional development for special education staff, including exemplary IEP training and leadership forums

  • Focus on improving instruction, compliance, and behavior supports

  • Monthly cluster meetings and newsletters used to share resources and maintain communication across schools

  • Upcoming events: Transition Resource Fair (Feb 28) and Special Education Olympics (Mar 27)

  • FY26–27 budget includes incentives and release time for special education teachers to collaborate on planning and data collection

  • Each school will have a dedicated Special Education Department Chair with no classroom teaching duties

    • Department Chair role centers on staff support, coaching, and compliance oversight

    • New leadership structure intended to strengthen instructional quality and service delivery

  • Consultant Paula Everett continues to support compliance and program improvements following a needs assessment

    • Katie Allen asked how long she had been working with district. Since the needs assessment was done in Fall 2023.

  • Program effectiveness monitored through state complaint trends and ongoing training

    • Katie Allen also inquired about tracking complaints over the past 10 years through both State and Federal. Pritchett responded that State complaints are inevitable, part of the parent’s advocacy rights, and that State will say if district is compliant or non-compliant.

  • Parent input gathered through surveys and resource fairs

    • District will distribute a survey soon to all special needs parents.

  • District plans to improve communication channels and respond more quickly to parent concerns

• Staffing Update, Tony Wright (HR)

  • Human Resources projects a student enrollment decline of approximately 300 students next year

    

  • Staffing will be aligned using weighted student allocations that prioritize student needs over raw enrollment

  • Weighted staffing has increased overall staff levels despite declining enrollment

  • Approach helps maintain or reduce class sizes and better support ESOL and special education populations

  • Hiring for the 2026–27 school year will prioritize special education and other high-need areas

  • Schools will receive enrollment and staffing projections soon to develop site-based staffing plans

  • Enrollment decline largely driven by lower kindergarten cohorts following COVID

  • No significant shifts expected in other student categories

  • Enrollment projections based on both internal district data and McKibben & Associates

Building Program Project Update:

• Lakeside HS: New Media Center, Cafeteria/Kitchen in use. Gym - steel is placed

• Evans HS: Roofs on. Move in start this summer. New gym/cafeteria ready at start of next school year.

• Harlem HS: Site Work Started

  • Katie Allen asked if there was a plan for the traffic. She had concerns about the number of traffic accidents.

  • Changes to the flow of traffic with construction helped to get vehicles off the road.

• Greenbrier HS: Architect should have designs soon. Katie Allen asked for copies of the contract payer request to be emailed to her.

Upcoming Dates:

• Progress Reports, 2/5/2026

• Career, Technical and Agriculture Education Workforce Showcase and Competition, 2/6/2026

• Presidents’ Day Holiday, 2/16/2026

• Pre-K Registration, 2/23/2026 - 3/20/2026

• End of 3rd Nine Weeks, 3/10/2026

• Columbia County College and Career Expo, 3/12/2026

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, 3/13/2026

• Student Holiday/District Professional Learning Day, 3/16/2026

• Columbia County School District Foundation Top Golf Even, 3/16/2026

• Report Cards, 3/18/2026

• Pre-K Drawing, 3/30/2026

Approval of Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0 Approximately 8:30 pm

Next Meeting: Regular Session 2/10/2026 at 5:30 PM 4781 Hereford Farm Road, Evans GA

Invocation: Powell Baptist Church Senior Pastor Dr. Nick Bates

Pledge of Allegiance: North Columbia Elemntary School 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda:Yay 4, (There was no call for opposed but Ms. Allen did not raise her hands to approve the agenda)

Selection of Vice-Chairman:

• Phil Kent. Approval: Yay 5, No 0

Selection of Columbia County School District Foundation Trustee:

• Judy Teasley. Approval: Yay 5, No 0

Approval of Board Attorney:

• Mr. Fletcher: Yay 5, No 0

Approval of Board Meeting Dates and Times for 2026: Yay 5, No 0

Annual Board Requirements: Approve a, b, d: Yay 5, No 0

a. Board Policy BH, Code of Ethics

b. Board Policy BHA, Conflict of Interest

c. BoardNorms and Protocols (Tabled Until later discussion. Yay 5, No 0)

d. Whole Board Training

Special Recognition:

• Greenbrier HS Girls Flag Football Division II 3x Back-to-Back State Champions

  • Chloe Ackley

  • Peyton Anderson

  • Jayla Ayler

  • Arianna Boone

  • Darcy Bridwell

  • Libby Brooker

  • Emma Bryant

  • Sophie Campanaro

  • Reese Caraway

  • Sloan Carrillo

  • Jadyn Carter

  • Bailey Chauvin

  • Jordan Harvey

  • Finley Jones

  • Lexi Lacey

  • Murphy Larkin

  • Abby Lester

  • Katherine McDonald

  • Carrington Meyers

  • Kinsley Mitchell

  • Addisen Odom

  • Andersen Odom

  • Mamie Cate Pangle

  • Aaliyah Silver

  • Riley Stanford

  • Hailey Valentino

  • Head Coach - James Smith

  • Asst. Coaches: Emily Flynt, Jeremy Gantt, Wes Marshall, Shane Pangle

  • Principal - Chip Fulmer

  • Athletic Director - Jason Osborn

Board Comments and acknowledgements: All board members mentioned how proud they were of the Greenbrier HS Girls Flag Football Team, and that they look forward to seeing them again next year. They also said they were proud of the 4-H Presidents and thanked the pastor for the invocation.

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• 12/9/2025 Regular Meeting Minutes

• November Financials

• Budget Amendment and Transfers

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

Board Policy JAA, Equal Educational Opportunities

• Flynt: Added a section to include the use of service animals. Attached exhibits so parents know how to apply. Included this for approval for next meeting so can look it over.

Building Program Bid Results:

Low Bidder: AdaptToSolve: $530,732.16. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Allen: Had a question about if the cameras stored Data?

Flynt: These are replacement cameras. The existing cameras no longer meet federal/State requirements.

VanMeter: These are old, 1st Gen. Made in China so banned. These new ones will be ready for AI down the road.

Allen: So these will have facial recognition, required by the State?

Van meter: AI will definitely be used in the future. This bid amount doesn’t include the installation.

Kent: So these are made by Korea?

VanMeter: Yes, these new ones are made in Korea. The existing ones we’re replacing are 8-10 years old.

Teasley: Will these be for both interior and exterior?

VanMeteer: Yes, and these will give us changes to views to because some are 360. The existing ones might only go 90 degrees, but news are 360. These will all be on the network

Allen: Expressed concern about the software and AI data collection, and said that the board might want to discuss this in more depth later. Asked which company the district uses as a 3rd party.

Van meter: The district uses a 3rd party to make sure they are in compliance but didn’t want to state the name of the company during the public meeting but said he would let her know after the meeting.

Superintendent Reports:

• School Year Update for 2025—2026

• Permissive Transfer Application Period, 1/14-2/6

• Rising Freshmen Night for Students and Parents, 1/15

• MLK Jr Holiday, 1/19

• CCSD Spelling Bee, 1/22 4:30 pm Greenbrier Middle School

• Columbia County Health Careers Expo, 1/23

• Progress Reports, 2/5

• Career, Technical and Agriculture Education Workforce Showcase and Competition, 2/6

• President’s Day Holiday, 2/16

• PreK Registration, 2/23-3/20

• Columbia County College and Career Expo, 3/12

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, 3/13

• Student Holiday/District Professional Learning Day, 3/16

• CCSD Foundation Top Golf Event, 3/16

• TAP Talks, 3/18

• Report Cards, 3/18

• Pre-K Drawing, 3/30

Public Participation:

• Karin Parham

• Cara Parker

• Brenda Heideman

Executive Session:

• Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

• Property Easements: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

Adjournment: Yay 5, No 0

Next work session meeting is 1/27/2026.

Invocation: West Acres Baptist Church Student Pastor Keaton Neff

Pledge of Allegiance: Grovetown Elementary School 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: (I know it was approved but I got distracted and missed if it was unanimous or if Katie Allen opposed again)

Special Recognitions

1. GHSA Cross Country 5A State Championship:

   

   Board Comments:

   Kent congratulated Lilliana and thanked the pastor for the invocation.

   Teasley thanked the 5th-grade 4H leaders for leading the pledge, expressed appreciation for the invocation, and praised Lilliana Beemer, noting her accomplishments and confidence they’d see her again.

   Allen thanked the pastor for the blessing during the invocation and encouraged everyone to keep up the good work.

   Baker thanked the 4H leaders and the parents for keeping students involved; wished everyone a Merry Christmas; and asked Lilliana about her training—she reported running about 50 miles per week.

   Dekle thanked the school district for assisting with their capstone presentation for the Excellence in Governance program at the retreat

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• 11/18/2025 Minutes, Regular Session Meeting

• October Financials

• Budget Amendment

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/use of facilities

Board Policies

1. Board Policy IF, Instructional Resources. Approval: Yay 5, No 0

   Flynt: Added additional language in Paragraphs 2 & 3 for data

   Allen: 10 & 11. In 10 it says each parent is provided the policy. Then on 11, it’s by request?

   Gregg: #10 refers to the code of conduct. #11 is the whole process for student enforcement, and would be available upon request.

2. Board Policy KHE, Gifts to Schools. Approval: Yay 5, No 0

   Flynt: We added books to the gift policy

   Allen: Is there a different policy for gifts in general or something more specific?

   Gregg: GBE covers gifts to personnel. This is gift to schools

Building Program

• Project updates

  1. Evans High School: Batting cages damaged in hurricane fixed. Other parts of renovation moving along.

  2. Lakeside High School: Steel erected for gym

     1. Ms. Jackson - Student Movement: Renovations to he current commons area and hallway to new science rooms will be renovated starting 12/26/2025 until end of summer. This will make it difficult during transitions to move from PAC side to the other side. They will be transitioning outside. They are looking into a type of temporary separate tunnel but it would be difficult to do and meet all necessary fire/safety code. She will have a bigger update at the beginning of January.

• Bid Results

  • 11/18 Asphalt paving Lewiston Elementary School: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

    1. All Star Concrete $324,790

Harlem High School GNP. Approve: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

The following exchange is not an exact transcript but it’s close.

Allen: I do have a few points of clarification, as I’m learning this process, so I just ask that the board be patient and not call the question until I work through a few of these things, because I would like to join this vote. Just, again, to clarify as I’m learning about this process: contractors bid on this project in December 2024, is that correct?

Flynt: I have in my board notes that we received proposals from firms in December 2022. They didn’t bid on the cost of the project at that time. What they were doing was giving us information about how they would conduct the construction process, who would be involved, how they would do all that, and then telling us about other projects they were involved in. We had a process to select the firm. Ultimately, in this project, Carroll Daniel was the one that came out with the highest rating, and they were approved in January 2025.

Allen: So, it says, based on the scoring of the committee – and this is from our building program folder, so we all have a copy of this – it says the final ranking of the proposed CMR firms is: Carroll Daniel Construction, Winter Construction, JE Dunn Construction. Interviews were conducted on January 15, 2025. So is this that matrix-based process that we used?

Flynt: Yes, but they’re not bidding on the cost yet. They’re bidding on being the construction firm – the construction manager at risk – to participate as our construction partner.

Allen: So what were some of the factors that were used in that formula to determine the ranking? I mean, was part of that price? Because I know we’ve been told with Turner & Townsend that 30% of that matrix was cost-based, so was cost part of this analysis in choosing Carroll Daniel?

Flynt: Not from them. We provided them our cost estimates, which are obviously moving, and will move until they get all their bids in. But we do our best to try to give the best estimate. They don’t provide the project cost at selection. There’s a lot that goes into that selection. That selection has already been approved and made. Past projects, superintendent qualifications, all of that would be part of their bid to become the firm. So you’re right: we tell them, “Here’s our cost estimate,” but they don’t actually put down a firm cost for what they’re going to do the project for as part of this selection process.

Allen: So you’re saying we tell them, “Hey, here’s our budget,” but they don’t actually put a cost down for what they’re going to do the project for as part of this process. That’s right?

Flynt: That’s right. And it’s not exactly our budget, it’s our initial estimate. We do that so they kind of get an idea of where we are. A big part of this project, and one of the reasons that you go with a construction manager at risk, is to make sure that they’re taking on some of that risk. There are a lot of unknowns. We might not do CMR with a brand-new school that you’re just building out of the ground – we kind of know what to expect there. But you don’t when you’re digging up old infrastructure, and these are pretty old schools.

In this case, once we hire them, they go out and do estimates along the way. That is how we’re able to revise our estimates, because they’re getting subcontractor proposals in. Ultimately, they have to get a bid for every one of those scopes and then put all those together. They have to be vetted by us as well as the project management team. Then we make that decision, we select them, and we sign this document that we approved as a board in January – but that’s not yet the GMP contract with them.

Allen: This was the AIA document A133-2019 between us and Carroll Daniel, dated January 28th. We voted on this at the January 2025 meeting. Just to make sure I understood your email – this is not a contract, then? Because, to me, it looks like a contract. I just want to, again, try to clarify how this process works.

Flynt: I’ll ask Mr. Beatty to step in.

Mr. Beatty: Yes, this is a contract – but it’s the first step. When you start this process, that document – if you look at it – references $80 million in the budget line item. That’s where you start. When this document is signed, unbeknownst to any of us, we don’t even know the full scope of the work. We don’t know exactly what we’re doing long-term as far as what’s going to be torn out, what’s going to be left, what new infrastructure is needed.

Once this is done, we create the set of contract documents and you see the plans. We bring them periodically to the superintendent; you see those, you approve those, we take them to the school, they look at them.

By September, we send those to the State Board of Education for review before final approval. The county reviews, makes comments, it comes back, we make final changes.

At that point in time, they’re submitted to the CMR – the construction management firm. They go through everything, they sit down with us, and when we’re ready, they put this project out to bid.

It comes back line-by-line. When you see these line items – all the trade partners – we open those publicly. We look at the numbers there, they’re vetted, we make sure the low bidders in each category meet all the requirements of the contract documents.

Once that’s done, then – and only then – do you actually have the projected cost of what it’s going to be. That becomes the Guaranteed Maximum Price. In this particular case, that number is $94,900,000-and-change.

What happens next: the next document – the one you have as the amendment – is the GMP amendment to that original AIA contract. Every job that’s ever done in this pipeline follows this type of setup.

So yes, the AIA is a contract for services, and the GMP amendment you’re voting on tonight is what fixes the maximum cost.

Allen: So, I just want to clarify: when we choose our CMR, there’s no number in there other than we tell them our estimate, but they don’t commit to any hard numbers. When we’re “bidding” this CMR, we’re not actually bidding the cost of the project that they commit to do it for. Is that correct?

Beatty: Right. When we’re selecting the CMR, they’re proposing their services – their fee, general conditions, their team, their experience – not a fixed project cost. When we open the trade bids, that’s when the actual construction costs are known. Then their fee is applied and we get the GMP.

Allen: All right. And so when our scope changes, because part of the reason why this went from an $80 million budget to now right under $95 million – about a $15 million, 11% increase from this amendment today versus what was approved in January – the reason for that change is because, apparently, a decision was made to move the athletic fields now behind Harlem High School, because we acquired 25 additional acres. So this project’s scope increased and changed significantly. The price increased 11% now with our budget because of that. So, this is now a big, major change in this project. So now, my point is: whether it’s an estimate or a contract, whether they’re bound by it – given the magnitude and the material change of the scope and the budget – why is this not being re-bid with this new information and current information?

Flynt: There’s a lot there. Hang with me on this one. In August, we had a long retreat where we discussed this number, and the updated number was $105 million. As Mr. Beatty said, along the way we’re going to do our best to get the numbers out there, but sometimes that changes.

As y’all know, the last couple of years we’ve seen a lot of inflation. Now, we may not have seen as much on this one. One of the things that we were able to do – and we approved this with the board – was the purchase of the 25 acres.

Even though that was purchased in October, we didn’t know what the cost of that was going to be, or what the full design might look like, or which field we would have to move. The architect got to work on that sometime in the spring of 2025, and that in itself was probably an $8–9 million addition – but it was a worthwhile addition.

It wasn’t a change order or any of that. It was done before we did the final bid. These estimates are moving, and ultimately, in August, we were talking about $105 million on a CMR that currently came in at just under $94 million, which is excellent. Kudos to the teams that put that together.

Allen: So, we can majorly change the scope of the project, increase the budget by 11%, and continue forward, and that does not change the fundamental bidding situation for the other competitors in any way, even though the scope of the project changed to this magnitude?

Flynt: We believe this is the best firm for this project, based on the criteria we used – not just price, but qualifications, past performance, and their understanding of renovation work on older facilities.

If we went back now, we would have to pay them for the work they’ve done up to now, and then start over. It would just be another cost, and the price would almost certainly be higher the next time we got here.

Dekle: It might be helpful to clear up some confusion by explaining the difference between a CMR process and a straight bid process.

In a straight bid, you have multiple general contractors who give you a firm hard bid, you pick the lowest responsible bidder.

In CMR, you’re hiring a construction manager to do it on a cost-plus basis with a guaranteed maximum price. They do all of the work to get the best bids from trade partners; all of that bidding is then vetted by us. That’s probably one of the reasons we got the number down as low as we did.

The number doesn’t happen until this GMP. That’s the proposal for you to approve tonight.

Allen: This method is problematic, because this isn’t just 11% above right now.

Using this method, for example, with Lakeside High School, we apparently did the same process with a $60 million budget, and then by the time the scope of work was determined and we signed for the GMP, that GMP bumped up to $81 million. That’s a 36% increase. So I’m seeing this pattern where we get a CMR, later decide or change the scope of the work, and then our budget changes. And I’m seeing that that’s problematic, and that history probably contributes, in some way, to why we are currently, as of the 2024 financial report, 96% over the original estimated cost of our ESPLOST in total – where we estimated ESPLOST costs at $160 million, and now our current estimated costs as of that financial report are $313 million.

So when I see that we’re having these overages, and these overages are ballooning, and then I’m listening to our process – “We conduct a bidding process, we select a CMR, but then the scope of work substantially changes and our budget increases 11%, 36% in the case of Lakeside” – something’s got to give. To me, this is not the point of a bidding process.

Baker: In the past, we often heard about change orders. When we bid things out traditionally, we’d get change orders throughout. We never really had a fixed picture – the prices always changed and the cost was kind of fluid when we were building projects, right?

And I foresee that when we do a remodeling versus a new school. Even with a new school we had surprises – like when we hit rock that we didn’t foresee, and it ended up costing more money.

So the cost is somewhat changing at times, correct?

Beatty: There will always be some change orders, but the CMR/GMP structure is meant to limit that. The important thing is we’re updating old buildings that were built under old codes – Harlem and Evans from the late 1970s, for example. Over the years we’ve done a lot of patching, but now we’re doing major modernization, and you don’t completely know what you’ll find until you open up the building.

We’ve been very fortunate that our timing and our community support have allowed us to do these projects. The CMR process is one of the tools that helps protect the district and taxpayers as best as we can in a very volatile construction market.

Allen: When was the discussion to put the athletic fields in a new place? I know you said spring of 2025 – which meeting was that where the board discussed and decided?

Because the scope changed in the spring, and I wasn’t aware of it as a board member. So who made that change and allowed that extra $15 million to the budget? Because it wasn’t us – at least not at a board meeting that I recall. So how did that happen?

Flynt: We had multiple discussions, and the main one – we spent a good bit of time on this at the retreat, talking about this. I’ve sent you the slide. It was a slide we used.

We didn’t take a separate vote specifically on “move fields behind the school,” because it’s part of the overall scope of work within the building program that’s already been approved. If you didn’t want it now, we’d have to go back and essentially start over.

Allen: I guess that still doesn’t answer my question. Who decided that this was the way to go? Because the scope changed in the spring and I wasn’t aware of it as a board member. So who made that change and allowed that extra $15 million to the budget? Because it wasn’t us at a board meeting that I recall.

Flynt: Again, we’ve given multiple updates and the main one was at the retreat. That’s when we walked through the updated scope and cost with the additional acreage.

Kent: I’m just trying to understand what direction you’re going. Are you trying to make the argument that this should be re-bid?

Allen: Ultimately, yes. I think that this needs to be re-bid, given the substantial change in scope of the project that occurred after the CMR was chosen – in fairness to the other competitors in the bid, and in fairness to taxpayer dollars.

When we say, “Here’s our project,” and we have contenders in a bidding process who say, “We can do that scope of work with that budget you’re proposing,” and then we rate them and select one based on an $80 million estimate, and later in the spring the scope substantially changes – new fields, new land, 11% increase – I think that’s substantial enough that it really should go back through the bid process.

Flynt: We believe this is the best firm for this project, based on the criteria we used. The selection process followed the state-approved method. Re-bidding now would cost more and delay the project significantly.

Permissive Transfers:

Baker: Does CVA have a cap?

Jackson: Yes. There is an application process. Some seats are left open in case the alternative school needs a spot.

Dekle: How many parents request this?

Jackson: Not that many. I think there were 5 last year at Blue Ridge.

Allen: Is there a specific policy which covers this?

Jackson: Policy JB handles waivers but this is required under law.

Allen asked the board to create a policy around this situation and brought up a specific example of a student’s waiver that was revoked. The parent felt that the district retaliated and without a policy there’s no way to appeal the district’s decision. Chairman Dekle asserted that the parent could bring litigation against the district then if they felt they were wronged, and that is how they could reverse the decision. Judy Teasley asserted that they can’t speak about specific families or students during an open public meeting because of student privacy.

Stop Finder: This is an app that will replace the current transportation app. Will begin rolling it out in mid-January.

Superintendent Reports:

• Principal for a Day

• 10 educators received $500 mini-grants from Columbia County School Foundation

• 1/8/2026 8th Graders will have Pathway Fair 0900-2pm at Columbia County Exhibition Center

• Early Dismissal: 12/19/2025

• Winter Break: 12/22/2025-1/1/2026

• 1/2/2026: Teacher Workday/ Student Holiday

• 1/5/2026: First day of 2nd Semester

• 1/9/2026: Report Cards

Public Comment:

• Christine Floyd

• Joan Krupsky

• Karin Parham

• Cara Parker

• Brenda Heideman

• Janet Duggan

• Harlem VFW

Executive Session: None

Personnel Recommendations. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Next Regular session board meeting 1/13/2026.

Invocation: Harlem Baptist Church Connections Minister Rebekah Dickerson

Pledge of Allegiance: River Ridge ES & Riverside ES 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No: 1 (Allen stated that she had items that have not been added to the agenda yet)

Special Recognitions:

1. Georgia Chamber of Commerce National Civics Bee 2025

   1. Vivienne Kim, Stallings Island Middle School, 3rd Place

   2. Next local Civics Been at Lakeside HS PAC on 3/19/2026

2. School District Military Veterans: Appreciation video

Board Comments: All Board members are thankful for the high number of staff that our veterans. Proud of 4H Presidents and Vivienne Kim at Civics Bee.

Board Policies:

1. Board Policy IB, Instructional Program Goals and Objectives

2. Board Policy IF, Instructional Resources

3. Board Policy JR, Student Records

4. Board Policy KHE, Gifts to Schools

Flynt: Policies 1-3 were on the table but we haven’t received any input.

Allen: I do have some points of discussion about Board Policy IF, Instructional Resources. We removed 4 paragraphs and inserted the electronic aspect. I have no problem with the addition we added, but I would like to consider we keep the early original paragraphs. The reason is that they go into detail about the extent the district will go to protect PII. In the new phrasing, it reduces these 4 very detailed clauses and reduces it down to one generic clause.

Flynt: Some of the things that we’re removing, and the personally identifiable information is obviously extremely important to us, but a good bit of this is required in state law. And so we remove that and don’t restate state law, because when the state law is either adjusted change or some of the rules and regulations change, then we don’t want to miss that on the other side. And that’s one of the reasons on the policies that we list, the associated official Code of Georgia. So we’re sure that we have those as well. But we try not to restate it in policy.

Allen: So, pull this one [Board Policy IF] out of the group and table it for one month. Yay: 5, No 0

Vote on Board Policy IB & Board Policy JR: Yay 5, No 0

Flynt: I’ll move on to Policy. KHE gets to schools. There’s one addition here.Even though we typically do follow this, we thought it was important to have this put it into procedure. And that’s around donated items, making sure those, such as books or any instructional materials, meet the selection criteria. And we would do that in practice, but we felt that there was a good place in Policy to add that. So that’s the only change to khe. No need. Unless there’s Discussion to vote on this tonight, we’ll leave it on the table for input.

Building Program

1. Bid Results

   1. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

      

      This is for switches and peripheral equipment at Evans High School.

   2. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

      

      Able to use $176,220 from State Bond Funds. Baker asked about rotating the fleet. Some buses are used for travel to extracurricular and field trips. So, not all buses are used every year. Also, have some so if one breaks down we have others. Break downs aren’t as big of an issue because our fleet is fairly new but whenever opportunity comes to use State funds, then we get a discount. The new will come from the general fund.

   3. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

There was some discussion about if some of the companies were local and if they weren’t local if the district would have to pay extra for the company to travel. The bids here include everything.

2. Approval of Naming of Facility at Stallings Island Middle School. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

SIMS to name their football and soccer field Cooper Field after Mr. Brett Thomas Cooper, who died of non Hodgkins lymphoma in 2022. Mr. Cooper taught Math in Columbia County Schools for 20 years, as well as coached football and baseball.

3. Resolution to close out Westmont Elementary School. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

4. Adoption of Bond Resolution for the Issuance of General Obligation Bonds and Related Terms and for Authorizing the Sale of the Bonds to he Successful Bidder. Approve: Yay 4, Abstain: 1 (Katie Allen)

(This discussion is transcribed using Fireflies AI Transcription)

Flynt: As you know, we’ve been preparing to issue general obligation bonds to fund much needed improvements, which will start with Harlem High School. The design funding, as you also know for Harlem High School was previously approved, and you’ve seen a number of those renderings, and we’re looking forward to once this passes. Starting construction... We successfully bid the sale and secured great pricing at 3.79%. So congratulations on that. Much of that goes back to the financial stewardship of this district over a long period of time. And you were able to read through the ratings that we were provided for both Moody’s and Standard and Forest, and we were very excited to see those so strong. We also have an amazing team who did this work. I’d like to thank a couple of them before we get to the. To the vote on this. Jamie Wilson, who is our advisor. Ken Pollock with Butler Snow, who’s our bond attorney. Larry Fletcher, general counsel is in the room. And of course, Alex Cassado, our cfo. Great team. I know there’s a lot of others that helped, but we’re very honored to be able to work with this group and get such a very good pricing. So at this time, we ask that you adopt the required resolution that authorizes the issuance and sale of $180 million in bonds.

not sure: So moved

Baker: Second

Dekle: Discussion

Allen: Dr. Flynt and Chairman Dekle, could you state in good faith that you conducted this process in full transparency to the best of your ability to board members and citizens?

Flynt: I can, yes.

Allen: May I share some of my reservations for discussion that I find this process has not been transparent to board members or to taxpayers?

Dekle: Floor is open…

Allen: Has the district shared the bond terms or amortization schedules to the public? More they shared prior to the meeting on August 26, when this was first voted upon by board members.

Flynt: This process has been going on for about a year and a half. We’ve had not only retreats with the board where we’ve gone through many of these specifics, but we’ve also answered all the questions that we’ve been asked. So as well as we could. I think we have. I don’t know that we need to go back and repeat all of that, but you’ve had access and we give you the information that you’ve asked for.

Dekle: We had an earlier preliminary resolution vote in August, did we not?

Flynt: We did….

Allen: Were board members given the amortization here before…

Teasley: What exactly are we doing right now?

Allen: Were board members, given the amortization schedule….

Teasley: What are we doing without. I mean, I’m…

Allen: I’m raising my reservations that the public was not made aware of the amortization schedule, and I’ve only received it today at 3 o’ clock. Specifically in the fact that interest is going to cost taxpayers over $112 million.

Dekle: Ms. Allen, are you…?

Allen: Is that something that we would normally…?

Dekle: Publicly stated on a number of occasions that you’re against borrowing money and you’re….. against improvement at Harlem High School.

Allen: That’s not correct.

Dekle: So you’re on record for doing that? I’m on record for supporting the updates to Harlem High School. Borrowing money is absolutely essential for us to bring that school into the 21st century. This is your district. This is the high school that sits in your district. And we’ve already done many improvements to other high schools throughout our county.

Allen: Are you for transparency and keeping your word to taxpayers, Chairman Dekle?

Dekle: Excuse me, ma’am.

Allen: Are you for transparency and keeping your word to taxpayers?

Dekle: Very transparent.

Allen: Okay. Historically, in 2019, taxpayers were told that esplost referendums allowed school districts to issue bonds to build immediately and then use esplost revenue to repay the bonds over the Life of the Five Year esplost. How is it that we tell taxpayers their bonds will be repaid over the term of the esplost? And this particular bond, it was repaid over 20 years. I’ve asked for schedules. I’ve asked to see what it would look like repaid over seven years and 10 years. Those have not been provided to me. Why have they not been provided? Why are we only looking at 20 years ago?

Dekle: What qualifies you to ummm?

Allen: I’m trying to keep my word to taxpayers. When we tell taxpayers, if you approve this, we’re intending to pay this back over the life of the esplost, and then we quietly, without even informing board members until after the original vote, bring in something that has a 20 year 4 eSPLOST cycle payment schedule with $112 million in interest alone. That’s almost the price of the school. And we want to do it [muffled]?That’s not transparent.

Flynt: I would just say the resolution that was approved by the voters was very clear that we were able to use debt service. And as a matter of fact, over that last year and a half, through multiple public meetings, we stated that there was a possibility that we may need to use debt service to do that. And over the last maybe six or seven months, we’ve seen where we’re able to do that without adding a debt service or anything else to the millage. And so that’s good news to the taxpayers. We’ve been very forthright with y’ all on this. The voters knew it for the resolution that they approved. And now it’s Yalls Turn to make a motion to either approve or deny the sale of these bonds that ask.

Allen: The question not transparent is our bonds advisor is receiving a commission on this, is that correct? Our financial.

Dekle: Okay. There’s a motion to call for a question. I’ll second that. It’s not debatable. All in favor of ending debate, please raise your right hand. All opposed? All right. The motion to end debate passes three to two. (In favor of ending debate: Teasley, Baker, Dekle. Opposed: Kent, Allen) So now the motion is on the floor to adopt the bond resolution. I will ask all in favor, raise your right hand. All opposed. All in favor of approving the bond resolution as presented by superintendent. All in favor of approval of the bond resolution as presented by the superintendent, raise your right hand. Any abstentions?

Allen: I’m abstaining due to transparency concerns.

Dekle: Speaker 1: 00:00

Okay, so the motion passes four to with one abstention. And the I’ll sign the bond resolution is present. Thank you, Dr. Flynt. Thank you.

Kent: Board members I’d like to make a comment, if I may, Mr. Chairman. Certainly. I don’t appreciate some of the statements were made. I don’t like the direction that necessarily came going here with this. But I also believe that Mr. Chairman said that she was not for rebuilding schools, and that’s not true. I want to make that very make us aware in this room. And she wants to build schools. She doesn’t like the plan. It was in place where I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but that was not true.

Allen: That’s absolutely correct. I’ve said all along I want to support these bonds because I support the projects that they stand for. But we must be transparent. We must protect taxpayer money and 20 years, $100 million. That’s not a good deal. That’s not a good deal for anybody. And we need to do better. And I believe we can do better.

Dekle: Okay, thank you very much. Let’s move on.

Teasley: I’m sorry. I need to make one statement. Okay. I resent the notion that anybody is sitting here saying we are not transparent. If you missed something, you felt that you weren’t provided information. If you chose not to investigate further. However you feel like you missed it, I regret that. Please don’t sit here and act like I am part of a board that is not transparent. And that will be the end of my….

Allen: Do you agree with that, Dr. Flynt? Do you agree with that?

Teasley: That question has already been asked and answered. Can we move on, please?

Allen: I just want to clarify that you believe that I did not pursue this information. That is why I don’t have it. Am I understanding correctly?

Dekle: I, I think you’ve been given all the information you’ve asked for. We’ve been completely transparent. And I, you know, if, if we don’t do the bond deal, then the construction doesn’t get done. It’s the bottom line. So, I mean, you can be in favor of building schools, but how are. How are you going to pay for it? You’re going to do it for free. Nobody’s going to do it for free. We, we can’t sit around and wait 20 years to update the school. So if you oppose the bond resolution, then you’re basically opposing our building plan. That’s my, that’s my.

Allen: That’s a false dichotomy to say I have to agree to a bad deal if I will support building schools.

Teasley: You can’t call us, say that we left…[muffled]

Allen: I can say that because we hired a financial advisor who makes a commission off of this. That’s not, that’s not transparent.

Dekle: I don’t think anybody would do it for free. So thank you very much. I think we need to move on and I hope that you’ve been able to air your differences….

Allen: …concerns about taxpayers.

Dekle: All right, well, let’s move on to superintendent reports.

Superintendent Reports

• GA Apply to College Month through GA Match. Also No fee November

Baker: Asked how displaced/homeless students can receive this information.

District Personnel: They can logon at GA Futures

• American Education Week, November 17-21

• Principal for a Day, November 20

• Thanksgiving Holidays: November 24-28

• Early Dismissal, December 19

• Winter Break: December 22- January 1

Public Particpation:

• Priscilla Bence: Discussed porn addiction and the importance of removing “porn” from the school libraries

• Marlena Bergeron: Discussed District Media Review Committee and does not agree with recent book removals

• Janet Duggan: Doesn’t agree with the bonds. Asked for more transparency.

• Brenda Heideman: Wants the district to post the 10 Commandments at all schools.

• Joan Krupsky: Discussed District Media Review Committee and does not agree with recent book removals

• Karin Parham: Made a statement on behalf of Freedom to Read Coalition of Columbia County. Submitted a policy analysis memo.

• Cara Parker: Discussed District Media Review Committee and does not agree with recent book removals

Executive Session: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Executed affidavit

• Voted on Real estate: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Invocation by Harvest Pointe Fellowship Senior Pastor Chris Norris

Pledge of Allegiance: Evans Elementary School 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Special Recognitions

1. State Superintendent Woods Student Advisory Council 2025-2026

   1. Vithyash Ayyappan, Evans High School

   2. Iris Holberton, Columbia Virtual Academy

2. Columbia County Retired Educators Association:

   1. Appreciation Day, 1st Sunday of November (November 2, 2025)

3. Employee Recognition

   1. Lilly Gibson: 50 years with Columbia County School District

Board Comments: All board members expressed pride in 4H presidents and thanked them for their leadership. Congratulated new advisory council members and encouraged them to speak up in advocacy for their fellow students. Thanked Ms. Gibson for her dedication the past 50 years. All expressed appreciation to retired educators.

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

1. Minutes of 10/14/2025 Regular Session Meeting

2. September Financials

3. Fundraisers

4. Employee Travel

5. Secondary Employment

Board Policies

1. Board Policy IB, Instructional Program and Objectives

2. Board Policy IF, Instructional Resources

3. Board Policy JR, Student Records

Flynt: There were some changes in the wording at the state level so changing these policies to mirror state guidance. We can discuss these now, leave them out on the desk and then can vote at your next meeting.

Allen: For IF, is there flexibility on the wording that was provided for this policy?

Flynt: Yes, as a board you can do that. Typically we use their wording. There was one section that was a bit confusing so we already changed that a bit. Mr. Van Meter helped with that wording.

Allen: I would like to have a more in-depth discussion because it looks like whereas before we had 4 paragraphs of very specific instruction on student data and PII. It looks like that was replaced with a just sort of blanket paragraph.

Flynt: I’ll just speak to some of that and then Mr. Van Meter can talk to that. What we have done in the last couple of years is to be careful to remove some of the requirements that are in the law out of the policy because we don’t have to restate the law. We have to follow the law but it doesn’t have to be in the policy.

Van Meter: (He was hard to hear) He made it more generic to give more flexibility.

Allen: She read an article on Common sense Media where 3/4 of apps used a legal loophole to use student data although they aren’t supposed to.

Van Meter: We do use a vetting process called Trusted Acts, and they set those protection policies. So when there is an app, it goes through not only us, but goes through a 3rd party as well.

Flynt: We’ll lay these out at the table for public comment and will vote next meeting.

(Karin’s Note: The changes are available at the school district in the lobby. When they did this last year, you could see the changes online and post feedback. I don’t see that this time but you can look here.)

Discussion Topics and Presentations:

1. Inspire School Spotlight, Associate Superintendent Dr. Kristen Carroll and Principal of Riverside Middle School Eli Putnam

2. Discovery Center of the CSRA Update, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Brian Campbell, Director of Discovery Center Experience Tim Behling, and Manager of Education Tiffany Palmer

   1. Statewide Students FY25: 112,757

   2. CSRA Total Students FY25: 13,027

   3. District Impact

      1. CCSD Student Total: 10, 537

      2. JA Biztown: 4411

      3. JA Finance Park: 6126

Allen: Since this is operated by a not-profit, is it funded through business donations? volunteers?

Flynt: CCBOE funded the building and then its funded by business partnerships

Dekle: How do you get volunteers? Do you have enough?

JA Staff: We operate 18 store fronts and we like to have at least 1 volunteer at each store front. The number of volunteers has been lower this year.

• If you want to volunteer send an email to tpalmer@georgia.ja.org

Staff Reports

1. Academic Curriculum for Excellence Update, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Brian Campbell and Harlem High School Teacher Laura Griffin.

   1. Moved all of the ACE Case K-12 Resources to Canvas.

      1. Demonstration on how it is used

      2. Laura Griffin experience

Superintendent Reports:

1. 2025 ACT Results came in.

   1. District

      1. 2024: 22.2

      2. 2025: 22.9

   2. State

      1. 2024: 21.2

      2. 2025: 21.4

   3. National

      1. 2024: 19.4

      2. 2025: 19.4

   4. #5 in Georgia for districts with 200+ test takers

2. 2025 Advanced Placement

   1. Total AP Exams

      1. 2021: 3298

      2. 2022: 3292

      3. 2023: 3649

      4. 2024: 4555

      5. 2025: 4581

   2. Percent Scoring 3 or Higher

      1. 2021: 55%

      2. 2022: 57%

      3. 2023: 63%

      4. 2024: 73%

      5. 2025: 78%

Executive Session:

1. Sworn Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

2. Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

3. Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Regular Meeting: November 18, 2025

Invocation: Martinez Baptist Church Children and Youth Pastor Navin Jeremiadoss

Pledge of Allegiance: Martinez Elementary School 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen opposed)

Special Recommendations. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Assistant Principal Greenbrier High School: Dr. Alexandra Beldman (sp?)

Special Recognitions

• Georgia Department of Education Title I School of Distinction

  • Blue Ridge Elementary School

Board Comments: All board members thanked the pastor for the invocation, 4-H Presidents for leading the pledge, congratulated Dr. Beldman on new position at Greenbrier High School and contratulated Blue Ridge Elementary School. They also welcomed a Boy Scout troop in attendance earning their communication badge.

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• Minutes of 9/23/2025 Work Session Meeting

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

Building Program:

• Resolution to Close out South Columbia Elementary School. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Superintendent Reports:

• SAT Average 1088, 3 year increase. #4 in Georgia schools with 1000+ test takers

Allen: What percentage of students take the SAT?

Flynt: I would need to look that up for you.

Teasley: This is with any student because any student can take the SAT at our schools. Some districts limit who can take the SAT.

Flynt: ACT data should come out soon so we can report that data at the next meeting.

• Graduation Rates: 92.96% rounded up to 93% on some reports. #8 in Georgia schools with 1000+ graduates

Allen: How are the graduation rates calculated? Is that incoming freshman?

Flynt: It’s by cohort and includes summer graduations and transfers in. 5th year graduates will count the following year.

• 10/19 - 10/25 America’s School Safety Week

• GSBA Exemplary School Board Recognition

Dekle: This should also go to the Superintendent and staff because really couldn’t get this recognition without their dedication and hard work.

• Local Board Training Plan. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Public Comments:

• Patricia Sonnier

• Karin Parham

• Philip Braum

• Joan Krupsky

• Lorraine Case

Executive Session

• Affidavit stating that only discussed items allowed in closed session. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel Sheet. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Georgia’s Comp. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Right of way Easement at Lakeside HS. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next Work Session Board Meeting: 10/28/2025

Invocation: St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church Deacon Glen Garrison

Pledge of Allegiance: Euchee Creek Elementary School 4-H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Special Recommendation:

• Grovetown Elementary School Principal - Latoya Jackson Barnett. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions

• Columbia County Exchange Club Freedom Shrines

• Drum Corps International

  • Lakeside High School

    • Hendrick Chitty

    • Rand Sayno

  • Harlem High School

    • Aiden McMullen

    • Kiernan McMullen

  • Greenbrier High School

    • Rigel Kotas

    • Marcus Snyder

Board Comments: All board members congratulated Ms. Latoya Jackson Barnett. All thanked Deacon Glen Garrison for invocation. Thanked the exchange club for the Freedom Shrines in the schools. Thanked student drummers and 4-H students.

Consent Items: Board approved items C-F (approve: Yay 5, No 0) and pulled items A & B for debate because Katie Allen wanted to address them.

• C. Fundraisers

• D. Employee Travel

• E. Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• F. Lease/Use of Facilities

September 9, 2025 Regular Session Meeting Minutes. (Approve: Yay 4, No 1 (Kristi Baker))

Katie Allen was concerned that the discussion regarding challenging media center materials was not on the meeting minutes.

Dekle: Asked if [Allen] was making a motion to amend the minutes?

Allen: Made a motion to amend the minutes to include the discussion and presentation about media center policies and procedures. Asked about where in the minutes the presentation would be placed.

Flynt: It wasn’t added to the minutes because there wasn’t anything actionable. There were many constituent questions about it, so decided to present the information. Usually those types of things are included under Superintendent Reports for School Year Updates.

August Financials: (Approve: Yay 5, No 0)

• Allen noticed a difference in revenue from July to August. July for local sources $157 million. August financials say $153 million. Asked if there was a budget amendment document?

Casado: The difference in revenue is from changing the millage to the rollback rate. I believe there was an amended budget in the consent items a couple months ago when you voted to roll the millage rate back.

Allen: Is there a way to communicate the budget changes to the public?

Dekle: No need to change it. It’s available to the public and you have the documents too.

Inspire School Spotlight, Associate Superintendent Kristen Carroll and Assistant Principal of Blue Ridge Elementary School Jessica Williams

Special Education Update, Chief Academic Officer LeAnne Gregg and Director of Special Education Sharard Pritchett

MTSS: 3 Tiers of intervention before evaluation for Special Education

IDEA: Free Access to Public Education (FAPE) in least restrictive environment. Services driven by data and tailored to students’ unique needs

IEP Team: Teachers, school personnel, service providers, parents and student (older students).

• Reviewed annually, can be modified more than annually if necessary. Evaluation every 3 years or sooner if necessary.

• Funding: maximize funding FTE to increase revenue. Able to provide additional staffing/resources. Providing higher support.

  • +$12 million increase over past 4 years, above and beyond.

  • Average expenditure increased by $2300/pupil

• 2 Examples of going beyond:

  • State Max teacher/student ratio is 14. Columbia county average is 11 students/teacher.

  • State Max for LD is 26. Columbia County average is 15.

• 18% of students with disabilities are in self-contained classrooms

  • ASD: Autism Spectrum Disorder

  • EBD: Emotional Behavior Disorder

  • ID - Functional Skills

  • T.K. - Transitional Kindergarten

• 2023-2024 External Audit Needs Assessment

  • 3 Areas: Instruction, Compliance, Behavior

• 2024-2025

  • Began addressing issues by improving ACE w/ district resources, planning opportunities, Compliance (IEP Meetings, additional staff training), Behavior (class structure, staff training)

• 2025-2026

  • Restructure

    • 5 clusters

    • Specialization of positions: Instruction Specialists, Behavior Specialists, Program Specialists

    • Rotation Schedule

Allen: There was an issue with an IEP being altered without a parent’s knowledge or consent. What steps have we taken to see if this has happened to other IEPs?

Pritchett: We use the guidance we’ve received with IEP agendas in IEP meetings to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Allen: Have we looked through to make sure they didn’t happen to other IEPs or what have we done. Have we done a review of some sort?

Pritchett: Well, we do the reviews and that’s one of the line items for our compliance specialists. They go in and review those IEPs and support our teachers to ensure that we’re compliant.

Allen: And I know the district recently changed its practice to no longer allow third party special education supports. If a child does need this third party support that is listed in their IEP and the district is not able to provide it. What’s our way forward for the district assisting parents to ensure the child has provided that service?

Pritchett: Well, again, that’s on an individual basis and determining if a service or support is needed for a student to asset state and the team, you know, reviewing that data and making that decision. And if there’s a need for a student, then, you know, we provide that to that student, that service or support.

Allen: So if it’s in their IEP already and it’s determined they need it, how do we provide that if we’re not networking with third party providers anymore?

Pritchett: That’s, that’s more so hypothetical. So I mean.

Allen: Well, it did happen. That’s why I’m asking.

Pritchett: Well, I can’t speak to individual information here in the board meeting.

Teasley: So to recap, Special Education students are 13% of our population. We have 258 teachers for Special Ed and they are spread out across different programs to meet the individual needs of those students.

Allen: Is the parent mentor vacant?

Pritchett: It’s filled. The grant was approved over the summer in July and it was filled by August. He’s excited for the new parent mentor.

Baker: Was there a liaison before?

Pritchett: Yes, before.

Allen: How long was the gap between when the liaison left and the parent mentor started?

Pritchett: More of a personnel issue….

Kent: There are always complaints with IEPs. Is there anyway to measure if the new restructuring has less or more complaints? Can you show a reduction of complaints?

Gregg: We just started this new structure, only about 5 1/2 weeks into it. It’s difficult to measure reductions in complaints. We’ve gotten positive feedback and we feel good about it. We’re making adjustments too.

Teasley: Is it difficult to find Special Education personnel?

Pritchett: Mr. Wright will speak to that.

(The following is transcribed)

Allen: I want to be completely honest. I’m seeing a disjunct between just a full disconnect between what I’m seeing in the slides and what the public has brought to me. I’ve had a number of parents reaching out with special ed concerns and you know, wanting me to bring these concerns to the meeting. And this opportunity is really the place to do it. So I did have a parent and she networked with a number of other special ed parents who felt like they couldn’t speak up and share individually because they feared retaliation. And so she combines their feedback and sent it and asked me to share with the so some of those things that she shared, you know, I won’t read all of it, but some of the main takeaways are she’s saying decisions are being made that don’t seem to have our kids best interests at heart, especially the ones with higher needs. Moving classes around, the unnecessary changes to special education specialists, making constant adjustments. If anything, this has made school harder for these students. She talks about idea complaints climbing based on her circle of parents that she knows. She says things typically went from okay in 22 to 23 to now completely out of control. Parents are crying out for help and the system is still failing our kids. She said. I saw a parent on Facebook trying to find out our parent mentor. I gave up on that search weeks ago. Since the information still isn’t on the district website when you click on the link, the page doesn’t load. The pay for ASD paraprofessionals is shameful, which I did have a Principal Echo that a while ago, says families are leaving the system in numbers because they’re being failed by our special ed program. And she says instead of collaborating with parents, the district bites us. They dig their heels in. There’s no compromise, no flexibility, no effort to meet us halfway. It feels like it’s their way or no way, and our children pay the price. So I want to continue having these discussions because we’ve got to bridge that disconnect somehow. We’re seeing one thing here or here or I’m hearing a number of things. I know I’ve witnessed the situation. I talked about when we were in that situation together, reading an IEP that said a child needed ADA supports, but yet we weren’t providing them because we don’t network with third parties anymore. I’m seeing that there’s just a disconnect. And so I would like the district to consider hosting a public question and answer session, a forum directly with the community to add for targeted feedback with questions and answers for the community for these parents to come and have an open, interactive discussion. I think this is a first step and I’m very proud this district has brought it to the meeting to allow the board to address it. And I think the next step would be that we would post or the district would host a question and answer forum directly with the public where parents can bring back their targeted features, feedback for the special ed program and their questions. So I pose that to Chairman, I…

Chairman Dekle: Have a question for the District 4 representative, the single complaining parent. First of all, how long have you had that information?

Allen: I’ve shared it with the board through email a number of times. This was a specific…

Chairman Dekle: I did not receive that. But the important question is, did you connect this parent with our district people so that they could address these concerns, or did you save them so you could bring them to this public forum and then have an opportunity to hear yourself speak?

Allen: Well, I did send them to the superintendent a number of times. And you received them? I’ve sent them CC’d the board on all these complaints.

Flynt: Have you received these? Ms. Allen? If I get a individual complaint, I will deal with that. That was what I was going to offer. Obviously, Ms. Gregg is available. Mr. Pritchett, all the specialists. All we have to do is know the parent and we’ll reach out and they’re going to get a lot of support. We get a lot of positive feedback. Now we don’t get everything right. We wouldn’t say that. But we work with parents very well and we’re very, very proud of our schools and our teachers. So, so when you have an issue, let’s please give me that individual issue. We will address it, we promise you. But we can’t err an individual’s. If it’s a. It might identify a student here. And so we have a limited number, especially in our self contained programs. We can’t do that in public.

Chairman Dekle: I would agree 100%. Dr. Flint. I think it’s totally inappropriate to come here and read the complaint of an individual parent, especially if you haven’t connected that parent and that family to the right people so that they can address these issues privately, individually, professionally and not in the public forum in order to score some type of political points. It’s to me, you know, it’s just, it’s not professional, it’s not appropriate.

Allen: I maintain that I did send these and I have sent communications and feedback every step of the way and the board’s always cc’d. And I also maintain that this parent is not an individual email. This is a collaboration of a number of parents who were afraid to speak out and who have either tried to speak out or were afraid to because they’re seeing how other parents have been responded to. And so this parent networked with them, combines their feedback, brought it to me as their representative said, please take this to the board so that we can feel heard.

Teasley: Speaking out to the board is not going to get a solution. She needs to be put in touch. Or he needs to be put in. Touch with the professionals that actually can make a difference. That’s why our norms of protocols require that we send whatever the complaint is, whatever the issue is to the people that actually do this, that we hire to do this, that can make that difference. Writing to us allows us to be the conduit to sources that can make the difference that needs to be made. Airing those differences here puts everybody in jeopardy, doesn’t get a difference made for the student that actually needs to see the difference. If a parent is unwilling to reach out to the people in the schools that actually deal with the students, it’s unlikely that they’re going to come to a town hall. If we’re going to make a difference for students, contact the individual, go to the schools, speak with the teacher, with the principal. I’ve never met a person in Columbia county schools that would not listen, that would not investigate, that would not do what needs to be done for a student in special ed, regular ed. Now, can we do everything according to everybody’s wishes? That would be wonderful if it were so, but it’s not okay as far as third party individuals go. No, we can’t bring third party individuals into a school because they have to be vetted just like everybody else. Whether it’s a parent volunteer, whether it’s a guest speaker. We need to know who’s in the building amongst our students. As a parent, I think everybody could appreciate, but I don’t think anybody is going without having their needs met. And I think our personnel makes every effort to make sure all needs are met. I think this approach is counterproductive. I think going directly to the schools, to the personnel is the best way to approach this. I think if somebody writes us, it’s imperative that we send them in that direction.

Allen: Also when individuals feel that they’ve exhausted those options, is this not the forum and the discussion to discuss where the community feedback is and integrate that into a full discussion to say, okay, we’ve got these metrics, these program outlines, we’ve got this community feedback as a board. How can we begin to bridge those two to find a solution?

Flynt: Do that one on one and take that person to the source. I’ll just make it known. Well, I think it’s important to note there are four formal processes here that parents should follow. We follow them to the T at the district. If and hopefully if they get to one of one of the three of us which is very late, if they get to one of the three of us and still it’s not resolved. There’s the state level process that is very open and we give them that information. And Mr. Pritchett, you can talk about that when we have have a disagreement. Actually we have any meeting if they will say if you disagree with this, this is the process that you follow and you can go to the state and complain and we’ll work. They’ll… the State will come back to us and if we did something wrong, they’ll tell us. And can you.

Pritchett: Yes. At each meeting parents are given parental rights and in those parental rights are procedural safeguards. If there is any disagreement with an IEP decision and it details further in a state complaint or due process as procedural safeguards for parents. And in those cases then someone from the state intervenes and does an investigation to look into the matters.

Flynt: And I would also mention if we actually went on another process and, and say created a process or procedure or policy that was different than these guidelines, we would be in violation of not only state and federal law.

Chairman Dekle: You know, I think we need to bring this to a close. But I think the most important thing is, Ms. Allen, if a parent brings to you such concerns, it is of the utmost importance that you board that parents concerns to the right people in a timely manner. I know that you, you asked if we could address special education more than a month ago. Dr. Flynn explained to you that we would be addressing that during our work session at the end of September. And so clearly you’ve been sitting on this for over a month and during that month so much could have been done to help this parent that was upset. But instead we’re just, you know, you’re using it in public form and that’s not productive.

Allen: I disagree with the accuracy of that statement.

Mr. Wright, Human Resources

District switched to a weighted staffing plan. Increased revenue and expenditures for Special Ed. Schools were able to add staff and most added IEP teachers. Many have ESOL and Gifted endorsements. Not all schools are the same.

Allen: What is the average State pay for paraprofessionals?

Wright: Atlanta will be about $5-7K more per year but cost of living is higher there. Nobody is going to move from Atlanta to here for a paraprofessional position.

Kent: You said that EBD positions are a struggle to keep filled?

Wright: The behaviors are difficult to manage. Teachers can get hurt without training.

Pritchett: Behavior specialists and getting that population the strategies for support. Getting their behaviors to where they can be in a regular learning environment.

Wright: Some of these can be abusive and there have been injuries. It’s hard on our employees and nobody should have that, regardless of FAPE.

Bid for Student Headphones: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

This is a budget item out of the General Fund. This is the first time purchase of these head phones. They are necessary for milestones. New ELA Standards use different types of media making the headphones necessary.

Lakeside HS Furniture Bid: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Allen: How often do we replace furniture?

Flynt: It’s on a rotation.

Casado: The cycle is based on age, age of building. We go through and do an assessment and come to an agreement with the principal. Man power is an issue with summer deliveries. We replace about 2 schools per year. 15-20 year furniture replacement. For LHS, it’s a line item in the renovation so funded by SPLOST.

Kent: Didn’t we already vote on LHS Furniture?

Flynt: Yes, office and classroom furniture.

Kent: Wouldn’t it be better to combine into 1 bid?

Casado: It’s a timing issue. This is for the Learning Commons. We have budgeted over $1 million for furniture and we’re under that. Furniture can be a moving target. This is new, even conceptually for High School.

Superintendents Reports

• 9/16/2025: IT Professionals Appreciation Day

• 9/15/2025-10/15/2025 National Hispanic Heritage Month

• 9/29/2025 Grovetown Middle School “Let’s Talk”

Executive Session

• Affidavit: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel Sheet: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Invocation: West Acres Baptist Church Senior Pastor Malone Morris

Pledge of Allegiance: Cedar Ridge Elementary School 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yes 5, No 0

Special Recognitions

1. Columbia County School District Teachers of the Year Finalists for 2026

   1. Tiffany Tanner, Parkway Elementary School

   2. Nancy Morris, Columbia Middle School

   3. Jona Gaskin, Westmont Elementary School

   4. Kirsten Matthis, Evans High School

   5. Lauren O’Neil, Cedar Ridge Elementary School

2. TechNetAugusta Capture the Flag Competition

   1. Greenbrier Middle School, 2nd Place

      1. Wyatt Ahrens

      2. Mason Rice

      3. Tobias Shoemaker

   2. Lakeside Middle School, 1st Place

      1. Michael Bowman

      2. Roberto Guillen

      3. Isaiah Jinif

      4. Dexter Oberlies

3. Columbia County School District Foundation

   1. Georgia’s OWN Credit Union

   2. Trustees

      1. Adam Williams, President

      2. Stan Shepherd, VP

      3. Megan Moye, Secretary

      4. Steve Baxter

      5. Kristi Baker

      6. Dave Brendza

      7. Stephen King

      8. Yvonne Meeks

      9. Dean Smith

      10. Nichole Spence

      11. Staci Tallent

Custodial Supplement: Approve: Yes 5, No 0

$171,000 rewarded for school year for $1000 supplemental, to be split into 2 payments. Doesn’t include FICA.

Building Program

1. Project Update

   1. Lakeside HS

      1. Once roof is done, inside gets done

      2. School moved into PAC

      3. Gym-footings going in and they have to be large

   2. Evans HS

      1. Similar gyms but different on the outside

      2. Roofs being placed so inside coming together over 3 months

      3. Batting cages in progress

      Allen: Was any of this paid for by $190 million SPLOST?

      Flynt: No….

      Baker: LHS traffic tends to be an issue. Are they coming in from Blue Ridge?

      Flynt: Coming in from King Taylor, back side. It’s gone well this year. I know in other years, it’s been an issue but it has gone well this year.

      Jackson: The schools have staggered dismissal. The County opened Panther Crossing and added striping on Blue Ridge Drive. Traffic is moving smoothly.

      Allen: For Harlem HS, there was a question from my town hall. How many classrooms does it have?

      Flynt: I’m not sure. The addition 2 years ago added 26. More instructional units will be added after the renovations.

      Allen: The $190 million bonds approved. Other scenarios have payments until 2045. Some have a 10 year payment schedule. Some are 20 year…. There are repayment schedules at 7 years, 13 years. 20 years adds overhead and interest. I’m interested in other terms.

      Dekle: You have been given info and we’ve already voted on that.

      Allen: Selling bonds won’t be final until December though….

      Dekle: There’s no motion on the table to discuss bonds.

2. Bid Results: Yay 5, No 0

Allen: Which funding item is this?

Casado: LHS funding line

Instructional Materials: Dr. Flynt wanted to address this since the district has been receiving a lot of feedback from stakeholders

• Practices - what we have in place. Procedures have been updated recently, in the past couple of years.

• Process required by State Law

• Ms. Gregg

  • IF OP5: Instructional Materials Section

  • IF OP9: Covers media center materials

    • School level media center committees and district level media center committees. Required members of the committees

    • Parents & Permanent Guardians can challenge materials

    • District can review as needed. They could review materials based on a social media post and anyone can notify the district. Reviews are at the district’s discretion.

    Allen: Mr. Fletcher (BoE attorney), this is an appeals process. The appeals clause, I’m not sure the district has discretion to review. The addition was added 2 years ago.

    Fletcher: I’m not sure since I haven’t looked at it and I don’t have it in front of me.

    Allen: School has ability to review materials at any point?

    Dekle: No, the district does. I would like to listen to what Ms. Gregg is trying to tell us.

    Allen: started speaking

    Dekle: *gavel* let Ms. Gregg finish, please.

    Gregg: Parents of students and/or the the District can review the material. At both the school and district level, parents hold the majority on both committees. The district can initiate a review at anytime.

    Allen: Under OP9, a community member may ask for a challenge but has no right under procedure.

    Gregg: All policies/procedures are written for parents to challenge but there are due diligence requirements from the district to review materials.

School Based Speech-Language Pathologist Week: 9/9-9/13

Public Participation (12 speakers)

• Cambry Wood: Not in attendance

• Priscilla Bence

• Gregory Rogers

• Marlena Bergeron

• Cara Parker

• Megan Chamberlain

• Karin Parham

• Janet Duggan

• Emily Harrison

• Ayman Fadel

• Mary Beth Gaudette

• Kaitlin Giddens

Executive Session: Not required - Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel sheet: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen, opposed and mentioned board items)

Work Session Board Meeting: September 23, 2025

Call To Order: 5:30PM

Invocation: Philadelphia Methodist Church Pastor James Hyder

Pledge of Allegiance: Lakeside High School JROTC

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions:

• State and National Beta Club Summer Competitions:

  • Harlem Middle School, National Beta Club Secretary Top 3 Finalist

    • Lorelei Patrick

  • Harlem High School, 2nd Place Color Photography

    • Destiny Smith

  • Lakeside High School

    • Eliana Benevides, 2nd Place, Science

    • Coralyn Cairns, 3rd Place, French

    • Om Doshi

      • 2nd Place, Biomedical Health Science

      • 2nd Place, Visual Art (Quilling)

      • 5th Place, Visual Art (Quilling, National Level Competition)

    • Stephen Lin, 1st Place, Instrumental Soloist (flute)

    • Julia Min, 2nd Place, Spelling

    • Musicology Team, 2nd Place

      • Gray Hollan

      • Alejandro Martinez

      • Holly Sun

      • Hannah Thomas

• 77th US Junior Amateur Golf Champion

  • Hamilton Coleman, Lakeside High School

(Before voting on consent items, District 4 Katie Allen asked for item B, June and July Financials, to be removed from consent Agenda, for discussion)

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• Minutes of 8/12/2025, Regular Session Meeting and Minutes of 8/14/2025 Board Retreat

• Budget Amendment and Transfer

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

June and July Financials: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

(The following discussion is not transcribed)

Allen: Doesn’t have questions but commentary to keep in mind when heading into budget discussions in the spring. Comparing end of year fiscal numbers to the beginning of the fiscal year budget numbers, and looking at patterns and talk about that. Then, I’m fine approving it. The final adopted budget starting the fiscal year showed an estimated revenue about $349 million. Final revenue collected at the end of the fiscal year was $375 million, which means that we collected $26 million additional revenue during FY25. Then the final adopted budget that we started the fiscal year with showed estimated expenditures of $349 million. Actual expenditures were $342 million, which put us $7 million under budget, plus an extra $23 million transferred to the building program, which reaches the final expenditure of $365 million, which is on the financial sheet. Wants to highlight to continue budget discussion a few months ago. Had we not transferred that $23 million to the building program, we would have had $26 million extra revenue, $7 million less in spending, which would have created essentially a surplus from last year FY 25 of $33 million. In future budget discussions, a few months ago for FY26, we had this discussion about trends over the last few years and we're consistently under budgeting revenue. pattern is continuing. Important was because by under budgeting, I'd ask, part of our conversation was, hey, can we give our teachers a raise or can we hire more sped paraprofessionals? You know, there were concerns that there wouldn't be enough money in the budget.

Dekle: Thanked Mr. Casado for great accounting practices and the district keeping under budget. Transferring funds to the building program keeps district from having to borrow more money.

Teasley: Verified that there was an audit conducted for FY24 and that everything was OK during the audit.

Casado: Verified that yes, the audit was conducted and everything was fine.

Teasley: The auditor also explained that the budgetary practices used are acceptable and used at other school districts?

Casado: Yes, that was the results of the audit.

Discussion Topics and Presentations

• Strategic Planning, Dr. Flynt

  • Vision: The Columbia County School District will lead the nation in educational excellence where each student is engaged, enriched , and inspired.

  • Mission: The Columbia County School District will provide each student challenging content in a supportive environment resulting in increased academic achievement through shared accountability.

• Goal 1: Maximize Student Achievement and Success for Each Student, LeAnne Gregg

  • Performance Objective 1: Increase understanding and mastery of the curriculum

    • Transition to New ACE Platform

    • Writing assessments at 4th, 7th, and 9th grades

    • Provide professional learning and increase collaboration for special education staff

    • Develop standard science labs for 5th grade, Biology and Chemistry

  • Performance Objective 2: Increase instructional rigor

    • Expand CTAE Offerings

    • Implement Strings Academy opportunity

    • Revise and align gifted instructional units

  • Performance Objective 3: Enhance Academic Support

    • Refine HS MTSS Process

    • Redesign credit recovery and summer school

    • Improve supports for SPED, Gifted, and EL.

    • Administer PSAT 8/9th grade

• Goal 2: Community Engagement and Support, Alex Casado

  • Performance Objective 1: Maximize family and community involvement

    • Expand number of community partners contributing time and resources to the CCSD foundation

    • Create school accountability report and post to each school website

  • Performance Objective 2: Expand meaningful business and post-secondary partnerships

  • Performance Objective 3: Improve Internal/external communication

    • Reorganize and update district website to increase engagement

    • Continue to refine the monthly newsletter to employees

• Goal 3: Consistent and Supportive Culture, Steve Cummings

  • Performance Objective 1: Ensure a safe learning environment

    • Installation and implementation of EPIC systems

    • Student behavior threat assessment training and implementation teams

  • Performance Objective 2: Nurture strong relationships in a supportive environment

    • Implement ACE for Elementary counseling

    • Continue the use of PBIS

  • Performance Objective 3: Support the overall health of students

    • Implement signs of suicide at Middle and High School Level

    • Enhance vetted resources for parents and guardians at all levels

    • hire and train (2) student advocacy specialists

• Goal 4: Facilities and Operational Excellence, Penny Jackson and James Van Meter

  • Performance Objective 1: Improve operational processes and systems

    • Marketing tools to improve access to nutritional resources

    • Implement and utilize the transportation routing and camera system

  • Performance Objective 2: Identify and plan for upcoming facility needs

    • Comprehensive building program

    • Implement and utilize entry and alert management systems for increased security

  • Performance Objective 3: Improve Technology Access

    • Engineer IT systems to improve digital infrastructure

    • Develop disaster recovery/ business continuity plan

    • Promote a distraction free learning environment

Staff: 14 core + 32 in schools

• Talent Optimization, Tony Wright

  • Performance Objective 1: Attract a highly-Qualified Staff

    • Use data driven talent recruiting strategies to better target hi-payoff talent markets

    • Use talent screening tools to increase success probability of hired teachers and leaders

  • Performance Objective 2: Provide Professional growth opportunities and development for all employees

    • Improve new employee onboarding

    • Continue professional development opportunities.

  • Performance Objective 3: Retain a highly-effective workforce

    • Employee recognition pins

    • Better communicate to employees about benefits/compensation package

    • Leverage feedback from current and departing employees to improve retention

    • Increase pool of applicants and fill rates in hard to fill areas

Staff Reports

• America 250 Update, Dr. Campbell

  • District will incorporate patriotic themes all school year in all subjects to celebrate.

• School Calendar for 2026-2027, Penny Jackson

  • 1096 voted, 107 additional comments.

    • Option 3 was winner with 47%

Discussion about Veteran’s Day because it falls on a Wednesday and suggestion of not having actual day off. However, the military community prefers to have the actual Veteran’s Day off.

Building Program

• Bid Results

  • School Mapping Services, Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Samsara Internal Bus Cameras, Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Resolutions for Euchee Creek Elementary School & Greenbrier High School HVAC: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

This is to verify that the projects have been completed so the state can reimburse funds.

• Resolution to approve funding plan for Harlem High School, Greenbrier High School, and other capital projects, and issuance of bonds approved by voters at election held on 11/5/2024. Approve: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Casado: Hello again. As Dr. Flint mentioned, we have a great discussion during the last retreat regarding the comprehensive building program and how to move forward with financing the next stage of the building program. Reviewed the history of the building program and the general timeline of events that have led up to where we are today. As a reminder, the building program was developed in response to feedback from a cross section of community, community stakeholders, both internal and external during the district's development of the new strategic plan. We heard time and time again throughout that process that the community wants our aging facilities to be addressed so that they meet the standard enjoyed by students across the district in our newer facilities as well as across similar sized districts in the state and the Southeast.

Those sentiments were echoed again for community feedback and input later that year during the development of the actual building program. More recently, we went back to the community last fall before the November election and received the same very similar feedback about the district's aging facilities. Finally, the voters of Columbia county approved the general obligation bond referendum secured by East Boss sales tax dollars during the November election. Now we are at the next stage of the comprehensive building program where we are seeking to do similar work to Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School as we are currently doing with Lakeside and Evans High School.

Doing so would require issuing a portion of the general obligation bonds approved by the voters in November in order to start the work on these projects and ensures the district is following through with the direction we shared with the voters regarding the building program. And the plan of finance that we put together is a financially sound one that aims to avoid the need to levy a debt service millage rate to pay back these bonds. Undertaking these bonds under this plan won't jeopardize vital work happening in each of our schools every day, which is high level student instruction. Tonight, we ask that you approve the resolution before you to move forward with the plan of finance for the additions and renovation projects for both Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School.

Allen: All right, I'll jump in. So we have great discussions at our retreat meeting. I thought it was, well, really great delving financials at that level. And I left y'all with some questions. Dr. Flynt, you sent me responses yesterday to those questions, and thank you for that. I've kind of reviewed those. And I want to support these bonds because I fully support the program that what they're funding building these high schools. And but along with that, I still did have some financial concerns with where this additional bond, 190 million, would put us in a concept of how much debt we'll be looking at. So I did pardon… These are my handwritten notes since I was working on it this morning, trying to incorporate the latest answers I have, and I did make copies for y'all so you can kind of look at what I'm looking at as I speak. And I did keep it very, very simple.

I'm a visual person, so I find that really helps if I can kind of look at the numbers. And so you'll see two pie charts, one on the left that shows splost 2027 to 2032, this splost that we're going into. And one on the right, a future 2032-2037 splost if approved by voters. And it's important that we talk about that, even though it hasn't been approved yet, because the financial decisions we're making today put payments and debt well into the future. And even right now, our payments are already into 2036. So I do think it's important that we talk about not just going into the current splost but the splost after, because our financial decisions and debt decisions expand all the way to that.

So with that, I see that our expected SPLOST revenue that I'm working off of is the $235 million that I was told we expected to receive. So based on our current bond and interest payments alone for this time period, we are already looking at $59 million of payments, and that works out to be right around a quarter. So a quarter of this splost that we're just about to enter into is already earmarked just to make our basic bonds and interest payments for that time period. And mind you, that $59 million is just for the current, the splost, the 27 splost. But it still leaves $85 million left over that we've already signed our names to for the 2032-2037 splost. So altogether, our current bond and interest debt from 2028 through 2036, when the payments end, is looking at $144 million.

And that's important because adding another $190 million to that, not even including the interest, because we don't know the interest rate yet, would put us at $334 million of bond debt starting in, I'd say, 2028. I tried to, you know, round favorably for what we're trying to do, so but there's still a lot of unknowns. I mean, just looking at the debt aspects, that explains kind of that first page. The second page is a recurrence of what you've already been given.

In my previous packet, I'm looking at trends, and I understand that debt to splost ratio, it's not an industry standard as we talked about, but it does put it kind of in layman's terms, and it shows a trend that I'm seeing that even as our splosts getting approved or getting approved at larger numbers, the debt that we're carrying into those splosts starts increasing. It's growing at a higher rate than the splosts are growing. So, for example, the 2017 splost was approved at $140 million. We went into that splost with about $70 million of debt, so about a 50% debt. Debt to splost ratio. In 2022, the splost was $160 million. We went in with $68 million, a little bit less, and that put it at about 43% of the SPLOST compared to our total debt. 2027, $270 million was approved for loss.

We came in at a total of around $162 million. We were looking at about 60% of a splost to debt ratio. And if we add $190 million of bonds today, that puts us at roughly $350 total debt, or I think our number was $344 on that first page, which puts us roughly at about 130% of the SPLOST. So really that means that we're entering a SPLOST of $270 million, really only expecting $235 million, carrying, if we approve this bond today, a debt of $334 million. And there's just so much we don't know. I've not seen a payment schedule, what these payments are going to look like over the next eight, 10 years.

I don't know the interest rate, which is substantial when you're looking at a bond this size. So really we don't even know what that. If we're looking at this current 2027 SPLOST with $59 million that we know we're making in bond and interest payments and we're adding payments to that during the splost, we don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know that amount or that percentage. We don't know it for the next splost. And so I would just say that I would like to come back to this when we have that financial information and have another discussion at that time. Because the magnitude of the decision we're making today to approve this $190 million in bonds and the longevity of it over the next, I'd say eight to 10 years, roughly. If I had to guess off of what I'm seeing here, I don't think there's enough information for us to make a wise decision and put that kind of debt on our citizens in seven to 10 years in hopes that they approve the splost. Now, I can speak from experience. My family's back in Kansas. Their splost did not pass. A year ago they did a committee looking into why it did not pass, and the committee recommended they don't put it on the ballot even a year later because public sentiment was still not supportive of it. And so they found themselves in a difficult position at their school district. I know it's kind of popping up here and there around the United States that splosts aren't always getting approved like they used to. And so I would just ask Alex, what would our millage rate look like if we approved this $190 million bond and a splost 2032 did not get approved? What would our millage have to look like to cover that Amount of debt?

Casado: It is hard to know because we won't know at 2032 what the value of the mill would be. So I would have to try to carry that out into the future and estimate what a mill might look like and put it up against it to be able to answer accurately.

Allen: I would just reiterate to kind of close it out and I'll let everybody else jump in. I want to support this. I fully support… The projects are very important. However, I just, I, I want to see what this decision would look like with some rough numbers. I know we won't have the finals, but some rough estimates of what we could expect a bond interest rate to look like based on this time frame where we're selling the bonds, what we would see a payment schedule roughly to look like, how far out it would be, about what the payments would be, what that would look like in the context of our current floss and next loss. What a mill. My millage rate might have to be roughly if the next, next splost didn't pass. Because now we really are making decisions today in 2025 that are banking on a next splost to be passed. And if we're going to do that because we, we feel that we're in a good position to do that, then I would want to have some of these questions answered and not go into what where I just have so many unknowns with the magnitude and longevity of this decision.

Dekle: Mr. Casado, can you. I think you had already answered a lot of these questions earlier, but just remind us, first of all, we have our current bonds that are outstanding series 2020 bonds. Yes. And payments for those are already secured?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: So that, that's not unsecured yet. And those will be paid off in 2027?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: And then we have series 2023 bonds which are issued for Lakeside and Evans, is that right?

Casado: Yes.

Dekle: And. And those are secured with our earlier splost.

Casado: Yeah, a large portion of them are, yes. A large percentage with the splost that was just removed, right?

Dekle: And so when we do go to the voters and ask them, do you want us to bring our schools up to date? And it's going to cost what we believe a certain amount of money. We can only ask for a five year splost under the Georgia laws, Correct?

Casado: Correct

Dekle: We can't ask for 20 year splost. We can only do it five years. And, and so the question of whether or not we are bringing on too much debt. You don't agree with that statement, do you?

Casado: No, I think again, we have a plan that we've purposely put together because we wanted to, as best as we could, be certain that we would avoid having to levy a debt service millage rate assuming the splost renewed. Right. And so if we were not in that scenario, I might have answered that question differently. But this was crafted with that in mind and within the confines of all the splost, the couple splost referendum that are backing that both the previous bonds and the bonds were considering.

Dekle: And if we, if we just, if we don't issue bonds, the, the effect of that is we, we are not able to conduct the improvements of Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School like we have previously already agreed to do and want to do with the county.

Casado: Right. It would have to wait, I mean, until a day where the funding could be submitted. All the money we have now, and I said this during the retreat on the, on the board reports that you see there is a little bit of unallocated funds there, but it's pretty negligible in the grand scheme of this. But all the funds that we have today and can reasonably anticipate through these splost renewals, through the current esplost cycle, that we're in fully pay for Lakeside, Evans and any other, you know, leftover kind of, of projects that we're finishing up. And then some other money has been set aside. So my point is, is that anything we want to do in addition to that has to come from, from bonds or it would have to wait until we have enough money in the bank, I guess you could say, to sign that contract.

Dekle: What about our bond rating and how does that work? In other words, would we even be given permission to issue bonds if we had problems financially?

Casado: No, we may be given permission, but they would come with a really bad bond rating which would drive the interest rate up and significantly shrink the number of folks out there, investors out there, who are willing to buy them and take on the risk. But yeah, anytime you sell bonds like this, you go through a process where you have to compile. Compile a preliminary offering statements, what it's called to the investors in the credit rating agencies. They, the credit rating agencies, and we use the two premier ones, Standard and Poor's and Moody's, so two, not just one. Pour over our financials, that preliminary offering, and use that data on top of community data, things out of your control, to give the school district a bond rating, if you will, a credit rating. Essentially they're giving their opinion on the credit worthiness of the school district. And our bond ratings, we have a history of them being extremely high. And so we will go through that process again before these bonds are sold to get an updated credit rating. And so again, that will signal to the market how worthy these bonds might be of their investment and the interest rate that we get.

Baker: I have a question. When was Harlem High School and Greenbrier High School built?

Teasley: Harlem was in 1982 and Greenbrier 1996. Just along that note, I've either been a student, parent, a teacher, or a taxpayer… in multiple roles. I don't remember a time Columbia County has not owed for a school or schools. There's never been a time we haven't been paying for schools. Never been a time this community has not supported paying for schools. It's just a way of life. It's a necessity. If you're going to provide education, you provide the capital facilities for that. And this community has always risen to the occasion.

Baker: And I know we can’t anticipate the construction costs.I don't see it getting any better. I mean, as far as financial end of it, you know, being a parent who had three children who went through Evans High School, Evans probably was a little delayed in the building program. I appreciate all that you've done. I think listen to the public on both Lakeside and Evans High School. It's beautiful. It looks really nice. I think it'll be an asset to the community. As far as Harlem and Greenbrier, are those additions going to be, you know, it's going to be the athletic complex. It's going to be the auditorium building. That fine arts program for Harlem… ptae.

Flynt: Yes. It's gonna just, you know, have any new classrooms coming, right? No, we. We did the addition already, but it'll be very similar. I mean, you know, when we took this back out to the public prior to the bonds and squats, we were very clear on what each of the schools would get. So because it's the same size or the same. Around the same age as Evans and Lakeside somewhat, they'll be very similar projects. So there doesn't have to be a lot of changes. Although it has to be adapted for the school. We also are going to go inside the school to renovate just like we are those schools, all of the classrooms and even the, you know, what is the theater now, because there'll be a new one that'll be turned into, you know, other usable classroom space, as well as the cafeteria and the kitchen, things like that. So it's a pretty much a redo. As we talked about the last couple of years. Of those three schools. And as we move into the Greenbrier and Grovetown, then those will be more about the additions that they don't already have, but not as much renovation inside the school because they don't qualify for the state entitlement funds.

Baker: How fast are we growing at Harlem and Greenbrier? But Harlem seems to be the focus as far as what I hear in the community….

Flynt: And we think we've gotten some of that under control with that addition that we just put onto the front. However, with this renovation, as you know, we're going to be moving the fields to the. To the back of the property. We were able to buy 25 acres back there. And so there'll be a space dedicated for another addition. Addition right to the back of the school. So it'll be much easier to be able to attach that to the school if needed. We are going to see some increases over the next couple years because we have a bubble going through the system right now. But there's a lot of growth out in that area. But we also don't want to put in too many classrooms, so we're going to save some of those so we can do those when the students arrive. But we'll have. We'll have plenty of space for the next number of years for students.

Baker: Do you know, the seat capacity for the auditorium. So I've been to a graduation back in the days when we did them at Harlem, and I know space is very limited. So are we seeing the same thing when they have meetings or they need that additional space for the community?

Flynt: The new theater will have 500. I don't know what the old one is. This is very small. It's got to be like 150 or something. It's pretty, pretty small. So it will support….

Baker: And I know they have large crowds.

Flynt: But yeah, no, I think, you know, from what we've talked about, you know, Evans and Lakeside are very similar. We provided a lot of updates on those, the design. And we have some, you know, we've shared with you all the renderings and all that. Even though it has a different look, the spaces are a standard that we're trying to get to. And that's kind of what we were aiming for with the tenure plan and now the comprehensive program was to get a standard that every student could kind of enjoy at every school, not just high schools, but we've been very focused on modernization of the high schools because that was the thing we heard loud and clear from our community.

Baker: And I know you don't have crystal ball and you can't predict, but if we did not issue bonds, how long would this delay the building projects?

Flynt: Yeah, it wouldn't be done. I don't. Not. Not in many years. The bonds are the vehicle to do this and that's why we put that on. Even the referendum that went to the voters listed first the bonds on that referendum.

Baker: Do you think it's fair to say that any delay could increase cost on building?

Flynt: Well, we've seen that now. I'll say and y' all have asked about know even the budgets that are the estimates that we put in place, we've greatly increased the. In what we might anticipate the building cost to be over the next couple of years. So we do anticipate that continuing to go up and. But we've built that into the cost and of our estimates anyway. Now the board would obviously have to approve the final approval for the, for the gmp, for the, for the project the way we're doing Harlem.

Dekle: Before I call for the question, Mr. Kent, do you have any questions? A couple comments?

Kent: Yeah, I guess I come from the mentality that beautiful buildings don't necessarily equate to beautiful minds. With plenty of examples of out there Davidsons, you know, there's many out there, however, I mean, clearly, you know, safety. Upgrading the buildings is, you know, an important thing when you do it. The public has spoken about this on many occasions and this is how the building project was derived. So you've got to take… I've got to separate myself and you know what I think about buildings now applied to education versus what the public has said that they really want. You know, I'm not, I'm just saying I'm not a huge, huge fan of selling this many bonds at this point. I would have liked to have seen more of a delay, I think, in doing it. However, I'm gonna put my trust in Alex Casado and the management team and I think they've really dug into this for some time now. They put a lot of thought into it. I appreciate a lot of the words that Ms. Allen has said and I agree with a lot of what she has to say. Also to mention that there were some reiterations that were done in the. And some thought processes were put into place to question. We have to beat up Alex a little bit. Right? Retreat a lot of pressure, which is. What we're supposed to do up here in public. And I think what came out a Speaker really good conversation also. It also showed that, you know, the Superintendent, you know, Mr. Casado and the rest of the management team sort of listened to those questions and they made suggestions, and the phasing out of the building plan. And so while we were originally, correct me if I'm wrong, talking about $270 million ran out of. Shoot, we're talking about more of $180, $190 million with about $8 million to the side there, instead of really going after it like the original intentions were, correct?

Flynt: Yeah, no, that's correct. And that came from feedback and we had great discussions and so we limited it. You know, we may be coming back for that, but that'll have to be a different discussion because we'd have to have another approval if we went over 109.

Kent: So, yeah, I just thought I'd make a couple comments and make sure that I was on track. How does the bond sale go here? If we're talking about sort of meeting. That 180 to 190, I think. 190. The paperwork shows the 270. Right? Is there just a document they're waiting for to adjust back or is this these additional. Can we go after the bonds now. These additional dollars set aside?

Casado: Yeah, in your question, you just because you get authorization, it's an up to up to 270 in bonds and up to 270 in collections in this case. So you could issue none or you or some portion. And then I think where you're getting to is at some point down the road, if you wanted to come back, issue the remaining, you could. Or you could leave them on the table and do nothing. I mean, either way, you're not compelled to issue them.

Flynt: One of the areas, though, we've got to be careful of is that we are somewhat compelled to do the projects that we said we were going to. So I think that's where the difference lies. And so the voters are expecting that we're going to move forward to complete these projects over a reasonable amount of time.

Dekle: And also for clarification, this, this resolution is almost like a preliminary resolution because it y' all will be coming back to us in November and that will have the actual number. So what this resolution does is it says please proceed to doing paperwork. To bring back to the board and at that time there will be a set amount in that resolution.

Casado: Correct

Flynt There'll be a number of other times where we're going to have to come back to you just as any project that we have to get bid approval for. And so we're also going to have to expend funds between now and then. So we wouldn't be out spending time, effort money, legal expenses if we didn't think that we would be able to get an approval later. It would be kind of not only a waste of time, but a waste of money and resources.

Allen: Okay, I just want to make a few more comments as I started. Given every all the information that we've got, the what's before us today that we're putting our names on as a board is to vote to approve to move forward with $190 million of bonds. We don't know what the payments are going to be or even a rough amount. We don't know what the interest rates are going to be even a rough amount of. We don't know how long our payments are going to extend. And we don't even know if we're going to have income to pay any of this debt in 2032 with another next next splost. So out of those four items, obviously we're not going to know until 2032 if we get that splost or not. But the other three we could have if we just delayed this a bit more. So right now, if this vote votes, if this board votes to approve this $190 million of bond, we are quite literally voting to take on substantial debt without knowing these three things when we could know them at a future time with Alex, given time to go crunch some numbers and come back to us with some more information for us to look and really see what this is doing. And on top of that, we are also voting to accept that today we stand at $179 million worth of bond and interest debt. According to the responses I received on my questions, we had $190 million. That puts us today, well after the bonds are secured, but it puts us pre-accepting the amount of $369 million, if I did my quick addition correctly, $179 and $190. We haven't even started the $270 million lost in 2027 of which we only expect to receive 235 million of that. So just to kind of sum it up where I'm looking at this vote today, where we could wait a couple of weeks, come back at our next meeting with these numbers with some visuals to see what really is this decision going to look like, not just for us, but eight years from now and possibly we're not board members anymore when it may be a different administration is here. What is it going to look like for people down the road if we approve this amount? And so just really, I mean, to put in layman's terms, it's almost like we're going to buy a third car and we're not being told the interest rate. We're not being told how many payments are going to be and we're being told hey, it's going to be fine. And we're co-owners of the dealership. And so I guess I'm just surprised and I would caution this board to really truly think about what we're doing and if we could maybe delay it a couple weeks so that we could have all the information we need to go into this decision really fully understanding, knowing and getting a visual for what this means and doing our due diligence and not just trusting that everything's going to be okay. I know we have the cash flow. I know we are going to make our minimum payments and I know that our credit score is good because, but just because we can, at what cost are we going to do it at? And on top of that, like Kristi said, we're already looking at another bond after this one. We're already looking at more money that we're going to borrow. We're already looking at construction costs that run anywhere from 150 to 200% over budget. When you're looking at going into a splost on day one compared to where those splosts end as those construction costs and things change. Harlem as an example, we signed a CMR for what, $83 million, $80 million in January. And right now we're looking at a new budget of I think $120 million for Harlem. That's, that's in just less than a year. We're already looking at 40 million more allocated to finish that project. There's a lot riding on this and I think to take a couple of weeks to have those numbers in front of us and then to revisit this decision, I think that would be prudent.

Flynt: I'd just maybe say a couple of words on that. Let me just first of all, those two numbers are not the cmar. We haven't been over budget on anything. We have all of the estimates for all of the payment schedules and the interest rates. We had this discussion with our financial advisor and he has kind of gone through this process as well as the cost with us, as well as the final payment dates. I don't know that I could say Much more. But Alex, did I say that correctly?

Casado: Yes, that's correct. We've had to lay out scenarios, right, to come to come up with this. And so to a certain point, it is guessing and you don't quite know what your interest rate is going to be because it's day specific. So I think that we have a good plan in place. Like I said, good scenario in place to do all the things we said.

Dekle: I think you have given us as much information as possible. So any call for the question. Okay, well, good discussion. At this time, all in favor of the motion to approve the resolution as presented, please raise your right hand. All opposed? All right. As a record, reflect that that passed 4 to 1 with District 4 representative Katie Allen opposite.

Superintendent Reports:

• Website Makeover 9/2/2025

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, 8/29/2025

• Labor Day Holiday, 9/1/2025

• Columbia County Chamber of Commerce 2025 Future Forward Summit, 9/4/2025

• Progress Reports, 9/5/2025

• Annual Retirement Ceremony, September 10

Executive Session: Removed from agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Personnel Sheet Approved: Yay 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next meeting regular session: 9/9/2025

Conversations are not transcribed.

Call To Order: 5:30PM

Invocation: Lewis Memorial and Marvin United Methodist Church Pastor Ben Wills

Pledge of Allegiance: Evans High School JROTC

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recognitions:

• Greenbrier High School Girls 5A Team State Champtionship 3rd Place

• Lakeside High School Boys 5A Golf Team State Championship 3rd Place

• Georgia Department of Education John Hancock Award

Board Comments: Board members thanked JROTC, Pastor Wills and congratulated Golf Teams, as well as praised the John Hancock Award recipient school for dedication to cursive handwriting

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• Minutes of 7/22/2025, Work Session Meeting

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

School Improvement Update, (Associate Superintendents Kristen Carroll & Steve Cummings)

• Mr. Cummings

  • New Teacher Induction

    • 196 new teachers, 35% are graduates of Columbia County Schools

    • 3-day professional development

  • Open House

• Dr. Smith, Martinez Elementary School

  • Welcome back event, shared mission

  • Busses arrived on time, even SPED busses

  • On-time breakfast and lunch

  • All students made it home

• Dr. Carroll, Student Achievement Update

  • ELA

    • 50% Proficient and above

    • #6 for American Literature (districts with more than 1000 students)

    • Reading skill level - about 80%

      • 8th grade ELA #3, up from #7

      • 7th grade, ELA #3

      • 5th grade, 90% Developing and more, 65% proficient and more - #1

  • Math (wait for slides)

  • Science

    • HS Bio #5

    • 5th Grade Science #1

  • Social Studies

    • Grade 8: #4

    • US History: #5 (students in advanced classes are exempt)

Allen: Thanked Dr. Carroll for presenting data with both developing and proficient numbers. Asked if there were other variables in the tests before 2022 or if the data could go back further?

Carroll: There are adjustments every year but before 2022, dealing with Covid challenges. Offered to pull the data together.

Allen: Were there new ELA Standards?

Carroll: Those changed this year.

Allen: So, 2022 is our base year?

Dekle: How many of the 181 districts have more than 1000 students?

Carroll: I’m not exactly sure off the top of my head but can get it.

Teasley: What is 5th grade doing? 5th grade is doing really well. I know all the teachers are doing their best, but 5th grade…. can we replicate that?

Flynt: The tests aren’t really meant to be a like….

Baker: This class though is trending high…. if you look at the past years.

Flynt: We use this data at the schools. We will use the data to make some changes, even in curriculum if we need to.

Teasley: Even US History, more motivated students aren’t taking regular US History.

Carroll: As we have changed the ACE Curriculum to be more aligned with curriculum with more rigor, we get higher results. We look at these results with teams to see if there are improvements.

Kent: Are we offering more advanced classes than other districts?

Flynt: It’s comparable but some don’t offer as much. Some that are listed as districts are individual schools.

Teasley: Our price/student is very different too based on these other districts.

Flynt: We take the data and narrow it down to schools. We use only the top 50% to compare. It’s very specific to school and content needs.

Dekle: This is data to continue to improve. Schools drill down on to continue to improve academic achievement.

Baker: The trend is that the scores are going up.

Allen: Asked to look at a specific math slide with a chart. If you’re drilling down to individual school level… From a district level, what can be attributed to district level decisions/policies?

Flynt: It’s all important. It’s a 3-legged stool. Importance at district, school and classroom levels. Provide professional development on ACE curriculum. These are not typical increases. We’ll be hitting a bit of a ceiling soon.

Allen: Was the district-level policy successful at grades 5+ but it didn’t work at grades 3 &4?

Flynt: We look at the school level for higher achievement. We will look at in-the-box tools (policy, procedure, ACE curriculum) before start innovating.

Allen: Said everyone did an excellent job

Kent: Asked if a particular school did great.

Flynt: You’ll see them soon. They’ll come here with awards. We couldn’t have last week’s press release with the data and then not come to the board meeting with something. Haven’t had time to really analyze yet.

Building Program:

• Project Updates

  • N Columbia Ribbon Cutting next week: 8/19/2025 at 5PM

  • Lakeside HS

    • Finished PAC, Band Rooms, etc

    • Foundation for new gym

    • New classrooms completed, no portables

  • Evans HS:

    • Construction on PAC

    • CTAE labs mostly completed

    • Renovated classrooms

    • Batting cages - foundation poured, building delivered next week

• Resolution to Close Old North Columbia ES Facility: Yay 5, No 0

• Contract for Membership in RESA ($187,894): Yay 5, No 0

Allen: Is this required in GA?

Flynt: You need it to obtain services.

Kent: Did the price go up since last year?

Flynt: Yes, about $45K but there are additional benefits received. I would recommend this even if it wasn’t required because it’s a good program. We get quite a bit out of it for how much we pay.

Dekle: And it’s based on population, right? So, everyone pays on the student population?

Flynt: Yes.

School Calendar for 2026-2027 (Penny Jackson)

• 180 days of instruction

• Teachers - 180 days of instruction + 10 days = 190

• 1 early release each semester

• At the next meeting, will provide feedback on which option is preferred

Baker: What is different between the 3 calendars?

Jackson: 1st semester is the same for all 3. 2nd semester has alternatives with winter break. Memorial Day is late next year. Ending also with graduation dates.

Teasley: Can you add the graduation dates so families can see that?

Jackson: Yes

Operational Updates (Penny Jackson)

• Bus Routes are getting established with the traffic pattern

  • 1 additional route to Harlem HS and 1 to Greenbrier HS

  • 8/18 - 11 bus candidates, 3 test this week

• Active shooter drills

  • Earlier this year - this week. Using SAFE system

• Electronics

  • consistency & compliance

  • students talking and playing UNO at lunch

  • Art, AP, etc need to take pictures for those classes

    • school issued tablets, looking at best for network

Important Dates:

• Early Dismissal/Parent Conferences, 8/29

• Labor Day Holiday, 9/1

• Progress Reports, 9/5

• CCSD Annual Retirement Reception, 9/10

• Partner in Education Breakfast, 9/19

• Excellence in Governance Institute Training, 9/25

Public Participation:

• Priscilla Bence:

  • concerned citizen about porn & obscenity

  • Over the summer had a group review 32 books she wants banned from school libraries

• Jessica Fisher:

  • Doesn’t agree with the book issue. Kids need to read more books. The stuff they are doing in school they aren’t learning from books

  • Teachers are happy with cell phone policy

  • Need to crack down on the bullying. Can’t be #1 if kids can’t learn due to bullying.

  • Need to incorporate a trade school into the schools

• Marissa McKinney:

  • Student is dual enrolled but can’t be in the learning center. Spoken to several people at the school and hasn’t been resolved.

• Karin Parham:

  • Representing Freedom to Read Coalition of Columbia County

  • Reminded board and district that according to GA Law, book challenges are supposed to come from parents/guardians of students in the actual schools.

  • Advocated for the school district to adopt the use of PLAY cards through the Georgia Library Service.

• Katelyn (missed the last name):

  • Lost faith in district.

  • Child has been denied supports. The IEP was changed without an IEP meeting to remove supports. She was told it was a clerical error.

Executive Session: Affidavit executed: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel sheet: Yay 5, No 0

Board Items:

Baker: Foundation Meeting. Fundraising and will send more info to the rest of the board.

Allen: Wants to address 3 policies

Dekle: Suggested that those 3 policies all be submitted to the Superintendent before presenting at a public meeting.

Allen: began to object

Dekle: Made a motion to adjourn

Adjourn: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Slide presentation

I Board of Education Call to Order: 5:30PM

II Invocation by Grace Baptist Church Senior Pastor Bill Hilley

III Pledge of Allegiance by Greenbrier High School NJROTC

IV. Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

V. Board Comments

VI. Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

1. Minutes of 7/8/2025, Regular Session

2. Budget Transfer

3. Fundraisers

4. Employee Travel

5. Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

6. Lease/Use of Facilities

VII. Discussion Topics and Presentations

1. NexGen Cyber Update, Chief Academic Officer LeAnne Gregg

   1. Began program 3 years ago.

   2. Community Partners: Fort Gordon CSRA Alliance, Army Cyber Center of Excellence, CCSD Cyber Teachers, CCSD Pilot School Teachers and Administrators

   3. 2025-2026 Soft Launch

      1. K-8

      2. Pilot AI tools for students/teachers

      3. Next steps - continue grades 9-12 pilot schools

   4. Robotics K-5

      1. Vex123 (K-2)

      2. VexGO (3-5)

      3. Next steps - develop robotics instructional guide

   5. Robotics 6-8

      1. HMS & CMS piloted Vex Robotics

      2. Will be included in 45-day computer science or engineering class.

   6. Robotics 9-12

      1. Vex5 Robotics TSA Competitions

      2. District level competitions

Teasley: What is an example of the AI tools?

Gregg: Brisk teaching & School AI

Baker: Will all schools have all of the programs

Gregg: Robotics is K-12. The AI will only be at pilot schools.

Teasley: Will there be elementary-level competitions?

Gregg: Youngest grades are 4th/5th grade so it will be a few years before we’re ready for competitions at those grades.

Teasley: Is the Robotics an additional 45 days? Will those computer classes be longer than 45 days?

Gregg: Computer Science or Engineering will include Middle School Robotics. There won’t be a new class. It will be embedded in the existing class and be the same length.

Allen: Will the Robotics enhance the existing class?

Gregg: It will be the same 45-day block class. Many of the standards overlap.

Allen: What will this look like embedding NextGen into core courses?

Gregg: In the core courses, we looked at the standards to see where there was an opportunity to introduce NextGen into the course.

Allen: What does it mean that there is a soft launch?

Gregg: It’s not a complete curriculum.

Allen: What are the applications of this? Will it be in ethics?

Gregg: Next gen looks different for different grades. It’s part of digital citizenship….

Teasley: It’s the same curriculum but using Next gen embedded in it.

Allen: How much time are students spending on screens?

Gregg: Teachers are still the primary instructor. We are limiting screen time. There is some support through online programs.

Allen: Is there an increase in computer time?

Gregg: No. Some of the standards are not done on the computer.

Baker: Are we cutting edge with introducing this?

Gregg: I would say we are ahead of the game….

Flynt: We brought in partners and that’s how we were able to get this done. Integration was important and we’ll be adjusting over the next years. Since some students are introduced to these concepts earlier, we may need to do something different in older grades. Several other school districts are looking to implement something like this now but we are 3 years ahead. We have more resources though in the community. There’s a task force on AI because this will shift so much in the next few years.

Allen: Is this curriculum open for public review?

Gregg: It’s not a full curriculum. It was developed by our teachers so not necessarily vetted outside. The standards were created by teachers.

Allen: Is this not subject to having the public weigh-in on the curriculum though?

Teasley: The core curriculum hasn’t changed [so it shouldn’t need to be reviewed].

Gregg: It’s not a curriculum. It’s like if a teacher created a lesson plan for a standard for math. It’s not a purchased curriculum.

Allen: Is it supplementary? What about the review process? I would like to ask Mr Fletcher (attorney)?

Fletcher: I wasn’t really prepared ahead of time to answer that. We’re not pushing materials out…. not sure. It’s concepts rather than materials so it shouldn’t need a review.

Allen: Are we adding unvetted things into the curriculum but sidestepping vetting?

Flynt: Teachers create lesson plans. If it’s a really good lesson plan it might be shared across the district but it’s not purchased.

Allen: So if parents wanted to review them? Look at the lesson plans, they could?

Gregg: Yes, if they want to.

Allen: Have we seen an increase in our average math/testing scores since we started this?

Gregg: There’s really no ability to track improvement because it’s not at full implementation.

Allen: Is there a plan in place to make sure that this translates into improved testing scores?

Gregg: Once we are at full implementation, we will looking into measures for effectiveness.

Baker: As of last spring, we were growing [improving] in all measures.

Gregg: We can adjust ACE at anytime.

VIII Staff Reports

1. Operations Update, Penny Jackson

   1. 70% complete moving teacher materials over to N. Columbia

   2. 7/28-7/30 Bus trials

      1. Find My Bus Stop

      2. Edulog Lite School Bus Tracker App

   3. Cameras in school buses

Dekle: How many buses have cameras or need cameras?

Jackson: 207 buses still need cameras

Kent: How do you verify who is getting on the bus and they are getting on the right bus?

Jackson: It’s mostly the bus drivers. Younger students have a tag on their book bag. The bus drivers get to know their students though.

Baker: If there is a threat to the school, how fast do you notify parents?

Jackson: Depends on the situation.

Baker: 30 minutes?

Jackson: Yes. But if it’s under investigation or there is a reason we can’t get notification out. We really try to get notification out the same day or the next day.

Allen: How are discipline issues handled on the bus? Is there a standard?

Jackson: Administrators will investigate and follow the code of conduct. Usually it’s a progressive style of discipline, but riding the bus is a privilege and not a right, so some have lost their ability to ride the bus.

2. School Improvement - Dr. Kristen Carroll

   1. Summer School. 717 attendees. 39 students able to get diploma

3. Human Resources Update, Tony Wright

   1. Certified 99% Fill

   2. non-certified 98.1% Fill

• 22 vacancies for certified.

  • 2 are hard of hearing/deaf vacancies. Competing with charitable organizations. He’s looking at different options to try and fill these positions.

  • 20 other positions - not concerned. Some subs are certified and might change to full-time with some incentives.

• Non-Certified Parapros - he had a number of applicants at the job fair.

Dekle: Teachers can retire and come back now. Are we using any of those teachers?

Wright: The number of folks who take advantage of that are very low. It’s 7 across the district tops. We have 1 school with 3 vacancies and we might start calling some retirees. Will start calling some retired SLPs.

Baker: Are they retiring and going somewhere else?

Wright: They usually come back here if it’s attractive

Baker: Is there better compensation with a new school? Maybe South Carolina?

Wright: We have more that come from SC than the other way. For SLPs, we are hiring as SLP-As and encouraging them to get their Masters so they are already working and can just move up.

IX. Board Policy BAB, School Board Governance. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

X. Resolution of the Board of Education of Columbia County for Temporary Property Tax Relief for Eligible Standing Timber Located in a Disaster Area in Columbia County. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Flynt: This is allowed for disaster areas declared by FEMA. It forgives the timber tax collection 4th Quarter 2024 and all of 2025. No decrease in revenue because it’s a grant.

Teasley: So, we aren’t sure who is going to apply. It’s relief from the hurricane?

Allan: I don’t see any financial risk. Is there any financial risk?

Casado: No.

XI Building Program Bid Results

1. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) by PC Solutions, $194,462.71 (includes 3 years of support). Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Kent: Have we had a problem with a disaster wiping out everything?

VanMeter: Not yet.

Dekle: How many employees are in Appling.

VanMeter: None right now. We check on everything in Appling often though.

2. 2000RC, CR2 Restroom, Q-31, $4190ea, $129,890 from Kamo Manufacturing. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Baker: What does it look like?

??: It’s a low-pressure washer. It’s great for grout.

Dekle: Do you think it will improve the cleanliness of the bathrooms?

??: Yes. It works well. It’s not hard to use. It has a 5 year warranty and can be used on any tile.

XII Superintendent Reports

1. United Way CSRA Stuff-the-Bus School Supply Drive - 2 Buses

2. Special Education Institute

   1. 167 school leaders and staff

   2. instructional strategies, legal information, behavior interventions/supports

3. Back to School Leadership Conference *inspire*

4. 180 New Teacher Induction 7/24/2025

5. School’s Open Drive Safely AAA Press Conference, 7/23

6. Rising 6th and 9th Grade Camp, 7/24 & 7/26

7. Open House Dates for 2025-2026 School Year

   1. High School: 7/29, 3-5PM

   2. Middle School: 7/29, 5-7PM

   3. Elementary School: 7/31, 5-7PM

8. Teacher Pre-Planning, 7/28-8/1

9. Employee Back to School Kickoff, 8/1

10. First Day of School, 8/4

11. Early Dismissal/ Parent Conferences, 8/29

12. Labor Day Holiday, 9/1

13. Progress Reports, 9/5

14. Retirement Reception, 9/10

15. Excellence in Governance Institute Training, 9/25

XIV Executive Session: Yay 5, No 0

1. Personnel Sheets: Yay, 5, No 0

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next Meeting Regular Session: 8/12/2025

*discussions are not transcribed

Board Members in Attendance: David Dekle (Chair), Judy Teasley (Vice Chair), Philip Kent, Kristi Baker, Katie Allen

Also in attendance and addressed the board: Dr. Steven Flynt (Superintendent), Alex Casado (Chief Financial Officer), Penny Jackson (Associate Superintendent of Support and School Operations), Anthony Wright (Chief Human Resources Officer)

Call To Order: 5:30PM

Invocation: Congregation Children of Israel Rabbi Dr. Seth Oppenheimer

Pledge of Allegiance: Harlem High School JROTC

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recommendations:

• Andrea Sanders: Lakeside HS, Assistant Principal: Yay 5, No 0

• Andy Tran: Harlem MS, Assistant Principal: Yay 5, No 0

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

1. Minutes of 6/10/2025, Regular Session Meeting

2. Many Financials

3. Budget Amendment

4. Employee Travel

5. Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

6. Lease/Use of Facilities

Adoption of 2025 Tax Digest Millage Rate of 16.234: Yay 5, No 0

16.234 Rollback Rate. Budgeted for a $3.8 million shortfall covered by the general fund. This would show a $5 million deficit but there is enough in the general fund to cover it if the rolled back millage rate is 16.234. This will be the lowest millage rate in 35 years.

Casado: The tax commission puts this together. The formula is in the 2nd half and it’s based on the property reassessments. You can see the 16.234 rollback rate.

There will be 2% more property tax revenue from growth even at the rollback rate.

The budget that was passed in May 2025

Allen: Was the CPI 2%?

Casado: Yes, the south is a little bit lower than national so between 2-3%.

Allen: So, we are saying our local revenue sources were reduced by $3.8 million?

Casado: Correct

Allen: Will we need to amend the budget?

Casado: Yes, we’ll bring you the amended budget…

Allen: How do we plan to cover that deficit next year and later?

Dekle: We’re using the General Fund next year to cover it. We’ll see next year what that looks like.

Flynt: We have some expenses that will end soon. We might have to have a discussion about the building program. But we’re in a unique position that we can spend down the fund balance now.

Allen: So, some of the operating expenses - some are not reoccurring.

Flynt: The technology piece (for building security), about $3 million, that’s not a reoccurring expense.

Allen: Will we have some additional expenses when it’s on a replacement schedule?

Flynt: We work the replacement schedules for equipment into a 5-year budget plan. The technology we’re putting in right now is above the replacement schedule.

Casado: With the new laws that were passed for school safety, we have a big outlay right now and then there will be a replacement cycle for the equipment (technology) that will be worked into the annual budget.

Teasley: Instructional equipment is already on a replacement schedule but the new building Safety technology will be on a replacement schedule, however it won’t be as much each year as this initial expense, right?

Casado: Right. We won’t be budgeting into a deficit each year based on that replacement schedule for the new technology.

Allen: If we find them when revenue comes in that closes gap, so we don’t have as much of a deficit, where would that money go?

Dekle: Let’s not discuss hypotheticals. I’m happy to be in the unique position to go back to a rollback rate.

Baker: The “wish list” comes from the department heads so the budget process starts early in the year.

Dekle: We’ve already adopted this budget

Allen: I want to make sure we’re not yo-yoing back and forth through high-low millage rates. I want to make sure it’s sustainable.

Kent: He’s glad to be able to have the opportunity to rollback the millage rate but it’s important to look forward 2-3 years to consider unintended consequences of building projects. We don’t want to find out we are budgeting at $3-5 million deficit and it ends up $8-10 million deficit.

Flynt: We haven’t had that big of cost overruns. I don’t anticipate a $8-10 million.

Kent: Lakeside HS and ??? increased by how much in the past?

Flynt: There were adjustments to the building program with inflation. Those decisions are brought to the board with those circumstances. Maybe you decide to hold off on a project or finance something differently in the past.

Allen: I think it’s an important discussion to have about….

Dekle: Are you saying you oppose rolling back the millage rate?

Allen: No.

(then, I couldn’t hear what either of them said. Kent wanted to hear the question also but had Dekle hammered the gavel and brought to a vote to end debate. Dekle, Teasley and Baker approved to end debate. Kent and Allen were opposed to ending debate. Then they unanimously approved the rollback millage rate.)

A Referendum Resolution of the Board of Education of Columbia County to Regulate and Provide for the calling of a Special Referendum Election for November 4, 2025, for the Purpose of Submitting the Question of Adopting and $8,000 Homestead Exemption from Columbia County Ad Valorem Taxes for Education Purposes: Yay 5, No 0

Board Policy BAB, School Board Governance

Human Resources Update, Chief Human Resources Officer Tony Wright

• 7/8/2025:

  • Fill rate certified: 98.6%

  • Fill rate un-certified: 94.1%

Building Program Update:

• North Columbia ES

  • Timeline

    • 7/7-7/11: Furniture delivery

    • 7/14-7/15: Administrative Staff

    • 7/17-7/18: Teacher Transition

    • 7/28: Pre-planning

    • 7/31: Open House

    • 8/4: 1st Day of School

    • 8/19: Ribbon Cutting

• Brookwood/ Stalling Island: New Parking Lots complete

• Lakeside HS:

  • PAC, Chorus, classrooms on right open at start of school

  • Back right - no portables. Gym is going in there. beginning.

Baker: Where are the tennis courts?

Flynt: They were relocated by the other practice fields

Flynt: Parent drop-off in the back. Back student parking entrance. There will be 2 sign-ins.

• Evans HS:

  • Summer staff is relocated to middle school

  • HVAC reworked, gym coming together. interior will need work over the next couple of years. There will need to be lots of clean up on the back and sides before school starts.

Kent: Lakeside HS should be done in 2027?

Flynt: 12/2026 - next summer (2026). Evans about 1 to 1 1/2 years later, so summer 2027.

US Department of Education:

• This will be impactful for Georgia but won’t be as impactful for our district

• Federal Grants

  • Title 1 Part C - migrants (negligible)

  • Title 3 Part A - ESOL (over $100K)

  • Title 4 Part A - Achievement grants ($250K)

    • AP Exam fees, cyber programs, supplement to pay teachers to develop ACE curriculum

  • About $358K all together. Can make up the difference so we won’t be as affected.

Allen: Commended the district for their strong leadership in not relying on federal sources of revenue over the years which makes our district more independent.

Flynt: It’s based mostly on the number of students on free lunch. We don’t file for a lot of grants but we don’t use federal grants to hire positions.

Superintendent Reports:

• United Way of the CSRA Stuff the Bus 7/18

• Leadership Conference 7/21-7/22

• New Teacher Induction 7/23-7/25

• School’s Open Drive Safely AAA Press Conference 7/23

• Open House Dates

  • High School 7/29: 3-5PM

  • Middle School 7/29 5-7PM

  • Elementary School 7/31 5-7PM

• Teacher Pre-Planning: 7/28-8/1

• Employee Back to School Kickoff - 8/1

• First Day of School, 8/4

• Early Dismissal/ Parent Conferences, 8/29

• Labor Day, 9/1

• Progress Reports, 9/5

• Retirement Reception, 9/10

• Excellence in Governance Institute Training, 9/25

Executive Session:

• Personnel: Yay 5, No 0

Board Items:

Allen: There was a message sent about a transfer to the building program this December?

Flynt: We’ll start the discussion in August through December. We will still have enough….

Allen: We’re having a deficit but we’re making a transfer to the building program?

Casado: 25-26% currently in the fund balance. We can transfer some and still have money above what we traditionally see. We can see what it looks like in December.

Flynt: Running a deficit… there is enough in the fund balance to cover that.

Casado: Even if we have a deficit of $5 million, the will still have enough in the General Fund balance.

Kent: Is there an incentive to keep the fund balance at 20%?

Casado: No….

Teasley: The bond ratings.

Flynt: Transfer to the building program can reduce interest payments in the future.

Allen: Have we paid additional bonds early?

Flynt: Each board has to make these decisions based on the current situation. You can delay projects, pay the bonds earlier ,etc.

Flynt: It can hurt the bond rating if we drop too low in the General Fund. We can also be penalized by the legislature if the general fund is too high. The legislature has discussed that also, even though our general fund isn’t as high as some other government entitities.

Allen: It seems like there’s conflicting interests then between keeping the General Fund high and spending it down. Can we get a cheat sheet on different influences on the bond rating?

Baker: I have a question about how we are implementing the ban on cell phones?

Flynt: The HS Principals really got on board with this. There’s not as much challenge in K-8. It can take up to 20 minutes if a student uses their cell phone in class, even for instruction, and they get a pop-up from Snapchat or something, it can take up to 20 minutes to get their minds focused back onto instruction.

Jackson: We are already communicating with parents and working out consequences. We are going to have to be very strict and come down hard the first week at least to set the tone.

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

Next work session meeting: 7/22/2025

Present: David Dekle, Philip Kent, Judy Teasley, Katie Allen

Missing: Kristi Baker

Call to Order: 5:30PM

Invocation - BAPS Mandir Senior Priest Dharmesh Patel

Pledge of Allegiance - Grovetown High School JROTC

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 0

Special Recommendations:

• Principal, N Harlem ES: Melissa Culpepper. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Asst Principal, N Harlem ES: Amanda Anderson. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Asst Principal, Columbia MS: Shannon Cohen. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Asst Principal, Grovetown ES: Lashanta Dotson. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

Special Recognitions

1. Georgia Association of Educators Spelling Bee Winner

   1. Sarah Daoud, Greenbrier MS, 2nd Place in the State

2. Georgia High School Association (will add names after slides are posted)

   1. Track and Field Championships

   2. Girls Tennis 5A Championships

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 4, No 0

1. Minutes of 5/13/2025, Regular Session Meeting and Minutes of 6/5/2025 Special Called Meeting

2. April Financials

3. Budget Amendment

4. Fundraisers

5. Employee Travel

6. Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

7. Lease/Use of Facilities

Electronic Devices and HB340 Compliance (Penny Jackson)

• The network will be inaccessible for student-owned devices next year

• Motion to Approve updates to electronics policy. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

  • Changes to the policy to include tablets.

  • Expanded the requirements of the law to include High School so K-12 CCSD.

    • All devices must be kept in a bookbag or locker. All alarms, notifications, etc must be silenced

    • Devices not allowed out on the bus either

Estimated Rollback Rate Required by HB581 and HB92: Motion to set 16.50 estimated rate. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Estimated Roll-back rate is completely separate and distinct from the actual rate.

• It’s hard to estimate/determine without info from the tax assessor but able to get info.

• If they set an estimate at one level, but then the actual comes back later at a higher rate, then there is verbiage in the tax bill that will say that the board increased taxes.

• Can still set the rate at whatever it needs to be, but need to be cautious about setting the estimate.

• Recommending a rollback rate of 16.50. This will reduce revenue by $1.6 million which can be absorbed by reducing the fund balance.

Dekle: Do you think the estimate will be close?

Casado: Yes, it should be.

Kent: We should try to avoid the message and confusion to the public

Teasley: We don’t actually lose flexibility

Flynt: Tax assessor was able to get the info to us in time. Not all school districts were this fortunate.

Allen: Will this be calculated every year?

Casado: Yes

Allen: What kind of fluctuation will there be from year-year?

Casado: Hard to say. It’s based on aggregate average assessments for the whole year.

Allen: CFO Calculates?

Casado: Actual rollback rate is calculated by the tax office, then given to us. No real penalty other than the message if the actual rate is higher than the estimated rate.

Allen: For the budget, we have a $3.6million deficit. So, this will be a $5.2million deficit. From an operations standpoint, lowering expenses to meet revenues. We don’t want to use the fund balance every year.

Building Program

1. Project Updates

   1. Paving projects - Brookwood and one other school - rain may delay slightly but will be done before the start of school year

   2. N Columbia ES: Exterior site work. Furniture deliver 7/7. Schedule completion on 7/15

   3. Lakeside HS: Walked through PAC/Band rooms. Classroom renovations in the back. Right side: science labs and classrooms - ready, this year. Only 4 portables left- site of new gym. Performing Arts Center should open in the next couple months.

   4. Evans HS: Right side: Gym coming in. PAC/Band on left. Media will be taken out in front. Locker Rooms behind the homeplate.

      1. Front Office Staff moved to MS

      2. Football/softball continue - some games at LHS

      3. Fall:

         1. football - normal schedule on turf

         2. Parking lot -available student/side/front

         3. Entrance from student parking lot

         4. Lighting before school when dark

         5. PAC - open at end of calendar year

         6. gym/cafeteria - summer 2026

         7. Tennis Courts - maybe across the street to free up the practice field

         8. Bleacher upgrade, baseball field grading, locker rooms, practice field will need work after construction

Allen: Will moving the tennis courts across the street cost more?

Flynt: Yes. We’ll have to price it out. The district didn’t have the land originally, so wasn’t added into original contract. For Harlem, we already have the land.

Allen: Would that come from the EHS Renovation budget?

Casado: It would need to be added to the budget

Allen: Is it currently in the SPLOST budget?

Casado: There is room in the current SPLOST and next renewed SPLOST.

Allen: Are there cushions in the SPLOST budget for other things?

Casado: Yes. Somethings like batting cages, etc are under the current SPLOST

Flynt: Some things were identified years ago but we didn’t have the land.

Kent: Will there be problems crossing the road? Will we have to build a walking bridge?

Jackson: No, we’ll work with law enforcement and probably have a crosswalk with flashing lights. We won’t have a walking bridge.

2. Bid Results

   1. EHS Locker Room. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

      1. Summers $605,000

   2. Management Services: Approve: Yay 3, No 1 (Katie Allen opposed)

      1. Turner & Townsend Heery .6294%

Casado: CMR Contract is a % for each project. We don’t have bids for some projects. Every $10m is $63K

Allen: How much do we budget?

Casado: Part of the fees in the budget. It’s budgeted with the project.

Allen: Why pay for this service when you already have a CMR? It’s another level.

Flynt: Maintains composition and estimates changes.

Allen: If we didn’t have this, would the builders come to us?

Flynt: Negotiations could cost us millions more.

Kent: This would eliminate the conflicts of interest?

Flynt: It’s the best practice. You need it to get the best quality and the design

Kent: So, is this a cost-saving measure?

Flynt: We’ve seen where it saves us money.

Casado: A 3rd party adds oversight, protection and cost-savings?

Allen: How many years?

Flynty: No CMR before these but these are complicated so it helps us to be good stewards of tax-payer money

Jackson: It keeps us on-time. They see the big picture and make sure the builder is held accountable.

Kent: I would like to see how that equates to dollars.

3. Amendment to the Mandatory Addendum, Approve: Yay 4, no 0

   1. Euchee Creek ES

   2. Evans HS

   3. Lakeside HS

   4. Harlem HS

Superintendent Reports

1. Rookie of the Year

2. 2025 Graduations

3. Summer School

   1. Grovetown HS 5/29 - 6/26

   2. Graduation, CC PAC 6/26

4. Existing Student Registration, 6/16-8/4

5. Independence Day, 7/4

6. United Way of the CSRA Stuff the Bus, 7/18

7. Leadership Conference, 7/21-7/22

8. New Teacher Induction, 7/23-7/25

9. School’s Open Drive Safely AAA Press Conference, 7/23

10. Rising 6th and 9th Grade Camp, 7/24 or 7/26

11. Open House Dates for 2025-2026 School Year

    1. High School, 7/29 3-5pm

    2. Middle School, 7/29 5-7pm

    3. Elementary School, 7/31 5-7pm

12. Teacher Pre-Planning, 7/28-8/1

13. Employee Back to School Kickoff, 8/1

14. First Day of School, 8/4

Public Participation

1. Jessica Fisher

2. Janet Duggan

Executive Session

1. Personnel: Approve: Yay 4, No 0

2. Legal

3. Real Estate: Approve: Yay 4, No 0

Board Items

1. Judy Teasley: Board has completed all of the required training, and then some, at conference

Adjourn: Yay 4, No 0

Next Regular Session Board Meeting 7/8/2025

LiveStream Recording

Call To Order 5:30PM

Invocation: Grace Baptist Senior Pastor Bill Hilley

Pledge of Allegiance: River Ridge Elementary School and Westmont Elementary School 4H Presidents

Approval of Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Special Recommendations: ( I was waiting in the hall so I missed these)

Special Recognitions

• Congressional Art Competition: Greenbrier HS

  • Baron Trupp: 1st Place People’s Choice Award

  • Natalie Navarrette: 2nd Runner Up

• Georgia All-State Band and Orchestra:

  • Evans HS

    • Sophia Martin, Bass Clarinet

    • Benjamin Yun, Clarinet

  • Greenbrier HS

    • Kevin Berry, Trombone

    • Jordan Evans, Principal Tuba, Full Orchestra

    • Rigel Kotas, Principal Contra Clarinet

    • Eli Ly, Principal Tenor Saxophone

    • Grant Osterbuhr, Trombone

    • Mason Pounds, Baritone Saxophone

    • Mason Rubano, Baritone Saxophone

    • Marcus Snyder, Bass Trombone

    • Epee Srihawan, Bassoon

    • Noah Torabi, Horn in F, Full Orchestra

  • Grovetown HS

    • Sebastian Blizzard, Euphonium

  • Harlem HS

    • Palmer Bloodworth, French Horn

  • Lakeside HS

    • Luke Baker, French Horn

    • Eva Chu, Tenor Saxophone, Full Orchestra

    • Emmanuel Cummings, Tenor Saxophone, Full Orchestra

    • Meredith Lentz, Bass Clarinet, Full Orchestra

    • Stephen Liu, Flute, Full Orchestra

    • Steven Pang, Clarinet

    • Grady Riser, Percussion

    • Rand Sayno, Trumpet

    • Hanyu Su, Alto Saxophone, Full Orchestra

    • Hanna Xu, Flute, Full Orchestra

    • Harry Zhou, Percussion

• Georgia Department of Education Award of Excellence: Jasmine Wright, Harlem HS

• Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards

  • Shuler Award for best choreography

    • Clara Farnell & Jenna Claire Moon: Greenbrier HS

• GHSA Bass Fishing State Champions

  • Tripp Tamasi & Matthew Johnson: Greenbrier HS

• Georgia State Science Olympiad Competition

  • Lakeside High School

    • 3rd Place - Anatomy Coralyn Cairns & Theerth Srinivasan

    • 3rd Place – Dynamic Planet Julia Min & David Wang

    • 3rd Place – Microbe Mission Jerry Fan & Eliana Benevides

• National Science Bowl Competition

  • Lakeside High School

    • 1st Place Savannah River Division: Jerry Fan, Arnav Patel, Matias Riveros-Amado, David Wang, and George Zhou

    • 2nd Place Savannah River Division: Eliana Benevides, Coralyn Cairns, Saisurya Lakkimsetti, Stephen Liu, and Steven Zhang

• 2025 Georgia State Regional Champions, National Science Bowl

  • Stallings Island Middle School: Bela Karia (Team Captain), Aarush Gupta, Ethan Jin, Ishaan Patel, and Veer Patel

• Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA)

  • Grovetown High School

    • Sofiya Kulynah - 2nd place, Behavioral Health

    • Andreas Toney - 3rd place, Medical Reading

• 2025 Georgia Military Flagship Schools

  • Cedar Ridge Elementary School: Ms. Angie McDaniel, Principal

  • Grovetown Elementary School: Ms. Valerie Allen, Principal

  • Greenbrier Middle School: Ms. Toni Cliatt, Principal

  • Riverside Middle School: Mr. Eli Putnam, Principal

• Governor's Office of Student Achievement (GOSA)

  • Highest Performing

    • Lewiston Elementary School – Bronze Award Ms. Sherry Allen, Principal

    • Parkway Elementary School – Bronze Award Ms. Stephanie Winter, Principal

    • Riverside Elementary School – Bronze Award Ms. Lynn Gardner, Principal

• Governor's Office of Student Achievement (GOSA)

  • Highest Performing & Greatest Gains

    • River Ridge Elementary School – Platinum Awards Ms. Michelle Miller, Principal

    • Stevens Creek Elementary School – Gold Awards Ms. Grace Meyer, Principal

• Margaret Rodgers Scholarship Award Winners

  • Katherine Negron Brookwood Elementary School Principal – Dr. Leslie Dial

  • Jenna Thompson North Columbia Elementary School Assistant Principal – Ms. Jacqueline Jones

• National Read 180 Outstanding Educator Awards

  • Claudia Rodriguez Harlem Middle School Principal – Mr. John Bush

  • Nicole Ruge Lakeside Middle School Principal – Mr. Jeremy Medlin

• 24-25 Columbia County School District Aspiring Principals Academy

  • LaToya Jackson-Barnett - Greenbrier High School

  • Stefanee Berry - Evans Middle School

  • Alexis Gray - Greenbrier Middle School

  • Jacqueline Jones - North Columbia Elementary School

  • Catherine Knight - Harlem High School

  • Ashlee Odom - Grovetown Elementary School

  • Whitney Poucher - Lakeside High School

  • Kelli Robertson - Brookwood Elementary School

  • Lorena Smith - Stallings Island Middle School

Approval of Consent Items: Yay 5, No 0

• Minutes of 4/22/2025, 4/29/2025, 5/6/2025

• Budget amendments

• Fundraisers

• Employee Travel

• Program/Camp/Employee Participation Request

• Lease/Use of Facilities

Strategic Planning Goals 3-5

• 3: Consistent & Supportive Culture (Mr Cummings)

  • Objective 1: Ensure safe learning environment

    • PBIS - operational/distinguished level 27/30 schools

    • Single platform for behavior management

  • Objective 2: Nurture strong relationships in a supportive environment

    • Enhanced transitions Kindergarten, 6th and 9th grades

    • assimilated military liaison connections to famili

  • Objective 3: Support overall health

    • training: CPR, stop the bleed, etc

    • vision screenings

    • Community resources lists for families

    • Medical/diabetic teams at each school

Allen: Is there a single platform?

Cummings: Spotlight

Allen: What is the K-5 counseling curriculum?

Cummings: It’s support for the schools.

Allen: Is there parental notification required? Is it embedded into the curriculum?

Gregg: These are whole class lessons. So each student have similar lessons.

Allen: Is this an opt-out or part of the academic curriculum?

Gregg: Some of it is part of Aaron’s Law. Mostly it’s standard…. school preparedness, conflict resolution.

Allen: Are there school clinics?

Flynt: No. Nurses do training but there are no clinics.

Allen: How to get operational or distinguished levels in PBIS? Has there been a decrease in discipline?

Cummings: Showing there is progress every year. Difference in referrals.

• Goal 4: Facilities and Operational Excellence

  • Objective 1: Improve operational processes & systems

    • Health inspections at all school cafeterias were rated 100% this year.

  • Objective 2: Identify & Plan for upcoming facility needs

    • 10-year plan

    • ESPLOST

    • SAFE System - 3 year process to 9 month process

      • Ties into audio system. activate during emergencies

    • Core Max key system

    • replacement cycle of school equip

  Teasley: Is the key management system manal?

  Jackson: FOB system

  Teasley: Edulog to new system?

  Jackson: Transition to begin in the fall. Full implementation in January.

  • Objective 3: Improvement Technology Access

    • Continue access to online resources

      • implement effective monitoring/management solutions to mitigate down

    • ERATE Funding leads to

    • Improved Connectivity

      • Create 5-year plan to modernize school digital infrastructure to improve throughout and reliabilty

    • Part of building plan improvement

VanMeter: Cyber break outside of control due to the connection from State. Comcast, a few issues. Internal.

Teasley: Probably during testing not typical.

VanMeter: We were able to switch to the 2nd connection. Primary is in Atlanta and secondary is to Jacksonville.

Flynt: That was a little hard to set up. It was a big project. Without the backup, we would have had to reschedule full days of testing. Alot of districts don’t have this.

Baker: Are we ahead in technology or behind?

VanMeter: Ahead

Kent: What would be the expense to make up that lost day?

VanMeter: How do you put a dollar figure on that loss? What’s the cost of education?

Teasley: It would have an impact on kids, parents.

Kent: I was thinking of showing the public that this is how much it would cost for the internet to go down during testing.

VanMeter: This started out with every school had a 48-inch rack with 1 network cable and it’s since evolved. Just at a conference in Atlanta. Systems are now powered through the network. SAFE system. Plan grows legs. How important is education? Everything is on the cloud.

Flynt: E-Rate - strategic planning for E-Rate grants because could miss out if not ready. 5-years to use $$.

Allen: SPLOST for this or General Fund?

Flynt: Requirements, donations bulti-in

VanMeter: E-Rate was 50/50, now 60/40

• Goal 5 Talent Optimizations (Sean Petro)

  • Objective 1 High-Quality Staff

    • websites - info

    • AU: Teacher Pathways

    • 3/25 CSRA Advanced Teacher event

    • 9 education fairs

  • Objective 2: Provide Professional growth Opportunity and development for all EEs.

  • Objective 3 : Retain highly-effective workforce

Kent: For the Gallup, how are the questions chosen?

Petro: Standard questions

Kent: Same questions across the nation.

Petro: Same questions across the nation

Student Achievement Update (LeAnne Gregg)

(see slides)

Teasley: Students will interpret and Lexile determined. Is this subjective?

Gregg: Reading comprehensive. New standards will interpret text (aka understand), multiple choice

Teasley: Different looks?

Gregg: Yes, new and way generating score isn't different

Allen: Lexile assessment, derived through scores.

Gregg: It’s formula-based now. Math formula put in assessment. Not every assessment generates Lexile.

Allen: What do we use locally?

Gregg: We use iREADY diagnostic 3x per year.

Allen: NAEP data. GA testing compare to NAEP?

Gregg: GA Milesone comparison? I’ll have to get that.

Allen: To look at the State related to national standards

Kent: Is everyone held to the same standards? Measured the same?

Gregg: All held to the same standards. Resources are not the same. ACE provides quality resources and strong reading resources

Kent: All spending let us get ahead of other districts?

Gregg: Yes. REsources impact ability to stay ahead.

Flynt: Participated in development because we always provide feedback. About to do early training on new standards so the teachers know.

Gregg: Instructional specialists, new ELA stan standards had glimpse of changes, instruction different to prepare.

Kent: I’m a competitive guy and they were 10 points higher in that one slide. How do we get ahead there?

Dekle: Don’t ask, it will cause millions of $$s.

Gregg: List of differences. High-impact changes.

Flynt: I get frequent calls from other superintendents due to our scores.

Allen: How long after implementing new strategies will you see results? How do you track?

Gregg: Following cohorts is the best practice.

Teasley: Do the benchmarks help?

Gregg: Benchmarks monitor progress through year.

FY 2026 Budget Presentation: Approve: Yay 4, No 1 (Katie Allen)

Allen: Wants to bring local resources to match 3%, the intent of HB581. Wants to work towards a more sustainable budget. It won’t happen overnight. Wants to change exemptions from 70 to 65. We have surpluses so we can do it. I would like to see discussions go in that direction. HB581 and tax-exemption to 65…. do we all agree to move in this direction?

Kent: I’d love see more *not sure* revenues. We are in a good position and would like to see us moving towards those goals.

Teasley: We would all like to reduce taxes. It’s a great talk about that.

Building Program

• No Columbia ES: painting interior, staircase, furniture delivery early July

• LHS: PAC getting closer

• EHS: cut off power this summer, moving admin, new weight room, new cafeteria, Band/orchestra rooms

Bid Result

• Prosys 4.70 scoring, $1,554,300 Approve: Yay 5, No 0

VanMeter: Rebid this due to the tariffs. The cost shifted upwards.

Dekle: Rebid due to tariffs?

Casado: You’ll recall you already voted on this. 1 month later contacted that the prices approved couldn’t be held. Rely for federal expenditures. Rebid ad brought it back a little more. Hopefully things stay stable.

(discussion about vendors substantially changing prices)

• EHS Batting Cages, Total $506,378 Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Allen: Was this compared to other bids to see if its fair?

Flynt: Competitive and need decision because of insurance and FEMA.

Allen: Does it come from General Fund or ESPLOST?

Flynt: Building fund or ESPLOST

Parking lot paving Brookwood ES & SIMS: Accept: Yay 5, No 0

Kent: Already paving at SIMS?

Flynt: Paving has gotten loose. May have lost a bus. There to need that last longer.

Agreement for Ad Valorem Tax Billing and Collections: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• 2.25% extends for 10 years. Most 2.5%

Dekle: Sure you couldn’t talk Commissioner Bridges to get it down to 1.

Flynt: Well, it’s pretty good deal.

Dekle: Does the Board of Commissioners pay the same rate?

Teasley: I think they both pay the same.

Superintendent Reports:

• 4/28-5/23: Summer School Registration.

  • sign-up through middle/HS website

  • $80/class

• 2025 Graduations

  • EHS 5/21 at 6:30PM

  • GreenbrierHS 5/22 at 9:00AM

  • Harlem HS 5/22 at 6:30PM

  • Grovetown HS 5/23 at 9:00AM

  • Lakeside HS 5/23 at 6:30PM

Public Participation:

• Priscilla Bence: Had to leave early but left a packet of information.

• Sheila Rebel: Left cards for everyone regarding increased exposure to wireless radiation.

• Ash Sonya - graduation cords. co-curricular cords should be included rather than focusing on just academics.

• Cynthia Stein - Also advocating for more cords.

Executive Session:

• Approval of affidavit that only spoke on personnel, legal, and real estate. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

• Personnel: Yay 5, No 0

• Legal

• Real Estate

Board Items

• Allen - graduation cords.

Allen: Would like to consider amending the policy for cores. Can discuss policy later. Changed to include military honors (ROTC academic honors). Is it a legal issue?

Flynt: No, it’s a policy.

Teasley: Cords are worn and awarded for academic achievement because that’s what our focus is.

Staff: There are a number of different groups that have asked for cords over the years such as Thespian, Hawaii, Scouts. We stick to academic achievements. Allowing lots of cores dilutes academic achievement of 1 cord.

Allen: I would be open. Maybe a middle ground is adding certain criteria such as a high level of partnership.

Staff: The ROTC cord is tied to academics. It’s tied to their grade in ROTC and must be active for 3 years.

Teasley: Cords tied to academics achievement is part of a mission of school. Awards are awesome but cords shouldn’t be for everything.

• Adding Additional Recess for Elementary School. Take 5 minutes from each class for a morning recess. Flexibility with QBE? Missed class time: fundraisers, scholastic books, etc. Maybe QBE at the State level.

Flynt: It would be helpful for staff to be able to research this fully before providing answers.

Allen: Just wanted to broach the subject and see if it’s something the board wants to bring up to discuss.

Teasley: Decrease class time, increase recess time, and increase test scores?

Baker: I don’t want to cut instructional time.

Allen: Appreciate discussion.

Adjourn at 9:35PM: Yay 5, No 0