CCBOE Work Session 8/27/2024
Invocation by Woodlawn Baptist Church Senior Pastor Floyd Harrison
Pledge of Allegiance by Greenbrier HS NJROTC
Board Comments: All thanked the Pastor for the invocation and NJROTC
Approval of Consents Items: 5 yay, 0 no
Minutes of 8/13/2024
July Financials
Budget amendment and transfer
Fundraisers
Employee travel
Program/Camp/Employee participation request
Lease/Use of Facilities
Discussion Topics and Presentations
Goal 1: Maximize student achievement and success for each student, Associate Superintendent Dr. Kellye Bosch
Objective 1: Increase understanding and mastery of curriculum
Develop & implement unit instruction guides for each grade level
Expand pilot of NexGen Cyber Curriculum for integration into ACE
Implement K-12 Writing framework
Rigorous Common Assessments
Benchmarks for High School
Expand resources for core curriculum
Science and engineering fair opportunity at Middle & High Schools
Objective 2: Increase instructional rigor
Personal finance instruction includes visits to the discovery center. The Seniors will have a hands-on experience at the Discovery Center.
Instructional Professional Learning
K-5 Science of Reading for teachers
Train teachers on K-12 writing framework
Advanced Coursework Development
Increase CTAE certifications
Align CTAE course offerings and internationships
Create opportunities
Enhance academic supports
Intervene & acceleration
HS MISS process (math intervention, sequence)
Implement MISS at Elementary and Middle Schools
Implement process for strategic/intensive interventions
Discussion:
Meyers: Concern that the credit recovery program is still rigorous. Dr. Bosch said that they are rewriting/reworking some of the courses in the credit recovery program to ensure there is still rigor in the courses.
Dekle: Asked if the K-5 certification in Science of Reading course is the same as the statewide course. Concern that they’ll have to do training twice. Dr.Bosch said that it’s the same training.
Alalof: Asked for more information about the personal finance instruction. Personal finance starts before middle school. Seniors do a final course.
Teasley: Question about benchmarks on non-core courses. For now benchmarks are only on core courses, but will eventually extend to all courses.
Goal 2: Community Engagement & Support, Chief Financial Officer Alex Casado
Objective 1: CCSD Foundation
Fundraising
Awarding grants/scholarships this year. Performing arts programs are applying for the grants/scholarships now.
School Improvement: Will publish a report on the website
Objective 2: Expand meaningful business & post secondary partnerships
Work based learning
Post secondary learning partnerships - mention Augusta University
Objective 3: Improve Internal & External Communication
Quarterly employee newsletter
District/School websites
Communicate ESPLOST
2027 - 2032 on the ballot in November
More in-depth at next work session
Will present at every High School
Social Media content
Goal 3: Consistent & Supportive Culture
Objective 1: Ensure a safe learning environment
Implement PBIS at every school at the operational & distinguished level
K-5 counseling academic curriculum
Campus Security awareness walks
Single platform for behavior management
Objective 2: Nurture strong relationships in supportive environment
Transition events for Kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade.
Assimilating military families through liaison connections
Family engagement opportunities
Objective 3: Support overall health of students
Training for faculty & staff
CPR, Stop the Bleed
Vision screenings
Medical teams
CPR, Cardiac arrest, and diabetes teams
Discussion:
Teasley: What does it mean to be distinguished in PBIS? What does that look like? There are PBIS walk-throughs with PBIS trained staff. There’s a checklist that they use to ensure that there is a minimization of referrals, language of PBIS is utilized by staff, etc.
Baker: If there is a teacher struggling with classroom management, how is that handled? The teacher is provided with observations, feedback and resources.
Dekle: Question about the behavior management platform. District used to use multiple different platform to input data for student behavior/conduct. The data had to be inputted multiple times in different places/platforms. The district began using their student information system to report student behavior data. This is simpler because data just needs to be inputted once, the code/process/language is simplified, and the reports are more consistent and accurate. Also, student conduct has to match the codes with the State so this makes it so we don’t get errors as frequently when reporting data to the State. Other districts in Georgia also use the student info system in this way.
Alalof & Baker: Has there been an uptick in ??? disorders? Does the State fund the nurses in the school? No, not fully. They pay something like 50% of the salary for the nurses. There is something like an average of 40 visits to the nurse per day per school. Both board members felt like the cost of the school nurse should be built into the QBE Formula.
Goal 4: Facilities and Operational Excellence, Penny Jackson
Objective 1: Improve Operational Processes/Systems
Operational Efficiency
Custodial/Maintenace Handbook
Free & reduced lunch applications
Kitchen equipment replacement/purchase
FMX Scheduling
Objective 2: Identify & Plan for upcoming facility needs
ESPLOST
Educational paging system - 3 year implementation
Replacement Cycle for school equipment/kitchen equipment
Teasley: Recently several kitchens received a 100% rating from, I think, the health inspector
Objective 3: Improve Technology Access
Continued access to online resources
Implement effective monitoring
Improved connectivity
Create 5 year plan to modernize school digital infrastructure
Replacing older cables & infrastructure
Improvements are expensive & will be incorporated into 5-year building plan.
Discussion:
Baker: Are we keeping up? Some buildings are 30 years old. Trying to upgrade to most current technology so hopefully that will carry us through longer before it becomes outdated again.
Replacement cycles: 5 years for teachers, 6 years for students
District provides 35,000 student devices
Network has 100,000 connections any day
3.5 millions hits go to China every week or so, which we block
HB(3351?) Security measures are already in place. Equipment ordered which will give the district better control of who gets onto the network.
Goal 5: Talent Optimization, Tony Wright
Recruit/Hire/Train/Retention
+4,000 Employees
Objective 1: Attract Professionally qualified staff
Increase focus on local 2&4 year colleges/universities
Objective 2: Provide professional growth & opportunity development for all employees
Improve on-boarding
Job description & job evaluation process
Professional development
Objective 3: Retain a professionally qualified & effective workforce
Continually review of benefits & compensation
Life insurance improvements
Engagement survey results
Dekle asked if they do exit interviews for employees leaving the district: yes, as well as interviews with employees who stay. Mr. Wright wants to know why people leave the district.
Rare that employees leave the district for another district in the CSRA
Competitive salaries
Baker asked about retention of non-certified employees and the district is trying to improve retention rates for non-certified employees.
Student Achievement Update, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Kristen Carroll
I took pics of all of the slides. The bar charts are comparing the State, CSRA RESA and District data. Those percentages shown are for developing and above (2 and higher, which is approaching grade level but still needs some help.) The chart showing the “ranking” is the district compared to other districts that tested 1000+ students on that test (in that grade, ie. 8th Grade ELA). There are 181 districts all together in Georgia.
8th Grade ELA: K-12 Writing framework, reading intervention. ACE initiatives in Middle School.
American Literature. 2nd year implementation of ACE. Improvement from last year. They will focus more on benchmark assessments, teacher resources and increasing rigor.
Students taking AP or Dual Enrollment are exempted from taking American Literature EOC. Many of our advanced students aren’t included in this data.
8th Grade Physical Science
99.6% of our students took the Physical Science EOC. Some other districts had much lower rates of 8th graders that took Physical Science, so only the top students took the test. Most top districts have all of their 8th graders take physical science to increase rigor and better prepare for high school courses. Even with that the scores were still competitive.
US History
AP & Dual Enrollment exempted from EOC. We have a higher percentage of students taking AP/DE.
To increase the scores though, ACE curriculum & guides, increase rigor.
School Safety Plans, Penny Jackson
Plans developed using GEMA, CC Emergency Management, local law enforcement, local fire and medical resources.
District plan with site specific plans added by each school
Requirements set by GEMA
GEMA Safety audits - extracurricular too
Training & Drills
HB874 - Requires schools have a cardiac response team
Fire, weather, & intruder drills
GEMA requires intruder drill by 9/30/2024
HR Staffing Update
Less than 40 vacancies
2 K-5 Teachers
3 SPED Teachers
1 HS Social Studies Teacher
Non-Certified vacancies less than 15.
Rebalanced classes and moved 8 teachers to new schools last Friday. 2 teachers left the district, 6 stayed. Teachers don’t like to be moved to new schools but often students don’t enroll until closer to or after labor day. It might be families relocating from out of state schools.
K-5 Average Class Sizes (see chart)
Fairly consistent over the past few years.
K: State Max 22
2021: 18.87
2022: 18.57
2023: 18.4
2024: 18.86
1st: State Max 23
2021: 18.95
2022: 19.07
2023: 19.09
2024:19.56
2nd: State Max 23
2021: 18.81
2022: 19.01
2023: 19.23
2024:19.44
3rd: State Max 23
2021: 19.16
2022: 19.35
2023: 19.43
2024:19.18
4th: State Max 30
2021: 24.29
2022: 24.57
2023: 25.42
2024: 24.96
5th: State Max 30
2021: 24.41
2022: 25.30
2023: 25.80
2024: 25.30
Board Policies
Board Policies I, Instructional Program
23 policies and received new suggestions/revisions
Allowing additional time for public commentary
9/10 meeting planning to vote
Board Policies J, Students
46 policies. Approved 4 over the summer
Change between policy and procedure. Some wording changes to make it more in line with GA guidelines.
First part of J open for public commentary
Building program
Resolution for Development of a New Local Facilities Plan
Allows district staff to work with GADoE staff
5 approve, 0 nay
Resolution for Capital Outlay Project Application for FY2026
5 approve, 0 nap
Board Discussion
Lee Ann Meyers suggested maybe we codify which schools we compare ourselves to so the comparisons can be similar each year. It’s difficult to determine who to compare to and which criteria to use. The size of the district is important from a finance perspective. Also, individual charter schools are presented as a district in the State’s data. When reviewing data with school leadership, they compare each school to another school that’s comparable by size and reduced lunch status. It would be too time consuming to present data to the board for each school. The district is working on comparisons to comparable districts outside of Georgia as well but they haven’t fully developed that data. It’s a little more difficult to measure because the data is different in different states. In Georgia, many of the districts we end up comparing ourselves to as comparable are the same regardless of metric….. Cherokee, Fayette, Forsyth often come up as comparable districts. Judy Teasley commented that what’s important is that we keep looking for ways to improve.
Executive Session:
Personnel: 5 approve, 0 nay
Legal
Real Estate
Easement to GA Power as discussed in executive session, 5 approve, 0 nay
Adjourn