Call to order our informal work session for this evening. The Montgomery County School system. Our first item on our study session is surplus property safety and health. Dr. Luna-Vedder. Board members, in your packet, you have a list of surplus property for safety and health. these are items that are considered surplus and they have exhausted their useful life. once they are declared surplus or obsolete, they are put out for bid and and then utilized in such a way.
So the list is attached for the items from safety and health. Any questions? Surplus property CMCSS school busses? Yes. Board members, you also have a list of busses. The policy does require Board of Education to declare the property as surplus when it's no longer suited for school system property. The maintenance department has identified 29 busses that no longer meet the requirements.
That is based on state regulations for school bus safety to include the condition, the age and the mileage. These busses have reached the end of their service life and they're ineligible for an extension from the Tennessee Department of Safety. I will add that our operations department has the largest fleet of busses that they do extend the life on. And so they they utilize every mile possible. but there are 29 busses that no longer meet those requirements.
Surplus property technology. You also have a list of these are items that are technology. Department has deemed ineligible. They are including laptops, desktops, LCD projectors, printers coppers copiers and different computer parts. Salvaged parts going back to even some typewriters and laminators that no longer meet the needs of technology.
Any questions on the surplus properties? One what's the method of those being sold? Many of those, actually, when we talk about technology, they are they are listed online through websites such as gov deals. And then that money that is recouped is then put back into the technology to buy new technology. Thank you. Resolution September budget amendments. I'm going to turn this one over to Chief Financial Officer Jeff Taylor to
update you for the September budget amendments. Good evening everyone. Start out with the revenues on page three of the report. under state revenues, we're we're receiving an additional $277,862 for the pre-K entitlement grant. So we're just putting that in order to match up with what's in Eplan under other state education funds, $833,842 for the Public school security grant,
as well as $22,820 for the United Way. Raise Your Hand grant. moving on down. We have a deduction for the ISM carryover of 276,000, as well as revenues in 110,803 for impact aid, as well as $14,000 in opioid settlement funds that we received from the county. Excuse me? And then under the adult literacy just removing that fund that's
transitioning to a group outside of the school system to handle that. just on the next page, we're just increasing the reserves for a career ladder by $7,419. And adjusting the fund balance by $13.7 million. Moving on to instruction, this is where we're appropriating the funding for the United Way. Raise Your Hand grant, as well as we move some money out for the CPR training stipend to put that elsewhere.
And there is also money in there for the career ladder. Volunteer pre-K, based on the actual postings that we have for this year. And then additional funding for subs for the teacher residency program. Moving on to alternative school. This is just where we're actually changing positions. So we're moving these funds out of alternative school and will be moving them over to another function. under the special education pre-K entitlement grant.
That's where that funding is added. But we're also moving funding for the CCS positions. They'll be reclassified will re refund re appropriated in a different line. And then the last part of it is just position changes. for various schools based on needs. And those schools. And then lastly just increases in contracted services supplies and materials and equipment for the pre-K entitlement grant. Moving on to vocational education, once again,
all this is just we're moving those funds out of the ISM from the ISM carry forward, moving that into another function. I believe it's 72 to 30 is where we're moving that and then moving on down to 72, 2120 health services. This is where we're adding the CPR training stipend. And then once again moving funds out of the ISM carryover out of other student support, moving funds from CCS. And then we're adding funds and contracted services for
the public school security grant and contract services and supplies and materials, as well as the opioid funds for supplies and materials. That was $5,000. And then under the public school security grant, we've also added additional funding and equipment. Under staff development, pulling funds out of the ISM carryover that will be moving over to a different function, as you'll see shortly. And we're adding $9,000 for staff development from those opioid funds.
We're receiving under 72 210 instructional support. you see the United Way, raise your hand grant that's included in that as well as we're moving the CCS funds and then under the $22,000, you see, under other Austin Peay handles our graduation, as you all well know, every year. And they're adding per their policies, they're having to add enhanced security at these graduations.
So with what we pay for those graduations, we're having to increase that budget for that. Moving on to special education support, the increase in the funding from the pre pre-K entitlement grant. This is where a large portion of the funds were moved. 3.15 million. And then of course there were some additions for position management. Management changes of 60,000 based on needs. And then once again some additional moves under equipment and vocational education support the
$4.4 million for the ISM carry forward and then under technology. There were a couple of positions. Just had to add those back for, increase based on analysis. Once again, the adult literacy program that funding is just being taken care of through an outside agency. So we don't no longer need to appropriate that $120,000, just an estimated increase in liability costs. And under Director of Schools,
this is for our postage machine. It's just an increase in the lease rental for that on a yearly basis of $4,919. And then under office of the principal. These were once again position changes based on need at the Burt Innovation Center and then under operation of plant. had to spend a 20,000 for COVID materials removal as well as getting permits for our CTE building and
purchase of eyewash machines just so we can maintain our compliance with OSHA and then under maintenance of plant increase antifreeze account based on that actual spending we've had so far this year. An increase of 1200 for the career ladder for voluntary pre-K. Any questions on GP? Moving on to the nutrition fund. That's just an increase in our fund balance of $555,890. I have.
One question. okay. Oh, sorry, I didn't see the light. I'm sorry. I could ask at the end, but you ask your questions. just curious. Page 14. You had with the fund budget was going to be. So after we pass it and after the county commission approves the amendment, the fund budget will be at $89,882,430. Is that what that was saying? Yes. okay. We increase that just based on what we basically the unspent funds at the end of the fiscal year.
But keep in mind, some of those funds are not it's not all just fund balance. There are reserves that are restricted to be used for other items as well. As we have an assigned fund balance that's used elsewhere, used to help with the appropriations. We have this year. Got it. All right. Thank you. Under the nutrition fund, it's just an increase in the fund balance of $555,890. Under transportation. Same thing. Increase to fund balance of 1,000,500 to $89,833.
Just adjusting this for year end to give us our actual fund balance. Now. And then there's two adjustments. an increase in contracted services of 25,700 for the zone. Our annual tracking service and an increase of $700 to the EBS program moving. And then they took those funds out of equipment, 25,000 to help cover that. Then under extended school, once again,
just a decrease in the fund balance of $621. And then these are your federal projects amendments. No new money, just reallocation of those funds. Any questions? Thank you. Goal two. What's the better? I'd like to ask our Director of Instruction and curriculum for middle school, Ashley Forbus, to come forward. And she's going to give an update on goal two.
And our unique learning needs. Good evening. I'm going to speak to strategic work goal two. So it falls under improving student achievement. Specifically, that goal is to foster student growth through learning experiences and interventions that meet our unique learning student or unique student needs. And so we do have a uln vision that Uln stands for. Unique learning needs. That vision is to work in partnership with all stakeholders to ensure that every student's individual needs
are met in their least restrictive environment, through quality education plans to achieve their fullest potential, and we will be proactive in this by making data driven decisions, ensuring students are at the center of our decisions, and providing access to high quality instruction. So there are five different groups that fall in this umbrella of unique learning needs, the first being our English Language learners, the second group being students that have a 504 plan, the third being students with a behavior support plan,
the fourth being students that have an individualized learning plan specific to characteristics of dyslexia, and the last being students that have individualized education plans. So the first group that English language learners. last year in 2425, some celebrations there were 305 students that exited Ell services and then 432 students that met growth. Their growth targets in Ell. And we also trained over 200 administrators, academic coaches, teachers, and educational assistants in seven steps for language rich classroom.
So for this coming year, 2526 there's going to be ongoing training for the new LPA, 21 standards for our next group. Students that are on hundred and four plans. Last year, there were six schools that piloted the section 504 administrative assistant, by training current staff to assist in writing those plans. And then this current year, some of the action steps with this group is to continue to focus on aligning those accommodations to the data and the needs of the student. And then there's also monthly checkpoint trainings and
newsletters to deepen the knowledge of the data, policies and procedures. With 504. So then our academic and behavioral intervention, we work on a multi-tiered system of support. So we want to ensure that 80 to 90% of our students needs are met in tier one. And if you'll notice, on the left hand side of the screen, what happens is that intervention builds intensity as students move through those tiers. So for students in tier one, all students receive that instruction. It is preventative and proactive.
But then there are groups of students in tier two that need additional support or interventions that can be either academic or behavioral. And so that's some students. and then the highest level of intervention is going to be a tier three or tier four, which is going to be our special education. Their interventions are the most intensive. and it's based on their individual needs. So for behavior supports in 2425, some celebrations, we had a fully trained district behavior team. There was collaborative behavior team meetings.
Those were implemented in all elementary and middle schools. And we had over 200 employees trained in behavior techniques. So for action steps in this coming school year, we're going to continue those collaborative behavior team meetings, rolling that out to every level to include high school. This year, we're going to have consistency of structures and procedures at all levels and continue to expand behavior training opportunities for employees and then for the students that are on a plan for an individualized learning plan for characteristics of dyslexia that is specific to students in tier two and tier three.
Last year we had dyslexia screening events held at the Learning Center for the community. There were school elpd teams created, and then we continued training to support staff and understanding the characteristics of dyslexia so they could talk to parents and communicate. This year, the action steps for this group, we're going to continue those dyslexia screening events at the Learning Center for the community, continue to build capacity across all levels to ensure consistent, effective dyslexia screening within each of our buildings and then collaborate with all of
our academic coaches to expand those Ilpd teams into all of our buildings. And then our last group under Uln, that's going to be our students with Individualized Education plans specific to tier four students in that level, with the most intense intervention, there are two prongs. So if you look at the circles, it's really important that students with IEPs have both high quality intervention and they receive high quality core support in their tier one classrooms. They need both of those. And so in 2425. Some of the celebrations the instructionally appropriate Individualized education plans are
in that training was provided to all administrators and special education teachers, and it's led to CMCSS surpassing the Tdoe annual performance report of the Least Restrictive environment target of the 2425 school year for K-12 students. And so then, looking ahead with this particular group, we're going to continue to provide ongoing training and support for those instructionally appropriate Individualized education plans, ensuring that the plans include the implementation of the high quality intervention,
the high quality core supports, and then making sure we're intentionally designing that instruction for those students. So back to the goal. This goal two is to foster student growth through learning experiences and interventions that you meet, that meet the unique student needs. Any questions? I don't see any. okay. Thank you. Mr. Wrestling presentation. I'd like to ask Chief Communications Officer Anthony Johnson to come
forward to give you a report on middle school sports. Yes, I'm back. and. I promised Mr. Nolan I would keep us out of trouble by making sure we stuck to facts and didn't discuss opinions or anything like that. Since this isn't a voting meeting. but I preface this to say I tried to get with folks to address all the questions that that came up two weeks ago. If there are any that that I missed. you know, ask me tonight. If we don't have that answer, we can come back. One thing that I hope that you'll see as we go through this presentation is we've got
some time we've got some time to get more questions answered and things like that. but but hopefully we address most of the questions. So the first one is about the fund balance. And I know a couple of questions were asked. I told Jeff, you know what, you take a seat. You're already presenting this. I'll take this on for you. But essentially what you saw earlier, was a discussion about how sometimes revenue streams will come in. and they have to be reallocated. And so it's important that we maintain a healthy fund balance,
for cash flow purposes. So we may have budgeted, you know, when you all approved the budget last April, County commission in May and June. we may have budgeted things knowing that, you know, for example, 12 million in federal should be coming. so if we need to expand that, we've got to have that money here in the fund balance. And then to reimburse that. So it's important for cash flow, but it's also important for those unforeseen unexpected, those emergency items that that come up. So Tennessee law and I this I think was was addressed.
But just to reinforce Tennessee law does require us to have a minimum fund balance or reserve of 3% of annual budgeted expenditures. Our current fund balance is 7.46 of budgeted operating expenditures. and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong. I always look at it as an analogy like this. If for some reason all funding revenue streams ended, how long could we continue operating? And so you can look at that and say, we can operate for about 7% of the year.
and so it's still not, you know, a huge reserve. I think most people probably try to plan personally for 3 to 6 months, but it is there. And again, I think that would be a really extreme circumstance if all funding local, state and federal happen. And then this is just to make sure I had mentioned this before, but I did fact check to make sure I was right. We did have to use some of the fund balance last year to balance the budget, even after cutting 12 million in requests for some educational operational requests.
from departments. So we did have to dip a little bit into the fund balance to balance. But again, it is still healthy at this time and it exceeds the state's requirement. This next slide, and it's probably maybe hard for you to see, really easy for the audience on the big screen. but again, you'll have this. And if you have any questions let me know. But this is an inventory. Norm and his team, they had some of this information already. But Norm actually went out the last two weeks and visited sites, looked at records so we could give you an accurate information about what facilities currently exist.
And I want to mention that why? I'm also talking about high school. When we're talking about middle school athletics is because, as we've shared with you, a lot of our middle schools utilize the high school campuses as well. And unless we receive some sort of magical gift in our community of several tens of millions of dollars, it's going to be that way for a while. And that's okay. And just like John said, there's some challenges with that, but nothing that we can't overcome. Long story short, every single school has a gym. We know that. The question came up about auxiliary gyms.
If you see a green check, that means that they have a full auxiliary gym, as you would expect at a school, which you've seen at all of our high schools, if it's got a little and it's shown up different on here than I had in my presentation, but if it's got like a little black check, that means that they at least have a multi-purpose room that could be used. so for example, I know two of the schools on here, when you look at like Kenwood Middle School, you might have seen it. It's behind the gym. It's a large area. It's tiled.
It's not necessarily a gym, but it is a large open space. And some schools, they've used it for weightlifting equipment or whatever. But those are the schools at least have something. There is one school, though, and Norm went out and visited that does not have either a full auxiliary gym or a dedicated space, and that is Montgomery Central Middle school. so looking at and I also want to emphasize that you'll see on the side over here, we talked about this a little bit before but you'll see in the parentheses those are the dates those schools were completed.
and so you can it's kind of neat to look at the history and to see how different designs and whatnot have incorporated different things throughout time. again, none of our middle schools have a stadium. All high schools do same thing with practice fields, baseball softball tennis. I kind of went through all the athletics that we don't offer. So it gives you a comprehensive picture. As we mentioned before, not all of our schools have tracks for do Kenwood High School, Kirkwood High School, Rossview High School and West Creek High School. Those were added kind of with some of the newer construction of those schools. Right now, our high schools do share those tracks.
but currently we do not have tracks at every school. If if track is incorporated at the middle school level in the future. again, we believe that they could collaborate on that with the goal of maybe being able to where feasible. I think Norm told me there's one campus it'd be very difficult to try to fit it in to the stadium, but we could work around some things. So anyway, that's track wrestling building since that came up from some speakers comments and some questions. There's only one school that has a wrestling building. Our oldest, built high school. and that's Clarksville High School.
Fbf stands for Football Fieldhouse. we only have one of those at this time, although I will comment that some of the other schools have some kind of makeshift spaces, I believe operations worked with Northeast High School to repurpose a portable. Some of the other schools have repurposed, but to have an actual dedicated football fieldhouse and then I appreciate my technology partners calling me a couple hours ago and saying, I think you made a mistake because you put hif but no, those aren't field houses. Those are hitting facilities. So those next ones are baseball hitting facilities and softball hitting facilities.
So long story short, this gives you a picture of where we are currently with our facilities. So when we talk about balancing and this, we're I want to be very clear, we are not proposing that we ask for these funding. We're not we're we're what we're looking at is maybe some alternatives. But the question was asked, what would it take? I think, Mr. Garland, you'd asked, what would it take to make sure everybody had the same. So, Norm looking at some some past designs and what costs have been if we were to,
add a space at, at Montgomery Central Middle School, the only one that doesn't have it the estimated cost for that project would be about 2.5 million to get them a full auxiliary gym. And you can see the breakdown on the side. Again, challenges with that. We know that that's that's a cost when there's other priorities. it also in some of our campuses with any construction we talk about, you have to think about how does that impact space parking traffic flow. There's a lot of other things that that Norm mentioned. Could be some challenges, just like I emphasized on the last slide, we are not advocating or requesting that this work be done at this time,
but we wanted to give the facts and paint a picture, because the question was asked, what if we wanted to take that chart that I showed a little bit ago and tried to balance it out, where every high school had the exact same thing, what that cost would be. and that would be a little over $25 million to try to reach that. So again, not advocating for that, but trying to provide you with the facts. The next slide looks familiar, but something's a little different at the bottom. So in consulting with John Miller and trying to present to you all kind of some next steps,
some things to think about as we continue planning. Although we mentioned all of those athletics that are sanctioned by TMS, he feels strongly that we should focus now at this time for those middle school athletics that actually have a state tournament. So the one circle do boys and girls soccer, wrestling, softball, baseball and track. at this time, golf, tennis and girls flag football do not have a tournament still sanctioned. and I'm sure as time goes, that will continue to happen.
We know we've seen that with with wrestling. We've seen that with girls flag football at the high school level. but so the next I say all this to say, the next slide focuses on those ones that actually have, a tournament. This gives you a and again, I apologize. Two weeks. We try to put it together as quickly as possible. It gives you a rough, but we feel like pretty close to accurate estimate of what start up costs versus recurring annual costs would be for those existing athletics.
The other thing that we did is we took the number of high school students who participated in each of these athletics over the last three years, and provided you an estimate of about how many we might be able to expect, who would participate in the middle school level. Based on that, we also shared the number of coaches that would need to be required. And again, this is not 16 per school. This is across the district. And the same thing with the estimated number of students, not not 240 baseball students at a school, that coach would probably quit. but definitely across the district,
240 also giving you the seasons. And that's something else. We just want to continue to emphasize as we continue to expand those athletics, trying to balance those seasons, to make it easier on middle schools, to coordinate with high schools and not have too many people trying to use space at one time. The other piece is, are there already existing community based programs? from what John's research has indicated, all except track, and we heard from coaches who are doing the community based with wrestling. I'm sure you all are familiar. Soccer is really big here, so there's a lot of community based programs.
The only one that we is not consistent would be track. Now this is the piece this question was asked. how long would it take to get the equipment now, if I was doing this presentation, 2020, 2021, I would say, please don't ask me because there's really no idea. I think we're at a point now in, in reaching out and kind of really just looking at vendor websites, talking to vendors. We can estimate, especially if we're looking at a large district order where we're customizing it, we're on a one for the most part.
Most of them could do it in about 4 to 8 weeks. So most of the equipment that we're talking about is already made. It's just a matter of personalizing it. The same thing with uniforms. And so either between if we went with local vendors or national vendors, we feel like for the most part we could get most of that equipment in 4 to 8 weeks. But I caution here to say just because we can order equipment in 4 to 8 weeks doesn't mean we can build a program. And some programs are more complex than others. We talked about football and cheerleading. There's a lot more equipment.
There's a lot more logistics, scheduling, trying to get with high school there than there might be with, for example, track, which not to downplay track. It's it's an involved sport, but we got to get the kids some shoes. We already have the equipment and they schedule their races and training. So some of these would take a little bit longer to get on the ground. And what John has indicated is especially baseball and softball would probably take a little bit longer. But the other is we could expect to be able to, you know, if we had a budget that was approved in April, oftentimes what we'll do.
So, for example, with coaches, we'll post a position and say pending budget approval. So we could already put the notice out there that this is pending budget approval in June. And then when the budget starts in July, we could get those hired. But at least middle school principals, athletic directors could start scheduling it. And then facility notes is just to recap all in one page. The slide earlier. A couple of caveats. These estimated costs do not include potential staffing increases. So as you add Continue Athletics, you've got more burden on custodians,
athletic trainers, bookkeepers have more that they've got to do now. Athletic directors, administrators, that sort of thing. So that's something we've got to keep in our mind as we continue expanding. The other piece is the ongoing uniform equipment and facility maintenance and upgrades that. So everything that we talk about that we would add, we've got to maintain that, potential increased costs due to inflation or salary supplement increases. I it was no secret I made it public that we do feel that we need to address our current coaching supplement. We're not competitive.
So again, if we increase that these recurring costs, which is essentially mostly coaching, that would also increase as well. And then also, although I wish we had a magic button, none of these costs include any of the aforementioned facility changes. So when we're talking about start up costs, we're talking about equipment. Maybe some makeshift portable storage spaces, but we're not talking about that. That cost would include a new track or anything like that. Just want to make sure that was clear. So I will end by saying again that I'm proud of where we're going.
I appreciate the board. I appreciate the county commission. We've been able to continue increasing. it didn't happen overnight. We spent about 40 years with just one sport. but we want to continue increasing. But we know we have to do that in a sustainable way. So it brings us back to that. Our recommendation still stands, that we discuss the next athletic or athletics that we would like to add in the budget that you all approve in April. we feel that if you all decided going back to this, and the other things, we all have to kind of look at between
the county and Jeff looking at what is anticipated, you know, revenues from sales tax, all that sort of thing. If the budget looks like we could do it maybe more than one of these, we could add. And all that to say, if you wanted to add one, two or maybe all, we do feel that we could do that. based upon the normal budget approval process in April. So that's the end of the presentation. Are there any questions that I didn't address in this that you can think of that I can get back to you?
And, of course, Mr. Lanier is not here, but I'll I'll get with him and make sure he understands the presentation. Mr. Mabry. Thank you. just a couple questions so you can get back to me on. So you said 3% state law. I kind of I would like to know what 3% of the budget would be for budget. okay. you said we're at 7%. Is that what you told me? Yeah, it was like 7.46% of our current operating budget. okay great. And I will say, and, Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong,
although we are in a better position this year than we have been in a very long time with staffing. having all positions. I mean, we don't have all but better than we've been in a very long time. Bus driver is probably better than it's been in a decade, actually. some of that is also held because we didn't fill positions. So some of that is also in there as well. But we can get you those stats. Jeff, do you want to correct me? Because I was probably wrong? No, you're right on that. okay. With the vacancies we've had, that's been one of the advantages that has allowed our fund balance to
remain relatively healthy is we've had a lot of vacancies this year. We're starting to fill these positions up. So that cushion we've had for that per se. That's probably going to lessen. The more and more we fill those positions. And 3% of our budget right now would be approximately 14 million. But I can tell you right now, I would I would not like that at all. I'm sure it's too low. I got you I just curious to know what that number was. being that it's going to it's going to be shortly 89 million.
So just wanted to get that background there. I am curious, you mentioned this and I and I'm sure it's been said in past meetings, but $12 million was cut. You said at the beginning what was that? So it's to kind of go back to how the budgeting process works. So the 2526 budget we love Jeff Taylor. He's already making us think about that way in advance. And so what happens is around the November time frame,
each department chief gets a bunch of documents and it's great. and we've got to go through and determine what needs are for our departments. The majority of those needs are going to come from your instruction and curriculum department and your operations department. And so just as an example of some of those requests that came in that, that maybe we just couldn't fund that they were still priorities. And we would like to be able to do that in the future. Might be some assistance in for like special education for like some specialized positions in operations.
It might be some some of our, you know, capital projects is a separate budget, but it might be instead of we requested or requested, I think for HVAC, we were able to fund two additional. So we basically take our budget and we know that we have to get to this goal to present a balanced budget to the county commission. And so we internally have to say before we start presenting, we can't fund this. And, and, and this past year, Dr. Luna-Vedder was very specific about we are presenting a balanced budget, and we're going to keep revisiting this until we get to a balanced budget.
So so for clarity, nothing. $12 million was cut, $12 million of funding. That was presented to be as a want or a desire was not put in. Yeah. And I would go beyond even just wanting to priority. I mean yes there there's 12 million in things that we after getting to the process where we've already vetted in our own department, that would not have been able to fit in the budget. That's correct. So I will just chime in. There is a combination. So some of it was new items like Anthony mentioned,
as far as for HVAC technicians were were suggested or recommended. We went down to two. the number of busses. So those were new things. There were some things that we kind of had some healthy discussions about as far as return on investment. So what are some of those things that perhaps especially with grant dollars, you know, we had more grant dollars over the last few years. What are some things that maybe we weren't getting enough return on investment and we weren't going to choose to repurchase,
if that makes sense. so there was there was a combination. Yes. Normal budgetary. Correct? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And just I do want to say out loud, you know just so the community is aware, our funding has increased this year around $12 million as well. Yes, yes. So I mean, it increased. I also, you know, we have to look in perspective of if,, I am Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, 89% of our budget are roughly. So is salaries, the majority of those being teacher.
And you know, when we increase that, we also have to increase the budget for that. So I think in total, if I remember, it was a long time ago and I put that statement out, but I think it was about it cost about 14 million to do the cost of living. And the step this year. So about that. That's in addition to what it was costing us last year for payroll. So yes. Yeah. But we did get more funding, but there were more costs. Gotcha, gotcha. All right I appreciate it. Thank you. No problem. Yeah. If there's anything else you know feel free to email us and I'll I'll do some investigation.
Appreciate it. Thank you. Commissioner County commissioners. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other. Business? Good evening, board members. We are about, believe it or not, halfway through the first quarter of the school calendar and we've had a great start to the year. as mentioned, staffing has gone very well this year with relatively few openings remaining compared to prior years. Thank you to our building administrators, faculty, and staff members for the positive energy and
academically focused kickoff during school visits. I've been very impressed with the welcoming environments and engaging lessons that I've witnessed. We've had a intentional focus this year on year two of career and technical education at the middle school. That has continued to be a huge success with our students as they're planning for their high school academies and elective courses. we're excited for our high school advisory teams to meet in the coming weeks to begin the process of the peer selection that was voted on by the school board members
to begin attending those upcoming school board meetings. And we anticipate having our high school representative in place. by the end of October. Mr. Griffy, this concludes my remarks for the evening. I not have any comments by board members. Mr. Bryant. Text about where Chris said that he was, but he's off. I just wanted to mention that Chris Lanier is off doing something very important. That's why he's not here.
He is at the federal, the Casbah. So it's the legislative conference for school board members in Washington, D.C.. Mr. member. Thank you. I do want to say I'd love to maybe in the next this Friday, next Friday, maybe go with Mr. Slide or somebody to all the middle schools that had the black check or the X on, just want to kind of look at the schools to see how they would fit. So for that love. Thank you. Meeting's adjourned.