Transcript for:
East Baton Rouge School Board Meeting Highlights

[Music] oh [Music] thank you the committee the whole meeting of the East bat R Paris school board for Thursday no uh February 6 2025 will now come to order the invocation tonight will be led by School Board member Darius lannis but he's not here um so do I have a volunteer by board member Nathan Russ and the pledge of allegiance to be led by School Board member Emily sule please bow your heads and pray with me Father God we praise you we thank you for this wonderful day we thank you for all the great things you are doing in the city of Baton Rouge in this Parish we pray that you will uh soften our hearts tonight to hear the words that we need to hear uh to do all things in your glory Lord and to the benefit of our children in your name we pray amen amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and thank you Mr Russ for stepping into the breach appreciate it um now we'll have the U roll call District Four president Stewart pres District s vice president goday present district one Mr Blue here District Two Mr lannis District three Miss pal Lewis District Five Mr Lewis present District Six Mr Russ present District eight Missle present District nine Mr Martin present we have a quorum thank you ma'am next will be item B1 the fiscal transparency report and that is for information only and is can be found in board docks uh we'll move on to item C1 School presentation and superintendent I'll turn it over to you um Mr Vice President Madam president members of the board and hello to all of you here and those in the listening audience we have with us tonight a very special young lady who's going to do a presentation about a school uh very near and dear to my heart because it is where I began my career as a school leader in 2005 20 years ago uh Westdale Middle School U Miss rimble is doing some phenomenal things at Westdale middle and she's going to come up and tell us a little bit about uh what she's doing at Westdale middle and I think that's in your district is it not coach Lewis uh so come on down Miss rimble and share with us the wonderful things that are happening at West Dale Middle School let's give her a hand you know let's give a hand Round of Applause all right make adjust that mic if you need to yes thank you very much I am Ramona rimble principal of West Middle uh which I lead alongside assistant principles Andy piso and Valerie Moore I Could Talk about the wonderful things going on at westelle all night but for the sake of time I'm going to briefly highlight a few things that we are extremely proud of at Westdale to find out more about what's going on at Westdale please visit Westdale middle.org um and we welcome you all to visit if you haven't been in a while put it on your agenda to come and see what we got going on all right one of the things that we pride ourselves on at Westdale is there being something for everyone at Westdale um we have a state-of-the-art aquaponics program that is extremely popular we have an unrivaled foreign language academic immersion magnet program in which our students uh take their core courses in either French Spanish or Mandarin we have a robust offering of Visual and Performing Arts a wide variety of high school credit courses both elective and core and we have a huge variety of elective clubs and student organizations last school year West stale Middle School hosted Louisiana State student of the year we were also awarded with the top Magnet School of Excellence award from Magnus schools of America and we hosted Magnus schools of America teacher of the year in addition we uh our students earned five different district and Parish championships athletically uh we are a competitive group both academically um and athletically this school year westelle was awarded Magnet School of Excellence Again by the magnet schools of America and we uh have been selected as a nominee for Green Ribbon [Music] Schools a little bit of our journey um we are on a journey of continuous Improvement and our vision at Westdale is uh to emphasiz ize this continuous Improvement not just for students but every adult for myself on down every single day we work hard and we strive to get better as you can see um postco West's SPS had gone down to a d we are now at a c and we still have some room to grow um we have a clear direction of how we're going to continue to improve and this year I'm looking forward to what I predict to be some exponential growth the basic tenants of our Pathway to Improvement include Reading Writing inquiry and student collaboration in every class every day giving students the opportunity to process their learning um through writing and through speaking communication discourse and sharing of ideas at Westell we use very specific instructional Frameworks uh that include small group instruction and targeted intervention we kind of integrated the idea of high-doses tutoring within the classroom our goal is to increase the effectiveness of firsttime instruction so that we don't rely so much on reteaching and Remediation additionally at Westell we are very intentional about student engagement as an educator we often talk about developing uh lifelong Learners and that is impossible to do if students do not enjoy school so we want to make sure that our students are afforded a great education but also a fun School experience I must say though that this work while I am the student the school leader this work is done by dedicated staff um of leaders teachers par professionals who are very dedicated to the growth of our students and spend countless hours every week collaborating um digging through the research and the data to develop the most engaging and rigorous instructional experiences we can possibly provide for our students I have to give all the credit there because um as I often say I may be the ship's Captain but I'm not doing the rowing so I appreciate every single adult on our campus who contributes to making uh Westdale a place where students can get a well-rounded experience last but not least um um I just wanted to show some pictures of our students in class uh engaging in handson and very rigorous instruction um I have tons of pictures I love to take pictures of the stuff that we're doing at westel when you come in there's usually a slideshow showing on the big monitor in the main office and that's just a way for us to capture a little bit of the magic that is happening once again uh I appreciate you all giving me the opportunity to come and share a little bit about West sale please check out our website site and please um make it a point to come and visit us I'd like for you guys to come and see our staff uh some of our teacher collaboration as well as talk to some of our students about their experience being at Westell middle school thank you all for your time ma'am before you leave let's check to see if there are any comments Mr Lewis I want to push my button first okay I want to brag just a little bit more is that okay that's okay you know it's it's everything's well documented about postco when this rimel took over there had been somewhat of a slow Mass exit of instructors when the instructors that remained there had just a glimpse of what she could do they got on the phone call their colleagues and say you need to come on back and they did there were so many things about school culture that was really pushed to the Forefront postco Miss rumel came in immediately addressed the culture to the fact to the degree that there was a National Organization last year what was the name of that podcast um Liv school there's a podcast on YouTube Spotify um and iTunes you can actually if you want to just look up rimble and live school you can see that um and in addition they did a case study last year uh my first year as full-time principal at uh Westell we were able to um brag a little bit that we uh reduced major referrals by 32% we reduced truancy by 32% um we reduced fights by 55% all while reducing suspensions by 44% and that's District 5 leadership in case in case y'all missed it that's District 5 school leadership thank you thank you yes ma'am thank you very much for all of the hard work you and your team have done despite the best efforts of Coach but thank you for all the work you've done and it's very impressive just for the knowledge of our audience and and people who may be tuning in uh how many students does Westdale have 5 48 548 and what is the U average what is the number of economically disadvantage students in your class 87% 87% so the kind of changes that you've made and the Improvement that you're showing is outstanding uh given the student body that you have this is not a magnet school this is not a a school that is selective or anything like that but you are making the changes and you are are making meaningful changes in the lives of these kids so thank you very much both to you and all your faculty and all of the parents and students at your school you're doing a great job thank you thank you Mr goe thank you I feel good I trained you well uh next on the agenda uh an update on the otpt uh provider selection Mr Clemens [Music] all right good evening sorry uh good evening superintendent Cole president Stewart and vice president goday and members of the board uh I'd just like to first start off by saying thank you for this opportunity to come provide this update to you all um I'm here tonight to give an update on the EBR PSS solicitation RFP 424 which is occupational and physical therapy services um just a few little notes the the RFP began advertising on December 19th uh we had we hosted a pre-proposal meeting on January 15th and we had three vendors and attendance uh from there the solicitation closed on January 29th and two proposals were submitted we are currently in the evaluation process and uh our committee will be concluded uh evaluating by February 10th which is this coming Monday from there uh the RP committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss the final evaluations and Shore up the results and then um my intent is on February 12th next Wednesday to notify the vendors of the intent to intent to award and decline letter um that proposed timeline that I'm I'm sharing with you all will will allow for the final recommendation to be made to the superintendent for approval uh before prior to the regular board meeting what it'll do it is will also allow um in The Proposal we have a 7-Day uh period for protest or questions and and we'll also comply with that because we'll notify them by Wednesday give them a full week just to go over any results or have any questions resolved um so yeah that that will give us that that'll allow us in time to get it back in time for the feu February regular board meeting excuse me uh uh and we are kindly just requesting that this item be considered for board approval at the February regular meeting pending superintendent approval and Board review and uh thank you again for this opportunity to come and speak to you all if I I'll stick around if you have any questions or comments Mr Martin uh thank you I just wanted to um express my appreciation to Mr Clemens and the staff for um heating what the board asked um at the December meeting and and moving very rapidly to get this on there uh I know we had all been hoping to have the recommendation for the cow for the ordin business but that just wasn't possible with the snow and the and the other things so so I appreciate you giving us the update so we're not just bringing this on the public you know two days before the full board meeting um so thank you very much for the work you've done this month on this absolutely yeah we we're trying desperately to get it here but with the delays with the snow and everything like that but we're we're close we're very close yes sir thank you thank you Mr ments I have no other comments on the board okay thank next we'll go to item D1 unfinished business contract Amendment with hes uh we will be pulling that item from the agenda and I'll turn it over to uh board president uh Stuart to yes I wanted to U just give a brief comment on the particular item um because uh our last meeting there was a request from the district to bring us some data back in regards of trying to identify what it would really take to facilitate and do all the things that we are requesting and wanting H to do and so because of certain other delays as you know Mr Clemens mentioned about certain delays and times we hadn't got that information we had hoped to have it U by today but of course we didn't have it and so that's the only reason why we delaying so we didn't want to think a half uh the public or anyone or even has to believe that we're just pushing this item down the line but we are still awaiting for this information so that we can uh consciously and effectively make a good decision based on data so that's what that is thank you president Stewart Mr shamblin yeah just a point of clarification we aren't technically pulling item there'll still be there'll still need to be a vote tonight to do something whether it's deferred indefinitely Etc so we'll need to take public comment before that thank you I was unaware thank you um let's see Mr uh well let's go since that is the process we're going to need to do let's start off with the uh public comment oh uh are there any anybody who wish to speak on the H contract Dr Finny thank you James finny 8121 Oakview Drive Miss Steward's constituent um if hes does not wish to finish the contract under the terms they agreed to then you should do a new RFQ thank you this is E1 yeah this is E1 okay thank you uh I see no online comments uh for this item and as it regards to online comments uh we will check before each item uh the public comments closed but once the public comment is closed on online comments we will not go back and read them they have to be in uh during the public comment period so there are none for now so we'll now go to the board and Mr lannis yes sir thank you Mr Vice President uh I move that we uh move this item without recommendation to with without a date uncertain to a date uncertain I'm sorry this just provides the district enough time to get all the data that way we're not saying we're going to come back in a month and then we don't have enough data and we're just going down the same Rabbit Hole so like to move it without a recommendation to a date uncertain so we have a motion by Mr lannis second it by board member Martin are there any other comments from the board seeing none Madame secretary would you please conduct the vote please vote did I not join in yes perfectly bear with us for a second with technical issues here and maybe if I logged into the February committee to whole instead of the January would work my bad excuse me there we go user eror the motion carries thank you now we move to item 1e extern agreement Louisiana State University consideration of requests for approval of an amendment to the external agreement between East bat R Parish School Board and the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College not to exceed $15,999 to extend the agreement for one year to provide for up to nine ex turns funding source general fund we will open this item to public comment and the first card we have is from Miss storm Matthews hello um okay so some of the principles had a few questions about this they wanted to know um how many sections would be provided for per school would this be student teachers um and would the people coming be able to handle EBR student Behavior I had a question I had uh we had students taking the LSU uh Advanced robotics course but it was taught by certified LSU EBR employees previously so I'm not sure if it's the exact same um program but those EBR students were supposed to receive an uh LSU certific robotic certification when they graduated they did not they didn't receive anything from LSU even though they completed the coursework so um I just want to make sure that if this is the same thing that these students receive what they are supposed to actually receive upon completion thank you thank you are you waiting to uh good evening um do we have a rep a representative from uh woodl can you come up uh Miss Watson hi I'm Miss Watson I'm the magnet coordinator at woodon high school and we currently have one extern one LSU extern at our school um our LSU exter teaches our robotics course an advanced robotics course uh we we haven't had a problem at all um for the past four years LSU has provided this teacher he comes on campus um on a day and bday so there's he's there every day the robotics course is one of the foundation courses for the engineering department um the Louisiana believes stem pathway for engineering has four courses that you need to complete and Robotics is one of them engineering is a major industry here in our state and the goal of our courses in this pathway is to have something for our students that they can continue their education through LSU or Southern Louisiana Tech whatever University they aside and find a um occupation here in the state Louisiana this provides a return on our investment on our students it is fostering a relationship between these universities it moves the students into a pathway that they can find um success in robotics is also a growing industry here I'm sure you're all aware that Amazon is building their big facility here and Robotics is huge there arlay the Lake Hospital is one of the first hospitals in the country to use robotic surgery and the first in Baton Rouge and these classes while they are not dual enrollment they are Louisiana certificate uh LSU courses if all of these courses were dual enrollment I think it would be too big of a burden on our school system to be able to pay for all of these dual enrollment courses the LSU certificate um is actually it's not printed by LSU the school is responsible for printing it so when you finish the course it is emailed in a PDF file to the teacher or instructor of record at your school and you print it from there thank you very much and I know who you are but please just for the record would you fill out a card afterwards thank you happy to do so introduce yourself yes my name is Frank nor B I'm a professor of mathematics and the director of the cane Center at LSU um we started the collaboration with the pathways back in 2015 with uh principal mcken at Den Lee High School now Liberty High School and out of this collaboration came that LSU provides at the moment 25 different Louisiana stem pathway courses last year I think 2,230 EBR students took these courses about 1,800 of them in a high school setting so this is a substantial number of students who take this pass passway courses for the school system yeah since all these courses are CTE and CDF approved courses and I think you interrupt me it's about $400 then per student per seed so it provides significant additional funding for the school system yeah for offering these courses now the question was about the certificate that the students are are supposed to get if you have four pathway courses four of them then you are eligible for silver diploma seal for from the Louisiana Department of Education so if for and then every student should get after taking four glasses a silver seal if not you better complain bitterly because then something is very wrong very wrong but it's four classes that the students need for a silver diploma sealing eight classes for a gold uh stem diploma seal now 1 1800 students 2,200 students in total and you can imagine these are courses like digital storytelling com introduction to computational thinking so these are not courses where the average teacher is trained to teach this we do our best over the summer to train EBR teachers to teach these courses and most of the time it works and most of the time you have an EBR teacher who is trained to teach the courses but sometimes it doesn't work and then as a buffer zone before we say you cannot take the classes we provide in LSU graduate students who are trained to teach this course and are in supervised by teachers in the school to provide instruction so these are these X turns at the end you know for us it's an important business because we charge $50 per student per seat you get $400 per student per seat and now if you take a spreadsheet and you will see for me it's a winwin win situation for us it's good because we can help support graduate students I think for you it's good to help to keep the program going even if you don't have a teacher and financially at the end I think it is not a bad deal for anyone so did we answer that for you yes thank you very very much I appreciate it thank you thank you for all the work you and your students and grat students do for us um Mr board member Lewis thank you for that uh wonderful information I really needed to hear that currently the ex turns are at Liberty Magnet High and wood long High am I correct yes okay Liberty High has a 95% graduation rate wood long has a 77% graduation rate now the schools that you mentioned that you're going to hopefully put these ex turns in Baton Rouge high and he I I love our high performing schools I especially love baton High what Miss McCain does over there is it's wonderful same thing with with Liberty but you've got Tara Broadmore and Glenn Oaks Tara has a 60% 66% graduation weight Broadmore has a 58 glenos has a 56 well berair is not one of the schools that's in the okay well I missed it excuse me okay the program started in 2015 what was the original intent of the program when it started in 2015 was that dual enrollment it was not doing what was it when it started if you don't mind me asking sir can you can come back up well I think I'm old enough to tell a story in 2015 2014 I got a call from Barbara fryberg and said Frank I have to talk to you we have a problem we have a school a new school being built where there are big metal letters on the school building saying digital design biomedical pre-engineering but the only school we have in the system right now is scotlandville Magnet High and they use the project leaderway curriculum and we cannot have two schools in the system that have the same curriculum two magnet schools so we need something for for liberty for Lee High School some curriculum is LSU able to provide some engineering biomedical un name it curriculum that we can teach and that's the birthplace of the Louisiana stem pass face so we created a curriculum especially year for Lee High School for Liberty High School the state department looked at the curriculum said that's a wonderful curriculum we don't want that this curriculum is only used in at at Liberty and so they created in the Louisiana stem pathways are direct product out of what happened at Liberty High School now if you create introduction to biomedical Sciences introduction to Computing the big problem is not a curriculum the big problem is also is the teacher because there are no teachers who learn this while they become teachers so teacher training from the very beginning was the key what we are doing and there unfortunately you have a lot a lot of turnover so we have trained 400 500 teachers at the moment maybe 180 of them are still in EBR most of them are still teaching but no longer in E are we started at Tera we started this at many schools the problem is to have the teacher force that is able to sustain it if you have a revolving door of teachers who teach it one year and then they are gone it's very very difficult to create and sustain a program like this it's not a money because again the courses generate money it is the teachers and being able to keep the teachers at the school thank you that is my whatever is s here my opinion here um and I I mentioned those schools that were named in this grant because it's it states in the uh in the presentation in the memo that it's dual enrollment and it sounds like these courses are targeting kids who are going to be attending college okay so it's okay so it's okay it's not targeting kids not so yeah come back to the mic doc I should have told you not to walk away I'm sorry the opposite is true you see for LSU and I'm from the cane Center we do the dual enrollment for LSU the problem is you can talk around it but dual enrollment is an elitist program we target the kids who would make it anyway and the reason why this is because you see dual enrollment is a two-sided sort if you take a dual enrollment class and you get a d your you are academically finished for the rest of your life this is a academic death sentence if you take a dual enrollment C end up with a DF it is completely unconscionable to me how educators can put in dual enrollment courses where you have to be afraid that the student s up is a DF okay well for this reason we have created the pathway courses because the pathway courses give access to a highquality educational experience what we think at LSU it is without threatening the kids with a lifelong punishment if it if the kid doesn't perform well and the guidelines from principal mcken was when you enter my school with the pathways you don't interfere with my Academic Program you don't interfere with ap and dual enrollment you are in charge that the kids have fun doing science technology engineering and Mathematics she takes care of the academics and we are charged that the kids have meaningful things to do where they have a breather between their AP glasses and dual enrollment glasses well it's stated in in our documents that it was dual enrollment and it's also you know X you see X turns if you want how do I say this for a school system before you take a permanent sub and put a permanent sub in the classroom maybe the kids are better off if you have a qualified graduate student who serves as a sub in the classroom and yes sometimes they help in dual in classes in McKinley we have a long history where we provide graduate students to help them teach their dual enrolling classes ex turns is a versatile tool for principles who know about it to plug holes they have yeah in their teaching Force so come August in the principal doesn't know what to do call the cane Center and see if we have a graduate student who can help you okay thank you you may want to stand there but I'm almost done I'm out of time yeah you're way out of time go wa you didn't stop it when doctor came back that's what you did no but um and I guess I was I was asking that question because with where we are in our a US CIU schools I'd like to see and I know we're doing a lot in those schools but I'd like to see some of this money spent with these Hot Shot graduate students or whatever they are in the schools helping our kids in ela and math because that's where we are lagging as a district is Ela and math and without Ela and math robotics or whatever and the good news is yeah if you want to talk to me afterwards I can give you dual enrollment for 100% of your students where if they do well they get du enrollment credit and if they don't do well no questions asked it has never happened they had a quality educational experience but this what we call at LSU the choice modality where every student can take dual enrollment classes but if they don't do well at the end they don't have to opt in you take the class you take the file you get a letter from LSU saying if you would have been an LSU student you would have gotten a B+ or B minus or C+ and then the students decides yeah I take it no I don't take it I think that's and with that model I have no problems serving every student in EBR with this model because I know I do not ruin a single student's life with this tool enrolment setup thank you I'm I'm going to turn myself off now because I'm 4 minutes and 37 seconds over but thank you for the information now thank you Dr newbrand I'm going to call you about what you just offered Frank I'm GNA call you about what you just offered all right I still got your number I hope you had changed it okay uh board member Russ thank you I'll be brief um I want to thank Miss Watson for coming and talked to us about what you're doing at woodlon you do an excellent job and I think this is a really valuable program and I just want us to recognize how much of an asset we continue to have by having our largest state university in the city and all the services that they offer to our students um superintendent Cole if you could maybe explain a little bit better as I'm understanding how um these programs or certificates generate revenue for the school system is there a grant that we receive when these students receive these certifications or could you explain that I'm going ask uh Miss Williams to come up and explain that thank you man my boy [Music] coming good evening uh superintendent Cole board members um so what the state generates is something called CDF funds Career Development funds and what this is is this is an an additional add-on to our normal mfp but it kind of goes into a pocket account because what the state does is is designate specific course codes that students will get these extra mfp dollars for in the Workforce Development oversees that so it comes up to about $241 per student that's enrolled in a C Class previously the state had released um an approved course for CDF funds list and all of these LSU pathway courses were included on it and that was 20 23 24 then the state said that they were going to redefine everything because you know the state is is changing all of the expectations and all of these Career Development courses the state expects students to earn industry-based credentials in so what the state did is they told us they were going to change it and then they kind of paused and they said they're going to leave it the same for 2425 so it's the same course course codes all again all of those LSU courses except for maybe one or two were on this list so like uh Dr n Berner said there're about $50 per head for a student to take these courses that we have to pay LSU so if we're making $241 and we're paying $50 you know we're still able to buy the materials and supplies needed to facilitate it's a it's a great deal okay and then um the issue is is that the state has been changing what qualifies a CDF because now they expect a student to to have this tied to an IBC so we've been in talks with um LSU about this because this this is going to cause a dilemma many of these courses are going to be temporarily probably removed because they have been hustling to rewrite curriculums to include IBC obtainment within the ones that they don't already have many of them they do have like our teachers go in the summer they get trained they have the opportunity to add things like um Autodesk inventor which is an advanced State credential um but you know all of this is is changing with the new formula everything we're going to be living in a new reality next year but with this there are some shifts so we have to be very careful about what courses we offer next year because the funding that that was available for us to be able to to pay for these things may not be as readily available for all courses because on top of that $50 that we pay shoe let's say the student is in another course and they're taking an IBC these IBC costs can range anywhere from $50 to $350 depending on what that IBC is and that is the money that we use to purchase materials and supplies improve facilities for our career and teched classrooms pay for the ibcs and support the pathway the College and Career Pathways at each of our schools so we're we're kind of in a um flux we're waiting on the state to release the document I don't want to tell you anything that I don't know but I do want you to be aware of all of these changes coming down with that being said the stem Pathways that he's talking about um let me see if I can remember off the top of my head there's a stem um preh health care which is Veterinary biomedical their stem Computing and cyber security their stem pre-engineering and their stem digital emergent media all right all right gotta got check on that one all right so these four pathways are only offered at at Liberty because they were built for Liberty it was the purpose of that magnet school and the other school is woodlon high school and they get the seals they are the only two high schools that earn these seals I think allog together they're about 45 seals they earned last year which isn't a lot but it is Meaningful while we don't get any SPS credit for these seals it is something that the students can be very proud of and it does come from a PR prestigious University LSU in our in our backyard so we're very proud of it we want to support that now each of our schools has College and Career Pathways that we support and I'm just going to leave you with this we can be good and offer everything or we can offer a few things and be great any thank you so much yeah you answer my question so if I understand this correctly for every student that enrolls RS we are receiving dollars back that pay for that enrollment and allow us to invest back into those programs if they're on the state approved CDF list at least for this school year yes sir yes and we did we paid all of our LS bills we're also able to pay to have the teachers trained our teachers trained in the summer and that training is um very robust and we get a lot of positive feedback from our teachers that attend that thank you okay I support the item thank you Amber uh thank you for remembering everything I told you last night about this item thank you board member Martin uh thank you I just wanted to stay for the record because this involves my day job employer eliss you I'm going to recuse myself on this matter thank you board member lannis move to approve the item so uh seconded by Mr rust okay are there any other board comments seeing none Madame secretary would you please conduct the vote please vote for members I apologize we're on the wrong item so I'm going to clear that vote I got ahead of myself bear with us the Gravity is very heavy in here today and we're just not so well the motion carries thank you we move to item E2 Grant Real Time Early Access to literacy re a consideration of a request for the acceptance of the realtime Early Access to literacy real Grant and approval of the related budget in the amount of $12,750 to provide effective literacy tutoring training and support in related matters and is there any presentation okay uh we'll now go to public comment and we have Miss storm Matthews sorry trying to get my baby his certification he earned um okay the real time tutoring um I just you know with any Grant I want to ask what will be required of us to accept this money um you know I'm not not opposed to it by any means just what is required of us once once we accept it and also reading the proposed budget on board do was riveting thank you good evening good evening so um Dr bethley can speak to the budget but in terms of the requirements uh the realtime Early Access to liter literacy Grant is the 1.0 version of high dosage tutoring um this a grant that was received during uh the pandemic the covid pandemic and the ldoe received uh a no cost extension the difference is that it could be utilized for after school programming where the high do is shooring can't and EBR is qualified as a provider so we saw it as an opportunity to accept these dollars to support literacy tutoring after school and it's going to be utilized for our label schools our schools with interventions so we've divided the funds across those label schools to provide after school literacy tutoring additional questions okay uh board member lannis I was just going to Second what Miss El was just said someone who actually operates and functions inside of the tutoring space most specifically highd doses tutoring uh what you find for most schools most School leaders is that they want to have a program that's so robust that they can actually use after school because not every student has the ability or the time to use it through throughout school which is good that we do high dosage tutoring but this is something that we definitely need to do so we can catch kids after school and it and it works in in a multifaceted ways one when you talk about students and the things they get into when they leave school to uh when you you know come back to what Miss Edward just said uh about uh interventions that you need for for for more structured time after school it just gives us puts us in more in a better light to be able to get those students caught up to speed thank you board member rust thank you I want to um agree with what Mr Lana said um how how important it is to be able to offer these kind of interventions after school um a lot of kids that need these interventions are are at sometimes receiving other services during the day but but further if if they have to get pulled um to receive interventions a lot of the time what happens in an elementary level is it's coming during insul times so they're missing out on some other part of instruction during the day kids don't have just some kind of free Gap that you can just pull them out for intervention and not miss something um so they're getting more access to Quality instruction during the school day and then get the opportunity to get this tutoring after school so I'm really excited about that my my only question is um I guess what are the guidelines or the requirements um for teachers that will offer the intervention is are they required to be a literacy or reading specialist um it just requires that they are what that they are um employed by an approved provider so EBR is an approved provider so we're going to be able to utilize our staff now on that we you know require that they're trained in the programs that we use as EBR parish for literacy so but the in terms of the grant it just requires that they're employed with the approv provider okay great um I would only ask superintendent if possible to ensure that the employees that are going to offer this have completed the state mandated science of reading um training that I know a lot of them have been in for multiple years because we opted for a longer term program but I would hope that we have some fully trained staff that offer this intervention thanks to answer your question yes um the grant does require that the tutors are trained in the science of um learning okay thank you uh any other comments from the board I will now entertain a motion motion by Mr board member Lewis second by board member sule any final comments from any other board members seeing none Madame secretary would you please conduct a vote please vote the motion carries thank you next is E3 academic distinction fund consideration of a request for the acceptance of the academic distinction fund ADF Grant in the amount of $155,000 to build a playhouse at southdowns prease Center and I would like to add that that is a handicap accessible playhouse that will be built built at southdowns um public comments uh Miss stor Matthews I absolutely love that our students will work on a project base giving to their community and further enriching their skills and embedding their purpose by building this for the students at southdowns again though I do ask what are the asks that ADF needs for uh from us for this but 100% um am for this um Grant accepting this grant thank you uh I have another card from Daryl dorsy Mr Darcy good evening everyone my name is Daryl dorsy I'm just here to say thank you on Mr Cole Mr God thank you sir Mr Russ thank you I appreciate you all for responding to my email and showing up and showing out and being united to help our kids and I just appreciate and I want to say thank you we see you I wish more parents would have came out but I appreciate it and I know most of them do but thank you all very much and I just want to say thank you thank you um going to there are no current board comments on this item H online no online no no online comments uh any board members would like to speak on this item motion made by board member Martin second by board member sule any other closing comments [Laughter] Madam Secretary would you please conduct the vote please vote while that is tallying I would like to say that in one of since Southdown in my district and visiting that District that was one of the main things that the princip asked for was that they had some new playground equipment but much of their playground equipment was not handicapped accessible and so this is very welcomed and and a will be a very uh appreciated addition and the motion carries thank you next item four Professional Services contract K12 insights consideration of request for the approval of a Professional Services contract between East bat R par school board and K12 insights in the amount of $190,000 to provide a cloud-based platform to enhance customer service and that's from Miss Edwards is Miss Edwards here oh I I'm sorry I think it would be appropriate just uh for this one just to give a brief overview of what this is okay good afternoon everyone Miss Griffin I love you be brief good afternoon everyone School Board griff school board members and superintendent Cole good to be with you all this evening my name is Tanya Chapman Griffin an enthusiastic employee of EBR schools for almost 20 years I am excited to represent um this Initiative for customer service and I also have with me here two wonderful guests representation from K12 insights they're going to can present and also answer questions regarding this particular software it is an AI chatbox software called let's talk we have here miss Hillary Robbins and also Erica TRL came in as well so I'd like to introduce Miss Hillary Robins thank you thank you and again be brief good evening board good evening superintendent go thank you for your time I am going to be brief here um really what this is going to entail today here is that this is a uh customer service program that is really going to help streamline Communications in your school district um it directly uh aligns with your Strate strategic plan um to really streamline operations and give your community members a voice um with this what we see here is that there is many different opportunities on the school district for you to really welcome and streamline operations and modernize operations so uh provid multiple different opportunities for students staff and stakeholders to submit their thoughts and really um their Communications to be in one streamlined spot uh you'll see here that we do uh partner with over 500 districts but strategically partner with many of our Council of the great City Schools districts as well and um with this what um you're going to see here is that a lot of our school districts have really um mastered our outbound Communications so we have many different tools here that focus on on pushing out emails texts but what gets messy is whenever we turn that megaphone around and we really want to listen to our stakeholders and so it often looks like what you see here on my screen um where it's a tangled web where it is siloed Communications that uh we don't really have a pulse on who has been the last person to talk and who has been the last person to get that Community member or that stakeholder or response so what our solution will do here is streamline all of that and so not only will it help Focus on um our external Communications but our internal stakeholders as well too um really making a focus on no matter what method that they are reaching out to us we will have a way to be able to uh really have a pulse of this and so this is just a quick snapshot of what you might be able to see upon launch of where it's going to have an easy to find access point um like Miss Griffin said uh what you're going to be able to see not only with this contact us um but you'll be able to also provide Equitable access points so not only will it be able to be in English but it's going to be in multiple different languages as well that your your stakeholders will be able to submit a message on their time frame it can be 24/7 with our use of our AI generative chat bot and answer any of your frequently asked questions so as you can see here uh we can take any really in inquiry Point um from text messages to online chatbot to online form to your mobile phone um and really give your community the access that they need um and making sure that it's Equitable just a quick snapshot on the back end as District leaders what they're going to be able to see is a 30,000 foot view of all of the different Communications that are happening within the within the district and so um from here you're able to really uh focus on response times making sure that you're able to give that stakeholder a timely response um making sure that we're also measuring customer service and customer satisfaction so this is also going to increase response times but also uh give us a way to really see how our community is feeling in real time and be able to measure and and have a pulse of that measurement the last thing that I'll just call out here is one of the big things that I will also help highlight and um provide efficiencies for is critical responses so anything that is mentioned of critical or sensitive nature it will highlight and escalate and bring in the right team members here to make sure that we have the right teams um there to be able to handle it in a more timely manner I'll close out here that really uh what we are really focusing on here in our phase rollout plan is the first uh departments is going to be the superintendent Transportation HR really the central office uh making sure that we are streamlining those departments first um and once we get a chance to really roll out with those core departments that are getting the high volume then we'll roll out into additional departments and then eventually at the schools we've seen success at the schools as well too all right I'll pause here and see if there's any questions thank you very very much for being very uh concise I know that was a difficult task um oh no first we have to go to public comments and the first one up is uh storm Matthews when I read this memo I was extremely excited you say customer service and EBR and and people will start to jump for joy um because pretty much anything is an improvement like bring it on um now I do have uh a couple of questions um the presentation was was great but I do still have a couple of questions um having special needs kids um the automated talk to the phone thing I I get a different look at that so um just a couple questions when you're calling in does the if there's a lot of background noise is that going to be where it doesn't understand what the the actual person that's talking is saying cuz sometimes I have to just be able to press the button because it doesn't understand me because my kid won't shut up in the background um or sometimes like if you know exactly which one you're going to press but is it the situation where you just want to scream operator and throw the phone or is that just me that does that no okay maybe so um and I was really excited to see that it is going to push out to the schools as well because poor belir we've been trying to change the phone system because it still says I love my Angela Jones but it still says principal Angela Jones we're on two different principles now since since it said that so nobody we can't figure out how to change it so anyways I'm very excited about this and learning about how it's going to work but I do have those couple of questions about it thank you uh next is Dr Finny thank you I appreciate the presentation since now it's more clear than from the um description in the agenda what the proposal is I have a couple serious concerns are artificial intelligence doesn't replace actual intelligence and when I call one of my um various service providers and I get a robot I get very very annoyed because they usually misunderstand my questions and give me ridiculous responses so um a very rapid incorrect or incomplete or rude response from a computer would actually be counterproductive so I hope it's a great system but even if it is a great system you need to have a backup opportunity for people that talk to actual people because I think that's where the disconnect is if this becomes a computerized District you're going to lose people human connection is important computers are great for what computers are great at and hearing people is something that I don't think computers do very well thank you thank you ma'am would you like to give just a very brief response yes sir thank you um absolutely AI is a concern here but um the AI piece what happens here is that it will uh provide your source of documents and answer the questions if it if it's not successful on the first or second time then it will automatically connect you with a live human and get you in touch with the uh human touch that you need so this is the AI piece is to help with efficiency and help you answer and self Source your answers um but you will always get in touch with a human on the piece about the phones uh same thing as your calling in you're going to get a live human that we are going to connect you with um from the EV staff and um again if you are the type that likes to have an operator you can press one to talk to at a live human and it will capture those conversations thank you ma'am uh next we'll go to uh board member rust um thank you great presentation um really highlights uh where the need is that we have in our school system um couple questions about when you hit it implementation um is there any well under the contract that's proposed is there any limit to the number of internal users or School sites or any kind of I suppose um limitations to what this contract would cover um no sir the way that our contract is funded is per pupil funding and so there's no limitation to schools or users we're not charging that's not the way our pricing model is structured that was my next question is like how how the pricing is derrive because um you know if let's say that we approved this and we rolled it out and it worked great I would want to know because it looks like this is just for a one-ear contract that's correct How would how would we know what the pricing would be in the future and so is that standard your pricing model is per pupil that's correct okay and this and I I'll also add that this year is going to be a higher cost because it's a one-time implementation fee uh year two would be at the 160 okay thank you um so a couple questions for soup um standard questions I'm going to ask about every contract that I promised to ask how are we going to measure the success if this contract was was approved well we're going to work with K12 insights to develop surveys for our us families and then use those Sur to determine the satisfaction and the use of the system and overall customer service that we're providing great I I would love to see um this tied to some measurables or some kpis that we can look at when we say come back next year if we were to approve this and say okay we've decreased call volume we've perform surveys so I would ask you know if you can come if if this goes to the regular board meeting if you can come back with some suggestions on how we can measure that that would be great absolutely um and I think she answered my other question so last question I'll ask low hanging fruit um could this help us in our communication around Transportation absolutely absolutely one priority number one when we uh met with K12 insights and they asked the pain points I said Transportation was one of our biggest pain points and they said there's some things we can do around transportation to tell a response specifically from that department so absolutely okay great thank you thank you uh board member Lewis okay Mike you don't short me on my time now no you know I could just okay I believe I could have come down there and made this presentation I have been a fan of K12 insights for at least 10 years when I was a peral engagement person I would borrow things from K12 Insight if you've ever written in a Uber or a lift any of these car services whenever you get off the phone with K12 insights you're going to be able to rate the service it's going to if I call HR or call Transportation then it's going to record what time that call came in what was my response time who I spoke to and what was the resolve we'll know that instantly cuz if you ever tried to dial in a school I mean I've been on the other end that phone call well I talk to so and so I talk to so and so I talk to so and so and they got three different answers K12 12 insights will be a game Cher for our customer service guaranteed it would be a game Cher we will know right away if someone called HR and they didn't hear back from two or three days we'll know who took the call am I right Miss Cole who took the call how long they were on the phone with them and did they resolve the issue can't beat it and you can give them like five star I mean you be able to rate the person you on the phone with so if I'm someone that answers a phone right here I think my job is mundane you know you walk by and you go hey great job on the phone today I I'm just I'm telling you it's a great product and it's long overdue thank you three minutes left thank you thank you board member Lewis and just for the public none of us get a commission on this contct uh any other board comment I'm ready to entertain them oh Mr Martin I just want to note that I don't think I have ever heard coach speak enthusiastically in favor of a contract where we're paying East bat R School Board money for so with with that I move approval uh motion by board member Martin do I have a second Mr Lewis board member Lewis is a second I'm a third thank you any other board comments seeing none Madame secretary please vote the motion carries thank you next we move to item five professional service contract Bailey education Group LLC consideration of requests for the approval of Professional Services contract between the East bat R Parish School Board and Bailey education Group LLC in the amount of $17,800 to provide professional development and coaching sessions for special education student for special education teachers and administrators funding source the redesign Grant I have have no public comments in the box and no online comments so we'll move to the board any comments from the board seeing none uh I'll entertain a motion Mr beloo board member Belo Mr Lewis would you like let's get a second and we'll come back to you cool second by board member at lanis uh additional board comments Mr Lewis um Patrick I may not be as quite as enthusiastic this one okay but i' just like to know is can anyone tell me the the percentage of the student body that in these name schools that will be classified as special ed do we have any idea of the percentage of students in the named I'm sorry in the named schools Dr Harris is coming Dr Harris okay Dr Harris was sitting down in her chair back like she was trying to hide I didn't see I didn't see I me I good evening superintendent Cole board members Dr Harris was not trying to hide however we have roughly over about 40 4500 to 5,000 and maybe more than that students were disab ilities in the district I cannot give you exact numbers on the schools involved with this contract which would be clayber crestworth Capitol middle and Park Forest Middle but I can get that information to you okay next question with uh will this professional development include accountability measures to ensure that instructors School leaders and EDS are monitoring and supporting the staff to make make sure that fir fours and IEPs accommodations are provided in a timely fashion actually we have ongoing monitoring to make sure sure those things are happening in our schools now Mr Lewis and with the Bailey education contract what that will do is supplement the work that lard is doing in those cir and uir schools we specifically identifi the four because we feel that they're the most in need and so the monitoring will come through barely going in and providing that modeling and side by-side coaching and the instructional review which they will go in and look at the special education program look at the uh instructional strategies co- teing those types of things that are being employed uh to teach the students and so they would have a debrief with the principal and District staff so that they would inform us of any recommendations that could be rendered based upon those observations now I know there's there's three sides of every story but you would not believe the phone calls that you get from parents with IEP and 504 concerns I just put it like that concerns and we're up against M gr spring break all those things are going to be happening we're in test prep now so when will this profession professional development when will we have time for this professional development to take place I mean it's we're we at we're almost at the end of the year we are the professional development weather contract will start in March and right now we have our curriculum and instructional team that's working hard to identify those dates for PD and right now what we're looking at is PD may have to be offered after school for some teachers to come come in um and for Bailey to work with those teachers as well as on any PD days that we may have this semester it's it's 107 might as well say $108,000 mhm how long have these funds been available were they were they available uh July 1 when our fiscal year started these are redesign funds and Dr bethley can answer that hi hi These funds will be available till June 30th how long have they been available oh they were awarded they were awarded to us in um early October and so early October and we're at mid-February and we're just starting to spend this money I'm just I'm just thinking this is something that would have been great in early November yes so we had a number of vendors that we had to converse with and so the team decided to go with this particular group and um that's a lot of money for a couple months and we're up against test prep spring break MRA I hope it's successful but uh I would really like to see some results or some data or some kpis orever you're going to use to measure this measure this because the one place we do not want to be is on television with special Aid yes sir or going to court with special Aid We're going to execute that and while I have the mic I wanted to say to um Mr Russ I was signing professional Le for for the science of learning but to go back it's the science of reading that all the teachers for the real Grant have to be trained in okay thank you thank you any other comments from the board looking good pastor Colts I will entertain a motion a no Mr uh board member Martin with the motion I have a second did oh yes Mr beloo did I'm sorry I'm sorry my mistake ball L thank you any other board comments seeing none Madame secretary would you please conduct a vote please vote the motion carries thank you next we have item seven RFP e rate selection consideration of request to accept the RFP committee recommendation and to authorize need item six sorry didn't have my glasses on heavy gravity tonight uh item six Professional Services contract amplify education consideration of request for the approval of Professional Services contract between the East bat re Parish School Board and amplify education Incorporated and the amount of $288,400 to provide coaching for teachers on science resources in cir and uir schools funding source redesign uh I have no cards and I believe we have no public comments so we will move to comments from the board being that we have no particular comments from board I entertain a motion board member Martin uh motion by and by a second by board member sole board member rust yeah I just had a quick question about the memo on this item I I understand what amplifi does um in in the commitment on the memo it says increase the average performance of students participating in leap science 20125 um do we have like a benchmark that we're shooting here like an actual kpi or we just looking for any gain well to to answer your question honestly we looking for any gains that we have with the redesign Grant based on the way it came to us uh and understanding the work they're going to do with the teachers uh it was hard to set a baseline for the students based on when when it came in uh looking at where the students performed last year we hoping that they reach their actual individual growth Target based on the support they get from this grant with the teachers so the kpi is actually the growth Target for the individual students and all of those kpis are different okay thank you are there any more comments from the board Madam Secret AR can you call for a vote please vote the motion carries thank you the next item item seven is um consideration of a request to accept the RFP committed recommendation and to authorize the superintendent and staff to negotiate and execute a contract between East Baton rou Parish School Board and lockstep group DBA transformix to provide eate qualified services and equipment as specified in the related request for proposals we have no comment C and no comments online so from here we will go to the board any comments from any board members I will entertain a motion so mooved by board member Lana seconded by board member rust any additional board comments is that for this item ma'am okay seeing no addition addition comments Madam Secretary would you please conduct the vote please vote the motion carries thank you we will go now to item 8 school 2526 school year calendar consideration of a request for the approval of the 2025 2026 school year calendar superintendent would you have any comments to make before we go or we have we have a presentation uh by Miss lentino and then I'll make a few comments after a brief presentation by Miss lentino a brief presentation good evening hi for president Stewart vice president goe superintendent Cole and members of the board and yes Mr Cole we have a brief presentation today all right so here is the proposed 2526 school year calendar um just a reminder for the members of the board and the public that the calendars are created in accordance with the um policies set for by Bessie and it is the responsibility of the local Education Agency which is the school district in this case to ensure that the calendar that we put forth follows all of those policies so just a quick reminder of what some of those policies are in terms of parameters that we have to work around when building that calendar the first one is State Statute 333 in uh bulletin 741 and just to summarize what that is in bold we have the 63720 minutes that have to be a part of the full Academic Year and these are for instructional minutes only then we have state statute 2314 also in bulletin 741 and there is that highlighted portion that says we shall provide a minimum of 7,965 instructional minutes to award a full Carnegie uded to our high school and some middle school students that are taking High School Credit courses of of course EBR operates under a semester ised fashion so we also have the calculations for that 3,983 minutes when we're awarded those half credit units and so that's under the same statute the last thing is that 3703 which defines for you what instructional time is since the other two are based on the fact that we have to offer a certain amount of instructional time so just a note uh instructional time does not include lunch recess and uh what we call passing periods or change of classes or parent teacher conference days or our teacher in service days those do not count as instructional time so they would not be applied in that 6372 20 nor with the 7,965 all right so here's just a graphic for uh those that are familiar with one particular um structure opposed to the other if you are Elementary folks you're looking at that 63720 that's for the full calendar and then inside of that for secondary schools there's a special note for you there we offer eight classes uh in our secondary schools and each one of those classes that is awarding a high school credit must meet that 7,9 65 minutes per class and so again if there are eight of them each one of the eight whether it's an a day or a b day CU we're on those rotations must meet that time limit and that's what this picture is hoping to depict for you uh in a semester IED fashion the other things is frequently asked questions that we get are there some other parameters other policies well there's the local policies uh with our salary schedule we are approved for 9-month employees to work 182 days so as we know when we talk about instructional time we know that we also pay teachers on our teacher in service days so they count towards the 182 but they do not count towards the instructional minutes that students earn so that has to be within that time um and that's what you're having in question number two there and the last piece of it is how did the mention policies pertain to the creation of the school year calendar um or the bell schedule in particular the number of instructional days of course are going to impact the number of instructional minutes so again if we have 182 days that we're paying our not month staff to be on Ser or in service for our students teaching um the time that we do professional development and service is not does not count towards those instructional minutes so essentially the a days and B days that we have left are going to be what the 182 minus the inservice days that's what's left for instruction and that's all that's telling us in that pace um and so again going into the bell schedule piece we had the what was the recent impact there again this uh particular draft has 84 full instructional days and three half instructional days in semester 1 so we're looking at I believe 85 I'm sorry 0.5 so there's 43 a days and 42.5 B days so when we're starting to count those things out dividing it out by the eight that we have to have we're looking at about 94 minute classes so that's kind of what drives your bell schedule in that case in those secondary situations only all right so here is a draft of the calendar just a quick note um I'm sure it's already posted for the public as you can see the one thing that we want to remind folks of is when you see those colorcoded days the green days are holidays for those staff members which means those are not instructional and they are also not a part of the 182 they're not paid days our blue days uh indicate when the students return they do count as instructional days obviously because the kids are on campus and they are a part of the 182 paid days for teachers we really just make them blue so that they stand out for families so you can see when you're your students go back to school and the red days are teacher only days those are our teacher in service days they do not count towards instructional minutes but they do count towards the 182 days that teachers are in service the yellow days are our partial days which means the teacher is here for the full day because as we know students get out early but it is partially an instructional day so it's half the time there for the instructional period the other the full day though is a teacher day because afterwards teachers are either calling parents doing teacher and service or other um things that need to get done throughout that time all right so we did have a calendar committee work through this draft of the calendar and provide feedback there were 33 people in attendance it was July 28th we appreciate their time and efforts out of the 33 people that we had come there were they represented 29 different School communities so they gave us some feedback on the original draft that we presented to them there were some questions about one day in particular so we were able to go back and work through some pieces for that so that we can kind of come to this calendar to where we can um can get to a place of agreement um and that concludes our very brief presentation thank you tried and I would suggest you stay nearby uh of course public comments uh let's see here this is item eight so uh Miss star Matthews this is the most balanced calendar that we've seen in years so I want to start with that um it'll leave us at the 94 minute classes like we are this year so it won't be a change in the minutes of periods um it's 43 a days 43b Days um second semester 43 a days this uh the first semester and 42 and A2 B days second semester so it's really really balanced on both both sides um you do end on an a day in December and start on a n day in second semester that's a little weird but I mean it's fine it's whatever um the only thing that teachers have a question about is why was October break pushed back a week that gives us 10 weeks be between um August and October break in 4 weeks between October break and Thanksgiving and so they do have a question about that there may be a reason for it and so it's not a end all be all but that is their major complaint uh but other than that they really like this calendar and their approval was a lot um I I did have some people asking uh about the some board members asking about the differences in the half days so the half days in May and December are really important to middle and high school teachers because we grade then um so the kids are taking their finals at the end of the year and then we're grading in the afternoon so those days are very important to middle and high school teachers the half days in September and March um are for elementary school teachers they are doing the parental conferences and things like that whereas middle and high school teachers do parental conferences after school schol um and meet with parents at that time whereas elementary teachers only have about 25 kids and I believe that they're supposed to meet with either all of their uh kids parents or the majority of that might be a better Adam question I'm not Elementary um and we have like 150 kids so we meet with any parents that want to meet with us or that we can get in but not all of them um so but other than that um thing with October break it's a really good calendar thank you thank you uh next uh Miss Felicia Johnson good evening everyone my name is Valencia Johnson I'm the president of the East Ben Rouge Parish Association of Educators um as a member of this calendar committee um and a teacher in the district um there was a real concerted effort um to come together and get a consensus on the calendar um Community input um was a key factor and some changes that were actually made to the original calendar that was put forth um so I think it was a really good collaborative refer and that um most uh Educators as well as parents are in favor of this uh calendar uh especially uh those who were actually on the committee um their input was very good um we had some concerns about um some the days of coming back and ending school and um to storms um uh concerned that there was uh some concern in the group about the start of um spring I mean not spring break uh fall break um but the cons sensus in the room was like um a week is not going to the weak difference is not going to make a big difference and so um even though we are on the 9we schedule you can still have your conference and uh if you need to conference with parents after that nine week so um it wasn't a big difference so other than that I support the calendar thank you seeing no online comments and no other public comments we will now go to the board oh we'll go to the board I just want to thank the committee for doing the work uh I misunderstood some requests uh when I was having conversations with board members uh early on in my tenure uh there was a request that we have start having these discussions earlier and so I asked the committee to bring this to us a little bit earlier and I misunderstand some of the quests I think going forward we're going to talk about doing some things a little bit differently in terms of how we create the calendar and get more board get more board input so I just wanted to make that mention that we I misunderstood that that you all wanted it earlier and have this discussion earlier normally the calendar comes a little bit later as a result of waiting for the state to release the testing days and so we ask the committee to start earlier so we could bring it to the board earlier so we would have more time to finish out so I misunderstood so next year uh if approv tonight we'll Engage The Board a little bit differently and have some conversation before we have the committee or even have a board member serve on the committee or request that a board member do so or a number of board members less than five though and I want to just say thank you for that because that was the feedback that board leadership uh based off of some of our colleagues wanted Incorporated and so um the only change would is that we ask that you know a board member or two be incorporated into that committee but thank you we appreciate that and we appreciate the adjustments you've made within this week as well thank you thank you uh board member blo just real quick uh Miss Matthews mentioned that the October break was a week later it typically is and I was just curious uh that decision again I've been using this word a lot this week transparent I made that recommendation just looking at the month having talked to a few teachers and a few of them suggested why don't we split the month evenly as it relates to fall break and have about 15 days before and about 15 days after and I didn't see where it was a huge challenge uh in terms of teachers getting burnt out and so half the month they get a break and then work the rest of the month and then go into November and the holiday season so I made that recommendation uh just based on having discussion with some teachers that's all thank you uh board member Martin thank you I want to commend the committee for the work I think in the two years I've been on here I've not heard Miss Matthews supportive of a calendar proposal yet so uh that's clearly very good work uh on more seriously um and I think my colleague Mr Russell have a few more comments along this line it's from my perspective there are a lot of resource allocation decisions which inherently go into some of the given that this starts out with for example that 9month teachers will work 182 days that will have X number of snow days hurricane days this year we needed snow days right um what have you that that that that are fundamentally strategic policy decisions that should be made by this board that a committee of teachers teachers and and administrators not going to feel empowered to say Hey what if we had 190 days and and Pay Teachers appropriately I'm not you know don't don't come storm the table um and and you know what what when when when as a board can we engage in those kind of conversations and so it's not simply a matter of having a board member on the committee which will be helpful and I think that'll give us all good feedback um but also having you know just like with the budget we set here are priorities how is this calendar just like the budget address those priorities so um that that's the kind of U shift I would like to see you know coming up next year for the for the academic calendar thank you thank you uh board member lannis I mean I'm sorry rust twins thank you um yeah thank you Mr Mr Martin um for stating that really well that that's been a sentiment of mine is um well I I don't want to be chest deep and deciding you know are we just moving a holiday or we doing this or that uh I just want to see us as a board be able to make strategic decisions and and our academic calendar does it it goes directly into our budget we got to have one before the other uh and so I had some conversation with Mr Cole and board leadership about that and I think we're 're an agreement that we can we can do some things to uh to support that and I want to thank Mr Cole for bringing this to us early cuz hey we do get time to give some feedback so I appreciate that and I want to um show appreciation to the staff for putting this together I know it's a lot of work thank you to those who served on the committee to help um fill in this so a couple of things that that I would like um the superintendent to explore and provide some feedback or recommendations on um our two things in particular um um as a parent thinking about the number of days um that kids are released early um my family can accommodate that um and and we can make those adjustments I think about families that can't um families that can't leave work that have to depend on others when their kids are released early from school that don't receive after care uh on those days kids that perhaps go home to to an empty home um or God forbid are just on the street when they could be at school um and so I want to make sure that our academic calendar is serving Kids First in that regard and I know that it's it's really important for teachers to have time for inservice for professional development to do parent teacher conferences all the things that they have to do to do their job but what I would like to know is in other urban districts how are those problems solved do they solve it the same way way is it a different way um of resource allocation again like Mr Martin mentioned um if we are constraining ourselves by the number of days that we're paying our teachers and then trying to stuff everything into that box is that something that a as a board that we need to look at especially as we're going into our budget year um so I would like to see those those number of half days reduced or eliminated I know it's not a Tit for Tat to take two half days and make it a whole day because that's not exactly how it works but when we just looked at this last week and we talked about reducing some of those half days and turning them into full days I'm thinking about how much instruction really happens in a 4-Hour day of school very little my kids come home and told me and this is not ratting out anybody in particular but they're not doing intense instruction on those days they're doing other enriching activities and those teachers figure it out but kids in EBR need every bit of instruction that they can get and once a month month if we're losing a day of instruction because we have to accommodate how we are not allowing our teachers to do their jobs I think we're selling ourselves short so I would like to see some solutions or feedback from that um I also would like us to explore what it would look like to send kids to school on Ash Wednesday now if you're Catholic don't come after me but when I was in cool and I when I was in school and I was an EBR student my friends that were catholic went to church in the morning and then they came to school I was at school and they all had the cross on their forehead it's a religious holiday we can excuse it as an absence if they have to be absent um I really don't understand why we are accommodating for one specific religious belief and not a lot of others even though look we have a lot of Catholic families in East Baton Rouge Parish but again that is a day that I think kids should be at school and I could get started on M grow day but I'm not going to touch that one thank you thank you board member Russ uh next board member Lewis I mean I'm sorry board member lannis that's my that's my the twin thank you I just can't get you president um question are we still a part of the Council of great City Schools if we are still a part of that Council just piggybacking on something that board M us said U maybe we can reach out to them and ask them could they put together a collection of best practices in terms of uh calendar selection and helping to alleviate some of the problems because you have so many districts around the country urban districts the same size as I was a lger who uh go through the same processes um besides that I want to say I move on this item to approve thank you I am next in the list uh just a couple of comments and I kind of want to Echo some of what board member Russ uh said in looking at the items um you know it it is very disruptive for half days for families it's hard in our transportation department and uh not a lot of instruction gets done uh and so you know I don't want days where it's a half day and the kids watch movies it's not what kids are doing we have very um we have a lot of our students who need the educational time and again I'm more than willing to think about going to 190 days or whatever but in particular I would I would ask that you guys look at the end of May where we have three half days in a row I I think that for the students and the families uh I just ask that you consider I mean this is up to you guys but consider making two of those days full days and let the kids go a day before and that day could be a day where teachers have to grade papers and and do the kind of stuff like that as opposed to having three half days in a row have two full days and an off day uh that's teachers only or something like that to reduce the number of half days that we have in the system because it's very disruptive to our families uh and to our students so uh I'm going to vote to approve this but I would ask we still have a regular meeting coming up I'd ask for you to consider those uh and there may be very good reasons why there they're not I'm not trying to to dictate anything at all but uh seeing three half days in a row when our kids need the instructional time uh I know it's after leap test I know it's after that but still they still need the instructional time uh and and people can push their final exams back a day or two or three uh to make that happen if we had those extra days in there would you like to comment you I see you shaking your you don't have to if you're not prepared to no I was um to your point Mr actually I think M Matthew said it those days that you're looking at at the end of M May those are preceding the last day of school the teachers and the students end on the same day so those are exam days for us um so at that point you have uh about at the secondary level there's about 53 minutes of class time in each one of those in a traditional class of course there's 94 so there's still time to do a little bit more but those are specifically allocated for exams okay um and then the other two that you see as I think I don't remember who mentioned it at this point now but the 17th and the 20th and March those are falling behind those 9we periods to uh to the benefit of our elementary teachers who do have um the 45 minutes only in most cases of pro of uh teacher planning time to be able to try to get things going but they also have to call those parents and that's a mandate in some cases so let me ask a really dumb question yes sir if the the last three days of May are for exams in secondary schools why are elementary schools getting out for a half day well I think you answered that one yourself it's an operational concern there but the buses are going to run later anyway yes sir that's something that we can probably look at um again that's probably a larger decision than me here today but I understand but you know I'm trying to break out of the box of this is the way we've always done it absolutely on the thing so uh you know if there's a valid reason for high school we we don't have to have the elementary schools on exactly what the high school's doing because their buses their buses run after high school anyway yes sir I think it's probably just an operational thing that someone would have to look at in terms of efficiencies thank you would would you just please look at that come back to us yes sir thank you uh let's see uh seeing no other comments from the board Oh I thought you hadd already gone one once I'm sorry to point of information we're not limited to just going once in our current format anymore I think we're just limited to time yes I'm sorry okay but um but I want to provide a substitute motion because I I don't want to improve this item as is I do want to see uh if we have a possibility of an adjusted academic calendar so I would like uh to send this to the regular board meeting without recommendation so a motion by board member Russ to send this without recommendation do I have a second want a person of privilege can off a friendly make it easier um yeah how would you like to uh matter six and one half dozen of another right what was the item that the sub again I I I would just like to send it to the regular board meeting without recommendation if the second doesn't mind I think it was you uh board member Martin we can move it without uh we can move just move it to change the motion to move in to uh move the item without our recommendation so just to make sure with my parliamentarian we have a friendly amendment to uh yeah so lanis made the original motion with a second by Martin to send it for approval Mr rust made a substitute motion to send without recommendation Mr lannis I believe is saying he would like to amend his own motion correct to send without recommendation if Mr Martin and I would accept using Mr Russ's words okay so we're good yes okay I just want to double check uh thank you very much are there any other comments from the board on this item and just for clarity the motion we we will be voting on is to send this item to the regular board meeting without recommendation Madame secretary would you please conduct the vote please vote the motion carries thank you we now move to item number nine demolition of banks Elementary consideration requests for the authorization for staff to advertise accept the low bid meeting specifications and make the award of contract for demolition of banks elementary school as specified in a plan to improve facilities technology discipline and compensation in the East Baton rof Parish School System known as the plan as revised through February 22nd 2018 or reject any and all bids for just cause in accordance with the Louisiana public bid law we have public comment on the item from Miss storm Matthews I just realized when um president God was reading that into the record I may have misread it so I need to go back and read it um again but I uh wanted to say that I do agree with banks coming down but also wanted to say please add Broadmore mle it's been shuttered for longer as well and um also you know want to put in there let's uh sell the land because yay we can put a park on it um or we can offer it to bre to put a park on yay um but um Nathan that's for you to take to the you know bre commission there we go um but the question I was going to ask and when he read it in I'm realizing maybe I read it wrong when he said um about the put it out for bid CU I saw the the number I saw on there is higher than the normal estimate so I was going to ask why it's higher than the normal estimate for a demolition since it's an elementary school but I if we're putting it out for bid maybe I read it incorrectly I apologize thank you um next we have Dr James finny thank you first and observation the last um campus that the board voted to demolish was straight East on the same street you know two campuses that's a trend of disinvesting in North Baton Rouge once you smash a building and throw it away you can't get it back um and you don't have necessarily a clear plan for the land also half a million dollars is a lot of money so I would suggest that the administration ask the construction managers if we spent 400 whatever th000 to improve the building could we make it safe and functional for some other use other than an elementary school perhaps An Early Child Care Center perhaps a uh a satellite office for City Parish government perhaps a Breck Community Center there are there are multiple choices not limited to fixing it up as a brand new elementary school or driving a bulldozer through it and having yet another empty property in North Baton Rouge so since I don't think there's an immediate need to do anything right away it might be worth exploring some possibilities thank you thank you there are no online comments uh any comments from the board uh Mr lannis thank you uh vice president first I want to say thank you to board leadership and to superintendent and staff for bringing this item uh so expediently while I do understand the sentiments of what was just discussed I will also say that uh a lot of these Builders need to come down they have been inside of communities depressed communities for far too long uh when I think about Eden Park that school's been closed for over 10 years and it's just dilapidating falling apart when I think about Glen Oak Middle School and what happened there you have homeless people living inside of the building which caused the building to catch a fire what do you do to the community that lives around those uh facilities the kids that have to play around those facilities and while we can come up with some mixed uh mixed arrangement of ideas or assortments of how we come up with some kind of uh uh uh cooperative Endeavor agreement time is not of the essence because you have entirely too many people that are living around these types of environments and while some believe that tearing these buildings down may not be as advantageous for us I would say I would much rather tear them down than to have a kid surrounded by that living in that type of space or having residents live in those types of space because also you not talking about how it brings down property values inside of those areas what I can honestly say is the buildings you see in North Bano you will not see in any other part of our and we have to have an honest discussion about that and it's because the people that live inside of those areas will not settle for it so you can't expect people who live inside of those areas now to simply just settle for that and they're going to continue to sit there for years and years and years white Hills is already merg with brownsfield that building needs to be torn down when we went to that school uh when when the principal came to us and said please come look at this building that was graffiti all over the building people had broken inside of the building broken glasses everywhere and then we picked up all of the extended costs nobody else did but the district did which caused our budget to also go down it's a much cheap cheaper fix and we I would say an OP to say if you talk to community folk they will say the same thing they would much rather have those buildings come down inside of those neighborhoods and come up with something that is much more uh beneficial for the people who live in those areas rather than just sitting those buildings stand there and nothing happens the time is now thank you thank you board member lannis next board president Stewart thank you and I just want to um agree with some of the same sentiments that board member lannis just spoke about in regards to uh having to make the tough decisions as far as what are we doing with some of our facilities that have been uh empty and uh in non-usage for a long period of time and uh I just want to say that uh I actually attended Banks Elementary I attended Banks Head Start and Banks Elementary and uh had some time where I grew up in that area and so uh I still have family and friends in that area and so to the point that Mr L has made that the neighbors and the community uh it's an ey sore uh it's an eyes sore it's a hazard it's a liability and of course uh to miss Matthew's Point uh we are looking at uh brm as well so we are we are looking at our facilities that is a part of our plan and so we want our communities to be safe and if we have things and buildings and uh uh we need to address that and so Banks Elementary I'm happy that we have now uh are addressing the banks elementary site um just more recently there were trespassers on the building just as recently as last night uh so um and I found that information out and so of course ultimately I think we're making the right decision uh I want to commend the community persons that have been vested into trying to uh push us into addressing Banks Elementary and so I want uh on behalf of my colleague that's not here tonight which covers that District um Miss caral Lewis uh she's she's elated she's ecstatic about um doing some positive things in that area and she's also happy and I want to speak on her behalf as well to let the community know that we are addressing the issues in that community and we are trying to do some positive things for the students and so uh we have plans and we have positive things to look forward to and so I think this is a great awesome thing for District 3 and um uh I think it's time and so that was all my comments thank you board president uh board member Nathan Russ thank you vice president um couple questions just in terms of um funding source for this project is this coming from the general fund or is this is there a certain fund that we would utilize to provide this if I'm not mistaken it's coming from the tax plan this is tax plan okay that that was my question because I know that there was a certain amount of money set aside through the tax plan for demolition so if we were about to pay this out of the general fund I'm like why aren't we using the tax plan money for this and this is actually a named project in the tax plan it's a name it is okay that's why I wasn't sure because I know that there was one and okay that clears that up I'm I'm in support of this um we have way too many vacant empty sites that are a blight and um and and honestly cost us a lot of money and based on the memo the diligence have been done to determine that this is not a a building that can be easily put back into service so thank you thank you board member Russ board member Lewis um tearing that building down could also spur reinvestment in North Baton Rouge Broadmore same thing goes for Broadmore taking Broadmore down could also spur reinvestment in the city cuz there's one thing that man is not making any more of and that's dirt the bricks ain't worth it it's the land that's valuable they ain't making no more dirt making plenty bricks it may it may not be good English but it's good sense thank you coach thank you uh board member leis uh board member Martin your turn to follow that thank you thank you can't talk well about dirt but um the the you know in in in my district when we closed an elementary school uh the Old Jefferson terrce just a few years back you know what they did they immediately T down the old jeffson Terrace right that's what you do because the city as a whole has a problem with blight right right and it's embarrassing that the East paten R School Board is contributing to that problem right and so we need to fix fix that now as to are there other uses well two two points one buildings have a useful life they just do they're not we don't build building we're not building the Parthenon here to educate our children in right we build buildings that are going to have a life that maybe 30 years 50 years some of them a 100 years they're not getting to 100 years without fullscale Renovations and you know in the middle of that but um you know and and a lot of buildings that were built around the time this was built were not built well particular particularly in that part of town because of the what was going on in Baton Rouge at the time these buildings were built right and and so the building was not you know is is not conducive to any other use at this point and we can sit and hope that maybe somebody might eat some value out of it but but but but frankly it would probably cost as nearly as much to gut renovate this and make it suitable for inhabitants by people as it would to just build a new building on the site and in fact fact uh Miss poell Lewis and I last year in leadership looked and worked with Community leaders had had at least one uh community meeting looking at whether there might be some alternative uses that we could find for banks Elementary and nobody was able to come to us with a plan saying Hey I want to take $5 million and invest it in this building to make it worthwhile so I I I uh very much U uh president uh Stewart and vice president good I appreciate your leadership ship this month and bringing this to us and I fully support it thank you thank you and uh I've entered the queue I Echo many of the comments uh but I I want to take a little bit different pack tact uh in this because I believe many of these properties are Community assets and that we as a board are sitting on these Community assets that really need to be returned back to the community and put to good Community use uh you know and I I can pick one in particular that's always struck me is the oldest Struma middle site which is right there off of Plank Road it's really a nice site and we've been cutting grass on it for 20 years uh and that you know that kind of property could have some really good use so one of the things that I am personally committed to and I've already talked with the superintendent about as we come up with our facility plan and work through these part of that is going to be a policy of how we go about handling uh property that is deemed Surplus and so how do we do it how do we go about looking at maybe some public private Partnerships how do we go about evaluating it but having a clear concrete timeline that at some point in time buildings get torn down and the property sold because I know for a long time the rule of this Parish of this school district was we don't sell property and I think that's wrong because we're sitting on assets that's or Community assets that need to be returned back to community so I fully support this but I'll go further and say I'm going to do my best to make sure we have a clear outline policy for what do we do with Surplus uh buildings and surplus land uh and with definite timelines because even in my district we closed U Arlington a while back and Arlington is sitting there just south of LSU and it was in deplorable shape when it was in use and it's even worse today and there that building will never be rehabilitated and it needs to be torn down and we need to do something with the land because we will never put a school right at the entrance with the entrance going over a very active railroad track it's a horrible place for a school so we need to set ourselves some policy and things like that to put ourselves some definite timelines to do it so I fully support this also and with that do we have a motion I will entertain a motion uh motion by board member Lewis second by board member Martin any additional board comment seeing none Madame secretary would you please conduct a vote please vote the motion carries thank you next item E10 litigation consideration of a request for the approval of the recommendation from Gwen shamlin General counil East b r Parish School Board in the manner of Nina Dylan versus EBR Parish School Board and Vincent Woodard docket number 7351 31 division 9th Judicial District Court of East Baton rou parish and to provide for related matters uh there's a possibility executive session could be called on this matter would any board member like or do we have to go to public comment first okay is there any public comment on this matter seeing none are there any board comments on this matter may I have a motion um Mr Belo board member beloo uh makes the motion to approve approve second it by board member rust okay any other comments seeing none Madame secretary please vote motion carries thank you item F announcement of meetings uh February 6 regular meeting will be held on February 6 2020 Feb I'm sorry regular meeting will be held on February 20th 2025 at 5:00 p.m. in the central office boardroom the committee of the whole meeting to be held on March 13th 2025 at 5:00 p.m. in the central office boardroom board member Lewis we are adjourned [Music] [Music] [Music]