Video Gallery

Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget First Reading Live Broadcast (May 12, 2026)

Go to Video Gallery Added May 13, 2026 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//www.jcsd.net/apps/embed/?v=395541" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Go HD

May 12, 2026

Show Transcript

good afternoon everyone there it is okay um good afternoon thank you so much for being here I'm so excited to see each and every 1 of you we have some exciting information to share with you and we also have some exciting celebrations that we're going to do after we present the budget so again thank you for coming welcome um we're going to go ahead and just dive on in to what we're going to cover today I I want to start by just sharing with you that our vision here in Jasper County School District is to create today's learners for tomorrow's leaders and um all of our supporters you know that the work we do every day you're expecting us to prepare students so that they can productive citizens and and those that are here today who have always supported and those that that have already asked to support it um I need to pause good to see you mayor our honorable mayor is here thank you so much for being here as well um so we want to make sure that our students are leaders and productive citizens whenever they leave Jasper County our mission is to cultivate an environment of Excellence through Innovation inspiration opportunities and partnership with the community and notice that we're in Partnership we want to partner with you because we can't do the work alone um there's a a chart that I've shared in the past and it had the student in the middle but it had the school and and the community it had churches it had everyone because there should be a village ensuring that that our students are successful so again Partnerships are critical for the success of the district there are 3 priorities for those that are first-timers um when whenever we arrived um at the beginning of this school year was around August we surveyed staff we sent a survey to parents and then we started asking what are the strengths of the district what are the needs of the district how can we improve what are the things that we need to focus on but based on that feedback we came up with 3 District priorities 3 goals the first 1 is safety we want to make sure all students and our staff are able to work in safe environment the second 1 Quality education the state's goal is that 75% of all students meet or exceed on those State assessments and right now we are always off but we're making progress but that is the goal by 2030 75% meets or exceeds and then our third goal is to restore trust across the district how do we do that by involving our stakeholders involving everyone so that they have a voice as we operate in the district as we um decide how we're going to spend our funds we are we value your input even for our federal funds there should be uh there will be a meeting where we talked about how to 1 title all those Federal cause because we are required to involve parents and stakeholders in that process on how do we expand These funds but the best interest of the students we serve so everything that we do is all about the students that we serve so here I'm going to just share some of the things that are going to go the right way um some of the things that I want to share briefly I'm going through the terms of pre here some things that I want to share they need your help again for those that are following along on the next page I have information about budget priorities so first of all I want you to know that when we started working on this budget we met with all principles we met with our department um chairs or Department leads directors and the question was because what are the needs in your department what are the needs of your department and these needs are based on supporting students what do we still need in order to improve the outcomes of our students which so with that in mind our priorities we also wanted to make sure our priorities aligned with our budget if we're saying safety is important um Quality education transparency making sure we have system and processes in place that we want to make sure that our budget aligns with that so some of the um items that was shared with us we have um academic coach uh for our ml you may not know our multilingual population we have 67% in certain areas but it's very high it's 60 plus percent and because of that we have to make sure that we have activities and strategies in place to make sure that we're meeting the needs of all students because again the goal is all students we have in the budget um reorganized um special ed so that we look at our needs there we we may end up needing an additional teacher what would that look like we may they need um certain um support staff or Contract Services so some of the items are General here but these are items that will kind of lead um some of the activities that you'll whenever um chatana comes up and share the budget but these are some of the items that we're focused on social worker Mental Health we all know and have heard in certain places that there are a lot of our students faced with a lot of challenges social emotional challenges we all hear it all the time and and and you know sadly we sometimes have young adults um decide to end their lives and they feel like they are not important having a mental health and social workers in place and it helped our students to know that and received that support they need we're very intentional about making sure we um provide wraparound services so that whatever our students may need that we're supporting that uh we have here um student and academic support administrators um since Co and Jasper is not alone in this but since Co um there's been a number of students that we still have we've always had the track students that keep up with them for graduates but whenever um Co kids there are a lot of students who were displaced for 1 reason or another um as you know there are a lot of deaths during that time and sometimes um for 1 reason or another students May um had to leave and go live in another state um just the number is a number of things that could have occurred but a lot of times we don't know that until we can have someone out there um trying to see why students are not here um some students are here and they may not become in school like they should they're taught so we have folks in place who they go out and they look for students particularly if we see a pattern of absenteeism um 3 or more days because that's the that something is going on and sometimes it's Medical but there are other times when it may not be but we have folks in place for that as well this is just a reason why we um needed more um social workers as well as um mental health support when you look at the amount of referrals that um this is I'm not so which month but I think it was as uh from the beginning of the year up to probably April for this data and if you look at the disruptions in the our core content classes like English English science social studies uh math transition the system we have anytime referrals occur in whatever class we're able to track the timer the class that it may have occurred in and sometimes it's not in the classroom it may be in the cafeteria but we are able to attract that information but if you look here at English these are disruptions if you have a this kind of number of disruptions in the classroom these disruptions interrupts what learning and instruction and because we want to provide every student with the quality education we cannot allow disruptions so with that being said that is why we're getting um these additional um staff to support those that may need it because we want to make sure students are able to focus that they're able to pay attention in class and get their work without these extra disruptions so um that's some of the reason here and I just want to share some of this um data with you but this is a lot of referrals and this 1 is is that should be um look at 1 pm a lot of it is right after lunch or right after they had that break and they um are back in to learn and sometimes it maybe a little challenging to get um some of them settled but this is why we've got to have the additional staff in place 1 of the things that we started in January and I can um and then student we started it probably was hard to end of February but we started a program called beyond the bell and the the purpose of beyond the bell was to be able to provide a additional tutoring for students who were um already struggling with um skills or students who um from the previous assessments were already falling behind so we started the beyond the bail so that they can come and get that additional assistance in a small group setting so we kept the classes unless we wanted all classes to be 10 or less and I think most of them were 10 or less and they worked on math skills and reading skills now they if the teacher said okay I really need to work with this student on science that was okay too but that was our Focus math and reading and just last week we had a celebration where we recognized the students that attended and if I'm not mistaken there were a total of about 500 kids that attended the beyond the bell that was great and parents another thing that that shows is that you want the best for your child as well so when we give you these opportunities to send students or your scholar to these after-school programs to get an additional tutoring because we want them to be very successful and that is why we the action and then um studio is a academic um intervention that we do during the school day again it was we were late started this but it involves academic as well as motivation and students again they work on um programs that are gen generated by um IA that work on scales they first take a pre-assessment a pre-assessment identifies the areas that they are weak in and it also um identifies their grade level that they're functioning on so for example they may be a fifth grader but they may be functioning at a fourth agreement or third grade but they may be strong in reading and they may be on on grade level but in math as a fifth grader I may still need to master and in fractions or multiplying or dividing fractions with students it will identify the areas that they were weak in and it will set them up on a pathway and they will support those areas that they're weakening so that they uh it's supposed to help students build that Gap to try to get them back on graveyard so we started that but it was late when we started this program um this is a program that's being used in several States I actually went and saw an action in Texas but they are using it in other states but right now in South Carolina Jasper and 1 additional District are the only users of this program right now so we're excited that when we start the new year we plan to start our after-school program early and we also plan to start shooting um earlier at the beginning of the school year um I think just based on the recognitions that uh where students we had some students that grew 21 plus points personal program uh we had some students who moved from approaches when they took the assessment as a fourth grader or fifth grader they scored approaches based on the uh the spring um Benchmark they're predicted to score needs and that's what we want to see we want to fill those gaps we want to have them with those um on grade level skills because students if they're fifth grader whether they're functioning on third grade level or not they're going to have to take on grade level assessment so that's why we have these uh programs in place to support students and again to improve the academic achievements for all of us Scholars some of the other initiatives that we are doing we started 30 for 30 that mean we are expecting students to read 30 minutes every day in school and then we're asking parents to support and help us by having students read an additional 30 minutes at home research shows the Misery the better readers they become so um that's called 30430 we started that initiative um since January we talked about the after school program that we a large number of students um it was 1 to 1 um another plus um our teachers worked with extremely hard to analyze um their students um data and as a result of that they were able to plan lessons based on um those areas of weaknesses to hopefully hopefully we'll see a difference in the outcome again everything that we're doing is to improve the outcome so these slides are just showing that um some of the things that we have um some of the things that we've done this is just a slide showing our average daily membership and I want to make sure I'm not getting into what chatana is going to come share so at this time I'm going to ask Mr Shell make sure that we where I need to be more Jatana and at this time I'm going to ask uh Mr Natan if she will come forward and share our budget because I know that you're just waiting to hear how are we planning to and our clients for this coming year um I can tell you miss Jana and her team they have been working extremely hard um we're we're pleased to announce that the 2223 budget let me back up just a minute while Mr Shelton is getting this ready um the state the Takeover took place because we had 3 Auditorium we're not done Financial audits but we are pleased to say that um just Hannah and her team they have completed the 2223 financials and that information is already with the auditors and I'll let her just kind of give an update on that and then she'll go into the upcoming good evening it's good to see everybody I'mma say and all my years of financial budget presentations this is the most people I've ever seen that 1 of these so um so it's good to see everybody and I didn't realize it's harder when I did my little outfit I was going to be tele coordinating with the microphone too so thank you there um so I will start let me get all this stuff put down here um I will start with a little budget of on it update um and as patient said um we've been working chewing gum at the same time so we've been in 2526 trying to train and um you know just retool things um so we've been doing a lot of work there and the whole district has been involved in that not just Finance um and then at the same time uh we've been working to complete the trial balance for the 2223 on it um so you know we have to do that 1 and then we roll our balances and then we'll start on 23 24 so back in February we submitted the trial balance which is basically a dump of our general ledger um after we made a lot of adjustments and Corrections and all kind of you know reconcile bank statements and all that stuff had to be done so um then the Auditors were finishing up other districts audits of course they've been in tax season so they have um sent some draft financials so what we do there is we have to look at what's on our Ledger and then we have to make sure that that matches what's on their draft Financial so we did find so this pregnancy so send those back and now they're in the testing so they say okay send us the the backup for these deposits because they're specifically looking for things like did we improve it to post it in the right year and all that so we're in that just kind of grind learning part of it um but the good news is we do have draft financial and so that's a major step forward so um if there's not any questions on that I'll just move on into the budget any questions about the audits still a lot of work to do but hopefully the next we won't be by this difficult is first okay so Mr Kim has heard that this will be your third or fourth time hearing this I told our mayor I said um I think Mr Kim you're probably come up and do this budget presentation so um I'd say he knows it backwards as far as now so let's just get into it um we don't mind you got it okay so you're gonna click it for me great so Mr Shelton's so um some of y'all probably too young to know men or white what was she on the prices right or whatever I don't want to turn my back so you just heard me speak of the audit and so we only um stars this slide this just shows a fun balance history now again fund balance is not your cash fund balance is revenue minus expenditures it's not your cash in the bank because we're having to reconcile a lot of these you know this funds this fund and that that thing so I was only comfortable showing you up to this school year 23 because I feel very comfortable about the numbers on the Ledger through that point in time I don't feel comfortable about presenting anything past that because they're not audited years okay does that make sense so all right Vanna is falling down on the job so it belts and y'all feel free to stop me any time if I'm saying something and you need clarification um all right so as Dr hickson's already shown you this 1 now at the time we did the slide we didn't have the 135th day student count submitted to the state I think we gained I want to say 100 students somewhere in that range so we're we're about we're a little over 2800 at this point in time based on the 135th day so um so that's about you can see the trim obviously it's going up this is a very fast growing Camp so the next 1 all right and then these what this slide shows now okay so what this is showing you is a trend of our general fund budget now this is not all of my incomes in the district but you just heard Dr pixon mentioned the federal programs we State funding so this is the general fund operating I want to I want to make something clear because I know y'all are all kind of sitting here and I will be too if I live in this town what's this going to cost me what does this mean Budget going to cost me as a taxpayer well on operating budget if I heard that 388 I don't think this is very important for you know that 388 I think it was implemented it was long in 2006 if I'm not mistaken quote me somewhere in that ballpark so at 388 basically eliminating adal or real estate taxes for residents in this County in every county in the state so if you are yeah you live in Jasper County and you live in your primary residence you do not pay operating school operating taxes okay you do not pay that but if you have a second home what do you have a rental home in this County you're going to pay at 6% so but if this is your primary residence you do not pay operating taxes however um this year was a reassessment year and so we're still working on some of those roll back we have to stay Revenue neutral or anything that was reassessed but this is showing you the truth so we go back to 22 23 you can follow that forward 2526 our budget was 53 operating budget was 53,621 of the 8th 94 884 can't see new glasses um so if you notice this year they didn't go up it actually dropped so our operating budget drops this year so you probably say well you just heard Dr Hicks is talking about these different positions and these incentives and and all the stuff that we're adding how will we able to do and it goes back to account using the right phone numbers using the right accounting codes because we're fund accounting every little fun general fund which is general fund uh Title 1 371 statements they all have their own little Silo they're all um their own little accounting system and they're tied together by due to Due from okay so so we were able to remove a lot of things a lot of expenditures that were coded to the general fund that should have been coded for example to our volunteers right so so when you take that and it relieves the general fund then we don't have to increase that to pay for Bond related items when we have on or backwards that makes it so that's how we're able to do that just proper accounting and we you know we're finding a lot of things in the audit now now this this current year has been audited but we're still remember I said we're walking and chewing moment at the same time so we're still trying to identify areas now that will help us in the future okay all right so no questions on that and we'll go to the next 1 was I supposed to do any questions so far do I have any I see some graduates out there do we have anybody going into accounting because I want to talk to you if you okay okay so this is basically the same graph is just showing historical increases um we don't have the 206 27 on there but we when we do that will show a point 22% and that's on the right hand side of the decimal point 22% decrease so essentially we're staying the same okay all right just becoming more efficient things that we've implemented um a little bit more internal controls it's just making the entire District more efficient that's very 1 thing so here's our funding sources you just heard me talk about the silos so we have state revenue we have state reimbursements now the state reimbursements goes back to that at 388 so the state is replacing some of the avalor taxes on on primary residents real estate so that's where we have to tear 1 homestead exemption tier 2 and tier 3 which is a big amount but that's where a lot of those are so State and revenue is going to be more like your um your state aid classrooms your priority school money um cake State portion of of career and Technology those types of things so um and then the local so I've got a note of their local Revenue includes no military increase we are not asking for a military increase we've cut the millage last year by 2 I think you can but no we're not asking for additional military um and then um they the millage may actually as I just stated roll back to stay Revenue neutral because of the reassessment all right and then we're not requesting to use any fund balance so I mean as we presented Dr H and I presented to the state I mean I told him this is this budget was was really a a pure joy of work on um because we're not coming back to the taxpayers and asking for any increase we can make it work and still provide um more resources to the school level which is what we're all here makes sense okay so this is just a pie chart medical is really fast you can see um local Revenue by far the biggest Less in the past um so and here's a breakdown of the expenditures so most of the by far the Lion Share of budget is salaries and benefits 38 million okay we're and the people business we don't make widgets so we don't have cost of goods and all that we're in the people business so that's where our budget should be primarily focused on people um we then we have to maintain you know we have to keep the schools clean we have to have security that's the big thing you heard Dr Higson talk about the big I think she calls it the big rocks security and safety 1 Big Rock so that should be a big piece of garbage um and then school allocations would be like supplies Athletics purchase services like Consultants like I'm a consultant um copier all those things that you have to have have utilities all that that you have to have the lights on and you know it it runs schools so um so that's the breakdown of how we come back to our total budget now makes it okay and I like pie charts because it just kind of helps you go right to it um so you can see salaries employee benefits that blue that's the biggest part of our budget where for people business all right all right and then this is where we start to get in a little bit of the lead of things so this is our teacher salary schedule this is our proposed teacher services so the top number shows you how much we are above the state mandated Saturday okay and a lot of districts I know have front-loaded their baby I'm on baby teacher teacher zero experience 1 year experience to try to attract people and we want to attract people too but at the same time we don't want to do that at the risk of not being able to reward our teachers that have degrees our teachers that have been loyal to us and stuck with us and they have to be the mentors to the baby teachers so we're trying to spread this out to make sure that everyone is rewarded not just a brand new people coming in okay so that's where we are a relative to uh so what's in the blue is the state sound schedule required what's on top is what we are above the state and its scheduled for teachers back and what we chose to do is add 2,000 per can I read the number so this is a bachelor's with zero and I don't know why but anyway um we're 15 we're 1550 levels over the state the state moved to 50,500 this year we're over that so if you look at bachelor's with I think that's good um all those morning 100 over that that Masters was 12 and now all these are gonna be posted on our website we get through the whole process all of our sources will be posted on our website featuring the mandatory all the from teacher to Administration and so on I got good news on that front so if you look at that Grant was 24 years experience we're 16,017 unit state so let's get to the study schedule and and we're gonna talk about the non-teacher um all right so these are just some Milling things I I've already mentioned that we're in a reassessment I don't think the county we did talk about where we might land on village with Kim the CFO at the county but they won't have their final numbers until I should make it probably tomorrow so I you know we just got preliminary numbers on that but we're still staying in Revenue other than the growth component which is not reassessed all right so um you go to the next 1 all this time let me see so yeah oh there we go okay so if implementing new service skills for all positions so now coming back to you all positions except teacher scale which you know so so basically what we did is in in the current salary scale we've got these Bill bucks and I can't follow and it's a zero to 5 years you land in this from 6:30 land in this well so what we did is we went in and we said okay for every position we have a vertical axis and a horizontal axis and every position just stay director fine and staff counted 1 director of special ed director of the NL so all these positions are listed at their grenade level so it's I think it starts at 11 for certain positions and then it goes to 10 and 9 so you can go out there and look for a specific position type and go to that sounding schedule and see where it falls and then the horizontal axis is years of experience okay so so now years of experience we don't we don't have it to the level that the teachers get like years of experience with the doctor here so that's a formula that HR will have to you know follow um to equate the degree level 2 years of experience but the years of experience are very clear okay so it will show you the exact steps there's no bucket it's very specific so we've redone those for every position now that will come over into the new budget it will literally have to go in and touch every 1 of those 9 Teacher positions to make sure they'd fall in the right place but that you know will will automatically colleague and I are working on that will audit that to make sure everybody's Landing in the wrong place yes ma'am 2 questions okay first I would like to know will the Physicians themselves be allocated based off a title or it will it be applicated based off the number of days that they work for example so if we if it's a 220 position um then we'll take that that where the position okay so it's a great 10 and then here's the years that falls so that's going to be the annual amount would take that the average like the daily rate so it depends most of the administrative or the non teacher probably too 40s but some of them could be 220 so but it still will show you where they fall okay where exactly will these be posted and where exactly would you post it in with well I gotta get through all the approvals on the budget um and so once they're all approved I can't see a whole lot change schedules can you because the state has already seen this and um so they will be posted in the same place our the teacher salary so I'm assuming under ACR and who does our website oh that was the Washington so do you know where all all of the service schedules posted they are posted on the finance day Finance page okay probably put those in finance and HR so that's where they'll be and hopefully by June July first because in this school year well they have to be if you got to make it work okay any other questions on that those are great questions and thank you for asking that led me right into my next point um so let's see the other things that we've put in this budget I have already just talked about some of them um but I know this about my heart so um so we put in a bus driver incentive and again um so the bus driver incentive um again we did not want to just do a recruitment bonus because look here we've had bus drivers that have been very loyal to us all year long and we want to provide for them so the way it's going to work is if you are a bus driver or bus driver a then if you if you start from us and you're still here in December you're going to get a bonus and it's like a thousand dollars and then if you stay till the end of the year and you continue to be loyal and you're driving our kids then you're going to get another okay and I think let me see the AIDS and the bus drivers so we've got 26 32,000 in there for bus driver so um 2250 um bus aides let's see is 1500 and bus driver 2250 twice a year if you stay with us okay so your bus driver and your loyal business district you're going to end up getting about 4500 dollars sticking around I don't know about the sub driver you know you want to look at that I mean you're trying are you just substituting um 1 of the bus drivers out everything yeah and then um Dr Hicks to talk to you about incentive if if teachers raised the the needle on their performance on their students performance want to give them an incentive okay so teachers can earn incentive by raising their excuse me I have lots of questions that you carry on the next question I have is what exactly would this requirement because I heard from the engagement and they raised this course we looking forward to and math are we looking for approval to exceed there's a scale but I'm gonna let Dr Hickson answer that part because that's a little bit out of my Lane so for student achievement we're looking for students who may have but if you move those soaps students from our Scholars from approaches to meets there's a certain amount they get for that if they were in the meats category the goal is to move them to they see if they're in exceeds category the goal is to keep them in exceeds so that they don't fall back but raise the percentile when it comes to their level of move yeah we're looking at each individual so we're looking at the percentage of students who increase or move from 1 level to the next and even our students that are not meets if we can grow them and they move from not meets to approaches that's growing students right okay so the goal is to grow students any other questions on that okay thank you y'all keeping us on our toes tonight that's good yes this engagement so it's to your question there that's almost a half million in the budget for Teacher incentives the ones that raise in time floats all but 462,000 in the budget for teachers yes yes ma'am yes it is and then we're going to continue um the plc's yeah and Beyond the bail we've got that in here PLC training we're we're going to keep um there's a Learning Centers and then 120 for rent is not training um and then budget this year for Dr Hickson uh program that she created the beyond the bail that you heard her just talked about we increased that to a million 68 so that's um from 268 to a 0068 for extra incentives but a stipend for teacher um and 2 or if you're willing to put in a time where the students will will defend them so a lot of opportunities for teachers to really work with students and get extra pay um so let's see I think that just about covers you know the extra things um but I think what you what we hope you can see is that we're taking we're decentralizing and we're taking the funds that we have access to and we're pushing those down to the student and teacher level so we're decentralizing out on the district office and pushing it to where it needs to be because we exist for students and teachers and if our budget doesn't reflect that that we're talking about those okay I think our budget reflects that but the real real tip is what y'all think um so let's see if he was showing you want to move us to oh go back to the I'm sorry okay all right so again I said that we're not asking for any use of flood balance um so what can happen that might require fund balance okay I always like to throw this in here so we can fill all of our vacancies payment at 1 time and and I mean that would be great um we could lose funding on the 45th day so if our student count drops when they re calculate our funding we could lose funding on the 45th day and that's happening okay um expenses can increase due to economic factors we don't here has a crystal Bond love to see it I sure don't okay and then um tax revenues could decrease from our projections likely but it's possible not you know it's faster on County so we get the benefit of all all that growth okay reassessment as I said is is a revenue neutral proposition for us but the growth is not and then unknown expenses could present things that we just could not just came out of the blue that really hasn't happened to me and 40 Years of funny but it could but I know it could um we could have a bunch of Crunk I mean anybody remember something back in 12 to 20089 the budget crunches I mean they did it so um don't anticipate that but so your question would be what it does well we put contingencies in the budget for things like then if we don't have to spend it guess what happens with that contingency it rolls back into our fund balance okay so it just continues to be all right so next 1 um I think we're I think I'm just about to the end so if there's no other slide there I think the next 1 might be questions yes sir my question is couple um we keep we keep talking about the world as we look at conversion have there been any conversations about addressing for growth that's coming released to yes there has in fact we just as a pilot District um we just implemented States funded it for us I wonder good thing about here thinking predictive analysis predictive we've put a lot of work in Sean's been involved in pics and our Council yet so all the county exactly they've all provided input on this development and this development what do we see so we involved a lot of people in looking at the trajectory of the school district and the growth so we can so we're still putting a lot of that data in but y'all it's like James Bond I mean you can take a line and pull it and you know what how many students is this um development likely to produce now we're trying to work out because we do have charged schools we do have private schools so we're trying to work out what is a reasonable ratio to expect in in Jefferson County School District so we may not be like the national average but but we're working that out and so that's going to give us sort of like a crystal ball um to say okay if eventually when we feel like we're really comfortable with those numbers we can continue to work with the leaders in the county to to you know any new developments that are coming in how's that going to impact the district and so eventually that will help us to do um so with the projects that were approved prior for the 2 uh processes the district has first question is with the change changing into the is are there any legalities and using those lines for other purposes other than for Early Childhood for instance have another schooling what's the legality is switching the client and I am on the internet okay I don't know the answer to that because we're not at maximum capacity we have to get this this predictive enrollment fully implemented um but we can't I know we can't issue Bond debt to build anything until these audits are done so so yeah I think that's projected way I'm in the future um so we we're having to take first steps first it's a great question I don't know the legalities of any of that so I can't answer what caused they have to go to stakeholders to get it approved they would have to go back to stakeholders to amend it because for the people who don't come those are the questions that you get that's what what it do for the property can it use it for something else that's why absolutely so I right because I've heard some of those same questions as well um you know once uh Richland they have certain athletic things so I'm here in the same questions you know what about hard to why we're not doing whatever in Hardeeville it's not that we don't want to do those things but right now um there's a lot of um building projects in the bond that was passed 24 but it's on hold because of the audits there were 3 audits not completed so it's all on hold now while it's on hold growth is still taking place okay so you know once we once we start to analyze everything and look at what's exactly happening how many students are actually coming in to Jasper as Jatana stated we're looking at then this development this development will bring in this amount of students but we also looked at and Mrs Shelton went back and pulled some data for us we looked at the attendance the enrollment for the um County and then we looked at how many of them are in Jasper when did enrollment drop because they're the Roman was at certain amounts and then all of the sudden there was a a drop was because the school level 1 of the promise groups so we have to look at all that because even though we're projecting an increase in our enrollment um and which mayor during our meeting um brought up this point how do we have the percentage of how many student believe in our selected a different choice so we have to take all that into account um and and Mr Shelton was able to pull a lot of data and it showed the students came in what happened to the enrollment sometimes it goes up a little bit but and then a second school May um open and it dropped again because you have several so that is why 2 is so important that the work we do bits and needs of students we have to do we have to make sure our Scholars are selling so that we're competitive the predictive analysis that you that you have access to ridiculous is there a possibility to be able to make that public so the community can see what the projection yeah eventually right now we are still meeting every Tuesday I'm trying to get it all done but um and trying to make sure we understand it first but yes eventually it will be released any additional question yes yes this in the moment it's in the 2024 Bond there's a lot of language in the um in that particular Bond regarding like a career center there's a lot in the bond but right now it's just it is in the bond and that's public information so there should you know we have a copy of it I don't know if it's posted I'm sorry the 2024 bond is that posted yes ma'am okay the 2021 B I know there was there was a 2004 bonds I'm not sure about the 2021 the 2020 the 2025 Bales okay that 1 failed okay are they question um in your anticipation for the budget step works the anticipate these next 2 weeks going quicker because you're just you know I mean for you is it gonna I know I mean I don't know what I'm responding there and I would hope because you know we've got at least we've got a better Foundation and keep in mind that the auditor having to work with us in because they have all these other districts that are on regular schedules and they have to be submitted by in the first so they can't pull on the board and and our auditor pool is shrinking so you have to be on the approved uh South Carolina Department of Education auditor list for a district that you've been using them and it's drinking drinking drinking so I I don't know there's a lot of unknowns so to tell you oh yes I go faster I don't but that's a great question and I wish I could say oh yeah we could 23 233 just because the trial balance is submitted I mean we're ready when I say submitted I mean submitted to updating on the department system the federal Clearing House system then we have a lot of reports that have to follow our Insight reports there's a lot of things that we have to do data collection so that we're still not we haven't submitted the 22 if it was up to me I submitted but I can get whatever else they need to test it's been a pleasure to be here with you questions first question well congratulations on you this time um the right direction um as far the bus driver the 262,000 um is that similar to or comparable to what we had in previous years I will a very strong um my meeting with bus drivers they did not get that in previous years um and so so that's the okay and does this still are there representatives for the bus driver bus driver team who work to drop our kids off at our like partner sites on how does so um in order for drivers or buses to go to additional sites no and 1 would have to pay for those additional sites because they have to work with the state department they come up with the routes for regular school if the buses are not full there would definitely try to with um Community organizations like the Boys and Girls Club um someday cares those type things we try to partner with them if the buses are not full so we can help parents by often students are but I'll try my primary goal is and our primary objective is to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our regular routes first but um but when we have space because it took us a minute to work out the Boys and Girls Club but we got it worked out um and and even to work that out the buses that there's a bus that delivers and then they come back and while they're waiting to come back then we also had to pay someone um staff to monitor the students because you can't have students unsupervised so um there's a lot that goes into it but partnering together he has been willing to do that but we can and my last question my last question is um once all of us once these numbers are done for like between for the 2223 are we able to then go back and see those previous um audits or reports oh yeah once everything is finalized and the auditor's finish every all this back and forth that they have to do required to post so posted and shared so we will be sharing that yeah so you don't know what to find this works all that any other questions well I'm gonna y'all very much we still have some exciting announcements to make um we're so excited to have our VIPs with us tonight and that's right if you'll come up please while she's coming I just want to say um I had the privilege of attending a graduation in ber T TCL Beaufort on this past Friday night and Jasper had ordered 1 students that is huge because I didn't have the mic Dr Rodriguez had the mic and he said during his remarks that you can have 40 something students to graduate that was sitting there graduating and I'm thinking to myself if I had to buy it I would let them know that Jasper has 81 students that said that because most of you know the enrollment and and Euphrates a lot higher than the Roman and Jasper but guess what our Scholars here in Jasper they are doing great things and some of these individuals graduated with honors so I was like a proud mom was sitting up there so congratulations again to our Scholars and we wanted to invite you this um that Murphy who does an excellent job with our dual enrollment let's give her a round of applause whatever it takes she does so at this time she's going to come and she'll call the names and um Scholars we would like you to come up these Scholars they are graduated from high school but they're also graduated from college saying here that is commendable that takes a lot of work because you're trying to finish all your high school requirements and you're meeting the requirements of a certification or an associate degrees that is huge so we're really excited about the progress um so at this time I'll turn it over to congratulations again Scholars I can't say candidates anymore because you've already graduated um and Dr Hickson thank you for the support um but you all did I've been working with many of you at least 3 year numbers 37 maybe 6 years because it's your second 1 um so we just want to say a commitment with everything that you have done I want to do a TCL you can do this year I'm gonna call you up are you athletes I do want to say this those students who have Associates have earned at least 6 hours plus their 20 to 4 hours for high school they have over 80 hours yeah please give them a round of applause last year last year we had 17 District 1 so 41 keep it up also for the students first certificate they had at least at least 8 classes so you're talking about 8 again plus your high school so that's about 324 is uh plaster that they actually had to make it to your higher um congratulations um as I call your name please come up to be recognized and stop the Nixon also wants to resent you with the gift Skyler bad associate in general education and business that's true associate degrees liberal arts certificate a university trans versus just a kid and a general education I do want to recognize students and not here January earn a criminal justice certificate we also have a Kamari Brown return of Criminal Justice certificate certificate we have Juan Donovan Castro also earn a criminal justice certificate Angelie Vel celestino she's earned a university transfer certificate and liberal arts certificate Jamie Ali Estelle an associate of science university transfer certificate liberal arts certificate and a general education certificate congratulations Joseph Omari Ferguson an associate of Arts University transfer certificate liberal arts certificate and a general education certificate an associate of Arts University transfer certificate liberal arts certification and a general education certificate class Britain was not here with us so he has heard my University transfer certificate and they were our certification and general education certificate some of our working so they've done all this on top of B working um Eddie Montes Last Quest Eddie has done a criminal justice certificate congratulations a clear Jasmine Ana Nelson transfer in a liberal arts certificate congratulations Alexis ortego was unable to join us tonight he heard a criminal justice certificate also Mariana d she has she's not with us tonight she has her University transfer certificate liberal arts certificate and a criminal justice certificate a criminal justice certificate is being all the odds we're so proud of all that but salut very proud of you sad tonight Rivers University transfer certificate and liberal arts certificate and last but not least Evelyn Flores looking and a liberal arts certificate we are very proud of each and every 1 of you again let's let's um give it up for our scholar I'm gonna give um the mic over and I would like for someone to speak on the half of the scholars good evening I just want to say I'm proud of all my peers we came along for it we all moved together this is a hard accomplishment that many cannot do but you know when you stick together and get it done you think our parents so much for putting up with us along very long time and we take everyone for a celebrate our accomplishment extension oh God just um quickly each of you will receive a book it's in your bag they look like a book but it's 1 of these books that um it has a lot of lessons for life because 1 thing about life sometimes we start on 1 path and sometimes we end up having to take a detour but I say to you regardless to the pathway that you start even when you have to detour get back up and and state of course because they like things will get hard and you can experience some of that because you are graduating with not just your high school diploma but your graduating with degrees and service or and or certifications but with that just remember um and this book just talks about things to remember in life that just helps life be better you know things might agree there's sometimes when you're going to have to just 3 it says find balance because you can't just work all the time without support because you don't want to stress out it says Be Kind it doesn't cost anything to be kind um find your passion because once you find your passion with work is not light work you love to know what you're doing and then it says dream big and there are a lot of others but I just picked a few words draped it whatever it is that you are planning to accomplish you can do that and I would say to you keep learning the lifelong learners continue to whatever it is you want to do just know that you can do that and again we are so proud of you on behalf of Jessica County school districts and the entire Jasper community we continue and we say congratulations and again thank you just quickly a few additional announcements um May 25th which is Memorial Day those School um Monday the June 1st is the last day of school and that's the early dismissal name I'm from graduation is the Saturday is it May 30th okay graduation is May 30 and then we have of the summer learning opportunities for our students we have a third grade reading camp we have some other academic reading camps we have a stem camp for is going to be um working learning about how to apply drones and those type things we have a chef that's coming to do a chef camp um we're working on trying to get robotics so the goal is to keep our Scholars engaged the entire summer we want them to continue to learn so that we don't have those um summer sliding that um and and learning loss back to school parent conference we are planning a back to school parent conference which will be July 25th from 9 to 1 and are there any additional announcements for anyone all right again thank you so much for coming um we're also looking at partnering with some um partners for some camps tell me the name again the name of the campus so Miss Miss Martin you know Mr lawyer and um you have a document that um Camp you have we are Boys and Girls Club King destination is having their um their camp and then we're looking at um going and we're stating events that will be that has some um education program so we are partnered with Community Partners as well just to make sure students are engaged in learning um Agape with Dr um young she sent me an email there going to to have their um programs going as well because the more we can keep students engaged the less they're going to get into things that they don't need to get into so let us find as many camps my team they know we're looking for as many camps as possible to engage students in um because they're going to learn it's going to just be a win-win for everyone yes I'm sorry um they're Richland little originally Tigers also bringing back the athletic program it's originally um you know they have the Hardeeville literally program but now we also have an original this summer so we will be training camps and cheerleading camps for the kids too and even our yeah Sheriff Department they're doing a dare camp this summer as well it starts July I think it starts July June 8th through July so there's a number of camps that we're going to involve schools in again thank you so much for coming please do not leave without Eden they have a really nice salad bar so please do not leave without getting have a great

Video Gallery

Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget First Reading Live Broadcast (May 12, 2026)

Popular Videos