Chuck McCauley State of the Schools Address 8-6-2025

His leadership guided our district through some of the most challenging and defining moments in recent memory. A statewide teacher walk out, a global pandemic, multiple floods, at least one indoor graduation, and maybe one or two interesting legislative sessions. But Chuck's legacy is not just about weathering the storms.

It's about building something stronger. He helped launch innovative stem lads through major corporate sponsorships, and expanded the school's safety with robust student Resource officer program, and built a diverse program with agriculture, education, performing arts, and so many more. He's fostered a pro teacher culture, improved communication with parents, and implemented forward thinking technology policies that support both students and staff. Chuck has also been a vital part of

our broader community. He's a member of the Bartlesow Rotary Club, serves on the Our Best Bank Board of Directors, and is past president of the United Suburban Schools Association. And for those of us at the Truty at Us Ducation Foundation, we're especially grateful for his role as a founding member. His insight and leadership helped to shape the foundation's mission

and strategy for the last eleven years. Thanks in part to that guidance, we are closing in on over two million dollars in total funding to education related projects in multiple school districts across Oklahoma and Kansus. Chuck's leadership has also been recognized with the Chambers Tom Shoemake Leadership Award and the Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching and Administration.

But perhaps his greatest legacy is the culture that he has helped create, one that values innovation, supports educators, and puts students first, Chuck has been pretty successful in his personal life as well. In nineteen ninety two, he married his high school sweetheart, Jennifer, a math teacher at Central Middle School, and their son, Mason, is a Bartisiwa High School graduate and a proud William Jewell College life. Please join me in recognizing and celebrating this extraordinary leader, a

trusted colleague, and a true champion for public education. Superintendent Chuckter colleague.

can tell that my mother came today. She literally did so I'm just kidding, and I can think of no greater example of that than this event we're having today. Look at the stakeholders, Blair. I'm not going to go through and introduce everyone. Very well, could go around the room and talk about all the wonderful things that the support that it takes for us to really do the amazing things that we're doing together for our kids, to help prepare them, to help prepare our community in this

ever changing world. I look around, you know, I see, of course we have talking to Senator Julie Daniels here. I know our state representatives couldn't be here earlier. They're you know there. We have have state leaders here, we have leaders from our city. I know we have city council members here. I think my friend Mike Bailey is here as well. Appreciate all of their work, all of their support to help us with a multiple amount of

things as local leaders. Of course, our school board, which I'm going to talk about here, and just you know, just a just a little bit as well. As you know, we have our large our largest employees in town are here. The largest ones in town are here, every one of them because they understand that our smallest employees are also

they're here as well. But people understand that, you know, for our community, if we're going to thrive economically, we have to have a place where they can hire employees, and if their employees have children, we have to have a strong public school system making sure this is the place they want to be and so I appreciate them working with us to help pull this off. We have education people from across the spectrum here. Obviously our public

school Foundation Blair Ellis is wonderful. She started basically I know I have to came superintendent. That was one of the first decisions the foundation made was to hire an executive director and it's been essential in our success as a district. But you know, I represented Oklahoma Westland University. I was talking to doctor Dunn here earlier. We have great partnerships with them, you know, Kerry Boss with Greg Packett. I mean, it's great people. Roger State University. I think

I saw Ronda writing earlier. My good friend Claire Bartley from past Independence from pt I this private school with our kids with autism, that does great things for our community. I mean, it's such a pleasure to have that as well as Tri County Tech. You know our career tech friends that we have, they always are are supportive of our school and we continue to work together. We send us as many kids as they have room for out to our career Tech system as well. And of course

our our staff. We have so many staff here. We have retired people that are here that still come are that this is they don't understand the importance of education. But all the hard working staff that we have, it's just been a pleasure, just been a pleasure to serve with.

That's why, you know, I've been here to serve, and so all of our leadership team that we have, specifically I've been I'm old enough now, I've been around long enough that I've been a part of placing every one of them, and I can guarantee you they are good people and they're here to serve as well. So I'm

thankful to serve with them. And then of course our parents, you know, our parents Obviously I've mentioned all these categories, but parents are their parents also in addition to you know, we have children that are here that are completely invested, and you know, I appreciate Kelly for mentioning a couple a few of the challenging things that we've worked through together. I'll mention I'll just say one thing. I remember the

when the pandemic hit back in twenty twenty. I'll tell a quick story, and we're all trying to figure out what to do. You know, springtime comes and basically the world is shut down. And I know our school, we knew that we needed to be able to offer an in person instruction when school started. We need to figure that out. And I think we had eighty four people on I think five different committee. I know that I led. I think our group by had men team. We had

twelve different meetings down at Johnstone Park. We got to meet outside and wear mask and it was weird, remember those days. And then we came up with a plan. From those people, we shared it with everybody. In July. We said, listen, we're gonna we want to start school on time, but we need to know if you're coming. And so we had two meetings at Custer Stadium, invited everybody to come and tell us what they thought good, bad,

or ugly. And you know, we did it. We were the only six A school in the state of Oklahoma US started on time with an in person option. And so I think that's just a great example of our community. What makes our community great, everyone just working together to serve our kids. And so I appreciate everybody here. I appreciate you for being here. I do want to think I do want to thank the most important person in the room, who's my wife. Who's sitting right over there,

fanning herself. She's still a little warm from the walk in. But yeah we are. We're having our thirty third wedding anniversary on Friday, and I can tell you I couldn't you. Being in leadership is difficult. You get pulled a lot of different directions. You get lots of different opinions from you know who, I whoever thinks needs to be the quarterback to whatever, some kids great in some class that

they didn't do well or and everything in between. I get lots of input on lots of different things, pick up and drop off it and you name it. I mean, whatever the situation is. I get to hear lots of different things, and then lots of serious things, more serious things as well. But I can tell you it's always been it's important to I've tried to model and it's truly important. My marriage is important, my heart is full. So with that, I've always been able to come to work.

I feel like giving my best, and how good that is that's debatable, but I've always been able to to do that because I feel like I've gotten my priorities in order. We've all worked with leaders that maybe are burning their candle at both ends, maybe some things outside of work or influencing their work life, and that's just never been the case. And that's because of Jennifer. Okay, thank you, So I probably should start. We actually need say one thing, so also I need to mention the

state superintendent and to talk about that just for a minute. No, I'm not gonna run for state superintendent. That's not my that is not my plan. I have no desire to do that. But I did share last year and I think everyone the longer that the situation that we're in is happening, I think people are realizing. You know, a lot of statements come out of that office. I respect the office. We obviously it's a it's a member of

the state school board. They are responsible for accreditation and some things that come along with you know, like accreditation of rules that do impact us. Correctly, but just remember, just know, because if you didn't know, it would be logical to think you have an elected state superintendent and he's going to tell all school superintendent's like me what to do and then we're going to go do that. Well, just I think we've learned. I hope that you've learned.

That's not actually the way things flow. We have a locally elected school board, we have a local superintendent. We're going to follow the law, so regardless of whatever statement you might hear that comes out of that office. Just if you want to get whicked up about it and want to make comments on social media, if that gives you something to do and you feel like that's making

a difference, then go crazy. But I could just tell you I really hate to even talk about it much, because really that's the plan is so that you can get more clicks or whatever, so that they can get so that he can do some more interviews or whatever t help his future. But I just want everybody to know that you don't need to panic about that. We're here. If you ever need to talk about anything related to it,

I'm happy, happy to do that. I do want to spend just a second or just a minute talking about my retirement. I did announce that last week, and Kelly minche Blair somebody mentioned that as well. But just so that you understand kind of the plan for that. First of all, the district is in great shape and now is a great time for the district. I know that we're going to hire the next great leader to make our district even better. I know that it look for

and I'm gonna do nothing. I'm gonna do everything that I can to help support our next leader. We're in a much different place, and we talked about some of the different things challenges we've been through. I remember the month after I was named superintendent, at the next board meeting, we announced that we had to reduce thirty nine positions, and so twenty one teachers, fifteen support staff for administrators. In the next year we reduce four more administrative positions,

so we're not in that kind of shape anymore. We're now truly investing for opportunities for our kids, and so this is a great time for a new leader to come in. What I anticipate the board we'll do is in August is they'll hire a search firm to hire the next superintendent. And the reason they're doing that because they won't make sure they get input from you, what you're looking for, from our stakeholders, from our parents, from our staff, from our community, from our business leaders, so

that they know what we're looking for. I went through that same process when I was hired ten years ago, and I anticipate that the board will be naming the new superintendent somewhere. They'll start next up. I'm we'll be here all year, but they're going to start officially July one. That happened sometime MIDI year, probably around the holidays, is when they'll actually name that because there's some important things to happen, and that's part of the reason for the timing.

Our strategic plan runs through twenty twenty five. This is twenty twenty five, so to me, it made sense for our next superintendent needs to lead our next strategic plan for what that looks like in the future, so we need to get that person in place. Obviously, there'll be some personnel decisions to make. Also, we're in line to have our next bond issue probably around this time year next year, which obviously our new superintendent needs to be

involved with that. We'll have things lined up for that person as well. And I'll just tell you we've got a great internal candidate. Well that she's ready and I've worked hard to get her ready, and she'll apply, but she's going to have to prove that she's the best person for the job, just like I had to do ten years ago. So anyways, wanted to share that that's kind of the process for what that looks like. I did share that, especially if you have children at Central,

you're probably most more concerned about. Is missus McCauley retiring and so eighth grade Matt teacher, and so she she plans to continue to teach after next year. And so obviously if my wife is getting up and going to work after next year, then that means mister mcauleay's and we get up to going somewhere to work also, so I'll be working for We're not going anywhere. This is our home. I'm gonna be I'm not sure exactly what I'm gonna be doing, but I think I'm young enough

I can bring some value, hopefully to somebody too. So anyway, let's get on. Let's get on in the program. Let's talk about some things. First, of my school board members, do you guys please stand up? I think most of them are here, yeah, so yeah, thank you, Scott Bilger, Andrew Nightingale Kinder Sham, Randy here, and Rick Boswell, Susie Cursey couldn't be here, and Mandy Johnston's our newest board member. Boy that and I've had some great ones, some really

really good school board members. I want to thank you know, Scott, Randy, and Rick in particular. They were on the board when I was hired and they're still here, so I really appreciate them. Scott has been a great friend. We've really I mean, he's pushed me in terms of really doing something to push the district, even times when like my first year running a bond issue when we failed one four years ago, and I just we just reduced all

these positions and I didn't want to do that. I was really worried about that, but he knew that was the right thing to do. That's what we did. We're successful. I really appreciate him as well. And also I think I saw Nicky Benson walk in earlier. She was on the board when I was first hired, and I remember to point out Nikki she really helped me in a lot of ways in the HR world, and so when we have to make some changes and be most efficient, she's really helped guide me and I learned a lot

from her. I wanted to mention her as well. And then next Rick Boswell, Rick, would you come up here? So Rick has been on the board for fifteen years and and yeah, from seller Rick is retiring from the board today, and so Rick is doing that. He knew that he wasn't gonna run the next time it was up to run. He felt it was important for the news board member that's appointed to be part of the selection process for the new superintendent. But he's been on

for fifteen years. I'm known Rick. I used to when I was feel like a different life now when I was a completely back in the nineties when I was a teacher and coach basketball, and he officiated a lot of games for me. So just know that it's always important how you act. And I'm really glad that I didn't get a technical fouls Rick Boswell. Yeah, we've got a little plaque for him. So let's kind over here, let's get a picture of Let's give Rick a hand.

Appreciate Rick. Just an example of Rick. I know when school starts next week, he'll be there at Central helping six graders open their lockers. Speaking of lockers, he does that. So let's talk about let's talk about cell phones. And I think a good thing to think about while we're talking is just think about how many notifications you're getting on your cell phone right now, how many times you're checking your smart watch right now. How many times are

you doing that? I want you to think about that as we go through this, Okay, just be back to be mindful of that. So I brought this book forward to the community, or tried to. I was one of the people that brought us look forward to the community, The Anxious Generation. A year ago, our school board, our administrative team did a book study on it. I think it was on our school board agenda for about ten months in a row. And they're just some and I

really encourage everybody to read it. I've done some community book studies. I know Anti's group. I went to a Don Jennifer and I went to a book study there, a community about the community book study about this as myself and I think about thirteen moms, and we had a great visit and parent support group. We talked about this and really it's just it's some great research, some data that shows us some of the harm of cell phones and social media, some of the impact that's happened

on us. And so I knew a year ago. I announced that the year ago that we needed to do something different. One of the recommendations that came out from the book was kids don't need to have access to their phone at all during school day, which I mentioned last year. I agreed with, but we needed to work through to build some consensus. And although that our legislators or the legislature was making this a priority as well, and they truly actually they made it. They made it

easy on us because they were a state law. And so the way that's going to work, and the biggest change would be at the high school. But kids won't have access to their phone during the day. We have physical lockers at our secondary schools. They'll need to put their phone in their locker during the day. They can get it when they leave at the end of the day.

They also includes things like if you have a smart watch or you know, we all seen people walk around headphones and everything else in the world they're plugged into while they're acting like they're paying attention whatever they're paying attention to. They won't have access to any of those things. Okay, so that's our plan. I know when kids come to school, our administrators will meet with them they do every year and give them the update on how they're going to

manage it. I'm sure we'll have to make some adjustments but we're definitely going to do that. I'm excited about it. I'm excited for our kids to hopefully get a break, just to get a break from that during the day, and we can hopefully help them learn to be present. I think that's important. I think that's a skill the whole world is losing. So I'm excited about that change. Regardless of what you read on Facebook. So on child nutrition, we'll continue. This will be our second year that we

will have free breakfast in lines for all of our kids. Yeah, and so it's been a great thing, and I know our state superintendent says something about this a month ago kind of all schools doing it, which obviously is not happening, but that says nothing to do with that. We started this last year. We're going to continue with that. But also kind of related to cell phones as well. I know something that's become a problem for us is like

a door dash and it's it's crazy. I mean, I've walked through an office and we have kids on their phone ordering food and it comes up and they go get it and it's just ridiculous. Sorry, it just it is. And it's been a problem in terms of kids being out of the classroom. I mean, we got to make an order. Let my door is let what do you mean? I got to go pick up my lunch and come back. And we're not doing that anymore. So what here's the situation is we've got free free food breakfast and lunch

for every kid. Even if you don't want to eat that, that's fine. Bring your own, that's great because bring bring your own food, just like we all did growing up. And mom and dad, if they forgot their lunch, then you can bring it up to them. That's fine too. But we're not going to do any of the third party delivery anymore. And also, and I know we all know some people that maybe do some Gordash delivery. Some of the folks that are delivering door dash, I don't

want them at school. I don't want them here. They can go someplace else and deliver. So anyway, I just wanted to update everybody about that going off with the bank here my last year. So there we go. Yeah, our this is our academic calendar. Just in case you didn't know. Make sure we're not gonna have any virtual days this year period. There's not gonna be any before

we had. I know some of your happiest some of your place had we've in the past, we've had recent years we've had three days that were scheduled that were on the calendar. You knew when they're coming. We try to back up, back them up to holidays, and we use those professionally for some men service and meeting times

as well. We'll not have those. Those we all be in person days as well as if we do have some we need to cancel school because the weather or whatever the situation might be, those will not be virtual days either. Those are gonna be. All we're gonna have is in person days. We'll have five days, five days built into the calendar if we need to, so we've got five days. If we miss ver snow or whatever, the kate or ice or who knows what, then we've

got those built into the calendar. We'll have a couple of days in the spring that if it goes beyond that, because sometimes it does, we'll see what kind of winter we have. But like Good Friday and then the Friday before Memorial Day, if necessary, we would change those to

a in person instruction day if necessary. And then if we go beyond seven days, what we would do is we would add some time to our calendar in the fourth quarter so that we can because we know it's important to staff, to community, to family, to parents, that we end on that last day. We don't go beyond moral day because people have plans. Let's talk about a resource officer. Will you, guys and gals, please stand up. We thank you, thank you. I think we just have

one new officer this year. The rest of them are returning, so we've gone from having two or three school resource officers back when, back before the Uvaldy incident. Basically, now that we have one, we have a full time officer armed at every school, and we have two right here at Borlsville High School. And they all want to be here, they want to be part of our school, and they truly are making a difference. This is an example of

our city partnership. I really appreciate our city council folks and Mike Bailey for helping us make that happen, Chief Ackleberry, because it's truly a difference make here. I think it gives a tremendous sense of peace to I think parents, staff, neighbors all of us, and it's truly a great thing. But now we'll mentioned while I've have talking about the city, so the resource officers, this is directly we wouldnt coudn't do this about the City of Bartlesville. Really appreciate them.

Second thing I wanted to mention as well is our active facility sits on what was city land, so we wouldn't that location wouldn't be there without the collaboration of our city of Barblesville. And in last, something that's near and dear to my heart this last year is at Central Middle School Earl Sears Park, which is north of there that playground egg or two. You may not have noticed it, but there's been one. Earl had one house

that he didn't get rid of thirty years ago. Back during that process presented Seiers Earl serious principal series and so we were finally able to acquire that house. A city tour down for us, Line Foundation help us pay for a district paid for us. Some other corporate folks did as well. And if you didn't notice that it was on Delaware, good, I'm glad that you didn't notice that. But it's one of those things kind of like when you have a spot on your shirt you're always looking at.

You're the only one that notice this. It drove me crazy every day I drove down and it's not there anymore. So thank you City of ARLs Wild for turning. And if you've been around for a minute and remember when there were houses on that park, I really encourage you to make an appointment with Earl Sears and listen to him tell you the story about how he was able to make that happen where that's that's truly a park and a playground for our kids. I can't imagine not

having a playground. But we didn't. Okay, one to mention too, just overall on our's on the academic side, from our Advanced Placement program from the College Board, we've been recognized for outstanding access as well as performance on their test and what we're talking about AP program. Advanced Placement kids take college level classes, they take tests. At the end this past year, our kids took almost seven hundred tests, and so that's more than I've been here twenty five years.

We've never been close to that. The number continues to grow. That's a great resource for our kids. And actually the district is picking up the cost of those AP tests. We've been doing that now. I think this is our third year to do that, so have a very robust program. We're one of a handful of schools that have been recognized by the College Board because of how many kids we have in the program and how well they're doing.

As well. Our STEM program, which is truly our science, Technology, Engineering, in math. We solidified that program and it's truly our belcal really proud of it. Science is a very important part of Bartlesville are always has been and you know it always will and so we are very invested True to Credit Union, I mean the True to Credit Union Foundation.

They helped us tremendously with that over the years, and also I want to mention them, they were the biggest donor for our school Resource Officer program as well the Phillips sixty six, our innovation labs, you know, Comico Phelips has helped us on new things that go along with that. And so it's really just part of what we do and it's something that the whole community should be proud of because when we're trying to hire and we're trying to hire folks into they make sure that we know

that we have that resource. There's only nineteen distinguished districts in the country and Bartlesville is one of them. So something that we should all be proud of. Mar FFA program. I was talking to Marty Jones. Alright, but Marty, are you here? Marty, stand up? I know I saw you earlier. Is there any other ACT teachers here? Okay, yeah, it's Cameron and Julie. We have four four I got so I'll just mentioning you guys know this. We didn't have

a we started at in twenty nineteen. We hired Marty and gave him a classroom and said good luck, and so we had truthfully, we had we but uh, there's so many kids that were interested in it. It's wonderful program. You know, we now have the terms of their facility. We just hired their fourth. We now have four full time ACT teachers that started. It's one of the biggest programs in the state, which if you think about where we sit in Oklahoma, why wouldn't we have that many.

It's taken at we've expanded to the seventh grade level. They've done a great job. Really proud of everything that they do. Aviation Actually High Tower is here one of our actually just going to stand up, there's actually this will be our fourth year of aviation that we're starting, actually has a full load with that. She does a great job, continues to go to training to be up to speed. We jumped on that opportunity. Appreciate Track County Tech for offering the aviation mechanics side of it. We

think that's a great partnership. It's the second largest employer in the state, so really proud of their expansion. Construction Doug Boudreau is Doug, mister Boudreaux here. That Duck is Nathan here, Nathan England. Yeah, so yeah, so so Doug, the guy that has the glasses on. We hired him last year we started construction class. And the reason we started that, and this is an example. We've always felt like barlsl was done a good job the paring kids for college. But we have a lot of kids that

aren't going to college, and that's okay. There's a lot of great things that they can do, a lot of great careers, and we'll make sure we're preparing them for that process. And we had kids that are always interested in the carpentery program. Construction program at tried Canty Tech, but we had a waiting list and so after visiting with doctor Strobel, we talked about us starting our own program. We did that. We hired Doug Boudreau who's actually has

an engineering degree. He's teaching fifth grade over at Ranch Heights and we hired him to start this. And this is a picture of him and his class which was which was right back that direction. It expanded. We've we've added a different additional class for that too. We had somebody enrollment think around one hundred and fifty. We need hire a second teacher, and that's Nathan England. Nathan's been

with the district for several years. It's been history teacher for us, helps coach football and helps helps tennis as well. And so his wife, Jennifer teaches over at Ranch Heights as well. So we've had a second teacher that we moved them over into what was the original act building ACTIM moved over the new facility, so if they have that additional space as well. So really excited about that

opportunity for our kids. And then also we mentioned just on the fine art side, Chris and Heather came here our band folks here. Yeah, those is a Heather. He didn't stand up there you go ome uh obviously we're We're heavily ours Martlesville is heavily invested in the arts. We always will be as part of It's part of what we do.

two different UH instruments, which is pretty amazing too. So anyway, really proud of everything that they UH bring to our district. And then obviously the athletic end. We have everything in the world that's going on. It's an exciting time. I was talking to coach write earlier. Our cheerleading team that has been going across country has literally been running UH a lot uh early as well. Volleyball. I know I came by and watched them scrimmage a little bit against

Ponka City yesterday. Our softball team, that's that's going right now. They've been in the state, they've been to us the last two years and three different state tournaments. Have a really strong team coming back for next year and then football obviously they'll get started next week and we hope to Our football locker room is right over here. We have some new lockers for them. We got their locker room set up and we hope to have that ready

for you for people that wanted to see. But it's not quite clean enough for you to see it yet, unfortunately, because it was gonna be the one time you can see it, but maybe and smell it before it started smelling like a locker.

It's been about three years ago, maybe four years now, where we've gotten more more opportunities for our kids electives at the seventh grade level, and really we've done that which has helped us in athletics and fine arts and all the things. I know. Mister Kane keeps telling me we need to get some bigger band rooms out the high school. And so these are great problems to have. We talked about the lockers for the football locker room. We're doing that because we didn't have enough lockers for

all of our kids. It's a great problem to have. We have more kids playing than we ever have. And and my point is, I just want them invest. I just want them doing something, whatever that is. I don't care what it is. I just want them to be involved with something here at school where they have an adult that cares about them, that could help help guide them and help mold them, bring them along along. Speaking

of that, this is a leader in me. You might have heard something about how many folks are familiar with the seven habits of highly affective people. You guys have probably probably heard something about that maybe at your church,

maybe you've been through some training with that too. We are implementing that with the help of our public school foundation across the district, and so really last year we started in the summer, all of our school board member or most of our school board members and administrators went through training. We trained our teachers last year. We'll be in some of our elementary schools. They already started rolling

it out a year ago. I know, I get to hear about it when I'm at Richard Kane Elementary with Miss Cross. But really what we're working on doing is developing more work ready and life ready habits, because I can tell you even before that pandemic, one of the biggest challenges we had at a school, all schools had across the country was just this extreme behaviors at younger kids' ages that we used to not see. And I

think the pandemic just made things worse. I mean it was because people were alone more and they came in kind of take them to school and say here you go. And so we think it's important to help with that, I mean, so to help get them life ready, because that's not the real world. We need to make sure that they're ready to for that next step when they when they get there, really excited about that process as well. Anthony Tucker Tuck is here. Anthony Tucker is right there.

Anthony Stetup sants staff. So Anthony is a yeah, I'm your favorit high school frien. So I can tell you that now you can sit down. So Anthony's a two thousand and seven graduate. But he's the guy if you're interested in getting a kid having hosting an intern. We have I don't know about one hundred and fifty or so that are in that, but Anthony's the guy that will help you get coordinated. He has an office here in this building and he's everywhere. It's doing a tremendous job.

Our new Teacher Academy, which LaDonna Chancellor, she's really spearheading the leader in me as well as our new Teacher Academy. We're starting our fourth year with that, LaDonna. I think that's right. Is that right there? There? She is? And we've had the teachers that have gone through our program. In terms of that when we retention piece, eighty five percent of teachers have gone through our New Teacher Academy the last four years are still with us so we've

invested heavily with them. They're training throughout the year. What's exciting this year is we only have twenty We have twenty teachers this year. This is their first year to teach. Now, minds you we have close to four hundred and fifty teachers and how that compares to recent years. We had over forty brand new teachers the past three years, So

our retention level is improving. That that part and the big piece of that is this when we get them, we're training them because a lot of our teachers will coming to us with less training because there's fewer folks majoring in education. Really proud of that program. Try County Tech is Julian Bryant here, Thank goodness for Julie Brian Jaylie. Julie Bryant runs out Try County Tech. She runs our

childcare program. And so now we've done this with a partnership with help from our Vest, the our Vest Foundation. Our teachers get a fifty percent discount for childcare, which, as you know, childcare is very expensive if you have more than one kid, It's why would you be in the classroom, you know, because it's so expensive too. So they get a fifty percent discount. This year, we have

twenty eight. Twenty eight little ruins are at Tri County Tech, so I really appreciate their support being able to pull that off for our and also helps prioritize them in getting into the program as well. And just quickly, I just want to talk on bond issues. We've been very successful with that. We've continue to do make improvements across the board. We've had four of those since I've been superintendent. We most likely will have one a year from now.

We'll have kind of the next vote. Our biggest project that we've just finished up from the twenty twenty three bond issue is Ranch Heights Elementary. It's the same project we did a Wayside. It's really exciting. One thing I want to point out you might see the Bruin on there. That's something that we changed a few years ago where we're all Bruins. It's important for our kids to be part of something, and we found that was something because when they have the Bruins come in, you know, it's

a big deal. When the high school kids come in and see them. At Wayside and Ranch Heights, we added ten classrooms for pre kindergarten and kindergarten. We also added just beautiful, beautiful art room and music room that are huge overlooking the playground. And then we've gone through and renovated some spaces office space because they desperately both those places desperately needed some that space as well as a library and library. I would make you the same offer

that I did last year from wayside. Kid's quite a process, as you know when you go through renovation. We had to move everything out of the old library and move into the gym, and then they had to build this building and then move everything out of and then once they got it finished, now we's kind of go through the process of moving everything from the gym into the library and that started like Monday. So it's so anybody that has a concern about elementary library books, here's what

you can do. You can call it Princeville Myers. You can go through and you can look at the book and you can walk it all in the hallway and take it to the librarian saying target. You can do it anytime. Launching okay, and I'm proud to announced we'll have our It was a bruin eight k. This is exciting news. We're gonna make it. It's gonna be the Bruin five k. This just happened. Yes, yeah, send of

my teachers out there that are involved with that. So for hour this we do an after school for our Bruin's on the Run and after school running club for our fifth graders. About twenty five percent of our fifth graders, so over one hundred fifth graders will do this. They do this with we about fifty of our teachers volunteer after school to walk or run with them to get them ready, and at the end they do this race.

We used to do it out at wool Rock eight K, but we had a conflict with some events, and so now we're gonna host our own. It's gonna be here. We're gonna start right up somewhere right around here. It's gonna be a five and we do. That's the picture down there is most of the kids that beat me. We do an I Beat the Superintendent race. The good news is for anybody that's interested in that, I've had a little bit of a health issue earlier this summer, so I'm in the worst shape I've been in running.

So this is the year. So you ever wanted to beat the superintendent, this is going to be the year to do that. But we're excited about that. Also, Jennifer and I we're major sponsor this is this race as well. I took advantage of that text credit just to give you an example of that last year. We're gonna do that again this year. I'll encourage you to think about that as well. And then PTI pasted Independence. I know Claire's here. They're having their big community open houses tomorrow

from four to seven. That's in the old Will Rogers School. If you go to Frank Phillips, you know, past the Starbucks and go over there, they're gonna do that tomorrow from four to seven. Just want to make sure you're aware of that, appreciate our partnership with past Independence. And that's it. That's the last time I'm gonna do this. Thank you so much. It's been a great time to be a Brook Thank you.