Chuck McCauley 'State of the Schools' Speech 8-7-2024

just out of respect for everybody's time. But first of all, I want to thank my beautiful wife. Tomorrow we're going to celebrate our thirty second wedding anniversary, and so I appreciate her putting up with me all that time. Yeah, thank you. And then also I have some family here. I've got a table, my mother in law and a couple of aunts and uncle and brother in law. I

really appreciate my mother in law, Karen Ward. She actually retired teaching from Jane Phillips Elementary and when I went, Jeffer and I went our first day on October eleventh, nineteen eighty six. I was a junior and she was a freshman in high school and Karen and Art. They allowed her to go out on a date with me, and I had was driving a nineteen seventy two Dodge Van that did not have reverse and they knew that. However, after they vetted me during the day during the ou

Texas game, they allowed me to do that. So fortunately we've been together ever since. I appreciate Karen for that as well. And then also she didn't know that the van did not have a spinometer didn't work, and also we didn't have seat belts, and the driver's side door wouldn't shut. You had to kind of hold it while you grow. But don't worry about that one. So anyway,

but those were all facts. It was all happened, and so parents just know that when that someone's dating your spouse, just remember they could They could turn out okay too. So I do un recognize a few other folks too. I know we already thanked the Foundation board appreciate all their work. Blair Ellis is a man that was one of the biggest moves we made for our district when the Foundation board decided to hire an executive director. I know I was a part of that process and really

felt like our foundation could help us more. We're in really tough times at that time in twenty sixteen. She's amazing our school board members. I think I've got several school board members here. If you guys would stand just for a moment, real quick, yeah, I give them a hand. Well, thank you. I appreciate, appreciate their service. We have a great working relationship. A lot of trust has been built, and I appreciate their support. I think Alison Bryant's also here,

a former board member. She was on the board when I was hired, so I appreciate. And there's Alie on the back. Appreciate her opportunity. Nicki Benson, I was also a former board member that was here when I was hired as well. So I appreciate our strong support of our school board. We've got a lot of good things going on, and the big reason has become because of them. Also, I know, I think our partners with the city. I know Mike Bailey's here, where's our city felt. Mike's over

here too. Mike and I he's city manager. We have some parts of our jobs are similar. So we have coffee once a month, and we decided that was cheaper than counseling, so we that's a Stete story. But anyway, I appreciate all of our city. I don't know if I have any Actually, Trevor Dorsy here at Trevor's a city council member, and I was glad to see Trevor reupp for another term as well. And Lauren Roselle was

Lauren here somewhere in the back. To appreciate Lauren, same same towards the same thing for Lauren's or anybody else city council folks to uh, yeah, thank you, I've got yeah. Quinn Shiver, Quinn's over here also was appointed recently and going to re up against appreciate their strong relationship that we have. I know city attorney Just Cain. I think I saw Will Drake, our district attorneys here as well. So a couple of things with the city and our

relationship that I want to bring to light. One would be our agriculture facility which is right across the street, which i'll talk to you a little bit about more. That was on city land. So we that was quite a process to get to determine where to put that because there's limited options obviously where that's going to be. Thinking about where our kids are and so it really

turned out to be the perfect space for us. And then secondly, our school resource officers, would you guys go ahead and stand up, And that's not all of them. We actually have ten. We'll have one at every school. We're gonna have two at Bartlesville High School. Prior to UVOLDI we had two or three. So with our city, we made a tremendous investment with that. They knew how important it was to have armed, trained Bartlesville police officers and our schools on a daily basis, and they are wonderful.

The city provides those officers for us the district. We pay for seventy five percent of their contract, which is when they're with us, and it's a great partnership and that's something we're to continue. Police Chief Kleberry is a big part of that. His wife, Carrie Ekleberry's our safety directors. So couldn't thank our city, could thank them more. From where we are right now. I also want to thank our legislators. I know I've got some former legislators here.

I know that Senator Ford and Earl Sears. Give those guys a hand, please thank you. And then our current legislators I know that we have Senator Daniels and Representative Kane and Representative Strong, they're right over here. They always they're strong supporters of us, and I unfortunately recently we've been in contact a lot, and they are very responsive to me, just so that you know, to try to help.

They're just trying to help us, try to kind of help our state department work out some inefficiencies that we're having to deal with with them. But they are very responsive. Matter of fact, I've communicated with them as just as soon as this morning, as well as last night, and I think the day before, so I appreciate. But they are really here to serve our folks too. I appreciate that too. Also, former Representative DRYL. Fincher is also on

the back to because I'll see them back there. I didn't miss anybody who apologize pologize with called will I mean. I also wanted to mention Bars of Education promise their foundations here. They've got two tables. They're big supporters of our schools and really what they do a lot of their funding is tied to really paying our teachers to work outside their contract to help our kids, which is great. So we really appreciate all of their support as well. And then lastly, I want to thank all of our

all of our Bruin family, all of our employees. Whether you're a would you go ahead stand if you're a current or former working for Bartsville School, even if your paycheck come from Sedeka, if you work at a school, would you guys stand up? Than we really appreciate it. We really have. We have good people. I mean, you know them. We're here, they're your neighbors. And so those people you go to church with or you serve with,

I mean, so they're just they're here to serve. I really appreciate all their support and it's a it's a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to be able to serve our students, our staff, in our community. There's a couple of things I wanted to announce kind of before

I get into some updates. And the first thing is I've been asking questions recently regarding the state superintendent, and if you are not familiar, it would be natural to think, oh, my gosh, we have an elected state superintendent and he can has the authority to tell all schools what they need to be doing. And then folks like me are going to do that. Well, that's not actually the case. So there are some there are some things obviously that I highly respect that office to a member of the

state board. They have some issues regarding accreditation rules, some things that come luck that do impact us. But what we really count for that department is is to be efficient in terms of our funding. You know, the state funding flows through them, Federal funding flows through them to us, and that's what I've been working with our legislators to help with. But we actually have a local board that

has board policy, and we have one board policy. It's called Religion in Schools and it was adopted in two thousand and eight, and it's the same thing that we've been following, and it's the same thing that we're going to continue to fall can continue to follow. So please do not be concerned about things announcements that have come from the state superintendent recently, because there's been some things come out that just aren't that's not within our local

board policy. What our local board policy dictates is, sure, the Bible is a historical documents. Sure there's some tie to some Oklahoma academic standards in history. Sure we sing some religious music during Christmas. Sure our kids can have a student led club and study the Bible. Sure FCA can be We do all those things and we agree with wholeheartedly. However, there's some other things that come out

about that has been said. We're not trying to change history or any of those things, but there's some other things coming out that we need to have some Bibles and chemistry classes. I mean all these different classes and there's no ties in Oklahoma academic standards. So that's not where we are. So I've told my staff, my leaders. We talked about neurolig July really those things, and I know it can be you can get whipped up about

on social media about that. You know. I know one thing is nothing is going to get solved on social media and so and I really hate to even bring things forward because it just ends up being it brings attention to some comments that just aren't accurate. I mean, they're just not going to happen, but people will get whipped up about it. So, but what I told our folks was those statements that came out that directed that's for us, for BARBISO schools, that's a non event. So

that's where we are related to that. And I'll also tell you because I do. Mark mentioned I was appointed to be on the super State superintendent Advisory council. We've had I was on the previous Superintendent's council. We had regular meetings. We've had one meeting this year. We met on January thirtieth, and that's the last time we met.

And so you know, and I've got questions. So I know, I've requested the last three weeks for us to get together so that we can have a meeting, like in person, not from when you know, not a video thing or not from some ways in their car. I want to be able to have a conversation because I have questions about some of these things that have come out. Unfortunately, I haven't been given an opportunity to have to ask

those questions, but hopefully one day we will. But anyway, I just wanted to It's really a little more that I wanted to talk to about the state Superintendent. But I just wanted you to be aware of that we continue to respect the office and move forward with our district. Another thing I want to talk to you a little bit about is cell phones and social media that we all deal with, Okay, and it has really changed in

all of our lifetimes. But I know that Tulsa Public in Bixby has made some announcements regarding cell phones, but really those aren't anything different than what we're already doing or what we're already supposed to be doing here, okay, in terms of not using them during instructional time. My friend James Sears, she recommended to me at the beginning of the summer to read this book, The Anxious Generation.

I encourage everybody in here, if you have children, if you work with someone that was born after nineteen ninety nine, I will encourage you to read this book. There are things in it that it really was profound statements. I have shared this book with all of our school board. We're going to be studying it over the following months, all of our administrators. We're going to do a book

study over and over the following months. And there's it's nothing that would surprise you, but there's some concerning things and some things that a couple of things that I just wanted to share to bring to light that I want you to think about because I can't from my chair and say, Okay, we're all of a sudden going to do this, and it's going to make things better regarding social media and cell phones. Okay, it's going to

take all of us. So I want to share this with you and a few of the recommendations that have come out, one of which I agree with is having where kids don't have access to their cell phone during school. And so now that's going to take some That's one thing to say, but that's a big thing to do, and that's going to take a lot of work to make that happen. There's some infrastructure that needs to be

in place. But that's one recommendation in the book. It has some recommendations for schools, has some recommendations for parents, has some recommendations for government tech companies as well. Because it's a big issue. But a couple of things that I think will hit home with you that I know that hit home with me. I'm not going to get too deep into the woods. But one thing that they mentioned was a twenty twenty three study. We have college

age students. Just last year, kids that were in college, two thirds of them feel anxious at least half the time. That's real. Also, from twenty ten to twenty twenty, adolescent girlst the number of self harm that those girls that amount has increased three times threefold. So that's something to be aware of. Okay, I'm not saying it's all. There's some information in the book and you may or may not disagree with, but at least it's a starting point,

and so I encourage you to read it. I encourage you to think about that and think about how we can work to make things better. I know the advent. I think about the first phone that I had. You guys can probably relate back to your first cell phone, the good old days and then when all of a sudden you had access to everything in the world on your phone. But there's some challenge that has come up

with that. You think about when an iPhone was an invented in two thousand and seven, think about twenty ten when that part of that came with a forward facing phone. And at the same time it's came up with things like Instagram and where people take pictures of themselves all the time and you're sharing it all the time, and you're always thinking about does someone like that? Does someone comment? Think about it if you're thirteen, and that's how you're getting

your information. So there's some real challenges that come along with that. I think that we've got some generations of kids and some young adults that have are losing the ability to be fully present. I see that every day I go out to dinner and you see families together and nobody's looking at their phone. I mean to be fully present with one another. So anyway, that's something that I would encourage. You're gonna be hearing more of us talk about it because it's gonna take a bigger investment.

But the four recommendations that this gentleman makes in his book is one is no cell phone in the schools. Two as kids don't need a don't need a smartphone until they're in high school. There's no reason for them to have a smartphone until they're fourteen. Another recommendation that he makes is they don't need to have access to social media until they're sixteen. Think about that. And the last thing, which is is a bigger component is more

childhood experience is more unsupervised. More they need to be outside planned. They need to be able to figure things out with each other, not just tied to their phone. Because you think about a lot of folks when you're visiting with them, really they may be interacted with you or acting like they're paying attention, but they're really thinking about their whole social metaverse on who's commenting on what, who said what, and these pictures of these people that

aren't real because they're filtered. I mean, that's what you're supposed to look like. That's not real. And so it's gonna take all of us to make this better. And I don't want to sit here and say, Okay, well, all of a sudden gonna not have cell phones in schools and that's gonna fix everything. But it's gonna take all of us to work to make this and so I want to make it, help make it better. I want to be helping part of the process. It's gonna take all of us. So now onto my program. So

it's first of all talking about enrollment history. This is the last five years. Big takeaway here. On the last day of school this year in May, we had three hundred and twenty more kids than we did on the last day of school five years ago. That's significant, especially when you think about our town. Hasn't the population hasn't shifted that much. It's in required our board, our administrators, our construction company, our dan kelliher our community to make

some changes. We needed some more classroom space. We had too many we had, our student teacher ratio wasn't good enough had some of our elementaries. We needed some more space. So they quickly just in February our last bond issue. On Valentine's Day of twenty twenty three, a bond issue is passed and then here we are right now, we're moving into Wayside Elementary today. We're gonna be moving into Ranch Highest a year from now. So that's a lot of work that goes on to make that happen. So

I'm really proud of all those efforts. With that, I've already mentioned our school resource officers, but that's just another picture of them in terms of big change of our district. I really appreciate our cities support with that. A big challenge that we have is with new teachers. There are fewer folks going in education, and a lot of labor has different challenges. Labor. There's a lot of labor challenges in our world, really and it's driving a lot of things.

But with us, if you happen to see the Tulsa World yesterday, they had a story about Tulsa public schools who start at school in August twentieth and they have one hundred and thirty vacancies, and so their board adopted something on Monday where they're going to allow folks, if you're twenty one, about halfway three year degree and I've worked with kids for a year or two, then we're going to pay you to be a teacher. Which is

terrible that that's the case, but they've got to do something. Okay, we are fully staffed by the way, I want to mention that, but the reality is there's fewer folks going into a profession now. So what we've done is we've decided, let's do something about this. We've started a new teacher academy. LaDonna Chancellor is responsible for it. What we do with that, Our teachers come in like right now when we're doing

some training. Those folks that have not taught. Maybe they warrant education majors like I was, to learn about the classroom. But the reality is they don't know what they don't know. So therefore we go throughout the year and get them substitutes where they can all visit experienced teacher classrooms, bring them back together, give them an opportunity to give ask a panel questions to get feedback. We do an after

action review. Colonel Flowers will be proud of me there after everyone where we study that and that's the best thing that they do is that feedback from experienced teachers. So the last two years combined teachers have gone through that program, we've retained eighty eight percent of them. So it's a heavy investment if you think about substitutes. Our first year we got forty two teachers go through it

for one day. With the subs that's the one hundred dollars that comes out to about about four thousand dollars. So it's a heavy investment and you think about that impact on the subtool for your schools. But it's something that we're doing has been very successful. We're going to continue with that. Also, so that you know, we have a job fare every semester because we make sure that

we're available. We have it right here in this room after hours, and so there's folks that maybe they're staying home with children, or maybe they're thinking about a second career. They want some more informational I thought this is something that I would like to do when they can come and visit with us, get them connected with principles, get them connect with HR and how they could go about helping us one day. So help spread the word with

that of that's something that might be of interest. Childcare for teachers. Our friends that try County Tech really appreciate them. They do it one wonerful job at our career Tech system over there, but they have a childcare program. Childcare is an issue and so what they have done they made change is where they've prioritized our teachers where they

can get into the program. And then from help from along with help from the r Vest Foundation, we now this year are going to offer a fifty percent discount for our teachers. There's gonna be twenty four. I think it's twenty fours, the last number that I have. We have several kid teachers, kids that are enrolled in that program and that's helping keeping our teachers in the classroom. So it's a tremendous asset for our staff. Pasta independense

is Claire Year Claire Barley. Yeah, but Claire's wonderful. I just wanted to mention PTI, which is our local school for kids actually up through twenty one, folks with autism. We work with them. It's a private school. They are great. They're in what was Will Rogers Elementary, and I know they've revamped the facility, but I just want to brag

on Claire. We partner with them. We have kids that go back and forth, and you know, if we decide that, if the team decides that's what's best for the kid, if they're a Bartol students, then that's where they go, or vice versas. We work with them. I just wanted to brag on Claire. I also get a question occasionally. There's a tax credit law that changed a couple of years ago where if you choose to send you a kid to a homeschool or private school, there's a tax credit.

And I know when that first happened, had several people ask me, gosh, how's that impacting your enrollment. Are you gonna lose a bunch of kids. I was like, well, I don't know, we'll see. You saw our enrollment, but actually ran the numbers from the last two years combined, so we had eighteen kids, and which is fine. Families choose to do that. I know will towards me that they need to do what's best for them. But we had eighteen kids go from so far combined that went

from here, Barslow Public schools to Western Christian or Saint John's. Well, we've had fifty two go from those same schools to us, so it really hasn't been much of an impact at all. So I just wanted to share that piece in case you're interested. We have an elementary out lists program. One of our biggest challenges is our students coming out of the pandemic. Is our behaviors of especially younger kids, really just more mature than what they were before. That's just reality.

And we've got some kids that have experienced severe trauma and they really struggle behaviorally. So what we've done is we have six different elementary schools. We go through a process where they can be at one place. At Ranch Heights Elementary, Heather Boil was with and she's an experienced teacher. She's got married. I can't remember her new name now, but Heather's Heather Boil. We have an assistant Grand Lake is also their partners. They have full time staff and

working with the kids. These kids can do well academically, but they struggle just getting along with others. And so it's been very successful on getting kids back into that regular classroom, something we didn't have before, but being very successful. Appreciate Grand Lake with that is housed at Ranch Heights Elementary. We'll talked a little bit about our redefining ready. We're always our goal has been to get ready for kids, ready for college and career, but now also just getting

ready for life. Ready this new world that we're living, and that's important. We need to make sure you don't have to go to college, and there's lots of different options outside of college to be successful. I want to talk about a few of those right now. One of the things that we're doing, we're going to implement leader in Me curriculum for our kids. And what that is. How many folks are familiar with seven habits of highly effective people? Okay, this is exactly what it is. They have.

We've been working, We've had professionals come in and work with our teachers, work with challenging behaviors, and one of the recommendations was, you guys are ready to implement leader in Me at your schools, and so that's what we're gonna do. We went through this summer all of our board, all of our administrators, about four of our board members went through training, which we as leaders, we've been using this for years now, literally, but this was helpful. We

want to get them on board. We're gonna be training our teachers over the next year and so we're gonna be rolling that out. We started our elementary schools in the next year, and so we think our kids need that. I know that our kids, I know. That's why I'm passionate about obviously the academic side, but I'm also passionate about our kids just being involved. I want them to be involved. They need to learn how to deal with others. They need to be It's okay to you know, I

was a banded practice yesterday. It's okay to you got to show up to be somewhere at seven am. You know, if coach writ says practice starts at three, you need to be there. I mean, those things are important and we all need that. So this isn't something else because we can, you know, kind of cry at the moon about our kids behavior and expect something different to happen. But that seems pretty dumb to me. I want to do something about it. So that's what we're going to do.

We're going to be implementing that across the board. On the academic side, I want to brag about our AP program. Our college Board, they've recognized us for placement, access, diversity, and performance. And when I talk about diversity, I'm talking about girls in computer science. We've been recognized just a handful of schools and the state have received that we can do better with girls in STEM. There are so

many jobs and opportunities for girls. And the way we change that is here at school where they can have success here and really open up that door. So really excited about those girls being involved with that. Here's the numbers with our AP program, they have truly exploded. I know that the charts a little bit hard to read, but the key takeaways are in twenty twenty one, we had one hundred and thirty six one three six kids enrolled in our AP program. This past year we had

the three hundred and ninety eight. And what research tells you if you want to graduate from college in four or five years, as parents are thinking, yes, I do you want them to be academicate prepared. This is the best thing that they need to be enrolled in is being enrolled in one of these classes. So we've had tremendous in terms of how well who's enrolled, how many tests are taking, and also their performance. Last year, we had almost twice as many kids past the test that

were even enrolled in the class two years previous. I hope you enjoyed the food today. I am police announced. We made an announcement at the beginning of the summer that every kid in the district will have free breakfast and free lunch every kid every store. There's a change in the direct certification process that caused our numbers to get to a point where could do it wasn't gonna cost the district. And also doctor Stephanie Curtis or is overfederal programs, who is a wizard, is in charge of

that program. I mean, so we were so thankful that we're gonna be able to offer that. Those of you that have you're a coach or a sponsor, you have kids thinking about field trips, that includes field trips in terms of sending foods with them. I mean, they have the opportunity to do that because you really save some money. So when they go to pumpkin patch or whatever it is they're going to do, or a band trip or whatever, let's make sure. We're to have that dialed in to

use that as well. Our interns. We talked a little bit about that. Anthony Tucker two thousand and seven graduated. You stand, please stand up, Anthony yep. Anthony is I'm his favorite high school principal. Anthony's in charge of our internship program. He's housing this building. He asked for me to share. If any of you guys have interns, which I does several of you do, if you'll stop by the Freshman Academy office, you can do a quick background

check to get that knocked out before school starts. That would be great. Also, if you're interested in having an intern, Anthony's your person. He's your person you need to visit with. I'd like for all our kids to have that experience, to get that in terms of that being life ready, I mean some of that, to see what that's like. We've got great lots of stories across the board from how beneficial it's been for our kids to get that experience while they're here in high school. Our STEM program

I talked to you a little bit about. In terms of our girls, I'm pretty passionate about our girls being more involved in STEM to get them ready, but we are a project to lead the way distinguished district. There are twenty of those in the country. We have the premier program in the region. There's the only one in the state of Oklahoma. What that means is we are heavily invested our elementary teachers. It's a heavily investment in terms of training. It's a lot of work for them

because that's how they that's their science curriculum. They spend most of their time on reading in math, as you would think in elementary school secondary schools. I think I've got some let's say, Jeremy Williams. I mean it's Amy My stem teachers here. Yeah. Yeah, So they do tremendous things in terms of including we now offer four different levels up in computer science, including cybersecurity, our TSA program, our Technology Student Association program. You might have seen some

recent reports from them. They're doing amazing things. Matter of fact, I got some kids here, would you guys stand up where they Yeah? So this is uh is this is Jonathan Live Yeah, yeah, riding Wedday added thorns Isabelle Fordon. They were recently on a stage in Orlando last month. They're off. They were state champions and their competition TSA and and how about there's three there's three girls over there. How about that that's a good thing. So really, yeah,

it's uh, you can stand it to one. You can say to you lave yeah, but it's really uh, it's really a tremendous program. Very proud obviously with our innovation labs that we have strong partnerships with Phillips fifty six Conico Phillips, how we've been able to continue to invest in our case aviation program. Actually high talk as would you please stand okay? Actually is our avation teacher, and I'll get lots of questions about aviation. This is our

third year to have the program. And so if you're interested in that, Ashley is the person you want to visit with. I know Mark talked about some of the items with Mark or maybe that was Blair. In terms of simulators, this is a third year we've offered it. We have a full section, I mean full offerings of aviation one. It's the second largest employer in the state of Oklahoma, so we'll make sure we're offering that curriculum.

Kevin Potter's on the State Aviation Commission. He's really responsible for getting that information, get that getting getting us involved, and so we've jumped on it. So we have a we've renovated a space where we do have some flight simular just really really good stuff. Really excited about that program, our AGG program. I know Martin Jones Worth Marty Martin stand up, Okay the good Yeah, get Martin him. They just had their number two son a week ago and

he showed up today. So that's good. Appreciate that. But no, we hired to talk about a success story we did not have. We started AGG in twenty nineteen and then this past year they were named the Premier Chapter at the National f FA Condition of FFA Convention for Growing Leaves, the national they won that award nationally those one and also we're second as national runner up and Model of

Excellence division. And we started that program. We hired the best teacher we could and we had a classroom fight upstairs. That was it. And so then here we are. We got some other things facility wise that I'll talk to you about. We have two other teachers, Cameron Dale and Asha Darsa, who are readily are hurtly getting their rooms ready because I let them know that I'm gonna let all of our staff go through their facility on Monday, so they figured they'd better getting ready for that. But

I am so impressed with the program. Not something I was involved with growing up, but the US. There's a lot of I'd call it a very traditional or very old school, which is okay. What I'm most impressed with is the leadership qualities that these kids have as well as their public speaking. These are the kind of kids that you want to hire right here. They're involved in their act program, construction. We're gonna start a construction class. I love try County Tech, our career Tech, but we can't.

We have some about two hundred kids that go there every day, but they have their carpentry program. We'll get about fifteen kids in. We have more kids that want it. So I visited with Tammy and the team, and we knew that we had more kids. You know, we've talked about career opportunities. There's lots of opportunities to make a great, great living without going to college. And so we're gonna start a class right here. We had over one hundred

kids requested where's Doug Boudreau Duck stand up? Doug is taught for us at Ranch Heights. He's an engineer by trade and he's gonna be teaching the class. We're gonna start with carpentry class because we felt like that was something they can kind of hit all the trades, learn some things from them about that to get that, and we plan to continue to build that program out kind of our long range vision, which is going to take

us some time. But what I'd love to be able to do is build a house every year, and so we can get to that point where we can do that too. It's really excited about offering that construction class here at Barbersville High School. On the fine art side, I know I talk a lot about because we have new things with STEM and AG, but very strong into the fine arts. You know, our music program are outstanding.

Chris and Heather Kine are here. There are new band directors, and Chris let me know last spring that we're not gonna have enough room at the high school because we had so many middle school kids that are taking band. I said, well, that's a wonderful problem I look forward to dealing with here in a few years. This is a picture. There are all stadors up above and then the band sweep stakes below. But our band orchestra, inquire our top notcheck opportunities and kids. It's another another thing

for kids to be involved with. It's a great thing period athletics. We've got These are pictures of some of our fall activities that we have going on. I've got some kids here. I think I've got some state champion kids. Here is is Wesley Turner? Did he make it? Where's that's Wesley? Wesley is a freshman. He actually is gonna be a sophomore, and he says it's pretty good story. So Wesley, Wesley won the state pole ball championship and the last time somebody at this level won the poll

ball championship. His name is Joe Dial and he was in the Olympics, so that's a pretty big deal. His sister just graduated from US. She was a state champion as well. She's going to West She used to run on across country team. And I can brag on him now because I know his parents will keep him humbled and they will keep him working hard. And now I'm miss Turner. That's exactly right. I know that too. Anna Young, I think I got a swimmer state championship. Is Anna here?

And yeah, that Yeah, Anna is also going to be a sophomore. She won, I believe she won every ray she swam at the state swim meet as a freshman. We also invited Addison Howise to join us. She's a sophomore going to be a junior. Did the same thing. So it's a as my son was a college swimmer, something familiar. I kind of know what those times mean when I see that, and so when I saw a fast she could swim a five hundred, I mean, it's

it's unbelievable. It's really really talented. Those kids work really hard, and once again on the athletic d that's more kids involved. That's why we may change is our middle school where we can make it more accessible, get him involved in seventh grade, to get them tied to an adult because it's important. I know, I've got coach Price here. We had an exciting announcement from our baseball program. You know, Jacob Hall, one of our graduates, was he was drafted

by the Minnesota Twins. Cody's actually our pitching coach and he is awesome. So just know that we have that resource here. It does a really good job. Is a Jacob's mom, she's an assistant force over at Wayside. Just good good people as well. These are all some of our fall sports. I know. Coach Right is back here

and that's the hardest work command in show business. That's the only guy I know that would buy a house literally right next to the school so he could be here more efficiently because he's here all the time and it really has paid a difference for our youth program and he's all invested with our community. We have so many kids participating now, it's wonderful and our time's coming.

Just our time's coming with that too. Wanted you to know that as well, and we didn't mention it here, but you know, we've got some very strong relationships thinking about like some of our programs with tennis and golf and some of those other sports that we have that we're fortunate to have some facilities here in town in additional instruction. With a lot of positive things going on. It's really excited about the school year getting started. And

then Bruin's on the run. Blair talked about that just a little bit. But we've made a chef typically it's been we've partnered it and we finished that race. It's an after school running club for fifth graders. They start usually around Labor Day and it ends in October and they run the wool Rock eight K. We had over one hundred kids fifth graders do that. Over fifty teachers volunteer their time and run with them. It is really cool. Jennifer and I sponsored that race heavily so that all

of our employees can participate at a reduced rate. We'll have over two hundred employees participate. It's awesome. Well, this year it's going to be during fall break, which is not great for school folks, So we are going to have our own eight K. It's going to be on October the twelfth. The Foundation is going to put it on Blair. It's gonna be great into Blair. It's going to be fun. These are they did I beat the superintendent and those are two. That's let's see, that's Madison

des Madison Dennis and Kensley Minton. Those are two of the two. Those were several two of the fifth grade girls are both in the class out of Wilson. They both were very happy that they beat me in that race. Since so we'll do that again. I think we had over twenty overall, including some younger ones. Beat me as well, although Blair's haven't raced for kindergartener yet, but three kids all could be me pretty easily. But we look forward to doing that as well. We still offer a virtual

school option to get offered that. It's about one percent of our population, which to me is about right. But we have a Cane elementary. We've got two full time teachers that work with elementary families that want that, and as long as families want that and we can staff it, we're going to provide it. And so it's a good opportunity that way. Kids can they can still do that and come and you know, if they want to be in our elected programs, it's a good fit for them.

We'll continue to offer that. It's Richard Kane Elementary Central Middle School. And then here at the high school, talk a little bit about our strong community support. Thank you. We're in a different place than a lot of districts. I mean, that is a big piece of that is our community investment. This is our passage rate on our recent bond issues. Our most recent one was done. Obviously.

The big piece of it was we had those three hundred and twenty more kids and we needed some more space for them, so we'll give you just a quick cup data some things that are going on. This is a Richard Kine Elementary just right down the road. If you haven't been, buy that courage to drive down and take a look at really looks great. Wilson Elementary's on the north end of town. It was finished up at the same time last year. This is our Agriculture Education building,

which is across the street. We're going to have an open house on September fifteenth. It's gonna be on a Sunday afternoon. If you want to come out and see it, we'd love to have you come see the facility. There's an indoor arena, there's a full kitchen, including walk in coolers, we have classroom spaces, we have a vet space shop, and the two greenhouses. They tell me are the largest

or bigger than any school in Oklahoma. And I just think the good Lord that that tornado did not hit them, because I just knew it was gone, but they did not. It was America. So anyway, but that's our act facility really excited about getting in and using that space this year. Over a Wayside Elementary, they were literally moving in as we speak. So what we did there. We added ten early childhood classrooms. We added in our room, which is the Crown Jewel. It's a beautiful place. All of our

kids will get to use our music room. That's a new edition. And then we've renovated some existing spaces so that they have an appropriate sized library, office space, cafeteria some of those spaces too, which we'll be in we're moving in right now. We've actually been in that new edition for a while, but those renovated spaces, I know mister Smith and the secretary staff once we have quit talking so they can get in there and unpack their stuff.

So that's a picture right there. You can see if you're familiar with the building and all that was the kindergarten wing. It used to be four classrooms and also a middle area. That's all the library. That's what it looked like two days ago. Now is full of all kinds of stuff. And if you have any consumer concern about elementary library books, you can come help us unpack every one of them and look at them and put them on shot. Come on in. This is Ranch Heights Elementary.

We started there. We're going to be moving into that a year from now, so we'll have some of the same Basically, it's the same building that we're doing at Wayside, same bit of expansion as well, shifting our boundaries just a little bit next year once Ranch Heights is open, and we're gonna make a couple of shifts. So if you happen to if you're in terms of our elementary attendance boundaries, So think about being east of seventy five.

If your kid goes to Wilson and you live south of Tuxedo, Okay, we're gonna make a shift with that's gonna go to Hoover because there's some growth up in the Wilson area, and the bigger shift is going to be over in the Wayside area we're talking about, so east of seventy five. Basically, if you're in the Rolling Hills or Southern Hills neighborhoods, what's currently in Wayside right now is like a street that goes through that splits them. We're gonna make all that area is gonna become part

of franch Heights once French Heights is finished. So anyways, we'll make sure people are aware of that. We will work with parents that are already there that are invested that wanted a kid to finish out at the school that they were. We'll work through all those logistics, but we're making those shifts moving forward. Our Gifted and Talented room over James Phillips Elementary is complete. Caleb rohmesign his staff did a great job of contracting that out and

handling that. That's where all of our elementary gift and talented kids will go over there at Jane Phillips Elementary. They've been doing that now for a couple of years. You might notice that's a picture in front of Central, but we have electronic marquees. So at high School, Cain and Wilson we have those. Now every other school is going to have them. They're schedule to be installed next week. It may take us a minute to figure out how to use them, but we're gonna have electronic marquees at

all of our schools starting next week as well. So, once again, in closing, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your patients patient patients in terms of working through the line, and also come in to help me celebrate my birthday. So now I'm gonna turn it over to somebody, of course, Chris Patch over