December 5, 2024 School Board Meeting
Chair and Vice Chair elections...Financial Audit Report...New Courses
TL; DR
The board unanimously reelected me to a second consecutive term as Chair and unanimously reelected Riza Jenkins as Vice Chair.
The board approved:
The annual Financial Audit Report, including one Significant Deficiency
Nine new courses recommended by the administration. The board also approved an additional course not recommended for approval by the administration.
The board reviewed its standing committee membership, as well as participation in other internal and external organizations.
The meeting agenda was relatively light. One routine action each December is to elect a board Chair and Vice Chair for the coming year. I was re-elected unanimously to serve a second year as Chair, and my board colleague, Riza Jenkins, was re-elected unanimously to serve a second term as Vice Chair. I appreciate the ongoing support and confidence of my peers – there really is no higher professional/personal honor than being selected by one’s peers to a leadership position.
I look forward to a continued partnership with Dr. Hamlett and her Leadership Team, as well as with my fellow board members. I remain grateful to be an active part of our education community. We are blessed with resources, our parents and caregivers are engaged, our community at large is invested and supportive of our schools, and our faculty and staff are second to none.
There were two Discussion and Action items on the agenda. The first was a Recommendation for Approval of the Financial Audit for FYE 6/30/24. This annual update included both the Audit Report and a report on compliance of the district with Federal, State, and Local requirements, as well as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
There was one “Significant Deficiency” noted as follows:
Finding 24-01
U.S. Department of Education
Passed Through the N.C. Department of Public Instruction
Program Name: Title I, Grants to Local Educational Agencies (AL #: 84.010)
SIGNIFICANT DEFICIENCY
Compliance – Matching, Level of Effort, Earmarking
Criteria: A school unit may spend no more than 12% of its yearly allotment for administration and supervision of the Title I program (N.C. State Board of Education Policy).
Condition: The district expended 16.52% of its Title I allotment for administration and supervision expenditures.
Effect: The district is not in compliance with the aforementioned criteria.
Cause: Controls were not in place to ensure that the aforementioned program requirement was adhered to.
Questioned costs: $56,366.68.
Identification of a repeat finding: This is not a repeat finding from the immediate previous audit.
Recommendation: We recommend that management implement controls and procedures to ensure that the aforementioned program requirement is understood and adhered to.
I included these details in the spirit of total financial transparency which is one of the district’s five Key Priorities (Equitable and Transparent Fiscal Stewardship and Operations). The entire audit report is available by opening the meeting agenda for December 5, 2024, by clicking HERE. This overspending of a Title I allotment for administration and supervision expenditures resulted from a failure to transfer a portion an employee’s salary from a federal account to a local account. Both the overall Audit Report and the Significant Deficiency were reviewed by the Finance, Facilities, and Operations Committee at it’s Special Call meeting on December 4, 2024, and by the full board on December 5, 2024. The board is completely satisfied that the deficiency was not a repeated error, was corrected, and corrective actions have been taken to prevent a future occurrence.
Next up was a Recommendation of Approval for New and Revised Courses for 2025-2026. The board approved nine new courses as recommended by the administration. Additionally, the board approved a modified version of two courses (Honors US Historical Writing and Honors Global Historical Writing) not originally approved by the administration. The course request stated, “This course would not have any prerequisites, but would be a co-requisite with AP U.S. History. These two courses would be taught by the same teacher in an interwoven fashion (either A day/B day or 45 minute “skinny”) over the course of the entire school year. The content from AP U.S. History would be used to inform the writing instruction of the Historical Writing course and the writing practice would be used to reinforce the historical content of the AP U.S. History course.”
The modified version approved by the board (4-3: Yes: Ballew, Dasi, Fedders, Fornville, No: Griffin, Jenkins, Sharp) decoupled the new writing course from the AP course so it is available to any interested student and is not interwoven with an AP class.
The final item of the night involved a brief review of board standing committees and board liaisons to internal and external organizations. The chair asked board members to indicate their interest in serving on various committees and noted that assignments will be made later in December. This annual process ensures a smooth transition ahead of any January 2025 committee meetings.
This was our last scheduled board meeting for 2024. The next board meeting is January 16, 2025. I wish you all a peaceful winter holiday break. As always, please feel free to let me know your thoughts and questions on issues impacting our schools, and public education in general (ggriffin@chccs.k12.nc.us).
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