WEBVTT

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Stand ian studio with this. He
is Chuck McCauley. He's the superintendent of

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schools here and at Bartlesville Public Schools. And you know, a warm good

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morning to you. Sure it is
very warm, thank you for having me,

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Tom, And and yeah, we're
all think we're all have had about

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enough of this weather and been praying
hopefully next week it'll cool off for us.

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A couple of heat related things like
to bring up first of all,

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sure the air conditions working at the
school. Sure they're doing well. I

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mean, it's a challenge to keep
up with his truth of the matter,

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but our facility staff is doing a
great job with that. You know,

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we've had a couple of times where
we've had to bring in you know,

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portable units or a move a classroom. Monday morning, we had a tough

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start at the high school. Their
children was down, but they're able to

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get it up and running and cool
down by the end of the day.

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And then also, you know,
just people and they didn't know our buses,

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all our air conditions. Well it's
good. Yeah, I know,

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somebody asking that question the other day, and so I know a lot of

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people think of it like when we
grew up you know, the air conditioning

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was put the windows down. Yeah, but that's but it is hot and

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we are obviously some heat mitigation things
that we're doing. On the activity side,

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you know, think about our outdoor
activities that are going on, and

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I know Evan's covered those, but
we had any health related issues due to

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the heat. We have not so
far, so good. You know,

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things have been knock on wood and
on the activities, you know, they're

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they've moved back some of the start
times, like some softball games and our

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football scrimmages as well. Our our
football team, they've practiced in full pads

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yesterday at six thirty in the morning
and so they did that and as soon

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as they got off the turf,
our our band was practicing another were able

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to get from the parking lot onto
the turf. And I didn't want to

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remind people we are hosting our varsity
scrimmage tomorrow night and that Evans group,

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you know, they're gonna live stream
that. So you know, it's one

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thing our athletes and our coaches,
they're acclimated, they're used to being out

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in as they're practicing it every day. But for fans, you know,

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that's a concern that we have to. You know, parents are grandparents and

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aren't used to being out, so
tomorrow they're not They're not going to do

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play by play, but they can
at least watch the scrimmage and listen to

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You can hear Chris batschild are probably
from your house. Yeah, you got

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some bo He knows how to project, he really does. Yeah. So

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yeah, so that's gone. Well, we're in the you know, we're

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ten days of school and off to
a really good, really good start.

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And I shared at our board meeting
Monday, if you just kind of back

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to school updates, was first of
all, just kind of talk about our

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enrollment, what that looks like.
You know, this really up until Labor

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Day, it's pretty enrollment can fluctuate
quite a bit. But when we look

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at where we are on Monday compared
to where we were on the eighth day

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of school last year, we're up
about fifty six kids. You know,

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if you compared that to two years
ago, we were up one hundred and

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twenty eight kids. And then I
went back and looked at the same time

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from pre pandemic. So in twenty
nineteen when school started, we're up about

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three hundred. So, uh,
that, so that was kind of nice

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to see a little bit slow growth
this year because sometimes I can make it

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challenge to staff, but that's that
continues to head in the right direction.

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We also on a couple of things
just to that, we put some information

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out about our FFA program that we've
found out right about the start of school

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that they're in the top ten their
finalist, one of ten in the country

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for the FFA their Model of Excellence
Award, and so nobody in Oklahoma has

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won that for three years. So
they'll find out at the national convention here

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in a couple of months. So
really proud of that program continues to flourish,

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really proud of their leadership, and
tickled that our kids have the opportunity

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to be enrolled in that program.
And then also shared with them a couple

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of things that are we talked about
our elementary ATLAS program that we're LaDonna Chance

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were giving updated our board meeting about
that and that's how housed over at Ranch

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Heights And just as a reminder,
that's a program for our elementary kids.

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There are kids there from that normally
would be at each one of our six

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schools, but we have them at
Ranch Heights and these are kids that have

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generally have had some severe trauma in
their lives and so they it's really not

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academic issues they're struggling with, but
it's really just emotional issues. And so

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we come up with a program Heather
Boil as a teacher and have a full

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time assistant and also some help from
Grand Lake Mental Health and they are and

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so we can put our resources together
and help serve our kids at Ranch Heights

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and they spend the kind of the
goal is by the time they're in fifth

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grade, we want them to be
in the traditional classroom full time, but

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they can't quite ready for that now, and so it's been successful. So

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really pleased with that. It's also, you know, bottom line is helping

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our kids there, but it's also
helping the schools where they were because they

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were there may be one or two
of these kids at a certain school that

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really didn't have the resources to serve
them and so therefore they can really you

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know, do some damage in terms
of your culture of that school because they're

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just like disruption. Yeah, exactly, with disruptions too. So that's been

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a successful I also wanted to mention
something new this year that's our friends over

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and on the Rock. They have
over at the creamery. They have Sandy

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Dosset, who's a former teacher of
ours who's eat. She has been talking

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to us last couple of years wanting
to get something started to help our kids

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really when they're getting started in high
school. I mean she taught at our

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mid high for years but affectually had
my son in English. But she really

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has a heart for kids that aren't
quite ready emotionally for school, high school

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wise, maturity, whatever it might
be in their life. And so we've

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got we have ten kids enrolled.
There are ninth graders. We kind of

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targeted our administrators targeted some kids from
Central and some from Madison, and we

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know who these kids are that know
that they just date some a little bit

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more emotional support, some smaller class
sizes to really help them get them ready

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for high school. They were quite
ready for the high school yet. And

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so we got started with those ten. We met with their families and they've

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they're off to a good start.
I got some good feedback already from the

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parents or police that we're giving them
this option to help them get them ready

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for school. I mean they're still
you know, like I think they're eating

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breakfast at the high school and they
go over to the creamery and spend their

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day there. And they've got some
of course, have some deep resources over

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there as well, like they're getting
Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, so

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Martlesville Education Promise. Actually they helped
us find me that's an innovative program.

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But they help pay for half the
teacher salary and half the assistant that's over

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there too, So we're excited about
that to help our kids, help our

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kids continue to grow. And then
also wanted to mention that our Bruins on

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the Run they just finished up their
sign up. So that's our fifth grade

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after school running program and we've had
we've had a record number. We have

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one hundred and twenty three kids sign
up for that. Yeah, isn't that

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something, and and fifty five mentors
and so what that will be that those

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kids will run two or three days
a week after school and with their goal

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they're playing at the end of the
season, they'll run the wool Rock Ak

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and it's really cool. It's yeah, well I really hope so comment.

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I think that's in October twentieth round
round fall breaks. So yeah, we're

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really excited about that. Glad that
we can offer that, and you know

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that's probably I don't know that's that's
we're probably looking at about thirty percent of

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our fifth graders that are enrolled in
that program. So that's really cool.

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So really glad that we can offer
that as well. And then we want

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to mission to our board meeting we
did approve kind of took the final step

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on improving our teacher pay raise.
We negotiate, we bargained with our teacher

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association, and so our board of
course approved to that Monday, took that

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final step, and so's a that
is tied to the state pay raise that

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came across out of the last legislative
session, which is a three It's a

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three thousand dollars for a brand new
teacher. In other words, a brand

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new teacher this year is gonna make
three thousand more that if they would have

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started last year, and then up
to a six thousand dollars teacher for our

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teachers that have at least twenty years
of experience. So we're able to incorporate

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that across the board, so teachers
receive that increase, which is obviously one

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of the things that we can do
to help retain our staff and retain our

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teachers. You know, earlier in
the summer we approved our two dollars an

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hour increase for our support employees,
all of our hourly employees. We've done

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that the last two years. And
then we also increased our substitute pay we

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pay now pay for our certified subs, we pay them one hundred dollars a

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day, and for non certified we
pay them eighty dollars a day. So

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several of those things and that's just
the price of doing business now, making

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sure our compensation is fair, and
we've come a long way on that.

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I know, our certified teachers,
they've had about a since twenty eighteen,

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it's been about a thirty five percent
pay increase. A couple of those have

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been done from the state. But
then also we've done our part locally,

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you know, with our increased enrollment, we've received some increased funding that comes

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along with them that we put right
back into the classroom, so into our

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teacher salaries as well. And then
our few our SROs there there were fully

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staffed, which is going really well. I mean, they're just part of

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what we do. They've already jumped
right in and serving our kids. I

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know, I was at maybe three
of our schools yesterday and I want to

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talk to uh. I was over
at Wayside and visits with them yesterday and

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at Kane Elementary as well with Principale
Krouse and an officer Hollander, and they're

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really just kind of part of what
we do. It's really neat and I

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know Principal Crouse was talking about them
going on at the home visit to go

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visits and families, making sure we
get our kids in school and it's really

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nice to be able to do that
without support to have that partner, so

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thankful to be able to offer that
as well. And then it's also going

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to mention our just construction, just
an update on that. We've got a

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lot going on. The agg facility
is going really well. It is.

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It's really yeah. Drive by way
well yeah, so drive by you go

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by the high school over on the
shiny side, when you see that,

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you know it's we look like we're
going to be in that. Hopefully if

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the fourth quarter we'll be able to
use it, so hopefully by spring break

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this year. So that's going going
really well. We just recently just approved

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the Greenhouse's portion of that that's something
A Lion Foundation covered the cost of those,

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and they did that because just inflation
costs, the construction costs have gone

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up so much even since we just
passed that bond issue. And then over

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at Wayside Elementary, we've got a
lot going on and so I really please

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be kind to all of our teachers, but I especially our teachers at Wayside.

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You know, when you're living in
a remodel, it can be a

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challenge over there, but they're Elliot's
Smith and Jessica Burke. The administration over

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there has done a great job on
managing that. It was a pickup and

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drop off and really thankful for our
parents. But that continues to move right

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along with our plan. There is
that expansion and renovation to be finished in

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August of next year, and then
next up coming up on the facility side,

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we'll be adding some electronic marquees at
all of our schools that don't have

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them currently. The High School and
Wilson and Kane now have electronic marquees and

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we're gonna be adding those across the
district. And then later this school year

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we'll get started over at our Ranch
Heights expansion as well. So a lot

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going on. Of course I always
mentioned our STEM program. I wanted to

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add that. You know, as
we know, we are aviations in our

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second year and we offer six we
have six full classes of aviation at Bartlesville

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High School. So we're off to
a great start and looking forward to having

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a great year. Well great,
and well thank you very much for dropping,

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buying, sharing everything. You know, a lot of people are still

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in the hubbub of oh my gosh
school again. Yeah, starting to calm

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down. The dust is starting to
at least at our house. That's like

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a boy, it just right back
into the thicket things. And if you

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have a children who are involved with
the different clubs and organizations, sports and

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what have you and all the activities, they're loving it. Yeah, it's

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we really do have a lot going
on. You only may to shift at

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our middle school level where those kids
have their athletics and things first period,

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which I'm with this weather has really
been really been a good thing too.

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But our participation has gone up tremendously. Uh. You know, it's also

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allowed our high school. You know, we've always done that with our music

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people had our high school music people
have been able to spend time with our

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middle school kids, and so now
we're doing that on the athletic field as

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well. I think that's also helps, like with our ACT program, for

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those our ACT teachers to be able
to work with our eighth grade eighth grade

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kids as well. So that participation
has gone exceedingly exceedingly well in our youth

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programming. Our youth football program they've
had, they report that they have their

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highest numbers and ever, and so
that continues to go well, which is

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a good feeder program. Our fall
activities are off to a great start.

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You know. Football had the first
scrimmage last week, and it's always good

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to start off, you know,
it's a scrimmage. To start off with

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a victory over our friends over at
Punkin City. Do we get a trophy

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out of that? You know,
I don't. It's a scrimmage, I

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know, I know, but I
know it seems likely since we started winning

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those last couple of years. I
don't know if they've relinquished that, But

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we'll have to work and we actually
I think we play them in the regular

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schedule next year, so hopefully we
can work on that. Volleyball is doing

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great. We have a ton of
girls playing volleyball. In all across the

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district. And I know they beat
Bixby last night and softball has had a

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tough start, but I know they
want to think three in their last four

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including beating Union and Broken Arrow and
the last couple of games. Last lots

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of tough one to Bixby, but
I appreciate all their work. Of course,

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in our cross country kids are still
just running away and they've got their

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first meet. I think this is
going to be this weekend, tomorrow or

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Friday or Saturday. It might get
into the nineties by that. Yes,

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hopefully they'll at least they'll run in
the morning. Yeah, exactly. I

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hope that happens too. And of
course our band kids, they may be

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the hardest working kids in show business. They've been out there working. Yeah,

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I really afford to to us seeing
their performance come out. So hopefully

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I'll come out and we'll have a
first home game on September one, and

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hopefully we'll come out and support our
kids. All right, thank you very

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much, I appreciate it. Check
the calling here with us right here on

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Kay one on our community connection