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Good morning, good morning, good
morning, welcome, welcome, welcome you

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to this time now for community connection. Right here on K one, the

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one you dressed him. We're talking
with Bartlesville Public School Superintendent Chuck McCauley and

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a happy break. Yeah, thanks, yeah, thanks Tom. It is

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a happy spring break to you as
well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing

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more and more my child, like
I've not seen her really since about Christmas.

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A lot of activity. You got
a lot of fun stuff at school.

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That's all I got is Yeah,
that's exactly right. It's you know,

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now that we are in spring break, it truly is you we're into

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the fourth quarter of the school year. I think we have seven weeks of

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school after the break. Yeah,
you know, good Fridays a little bit

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early this year, which is a
Friday after spring break, and then we'll

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be all those spring kind of fun
activities. We'll be finishing up the year,

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you know, prom and graduation.
I think our last day of school

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is May sixteenth, which is a
Thursday, and then we'll have graduation on

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the seventeenth, weather permitting. Always. That's exactly right too, But a

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lot a lot of fun stuff,
you know. Switching over to our spring

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spring activities are over on the foundation
side. They'll have a couple of other

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events in April, the Teacher Hall
of Fame event it's coming up, and

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then a little bit later in April
we'll have the Bruins of the Year,

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which is our Teacher of the Air
program and support Person of the Air Program,

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which is the end of April.
That's that's housed out at Dungeon Stadium.

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So those are always a lot of
fun. And of course you know

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prom probably coming up here next month
as well, and then all the different

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spring activities. But yeah, a
lot, there's a lot, a lot

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going on, but it's a fun
time. Uh. I did want to

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mention to kind of start with I
think we've know if I've talked about it

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on the on air, but I
know you guys have shared some information related

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to our discount for our teachers in
terms of daycare. You know, daycare.

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Childcare is a challenge, it's a
challenge for workforce overall, and we've

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been working with Tri County Tech and
our Best Foundation has helped us uh so

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that we could have a discount for
one to prioritize our teachers to get into

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the Tri County Tech childcare program.
They've got a great childcare program that they

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use to train kids and adults to
work in childcares, and so they have

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set our teachers up as a higher
priority to get into the program. And

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then secondly, we started off this
past year, they had a twenty percent

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discount. This upcoming school year,
the twenty four to twenty five school year,

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with some help from the Our Best
Foundation, our teachers will get a

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fifty percent discount, So which is
significant. You know, that's in terms

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of I know that from just walking
the halls from we made that announcement the

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last couple of weeks before spring break, and I had three different teachers stop

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me and share with me, you
know, just that's that's enabling them to

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stay in the classroom. You know, that's those are real dollars. So

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one, I'm thankful for Tri County
on working with us for that. They've

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adjusted their program a little bit as
well, where for example, like our

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teachers, that program is basically from
August through May. So you know,

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the words were previously a lot of
daycares they would have to pay like in

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June and July even when they didn't
necessarily need daycare every day. So a

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ten month program and then plus at
fifty percent discount. So that's really really

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helpful to our teachers and so that
really helps us from a recruiting standpoint and

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also retention, you know, because
teachers, if you think about it,

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just a high cost of daycare,
if they had one or you start looking

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more than one kid in daycare,
it doesn't there goes their check and so

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a lot of them choose to stay
home and then they choose up doing other

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options. So thankful for Trey County
the RvEs Foundation. We'll be announcing that's

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probably at our next board meeting,
but they've they donated fifteen thousand dollars to

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us last year and they're doing that
again this year to help offset that cost.

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There's still going to be some additional
cost to the district if we don't

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have additional private funds. The district
will cover that, but real thankful for

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that that opportunity for our teachers,
and we think that's going to help us

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keep teachers in the classroom. We
had our job fair right before spring break

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the other day. I know we
had some people come from surrounding areas because

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of that. Because of that reason, so that we've we've been able to

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able to amount support for our teacher, so it's thankful for that. So

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also mentioned just a couple of things
that's going on. Our last board meeting.

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On our student spotlight, we highlighted
our two We had two academic All

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State kids. There's only one hundred
of those in the state of Oklahoma,

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and we had two, Lauren Lee
and Jonathan Ortiz. We have several kids

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that meet the qualifications for that,
but they were selected and so real thanks.

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We'll pretty proud of them to continue
that. I mean, there's only

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you think about it, there's only
one hundred in the state of Oklahoma,

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and there's over five hundred districts,
so it's pretty it's very very competitive.

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And then also wanted to mention just
kind of an update I think I talked

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about last time that in terms of
student opportunities. I talked about us adding

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a carpentry class or construction class at
Bartlesville High School. So our kids have

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gone through the enrollment process to pay
classes for next year, and we had

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one hundred and nineteen kids select construction
class. So and this is something just

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wanted to remind folks we're not competing
with Tri County. We have kids that

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want to go to Try County and
get into their carpentry program or construction program,

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they're going to go. But there's
more of a demand for that than

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could get into that program. So
we're going to start teaching that at Bartlesville

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High School. Doug Boudreau I was
going to teach the course. Doug's a

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Arshon Native Varshon and he has a
teacher at Ranch Heights this past year,

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but he's also has a mechanical engineer
background. He worked with Vasus Group before

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too, so he's going to be
the teacher for the program. It's going

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to be housed at the high school. We're going to focus on carpentry because

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it kind of touches all the trades, but really glad our kids are going

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to have that opportunity to get that
started. So that's kind of our newest

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thing that we've added, and I
wanted just to share that with folks too.

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That progress and that kind of our
long term goal. We'd love to

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be in a position where we could
build a house every year. It's been

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years and years since I was done
in Bardsley, it was done in Bartlesville.

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We'd like to get back to that. But we're kind of we got

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to get started somewhere, and so
we're excited about getting started with that as

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well. And then I just want
to remind people this year we've had a

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really successful years on some national recognitions. First of all, our project lead

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the Way our STEM program has been
a Distinguished District one of seventeen districts in

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the country. We've submitted our application
again for that this year we meet those

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qualifications, so we're hopeful, well
we'll meet that again. So from our

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STEM STEM program, it continues to
expand with our aviation is tied into our

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STEM program and those those enrollment numbers
continue to grow. Also mentioned over on

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the Advanced Placement or College Board side, we've been recognized by them nationally.

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There's only a handful of schools in
Oklahoma. I received that number one for

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our performance last year. We had
two hundred and eight kids past the Advanced

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Placement test, two hundred and eight. Also, they recognized us for access

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to the program because our kids that
are actually enrolled in AP continues to grow.

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And then lastly, from from a
diversity side, we receive the Female

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Diversity Award for Computer Science because of
our strong female enrollment in computer science and

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so that's really where we think we
can make a difference in our kids,

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especially our girls are underrepresented in STEM
fields and there's no reason for that.

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We think we can getting them,
have them have success in school when they're

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young, will help them want to
continue to choose that. And then lastly,

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you know the national recognition received for
our AG program. You know,

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they won the award for the Emerging
Leaders Program at the National FFA Conference.

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And so those are three things that
we want to make sure we talk about

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that we share about, I think
our whole community because none of those things

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would happen without our strong, strong
community support. And then I'll mention a

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couple other things too. As we're
finishing up some big facility projects. I

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know I could ask about the AGG
facility a lot. Yeah, it's great.

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I encourage people to drive by.
They're putting landscaping in and planting trees.

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I mean they're getting the substantial completion
of schedule for April fifth. April

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fifth is soon, yeah, so
we'll be into that program by the end

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of the school year too, So
really really excited about that. You know,

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there's an indoor arena, there are
there's gonna be a kitchen. There

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are a couple of barns. There
are a couple of greenhouses. Thankful for

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our Lion Foundation made a large donation
to help us with some construction inflation,

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we could get those greenhouses done.
But that's gonna be finished up on April

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fifth. Another larger project force is
over at Wayside Elementary. We're expanding and

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renovating and we're going to be in
that new facility on August one. We're

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gonna have five right now, they
have our largest enrollment. They need some

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more space and so we're making that
happen. So we're going to be that's

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they're going to have a brand new
early childhood wing for pre k in kindergarten.

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Also there art and music rooms will
be brand new, and then we'll

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have some renovated spaces for additional for
a larger cafeteria, library, office space.

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All those areas will be new and
we're going to be in August first.

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And then at Ranch Heights Elementary,
we'll be opening bids the end of

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April or first of May to do
a similar expansion over there, So that

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will get started this summer with an
opening date of August of twenty twenty five,

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so one to share those things.
And there's a couple of other quick

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things as well. Our school resource
officer program continues to go real well.

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It's wildly successful. We'll continue to
invest in that. We have nine resource

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officers. We've briefly had ten.
We had two at the high school as

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our goal that we want to have. We had one of our officers had

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to leave from so we had to
cover for that. So we have nine

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resource officers and we're planning to have
ten there once we're fully fully staffed there

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too. But that's going really well. And then lastly, just wanted to

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wanted to mention our just in terms
of student enrollment we have from this time

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from spring break this year compared to
spring bank break last year, we've got

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about ninety more students than we did
a year ago. So that's the kind

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of growth that's nice because it's not
too fast, because sometimes you can grow

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too fast. So we're at a
nice pace with that. We'll just continue

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to add add staff as needed.
And we really think some of these programs

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that we have and opportunities for kids
because are really helping draw folks. And

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also the flexibility that we've offered we
continue to offer virtual options where some folks,

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some families choose to maybe they're coming
in from a homeschool environment and still

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want to have that oversight and be
around their over kids a lot, but

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maybe they want them to experience the
high quality electives that we have to offer.

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So we offer those all the way
from the elementary level, which is

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hous that Caine Elementary, all the
way up through high school. So if

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folks are interested in rolling with us
next year, that process starts online.

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They can go to our website.
We have help at our Education Service Center

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if people needs help that need some
devices to do that as well. So

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anyway, so Tom a lot of
information, but we've got a lot going

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on. Indeed, you do,
and I want to thank you very much

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for coming in and talking to us
today. Ja. We're calling you Superintendent

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of Schools, Barlatill Public Schools