001for this Sport and wasn't a hard worker wherein my stepson was cut from the wrestling team on inseason practice night two no opportunity to wrestle off live or eliminate even after his full participation on the team last season included over 10 wins tournament championship title and other placing I'm not sure what kind of educator ever tell a 15-year-old boy that he has no potential for those of you who don't know anything about wrestling or understand it it's a sport you need time to develop it's not like basketball or volleyball his opportunity to compete develop in the sport and in life have been taken away by an adult who only cares about his ego and favortism the dedication to sport required not only prepared me for my military service but probably saved my life while forward
002deployed in support of combat operations in over 30 years of being involved in wrestling at the high school Club aaou Military and NCAA division 3 level I have never heard of a high school wrestler being cut for non-behavioral or non-academic reasons ever others in the area have not heard of this either I recommend the school board take this statement seriously and investigate the West carette wrestling program for misconduct and the toxic culture created within our school thank you for your time thank you so much you next up is Miss Rachel a Picolo good evening members of the school board my name is Rachel Piccolo first off I just want to say thank you all to your commitment for our County's education system and recognize the time and effort that it takes secondly I want to
003acknowledge and commend our Educators they play a vital role in our children's lives this comes with challenges and they meet those daily with patience kindness and a ton of work I am a 20 plus year resident of Carterette County with all four of my children educated here I have sat on school appointed advisory boards the tiller school board for six years I chaired the Carterette um partnership for children board and work in higher education at the college level I think about education a lot and I think a lot lot of Education I'm here tonight to ask the board not to dismiss the importance of being able to choose all families have the right to make choices for their own children no one has the right to make those for all of our children we all
004know that reading is fundamental to our children's learning and anything we can do to encourage and Foster that joy for all of our children is crucial please help send that message that we value their voices opinions and help them gather the knowledge to make the informed decisions in their lives we need to teach and role model the ideas of Tolerance resilience and acceptance of others be those role models and support their right to learn please please do not take books out of our libraries thank you for hearing me thank you thank you next up is Doug sherline I messed up occasionally so I've only had about a day to prepare for this I do a lot of research but it brought to my attention that there's a potential that uh that some materials may be
005uh may be taken out of our tool I need to do more research but uh I know those materials put there for a reason um as per I think policy guidance 3200 um and if they're taken out without due diligence then it's going to hinder our kids access to again materials that have been deemed relevant so all I'm asking is that uh if certain materials are going to be considered irrelevant not necessary that we have policy 3210 in place I would hope that it's followed to the fullest extent um I think it's a good thing that's there allows community members to bring up concerns and uh but I did read through it and I have a couple suggestions for improvement um most of these concerns uh they need to be the community standard so I
006would think it' be good if policy gu 30210 involve more of the community I don't know maybe bring in pack members in the high school schools things like that to review materials that are somebody somebody saying might be questionable the other thing i' suggest is that if somebody can request to remove material can we request to add material just a thought um so I'm not saying there's not a line there's definitely a line I just think we need to rely on the community to Define what that line is and the line changes as you can open so that's all I got thanks for your time thank you for thank you hia my name is Taisha teal and I am a mother of three here in the Carter County School System I wanted to take a
007moment to talk to you all about um the issue of keeping books in our schools and not Banning books we can trust that individuals to um individuals are able to make their own decisions and that they know what is important to them and they know what they want to read and what they believe in and if that individual is a minor then we can trust that their parents will have the right to guide their children's reading materials and belief systems until they're able to do it on their own however I do not and will not yield my decision-making power regarding my children's reading selections to other parents I take no comfort in a small group of parents deciding what is available to my kids to read in their own Public Schools last month it was
008suggested that we do away with Scholastic Book Fairs due to the diverse catalogues of books that is offered to young readers we have seen the devastating effects of banning books limit accesses to education and the intolerance of other in our nation's history and we should not be interested in returning to that policy learning and reading should be encouraged not muzzled reading allows our children to grow to shine and to gain greater understanding of the world around them it was suggested last month that uh children are not in school to find themselves but I would wholeheartedly disagree that they do find themselves in school they learned more in school they learn learn about the world around them about their friends and they learn it through the system that they were taught at home and so young
009people deserve to see themselves in their stories in their schools in their families and it needs to be reflected in their public schools and it needs to be seen in their libraries seeing creators illustrators and authors through diverse backgrounds also cultivate excuse me a love of learning that all children need if parents don't want their child to read certain books and materials I can understand that I have those conversations with my children often but there's a solution that goes that can happen that does not require abandon books just like we get lots of paperwork to go home a list of books can be sent home saying that if your child is interested in reading this book we will need a permission slip from home for that child to check it out in the library it's
010that simple and then we don't have to ban books our schools can simply send that list out and if parents have any questions they can call their school administrators and get answers that way all kids have access to materials that um they may be interested in reading and yet parents maintain control I think it is important that children and parents have access to books in in their public schools because the First Amendment right belongs to all of us and so Banning books should never ever be an option we should allow our kids the freedom to make a choice thank you thank Youk you next up is Liz dearia did I say that wrong did I say that wrong correct me I want to know say de deia okay sorry about that so thank you all
011I really appreciate the work that you do actually day in and day out to make Carter County Public Schools a great place for our children I have two kids in the school system and I really love the teachers and um the schools that they've been in so thank you for all of your support I here am ALS I am also here to talk about um the alarming nature of of books being removed from our libraries uh I was made aware of it that books were removed from East carart High School libraries some of the books that were removed speak handmaid's tale um I have no floored me actually in the Banning of books that were based on a small group of parents views that they are not appropriate for all kids uh removing books based
012on a small group is subjective but it's also a slippery slope of government control and uh we really need to be careful on that slippery slope because what one person deems offensive another person can find fine and what someone else deems offensive is something else for someone else so making sure that we do not go back and forth on that but leave that to parents I think is fine again I think parents have the right to guide a child's reading for their kids but a small group should never be allowed to make decisions for the whole County uh and the support of the Scholastic Book Fair is um amazing right now they already curate books based on elementary middle and high school that book fair provides funds and books for our schools if a parent
013has a problem with books that are in that book fair there is a simple solution do not send money with your kid to buy books of this classic book fair buy them elsewhere but don't take that OPP opportunity away from all kids so and final please do not ban books it's a slippery slope of government control and it will be a NeverEnding rotation of individuals preferences thank you thank you thank you next up is Shay Nan hi everyone I'm Shay bean and I have uh two children in the car count count public school system and they've been here through their entire school system first of all I should have started with this thank you for having me and thank you so much for your service in this spth um our experience with the Carter County
014school system is that the teachers and Librarians are well trained they are amazing I trust them to do their jobs because they are the experts in this my children are readers they learn about the word world through books I trust my children from what they've learned in the Carter County School System to make inform decisions on what they read every year they had looked forward to the Scholastic book there don't take this away from them and from other kids who are readers I am against book bands I am against a small group of people who push a political agenda to promote government overreach to tell my children they can't read at school please stand up for the freedom of our teachers Librarians and our children to choose what they learn about in the world through
015Reading thank you than you next up Meredith Lynch you for having me U my name is mer Lynch um I am also a parent of a student in the Carter County School System um I am an educator in Ono County for the last 18 years and I am a librarian or have been for 11 of those years um I'm also speaking today to express my concerns about incident in September in which a group of people came to school libraries in Carter County and took books they deemed inappropriate or confusing from the libraries without following the challenge process or discussing specific books with an informed panel of reviewers including experts like Librarians and teachers I heard this group came back the following day and apologized for this action specifically for not following the board policy I'm
016curious if schools will get these books back and return to them or get reimbursed for the money lost if schools have been reimbursed or the books have been returned I thank you for doing that if not I ask you that you return those books or money to make up for the books that you stole from my child's school if this happened my rights as a parent have been violated by groups acting out of fear I like every parent guardian and family member want my child to be protected from all the evils of the world but I also know that education and knowledge help my kids make informed decisions about the world and how they can be a helper in their Community books are essential in allowing kids to connect with people who are from them
017or connect with characters who might be going through the same experiences as them books talk about Sensi sensitive and scary topics with Nuance they can help kids feel that's alone and help them build a vocabulary to ask for help or to find an advocate to help them navigate difficulties in their lives in their lives I know that kids might find books that scare them they don't agree with but kids are allowed to stop reading that book at any time never not every book is for every kid but having a wide range of books to reach all kinds of different life experiences will help kids feel less alone in the world I have the right to send my kids to school that will teach them to be respectful and compassionate towards all people whether they share
018a similar background or not I want my kids to have access to Quality literature and educational materials that challenge them and expose them to people that look at the world differently than they do that is how we grow into informed citizens and empathetic humans my kids and all kids should have the right to have the freedom of access to a wide variety of diverse books too life is confusing and scary and books reflect that my kids read books often that confuse them and that jump starts conversations in our family we have discussions about complicated topics that open their minds give them a chance to learn more about other humans and gives time as our family to reflect on our values as a librarian I worked so hard to build a collection of books that reflect
019our community I read up on State and County curriculum book reviews Library professional learning Networks and sometimes other sources to select books that our kids will love and learn from I'm human so if a parent wants to challenge a book that I selected in the library I will listen we read the book together and work with a panel of experts to make a decision if a Community member disagrees with a book in the library in the classroom please read the whole book follow the process to challenge it and speak with experts first before coming in and stealing a book but maybe the book that opens a child's mind their heart or gives them comfort in a time of need thank you very much thank Youk you Lata Jones hello my name is l Jones and
020I have three sons that attend car County Schools um I prepared a long uh list of events that have happen but I don't have time to read it all so I'm just going to start by saying my without saying his name my middle school student is athlete um he actually just LED his team to a championship for the first time in 22 years so we're excited about that however he has been the he has been targeted because of his a athletic abilities we have been called he has been called the nword by students um when I called to speak to their parents it was like well you know this child is a mixed race child so you know there's really nothing to complain about um the school has told me that they have handled the
021situation but there's a coach who has pretty much abused his authority he has gone to West Carter my child is a middle school student but he has went to West Carter to tell high school students to reach out to my child to stop when he made complaints about being called the nword when I called him to find out why he was reaching out to my minor child without my knowledge I was told that my child had been talking junk and that he came up to him at the game and said f you so my response was did you tell coaches you didn't tell me and he was um I I told him before that like you've been coming up to him before the season even started telling him that he was going to lose a
02240 plus year old man telling this to a 13 year old kid so after the conversation Pro progressed it was said that me and my black child needed to pack up and move to Craven County and when I said that I would call the police if he continued to send messages through high school students to my middle school student he told me he was the police I've called every police law enforcement agency in the county he is not employed by nobody so I want to know what is it that the school system is going to do I've been told that the system has hand they have handled the situation however this man is still coaching um I've been told it's a Personnel issue but when I speak to somebody at the state level they tell
023me it's a safety issue because this coaches ideas this coaches feelings are now trickling down to the students why this which is why they feel comfortable enough to call mind and threaten him with bodily harm call him names and now that basketball season is starting it's starting with basketball this team is not interested in beating the school that my child attends they're they're interested in beating my child I want the Target off his back and I want the school system to clear all this stuff up thank you thank you so much um next up Maria Ballinger everyone my name is Maria Ballinger and I'm a mother to a three-year-old boy and hopefully soon a baby that should be coming any day now and while my family is not yet enrolled in the Carter County Public
024School System I'm interested in seeing if there is any interest amongst the school board or desire or intention to create a dual language immersion programin the county in the future I'm raising my son to be bilingual in English and Spanish after I learned it myself in high school and college and currently I am on my second year volunteering at the Carter at partnership for children um at their story explorers program where I lead a Spanish sport a Spanish story time for preschoolers who are already bilingual um feedback from other families who either know me or have heard me speaking to my son in public in Spanish that leads me to believe that there may be enough interest in this area for such a program um specifically in Spanish but I think I think most parents
025just recognize the the benefits of raising a bilingual child um so I do think that there is interest in the area and I understand that you know programs aren't built overnight this may not be something that could benefit my children even um but I think that this is something that could be a great asset for the county and the school system as a whole and I know that the North Carolina Department of Public um instit instruction instruction thank you um that that is one of their initiatives that they have said that they would like to to expand dual immersion language programs through schools all throughout the county um I have here some frequently asked questions with sources about like why you might want to doal emersion program because of the time limits I can't go
026over them right now and I only have eight copies I'm sorry I didn't know I needed but um I would be happy to go with through them with anyone who is interested my my information is at the bottom of it um and I hope that if there is any interest at all that maybe in the near future a steering committee could be created that would um be able to look into investigating the costs and the feasibility for a program in the area and I would be happy to help with something like that um and I have some resources that I could share ready to go if anybody would like to know about it thank you thank you thank you so much do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll make
027that motion motion by Miss chadrick do I have a second second by Mr day all in favor raise your right hand she next up we will receive a update on our limit limit Limitless Learners from Miss sh mclin our assistant superintendent Learners go and in particular we're going to cover about three different important parts tonight we're going to look at student group growth we're going to look at proficiency we're going to look at third grade reading and then we're going to end with some fun facts about how we performed in comparison to the state do you have you up here perfect so as I said limit Works Learners has five objectives but we're going to focus on those first three the first one being student groups meeting are exceeding GR in grades 3 through 12
028math Ela and science I think it's important that we go ahead and identify the student groups that we have to be counted as a student group you have to have 30 or more students and listed on the screen are the student groups that we do have represented represented in Carter County we have AIG Asian Pacific Islander black economically disadvantaged English Learners Hispanic homeless students with disabilities two or more races and white so we report on all of these and get growth scores back on all of these students if you'll look at this um chart here we are looking at the percentage of students that met or exceeded growth and I have the last two years of the light blue is from 2122 and the dark blue is from 2223 so if we look at just
029the subject math 2122 we were 89% of the student groups met this year this past year we were at 100% that met in math if you look over at reading 2122 we were at 100% of groups met we are down to 82% of the groups met there and in science we were at 100% of the groups met in uh 2122 and then if you looked at 2223 we were at 95% that me so let's break that down into some points that we can we can discuss for a little bit so obviously the celebration is that all student groups met or exceeded growth in math which was an area we really focused on um this past year if you look at our opportunities for growth I have listed the specific groups that did not meet growth
030and the areas in which they didn't so for example in Reading we had AIG fourth grade did not meet grow economically disadvantaged was our English two students English Learners in third grade and fourth grade did not meet grade Hispanic in fourth grade white students in sixth grade in English 2 students with disabilities and third grade in English 2 and science we had the subgroup white in eighth grade I want to point out that in 2122 we had 14 groups that did not make growth whereas this past year we had 10 groups that did not make growth so you see some themes in the opportunities for growth English too shows itself in several areas um you see English Learners Hispanic students that English may not be the first language and are struggling with that so when
031we look at those areas we've already identified things that we need to do and that we've started putting in place for example we know our English two kids think about their middle school experience a lot of it was home because of Co that's going to have an impact and so we've had increased PD with acceleration strategies we have our high schools who have specific PD that they're working on as well and then when you look at reading and we think about all the work that our Educators have put in with letters training we are going to start to see that impact students as we move forward as well so that is our first goal of student groups we're seeing lots of posi that and our second goal deals with Proficiency in those areas and so
032we're going to show this in two different ways we're going to look at County proficiency and then the next slide right after we're going to look at North Carolina and the Southeast region so we can see how Carter County Stacks up to those areas so if you look at all grades this is a composite of all grades that were reported as proficient you had 67% across the district that were proficient EOG just looking at grades 3 through eight we were at 66 in EOC and of course we in grades 9 and 12 we had 69% proficient if you look it may be a little bit hard cuz there's a glare there but the lighter kind of I don't know what color blue you call that but what what real bright blue we'll call it that
033one the real black is North Carolina the gray is the Southeast region and then the dark blue is Carter County in the same areas we just looked at and that can see car county is outperforming not only the state but the Southeast region in proficiency and all grades eogs all the eogs combined in 38 and then eoc's 9 through 12 so let's look at Carter County Proficiency in Reading in grades 3 through eight you can see 61% proficient English 2 912 71% proficient science 5 and 8 grades five and eight we test 79% proficient biology a 9 through 12 73 proficient per Prof so let's look at how we compare to the state the Southeast region and then Carter County we're doing well we're doing well now let's look at math I gave it its
034own slide because there is not a Carter County phenomenon there's a state um phenomenon that's happening right there in that math one in the middle so grades math 3 through 8 we had 67% proficient math 1 54% proficient proficient and when you look at math three it jumps up to 76% proficient so for a second I want to talk about that math one it says grades 9 through 12 but it's not a high school issue it's a Ka issue it's not just a Carter County issue it's a state issue in fact there is a task force proposing a math reform package for KA um that that will probably be coming down the pike before too long but I will say that we aren't waiting for that not this past summer but the summer before we
035began pulling our best teachers who have gotten the best results in and began talking about what is it that's happening how can we get pacing align how can we align math vocabulary how can we make sure we are doing what we need to do and focusing on what we need to this so that our students can be successful with math so we've already been addressing that in fact we have a team right now at the math Conference of the state we have an elementary rep a middle school teacher rep and a high school rep who are all there trying to make sure we are doing everything we can to see that improve but let's look at the state the Southeast region and then C County so math 38 State's 53 we're 67 math one the
036state is at 36% proficient region 38 we are at 54 and you can see in math 3 we are well above the state and region so let's talk overall proficiency Trends from back to 2017 you can see for all subjects we were at 69 2017 we were climbing 7073 there's nothing in 2020 we didn't test we were home and then when we came back we obviously saw a dip in 2021 but you can see the slow climb back so years ago when I first got this job question was asked to me um how long is it going to take for us to regain what we lost with Co and so we're going to talk about that for just a second the next two slides in fact we took directly from at the North Carolina testing
037and accountability division who have pulled together some really great data for us to look at so you can see the state Trends the southeast Trends and Carter County Public School Trends as we move along effici now let's take a look at this I want everyone to think about that zero line that being Baseline I don't want us to put a number there I want zero to be Baseline so they went back to 2017 for part accounting that's our Baseline when you look at 2018 we were a percentage Point higher than that we were a percentage Point higher in the change of proficiency with 2019 Co happened and then you see a massive drop so we were down -12 for overall we've climbed up to4 so the state is reporting we are three percentage points from
038where we were pre pandemic statistically that is not significant when you think about the differences of where we are we're right on the door we're right on the door being back now you will see how the state is bouncing back how the southeast is bouncing back and then you'll see us the report did not have the state and Southeast prior to 2020 but you can see the differences of how we're all bouncing back I'm happy children across North Carolina are bouncing back that's fantastic Mees but I'm super proud of what our student students are doing and the work they're putting in and our educators are putting in with that so in a nutshell we're rebounding and that is what we want the third goal we're going to talk about are the percentage of students who
039were proficient by the end of third grade and so pre pandemic um we're going to talk about that score in just a minute we were 66.5 in 1819 and we're up to 60 now so we're not quite where we were in Pre pandemic but we do know that we have um in tense reading PD that our teachers have been involved in to bounce back from that so let's talk K through three into with our benchmark assessments that we do and so we've got 2122 You See kindergarten went down a little bit to 77 but you can see first grade second grade and third grade did bump up this past year I think it's also important to note this was their first year they were engaged in about 80 hours of PD throughout the year and
040they're in their second year of that intensive PD so really now we're looking at the implementation of what we're learning in that and we will continue to see um certain gains in that area so a couple points I want to point out when we think about proficiency scores and how Carter County school is doing um to this past year we had 70.6 % of our schools earn a school performance um grade of an A or a B the year before we only had 47.1 our schools are working hard our kids are working hard our staff's working hard third grade reading as I mentioned is not quite where it was pre pandemic but we're moving in the right direction I want to point out fifth grade math specifically fifth grade math this past year is performing
041better than it performed pre pandemic that's impressive eighth grade science is very close to where it was pre pandemic and math three is absolutely crushing what they were before Co hit they were 64.4 and now we're up to 72.8 so they are great things to celebrate with that I want to tell you two we love acronyms and education okay so when I say GP that means grade level performanc or grade level proficiency and when I say CCR that's College and Career Readiness skills okay grade level proficiency when we have EOG or in end of course or students that score are level three four five that's grade level proficiency if they score a four and five that's College and Career ready so going to give you some Statewide rankings for caret County Public Schools there are
042115 traditional Public School Systems out of those 115 traditional Public School Systems we are a ninth and grade level Proficiency in English 2 so even though I told you English 2 didn't make growth in a lot of areas our grade level proficiency is in the top 10 when you look at math three grade level proficiency and College and Career Readiness ninth eighth in reading for grades 3 through eight in College and Career Readiness and um six in Reading 38 and grade level proficiency all subjects in the state all subjects everything combined we are sixth in the state six out of 115 fifth in math grades 38 in grade legal proficiency also fifth in math in College and Career Readiness fifth in English too in College and Career Readiness fifth in all test subjects in College
043and Career Readiness third in biology and both grade level proficiency career college readiness third in the state in our act P scores and we are number one in our work keys results out of 115 part county is number one in our CTE concentrator students who have taken that second level course and then test their senior year that is to be celebrated that is also to point out that it's not just our High Flyers it's all kids when we say all do we mean all and so I get the opportunity to be a lot of regional meetings and some State meetings and I get this question a lot what's the secret to success and the reality is there's no secret the secret lies in Limitless Learners if we say we believe in all our actions have
044to mat we believe in all and we have to support all empowered Educators we say often times that we invest in the people who are in front of our children every single day that's from certified teachers to classified to maintenance to Child Nutrition those people people are heroes they're all heroes who serve our students and we're very fortunate engaging environments we certainly want our schools to be safe we need them to be safe but we also want to make sure that every student feels connected to their school and has a sense of belong because when that sense of belongings there students succeed and the last one which is probably the most important connected communities we've got families who we've heard tonight support our school system we've got businesses who support our school system and when
045you think about our local government the amount of support they give us we would not be performing as well as we are if we didn't have the support of our County and our County Commissioners who believe in our system and continue to help us succeed so car county is in a great place but a lot I can promise you that we're committed to keep going and to doing what we can so that we can make sure every student has a choice build future and becomes the best version of themselves if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer sorry do you foresee something like letters coming out for math like the same I have statewide initiative I have no idea I've not seen the specifics on the map I have no idea and I'd
046like to point out that letters is almost like a graduate gradu program that our our educators are going through I have friends that are in that and it's a lot and but they say it's really practical and really good to get back to the roots of what they're doing from an incredible team that's in our elementary schools that's there to support them in that application piece um and the light bulb is happening where it's all together and it's really exciting to see it in in action awesome any other questions next up is our presentation of the audit report Adam I'm not going to attempt your last name every this so excited to see you we can't wait um in front of you you have a letter addressed to the board as well as balance of
047financial stab financial statements are hot off the press dated yesterday uh the letter repage letter to you is just to let you know that there were no difficulties encountered in conducting the audit of differences on how to apply counting principles our requests for information were met timely and just that there were no again no difficulties in conducting the audit so that letter is addressed to the board the board being the one that hires us to conduct that audit the bound set of financial statements in front of you quite large 70 some pages long and uh over the years we've had um detailed conversations about what we think is the most important items found within this book so I'm again here tonight going to go over that um maybe try to be shorter not so much
048of a of a class in accounting but by all means if there are any questions please stop me we can reform the conversation and uh and go from there so first of all page one of the balance set of financial statements this is the opinion letter uh again you uh hire us to conduct the audit and we issue our opinion basically that we believe these statements accurately reflect the Met net position and the fund balance for Carter County Schools as of June 30 2023 this is what's considered a clean modified opinion we believe the statements are accurate and if you notice in that opinion letter net position and fund balance those are two Financial measures which you um have disclosed Within These stes if you turn to page four there are uh financial highlights at
049the top the four bullet points the first one states that your government government widenet position increased $21.7 million the second one says that the general fund ined a decrease in fund balance of $1.1 million those are two uh measures moving in opposite directions to me throughout this um booklet anytime you read anything about net position versus fund balance fund balance is the true measure but most important it is dollars in the bank cash on hand funds A available to appropriate your net position is going up because you are in the middle of a lot of construction projects those construction projects are uh paid for by the county those checks that the county writes on your behalf or or assets that you will own those are expenditures written out but not expenses in the statements the
050value of assets will be depreciated over time in the form of depreciation expense so when we look at debt position it uses the value of your assets as well as your proportion of pension liabilities and post-employment benefit liabilities that are paid for by the state but earned by you because the people who retired from this district will continue to receive their benefits and retirement and so anytime net position goes up or down it can be usually one of two things the uh capital outlays and depreciation which one's higher in the year and also the changes in those pension plans every year actuaries calculate uh what those plans do that sometimes they go up sometimes they go down and those are the true influences of net position your $1.1 million change in fund balance is just
051a drop in the bucket of the net position change so uh those financial highlights just I think kind of key on the two different measures that are seen throughout these statements so with that page 14 it w exhibit three exhibits one and two our balance sheet income statement based on that position level but again to me the fund balance on hand cash those are the most important and that's exhibit three the balance sheet exhibit four the interest statement you have uh six governmental funds your general fund state public school fund federal grants other special Revenue which is also just like the the uh General funded made up of local funds capital outlay and individual School funds uh the First Column the general fund that is your local County funded fund your total fund balance at
052the bottom of that First Column 2,624 th000 a decrease of 1.1 million from the prior year I think over the years we've had quite a few discussions about fund balance what should it be what doesn't need to be how much is enough how much is too much it's my understand now you're really kind of uh being guided about how much fund balance you're going to have through conversation the county and working with the county so um I think this $2.6 million should not be a surprise to anybody but it is a decrease again of $1.1 million uh for the prior year now again the other special Revenue fund 15 years ago used to be combined in that general fund it's made up of a couple of federal and state grants as well as some other
053income sources that really don't come from the county tuition and fees indirect costs that you charge Federal programs you actually have fund balance there as well $2.4 million an increase of 265,000 last year the for the 2023 year so net you really used about $800,000 of fund balance and when you look at the categories of fund balance the assigned for subsequent years expenditures that is the estimate in the 23 24 budget of what you think you'll use in fund balance next year each of those funds has a ass signed for subsequent year expenditures meaning the budget as it stands in the budget resolution will estimate to use 625,000 of local funds and 766 th000 of other special Revenue funds now you budget higher hoping to be lower because you you can't exceed expenditures uh in
054uh in the budget and we'll talk about that in depth later but that is a combined estimated usage of $1.3 million so again I think the trend here is to continue to use fund balance in the future uh and you really have enough fund balance to do that for just a few morges you have fund balance in the capital outlay fund most of it is made up of Hurricane Relief funds that are restricted peruse that fund balance went down $966,000 from last year again from using to mitigates damages done by Hurricane for Longo so the available fund balance that is really available for non- Hurricane related expenditures is really only about $200,000 and then there is $1.4 million at the individual schools an increase of 142,000 from last year are there any questions about the
055balance sheet and those fund balance numbers if not you can look at P 16 exhibit 4 and this show how those fund balance fund balance numbers changed it also kind of puts into context how much $2 million of fund balance is when you have $122 million uh budget running through your governmental funds your general fun collects $27 million state public school fund 57 million one thing I wanted to point out your federal funds 11.3 million of revenues and expenditures 5.7 of that is made up of co9 the cares act ARP gear however you you see them they're basically a cluster called the education stabilization funds that made up of 5.7 million um those funds are set to expire in the next 6 to 18 months uh there are programs within those Federal prog within those
056federal dollars that um uh address learning loss homeless students identifying missing students and programs that you know might want to continue after those federal funds expire also again further strain fund balance in the future so uh 5.5 million of those uh federal dollars are your normal Federal programs like Title One EC uh and and the other variety of reoccurring allotments in the federal government $3.3 million comes through the other special Revenue fund this year there's $20 million worth of activity in the capital Outlet again because of those construction projects and $3.2 million flows through the individual schools and so at the bottom of each of those columns that is the uh net change in fund balance those are the numbers uh I mentioned while we were looking at the balance sheet the 1.1 million decrease
057265,000 increase 966 decrease in CIT so total fund balance prodct all governmental funds went down uh basically $1.6 million all right you also have one business type fund Your Child Nutrition fund page 22 is a for that fund so the business type fund gets a treated a little different than governmental uh because it is in the business of serving food selling something uh it is accounted for uh on a full full acral basis meaning net position and fund balance are one and the same you actually have to repord the fixed assets they purchased the equipment they purchased directly into their Ledger they recognize depreciation they have changes in inventory their expenditures will not necessarily equal their expenses they write checks for equipment those are expens through depreciation over time the change in fund balance uh
058for that fund and net position was a decrease of 810,000 but I prefer to look at cash as the better measure because a lot of those expenses are non-cash expenses like depreciation like the change in the pension plan so at the very top of page 22 cash and cash and C pets on hand $1,816 th000 and that's a decrease of $622,000 from last year last year we had a discussion about this fund the profitability that had been recognized over the last two and a half years there due to co was going to come to an end uh last year you actually added $760,000 of cash and that was because all students were eating for free and they were eating at a higher reimbursement so in 2022 23 kids had to go back to um pay
059for food unless they were at a school that was part of the C program where they did still eat for free but even those students were being reimbursed for their meals at a lower rate so we knew profitability was going to change in that fun and if you look at page 23 the income statement so food sales were 529,000 and Federal reimbursements which are in the middle of that page were $4.1 Million last year food sales were I think 10 and something thousand and the federal reimbursements were $4.9 million so your money from USDA reimbursements went down $800,000 not only though this year has there been an effect on Revenue in this fund uh inflation has caused cost of food to go up so your um participation goes down when kids have to pay for
060food and so even though your revenues declin because of participation and um reimbursement rates your food cost actually went up so the top line on the expenditure their food cost 1,943 th000 that's an increase of 300,000 from last year the other big expenditure in that fund is uh the salaries and benefits to line down 2,945 th000 this uh line gets a little trickier because the changes in the pension plan and the post-employment benefit plans run through there so when you look at this number and compare it to last year year it went up $1.2 million but that was really a split half and half between real salaries and benefit increases expenditures paid as well as non-cash expenses related to pension and opep changes so there is a back schedule that shows salaries and benefits uh
061excluding these cash changes um but we're talking about it here just because I also wanted to point out the revenue changes and the cost of food changes but the $1.2 million increase in salaries and benefits is half related to pension and post-employment benefits that you don't have control over and half of it Rel related to just increases in salaries increase in cost of benefits retirement rates going up uh health insurance going up um but there is still a significant increase in salaries and benefits paid so on top of $800,000 less of Revenue in uh food cost salaries go up that is what changed you from adding 763,000 of cash last year to using $622,000 of cash this year at that rate 600,000 1.8 million in the bank you can do that for three years before
062you have to start funding um Child Nutrition from the general fund you're obligated to feed every child when the cash Runs Out pay for it locally um you can do that for 3 years assuming inflation stops so so there is still 1.8 million in the bank but there are currently Trends in that fund um to keep an eye on the next few years are there any questions about your Child Nutrition fund all right if turn to pay 34 there after the uhare fun it's got about 30 or 40 pages of footnotes but there is a footnote I wanted to point out and uh that is but note number two stewardship and compliance we did note that expenditures exceeded budget in the Child Nutrition fund um again um laws are written by the state to prevent
063you from spending money you don't have and so you have to budget and you can't exceed budget uh on the expenditure side the Child Nutrition fund over the years is kind of seen as again you have to feed children you create a budget maybe do a budget amendment once or twice a year look it at the end of the year do any modification uh needed but this year um and and across the state both in China nutrition and in your regular governmental funds there's a push for new software modern software so you've switched over softwares in the China nutrition fund and anytime there's a change in software there's just a change in processes and things to look at tools to use to make sure you're doing accurate comparison of budget to actual and so I
064think that change in software cre circumstances that just made the budget versus actual comparison not true there were dollars staying in the balance sheet in inventory that did not make their way down to expenditures just through the normal operations of that software so uh that was a surprise uh this year it's a $413,000 budget violation it is considered a finding pay 63 is the beginning of our compliance part of the report so our all it is two fold financial and compliance um budget violations after a certain level are considered compliance findings so on page 63 start three letters one over internal controls one over Federal compliance when overstate compliance in the control letter it's noted that we noted budget violation at the end of the day you did not misspend any funds you did not
065not feed children you don't have to pay any money back you just have to develop processes to make sure that at the end of the year you get a better picture of where expenses are P comparison do budget minut so there is no finding that is doesn't matter but there are definitely degrees of finings again no dollars misspent mishandled no uh Federal requirements state requirements no money to be paid back this is a statutory violation regarding budget and that's what you'll see starting on page 72 that's know the violation the circumstances that arose to cuse it and then on um the corrective action plan behind page 73 the plan to prevent it from happening again these are all uh requirements of any kind of finding what you'll receive from DPI is a letter asking you
066what your corrective action plan is we'll readdress it next year look at it again and clear the finding all I've got hopefully that was just the right amount of information um again I'm happy to answer any questions balance con nutrition C if not I appreciate your time uh again as always um my phone number is in the statement I'm happy to answer questions about um these financial statements at any time and um again and I appreciate Management's um meeting all of our requests um allowing me to get the audit done in time to come every November and uh present another clean Report with one F thank you we appreciate you can ask a question outside your purview but it relates we've been noticing the 2% a year trend on to address the UN funded pension
067liability of the state are you hearing that that's going to continue at that those rates um I at some point people were talking about rates as high as 30% I do think the the the we're talking about the retirement rate paid yeah it did this past year it go up as much as it had in the past um they they do they do studies every couple of years to determine and then they modify the rate every year when you look back it's in the footnotes about when the committee last did um a study I don't know I don't think 2% per year especially with the retirement health benefits the way that they you know cut it offer um that that's only a small part of of the retirement rate that you pay the higher part
068is the pension plan pension plan is still well funded 84% um actuaries look at data two or three years old to come up with their calculations over the last three years four years stock market has done volatile things and so that has affected and that's and that's why you'll see uh even without construction net positional change just simply because the pension liability went up because a good year in the stock market came into their uh calculation they also I think adjust some of the discount rates to smooth then anything that's not smooth gets run through so it used to be now we're getting into the we're getting into the accounting class um your balance used to be assets liabilities assets minus liabilities equal Equity now they decided there are two new categories deferred inflows money
069that you're going to have to pay but not yet and then deferred outflows money we think you're going to get but not yet and so now it's assets plus deferred um outflows minus liabilities minus deferred infs equals Equity so those deferred inflows and outflows they cuse timing differences so I think when they act where do calculations they use they they use discount rates they use assumptions and they also use the the heard inflows and outflows uh to house well we thought the stock market was going to do this but it really did this but it'll eventually get back to here and that's where it all gets smoothed out um but all the way back to your original I don't think it can go back it can't nobody can afford to keep paying 2% more every
070year on a retirement rate okay thank you yeah very good thank you Adam right Mr PES you're up for policy revision for second read I to do for you for policies these policies come from a special School Board Association updateing legislation these revisions uh specifically address mandates in the new law entitled parent Bill of Rights this did not require adopting new policies but merely revising a handful of current policies while legislation initially to go into effect August 16th recent budget adoptions changed the effective date to we don't know uh supposedly next year um there were some additional edits uh to policy 3210 that's parent U parental INSP inspection and objection to instructional materials essentially much of we had a lot of local policy in there and we removed that to uh reflect um the process
071and language that was in the parent build of Rights and so it flows more now with the parent build of Rights than it did previously um also before you are a few minor edits to the code of student conduct one is to make sure our consequence complies with state law the other revisions are to reflect consistent language and correlating consequences be happy to answer there any questions you may have any questions or comments Madam chair um I I have a question slash issue that I have raised with other board members about policy 1310 42 and if possible I would like to make a motion to table that particular policy until we can get that um ironed out and um I am okay with the other the rest of the second read items okay I have
072a motion to table policy 1310 402 do I have a second we second that all right I have motion by Mr day and a second by Mr Jenkins all in favor raise your right hand okay that is unanimous we will table that until our December meeting okay I have a motion for Miss Styler to approve all other policy revisions do I have a second second that second by Mr Jenkins all in favor raise your right hand and that is unanimous well first read first three policies one policy you at the request of the board this edits the change edits U the board's processess receiving information from school advisory accounts changes that process back process was previous so that will be before you next so any questions I'll be happy to answer them otherwise thank you
073thank you next up we have Mr Harker who will update the board on the purpose of the Foundation Public School Foundation good evening here to represent the board of the foundation County Public School Foundation I think we're good though [Music] you got to do it from memory Perry okay okay so we we I was going to talk a little bit about our te we have two with us so I ask to come up y we have five teaching B that are currently uh either at Carter Community College or in the university and I'm going you yourself and tell a little bit hi my name is Casey be I just graduated from East Carter at high school proud Al night and um I'm going to do um special education and I got exited into the fellowship
074program and nervous so I'm gonna um I'm starting at CCC right now my first semester for two years and then I'm transferring to UNCW to continue at the Waton sport of Education fantastic thank you Molly Arnold and I graduated from croan high school in 2021 um so I am the first graduate from the teaching fellas program I did one year at Carteret Community College and due to dual enrollment in high school was able to transfer early into the partnership teach program at ECU um so my schooling is 100% online so um I have done some internship at White o elementary then I also did some internship at Morehead elementary and I'm currently in my year-long student teaching at Morehead Primary um and I will be graduating in May congratulations say thank you to the foundation
075and to Big Rock yes thank you there yeah great we are this okay we get we are really proud of our stud than you thank you so as we wait for a few minutes I want to thank you for earlier tonight you passed a revision to our bylaws and you also reappointed uh for B board members we appreciate you doing that earlier in the meeting um I'm going I'm just get started I'm about foundation so look the foundation uh our purpose is to is to provide support uh where really State local and federal funds cannot help help in the school system and we are looking to support students teachers families and certainly any of our educational programs to date from 2010 since 2010 which is the Inception of the found Foundation we have provided and
076invested in our school system $2.4 million uh to students to families teachers and to to support educational programs so we receive a lot of donations that are designated for specific programs and then we also have funds that are undesignated and we a couple years ago uh went on on a journey to to expand the funds that we have available for undesignated reasons and we uh we had a really uh here we go y yeah you got it so we started uh with the with the ad hoc committee committee to on the foundation to uh sponsor a Shine the Light Foundation event which was a community event we've had two we had one two years ago and then one last year and to date we have raised with those two over $100,000 and those funds are
077used to support scholarships and to support student staff who are in need we we have a program that is scheduled in February want to give you the save the date we certainly invite you to be there and enjoy that opportunity with us to us to integrate with our community and our students and also we need sponsors so if you if you're interested in sponsoring or those someone let J for know certainly be glad to hear that you you saw our teaching Fells this is a a program that we um we started with a $200,000 Grant from Big Rock we uh certainly were hearing that it was a challenge to uh recruit teach teachers and we knew that we had students in our in our system that wanted to be teachers so we want we went
078about how can we help that happen so we modeled the state teaching Fells program so students uh apply we have a a committee that it consists of some of our school system staff our director over at Community College who's over the teach a program uh and some Community folks who interview students and then they recommend those students to the board um students are required to uh spend two years at Carter at Community College uh and they will receive an associate degree in teacher prep program and then they can choose to to attend a uh public one of the 16 public universities in our state uh funding for this is from Big Rock Ag gaalas and uh donors we are averaging about $8 to $9,000 for University students per year and $2 to $2500 at car
079Community College very good you met Molly and you met uh Daisy so we have also have Grace who's an East caret graduate celest who's an East Carter graduate and Bren Steven Stevens who is a croan graduate this a picture of those really special students and uh they're all uh like I said all are at car Community College with deception of Molly and she is going to graduate in May staff and student assistants uh this is where we use our undesignated funds to support uh unexpected needs emergencies uh from our students staff uh their families uh these recommendations come from the schools they're vetted by the principles or the uh school school social workers uh and then they refer those to Jennifer and we have an internal uh Committee of the board that will review those
080and recommend approval or an AM to but 2223 uh we had expenditures of $31,000 so we provided funding to help students families teachers with housing that's rent or repairs appliances utilities dental vision gas cards Walmart cards so whatever the need need is we we try to step in and be a SCE to help provide assistance Staffing updates we' got a couple of good volunteers that are helping Jennifer uh they have been been a great uh assistance in our administrative end and also digitizing some of our files and our accounting now one thing that the gayers did confirm was that there's a lot of community support and interest in our school system and so we decided that we wanted to try to capitalize on that and we are in the process of hiring a business developer
081or fundraiser uh we posted the job we've had some really good candidates that have applied we have an interview committee internally that of the board that has interviewed seral and I think we're close to to uh maybe making an offer somewh and their job would be donor relations awareness of the foundation and raise a lot of money hopefully this is a a thank you just give you a moment to read that from one of the families and we get many many of those we really appreciate this is um the leadership academy and we provide funding to support that thank you for your time and I do want to thank Jennifer for her work she's uh outstanding so I can say we really appreciate it be glad to answer any questions if you have it can
082can students be an NC teaching fellow and a big rock teaching fellow where they participate in both I don't know I don't think so because one re one reason why is because we we require they attend Community right correct I didn't know I mean I didn't know what the rules were for the NC State teaching fellow they would go to fouryear university okay we uh again we're looking at cost so you saw earlier that for about $2,500 per year we can send students and get them to teach a prep certificate or associate degree at c community college and then they can transfer to one of the universities I got a question uh first of all I'd like to tell you thank you for uh and Jennifer and I think Katherine and Brittany are on that
083board now I appreciate everything yall do for with this um Foundation is our ultimate goal with the hiring a fundraiser to credit an endowment where it's self-perpetuating the funds I I I do think Mr Jin is part of the goal I think initially we want to we we going to set a target for this person to raise and hopefully they can if they meet that Target I think we'll have the opportunity to do that we have not discussed what we're going to move forward with but other than bring this person on uh again Community awareness that will help with the events that we uh G Gayla and maybe other things that we may may may do and certainly out raising money knocking on doors well I think this is a incredible program yall have put
084together and I would you know sometimes agendas change when new people come in and I would like to see an endowment put into place that when y'all are gone is still taking care of young ladies like um Miss Molly over here side that's our goal we want to want to be able to make this uh teaching fell program longterm with with longevity well I appreciate we can help I think we can help uh I think bring awareness to again the teaching profession in our schools and then certainly make an have an opportunity for those students to one become teachers you know there's an opportunity for them to do that and we can help all right well thank you thank you thank you you thank you will receive an update from croan High School feeder pattern
085parent advisory council meeting by the board members who are in attend okay um I think we had a great meeting a pretty good turn out there was a bunch of events going on that night with in the school system um one of the main things we did was uh Miss Kim cron went over our new curriculum for the drug education it was amazing what they have put together um and the passion she has behind that right now um so I'm really excited about that input from parents I think they really got to see the input they gave over the last year or two with that and the Strategic plan see it really coming to life and that those things were really taken to heart and put into this curriculum whether it be the education at
086each level or throughout the um school but I think it was really great to see it kind of Full Circle that those note cards from last year are now in the you know the hard copy stuff so it was really good yeah I'll just add there was a lot of um conversation around the drug education but it was awesome to see the parents asking questions bringing up thoughts that you know we may not have thought about in the beginning with um some of the challenges that might be in that but overall the excitement of teaching the students you know things that they're going to have to deal with unfortunately um in our society and and making sure that they have a good foundation on knowing how to do that so there were some good personal
087stories and appreciation for the program so hearing that from Individual parents be it family members or otherwise they were they were very appreciative yeah for going any questions all right Mr Taylor if you will give us an update on capital projects Bond projects um our capital projects are projects are either underway or they're into planning phases with the PO out so we're well um on the way to getting all those projects um complet it for our bond projects um if you look at the screen this is the backs side of bro Creek Middle School and Eric there should be a Time Lapse video you can watch this project from the beginning I will see that's not from the beginning that would be like the past 30 days you can see that building in the back
088taking shape um remember this project has two phases this is the uh 14 classroom Edition in the back of the building but there's also a cafeteria expansion going on in the courtyard um that cafeteria expansion we are hoping that kids when they come back from Christmas break will be able to move in and start eating lunch again in the cafeteria um Broad Creek Middle School has been very uh very nice working with us um and kids been very nice and accommodating the construction going on there but it's going to be a very nice product when when it's all said and done um and the only other uh thing I have to report as far as the bond goes at westg high school today there was a preconstruction meeting there with the architect and all of
089the um uh the the people that are going to bid on that job and that bid will take place on the 21st of this month so we'll be bringing that those bids to you um in December so that's all I have thank [Music] you good evening board members um as recognized tonight the governor's declared the month of November as Career Development month our career development coordinators work closely alongside our Career and Technical education teachers to ensure that our Career and Technical education programs meet and exceed national standards we know that through CTE courses students gain critical thinking creativity problem solving leadership and essential employability skills necessary to thrive in the world and contribute to the Vitality of our state and Nation additionally I'd like to remind everyone that this upcoming Friday our school system will
090be observing Veterans Day in honor of this significant day there will be no school both students and staff it is a time for reflection and gratitude for the sacrifices made by our veterans in service to our country I would also like to congratulate the croan high school men's cross country team on their state championship this is the second year in a row um that they've won the state championship and this year was even more dominant than last so way to go cougars um lastly I'd like to take a moment to wish everyone a heartfelt and grateful Thanksgiving later this month uh this special occasion provides us an opportunity to unite give thanks and cherish the moment spent with our family and friends friends may all your Thanksgiving be filled with joy and gratitude and M
091chair this concludes my comments thank you Mr Paylor do I have any comments from board members this evening I would love to thank the East Carolina East Carol East Carter at Mariner Cafe those students in that culinary made a a amazing dinner before this um like restaurant quality food so special thank you to them definitely it was amazing Travis is still [Music] hurting seconds on everything okay um our next regularly regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting will take place on Tuesday December 5th 2023 at 6: pm. this meeting will be broadcast live on our YouTube channel do I have a oh I'll make that motion to St do I have a motion to go into close session motion okay I have a motion by Miss Chadwick do I have a second second a second by
092Miss Maul all in favor raise your right hand okay we are now in close session thank you for coming