Board of Education Regular Meeting - Aug 14, 2025

001[ GAVEL ] The meeting of the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education will come to order. The chair requests a motion to approve the agenda. So, move. Sorry. We wanted to. Can I request amending the agenda? Yes. I'd like to pull item R from consent and put it on discussion and action. R. Right. Item R8. All right. The chair would then request a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So, moved. I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed carries. Very good. The chair requests the motion to move into closed session for the reasons stated on the agenda. So, moved. Second. Been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed carries. Unanimously. We will return from closed session as close as possible to 7PM thank

002you. [CLOSED SESSION] [ GAVEL ] The meeting is now back in open session. We apologize for the delay. We're running a little late tonight. We are. We don't have any other items for the open session agenda items. Is that correct, Mr. Dinks? We do have a couple of administrative. Appointments to be introduced this evening. Yes, please. At this time, we have two folks who were recently appointed to administrative positions here in Chapel Hill, Carrboro City Schools. First, please join me in a warm welcome for Danka Kulikowski, principal of Sewell Elementary School. [ APPLAUSE ] And, Danka, if you would hit the button on the microphone, that would be wonderful. Can do. I'm going to move over here and give the team a little bit of room. Hi, everyone. My name is Danka Kulikowski, and I'm

003the new principal of Sewell Elementary School. I am really thrilled to be serving in this role, and I cannot thank you enough for this opportunity. CHCCS is a family affair for the Kulakowski, so I'm going to let you meet my crew. My name's Harrison, and I am a rising freshman at Chapel High. I'm Connor and I'm an eighth grader at Smith. Hi, I'm Ryan Kulakowski. I've been with CHCCS for a while, taught at Smith, did my internship at McDougall Elementary, worked at Chapel Hill High as an administrator and at Phoenix Academy. Next door as an administrator. And Now I'm at McDougal Middle School. And I was told. Don't try to say anything funny to upstage Principal Kulakowski. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to share with you all a bit about my story.

004And so, I was teaching at Smith Middle School upon coming from Moscow, Russia, working in international schools. I had these two little guys behind me as babies, nowhere near school age. And I just wanted to let you know that I Quickly adored everything about Smith Middle School. And I'm like, this is where I'm supposed to be. And then when I. I took my kids up for first days of kindergarten, I said, I absolutely love this place. I fell in love with Sewell Elementary School, and I cannot believe I'm in this role now as a principal. Both Harrison and Connor have held on to their kindergarten memory book. I want to share with you. I'm not going to show you all the pages, but I just wanted to let you know that what I want to

005see happen at Sewell is I want all families to. To fall in love with Sewell. I want all children to fall in love with Sewell, and I want them to hold onto their memory books forever as the place that they were and where they shined and where they felt supported and loved. And I'm really excited for this school year. So, thank you again for this opportunity. [ APPLAUSE ] To the entire Kulakowski family, thank you so very much for being here. Next, let's say hello to Latasha Peguis, Executive Director of HR Operations. [ APPLAUSE ] Good evening to the board. Good evening to the community. Thank you all so much for allowing me to speak tonight. I am Latasha Peguis, the Executive Director of HR Operations. I am so, thankful to join this wonderful team,

006also this beautiful school district. And I appreciate you all so much. And this is a wonderful, wonderful school district to be a part of. Natasha, thank you so much for being here tonight. That concludes tonight's introduction. Mr. Chairman, back to you. Yes, go ahead, Ronnie. I just want to say a special welcome and thank you to Principal Kulakowski. My two older children went to Sewell and we do still have their memory books, so a fine tradition. Ronnie, if you're going to jump in there, then I am, too, because both of my kids went there, but my oldest, the principal at the time was Barbara Lawler, and that's who the school is, the wing in the school is named after. And that was our introduction. I'm not going to give it a year, as people know,

007I'm old enough. But welcome, Mr. Jenks. I do see now where it says on the agenda. Clearly, introduction of administrative appointment. Got you covered either way. All right, that takes us to public comments. Ms. Bradford, are there people signed up? Okay, let me go ahead and read my piece here and we'll get started. The board recognizes the vital importance of listening to varied points of view on programs and issues facing the Board of Ed or the school system and encourages public comment about educational issues. Speakers are reminded that neither personal attacks nor obscene, abusive or defamatory language is permitted. Board members may ask clarifying questions but will not engage in dialogue with the speaker or the public. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to present comments. The remaining time will be indicated on

008the tablet clock in front of Ms. Jenkins right here. And when we're near out of time, please conclude your remarks. To begin, we recognize school improvement team representatives, teacher organizations and or high school student government representatives followed by public comments. Are there any representatives of these groups that are here tonight? Not seeing any next. Then individual speakers will be called to come forward to the podium. And when you recognize, please state your name and if you're speaking for an organization, the name and identity of the organization. And I'm looking up there and I believe we have one speaker signed up tonight, so welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. You bet. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. My name is Jeff Alguire. I'm a current employee at CHCCS as the Theater Manager at East Chapel

009Hill High School. And I wanted to say that I really appreciate the crisis that the school district is in with regards to budget and monotonous, I mean, not the momentous, pardon me, obstacles that have to be overcome in order to keep the district whole and viable. And I appreciate all the hard work and hard decisions that you to make in order to keep everybody who works for the district gainfully employed. Thank you. I'm here representing not only myself, but the two other Theater Managers at both Chapel Hill High and Carrboro High School. Before I get too much into my comments, I want to say that I did email all of you, most of the things I was planning to say today. So, I'm going to attempt to just summarize those and if you have further

010questions, you can refer to my email. I also believe that Katie Moorehead, the Theater Manager at Carrboro High School, has also emailed you a letter of her own. I'm calling in regards to the recommendation for approval of the updates and changes to the district facility rental guidelines. As a Theater Manager, our jobs are intimately connected to the facility rental process. Most of the work I do involves here facility rentals. And one of the questions I had was the committee was formed and decisions were made without any attempt, as far as I could tell, with, to get suggestions or ideas or any response for comments from any of the employees that were directly affected by the decisions and policies that are being proposed. So, I would certainly like to ask the board to delay voting on

011this guideline until that has had an opportunity to take place. There are several issues I have with the proposal to change the pay structure for rentals. And I know I'm running out of time, so I won't go into those there. But I am very confused about the equitable relationships that are being used as attempt at transparency. But I don't understand what I'm reading about the reasons for these changes. And to me, if I can't understand it, then it's not very transparent. Thank you for your time. My time is up. Thank you. A couple points. One is that we did receive your letter. Just so you'll know that this afternoon and the item in question on the agenda has been moved from the consent agenda to discussion and action. That's item R, as in Robert. So,

012we will be getting to the discussion of that a little later this evening as we work through the agenda. Are there any other public commenters tonight? Nobody else signed up. Anybody else who's here who would like to speak? Seeing Nobody. Okay. So, in addition to public comments, we do encourage community members to contact us by email or telephone. These addresses and numbers are posted on the district website. And we do appreciate your input. Thank you. That moves us to the next item on the agenda, which is the consent agenda amended, as I just said, with item R being moved out to discussion and action. The chair requests the motion to approve the consent agenda. So, moved. I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Ms. Bradford, were you

013able to get those? Okay. And that brings us to discussion in action. And I'm trying to master a new computer laptop tonight. And it's got this nice scroll function. And I'm over here with my little mouse trying to move things, so bear with me. So, this brings US to item 6A, which is wireless communication devices. Is that going to be you, Mr. Shorogi? No, it's going to be Dr. Buckram. But just to start off. I didn't see her back there. Just to start it off, knowing at the last meeting, the wireless policy was presented to you and it was approved. The team has gone back and taken feedback from various folks that Dr. Buckram will discuss. And it's bringing a modified recommendation to you to ensure that there is instruction continues to occur in the

014class. Students are not distracted or given more opportunities to be distracted. But also, that teachers are able to effectively teach and not have to address things in the easiest way possible. But also keeping safety in mind. So, I'm going to turn over to Dr. Buckram just to provide the board with the updates that are being recommended to you this evening. Thank you, Dr. Buckram. Welcome. Hey, how are you all? Good evening, board and cabinet members. Tonight, I bring before you policy 4318 regarding the use of wireless personal communication devices by students in our schools. While, as Mr. Shiroki said, it was approved upon first reading. I'm here to have additional conversation regarding the policy as it concerns students being able to wear smooth smartwatches specifically, and these are included in our definition of wireless communication

015devices as written in the policy. The first version of the policy read that middle and high school students could have a smartwatch during the instructional day to tell time, but they were not permitted to use it for any communication capabilities. Our team went back to review this portion of the policy and talk to our secondary principals, and we are prepared to make the recommendation that smart watches may not be worn by middle or high school students at all during the instructional day, with the exception of high school students who are allowed to use devices during lunch. We make this recommendation because smartwatches can have the same capabilities as smartphones, and this could present a distraction to instruction. Secondly, we received overwhelming feedback from our teachers, if you remember from the feedback, that they didn't want

016to police wireless devices all day. And we anticipate, if we add the monitoring of smartwatches during the instructional day, it would cause an undue burden on our teaching staff, in addition to monitoring for cell phones. So, it would be virtually impossible for them to watch every kid who had a watch to tell if it was a smartwatch, if it was a regular watch, and then make sure they are not using those devices. Therefore, if the board desires to regulate this in our policy, our recommendation is that the watches be treated like the cell phones and remain away for the day, with the exception of lunchtime. For our high school students who are permitted to use devices during lunchtime, we've made changes to the original policy that was accepted back in July to reflect this. And

017also, we made a change that it would also reflect that Bluetooth enabled earbuds and headphones would also be included in those restrictions. And if you have any questions. I'm here to answer. Thank you, Dr. Buckram. I know there probably will be some questions about the general policy. I don't know specifically about what you just spoke to, but if you don't mind just hanging in while we give board members an opportunity. And Mike, I see your hand up. Absolutely. Dr. Buckham, you just mentioned right at the end about earbuds. I'm just curious because I can see it added up toward the top, but in the section on the second page, I can't tell what section I'm in. In section A, there seems to be a sentence that's been crossed out that says earbuds are not permitted.

018But it's been crossed out. Yes. So, we felt that that was redundant because it was already mentioned at the top that the earbuds and headphones were included in our definition. And so, we thought it would make it cleaner to take that out. Okay, great. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, may I make a suggestion there? Yes. I just want to note that above it says where we've added earbuds to the definition. Now hold on, I have to find it again. A wireless communication device is a device that has the capability to provide voice messaging or data communication. So, I'm not sure it's crystal clear that. Because earbuds don't have that capability. So, I might recommend keeping it, even if it seems redundant, so that we don't get into a parsing of well, yes, I have wireless earbuds,

019but they don't have data messaging capability. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, we. The reason we changed it there is because in talking with Debbie and Al, we realize that you can have earbuds that can communicate with your phone and you can have a conversation, you know, so they are able to transmit communication. But I do see your point. Because I guess part of the discussion was that we also just don't want people listening to music on that. Absolutely. Which is maybe slightly separate. Yeah. And according to my discussion with Debbie and Al, students cannot connect their devices to our Chromebooks. They can't get their earbuds, Bluetooth enabled to connect to any of our school issued devices. So, we wouldn't have to worry about that. So, Eva, I understand you to say, put that back

020in where we took it out for earbuds. Just personal earbuds. Again, if the board feels like I'm being overly punctually, we don't have to do. No, I'd prefer to see it in. Okay. Yeah, I would say, because this is a new policy and it will get scrutiny and people will look for opportunities to have conversations about that and be as clear as possible. Absolutely. Okay, we'll. We'll put that back. But I think we want to make sure it's clean. It says personal earbuds. We define Bluetooth enabled earbuds. Okay. I mean, you want to add Bluetooth enabled there? I think so. I mean, they, they can still connect other earbuds. Yeah, we would use the same language to clarify that they're Bluetooth enabled. Yep. Thank you. I guess I have a process question. So, first of

021all, I agree with the changes we just made. But my process question is our goal tonight to finish this policy such that it's ready to go in a week. Okay. Okay. Because I just. I do want to say that usually these. Something like this would go to policy committee, and we haven't had that opportunity. So, it's just hard to do wordsmithing and group editing. But I'm game. So, my comments then are toward that end, if that's okay. All right. And it's not about this. It's about things that are not marked up. So, I think that a lot of the goal here is to eliminate distraction and also make it easier for teachers to do their jobs. And I guess I'm worried about the paragraph on consequences for unauthorized use. And I mean, I'm worried because

022of my own thoughts and things I've heard from parents and other staff is that it seems like this is how, for example, there has to be a warning. And if there's a second violation and something happens, was it the second violation in the same class or is the first period teacher supposed to communicate with all the subsequent teachers? So, that feels cumbersome. I'm also wondering about confiscation and who's doing the confiscating and how are we going to. These are not. These comments are kind of coming from different places. But what I don't want to happen is someone tries to confiscate something and then there's a tussle. Right. I don't think anybody wants that to happen. But we know these are really powerful devices that children are addicted to. And there's just lots of research that

023parents trying to pull their devices from their kids. Like, there's just the likelihood that things are going to get physical. Seems not small. And so, I don't necessarily have a great suggestion, but I think at the very least, I would love it for teachers to not be expected to do that. I'm grabbing the shimmer. And so, I guess where's the balance between having a good policy that's enforceable and everybody is clear on. And also making sure that teachers have the discretion to say they don't want to confiscate it right now because they don't want to make a scene, but they do want to be able to impose some consequences. And so, I guess I'll stop there. I have more things to say, and I think that's what that next paragraph is trying to do. The

024disciplinary consequences are going to be consistent with section D of policy 4300. But I don't know. I guess I'd love to know what you're hearing from teachers about either of those points that I raised, or both having to give lots of warnings before you can take it and then who's doing the taking and how. Absolutely. So, the high school teams have already gotten together and come up with a graduated response to discipline when it comes to the cell phone policies. So, they've actually already started sending some communication out to their families about that. And there is a step one, step two, this is what happens for every stage of this. And it's going to be per teacher, so they won't have to keep up with if it happened in the first period class or if

025it happened in the third period class, because that's not going to be possible for them to have that knowledge all the way across the school. So, they have already worked on a continuum of consequences that they will be working with teachers on when they return next week. To your point about taking the phones, we already had a policy in place about confiscation of cell phones, actually before, prior to this, and it actually does say that the teachers should not be confiscating phones. So, we have left that to the administrators. And so, if a teacher is having trouble with a student who will not give up their phone, we do have some consequences for that too. And sort of a graduated response to that as well. I don't know if you remember, but in the last

026bit of feedback, especially from our high school students, we did get some feedback about just being disciplined with dignity when it comes to the cell phones and also kind of being treated a little bit like we can be responsible for our phones a little bit. And so, I think in our conversations with Winston and. And other groups about this topic, it's going to be a lot of education for everybody, for our students, for our teaching staff to model it for our parents who agree to follow it. Because we do know our parents are also reaching out to our students during the daytime. We got that feedback from teachers as well. But also at the high school level, we also have to understand we have kids who are basically raising themselves. We have kids who are

027taking care of siblings. They're also breadwinners in their family. We've had a lot of parents and families just become homeless lately. And so we have to, like, make sure that we're being sensitive to the human part of this policy. And as principals and teachers are the boots on the ground to carry this out, we want to make sure that we're being sensitive to the needs of every child. Every kid is not having the same experience in our district. And so, these devices that we're taking away from them, while some people are using them for selfies and social media, for some of our children, it's a lifeline to their families just to stay connected because of the situations that they're in. So, I think we can work towards, like, making sure this is balanced. And if

028you all recall, we've been very targeted in our implementation and monitoring. And we brought back feedback back mid-year. We brought back feedback last at the end of this school year. And so, we will stay committed to making sure that we are, you know, gathering that feedback, bringing it back. If we need to pivot, you know, then we can. But right now, we do have a plan in place for consequences. And we do not want our teachers trying to snatch phones from kids. We do not. I have some questions I'd like to follow up, but I also want to give board members a chance to weigh in. I was sort of as Ms. Federer's, you were asking your questions. I was like, yeah, I've got those questions myself. And I found it hard to know what

029the board's role here at this point. It's sort of like, okay, I want to let you, you know, whatever. But when I see the teacher data, they make it kind of clear. We, we just want these phones off and out of the way. We don't want to be the arbiters. We want this pretty quickly. And so, you know, I guess I do share some of those questions without trying to get in the weeds about consequences and this and that. The goal here is to have a distraction free environment. And, you know, I'm already, I'm sending, maybe tell me, Dr. Buckram, if I'm just reading this wrong. I'm sensing a little bit of from you about that. Well, but this policy, we don't want to be too overboard or not. Last year, my sense was a

030high percentage of teachers just kind of threw in the towel trying to enforce it. And if we get to that point in the next 30 to 60, 90 days, we're in trouble again, trying to really implement the spirit of this. And we're going to be back in December, sitting here, trying to regroup or something. Talk to me a little bit or can you help me here? Because I feel like we did this conversation last year. Yeah, I think that nobody wants to be policing the cell phone like that is an issue. And that did come up in our feedback, as you saw. I think if you know, we have to follow the policy. We already started some good work on this. We do think we can get to a place where this is not going

031to be an issue as much as it has been, because we have proof in our middle schools, especially like at Cul bris, they're in their fourth year, and if you were able to look at their discipline data, they didn't have one referral last year for cell phones. So. But they've been doing this for a while. They've been, you know, this has become a way of life at Cul bri, you know, and so we just have to get to a place where this becomes the culture of our district as well. And it's going to take us some time. You know, we're bringing our high school kids back who have been able to have phones during transitions and anytime they wanted to, except during class. And now we're saying you can't even have that phone out in

032the hallway only during lunchtime. And so that's going to take some time. That's going to take us some time to educate kids, to keep reinforcing these rules. I think we can get there because we see our middle schools kind of leading the way a little bit for us because there's going to be a group of kids going into from Culbreth who have never had a phone, and they're going into high school now. So, it can be done, but it's going to take some work. It's not going to be an easy job. Yeah, I agree with you, Dr. Buckram. You guys know I have three kids. They're all going to be in high school this year with varying phone experiences. And I can tell you, my rising ninth grader, she didn't have a phone until this

033year. I always waited till my kids got to high school. And so when the no technology stuff was implemented, obviously she didn't have one. So she's like, if I don't have to have my phone, it's not a big deal. So I think it'll be, we're just gonna have to graduate out. Some of the kids who are used to having it, and like Dr. Buckram said, the culture with the middle schoolers and things like that, also I want to say we can put all the policies in place. I'm going to say the same thing I said the last time. We do not give the kids the cell phones or the smartwatches. So at the end of the day, to the parents, if you don't want to get a phone call, and trust me, I've gotten a

034phone call about the cell phone before, don't send them to school with it. That's it. We don't have to worry about whether it was out or not. So if your kid's just using it for Instagram and all that stuff, then have them leave it at home. They can do all that stuff when they get home from school at 3:45 or 4 o'clock. But if they bring it to school. They need to understand that these are the consequences and these are the rules around having it and things like that. So I think that's just. I mean, we can keep putting all the policies and rules in place for us as a district, but this goes out to the parents and caregivers. Don't send your kids to school with it. It's pretty clear they can't have it

035all day except during lunch. It's 40 minutes that they're gonna have it out. They might as well leave it at home. And just to add to that, I just left the Verizon place myself today trying to get my own phones updated. I counted at least four children coming in with their parents getting brand new phones. So this is gonna have to be something that we work on and educate our families and our students and our teachers with on a regular basis. Yes, ma'am. Vicki, you go first and then Barb. What will this look like on our school buses and for the programs like at Phoenix, where young people are having non traditional experiences and like working and our parents and having to have their devices? Because as you said, not all of our young people

036have the same experiences. Some of these devices are not just lifelines to parents. They are lifelines to the world. They are having to take care of themselves. I know, for example, a young lady who came into our district who, through McKinney Vento, who was committed to graduating from high school. She was 17 years old and became emancipated and lived in our home start program. She was on her own. So I mean, her device was what she needed to connect to services throughout the day. So how will that go through, like our social workers? But will it be caveats so that they're not gonna have to deal with having to be outed as parts of the student code of conduct so that they're not having to share their personal stories? Right, Yeah. I think that's what

037I mean by the human part of this policy. And you know, it's not just this policy, but every policy. Our principals and our teachers and our counselors and social workers, you know, we're following policy, but there's always some outliers to what it says on paper. Right. And so typically, our schools have our eye on kids like that, especially like at your spire and at Phoenix. But also most of our schools, unless they're new kids coming in, they have a good handle on the situations for our students. And I'm not saying that anybody's going to break the rules for them, but we are going to remember that there's a human factor here for children and everybody's circumstance is different. So nobody will be bending the rules for anybody. But we definitely want to discipline with dignity.

038We definitely want to make sure that we're considering everybody's situation. I don't know if I answered your question. I think right now we're probably at a position that it's gotta wait and see answerable. So I was just raising the points. Yeah, but we do have our eyes on that. I do want to assure you of that. Okay, so it seems like there's pretty broad agreement that Culbreth is like the gold standard of right now. Yes. And so what, okay, if somebody has their cell phone out, is this the current. Is this how it works, what we have right here in this policy? Or do they just get it? Do they have to take it to the principal's office? I mean, are we making this more lenient? Is this policy more lenient than what's going on

039at Culbreth or other middle schools? No, no, no, no. Colbread is one of those schools that's probably at a place where they're not given a lot of warnings because those kids has become a part of their culture. But you know, when you start the school year and I've been on my phone all summer and my iPad and I've doing that all summer, you're going to have to give kids a couple of, you know, a week or two. Okay, we're back in school. Let's get back to our rules and that kind of thing. So our middle schools are more better positioned to go to a. Like, we're not going to keep warning you because we've already been doing this and you know, the expectation high school. However, we will need to definitely ease them into this.

040And it'll be, you know, some opening of school days where we're continuing to reiterate, going back over it, announcing it over the intercom every morning and announcements and things like that. Until we get like to a place where we're like, okay, we've given you time to acclimate rules are in place. And is there anything in here that would preclude a teacher or a principal from just having a rule that says when you come into the classroom, you have to put your phone in this little holder. So some of our schools, middle school did that already. And I think they went to lockers. But I do think there are some facility issues. Maybe like everybody doesn't have lockers or some of the doctors Are older, But I know Phillips. Phillips was using the pockets so that

041they had them on the door for kids to come in. But I think McDougal Middle, Colbrith and Smith were away for the day. Put them in your book bag or put them in your lockers. I mean, I know of at least one teacher who goes around with the box and says, put your phone in here at the beginning of class. So I guess this is. Yeah, I mean, I was there. . No, no, no, no, I believe you. I mean, could we have a sentence that says something like, nothing in this policy shall preclude a teacher or principal from implementing a system like that. Oh, okay. I'm just throwing that out there. You mean a way of collecting devices? I mean, I guess just to say if you want to implement this policy in a

042way that I would consider has more teeth, you can. Because I think if we don't say that, then I think a child who wanted to challenge the way it was going on in Culbreth could say, well, I'm supposed to get three warnings or whatever. So right now, the way the policy reads is that it has to be out of sight and they cannot have it out at all. And so I want to understand what you're proposing. That even if they come in the classroom with it, you want us to maybe put something else in here that the teacher would have leeway to say, I'm collecting them. Okay. I'm wondering if we need to do that. If we want to give teachers leeway to be stricter than what this policy says. I think we should say

043it in the policy because otherwise, I think, it's unclear or I'm willing to. I guess that would be something you all would have to decide on. You said earlier that it would be difficult to write this as a group here tonight or revise it. And I wonder if we could do that. Have the policy committee get it in the next 30, 60, 90 days and take a look at and get some feedback on these kind of questions rather than try and. Because I have some. Would we have time before school starts? This wouldn't be the way to write it, I don't think, just as policy committee, But, I mean, it was decided this summer that we needed to go ahead and get this done so that it was in place. And we already did it

044at our past board meeting. We're just making a change because we realized after that meeting that there was a little bit of miscommunication about earbuds and smartwatches, the rest of this we've already made a decision about. And I mean, I get that we want to. So, you know, like, you have feelings about this, but we've made our decision and already approved this policy. So in terms of procedures of what's happening here, we're talking about some small changes and we could potentially make some other small changes, but it needs to get done tonight. It needs to be in place at the beginning of the school year to get it done tonight. Yeah. No, but you just suggested going to policy committee in 90 days and something. Mike, the reason, like as I reread and learn new

045things over time and I was reading where a teacher can decide what's educational use for cell phones. And it's, you know, somebody said to me, well, they all have Chromebooks. What could they possibly need a cell phone for? And does everybody have a cell phone? And I said, yeah, I see that. And so there were questions keep coming. And I didn't mean to say we're not going to. We're going to have our policy tonight with the amendment, I'm sure. But there seem to be other questions. And can we learn things over the next 90 days? 90 I picked for December being the end of the semester, but. And then let policy committee start to rework this whole policy again. I think we can. I think we said at the last meeting that we were going

046to hear back from. Yeah, we can definitely follow the same. Yeah, we can follow. That's already in place. That we can follow the same process as before and bring back mid year and end of the year data, if you like. Yeah. And I think we already said that. We were going to do that. Can I just. While I'm hot. I know. Yeah, I know. But I wanted to kind of respond as a teacher to what you were saying, Barb. I feel like as a teacher, I already feel like I have license to make my own decisions about my classroom. As long as I'm not breaking a policy, I can follow the policy. I can be stricter but teachers already have that leeway and I'm not sure, I mean, if you want to put that sentence

047into this policy, it wouldn't change it or hurt anything. But I think it's already the case that teachers can decide on their own system for how best to manage their classroom. And it could be different based on which kids are in your class and the vibe. I would speak for teachers that. We already feel that we know what the policies are and we feel like we empowered to make our own decisions. Ronnie, did you want to. No. Okay. Did you, Meredith? Anybody else want to add? I think. I mean, it's on the agenda, so I didn't think we were only allowed to speak to the issue about the smart watches. Like you were proposing. Adding another son is totally fine. It was the let's go back to policy 90 days that worried me. Okay, so

048the issue about student searches, that you can search a phone. Wait, where is this? Oh, yeah, this is a totally different issue. But what I think needs to be clear is that you can't search a phone just because somebody violated the cell phone policy. So what it says is there has to be reason to believe the search will provide evidence the student has violated or is violating a law, board policy, the code of student conduct or school rule. But just because you have your cell phone out doesn't mean that teacher or principal gets to start reading your texts. So I think actually there does need to be a sentence that says that, because otherwise it seems like you can do that. I will defer to Eva for that. We can definitely make this more layperson

049friendly. I think that last sentence. The scope of the search has to be reasonably related to the objective of the search. So if you have reasonable suspicion that there's evidence, you know, that the child is selling drugs and that's what you're looking for, and then you are looking at their text for that purpose. But I would not say that searching a phone is related to determining if they had their phone out, because we already know that. But I take your point that maybe, I mean, it is legalese and this language isn't new. This is what's in your current phone. Right. But yeah, so that's how we train the administrators, is you only get to look in someone's phone if you have, you know, articulable, specific evidence that there's going to be evidence of wrongdoing in

050that place. But, yeah, certainly we can. How would you restate it? Just given that we're. We are passing some new language. It feels like it might not be a terrible idea to say, you know, merely violating the cell phone rule is not by itself reason to search the wireless communication device. But would you say if a student is texting in class and they say, I'm texting with Johnny, and Johnny says, no, she wasn't, can we look at Johnny's phone to see. If he was texting during class? I would say under this a yes. Probably. But if you just have the phone out and you're not supposed to. That's what I think. Then it's just pretextual. Then I just think you're opening yourself up to having. I mean, I agree with you that legally, it's not

051like possession of a phone is not reason to search the phone. So I guess the question is, is it worth saying that or not? Maybe I like the way Eva just said it. I think maybe we just say that possession of the phone doesn't give grounds for search. So you want that added, though, tonight? I'm suggesting it, yeah. Should that be added to this policy, or are we talking about change in policy 4342? I think they're speaking to just this one. Okay. Under C. And if you wish to make this change tonight, I think at the end of that first sentence there, where it ends code of student conduct or school rule. So evidence the student has violated or is violating board policy or the code of conduct could put in parentheses beyond mere possession

052of the device. Okay. So, I mean, they'll have to vote. If they want to do that. So beyond the possession over divides. I move to approve the policy with the edits suggested, including the language of beyond the possession of the device. Was there one more we added? Recommended additions from the staff. Ah, that's already in, though. Yeah. Returning the sentence of anybody? Yeah. Thank you. That's what it was. So the two edits that we've discussed. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there further discussion? Seeing none. So the motion on the floor is to accept the two edits and to clarify that one phrase on possession. Dr. Buckram, you think you got it clear? I do. Okay, very good. So all in favor then say aye. Aye. Opposed. The motion passes. Thank you. And next

053up is two policies. Technology responsible use, Internet safety. As Debbie Atwater comes to the podium. This is the part B from the new state law originating from House Bill 959, where there was wireless communication language, but there was also very prescriptive language that has to be added with respect to internet safety social media access. And so what we have tonight, knowing that policy committee is the general forum that we would follow, but knowing that this is a package, we want to keep it together so that if it has to come back again with wireless communication later in November or December, we're prepared to do that as well. But it just. The language that we're using is verbatim. From the law. And we've reviewed this with staff and board council to make sure that we believe

054that it's the most accurate. And we just wanted to bring that to you for approval upon first read. So I'll let Ms. Atwater just add any comments and walk through the language that's specifically being added. Thank you. Well, good evening, Dr. Griffin and board members, Deputy Superintendent Tirose and cabinet members and our members of the public. This evening I'm here to present the revisions to the two policies, Technology Responsible Use 3225 and Internet Safety 3226. These changes are necessary to comply with the state law, House Bill 959, which was passed in July. The new law requires school board policies to include that specific language about Internet safety, social media access and the use of wireless devices by approving these revisions, our district will be in compliance with state law by the start of the school

055year. Additionally, these revisions to Policy 3225 will help us meet the requirements of Federal Communications Commission's or FCC's new E Rate rules. While our student hotspot program is currently funded by a grant From T Mobile's Project 10 million, which means all of our hotspots to us are free, no charge to us. E rate guidelines require language to be added to this policy that specifies off premise use of Wi-Fi hotspots that should be for educational purposes only or for educational purposes in general. If we ever undergo an eray audit, this will ensure that our funding is not in jeopardy of future technology purchases. And the new language in both policies comes directly from the recommended wording within each law. As Mr. Ciaroczi talked about. We've also removed some redundant language to align with the recent changes

056to policy 4318 on wireless communication devices. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have at this time. Not seeing any questions. I guess, you were very clear. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Atwater. We need a motion to accept these approval of these two policies as they were amended. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It passes unanimously. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank you. That brings us to recommendation of approval of student fees for the 25-26 school year. I see Dr. Bales coming forward. Good evening, Board, cabinet. We only have a couple of fees that we are looking at this evening. General statute states that we need to bring fees forward each year that we are

057charging our students. So we're looking at policy 4600. A couple of changes that we have for this year are our athletics fees. We had a long conversation about this last year. There's not really any changes for our students, but our athletic fees for adults will be going up to $10. One of the things that we implemented last year, after getting lots of feedback from our community student representatives, is we're able to work in a reduced cost for our students. So we're not changing the student cost at all. That's going to be $5. And we also, in all honesty and Scarlett can talk about this as well. We never send a kid away if they don't have the money. If they're able to come in, then we want them to come in and support their teams.

058So that's our change for athletics. We also want to make sure that we were transparent with our pre K and our community schools, and some of those changes went into effect for this upcoming school year. We remember that Dr. Mapp came earlier in the spring and talked about changes to our pre K and then our community schools for after school and et cetera from there. There is an additional piece on there for our AP testing, which right now is kind of in limbo due to our state budget and not knowing where we're at with that. So I wanted to put that on there because it could be a very expensive cost to some of our students, should that happen. So we were really hoping that we were going to get some good news over the

059summer that a budget was passed from our state that did not happen. So our work with the College Board is, at this point, paused. And what that entails is we have some support from College Board, like a liaison that we're able to contact. We don't necessarily have that connection at this point. If in our budget, when it is passed at the state and for the Senate, this was part of the recommendation that we would no longer have our AP partnership with that, that would mean that every single one of our students would either have to pay the AP fee or if there was a financial burden, we'd have to apply for a waiver from the College Board. Just to give some context on what that would look like in a dollar amount. Last year, we

060had 5,929 students take an AP exam. Test taken, not necessarily students, but tests taken. Each of those is at least $100. So we're looking at nearly $600,000 that the state right now covers. If, when we get a state budget passed, if that is something that's taken out, it's going to be, you know, a burden on our families. And then for honestly, for our testing corners to make sure that we're moving forward with some of the support to actually register for kids that may need that financial support. Outside of that, which isn't necessarily a fee, but just to kind of share with the general public. Right now we have a teacher bonus if your kids pass with a four or five. That would go away when we move forward. We also get support from the College

061Board and from the state in teacher training, where teachers actually go during the summer, some of the required training that's needed for teaching the AP courses. And then we also get for the number of students that we have a certain amount of funds that are sent back to each school to help with the logistics of testing, some of the tutoring and if this partnership did not continue, would be something that would go away. So I wanted to put that out there. It's right now as a potential because we're kind of waiting to see where that lands. But we also didn't want to wait any longer to put it on the fees that went out. Just so parents were aware. We'll continue to work with families to see if that is some support that they need.

062And you know, I've already talked with Mr. Scott to talk about, you know, are there any other avenues that we could look at. $600,000 is a good chunk of change. So we are hoping that this is something that is passed in the state budget. So for those watching at home and in the room, you know, continue to make sure that we're voicing the need that we have especially for our district when it comes to the AP piece. So those are the three large pieces there and I'm willing to answer any questions that may come up. Thank you, Dr. Bales. Boardmembers questions? Yeah, go ahead, Ron. Go ahead, Vicky. I guess it's more of a question and a clarifying situation. So in terms of AP and also with us looking at students being able to take

063courses at Durham Tech, I want to be clear that if a student is taking a course at Durham Tech, which is a college course, and AP stands for advanced Placement, which is a college level course, there is no fee though, if we have a high school student wanting to take the Dermotech course for them to take, that would be completely free, right? That is correct. And there's not a final exam that's needed to get the credit. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that people clear on that. Yeah, thank you for the presentation I appreciate the common school fees. So the consolidation to have consistency across all of the school facilities. My one question is on the high school athletic events. What's the fee for middle school attendees? Would they be expected to pay the

064$10, or can they also fall under the $5 with the high schooler, even at the high schools? Okay, maybe we should add a bullet for that. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? So we need a motion with that minor change. Oh, you got something? Sorry, just more procedural. If the general assembly does decide to pay ap, are we going to need to revisit this policy? Do we need to bring it back? So at that point, I mean, we. We can, right? Because right now, if they approve it and they pay for everything, then we're not going to have that charge. But we did want to make sure that families were aware we have to register all of our kids for that exam where they take it first or second semester by November. So just to give

065them that heads up. Yeah. Okay. All right, thanks. Okay, so we need a motion then with just the minor change that Ms. Dossey noted to accept a fee schedule. So moved. Second. Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bales. And that brings us to our next item, which is approval of first reading for policy code athletics. Ms. Steiner? Good evening, members of the board, cabinet. Tonight, I bring forward to you proposed addition to our athletics policy regarding name, image and likeness agreements, often referred to as the NIL. In accordance to state law, student athletes in our district may enter into agreements to use their name, image or likeness. This is a growing part of high school athletics in North Carolina.

066And we want to ensure that our students here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro and families understand the requirements and follow the correct process. The new policy states before signing an NIL agreement, a copy must be submitted to the school principal, athletic director, superintendent and school board chair. For each NIL agreement, the North Carolina High School Athletic association verification form is required. Students must complete a National Federation High School NIL Education course before signing any agreement. While the course is a one time requirement, the certification of completion must be included each time a verification form is submitted. And once the NIL agreement is signed, the school must submit the agreement and the NFHS Course Completion certificate to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. This policy edition will protect our students, ensure compliance with state and

067board policy of the North Carolina High School Athletic association and provide a clear, transparent process for our families and school staff to follow. I Am here if you have any questions. Thank you. Ronnie. Thank you. I have a question about the first bullet. The requirement that the proposed agreement be submitted to those multiple parties. Is there a way to clarify that? That there's a process, that it can be submitted to the principal and the principal forwards it? So, like, I don't know if I was just a family member, if I would know how to get such things to the superintendent and board chair. So can we just have it such that it's sent to the principal and the principal. Sure. It would probably make sense to go to the athletic director than the principal, then

068the superintendent. Absolutely. Yep. And if that's too much detail, I don't know. I'm just trying to clarify to make this easy to use. Jordan? Yeah, Mike. On the same bullet, I wonder whether because when I read that, I wondered whether any of those persons can choose to say, no, it's just information, just passing it on to everybody. Correct. Right. None of them have the right to say, sorry, but you can't get an NIL. Right? Right. Okay. I wonder. I mean, do we feel like we need to add that in there? There's rules, just so you know, there's rules and regulations. Like, it tells you that you can't use your school name. Right. So if I'm a student at Chapel Hill High, I can't go represent Chapel Hill High in my nil. So those things like

069that, that's why the principal needs to know, the athletic director needs to know. And then for each step, that form that they fill out explains all of that. Right. So it's, yes, you are correct. It's basically information saying, I'm entering into this nil agreement. I'm not going to. I agree not to use my principal's name, not to use my. You know, so all of those people just are information. You are correct. Okay. Yeah. I wondered. My thought behind adding it as a sentence and just as a layperson reading it and wondering about my kid or the kid themselves reading it, they might. Worry that someone might say no, you know, so it might be worthwhile. I don't know if you guys. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, then can we have

070a motion to approve this with the minor changes. So moved. Do you know what the changes are? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, Mike, are you asking that there be a sentence that sounds like you're asking that there be some type of sentence regarding no one? None of these parties can. All of these parties don't have to agree. Right. I would Say this is for information purposes only. And none of these parties can have the right to refuse. Like at the end of that first bullet, after it says all the people involved, I would just say something along those lines. Does that work? Okay. Thanks, Ronnie. Can I clarify, was yours a change or an addition or clarification? It says a copy of each proposed agreement must be submitted to the school athletic director. Yes, I was

071trying to get it clear on the expectation of what is expected from the student or their family. And so then striking the other three. Well, no, because then forward. Yeah. So then the sentence will need to be. The athletic director will then provide copies to the principal, superintendent, and school board chairperson and say it's submitted to the school athletic director, who will in turn give copies to and then Mike sentence. Yes. Got it. Ms. Steiner, do you want to? Are you? I think, I have it. And then adding to the end of that. This is informational purposes only. No one has the right. No one can refuse. None of those parties can refuse the nil agreement. Yes. Yeah, I think we would have put something like, right for their information, their approval is not required.

072What is the NFHS? The National Federation of High School Athletics. So they are the ones who do all of the training. So when our coaches do training at the beginning of the year through the North Carolina High School Athletic association, they create all the videos and all the training that coaches have, sportsmanship and things like that. So this is a first reading recommendation tonight, so you'll get another chance to see did we get the language the way people thought it needed to be. So can we have a motion then? Just one more thought, Scarlett, is maybe just look at this again, and if there's any way to clarify how any of this is done, or maybe families who are in this process already know how to do all of these things. I just think this

073will be new for a lot of people. So if there's any in this, like, how do I get the NFHS course complete? You know what I mean? Like, it's just if there's any clarity we can add to it that might be helpful. We have not had any in this district. We have two in the state of North Carolina. That was at the end of last year, I think. I just heard from the association not too long ago. There's four possible in the works throughout the entire state of North Carolina. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? We have a motion to approve the first reading of this with the changes? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Now is there further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? So it passes unanimous. Thank you all

074for your input. And this brings us to the item that we added, which is from the consent agenda, item R, as in Robert. Dr. Stewart, you're here to discuss the changes to the district facility rental guidelines? Yes, sir. Thank you, Dr. Griffin. In presenting this, this first went was mentioned in finance facilities and operations committee that we would take this back to our division to form a committee to be able to look at our ability to get closer to market value and to look at inflationary costs through our facility rentals. The district has a facility rentals program where it allows outside organizations and individual to come in and rent spaces throughout the district. As our committee looked at it, we compared other agencies, other school districts. We looked at pricing not just for facilities, but

075also for pay for our employees. So we had two separate things that we were looking at. One of the issues that we had throughout the district was the amount of cancellations with facilities. Our auditoriums and gyms are our most required requested spaces. And we wanted to ensure that those who are attempting to rent those spaces were dedicated and they really didn't want to take that space and hinder another group from it. So we added some things like an application fee and a deposit to make sure that as people entered into agreements with the facility rental program that they were serious about it and they were actually going to rent the spaces. As far as the other side of it, we look to level the payment for our employees. So we have just about 30 custodians

076throughout the district that are their daytime jobs. And I will back up and say this. When we look at facility rentals paid to individuals, these are all extra duty contracts to individuals who have other jobs throughout the district. They may be daytime custodians, they may be bus drivers, they have other jobs that they fulfill. And through the facility rentals contracts in the program, they have extra duties and they are paid as such. So we were looking to level. The committee was looking to level those wages because we did have some disparity there. In the custodial ranks, payment range from between 17 and $23. And in the theater ranks, there was payment ranges from 20 to $28, just about. So we wanted to make sure that we were level across the board. And that's where in

077the abstract we use the term equitable for that. We brought this before the board. We're bringing this before the board tonight because if approved, we wanted to put this in place starting September 1st for our price increases and our pay increases for our employees. So at this time, I'll take any questions from the board. Thank you, Dr. Stewart. Yes, sir. Boardmembers, questions? Dr. Stewart, was there consideration about talking to employees and getting their feedback? So we actually used a committee within the operations divisions that brought together varying viewpoints, some former administrators, administrators to bring us different viewpoints and also different district viewpoints as well. So while we did not venture out to bring in those 33 or so individuals that work in our facility rentals, we got the voices from other districts and those types

078of things, sir. Anybody else? Questions? Yes. I'm sorry, Ronnie. No, you're fine. I'm looking at the space and it says it lists the rates. These are per hour. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I just think it ought to be clear in the. As we publicize that it's not just the flat fee. Yes, ma'am. This is actually loaded up to the website. So as people go in and they actually apply for it, it's spelled out in the website that way. And our fee, our space fee was increased by $5 per hour. We were also looking at some hidden costs here such as custodial supplies and usage of those that are not included. But the board is well aware that I bring an abstract before you every year in excess of $200,000 for custodial supplies throughout

079the district. So this increase will help to offset that cost as well. A question. So when we have organizations within our district like say Blue Ribbon, where would they fall in having to pay for using our facilities? Let me check to see what Blue Ribbon is actually classified as. I have to look and see because we do have. You can see the fee structure does set up for local government and things like that that there are no costs for. One of the biggest issues that we looked at was custodials, custodians being supplied for issues. That's where most of our in house groups have to pay. Their payment is for custodians and having to cover those types of things. So it's not really for the space as much as it's for taking care of the space.

080But I don't want to say Ms. Visa Formville. I don't want to say it out loud and it'd be wrong. So I have to double check. I will get you that answer tomorrow. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? Okay. We have then a motion to accept approval? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, sir. This moves us to the item 7 on the agenda, Superintendent's information item section A, which is an update on the financial impact of a hypothetical elementary school closure. And Mr. Sorogi, I don't want to steal any of your thunder. Do I need to make an introductory comment about why we're doing this, or are you going to cover that right out the of

081the gate? I'll start it off, but if there's something I fail to mention, please feel free to jump in. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, staff and guests here at the meeting. Several months ago, board leadership made a request as I stood before you, giving you a bond CIP update to bring back a topic that has been part of your discussion for about the past two years. And we have talked about it when it comes to the correlation of utilization of our schools and space regarding space and student enrollment. And even last year, as part of your board retreat, we had folks from Carolina Demography at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill come here and kind of give you a breakdown looking at membership birth trends nationally on the Mid Atlantic, even

082here in the state of North Carolina to kind of give you an idea that there is a phenomenon that is occurring nationally, but there are some unique things that appear to be occurring within our specific community that has caused that. And tonight I will be walking through again a hypothetical elementary school closure. This is really for you just to become informed of the factors that are taken into consideration as a result of any fiscal savings that may occur with the local operating or capital budget. But to start off with, and I want to be very clear about what this presentation is and what it is not, this is just a preliminary overview to inform you and the community about the fiscal analysis of what monies could be gained and spent when you have to close

083a school within any school district. It's just a starting point for a much larger discussion and it's only an exploration about the hypothetical closure of one elementary school. And there's no school that has been predetermined here. This is just talking elementary. You could go look at white papers, refereed journals. There's a lot of research and you will see that what I present tonight is based upon a lot of that and it's out there. There's nothing that I'm going to reveal tonight that is going to be an eye opener for you. If you look at any of the research, what this presentation is not Is it is not a recommendation to close or consider closing any specific school within the Chapel Hill City Schools district. It is not a comprehensive academic or logistical study. And it

084has not been informed by staff and community feedback. And I will add to that at the very end when we look at next steps and things that you have to include with best practices. So why do districts consider school closure? School closures are always difficult, but sometimes they are necessary. And these are a variety of factors, not all of them pertain to us. But declining school and enrollment, financial pressures, aging or failing facilities where the buildings are just not able to be occupied, geographic or neighborhood shifts. And then many times it's to improve equity and consistency within a school district. And this is why school closures would occur nationally. Some of the benefits are the reallocation of students and staff allows the optimization of district resources. When you move kids around and you utilize your

085buildings to their fullest, a lot of times there is less duplication that is necessary. In this case, that could could be savings financially. Closing an elementary school can generate significant one time and recurring annual financial savings. And if you see the presentation this evening, I will walk you through that. The savings can be redirected towards academic priorities, capital needs, long term fiscal stability and planning. And then obviously the benefit is ultimately better optimization of limited taxpayer funds. We all have a responsibility to be responsible to our citizens as we pay taxes, everybody pays taxes. And we need to do our best to maximize that. So going back to where Carolina demography and even Mr. Scott in his annual budget presentations, this all goes back to the conversation of student enrollment trends. And you see that

086over this time period our enrollment has been on a steadily declining motion. We know that with this upcoming school year, this is a year that we really want to monitor because we believe that if there's a year in which we may level out, this could be the year. And we go by what Orid also provided, Orange county, the demographer that consults them, that they believe that there is a stagnation there that will occur. And part of that is just with the numbers of students that are coming into our district at the secondary level, they may not be with us at the elementary level, but they are coming in and that can cause that balance to occur. It also goes back to where you've heard multiple times about the Woolpert study, where the county knowing that

087they are responsible for school construction and capacity and funding, that they had a consultant come in and the consultant looking just mathematically at our building capacities as well as our number of students Determined that we were in a pretty good spot with the middle of the high school. And that's because of that returning to our district trend or enrolling in our district trend. But at the elementary level, our capacity has declined just over 1,000 students in the recent years. So when you take an average school that has a building capacity of say 500 students, that boils down to two schools. Mathematically though, I've always said to you that that's a mathematical recommendation. In reality, it's probably one to one and a half schools. You know what that does not take into account is how our

088buildings are used today. Because we have classrooms that are necessary for pull out remediation, for physical occupational therapists to use. There's all kinds of other reasons. So those rooms may or may not be available. So again, a full assessment of that would have to occur. But it does show that we do have at least a deficiency of one school in play at the elementary level. So when you're looking at selecting a school, and this would be for a future study, you want to look at multiple things. You want to look at the facility, age and condition. You want to look at the geographic location and the neighborhood shifts. You want to be aware of enrollment trends and look at what is happening not just within your area, but other communities that are similar to ours,

089be it other college towns that may have similar demographics. You want to make sure that you evaluate the impact on the students and the programming needs, as well as the proximity to other schools that have capacity. So these are all the criteria that you would use as a starting point and through community input, there could be others that are also included, but those are the core ones. So tonight I just want to share with you, there are two big buckets for savings opportunities. You have your staffing, and the staffing that I'm going to show you is primarily allotted by school. These are positions that you have to have. When you open a school, you operate a school. There are other positions that follow the enrollment of the students. And that would be for the most

090part, our instructional staff. If you have a certain number of kids, you have a certain number of teachers. And at the elementary level, we have have state caps on the class sizes. So when you look at the classes that we have within our district, we do not have classes that are empty. Our classes are appropriately sized and we have the appropriate staff. It's not a situation where we have more teachers than we have students. What we do have in our buildings is we have spaces that are available to be used if you were to hire additional teachers if we got additional students. So I just want to make sure that there isn't a misnomer out there. It's not as if we have kids, two kids in a class with one teacher at the elementary level.

091Not the case. All of our classes are full. It's just a matter of having underutilized classrooms that are not being used. With respect to facility management, your savings that you're going to see is with utilities, maintenance, repairs. We do outsource our evening custodial. So the custodial contract value for an elementary school would be in play, as well as a very minimal amount. But for our property insurance, if you're not using a school and you no longer own it, you're no longer paying on property insurance that we pay annually. So when you look at the staff that's allotted by school, I worked with primarily our finance department, but I also talked with school leadership and had our human resources folks look at this, just to make sure that this was a good representation of positions that

092are added by school. So these would be the positions and the estimated budget value, if you want to call it that, because this is a hypothetical, it's not real. If one day a school had been chosen, we would be able to show you specifically these positions and what we are actually paying with salary and with benefits and everything else that comes along with the position. So this shows you that with a total of 17 positions, it's about $1.45 million. So you're looking at just under 1.5 million savings annually if you did not have to have these positions at a school. Again, all the other positions at the school would generally follow the students. When you look at the operations, what we did is we made an estimate based upon some of our oldest schools and

093what we pay for that. And what I'm showing here is the savings that we would incur with electric, gas, water, maintenance, the custodial contract, and property insurance. And I show you two scenarios, because the first column is full school closure. That's where you're taking the school offline and you are disposing of the property. Either you're selling it, you're leasing it, but you're no longer having to handle that building. The other side of the column is where the building remains open, but it's unoccupied, just as if we were to own a home. We moved to another city, but we're still trying to sell the home where we lived. You still have to pay to keep the air on the heat on, you got to cut the grass. Even though you're not occupying it, you still have

094to maintain it. So if we ever close a school, just because we close it, unless we are disposing of the property we still have, there are some costs that still exist. So we could realize about 265,000 if we closed annually. But if we had to maintain it today, we would spend about 100. The savings would only be about 178,000 a year. What that shows you is our utilities as a whole. For, again, it's an element school. Our middle and high schools are much larger in value when it comes to these utilities. But that is the savings that you get. So when you take that and then you look at potentially what would be the value of a school property with the land and a dwelling if you were to sell a school. What I show

095here is just an average of 15 acres. And I show a swag between the land value and the land and building value per acre. And what I did is I looked at the Orange county tax assessments and I looked at what some of our schools that would be comparable as an elementary school, what they're valued at, and basically it referred to about 750,000 to $1.1 million an acre. That could mean that if we were to sell one of our properties in its entirety, could get roughly about 16 and a half million dollars for that property. Now, what my disclaimer is that this is all based upon market conditions, how the buyer possibly would want to use that property. There's many factors that come into play, but it just shows you that it's a sizeable amount

096of money. But I do have to say 16 and a half million, though it's a lot. It costs 55 to 58 million to build an elementary school. That's what we estimate today. So you couldn't just sell this property and then take that money and build. You might be able to supplement the cost of a project, but it's not going to replace that property at all. The other thing that I want to share with you is North Carolina statute does state that if you were to dispose of a property and surplus it, you do have to ask the county commissioners. They have first right of refusal by law. So they would have to say that they don't want it or if they wanted it, there would have to be some form of some negotiation between our

097board and their commission. But I want to say that before it could be put out on the market, and there's a variety of ways in which that can be done. So avoiding capital investment, this is really not a savings. But if we had an old school that we had to keep open, and we talked about this with the Wolper report, there's money that we would have to invest for windows, electrical, HVAC, technology, infrastructure. We might spend between 10 and 15 million dollars over a 10 year period with one of our oldest schools. And we estimated this for the schools that we're currently replacing that this would be that investment. So in reality you're going to defer or just be able to redirect 10 to $15 million in capital money. So instead of putting it into

098a school that you're closing, you can put it into other schools or essentially you may not have to sell debt to even spend the money. But it is a way in which you can avoid that capital investment. Some one time closure costs. If you were to close a school, you know, just be remiss not to say you got to pay because realistically you're going to be redistricting. There is a cost to that. You have building, contents, relocation. You know, teachers are going to be moving, you're going to be moving contents either for us to store or for us to take to other schools. And then you're going to have to have some building closure preparation. You know, you might spend money to buy plywood. You still got to have your staff, cut the grass. There's

099minimal expenses. And this is again, this is just an estimate. I suspect that over time this number would continue to go up. But today I would say 325 to 500,000 is what you would pay just to close a building. And that's not to demolish it, which will be next or abate any materials that are there. That is just to maintain it. So demolition costs. If we were to close a school, many times you can sell the property or, or many times the building may be in condition to where you have to demolish it because it is not safe or it's too expensive to maintain or to have to supervise over time knowing that it could be subject to vandalism and many things of that nature. So you have to look at this to say what

100would it cost to demolish a building? Realistically, it could be from 400 to $1.4 million. Our buildings, we've had a lot of abatement done, which is a lot of the call. So I would think that ours would probably be about a million dollars if we paid. But again, if we were to sell our property, a buyer might come in who wants the school and doesn't want to demo it. Or the buyer may come in and say, I'm looking to develop a mixed use development with retail and apartments or condos. I don't need this. I will pay to tear the building down myself. But that would be reflected in the sale price as well. But this is one just to note because there are times where we may have to do it because it is imminent.

101I do not foresee that we have any schools today that are in this condition, though that we would tear down if we were to close it in whatever set time. We're just not there yet. In 10 years. If we have some schools we haven't done stuff with, we've said through the Wolpert report, we could be there, but we're not there now. So I don't want to suggest that. So here are the takeaways in closing of a hypothetical school. You've got about 16 and a half million from the sale of a building one time. You have about 325,000 in one time closure costs, which gives you about a net one time savings of just over $16 million. Your recurring annual savings, which is the one that I would take the heart, is that it's estimated with

102the maintenance, utilities as well as the salaries, about 1.7 million annually, ongoing operational savings. And again, that's with staff efficiencies, utility and lower maintenance and custodial costs. So we created this graphic to kind of just tell the story. This is over four fiscal years, FY26 through the close of FY29. If you have 1.7 million, if we were to wait four fiscal years, potentially you're giving up $6.8 million over four years in operational expenses. Now that's a sizeable number and I think it's a number that we all take to heart. It's a real number. But there's a lot that goes into closing of a school. So it can't be strictly a fiscal decision. Though that's the greatest reason why you might consider after you look at some of the items that I'm going to mention. But

1036.8 million over four years. So it does add up. And we did not put inflation or anything into this. But again, just so that you, you can see that. So potential next steps. You know, I told you that we are here not to make a recommendation. There has been no preliminary discussions. Nothing has occurred other than what we've prepared for you this evening. But I would be remiss if I did not say to each of you when you look at the research, there's two things that it says leads to the success of school closures. Because in the end, it's like the lesser of two evils. It's never considered a success when you close a school, but how do you do it to where it's mitigated the most? Where the community understands and accepts it? The

104first is time. If you have time. Successful school closures have occurred when there has been a very transparent, involved public staff process where everybody sees the roadmap and knows what to expect in time. Meaning if we have the ability to gain, give three years notice or four years notice. Parents that enroll their children in school know exactly what's going to happen in four years. They know when they start. But what I will say is the other item is the first bullet. There are opportunities. Sometimes districts have to rush into school closure. And what research says is you need to look at it holistically. It can't be in isolation. You have to be able to look at your instructional program and evaluate them because there could be opportunities that you can maximize your efficiencies because you

105make programming changes. The example I would use is if we closed a school and just redistricted the students out of the school that you closed. But then a year later, there was a decision to end XYZ program at a school and you would go back and say, gosh, we're gonna have to move students a second time. If we had just evaluated that all on the front end, we've only had to move students once, not twice. That's where you build community confidence. Because again, they knew what was happening and everybody could expect it. The example I've used with my staff in conversations is if you follow Guilford county to the west of us, they have had a huge bond program where they have had school consolidations. It's been on the table for many years. And they

106actually consolidated some schools this past year. It went fairly well because people knew and it took time for them to communicate, but everybody knew where it stood. And it was not one of those where you had people lining up because they felt they weren't part of a process. So I just use them as an example. If you Google Guilford with their program, you will see I think that's a pretty good example. Their challenge, and I think can be our challenge, is the longer you wait, you saw on that slide, the more money you're giving up or you're not maximizing. So it's a balance between the two, and you've got to keep that in order. We would obviously have community input forums and listening sessions. We will want to continue to work on financial modeling, school

107site evaluation. I will say, given the history of the maintenance of our buildings, I do believe that school age, condition, as well as geographic location are probably the top two things that we would want to look at initially because we're in that situation. Unlike there are, believe it or not, there are newer districts. If you look Clark County, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas, back in the early 2000s, they had tremendous growth, and that growth has declined where they have schools that are just almost 15 years old and they're looking to consolidate even there. So you have that. But age would be one of our primary reasons to get our kids into the to a school as possible. We'd want to evaluate boundary options and capacity realignment. That's a lot of work, but it's one

108that you've got to do. And you have to understand how our schools are using our buildings, not just for the classrooms, but for all the other support services. And then we would have to have communication, timeline and regular updates to the community and to you as a board. So with that being said, I'm here to answer any questions. But again, this, as you had asked, this is just a fiscal overview that just gives you an idea. And I appreciate you allowing us to do this, to really look at the recurring annual expense savings for us to be able to look at positions and to be able to see what's real and what's not real, because for us, I think that is a very telling slide of what you can save on the operational side. So

109with that, Mr. Chair, I turn it back to you. Thank you, Mr. Shirogi. I appreciate that. Before I ask board members, I want you to repeat, and I want to repeat why we're here tonight talking about this was we specifically asked you and through us, to bring us some data because we've been talking about this for two years, since the Wolpert report as an issue, not as a plan. And my fear tonight, and we talked about this, is somebody's going to get a piece of this presentation and immediately start to say there's another agenda or we're trying to close a school or something like that, and we're simply not. But we did want to have a sense for board members of what are the realities of dollars and dollars saved. We are being asked that.

110And there are community members saying, you've discussed it, you need to do it. And so I appreciate you gathering this information and walking us through the hypothetical cost savings. But I don't know if you wanted to repeat on your end why we're doing this tonight because. Yeah, I think one is, I think it's been a burning question that we've kind of tiptoed around it. And I think, I think it's a good talking point. But I think what I'd want everyone to know, that it's easier said than done to close a school. We all know that. But I do think it's one that we the evidence and the information is compelling enough that I do think it has to be part of the discussions when you as a board deliberate on a lot of things, but

111you've talked about academic return on investment and wanting to grow and expand upon that. And I think, as I talked about with program and evaluation, I think that that's got to be part of the conversation on the front end to at least evaluate and to look at that, because that could be a determinant in helping decide that criteria. But again, it's real. And we all know we're not doing this or presenting this because of financial challenges that our district is incurring. You know, we've been able to address that by rightsizing our district and our allocations. But there's a reality of the fact that if our enrollment trend is not going to grow, there are some decisions that have to be made. And I think that it would be very proactive for us to move down

112that path in due time and when it's right. But, you know, districts across the nation, they avoid this. And, you know, there have been situations where, you know, they fall into financial disarray. And I think that we've just got to keep this in order because these positions that we would talk about, these are not high attrition positions that just turn over all the time. A few might. But, you know, part of it is methodically trying to develop a plan, if at all possible, that you could, if you were doing this, that you could do that methodically and you can make plans and possibly have interim folks in positions knowing that if there's a destined timeline that that person could, then people could switch and rotate. And again, that's part of that public confidence and for

113our staff as well. But that's all I got. Thank you. Boardmembers, any questions or any comments? Yes, Ronnie. Thank you so much for the detail. I appreciate the inclusion of the cost that we would avoid if we took an action or if we considered an action. One thought was, as we think about this as a future option, it would probably be important to include consideration of what we do with land, given the scarcity of land in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and making sure we're anticipating potential future growth. And that kind of probably sounds discordant with what we're talking about. But we may need a high school sooner or an elementary school sooner. And so just maybe like, do we lease the land versus selling it? So I would just encourage us to keep that question in

114front of us. And then I would say I really appreciate your mention of community engagement as part of the process. I know we don't undertake something like this lightly or without breaking bringing multiple voices into the conversation. And Also our policy 2020 mandates the formation of a committee when we look at major decisions like this. So there would certainly be opportunities for engagement. And then I guess my question is sort of what's next? I think fiscally we have a responsibility, looking at our continued decline to kind of say, like, how do we keep this as something that we're continuing to work toward such that if we had to make a decision about it, we could, you know, we're down a pathway. I would probably just repeat what I previously have said that I think you

115just can't keep this in isolation. And you have to look at the broader picture of the instructional needs of our school district and that instructional evaluation. I think that would be. If I said what is the next step it would be pursuing academic return on investment to ensure that programs are meeting our needs as they were originally developed or they're not. And if there, if it does tie into school closure, that's great. But if it doesn't, we've been able to hit two birds of one stone there. But that would be the piece. In order to really give a cost estimate, you have to know a school, right? You can't go any more granular in cost until you've identified a school. So what you've got is probably the best you're going to get until that point.

116The other would be working with transportation to look at geographically, you know, I'm going to go back to FPG. You know, we had looked at, looking at alternate sites a year ago for FPG and you know, we were fortunate that we believe we have found a suitable site very close within that community. But I had mentioned, you know, one of the downfalls of moving that school is that geographically, if FPGA was to ever become just a regular school again, we need a school in that area. Just like I would say the same about Ephesus in the Northeast quadrant of our town. We need an elementary school up there towards East Chapel Hill. So when you're looking geographically, it's making sure that where are your key positions. But I also believe as our town continues to

117move up in building versus out, we do need to keep in mind our property, and we need to make sure that we don't give away something that we think has value on the front end, but then we regret it on the back end. And I do think knowing that we did not have much land available other than the county commissioners were with willing to help us if we were to build next to Morris Grove elementary, there really wasn't much there other than that and the future green track development. But those are limited. They're both kind of in the same area for the most part. So it really doesn't leave you much option but working with transportation to really determine geographically because we know where the developments are happening here in the towns of Carrboro and

118Chapel Hill right now. So we can kind of track that just to see geographically, where would our sweet spots be, if you want to call it that. Thank you, Mr. Shoroki. This is really helpful. You know, this has been on my brain as we're trying to kind of figure out some things. It's like, long term, how are we looking at our district. You know, how is it going to operate and things like that. And for me, next steps is like, really for us to put together a strategy. We've seen this brief information here, but your number one bullet is, you know, we've got to look at now within our schools that academic return on investment that we've been talking about for a number of years, but we just haven't committed as a board to do

119it. I think it'd be helpful to go through that exercise so we can kind of think about long term. How do we envision our district overall? You know, I keep hearing from parents and even us as board member, we keep talking about innovation, but part of being able to innovate also requires to look at our current offerings and things like that. So for me, I think this is a great exercise. I'd love for us to commit as a board and direct staff to begin. I think they're thinking about the work on academic return on investment, but we kind of need to have them launch it and begin in similar fashion to start presenting that information to us so we can begin to look at the world of opportunities that we have now. But are there

120other opportunities for our students programmatically as we Start to see how the world is changing, that maybe we look at how can we bring those innovations into our district. What do we need to do from a program standpoint? So I would like to get behind kind of next step. So we just aren't hearing a presentation. It's like it was great. We continue to move forward and we look at other things too. Thank you. Barb. Yeah, I just wanted to echo this really helpful presentation and I agree with both of those points that you both made. Could you just go to slide number five, the enrollment trends? 1. I just was going to ask if you would. Yeah, yeah. What did you say about this year? This is, this is like the year that people feel

121like is going to be significant in terms of leveling off. Yeah. It's purely speculative, but when you look at the trending and how the decline we had, it's decreased in recent years compared to what I'll say is the slide that we had. And we just believe that this could be the year that it stables out. Carolina demography really kind of insinuated that last year when they talked about the secondary kids returning and how that was offsetting. And even Orid, Orid predicts that though we've lost kids, that we're still going to gain kids over a 10 year period. And I know I keep saying over and over, but every time each presentation has to stand on itself. I don't believe further than I can throw a ball. So when those demographers say that we're going to

122grow in 10 years, you got to look at it every year. But again, the subjectivity we're using twofold is, you know, the building up. When you look at Charlotte, families are moving into that type of home in the Charlotte area. They're not moving into them here. But I just think that's a matter of time as people become acclimated. And I think we have to be cognizant of that. Hence I've always said one school, not two, at the same time, storing land, keeping land, because we may need it for something. You know, just as. And I throw that out there, looking at future, possibly some form of a technical center could be an option in the future. And I'm not suggesting we do that today. But it's like if you don't have the land, you can't

123even fathom that unless that land comes to you. Land is the most precious commodity in operations you can have because you can't do anything without it. Meredith. I don't really have a question. I just wanted to thank you for the presentation. I think this is an uncomfortable topic for a lot of us. I think it's not fun to think about the potential closure of a school. You know, people are tied to their communities, they're tied to their community schools, and it's just a hard conversation to have. But I think we're at a unique sort of inflection point with a confluent of events right now. I think we have uncertainty at the federal level. We have a state legislature that is consistently rolling back funding for different things. And you can see right now with the

124budget that still hasn't been confirmed for this coming school year. So there's just a lot of uncertainty. I think with the other pieces are the fact that we're approaching this. This bond project where we have kind of a unique opportunity to rethink how we district and look at really sizing all of our buildings for the kids that we have. And so I think we would be really derelict to not consider all of the possibilities that are on the table. So I hope that the community will hear that and know that we're thinking through this very deliberately and carefully. And I appreciate all the info that you put out there. So thank you. And send all emails to Al Sharoki. Anybody else? Okay, Mr. Shirogi, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. That brings us to the

125second and last item, which is the annual comprehensive professional learning plan. You all been waiting patiently. Thank you for noticing. Good evening to the board and to cabinet. I'm Danielle Sutton. I'm the executive director for professional learning, and I'm here with my partner in professional learning, Mr. Rob Freskin. He's the coordinator for professional learning representing the human Resource Division, my favorite division. So we're here tonight to talk about this comprehensive professional learning plan that we work really hard with our team to develop. And so let's get started. Purpose of the plan. It's a comprehensive professional learning plan. And what it does is it builds a collaborative foundation for us to implement some of the goals in the plan that we draft it with our team. It specifically focuses on the culture and support. It promotes

126collaboration and inclusivity. We sort of consider ourselves the glue amongst all of the different divisions and efforts in our district, specifically looking to enhance the culture of professional learning and the strategic alignment of some of the initiatives here in the our district, we're going to go into the role of the office of Professional Learning. We help design and organize some of the professional learning opportunities for all staff. And when we say all staff, we mean all staff. We're not just talking about certified staff, teachers or licensed staff. That includes everyone, really aligning the work with state, local policy. That's part of our job to make sure that we're following the rules. We also create and maintain systems. And that's going to be a big part of our work going forward, is establishing systematic procedures that

127ensure the quality of professional learning remains at a high level, but also that it meets the needs of our teachers, our staff, all of our classified staff, and works towards student achievement. And then the last thing is again that collaborative piece bringing everyone to the table across the district to ensure that professional learning is effective and implemented with fidelity. While we do, he and I facilitate and organize some professional learning, we don't do it all. We're not the main providers of professional learning in this district. And so that's again where that collaborative piece comes in because we are working with all divisions, all departments to make sure that our staff needs are met. Now getting down into the development of the plan. Chapel Hill City Schools, we collaborated with Learning Forward. The state Board of

128Education adopted the Learning Forward standards for professional learning back in 2011. And we in 2024 worked with learning Forward. They hosted listening sessions, focus groups, and then they worked with us, the steering committee, to develop our to analyze that data and to help us develop the comprehensive professional learning plan. And looking at my notes here. So our plan creation process, as Rob mentioned, included the collaboration with Learning Forward. We were really excited about that. Our consultant came in and did some extensive training with our steering committee. They conducted focus groups, did lots of research. We looked at all information available to help us put this plan together. We also were able to a part of that collaboration to provide a district membership for Learning Forward to all of our licensed staff, which gave them access

129to really good research based practices and information around building professional learning. And then again, more collaboration. So several collaborative meetings with our steering committee in order to move the plan forward. And that committee was multifaceted. We had classified members, licensed members, school district, district members. Some folks in this room were present with us as we work towards building this plan. So the mission and vision statements that we have here were crafted by the professional Learning plan steering committee. And I know you all have had a chance to read these over, so we'll go on to the next one. Keep rolling. These key priorities were developed using data and guided by best practice. The steering committee identified these eight key priorities for the professional learning plan that it would meet. A more detailed explanation for each

130key priority can be found in the CPLP. Just for brevity's sake. When developing professional learning opportunities for staff, it's really important that those opportunities reflect the diverse experience experiences and needs of the staff as well as the students they serve. So of the roughly 1,200 certified and 900 classified staff employed by the district, approximately 24% work at the elementary, 21 at the high, 17 at middle school, and 1% at the UNC Hospital School, and 16% are central office and support staff. These graphs show the racial demographics of our employees as well as those of the students and when looking at the review of the current status in the process of developing this plan, the district team reviewed and built upon current programs and initiatives new for 2024-25 school year. The fourth Wednesday flex program saw

131454 staff members take advantage of 45 offerings. These were held after school on that 4th Wednesday, while the seven classified employee workshop series sessions hosted 480 attendees from schools across the district as well as central office. Looking at the 25-26 school year, the Classified Employees workshop series has has been moved up to 32 different offerings and those offerings come from the K5 instructional group, human resources, Finances, Digital Learning and Libraries, Exceptional Children and Equity Departments and I think it's McAvring. So one of the cornerstones of the plan that I am really excited about is the development of this district professional learning team. So we've created a multidisciplinary team at the district level to look at professional learning and we do everything from plan professional learning. An example is our teaching and learning conference that's coming

132up next week. We're very excited about that, making sure that we have meaningful sessions planned for our two district days. But we also do things like systematic procedures compliance. This year we created an expectations for schools to create professional learning plans. This is the first year that we're doing this and then our team will do some audits. In fact, our first audit is tomorrow morning. We'll be right back in in this room at 9 o' clock doing some of that work. So looking at things from a systematic lens and making sure that the alignment is there between what some of the division priorities and district priorities are, our strategic plan, our curriculum management plan, which we'll get into a little bit later. Now this wasn't just created in a vacuum or just the Danielle and

133Rob show, the Comprehensive Professional Learning plan. It was developed in response to and alignment with the CHCCS strategic Plan and the Curriculum and Instruction audit conducted in 2022. The CPLP responds to key action steps from Instructional Excellence, Preparing Students for Life Goal one, Milestone one and two, and Empowering and Equipping and Investing in Our People Milestones one and goals two and three. These goals speak speak to the need for providing research based and focused PL on effective instructional strategies as well as providing more and more responsive professional learning opportunities for both classified and certified staff. To address the identified areas of improvement found in the Curriculum and Instruction Audit. The CPLP identifies specific action steps and outlines the conditions for success, the transformational process and the structures for providing rigorous content for all staff. So

134part of the steering committee's work was to take all the resources that we had available such as the curriculum management plan and the curriculum audit and making sure that all of the plan addressed all of the things that were mentioned in both of those items as well as the strategic plan. And so we had a focus on transparency by establishing our Month at a Glance, which is a large catalog for staff to access the monthly professional learning offerings alignment by again creating division plans and division goals, but also school plans and making sure that those things are aligned together. Collaboration with the development of our professional learning team at the district level, but also opportunities for staff to engage in professional learning that piques their interest or lead professional learning. And that happens through our

135Flex Wednesday PL catalog. So really this team and this plan is moving us away from compliance and like one off ideas really to a consistency towards our instructional goals for students and enhancing our staff, certified staff staff and classified staff professional development. So again, our curriculum management plan, it really has an emphasis on the shared goal of student success. We did look extensively at our Equity inclusion plan and also ongoing improvement. And one of the ways to do that is through some accountability measures that we will be putting in place this year. So again tomorrow our team will be meeting and doing our first audit of school and district plans to ensure alignment there. Rob mentioned earlier that we did one of the tools that we used in helping develop this plan is really digging

136through that instructional audit. It gave us a lot of really good insightful information about where we needed to start. And so there's an extensive write up. You all probably saw it in the plan where we detail exactly how we plan to address the findings of the audit. It starts on page seven and you can go through it. But again, some of those steps include the development of the plan itself. So check we did that. We're here developing our team, really getting into making sure that our classified staff are being developed. And so Rob should be very proud of the work that he did with classified workshop series. It has really grown and we've got tremendous feedback from our classified employees about their experience in the workshop. It also gave us an opportunity to interface with

137them and hear from them directly what their needs are, what their professional learning needs are, and where they feel like they need to be developed. So we're really excited about that. And then again, creating the Flex Wednesday schedule and then enhancing that. So we have almost twice as many offerings for Flex Wednesday this year as we did last year. And so part of those steering committees work, we developed some goals for our plan which are outlined here. I won't read them all to you, but some of my favorite, my two favorites. I'm going to go to goal five, which is providing differentiated professional learning aligned to staff roles. And so one of the things that we do on our district professional learning team is we have this amazing spreadsheet that lists almost every staff role

138in the district. And we walk through every role and examine what professional learning opportunities are being provided by role and when is that happening and when is the frequency of that. Again, ensuring that professional learning is aligned to your role, to your work, and that everyone is being developed. I think when we think about professional learning, we ultimately think about teachers, certified staff, but there are lots of people here that also need to be developed. And then for goal six, strengthening the impact of accountability and professional learning. And I think this is really where our team is going to work hard this year and develop in some of those accountability measures. Looking at the quality of the professional learning that's going forward and how we can enhance that and really creating some rubrics and systems

139to make sure that that is implemented with fidelity. That's a place that we really need to grow. And so I'm excited about that work this year. Finally, it's just a short list of some of the resources that we use to develop our plan together. So again, the curriculum management plan, I our strategic plan, the curriculum audit. There is an overview of our beginning teacher support program. Just as an aside, we hosted three days of new teacher orientation. Today was the last day and it was amazing. We were right here in this building. We had almost 100 new staff that we welcomed into our district yesterday. And that was super exciting. And all of that work is part of the beginning teacher support program. Again, Our Board Policy, 1610, which relates directly to professional learning. And

140then this year we also developed professional learning protocols and best practices. And so making sure that again, when we do those audits and those accountability checks, that the professional learning that is being developed is aligned to those protocols and practices. We are at the end. What questions do you have for us? First of all, thank you. And I do have a few questions, but again, I look to my colleagues. Yeah, Reza, thank you so much. While you were talking, I was scanning through the professional learning, I guess, courses. That's what I've been looking for for like many, many years. So thank you for having it out there on the website because I was like, I've been asking like what types of offerings. Obviously I was looking at the on demand and then and you see

141what's being offered each year. So that's really helpful because it's clear for me as a board member to see that all these trainings are being offered. You actually answered my one question about individual with goal 5. Like looking at that, I just wanted to get some clarification, I guess, like when administrators or whoever is doing the observations for any staff, how does that tie in? Right, Because I think we're looking at roles, but then also individual too. And I think it goes back to I think goal six that you highlight at the evaluation because I think that's also going to inform it. So let's say a supervisor observes a staff member needs a particular area of training, they recommend it and then they see improvement. Then that should inform you, hey, that was actually probably

142a pretty good training. And so I think that would be like the other thing is to like utilizing those observations because we certain staff members get feedback from their supervisors. But thank you so much. This is an area like I've been asking about even before I was on the board about how do. I mean, we have educators and educators in different roles, not just in classroom teachers supporting our kids and things like that, but how are we also making sure they continue to grow and learn too? So thank you. Thank you. Meredith. I have a question and I'm a little embarrassed to ask this question because I feel like I should probably know this already. But maybe for my benefit and for anybody who's watching, can you just give like a 2 minute or 30

143second overview of sort of what the expectations are for our staff in terms of professional learning and kind of what the paths are. I think Risa alluded to this a little bit. Obviously could come from an evaluation or maybe an outcome in a classroom or elsewhere, but just sort of how teachers identify what they're taking and then what the time expectations are, like how many courses per year, sort of what their obligation as a teacher or a staff member, as you pointed out, and taking some of the professional learning you offer? Yes. So it's a multi layer answer. We do have a catalog of required trainings and that is aligned to state policy. And I think it requires like six hours every year of training. And so those are like those vector courses when we

144do bloodborne pathogens and concussion training, those sort of things. So that's a required rough six hours every other year. And it depends on whether it's an odd year, an even year. So there's that. But then there's also what we identify at the district level as a priority. So one example would be AVID training. We want to make sure that everyone has access to AVID training and those AVID strategies in the classroom. And so once our instructional division has identified that, then we work with the division to make sure that, that those trainings and professional learning opportunities are set up throughout the year and that they reach everyone that they need to reach. At the same time, individual needs do identify themselves. So for example, an administrator goes in the classroom, sees a need for support

145with classroom management. And that can happen in a few ways. We often get requests from principals about what resource do you have for this? And that's why building that catalog is so important because then I can like pull out of my professional learning tool belt some things to offer schools when they need it. Also a part of our division are our lead district mentors. So that's where they can go out and do some one on one coaching. But we also have at schools instructional coaches who are available to support teachers. And so that's where you can get really personalized professional development. And so again it's multilayer. And part of our work I said earlier is like, we're like the glue. It's just making sure that all of those pieces are working together for better student

146outcomes. And to add on to that answer, you know, teachers are required to receive CEUs, Continuing Education Units 8 no matter what your level is. You know, elementary has slightly different CEUs from secondary. Some of that is driven by individual teachers professional development plan at the beginning of the year that they create. You know, I might be focused on artificial intelligence this year. So I'm going to take PD PL professional learning in that area. And I think that also comes back to what we've been really trying to make clear in this plan is it's also the professional learning, the district PL team coming in and saying, well, this is what the, you know, the instructional technology folk are seeing and this is what our K12 instructional experts are seeing. And just as a team trying

147to develop and make sure that we have a common message across the district. So multiple different levels of where that PL decision comes from. Thank you very much. This was really excellent. Excellent. Also, Meredith, that was not a dumb question. I was going to ask it. So goal 6. I just wanted to say I think it's great that in the last bullet it would have been very easy to just stop with participant feedback. Data will show an increase in satisfaction. Just leave it with the subjective. And I appreciate that you had some objective metrics as well. I guess. How did you pick those as opposed to. I don't know. You could just imagine. We know. And of course in end of grade data are limited and they don't account for students with disabilities very well

148or multi language learners. And I guess is this just like one example and are there others? And I guess yeah, just whatever you want to say about that. Sure. Yeah. We had to start somewhere. And honestly, what is our available data? What is that data that is available to us that we can look at? And it's not the best data in the world. It's what we have and it's what many of our instructional division, our ICD folk, use as their guiding principles as well. So in wanting to support that alignment, that was just kind of our natural to go to. But we wanted to make sure that student data did drive this as well. Not just our staff. Love our staff. Mike. I have a question that's kind of connected to that actually. I'm going

149to pause for just a second, spend about 10 seconds just to poke fun at Rob. 9 summers ago I show up at Culbreth to interview and you made fun of me because I was wearing a necktie and you said I was totally overdressed and look where we are today. Okay. It's not a bowtie. Yeah. All right. So connected to the part about people's perception of the PL that they've done and it's easy to just at the end of it say, oh, I give it a five and a five and a five and just move out but early in your presentation you had bullet points and one of them was about the use of the plot to further the work that you do and I'm a classroom teacher but for anybody, for all the other people

150that are getting training too. So what are we doing to encourage beyond the training, like what happens after the training and how do we facilitate that? Yeah. That will be part of our district team work. I say this all the time. But we have some really powerful educators here in this district. We don't always need to go out to get consultants to come in. And so part of that will be collaborating with IC using that walkthrough tool, going around to see where are those fantastic things happening and how can we get those people to come back and lead some of these initiatives that are directly aligned to the big rocks, the initiatives that have been identified by our divisions. And so now that we have a team, we have people to sort of help us

151identify that. And that also can take the work further and give some of our master educators an opportunity to share their magic across the district. I think Mike, also to address that question, best practice does say it's not just, you know, put those fives down for what you just did. It's follow up after 30 days, 60 day, 90 day, depending on what it is. Now let's get feedback from you. You had this fantastic piece. Now, how has it impacted you as an individual teacher or staff member, custodian, anyone across the district? So I think that's that best practice and next level data that we are looking to collect. Collect as a team. Okay, that's great question. Thank you. Vicki. So would maybe looking down the line, would the POS be a part of, like, for

152goals setting in the performance review process so that when supervisors and managers go to open up the process and not at the end, but like the beginning of the cycle, the goal may be that you take this particular PL or you take this particular. And then at that midterm and at the end they can look to see how that has suited that particular employee and they've leveled up so that people aren't just finding out what they should or shouldn't have been doing at the end of the process. And the end of the process should never be the first time that they saw their performance review anyway? Absolutely. And that is part of, again, some of that collaborative work. And so we have really seen an increase in number of administrators reaching out to us again,

153asking for resources, identifying needs in their school, either globally or for individual teachers or departments. And then we are working together to support them with that. And then they're able to work with their coaches to see after they attended this training, after they use this resource, how have they implemented it, how has it impacted student growth, am I seeing changes in the classrooms? So I'm really excited about that because that is a new phase for us is that collaborative piece and schools reaching out, feeling like they do have a resource with us. So again, we're not leading the professional learning, but we're sort of the glue that holds it all together and helping. Administrators identify where is that PL. So a highly underutilized piece of of PL is embedded in the teacher evaluation instrument. So

154if you have done your first observation, you're sitting down with the teacher, they're struggling with standard one. You can go down to the indicators. There are actually PL embedded in that instrument. And so that's part of our work is in professional learning is reminding administrators you don't have to go outside. You can do it right inside this instrument. Say while we're signing off on this, you want to know more about this classroom management or leading in your school piece. There's PL right there next to indicator one. Click on that, sign up for it, take the course. We'll come back and talk, talk through it next time we get together. So just helping, making sure that's really clear where to find the PL. Thank you. Thank you. I think that gave everybody a chance to show

155their interest in this. I wanted to make sure we appreciate and I do appreciate, but I think everybody does that. When the curriculum audit was done and then the curriculum management plan was developed, there were seven major areas that it focused on in the this was one of them professional development. And while Reza checked some things, I was checking out the audit to say what did they say again? Because it was the way you presented this was comprehensive in scope and yet it was targeted to relevant employee learning needs groups. And that was their point was bring it home. And so in just less than two years time we've gone from to here we are. And a lot of times, you know people, I keep this laundry list of accomplishments from district leadership and employee

156groups because it gets longer and longer in just the four years that I've been on the board. And this is another example. So we appreciate the work you all have done with leadership in this area. Thank you. Appreciate, was really no question, just some praise. So you can go. All right, well, you all have a good night. And that brings us to the last item, which is sharing and committee reports. Do we have anything tonight from finance that looked like a head shake policy? Mike? No. Our next meeting is September. And student success, Vicki? We are August 26th. The day after we go back to school. 5:30. And is there anything? Any committee reports? Any sharing that people need wanted to do tonight? And hearing none, the meeting is adjourned.