Board of Education Regular Meeting - Jan 15, 2026

001Happy New Year. All right. Good evening, everyone. I call the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education meeting to order. May I get a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. Motion from Vicki. A second from Ronnie. All those in favor say aye. Aye All right. Next is. May I get a motion to go into closed session for the purposes stated on the agenda? So moved. The motion from Barb. Second. Second from Meredith. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Can you oppose? All right. Thank you. We will come back as close to 7 as possible. Thank you. [CLOSED SESSION] Good evening, everyone. Our first item on our agenda is to read a proclamation. We won't read the School board proclamation. It is there for you to read. Madam Chair, if it would

002please the board. The cabinet would like to read this proclamation as it is in recognition of North Carolina School Board Appreciation Month. What a surprise. Well, I'll turn it over to you. We'd be happy to do that. Whereas, January is School Board Appreciation Month in North Carolina, an opportunity for communities across our state to recognize and honor the dedicated service of their locally elected board members and; Whereas, the Board of Education members play a critical role in shaping the vision and direction of public education, ensuring that every student is provided the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed and; Whereas, members of the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education devote hours to community representation, policy development, budget oversight, personnel decisions and advocacy, always with students at the center of their work and; Whereas, these

003leaders give not just their time but also their energy and expertise while balancing the responsibilities of public office with their personal, family and professional lives. And whereas our Board of Education works collaboratively with district staff, families and the broader community to support safe, inclusive and learning environments for all students and; Whereas, strong public schools are the foundation of thriving communities, and the thoughtful governance and oversight provided by the Board of Education strengthens our educational system and our way of life and; Whereas, during School Appreciation Month, we recognize the challenges our board members face and express our deep gratitude for their courage, leadership and steadfast commitment to educational excellence. So now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools proudly honors and thanks the members of the CHCCS Board of Education for their

004outstanding service and dedication to the students, families, staff and community we serve. Let's give them a round of applause. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. All right. And we do have another proclamation. Board members. Sure. Give you a minute. Celebrating National Mentoring Month. Whereas, the Chapel Hill Carrboro City School District has a long standing commitment to creating equitable learning and enrichment opportunities for all Scholars and to developing collaborative partnerships with families and community organizations that reflect the diversity of our community and; whereas, January 2026 marks the 23rd anniversary of National Mentoring Month, a national campaign that brings attention to the critical need for mentors and highlights how each of us can work to increase the number of caring adults who support positive outcomes for young people and the 31st year of the flagship award winning Blue Ribbon Mentor

005Advocate Program and; Whereas, quality mentoring promotes healthy relationships and communication, positive self esteem, emotional well being and the holistic growth of young people. And whereas, mentoring plays a pivotal role in career exploitation exploration and supports the development of workplace skills by helping young people set career goals, equipping mentors with strategies to guide professional growth and driving positive long term outcomes for both youth and the community and Whereas, Blue Ribbon was created to help close the achievement and opportunity gaps in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools and currently serves 679 scholars in grades 4 through 12 and; whereas, the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education honors mentors who show up consistently for young people weekly demonstrating their deep commitment to supporting scholars as they strive to reach their full potential and; Whereas, the Blue Ribbon

006Mentor Advocate Program strengthens our community by fostering meaningful relationships that increase social capital for young people and by providing invaluable cultural, social and academic achievement and; whereas, Blue Ribbon supports the district's strategic plan 2027 portrait of a Graduate by training mentors to encourage scholars to become ethical and empathic citizens, skilled communicators, critical thinkers, effective collaborators and adaptable individuals who are prepared to engage as global citizens and; Whereas, the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate Program provides high quality programs including the Youth Leadership Institute for High School Scholars Blueprint for Middle School Scholarship with its focus on STEM and career exploration, Seeking the Self, an arts based leadership program Next Level for middle school and high school young men and readers as leaders for elementary scholars, all designed to create safe affirming spaces where scholars feel centered and

007valued and; Whereas, research shows that scholars who meet weekly with their mentors are 52% less likely to skip a day of school, youth who experience an opportunity gap but have a mentor are 55% more likely to be enrolled in college and young people who meet regularly with a mentor are 46% less likely to start using drugs and 27% less likely to begin drinking alcohol and; whereas, National Mentoring Month is an opportunity to acknowledge, celebrate, elevate and honor the power of mentoring across our state and to recruit Caring adult mentors in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the broader Triangle region. Now; therefore, be it resolved that the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education hereby proclaims January 2026 as National Mentoring Month and encourages staff, families and community members to join the movement to empower, support,

008and uplift the scholars we serve. Thank you. All right, and next up on our agenda, we have a presentation from MSAN and I see Lori Clark and Terrence Fushi here, and I had a chance to see some wonderful students who are coming in, welcome. So, I will let you take it away. All right, so my name is Terrence Fushi. I am the blue ribbon specialist for Chapel Carrboro City School, and it's my honor to present the multicultural student Achievement Network who are working to increase achievement for all students in this district. They've been working on a project for the last three years called Portrait of a Teacher, working to hold teachers to a higher standard to help our students achieve more within this district. And they are going to talk about the conference that they

009went to and also what they plan to do with their project this year and some of the things that they've already accomplished. So, without further ado, here are our students. [ APPLAUSE ] Hi, everyone. My name is Chisholm. I'm a sophomore at East Chapel High School. MSTAN is a group of high school students from across the district who help create equity for all students. Last year, a conference, there were 11 CHCCS scholars, 160 student attendees nationwide. We went on college tours like Howard. We did project planning time. There were keynote speakers, and we went on a gallery walk in the end. Hi, my name is Kennedy Lytle. I am a junior at Carrboro High School. So as a part of (inaudible), something we do is we do projects. So the project that we've been working

010on for the last three years is Portrait of a Teacher. Portrait of a Teacher branched off from Portrait of a Graduate, which is five points on the CHCCS website that our teachers and our school district expects us to have by the time we graduate. And Portrait of a Teacher was made to hold teachers to a higher standard, to support all students of all backgrounds, and to also build a community and establish a sense of belonging. Some of the things that we want to get from Portrait of a Teacher is we want to address the achievement gap and attendance issues. We want to build better relationships between students and teachers, improve mental health and well being of students, to adequately prepare students to be civic, global citizens, and to increase the enrollment of AP and honors

011classes. [ APPLAUSE ] Good evening, everybody. My name is Christopher Jenkins. I am a freshman at Chapel Hill High School and for the 2025 M San conference hosted in Washington D.C. our group had gathered and fostered connections and furthered our own understanding of districts across the world, across the across the country. In order to hone in our very own action plan for the purposes of equity for our very own community. We were not just allowed to tour Howard University, but also to be introduced to the student panels in order to listen to their own histories and their own anecdotes to bring back for our action plan. We were also introduced to a multitude of keynote speakers such as Dr. Gloria Ladson Billings and Trey Baker to hone in our own creativity and minds for our

012aims. [ APPLAUSE ] Hi, my name is Dorothy Smith. I go to East Chapel Hill High School and here are student survey results. So some things that students said about teachers, past teachers that they disliked was excess work, yelling, passive aggressiveness and favoritism shown by teachers. [ APPLAUSE ] I'm Jonathan and I'm a junior at Chapel Hill High School. And some student testimonials that we received from the students at our school where it's so unfair when a teacher who has never experienced living with a disability is unwilling to accommodate a student who is Another one that we received was Some teachers assume students know most information from previous years. That's not always the case. One last quote that I'll be reading is that I think teachers should be more careful with how they speak to

013students. Sometimes teachers make students feel less than or like children when students deserve to be spoken to with respect. [ APPLAUSE ] Another one of the things that we asked students were how many of your teachers from last year do you feel would show genuine concern for your mental health and emotional state? As you can see by this data, most students said that at least five of their teachers would show concern. And even though these are good numbers, you also see a really big drop in the amount of students who say seven of their teachers. So we definitely want to bring those numbers up and also bring down the amount of students who are saying 0 to 4 of their teachers would show concern. Hello, my name is Maria and I'm a senior at Chapel

014Hill High. So the data circle that's shown, it illustrates what students want to see from their teachers this year. According to the data, 75% of students want their teachers to be more flexible and be able to adapt to different learning styles, 74% want their teachers to present a more positive and happy demeanor and 73% want their teachers to be more open minded. [ APPLAUSE ] Hi, my name is Zarize and I'm a junior at Chapel Hill High. And from this we learned that students appreciate a patient and understanding teacher, actual hands on activities, and a welcoming environment. We learned that they often feel overlooked and misunderstood and they feel like they can't perform as well when they don't feel that welcome. And now we plan on presenting to teachers and hopefully address these issues. And

015for other future plans, we plan on sending another survey and then having a roundtable discussion and then analyzing that data and then bringing our findings back to y' all again and then having another present having more presentations to elementary middle schools about equity. [ APPLAUSE ] So thank y' all once again. Just so you know, the student survey that they sent out last year received over 2,000 responses. And lots of students felt the need to actually comment and write those testimonials about how they felt about their relationships with their teachers. Also, two of our students from East Chapel Hill High School presented to their administration yesterday and also had their teachers fill out a survey about their teaching practice and the things that they hold most important to them. And we want to see how

016those things align with the student values and see if we can bridge the gap. And we also want to do a roundtable discussion with our students so they can feel comfortable talking about some of the things that they would like to see changed, especially with block scheduling, which is going to be adjustment for all of our students. So we are excited to continue this work and excited for you all to support us in that work. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] I just wanted to see if any board members wanted to make any comments, any questions, go ahead, Ronnie. Thank you so much for being here. And don't be nervous. You all are amazing. Like, I could not imagine when I was your age getting in front of this group and speaking publicly. So, I'm so

017proud to see your work and you here tonight. I was going to ask you, how do you think the board can help support what you're doing? Well, I think just allowing us to do more stuff like this, I feel like presenting to the board is definitely a really good thing for us and showing our findings and definitely just like spreading the word about our actions and what we do. Especially, when it comes to the roundtable discussion that we're planning, even though we did get up to or like more than 2,000 responses on our surveys, we definitely want to get more student testimonials and more students talking about their experience in CHCCS and ways that we can make the school district better. So definitely Lifting up our media when it comes to the roundtable discussions will

018really be helpful in the future. Go ahead, Vicki. I would also like the board to actually like utilize this information given, not just think about it because I feel like within like our information that's been given, there's a lot of tasks that could be made from what's been shown. Thank you. First of all, I would like to say I am completely, completely amazed at what you always do. And I am so beyond thankful to see all your faces. I've seen most of you grow throughout this program and some other programs, and I'm excited to see how you're moving and using the skills that you've been learning throughout the program and under the blue ribbon umbrella. So I'm thankful to see that. And then I would also like to say as you've been working on your

019portrait of Retail, I would love to see and hear a throwback to Classroom in Color. I know most of you may not know what that is, but the people who are in this space that have been dealing with MSAN for some years in this district are aware and that addressed what was going on in the classroom and talks to a lot to some of the things you're saying. So if possible, it'll be really interesting to see if some of the our former MSAN students that had a piece in Classroom in Color and some of those teachers that did it would maybe consider talking with you all as you're doing Portrait of a Teacher to see how those align. Because it's really about the fact that you can't care about all the things they're trying to

020teach to you until we know that they're caring about you. So I am very thankful for you. I appreciate you. I am so beyond excited. I have seen so many of you get to the point where you're speaking your truth. You have your data that shows that it is number research based and then you also have your lived experience, two different types of data. But it takes both of those pieces to tell the truth. So I thank you and I appreciate you. [ APPLAUSE ] All right, thank you so much. Thank you again. [ APPLAUSE ] All right, the next item on our agenda is public comment. Go to my notes. All right. And so I'd like to read a few housekeeping remarks related to public comment. The board appreciates and encourages public comment. Board

021members will listen to the comments and may ask or make clarifying questions or comments. But there will be no general discussion related to the public comments. Speakers have up to three minutes for their comment and we will be keeping track of this with this timer in front of Ms. Fetters. When you are recognized, please come forward. State your name and if you're speaking for an organization, please identify the name of the organization. We'll start with recognizing any teacher organizations, school improvement teams or student groups, followed by anyone who signed up in advance and then any other persons who wish to speak but did not sign up may comment. So we'll start with the teacher organization, school improvement teams and student groups. Do we have anyone there from those groups? All right, next we'll go to

022see. Okay, looks like we have people signed up, so we'll start with Jennifer Smith. Good evening to members of the board, Madam Chair and other members. Thank you for the opportunity to make some remarks. I was grateful to have the opportunity to be here for last month for the presentation about the construction at Carver elementary. I appreciated Mr. Cherokee's remarks and I especially appreciated the environmental concern shown by some members of the board, in particular Ms. Ballou and Ms. Dassi. Environmental considerations are only one of many, and I understand, for example, the importance of providing for traffic opportunities for safe pickup and drop off by parents of students at the school. But as we move forward into the schematic design phase and the design development phase of the plans for the school this coming spring

023and summer, I would like to urge the board and also the public to maintain a sense of curiosity and creativity in addressing environmental problems as carefully as possible. The woods next to the school are divided by the bicycle path, and it sounds as though the woods on the side away from the school are going to be untouched, mostly untouched. But I think there's still some concern about the woods on the side of the path toward the school. I want to remind everyone that these woods are important for the community as a place to walk dogs, take strolls and commune with nature. See owls and deer, and all kinds of lovely creatures. They're also important for the school and for the students. I have seen teachers take classes out there and have lessons in the woods,

024taking advantage of the natural opportunities that are right there. So again, I would like to urge creative thinking about where the traffic access could go and not to take the easiest possible opportunity, but to really explore the possibilities and push the limits before making final decisions. In particular, I'd like to raise the question of whether the location of the existing school buildings could be a place to put all of the traffic infrastructure rather than needing to cut down large amounts of the trees in the woods. So again, I understand that there are many factors at play. I understand that the town Already does have some environmental concerns in mind. But I would just urge people to keep their creativity flowing and to look for as many solutions as possible that can solve as many of

025these problems without creating problems that didn't need to be created. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Next up is Diane Jackson. Good evening. I'm Diane Jackson. Okay. I'll tear up heaven. My mother said. Whatever y' all need to do with this. I'm a former employee of Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, was worked here for 31 years. And first of all, I would like to. To just thank the school board for the time, the effort, being away from your families, for your dedication and being available to the community. Anytime people that I know, including myself, need to reach out, we can always talk to you and share with you our concerns and our issues. So thank you again. I would like to also speak to the MSAN program and the Blue Ribbon program.

026First of all, like to talk about budget. To me, Blue Ribbon needs to get the same kind of money that Leap gets. Blue Ribbon is always having to fundraise for their programs, for their projects, for their trips. And if we are serious about this, then it should be reflected in the budget. Second, I'd like to talk about the wonderful presentation of the students. And you think about the fact that they were able to literally reach out to so many students with their survey. But I would hold the board accountable for an action plan, not just Blue ribbon. But how will the board address the issues? How will the board find out which teachers these students are speaking of? What kind of accountability will you put in place? And because I was here so long, I

027have institutional memory. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not so good. But when we were serious about equity, we had equity teams that did classroom observations. We had equity teams that went to the class to see whether the materials up in the room was reflective of all students, whether the black students were isolated, sitting at the back of the rooms. And the equity team then shared that information to the principal, and the principal talked to the team. We need to be serious about this. When you talk about those kids are talking about mental health. We need to be serious about this. We talk about equity. We now need to have somebody in charge of equity. We don't have an equity director as of yet. We need to be serious about the equity program because

028we keep talking the talk, but we don't walk the way walk. We truly don't walk the walk. So I will be back. I will ask the board what kind of action plan you going to put in place to address these kids issues? They talking about a second survey? What are you going to do with the information from the first one? So I thank you for listening. And my next thing, real quick, how many minutes I got. Let's be serious about equity when we talk about not just the students, the classroom. I worked at a school that for seven years had one teacher of color. Seven years and every year I stood in front of this board and talked about that. That shouldn't happen. So I was looking for an opening of a school report where

029we used to have that information. I will be asking somebody for that later. Thank you all. Thank you. All right, next up, Tabitha. Good evening board members. I am Tabitha Ellian, a resident of Chapel Hill where I have had three. Children to graduate from the Chapel Hill Carrboro school system and attend college upon. Graduation from the district. One who has graduated from his university. And the other two are still pursuing their education at their respective university. And I'm also here as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority incorporated where. Today, January 15th members of our sorority. Along with board member Ronnie Dossey, we are celebrating our 118th day of founding at Howard University on January 15, 1908. Our local graduate chapter is involved in the Chapel Hill Carrboro school community in the Chapel Hill Carrboro

030community and collaborate with several schools in the district. For example, we provide food packs to Northside and Carrboro elementary. We assist Northside with their community garden and Carrboro elementary with their black history read in that occurs in February. We also host an annual Black History Knowledge bowl in collaboration with the avid middle school students and teachers. The Chapel the Chapel Hill the 2026 Black History Knowledge bowl will be held this year at Smith Middle school on Saturday, February 28th from 10am to 12pm we invite the community to come see our Chapel Hill Carrboro students shine in this friendly competition. And I appreciate this opportunity to speak in front of you. Thank you. All right, thank you. Do we have anyone else who would like to come up and speak who may not have signed up?

031All right, seeing no other public comments, thank you everyone who spoke. You may also send written comments to the board. The email is available on the agenda and additional information regarding written comments is available on our website. Thank you. All right, our next item on the agenda is our consent agenda board members. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make a motion. Got a motion from Melinda. We have a second. I'll second. From Vicki. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Passes unanimously. Thank you everyone. Our next item on the agenda is our discussion in action. We only have one item and it looks like Mr. Scott is going to come up to the podium. It's the recommendation of approval for Our fiscal year 2025-26 Q2 budget

032amendments and our financial statements. Mr. Scott. Thank you. Madam Chair, good evening. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Trice, members of the cabinet and members of the public. This evening we have the second quarter budget amendments and financial statements to present to the board. This is a little bit different year in that the board didn't adopt an actual budget until after the first quarter was over. So that being said, we want to take an opportunity to kind of update everyone where we're at. Additionally, because of that, we're able to really budget the money out really well. So there's not a whole lot of budget amendments that were processed because the, the budget was only passed a month ago for all from this measurement date. So I really wanted to take this evening to focus on where

033we are. I know the board is keenly aware of our financial fund balance situation and operations in an attempt to try and recoup some of that. So I want to take a few minutes and just kind of update the board and the public where we are. And actually the mid year is a very good time for that. We have a lot of 10 month employees and we, we have a lot of 12 month employees. And with our fiscal year at the halfway point, we've kind of reached halfway for our spending for the year. So it's a really good time to just kind of take a look and see where we are as compared to last year. So first thing I'm going to do is go into a little bit of detail about where we're at

034with the General assembly budget and their stalemate. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about revenue collection at the mid year point, expenditures at midyear point, and then kind of look at our net income or revenues over under expenditures at the midpoint. So I just want to remind everyone that North Carolina still has not passed a biannual budget. I believe we are the last state in the country or the only state in the country without a budget at this point in the fiscal year. As I understand it, there's some differences, differences of opinion between the House and Senate on the aggressiveness of the reduction in personal income tax. Just want to keep this on the forefront of everyone because it does have implications that could affect our operations even as late as April

035or may of this year if the state decides to retroactively pass a budget that includes salary increases that would be retroactive for the fiscal year. I'll get into that a little bit more, but did want to point out that I did read an article the other day and I do not believe that the General assembly is even scheduled to take this up until April. So could be very, very late in the fiscal year until we know anything concrete. So want to take a look first at mid year revenues. At this point we've received about 68 and a half percent of our annual budget. Yeah, $44.4 million is 68.5% of our revenue. Want to point a couple things out here. We have our percentage of budget remaining, local and other sources, we still have 37.8%. You

036would expect that to be closer to 50. Want to remind the board and the public that because of our fund balance situation we are have cash flow issues based on the way the special district tax is collected. So that number reflects a 12 million dollar advance from the county over the course of both years. And that's so just that's part of that, that number. That's why the revenue collections are higher than we would expect at 50%. The good news here is that we have collected less or do we still have a larger percentage of budget remaining as we did at this point last year. And that is primarily because we had to percentage of budget wise. We didn't need as much county appropriation as we did in previous years. So that's, that's some pretty good

037news. And you know, we're just going to kind of keep an eye on that. I do think we were very conservative in our revenue budgeting this year. So I do expect it will collect 100% of that. So we'll have to wait until the end of the year. But it's looking, looking pretty good on the revenue side. Gets a little more exciting. We start talking about expenses. You know, our expenditures at mid year are $45.1 million. That's $3.2 million lower than they were at midpoint of fiscal year 2025. That's some really good news. As you can tell, a lot of that is coming from lower salaries and benefits along with other reductions across the board seeing pretty significant decrease in our services. And additionally I did want to point out, you know, the charter schools, we

038only have 35% of budget remaining, but a lot of that goes back to that forward of the county appropriation. We're required by general statute to forward that money to charter schools within 30 days of receipt of the money. So that additional fronting that we got from the county has already been distributed to the charter schools. But all in all, last year we were at 48.2% of the budget remaining and we ended the year about revenue neutral. This year we have 52.9% of the budget remaining. So very good news as far as expenditure control. Just kind of a prior year comparison here. You know, salaries and matching benefits are down pretty sharply as compared to this point in the year. I'll talk about this a little bit more, but if we had to add a. If

039you were to take the 3% raise that potentially could be dealt in April, our continuation budget contained $1.6 million in salary increases and matching benefits. So it came out to about 2.1 million in total. Some of the benefits we've already absorbed as far as health. So we're really looking at this point in the year it would be about a million dollars. If we were to retroactively apply that 3% into the year, it would be $2 million. So even then we're still significantly ahead. We're still about 1.5% ahead of where we were last year. As I mentioned, services have come down, supplies and materials are holding relatively constant. Capital expenditures. We have very little capital expenditures within the local fund, but they don't even register to the tenth of the million. And then charter school payments

040are about where they were at this point last year. This again is the same graph just as far as percentage of budget remaining. As you can see, the green is the current year. Prior year is in the blue capital expenditures. That data is a little skewed looking at it. But remember on the previous slide that was only $50,000 of a 95 million dollar budget. So the percentages are skewed a little bit, but all in all looking very good this year as compared to last. And so what does that all mean? Right? And this slide kind of takes it home and really be able to explain what I was just speaking about. Realistically, with our collection of revenue and our reduction of expenditures, our mid year net income is at 14.4 million. That's up three and

041a half million dollars from this point last year. Most of that is reflected again in that reduction of $3.2 million in expenses. And we've also had some increases in revenue. So what that means really is that we're on target for what we thought. As you know, the spending plan that we put in place, the board's desire to Rebuild fund balance at the end of the year. All the numbers as of mid year look really good. You know, the numbers aren't final until the audit report is sent to the IGC, but for the most part we're tracking it about three and a half million dollars further ahead at this point in the year than we were last year. That being said, I want to go back to what I said about the salary increases. Even with

042that, that 3.5 million, even if we did apply the salary increases, we would still be $2.5 million ahead of where we were. We can extrapolate that out into June, recognizing that we did have a pretty significant amount of attrition last year between December and June. I don't expect that we will make up that much ground again, but I still think there'll be significant savings as we go along. You know, it's still kind of looking, you know, 3.5 to $4 million if we do have to implement salary increases somewhere more in the neighborhood of five or six if the state doesn't take any action on the budget. So that's pretty much where we are. Like to entertain any questions if the board has any. Again, the item tonight is approval of both the budget amendments and

043financial statements. We went over them in great detail in finance facilities and operations on Tuesday. If anyone wants to take a deep dive into the financials, I think we spent about a half an hour on them. So more than happy to pull that up on, on the website and take a look at it. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Board members, do you have any questions? Go ahead, Barbara. So a person not steeped in the school board might look at this and say we're in great shape, so why do we need to talk about closing the school, for example? So could you just try to help us connect dots about projections for enrollment for next year and the fund balance and just like the big picture. Yeah, certainly can. This is, as I said, it's encouraging. The

044financial statements haven't been written yet. We still have six more months this year to see where we go. There's a lot of opposing forces right now. And the first thing that everybody, the public needs to. And everybody needs to be aware that we really have no rainy day fund at this point. Right. That we are running pretty much, you know, the money we take in, we spend. Any organization should have some type of equity or some type of reserves. We got to the point where we had to utilize those reserves for different reasons. But you always want to have some savings in the bank. You know, the Government's Finance Officers association would like to see 16% of budgeted expenses, annual expenses in savings or fund balance. For us, that would be about $17 million or

045$15 million. So the district needs to begin to replenish some of that. So that's the first of factors to consider. The second is, again, we don't know what the state's going to do if they adopt a biannual budget like we are anticipating a 3% increase. It's an election year. It could be 5%. Right. And that changes all of the calculus that I just presented. So we've got that going on as an uncertainty. And then beyond that, Dr. Trice has spent a good deal of the fall talking to the public about our decrease in enrollment. Right. And we know now from the work at Carolina Demography that we can expect a continuous decrease in enrollment for at least the next 10 years. Right. So for every student that we lose, we lose about $8,500 in state

046funding. And again, this is not new news to anybody, but over the course of time, if you lose 200, 300 children, we're experiencing reductions in state funding in the order of magnitude of 2 to 3 million dollars a year. Right. So we have to deal with that. And some of it by default, we get, as, you know, as classes draw down, but at the same time as those. As the. The student population draws down, our buildings are becoming more and more inefficient. Right. So that all goes into it as well. And beyond that, you know, there is a lot of desire from the superintendent to kind of reimagine the district. And you can't reimagine and make change without, you know, funds to do that. So there's. It's kind of a perfect storm right now. There's

047a lot going on as far as different factors that are beyond our control. Again, this is good news. You know, it's showing that we've kind of turned the corner and we're. We're headed in the right direction, but still a lot of uncertainty out there. The decrease in enrollment is probably our biggest financial threat right now. But I think it would be premature to, you know, for anybody, you know, board or the public to say that we're completely out of the woods. We've got a lot of challenges to navigate, and that's part of the decisions that we're all going to face over the course of the next year. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. This is a discussion and action item. So we will need to approve our budget amendments and financial reports. Board

048members, can I get a motion to approve the second quarter budget amendments and financial reports as presented for quarter two? So move. A motion from Meredith. Can I get a second? Second. Second from Ronnie? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. All right, the next item up on our agenda is the first of two superintendents. We have Mr. Al Shoroki coming up to give us an overview about the North Carolina school closure statutory procedures. That's a mouthful. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, as you just had a mouthful of a title, I am here per your request. And I'd like to give a little context as the presentation is being pulled up to walk you through the statutory requirements for school closure

049in the state of North Carolina. The statutory requirements means it's law. So tonight's presentation, I'm going to do a lot of reading to you because laws are not very subjective. It's. There are a lot of shells in the language for such a short law, but I want to make sure that we walk through them in chunks so that you just understand the process, which it's not a difficult process, but it is one that is very sequential in nature. But to give you some context, obviously we have been talking about going back to where the board of county commissioners consulted for Orange county schools and us someone to look at our facilities. It was not just a facility assessment, it was also an optimization plan where they looked at our enrollment, they looked at our space

050utilization in both school district schools. And the one thing that came out, and we've heard all the way through this past December from Dr. Dollar is that when I look when you look at enrollment and you look at the amount of seats that we have in our elementary, middle and high schools, middle and high schools are fairly good right now. They are, you know, middle schools. We know that there may be room in the future, but right now they're pretty snug. Our high schools are very snug right now. They're at over 100% capacity. You know, each year you've seen as we've had transfer windows where you as a board determine which schools are open or closed for transfers. The high schools have always been ones for the majority have always been closed. So with that

051being said, Wolpert told us that we had at that point a thousand seats available. At the elementary level. 1000 seats is equal to about 2 schools. If we're schools are on average about 500 student schools, give or take. The programs that may be at those schools. Obviously, Dr. Dollar, through Carolina Demography here at UNC, was hired by the county to also conduct the continued work, knowing that the county is responsible for the funding of renovation and replacements of all schools. It's not you as a board's responsibility. It is the Board of County Commissioners, and that is part of the statutory law as well, just not the one that I'm talking about tonight. So Dr. Dollar came and started looking at projections and went beyond what the Wolpert Group presented to the Board of County Commissioners

052about two years ago and said that right now we're trending at just over 1300 available seats and that that trend could continue to go down for the foreseeable future. So with all of that in your board retreat as you receive that information which was the most I'm not going to read this to you, but this is the statute for it's 11.5C 72, which is consolidation of districts and discontinuance of schools. The statute we're going to focus on the statute that you can barely see, but it's the gray area at the bottom. There is a section 2 and a letter B. Those sections we're really not going to talk about tonight, but I will tell you what they are. Section two basically says that the provisions of that law is not to deprive any local board

053of education the authority to assign or enroll any pupils in schools in accordance with other statutes. So this law does not talk about what you would do if you had to change boundaries and do redistrict. There are separate statutes for that. And it also indicates in letter B that this section does not govern the merger of a city school administrative unit with another school administrative unit. And I'll use an example of when Alamance county merged with Burlington City Schools and became Alamance Burlington Schools. This statute does not govern that. And there are other statutes for that. So those are the disclaimers. So we're going to focus on the practice that you would need to follow. So in the first section, and this is the part where I start reading to you, It states that local

054boards of education shall have the powered authority to close or consolidate schools. And I underline close within the same school district with the approval of the state, state boards of education to consolidate school districts or other school areas over which the board has full control whenever and wherever in its judgment, the closing or consolidation again we're talking about closing will better serve the educational interest of the local school administrative unit or any part of it. The reason I'm Talking about closing and not consolidation is generally consolidation is when you're in a district where you may have two high schools and you're going to consolidate into one high school. So you, you're taking your two units and you're consolidating into one. That is not the case for us. And the case for us is we have

05511 elementary schools and realistically, from a mathematical standpoint, with capacity and membership, we could drop to nine. The board of education, first thing that they require you to do is that you conduct a thorough study of the school to be closed that addresses the welfare of the student students to be affected by the proposed closing. And there are four things that they stipulate that it should include in the study. One, the study has to evaluate the geographic conditions, the anticipate increase or decrease in school enrollment. You have to talk about the inconvenience of the heart or the hardship that might result to the pupils who are affected by such a closing. So you just have to talk about if there's a transportation hardship, there's, if there are longstanding community things that are part of it,

056if there are programs that could be negatively impacted that you're not taking into consideration. You just have to evaluate everything that could cause a hardship to the best of your ability. You also have to provide the cost of providing additional school facilities in the event that such closing occurs. So in this case, if we were to close schools, we would talk about the fact that we are consolidating our schools, we're making them more efficient, but in the net result is we're also replacing schools that have aged and have served their life. But it's not a direct result of the, of the redistrict that would occur. So we would mention it, but it wouldn't be such as if you were consolidating and you were going to close two high schools, but build one brand new high

057school for the two older schools to consolidate into. That's really not the case here because all of our schools will ultimately have to be impacted because they are imbalanced for the most part when it comes to student enrollment or capacity. And then it includes other factors as the board shall consider germane. And, and we talked about this at the board retreat where I, I suggested that one of the biggest drivers that should be taking consideration is the age and condition of the facility. Knowing that our county, and we could talk a lot about that, but where our county has really made that pat paramount in the decision making based upon their guidance and what they have approved. But at the same time, there's other factors that you should look at and you know, I will

058throw some out there, such as adjacency to other schools, walkability, connectivity to community trails, bikeways, programs that are at the schools. Are there pre. Is pre K at the school? What did the demographics look like at the school? If you were to move or relocate students, how might that impact the makeup of schools, the academic performance of schools? These are things that you as a board have the ability to use under consideration. It doesn't say that you have to provide a certain amount of weight for any of this, but for the ones that are bulleted you at least minimum, you have to be able to demonstrate that you have done to the best of your ability. You've covered those. And before the entry of the closing, the next step would be that you have to

059have one public hearing. It doesn't say one, it just says you have to have a public hearing. And it has to be specifically in regard to a proposed closing. And that's where the public is afforded an opportunity to express their views. I'm going to go a little further about what we would recommend and what are best practices. But the law states that you have to have one public hearing and upon the basis of the stuff study and after you have had such a hearing, you as a board may exercise its discretion to approve the closing of the school. So that's really what it takes. A study, a public hearing and a vote. That's the three primary pieces that have to be done. But as you will hear a little later, you know, I think there's

060a little more that we need to do. Given the complexity and the fact that this is not simple as closing two schools and just moving two population possibly into one, we're impacting ultimately the entire elementary population within our district to balance and right size all of our schools from an efficiency standpoint. So I want to walk through some guidance that came from board council, through Tharrington and Smith, just to kind of give a little more direction as we go through these steps. The first step is initial initiating a proposal for a closure. And this is where you determine which are which school or school should be considered for closure or consolidation. This discussion would result in a vote to direct that a study be conducted of the possible closure or here called consolidation of one

061or more specific school facilities. So ultimately there's a point where you're going to have to give staff, the superintendent and its staff direction to conduct a study of what of schools to consider or specific schools to consider. So that staff can bring back information, possibly give you a recommendation, but allow you just to reflect and weigh and decide if you believe in that recommendation or if you believe other things should be taken into consideration at that point. In conducting a study of the closure, the statute directs that you conduct a study based upon the welfare of the students that are affected. Again, you want to make sure that you address anything that may be harmful or cause hardship for students. The statute says that the study should evaluate factors that are identified by the board

062as well as the four bulleted items, the statutory factors. You can build a timeline for an opportunity for staff to present that draft study. So you could say as an example, you know, Mr. Shiroki, I'd like for you working with the superintendent to come back in the next two or three board meetings or the next board meeting to be able to do. But obviously when they say establish a timeline, it would be for us to come back to you. But there's also a timeline of what I would recommend is getting out there and letting the public know. If you were looking to close a school, what's the earliest that you might do that so that everybody understands. Is it, Are we talking about next year? Are we talking about two years? Are we talking about

063three? Is it a multi year approach to kind of give people an idea of that timeline, not just giving us staff timeline to present a draft? I have examples in the abstract that were provided from Council. One is a very detailed analysis study that was done and one, the other one is a little more simplistic and gets right to the point. I think for us, knowing that we've had a consultant already look at the age and condition of our facilities and our commissioners have already given us direction that they want schools replaced, not renovated as we take our oldest buildings, that we really don't have to go through the detailed study that is the first example because they're going through the full building analysis and that work has already been done. So for us, it's

064really about all of the factors that come into play and weighing that information to make some recommendations for you. Ultimately, if you choose to make a decision in providing the public hearing, again, this is just giving you some specifics, but what it does say is that the state, the statute does not explicitly require that the study be completed before the public hearing, but the council recommends that it's helpful to have the study information available to the public. And we would recommend that if you ask us to go back and to provide information or come back and give a presentation where we believe is a starting point. Let us provide that. And then ultimately, if you say we'd like for you to do this option or this option, then at that point we would develop a

065narrative that would be part of that study, that would be part of a proposal that we would officially bring to you at that point. So we would say you do the study before you actually consider a vote. Because if. And consider public hearings where you have listening sessions within communities that may be impacted so they can weigh in, give feedback, give any information they believe is relevant or germane for you to consider. So that when our proposal, ultimately, if it came to you, you have the community's input at the same time to be able to weigh as you deliberate on the best course of action. The final thing is entering a decision on the proposal. And this is fairly simplistic, is that the school board is given the wide discretion to determine whether to approve

066the proposal to close schools, as long as that decision is made after the study and the public hearing is held, the minimum of one public hearing, and you as a board can determine to the extent of that process that you would like to develop it yourself. So some additional steps just to follow. And I feel that you can't. I can't talk about just a closure process without putting a lot. There's a lot of disclaimers and a lot of things, because when you talk about a subject like this, it opens up the door for all kinds of questions, right? Because people start thinking about the programs in their schools, they start thinking about the timeline, they start thinking about what grade their children will be when this might occur. So there's all kinds of things you

067have to consider. But at the same time, if you close a school, there are other logistical things that come into play, such as the disposing or the repurposing of a property of a building that is closed. So once the school board has made the decision regarding the proposed closure, the school board must also determine how to repurpose, sell, or otherwise dispose of a now empty facility when that time was to occur. The statute generally provides for school boards the authority to dispose of the property it owns. But there are the limitations that have to occur. First, the property may be used for other school system purposes at the board's discretion. So we could have a school that closes and you decide to repurpose it into another program. Possibly you have that ability. But if you

068choose not to use it for school board interest or discretion, the board and you decide to possibly sell the real property down the road because it's no longer suitable for a public school purpose. You do have to provide the Board of County Commissioners the first opportunity to purchase the property, and that is part of the statute that is stated there. What I will say to you in this process, given the limited land availability within the Chapel Carrboro City School District, whatever is decided, and I've said this, I believe in some facility finance meetings, I would not recommend that we ever consider selling our property. We may demolish a building, we may repurpose a building depending upon its condition, but we should always keep the land because we do not know what the future holds. And

069with the limited availability of land and the tightness of the sites of our properties. You've heard me talk about this through the Wolpert report. We should not consider, unless there is a land swap or something that can occur where we are to acquire land that would be serve a very advantageous purpose for our district. So I just put that out there. But there are statutory requirements for that. At the same time, if the Board of County Commissioners, if you were to offer them first right of refusal to purchase the property based upon the statute, if they chose not to, then obviously there are procedures outlined in Chapter 160A, Article 12, that talks about the advertisement for sealed bids, negotiating an offer through an upset bid or public advertisement, auction, exchange or even private negotiation, just

070as you would with any type of real property that you would be disposing of. At the same time, there are cases where when schools close, the Board of Educations may ultimately receive requests, or during this process, you may receive ideas that come from other groups to donate the property to community organizations. In the North Carolina Constitution, what the guidance here from Darrington Smith says is that that is prohibited for boards of education from giving away real estate. The property must either be sold using one of the procedures that I just mentioned, with the proceeds remaining with the school system, or two used in a way that continues to provide benefit to public schools. So just again, knowing when you start talking about this, just like we talk about new construction, developers and people start getting

071ideas. So we just want to talk about that so that it's out there for folks to understand that there are limitations and requirements that you have. Lastly, the North Carolina Department of Instruction does have guidance that it provides to school districts. The document is from 2019, but it does kind of give some best practices and some recommendations for boards to consider, if not a requirement other than what's in statute. But I wanted to walk through that, and this is just kind of a cover page of the document. But it has various categories that it says that boards may want to consider talking about if it's applicable. And that could be the evaluation of the facility, its capacity, its membership, the cost of operation, transportation, looking at demographics, be it diversity, alternative uses of the property,

072programs. It walks through the tentative decision that can occur, the informal meetings that you may want to choose beyond just a public hearing, and then it walks through the disposition of property. And last but not least, about how you need to inform North Carolina DPI if the school is taken offline. From an accountability standpoint, the registration standpoint, there's coding and all kinds of stuff that goes along with it. So what I have here, just a final slide, obviously, is the next step steps for you as a board for consideration is one, develop an initial proposal for closure. You know, that would be asking staff to conduct some form of a study or bring information back for you to weigh. Ultimately, you have to determine a school, you have to officially conduct a study of a

073closure, determine a timeline for the closure and the process, provide school community informational meetings, provide the board of education public hearing that is required, you make a decision and then ultimately back within the superintendent's staff is that we would need to contract, contract with a demographer to begin the district wide redistricting analysis process that ultimately would occur because a lot of the decisions about, you know, making a decision about closing a school is a very tough one, but where the community will really want to weigh in. Because if you have buildings that are inefficient and the county is saying they're, they can't afford to fund those, you got to make that decision. But it's really going to be when redistricting occurs and the community's involvement in weighing in of what they value, what they would

074want to be taken into consideration under the boundary changing process, especially given the fact that it would impact all 11 or at that time, if it's 10 or nine of our schools, they would all be impacted by that. That's where the public process would really come into play. So with that being said, I can answer any questions that you have at the point. All right, thank you, Mr. Shiroki. Board members, do you have any questions? Ronnie. Thank you for the presentation. I think there is some alignment between the requirements and the law and our policy around making major decisions. So I think it just as we go through the process, let's make sure we're being aware of kind of the steps that are included in that policy as well. I guess the next question then

075is like, how do we practically get started. I don't know if we're going to have some discussion about that or. Yeah, thank you. Yes, we will. Why don't we have a few more questions and then we can talk about what we're thinking about next. George. That was going to be mine. Reason was just. Okay, so is it the question to you or both? What next? How do we get started? You know, and I don't mean literally tonight, what next? But, yeah, where do we go? Yeah, Well, I think Mr. Sorokin, he's got the slide up. I mean, this is a good, helpful slide to kind of guide us in terms of what we should consider doing next. And I guess, Mr. Shiroki, I just want to clarify the difference, like the nuance difference between like,

0761 and 2 maybe, because. Because it's like, develop the initial proposal for closure. But also I think we probably need to think about the schools because that may dictate the proposal itself. So let me walk through that is a little nuanced there. So obviously, Wolpert recommended in its study that the county commissioner said, these schools that are your oldest, we don't want you to renovate. We want you to replace their educationally inadequate. All of that. They had determined that there were six elementary and two middle schools that should be taken into consideration if full funding was available. And of the six elementary, three we prioritize as a board had the greatest need at that moment, and that was the replacement of Carrboro, Estes Hills and Frank Porter Graham. There are three schools that are remaining

077at the elementary level, and those schools are Sewell, Glenwood and Ephesus. Those cover all of the schools that are greater than 50 years of age, and they're about 54 to 68 years of age. For the those three schools that I just mentioned, Wolper did recommend consideration of replacing two middle schools, though I want to be totally transparent. They talked about Culbreth and Phillips Middle, and we went through a lot of debate determining that ultimately in the next referendum, we would prioritize, at least at this point, Phillips over Culbreth, if you remember those conversations. So I think that at least knowing that the board of county commissioners has said that in order to receive continued capital funding year to year, that we do have to follow the spirit of the Wolpert plan. We have to look

078at optimization. It's not just the age of your buildings, but it's looking at optimizing your facilities that are under capacity. I would think that looking at the three remaining Oldest elementary schools would be a good starting point, at least the start. And for me to possibly come back with just information that I can share from what have we spent in those buildings, say, for the past five years? What do we anticipate we may have to spend for the future five years? What are some of the ancillary information that we can provide to you just to look at those schools and to help guide? The reason I've put develop a proposal is I think that I think we have to follow what the consultant for the county did. And by talking about three schools, I think

079you have to start with three. But in the end, the consultant for capacity is not saying to close three schools. So when I put determine the schools, you have the ability potentially to determine. What I would recommend is two schools or one school, but you definitely have the capacity to close two based upon the demographers, actually two demographers giving us that information. So I think that would be the starting point that I would recommend. You know, by no means would we. I would come to you and recommend a close. Close a school that is 30 years of age or 25 years of age. I mean, we need to look at the schools that we know we have deferred capital maintenance in that could be five to $15 million over the course of the next five

080to eight years. And the reason I say that, even more so now than I would have said last year, is that with the passing of the bond, there was paygo money that was to be part of it that would go towards the maintenance in our existing buildings. Well, that paygo was not approved this past year. And you know, so for me, even more so, we have. We have less maintenance dollars in the long term because one year out of, say, the 10 years that the paygo was supposed to be there was not approved. So that's less money to go into our remaining existing portfolio. So for me, more so than ever, trying to take the buildings that are the most inefficient from a cost standpoint, from a capital investment standpoint, that's where we've got to

081start. If money was flowing and there was plenty of money for maintenance, you know, I think we would have some ability to look beyond that. But you know as well as I do that when we present you information on our maintenance that, you know, we are not being proactive with maintenance. We are responsible responding to crises after crisis because the needs are far greater than the means. And, you know, it didn't take a consultant for the county to tell us that. But it just demonstrated and magnified the need. So I think we just can't look past that because we have to ensure that we are, if we're replacing schools and trying to get our kids into the newest buildings, that we're still taking care of the existing portfolio for those schools that are not being

082replaced. George. I wanted to jump in here and because like right now I'm already thinking three schools are going to hear in the morning we're targeted for closing. And I'm not being, I'm not trying to be funny at all. We've been through this with, in recent years where what we think we're saying and what's heard are two different things. Could we consider some sort of put this in context of this is going to be a district wide redistricting that involves putting replacement schools online and also closing underutilized elementary schools and that it somehow impacts everybody and really maybe name it something different, structure it different and talk about it differently. So we don't talk about, let's close, close the school in isolation of this is really just a part of the bigger five year plan

083or eight year plan or something. So I'm just kind of thinking out loud, but as he was presenting, I was just having flashbacks to our couple summers ago and you know, we were just trying to do our work in public, but people were hearing you're closing my school tomorrow. And that's not what was being said right now. That's, that's, yeah, no, that's a good point, George. Obviously this is a, this is like a multiple issues and topics that we're having to grapple with. You know, and so I agree for the school communities and the schools that Mr. Shiroki just mentioned, we're not closing the school tomorrow. Your kids can go to the school they, they've been going to all year. But I think we want to start the discussion. We want to be transparent. We

084want to like get, get people on notice and say, okay, we're talking about building a new school. We're talking about our finances as Mr. Scott talked about. We're talking about our declining enrollment as Dr. Trice has been talking to community about. And the reality is we do have to make some adjustments with what our school portfolio looks like over the next, you know, few years, at least the next decade or so. So I think that's really helpful. I know some of the statutory stuff, we will have to call some of the stuff school closure. But I want, I agree with you, George, that this is part of a bigger strategic portion of our strategic plan that we have to think about. And I love how there's multiple points we have to consider. It's not just

085we're just going to close the school. We've got to think about we're going to be opening some new schools. We're going to be we got to be looking at our enrollment, we've got to be talking to our community. We've got to be working with like Carolina Demography to see what our trends are looking like to make this decision. So that's a good point. Any other thoughts or comments? Go ahead. Barb. Well, I guess I think it's important also to say that there's our own evaluation of this being in need, but there's also some external pressure to do this or some encouragement at least from the county and the state too. Right. That the state wants us to be responsible fiscal stewards. And so that and then also you mentioned programs. But I guess I also

086feel like it's important to clarify that we're talking about buildings and some of the buildings that you mentioned have, have programs that are probably also subject to some study and evaluation under the academic return on investment process. But that is separate from buildings. That is correct. But when I reference programs, it could be that a school that if we're looking at say 10 schools or three schools, we would want to talk about that if there are programs that are based where there are children that are coming from across the district that there's not confusion. that by closing the school that means that program is going to immediately end that. You know, our idea would be unless an exercise or determination is made about a program that if there's a school that has a program that

087we would have to maintain that program at an alternate site. We would not just that would not be the reason to stop the program. But I think that the community would immediately that would be the, you know, obviously staff are going to ask questions and parents are going to ask questions about the fate of their school. But also if they have a child that's attending a program on top of that. So we would just want to give that type of guidance so that everybody understands where we are and that there are no fast decisions or predeterminations that are being made. Go ahead. That raises a good angle that we should have mentioned as well, which is that it is on that closing a school, you know, the vast majority of your positions are allotted based

088on students. So it doesn't mean a loss of employees necessarily either. It would mean, you know, most teachers etc. go where the students are. Right. And I do think, you know, any presentation that you ask for staff to conduct will have to provide context and go back to the presentation that I provided back in August. August. That just talks about the implications of how we got to where we are, but also just looking at the efficiencies and inefficiencies and what that is from a operational and financial standpoint. Because there will be people who will be listening who were not involved or part of that conversation, even though we were, the public was not. So we'll continue to have to provide context with many of the presentations that we do know. There will be new people

089becoming involved in it each time. Right. And so that they're, they're well informed and have all the information that has been provided. Thank you, board members. Any other questions? Go ahead. Vicki. I just, I don't have a question per se, but just a few comments. As we're looking at the greater scheme of things that are going on in our community in terms of our population changing, where housing is, where people are living within a land type space, we have to think about the fact that for many, many years before we had a huge population boom, we operated with a much smaller district even as people were being transient in this community. I mean, there were six elementary schools up until what, 1996, give or take, and two junior highs. We had no middle schools and

090one high school. So and, and that was working. And then we had a lot of people came in and then schools were built really fast. So I mean, and kind of an oxymoron kind of thing is our schools were being built much faster. Our roads and safety issues and the larger community are 25 years behind. So we, we kind of had the cart in front of the horse. Not intentionally, but that's just kind of what happened. We prepared for all the people to come in in schools, but the infrastructure for the community at large wasn't really prepared that that's not this body's fault. That's just what happened in life and life has been life. And so we really have to be prepared to do what happens. Inevitably kind of go back full circle. We're going

091to have to be prepared to go to what this community is saying is going to have to be look at a more smaller community because that's what's happening. More people are coming in, but people are leaving out and moving to different parts of our state and different parts of our community at large. And we have to look at where they are. I was just looking back at when all of the newer schools came and. And it happened really, really fast. We're talking about it 96, 99, 03, 13 and 2008. That's really fast compared to decades and decades and decades of no schools whatsoever building on a little bit, changing a little bit. So they tried to kind of. So we're just going to have to. And it's going to hurt some. But if you look

092at where. So when people are talking about my community school, my neighborhood school, school, we had neighborhoods in all of those spaces. The neighborhoods are in the same areas. They may have be some newer ones, but there's still space for room as we have schools that meet the needs of our kids. So there's not like we're talking about children are going to be bused 45 minutes to a school. We're talking about schools that literally might be five more minutes away from where you live. And we have to really be thoughtful and mindful that everybody doesn't have the ability to even look at it this way, because there are kids that live a little north of us in the same county that literally have to ride a bus 40 minutes to go to school. And we

093have to think about how privileged we are to not have to do that. When we're thinking about maybe the ability to. That our child may not be able to walk out the door and go across the street and be at school, you know, that they might have to get in a car and go down the street and around the corner and still be at school in all of 10 minutes. It's just we're going to have to think about it for the greater good of the community. Thank you, Becky. Any other comments or thoughts? All right, so there isn't really a vote or action, but I think we can, I guess, make a request of the staff. Is that correct? So I think what is needed is two things. First of all, do you want them

094to. Because essentially we're beginning the study process. Do you want them to begin the study of all? Do you want them to begin the study process? Do you want them to do it of all three of those schools, or are you prepared to narrow that down any further today? And if you want them to start the process and you want them to study all three or however many. So that's sort of the decision. And then I think the qualitative information they need is what, to the extent, you know, what information would you want included to help you narrow it down to one? Go ahead, Meredith. I was just going to say, I mean, if we're going to have some of that discussion tonight. That's fine with me. I mean, I would say that it would

095be good to at all three schools and not go ahead and reduce it, because I think there's a lot of different factors that we need to look at. And I think one thing that we need to consider are how many kids are going to that school as a community school. You know, let's limit the number of kids who used to be able to walk across the street and then have to get on a bus or whatever there. Obviously, that's not going to be able to be completely eradicated, but at least let's look at that as a factor. You know, I know that two of those three schools at least have a significant population that are coming from all parts of the town. So that I think that's something that we need to look at and

096whether those programs could be located in other schools. Thank you, Meredith. I know there was a lot of work done around these schools with the Wolpert study and the stuff that we did with the county commissioners, Al. And it might be helpful to maybe bring that stuff forward. As you said, there may have been community members who may not have been paying attention to or considering those three schools when we were talking about the Wolpert and all that stuff. It might be helpful to bring back information on all three schools, especially since a lot of that work has already been done. And also I think what Ronnie said about balancing like policy and county and the state, the county also has given us a directive when it comes to the facilities that they. Their focus

097is following the Wolper plan. And so I think we want to make sure we stay. We're balancing a lot of parties here, so maybe just bringing back forward additional information on all three schools, especially the information from the Woolpert plan and just, I guess, any other helpful information. Go ahead, Ronnie. Yeah, I'd actually be interested in expanding the scope to five schools, including the other two, FPG and Estes. You mean FPG and Estes? Yes. Yes. Wait, no. Yes. Because Glenwood School. Yes. Okay. Yes, I would. I agree with that. I, as a new board member, I was kind of wondering why aren't we looking at more? It just seems to me that if we are really looking big picture, we should be looking at more. And, and we can. It'll give us a clarity look

098as we apply the filters that we define about how we make the decision. And so I think Meredith had the one that's probably going to be the most important of like what are the community populations? Like how many people can walk to school and what does transportation look like and what are alternate redistricting if we think about each school as options. So if I could just get some clarification about FPG and Estes Hills knowing that we have approved and we're... 10 years away from a plan for them. So I'm like, I'd love to re engage and say are those the places that we would make choices if we knew that we were going to close the school? Well, what, what I will say is FPG and Estes Hills and Carrboro had greater need than the

099three schools that I discussed tonight. So I don't. I could tell you right now Carrboro, Estes Hills and FPG have tremendous facility needs. FPG is a program. So basically other than the, the English speaking students come from all over. We know that. Right. So I mean I would be repeating that, but I think we would just need to be very, I would need direction on if we're just wiping the slate clean as an exercise and we're talking about it or are we talking about potentially not replace, beginning the design towards replacement, say Estes Hills next year as planned. You know, is it, are we like starting over or is it just. You need information to compare. I think it's information that would allow us to filter like there may be some easy answers. So for

100example, I think about Sewell, right. It's right there with all the other schools. A lot of kids walk to school. That might be one that we say that one we might not want to consider just because of the demographics. Not the demographics, but the population around the school. Right. So just, you know, to me having the broader school scope of consideration that we run through the same filters, we could arrive at the same conclusion. But I'd love us to be able to just have those conversations. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is let's I do the analysis. We could talk about how those schools are scheduled to be replaced. But let's look at adjacencies to other schools. Let's look at walkability, let's look at access. The same information that I suggested about FPG just to show

101that the highway. Okay, yeah, understood now. Thank you. Go ahead, Bar. I guess that gives me some pause because I think that's going to be very confusing to people. We just said we're going to replace those schools. So it feels like it's going to be hard to. It's already hard to message this that we passed a bond. We're going to build new schools. We're going to close some schools and now we're going to talk about closing the schools we just said we would replace. I think that's going to get really, really muddled. And so I would not be in favor of that. Yeah, I could see that. But we have new information, right? If we had had the information we had three years ago when we started looking at Wilford, we probably would have had

102different. We might have had different decisions. So I think it's like appropriate for us to look at it all again and again. We could end up in the same place. But. You know what I would say it's the reason I asked a question for clarity is I think it. For people who are just tuning in, I think that it could create. It could create some confusion. But you know, I mean, obviously you guys could decide if you wish to move forward or not. But I would try to present it to where it's informational and it's not that it's. I would, I would give very. I would not give opinions about it, whereas I would for the schools that are not scale scheduled to be replaced because those are ones where there's real decisions. So that

103you as a board would have to make a determination if you wanted to re. Pursue the other two. But I get from an informational standpoint to show because you're going to see that when it comes to all the other ancillary comparisons, those schools have things that are similar in common to the, to the schools that I've mentioned. And you'll see that there's parity and there's similarities. It's just the conditions is where it's pretty much. It's really ranked pretty straightforward. But. Yeah, so I'll let you. Let you as a board decide how you'd want me to proceed with that. George, go ahead. Yeah, I just, I. I want to echo what Barb said and I think I saw some heads nodding. I really think that we need to keep this separate from any of the schools

104that were in the bond discussion. We spent several years working to get clarity on all this. And if there's any hint that we're now back in the mix for doing something different to them. I think it's incredibly the potential is there to very much confuse the public, not to mention the board in terms of we've decided to replace those schools. And so we need to know that so we can work around what schools to close. Because this is in a bigger context of it affects all 11 sites in the district with Class assignments, program development, staff hiring. I mean, I don't understand what we would get, what we would gain by adding in FPG and. Or Sewell or stcls. Any. Yeah, sorry. I mean, I don't know if this helps, if this adds to it,

105but you know, when we went through those exercises and looking at alternate sites and all of that, we've looked at distances, adjacencies, walkability programs. You know, we've differentiated that. You know, FPG would really is not part of a redistricting process because it's 100% program, but Glenwood is not. You know, there are zone students that attend that school. So it's almost a hybrid. Carrboro is a hybrid, if you want to call it that, whereas FPG is not. So we went through a lot of that. So, I mean, the information is there, but I think there is a balance between what we committed to the citizens and the messaging and just possibly presenting it, but in a way in which it's just ancillary, but it's not primary, you know, when you're looking at the comparison. But again,

106I could argue either way and say that in some respects you may not even want to discuss it at all and put it other than reminding people that there is a commitment to move this so that that doesn't create additional questions. But the messaging that was discussed, I mean, that is real, that people will hear one thing tonight and interpret it a different way. And we just want to keep that balanced in order for you to be able to make the best decision possible. Any other thoughts or comments? You know, my thinking is to keep it focused. I agree with Barb and George. I think we've already committed to the construction. We need to think about some school closure. Some of the timelines might run in parallel for all the activities to happen and it

107might be helpful for decision making, building a new school. I think we're going to yield a few more seats in them, which... That's our intent. Yeah. And so I think that's going to be something that's layered into the discussion. And I fear if we reopen the discussion of which elementary schools, it's just going to get quite cloudy for the community. We've already been there, done that. Identify the three schools for construction. Hopefully we can get two strong ones and maybe the third one. So I'm leaning towards just asking the staff to come back with just the more information on the three schools. The three remaining schools that were not part of the bond and also they were not considered, I guess, part of the Newer schools. So that'd be Glen Woodsula, I don't know. Go

108ahead. Also, I mean, aren't we kind of locked into that anyway with an agreement with the board of county Commissioners? I mean, it. I think it would not only confuse the public, but it would also confuse things between the various boards. I don't know. Yeah, because I think we had the vote and. Go ahead. What I was going to say is, you know, usually with bonds, you. What the county did is that they would say that there are high, high priority projects, replacement schools to occur. But when we were working in the early stages with our bond education committee and getting out, it was very evident that our citizens, in order for them to be behind, be informed and to determine what their vote would be, we had to run with, let's let them know

109what you, as a board, your intent is. And we went out there and we pretty much, we did tell the citizens that this is our intent, this is the order, this is why. And that if there's ever additional funding, these are the remaining schools that the consultant recommends that you replace or renovate. And if you remember, you know, the consultant put renovate in, the commissioners looked at that and said, we don't want to spend $30 million renovating an elementary school when you can spend 42 million and replace it and have children in a state of our facility that has to last for another 50 years. So it just changed the Wolpert plan. If you looked at it today and you looked at where it has, what it is today versus what was printed, it has

110morphed over and changed with the decisions that the county has made. But we did make a commitment and go out there because our citizens asked that of us. More so than, I think the Orange county citizens who voted for Orange county schools, they weren't demanding that at that level, but our citizens were. I was up here working with an engineer and an architect and showing scenarios and site fittings analysis to demonstrate that you could build a school on the site. Push came to shove because the community was asking for that before they could make a decision. They wanted to have sound decision making behind where their increase in taxes was going to go, what they communicated to us. Go ahead, Ronnie. I just want to push a little bit on what I've been hearing of,

111like, the idea of confusion. Like, I think if we are undertaking a study to assess closing schools, it is our responsibility to consider the full scope of things. Again, when we did the Wolpert study, had we known that we were going to Consider closing schools. I wonder if Woolford might have come back with different recommendations. And so it feels like the responsible thing. And even if we end up in the same place and even if we decide that we want to exclude those as considerations, that we look at them and say like would we make a different decision? We're making a huge decision to close the school or two. And I just don't want us to exclude things because we're uncomfortable about having conversations with community members that I'm pretty sure they can understand. I

112guess we could. How hard would it be to have like an appendix with all 11 schools, like in order? Yes. No, like, here's why we would consider this. Here's why we wouldn't like just sort of ranking them. And it seems kind of silly like you're obviously not going to close a brand new school, but maybe just that might give you maximum transparency with the public. I don't know how much work that would be. But just if we pick the factors, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to just be like in this order. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean clearly you would not replace a school that is on average less than 50 years of age. You would not consider that. The report's not going to provide you with that level of

113granular detail. You know what I would do is I would show. Here are the 11 elementary schools the report identified. Out of the 11 said there were six that needed to be consult. You know, because they talked about consolidation in the Wolver report. So it's either consolidate, replace or renovate. And we could narrow that down to where we're not talking about 11, we're talking about six. Out of the six, three have already been approved in the to be used with bond dollars with funding allows and then that REM that allows three remaining to consider. So it just kind of narrows it down. Conducting a full analysis on all 11, I will say the time, the energy, it could be done. But I don't know if you really need to go there. But I get the

114fact of showing a list and showing the age with all 11 schools. But the cautious thing I will say is and we learned that facility condition index rating number is not the turnkey solution. And the age of the building is predominant one. But I will tell you that we have out of those three schools, one of the youngest of the three has the greatest need. It's not just the age, it's the condition and what that that specific building. So it's really easy to say you're just Going to go from your oldest to your newest, and that's the path you're going to take. But it's not as easy as that when you look at the cost. But I think we could show it at least and be able to show the age. So people see. Because

115one thing we learned in the bond referendum is that there were citizens, though they may be five minutes from another school, they had never been to that school. They did. They really didn't even know it was there in some cases. So they may not know that Northside was built, you know, in 2013 or, you know, what, the year that it was done. They may not know that. They may think that the school was built in 1958. So at least having that. So people see, okay, everything is basically 1958 to about 1960, 1972, when it comes to the year that it was built on the list. So I think we could. Yeah, well, I. I would definitely say that to speak to what Ronnie was saying, that it also may be that we need to help

116people understand that we may be talking about buildings and not necessarily schools there. I know we're looking at schools that are. Some will have to be closed, the buildings. And I know just from us seeing some wonderful new schools and presentations here recently at the conference when we were in Greensboro, where we were able to see schools that were. Or a school that was able to take numbers and thinking differently about stuff and just make a beautiful space where more kids can come in and be educated into a space that's just state of the art and that may just be. By seeing all the different things that may happen or could happen. Let's look this way and maybe shift the thinking from what we're going to have to do to what we may be able

117to do and may be fortunate to do in terms of possibly taking certain buildings offline, but not necessarily moving, looking at it necessarily meaning that schools per se are going to be closed. Our schools are going to be wherever we send our students. I mean, even if we were to, you know, take University Place and just make it a huge location, it just is what it is. So I'm not. And that doesn't necessarily mean that said school will be closed. I just. I just want our community to realize that no one is trying to take. Take from them. If a school which is where our kids will be educated has to be put in a different geographic region, that's just the building. The school are the living, breathing educators and children that go in the

118space. That's the school. And that's going to be the life of the school. But we're really going to have to step back from the emotional attachment to the building. Glenwood elementary School was built in 1953. That that building has seen its days. Whether we want to close it or not. That's 1953. It is just not made to educate our children in 2026. And we have to do due diligence to think about what the children in 2026 needs are and not what the parents us are thinking about how we were educated in some of the buildings. I mean, I have some wonderful memories in a lot of the schools that were here, but I also understand that they may not be adequate for what our children need now. We just have to really think about it

119that way and so we can do the best we can. So I think you us being able to stop for a moment, take pause and look at all the different opportunities doesn't mean that, oh well, we mean we may possibly have to close this school that was just built 25 years ago. No, of course not. We know that we have some wonderful schools, but we're really going to have to take the time to look to see what's going on, where and how so that they know that we took every opportunity, opportunity to pay attention. And not saying that that means we want to kick the can down the road either. No, we will do our due diligence and pay attention to what the bond said and what we said we will do with our community

120because that's our responsibility. So I'm not saying that at all. I just think it's given a good chance to look at big pictures which we don't always have the opportunity to do. And I think this is just one of those situations where we can look at things in a different way and see what different things would be, what the different programs might look like, look like in a different space and what this school might like look like if it's in a different space. And not just to consider, oh my God, it's just going to be schools that are going to be closed and what will our children do? They're going to be in a new building which is their school at some point and still be educated to the best of our abilities. Dr. Trice.

121So I guess from an administration standpoint, what I'm hearing is at the base we will focus on the six elementary schools that were identified in the Wilbur report. One is already, you know, we're pretty much down that line. And essentially what we're bringing to the board is a proposal from the administration what our recommendation would be concerning, you know, the five elementary schools. We would then share that with the board for you all to make a determination in guiding us forward for purposes of a study. Yeah, so I think we have the information that we need to, you know, start the proposal process knowing that we have, you know, the guidance of the report, and we'll be able to make a recommendation to the board on how we would, you know, move forward. Of course,

122you all would have, you know, leeway to kind of give us other guidance. But, you know, I think that that's kind of what I'm hearing right now. George. I wasn't hearing that. I was hearing some people, some board members feel like five. But I really strongly just want to reiterate. I think we should focus on the three older schools Wolpert recommended consolidation or closure of elementary school. We've had this discussion. Discussion at length three years ago and two years ago when we selected our. Our schools for the bond issue. We knew then that we would eventually have to look at closing the school if we followed the Wilbert report. So this isn't new in the last year or two because of budget reasons or anything. And so I'm. I'd rather. I would ask the chair

123to, if we're making some big decision like that, to take a temperature vote here of the board or something, because I think we're headed down a real confused road to add schools to this discussion that are already in the bond plan. We're already down the road on that. We are closing the buildings. We're building them a brand new building, and it's open to every student in the district. District potentially, as we put programs in place and redistrict student assignment. So it would. I mean, keep the big picture in focus here of this affects all 11 schools. It's not just we're closing a building. All right, so thank you, George. I think that's a good point. Yeah, I know you said five. I wasn't necessarily hearing five. So let me just see how many board members

124think three or five or whatever number. Meredith, how many schools I think were you thinking about? Or I can start at either end. Whoever I can start with. Melinda, how about that? We always start on the left. And again, I still think we should look at all five because it's what. And again, I'm new. A lot of things I didn't I missed. But it seems to me that we do have additional information that maybe we didn't have two years ago. And to me, I just think we just need to be. Show the public that we're being very thorough, that we're willing to kind of look at all the factors. And I think we can explain it by saying, hey, we're making sure we're. Making the absolute best decision on this. And so we need to

125look at all five. George is three. Barb is three. Vicki. Vicki is five. Ronnie. Six. Ronnie is six. I'm being sort of facetious, but, I mean, I think, like, just the easiest approach feels to be like, to Melinda's point, of, like, put it all in scope. We obviously aren't gonna decide to make changes. We're far down the path with Colbert. Sorry, Carrboro. And that's probably true for some other schools, but, like, for a decision this big, I think we would be remiss not to. To fully consider everything. Meredith. I mean, I'm not opposed to getting the information, but I think. I mean, I think we put this on a ballot, and we were very clear about what schools were going to be rebuilt. And so, I mean, I hear your point. Like, I'm, you know,

126I'm not denying that you have a point. I think you definitely do. But I think at this point, once we've had the voters vote on the bond and that they were attached to projects, that we need to focus on the three remaining schools that have the highest level of need. So that sounds like three. No worries. I was going to say three anyway. So that was kind of directionally. I mean, not necessarily taking a vote, but the pulse check. So I think three. But I would say to other board members, I mean, if we listen to the three, and people feel like they need more information to the other board members, I would hope that we are open, if we need to hear about other schools, that we can say that after we hear about

127these three schools, that if we still feel like we need more information to consider, we can go back, because we aren't determining a school and starting a study. We're still at the getting information phase, that initial proposal phase. Dr. Tri. So let's start with three. Let's look at that information, and we'll go from there. Board members. Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda for the superintendent's report is a review of our cell phone policy implementation. And I see. Dr. Buckram, we've got a guest with us, Mr. Casey from East Chapel Hill. You gotta turn your microphone on when you're ready. Okay. Good evening, board and cabinet members, Madam Chair and Superintendent Trice. I'm Dr. Robin Buckram, executive director of secondary Schools. I'm here to provide an update on how our schools

128have implemented Policy 4318, Use of Wireless communication devices. I also have here with me, as you see, a member of our secondary team, Mr. Chair Jesse Casey, principal at East Chapel Hill High. He will provide some additional information through the administrator lens so you can hear from those on the ground at the secondary level who are helping to carry out this new legislation. I don't have an elementary representative tonight, but as you'll see, the impact at the elementary level has not been as significant. But I do have some feedback from those principals that they shared with me. All right. I'll be using data from our panorama surveys, surveys that we sent out to get stakeholder feedback separately, discipline data, and of course, principal voice. And I won't go back over that. But we know that

129this policy started with our HB959 legislation saying that we needed to do something more than what we were doing in of front previous years. And we want to sort of look at our celebrations and kind of identify our areas for growth with our policy. Right now, our elementary schools, our student, our students are practicing away for the day. And exceptions do exist as required for medical needs and students who may have a 504 IEP. Our middle schools are practicing, continuing to practice, practice away for the day, which means they can bring their phone to school, but it has to be in a book bag or in a locker. They cannot have that. This is not really a big change for our middle schools. We were already practicing that. And again, exceptions exist for those who

130need it. The biggest change was for our high schools this year. They can't have cell phones out. They can't have earbuds. They can't have them out or use them, can't be displayed or in use during class instructional time. This includes class transition times as well. They're still able to use their devices before school, after school and during lunch. And again, exceptions exist for those students who need it. Now, how do we educate our. Let me not skip that. Our smart watches can be worn at middle and high school, but they can only be used for time. They cannot use them for communication devices, playing music, any of that. That is prohibited. So, how did we educate our communities? Our elementary schools all got together and sent out a common flyer and that just kind of

131gave the nuts and bolts of the new policy. They shared a continuum of consequences if students didn't follow the rules. They reviewed These policies at the beginning of the school year and at the elementary level, they were really just having problems with sort of the smartwatches. And they have said that overall they haven't had any issues with enforcement of the rule, and they have seen that the smartwatch issue has gotten better. Our secondary schools, they started with some back to school communications. They did daily morning announcements, they went over advisory lessons. It's in their handbooks, they sent parent newsletters. And some of our middle schools actually practice reset assemblies quarterly or when we have long breaks, so that when kids come back, there's a little reminder that you still can't have your phone because even

132though you used it the whole Christmas break, that doesn't mean you get to come back to school to use it. And this is our panorama data. As you can see, all of our high school favorable responses around the school cell phone policy implementation, it increased and we had increases everywhere except Phoenix, which is sort of weird for Phoenix, sort of different for them because they've been doing it for longer than anybody. So I am working with Dr. Dixon on kind of pinpointing what's going on with that. But as you can see, at the high school level, we had the biggest change in our favorable responses. And for that question, they were asked questions like how clear are the cell phone rules? How well do most students follow the rules? And if an adult sees a

133student not following the rule, how likely is it that the adult will enforce the rule? And you can see those responses went up there. And also at the middle school level, we also sent out a survey. We had about 3,000 students respond to our student survey. 182 teachers and 268 families. And due to the work of our principals and their teams at the school level, our students are saying that they are definitely aware of the policy. They may not like it, but they are aware of it. They gave us a little bit of insight. They're really saying it doesn't affect my ability to focus in class that much. Some of them, about half maybe feel it's fair and it's pretty easy for them to follow it because it is kind of in their face every

134single day this year. They don't really feel like it's helping them with distractions, maybe about half of them. And then with our teachers, I think this is the most significant data because they're seeing that the cell phone policy has impacted classroom behavior in a favorable way. They're seeing students be more engaged in the classroom is what they're telling us. They feel like we're about half on the enforcement piece, but they feel more of our teachers feel like it's somewhat and definitely very easy to enforce. And they feel very supported by our administration when they do have to enforce the policy. Parents are giving us the high five on the, on the cell phone policy. They don't want it to stop. They want us to keep that going. They're very much aware of it. They have

135not noticed a lot of changes in terms of like, is it changing their attitude about anything? So a little half there, but they do feel like we have communicated it very effectively. Right now, our discipline data, elementary schools have four infractions, and that's between two schools. Right now we have about 116 referrals in for cell phones or other devices. And as you can imagine, high school is leading the way that for at 113 and middle schools have three. We were expecting that from our high schools because this is the first year we've kind of taken their toys from them and so we knew they would wouldn't like that. And just to share just a little bit of a summary of how folks are feeling right now, based on the surveys, students, predominantly negative, they don't

136really like it as we knew they would. They think that it's overly rigid, it's not consistently enforced, and they don't think, you know, that we are treating them fairly with that. But they do acknowledge that limiting the phones during instruction is beneficial. So they're kind of on the fence. This is one of my favorite quotes. Love it. Keep it. Don't tell anyone I said that stuff. So there are some kids who are on board, but they might not want other people to know it. And then of course, I think banning the cell phones during class is fair, but we need to be able to have them at other times. Teacher feedback is largely positive. They think it has improved classroom focus and engagement and it's making teaching more enjoyable. They have some quotes here saying

137they're not fighting students for their attention, but most importantly, they feel like the students are learning how to appropriately manage their devices. And they're saying they don't spend as much time policing these phones and earbuds. And our parents, again, giving us the high five, overwhelming support. But they did cite some instances of making sure that it gets enforced fairly clearly and consistent consistently. So we got a thumbs up. My child is no longer texting me during school hours. But they do want some consistent enforcement at this time. I'll have Mr. Casey come and just kind of talk about what's going on at the school level through the administrator lens and how secondary has kind of combined some efforts to do something. Good evening, everybody. Happy new year. Dr. Buckram did a great job pretty much

138summarizing, you know, what's happening at the high school level and kind of what we see as administrators. We did do a huge messaging from the very beginning of the year knowing that this was going to be not a total change because we kind of started with something in the 24-25 year, but the state law kind of just added the enforcement and the ability to enforce and be consistent with it. The beginning of the year wasn't as challenging with it as we thought. As the year went on and as you start to focus on other things, it was a little more challenging to be consistent. But we pretty much stayed, you know, kept our path with it. And a lot of. I mean, I recognize a lot of the quotes. Some of those are from things

139that I know that my teachers echo. That the most significant change and appreciation is what's happening in the classroom and that they do see that the law and the way we've interpreted it has really helped in the classroom. Going into next semester, we're almost using the semester scheduled to do a reset and almost start like we were at the beginning. There's going to be some new messaging coming out reinforcing and reminding the community and students of the policy. I think we've learned kind of from the first semester where we need to hold tight as the semester goes on, and we're going to improve on keeping the momentum going in the second semester. So we think it's going well. I know a lot. There's a lot more students that feel like the student that says it's

140good. Just don't let anybody know I said that because they don't want to be the not cool kid that doesn't like it. And I think a lot of the students who kind of feel like it's unfair, it's more of just a rebellious act of, you know, this is something I've always lived with. We're now in a world where this is something that some of these kids have had since they've been in elementary school. And so. But I think from hearing from most of my parents when I talk to them that they're supportive of it and we feel confident going forward, we can strengthen it even more. Thank you. Our growth areas are just the enforcement piece, having the transition, having the phones out for them, not being able to have them during transition is challenging.

141It's a Lot of kids in the hallway. Kind of hard sometimes for the teachers to kind of grab everybody who might have their phone out. I've talked to some principals in other districts, and they did not do the transition piece because they felt like it would be overwhelming. But I think we're doing a good job at it. Teachers are being consistent. So we're going to keep working at that one. We are going to continue to do the quarterly reminders and not just do those at the middle school level, but as Jesse said, do those more at the high school level as well. But overall, we feel like it's working. Does that mean that there will never be a time when a kid has a phone out? Absolutely not. You know, they still find a way

142in some instances, but we are enforcing it. Everybody understands it. All our parents know about it. And so we're a little bit further along than we were two years ago with it. And that ends our presentation. Does anybody have any questions? We'll pause. Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions? Meredith, go ahead. Thanks for the presentation. I have a feeling that in a few years that the student complaints will likely go down because people are so used to it at the middle school level. As those kids matriculate up, I would imagine it will become just how things are. I was wondering about lunch for high school, how that's going. If you're seeing kids, like, kind of getting their fix during lunch with their phones and not socializing. Yeah, I can answer that, and

143Jesse probably can't. I know he can. At lunchtime, kids are throwing the football, they're talking to their friends. I mean, you would think, you know, I can't have it during, you know, transitions in my classroom. But you would not be hard pressed to see kids socializing, playing games, throwing the football, joking around, and just spending time with each other. The first week I was in schools, and it was. It was like, oh, wow, okay. So they are, you know, still going outside to get recessed, still having fun. You do have a few on their phones, but I haven't seen it be a problem during lunch. I see kids socializing at secondary. I don't think there's a change in what was in previous years when it comes to lunch. You had kids on phones during lunch

144in previous years, and it's not really any different. And I was walking around today because there were more kids inside because it was colder. And I notice a lot of kids on books, reading books. So I just. That's in my head right now when y' all mention that. So I don't think there's a lot of change, and I don't think having to not be on it has caused, like, an increase of kids, like, at lunch doing this at all. Any other questions? Feedback? Yeah, Barb, go ahead. You know, some schools have little things that you put your phone in when you walk into the building. And I know some teachers, I think before and even after this policy, have they take them from the kids in the classrooms. And I guess. Do you think. How

145do you feel about that? Like, would that help? Is that just like. Or do you feel like the sort of. Nope. You just kind of keep it in your locker, backpack, or pocket is good enough. And we don't even. I can speak a little bit to that, and I'll let Jesse take over. But I think as much as they don't feel like somebody's taking it from them, it kind of cuts down on the confrontational part of it. If I have to come in my classroom and put it in the pocket like everybody else, I'm okay with that. But when you start to take my phone from me, then we get into the teacher and the student having the conflict. That's what I have seen. And I know that. I know of other districts, and I

146was actually in my old district the other day for an event, and I talked to some colleagues that they. The district purchased those things, and the kids know the game. I can put my old 14 when I got my 16 in my pocket. And so. And you don't, you know, you don't want to go in that back and forth. So, I mean, I think that's not. I think we need to be in the business of teaching kids how to be responsible and not mandating and forcing them to do something that is really. You can get around it. And I think it's all about relationship, too. I mean, I think there probably are some teachers who are like, okay, drop it in the bucket, and the kids will do it, you know, But I don't think

147on a large scale, that's something that we want to practice because it puts teachers in that position where you got to start this tug of war with a kid over their phone. All right, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, board members, we are now to our last agenda item, which is sharing. So I'll start with committee reports, finance facility and operations. Somebody. Oh, your mic. Yes. So the finance facility and operations committee met, and we had Mr. Scott present in much more detail, as he mentioned the financial statements, and also the budget amendments, which was great. Dr. Stewart gave us an update about the folks who do our electrical work. And we got really good news about our interlocal agreement with the county commissioners in Orange county schools. That, that is back on

148track. So that's really great. I also got elected chair and four people congratulated me, which was just really funny. It's a very competitive, competitive race. Sorry. Our next, our next meeting? When's our next meeting? I had 2-10-@5:30. Okay, awesome. And I don't know, has policy and student success met since? No. Okay. Policy meets next week. Okay. All right. We meet on the 27th at 5:30. Okay. All right, thank you. I'm all. Both of those are virtual, so you can look to our website for the login information for those meetings. All right. Any sharing for any of the liaison that board members serve on and any other sharing, go ahead, Ronnie. I just want to encourage and invite the board, particularly in administration and the public. You heard in the public comment the Black History Knowledge

149bowl that has been going on in the district for many years. It is a wonderful opportunity to get to see what your students are learning. And it's a friendly rivalry between the middle school, so it's lots of fun. I'll just share the date again. Saturday, February 28 from 10 to 12 at Smith Middle School. It's been nice to have board members there. It'd be great to see us represent. Thanks. Thank you. And administration. There here we go. Dr. Bills, I think has been in multiple of them. Vicki, go ahead. This Saturday they will be a youth led king celebration program in Carrboro. It's Saturday afternoon at 1 and it's a joint venture between the town of Carrboro Youth Council and the NAACP Youth Council. And there will be students doing spoken word, there will be

150a keynote speaker, there will be some singing, There'll be a wonderful celebration. They'll also be a community wide event at First Baptist Church on Monday at 11. And we will have youth that will be involved there as well as community organizations. Everyone is invited. They're all free. So yeah, there are a lot of things to be able to do and get involved with. I hope everyone will be able to take an opportunity to participate in some something that's worthy of being kind and giving so that we can help build community in our community. Wonderful. Thank you. Any other sharing? All right, well, with that, our meeting is adjourned. Thank you.