001The agenda. So moved. I have a motion from George. I'll second. And a second from Vickie. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And our next item on the agenda is to go into closed session for the purposes stated on the agenda. So moved. I have a motion from Ronnie. Second. A second from Meredith. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you so much, and we will return to 7 o'clock as close as possible. Thank you [CLOSED SESSION] All right, welcome back to open session. Our next item on the agenda is an Autism Acceptance Month proclamation. Board members, we'll start with Board Member Ballew. This is a proclamation of the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education recognizing April as Autism Acceptance Month, Whereas autism is an integral part of an
002individual's identity and a natural form of human neurodiversity, and Whereas autistic individuals are valuable and contributing members of our community, enriching our schools and society with unique perspectives, strengths, and talents. And whereas the goal of Autism Acceptance Month is to celebrate the differences, promote inclusion, and ensure that autistic individuals are embraced and supported so that they can achieve a high quality of life alongside their neurotypical peers and Whereas it is critical to ensure that all autistic students have access to the supports and services needed to pursue personal happiness, independence, and full community inclusion, including sensory friendly accommodations, diverse communication supports, and strength based learning environments and Whereas the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education is committed to fostering an environment where autistic students can learn, grow and thrive while being fully understood, accepted,
003and included and Whereas we must listen to and amplify autistic voices to inform existing and future efforts to enhance school services and advocate for policies that support disability rights and neurodiversity inclusion. Now therefore be it resolved that the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education does hereby proclaim the month of April to be designated as Autism Acceptance Month in all Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools and encourages the community to join advocacy efforts to celebrate differences and build a more welcoming and inclusive community for all autistic individuals. Thank you, board members. The next item on our agenda is public comment. I'd like to read a few housekeeping remarks related to public comment. The board appreciates and encourages public comment. Board members will listen to the comments and may ask or make clarifying questions or comments,
004but there will be no general discussion related to the public comments. Comments should be related to the education and safety of students or the operation of the school system. The public comment time is for the discussion of educational issues or the operation of the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. Public comment is not intended for extended comment or disruptive behavior. Speakers may offer criticism of school operations and programs as well as board members and administrators in their official capacity. However, the board will not allow personal attacks. Obscene, abusive, or defamatory language will not be tolerated. Okay, so public comments on a matter of concern that's not currently on work session agenda will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. And then public comments related specifically to work session items will be heard after each work
005session item has been discussed by the Board of Education. Do we have our interpretation services or they're outside, so if we happen okay, so I'll skip over that part. And tonight, since we have just a few speakers tonight, topics will have up to 3 minutes for their comment. When you're recognized, please come forward, state your name, and if you're speaking for an organization, organization, please identify the name of the organization. We'll start with recognized with recognized any teacher organizations, SIT, or student groups, followed by anyone who has signed up in advance, and then finally any other persons who wish to make comments. Do we have our teacher organizations, SIT, or student groups present? Then we'll go to people who've signed up, and it looks like we've got Chris Esposito first. Hello all, thank you for
006having me tonight. My name is Chris Esposito. I'm the father of two current and one future Ephesus student. I am asking tonight for one fairly straightforward request. As many of you know, I've been very interested in the demography data that underlies a lot of the decisions that the Board of Ed will be sorry, that's my phone. That the Board of Ed will be undertaking. I appreciate Dr. Trice and also Mr. Ciarochi yesterday for talking about this with some detail after the meeting. I've read the, the Carolina Demography Report as best I could that came out, I think, a couple of days ago, and I think many of you know that I've looked into the prior demography reports, the SAPFO reports, in quite some detail. And I just want to highlight to everyone on the board
007that there's a really considerable difference between the two of them. The SAPFO reports are predicting somewhere around 500 elementary school students over the next sort of indeterminate, but let's say 8 years or so. And the Carolina Demography one predicting about 136 students. So the difference between that is essentially an entire school. It's a really major difference. And it's not just a technical sort of question, you know, like angels on the head of a pin or something like that. It's a really major thing that's worth looking into. I am able to parse through, and I'm actually, even though I would very, very much like to have 500 students, I'm really not making any claim as to which of those is right. But I'm able to go through all of the data in the SAPFO report and
008really understand how they arrived at that number and come to it. I haven't been fully able to go through the Carolina Demography Report and really understand all of the data tables that go into that number. And my only request of the board is that you request of the demographer additional data tables and sort of student generation reports that go into the, into the, into the predictions of those so we can sort of understand them and benchmark them against what data we already have and already know of the school. So I will leave it at that. That is my report of view. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I'm going to sit here. I went ahead and printed out this critical graph of your demography report as a visual aid. I can hold it for
009you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Hannah Wilson and I'm a mom. I have a 3 year old and I have an 18 month old. The Carolina Demography Report, as you all are going to discuss later, just released a critical study with striking implications for your decision on closure. Data compiled and featured here in this printout that I'm that having helped hold shows two very important things. The first is that Ephesus is one of the only two non magnet elementary schools on this entire list that is projected to maintain or grow enrollment over the next decade, completely in the green all the way to 97%. Secondly, by 2030, Ephesus is projected to have the highest utilization of any non magnet elementary school in the district at 97%. My appreciation from speaking with some of you
010and your staff is that enrollment trends are critical to this decision. Here is concrete evidence showing that Ephesus will maintain and grow enrollment despite overall trends in the district to the contrary. Ephesus was expanded in the 90s in the 90s and has space to accommodate a growing enrollment. Ephesus is in a walkable neighborhood where 99% of students live within half a mile of the school the highest percentage among the schools in the district. Ephesus is central to a dense, diverse, and affordable part of the district. Ephesus supports a high number of children with exceptional needs who would be disproportionately impacted by closure, especially our student population on the autism spectrum. This board is obligated to objectively evaluate criteria in deciding closure, and I'm here to just ask you to please use the subjective criteria in
011making these critical decisions. Thank you. Hi everyone, I'm Mallory Turner Lowers, and I want to focus tonight on what the data show about who Ephesus serves and why that matters. For months we've all heard heartfelt reasons why every elementary school is special. and that's true, but this decision should not come down to whose school shines brightest. It should come down to facts, and the facts about Ephesus are striking. Ephesus has the highest number of students living within 1 mile of school. It has the highest count of children ages 0 to 4 in its drive zone and the second highest count of children ages 5 to 9. Census data also show that the neighborhoods around Ephesus have the highest percentage of children under age 5 anywhere in the district. In its nearby neighborhoods, Ephesus has more
012affordable housing units than any other elementary school. It ranks above Glenwood and Sewall in families without a vehicle, and it has the highest count of non white residents of any elementary school. That means that Ephesus is not just a school, it's a walkable, diverse school serving exactly the families who may be especially affected by longer drives, transportation barriers, and the loss of a neighborhood based school. Closing a walkable, diverse, and high performing school in a growing area does not advance equity, it undermines it. Thank you. Thank you guys for doing this and listening to our comments. My name is Jackie Bangma, and I want to speak briefly about alternatives. First, thank you for voluntarily undertaking a central office reduction in force. If that saves the predicted $1.5 to $2 million, it seems possible that closing
013a second school may no longer be necessary. I also hope the board will consider whether the district will end the lease on the rented satellite office space on Greensboro Street and consolidate central office staff at Lincoln Center. If the district is serious about reducing costs, it seems like another reasonable place to look. More broadly, I would urge you not to jump from we need savings to therefore we should close the school. Ephesus has the highest predicted number of new elementary students in the SAPFO 2025 annual report, and by FY 2029 30, Ephesus is projected to be at 95% enrollment, so giving Ephesus the highest projected utilization of any non magnet elementary school in our district. Closing Ephesus would not be trimming excess from a declining area. It would be closing one of the district's most
014highly utilized long term elementary schools in a growing part of Chapel Hill. If savings are needed, then the district should first exhaust less disruptive options. School closure should be the last resort, not the first answer. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you all for being here, and thank you for all of your tireless nights recently in supporting us at our community events. We really appreciate that. I'm Miriam Veeberg, and I'm a parent at Ephesus Elementary and for the past few months, what I've heard, and perhaps arguably for the past few years what you have heard, is a lot of reasons why each each of our 11 elementary schools is really amazing, and there's truly no denying that. But this shouldn't be a question about who shines brightest. Last night, two Ephesus parents presented CHCCS action.org to
015the staff and its board members. It is a non biased compilation of all the data that you all have gathered, depicting geospatial maps showing the effect of school closures on various scenarios. So tonight, instead of standing here and telling you another story about why my school is shiny, what I'd like to do is focus on the facts. You'll hear me use the phrase drive zone, which some of the other parents already tonight have. And for those of you who are unaware, I would like to take a moment and differentiate a drive zone from an attendance zone. An attendance zone can, can be altered to meet demographic or other goals. Drive zones plainly define the closest school to each home in our district. So let's hear the facts. Ephesus is not a school in decline. It's
016a growing school in a high demand area. First, Ephesus has the highest number of projected new elementary students according to the latest SAPFO data. It is projected to reach 97% of enrollment within 10 years, as one of the other parents has shown tonight. And among school drive zones, Ephesus ranks second in home sales between 2023 and 2025. Finally, it has the highest number of children in ages 0 through 4 in its drive zone. So this is not a shrinking community. This is future enrollment. Now let's consider who lives here. First, it has more affordable housing units than any other area of the elementary districts. Ephesus has the highest number of non white residents in its drive zone. And finally, it serves more families without access to a vehicle than the other two schools in question
017for the current closure criteria, Glenwood and Ephesus sorry, Glenwood and Sewell. So let me restate that because I mumbled it. Apologies. But finally, it serves more families without access to a vehicle than Glenwood or Sewell. So this is one of the most diverse and economically accessible school zones in the district. Finally, let's talk about walkability. Ephesus has the highest number of students living within 1 mile of school, and that matters because when you close a school, a walkable one, in a dense, diverse, growing area, you're not just moving students, you're fundamentally changing the access. Closing a walkable, diverse, high performing elementary school in one of the fastest growing parts of Chapel Hill because of a district wide enrollment decline does not align with the data. It doesn't reflect who is growing, how growth is happening,
018and who is most impacted. It simply doesn't make sense. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you all for allowing me to speak tonight. The faces are new. As I stood here about 6 and a half years ago, crying out for help as a parent for my daughter who was sexually abused in elementary school. So I come here today because on today I'm seeing and hearing that there are still issues of these occurrences happening in the district and to know that even from my own occurrence, that, that wasn't completely followed through. Again, it's all new faces. By prior, um, the prior term members as it pertains to policies that I asked to be evaluated, that I was told I was going to be contacted to be evaluated, which specifically on school safety and asking for more detail
019on what you all consider reasonable supervision. There continue to be gaps in supervision and safety for children, and I come as an advocate, not for only my child, as I said here before, but for all children. And I understand that there is a focus on the decrease in families leaving as it pertains to maybe high costs and different things like that but I also believe that a lot of families are leaving because they do not feel safe with their children in the district and they don't feel supported. So I don't come here in harm or in vengeance, but only as an advocate to plead for change, to plead for you all to evaluate the policies, to understand more. As like I said, it's been a 6.5, 7 year gap. COVID happened. This was the 2019
0202020 school year when a lot of these incidents were happening and after COVID, I had some health issues. So the fight that I had during that time, I wasn't able to fight as hard, but my health has changed and again, I am still hearing these issues sitting on hearings, seeing these issues, and I'm still very concerned. My daughter is not at that school anymore, but my son is. But still, it's all children across the district that I feel that we, we must understand that Education is important. I came here specifically for that fact that I heard that you all were A1 education and you have been, but that kind of diminishes when as a parent I feel my child isn't safe. So it's like, do you choose education over their safety? And we have to
021work together collaboratively for that and I do understand it's not all your responsibility, but if I drop my child off at that time and per your policies, it stated that y'all have a responsibility, you know, during those times. So I'm just asking you all to look at your policies. I see you have committees, I think finance operation. Again, my health just changed. I'm looking into stuff, but I'm just asking for you all to work with me about changing policies for the children. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, good evening. My name is Molly Chen. I'm a parent at Glenwood Elementary. Thank you all for those who attended the board or the meeting at Glenwood. It was helpful to hear the information again, but I guess I just wanted to reflect a little bit on a few
022things that were discussed that specific meeting, because I walked away from that particular one with a little bit less clarity on next steps forward, because it felt like a lot of the conversations, at least amongst the parents and Superintendent Trice, and not so much the board members I know it was more of a listening mode about, you know, if Glenwood were to close, which, you know, very well could be. I've looked at the data. I understand that there's factors that worked against it. And even though I know, even with the population report today talking about stabilization of enrollment. It's an old building, and that is a fact. So if it is chosen to be closed, I think some of the conversation about what comes next and the declining enrollment just generally in the district but
023when I think of a program like Linwood, we've had so many anecdotes and stories of parents that are coming here just for that. I find it a little bit disheartening and also a little bit counterintuitive to think about not keeping the program as a whole. I know that promises can't be made at this time. Decisions haven't even been made, but I think as we move forward and if Glenwood is chosen, what I hope to see as a parent, because I have a 4 year old who would start, you know, any the year that any changes would be made, is that what we are also looking for as families is stabilization of that. And so even though redistricting and the movement of students might be necessary. I think that the possibility of keeping the programs together,
024as you stated, Superintendent Trice, that we're looking at programs separately, our dual language is separate than the world language, than the STEAM program. But I will say the community at Glenwood doesn't look at those separately. It is absolutely integrated together. In fact, I fear that without the dual language component, the world language program would have a very hard time continuing in its success, the, the model that has been successful to date. And so if the decision is made and Glenwood is one of the schools that is closed, I hope that real discussion could be made about keeping the entire programs intact. It's been a little bit of a semantic game because when I heard at first, I think at a community meeting, that the commitment to keeping the program intact was there, I was like,
025okay, then I can I can be okay as a parent if the school closes because it is an older building. And I would love for my kids to and, you know, the kids at Glenwood to have a newer building and better facilities. But I feel like it's been a little bit parsed out to where we're not making that commitment anymore. And I hope that we can have a little bit more clarity. So thank you. Thank you. That was everyone who had signed up in advance. Is there anyone else who did not sign up and would like to make a public comment for those items not on work session? Thank you. Seeing that there are no other public comments, you may also send in written comments to the board. The email is available on the agenda,
026and additional information regarding written comments is available on our website. Board members, our next item on the agenda is this consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. I have a motion from Ronnie. Do I have a second? Second I have a second from Barb. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. All right. Our next item on the agenda is going to be the our work session. And we actually have a number of work session items. I just want to remind everyone, speakers will have up to 3 minutes. We will do public comment after each work session item. I'm not going to read all the spiel that I said before. All that stands, okay? So our first work session item is the introduction of our
027fiscal year 2026 2036 capital investment plan and Mr. Ciarochi is coming forward. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Trice, and guests. This is the second read for the proposed 2026 36 capital improvement plan. Um, We had opportunity to receive feedback at the last meeting. There have been no subsequent changes to the CIP, so it's still as it was previously presented. For the timeline, this is, as it is, the second read. It will be slated for approval at the next upcoming board meeting along with the local operating budget, and then ultimately it will be presented to the county for their review and consideration for appropriation according to the interlocal agreement that was agreed upon by the to school districts and the county commissioners for an approval in later in June, as it typically
028does. So at this point, I could answer any questions for you about the plan. Board members, do you have any questions at this time? Okay. Seeing no questions from board members, thank you, Mr. Ciarochi. We'll now have public comments on this work session item. If you do have a public comment Thank you Thank you, Mr. Ciarochi just please come forward to the microphone and you can make your comments and state your name. Yeah, go ahead. Turn the microphone. Is it on now? Okay all right. Well, I did have a question just because it was something I didn't get to ask the other the other evening, but, I did notice that in the proposed capital investment plan, and I'm hoping that it was in this plan and not the other really long slide deck, but, it
029was about the plan for these school repairs. And I did notice that FPG's repairs were slated for to begin in fiscal year 30, 31, and I just wanted to ask about why the delay in that specific item? And then related to that, I saw the other items that have been discussed, such as the Carrboro Elementary design and then a couple of other high priorities. But it just seems like it's, it's being pushed back almost 5 years. So that was just a question of mine. Thank you. Thank you. I don't I mean, I don't know. We typically won't answer. It's your public comment, but if you yeah, I was going to say Mr. Ciarochi can answer that. Thank you though. All right, any other public comments? Our next work session item is the Board of Education's
030Fiscal year '26 '27 local operating budget request, and I see Mr. Scott's coming forward. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, board members, Dr. Trice, members of the cabinet and public. Always good to be in front of you at this point in budget season. It means we're nearing the end. So tonight is the second of two public work sessions. Gives the board opportunity to modify the superintendent's recommended budget. The superintendent brought his recommended budget to this board in early March. Since then, we've had one public hearing where the board has offered feedback on the superintendent's budget. We went back as a finance staff and incorporated those changes. If you recall, the superintendent's budget contained only a continuation section, and we also included information about a strategic pivot. Receiving direction from the board
031at the last work session, we incorporated those other items as expansion requests to be included into the Board of Education's budget. So the numbers are very, very similar to what we presented with Superintendent's budget request. We've got about $3 million in continuation costs after we net away the increase in the special district tax. The board opted to include another $2.7 million in expansion items, of which it was an additional 3% supplement across the board for all personnel, along with a million dollar increase to a sustainable curriculum fund. So those two changes are what the board requested that we bring forward, bringing the total request to just over $6.7 million. Again, We were looking for intent to adopt this evening, and we will come back at the next meeting to bring a finalized budget request. And
032we did talk a little bit about the board would then have to request from the county commissioners an increase in the special district tax to fully fund that. Just for the board and public's awareness, the special district tax right now is at $14.79 per thousand. This would require an increase of $3.41. $0.06 per thousand to the special district tax, which is about a 25% increase to fully fund the request, but we'll include that we'll include that when we when we prepare the final request to send to the county. Again, this is your budget. It still is your budget. So if there's any questions or if anyone wants to suggest any modifications, I'd be happy to address those now. Board members, do you have any comments or questions about the budget? Just can you repeat those
033numbers again? As far as the special district tax? Okay. So currently the special district tax is $14.79 per thousand. That was dropped from, I believe, $18.2 during the reevaluation. My math, which the tax base changes, but I believe it'll take about $3.41 of an increase in the special district tax in order to fund the $6.7 million. And again, I don't know the percentage, but I think it's roughly 25% would be roughly a 25% increase in the special district tax. Sure. Any other questions or comments, board members? All right, thank you, Mr. Scott. Thank you. Good evening, Community members. If anyone has any public comment related to the work session item, Board of Education's fiscal year '26 '27 local operating budget request, you can go ahead and step forward and please state your name. Seeing no
034public comment, we will move on to our next work session item. And I see we've got a whole team coming forward. Dr. Bales, Mr. McArthur, Ms. Atwater, thank you so much. And you're presenting our CHCCS digital learning plan initial draft. All right, good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Trice, and our public make sure this works. There we go. As we begin the conversation tonight, I want to start with something that's really important for us to kind of ground our process and thoughts as we're bringing forward the first draft of our digital learning plan. First and foremost, strong teacher led instruction is the foundation of student success in our district. Everything we do in our district ultimately comes back to what happens between a teacher and students in the classroom. The relationships, the
035instructional decisions, the questioning, the feedback, and the learning experiences teachers design those are the things that have the greatest impact on student learning. Second, curriculum standards and learning goals drive classroom decisions. Our curriculum management plan and the curriculum resources define what students should learn and how those support the learning across the district. Instructional decisions should always start with these goals: what students need to understand, the skills they need to develop, and the learning experiences that will help them get there. And that leads to the third point, that technology is just one of the many tools that support the work. It's not the driver of instruction. Technology should only be used when it clearly enhances and deepens understanding or helps provide access to instruction in ways that support our students. That framing is really important. I
036mean, really the purpose of our digital learning plan. This plan is not a teaching and learning document or a plan. Our curriculum management plan already serves that role. Instead, this document supports or acts as a supporting framework instead of guardrails to help us make thoughtful decisions about when and how technology should be used in our classrooms. It establishes shared expectations across the district around things that, like developmentally appropriate use, responsible and ethical use of technology, and equitable use for students, while still allowing schools and teachers the flexibility to design instruction in ways that meets the needs of all of our students. Ultimately, our goal is balance and clarity, ensuring that technology supports strong instruction without ever replacing the relationships, discussion, collaboration and hands on learning that is essential to great teaching. Who's next? Hello, this
037plan has been developed through a structured, phased process. From the very beginning, this work began, this work was guided through or by way of a representative body that was made up of staff, educators, families, and teachers, of course. Together we identify priorities and needs and analyze our current practices and develop the initial draft of the plan. Over the past few months, we've gathered feedback from various stakeholders to refine it. We are now in the final refinement stage, aiming to present it this May. This has been an intentional iterative process to ensure that the plan both reflects the district priorities that Dr. Bell has aligned and then also community voice. This work is really about clarity and consistency. Right now, digital learning can vary across classrooms and schools. The plan ensures that when technology is used,
038it's intentional and supports instruction and, most importantly, student well being. It also provides clear guidance to staff and helps families better understand what to expect when their child brings a device home or when they come home to tell stories about what happened during the school day. Ultimately, it's about guiding or about aligning practice across the district, keeping instruction at the center. What the plan includes. So this plan is designed to be both strategic and actionable. As you see here, it includes a 3 year phased implementation to allow for a thoughtful rollout. We've established guiding pillars that define our values and instructional guardrails to support day to day actions. It is also organized into 5 domains with clear goals, actions, timelines, and accountability measures. And lastly, together it provides both direction and structure for implementation. Good
039evening. As Dr. Bell shared at the start of the presentation, developing a digital learning plan isn't just focused on technical tasks, it's about instructional priorities. To ensure this plan was grounded in the realities of our classroom, we con we convened a guiding coalition representing a deliberate cross section of our district. We thank Board Vice Chair Fetters and board member Dr. Griffin and select members of our school based and I seed instructional and equity teams as well as Assistive Technology team member, classroom teachers, librarians, digital learning coaches, instructional coaches, parents, IT staff and IT staff who see these tools in action every day. Our coalition's voices ensured that digital learning was reviewed from these many perspectives to our public. You can click on the link within slide 6 of the presentation to see the names of
040our participants. Ultimately, this work was a unified effort across elementary and secondary education and IT ensuring our end goal is for our students to have a cohesive K12 classroom experience. Beyond our internal coalition, we conducted an extensive listening tour to understand the community's lived experience with technology and digital resources. We received critical input from nearly 300 parents and guardians and staff members through our Digital Learning Plan survey that went out to families via our News and Notes communication between the beginning of December to the end of January. We didn't just look at this data; we also went into our school communities. We engaged with the PTA Council; individual school SIT teams and we look forward to our continued efforts to meet our families within the community to continue to engage in conversations on this plan
041and its impact on students. From what has been shared by our families, we understand there is a need to focus on the elementary to middle school transition when a student goes from having a device they pull from a computer cart to receiving a take home device hearing directly from parents via the survey Coalition, PTA and SIT Teams. We also spoke with 6th through 8th graders at Smith Middle School and a few other middle school students who are part of the sit teams at McDougall and Phillips, they gave us a clearer picture of how technology impacts their daily engagement and well-being. We look forward to continuing these conversations with our students, families and teachers and leaders throughout the next several years. Our community was clear about their priorities. They want student safety and privacy at the
042forefront, consistent experiences from one classroom to the next, and clear boundaries on screen time. Families want to be sure our technology supports but does not replace strong teacher-leading instruction. They are asking for transparency regarding the how and why behind the use of screens in the classroom and the digital assignments that are sent home. This digital learning plan is our direct answer to those concerns. It provides rigorous resource vetting where we continue to strengthen our oversight on privacy and safety for every application and website used clear guardrails where district wide expectations around the use and non-use of digital resources are established that remove the guesswork for our teachers and families and developmental appropriateness where we prioritize age appropriate use and time spent with digital resources to ensure students experience teacher facilitated instruction and intentional instructional design
043that utilizes purposely chosen the purposeful chosen use of non-digital and digital resources when needed. Our teachers will receive professional learning in this area. Moving ahead finally, we are committed to engaging in ongoing dialogue with our district stakeholders. Through this plan. We are moving to a new chapter where transparency on the intended use of technology and a model of continuous feedback and open communication resources with our families will continue to expand. Thank you. No worries. This slide shows how the plan is organized. The five guiding pillars define how we approach digital learning in Chapel Hill, Carrboro City schools. The five domains will provide the structural framework and align the our plan to our state's digital learning plan. What's important here is that everything connects back to instruction first with an emphasis on intentional and developmentally appropriate
044use of technology. This ensures that both are aligned and grounded in what's best for our students. So, we want to go a little deeper into the domains as that's where a lot of our work kind of lands. So, domain one focuses on leadership and vision and really serves as the structural foundation that allows the rest of the digital learning plan to function effectively. So, our first priority is looking to establish clear and district wide expectations for digital learning. As we've shared earlier, one of the main challenges that we have across our schools is inconsistency different interpretations of how technology should be used across classrooms or schools. This work will help us define shared expectations so that digital learning practices remain aligned within our instructional priorities across the district. Second is the domain defines. In this
045domain it defines how decisions are made and who's responsible for them. Digital Learning Governance and CHCCS is intentionally designed to balance district wide coherence and school wide flexibility to ensure student success. The district establishes the guardrails on the expectations while schools retain the flexibility in how they design instruction within those parameters. Another important focus in area is strengthening centralized vision or vetting for Digital Tools as new tools continue to emerge, particularly in the rapid growth of AI, we want to ensure that any digital resources that are used with our students meet clear standards for instructional alignment. These data privacy, accessibility, and safety. A centralized vetting process helps us protect students and ensures tools support learning rather than distract from it. This domain also prioritizes consistent communication and transparency with family and staff. That includes clear
046expectations of how digital tools are selected, what expectations exist about technology, and what families should understand about how technology supports learning in our classrooms. Breaking this down and allowing our families to truly know what's happening in our classrooms and what they should expect to see when we come when they go home. And finally, this domain ensures that digital learning remains aligned with board policy and district priorities. Our processes and guidance are grounded in existing board policy around instructional materials, responsible technology use, and student safety. We felt we're building in a recurring review cycle to ensure that those policies evolve as technology and instructional practices change. Ultimately, the goal in this domain is really simple. It's that clarity piece that, you know, we've heard over and over and over again. Clarity about expectations, decision making, how
047digital learning supports the strong instruction within our district. So, looking at domain one again, that's focusing on our structure and clarity. Moving into domain two, really looking at our curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This domain ensures that digital learning remains directly connected rather than becoming a separate initiative. As we've said, we're really looking at this. As you know, the instructional core technology is used only when it supports our instructional goals. Our expectation is that teachers begin with the curriculum standards and learning outcomes they want and then, you know, if needed. Technology is selected intentionally to enhance learning, whether that means helping students with a draft or revising writing, collaborating on research, modeling complex concepts, or accessing learning in new ways. Another focus for this domain is reducing fragmentation across tools and platforms over time. Especially after
048Covid, our school system accumulated large numbers of digital tools, it created confusion for what was used here. What platform do you go on? We've seen many memes that have joked about what platform you're getting on. So, this plan prioritizes a coherent set of district supported tools aligned to the curriculum, helping reduce redundancy, minimize unnecessarily platform use, and creating a more consistent learning experience for our students as they move from grade to grade. This domain also emphasizes the importance of digital literacy, privacy, and responsible use. These are honestly they're not optional skills anymore. They're essential parts of preparing students for the world that we live in. Our goal is to make sure that we're integrating these concepts into instruction across grade levels so that students understand how to use digital resources responsibly, ethically and safely. Also
049understanding that it's going to look very different for a first grader, a fifth grader, an eighth grader, a twelfth grader. Finally, this work keeps the focus where it belongs on student thinking and meaningful learning experiences. The goal is simply not simply to digitalize traditional tasks. Instead, technology should and needs to support deeper learning, collaboration, communication and creation, while also recognizing that many powerful learning experiences are still best supported through discussion, hands on work, and teacher led instruction. Ultimately, Domain 2 ensures that digital learning strengthens instruction by keeping the focus on coherence, balance and student learning outcomes. The next domain is human capacity, and it focuses on building the capacity of our educators and leaders. And personally, because of my role in the staff who I support in our schools, it's my favorite domain. The goal
050is to ensure staff feel confident using technology intentionally, not just using the tools for tool sake. The professional learning will be job embedded and tailored to specific roles. It will also clarify how digital learning coaches, formerly our, its, our school librarians, and instructional leaders support this work. Ultimately, strong implementation depends on the people we have in our buildings, not the programs that we purchase. This domain ensures that we invest in our people. Our fourth domain relates to technology, infrastructure and devices. We are committed to ensuring that every student has reliable access to devices at the point of need, whether it be in the classrooms or home if you're a secondary student. We are also committed to supporting the needs of our families of secondary students who need Internet connectivity when using a district provided device
051at home and via our hotspot program that is free to our district via the T Mobile project. 10 million programs a secure network and device infrastructure exists to serve our students. This domain ensures that every technology investment we make is directly tied to our instructional priorities and our learning goals. It is our responsibility to be good stewards of district resources and we have an already established device refresh plan and moving forward, we will continue to refine this plan based on the instructional goals established by ICED and EC colleagues. This allows us to manage costs predictably while streamlining our instructional portfolio to reduce unnecessary expenditures. One of the goals within this plan is to standardize devices for staff across schools. Right now, they are using Macs and PCs depending on the school. This will ensure a
052more consistent teaching and learning experience across our classrooms, but also help our technology team to better support our staff as we reduce the number of operating systems and hardware types. The good news is this could also potentially save district funds as we as it could eliminate some systems that we currently need to prepare and manage multiple operating systems. The fifth domain is around data privacy and security. Protecting student data is non-negotiable. We have already moved towards a centralized vetting process for all digital resources and require every digital subscription vendor we contract with to sign a data center student data confidentiality agreement that is provided to us by NCDPI specifically for those who require student data or a student account. This priority ensures our chosen vendors meet the highest standards for safety and privacy before a
053student interacts with their platform. We will provide more information to our stakeholders on these efforts moving forward. Security is a shared responsibility. Our plan includes targeted annual professional learning to ensure every staff member understands their role in maintaining a secure digital environment. We aren't just protecting our students, we're teaching them to protect themselves. The plan integrates age appropriate lessons on digital safety and citizenship, preparing students to navigate the modern world responsibly. These lessons could be facilitated by our digital learning coaches, our librarians, counselors and teachers. Finally, we plan to increase our efforts to ensure transparency with our families when it comes to our data privacy and security efforts. This includes publishing a public facing list of approved resources, sharing our processes for vetting resources and contracting with vendors, and sharing our processes for maintaining ongoing
054compliance as new technologies continue to evolve. So, as we close, we wanted to highlight a few priority actions that we're looking at for the summer and then moving into the fall. We intentionally placed this at the end of our presentation because we wanted the board to understand the overall structure and vision of the plan before looking at the initial steps that we're looking at. The one thing that you'll see within these five bullets are these are really what we've heard probably the most from our staff, from our parents, from our community members in terms of things that they would like us to address and things that we think that we can, you know, knock out this summer and into the fall. So just kind of rolling through these a little bit, the first one there,
055increasing restrictions on our YouTube access, I will say that is probably the number one thing that we've heard from many of our parents and our teachers. So, you know, increasing those restrictions and updating district web filtering to better align with instructional use, we can dive into that a little bit more. But really looking at how do we restrict the YouTube access to things that are actually needed for instruction and that kind of goes back to training our teachers to know how to navigate some of those systems as well. Publishing a Public facing centralized list of approved digital resources with time, recommendations and purpose. So if you think of any program or anything that a student would use in a classroom, parents ahead of time would know what that program is, what it's used for, what
056it shouldn't be used for, the amount of time that should actually be used in the school itself and then at home. One of the comments that we've heard frequently is, you know, my kid comes home and they're doing this thing for five hours. Same conversation that we honestly have when we talk about homework in terms of, you know, when we, you know, release the students and they go home. We're not necessarily, you know, in that space to know what that is. And that's that communication piece that really is important between our parents and our teachers. Teachers to know what is happening at home, but then also for us to be able to say this shouldn't, you know, happen for more than 30 minutes at home instead of you being on there for five hours requiring
057the use of Go Guardian Teacher in all second through 12th grade classrooms. Go Guardian is our piece where our teachers can actually see what's on the devices. They can, you know, block certain sites. They can really, I mean, in all honesty, you can get it to where it's locked down to. We're using this today, and that's the one thing that the students can get on, on the computer. As we have new teachers that are coming in, we really need to make sure that our teachers are aware of this and have updates on how to Actually, we have some teachers that are amazing and whizzes and they could probably teach everyone throughout the district. And we have other teachers that if you said the word go garden, they were like, I've heard about that once, but
058I'm not quite sure how to use it. So, really making sure that we're providing that professional development, providing a professional learning calendar focused on digital learning as we've talked about, you know, really trying to integrate that into all of the work that we do. There is tons of professional development for all of the things, but to make sure that that is something that is available for our teachers and within our principals too, making sure that they're able to best understand what's going to be, you know, most useful for their staff this year. You know, each of our principals have provided different professional developments and they may be able to lean into some of the, you know, supports that we have. And then lastly, beginning to plan to phase out the use of iPads in our
059K2 classrooms. So, we Currently have iPads in the rooms. As we look at our next renewal cycle, that's not something that we're going to be moving forward with. And we're going to need a little bit of time to go to figure out, you know, what, you know, there's still going to be technologies going to be used from time to time, but it's not going to be a one to one for our students. So, what is that going to look like? And then just developing strategy overall to reduce the amount of technology that our, you know, especially our K2 students and across all of our grade levels through a streamlined instructional technology portfolio. One of the things that I've worked with, with our teams is really going through and looking at every single program that we
060have. And really, you know, our goal was really looking at it and saying, you know, can we honestly sit here and cut? And when I say cut, I'm looking at the financial dollars piece. Can we cut 30 to 50% of this off the top to begin with? So we've been working on that and I think, you know, we're going to be really close to fitting right in that 30 to 50%, which really allows us to, you know, be very strategic in what we're using, when we're using it, and not have a million different options with all of this plan. It does allow us to have a little bit more footing in terms of what is being used, how it should be used. It allows our parents to, you know, also give feedback because they know
061exactly what should be used and what shouldn't be used. It does also allow us as a district, while we may have resources that we provide for all of our schools, there may be additional resources that teachers, you know, use on their own that are free. They do get vetted. But, you know, this allows us to really, you know, allow them to work with us to figure out what is the best resources for our students. So we'll navigate that as we're moving forward. Just in closing, you know, as we've talked about, we really wanted to bring clarity and balance to our digital learning in our district. As we've talked about before, COVID was, I wouldn't. It's not a great time, but it was a time where people were able to really navigate and try lots of
062different tools and they've kind, they've stuck around, they were great at the time to be able to, you know, reach our students in different ways. But the true value in learning really comes between that magic that happens between the teacher and the student in the classroom. You know, using technology as a tool is a, is a great opportunity, especially for, you know, some of our students, that that's a career path that they want to go in. But again, instruction comes first. Students remain at the center and every decision that we make should strengthen teaching and learning in our classrooms. Knowing too that this is our first draft of this, we wanted to, you know, we've gotten tons of feedback. One of the things that we're asking from the board tonight is just general feedback that
063you may have that you want us to go back and look at. If there are other groups that you would want to make sure that we have involved in the process. We have about another month and a half. We're looking at bringing this towards the end of May back to you all as a final plan. But we wanted to give enough Runway to kind of see where we're at and where we need to move forward. And from there we will answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Questions. Dr. Griffin, go ahead. Thank you. Ms. Jenkins, Dr. Bales and Mr. McArthur and Ms. Atwater, I just want to start by thanking you for the update and the presentation tonight. And also, I want to thank you for the responsiveness, the time, the effort, the
064planning that's gone into getting here. This draft plan is significantly different from where we started six months ago and what we've had for a number of years. The coalition group that you put together, of which Ms. Fetters and I were both board reps, as someone mentioned, you know, met three times for day-long sessions. We had opportunity to respond to several draft iterations of the plan. I guess what I'm saying is the group was clearly listened to in my opinion as the plan was developed all along. And I also appreciate the purpose, the contents, the organization and just the spirit with which this was undertaken. I'm not going to review every highlight of the plan tonight. I'm aware we have other important agenda items as well. However, some of the information I think in the plan
065itself is worthy of note that you've addressed here in the presentation and I read the plan with great interest myself and I agree with you there. I'm sure people have some other suggestions and iterations for it. The primary purpose though of the plan, as it says here, and I share this both with the public and with my colleagues on the board as a way of, I think helping focused people might. Oh God. We'll go pick up that plan and make a suggestion or two. And it says in there that the plan establishes a shared district wide framework for when and how technology can support teaching, learning and equity, ensuring it's used intentionally and not as a replacement for teacher student interaction. I think that's a powerful sentence. Its purpose is to bring clarity and consistency
066to digital learning decisions by centering instruction, developmental appropriateness, meaningful learning experiences. It's designed to guide practice, professional learning and resource decisions without prescribing specific tools emphasizing purposeful use and limiting unnecessary screen time. That's been a big issue. We've heard from our community about screen time and I appreciate that. The plan mentions this a number of places and then it closes with we are committed to safety and the well being of students. The plan continues with what we mean by digital learning and it says it means using technology intentionally to support strong instruction, deeper student understanding and expand access to learning. There's a theme running throughout here of technology supporting instruction, not becoming the instruction. And I think that's an important point. It's a tool in service of instructional goals, not a driver of them. Digital
067learning is purposeful and aligned to curriculum and instruction. It's developmentally appropriate. It's balanced with non-digital learning experiences and human connections. I really like this. Digital learning is not. It's not screen time without an intended purpose. I've heard from dozens of parents that this is a major concern. I got involved in this myself as a grandparent watching my 5 year olds and 6 year olds demanding the iPad at home so they can get on YouTube and papa, I'm watching basketball and you go over and they're not watching basketball at all. And we're talking five years old and this was a couple years ago and I was like wow, this stuff that people are bringing to us is real. It's not a replacement for teacher expertise or human interaction. It's not a collection of disconnected tools. And
068I felt that way sometimes before that we just had all these tools and that may be overly critical. And it's not a one size fits all model. So, our commitment is to ensure that technology enhances learning only when it adds value and that students experience consistent, meaningful and age-appropriate learning across all schools. There's a short section on what balance means in the classrooms. It means using hands on and or paper-based materials with the support of technology when that that strengthens learning. It's not about equal time on and off devices. It's about thoughtful instructional decisions. And then the plan goes on to describe what balanced use is. And the one I love in here is hands on learning. Discussion, collaboration and direct instruction remain central to what is best for students. I Think that's powerful. Sentence.
069Digital devices are tool options for creation, feedback and access, not passive consumption. I think that, you know, you've said it in many ways, but I want to repeat this publicly and sort of lift it out of that report so that people be sure and hear it. Ensuring the impact of digital learning that digital learning is safe and has a positive impact on student wellness. It protects students' focus. It supports well-being, it keeps relationships at the center of instruction. This is in a digital learning plan and it's got all about relationships. And I think that's really important why this work is needed and I'll finish up here quickly. The plan recognizes that the best teaching and learning occurs through strong teacher-student relationships and active engagement. Technology, when appropriately used, can be a part of the student
070experience, but should be a supplement to core curricular and instructional practices. And then you go on to talk about your year one. In that slide you showed at the end, you've actually got very detailed goals, strategies and who's going to monitor it and how we're going to monitor to get these year one activities done. And I applaud that. It's very precise. That doesn't mean everybody will say that's all it should be. I get that because there's a lot of strong opinion about this. The digital learning plan isn't perfect. But you close with, and I quote this through this plan, Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools commits to using commits to using technology as a supportive tool for learning, not a driver of it. By establishing clear expectations, thoughtful guardrails, shared ownership, the district seeks to ensure
071digital learning consistently supports instructional excellence, student well being and equitable opportunities. So again, I know that's three or four times maybe saying the same thing, but it's theme, but it's important. So, I wanted to lift that out here in front of everybody and thank you for getting there. And then that also gives me permission to say hey, we got to add this or we got to add that. But that was well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Meredith. Thanks very much for the presentation. It's nice to see the progression of the plan as I've seen it presented in front of a few groups already. And so, it's nice to see you incorporating feedback from various groups. I just had a couple questions and I know that like in the PowerPoint presentation you
072can't include every detail, but I do want to lift up the fact that I would love it if we could figure out a way to acknowledge the fact that like just for example, in domain 2, the first bullet point says ensures technology is used only when it supports instructional goals. I might say something like only when it supports instructional goals or it's used as a meaningful or necessary accommodation for students with disabilities or MLLs or, you know, insert whatever group there. But it's a really, you know, we've spent a lot of time over the last number of years developing technologies that help students with disabilities, whether they use an AAC device so that they can communicate. Most of our students with disabilities, as you well know, are in our general ed classrooms. And so, trying
073to figure out a way where we can acknowledge their need to use devices when other students might not have access to those devices without stigmatizing them for that. And that's a lot of words, obviously that's not meant for the plan, but just figuring out a way that we could at least acknowledge that it can be used as an adaptive tool in addition to just a curricular vehicle. And then the domain 3 and 5, there were a couple of bullet points about like the human capacity part where you're talking about, you know, helping our staff understand this. One thing I wanted to know was a, is, is PD for digital learning required across our staff or is this something that they just have access to, that they can utilize? Because I think, I think this is
074going to be really important for people to understand as we roll this out district wide. And so just trying to figure out how we can encourage folks to participate in this. And then the fact that we as part of our RIF, when we reduce the ITF's down a little bit, just how is, how does that, that reduction affect, like how we're going to deploy this plan? And you know, are we, do we have concerns about that? Do we feel like that, you know, we can adequately support that? So, I'll say the one thing for me is really looking at when we say instructions, the central focus, like keeping the instruction central focus. And when we're doing that, making sure that we're also talking about the ways that you utilize technology. When we talk about technology
075in isolation on its own, then it, you know, for a teacher, it's like, okay, well am I just using it as a part of this? We want to be able to really show that. So, a lot of the PD, besides, like the Go Guardian, how you navigate some of that is going to be incorporated into like the core instruction of what we're doing. When we have curriculum adoptions, you know, we're looking at, you know, what technologies are we looking for, what, you know, when we look at the science adoption, we really wanted to have some of those very hands on. And as we move forward with an ELA and a math adoption, and like I said, every time I get in front of you and thank you for the money you'll eventually give us for
076that, making sure that we are being very intentional that the tools that we're using are there to support learning and not necessarily to go in place of. If we're having technology, you know, guidelines of professional development for things that aren't essentially, you know, connected to the instruction that we're doing, then it's probably not the stuff that we should be using. So really making sure that we do that. And I'll let Al talk a little about the Go Guardian. So, our digital learning coaches, as you all know, are serving at, for the most part, two different schools, middle school down to elementary. And their focus this year has been more global than local, so to say. And a lot of the resources that they're creating are meant for district employees, not just employees for the school
077that they work at. So a lot of their work this year has been focused on what are clearly defining their role, making sure that everyone at the school understands that and what separates them as digital learning coaches, like digital learning coaches from our awesome IT staff. That's truly the biggest driver that I feel will help propel us in terms of making sure that our staff see and recognize these staff members as valuable and can best use them to help them understand how to integrate technology purposefully. A lot of the work that they'll be well, actually tomorrow our elementary DLCs, along with our school librarians, will be working with our instructional coaches and classroom teachers and making sure that the curriculum that's created for ELA because of the upcoming standards change will incorporate a lot of
078elements that we've mentioned here that they're at the forefront of helping decide what that technology is making sure that it's supporting. They're also going to seek to embed various practices. Our librarians on that end will ensure that inquiry and research is embedded in those practices as well. And on the digital learning side, that our digital liter standards and methodologies and best practices are embedded there as well. So, it's a lot of working with other groups to make sure that the presence of the DLC is felt more than just at the schools that they represent. Go ahead, Barb. Yeah, I want to echo really everything George said about the quality of this report and the presentation and the process as well. It was delightful to be a part of it. I Mean, we have some really
079deep thinking staff and I learned a lot. My questions are really in the weeds, so forgive me if they're too in the weeds. But I think my experiences as a parent inform my views of technology more than really anything else I do as a board member. And what I know is that if there's an iPad in my house anywhere, I will use it with a little kid. It's just so tempting when you have it there to use it even if you don't want to. And so, I guess on the last slide that talks about planning for the phase out of the iPads in K1, I'm like, do we really need to phase those out or could we just get rid of? Is my kind of question suggestion. I don't. We've had people come and give
080public comment, not a ton, but enough. And I think there's a sentiment that no tech or low tech would really bring in some students who are not otherwise in public schools. And I don't like it when we're the entity that introduces kids to technology. Like someone's deliberately tried to keep iPads out of their children's hands and then we give it to them. And so, I guess you don't have to answer it now. I guess it's more just like a friendly, maybe a friendly amendment is could we do that faster? And I guess my really only other comment is just to try to get a sense of classroom teachers role in this process and how, I mean, I know that they've been involved and obviously this is going to work about as well as the teachers
081who implement it. Right. And so, I guess what can you share about kind of relative levels of like engagement, enthusiasm, buy in that you're seeing as we've gone through this process. Thank you. So, I'll speak to the iPads first. Whenever we look at that, we're going to have to really think of the instructional design and you know, the resource that we use. If we have something that we're using on an iPad currently that you know, we need to purchase, you know, classroom sets of books, like that is going to be a funding thing. You know, that's definitely something we can look at and that could be an ask that we have and be able to come back and say if we were to do that, here's what it would cost and part of what we're
082doing to it, like I talked about with the instructional programs and trying to reduce that by 30 to 50% is really taking that money and reinvesting it in our curriculum. So when we do have those adoption cycles, we're able to say like, okay, we know that we can buy, you know, a new set of books in every classroom for this and we can do this in a math classroom. Here's the manipulatives. One of the things that we've done in the past is we've done a curriculum adoption and we said, here we have it. And then the next year when we don't have the money for a curriculum adoption, we go, oh well, we need $200,000 to replenish all this stuff because, you know, non-technology paper costs money. So, we really look at our curriculum adoptions
083now as a seven-year rollout. So, when we look at it, what is the seven-year cost and not a one-year cost? In terms of the second question, can you remind me just real quick, Classroom Teachers, I will tell you right now, like classroom teachers, it varies depending on the teacher. We have some that you know, are using the tools effective. They go in the classroom. Even the kids are like, all right, this is a fair amount of time. We have others that are like, that seems like a lot. And we have others like, I don't want to use any technology anyway. So, one of the things that we're trying to be consistent on is that that classroom experience doesn't feel crazy different across the same class. If we have three seventh grade English classes we don't
084want, there'd be three different because then we're going to have, you know, I want to have this level of it. And when we scale it back and we have like, here's the two resources we use and here's the amount of time that we use them. I do think for our teachers, they're like, okay, well that's something clear. You know, I can, I can kind of use that. I do think sometimes, you know, because we talk about the professional development and the need for it, there is a lot of professional development that we need for lots of things and trying to get that all in within the schedule we have. And no shade to Dr. Stewart because I know it works really hard on the calendar, but we really need that fresh and we're working on
085different ways to get that. But I think when our teachers know the tools they should use, the amount of time they should use, they're really appreciative and they understand the why the problem becomes. When we have a teacher that starts in November and we had all this training at the beginning of the year, so we're working on ways like how do we archive some of that without overwhelming someone who may not have a teaching degree. Like, welcome. I need you to catch up on the last three months and start teaching your class. So, we're working on ways to get there. But I would say our teachers for the most part, they want to interact with kids, they want to teach the kids. They want to be able to know like this is a resource that
086is going to help them, but it's not the thing you ask any teacher ever. They don't want to go off and just read a script. They want to be able to, you know, use it to effectively, you know, work with small groups, work with, you know, all those things. So, I think our teachers will be on board, especially when they have a better understanding of exactly what we're using. Go ahead. Okay, I have a few things and the first was about the iPads. I was going to say that I was glad to see that it was going to be phasing out and you know, good old-fashioned flashcards and some nice white paper where students are writing. I'm good with that. So, everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten, right? So that was the
087first thing. And the second thing I wanted to speak to is as we're moving to trying to streamline our digital platform and everything, our high school students as they're cross enrolling more and more and with like the Durham Tech platforms, I've seen where a lot of students have had a hard time being able to get onto the Durham Tech platform with their school devices. That's kind of a problem. So, I was wanting to know what's being done to help fix that because registration was just happening. So, I've like seen this happening in real time here recently with COVID quite a few students. So, I'll let you answer that before I say the next part. So, as we are getting communications from Durham Tech with this, with these issues that are going on, our team is
088addressing them as we can. So, I haven't heard about the latest issues so I'm going to go back to my team tomorrow about that. We certainly want to make sure we're in coherence with Durham Tech and what they need sometimes we don't know, we really try. What's probably what's happening is our Chromebooks that our high school students are using are very tightly secured. They can't get on to many different things and so we have to allow them to be able to do so. And we have done that for a few things like NZVPS students use Zoom. We didn't have Zoom. Open everywhere. But we have it. We allow certain students to download that and make sure they have it and so forth. So, we're going to do the same thing for our Germ Tech students.
089So it's a matter of us knowing what it is, troubleshooting what it is, talking with their IT department about what we need to do and then we'll go from there. Yeah. Okay. So, a follow up for that part. So that would mean that students who just might would want to literally go to Durham Tech's website, which is a community college website. If you're in high school, you might want to look around. They wouldn't, it wouldn't get to the point where they could just open up the community college site. Oh, they should be able to do that. Is that what you're seeing is that you're hearing that they can't do? I've seen that a couple of times. When it got ready to go to Durham Tech site it would go to the main page, but it
090had a few students who it wouldn't do anything else. Okay. Where. That's why I was, you know, and that's where they were like should this happen? I was like I don't know but I'll ask. Right. So, this is where we can unblock things from within our web filters that we have. So it's a matter of us knowing what they are getting the websites and then going from there and we'll make sure those are allowed. We certainly want that to them to get to that. Thank you. Sure. And the other thing I had Dr. Bales was I was going to ask the question you said you were going to speak to about Go Guardian. Go Guardian the teacher versus the beacon versus the admin. I had some questions or concerns about historically Go Garden and Go
091Guardian. The admin especially that piece has had some issues in different parts of the country where things were able to be done like turning on students webcam or if students don't definitely log out completely, it's being able to track some of their data and where they're moving. How are we going to make sure that that's not going to be happening and are we going to have anything beyond Go Guardian teacher? I'm going to let Debbie talk about Guardian. I'm going to add one more thing about the Durham Tech piece. So, we actually met today with Durham Tech to talk and really it was to talk about like what systems are we using so that it's not something different when they end up going. And that was, you know, we talked about that, you know, what
092AI, you know, are we looking at? You know, it was really a conversation initially around AI and what, you know, where are we going, what are some of the policies we're looking to put in place. But you know, we committed to having ongoing conversations about that moving forward. So. But the problems that you're talking about, I was like, we have, we literally had that conversation today for about an hour. So, I want to mention that and I'll let Debbie talk about Go Guarding. Sure. Yeah. So Go Guardian admin and also teacher. So Go Guardian teacher is we can only track what they're doing and we have it set this up in admin as well. When they're at school, teachers can only interact with the students' devices during their specific class sessions. We have those class
093session times synced so they can only do that. We have specifically not turned on the ability to see where students are going after school. It's after 4 o' clock PM so we can only see things between 7:30 and 4 o' clock. So, that is where that lands at the moment. Could we turn it on? Yeah. But we haven't done it because of the concerns that you say we have also explored because we've heard those concerns. I've read some articles around the webcams. That is not something that can happen with the settings that we have in place. So, I can tell you here in Chapel Hill Carrboro, that is not something that is possible. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right, thank you so much. This is a work
094session item, so we will have public comment. If you have public comment, please step forward and state your name. Hi, Mary Beth. Good evening board members. Dr. Trice first. Thank you. Well, I guess I should introduce myself. Mary Beth Roesch, middle school parent, digital wellness educator and member of the Digital Learning Plan Coalition. So first, thank you to the team for the tremendous amount of work that you have put into this plan and for your collaboration. As Dr. Griffin said, I saw personally your response to my feedback in the plan, especially with this last version. So, thank you. This plan is a necessary and important step in this process with many positive actions worth celebrating and it is only part of the conversation. The curriculum audit calls for a plan to reflect the district's vision
095for the use of technology. I hope we can work toward clarity on our district's philosophy and vision when it comes to tech use in learning. While this plan was focused in scope by design, there are broader concepts that still need attention and exploration. So, I ask the following to be considered as we refine this current plan and as we move forward in this work, can we further clarify how and when we prioritize traditional methods of learning and analog options? Beyond only defining proper digital learning? Are we taking a more precautionary approach so as not to operate under the assumed benefit of technology, especially with emerging technology like AI? How are we defining intentional tech use Unless it is defined, it is subjective and we will continue to have inconsistency. Where have we committed to making
096decisions grounded in evidence-based research backed proven benefit to digital tools and learning? How are we determining developmentally and age appropriate use? The terms and conditions indicated by the tech companies cannot be our only guide. And lastly, the term well-being is prominent throughout the plan, but how are we measuring and evaluating the physical and mental health impacts of our school tech use Counselors and mental health professionals were missing from the room in the coalition Entire countries are pulling tech out of classrooms. Currently, 16 states in the US have passed or are considering legislation on ed tech to protect the safety, well-being and learning of our kids. Thank you for this plan, for your attention to such a critical issue and for making progress. Let's keep moving forward with this work and let's continue to seize the
097opportunity to lead and do right by our kids. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to make a public comment on this topic? Good evening. My name is Carrie Hamel and six and a half years ago I was the exceptional children's representative on the Technology Advisory Council and I'm hearing today some promising the some hopefully some promising things but with this aspiration is it true that it that this goal is tech is only going to be used when it's an ad learning value And I agree that needs much more definition. When I got involved I'm kind of gritty. I'm just looking what can six years ago and today what's in the parent and guardians toolkit when the technology's not working for their kids. I I'm old enough that I actually know of the CCH technology
098declination form. Where is the opt in form in which a parent reads on this not yet dashboard that this ed tech vendor is being used and they say not with my child and it has to go analog. Second, there be actual tracked and reported avenues for a parent, guardian and now adult students to request and actually have their data deleted and certified by the district and the third-party vendor. Again, this is over a six-year-old repeat. Third that there be surprise audits of third-party tech vendors so the capability of this technology and what CHCCS is subscribing to needs to be audited regularly. And what will be the auditing that happens when there are infractions? So, both the surprise and the planned auditing. I'd like to hear more details about that. That there be board approval of
099all out of state travel by central office executives. For years and years I've been concerned about the exotic traveling that's happening with routes into EdTech. Also, that there be a return of a permanent technology advisory Council rather than a coalition that both has school year and summer involvement so everybody can remain at the table. And then finally that the dashboard also have a section of all the EdTech tools being used that specifies the AI capabilities. And just so I can go back to make sure over the six years you've graduated a lot of students, you now owe it to the students who are adults to tell them how they can protect their data so that they're not being used in these AI models. So I would ask that you also add that category, not just
100the parent and guardians. And thank you very much for this work session. Thank you. Anyone else would like to make a public comment on this topic? Hi, Miriam Nedwick. Speak a bit on the thoughtful and instructional use. I have a kindergartener and one of the things that she's using her iPad for or sorry, screen time for rather not iPad specifically. Although Barbara, thank you for your comments. I wholeheartedly agree and I thought those were really eloquently stated is what she calls brain breaks. So study after study, I don't think there's any argument to be had shows about moving our bodies and the benefits on both mental, emotional, educational, health. I don't think there are many, if any that would argue that with me. However, to be using a screen in order to get those brain
101breaks. What does a brain break mean? I'm not sure if I define that, but they use it to watch things like Danny Go. And while the music is very catchy and I find myself tapping the beats to it with her, I have to say using a screen to get physical movement in my child during out the day is completely unacceptable to me. You don't have to be an athlete, you don't have to be a jock. You just have to simply move your body. And there should be a way that we can enable teachers to do that with their children, with their pupils without the use of a screen. So, I just wanted to emphasize that and I also really wanted to echo that. There shouldn't need to be a phase out to remove the iPads
102from the K through two classrooms. That should really be an immediate thing. There shouldn't be too much cost to say what the difference to bring the books in that would use that. Based on my experience as a kindergartner parent, I think predominantly what they're using screens for is testing models which don't need to be done on an iPad and additionally these brain breaks for the screen which I just as you can hear, I'm passionate that need to be ended. Thank you. Anyone else like to make a public comment on this work session item? Right. Thank you. Our next section of the agenda is our superintendent's report. And first we have our student membership forecast for 2526 through 2035, 36 for Chapel Carver City Schools. And I see Mr. Shiroki coming back along with Dr. Nathan
103Dollar. Thank you so much. So good evening again, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Trice and guests for tonight we have Dr. Nathan Dollar from who is the executive director with Carolina Demography, who has presented before this past school year and with previous board retreats. We had talked back in December that the Orange County who was responsible for maintaining our student capacity with its responsibilities for construction capacity, renovations that they have an annual a demographer come in annually to conduct an assessment of Orange county public schools as well as Chapel Hill Carrboro city schools where they look at all of the trends and the information that you have seen previously. And it was promised to you in that back in December that the preliminary information that you received that there was one component that
104was part of the agreement with Orange County that was to include the housing which has historically been included in previous Sappho's. So tonight Dr. Dollar will be presenting the daily membership report for Chapel Hills Carrboro City schools. Specifically, the report that you have is the entire inclusive report that includes Orange County schools as well. But tonight, will be pertaining just to us. So, I'll turn it over to Dr. Dollar. Thank you. Thank you, Al Chair Jenkins, board members, members of the public, thank you so much for having me here today. As always, it's a pleasure to be here and it's been a pleasure to work with y' all on this student membership forecast. So, I'm going to walk you through the data. So, we've we presented preliminary findings in December, as you well know. I'm
105going to as I did then, perhaps not forcefully enough stress the preliminary aspect of the data that we presented back in December. So, we're going to walk through the final data and each step that we went through. Before we get into it, I don't need to tell you who we are at this point. I presented here multiple times. We're the Applied Research Unit at the Carolina Population Center. We do partner with demographic analytics advisors, who in my estimation are the industry best partners with respect to student population forecasts. We work with them on multiple districts across the state and DPI. So, before we get into the Chapel Hill Carrboro City School membership forecast, I want to start by couching this in state level context. So, as we know our overall state population continues to grow.
106You probably saw that we were the third. North Carolina was the third fastest growing state in both numeric and percentage population change last year between 24 and 25. However, it should also be noted that growth appears to be slowing down. And if you can see here in the orange is the vintage 2024. What you're looking at here is the estimates and the projections in the dotted line from my friend and colleague Mike Klein, who is a state demographer. His office is charged legislatively with producing the official estimates and projections for the state. And as we will do with student membership forecasts, we update them every year as we get new information. So, as you can see here, the vintage 2024 has been adjusted down in the vintage 2025. And that's not unique to North Carolina.
107The national population forecasts have been adjusted down by about 7.5 million out to 2035. And I'm going to talk about why here in a second. So, our state population continues to increase overall, but the population that we're interested in, school age children 5 to 17, continues to decrease and will continue to decrease as a share of the overall population. Okay, that's what you're looking at here. In the pink, the five to 17 that you can see that as the share of the overall population, it will continue to get smaller and smaller as we continue to age. And this is the state overall. And data indicate that net international migration is down significantly for the first time in 50 years. I mentioned this, I think back in December. So since then, the July 1, 2025 population
108estimates and the components of change have come out from the Census Bureau. That's what you're looking at here. You're looking at the components of population change. In the red is international net migration. In the blue is domestic net migration. And then the yellow is natural change or more births than deaths. So, since 2020, North Carolina has added about 757,000 new residents. 95% of that growth has been due to net migration both domestic and international. But last year, for the first time in recent memory, migration was down. You can see international migration was cut in half last year. And this is a direct result of federal immigration policy. And it's also worth noting this only goes up to July 1, 2025. We know a lot happened the back half of 2025. And so, there's other evidence
109to suggest that both domestic and international migration may be on the decline. So, keep that on your radar. So how does this play out in our schools with ADM? So, in the 2025-26 school year, out of 115 school districts across the state of North Carolina, only 8 gained average daily membership last year. That's pretty remarkable. And so, I say that just to let you and the public know, declining membership is not unique to Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. What you have here in this table I've put together the kind of the outliers on, on the one through above Chapel Hill Carrboro City is those that, that gained below are those that had the biggest. Chapel Hill Carrboro City schools lost about 341 students just last year alone. Decrease of about. This is where I need
110my classes, 3.1%. And so, it ranked if we rank all the, all the 115 school districts in terms of highest growth to lowest growth or biggest decline, Chapel Hooker city schools ranked 85 out of 115. So, let's talk about Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. And I don't want to belabor this point because I've now presented on this your historical patterns. This will be my third time, so I'm going to walk through this briefly. So, let's start with what we know. We know that you've lost 1,547 students since the 2019-20 school year. And just to reorient everybody, we're basing this off Principals Monthly Report two. That's our foundation. We always use that that point estimate in all of our, in all of our work, we've lost 1547 students in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools since 2019-20.
111We know that the biggest losses have been in elementary, followed by middle, followed by high. So, between 2020, 2019-20 to 2526, you lost 1055 students in elementary school. In elementary grades, you lost 453 students in middle school grades. And you lost 37 students in high school grades. So how do we approach an enrollment forecast? I've walked through this before, but I just want to reiterate it. So, let's start first with What I'm going to start on the right side here with what a forecast isn't. It is not a magic solution that can tell us with complete accuracy what your enrollment or your membership is going to be in 10 years. That's an impossible task, but nor is it a random and wild guess at what enrollment or membership is going to be in 10 years.
112What it is a scientific most likely scenario based on all of our data inputs. And like many districts across the state who are trying to balance the needs of students and families against evolving budget realities, an accurate comprehensive student membership forecast can be a really important tool in that process, providing the foundation upon which sound planning and policy decisions can be built. However, I do want to make clear that it is important to note that a student membership forecast is not the only tool it should be used. It should not be the sole driver of that decision making process regarding district operations, facilities and school assignment. Rather, it should be used in combination with other tools and other diagnostic tools such as those which evaluate program capacity, your local goals, educational adequacy, all of those
113things. Right. This is one tool in your toolbox, and it should be questioned. Right. So we welcome critical a critical eye. All right, so what do we consider? We consider the general considerations. The first, the foundation of our forecast is historical ADM patterns based on PMR2. And I do want to say briefly this year with all the school districts with whom we work has been the most challenging year because of the shift from power schools to infinite campus. And I want to give a shout out while I'm here in the public sphere to Jonathan Scott, Timothy McArthur and Diane Vilwak from the district who diligently helped me get go back and forth and work out data discrepancies. Especially Diane. I know she was probably sick of getting emails from me by the end of the
114process, so kudos to her. So we use historical ADM patterns. We also use school capacity and attendant zones. And then we look at demographic processes, births, migration, age, sex, race, Hispanic origin trends. And then we look at the built environment, building permits, known development areas, et cetera. And I and then we also look at some economic factors. Of course, we always look at COVID 19 and since then and then we look at North Carolina specific considerations, the expansion of private school vouchers and charter school proliferation. Right. So, this is where what we're this is kind of our process here and in the bold is what was, what is complete and in the italics is future work. So I'm going to reiterate this. So, we begin our forecasting process with a weighted, what we call a
115grade progression methodology. So, we look by school and feeder school patterns at the ratio of students in the prior grade last year versus the current grade this year. So a ratio larger than one implies end movement. A ratio smaller than one lower than one implies attrition or out movement. And then we forecast this ratio into the future. And so, we tested several different weighting regimes and finalized with the10-yearr weighted average weighting skewed slightly towards more recent data. And then we added in housing-based growth by attendance zone. And I do want to recognize that in recent weeks and months since I was here last, it's become clear that to me that perhaps when I was here back in December presenting preliminary findings that I may not have explained well and that when I mentioned that adjusting
116our model based on approved and proposed developments was future work, I probably should have specified that it was immediately future. It was already part of the process. We were always going to do this. We just hadn't gotten to it yet in December. So, I just want to clarify that and I'm going to spend a little bit of time delving into that methodology, so people are very clear on how we did that. So then we add in housing-based growth by attendance zone. Then we compare differences based on grade progression ratios versus housing growth to ensure that we don't duplicate students. And then we finally we add in net additional students based on housing growth. And that's where we factor in occupancy rates, occupy occupancy rates and market share rates. One thing that we do have outstanding
117is because we don't have the data yet is we can't, we haven't adjusted for 2526 changes in market share. We won't get the private school and homeschool data for 2526 until July from the Department of Administration. That's just the way it is. So we know that the school age population in Chapel Hill Carrboro City schools, this is the overall population 5 to 17, has declined since the pandemic. I mentioned this when I was here in December and then the previous time I was here year. So, we know that to be true. We also know that the number of births in Chapel Hill, Carrboro City School District in Chapel Hill and Carrboro has been on the decline. But you can see here that we are forecasting that decline to kind of level off. Births are important
118because those are the kids that become kindergarteners. And so, one of the things we do is we look at kindergarten to birth ratios so we look at grade progression ratios for every other grade but for kindergarten we look at birth to kindergarten ratios. And so what you're seeing in the blue column here is babies born five years prior. And in the yellow column is our kindergarten to birth ratio. Kindergarten to birth ratio over one indicates that there's in migration of families and they could be migrating in physically from outside the district or they could be changing, well, I guess in kindergarten they couldn't be changing market share. So yes, they're moving in from outside the district. We can see here that since 2019 the birth to kindergarten ratios in Chapel Hill Carrboro City schools have
119declined, but they do remain above 1, which indicates that there is some in migration. Next, we actually looked at, and I think board member Dossey mentioned this when I and it was a great astute question when I came back in December about okay, what about foreign born migration changes of federal immigration policy? I mentioned that earlier. So, we clearly don't have the data that tells us the nativity, US born foreign born of your student population, nor their parents. So, what we've done here is used English language learner headcount changes as a proxy just to kind of give us an idea of what's going on here. And this is true at the state level and across many, as many districts as I've had the chance to look at the data. And this is Chapel Hill Carrboro
120City Schools in 2526 this year you saw the first decline in ell headcount that you've seen since the pandemic. In fact, you lost approximately 208 students. An ELL headcount just this since last year, which is significant in terms of market share. Chapel Hill Carrboro City School still holds over 80% market share, which is several percentage points higher than the state average. That may be adjusted when we get the new data in July, but that remains to be seen. But based on what we currently have, you still have over 80% of educational market share. So, with that information we developed a baseline forecast. Okay. And this is without factoring in growth from housing development yet. So, our baseline forecast. And you can see our baseline forecast, we're estimating, we're forecasting a decline of 1,636 students over
121the 10-year forecast period. So, from now until the 25, 20, 36 school year, so we're forecasting you to have 9,121, 122 students in our baseline forecast. You may note that that is slightly different than what I presented in December. It was Preliminary, we made some adjustments, we do quality checks and so that is different. So let's talk about adjusting for development. So, one of the key drivers of growth in membership in any school district, of course, is the new housing developments that are being built throughout the region and in the district. Currently there are 42 non-age restricted residential and mixed-use developments throughout Chapel Hill and Carrboro. These developments have approximately 6,825 units that are either in the pipeline or they're being constructed. And out of these 6,825 units, approximately 172 of them are age restricted,
122are age restricted. So they're specifically for 55 and older, etc. So we that we take those out and the rest, the 6653 are non-age restricted. And we have a table here. I know you can't see it, it's in the report and I'm happy to talk about it later. That just has all of the data that we got directly from the county and the municipalities with the name of the development, the stage and how many units. And we mapped them out by parcel and then attach them to attendance zones. So here's our process for estimating student yield from development. So we begin by looking at grade progression ratios and birth to kindergarten ratios for the attendance zone. Are we already seeing ratios over 1 which would indicate in migration? If so, there's some in migration already
123occurring. So we need to make sure that we don't double count those students. Second, we need to understand the likelihood of a development actually that a development actually gets built. So this depends on the phase of the development per the planning or the building departments at the county or the municipality and is based on our local knowledge and our experience throughout the country doing this work. Once units are under construction, we assume 100% likelihood of the delivery of the units next. We then determine when the units will actually be delivered and over how many years. And that's based on again, project status and then also field verification. We actually drive out to each of these developments, we take pictures, we take detailed notes. Where are they along? Have they put in electrical, have they put
124in sewer, do they have how many units are already built, how many are under construction, etc. So we have a good idea, a really good local knowledge of when these units are going to get built out next. We know that not all units are occupied at all times. So then we apply occupancy rates based on the 2010, I'm sorry, the 2020 decennial census to those units, to those numbers of units. Next, we apply yield by age groups to each of the units to match elementary, middle and high school ages. These yields are based on our understanding of the type of units being built and historical patterns of yield. And that comes from decennial census and local development data. And then finally, we apply market share adjustments to these new students, to these net new students,
125because we know that not all of them are going to end up in public schools. And, and so just a brief explanation of the differences between how we estimate project and project student yield from those that are in the current SAPFO report. So, the SAPO report has used this Tichler BICE student general generation rates from 2014. Right? Couple of things to note about those student yields projections in the SAPFO report. Number one, their gross yields are not net. Number two, so that means that they are the highest potential impact. So, they're assuming that no other displacement of students from other streams of students. And in our experience that's not a realistic outcome. Second, in many, several places we found that the projected student yield based on that Tichler BICE student generation rate was inflated or
126we thought it was unrealistic. And I'll give you an example right here. So, this is South Creek Phase 1. Again, we drove out to it and actually we went an extra step for many of these and actually reviewed their marketing materials to see exactly what they're going to do. This is a prime example here. South Creek Phase 1 is a good example of both our due diligence and understanding where these are and their build-out phase and then also what type of units they're actually going to yield. And then it's also a good example of I would argue, the somewhat unrealistic projections that are based on that in the SAPFA report as it currently stands. So with South Creek phase one, there are 92 apartments, right? But they're almost all one and two bedroom units. In
127the SATFO report they estimate that they're going to yield 19 students out of there. We argue that that's too high. So what we do is we start with a lower base and then we apply those other probabilities of occupancy and market share. And so that gives us a different number. So we took all of that into account. All of the 42 developments, all of those 6,000 plus units applied our method and then we adjusted our overall model and you can see what that resulted in is a little bit of a leveling out of your decline compared to the baseline model. In particular, over the 10-year forecast period, we added 566 students back based on this housing growth. Right. We forecast that Chapel Hill Carrboro City School student membership to decline by 674 students in five
128years with our development adjusted model. And 1070 over the 10-year forecast period. With the biggest declines are going to be in high school, followed by middle and then elementary. And so, we expect over the 10-year period you're going to decline 679 high school students, 280 middle school students and 111 elementary school students. And again, just to talk about why high school now is because we've seen the biggest declines in elementary as they age through. That's where we're going to see them. In 10 years they're going to be in high school. So 674 decline in five years, 1070 in 10 years is what we're currently forecasting. This is your growth rates year by year by school. Again, the detailed table is in the report. But the moral to the story here is that most schools will
129decline in the next school year. But decline is going to be sharpest in Rashkisk Elementary, Sewell Elementary, Northside Elementary, Culbreth Middle and Smith Middle. All three high schools are going to be on a declining trajectory after the 2132. And I will say there are, there is variation in those elementary schools. As one of the members of the public has already pointed out. I know there's been a lot of attention on Ephesus. We do actually project that Ephesus will continue to actually increase membership. So elementary schools overall will be below 75%. So this is where we're using capacity. And it's important to note here that this is legacy capacity. I think that's been mentioned before. It does not take into account how you're using your buildings. This is just how many students can physically can possibly
130fit into the building. It does not take into account how you're using your facilities based on best practices, current DPI standards, et cetera. And that these capacity numbers could possibly change after you perform that, after you do that analysis. But so, we're elementary schools. Overall, we're currently projecting we'll be below 75% capacity beginning in 2829 with some variation between schools. And then here's the school level. And I'm not, I don't need to walk you through this. You can, you can go through this. I can answer any questions. I'm happy to do that. But this is your school level capacity table right here. And that's it. And so, with that I'll open it up for questions. Thank you so much. Dr. Dollar. Board members, any questions or comments, Go ahead. Dr. Griffin, it's you. Thank you.
131Dr. Dollar, thank you again. I feel like you're becoming part of the staff. We appreciate the work and the clear explanations. I believe we have the full report which included Orange County schools that you prepared for the county commission and presented to that to a very high level version of that on Tuesday night. Yeah. And I haven't had time to watch. I believe you presented it two nights ago. That's correct. To them and haven't had time to watch that. So, my question may be like hey George, just go look it up. But were there some takeaways there are there some things because as we like what was gained out of what were people struck by that might make us go, we need to pay attention to this. I would say. I mean there were some
132great questions from the, from the Orange County Board of Commissioners. I think the biggest, one of the biggest ones that they were struck by is the pretty sharp Decline in the 4 in the ell headcount that we didn't see. You know, that's one of those things. This is why we update our forecast. All forecasts are based on assumptions and we're very clear about what those assumptions are. But it's always possible that those assumptions may not hold. Things change. And so, there was a lot of talk and discussion of could this change. And of course, ell foreign born population is going to be heavily or is very sensitive to federal policies which can change quite rapidly as we all know. So they were kind of interested in how that might change if there was another presidential
133administration, could that go up? And the answer is of course it could. We don't know. We're kind of flying blind right now because we really don't know what's going to happen. We all we can truly know about the future is what we know about the past. And so, there was a lot of talk about that. Orange County's a little bit of a different context, of course, both in size and then also market share. They have a much smaller market share. A much larger percentage of their students go to charters and homes than CHCCs do. And so, the context is different. So, they were concerned about market share and then also this loss of foreign born. The last time you were here you mentioned market share. We talked a little bit about it. And now as
134a lead in you've looked at other school systems. Are there some things we're not doing or we should be doing more of that? You're aware of to gain more market share. So, as I mentioned, y' all have a much higher market share than the state overall and surrounding districts. So, in that regard, I think you are doing really well. As, I mean, Chapel Hill, Carrboro City Schools has been long had a very good reputation as a really solid school district. And so, I don't know, comparatively, the data would say that y' all are doing well. I will say that in other school districts, large ones around here that we work with, there is a lot of talk of, among district personnel and leadership of maybe they need to rethink their actual marketing strategy and market
135more aggressively to families to demonstrate the value that they bring to the table as opposed to the other options that are out there, charters, homes, privates, et cetera. Thank you. Go ahead. I just have a minor question. I think I actually brought this up at another board meeting. But just while you're standing here, this chart where you show all of the different elementary school or all of the schools actually, I should stand corrected. And the projections for each one, I just wanted to point out those are based on the way that they are currently districted. If we go through a redistricting, those, you know, that would not necessarily remain the same. So, I just wanted. Yes. You know, I just wanted to point that out because we're going to have to do that as a
136part of the overall discussion. I mean, that's, I think, a foregone conclusion at this point. So. Yes and yes. Okay, thanks. Go ahead, Barbara. Okay. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure I understand the slide. Development adjusted model. Yeah. All right. So, what you're saying is that in contrast to the presentation you gave us in December, now we're including housing and that we're 566 means. 566 more students than we thought back in December. Yes. Well. Well, just to caveat there, the baseline model is different than it was in December because we hadn't had a chance to do all of our quality checks and stuff. And so again, it was, it was very preliminary back in December. But what that is in the blue is our baseline, which just factors in grade progression
137ratios, historical ADM, kindergarten to birth ratios, et cetera, but doesn't factor in development, housing development-based growth. And so, without factoring in that growth, our baseline is 9,122. And then we added 566 back after factoring in and going through that kind of step-by-step process that I explained how we factor in and estimate and project the student yield from these new developments. And how old will each of those 566 students be? I'm joking but I mean you're saying it's like the big decline is high school because of what you said before. So, I guess you know we're talking about close elementary schools, and so do you see what my question is? I do. Okay. We. Later on in the report in one of the appendix we. We have it by. By school. We have actually a school
138level what each. What we anticipate each school is going to yield. And I could look that up for you. Okay, that'd be great. And then just Sorry, can I ask 1. The 12 slides before the South Creek example. The 42 planned and in progress development. Okay, that very faint. The project status. Yes. So that's coming directly from the county or the. Can I ask you about it anyway though? Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. So, construction means it's under construction, right? As far as. Yeah. Okay. What are all the rest of those things mean? Do you know? Oh good. I can. I mean if. If you're not the right. I don't know. Okay. That's why we also drive out there. And also, I will say that sometimes. Sometimes what's in that data set doesn't always match what's
139happening on the ground. Which is why we ground truth it. Fair enough. Okay. That's the question for kind of the more technical planning people at the municipalities and the counties. Well, go ahead. I have a question but go ahead. Okay. You mentioned ADM and principals monthly report PMR and use some of our acronyms just for the public. Sure. That is the way we are funded by the state. Would you care to make a comment on that so that people understand that the data you're using actually is tracked to real dollars for us. Right. So first I think it's important and I will say sometimes in our. In our public presentations for the general public we will use enrollment and membership interchangeably. It's not the same. So just briefly and we talk about this in the
140report, but enrollment is a number of students enrolled, including those who are in violation of what we call the ten-day rule. Right. Violations are the numbers of students who currently have at least 10 consecutive unexcused absences. Average daily membership is the number of membership days for all students, not an attendance violation divided by the number of days in the school month. So, this is the number used by NCDPI as the official budget number. I will say this. So, we base ours on principal's monthly report too in recent years. The historically that's what DPI, the Department of Public Instruction based their funding on that number from principal the second month of the principal's monthly report. In recent years it's changed to the best one of two. So, if normally and I don't have the data in
141front of me right now, but most of the time Principals Monthly Report 2 is going to be higher than principals Monthly Report 1 because people trickle in. But so that's what that is. And so, you have fewer students in that head and that in that principal's monthly report too. That means the following year you get fewer dollars from DPI and Superintendent Trice. You can probably tell us exactly how much each student and there's also some caveats with different types of students and stuff like that. Is that sufficient? Dr. Dollar, I just have a question. As we're looking at forecasts, obviously you've come here in a matter of like four months and adjusted the forecast and I appreciate having a, you know, I guess a 10-year outlook. How should we look at like confidence in like
142year one to two or like. That's a great question. Certainly, the further out we get, the less confidence we have. And as I mentioned before, we update this annually because things change. And so, we're going to get new information about market share coming up. We're going to get new birth data, we're going to get new migration data, new development data. And so, it has. There's a lot of things that are in flux. There's so many components, components of student membership, population change are more complex than the overall population. And so, we're wanting to update these annually. But in terms of like any forecast, the further out you get, the less confidence we have because there's so much more that can happening in those intervening areas years. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you all
143so much. Take care. Let's see. Our next item on the agenda. Good to go. Keep going. I'm already trying to watch time because we're getting on to some probably longer topics is an overview of the state and district staffing allocation. And I see Mr. Bailey's come forward and Dr. Harris, thank you. Absolutely. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for having us here. I'm Mark Bailey, the executive director of staffing for our human resources division representing Both myself and Dr. Shawna Harris, our chief of human resources. This evening our focus is a district allotment presentation with two areas of focus. One is a preview of district allotments for the 2627 school year at the elementary, middle and high school level. And the Other one is a comparison of state district allotment formulas and our district
144allotment formula that we have. So, we can see some of the differences there to inform some budgetary decisions. There we go. I know we have a wider audience here and at home, so I'll also try to provide some context here for allotments. When we speak of allotments, we're talking about the number of positions at every school. You'll see the phrase or the term FTE used several times. That stands for full time equivalent. Basically, if you see 1.0 FTE, that means one full-time employee. The number of allotments at every single school is based on student enrollment and also formulas and district guidelines. The headline here in terms of the state and district comparison is that our schools significantly staff above state funded levels to support students. This results in approximately 20 to 50% more staff per
145school, depending on level. We'll look at examples at the elementary, middle and high school level that are meant to be the most representative based on average size. I think the thing to point out here is we're not talking about an error in that 20 to 50%. We're talking about a conscious, intentional and strategic choice to make sure that we are doing the best that we can to support our most vulnerable students. Start by looking at elementary school. Next year, our projected enrollment is going to decrease by 94 students in elementary school. That's the number that we're using to inform our individual school allotment numbers. We are making no changes to the elementary classroom allotment formula. In fact, our allotment formula for kindergarten through fifth grade classroom teachers in our district exactly mirrors the state allotment
146formula. We use the exact same formula as of the state. But this result, this decrease of 94 students does result in a net reduction of 8 certified positions and 3 classified positions. If we look at the comparison of state and district allotments when it comes to classroom teachers, you'll see these numbers are very, very closely connected. Now, a moment ago I said it mirrors at one to one. So why aren't they the exact same? And the reason is this. Now, kindergarten through fifth grade, your traditional classroom teachers, those are one to one with the state allotment formula. In addition to those teachers, we also provide some additional staff to each of our elementary schools. Each elementary school has an instructional coach, an interventionist, a gifted education specialist, and they have a part time digital learning
147coach. You'll see those are shared either between two schools or three schools, which is why you see a 0.5 or a 0.3. But those numbers are very closely correlated. When we get to elementary teaching assistants, this is the first place where we're going to see a significant difference. The state allotment formula for elementary teacher assistants is complicated. I'm not going to go into the details, but they allot elementary teacher assistants based upon the number of classrooms at every grade level with a different formula for nearly every single grade level, kindergarten through three. Our district formula for elementary teacher assistants is a one to one ratio in every kindergarten through third grade classroom with one additional elementary teaching assistant in every school for fourth and fifth grade. Overall, because of that difference, when you look at
148these numbers, you'll see basically our elementary schools have roughly twice as many elementary teaching assistants as what the state allots. So this is meant to take sort of the differences between the district and the state allotment formulas and boil them down into one school so we can kind of make meaning of it. When the numbers are too big, sometimes it's kind of hard to understand where the differences are. Our average elementary school next year based on our projected enrollment is going to be 381. So we used an our elementary school that is the closest to average, which is 398. That is actually Glenwood Elementary. So if you're curious, this, this slide represents Glenwood Elementary's projections for next year. I'm going to do more breaking down on this slide so that I'll have to do less
149of it for middle and high school. So rest assured we're not going to go into this level of detail for all three. You start with principal. That's a very obvious one. The state allots of principal, our district, lots of principal. You start to see a difference as soon as you get to assistant principal. The state allotment for Glenwood elementary based upon their size would be 40% principal. Or more specifically, they would fund four months of an assistant principal salary. Now in reality, there are not a lot of assistant principals who work four months a year. In reality, what that would look like in a school district is shared assistant principals between schools. It's actually not uncommon, especially in rural districts. Our district has one 11 month principal for every elementary school. I'm not going to
150go in detail on classroom teachers and elementary teaching assistants because we just looked at that. I'll spend a moment on MLL teachers. Glenwood has one full-time MLL teacher. When you look at this number here, it says 0.45 FTE. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So I kind of want to break down where that comes from for our district because we consider MLL to be a district allotment. For our district, the state funds 18 MLL teachers. We have 40, which means that 45% of every MLL teacher salary is state funded. The rest is local funded. Or you could think of it as 18 MLL teachers are funded by the state and 22 are funded locally. But if we're looking at an individual school basis, I want that to be meaningful. So, we can see
1510.45 out of 1 for elective teachers, you can see it would be 2.1 teachers. And our elementary schools each have 4. There are two different pots of money where school health and support personnel can be funded. We combine those, that would be 1.8 total. And our schools have 4. And then for classified positions such as office staff, custodians, they don't actually fund positions. They give us a dollar amount. That dollar amount would equate to 2.4 positions. So I say 2.4 or 2.6. I don't have my glasses. 2.6, 2.6 positions. And our schools have four. So when you look at the headline, the bottom-line number here, the state would fund just over 38 positions at Glenwood and we fund 57. That's a difference of nearly 50%. I'll move to middle school. For middle school, we're expecting
152a decreased of enrollment of about 44 students. We are not making any adjustments to the middle school allotment formula. It is 20 to 1 for all grades. If you're curious how that compares to the state number, the state actually funds at 24 to 1 for sixth grade and at 23 to 1 for seventh and eighth grade. Because there is some consistency in the allotment formula and a relatively small decrease for our middle schools next year, this results in an overall decrease of only one certified position across all four middle schools. I'm not going to go in detail here because the same thing applies that we talked about in elementary. I will point out CTE because that's going to be a new category once we get to secondary schools. You'll see that the state funds three
153CTE positions in our middle schools and we have three CTE positions in our middle school. CTE positions are 100% state funded. So you're always going to see a one-to-one ratio when it comes to CTE. This school is actually Phillips Middle School. 615 students is the closest we have to an average size, which is 634. Everything else is the Same. Based on what we talked about before. When we get to high school, that's where we're going to see some of the most significant changes for this school year. We're looking at an enrollment decrease of 98 students across our three comprehensive high schools. In addition to that decrease, we also made some adjustments to the allotment formula to get it closer to the state formula. Previously, the allotment formula for high school was 24 to 1. We've
154moved that to 26 to 1 in an effort to be closer to the state formula. The state formula is 26 and a half to 1 for 9th grade and 29 to 1 for 10 through 12th grade. Because of that, we have two different factors that are driving a decrease in allotments at our high schools. We have decreased enrollment and we have a formula change which also drives that decrease. That's a total decrease of 16 positions. Those are all FTE certified FTEs. Those are classroom teachers across all three of our high schools driven by a combination of the enrollment decrease and the allotment formula change. Again, I'm not going to go into detail here because the same things apply. But I will point out when you look at our high schools, especially so this, this is
155example is actually East Chapel Hill High School. It's the closest to an average size that we have. If you look at something like the size of CTE of the CTE department, there's 15 full time CTE teachers at East Chapel Hill High School. The fact that all 15 of those positions are fully state funded really helps bring that percentage down. When you look at the bottom line, it's much closer to 25% than it is to 50% in terms of the difference. I think it'd be helpful to know more about how that ratio turns into an FTE. How does it turn into a number of teachers? So, we take the number of projected students. These numbers are actually Chapel Hill High School's projected enrollment for next year. We'll look at ninth grade first. There's 30080 ninth grade
156students projected for next year at Chapel Hill High School. We literally take that number. We divide it by 26. It gives us 14.6. We don't fund 14.6 teachers. That wouldn't make a ton of sense in a schedule. We round that up to 15 and it's not just rounding up because it's above 0.5. Any number that's above the whole number, we round up. So, if you look at 11th grade, it's 367 students. Divide that by 26. That comes to 14.1. We don't round down to 14. We round up to 15. So, we do this by grade level to give schools the greatest possible opportunity to have that lot. This slide really just gives you an overall sense of what the differences are between the state formula and our district formula for elementary teachers and teaching assistants,
157for middle school teachers, and then for high school teachers at both different formulas. And one thing to keep in mind here as well. In addition to those classroom teachers that are in the high school allotment formula, we have additional positions that are provided to school schools. Every one of our comprehensive high schools receives an AVID teacher and a reading teacher. Carrboro High School receives two additional teachers. As a small high school allotment, we have EC teachers ranging from 7 to 12, depending upon the number of students and their needs, MLL teachers ranging from 2 to 6, and CTE teachers ranging from 7 to 15 based upon funding. The final thing here, before we take any questions that you have, it's obvious, but staffing decisions impact the student experience directly. And this district's staffing model reflects
158local priorities. I think people know that an organization's priorities are reflected by how they spend their time and how they spend their money. I don't think anybody. I think we saw that big discrepancy with elementary teaching assistants. I also think anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in a kindergarten through third grade classroom has never thought, we need less help here. So, I think when we see areas where we have more support, it reflects a commitment to providing that support intentionally. The same thing would be true for our MLL students. And finally, understanding these differences is essential for making informed budget decisions. When we look at a slide like this, or maybe especially a slide like this, middle school slide, if our schools continue to face intense budgetary pressures, the staffing models at
159our schools will come to look more and more like the state funding formula. And while the state funding formula is real, when we look at that middle column, it doesn't really reflect what we imagine our schools to be like in our district, which is why we think it's important to kind of understand where the state is providing what we provide and what that difference is. Happy to take any questions you have? No, no, no. Go ahead. Thank you. Did you recognize me? Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Bailey. When you presented this to the finance committee, we were. One of our takeaways was, wow, this really does present where our local dollars are spent and what the difference is when it comes to staff. And your last sentence had understanding is related to informed budget decisions. This,
160And I've heard Mr. Scott say this many times, 82% to 85% of our local money is spent on personnel. And so when we go for our annual continuation budget request to the county, if we don't get our continuation budget, which is just keeping this for next year, this ratio for next year, really, we are having to cut somewhere. And then with the decline in enrollment, everything's magnified by some other factor. Am I getting this correct? So that, as I say this because I do want people to understand all of that you talked about is basically locally funded. That's correct. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. I appreciate when we first started seeing some of this allocation data, gosh, must have been four years ago. I guess when I really started seeing it and understanding
161it, it really kind of drives home the point of, you know, how important it is and hard it will be to kind of tighten up our schools a little bit so that we can hopefully free up some of our resources to be responsive to some other needs that we've been having in the district. So, I appreciate this. You know, I hope people take a look at this. Obviously, I will say I don't agree with a lot of the state allocations. And so, I think that's an opportunity for us to continue conversations with the state and share with them the realities of what is needed to educate children in 2026 and beyond. So hopefully we can. Obviously, we have to tighten it up because that's the reality of how we're getting funded and how our, you
162know, some of the funding changes that the county's going to do. But I think that's really a driving point. It's the state's duty to fund the operations of schools, which means the teachers and all the staff that are supporting our students. And if the state would just increase its allotment and also some of the things that it actually covers, because I think you've hit on this point. But I try to make this point in that area of elective teachers. We are so lucky in this district that we have the full complement of electives in all of our schools. That's something when I talk with friends and family across the country, even the state, but especially across the country, when I tell them all the things that we offer in all of our schools, especially our
163elementary schools, and also nurses, I mean, that's a big one, too. Our county's very generous in supporting funding nurses. I think that's where, you know, when you don't see 1 or 4 where it says school health personnel, it says 0.9, not 4. Right. Because there's like 1, 2, 3, 4 of those people. It really makes a difference. And so, I hope that we can continue to advocate and have conversations at the state level about being responsive and what it truly takes to educate the whole child and not children at 0.9 FTEs and things like that. So, thank you. Yeah, I think elementary electives are a particularly illustrative point. We've actually experienced a decrease, you know, tier one of the reduction in force from a couple of years ago went from five elective teachers at our
164elementary schools to four at all schools except for FPG because they were above 500 students. So, we went from one and a half world language teachers to one, one and a half PE teachers to one. And that was a difficult move for schools to make. And then understanding we're going from five to four, but the state number is actually closer to three, two. And so, we are getting closer to it, but it's. Those are difficult choices to make for sure. Thank you so much. Board members, while Dr. Trice is coming forward, feel free to stand up and stretch. I know we've been sitting for a minute. I encourage you to stretch just a minute. Nobody took me up on that. Okay. All right, our next item on the agenda is discussion and action. And this
165is a recommendation for approval of reduction enforcement plan. And Dr. Trice, thank you so much. Thank you. Pulling out the presentation deck. That's all right. Maybe we should take you up on that stretch break. [ BREAK ] All right, Thank you, everyone. All right, thank you, Dr.Trice Yes. So, thank you, Chair Jenkins, members of the board, cabinet, and certainly the Chapel Hill Carrboro community, I stand before you today to present a proposal for a reduction in force, a central office reduction in force. I want to start by acknowledging that this is among the most difficult responsibilities that I have in my role as superintendent. But the recommendation is grounded in a careful analysis of some of the challenges and headwinds we continue to face as a district, namely declining student enrollment and just a lot
166of uncertainty in terms of how public schools are funded at the federal, state and local level. The goal, the aim for the reduction in force, of course, is to protect student facing positions, but also to protect the integrity of classroom experiences across our schools. And so tonight I'm going to do a brief overview defining what a reduction in force is, the associated policy implications, and go over the statutory grounds for reduction in force. I'll spend some time giving a high-level overview of some of our enrollment trends and budget implications. I'm not sure if I need to do that. Dr. Dollar was just here, but I think it's important for context. Then I'll end the presentation talking through some of the considerations behind the proposal of the reduction in force, the decision-making timeline, and the RIF
167plan itself before handing it back over to the board for conversation. So reduction in force at a very basic level is a decrease in personnel positions across an organization due to reorganization, declining enrollment and financial challenge, all of which we are experiencing as a school district in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. We also have board policy that helps govern a reduction in force. There are two policies. Policy code 7920 governs our reduction in force protocol with respect to teachers and school administrators or certified staff. This policy directs the superintendent to follow certain criteria when determining a reduction in force. You can see them on the screen. Have to provide a rationale. That rationale has to be aligned with statutory grounds for a reduction in force. Have to make a preliminary determination through considerations, but also
168provide procedures for termination or reassignment. The other policy that shapes our process for a reduction in Force is 7921 for classified staff. Again, this policy directs the administration to use attrition whenever possible to reduce staff. But in the instance where we do need to do a reduction in force, it directs the superintendent to base that recommendation on specific criteria, much like the criteria that was outlined on the previous slide. As I mentioned, there are statutory grounds that we're required to follow, the first of which is a system reorganization, and I'm certainly proposing that in the recommendation to reorganize central office to align with the declining enrollment that we've been experiencing and we'll continue to experience as a district. And this reorganization is certainly the proposal of an elimination of some divisions, not divisions, but departments
169at the central office and the curtailing of central office tasks and operations and spreading those out among existing central office staff. The second statutory area is declining enrollment. So, we are continuing to experience declining enrollment. We spent the better part of this year, the board and the administration, helping our community understand the impact of declining enrollment, which has a budgetary consequence. And the third and final area is financial exigency or budget challenges. Certainly, this year alone, the district, the board has continued to experience a significant decline in financial resources, all of which help kind of frame my recommendation for reduction enforce at the central office level very quickly. I won't go too much into this because Dr. Dollar just spent a lot of time in it, but I do want to highlight Enrollment and also
170some budgetary modeling that we've done as a district. These next couple of slides will be familiar to our board and many in our community. So that Dr. Dollar presented. We've experienced declining enrollment most precipitously after the 2019, 2020 year with a decline in about just over 1500 students. It's important to take a step back because this has very serious budgetary implications for us as a district. This number alone, this Decline alone represents 10 million, more than $10 million less in state funding that we receive annually because of that decline over the past six years. That puts significant budget pressures on our district, especially given, as Dr. Griffin just mentioned or referred to, 83 to 85% of our budget is spent on personnel. As Dr. Dollar also mentioned, we'll continue to face some level of declining
171enrollment for the next 10 years, although it begins to look like it's leveling out a bit. And that is helpful to us. But it doesn't negate the fact that we need to right size our central office organization to where we're headed as a district. This chart is also very important from a budgetary standpoint. What you're looking at is a best case, middle case and worst-case scenario on our local fund balance that we've shared with the board before. This is based on taking no action from a personnel standpoint or reduction and the impact that it would have over the next four years on our local fund balance. We feel this is important because I've shared with the community that we are not in a crisis, but if we fail to act, we will be in a
172crisis in a number of years, as you can see on this chart. So for consideration and our decision-making criteria to recommend a reduction in force. As I said at the top of the presentation, we want to preserve our student facing positions. As Mr. Bailey had mentioned. That's where we put our priority, and rightfully so. We want to protect the integrity of our classrooms across the district. You know, that's what we're known for. So through this recommendation, we've attempted to reduce redundancy wherever we could. And I want to be fair, you know, with some of the recommendations, our programs and services will still be maintained. They may not look or feel the same. And we also kind of looked at, you know, the type of tasks that we are required to do as a central service.
173And that helps inform our recommendation for reduction in force as well. So what's the overall impact of all the cuts? As you can see there, the recommended reduction in force is $2.7 million. But I also want to clarify that in the report that I've shared with the board and what I've stated publicly, our savings that we're looking for is between 1.5 and $2 million. What that takes into account is that when the reduction in force is adopted, if it's adopted by the board, it's going to force a central office reorganization. And it's my estimate that that reorganization will have a cost and that cost will be about 700. And so that's where you get the 1.5 to $2 million net savings from the reduction in force. But I want to be up front. The number
174that you see there is just an addition or summation of all the savings from the reduction in force that I'm recommending. But I also want to be pretty clear that it will require reorganization and that reorganization will have a cost so that we can continue to maintain functions. Just very briefly, to go through the timeline. As was mentioned earlier, I submitted my budget to the board on March 19. We also outlined in that budget request the constraints that we continue to face as a district. On March 23rd and 24th, we notified all impacted staff about the recommendation that I would be presenting to the board. So they are fully aware of my recommendation and it being brought tonight. So tonight I am here asking for approval of the reduction in force, the central office reduction
175in force, understanding that those who are impacted also have the right to appeal decisions or my recommendation. If adopted, we would expect that the board would take personnel action at their May meetings. And by the end of this school year, we would be working very hard to find reassignment locations for those who are also impacted. Just a high level overview of the reduction in force plan itself. It's a request to reduce the central office complement by 22 positions. Six of those positions are vacant today. So that's just an overall plan. And I've also included in the presentation a list of all of the positions that are recommended for the reduction in force. I won't go through each of those, but I'd like to end there. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that board
176members may have. Thank you. Dr. Trice. Board members, do you have any questions or comments? Give everyone a minute. Looks like people are. Oh, George, if you want to get started, you can. I just have two questions. Okay. My silence was just. Just I think again, recognizing the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of what you brought this to us. I know it's hard. It's hard on the employees for sure. No question about it. Talk a little bit about when you say the reorganization will have the net cost of, I believe you said, six or seven hundred thousand dollars. Just give us a sort of overview of what's that about. Right. So, I'll try to give you an example. So, there are requirements that the district still has to attend to when reorganizing. So,
177there are federal programs that must be maintained. If we are proposing to cut positions that. Where that was a part of one's role, I still, as superintendent, have to determine, you know, where that job, where that task will be fulfilled. And in some of the. In some of those cases, it would involve, you know, the hiring of an employee that might wear two or three different hats to do what, you know, a couple of people have done. A reorganization is also about the future. So, we just heard Dr. Dollar talk about what many districts around our state and country are deploying to draw students and families to our district, and they're more heavily investing in marketing. Well, we don't have a marketing budget, but through a reorganization, and if this is going to be our
178reality, declining enrollment, we need to begin to put resources in places where it would positively impact our district. And so, you may have heard me say publicly, I'm asking for a deeper cut up front so that one we can pivot towards some things that would position us better as a district. And so, when I think about a reorganization, that's part of what that means. It also means revisiting some of the decisions that were made in the RIF two years ago. Our ITS or digital learning coaches are under tremendous stress, have an interest in looking at that and how it can better support classrooms. Again, that's not a part of our current budget, but through a reorganization, I'm certainly interested in exploring how we might provide greater support at that level. So those are just some
179examples that would position us, I think, in a. In a better way to address some of our current challenges and attend to requirements that are still very much a part of what we have to do as a district. I hope that answers the question. Thank you. It's very helpful. First, I know I think no words can really say anything to the staff who are impacted in these positions, but I do want to thank them for their commitment and their service to our district, our students, and public education. I know as a part of our previous RIF, as best we could, we made efforts to retain as many of those staff members by having them fill other positions they might have had the qualifications or licensure for. Then I know, there's still like time in the
180process. We've got this today and then we've got some other milestone points in the process. But are there positions for most, if not all of the 16? Because I know it's 22 positions, but we're talking about 16 employees who are being impacted. Do we have something for them or something comparable? Yes, we've offered positions to those who are impacted. You know, I want to be honest that, you know, in some of those offers it may not be as comparable as their, the role that they're currently occupying, but in some cases it absolutely, it absolutely is. And then my. I've got a couple more question comments. Mental health specialists. I know a few years ago the county had funds, they allocated it to us. They generally said we highly suggest you use it for mental health.
181But obviously it was our discretion and so we did use it for mental health specialists. Seeing these positions on this list, I just wanted to make sure we have students who have significant needs related to mental health. And so, I see the comment and I know we talked about it earlier when we had our school collab meeting. I just wanted you to highlight a little bit more information, I think for the public. So, it's not like our kids are losing something. I want us to talk about just a little bit about co-located service and how we, you know, we will continue to maintain mental health support and have that available to our students. Yeah, I'll speak to that generally and I want to ask my colleague Brandy Reeves to come up as well to provide
182more specifics. But I think you're right. With the reduction in mental health specialists, I want to be clear that our students are going to continue to receive services. What it represents is perhaps a return to a model that was here in our district prior to a couple of years ago when our mental health specialists arrived. But you're absolutely right, there was additional funding to support mental health in our district. But I would also say that, you know, we've never really been able to get a continuation budget, and we are in a different fiscal environment than we were a couple of years ago. And so that's a tremendous pressure, budgetary pressure that we have as a district. But like I said, our students will continue to get services. It will be through a well-coordinated, multi-tier system
183of support led by our school social workers and counselors, supported by school principals and, you know, community partners. I know Ms. Reeves can speak to some of those community partners, but we will have to lean on systems that we leaned on, you know, prior to Those roles if adopted. I also, I'm sorry. I also want to acknowledge that prior to the county commissioners providing funding for mental health specialists, the district had already funded three mental health specialists at the high school level. Those are not a part of this recommendation and would be maintained. I also want to acknowledge that earlier versions of this report included one additional mental health specialist, but considered for reduction. What I'm proposing today is to maintain the three high school mental health specialists and one additional mental health specialist to
184support our best in sale program, which is a bit different than the original proposal that I shared with the board, but I don't know. Ms. Reeves, if you could come and speak to some of the agencies and partnerships that we have. Thank you. You're absolutely right. And two years after the RIF, this was a difficult to staff position. So, we have done a lot of work in the last couple years to increase our wraparound services. So, we spoke some about Family Success Alliance. We now, two years ago, did not have co-located mental health services at all of our high school or all of our schools. We do now. We have Renaissance Daybreak, which is now a virtual option as well. And then we also have Carolina Outreach and then Youth Development Services. So, we do
185now have it at all schools where we once did not. So, thank you. Go ahead. Senator Meredith, thank you. I just want to follow up on what RISA was asking about. Also, can you explain the school psychologist position and what, what type of students that person serves, who's listed here because they're separate from the mental health specialists? And then I just wanted, you know, I think I've already expressed this to you privately, but I would express it now. Again, I'm very concerned about cutting EC staff members at a time when EC students are not only increasing in numbers, but also in the share of overall students as the overall number of students declines. You know, I've seen the work, especially of the autism specialists that we have on staff firsthand. And you know, I was
186talking to one the other day and I'll just, I'll just say this. You know, she, she was talking about some of the duties that she had. And she said that one thing that she does at the beginning of every year when her caseloads are manageable is that she actually goes to the schools that she's assigned to. She talks to every staff member that might touch the particular student, even the custodians, you know, folks in the hall, trying to really acquaint them with some of the students who have additional needs, who walk our halls. And might get lost or, you know, might need a little additional assistance from adults in the building. And I just. I found that really compelling. And so, I do feel very hesitant to support cuts in that area at this time.
187So I don't know. If you could just talk a little bit about kind of how we would ensure, if those cuts went through, that those students are still properly supported. The behavior specialist, the instructional coach, and then I'm not sure exactly what the specialist orientation and mobility does. Maybe if you could explain that a little bit, that would be helpful. So, some of these actually have been hard to staff positions for us. And I think we know that's the reality with our special ed services is that often we have positions because we need them, but we're not able to find people to fill them. And so honestly, our psychologist stayed vacant for about 75% of this year. This specialist orientation, mobility, we have not had one in maybe two to three years. The behavior specialist,
188we were only able to fill recently because of the last RIF. However, someone had another opportunity and they vacated that position. So again, some of these are just hard to staff positions. So we're really trying to make sure that we are going to be able to staff for the positions that we actually have. One of the things that I do, we work with finance. Also, in the event that we get to a situation where we really need services for a student, we will contract services. And so we still have that ability as well. So, I don't think this will cause students. I'm certain that this will not cause students to go without supports. That's something that we're committed to. So. Go ahead, Barb. This is really following up on Meredith's point about, I guess, the
189autism specialist and the behavior specialist. So, in the PDF, not the slide deck, but the PDF, it says that if we cut the autism specialist, the work will be redistributed among the remaining four members of the team. So, does that mean there are four other people focused on autism in the district? That's correct. Separately correct. That's correct. And then same with the behavior specialist. So we will cut one, but there will be three more for the whole EC population, is that right? That's correct. Okay. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Vicki. Before I actually ask my questions, just for everyone who's looking, I'm going to ask Dr. Trice if he would please give everybody the definition of the acronyms Best in sales, so they'll have them so they know what we're speaking about. I don't know
190If I know the acronyms but or what it is that they are. So, they're support classrooms that really help students with behavior challenges in schools. And they're really good because it keeps them connected to the North Carolina standard course of study. But I also teaching replacement behaviors and such, but very much core to our instructional program as a district. So, I can definitely understand why those programs would need a mental health specialist. Okay, so my next question would be relating to Phoenix High School and the fact that they already don't have a nurse on staff. So if they don't have a nurse on staff and they won't have their own mental health specialist, I know that part of the things that at the other high schools that we refer to as comprehensive high schools, which
191I don't know, I kind of think if you make it through our district and you earn one of our diplomas in our high schools, you are a comprehensive hospital. But that's just how I see that. So I will say under normal circumstances, if like they do field trips and things of that nature and they have medical reports that go along with those permission slips and doing the outreach and referrals, a lot of times the nurses do that, but they already don't have a nurse. So that tends to fall under the ray of their mental health specialist. So, if they don't have one that's going to be effectively assigned to them, and it may be one that's floating, how will they affect. How will that affect our most marginalized students in the district already? Well, as
192I mentioned, I mean, the services certainly will change in. And you know, there are real-time services that many of our students experience now with our mental health specialists. But again, we would have to lean on our community partners. You know, we have three mental health specialists at the high schools, one really close by at Carrboro High School. And we might have to just be more intentional about how, you know, that could be supported, you know, if the board, you know, approved the reduction in force. So, maybe if there's not just one on site all the time, we're saying that our high school mental health specialist caseloads may float as well, so to speak, or with the best in sales. Well, I think there might be a couple of options, and I don't want to stand
193here and commit to one model. What I think I could commit to is, you know, continuing to provide support at Phoenix. Whether that's through, you know, partnering with the Carrboro High because it's close by, I don't know the degree to which, you know, a Mental health specialist in best in sale could always be available for Carrboro High School, but we would be willing to kind of work through that. Doctor Trice and administration, I just want to appreciate the difficulty of the choices before us today, and thank you all for the thoughtful approach to laying out options and also thinking about how to support continued efforts in the event that we have to make these cuts. Nobody wants to do any of this because we all know that these things help support students. But we're in
194the place where we have to make tough choices. And so I think I, you know, I think what I would like to hear a little bit about is places where we know we have challenges or things are coming up. So, for example, instructional facilitators, we cut in the last rifle. Like, are you thinking about opportunities to supplement that group or provide additional resources there? I don't know if I misheard something you said earlier. And then the other thing is, we recently had some feedback about attendance and mental health was one of the top impacts affecting that. And so we can't instruct students if they're not in school. And so I just want to think about the connection to the mental health. Like, I'm struggling because these are all hard again. And I'm thinking about the
195places that have the most impact on students being able to learn, teachers being able to teach, and that's around curriculum and health. So, yeah. So, to your first question, I believe you're referring to. I refer to our previous RIF where the ITS instructional technology facilitators were essentially cut in half. And as was mentioned earlier, the model we have now is that we call them digital learning coordinators are dispersed among multiple schools. But we do have some instances where digital learning coordinators working at three schools, and that's just not an effective model. And so what I was suggesting through the reorganization is to provide additional support at the, you know, ITF digital learning coordinator level, which in turn would provide more support to schools. So that's not really a central office. I mean, it is a
196central office reorg, but it's not for the benefit of central office. It's for the benefit of providing instructional technology support to schools. So that's the example that I was referring to, not instructional facilitators in general. Thank you for that. And I think on the mental health, I wonder how we assess this, if we do end up making this cut such that we are able to kind of proactively see how needs are changing in the school and maybe we can add back resources as needed. I think this Suggests we're going to be cutting all the middle school. Is that right? Elementary supports and middle schools? Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm most worried about middle school. So, I, like, I even wonder if there's an opportunity to keep one across the middle schools or like, if that's
197a possibility. As I mentioned, you know, at the top of my presentation, we've tried to build in some flexibility for the board. We didn't want to lock in the board. So the savings realization that we're looking for is between 1.5 to $2 million. And we know that these are very challenging. I'll be the first to say we're not proposing this reduction in force because these roles aren't impactful. We know they're incredibly impactful. So, you know, if the board wishes, you know, we could certainly amend our recommendation. Yeah. I would ask the board to consider middle school mental health support to kind of continue to be part of resources and whether we start with one and sort of assess how that is working and leave it to administration to continue to make tweaks as needed. Thank
198you, Dr. Trice. I do appreciate, you know, this work. I think I just keep reflecting back on past board meetings where, you know, we talked about the different levers and obviously this was a lever within your control to recommend to us as a board. Obviously, we have to be looking at everything because every little bit gets us to where we can be responsive. I wrote here because I think I've been saying it, you've been saying, allows us to be responsive to our student data that we've been seeing monitoring for years and we can actually be responsive. I want to make sure that we say that, like we get student data reports and because of just the space that we've been in financially, it's been a challenge to be responsive. So, I think I want us
199to remind us of that also. I appreciate that we're not looking at just looking at this as just cut, cut, cut and close and do all this stuff. It is going to allow us to reinvest in some areas. Right. Because now we've been looking at student data. We've been looking at our district. And so obviously I look forward to hearing about some of these reinvestments that, you know, we do need to make in our district. And finally, you know, it does allow us to innovate and prepare our students for the changing landscape of our global community. Right. Because, you know, the world is moving quickly and we have to, you know, how we prepare kids right now sometimes is already too late. For what is out there. And so, I want us to make sure
200we've got the financial capacity. I think, as a district, we tend to lead in some of those areas. But I want us to continue, for us to be leaders in that space so that our kids are prepared and ready for whatever pathway that they may choose in their life. So I know as we think about this as a board, it may be challenging, but I am, you know, optimistic that hearing and working with Dr. Trice and the rest of the staff, we can think about how we continue to reimagine and we look forward for our district so we can actually support our students and our community and our staff long term. Obviously, left off here, but I talk about it a lot also, the reinvestment in our staff in terms of increasing staff salaries and
201things like that. We saw that in our budget request where we did ask for expansion requests. We're continually committed to pushing staff salaries up because the reality is our staff are not paid at that level. But I just want to thank you. I know this is hard. These are tough decisions that we're making, but I want us to. I want us all to keep facing, looking forward and ahead at all the things that we're committed to doing for our staff and our students going forward. And I appreciate it. Barb, go ahead. Did you have. I just don't. Did I interrupt? No, no. You're good. I guess I just want to recognize the fact that you've been around for a while, and I think that is really an asset right now because I think I really
202appreciate the fact that you're willing to look at the last rift and maybe make some tweaks. And that the last time, I mean, one specific example I remember is that we were cutting the turn, the month, the number of months for counselors, I think. And then we changed it back because of block schedule and infinite campus. And I hear you saying we want to be nimble and kind of responsive. Like, if we do something and it wasn't the right thing, we can fix it. Right. And I just. The fact that you have been in this administration for so long makes me really trust the process that you use to arrive at these really hard decisions. I mean, I don't. Your expertise is more than anybody, you know, it's certainly more than mine. And so, I
203feel really like trusting in your leadership here. And I also know how personally painful this is for you and just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you. And there's no action on this tonight? Oh, there is. This is DNA that's Right. We are on DNA. I'm sorry. Thank you, Barb. You're keeping me straight. This is a DNA item. Let me go to the actual language of the resolution. So, board members, can I get a motion to approve the reduction in force plan as outlined or. Okay, you going to go ahead? I would like to make a motion to approve the plan as outlined with an amendment to include an additional resource for middle school mental health. So, that would be maybe about $120,000. I actually was going to suggest a different amendment that. So, I don't
204know if, Rani, if you'd be amenable to this because I would like to support that. But I also would like to consider adding back in at least two out of the three of the EC instructional code. Autism specialist, behavior specialist. I just don't think right now when our numbers are increasing in those areas is the time to cut there. Rani, are you open to that friendly amendment? So that would be what. Which ones are those, Meredith? Right here. Those three. Three. $300,000. Yeah. And I said, you know, we could compromise and say two. Two out of three. So, that would be a total of about. If we did two of those along with the mental health specialist, about 300,000. So that would get our savings about 1.7, which is in the range still. I'm supportive
205of that. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor to. Gosh, let me get it right. Well, let me throw my hat in my. Okay. Because I. And with all the. Yeah. I can't sit back without trying to advocate for Phoenix. And I most certainly would like to add the amendment to hold in the mental health specialist for our alternative high school. I just think that that needs to be there. I'm open to looking at the fact that we have other positions that have been vacant so long and that there have been. Those duties have been done by someone already. It's not that those services aren't happening. I would be more concerned if they were telling us that those are services that our students aren't getting, but our EC students are being
206served at the highest level that we can at this point. So, I would like to consider trying to compromise with the one position and maybe considering one of those not to come back in because it is such a high cost with all of those. If you all are open to that. Yeah. So just. Did I hear there's already a mental health support for Phoenix in the current plan? No, not in the. No. Okay. So that. Would that be a full-time person? Currently it was a full-time ft. But I think at this point it's been split between there and a middle school. Correct. That's what it is right now. Which would allow the middle school to still retain. If that position was to stay as is, that would still allow the middle school, that particular middle
207school to maintain a mental health specialist. If I'm not, if I'm, if I'm correct in stating that, is that the right way to say it, Doctor if we maintain the same model. Yes, that's, that's what I was asking. Yes. Which I know that we can't guarantee that, but I was just trying to give Rani that same explanation. Yeah. So, I think what I was asking for would be a mental health specialist that would cover the three middle schools. So that would be one FTE, it looks like about 120,000 if I just take the dollars divided by 5 and then adding an EC specialist and then the Phoenix mental health. So that would be three positions that would be added back. Is that what I'm hearing you say? I was asking what you guys thoughts are
208on adding leaving back the Phoenix position, which was also one of the middle schools. It was one position for both. And to look at the EC positions that are already vacant, that services are being rendered to see what based on administration could tell us would be the, I guess least impactful if it wasn't added back in, to maybe add back in two instead of the three. I think that's where we were is like there were three positions to add back. One would be the middle school mental health specialist, and one would be one of the EC specialists and then one would be the mental health specialist. I know you originally talked about two, two to three, but okay, so two. Where would the other 0.5 go? That's currently split between Phoenix and a middle school.
209If I understand correctly. That's a full FTE. And so, you know, we would as an administration need to go back and look at our model. But if the, if I understand correctly well, the what's being proposed is that there's one FTE that would take care of the middle school level one for Phoenix and then there was a EC position that's on the table as well, is my understanding. Can we confirm for me which EC position? Because obviously they're different, they have different roles, the salary amount is different. So, we need to clarify which. Which one? Yeah, I mean I think they're around 100,000. Right. So, I think you. I don't want to speak for you, but I was assuming you were saying administration could determine Yeah, I don't know if I'm qualified to like know,
210which is the. I mean, obviously I think they're all important, but I don't. I wanted to maybe leave it to administration. I would say that behavior is probably because we are proposing to have a mental health specialist in best in sale that perhaps that could help with. I mean, you know, they're all intertwined those things. So, I would say probably either the autism specialist or the EC instructional coach. Ms. Reeves just shared as well that it's probably easiest to find an autism specialist out of that pool. So that might inform your recommendation as well. Okay, so the motion is amended to say recommendation to approve the plan as presented with the addition of, with the removal of a mental health specialist for the middle school level, an EC specialist. Sorry, what did you just say?
211Autism specialist and a mental health specialist for Phoenix, which would be about 350,000 roughly, still putting us in the, in the range of expected savings. So, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second? Okay, we have a second from Vicki. All those in favor? We have some further discussion. Yes, we can go ahead, George. So, I appreciate the intent, but I'm going to vote no on the amendments. And it's because, Dr. Trice, you have brought a good faith proposal here and have led by example with the cuts you're proposing, the reductions you're proposing, and even 350,000 or up to 400,000, that's four or five full time teaching positions we're asking our schools to. We're closing a school, most likely perhaps two, which is really, really dramatic. And I think we need to respect
212your proposal to make your reductions as a lead, as a start and not start adding things back here and there. I don't, I don't just. I mean, I understand these are all valuable positions that are being proposed here, but I don't think they're in the spirit of what we need to be demonstrating right now. So, I'm going to, if it stay, if it stays like this, I'm going to vote no. Yeah, I just wanted to say I do appreciate board members, obviously, the commitment and the concern. I agree with George on this one. You know, Dr. Trice is in charge of the staff and the day-to-day and all these things. So Dr. Trice has worked with. This hasn't been just the Dr. Trice thing. He's worked with the collective team on these decisions and understanding.
213I see, you know, like a number of positions vacant and things like that. So, we capture salaries that I guess the term is lapsed salaries or salaries that we've been holding and things like that. And so I want to be supportive of Dr. Trice and the team who work together on this. Obviously, similar to our last RIF. If the staff see that, hey, we might need to think about this a little bit more. We've implemented it. These are some other areas where we might need to tweak some things. I would encourage Dr. Trice to come back to us and talk to us about what, you know, what he and the team are seeing and how we need to adjust it. But at this time, I wouldn't support the motion just because I can't speak in
214terms of, like, the specifics of workload and how the things that some of these staff positions that we're trying to figure out are doing. I'm looking at Dr. Trice and the team, and they've made this recommendation to us. So. Go ahead, Rhonda. So, I think part of the job of the board is to be responsive to what administration brings before us, not to blindly accept anything that's brought before us. And I'm not suggesting that's what you're doing, but I just want to offer that as a consideration, there is some value in what the board brings as well. I also want to say, like, we know that mental health is a huge issue right now, and I just think the responsibility for us to walk away from that, particularly in middle school, where the complexity of
215emotions and things that students are exposed to is so high, and thinking about what the needs are there, that makes me feel really uncomfortable about doing that. And this is certainly not a decision about versus a classroom, because these are all things that support students in the classroom and teachers in the classroom and the ability for students to learn. And so, if I think about the three things that we've asked to add back here, this feels like it is an appropriate compromise to the plan. We still land within the range of savings that the administration brought to us. And so, I just. I think this feels really, really important for us to be thoughtful about how we signal our support on mental health and other supports for students. Go ahead, Vicki. First of all, I
216definitely want to say, Dr. Trice, I truly support all the work that you and your team have put into this and support the vast majority of it. And I will also say, regarding the last RIF, and I appreciate the fact that you are very well supportive of bringing back to us the need for some of the things that were recommended to have not been a part of the first one in the beginning. Such as counselors only being 10 months. And that was an opportunity in which an amendment was raised in which had that happened, we may not have had to have come back to readjust. So I just want to say that this definitely an opportunity to look at and I also appreciate the fact that the team has been trying to go sponsor, go
217co-sponsoring, go co-partner with the organizations in the county right now. And I know that is happening. We have organizations like Orange Partnership and Piedmont Health Services. And these are things that have been there for years that we are finally trying to start get some handle on being what has been offered to us for a long time and we're finally trying to get. But we also don't know where their funds will continue to stand. And we can't just rely on the fact that we do have yeses right now when we've had yeses for years that we just weren't answering. And that's not anyone's fault that's here. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying it's just the reality and you know some of the things I'm speaking about. So, I definitely would like to say that
218we need to be able to look at the fact that we have medical professionals that are telling us we still have an epidemic going on here and it was mental health. And as we're adjusting to our young people being able to deal with them coming away from tech use, we're going to have to have someone available on site preferably because co-partnering still doesn't mean right there in that space. And as we talk about centering our students and leading with them at center of mind, first of all, knowing that we can do the best by having the best possible opportunities in the space as we're going through all the different traumatic things we're going to have to go through as we're right sizing, as we're looking at possible school closure, I just don't feel that right
219now would be the time to limit those mental health specialists. And we have so many marginalized students. They're going to be need through things immigration and we don't know where our families are. I just think it would be prudent for us to continue to leave those vital people in those buildings. So, I would support that with the amendments. Go ahead, Meredith. Sorry, I'll be brief. I just wanted to say I hope that you understand that like Vicki said, very well, you know, I'm very supportive of doing this. I think it's necessary. Unfortunately, that's not to say that we don't value each and every one of these people. I think you've been very clear about that. I think the board's been very clear about that. And, you know, this is a difficult thing to do overall.
220So, I think. I think that you are doing the right thing here, in spite of it being painful. But it sounded to me like there was a little bit of room and the money to tweak, and that's what we're trying to arrive at, this compromise where we each have perspectives and we're trying to support those perspectives and our most vulnerable students, whether they're at Phoenix or in middle school or in the EC world. I think it's all important. And just a brief response to that. I think as an administration, we feel really comfortable if we land somewhere in kind of in that range. I think that's what we've communicated publicly. You know, that was always our intention is to provide a recommendation to the board, but it is not an exact science. You know, I
221could say $2 million and, you know, be up in front of you a year from now saying, oops, we did it wrong. You know, the way it's playing out on the ground is not what we thought. So, we feel pretty comfortable in that range from a budgetary planning standpoint, rebuilding fund balance, savings we're experiencing because of the first RIF. Not sure where the board would land on school closure yet, but, you know, that's another lever that we're looking at. And when you add all of those up, you know, we feel pretty comfortable. We felt pretty comfortable providing a range to provide the board some room to help advise. So, board members, we have a motion and a second. So, at this time, we'll go ahead and take a vote on the current motion. I hope
222everyone caught it. No, it's okay. So, the motion is to approve the reduction in force with the addition back of a mental health specialist for the middle school, a mental health specialist for Phoenix, and the autism specialist. All those in favor say Aye. Aye. Opposed? We have four. Opposed. Opposed? Aye. Okay, so the motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Trice. Thank you, board members. Okay, come to our last item on the agenda. Committee reports and sharing starting at finance facility operations. Okay. Okay, we'll start with student success. All right; I had it all open beforehand. Here it is. So, our last student success meeting was on the 24th of March, and we discussed the kind of the student information system changed to infinite campus. So, we got an update on that and want to
223give huge kudos to Tim McArthur and Rebecca Atkins, who worked really hard to get that going. I mean, data migration is extremely challenging to do well and they did a great job. So, thank you. We also got an update on avid, which was really instructive. Talking about sort of utilizing AVID as a framework for all of our students. And a lot of folks, I think, think of it as sort of an elective. But we're trying to use a lot of the strategies that they use in the AVID classroom with all of our students so that they can learn executive functioning, they can learn writing skills, really practical skills that all of our students are going to need in the next phase of their life. And then we had a brief the meeting went kind of
224long, so we did have a brief Update on the 4x4 implementation. Talked about some of the tweaks that they've been making to flex time and making sure students were assigned to appropriate flex times, making sure, you know, we'll have a better sense once we get through the spring semester on how everything went and what tweaks we'll need to make for the fall. And our next meeting is coming up. I had all these tabs open and now I do not board committees. Student success. The next meeting is going to be on April 28th. It will be virtual and held at 5:30pm thank you. Thank you so much, Meredith. And we'll have an update for finance facility operations. Barb yeah, we didn't meet after in between the last meeting and this one, but our next meeting is
225next Tuesday at 5:30 and it's virtual. Thank you. Thank you so much. And finally, policy. We also have not met since the last meeting. Our next meeting is the 21st at 5:30 on. It's virtual and open to the public. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Board members, do you have any other liaison updates that you have? I'll share a couple. I attended the Ephesus Elementary SIP meeting on Monday, March 23rd. In that meeting that was focused largely on obviously the school closure discussions. Stacey Bore, the principal, gave updates on the school budget and using some of the SIP funds on instructional supplies. And there was some discussion of the composition of the school and things like that. And then we had some Q and A. There were some questions that I fielded from the SIP members
226and the attendees just, you know, on the process and things like that. There was, you know, I think some discussion and I think it's happened in the staff meetings too, about we've got the policy about the transfer request deadline. So, I think we may want to think about doing a what's the language suspension of the policy for the staff transfer request deadline. But we'll work with administration on that to flush that out a little bit possibly for our next board meeting or upcoming board meeting. And then that was it on that one. And then Barb and I and several of the staff attended our school collaboration meeting this morning. So. Collaboration. We had presentations from both Orange County and Chapel Hill Carrboro City schools actually on mental health and what that looks like in the
227district. So we did hear about the co-located services and things like that. And now the schools are connected with some of the county work and their quarterly meetings on that. We'll take up some of the discussions. I think there's some work with the staff on like nurses and things like there was the interest in kind of that health space for our students. And finally, just for board members, we do have our joint meeting coming up on. Oh boy. April the 30th. This is a joint meeting for the schools in the county. The agenda I think we're just flushing out and making sure everyone's good with the draft. But we're going to have two main topics on the agenda. The budget and our capital. As part of our budget discussion, we're just going to do a
228high level review of district. District data which includes graduation, student growth, the most recent student data broken out by subgroups and some information on CTE, our CTE programs and then programs, students and things like that. The staff will work together on that. And also, whatever most recent attendance data that we have. I think that's it for school collab. I think I got everything right. So, that was everything. I don't know if any other board members have any other sharing. Just real quick, I would like to share that Orange County is going to be sponsoring a B-Well program and it's going to be in the parking lot at DSS on Mayo Street. And it's on May 1st and it is. Let me give you the correct time frame. It will be. And it's free and it's
229open to the public. It's from 10 to 2. I encourage our families if they can get out and go. There are going to be all kinds of services from around the county that will be there. Our health department and DSS and some of our other organizations within the county will be tabling. They will have free mammograms, and you can go to the website and get signed up. They will have a blood drive. They will have free dental screenings if you go get signed up. So, lots of services that can benefit our students and our families. So, I encourage everyone to get involved and try to get out. Is there is transportation to be able to get you there? Can you share that with me? It's May 1st and I've been sharing it. Okay. It's that
230Friday from 10 to 2. And like I say, Orange County public transportation does connect around town with Chapel Hill Transit. So if there's. There are people who need to get transportation to get out there, there are ways to do that. And there will be lots of opportunities that will really benefit our citizens. I encourage everyone to try to go out and get the information that may help some of our families and students. Thank you. Thank you, Vicki. Anyone else? Go ahead, Barb. I just wanted to give a shout out to Dr. Trice and Andy Jenks for coordinating six separate meetings this week at the Ephesus, Glenwood and Sewell. Those are hard conversations and I just really. It's been really important to have them. And thank you for leading them. Thank you. I just want to
231end our meeting with a quick poem. It's the warm weather's out there and it makes me feel nice and happy. I'm happy to see the flowers and gardens blooming. So, this is a poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Kind hearts are the gardens. Kind thoughts are the roots. Kind words, words are the flowers. Kind deeds are the fruits. Take care of your garden and keep out the weeds. Fill it with sunshine. Kind words and kind deeds. And with that, our meeting is adjourned.