Board of Education - Jun 04, 2026

001All right, thank you everyone for your patience. Our next item on the agenda is the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board Proclamation in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month. And board members, we'll start with, Board Member Bullock. Whereas the core values of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools include providing a safe and welcoming environment for all students and staff and supporting collaboration with diverse communities and families, and whereas Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools celebrates the accomplishments of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, non-binary, and intersex people and recognizes that LGBTQ+ Pride Month is celebrated each year in the month of June. And whereas Pride Month honors the 1969 Stonewall uprising in Manhattan and celebrates the many contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals, including transgender and queer people. And whereas Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools recognizes that LGBTQ+ people of color, immigrants, people with

002disabilities, multilanguage learners, and economically disadvantaged students experience intersectional oppression and need recognition and validation of all aspects of their identities. And whereas CHCCS recognizes that the current wave of anti-LGBTQ+ state and federal legislation contributes to harassment, creates a climate of intolerance, and can make it challenging for students to learn and thrive Whereas Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is committed to maintaining our values of respect and inclusion for all, including our LGBTQ students, families, and staff. Therefore, be it resolved that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools District proclaims the month of June to be LGBTQ+ Pride Month and will honor and highlight the identities and contributions of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools LGBTQ+ students, staff, and families. Thank you. Thank you, board members. The next item on our agenda is public comment. The board appreciates and encourages public comment.

003Board members will listen to comments and may ask or make clarifying questions or comments, but there will be no general discussion related to the public comments. Comments should relate to the education and safety of students or to the operation of the school system. The public comment time is for discussion of educational issues or the operation of Chapel Hill-Carver 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 criticism of 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. Speakers will have 2 minutes for their comments. When you are recognized, please come forward, state your name, and if you're speaking for an organization, please identify

004the name of the organization. We'll start with any recognized teacher organizations, SIT, or student groups, followed by anyone who has signed up in advance, and then any other persons wishing to make a comment can come forward. So do we have any teacher organizations, SIT, or student groups present? Okay. Then we'll start with our speakers who have signed up. So if you see your name, please come forward. Start with Lydia Boyd. Yes, that's correct. And I think just make sure the red light is lit on the microphone. And you can adjust the microphone. Yep. Press the circle. There you go. Great. Good evening. I'm Lydia Boyd. I'm a parent of a Glenwood student, and I've been a parent of a Glenwood student since the 2019-2020 school year when my older child entered kindergarten. And I want

005to just provide a little bit of what I think is relevant history to the DL program at Glenwood. In 2019, we were very happy that she had been selected through the lottery for the DL program, but we realized quite soon after that that Glenwood had been experiencing a lot of tension. There was a lot of animosity within the school in the 2019-2020 school year. And that tension had developed in part because of the success of the Mandarin DL program and a proposal by the board in 2018 to expand that program. So Glenwood at the time was 50% neighborhood school and 50% the DL program. and the proposal was to expand it to model what FPG is today. The other half of the Glenwood School, the neighborhood school, was incredibly distressed by the idea that they

006would be eliminated by the expansion of the DL program, and thus we ended up with the compromise of what is the STEAM II program, which has been very successful. So I bring up this history because I want to highlight the downstream effects of closing the Glenwood building. Closing the building means retaining the programs in it, which is what the board has promised to do. But if that happens, that means moving the magnet programs to another existing school building, which potentially would displace some or all of that building's students. So I just want to highlight that that is a decision that will involve more schools in this school closure decision. And will potentially create more distress and disruption in those existing schools that are not expecting or even have it on their radar that their school

007populations could be displaced by the decision to close Glenwood's building. Yes, right on time. Next up is Mark Sheen, please. Hi, my name is Mark Shen, and our two mixed-race kids are Glenwood students. As we know, Glenwood has the highest enrollment and utilization in the district at 95%. Some have suggested to divide us by making a distinction that Glenwood has two language tracks, but to be clear, Glenwood is a whole school cultural immersion. All 400 students take Mandarin, all 400 students participate in this cultural immersion. Uh, all 400 families chose Glenwood for this language and cultural immersion. All 400 of us choose inconvenience over convenience by going across town to go to Glenwood. All 400 families have chosen not to attend their respective neighborhood schools because they preferred Glenwood for this cultural immersion. So this

008is a form of school choice, and that school choice is driving the demand for Glenwood and the enrollment in our district similar to what FPG is doing. And I really feel that this is one of our district's best chance of competing, with the school choice argument that is driving the rise of private schools and charter schools. Half of the world's population speaks English or Chinese. If our mission is to educate and prepare our children for the future, there is no better way than to keep all of Glenwood intact. I also want to take a moment to just dispel the notion that only Asian kids go to Glenwood. Our percentage, for example, our percentage of Black students is double digits, actually mirroring the 12% of Black students across the entire district. We are the only elementary

009school, at least to my knowledge, that both our principal and our vice principal are Black. Our school represents our community. Unfortunately, outside of Glenwood, we are not represented. For example, in sports, my son is the only Asian kid in the entire league. and so much thank you. Yeah, I'd like to remind everyone of how we got here from the perspective of Glenwood parent. In 2024, we asked to vote for a bond to replace the elementary schools in the worst condition and then address the needs of the other schools. Most of us vote for the bond knowing that our children probably won't benefit from it. However, we put our trust in the board that this is the right thing to do for all and continue to vote for you. Two years later, we start hearing about

010potential elementary school closures. We're told that the decision base should be objective, quantifiable, and financial, since finances are driving the closure. I read the Woolpert Report and think there's no way the board would close the only Mandarin school in the district, particularly since it doesn't make the most financial sense. It's one of the last to require repair, it's one of the most well-utilized, and it draws students away from private schools in other districts. But to my surprise, I learned that Glenwood is one of the schools being considered. I attend a board meeting and the only school specifically called out for closure is Glenwood because it used to be whites only. Parents including myself speak about the importance of keeping the Glenwood community together because it now serves a vulnerable minority population that has no other

011community space like it. However, the next thing I hear is that the board is thinking about tearing apart Glenwood's programs. This is despite the findings in the newest report that still don't suggest Glenwood is the right school for closure. The Glenwood community ramps up its efforts trying to educate the board about the unique synergy of its programs. Unlike other elementary schools in the district, none of the board members have had children who've attended Glenwood. This leads us today. Today, if the board chooses to Glenwood, we'll be left wondering, was this all a facade? Were we going to be targeted no matter what the report said, how much the community tried to advocate for itself? And for Asians like me, are we going to be once again treated as if we are invisible and that others'

012voices are more important? How many signatures do we need to collect? We have over 450. And public statements do we need to be make to be heard? When a Glenwood mom organized for families to march with the Black community in Durham for Martin Luther King Day. We were there. I was there with my son. When Dr. Trice was targeted, many of us signed the op-ed to support him and our LGBTQ+ community. We understand solidarity, but then when our community needs support, why does everyone look away, talk past us, and not even acknowledge our school's importance in making us feel visible and safe? Asian Americans have continuously been used as pawns to further someone else's agenda. Why must Glenwood now be a You can pass your comment to somebody else, but we've got other speakers tonight.

013Thank you. Hello, board members and Dr. Trace. My name is Katie Wauk. At the last meeting, board members assured us that whichever school closes, those children will be welcomed with open arms at under-enrolled schools across the district. I agree that this is exactly right for neighborhood schools. If a neighborhood school closes, those kids can walk into any school in our district and they will be welcomed. However, this is not the case for programs. Programs have not been welcomed by neighborhood schools in the past, and they are unlikely to be welcomed at neighborhood schools now. I ask the board to recognize that a vote to close Glenwood tonight is very likely a vote to end the Mandarin dual language in this district, even if no one intends it that way. 6 of our 12 dual language

014teachers have their own children enrolled in the world language program at Glenwood. Those dual language teachers will follow their children, not the dual language program, to wherever their kids are reassigned. Assigned. In the current political environment, you will not be able to replace those teachers given anti-immigrant policy shifts. This board has heard from families who will not follow the dual language program to a new school because what they enrolled in was not just a language. It was a school-wide culture built slowly and frankly not without friction since being, being integrated into a neighborhood school where many staff and families did not want it. That experience should inform what you think just move the program means in practice. Neighborhood school kids can be welcomed anywhere. A dual language program is not a kid. and it will

015not be received well. It will be received with hostility and tension. We know that from experience. Please vote tonight with clarity about what you are actually deciding. If your goal is to cause the least disruption to children, please look at the enrollment numbers of each school being considered for closure and close the school with the fewest number of children. That school is not Glenwood. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Audrey and the parent of two Glenwood students. If the district leadership believes Glenwood can be closed and its programs can be separated, this reflects a profound blind spot. Those closest to and a part of Glenwood have been clear: separation would dismantle the, the culture, safety, and identity-affirming environment that makes Glenwood successful. It would also weaken one of the district's

016strongest enrollment drivers and accelerate already declining enrollment. Yet those inside have been discounted in favor of theoretical models that do not reflect the lived reality. If you close Glenwood and move 200 Asian and mostly minority students into another school, displacing current students and staff to make room for Glenwood, what do you think will happen? Those existing students will lose their friends. Those teachers will lose their colleagues to create room for Glenwood. They don't want this. And our students will enter as outsiders. And as racial minorities. How do you expect this will go? Here's the painful truth about how it will go. If you splint Glenwood, we and we keep our 6-year-old in the dual language program before she ever walks into the halls of her new school, we have to prepare her for how to

017respond when another child says to her, "Go back to where you came from." This is the cost for Glenwood. We don't have our neighborhoods. We don't have our baseball teams. We don't have our gymnastic classes. We don't even have our neighborhood schools. We have Glenwood. The cost this is the cost for Glenwood, and it is a cost that our children should not have to bear. So when I hear the claim that closing Glenwood would be the least disruptive, I wonder, is it perceived as the least disruptive because this community is expecting the Asian community to act as the model minority and absorb the disruption and stay quiet and carry the burden of this decision? I wonder. Thank you. Good evening. I'm going to read excerpts from a statement written by Glenwood Mothers and signed by

018over 400 Glenwood families and supporters. In an increasingly global world, Glenwood's unique blend of Mandarin immersion cultural learning and STEAM II education attracts families from across the state and beyond to move to the CHCCS district. Many families moved to Chapel Hill specifically because this program exists, including my family. Glenwood's success is not accidental. Nearly a decade ago, district leaders faced many of the same challenges they are discussing today. After extensive planning and community input, the board made a strategic decision to expand Mandarin dual language into the school-wide STEAM II magnet program with a world language option to maximize the impact of specialized staff and resources, attract families to the district, and create a school where language, culture, and innovation reinforced one another. By every measure, that vision has succeeded. Glenwood is one of the few

019safe places in the CHCCS district where Chinese language and culture are visibly celebrated and woven into daily school life. Glenwood is a unique environment where the entire community is committed to learning more about a culture that is often discriminated against and vilified. It teaches all students to participate in meaningful cross-cultural dialogue with those from differing backgrounds. The DLI and world language tracks of the STEAM II program are two sides of one coin. Split the STEAM II program and you don't have two half Glenwoods. You lose the synergy and integration that makes the entire school successful. Once dismantled, its unique sense of community will not be easily rebuilt. In addition, the district should consider the long-term consequences of diluting programs that families see as one of the few spaces in CHCCS where they feel fully welcomed

020and represented. Therefore, as parents, teachers, and supporters of Glenwood, we respectfully ask that Glenwood be preserved as a complete school community. Thank you. Thank you. Xavier. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Good evening, my name is Xavier Zhao, and I'm a second grade dual language Mandarin, dual language student at Glenwood Elementary School. I want to ask you not to close my school. When I started kindergarten, I spoke very little English. Glenwood helped me learn English and continue learning Mandarin and make friends. My teachers helped me grow, and now I can speak to you in both English and Chinese. In this year, I helped host the 2nd and 3rd grade Lunar New Year celebration in both Chinese and English. I also participated in the 3rd American Chinese Picture Book Reading Contest. These experiences made me feel proud and make me

021want to do more public speaking in both Chinese and English. Glenwood is important to me because I have teachers who help me, friends I know, and a school community where I feel I belong. Glenwood is my second home. It's where I learned English, kept learning Mandarin, made friends, and became brave enough to speak both languages. If Glenwood closes, many kids like me will have to leave the school, teachers, friends, and routines that are important to us. That will make me feel very sad and worried. I know adults have to make hard decisions, but I hope you remember that this decision is not only about buildings or money. It's about kids, teachers, families, languages, and our school community. Please do not close Glenwood. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Good evening. My name is Sarah Abrahams. Throughout this process,

022the community has been asked to accept that school closure is necessary, but the justification for closure has quietly shifted from enrollment to finances to a change in strategic vision. The urgency of this matter deserves scrutiny. Not as a denial of the real pressures at hand, but because the permanence of closure demands a level of rigor and a clear public rationale than we have received. This is evidenced by the district's approach to other consequential decisions. In the new digital learning plan, the district is beginning a 3-year phase-out of the K-1 iPad use. Yet on school closure, the district is moving toward a final decision only months after, after only months of formal evaluation. This feels as though it is an inversion of urgency. During this process, community distress has often been treated as something to be

023managed rather than something to be evaluated. Families have been told that change is difficult and that people will adapt. And while this may be true, it does not answer the more important question: whether the loss being imposed is actually necessary. Community distress is not evidence that the closure process has been appropriate or the result of courageous leadership. Distress is evidence of harm. Has this harm been justified? Has the burden been distributed fairly? Have alternatives been exhausted? More importantly, has the community actually agreed upon the future vision that this decision appears to advance? This district has not yet developed, debated, or adopted the next strategic plan. Closing one of 11 district elementaries means that the broad vision of newer, fewer schools may already be functionally operating without yet having been examined. Additionally, the concept of newer,

024fewer schools is not self-evidently aligned with the values that have made this district desirable and a model for others. We have excelled because of our commitment to inclusion, academics, distinctive school communities, and public trust built over time. If you're moving toward a different model, please, the vision deserves its own public conversation. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Laurel Babwa Brennan, blue shirt. I want to acknowledge the real damage of this process, literally pitting neighbor against neighbor and school against school, and I just hope there's thoughtful repair moving forward, and I'm sad for whoever gets bad news tonight. But I also want to say that belonging, identity, and community is important for all students It's not only found in dual language programs, and celebrating identity isn't limited to lottery spaces. Students of all different backgrounds deserve this and find

025it at Sewall, and our community shouldn't be treated as expendable or less than. What we have at Sewall is hard-earned, and it operates without a label or specialized programming. It's friends teaching friends how to say hello in more than 7 languages in my daughter's first grade class. It's learning sign language and dances from Mexico. In India in gym class. It's celebrating nearly 20 cultures and countries during our yearly Global Traditions Night where students get to show off their home culture and share it with friends. Our value isn't visible in op-eds or on NPR, but you see it when a family needs winter clothes or a bed and Seahawks Helping Seahawks responds immediately. That's a program that we have. When teachers volunteer their time and personal resources so every kid has transportation to the school dance.

026Where every child leaves the book fair with a free book. Our students literally walk in each other's shoes. They share communal rain boots to go visit Critter Corner. And if Sewall closes, our students have no opportunity to move together as intact groups. Their community is lost. And if, as you make this difficult decision tonight, I ask you to choose the option that's fair, strategic, and the least disruptive to the most students. We're not all here tonight, but that doesn't mean that we don't care or that our students don't matter. Tomorrow morning they'll all be in school regardless of this decision, learning and supporting each other. And the decision you make tonight affects Sewell students just as much as any other student in this district. Sewell's community is not expendable. Megan. Hi, I'm the parent of

027two Glenwood world language students. I wanted to speak to the fact that redistricting world language students to various schools and providing some type of weekly Mandarin lesson would not be the equivalent of the education my children currently receive at Glenwood. Aside from the fact that Glenwood is comprised of the most amazing staff I've encountered in my 17 years working in the field of education, we chose Glenwood for the whole package of programming provided. My kids learn Mandarin language and culture. They participate in community building events that promote all cultures represented at Glenwood, including displays at Culture Night from Poland, Catalonia, Tahiti, Egypt, Bolivia, and more. They also receive specialized STEAM programming from the district's only dedicated elementary school STEAM teacher. My daughter has chronic health conditions that require her to attend regular specialist visits, unfortunately

028sometimes during school hours. She hates to go to these appointments, but she always says, "Mom, just don't schedule them during STEAM class." The things Dr. Force is doing are incredible, and having a daughter who's fired up about science and math and sees herself as a capable investigator is invaluable. I understand the data about enrollment numbers. I understand what may look like the easiest choice, but as a parent, I feel I was given a choice by Chapel Hill Schools. I made that choice for my kids, and now that choice is potentially being taken away. My spouse works in Durham and has begged for years to move closer to work to reduce his commute and our taxes. I resisted because the Glenwood community was the best place for our family. However, now I find myself filling out

029charter and private school applications and sending in paperwork to renew my teaching license that in the event my educational choice is removed, I have options for my children. Although I only have two kids, I think you'll find many families from Glenwood will be making the same hard decisions and plans, and this may not be the enrollment fix that you hoped. Our numbers show that programs like the one at Glenwood are desirable, and what families value in education will ultimately determine the fate of the district. If I could choose, I would make the same choice again for my kids to stay at Glenwood with the whole program intact. Glenwood is in fact school goals, a carefully crafted master class of diversity, educational excellence, and care for student wellness and joy that the district should quite honestly

030be seeking to replicate and not dismantle. Thank you for your time. [APPLAUSE] Thank you, Sophia. My name is Sophia McIntyre. I'm a 5th grader at Carver Elementary School. Technology should be intentional, limited, transparent, and genuinely useful. It should not be adopted by default. We children should come first ahead of corporate interests. Our school policy should be grounded in, in independent research, public accountability, and developmentally appropriate practice. The following is from the Students' Technology Bill of Rights, which I will read along with Luke, who is following me. I have the right to an education that is as good as or better than that of the generation before me. The nature of my education should not change rapidly in response to trends, but rather should equip me with skills like problem solving, resilience, attention, and creativity. I

031have the right to modes and methods of learning that have been proven effective before their introduction to the classroom. I have the right not to serve as a guinea pig, beta tester, or model trainer, unless I want to be a guinea pig, because honestly, they're very cute. I have the right I have the right to read whole books over the course of my entire K-12 education. I have the right to regularly read and write on paper. I have a right to be fully informed of vendor data practices in terms I can understand. I have the right to protect my personal information from being packaged, sold, or leaked by vendors without withholding my consent. I have the right to protect my physical and mental health by limiting exposure to screen-based technologies that may cause harm, sleep

032disruption, anxiety, and depression. I have the right to be shielded from online contact of a sexual or violent nature and from communication with those who could harm me. I have the right to a learning environment that is free from undue corporate influence. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] I have the right to a low stimulation learning environment that fosters deep thinking, attention, and focus. I have the right to full screen periods including recess, PE, and lunch. My social experiences cannot be limited to the digital sphere. I have the right to defend my own output from theft and misuse. My work cannot be fed to LLMs without my consent, nor I can I be compelled to use AI. I have the right to learning that is embodied, experiential, and social in accordance with pediatric recommendations for my age group.

033I have the right to access and review on my own educational records. Including materials, assessments, and assessments owned by, by ed tech companies. I have the right to experience failure, difficulty, and struggle. I have the right to be held to high standards and to be pushed beyond my comfort zone. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Jordan Good evening, my name is Jordan. Good evening, my name is Jordan and I am 8 years old and in 3rd grade. I am here to talk to you about iReady, a math computer program that we use at school. Every day at school I spend up to an hour staring at a screen working on iReady math. Because I figured out how to trick the program, iReady has me doing 6th grade math. But here's the problem. I don't actually understand

034all of it. IReady keeps moving me forward to harder and harder lessons even when I get a lot of the answers wrong. It doesn't ever actually stop to teach me how to solve the problems. When I get stuck on advanced math, it makes me feel confused. It takes so long to finish each lesson. I don't want to skip ahead to middle school math on a computer. I want to fully understand third grade math right now in my classroom. According to my Chromebook screen time report, I spend an average of 29 hours a month on my device at school. That includes time working on iReady, FRAX, and Reflex, which are also math computer programs. I would much rather learn math from my fantastic teacher so that I can ask questions and really learn the concepts. I

035think students should spend less time on computer screens and more time learning from our amazing teachers. Thank you for listening to me tonight. Francis. Francis. Francis. Hello, I'm Francis Santana. I'm here to talk to you about technology in school. I'm a current student at Carrboro High School. I wanna cut to the chase. I've been trapped in a glowing glass prison since I received a Chromebook. Before that, we had iPads. It feels like educators are losing sight of what learning needs. To research, you don't need the internet. You need learning material, if that's books, files, professional opinions, et cetera. If it were up to me, instead of Chromebooks, school would spend money on books and other materials for research. You ought to see the library at my school. It takes you a hot second to find

036a book, and once you do, it's not likely to replace any sort of Chromebook. Grades should reflect comprehension. If you want if you want school to be a place of learning instead of endless gamified assignments, there needs to be a change. We need more in-person, hands-on learning. No more repetitive, unhelpful, mandatory IXLs or anything else that only helps a few students. I interviewed a few of my friends to get a second opinion. My friend Daisy said this. I think that schools aren't fully taking advantage of finding ways to use technology that really help people learn. Learning without technology can still be good. There are good skills outside of technology. My friend Tati commented this. I think the websites that are blocked are really random. Like one time I was doing a research project on national

037parks and I tried to research Angola, but it was blocked and I had to switch national parks because all the sources were blocked. My friend Tomo had this complaint. A lot of useful websites are blocked and it impedes my ability to gain knowledge. When asked about IXL, Tomo responded. IXL is the most stupidest platform to ever exist. It takes away my time and instead of teaching me stuff, it makes me stressed out. I really don't think it's a great platform to use for any subject, especially math, because you already have to know how the math works to do the IXLs. Daisy said this about IXL. Well, I think that it is a program that can help some people, but it can also add a lot of stress if it's not helping, because I think there's

038a lot of different learning styles in people and not everybody can be helped in one program. Taji said this. I hate IXL. I will say that as much as I don't want to admit it, it has been useful when I had to study for a test and I didn't know what to do. I just wish that every time you get something wrong, they wouldn't take your points. It makes me feel so defeated. I don't want to do Freckle, IReady, I don't want to do IXL, I don't want to do any math thing ever. They keep finding new ones. Like, stop, we're okay. Who asked for that? A luma commented this: We need more books. There's barely any books. It covers like a corner of the library. All in all, every student has different needs and

039wants. We all could be helped by better learning strategies and more offline learning. I hope you realize that you hold the fate of thousands of desperate students, learners, teachers, and makers in your hands. Thank you for listening. Good evening, and thank you for allowing me to share thoughts on the digital learning plan. My name is Johanna Foster, and I am the mother of an 8th and 11th grader, as well as a trained teacher who worked for many years as a middle school teacher. I hold a BA in education as well as a master's. Tonight I want to speak as an assistant dean for academic affairs at a professional school at a local university and share the observations of faculty members who receive students from our state's K-12 systems including our own district. Faculty members and

040I have observed students entering a highly selective university who struggle to write cohesively. In fact, many struggle to physically write at all now that the university has readopted the use of blue books due to the advent of AI. Additionally, we have observed that it is challenging for these university students to persist with long passages of reading or to show their intermediate steps to solve a math problem. Based on my children's experiences in this district, it is not unreasonable to draw a connection between the extent to which K-12 education has outsourced teaching and learning to technology and the lack of skills we observe in students at the post-secondary level. My goal in sharing the higher education perspective is to link it to one of the 5 pillars of the district's digital learning plan, which is instruction

041first, grounded in pedagogical best practices. If you are an educator like me, you know one of the most fundamental concepts in education is scaffolding, which is providing instruction in a way that prepares students for the next level of challenge. And for many of our students, that next level of challenge will be a post-secondary destination. If one of the key priorities of this district is indeed instructional excellence preparing students for life, then I urge you as stewards of our children's futures to ground your decision-making for the use of technology based on tried and true educational best practices and the evidence produced by recent research. Further, I ask you to transparently share these justifications, citing evidence, just as we trust other disciplines to do, be it medicine, public health, or social work. Thank you. Thank you, Molly.

042Hi, my name is Molly Worthen. I have a 5th grader at Carrboro Elementary, and I also teach history at UNC. I want to echo this point that we really are facing a crisis of failure of college readiness in our K-12 system as a result of this overdependence on screens, and I'm really seeing the consequences in my own classroom. At UNC, students are unprepared for the basic tasks of university, like reading long texts and writing about them, because they are doing less and less of this in middle and high school. We have our own Attention crisis, distraction on laptops and phones is a huge problem in our classes. I think because of the habits that are developing early. Screen addiction, we know, is also a huge part of the mental health crisis that we hear more

043and more about on college campuses. A recent analysis found a serious correlation between longer screen time and a higher risk of anxiety and depression. And that's true at the lower grades as well as at university. More and more faculty at UNC are banning devices entirely from our classes, although we always allow exceptions if students have an accessibility issue. What we find is that some students will grumble at first, but almost all of them come to find it a huge relief to have even just a single hour in a day to focus on one thing together. But we really need to have them start building these healthy attention habits earlier in K-12. Because of AI, more and more of us are switching to handwritten exams and in-class writing. Students struggle with this. Many cannot write a

044coherent paragraph of correct English prose. They have done so little long-form reading in their previous education that they have no ear for what a sentence should sound like. And this is really the core of what makes a good communicator, is just years upon years of the slow the work of reading and developing an ear for what language sounds like. We know that the reading they do is more and more done on screens. And the surveys tell us that this leads to bad comprehension. We are way too far downstream. We need your help. Thank you. Amelia. Hi, my name is Amelia. I have I'm a CHCCS alum and I have a current third grader at Glenwood. I also have a former Glenwooder and a hopefully future Glenwooder. I love this community and this district and have

045chosen it for my family. And so thank you so much for your service to the district. I know it's been said that this decision is about buildings, not schools or programs, but the stakes just feel higher for Glenwood because if it is closed and the World Language Program and the Mandarin Dual Language Program are separated, I feel that it would undoubtedly dilute and weaken each of those programs, and it would, would also break apart a truly nurturing learning environment for many Asian students in the district. One of the main reasons why Glenwood is so special to my family is that it's a place where my children have been seen for who they truly are as individuals and learners first. They have never been singled out as the only Asian. They have never been confused with

046other Asian kids in their class, and they have not been subject to Asian stereotypes. And I'm sad to say that this does happen to them in the broader Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. It was mentioned at the last meeting that schools have said that they would welcome any students or programs, and I just don't feel that reassured or confident that that would actually happen given the dynamics of having to push out students that attend that school to fit a program, and also given the opposition that the Mandarin Dual Language program has already received experienced in the past. I believe that this board truly cares about the well-being of the minority students in the district, and so I ask that you just deeply consider the points being made in regards to the Asian students at Glenwood. Thank you

047very much. Thank you. Susan. Yeah, thank you, Susan. Be careful. Good evening, I'm Susan Ingalls, and I am the proud grandmother of a Glenwood kindergartner whose mother also was a Glenwood kindergartner. The Glenwood and the programs there, the entirety of those programs, are a gem in this school system's crown. And this is an excellent school system. Y'all are doing a good job, and I urge you not to discard this gem that ideally prepares students for the world we live in. Thank you. Thank you. May. Thank you. Good evening. My name is May, and I have two boys at Glenwood Elementary. I am a first-generation immigrant. I grew up in Cupertino, California, where at the time of my childhood was roughly 40% Asian. Despite being surrounded by many families who look like mine, I was painfully

048aware that I was different from the majority of my classmates. I've heard board members recently express interest in growing the dual language program at another school or relocating us, and I want to make it clear that Glenwood's success is not simply the result of offering Mandarin instruction. It's because of the environment that's been intentionally built through having both tracks throughout the building. Students see Chinese culture celebrated, respected, and normalized. It is not viewed as something separate or unusual. It is a part of what defines the Glenwood community. If only the if the dual language track is moved to another program, you'll be taking a group of students who are learning a specific language, embracing a specific culture, and you will be placing them into a community where no one else is doing so. You will

049be highlighting their differences and in fact have turned the students into an other. Their differences in cultures and language, which is currently embraced and celebrated, will instead be the very things that make them feel isolated and self-conscious. Conscious. And this matters profoundly because developmentally, between the ages of 6 and 9 is when children begin measuring themselves against their peers. Their sense of belonging becomes deeply connected to social acceptance. Children who come from minority cultures do not need additional reminders that they are different. We see it around us every day. I grew up presenting my Chinese heritage, yet my children, growing up in a less diverse community than I did, are proud of theirs. They show off their Mandarin skills proudly and get excited to tell me the stories behind our traditions. The dual language track

050at Glenwood teaches more than just a second language to our children. It teaches them acceptance of their culture, acceptance of others, and acceptance of themselves. Fragmenting the program, separating our 400 students, will undermine this. Instead of being and will undermine this and will, instead of being a part of a school's culture, they will become distinctly apart from it. I respectfully ask that you keep Glenwood together and protect not just a language program but a place where children are Differences are strengths. Heritage is something to be celebrated. Who they are is something they should be proud of. Justin. Hi, my name is Justin Byron. I'm the parent of two Glenwood students. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but my impression is that because it was once a white-only school, or because other schools are favored for being closer

051to middle schools, or some other criteria, the board is planning to close Glenwood. Glenwood. I don't know what the justifications the board members are choosing because they decided not to publicly weight the criteria, which means any criteria can be prioritized. It's hard to believe that financials are the reason because one of the analyses showed that closing Glenwood would cost would cost $7 million more than closing one of the other schools. Since no one school can host 400 students, the plan would be to split this program in half with half going to one school and half going to another. That would be tearing apart a school where things are going well, where enrollment is high, where performance is high, where kids are learning, where things are going really well right now. This would be at a

052time when anti-Asian sentiment is increasing. This country has a problem with racism, obviously. There's a problem with anti-Black racism, with anti-Indian racism, with anti-Chinese racism. Right now, 63% of Asian Americans feel unsafe at least once daily. More than 25% of all Americans see Chinese Americans as a threat to this country. Closing Glenwood is closing one of the only safe places for these students, and I really encourage the board not to do so. Thank you. Here I come as a father of a kid in Glenwood Elementary, and tonight I'm asking you to pause before making a decision that the public may remember for a long time. Many Glenwood families came here, wrote to you, and spoke respectfully. We gave data, personal stories, concrete concerns. If the most organized, informed, and directly affected public comments are simply

053acknowledged and then ignored, the message to the families is very damaging, and it has consequences. It affects trust in this board. It affects whether families believed CHCCS listens before making major decisions. It affects whether families stay in public schools, and it affects how the community will remember this vote. The district's own studies does not score, weight, prioritize, recommend one school. So if you vote tonight to close Glenwood, the public deserves to hear your decision rule before you the vote, not after it. What matters most? Transportation, building condition, enrollment, environment, program impact, land value, legal constraints, and how are those factors being weighted. Glenwood is not just a building. It is integrated Mandarin dual language, world language, and STEAM to school community. Moving a program label is not the same as preserving the program. A real

054program is teachers, students, cultural logistics, and the trust built over many years. So please do not make this look like a decision made first and explained later. Together. This vote will not end tonight. It will become part of the public record, part of how families judge this board, and part of how this community decides whether CHCCS still listens to families. Thank you. Thank you. Elliot Davis and Brett. Good evening. My name is Elliot Proven. I'm currently a freshman at Chapel Hill High, and I'm speaking on behalf of Sewell Elementary The impact of Sewell goes beyond just its current students. I mean, it says something that I've never gone to Sewell myself, but I'm passionate enough to stand up here and talk about why it should stay open. Closing Sewell would affect my entire family. It

055would affect me. It would affect the balance of the schools being right next to each other Chapel Hill High and Sewell. I'm getting my driver's license next year, and it would prevent the opportunity I have to drive my little brothers to school every day, including Smith Middle School, where my brothers are going to go. similarly, my parents can drive the 3 of us to or from school without having to go all the way across town. Removing funding from Sewell would damage this balance, putting a lot more stress on families like me to figure out where to go. The impact of Sewall really affects more than just students. It affects a lot of my peers. It affects a lot of people I know. It affects a lot of parents and a lot of families, and that

056is why I think it should stay open. Thank you. My name is Davis and I'm a 5th grader at Sewall Elementary. I want schools to stay open for a few reasons. The first one is that you may know that Sewell has Critter Corner, which in my opinion is a unique and fun experience to take care of animals that many people might not have a chance to take care of otherwise. Sewell also has the Carolina North Forest nearby it, which means in PE class we can go out into the woods and walk or run and experience the woods. There's also fresh air when we walk to mention specials instead of hallways at a traditional school building, which is good for us because we get fresh air. Thank you. My name is Allison Proven. I'm here on

057behalf of Brett, our second grader at Sewell, who says what he loves about his school is that so many of his friends speak different languages and that this is the only elementary school he can ride his bike to, so he really values that outdoor element of the school. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, those were all the speakers who signed up in advance. Do we have anyone else who'd like to make a public comment at this time? If so, what I'm going to ask you to do, if you could, there's chairs on this front row over here, if you could just kind of sit in order. So Mary Beth, you're first, and Tiffany, and whoever's next, just have a seat in order. Chair Jenkins, are we doing public comment after the work sessions?

058There's no work session, so all the public comment is right now. Okay. My name is Mary Beth Roche. I'm a digital wellness educator and middle school parent. I want you to know that I am grateful for the steps that have been taken with the digital learning plan. I do see efforts have been made. It's just not enough. We need more and we need it now. Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest district in the country. Here are just a few of their new policies that will be in effect next year. No school-issued devices used during passing periods, lunch, and recess. Specific recommended and maximum screen time ranges by grade and/or subject. The elimination of school-issued devices for K-1. Grades 2-5 will use a shared cart model or computer labs. All curricula will include

059physical textbooks for all students. Student-led use of YouTube will be blocked, period. Parents and guardians will now consent and opt in to digital tools or applications, including AI platforms. Families can opt out of one-to-one devices up to high school with additional consent options and how to request limitations on screen use. Why is it that a school district with over half a million students can make these changes immediately, but we have to phase out iPads for our youngest and most vulnerable students? Closer to home, Granville County just announced how they are stepping up their plans for next year. Mondays and Tuesdays are tech-free K-12. Removing school-issued devices in grades K through 2. Students in grades 3 through 8 will not take their devices home. A task force for AI. And let's not forget our high school

060phone policies off and away all day. To quote Dr. Horvath, we are not anti-tech, we are pro- learning. Our kids need more. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tiffany Engler, and I'm the PTA president of Ephesus Elementary. Wow, I really hate this, us doing this Groundhog Day every couple weeks. I think we're all awesome. I love the idea of a Critter Corner, and I love folks that feel like they belong because people left and right look just like them. I absolutely love Ephesus, and I'm speaking today not only as a CHCCS community member but as someone who feels a deep responsibility for our school. Ephesus is what public education should be. We serve a diverse community economically and socially and every student and staff belongs. This is the kind of school CHCCS should want

061to preserve and model. Ephesus and anyone else in this room does not deserve to be a solution to problems it doesn't contribute to, such as dropping enrollment or funding. As a Title I school, it's a beacon of inclusion, academic excellence, and what public education should be for children. Closing Ephesus diminishes the value we all share. And preserving Ephesus isn't about one school over another. It's about ensuring all of us thrive. Ephesus is all of us. And thoughtful decisions lift the community. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi, my name is Katie Holland. I am a parent at Sewell Elementary and a parent representative on our CIT team. I don't have prepared remarks, so this will be quick, but I'll echo colleagues and neighbors from all three schools that it's incredibly difficult to show up yet

062again in our colored, you know, categories. We passed out chocolate to everyone. We care deeply about all three of these communities, and the way this has played out to create this type of environment on this day where a decision may be made is really hard. And so I'll start by saying I hope that the care that's taken moving forward from tonight is very intentional, and I hope that amongst these three school communities, as a decision is made, that we can come together. So a few closing thoughts related to Sewell specifically. Though our school doesn't have a specific label, we are not a dual language school, we are not a Title I school, our community matters. It doesn't have a label attached. It is as strong as any other labeled community, and in many ways perhaps

063stronger. Again, I hate that I have to do Sewell has the most multilingual learners of the 3 schools and is a highly diverse community. And we succeed and by we, our teachers succeed, our school staff succeed in supporting that, that diversity and being inclusive without the extra support that some of the other programs get across the district. Sewell has immense non-portable assets, which you heard some of our students speak about. My daughter, her favorite days are when she gets to go on nature walks, and they have access to that readily at Sewell. The Critter Corner, you've heard them all many, many times. The true value of co-location hasn't come up as much as it probably should, but it is irreplaceable. Thank you, and I hope we all move forward with care for each other. Thank

064you. Good evening. My name is Stanley Ray Hoffman. I'm here tonight as a grandfather. I moved here from New York City, and I'm flabbergasted. I used to work near Scarsdale, New York, which has a famous public school system. I'm truly flabbergasted that a rich community like Chapel Hill and Orange County has to close a school. It just blows my mind. There's all kinds of money that floats around this state, and if you could get those pigs in Raleigh to get off their butts, $56 million, maybe that would help. I came here as a retiree. I'm 75 now. I worked for Mercedes-Benz, Merrill Lynch. I came here, worked as a realtor for a while, retired in 2008. I'm a 15-year announcer with WCPE 87.9, 89.7 FM. I also do voice talent work for North Carolina Reading

065Service. We read for the blind. I'm also a 17-year Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools school bus driver. I love doing that job. All right! Come on now, you're embarrassing my granddaughter. I came when Mary Lynn Truelove was transportation and Steve Scroggs was assistant superintendent. I love the job, although people sometimes look at me funny and say, "Why do you drive a school bus?" And I look back at them and I say, "I have no idea." But unfortunately, I'm partially disabled due to driving some of these old 20-year-old half a million-mile buses. My back is really messed up. I can't do EMS paramedic. I can't ride a school bus anymore. So I got to hang out with this one. My granddaughter, Jolie, stand up straight, Jolie. Loves Ephesus Elementary. To adults, a school may look like a

066building, a budget line, or facility on a map. To a child, as you've all heard tonight, I'm very inspired by all these schools. I don't want any three of these schools to close. I'm really inspired by the Glenwood and Sewell people. I didn't come here just to say Ephesus, although Jolie turned 9 and she wants her little sister who just finished pre-K to come to Ephesus. Thank you, Stanley. Thank you, Darwin. Hi again. My name is Sarah Snyder, mom of 4. I just wanted to speak that I pulled my 6th grader's YouTube history last night from his device before he turned it in today, and I was going to try to print the PDF and it was 111 pages of watched YouTube videos during school because he doesn't have access at home because I luckily

067got educated by a friend that's in the house tonight on GoGuardian Parent early on. So I just want to say to the digital learning program or plan, like Mary Beth said, it's not enough. We need to block YouTube. Again, my brother is a software engineer for Google Classroom. He says it needs to happen at the district level. I mean, he could not agree more with the situation. It needs to happen at the district level. Please, please, why? What's the argument for children being able to watch YouTube? I understand educators may use it. The students do not need to have access. I also pulled the screen time reports, and I encourage everyone watching to email your tech facilitator or digital coach, as they're trying to switch over, to be called and for example, my second grader

068had between 5 and 8 hours per month of screen time use. That jumped in the fourth grade to 34 hours of screen time use per month and 45 hours per month in sixth grade and that's a lot because there are a lot of teacher workdays. So, you know, as someone who's working really hard on emotional regulation in my house all the time, It's very hard to do it when schools are giving devices and my kid is texting his friends in email form all day long. And again, they're in the Google documents writing notes to each other and then erasing them before the teachers see them. They are emailing proxy gaming sites. And I also don't think it's the teacher's responsibility to police this. I mean, they're underpaid. Anyway, thanks for listening yet again. We appreciate

069you. My name is John Easterbrook. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I wasn't going to speak tonight. I didn't prepare any notes because I've been so filled with despair all day, really. I have spoken to you many times about the digital learning plan. I've spoken to Bob Bales. I've done everything I could think of. My 7-year-old son is in first grade. On Monday, I picked him up from school and he was incredibly angry with me because on the walk home, it turned out he had been on eBay that day in school and he saw some things he wanted to buy and I wasn't going to buy it. And so I asked the principal about it and I asked his teacher about it and I'm told that this is an approved website for research. His

070classmates were on Reddit, Instagram, Facebook. I have tried to get a screen report. I emailed the tech team at the elementary school. I emailed the tech team here at the district. And because he uses an iPad, there's no GoGuardian on the iPad. The district has turned off the screen time app on all of the iPads. So I have no way of knowing what he's seeing, how often, to what degree. All I know is what I see when I volunteer, which is him on YouTube. Watching videos of men playing with Legos, or what other parents see when they're volunteering, or what I hear from him secondhand. I was told to stop asking about it. I don't know what else to do. The digital learning plan is too late for him. He's going to be in second

071grade next year, and it's just not enough. Do I move to Los Angeles? I don't like big cities. This is not what I expected. Thank you. Do we have anyone else who would like to make a public comment? All right. Thank you, everyone. The next item on the agenda is our consent agenda. May I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. A motion from Ronnie. Second. A second from Melinda. Do I need to state that I'm going to recuse myself now? Okay. So before we vote, I am actually going to recuse myself from voting on the consent agenda. So all those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Right, so it passes 6-0 with one recusal. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is our discussion

072and action. And our first item is the selection decision on the CHCCS Board of Education school closures. Based on the district administration study and the proposed closure of Ephesus, Glenwood, or Sewell Elementary Schools. Thank you, Mr. Sciarrocchi. So good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Trice, staff, and guests. Again, we return to you after you hosting a public hearing back on May 21st. We're here. Obviously, there's a decision before you to at least begin discussions. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. But there is no formal presentation this evening, knowing that we, as part of state statute, went through the public hearing at the last meeting. So at this point, I will turn it back over to you just to be able to open up any dialogue or points of

073clarification that you may need from myself or other staff members present this evening. So boardmembers, go ahead, Barb. I see you. I was going to ask you to stay there, Mr. Sciarrocchi, if that's okay. So I just said I do have a couple clarification questions. So we started thinking about this on March 5th, and right before, I think, the last meeting, we were told by you that we didn't think anymore that we had to close 2 schools, that we thought that would be an overcorrection, and that the most we should close is 1, right? And I just, I wanted to, just as a matter of level setting, just see where you are and where the board is and Dr. Trice is on just whether we should close any at all. I think we all I

074think we've discussed this and I think we all believe that we need to close one school, but I just, I thought that might be a place to start. And I guess maybe if you could start. Yes, ma'am, absolutely. So we began working with the Orange County's demographer, Carolina Demography, and looking at just holistically our spatialization and the numbers of students that we had currently. We gained that understanding of where over 1,500 students had left the district over the past 10 years, but we also wanted to gain insight of what were the trends moving forward, not only with enrollment projections but also with housing and many variables per se. I'll say an actuarial standpoint from Carolina Demography, they suggested that we would be able to look at 2 schools. But as part of the school closure

075diligence, one of the things and requirements is that you go through and you look at the capacity of your schools holistically Again, we're not looking at individual capacity, we're looking at district-wide elementary capacity, knowing that we're going to be embarking on redistricting. In doing so, part of that was to actually look at the level of educational adequacy within our elementary schools. And what we learned is many of our older schools lack the resource spaces, the MLL spaces, the calming spaces, the things that are integral to the instructional day and many school-centric things that each individual schools have. So we wanted to make sure that if we redistricted that we did not put more kids in our schools that would give our schools less flexibility. That's the program capacity model that school districts across the country

076utilize. So in doing our diligence, we determined that 2 schools appeared to be too, too many, and that 1 school would be sufficient based upon best practices for utilization percentages, but also the way that we are using our schools currently. So our recommendation to you is that it is not 2 schools, but that it is one school for your consideration. Go ahead, George. I have some finance questions I wanted to ask. Could we ask Mr. Scott to come up? Sure. Good evening. Thanks. Just in terms of the difficulty of making a decision doing this. Nobody wants to be doing this, obviously. But our financial situation, as a result of declining enrollment, we've got budget reduction problems and issues, teacher allotment issues. Well, we've discussed them all for 3 years now as we have faced this

077ongoing decline and reduction. And I just wanted to verify with you. We had a reduction in force 2.5 years ago, approximately, and laid off almost 120 staff. And if you would comment a little bit on the result of that. And then we had another reduction in force just recently, where the Superintendent identified 19 high-level key central office positions, and those were reduced. And if you could also comment on the effect of that. And as we sit here tonight, the bearer of bad news I am, we're not going to have our continuation budget funded at 100% by the county commissioners unless a miracle occurs between now and next week. And that's just the way it is. And that's going to mean, as we have done year after year, we're going to have to reduce even more

078of our budget as a result of that in order just to maintain where we are today. We're talking about maintenance, not about anything else. I say that, can you kind of just put this in a context? Because closing one school isn't going to solve our financial problem, but it's another important step in us making a good faith effort to keep as many of our programs and services and teachers on board and in place as we humanly can, because we're running out of other options. Can you... Sure, thank you. Sure, I can try. So I think everybody's heard me talk about our fund balance situation, and about 5 years ago the district had about 15% in local undesignated fund balance of expenditures. That was somewhere in the neighborhood of $16 million. Over the course of the

079pandemic, recovery and staff retention and recruitment issues and vacancy issues and combating the pandemic, you know, trying to mitigate that. The district very aggressively spent down its fund balance and found ourselves in fiscal year 2024 in a position where we'd spent down almost all of our fund balance and we had a significant structural deficit within our budget to the tune of about $5 million. Beginning in February of 2024, we began several tiers of reduction in force. The first was adopted, I think, in 2020. I may have my years wrong. I think it was 2024 that slowly began drawing down some staff. Then for fiscal year... I'm sorry, back it up, 2023. Throughout the course of fiscal year 2024-2025, there was a 3-tier reduction in force plan put in place. It was designed to get the

080district through that year pretty much in a revenue-neutral position where we would begin drawing down staff with the final reduction in force happening at the year end of June 30th, 2025. So we moved through fiscal year 2025 into pretty much a revenue-neutral position. We were able to add about $300,000 to fund balance. And that's when the third tier of the RIF took effect. Throughout the course of this year, we're actually in a much better financial position year to year than we were the year before. We just brought financial statements for the third quarter ended, and it looks like the District will probably end up in about a $5 million net positive position at the end of this year. Of course, we haven't passed, there hasn't been any raises for state budget that were part of

081the budget. So there's more to it. You know, we will begin to rebuild our fund balance based on that reduction in force. However, as we're looking forward into next year, the only real concept of a state budget that we have yet was one press conference. But we did begin Looking at those numbers that were indicated with the press conference and what they intend to pass with the state budget, and I will say that if the county manager's budget is adopted as presented without any of the amendments being adopted, which the county is actually voting on this evening, we're projecting that the majority of that $5 million that we have in surplus this year will be spent down to balance the budget next year. That's primarily because we have 3% raises budgeted for this year that

082we haven't, in fact, been able to apply yet. And the raises for next year that are being broadcast from the state, you know, they vary from 5% for teachers up to 17%, depending on years of experience, on average 8%, right? Our continuation budget last year was about a 3% increase. We're looking at right now the county manager is recommending a 2.5% increase for next year. You know, so we still have very significant financial headwinds. We're still in a position where our fund balance is not where it should be. I think you as a board had decided when we implemented some of the previous RIFs and some of the other levers that we've been pulling that it was a desire of the board to see that fund balance return to a level that would be adequate,

083you know, several months of operating cash in the bank. We're still not there. We are additionally, we're still losing students every year. Each one of those students is tied to a, you know, amount of money from the state that we're not going to receive next year. So we're pulling multiple levers, you know, trying to mitigate the damage from the budget. Still a tremendous amount of uncertainty going into next year. So I don't think we're quite out of the woods yet, which is why, you know, we've looked at this multi-pronged approach to trying to get the budget back into the shape that it needs to be, not only for, you know, year to year, but looking out strategically for the next 3 to 5 years to, one, replenish the fund balance to where it needs to

084be. And also offer a pivot to reimagine the district and be able to begin to reward our highly talented staff. Thank you. Could I ask Mr. Sciarrocchi to step back up there? Sure. I wanted to clarify what you said about consolidation and vacant seats, because we got into this not just because of trying to save money or repair costs of old buildings or declining enrollment all of a sudden. 3 years ago, it was recommended that we consolidate elementary schools because we had a surplus of seats. And I believe the number in the report that I've seen, but I know the numbers, you always caution us, don't believe the number you see. We have enough vacant seats to fill 2 or 3 elementary schools. Is that correct right now in our elementary schools? Like 1,500 seats,

0851,400 empty seats? Yeah, I would just give an approximation that if the average size of a school, say, was 500, we have enough vacant seats that exceed about 1,100 students. And that's been happening year after year after year for a number of years. That is correct. It happened before. The trend started before the pandemic is what the demographer shared with with us and the board. That has been continuing. The news that came from the report this year is that the level of decline is still declining and predicted to decline over the next 10 years. It's just that the decline has slowed down, meaning when you look at the projections, the decline right now is continuing for projected for the next 5 years. But over a 10-year period, most of our schools, if they were declining,

086I'll just use an example, if they declined 100 kids between now and the next 5 years 6 through 10, they're only predicted to lose maybe 10 students, or they may gain 3. So the demographer came back and said, hey, based upon ground-truthing of what recently has been approved, that's actually approved and on the books for future developments, primarily in the northeastern quadrant of our school district, they just said the decline is slowing down, but it is still declining. And they will tell us that today. It's not as if we have hit a neutral zone, it is still declining. And again, we have to monitor that year to year. And again, demographer has told us that as well. They feel pretty confident until there is something major that changes that trend, you know, and that takes

0875 years from when that time occurs for when the child might be coming into our schools as an elementary student, 4 years as a pre-K. So we still have that time. So that's why that prediction, the demographers NC State has said that as well. 5 years is pretty true until something happens that creates that pivot, either locally, state, national, international, so for something to change. Thank you. Any other questions or comments, boardmembers? No? Go ahead, Meredith. I kind of asked this last at the public hearing, but just for the benefit of the public, can you walk us through a little bit about, like, what's going to happen immediately following a decision for closure and, like, what people can expect, like, in terms of approximate timeline, like, when they're going to find out kind of what's

088going to happen next, how that process will unfold? Yeah. We actually have a slide that we can show. Obviously, it's pending a decision made by you as a board. But this is something that we put in the deck. Once a decision is made. So what I'll say here is what I want to share is still pending the ultimate decision that is made. But ultimately, our goal, we're targeting to implement redistricting fall of '27, which means that there's a lot of work that's going to occur fall of '26. Meaning and I will say, you asked that at the previous hearing, what's a target for when parents or the community, a decision will be made by you so that everyone knows where they're going to be going. And we said our target is December of '26, knowing

089that it may carry over into January. But in order to be able to get the work done between your decision, there's a lot of routing, a lot of student, school transitions, staff transition, things that have to happen. You need a good 6 months, a solid 6 months of work in able to do that. So with that being said, the first thing that would happen, you know, if you look at this chart here Spring, summer of '26, you know, we've done our program capacity analysis. We're looking at our portfolio and then the closure study. Obviously, a decision has to come from that. Once a decision is made, we will start looking at the student geolocation, the planning units. That's more of a graphical interface type of logistical piece, but it's where you actually identify where all

090of your students are and you start doing the analytical side with the demographers. But also in this summer, you know, we would begin to identify community priorities. Ultimately, there will be development of an advisory committee that would have representation from all of our elementary schools and other groups as you as a board determine. We would gather stakeholder feedback and then ultimately in early fall, we will be working with you to develop whatever your goals and objectives are. Because you got to set the boundaries and the rules on the front end, even when it comes to how redistricting is actually going to be implemented and what policies are in play for that. You want to do all of that on the front end so that everyone is going in eyes wide open with that. After which,

091you then start creating a consensus-based rubric because what the demographer is going to do is in the mid-fall, once they hear community input from scenarios that ultimately are created, there's feedback from the advisory committee, from you as a board. All of that is going to be quantitatively based. They're not going to enter into, I'll say, the qualitative or I'll say the political lens, if you want to call it. They're going to look strictly at what is the most efficient way. And then ultimately, there will be scenarios that are presented and be able to evaluate those impacts. But ultimately, I put here winter of '26. Meaning December of '26, target-wise, that we would present recommendations, you as a board would deliberate, and then ultimately there would be a reassignment decision at that point. And then that

0926-month piece that I talked about, which, you know, could stretch to about 6 to 8 months in August, that's where we start our communication, our routing, our student transition process is happening from the day that the decision is made, as well as new boundaries. That would begin in the fall of '27. So it's kind of a timeline, but the touchpoints are really for you as a board. First thing you got to do is you got to establish your values and goals. You got to review the boundary scenarios, and then ultimately you make the approval. But for our community, there would be advisory committees, community feedback sessions, and then public review of those recommendations. So those are the big touchpoints that people can expect, but a lot of that work's going to happen this fall. Thank

093you. Go ahead, Barb. Dr. Tice, I was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit, like at a more granular level. And specifically, there were some comments tonight, and we've gotten an email and in prior meetings about parents being concerned about their students being accepted in whatever new school they would end up in. And I know that you have some ideas about specifics about ways to kind of really build community, because I think all of us would be troubled to hear that what some people are worried about would come true. And so could you just talk about what you want to do to prevent that? Yeah, certainly. First, to acknowledge those concerns are real, and as many parents have suggested, those are concerns that we have some experience with previous redistrictings in our

094community. But, you know, knowing that those are possibilities, you know, when a decision is made, I think it's important for the adults in sending schools, receiving schools, to be intentional about establishing a community. If a decision is made to, you know, close a school, certainly, you know, the culture, the history of that school, we'll need to kind of remember. We want to certainly identify, you know, the parts of that school that, you know, we want to transition to the new school but that's not easy, if you don't talk about it, if you don't talk through it. And so, Mr. Sciarrocchi talked about an advisory committee, and that's fine, that's good for redistricting but on a more granular level, we have to be able to bring communities together and build community. If you think about PTAs,

095SITs, and What are we going to do with all of those things? Like, it's a bunch of adults coming together to say we want what's best for our kids, and part of that is, you know, not being racist toward each other, you know. Like, we need to plan for that because, you know, when there's a huge decision that kind of impacts us, you know, sometimes the best of us doesn't, you know, just doesn't show up, right? And so I think a pivot toward that type of engagement needs to happen ASAP, perhaps even before a lot of the logistics get started. Again, I just want to acknowledge where parents are and, you know, what, you know, they've expressed concerns about. I'm concerned about it as well, having experienced it, you know, what is it, 14, 15

096years ago. I mean, I saw it for myself and At that time, I think we could have done more, but kind of going into this process, that's one commitment that I have that I think I've, you know, shared with board members individually. Thank you. Boardmembers, any other comments or questions? Go ahead. I have a few comments. First of all, I would like to express... A lot of parents and family members. I mean, and community members have used the comment that I said as a means of saying that's a reason that I would want to close Glenwood if that was to come to happen, that it was the school, the only school left in the district that was built to only teach white children. Two things can be true. I did say that because it's a

097fact. I didn't say that because that's a reason to close Glenwood. I said that that was something that our community needed to know because that's our history. And I said that if you're in a building in which you're wanting to know about the culture and the history of the community in which you are located, then that's something you should might want to know. So that's why I said that, and I stand by it because it's the truth. It is the last building in which a school that was built that we have that was only built to educate white children. But to say that I said that as a reason to close the school, I did not. So I wanted to clarify that because I've heard many parents saying that that is what I said, and

098that is not what I said. I stand by what I said, which is a fact. It is in fact the only elementary school we still have open that was built to educate white children in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. That is what I said, and that is the truth. I also would like to say that we are in a very difficult situation, and I have heard and I'm gonna just ask everybody, get comfortable being uncomfortable for a minute. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that I have heard a lot of white faces talk to me about what discrimination looks like or what it feels to not understand when someone looks at you different or think that you don't belong or have your children deserve to be in a safe space, or if you're not in

099this particular building, your children aren't safe in a community where we want everybody to feel safe. Excuse me, unless I all of a sudden disappeared, my face is black. My face does not look like everyone's in here. Some of our faces are brown. Some of them are white, but let me be clear. I have most certainly walked the halls in this school district and been in places where I may not have felt safe because I look different. I have been in the classrooms where I was the only black child and may have only been one Latinx child or one Asian child. So I know what that feels like, but to say that if they didn't find enough of the people that looked like me to bring us back to the private prior Northside Elementary or

100Lincoln Center to open back up from segregation, which was the last time we closed the school, would be to say that we're not going to accept the fact that it is far time to pull the rug back and know that Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools needs to stop pretending that you're not racist to some degree. If we don't tell our children to teach each other differently, they don't know. Children aren't born treating each other differently. If we're trying to raise global citizens, it is our responsibility to teach children to the best of our ability all the languages that we can teach them, all the cultures that we can teach them. If English and Chinese are the highest spoken languages, and the third would be Spanish and the fourth would be French, all of those are offered

101in this district, what culture should be rated any less than the other one? I beg to differ. It is our responsibility to teach all the cultures. Lunar New Year is important. Juneteenth is important. Asian community, Latinx Heritage Month, all of it is important. And it's our job to make all of our children feel safe, seen, elevated, and educated to the best of our ability. So I do not appreciate anyone saying that I think any less of any minority versus the other. And if you think any minority is any less than you are, then you look in the mirror and check yourself, because that is not what I do when I'm sitting in this seat. When I sit in this seat, I expect that I'm trying to hold us all to the level and the expectation

102to do the best by all of our children. And if that's not what you want to do when you moved here, think about the children who were born here historically, generationally, who had to leave because they couldn't afford to stay when you decided to choose Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and move here. Some people who have been here for decades had to leave. Maybe that's why your child has a spot. So how do you feel about that? Is your child worthy, any more worthy to go to school here than the children that have been here generationally and help build this town? I beg to differ. So until we're ready to accept the fact that all things are not just, all things are not equitable, all things are not equal, and work towards it and be real

103about it, we're going to have a problem. Thank you, Vicki. Any other board members have comments? Okay, board members, this is a discussion and action item, and so we do have a motion as part of this item, and so I will entertain a motion from the board. If a boardmember has it, go ahead, Barb. I mean, I do just want to say that, you know, I appreciate your comments about the people in Raleigh. I won't repeat the name that you called them, but I mean, we are here because of a systematic underfunding of public education and at every single level of government. Our staff have made heroic efforts to do what they can, and no one is excited about what we're deciding to do tonight. But I think we all ran, got elected, and our

104job is to make hard decisions. And so I wrote this down. So having reviewed the study on the proposed closure of Ephesus, Glenwood, and Sewell, met with constituents including families from all three schools, conferring with the PTA council, talking with staff, In listening to public comment over the course of multiple meetings since we commenced this project process on March 5th of this year, I believe the most logical school building to close is Glenwood Elementary. Closing either of the two other schools would result in significant additional transportation costs. Moreover, I'm appreciative of Carolina Demography and our staff for getting up-to-date and ground truth information on new housing projected to be appropriate and to serve a significant number of school-age families in the area closest to Ephesus, and we did not know that when we started this

105process. And so I believe that because Glenwood is a magnet school without a defined general geographical boundary, closing that school would result in less student and staff displacement than the other two options. I do want to say to the families and staff of Glenwood, I understand that you, as much as any school defined by a neighborhood boundary, are a community. And my motion today is motivated heavily by the fact that I trust our district leadership's repeated commitment to maintain a dual language and world language Mandarin track regardless of physical infrastructure that will have the capacity to replicate the successes achieved in your school to date. So, that is my motion. Do we have a second? I second that. Second from George. I have some remarks that I'd like to read. This is a really hard

106decision, and so I wrote down some thoughts so I make sure I don't miss anything. But I just want to start with saying any closure decision of this magnitude affects real people. We see you, we hear you, we understand the intensity of the emotion that you're experiencing around this decision. I want to start with a huge thank you to administration for all the information you've provided. You have answered numerous questions. You have done research. You have informed us really capably along the way. I want to thank you all, to the public who've written emails, made public comments. You've done your own analysis, and you've shown your care for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community as a whole. This was never going to be easy. Like, I am hearing the Glenwood stories of the Lunar New Year celebrations

107with great appreciation. I'm hearing the Sewell Critter Corner experience. I'm hearing the Ephesus community strength and cohesion, and it just reminds me again how lucky we are to have the gems we have, as someone described it earlier, in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City's crown. So weighing this difficult decision is not about the wonderful things that make each school special. It is a very practical consideration about the financial costs that minimize Additional cost and student movement. I echo Barb's comments in the magnet school operating within this transportation-dependent model. While the two neighborhood schools are centered in areas where proximity and walk zone access reduces the need for district transportation, closing a neighborhood school would create new and ongoing busing costs for students who currently have local access. And for that reason, closing the magnet school feels like the

108most practical option, and those costs will only continue to grow as we look at development planned in the local communities. I hear that this transition brings real concern, especially when it touches on something as important as feeling safe, seen, heard, and valued as a school community. And I think we see diverse students in schools across all of our schools in this district thriving and making meaningful contributions to their school communities. And so as we move to a new chapter, it will be important that we approach one another with empathy and we recognize the shared responsibility we have to create a welcoming community. And building that kind of community will ask us to stretch. It again won't be easy all the time. It will ask us to learn and it will ask us to come together

109in new ways. And I also want to be clear that our commitment to the fact it's students and families remain strong, and I have a strong interest in ensuring that the Mandarin program has what it needs to be continue to be successful. And so part of my support for this vote is to ask administration to consider redistricting in a way that preserves our commitment to the programs. It is not clear how we might be able to preserve both the dual language and world language in the same building, but I would like to explore what that could look like. I guess that's the end of my remarks. Thank you. Go ahead, Meredith. I also had some remarks prepared. Tonight, I will unfortunately be voting to close Glenwood Elementary School as well. I want to begin by

110acknowledging all of the emotions surrounding this decision for the students, families, staff and alumni who love Glenwood. I recognize that this is painful. Glenwood is a special, innovative school with a dedicated staff, a strong culture, and programs that have positively impacted many children. And on a personal note, including my own two nieces. So I may not have had my own children there, but my two beloved nieces both went to Glenwood K-5, and so I know a lot about the program through them. Nothing about my vote should be interpreted as a value judgment on the school, its staff, or its students. From the beginning of this process, I have consistently said the decision is fundamentally about finances and the long-term sustainability of our district. As we've discussed ad nauseam tonight, CHCCS is facing declining enrollment, substantial

111underutilization of elementary school capacity, and the resulting loss of state funding that comes with fewer students. Simply put, we have more elementary seats than we need, even when future housing development is considered. Continuing to operate buildings that are not fully utilized diverts resources away from the work that matters most. Supporting students and staff and investing in innovative programs that will keep our district strong in the years ahead. The data make clear that maintaining every school in our current portfolio is not sustainable over the long term. After reviewing the closure study and listening to community feedback, I have concluded that Glenwood is the school where closure creates the least disruption for the district as a whole. One factor in that decision is geography. Glenwood is somewhat unique among our elementary schools in that it is not

112located in the center of a large residential attendance area. While every school serves an important community, Glenwood's location creates fewer challenges from a district-wide planning perspective. A second factor is Glenwood's status as a magnet school. No school closure occurs without disruption, and I do not want to minimize the uncertainty that Glenwood families and staff are experiencing. However, because Glenwood serves students from across the district rather than from a single attendance zone, its closure can be accomplished with less widespread redistricting impact and transportation costs than would likely occur if we closed a districted school. Given that we will already be undertaking broader elementary redistricting work, I believe selecting Glenwood minimizes the number of families who would experience multiple layers of disruption. I also want to be clear that this vote is not the end of the

113conversation. It is the beginning of the next phase of planning. As we move forward, I encourage district administration to carefully evaluate placement options for Glenwood students and programs including opportunities to keep existing cohorts together and to seek meaningful input from families, students, and staff. I would also encourage families and staff at the rest of our elementary schools to please be empathetic and welcome all of Glenwood students when the time comes. School closure decisions are among the most difficult responsibilities of a board member. My obligation is to consider not only one school community, but the long-term health of the entire district. After weighing the information and listening to stakeholders, I believe this decision best positions our district to remain financially stable, educationally strong, and be able to serve students well into our future. I appreciate everyone

114taking the time to participate in this process and sharing their perspectives. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Melinda. And I also prepared some remarks. All of us up here have the privilege to be the stewards of some truly special schools, but we also hold a great responsibility to these schools as well. We could choose to take the easy road tonight, the one that doesn't make anyone upset or result in even more angry emails, but that's not what we are elected to do. We were elected to make hard choices, the ones that reside within shades of gray, the choices that don't magically appear within reports or reams of data. We can't use AI to save us from this. We have to be the decision makers, and delaying this decision will serve no one. I appreciate all

115the input we've received from the community. I know how lucky we are to have a community that is so invested in our school system. I also know that we can't allow the loudest voices to make the decisions for us. When I look at the criteria, the one that speaks loudest to me is the issue of hardship for our students. If we were to shut down a neighborhood school, that community is effectively wiped out. The students would not follow their teachers or a program. But if we shut down a program school, we can minimize the hardship. We can move the various programs into schools that have lots of empty seats. Students in many cases can follow their teachers and their program and hope that community can work to stay intact. I know that many in the

116Glenwood community strongly believe we have to keep the two programs together, but I can't justify keeping the two programs together versus shutting down a neighborhood school. I also understand the desire of many in the Globe and community to keep their kids in a school in which large numbers of students and teachers look like them and celebrate their heritage. I'm actually the parent of a self-proclaimed Hmong young man who attended an elementary school in our district in which almost no students looked like him, but the wonderful teachers and staff still helped him to thrive. We need to continue to work to make sure that every child and every family in this district is seen and supported in every one of our schools. Other board members have spoken about how we need to educate future global citizens.

117If we were to expand the Mandarin World Language program, we could help more of our students learn this vital language as well as gain a greater appreciation of Chinese-Taiwanese culture. I also feel strongly that we should use this opportunity to create additional special programs at other elementary schools. As a steward of this school system, I think the best decision to help shore up our financial situation as well as to create minimal hardship to students is to close Glenwood. Thank you, Melinda. All right, board members, we have a motion and a second. I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor of the motion... I won't read it, Barb, it was quite long but the motion to close Glenwood Elementary School, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Go ahead, Barb. I wanted

118to move a second thing, and if I can get a second, I would love to discuss it. And that is that we task district leadership to present to us on or before the August 20th board meeting specific scenarios about where the Mandarin dual language and world language programs can be housed, focusing only on schools that have present substantial capacity. Second that. Okay, we've got a motion from Barb and a second from George. Can you repeat the motion, please? That we task district leadership to present to us on or before the August 20th board meeting with specific scenarios about where Mandarin dual language and world language programs can be housed. Focusing only on schools that have present substantial capacity. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Ronnie, did you get that? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Boardmembers,

119I don't know if there's any discussion on this? We have a motion and a second. Go ahead, Meredith. You ready for the vote? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion carries as well. All right. Well, that's it for our school closure discussion. I don't know, administration, do you have what you need in terms of that motion and direction? Okay. All right, thank you. We're going to take a 5-minute break. [5min BREAK] Our next item on the agenda is our digital learning plan, and I see we've got Dr. Bales and Mr. McArthur and Ms. Atwater here. Thank you. Good evening, Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Trice, and our community members who stuck around. We definitely appreciate you and value your voice. Tonight we're bringing forward... Well, forgot,

120let me introduce myself. I'm Al McArthur, the Director of Digital Learning and Libraries. Tonight we're here to bring forward a final update for this school year of our digital learning plan. The goal is not to simply talk about devices or digital tools. It's to help us think and act differently about how technology supports teaching and learning across our district. Throughout this process, we focused on balance, intentionality, transparency, and student well-being. We want to make sure that digital tools are used when they strengthen learning and that they do not always take the place of active or sorry, active, engaging, and human-centered experiences that we want for all of our students. There we go. Technology doesn't work for me all the time, so life is good. So this brings me to our plan's vision. We want students

121thinking, creating, collaborating, reading, writing, discussing, and solving meaningful problems. Technology has an important role in that vision, but it should be used purposefully and with balance. Balanced with hands-on learning, print-based learning, and face-to-face interaction. I mean, those last three lines that I mentioned there are very, very important. Hands-on learning, print-based learning, and face-to-face interaction are very important in this process. As we move through the presentation, you'll see that this vision is reflected in the plan's recommendations, including clear expectations, stronger professional learning, increased transparency for families, and more intentional approach to digital tools that we use across our schools. This plan is needed for several reasons. First, we want to create more consistent learning experiences across schools and grade levels. We know that there are strong examples of digital learning happening across Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, but

122those experiences aren't the same in every, from classroom to classroom and from school to school. Second, when technology is planned intentionally, it can support learning and can support teaching, learning, and well-being. And we use the word intentionally on purpose. This plan is designed to help us move away from using technology simply because it's there to using it for a specific reason and a purpose to make sure that it's, sorry, to make sure that it's tied to an instructional purpose. Third, this plan gives us a way to guide professional learning for staff. Teachers need support, time, and clear examples of what purposeful technology use looks like. Finally, this plan helps families better understand how and why technology is used in classrooms. Increased transparency is important, and families should be able to see the instructional purpose behind

123the tools we use and how those tools support their child's learning. It's also important to be clear what this plan is not. This plan is not about eliminating technology. Technology is a part of modern teaching and learning, and it plays an important role in access, communication, creativity, collaboration, and support for all students. The goal is to use it more intentionally. The plan is also not about limiting teacher creativity or professional judgment. Instead, it's about supporting effective instructional practices and giving teachers clear expectations, guardrails, and professional learning. It's not simply about reducing tools or screen use. Screen use is one part of the conversation, but the larger goal is to create clear expectations for when technology adds value and when other methods can serve in its place. Finally, this plan is not an endpoint. It's a

124framework that we will continue to evolve as we gather more feedback, review usage data, and learn from implementation this fall, we will continue to refine this plan over time. And now I'll pass it over to Debbie Atwater, our Executive Director of Technology. Good evening, everybody. It's great to be here with you again today. What this plan includes is a clear, actionable roadmap starting with a 3-year phased implementation. It is grounded by the 5 guiding pillars that define our core values. We also have established instructional guardrails for day-to-day decision-making in classrooms. The plan is organized into 5 domains with specific goals, actions, timelines, and accountability measures. The pillars and guardrails and domains can be found on pages 1, 2, and 7 of the plan. Our timeline throughout the year, we ensured continuous refinement of the plan

125to maintain alignment with our instructional values. Once again, we would like to thank our board members, the guiding coalition, the CHU-CS families, and district staff for their feedback throughout the planning process. Feedback shifts from last board meeting. In response to the valuable feedback from the board, our guiding coalition, staff, and families throughout the year, and most recently this last couple of months, we have made critical adjustments to strengthen this plan. These refinements ensure that the roadmap is more responsive to our community's needs. Between our last board presentation and today, we received final feedback that included a vision statement to clearly define the desired state of digital learning in CHCCS classrooms and ensure full alignment with our district's broader mission and priorities. The comprehensive glossary to provide clarity and ensure a shared understanding of all the

126technical terms throughout the plan. We also introduced a priority action to phase out the K-1 iPad renewal cycle. This provides the necessary time to rigorously evaluate instructional necessity, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and potential non-digital alternatives. We added an implementation step to reduce technology expenditures across all grade levels, demonstrating ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility. And finally, we integrated a new goal 1.4 under the curriculum, instruction, and assessment, where we have a focus on the intentional use of assistive technology, ensuring that students with disabilities have the tools they need for independent communication and meaningful participation. Finally, we also added Goal 5.3 within the data privacy and security, where we plan to publish and maintain a process for confirming data deletion when digital tools are discontinued or no longer supported by the district. We hope that all of these changes

127emphasize greater transparency, focused instruction, and student well-being. To remind you, our priority actions from the summer to fall of 2026, we are basically having an immediate focus on 5 key actions planning where through the summer, through the fall of 2026, our immediate focus will be on the 5 key actions planned for summer and fall of 2026. Priority actions include increasing YouTube restrictions and strengthening web filtering. We're going to require the use of GoGuardian Teacher digital management tool for all 2nd through 12th grade classrooms to enhance digital safety and focused instruction. We're publishing a centralized list of approved digital resources to increase the consistency. And transparency. We're also looking at the initial phase-out of our K-1 iPads, and we're streamlining technology expenditures. In the next few slides, Al, Bob, and I are going to give you

128a little more detail on the work moving forward for each of these priority items. I'm gonna begin with the increasing of YouTube and web filtering. To prioritize the students' safety and maximize instructional focus, we are intensifying our YouTube and web content filtering measures this summer. We're moving beyond the filtering of students' experience, sorry, we're moving beyond the filtering students' experience this year by applying more rigorous controls to noneducational YouTube content by leveraging usage data from the GoGuardian. We are going to implement targeted category and keyword blocks to reduce distractions like nonessential entertainment and gaming. Across Zscaler and GoGuardian platforms, we are hardening our filtering protocols to ensure a distraction-free digital learning environment for all students using our web filter capabilities. These technical safeguards work hand in hand with our instructional goals, and by partnering with

129our teachers to create a balanced, intentional digital experience, we are fostering an environment that supports both student well-being and academic achievement. I'll pass it on to Al again. Thank you. Another key action is creating a forward-facing digital resource list. The list will provide an organized, public-facing view of approved digital resources. It will increase transparency, consistency, and instructional alignment. The list will identify approved tools by grade band and instructional purpose. It will also provide clear guidance on why each tool is used, where appropriate, and on recommended use or time guidance. This will help families better understand how digital tools connect to learning, and it will also help schools avoid duplicate, unsupported, or misaligned resources. For staff, this gives clear direction. For families, it provides transparency. For the district, it supports stronger decision-making around cost, privacy, instructional

130value, and sustainability. Next up, we have GoGuardian. So we are moving forward with requiring GoGuardian Teacher in all 2nd grade through 12th grade classrooms. This is intended to support student device monitoring, digital safety, and focused instruction. It gives teachers a tool to help guide students during device-based learning and provides more consistency across schools and classrooms with it being required. A key feature is the use of scenes, which allows teachers to help students stay focused on the sites and resources they need for a specific instructional task. It's important to say that GoGuardian Teacher should be used as an instructional support tool, not just to a monitoring tool. The purpose is to help teachers create a more focused digital learning environment that supports responsible technology use. We also know that implementation has to be manageable. That's why

131professional learning will be a part of this work so that teachers understand how to use these tools effectively and consistently. And next up, we have this slide that will outline professional learning that will support implementation of this plan. A lot of this will be delivered by our school's digital learning coordinators or digital learning coaches, along with our school librarians and some instructional coaches as well. The professional learning calendar will include sessions on the digital learning plan itself, including expectations, intentional technology use, and classroom implementation support. There will also be professional learning on GoGuardian Teacher, including monitoring session scenes, digital safety, and focus instruction specifically for grades 2 through 12. We will include support around approved tools such as Canvas, BrainPOP, and other approved resources that extend learning and support instruction. A calendar will also include

132AI and digital literacy with a focus on responsible use, media literacy, critical thinking, and ethical use. Finally, we will support teachers with student engagement strategies including active learning, hands-on learning, movement, creativity, and balanced technology use. The key point is that the plan cannot live as a document, as only a document. It has to become consistent, supported classroom practice across schools, and professional learning is truly how we make that happen. And I'm turning it over to Dr. Bailes. All right, I'm going to close this out. I know there's been a lot of conversation. We had some conversation last time we were here about the phase-out of our K-1 iPads. Currently, each of our students have an iPad that is assigned to them, and there are many different programs that they may have access to. Moving forward,

133we are looking at having one iPad cart per grade level to ensure that there is very specific rationale on what students are doing. And as we go into the next couple of slides, I should be able to talk a little bit more about, you know, what are some of the things that we won't even have access to just based on some of the cuts. I did want to kind of just address the notion of just getting rid of a card. You know, talking with some of our teachers, some of our directors in terms of what's the rationale in terms of the progress monitoring piece. So we've heard lots of feedback about iReady, iExcel, several of these different pieces. And I will say in some of the cases, you know, knowing some of the situations, I

134do think that if the teachers had a better understanding of what the purpose of the platform was for, we're probably looking more at a misunderstanding on that piece. Also asking some of our students, do you like math or reading? At times you're going to get a, eh, maybe not. But we are required by law to have progress monitoring for our students in K-2 because we don't have testing. So there are a couple different options. I just want to kind of run through what those look like. We choose the option of going through, you know, using iReady at our lower levels to be able to progress monitor. It's an adaptive test, and as I say test, it's really progress monitoring, but, you know, if you get a question right, you're challenged with a little bit tougher

135question. If you get a question wrong, we're kind of trying to level out. You know, I kind of want you to go back to think of you know, you're reading a book back in the day where you had a, like, choose your adventure. You get through on page 87, it would say, "If you would do this, go to page 92. If you would do this, go to page 94." And then you'd have different paths. If we did not have a digital option for our teachers to be able to actually do an adaptive test, our teachers would literally have to go and question by question go, "Okay, you got this one right. Let me look at what the next question would be." And I would just say on the teacher side of that, trying to go

136through an adaptive test on paper and pencil would take weeks and weeks and weeks. And that's, you know, something we can definitely look at, is something currently that we get a waiver for. But the state does actually give us the option to do paper and pencil at K-2. I will also say at that point, if we're not getting some of that data that says like, where are these kids kind of struggling and where are kids really succeeding. When we're looking at our differentiation in the classroom, it's really difficult when we're just saying, like, here's the grade level, where do I have some stretch goals, where do I need support for some students in some different ways? So as we're moving to that one iPad cart per grade level, we're really looking at focusing on that

137required progress monitoring. In addition to that, you know, having the documentation that says I-Ready should be no more than 45 minutes a week, being able to monitor that. I'm asking for it, so I'll talk a little bit about that as we go through. We just wanted to talk, you know, the rationale, what progress monitoring was, why we do it. It does also help our teachers, you know, when they do those, you know, weekly lessons. Okay, we're going to go in iReady, that they're able to break up into multiple groups, so they may be able to help a group that needs to be pushed a little bit more. We have some students that are still getting some individualized instruction. Now, is it the best all the time? It's not. It's not going to be as good

138as the teacher, but students rotate through those. So just to kind of give you an idea of what the iReady platform looks like. This is our cuts that we've made in terms of our digital resources that we currently have in place this year. We were very aggressive in this model in terms of, you know, in all honesty, cutting about one-third of all of our instructional technology spending, $435,000 as we're looking forward to next year. If you look on the left, those were programs that were eliminated for next year. If you look on the right, those are all programs that were reduced. You know, if you have students in the district, you may have heard of your student reading books in the ARC bookshelf at K-1, and you know, we've heard numerous times of I want

139my kid to read an actual book. So we've eliminated the ARC bookshelf so that when students are reading at K-1, they're picking up a book and they're reading a book. If you have a middle schooler, if you have a high schooler, you probably have seen Kami at some point, where basically a student is going to jump into a worksheet that they could have on a sheet of paper, and then they're trying to work with their finger on a computer and trying to navigate that piece. That's something that we have cut. We had heard earlier, you know, students that have, you know, Reflex and Frax and all these other programs. We did a really deep dive to say if we want to just go down to the basics of what we need for next year, what

140would that be? I will not sit here and say that when I sent a memo out to all of our staff that they were just like, yes, less technology. I'm really happy. Thanks for doing it. We got some strong pushback of like, I don't know how I'm going to teach without these things. We will work with them. We've got lots of things that we can do that are alternative to some of these things. But I do want to put out there that the misnomer of our teachers saying, I just don't want any of it, isn't necessarily the case either. And then on the right side, just talking through some of the things that we've reduced. Actively Learn, StudySync, WeVideo. We were able to negotiate a little bit with iReady and then Canvas, and like I

141said, the Art Cloud. with the piece there. So with this, these reductions, one, it was a piece to really look at what are we replicating. But two, you know, because every time I come to you, I remind you, thank you for the science adoption money. And we have future adoptions that are coming up, knowing that things just get more and more expensive. That money is being reinvested back into the curriculum pot. So when we do have the reading and the math adoption we have additional funds that we're able to piece from. So that does mean as we move forward, being very mindful of the technology that we may use or just the curriculum that we're getting that may need, you know, some additional textbooks, may need some additional reading materials. But, you know, that $435,000

142isn't a one-time thing. It's a $435,000 annual savings that is going back into into our curricular resolve. Within that as well, we've reminded our schools that as we're going through this, like, these are things that we've actually eliminated and reduced. It's not something that we're asking them to then go back and do. Like, these programs that you see on here are being eliminated, reduced across the district, and we're asking schools not to purchase them independently. So with this, what have we discovered? I've went through many classes this year with a true eye of what's happening in this classroom in terms of technology. We see an amazing job with a large majority of our teachers in terms of the technologies being used. Talking with parents, even the parents that want to come and share with me,

143here's some concerns I have. I'll ask, has it been this way the entire time? Are there exemplars? And everyone to a T will say, like, yes, it's been like this. I wish it was like it was last year. It was for my other child. So we see that. We also know that there are absolutely opportunities to provide additional guidance, support, and professional learning around our technology use. And we're going to talk a little bit more about how we're going to be able to track some of that to really give us some data to know where do we need to pinpoint our support. And then again, we don't want our parents to reach out to our digital learning coaches and ask them to print out screening reports. We want them to be able to gather that

144information in real time, so we're going to be able to navigate that a little bit better next year. So with that, some of us may know what Clever is, but it's kind of like the platform that we log into everything. So we are making a shift next year from Clever to ClassLink, and one of the reasons I'm bringing this up is Clever is free. It's free because the companies pay for whatever the integration piece is. When you have a partnership with ClassLink, they're working with us, so there's really some greater security because we're actually asking for, you know, certain ways in terms of we're navigating that. But a couple of things in this I don't want to get too much into because there are plenty of different things that we could talk about with ClassLink,

145but just to give you an idea of what it looks like. So this, you know, we've talked about having a digital wellness scorecard for our students. So if you look on the left and the right here, this is what each of our parents eventually will be able to see, but at first our teachers and school administrators in terms of, you know, what is the digital wellness of your individual students. So, you know, they're breaking this down into learning time, balanced sessions, uninterrupted learning, and then rested learning. And then with these, there's, you know, different color codes that go along with them in terms of like, okay, What are they actually doing when they're on the computer? Rested learner means that they're not bouncing around a bunch. Uninterrupted learning means that when they're on something they're

146supposed to be, they're not. Popping onto YouTube or clicking over to another screen and all those different things. Balance sessions, are you doing a balance of what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do? So again, this is just a quick snapshot of what this will look like as we move forward. The second piece here is, you know, what we'll be able to look at on the grander scheme. So this would be the view that you would be able to see from the school or the district level. So this is just an example of a school district. They've got 7,801 students, and you can see the vast mass majority of these are in a healthy amount of digital learning. You can see the average time in school, out of school, and being

147able to really navigate that a little differently. Looking through, I also think it's important as we talk about data security, ClassLink with their Analytics and Analytics Plus has the Digital Promise certification, and they were one of the first companies to actually get that. We're really trying to make sure that that transparency there so that our parents know and so that our administrators can really focus in on a place that we need highlight what technology is going well and where I need to focus in on an area of I might need to support that teacher a little more. And then the last piece with the ClassLink is kind of an analytics piece in terms of what's actually working well. We can talk about screen time and what's working, what's not. By the end of the day,

148I really want to be able to say, "If we do have students on a certain program, is it actually making gains for them?", and is it being done in an appropriate amount of time? So if you looked on the left and right here, these are, you know, on average. And keep in mind, if we're asking students to pop on a device for about 45 minutes a week, you multiply this by 5 and you're getting about that time. But we have Reading App A on the left. Students are on that for an average of 8 minutes a day. We're showing 10% growth. Students are on that consistently. It says that there's a moderate reach because there might be an expectation in this document of, you know, they should be on there for 15 minutes. But you

149know that the consistency there is 10 and the predicted growth or the predicted growth is 10 and the consistency is high. On the right, you actually have a program that they're using more, but it's actually not showing the growth that you would want. This would be a spot where we would want to really look and say, okay, is this the program that we want to continue? When we talk about doing things intentionally, the program on the left is showing that it actually has results. It's an appropriate amount. The reading app on the right has 6 minutes more a day, but it has 1 or 10% of the growth that we should have. So as we're moving forward as a district and we're looking at our academic return on investment, these are the types of things

150that we're going to be, you know, publicly sharing out in terms of what's working for our kids, what's not and then the actual screen time. So with all of this, what does this allow us to do? We really need to have some clear data and feedback to identify the priorities and the opportunities for improvement. Again, preserving and strengthening what's working, providing targeted support for what's not, and giving our team a focus of, you know, where do we need to go into a particular school, a particular grade level? Do we need to modify what's actually happening in the classroom? All those different types of things. And then with that too, like, we need to be continually informed by feedback. It's really weird to come up with a plan because I think sometimes people see a 3-year

151plan and they go like, oh well, why doesn't it have like all the things, all those different types of when we have a feedback plan type like this, we really have year 1 where we can kind of put things in motion, say these are the things we're doing, but we're gonna find things out over the in the course of the year that are really going to push us and say, okay, we might need to do this differently. When I've talked with teachers about this one, especially recently, the resounding feedback I had from them is, I understand the need to kind of push back a little, or pull back a little bit. The one thing I'm going to ask is not to have to do two things. I don't want to have to come up with

152a digital lesson and a paper and pencil lesson. It reminds me of COVID And as we know, our teachers during COVID were extremely stressed out. So from the teacher's perspective on this, it's not that they're wanting to use all the technology all the time, but they do want to make sure that it's intentional and that we're being very purposeful and not having to create two different things. If we're giving them a resource, we also don't need to make them become the authors of, you know, whatever needs to go home with them for homework or whatever happens within the classroom on an everyday basis. So with that, I know Al mentioned this before, but CHCCS students should learn in classrooms where technology is available when it adds value, limited when it does not, and always used

153intentionally to support teaching, learning, and student well-being. If you walk into our classrooms to a T, you're going to see that teachers and relationships are the key in those classrooms. You know, we've had many people come in here and advocate for their schools over the last few months. Every one of our classrooms has that. We want to make sure that we're keeping that the highlight of what's happening in the classroom. Part of that is really just toning back what we have, and we did that at a tune of $435,000 but being, you know, very transparent for our parents, and, you know, with that transparency comes all of the data. And, you know, I've told our administrators this, when we are transparent, we've got to be realistic and say, like, if I see an issue, we've

154got to fix it. And that could be, you know, where we're telling teachers, like, hey, this is something that we should be doing 45 minutes a day or 45 minutes a week. And if we see it's happening 5 hours in a week, we've got to address that with the teacher and make sure that we're using it appropriately. Using the same platform just over and over again doesn't get results. We've had IXL, we've had iReady come into our schools, visit classrooms, look at usage data, and tell teachers, we don't want you to use our product as much as you are. So it's not, you know, programs trying to go like give them as much as they can. They have lots of data, and we're going to have lots of data on our own end to show

155if it does actually work. We need to be very intentional about what that is. Make sure that we're holding each other accountable. And I will open it up for questions. All right, thank you. Boardmembers, do you have any questions or comments? Go ahead, George. I mean, I'm also willing to go second or third. You can. I have a number. Thank you, Dr. Bailes, and to the rest of the team. You know, I'm a fan of the plan. You know, also just before I got here today, another New York Times article popped up about the big tech companies and how they're addicting, trying to get kids to be, the word in the article was addicted to their programs. I read it and I had this association with Purdue Pharma. And for those of you who followed

156the OxyContin mess with Purdue Pharma, and there was a great docudrama, Dopesick, of how the drug company worked. And then this article reminded me of, whoa, this is the big tech, TikTok sending a message to all the kids. What's in your backpack? Let's have a talk. It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon. They're in school. And it got me thinking, and then we've been paying attention to the Intentional Tech Group, some of whom are sitting here, and Mary Beth Roche's group. And I feel as a board member a lot that I'm getting put in between a group that has legitimate concerns that need to be addressed now and a school system that is well-intended and doing a really good job of planning, sorting, managing, budgeting, doing all the right things. But we're going to just be

157doing this for the next couple of years is my fear as a board member, where we're kind of walking that line. When I hear a dad today talking about his child's use and I go look at one of the screen time data sheets that was sent to us the other day, and the average screen time per week, or per month, I mean, is like 45 hours for a kid not doing anything focused even. As one parent's kids was 150 hours, and they wrote on it, maybe this is a mistake, I'll contact, hopefully it's a mistake, and I'll contact the IT. But we can't afford to ask parents to be the She's the sole monitor of what's going on with tech use in her district. So where I'm going to go with this is, and it's

158sort of half baked, it's well less than half baked, is can we do something between now and next year, which means August, to add to this list to just stop doing things K-8 or whatever unless you can verify that it's justified and teachers been trained and, you know, I'm asking like a task force of parents and teachers. Can we not have to hear another dad come here next year or mom and say, this is what happened to my kid with technology? We somehow we got to get a handle on that. And I'm not being dramatic. I'm not making it up. I get emails every day. I do know parents and I've never said this. Because I don't like it when parents threaten me. I feel threatened by parents who say I'm leaving the district. I

159do know half a dozen parents who are not returning their kids here next year. They say it's because of the technology issues. Now, you know, again, I'd take them at their word and I'd let it go. I mean, I'm not here to question a parent, but the plan is great, but the plan doesn't get us to where we need to be on August. If 10% of teachers are not ready, that 10% is going to affect 10% of the kids. And is there something we can do? And so I'm going to be just be quiet. Maybe everybody will go, George just went off a little bit or whatever. But I think we got to take some action more than the priorities that were listed in there by August first. We need to be more dramatic, not

160for the sake of drama, but for the sake of really addressing literal problems. Somebody else can maybe help me out with my idea or not. Boardmembers? Melinda. Yes, so one question in particular. So I know the phase-out on the iPads, K, kindergarten, first grade. But that's not happening next school year, correct? Will they still be issued them? So they'll have the one cart per grade level. Okay, so starting this fall? Yep, this fall. Okay, great. I mean, I'm also truly disturbed about things that I've heard from parents, observing my own child because of the system, about the sheer number of hours they're on screens. Have we, you know, had some discussions about setting some standards by grade level about the amount of screen time they should be. Has that been part of the discussion? Yeah,

161so that would be our forward-facing digital resource. So on here, think about an iReady. It would have a, you know, what is it used for? What is it not used for? In a given week, what should the expected thing be? Should it be something you're even seeing at home? So with some of these things, it literally a 45-minute thing that should be done within a school day. And if it's being sent home at a middle school and being used as homework, that's not what the tool is being used for. So with that, you know, there is a lot of education of teachers and monitoring of teachers. I don't want to sit here and make this a blame the teacher game because I want to, you know, if they don't have this and this document and

162they haven't had it, you know, and we have teachers that come in throughout the year. But I also know just getting rid of something or saying we're not going to do this anymore doesn't mean that we haven't taught or informed that teacher how to do anything differently. We just took a tool away. And as we're talking about doing things intentionally, I think there's a difference between intentionally and just let's get rid of everything and not do it. And if that's the direction that we need to go into, we've been very, you know, out there of this has been, you know, an intentional move. When it comes to YouTube, intentionally looking at some different web filtering. When we're looking at this too, like YouTube's not the only thing. And I know that we've brought up you

163know, the LA school system and what they have done, I will ask you to go back and look at the 10 years prior to that, and we wouldn't want to do anything LA did. So there are lots of things that I would, you know, not have that pendulum just swing, you know, left and right. We do need to be very intentional, and this is not a 1-year thing. So I hope that helps answer a little bit. Yeah, I, one of the other, I guess one last question, one of the other things that I hear whenever from parents is the concern that when children are finished with their assignments, they're then given screen time as a reward. So are we addressing that with teachers? Because I think that's really problematic. Yes, I mean, that's definitely something

164that we can bring up there. Again, we could change the speed limit on a road. It's not until people are monitoring it, whether that be, you know, I'm not putting it on parents to do, but principals need to monitor it. Like, we have to monitor as a district if we're going to put those things in place. Policy doesn't change, eyeballs and communication change. Meredith, go ahead. Thanks. I would definitely endorse some of what my colleagues have said so far. But more specifically, I had a couple of either questions or points. One about the progress monitoring that you mentioned earlier. I mean, how did we do progress monitoring 5 years ago, 10 years ago? Because it just strikes me like, do we have empirical evidence that shows that using a dynamic test on a computer really

165measures where kids are better than whatever method? I mean, I remember like what's my kids are not that old, and when they were in kindergarten and first learning to read, they would have to have times every couple of weeks with a teacher where they would read a leveled book, and then they had to answer some questions based on that level book to see if they're reading, if their phonics and their fluency and their comprehension were all on target. And so I guess I'm just a little bit mystified why you talk about the pendulum swinging, like it wasn't very long ago that we weren't using any of these tools. And so to say that teachers like don't know what to do, I think, I mean, a lot of teachers do know what to do because they

166did it 5 years ago. Yeah, well, and I would just say with a part of it, it's a state statute that you have to have a progress monitoring. That's where that piece of... But does it have to be a digital dynamic? No, I mean, it could be paper, pencil. You want to go ahead? I can add? Okay. So the progress monitoring tool they use is mCLASS, and there are physical books that students do read, and they do work with their teachers. So there's many different assessments that are done, and obviously Bob does know more than this, but what I see is that they are doing many different tests for different purposes. That you mentioned, and there are physical books that were purchased with our reading curriculum that are used especially at the lower level. You

167don't see students using mCLASS on the computer. It's the teacher that's using mCLASS on the computer, and they're then working on calculating everything on the computer using the program itself. So they might be circling the words that are on that passage, or they might be looking at different components, underlining things, you know, just making sure that they're collecting the data and that computer program is then allowing them to analyze that data very quickly and giving them also suggestions based on that data on what the next steps are for those children. Well, that makes sense to me, except for what I thought I was hearing earlier from Bob was that the kids are given a question on the computer and then the question, if they get it right, then the questions get harder, which is in

168my experience looking at my kids using I-Ready, that's, you know, kind of how it goes. So that's what I thought he was referring to. So you're telling me that the progress monitoring kids are actually using like physical books and paper? And there are different types of assessments. Yeah, I will say for reading, mCLASS is that way. For math, that is where I-Ready is. I think what you're saying too is right in terms of after the student does the I-Ready progress monitoring, it gives the teacher an idea of, okay, where is this student at, at this point in time? It does give them a direction. I will tell you, as a teacher, it gave me lots of opportunities to say, okay, here's a group of students that are in the same, you know, around the same

169area. When I'm making my small groups, I can now make a better informed decision in terms of, you know, this group needs this, and navigating that piece. The assessment or progress monitoring, teaching the kids at all, but it's given the teacher an idea of where the students are at. Yeah, I'm just, I'm not, I promise I'm not trying to be argumentative. And like, I really appreciate all of your work on this. I know it's been a slog. But, you know, the little boy stood up during public comment, and he said, you know, that he's in 3rd grade, and he's getting 6th grade work, but he doesn't really understand it. And I don't know exactly the ins and outs of what he is talking about. But I mean, just stuff like that strikes me as like,

170I don't think there's any replacement for real people doing real monitoring, 'cause I mean, I think these kids are very smart and they learn how to get around some of the finer, you know, roadblocks that they have with these programs. So, okay, and then moving on from that, I do think, and I mean, I said this during student success, like I think I would really like us to see moving a little bit more on some of the low-hangers fruit. And I'll just echo a few things that were said already. Like, I'm glad to hear that we're gonna go with the not one-to-one starting next year. I didn't understand that before tonight. I thought that that was like we were phasing into that over time. I didn't realize, so I'm glad to hear that. But like,

171one thing I've heard from a lot of parents is using tech brain breaks. Would love to see that just kind of go away. I mean, they have games, they've got all kinds of things to do in the classroom to have breaks for their brain. They don't need devices for that. Reducing overall screen time, and then I liked what Melinda was saying too about using it as, you know, reward time if people finish their work. Like, there's other things that can be done in these classrooms. They're full of stuff. And then the last thing, for the public's benefit, can you just kind of lay out in a very simple way some of the budgetary constraints that are inherent in tech reliance. For example, money for textbooks, which, you know, used to be that districts were given

172a substantial amount of money to buy textbooks, right? And that's really like plummeted, correct? Yes. Okay, so that's one thing. Like, I think a lot of parents are like, why can't you just buy a bunch of books? And like, that does seem logical to me, but given the budgetary constraints, so I don't know, can you just speak to that for a second? Yeah, so I will say the technology pieces really come out of, so the people that used to make the books are now, you know, doing the technology. It's a much more cost-efficient way for them to do this. It also allows them to be a little more reflective on what we're doing on NC State standards to go into a 1,000-foot view of this, 10,000-foot view is we have a different curriculum than what

173every other state does. It doesn't make sense for, you know, whatever book company to make the North Carolina version of this because North Carolina isn't requiring that you buy every single student in this state this book. I would love, absolutely love, if we had all the books that were just available to buy and be able to put there. Even the books that we have, we would have to go back and supplement and be like, well, don't use this third of the book and use this part of it. Here's this other thing. And, you know, we have those and I think of StudySync, we have those resources that are readily available in the classroom that students could take home. And I know that, you know, when we bought tons of them, we had those readily available

174to take home. Parents at that time, and I know it's a different time, did not elect to take those home. They were okay with using things online. We have boxes upon boxes in each of our middle schools, and I wouldn't even say that that's the right route to move going forward. We have a new English ELA standard review coming up this upcoming year, as we did with science. Our goal was to really go into that with You know, what's the most hands-on, interactive thing that we could possibly do? And that's absolutely the thing that we're looking at as we're moving forward now. So we're also in this weird spot of we have one more year of ELA where we're going to operate under the exact same standards, and then during this upcoming school year, we're

175also looking at adopting a new curriculum. And that's where some of this money comes in. I will say, for an ELA curriculum and we look at that really over a 7-year period, we are probably looking in the range of $1.5 to $2 million. And I believe we get somewhere in the amount of $400,000 a year. We've been putting money in our savings bank on lots of things just to be able to help afford some of these things as we're moving forward. And as some of my colleagues know, we have had to beg and borrow and take from some of their budgets to be able to make sure that we have the curriculum their choices that we want moving forward. I will absolutely say without a shadow of a doubt that we are not looking to

176have our math and ELA curriculum to be an online platform. So when we have those, you know, we will bring those to Student Success and actually really dive into like, here are the options of what we have, this is what it looks like, and be able to share that very transparently with parents. But it does put us in that weird spot because right now StudySync is, you know, very much online. AthleteLearn is very much online. It could also have been, you know, we're adopting a curriculum during a pandemic. So, you know, times change. So yeah, with the $435,000, like, that money is coming back into, like, let's reserve that money to be able to buy the best, most quality curriculum that we possibly can. And see the dividends that we're seeing in science. We didn't

177buy a textbook for science. There is some online access pieces, but it's not what you're seeing in other districts that purchase the, you know, $4 to $7 million program that is completely online. So I wish we could fast forward to that point so I could tell you what the curriculum was going to be, and then we could say like, here's the core resources, not even asking us to do those things. But like what we did here is we went through and looked at the supplemental things that that are replicated and made sure that we have one thing that's gonna help support math. We don't need to do Reflex, we don't need to do Frax, because the one digital thing that we have is the one digital support that we have. It's not the curriculum. The

178curriculum is delivered by the instructor in the classroom. I really wanna be able to have the data that shows that a kid didn't just open up their device and leave it open for 3 hours, and now we think that it's 3 hours of screen time. I'm not saying that that's how, but I have seen, you know, where we do show that it's 3 hours, but it's just that the kid didn't shut down their computer. They went off and they were doing something else. The screen time piece that we have actually distinguishes between tabs, so if you switch a tab, you're really able to look and, you know, really monitor that piece. So hopefully that answered most of that, and then I went off on a tangent. That's okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much.

179I know this was a lot of work. George and I were on the coalition, and we appreciated the opportunity to participate. I have like little points and big points, and I'll try to be organized. But so I guess I want to follow up on George's point about having there be some oversight of this or some way to put teeth into it? Because I know that you said in here there are accountability measures, but I don't really... I mean, I started to write a resolution like Los Angeles passed, and then I'm like, this is not how we do governance here. Like, if we just top-down said, here's the, you know, we're gonna say how much time kids can spend on screens. I think, like, that's just not how we do it, right? That's why there were

180teachers involved in this coalition. At the same time, I really do think there's some value to having some hard and fast, like, limits. Like, overall, Johnny is not going to spend more than whatever in any given day or week. And I realize that's a big ask because you have your teachers all going to have to coordinate, but I feel like there needs to be something like that. I mean, Granville's doing their 2-day-a-week tech-free thing, which I think equally clunky, that it takes a lot of autonomy away from teachers. I don't necessarily want to do that, but I'm just stretching like George to find some way to kind of... I agree, I think people are looking for ways to have less tech in their classrooms, and I think we could be a real leader. So that's

181my kind of overall thing. And I also want to explain to you guys why I just think us passing a resolution is not the way to get us where we want to go, though it may come to that at some point. But I think it would have to be socialized first in order for it to be effective. Why isn't there any mention of pre-K in this plan? I don't think that they have any devices that they're necessarily even using. I mean, maybe not, but they have screen time for sure. I mean, they've got I was there, I saw they used, you know, during morning meeting they had videos from YouTube playing along with the songs. And I think I mentioned that during the student success, and I think the question I got back was, well,

182how would they listen to the music? And I mean, I guess a CD player, right? Or like an iPod. Doesn't they don't necessarily need the screen time also. So I mean, I feel like pre-K is important. They're the littlest learners we've got. And then, so sorry, what you're saying is that the start of school, there's not going to be any more 1-to-1 iPad in K and 1? It's just in the cart and it's just for progress monitoring, mCLASS for reading and I-Ready for math. Then I guess my last point, at least for now, is I think we could use a definition of developmentally appropriate. Like, it's in the plan 13 times and it's not defined. And I think, by whom? Because I think the tech companies have a really different definition from, like, pediatricians and

183educators. So, I would like to see an evidence-based definition for that that is not coming from Mark Zuckerberg. I'll stop there. Can I ask one question and one clarifying question on 3rd grade Johnny usage. So are we saying that we want to have a every student, this is the screen time that they should have? Because the feedback from teachers when I've had that conversation is there are students that have varying levels of, you know, supports that they need, and to say they should only have an hour and a half may actually limit some things or when you put that limit as well, there were some teachers like, okay, I should use an hour and a half and that's just my clarification. Well, I was gonna piggyback on that because I do like the dashboards and

184also the time to give the staff to baseline. Like you said, like understanding, like maybe there are certain student groups that their usage looks different, like the usage profile looks different than just trying to do a whole blanket all 3rd graders are this. I don't think that's... I think we're going to be doing these broad stroke things and not really understanding it. And I'm, you know, I'm a data person. It's like, let's baseline it, have those discussions with the staff and come up where we strike a balance of this seems reasonable based on X student profile because I don't think we can just say every student is this because of how the different ways the kids use. I mean, you know, we've got some language now about students who may use the technology to support

185them, right? And so I would hesitate just doing broad strokes. I would want the team to come back and say, this is profiles. Obviously, we're not going to be jumping into what that looks like, but just having clear, like, this is a reasonable profile for X student and their needs and things like that. That could even look like with this, like, forward-facing digital resource, like anything that we're providing from the district. I mean, that's gonna... Every single thing that we're providing, we're gonna have a time thing on there. So a 3rd grade student, you know, should or will have access to these 4 different things. Here's the estimated time for each of those things. 'Cause I'll be honest, like, we need to also get a better understanding of what is, are we worried about the

186district-provided thing? Are we worried about something else a teacher may bring into the classroom? And if we need to, you know, get down to that granular level, which I think the data pieces that we're looking at collecting next year will allow us to, because, you know, I can go out there like, well, yeah, here's the 4 things, and it should be, you know, a total of, you know, 46 minutes per day, just throwing a number out on average, and then they're doing those, but then they're also doing these other things. I need to be able to know what those things are so we can address and say, like, you know, again, going into the academic return on investment, if we're just doing it to do it, that's one thing. And, you know, I 100% agree

187with you all on, you know, making sure that, you know, the brain breaks and all the things. Again, that's the, like, we can say that, and then it's honestly more for us, like, how do we make sure that we're working with our administrators to make sure that that's not happening in the classroom? Because I can tell you right now, no one's told them, like, put the kids on an iPad when they have a brain break. It's happened, and, you know, so we've got to be able to walk that back. But then really, and that's where the professional development comes in of, you know, how do we help support, what does that look like? What do you, what do you tell a teacher? And thank you for bringing up the pre-K thing, because that screen time,

188like, you may not have the best voice, but your pre-K kids do not care. Sing, it's okay. They can all sing. So all of those different pieces. Go ahead, Becky. Well, one, I want to make sure that I can clarify or to make sure that I'm understanding that, okay, you said in the fall, K-1 or K-2? We'll only be using... Did you say K-1 or K-2? K-1. Okay, I just want to make sure that I'm hearing right. For different things. Okay, we'll only be using the iPads for the project monitoring, progress monitoring, and that will be mCLASS and I-Ready. Yes. Okay. Most of the actual technology piece is going to be more the I-Ready than the mCLASS. Okay, and we're going to be making sure that screen time will not be used for rewards. I

189know our younger people, they're not used to being in a world where that's seen, so that's going to be difficult for them. So it's going to be some rebranding that's kind of going to need to go on. And I was just saying that this would be a wonderful opportunity for us as a district to really be looking at ways to instill in our young people a reward system for learning that's not digital. Because if we go back historically within this district, we know that there were things in your classroom that were much more hands-on. And if we look at the science curriculum, we know that there are things that are much more hands-on that the young people are very excited about using that aren't digital, being able to go to those classroom pets. So those

190classroom experiments or the old school, like the abacus or the chalkboard so that they can use markers and pens and erase with. So it's not about a lot of paper that we're not having to waste, that we actually could have the little, those little bit of boards cost about a dollar, I think, if that, with a little eraser. I'm just saying things where kids can actually have some incentive to have some autonomy to say like, this is cool, and actually write, start writing and maybe, who knows, go out on a limb and say Kirsten might come back. I'm just saying, those kind of things would be really neat to see them down on the floor. And as a, you know, a brain break, they're being able to get on the floor and lay down with

191a coloring book and a crayon and actually do that and use their fine motor skills. I'm just saying, I think we have an opportunity to really look at that early group and see what wonderful things could happen. And something miraculous might happen, and we really might see a boost in literacy just from the hands-on using of their minds. So I'm excited to see it, and I definitely want us to be able to look at all the different kind of ways and talk to people collectively. Let the teachers talk to the parents, talk to the kids, and listen to things that they think are cool and that don't have anything to do with a screen or technology because sometimes you don't know if you don't ask and you might be shocked at what you hear. Yeah,

192I will say when we went through all of our subscriptions and we really looked at what are all the things that are replacing something that you could do in a different way, like with paper, with whatever. So we were very intentional with the bookshelf. The reason they have a one-on-one at elementary schools because a lot of their books were just on the iPad. So eliminating that does not get it. I mean, some of the kids, they were getting on for their free time to read a book, and now reading a book is not an option on an iPad. It'll be reading a book that's an actual book, which we should be doing. Navigating that piece is going to be important. I will also say like that does, it's going to require schools to be mindful

193to make sure that they have robust classroom libraries. We, we are very lucky that we do, um, but I will encourage many parents that continue to, you know, donate to those classroom libraries because, you know, the benefit, the nice thing about having the ARC Bookshelf is you had 10,000 books readily available to you, and now we don't have that and that's fine, but just realizing that now we have 500 and we have some really avid readers that could navigate that in, you know, a semester. So, you know, making sure that we're realized with that. Sorry to interrupt. I did want to speak on behalf of our school librarians, which is the other part of my role as well. They've been working hand in hand with Tammy Eddins in getting us to a point where we're

194ready to adopt the new state standards for the 27-28 school year. And a lot of the work centers on helping the instructional coaches select texts, full texts, that will be a part of the curriculum. And it's important to note that our librarians are definitely invested in this process as well, to ensure that when students do have breaks that they are encouraged to read. And I know that initiative that was started at Phillips Middle School with their librarian, and she's seen a big increase in the amount of students that have come to the library to check out books. So it's very, very important for our students to have, of course, the hands-on learning and then the ability to just use that break time to read a book. Yes. Awesome. Go ahead, Ronnie. Yeah, this conversation made

195me think about when we first went one-to-one during COVID and how excited we were about the possibility of technology to really enhance instruction. And I think a lot of the way we landed where we are today is because we moved quickly. We were constrained by state cuts to curriculum materials, and so I'm appreciative that we're taking the time now to really assess how to be intentional going forward. I also want to echo my colleagues in thinking about the need for speed with respect to any changes. I did hear some ideas that I just wanted to ask some questions about, and one was the idea of blocking YouTube. Is that something that's been considered? Or like, how is that used in the school? So what you're talking about right now, it's been, it's been an instructional

196piece. Because again, YouTube is not the only way that a kid is going to get on a video. And, you know, we do that, then they're going to pop on something else. And then we're going to have a conversation about that. And it is about educating students on what's the right and wrong thing to do. On the teacher side of that, you know, because I've really went around and talked with teachers, there's a lot of time to know, like, okay, I've wrote these lessons and I'm going back to it, and now I need to go back and make sure I have it and make sure that it's an updated web page. And it becomes a burden on teachers if we just strictly say, like, we're going to block everything. With the filtering, it does help

197with navigating that a little bit. I will also say I have seen some students at times that, you know, are struggling with a math concept and they go on and they, you know, they Google something and then a YouTube link comes up and it's able to help them with something. I do worry about some of our students that may, you know, the access at home, if we're going to block that and now they don't have that ability to have that extra support. That's why it's everything that everyone has said I get, and, you know, being sure that we're not taking something away that's really going to impact someone else where someone else like, well, I have the parent at home, I can ask about the problem. Yeah. I just make a comment to that. I

198think that's a really good point about the consistency and making sure that people. I will say though, like, I think there is an age at which educating kids on what the right thing to do makes sense. But at the younger ages, they're forming, right? And so like, we just have to block their access to things. And so even those YouTube-like, like, can we just block all of it? I recognize that what we're asking for, we're just talking about, and it requires some planning and professional development, right? We teachers can't just pivot tomorrow to turn everything off. But I would love to see a plan to like, how do we get to some of what we're talking about faster, right? I don't need a response necessarily. I'm going to ask you to think about that. And

199maybe when we come back to have more of a sense of like what a plan might look like. I do have a question about like, how are we doing with phones away during the day? I thought that was really a good idea, but I don't think the implementation is sticking in the way that we intended it. That feels like the basic thing we can do that we can control that. Yeah. What can we do to help with that as the board? I mean, I think continuing just have the message out there, you know, as we've had teachers that have came in and talked, like, they don't want to get in the struggle with if it is an issue. It's year one, and I know that it's not really year one, but I do think it's

200a lot. I will tell you, just going into schools, it's a lot better than what it used to be. But I also know as we get closer to the end of the year, everyone's tired. But again, this is where, like, we have to, you know, if there is an uptick in a school like that, would be, you know, for me, it would be an opportunity for, you know, the administration, you know, during their weekly updates, like, hey, we're seeing an uptick in phones, like, you know, we're going to do some sweeps and to really navigate and monitor this. I mean, do we need to invest in those gloves that put the phone, you know, ensure the phones are put away? As knowing of a high schooler that has those, it's not going to do anything.

201They're going to figure out how to get around that too. Yeah. They put an old phone in there or two calculators. Yeah, calculator. But I don't think we should not try because we've got to do something. Like, I really feel like we're in crisis. And I'm watching my own kids have, you know, been in this school for 15 years and I'm still 25, so I don't know how that works. But anyway, I was going to say progression, maybe. What's the opposite of progression? Regression from the oldest to the youngest who reads, who doesn't. And like, it's not good. And I'm hearing, you know, similar things across the community. And I feel like we have an opportunity to kind of be a model for how we can do some of this. So I would just ask

202you to think about that. But to me, the phone feels like an easy thing. So like, what I would love to have some ideas when you come back about like what we can do about the phones. I don't know. Some of them will get around it, but I think kids really did appreciate having that time where it's just, you know, not the stress of being expected to respond to an instant ping that you get on your phone. You know, an easy win with the phones? It's in partnership with the parents. Is we don't buy the phones. Well, that ship has sailed, seriously, realistically, you know, like there's no phones at home anymore for the most part in most households. And it's a safety thing for a lot of parents and accessibility for some others. So,

203but I mean, the reality is everybody's gonna have a phone and how do we help them navigate the responsible use of it. And I hear your point may be like, what is the role of parents in the, in this, but like we're not in the schools, so like, I'm okay for you to take my kid's phone during the day. Go ahead, George. Two things. One, following up on what Ronnie's saying, sometimes I just feel like when we have these discussions, we're the adults in the room and it doesn't really matter what some people think about this and this and this. We just need to put some structure in place for some of these issues and then we can back off it. But you can't nibble at things and then expect it to work. And anyway,

204but that aside, could we consider some sort of group or task force that would monitor this and with some new people? Not new, meaning not just continuing it, but like get some teachers, get some parents. And like, we could sit here, which I would be fine doing, hours for board meetings, but it's really not a board role to prescribe exactly what is done in a school. And yet, this is a perfect example of what I said when I first commented tonight. Was I feel right in the middle between a legitimate need over here and a legitimate need over here. And I don't see, if we just keep doing this, where we're gonna make a whole lot of progress. And we'll be here in 12 more months going, "We really need to do something about this."

205Could we get a group that would get together and meet every 30 days for 6 months and look at screen time and look at how it's being used and just say, cut this out, stop this. I don't know, I'm thinking I'm making it up, so it's kind of vague. And I'm asking sort of colleagues on the board, is there something we can put together to move this along, or is this the way to do it? I would like to remind everyone that where our middle schools have been away for the day, they're used to not having it. So as our high schoolers that are now going to be aging out and we keep pressing on that pedal, I think we'll find with each year, it appears that it should get a little bit better because

206our middle schoolers have never had it. So it's one of those things you can't miss what you never had. So, I think it'll be easier and with Block and them trying to do different things, and I think it will be easier, but we're just having to tough it out with that that struggle just the same as like our elementary kids who've never had to be in a world without, you know, digital and screens in their faces and learning environments. It's just been there. So we're having to figure out ways to rebrand and figure out other ways to not do it. So I think we should have what, a few, a couple more cohort years, I think, in high school. So not saying that that's not important, but to definitely continue looking. And trying to not

207want to have the teachers to struggle, because that's not fair. And I think now it's probably worse, like you say, with it being the end of the year, because I can remember at the beginning the students were actually saying, we're adjusting, it's okay, I'm reading, I'm talking to my friends. So I would hope that we'll see that same thing when August comes around, and it'll be something new as well because you have more people. It'll be the second year we're block, we're now using Infinite Campus. They're adjusting. But so I'm hoping, being realistically optimistic, that things will get a little bit better. I will comment that will only hold true if there's requirements, because you so easily fall back into habits. And if I get to high school and can now pick up my phone

208during the day, I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna quickly fall but this is me. Me as an adult with like, theoretically a fully formed, whatever that thing is called. But like, so I think like it has to be accompanied by like the accountability that you mentioned earlier. That's just to me, like the phone feels like the really easy and I know I'm oversimplifying. I'm not in the schools all day, but like, I would just love us to think about what we can do to help teachers and staff with that. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I do think we need to do some thinking about that because we also didn't take a disciplinary approach. So when you talk about accountability and you put yourself in a teacher's position, you know, Rodney has brought his phone

209today. I called him again, you know, 2 days from now and 3 days from now and nothing happens. They're not going to continue to kind of engage in that battle. So at some point, like, if this is something that we really want to enforce, we got to be able to support teachers in a real way. And, you know, we only have so many administrators who are going to be able to kind of police this. So to your point, I think we have to do some thinking around, you know, what does that look like? You know, to Dr. Bailes point, I mean, it is a lot better but if it's not where we want it, you know, how do we enforce it has always been the question from day one. Either you just say no phones,

210and if we see them, we're taking them. If we catch you again, there are consequences and we have to be able to enforce those consequences. If this is something that we want to do, but I think we all agreed in year one, it would be more teaching and learning and bringing families along. So I don't want to point fingers at teachers and administrators when that was our approach from the beginning. Do you have some? Yeah, I just want us to be thoughtful about this discipline piece though. I mean, any time we start bringing in discipline, we have to make sure how it's administered who is making sure it's being done equitably, right? Like it's not being done inconsistently, right? And so that's with the adults, right? So it's like one teacher can't be the one

211disciplining and then the other one doesn't do anything because then, it's not going to work in the school too. So I think we also have to think about that and then also thinking about what is the discipline? Like, what is that thing that's going to happen to a student? They have to read a book. An actual book. Well, I don't want to get too far away from the digital learning plan. But I do think we should put phones on an agenda, a future agenda but back to this, I mean, would it be helpful to have a task force? Would it be better to, like, or would you just like to give regular reports to Student Success and to the board? And would it be helpful to have a series of questions to be addressing? Like,

212I could imagine wanting, like, I would like to know what improvements are we seeing? Like, what's working? What's not working? You know what I mean? What would be most helpful? Like, how can we help you? Can I interject in that as well? And maybe this is a question for staff because if you go back, you know, what kind of got us here was our MTAC committee, Media and Technology Advisory Committee that, you know, was established group of parents, educators, students. I know because I served on it for a number of years. And they were very instrumental in determining, even from a curriculum standpoint, what type of technology would, you know, support teaching and learning. Of course, we've gotten far away from that because of, you know, a decline in funding for curriculum. You know, that's

213been a part of our budget request for some time. I mean, you know, I think over years, absolutely, we're going to adopt curriculum that is hands-on that gets kids kind of engaging. But we can't just adopt, you know, math, science, English, social studies all in one year. So I don't know if a structure like MTAC would be a place where, you know, there are people who are knowledgeable about the issue who've come together over time. They understand our curriculum. They understand our products. Sounds like we are proposing products that bring new metrics, like they understand what the metrics, you know, say and what they don't say. So, there's that. But I also hear, you know, board members saying like in the intermediate piece, there's some things that, you know, we could do next week and,

214you know, what are those types of things? So, maybe it's a both and you know, I don't know if that's something that we've been thinking about, but it might be worthy to think about bringing back a group like that. I'll just add to that. And so the digital learning plan is like setting off into the path. There will be tons of data that we get from there, and absolutely having people that are able to help review that at the school level, parents, you know, is going to be important because And I know I've said transparency many times, like, I really do, like, I want to open the doors so that we know exactly what's happening. And being able to report out, like, what is our baseline that we're seeing? You know, what things do we

215see that are improving? Do we need to cut certain programs because that, you know, return on investment isn't there? Even if I do have something that I'm saying use 45 minutes a week, if it's not showing improvements for students, we shouldn't be using it. And we're not even at that point. We'll be looking at some support around that AROI in the future that's going to be able and they could be a valuable piece or asset to that team as well so that we're able to see what is working as we move forward. I keep hitting the screen. But I do think that transparency piece is going to be key because it does really allow, you know, as a principal, I would really want to know, like, you know, where am I seeing the greatest gains

216and what are they doing? We need to replicate that. We say all the time, like, our teachers, like, go into that classroom because, like, they've got the magic. We need to continue to do that. And if it's, you know, how are the youth, we know this teacher is, like, rocking their scores and, you know, they're using screen time appropriately. Talk to them about what they're doing, what they're not doing. I see this teacher is using a ton of screen time and it's not doing anything for kids. Alright, well, you know, as part of your professional development plan, let's sit down and talk about like, alright, I'm going to, you know, once a week actually send you your usage report and I want to see those numbers go down because that's not appropriate for students. Again,

217it's the eyeballs on it and it's the enforcement of it. You know, we can do all the things and say all things, but It always boils down to like, is it actually happening in the classroom. So I'm 100% like MTAC, like having that group that's able to review that data. You know, I want to get to that point. And I think we just need to be able to say like, you have our blessing to move forward in that direction. And knowing that, you know, there's going to be tons of data that comes out over the next year, and some of it we're not going to be proud of. But it does give us some crystal clear, like, that's where we need to focus. Because I think right now we have ideas of where we think

218it may be, and I just want to know that's where it is, and I can have data that says, here's the baseline, we're going to improve it, instead of improve it. Because I think that's the conversation we continue to come back to, is like, we need to improve this, but with what metric, by what measure? And I think that team could help, you know, kind of set some of those, you know, as we adopt new programs and curriculum. Our ARI pieces, we're going to have some metrics that how do we know in 3 years that this program was successful? Whether it's technology or not, we've got to get to that point where we know what we're putting in front of kids is actually beneficial and not just it's a thing. I have one more comment.

219It's almost 10:30, so I'll just quickly say I would love to think about a plan that gets us to like some number of days a week that are tech-free. But it would have to be a plan, right? I hear your point, like you can't just turn off the technology without giving teachers some alternatives. So they need to be involved in the plan of how this will look, you know, maybe there's some PLC work or the task force work, but I'd love to think about that. I think that's something we can do that doesn't require measurement, right? Because it's just an on-off, right? So thank you. And I just wanted to say, timing-wise, I mean, with closing a school, like, I think it's an opportunity to talk about some new things we're doing. And I think

220this is really great plan. I mean, it's probably not coming through like it's a... I think it's much more than I'm sure a lot of other school districts did. And I think I like that you said it's a start and we're going to... It's just a start. The other thing I just wanted to say is that my understanding is that we're going to review like, we have a bunch of board policies that address technology, and there was one that we passed tonight on consent agenda, and I initially asked to take it off because I'm like, why are we doing this? But my understanding is we're going to review them all right in a batch and, and to have them kind of align with this plan, right? Yeah. And then, you know, with having an MTAC

221team, they could, you know, definitely help us get feedback, you know, from a school level, from a parent level. Any other comments, questions? Just a point of clarity, so I've heard a few times, the administration should go back and bring a proposal about things we can do now, or is that more work with a team of parents, teachers to develop a proposal and then kind of bring it back? I just want to be clear on what our next steps are with respect to the plan itself as well. The 6 things you're doing now. You mean after now, like after August? No, so we're adopting a plan today, but I'm hearing that we need to accelerate some things, but I'm just not clear about what that we are accelerating, and you said, or some board members

222said, you know, bring back ideas about what we can do now, but I'm just not clear on what that is. So that's going to take place. You mean in addition to that? What's up there? Yeah, just are there additional things that you're asking for us to bring back? Beyond that. Or is it the creation of a team that will help? I think I'm thinking create the team. I think that's for me. To determine additional things beyond. I'm sorry, like deputize the creation of MTAC to identify additional priority actions. Your mic. And the phones, do something about the phones now. It is 10. So would we be voting on a plan with these two additions? Is that what we're saying? No, we have to vote on the plan first, and then if we want these other

223things, we need to direct the staff to do the other things and to come back. Yes. Well, I think that's already part of... That's not really part of the plan. It's not really part of the plan, but those are already initiatives they're gonna do. So we don't have to vote on that. It's in the plan. So we vote on the plan happens. Priority actions with steps that we have in the plan. I mean, the plan says you're gonna consider phasing out iPads, so that's different from phasing them out. So I think the plan is actually... The language in the plan is not as, like, spicy as this. The language in the plan seems like it's going to take longer. That's why I feel like this maybe needs a separate vote. I think you guys wrote

224the plan and then wrote this, but I think this conveys the urgency more than the plan itself. So I just think we should just say we should just approve this slide and then also vote on the plan. That's my opinion. I mean, I agree, I really can't approve the plan as written because I feel like some of the language is not the same as this. And, you know, I think all of us, what I'm hearing is that we want faster action. If I may, Madam Chair, it is permissible for someone to make a motion to approve the plan amended to add these bullet points. Like, that is something you can do if that is what you want. I motion to approve the plan with the amended addition of the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 priority

225actions listed on the slide. Could that include the creation of a Media Technology Advisory Council? I think we'd follow up with that as the direction. Create that. I second that. Okay, so we've got a motion to approve the plan with the addition of these summer-fall priority actions, and we have a second from Barb. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, and so then the second part, and this doesn't require necessarily a vote, right, Eva, if we just direct the administration to work on, or do you want us to? I think we should have a motion to create for the administration to do XYZ. Okay. Go ahead. I move for the administration to convene a media technology advisory council or committee, whatever you want to call it collaboration to

226help us monitor the implementation of the plan. We got a motion. Second. Second from George. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I was going to ask to add something about the phones, but maybe we can just direct that. We can bring that back as an agenda item. Okay. Thank you. Yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It's late, guys. And our last item on our agenda, I know it's late, is sharing. So board members, do we have any committee updates? Finance, you guys are meeting next week, right? No, we're not meeting this summer. So you guys, you had your last meeting already. Okay. Policy. I'm trying to help out and get the calendar too. We met on May 19th, and we've seen some of the policies on the consent agenda today, and you'll

227see some additional ones coming on future board agendas for approval. So, no kind of big updates on that one. And you guys are off for the summer as well? I believe we have one more in June. Yes, we have a June Policy Committee meeting. Okay. All right. And then Student Success. Thank you. Our last meeting was Tuesday, May 26th, and we discussed an update on multi-tiered systems of supports. Which is a framework that helps each student access the appropriate levels of support so that they can access the curriculum. We also got an update on the ongoing partnership with Durham Tech and an update regarding transportation between our high schools, which better allows students to access classes at schools other than their home school. There will be no June meeting, but we do expect to reconvene

228in July, and that date is TBD. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other liaison updates or general sharing from board members? Go ahead, Ronnie. I have quick sharing, some super exciting news. Congratulations to the Carrboro High School girls soccer team for winning the state championship. And congratulations to Chapel Hill High girls lacrosse team for making history as the first state title in the school's history for women's lacrosse. Woo-hoo! Go Tigers! And then East Chapel Hill girls were the state runner-up in the lacrosse. So congratulations to all of our talented student athletes. Really incredibly proud of the work that they do. Any other sharing? Okay. All right. And with that, our meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone.