001I don't think he can see me good evening everyone even welcome to the uh October 27th um meeting of the Board of Education um the Durham Board of uh the Durham Public Schools board of education is now convened in his regular monthly meeting I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and our television viewers to this meeting of the school board tonight's agenda promises to be rich with information that will support and enhance our vision statement standing committees of the board will present information and reports that will keep you informed on what the district is doing to ensure that our vision of success for every child is being realized the board invites public comment at the beginning of the board meeting and before each agenda item board members will carefully listen and consider
002the comments from the public but the board does not engage in a discussion with speakers thank you for taking the time to join us and we are glad you are with us um we generally we start out our meetings with a moment of silence and uh during this moment of silence I'd ask for everyone to just kind of keep in mind our country as we go to the polls um think about what this election means to our country to each of us and it's not just the presidential election it's the local elections it is the uh State elections um that in some regards are even more important than the presidential election um so if you join me a moment of silence and think about our country as we vote thank you and um I do
003hope everyone here has voted if you're eligible please you know early voting is going on right now they have extended hours so there's no excuse for anyone to not vote and if you don't vote you can't complain for the next four years all right so that's what being American is that's what being part of the community is all right so we will go on to celebrations for you in Advent going to Elbow bump everybody okay good evening and we are pleased to welcome many of our families from our schools this evening uh just for the general public before most board meetings during the year we invite families from up to six seven of our schools to come eat with us so that we can talk about what's working some areas for improvement and we were
004excited tonight to have um several families with us and uh we also like to thank at this time the excellent culinary program at Northern High School who caters meals for us and caters meals in the community and I heard tonight is harder to book than like the Duke Gardens for a wedding or something so call them for your events next year all right so we would like to welcome the families that came with us um I'll call out the school and if those families would come down uh shake the board's hand except for the superintendent who is under the weather and will elbow bump you to show his appreciation all right so first uh our fames from the citizen city of medicine Academy please join us in the right Jordan High School if you join
005us this way so we get you on camera the right way and our families from Southwest Elementary School good evening it's my pleasure to introduce the rest of the celebrations portion of this evening's meeting when we have an opportunity to recognize some outstanding students tonight tonight's first celebration is the Durham heral son and Durham Public Schools student of the month this program spotlights students who distinguish themselves with character and integrity who are active in their schools in community and who maintain excellent academic standards I'd like to ask Gloria Woods weeks principal of JD Clement Early College High School on the campus of North Carolina Central University to come up and introduce our student of the month good evening as principal of the Early College my first interaction with Mr Ivan Rosales was doing the Summer
006Bridge program for incoming freshman at the Early College I observed him to be respectful intelligent and charismatic amongst his peers I was impressed with his ability to take leadership in his group and the positive way he encouraged his fellow group members as a freshman at the Early College his teachers were fascinated with his intuitive critical thinking skills and his diligence to maintain excellent grades his peers were fascinated with his outgoing mature and very kind nature when Ivan first received his diagnosis of cancer in January he was very quick to seek guidance for implementing a plan to ensure his continued success at the Early College he did not want to fall behind in his studies during the many conversations we had I would say to him please do not worry about your studies at this time
007I need need you to focus on your recovery and getting well but his schoolwork was always at the Forefront of everything else that was going on Ivan's determination and positive attitude is contagious to all he meets he is recognized by our school family for his resilience and ability to stay focused and persistence regardless of any obstacles he is presented with after two surgeries chemotherapy and only half days of schooling Ivan remains an honoro and a honoro student with ambition and aspirations of attending North Carolina State University where he will study environmental engineering ladies and gentlemen it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr Ivan Rosales as the October Harold Sun DPS student student of the month thank you both very much all right I would now like to ask Durham Public Schools Athletic Director Larry
008McDonald to come up introduce our next celebration thank you so much to Dr L and the members of the board of education for dur Public Schools it's a great pleasure to bring this young man to the Forefront of things here in durm he has exceeded excellently academically and athletically despite having some setback when he was born we're so glad tonight to have with us Mr Desmond Jackson and I'm going to ask uh mini fort uh Ferguson to Brown to excuse me I'm thinking Mina to come and to read the the bio on Desmond been a little boy since he was born this is an honor Desmond Jackson was selected to the 2016 United States paralympic track and field team as the youngest male on the team to compete in Rio de Janeiro he competed in
009the 100 meters the 200 meters and the long jump Desmond finished first out of all three United States competitors in the 100 meters but overall Desmond placed seventh in the world for long jump and Ninth in the world for the 100 meters the competition was stiff as Desmond competed against athletes who range in age from 25 to 38 Desmond was also just named to the 2016 United States par Olympics track and field allamerican unit for the third time he is preparing to compete in the world games which will take place in London July 2017 and he is ramping up his training to Target Tokyo in 2020 Desmond Andre Jackson you can hug your auntie and Grandma just in case I failed to mention Desmond is a student at Hillside IB under the leadership of Dr
010William Logan and his high school coach is here coach C please stand ladies and gentlemen that completes our celebrations for the night all right all right that is great uh before we the next on the list is the superintendent superintendent's update but I just wanted to uh wish a Welcome to our newest board member this is our first full board meeting uh B batina Umstead we are very glad to have you congratulations on being appointed and I hope you uh enjoy your time here did you want to do you want to say anything or I'm very thankful to be here all right that works too okay and the superintendent update is next thank you uh Mr chair but before I start Desmond Jackson I hope you caught it not only is he an athlete he's
011a scholar and being a scholar athlete that's that that is the top of the the top of the pile board members I am under the weather and full of cough medicine and cough drops so I'm going to be very brief in tonight's remarks and I hope she's still here I want to lead off with how proud I was of our three high schools with 100% graduation rates that were hned at a luncheon this week with state state superintendent Jun ainson what delighted me about the luncheon was how competitive our principles were with each other comparing notes on how many years their schools have hit 100% by the way early college high school has gone to that um banquet four times we recognized these three schools earlier in the year but I want to again congratulate
012the teachers staff faculty and especially students of JD Clement Early College High School City of medicine Academy and middle college at Durham Tech and also by the way city of medicine Academy in its um in its size is of zero to 100 graduates was uh second in the state hear that guys second in the state and middle college at Durham Tech Hillside new tech only missed 100% by one student which means that they had a 98% graduation rate and of our Comprehensive High Schools DSA also had a graduation rate of 90% over the last week the issue of student free expression has come up regarding the national anthem and I want to share some thoughts we play the anthem before our games to honor our country and we of course will continue to do so
013how our students react to the anthem however is a matter of free expression I am less concerned with whether our students kneel or stand during the anthem than I am that all of our students treat each other with dignity respect before during and after the anthem our policies are clear that students free expression must be respected as long as it does not res um disrupt the learning environment or infringe on others and our experiences in Durham did not disrupt but they made the point we are welcoming superintendents tomorrow to Durham from the 10 larg of school districts in North Carolina and it's traditional that we' provide a little token of uh of uh of Durham you know and a lot of times you get all sorts of bling and swag and stuff like that but
014that's not what we're going to do I want you to know that I want to show off during public schools and I'm going to show off during public schools with three books is that the first book I'm giving them is by our teacher Stuart Albright at Jordan High School who wrote a world Beyond home and the excellent literary anthologies from both Durham School School of the Arts in Lowe's Grove I'd also like to congratulate Judy hilot music teacher at Easley Elementary who is a semi finalist for the Grammy Foundation National music educator award congratulations to wend Del tab hillside's Drama teacher who received the sister cities of Durham mayor's award for promoting International understanding last week and whose opening night Gayla next week for the musical The Whiz will be graced with the presence of
015legendary Broadway choreographer Dr George fison finally members of the state black legislative black Conquest tour three of our schools pacwood elementary L's Grove Middle School and Early College High School they were joined by members of the Board of Education and members of the board of County Commissioners on this all happened on October 11th our students and staff really made us proud to show off those schools because when they walked into those schools not only they see great school building they also saw talented teachers engaged students and learning going on all over our district so I want to thank our students and staff for that uh visit last week and that Mr chair concludes my report thank you thank you Dr LOM um next on the agenda is the agenda review and approval board members does
016this agenda meet with your approval are there any add additions hearing none I will accept a motion move approval of the agenda second it's been moved and properly seconded that we ex U approve the agenda as presented before us any further discussion all in favor say I I all opposed please use the same sign passes unan ously next is general public comment thank you very much okay all right oh okay so we have 11 signed up for general public comment yeah three minutes all right we'll we'll Grant three minutes each the first one is uh Javan Lewis okay did I say that right javanna all right Lewis good evening good evening my name is javanna Lewis and I am a parent of two boys at George Watts montau Elementary School George Watts Elementary School has
017become a focused school this means that Black and Hispanic testing scores in math and reading are significantly lower than white students scores and it has been this way for three consecutive years there are also five other diverse schools in our districts that have been labeled as focused schools and we feel like this is not acceptable in June 2016 the PTA at Watts helped to organize a meeting of parents of African-American students to share the data openly talk about the overwhelmingly shocking data of the achievement Gap and find solutions to the problem find solutions to give our children better opportunities at this meeting the pack was formed parents of African-American children pack is a group of parents teachers and administrators whose mission is to eliminate the achievement Gap some people would like to say that socioeconomic
018and parental engagement plays a major role in Children of color not being able to proficiently pass the EOG end of test grade end of grade testing and I have to raise my hand to say that's not my situation I am fortunate to not be economically disadvantaged and I am an active involved parent however my son began the second grade above reading level mid year he had regressed and was behind level at the end of second grade it was unbelievable and unacceptable the only difference is race and no one wants to talk about that there were many obstacles for even the parents of African-American families to come together to have a meeting to talk about the issues at hand as a parent of an African-American child I would like to hear from the board on three
019points one what are you doing to reform focused schools so all of these schools are more achieving for the children of color two what resources are you going to give teachers and staff so that they are better equipped to know their blinders and or white economic privilege to work effectively with black and brown children raise the bar and third the North Carolina Forum P published last Thursday has made recommendations dealing with racial equity and one of them was to create District Equity departments with executive level leadership there are only a few districts in North Carolina that have prioritized Equity diversity or inclusion to the extent that they have dedicated this level of specific support for it districts must begin to place District leaders in charge of elevating the issues providing anti-racism training monitoring data for
020racial disparity and holding schools accountable for Equitable outcomes currently there are fewer than five districts out of 115 in North Carolina that have such a dedicated Department Department of leadership role I would like to know in showing a commitment to equity in our education system will you begin to create an equity officer position for us like the other five school districts in North Carolina to address equity and education as recommended by the North Carolina form study thank you thank you Miss Lewis um our next speaker is L Shir Shapiro I also have h two sons and I'm a member of the Watts parents of African-American children I have one son that is in kindergarten at watts and one son that will probably be in prek next year at Watts um I just wanted to sort
021of give some context um which I'm sure many of you know but just thank you for indulging me um that black and brown kids but particularly black kids at watts are not only um suffering an opportunity Gap but um there is really a shrinking number of African-American children at Watts um my understanding is that historically Watts was an all black school and that shortly before it became a magnet school in 2004 it was about 5050 I might be wrong about this but this is my this is my general sense um and at some point um you know and and it was turned into a magnet partly in e in an effort to attract more white families to stay in DPS um and to a great degree it's been considered a success on that measure by
022that measure um but perhaps due to the wonderful school that we have and perhaps I think very likely due to that and very likely due to the demographics shifting in the in the neighborhoods around the school um the student body has trended white and the teachers and the administration have really change too if you look at the pictures from long ago at Watts it's it's very different um in my own child's prek and K class there was one by site one African-American child um now that my son is in kindergarten and the and there's a new prek class and there are no African-American children there are two biracial children in that class um which to me is shocking given Durham's demographics and um even you know wall Town's demographics and um my understanding is that
023this my son's class was 60% white 20 25 26% Latino 8% African-American um so while I think for DPS as a whole it is I'm sure a success to bring in white families but I my a question to you is at what point is that demographic breakdown within a a DPS school still considered a success um I think many of us feel very good about Watts there are some serious questions about the quality of Education that some children are getting there um but I think we have a lot of families of all colors that are very dedicated to the school and to making it succeed so the question is is this still a success and how will you focus on diversity and equity for um for the children in watts and other focused schools thanks
024thank you very much Miss Shapiro our next our next speaker is Robin Ferman my name is Robin Ferman thank you for the time tonight I'm speaking tonight as a DPS parent of white children and I'm standing in solidarity with the George Watts parents of African-American children's group my daughter is currently a second grader at George Watts and I'm hopeful that my son will be attending prek there next year I am incredibly grateful and profoundly humbled by the tireless work that teachers and staff at George Watts put in every single day and yet as you all know and certainly as the parents who are in this room know our school is simply not working for everyone I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about the gaps in academic opportunity and a achievement along racial lines that are
025persistent at George Watts and all other DPS schools I fundamentally believe that solving this issue must be the highest priority of this board in addition to this simply being a critical moral issue I am concerned about the negative impact this racial opportunity Gap is having on my own on on white children including my own as you all know children notice everything I am worried about the harmful messages my white daughter may be inter internalizing as she sees mostly white children in the highest reading groups and mostly white children in her AIG classes despite our family's best efforts to teach her otherwise will she grow up with the belief that white people are simply smarter than people of color will her own implicit bias be strengthened as a result of her DPS education instead of confronted
026and dismantled I believe that these persistent gaps in academic opportunity along racial lines and the messages that white children will will internalize because of them make my child more likely to cause racially motivated harm in the future and fail to adequately prepare her as the culturally competent leader that our current and future world needs throughout Progressive white Durham I often hear the cry We Heart Public Schools I wouldn't be a DPS parent if I didn't love them too but what I love more are schools that are truly opening the doors of Equitable opportunity for all children my questions for the board tonight are what are you doing to specifically ensure that black and brown children succeed at watts and how will the Board address racial disparities to access to academically gifted programs what the data
027shows us is that changing this course is not a matter of possibility it is a matter of will thank you thank you our next speaker is Elizabeth linquist I have to move this I'm a little taller can you still hear me okay good evening my name is Elizabeth linquist and I'm the PTA president at George Watts and I'm here tonight I'm going to shift the focus for a moment but don't worry it's going to shift back after I finish um I'm here because of the board's approval of the sliding fee scale for prek at watts and Morehead I support Universal prek it should be funded by the tax base if the political will is not there to move that forward and this is the best we can do for now to increase access to prek
028I support it however I and many other parents at Watts have been concerned for many years by the decreasing economic and ethnic diversity at the school to be blunt the school has been trending more white and more affluent for years many of us applied to Watts because we believe in the power and promise of public education we want our children to attend a school that is rich in both economic and racial diversity and we want a community supported and engaged school for our kids I'm concerned that this plan will only exacerbate the problem of decreasing diversity at Watts it is creating one more obstacle for entry that I believe will result in the school becoming less diverse in 2012 when our son started there the free and reduced lunch population was over 50% last year
029it was 44% and I'm sure it will drop again this year in 2012 the population breakdown was about 40% Hispanic 30% black and 30% white this year it is 30% Hispanic 177% black and 48% white and that is not what we want to see happening at our school and the incoming prek class this year saw even greater declines it is is 24% Hispanic 12% black and 60% white as you move forward with the sliding fee structure for prek please keep in mind ways to increase both the socioeconomic and racial diversity at the school I realized that since the Supreme Court ruling you cannot look at race but you can look at socio economics and that that makes a difference in 2015 over 700 kids were on the wait list Sy Durham who qualified for free
030federal and state funded prek please consider reserving 30 to 40% of the pre- slots at Watts for these families giving Priority First to families who qualify for free prek and live in our priority Zone and then offering spots to other families who qualify and want to attend watts and fill the remaining spots through the current lottery system I've outlined my ideas to share with you which I'll give you um we do have a diverse priority Zone but but there has not been enough Outreach and advertising to let families know ahead of the application period thank you for your consideration and service thank you a many all right yes if you um have written comments when you come to speak uh we'd appreciate handing it to uh chip here um he will collected and uh we'll
031be able to review it okay all right our next speaker is Tom adme yes good evening my name is Tom adme I'm the parent of an African-American prek student at George Watts there's a couple things I'd like to talk about some of which will Echo comments that have previously been made going back to what Javon was saying about the uh committee on Racial equality I particularly like to draw your attention to their suggestion of developing AO standards for culturally relevant teaching to assist teachers in effectively instructing children of color there's been a number of comments made this evening about various sta statistics um and I've tried to look at the statistics but I found that um that there's just a lot of information that's doesn't seem to be available to parents um when you you
032know if you want to try to look into things like what is the end of grade Performance Based on you know gender socioeconomic racial just somebody must have that information but it's not readily available to parents even when I've requested it from the school they've only been able to point me back to the the websites that have much broader information so I'm requesting that somehow that information be made readily available to the public um then on the the universal prek which I I support Universal prek I think that's a wonderful thing I I think it should be taxpayer funded just like kindergarten first grade whatever we aren't asking parents to reach in their pocket for that um but I am deeply concerned about this proposal for watts and Morehead um to go to a sliding
033scale fee system for this next year and the reason I'm concerned about that is that I I think that the parents of means will understand that that this is a gatekeeping function and and that they'll reach into their pocket and pull out the money and send their kids to it but someone of more modest means even if their fee was was much smaller that that that might be enough to keep them from sending their child and that then what's going to happen is you know because of the way watts in particular is set up uh if you don't get in at prek you don't get in and if you don't you know same thing happens with with siblings so what what I'm afraid is going to happen is that you're going to run this program
034for a couple of years find that it completely skew the demographics but then you're going to be stuck with it even if you cancel it at that point you're you're going to be stuck with the impact of it while those people go through and their siblings go through so I'd like you guys and you know it concerns me that you you know as a parent of a prek student you know there's been no polling no one's asked like would you have sent your kid if you had to pay you know a quick questionnaire six questions you know income race a few other things and you could find out a lot about what would actually happen if you did this thank you thank you next speaker would be Lindsay Bach I on the other hand I'm
035not so tall good evening uh my name is Lindsay bickers Bach I'm the mother to two young girls one of whom is currently a kindergartener at George wats I'm also a member of The George wats School Improvement team as someone who cares deeply about contributing to the public public schools in Durham and also who is deeply committed to the importance of Education in exposing our children to the diversity of life experiences and World Views that are a part of our community I thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment first I want to stand with the parents of African-American children at George Watts to say that when Black and Hispanic children have a different experience in our Public Schools it affects all of us I applaud Pac for its hard work to stand against
036the Gap and encourage the Board of Education to work hard to apply both resources and new and proven strategies to address the achievement Gap that is present at George Watts and many other Durham schools additionally I want to push the Board of Education and drum public schools to commit to considering and evaluating the impact of the newly approved sliding scale fee for prek education at George Watts and Morehead monor magnet schools I understand some of the reasoning behind such a fee but I think that there is much that is unknown about the logistics of this approach to supporting the availability of prek Education within DPS it will be important to examine the administrative burden that will accompany this approach including validating incomes and uring payments and to look at the impact that this additional layer
037of the application will have on the diversity of the student body at these magnet schools as Durham ch changes in parents interest in DPS schools evolves it will be essential for Duram public schools to have the data to unwind the interest in locally based prek a desire for strong diverse magnet schools interest in the monory magnet programs the ability of DPS to address the achievement Gap in a way that promotes equity for all students across and within Durham Public Schools all of this information will be key to developing efforts to scale the availability of prek Education in Durham finally I want to emphasize the strong interest from parents at George Watts to contribute to continued discussion of both of these issues I hope you will solicit and consider input from these families as you seek
038to address and eliminate the achievement Gap and it use the monory magnet program as one successful strategy to increase the availability of diverse peaceful Early Education programs in Durham thanks very much for your time this evening all right thank you now the next speaker is uh it says Jodie white but it had a slash through it oh sure sure thank you thank you for taking public input my name is Jody White I have um a child at watts and and I um here to share my concern with you um about the process for which the sliding scale program was a proposed I'm definitely um a supporter of universal prek as a concept here in Durham I'm not opposed to sliding scale but what I am what I do have concerned about is the process by
039which the board decided on this um as a public school stakeholder I want to understand how this sliding skill idea was settled on as a solution for equitability by the board um and at this point I have more questions than answers what researched and precedence was reviewed by the board was input from the Morehead Watts pre- committees considered solicited or welcomed during this decision process does the public have access to the materials that were considered and reviewed by the board during the consideration time if this fee system is building a savings chest for future implementation of universal pre are the funds that are collected from this program marked as restricted or will they go into the general fund is there a document that explains how these funds will be collected and appropriated for a universal
040prek what is the administrative cost of administering this system and what are the impacts that we haven't considered yet or heard that y'all are concerned about how is this pilot program regarded by the universal prek task force was their input solicited or welcomed will the comments heard tonight have any effect on the implementation of this system and what is the purpose of this session if y'all have already made a decision um because I feel like these answers need to be shared with the public to add some transparency to the decision process I respectfully and humbly request that you pause the implementation of this program until um public input can be solicited digested and considered with stakeholders of the school system thank you okay um next speaker is I think is Joanna um r Joanna Rosales
041Wana okay yeah yeah Wan Rosalez um well six minutes for because of translation um okay uh she's her name is Joanna uh Ros Rosales and has has two children in George Watts one is in prek oh I'm sorry one is in PR PR the two of them are gonna enter pre okay so she's also concerned about this this theme that she's got two children that are going to be entering school she's concerned about the costs that's going to be coming up because there's five in the family and she that's going to be a very big concern for her so she wants to know what is she supposed to do in terms of being able to pay for this or afford this or affect this especially how it's going to be affecting other parents that are
042in the same situation so she wants to know also what she can do to inform the others at at George Watts and how she can also inform others that are concerned about going to prek gra thank you our next speaker is Ronda Bullock good evening as you said um my name is Rhonda Bullock and I'm a parent of a kindergartner at Southwest and former uh Dar Public Schools teacher and so um somewhat in line with what other people have been bringing up tonight I just have some questions that I want to pose to the board that I think uh as parents as community members like we deserve answers to and so the first one is where is the Strategic plan for the district what is it what are the goals what are we working towards
043what are the smart goals what is supposed to be achieved by when I think we all come in with our different points of reference and our different needs that we want to hold you all accountable for but at bare minimum we could hold you accountable for whatever it is that you have put in place to do and that's very hard when unless I've missed it and overlooked it um if we don't have a plan for a district like every District every organiz every High function organization has a plan and we as parents and community members and you board members we need that to help hold you accountable at bare minimum to what you all say that you will do in addition to the concerns that we all individually bring up and so we need some
044smart goals we're already in October we're about to start November I don't know the I don't know the direction that you all are trying to take us and it's going to be hard it's hard to build trust in the community when we don't have a a universal or a central direction to follow and a plan with Graphics that we can follow and I think that has to be created immediately and uh with thought not rush through but with thought so that we can have some type of idea of what direction we're going in um how are you making racial Equity a priority I think a lot of the other people who are speaking tonight have been hidden around that how is it a priority and it's not a priority if it's not a line item
045in the budget if there is not money supporting whatever those racial Equity issues are then it's null invol if you're not going to put money behind it I think we that's like a common thing people know if money is not behind it then it has no standing ground um can we we move away or in addition to thinking about achievement Gap think about Equity gaps that exist in the district for one the achievement Gap is inherently racist and it does uphold white supremacy because it's based on a deficit lens that black kids aren't achieving kids of color Latino kids brown kids aren't achieving as well as white kids what I would prefer that we looked at is where in the district are black and brown kids being successful what's happening at those schools who's disaggregating
046that data is it class is it the location is it the school is the combination of the culture at that school some kids are being successful and we need to hammer in on that what are those teachers and those schools and those parents doing that data needs to be disaggregated and that's where we need to focus because some people are getting it right who are those people where are those schools who are those teachers and let's emulate what they're doing throughout the district I'm just real quickly uh one issue that I saw at uh Southwest at the PTA meeting was that one Latino parent talked about there was no mechanism for Latino parents who participate in the PTA meetings so tonight we have these audio systems that people are re receiving translations for but at
047the PTA meeting those aren't there and allegedly uh schools have to rant those systems from the district that's a structural barrier to Latino fam's participation in PTA meetings and we all know that parent involvement is key and so that's a structural racial issue that's preventing some families from participating I think that's something the district needs to take into consideration as well thank you Miss buet our next speaker is Wana Garcia okay she had to leave and our last speaker for general public comment is Walt Baron hello thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for your service all of you um my name is Walt Baron I am a parent of two girls at George Watts so I'm going to kind of bring it back to where we started the general public comments
048talking about the achievement Gap um I neither of my girls are black or brown but I think as javanna and Robin and others have so eloquently said this is an issue that affects all of us and it's not lost on me that the mission statement here is to provide all students with an out setting education that motivates them to reach their full potential um I've been in Durham since 2005 and I believe that the kids who grow up in Durham have greater potential than other kids and it's because of our diversity um but what's required to make that happen is that they all grow up together and they learn together they grow together they interact together and the achievement Gap threatens that uh what I love love love about Durham and what I love about
049George Watts is our diversity and we've got to protect that um and so I'm just standing here as a white parent of white students to tell Javan and others that we support you and thank you for your leadership on this issue thank you that was General Public comment now it's time for approval of the Board of Education minutes so moved second okay so there's been a a motion and it's been motion moved and properly seconded that we approve the minutes for September 22nd 2016 September 27th 2016 special called meeting special called meeting for October 3rd 2016 special called meeting for October oober 5th 2016 then a special called meeting for October 13th 2016 any discussion all in favor say I I all opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously next item on the
050agenda is consent agenda in the consent agenda we have policy 9000 Series facilities and then North Carolina School boards Association policy revisions and updates move approval of the items on the consent agenda second has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the consent agenda any discussion all in favor please say I I all opposed please use the same sign the consent agenda passes unanimously to the reports of the work sessions academic and student services work session our first report is our academically and gifted uh report and Beth cross and Laura parrot will walk us through this update good evening it is a pleasure to come before you to tonight to share the AIG plan for 20169 I am Beth cross director of dance academics my trusty partner Laura parrot coordinator of advanced academics joined
051us a year and a half ago and um it's made all the difference our goals in the AIG plan we are the advanced academics team the goals overarching at the heart of all of our goals are communication diversity and rigor and relevance but around that and everything that we do we're hitting K12 this is a K12 program and in our three through 8 we we're doing really well 9 through 12 programming we know that our students are doing well they're they're accessing higher level classes as a first generation college student myself with Laura parrot's background and Avid as an avid director in another District we know how important it is to make sure that our kids are in the right classes receiving the right supports so then access postsecondary or college or career what is
052also something that we have been working on for several years is our K2 programming K2 programming is vital to the success of our AIG programming because that is where we can get in our all of our classrooms we serve all of our students in K1 and two with thinking skills with science connections with curriculum connections so that we are seeing students as at potential and not at risk in January 20 8 there was a performance audit um conducted through the office of the state auditor and I bring this up because this gives us the background of our program standards I've been in this position since 2006 I have lived through now three AIG plans and this is the fourth our 2010 AIG plan was um a result of a recommendation from the audit there were
053some concerns that were lifted to the to the state office that AIG students were being underserved because AIG budget funds were being used for other purposes the findings they did not find that Durham was guilty of any of this thank goodness but one of the things that we benefit is a wonderful structure for our AIG program aligning all AIG programs across the state our AIG program standards there are six they are comprehensive in our 44 page plan you read many practices that are included in each of those standards it's not just about identification that's only one of our six standards um and I'd also like to mention that um every Lea in the state is required to have an AIG plan aligned to the standards our Charters are not required to have these plans our
054Charters are not required to serve AIG students our AIG child count as you can see for St um standard one we have been able to maintain a diverse group of students in our AIG program District wide on behalf of 5,761 students in our last official headcount we bring forward this plan for approval and set in policy for the remainder of this school year as well as the 201718 school year and the 201819 school years and it's important to note that our numbers have decreased over a few years this these numbers span five years which means that this covers two different plans the last plan we changed our identification qualifying criteria to 90% we've seen a little bit of a decrease but we've also have put more emphasis on K2 programming um Services instead of just
055identification because we were seeing that that was a need um it is important to also recognize that the the advanced academics mission is to serve identified students as well as cultivate potential in all DPS students in a recent count of students who are included in groups pulled for enrichment instruction there are 400 plus and Counting students who were in addition and I've only gotten numbers from some of our elementary um schools who are pulled for enrichment and they are additional students with whom the AIG Specialists or the AIG licens teachers are working who are not identified yet if I may use a growth mindset uh there are two recent stories I'd like to share on Monday I was just this week on Monday I was in a classroom and the teach teacher decided to do
056something different to review ancient Greece what did she do did they have worksheets were they working out of a book no she designed an escape room she did not withhold this just for her classes who were higher performing she did this with all of her classes and I was lucky enough to be in one of those classes and of course I became a student that's what I do when I go into the classroom but we had to solve we had to solve 11 riddles about ancient Greece clues about ancient Greece students were finding Clues behind clocks in uh padlock boxes and we were we together were working on this the teacher had three hints that she could give we had to do this in 50 minutes if she gave us a hint though we lost
057two minutes hint number one students are you ready for hint number one no they said no I good we got this hint number two we were really struggling I asked the girl next to me don't we want hint number two teacher said hit number two do you want it no we don't want it we were struggling but we actually got through it and the kids had a blast they learned they reviewed they worked together as a team and leaders arose from that group that she had not seen before just doing an activity it's a little bit different she saw all of her Stu many of her students in a different light and I told the kids this shows me you want challenge our students all of our students want the challenge challenge they want that
058struggle tomorrow uh Laura and I get to go to a a a school to hear a NASA engineer an africanamerican female Nas NASA engineer who will be speaking to a group at an elementary school and then after that after speaking to the large group she's going to do a small small science experiment with another group that's what we're about we're about enriching all students as well as making sure our identified students have their needs met by approving this plan you are approving of our additions and changes from our 20136 plan which are establishing a district review team because as we realize our numbers are decreasing we want to make sure that we have a review team that adds some flexibility yet consistency at the district level for students who just don't make the cut why
059are they not making the cut so that we can have that flexibility of I identifying articulating a portfolio of evidence we have students who are not test takers we have a pathway that allows for that and making sure that that we've walked through with our AIG Specialists exactly what does that look like and how do you advocate for a student who's really rock rocking it out if I may be unprofessional for a second but not on the on the test um change we changed the composite score for our intellectually gifted students to 96 percentile to be in alignment with our st99 if if I could speak statistically as well as um adopting we're asking to adopt Advanced academics lead teachers at the high school to help us with our programming and um working on our
060honors courses a focus for 201619 will always be strengthening K2 programming because that is where it is that's where the work is that's research is shown can help us with our diversity expand our advisory Council to ensure that we have committee members as well as staff members we've been largely focused on parents in most recent years we have a lot of data we're digging in the data there's not a department that we don't work with to make sure that we are looking at all aspects of our students thankfully we're aligned with the teaching learning and leadership team so that we can get in there and work with with the curriculum and make a difference and of course in budget times as we we always have continue to look for those Partnerships and sponsor sponsorships to
061help us do the things that we're able to do as far as enriching without it costing an arm and a leg if I may say so now I thank you for your time and I would like to call up Laura parrot to help field any questions you may have at this time um I think you touched on it uh really quickly about the changeing the composite score for intellectually gifted to 96 percentile um how will that affect the numbers in in our program so our current is 97% as the composite score but when we look at the stay 9 curve st99 begins with 96% so lowering it just one percentile only increase some but keep the Integrity of what it has been established um thanks for talking about the K12 initiative especially because you're touching
062all the kids and many of us think of many many community members as well well think of a as just a small percentage of students in there whole thing so thank you for serving all the kids in that area and thank you for um putting in things to strengthen the high school my question is you know we in this District do have issues in middle schools and what's the middle school picture look like what does the middle school picture look like for AIG that's pretty broad well we we still have our services we have our AIG Specialists um we have many AIG licensed teachers that's a focus that teacher I spoke about on Monday was an AIG licensed teacher in a social studies classroom so many of the students were benefiting um we still have
063that program I'd like to pull the AIG Specialists out of the regular classroom a little bit more but we're working to that we have we're we're working very hard in our middle schools um to move the needle because that's where the focus needs to be now we also have thank you Laura we have a couple of pilot programs um in sixth grade we have a compacted math program because we we for in historically have been accelerating our students maybe a little bit too fast especially in the math track and we have identified some some ways that we can actually for our Rising sixth graders provide them with um the math topics sixth seventh and eighth grade so that we're not simply going from sixth grade then to math one as we have done in the
064past where they're skipping you know a year and a half of curriculum standards also we have we're in the second year of our pilot program for English one at the 8th grade level go ahead so I I just wanted to thank thank you guys for providing the plan in the packet um so that we could get it and in in a very non- patronizing way I'm very glad that we have a lot of the community here and I I hope they won't feel patronized if we talk a little bit about our process for how we get to our agendas for these meetings and that is everything comes to these meetings comes through work sessions that happen earlier in the month and so we've been presented with this already and um we brought it back because
065we needed some additional information around what the actual plan was and so I thank you for that but also those are great meetings to participate in um so you can help inform what gets to the the larger board meeting um I just wanted to U thank you guys for the the plan itself and I just wanted to point out something that I really liked about the program um um my son's an AIG and he has they have to test for math it's like a a test of the subject whatever their the subject is and if they pass that test if they're AIG or not if they test out of that they actually get to go with the AIG facilitator that's uh and that's kids that are not identified as a also and I really appreciate
066that because you know we have throughout our schools we have very smart children and some of them are not identified as AIG and some of them are being pulled out because they know that subject they already know it and they're actually getting enhanced um academic experiences you know with that sort of work so I really like that part of the program itself it um I think it it it's more inclusive you know of the program and more more students can take advantage of uh the great AIG program we have here in Durham I mean I think is I think is one of the best in the state and I really appreciate reaching out to other students um not not directly identified as AIG and providing those services to those students too but first of all
067thank you and this the the work of the advanced academics all the way from K through 12th grade uh is is just great and what we do in Durham is uh is impressive uh the in particular the diversity of students that we reach is uh I think is uh exemplary uh certainly when you look at the state as a whole and you look at what Durham's able to do we have more to do uh but I hope that the word goes back to our especially to our teachers and school level people uh how appreciative we are of the efforts they're making uh I it would help me it would help us I think I'm trying to figure out have a way to do this without overburdening our already stretched staff but uh if there's if
068there's some way to to roughly quantify the numbers of students that were able to reach in some of these other ways because I think you're kind of restricted by law and what you report to us if I understand corre correctly uh but you're finding creative ways to serve a more diverse group of students uh and if there's if there's any way to get some ballpark numbers on uh students that were able to reach outside of the the state requirements uh because I think the case that we want to make is that uh is that Duram Public Schools reaches a broad range of students with advaned programs this is not a a a pull out for a small group uh but is enriching the the education for many many of our children uh and the extent
069to which we can document that helps us make that case so thank you so just just a question I think I know the answer but uh my daughter attends a school where there there aren't a lot of AIG students identified and so is the is the primary owner of the AIG work at an individual School I assume working with the principal is is the is step one or does the principal have a design at every single school as the a facilitator every single School K8 has an AIG specialist um and they are required to have an AIG leadership committee which includes several grade level teachers counselor and administrator all right so working at that with those Folks at the local level is where to start great thank you yes may I say one thing I
070sat next to a parent at CC Spalding yesterday and she looked at my name tag she saids so what do you do and I told her and she said I'm good I'm glad to know that I really want my child I'd like to have him looked at for AIG testing so I was waiting for the principal I emailed the AIG specialist I told gave her his name I said please look into him into him for me and what made me think about Charter is because she said we left a charter school because they didn't have an AIG program he's a third grader so that's how it's it's as easy as that you know let that person know at your school there's someone at every school right and the other thing I say we were at
071CC sping and as we were looking over the schedule with our AIG Specialists there you know little asteris by names and what we were seeing was these were the students who were identified but there were that many more students who were being pulled in for services that weren't actually there was more children being pulled in for services than are identified so she's able to reach many students so I appreciate it's as easy as that and I know you guys work on on nurturing and identifying students of color in particular and we've been working on it in Durham for years we clearly have still have work to do but it's not as easy as just running into Beth cross it's parents can self-identify and we need our parents to know that that if they feel their
072child um they can recommend they don't you don't need a teacher's recommendation and there are multiple Avenues in testing you guys talked about that in work session we're not going to use one test to exclude a child and that's exactly the portfolio work you guys were talking about as well is demonstration of of giftedness in Durham and the other fact that that comes up in work session that I'd love our parents to hear is that in Durham we identify about 17 18% of our kids as gifted the state funds us for 4% there's a cap a state cap for 4% so this is an important way we're using local funds to supplement and enrich the work that we do in Durham public schools and we I appreciate all the work yall do and again it's
073not required for charter schools and many of them don't have it so for those of you who want extra attention for your children during public schools has an AIG team in all k through eight right right all right remember that can I add one thing yes so um um Tuesday I to think oh my gosh what today Tuesday night we had an informational session at Staff Development Center for Duke tip and we had no idea how many people to anticipate we were hoping for 50 we had almost 200 parents come out and the we had the executive director for Duke TIP there and we also had the talent search manager and her email the next day to me was you know thank you so much for this opportunity but what really has stuck has struck
074me is the diversity that filled the staff development center she said it absolutely was refreshing to see and she travels to 16 different states so to have that really meant a lot please tell what Duke TIP is number one and number two is that the new director of Duke TIP um formerly worked for Duram Public Schools he did High School most recently was at MIT um recruiting um a minority students for their engineering program program and lastly I think which is the absolute best vote of all her child goes to a Duram Public School amen tell us what tip is Duke tip tip stands for talent identification program and they are looking for high ability Learners who are scoring at 95 the 95th percen all and above in their testing so it's refreshing to see
075that it was a diverse room fourth through sixth graders I'm going to coign on it I was at that program that's right with my son and I went straight home and told my wife about the diversity that was in that room right it was unbelievable it was just everyone it was very reflective of what Durham Public Schools is Mr Lee it's believable and Durham yeah yeah you're right you take pictures we did they're on our Facebook page I have a question for you all and I might have missed this earlier in a meeting but in the student identification section y'all listed the data across schools but do you also break it down for like elementary schools looking at the racial demographics of who's been identified yes and then looking at that do you go back
076and like do more intensive work in schools where you see less numbers we actually do it twice a year okay because we also have an official headcount twice a year and what we do you see the district but we then see the AIG group at a school versus the entire enrollment for the school and that's actually an activ we're going to do next week so that they can look at those numbers and then make goals well let's just since uh Ronda did talk about uh some goals that uh Durham public schools has strategically um we'll just say that celebrating AIG program and the the diversity of the AIG program is something that this board has talked a lot about because we are a leader in the state and we certainly want to let our parents
077know um what we do and how we're continuing to try to grow AIG we are looked at nationally for being a leader in celebrating uh the giftedness and the Brilliance of all of our children and so uh as that is not as specific as you'd like for us to be Dr bulock we are we are uh we're we're getting there and thank you so much for calling us on that but thank you Beth and Laur ple uh please give me this opportunity to ex um share some information number one there is a district Improvement plan that was presented to the board of education and it is being revised and updated at the December work session of the instructional Services we're going to sh we're going to present not not the December work session actually at
078the November board retreat we'll be presenting a subset of that plan which is a plan for increasing the academic achievement for boys of color Okay um thank you thank you all very much do we oh yeah we need to approve this that's right un she wants to all right I'll accept the motion I'll move to approve the second has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the AC mically and intellectually gifted AIG plan for 2016 through 2019 any further discussion all in favor say I I all opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously da uh Dr Wilson Norman next up we have our athletic eligibility um this is where we're discussing sixth graders beginning in sports and Larry McDonald will walk us through the update there were some pieces we needed to
079add to the presentation and uh Mr McDonald just before you start I I apologize we have a public comment U on those on these we have two and we have uh Roger Reed yeah thank you very much for the opportunity um I am a coach I've coached uh a lot of different sports through wreck leagues Church leagues and schools and I'm also a parent I've got an eighth grader and a fifth grader here at DPS and my wife is a teacher so I kind of see a lot of different angles and I wanted to speak in favor of sixth grade eligibility for everything except football because I understand the concerns there obviously uh with the physicality uh respectfully understand the concerns with people coming in from making that leap from elementary to sixth grade into
080Middle School being able to handle everything that comes with it on top of sports I want to say at our school in particular we have um sorry I don't work at the school I just coached there um we have mandatory study halls where these children uh get the structure they get the extra help frequently the teachers are remaining after school to help groups from these study halls whether it be whatever sport it is they all can commit for the extra assistance as we as as well as peer help within their study halls also the structure of sports can help the kids that's well documented can help kids achieve but also individually help them kind of my son especially he's ADHD and the exercise and the structure helps him focus on his academics better because he
081knows I've got x amount of time I can't procrastinate I've got to take care of these issues issues so it helps him develop and through sixth grade he got a little lost and we got him back on track due to the great teachers we have at school but uh I think had he had the sports it could have helped him adjust a little quicker so I do ask that you please approve them not uh for any other reason other than give the parents the opportunity to decide and they know their kids pretty well I think they'd be able to tell that they have that but it would give a lot of those kids the opportunity a lot of these sixth graders are going home and don't have anything to do yeah they can be managers
082but if they were involved it would give them another way to fit into the school quicker to acclimate a little better and help them adjust academically as well thank you for your time thank you our second speaker is Wana Rosalez I don't is is she coming back in okay she's no longer here oh yeah and we'll do six minutes again for translation no okay she can email us okay um Mr McDonald good evening again I guess uh tonight we're here to talk about uh Athletics and removing the barrier of sixth graders participating Athletics so the Board of Education the State Board of Education on August the 4th of this year changed their policy their policy originally stated that athlet uh students in grades 7 through 12 could participate in athletics and now theyve revised it
083uh to say grade 6 through 12 currently uh the Duram Public Schools board policy in section 3505 states that grades 7 through 12 May participate and so what we are asking and tonight is that uh the board would change and coincide with the state's policy which says grades 6 through 12 uh Administration is asking that we would adopt uh policy hrsd 01 and uh athletic participation uh in the state of North Carolina beginning in January 18th of 2017 which would coincide with the change of our semester so that we do not um change in the mid semester academics um or Middle School athletics uh in order to be eligible uh it states that um eligibility is one less than the core course the total number of core courses that they currently take and that in
084grades six seven and 8 not only do they are are required to pass one less core course than the number required a player must be in attendance in school at least 85% of the previous semester and that child must be promoted uh to the next grade at the beginning of the school year and all eligibility begins on the first day of the semester or the school year so once the school starts you can't go in and manipulate anything uh is stated that way uh the second thing that was requested was the number of sports that we currently have in middle school so if you look at the chart and I know for some of you that's a little small but trying to make sure that we have all of the sports that we currently have
085participation in in durm along with a total Sports by School uh they're listed there and you can see that for the most part most of our schools provide Sports based on what the interest level are for the students in attendance at their school law every now and then we'll get some new interest but for the most part this is what the majority of the students participate in so we're asking tonight that you would uh pass uh for sixth graders to play beginning with the beginning of the second semester are there any questions the school for credit studies to they're not on this list because because they don't offer Sports at Creative Studies for middle school because currently they have a they have Club they have a b club and they have cycling and they have
086h a a jogging or running uh and based on the number of students to fi a team with the total number of students that they currently have they wouldn't have enough students and that's why if you look some of the schools like um Little River participate at Lucas DSA participate for football only at uh Shepard and um Lakewood monasa participating football at Rogers her and the policy specifically says that football is not included no sixth grader will be allowed by state law to participate in football the first time they can participate in football will be at the beginning of the seventh grade board members I'd like to offer a motion that we accept the revisions to local board policy 3505 to reflect the changes that the North Carolina State Board of Education policy hrsd 001
087policy title being 16 NCA c6e 0202 policy regarding inter Scholastic Athletics to allow sixth graders to play sports excluding football you can you can second it so that we can second we can have discussion thank you happy to second I know what I that was a long motion so I'll just say what it's been prob many properly moved all of that and has been properly seconded discussion okay no discussion I'd love discussing this because you know I think I'm maybe an outlier in not being ready to to move forward this with this for our sixth graders um it's my understanding that the State Board actually made this decision rather hastily made it for charter schools that were having trouble having enough students to field teams and um gave local districts the discretion didn't say that
088Statewide students were all eligible to play just push the discretion down to local Boards of education so I don't feel an urgency to do this I'd rather have some time through the spring to wait and hear from from parents in our community more um our sixth graders that are in school this year entered school knowing they weren't going to be able to play just like previous generations and I don't think there's a rush to to do this and implement it quickly so um that's where I come to it from this evening and I'm somewhat on the fence on this as I spoke last time having been a performing arts instructor myself um the structure that Sports offer can be great for particular some students who also uh kind of unsure where they where they are
089in that school community so I I definitely um support that part of it and the academic part of it too um I just and again as as Natalie's mentioned just where it's coming from I went back I looked at State policies so forth I just don't like this the the um timing of it it just seems so strange for coming when it did um as opposed to during the summer when we would have more time to look at the policies and so forth so I'm just really not ready to move on it just yet that's my personal opion yeah so irrespective of how it was driven through the State Board um it came to my and Xavier's attention as we attended a term Council PTA meeting and and a parent came up and said where
090are we on this and so it you know people are paying attention and granted those are people that are very into sports and want to see their sixth graders participate um you know what what we've heard in two meetings now is that this is the district's recommendation um I I don't have a strong feeling on it I think there's there's good points on both sides um but given that is the administration's recommendation I'd be prepared to support it well here's where I am I don't want us to forget that it's not the kids that's making the decision to try out it's the parents who have to allow the child to try out and I would expect that the parents would know their children well enough to know if going into sixth grade they will be
091able to work um playing a sport and they're they academic transition I know my children and if they're at a point to where they could try out for soccer or try out for cheerleading or whatever it is basketball or whatever it is I would make that determination myself now there's going to be a lot of kids that are too small and the parents understand that they will not be able to work they will not be able to work with them playing a sport but then there are going to be some parents who feel like their children can go straight from elementary school to the NBA and they're going to let them try out now that's a whole different level because you have to try out that doesn't mean you go try you go try to
092get on a team and boom you're on the team you have to try out and only those who Excel above the other are going to make it on that team so this policy doesn't say everybody's going to be playing sports because everybody's not going to be playing sports and I have a feeling it's going to be a small small percentage of students in the sixth grade actually playing starting you know actually playing on a middle school team so I like giving the parents this option just like football I want that not not in sixth grade don't I'm not saying this is for sixth grade I'm just saying some people don't want their children playing football period I'm one of those parents my wife is one of those parents so we we agree on that but
093there are some people who want their children playing football you know what good for you go let them play football my children are not I let them play lacrosse or something like that where they can wear pads and feel like they're in a uniform but that's the Parents Choice it's not the is I don't think it's the role or the purpose of the school board to say we're not g to give you that football choice because we think we know for your child better what's better for your child I love the option of giving the the parents the choices and this is this represents that choice for the parents to make that decision it's not the child saying mom I'm going to play foot uh play basketball well you know what no you're not okay
094that's up to the parents so that's why I support this I support it because it puts the decision onto the parents um my my father told me I could play football he wanted to see how big a fool I was I think uh I figured out I was too small to play football pretty quickly I think we spent too much time worrying about football and basketball which is really a small number of kids I think my experience in in in high school and I'm sure it's even more true in middle school is the large numbers of athletes are in cross country or in track or in some of these Sports which are which can expand to accommodate however many students want to go out and that those are great places for kids to engage with
095the school as as they you're saying uh and I'm I'm agreement I find myself in agreement with Matt that the coaches and athletic directors have come to us that they're in favor of it uh I don't see any strong reason not to go with it uh I think the opportunity to to engage with the school is is a good thing so I'm prepared to vote for it I I would just add quickly I missed one note that I think our community should know that we we very often make decisions in the best academic interests of students and those sometimes fly in the face of athletic interest including the uh School St time change where we heard a lot from our high school um professionals about what that would do for athletics and uh we made
096that decision you know in spite of those um objections so okay so so I am not here trying to convince my colleagues of anything I am going to be clear that that I'm not supportive of this at this time and what I would hope that we would do as a district as this moves forward um is is come up with just a one pager for parents to look at either the that's on the website and available to them and it kind of indicates how they might assess whether their child might even be ready to try out or whether they might need to focus more on on academics but also that that we're not expanding teams to make them bigger to accommodate sixth graders they're going to be as competitive as they always have been and
097and and those kind of things um just so we're giving good information to families and parents as families try to navigate this change for young children and I I also want to say that my objection is on the timing of it and not any of the other points that have been made I mean I've auditioned many a kid whose dream was their parents dream they played an instrument and it wasn't necessarily there so I know that it will be um there will be Tri outs and so forth but the timing of it bothers me okay with no more discussion has already been moved and second it all in favor say I I I all opposed please use the same sign I I it passes five the two all right thank you Mr McDonald then yes
098um the next section is the prease lighing scale and we do have public comment we have six signed up okay um I'm G to try this here um drio Romer Romero latri J you got any IDE Ramirez let's see 523 green Street okay if you sign up for well we're going to go through and if you signed up for p the pree sliding scale and didn't get to speak raise your hand I might not be saying it right um Wana rozales she actually had to leave Wana Garcia she had to leave also uh Anna gasmin Pines yay we got one all right all right good evening and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you and for your service my name is Anna gasman Pines and I am both a Morehead parent
099of a second grader and a pre- student and a Duke Professor with expertise in education and social policy I am strongly committed to public education and to the expansion of pre K in Durham County through the public school system I commend the board for pursuing prek expansion I am also strongly committed to educational Equity as I know you are and I hope to work with you to craft policies that will support our shared Equity goals that said I do have a number of concerns that I'd like to share about the proposed sliding scale fee policy some of which have already been stated tonight first in any sliding scale fee structure it is in my opinion going to work against our school's diversity goals I have attended a number of recent meetings of watts and Morehead
100parents and community members and one of the most striking things about these meetings was the strength of our Collective commitment to sending our children to diverse schools when something is a bureaucratic hassle when PE uh the people with fewer means or less of an ability to meet during business hours and so forth may be less likely to go through with that Hassle and this is especially true when the process involves income verification which is likely to be more difficult for low resource families than for higher resource families I am concerned that implementing the proposed sliding scale fee structure will make accessing prek at Watson Morehead and other prek programs that may open in the future more difficult for low-income families in our community second the plan as currently written strike me as incomplete and these
101missing pieces make it difficult for me to support the current proposal number one it's not clear where the fees will go and I'd like to see a commitment for the funds to be returned to the schools to support the prek programs number two I am wondering about the penalties for non-payment and whether there's any possibility that a child would not be able to continue attending school it seems like a potentially dangerous precedent for the public schools to be in the position of excluding children from school due to the non-payment of fees and number three I think there needs to be a much more careful consideration of the projected costs to admin administer the sliding scale fee structure administering this SK this scale will not be free in order to verify income and household size for
102All Families it will take substantial amount of staff time and resources and one could easily imagine a scenario where costs actually exceed revenue collected in which case the policy should be rejected or another plausible scenario in which costs are equal to the revenue collected with the result being that some DPS families are simply paying to have their income verified and that should be not be asked of any family in DPS to conclude I'm just happy with the education that my children are receiving at Morehead and I want to work to ensure that these schools do not become victims of their own success as seemingly small changes erode the very thing that make these schools exceptional thank you for your time this evening thank you um our next speaker is Tom Winger good evening and thank
103you for allowing me to speak I'm gonna actually change my talk a little bit because so many things here that I want to say have already been said however I am here because along with Anna I am uh the co-chair of a committee that formed to discuss this issue of slotting scale fees the so-called Watts Moree head prek fee committee and I feel obliged to actually go over some of these issues even though they've already been discussed uh first I want to express the appreciation of the board and the whole school system for the efforts and the task force I might add uh to address these issues for high quality School accessible to all and inclusive to all I want to acknowledge the importance of the issues at hand and you've heard a lot of
104parents from our schools already talk about this that um we want Universal prek uh and in particular uh well I should say early childhood education and in particular uh Universal pre for four year olds with specific regards to the monor schools we understand and applaud the board's concern about fairness in equitability so I don't think we have a conversation here disagreement about goals there are some specific concerns you've heard most of them transparency was one that was brought up earlier uh we're afraid that this has moved too fast and without adequate public debate uh and um that may be water over the dam at this point but I think it needs to be said there's deep concern as you've already heard uh and I'll put a another Twist on it about how the sliding scale
105fees might affect diversity in the schools I don't think we know how that'll turn out but um it's very disturbing and as wind speaker already pointed out at least in our schools if it's mosor once you're in people tend to stay and whatever mistakes if there are mistakes are made by this process will live through the entire period of the of of the school it'll go all the way through fifth grade um it's complex because the immediate diversity concerns at Watson Morehead are that they're becoming majority white and upper middle class schools but that's not the problem in the public school system as a whole which is underrepresented by upper middle class white students that brings up the question of in what way this could possibly be a pilot for a broader prek task force
106approach to um to Bringing Universal prek to Durham uh and it also brings up the issue that the solution for these schools might not be the best overall solution if it's just focused on these schools so we we care about we're all in this because we want diversity so I just want to say that uh but we want a solution that doesn't inadvertently harm the situation um where worried about the Latino Community finding it too complex worrying about showing their income I won't go into that anymore unfortunately some of the speakers who came are not here to talk and um thank you I I'll stop okay thank you all right thank you very much and the last speaker for the pre-case LI this guy was Matt mellan Medlin yeah Medlin yeah hey am I the
107last am I the last of the six on your list okay no pressure um so my name is Matt Medlin I'm a parent of three little boys um my eldest is a first grader at uh Morhead monos which I think is a good Paradigm for uh what I'm going to deliver to you tonight so when a decree is issued at my household to my children that they are are unified against I get a message from them in series and the eldest comes and tells me that he disagrees and he has a good point and a logical thought and justification for that and then the middle one comes and he tells me that he also disagrees a little less eloquent and well thought out and then the youngest one also in unison comes and mainly he
108just Grunts and says I I disagree um so think of me as the youngest in this case because everyone that's already spoken about this lighting f scale has been very eloquent and is accomplished in that regard but my bit is that uh yeah I I agree with all the uh speakers I'm supportive of the public schools I um value diversity and education that's why um one of the reasons that we live in Durham is because we want to be a part of that and I'm not opposed to funding schools I mean show me the B I've just voted show me a bond I'm for it um I'm happy as a tax to throw money at schools but I don't feel like in this case the sliding fee scale is the way to do it mainly
109because I I don't understand it I don't I don't think it's very well thought out I haven't seen exactly where the money is going I have a lot of questions about the process of how it came together as many other people do so that's not clear to me um that doesn't sit very that doesn't sit very well with me I want to understand exactly how you came to this I mean I'm don't have the uh benites of everyone else but it seems plain to me me that imposing a fee um on a on a um on prek isn't going to increase diversity which I think is a goal that we all uh share for these programs so uh explain that to me so that's one disagree with it too um more about the process and
110transparency that's very unclear so I don't know when you're going to speak about there you're going to explain that in the in the next few minutes after this um that would be helpful and and then um oh someone uh made a request to um pause the implementation of this lighting fee scale like are you has it ruled is it in place can we pause that Robert's rues order can we um make a motion to do that so one I would ask that you please uh pause the sliding fee scale implementation um so discuss that and then um there was a mention in the minutes so I have three boys as you know and the eldest is the only one in school and uh just a couple you can finish you can finish uh we love
111our school and I want our family to be a part of that school for a long time right so to me sibling priority which is something that's mentioned in the minutes is very important to me because it's important my boys go to that school and we grow up with that school and through it uh through the rest of our time in Durham so if you can make some time to discuss us um any changes in sibling priority and assure me that you're not going to make any changes in that process I'd appreciate that very much okay thanks everybody thank you now I'm gonna allow Minnie to speak she has to leave so I want to get her voice on the record because she she has to run first I want to say thank you thank
112you Morehead and George wat George watt's parents for was supporting monu supporting our schools and supporting the vision that durum public schools had to bring mon montor programs to Durham as early as as how many years have we had it I we I mean we were at the Forefront of of of instituting monor programs in Durham public school so we thank you for supporting that and we did it for prek please know that the state does not give us one dime for prek Education the state of North Carolina does not support we only get money K through 12 and in order to be a monory teacher it cost the it cost local enormous amounts of money to be trained so I appreciate the fact that we have our beautiful children going there I appreciate the
113fact that the pack is coming to talk about uh achievement Gap and others um Miss linquist talked about the fact that we're looking at a lack of diversity and the fact that we are our our our programs are moving where there are a majority of of of middle class and white students we talked somebody gave us a history of what George Watts used to be well there's an appreciation for Latino parents an appreciation for African-American students I mean Latino students and African-American students coming back into Watts that's all what we're trying to do please not that during Public Schools we this plan may not be well communicated but it has been certainly well thought out by this board this is not something we just came up with because we want to make sure that all
114children that we have a diverse population of students that can take advantage of the Monas concept the Maria monu established for poor children so we want we want to make sure that that happens how are we going to do it so that it is fair and just you know that we have a lottery system that we go through in Durham that ensures that we have a certain diversity in terms of ethnicity and in terms of socioeconomic status in our schools now we know the lottery can't be based on race we know that that but we know Bill McNeil who was recognized nationally as superintendent of the Year came up with an economic plan for Wake County that received all kinds of accolades so we know how to do this we know how to do this
115and we know how to do it well and I think Miss linquist gave us some model of how we should do it 30 3030 or something 30 4030 or some kind of model that that you suggested that we might look at we have that and I'm sure our members will discuss that but I want you to know that we our desire is not to exclude it is not to keep kids out it is not to to uh but it is inclusive and to know that our Latino families whatever communication we have to do in terms whether it's door too special sessions anything like that we will make sure that that language barrier is brought we will the sliding scale means that it's just that if you don't have the money those who don't have won't
116pay but those who have will I think that makes sense it's sliding scale and how does it apply to other programs well in during Public Schools if you look it statistically we have over 52% of the children in during public schools are African American so if in in in some neighborhoods and and when we look at how our prek has been done it has been done traditionally with students who meet a certain criteria means that they need more help so it hasn't been as diverse in terms of perhaps academic um uh academic intellect or academic uh uh ability so we try to make sure that those who need the most to get prepared to go into kindergarten we make sure that they're there so we we we're going to be looking at all of those
117things we know that the more diverse um a classroom is the more diverse a program is the more opportunities we have for our children to learn from each other that's that's that's our goal we it is not going to be punitive to anyone but we do want to make sure that if you can afford to help us with prek and where is the money going it will certainly go back into um in into George Watson and in the mo here to help train those teachers that we need on staff to be trained to teach the children that's where it's going it's not going to any salaries or anything up here and we already have all of the all of the financial Acumen that we need to make sure that we run the program we don't
118need to hire anybody else to do this we are set in Durham public schools with the Brilliance in our financial team that will help us do this so I just want to make sure that I put those things on the table uh before I leave and and make sure I thank our parents to let you know that these are very thoughtful people up here and if we have not communicated that thought process to you blame it on our what is it our our hearts and not our heads is it is that the way it go our heads and not our hearts but make sure it will your questions will be answered this evening and if you have any more we'll be open to answer those to good evening okay so we'll go with the presentation
119and then we'll have the discussion thank you Minnie drive safe well be safe I know am be safe be safe the prease sliding scale came about as part of our magnet review and so we have a team that has worked on developing the prease sliding scale so if Mary Griffith and Suzanne cman and our Chief Financial Officer has helped us with the financial pieces would kind of walk us through the process and then answer any questions thank you and good could I could I just welcome Mary Griffith who is the new director of our uh magnet school program and congratulations on good job thank you thank you very much so we just wanted to again share how staff um came up with this process and provide some background information as to how we arrived to
120the pre prek sliding scale um initially the prek task force explored the expansion of prek offerings which included Universal pre that task force committee also had some discussions highlighting the need for high quality programming and noting that Universal prek is not free currently in DPS our prek programs include exceptional children t one and NC prek new programming will Target future prek students that demonstrate developing skills and provide additional options for diverse populations and then finally both watts and Morehead monory schools provide highquality monory programs at no charge for community and last May the Board of Education approved eight recommendations based on the comprehensive magnet review one of which was to transition our prek monory programs to a sliding scale I could I just ask it clarify on the third bullet current DPS programs include exceptional
121children Title One and NC prek and completely locally funded magnet resources for watts and Morehead yes they're not part of the K5 state that are not part of any of those that are listed in that third bullet correct thank you um good evening um as was presented in commit Committee in detail how we went about um deriving it this sliding scale um this was compared not only to things that were being looked at by other districts within the state but also across the country uh poverty was used at a as a Baseline and this is built at 200% above the poverty level uh we considered the phase in amounts by both um number of program participants and the number of individuals in each and every household good evening um I'm going to talk a little
122bit about the impact on resources and I know Miss for brown did such a wonderful job um but some of the things that we need to look at is the verification of Eligibility so um we will need to have a process for that also our staff responsibilities um who will be collecting and doing the income verification the fiscal accountability and sustainability piece and I know Miss Griffin just spoke to that as far as the magnet review and also um the preschool committee has also looked at the sliding scale for Universal prek and then also the management of the project who will own this project how will it be implemented and all those pieces that we need to answer I know this is probably very difficult to see but this is the sliding scale and as
123you can see if you make under $30,000 you are not paying anything and then it goes Progressive I ly up from there that's an annual fee is that correct yes those are annual yes questions is it is it possible for the um executive summary to be placed on screen um that has the timeline for the implementation it's um it's page 135 of our packet if that's possible it's not uploaded it's not upload this particular computer to project okay for she's yeah okay while she's doing that the reason I'm asking for that is um that the timeline has several points eight different points of things that are to be assessed and approved over between now October 16th and going through July 2018 that that um require a lot of input and communication my question is on
124some of the other sides you showed about the the um ways that this was brought about one thing that was not there was when that happened and I'm I'm used to the board so I'm I'm walking in with the Assumption these are some discussions that did take place before I got here is that correct and so can it give me a a sense of when this really started this discussion terms of the magnet review last May um the magnet review took place which as I mentioned was comprehensive review of magnets in terms of were they meeting the three objectives um where we were with each individual school and then eight recommendations were presented to to the board as a result of that review one of which was the prease siding scale when we saw in
125light of budget cuts um costs going up and our enrollment at our prek um maintaining and interest maintaining and so that generated that conversation for staff to them talk with the principles and then follow up with our prek director and the prek task force and you can speak to that timeliner Dr Wilson Orman sure um for the prek task force it was also a conversation around um funding Universal prek because again it's not going to be free can't we can't support that locally um the other piece is it's also been a conversation in our witted building and you know talking about what we may be doing there as well and and anything that we're do in the future that involves children you know that need prek so it's been a conversation for a long time
126and the reason I'm bringing it up I'm getting a little bit of deja vu um obviously when I was considering running for this office um even before the campaigning or before I signed I started attending more school board meetings and as a DPS employee I had an opportunity to put in my input on the the start of school long before it was implemented I mean that was a long process and having my input as a teacher and then looking coming to the meeting in which it was actually discussed and voted on that was a long time in there and I was surprised at how many people were there for public comments to talk about where was this and so my colleagues are probably T tired of hearing me say we've got to communicate better because
127I do believe that that the work has been publicly discussed for a while but I get the feeling that that's not the the sense in the building and this is not the first time this this happened and so here again so Mr KAS I'm sorry that many had to leave because I would also like to if if if we own any um issues with transparency I you know I will take those on but but let's also remind ourselves that a year ago this board passed a universal prek resolution establishing the task force with the county and the city that was very publicly done and and that's been a very important conversation for this board this this topic of actually how do we Contin how do we talk about equity and continue to have free preas
128spaces for children that are not on a high needs list as far as need has been a conversation of this board for years and actually predates Dr Lum um so it's new but it's not new um it's coming to a to a decision point because it's almost time for magnet Fair we need to let families next year know what to expect um I think you know the community has raised some important logistical things for us to continue to work through but it's it's not all the way new um and and maybe you guys that have been here a little while remember at least more of the the last two years of it but it goes back and it goes back it's been something that we've been afraid to to really dig in and say community
129can we come together and do this as a step to bring us forward to covering more for your olds in Universal prek and Durham and and that's why I think it's an exciting step even though it feels like a big change I have several points I'd like to make and some questions to ask first of all thank you for all the parents that are here uh I know a lot of folks had to go home and since we moved School up early uh uh uh so I I do think as as uh Mr kasan just said I do think we need to take some ownership of for communication I I think that we have a a tendency to think because we talked about it somehow that got to the community and and clearly uh these
130These are uh folks who are saying that that wasn't true so with without looking to cast blame although I'm happy to playing mini since she left but um that's not for those of you on TV that's not true um but the minutes reflect U but um I think we all need to own own the process and and and begin looking more carefully at at our communication my my understanding is that the what we thought was going to happen is that the the board had this discussion in the spring that the administration talked to the administrations at the school level and that what we were expecting was at the school level there was going to be this kind of conversation uh seems pretty clear that didn't happen if the the PTA president is speaking to us
131and saying that she wasn't part of that so we need to look at where that broke down uh I I I'm I'm particularly uh I guess affected by the discussion around George Watts although I think it is applicable to both the schools both my girls went to George Watts uh well before it was a a Magnet School uh I think that often we we overreact to very small intervals of time uh so when my children went to George Watts about 20 years ago uh my daughter was the only white student in her kindergarten uh there were I believe one maybe two latino students and the rest of the of the students were African-American the school was 90 95% free and reduced lunch that continued to be true uh but it wasn't always true that was
132it was originally uh by law a a white elementary school and then after uh integration it was in fact a pretty diverse school for a number of years and then uh as uh over time that changed the the uh the magnet was in fact an an effort to try to bring children in the neighborhood back to the school uh I wish we had more programs that were successful beyond our wildest dreams uh it worked it it did exactly what we what we were trying to do uh we don't have a long list of programs that that's true for it so uh now we're trying to respond to that situation I think it's important to not overreact to again uh a a specific time frame uh that's that that's narrow given the long time frame and
133and in particular given that how much of this is not really in our power that the the demographics change in the community the demographics have changed in the neighborhood I personally don't see that there's a relationship between the uh effort to diversify the school and uh the existence of a sliding scale uh I think we have sliding scales and and fees for many programs in in the school that are that are very very diverse uh I think are our parents and our school system know how to make a financial system work uh I I just don't I don't believe that uh that the sliding scale is going to be the issue of that affects diversity I think we need to address the diversity of the two schools I think there are ways of doing that
134I think that the board Administration and the school and the parents need to come together and to begin addressing a number of those ways I I was grateful for uh Miss linquist suggestion specific to the uh how we can do that at the prek level but clearly it's not just a matter of uh who we get information to or setting aside slots but that as the parents said earlier every parent needs to know that their child is going to get a good education at the school uh right now clearly there are questions about that uh and so I think addressing those issues will take us farther in terms of addressing the diversity of the schools than uh the sliding scale I think we need the sliding scale because I think we need a model uh
135that's financially stable that will allow us to expand the number of of locations where we are able to run prek programs I believe the question was raised a number of times I think we should just say it directly my understanding and tell me if I'm wrong my understanding is all the money generated goes back to support these two specific programs that they're not not going anywhere else is to try to uh address some of the the extra subsidy right now that goes to those two schools uh so that uh they they are financed in a more Equitable way uh in comparison to other schools that money is going to stay within the schools to help run those programs I think that's I think that's all my points thank you he is finished so um I
136I would like to say um that we we don't try to do things in secret uh we don't try to keep things hidden in work sessions um and I I don't feel accused of that but um that's something very personal for me is that we we have made efforts to be um overly transparent by including our our new video streaming system with um recordings afterward and I'm I'm I'm proud of that I mentioned that to some of the community members that I met with um and at the same time um I I would I would just like to second that that there was a communication breakdown on this um and that I think our community has a right to hold us accountable and and we have a right to question where that breakdown happened and
137if if a certain email hadn't been sent I'm I'm sure the anger would have gone through um even further levels because we this this may not have had a public comment we added this to the agenda to provide extra time for our community to come uh and engage with us so I I did want to say that um but to me that that's that's kind of secondary um for me the sleding scale is is a very good middle ground for kind of where we are now and sort of other more drastic changes that could be made to address an underlying problem for me and I'll I'll I'll let you know what that is in just a second but um you know other other ways to address this um around the changes in these communities is
138um we can make these different kinds of schools I mean the schools are what they are now um but I I have real concerns about how many magnet seats actually get taken versus um neighborhood seats um how these schools are affecting uh the who can buy homes in these neighborhoods um I have real questions about these and so as opposed to saying that we need to change what this school is and I I don't want to change what this is I think we have some very good things happening I think a sliding scale is a is a very good hybrid is a very good in between ground towards um reaching our goal of more Equity across the district and keeping what is great about these two schools um and so you know the the underlying
139issue for me um and Steve I just kind of like to to piggy back on on your story because I I kind of see see myself my daughter goes to a school where she's the only you know white student in her kindergarten class um and I raised that because we have seven eight elementary schools that are so close to 100% economically disadvantaged that we don't we don't keep track um anymore um we we do Universal breakfast Universal lunch for everybody um and these two programs being completely locally funded um are an issue for me when we have so many students that are in high needs um and that's why the the hybrid right the middle ground for me is important that we don't undermine what's good in happening um but we are being responsible with
140our local dollars uh to all the schools especially schools that don't often come and speak to us at board meetings um and so that's that's what's underlying this for me and and while I think you know taking more time and more analysis um is is an important question um I have Supreme confidence in our staff to address some of the logistical challenges around what are what are going to be those costs um and I can cite for example that we charge and do some income verification around before and after school care right now and we have answers for what happens if you aren't able to pay we do subsidize some of that and so we have some of these logistical back backbones to kind of go from um and I think there is space for
141our Administration to better work with the communities around these things um and answer some of the questions that have been asked tonight and also partner um as you do that um because clearly we have folks that don't feel that that there was partnership um in this um and so so for me I I do think this is a good step and I'm a pause means a pause for a year and um I'm not prepared to pause for a year when we have communities that are in need um of of increased um investment and i' I'd like to and with um an encouragement for everyone to uh capitalize upon some of the communication Avenues we have right now um including the YouTube um because we have a board retreat coming up on November 9th where I
142know we're going to be talking in more detail about where we're going with universal prek and uh everyone who's been in the room tonight will really benefit from from observing that conversation I don't think we'll have public comment at that meeting but we we take public comment all the time email phone calls um and we I I I want that public comment thanks okay so I I had a couple specific I guess questions uh that I might need I don't know if we have the answers here maybe we do I don't know um so but with with both both schools let me make sure I'm correct is there there's a walk Zone where you automatically get into so both schools have a I'm I'm I'm just asking sorry both schools have a priority Zone okay
143um so those families they have a priority Zone and then there's also a sibling priority for both of those schools so um typically we see those seats filled by that priority zone for both schools okay the priority Zone and then the sibling preference sibling preference and sibling applying preference okay so with those two populations um how many seats do you know how many seats were open for general lottery well there's a general roughly around 100 seats and if you split them respectively respectively across both schools Morehead being a little bit smaller ends up being around 36 at Morehead and about 57 at Watts open seats for for applicants so Donna probably can expand on this with me but um typically we would probably want to explore some of those Trends to see what that applicant
144pool looks like but typically what we've seen is that the students we've got a very diverse applicant pool but the students that are seated are primarily from that priority Zone at both schools that's accurate we receive about 800 yeah prek applications for both of those schools combined we have roughly about 95 seats and I would say 98 to 99% of those seats are taken from sibling attending and then the priority Zone okay who lives in the priority Zone like what the demographics of the people that live in that area I don't know if you know the answer or like who ends up in those seats are you talking specifically about pre seats or pre the pre yeah the pre so if they get into Wat as a pre- student they stay there for the next
145five years you're thinking about diversity like who are the people who are getting those automatic seats okay so I can just give you an example from this past year for the 16 17 school year uh for George Watts we had 58 seats prek seats um seven of those seats went to African-American students 14 went to Hispanic students two went to multi students and 35 went to White students okay and that breakdown is very similar uh at Morehead as well right and so the reason for my line of comment is we we had a lot of public com commenters talking about the decrease in diversity right and our seats are being taken by priority Zone and sibling preference right right and so when I look at I asked for some I asked for information and it
146was really interesting to me that the white population was the only group that's increasing so what that tells me is that priority zone is increasingly being white right and sibling yes right but at the same time the the white population is the only population that is decreasing through the fifth grade okay so you know go um going from prek um going from prek up to fifth grade each year the white population goes down whereas black in Hispanic population is increasing so what that's telling me is the reason we have such a preference is for prek and they're leaving not everyone obviously but there's a large population leaving I I think it's different Mr Lee I think that it reflects the change in the neighborhood right yes is that if you look because it really is
147the kindergarten through fifth grade is a six-year history of that neighborhood and the neighborhood has decreased the The increased the number of white kids in the neighborhood so that's reflected reflected in the kindergarten I mean the prek class that would parallel socioeconomically as well can I if I could just just on that point I I think it's important not to necessarily equate the applications we get with the demographics in the neighborhood I think there's some question around how well we are getting information into the entire area so the the demographics of the neighborhood don't necessarily equal the demographics of our pool of applicants right but if we only have space for a very small number what I guess what I'm trying to get at is that in terms of increasing diversity one way to do
148that and this is where I would want to work with the school Community is to if the demographics in the community are different than the application pool is to work harder with the school to get the applications into the the entire neighborhood so that we get an application pool that better reflects the actual demographics of the neighborhood and that's and that's the work that can happen you you increase I mean you work to increase the diversity of the pool and then the law of averages you know is that and you stop picking them out if there are more Latinos more African-Americans in the pool then there'll be more selected yeah the the applicant pool actually does reflect um our population yes it does and the comprehensive magnet applicant pool so it parallels pretty closely um
149what our what our demographic makeup is across all magnet applications um and twofold to that is um our work with our magnet coordinators at each school to strategically target market so um I know a lot of conversation has been around you know our our communication and and beefing that up and some of the conversations we've had with the coordinators have been such that um that word is getting out to that priority Zone that is lower income or possibly minority so it's Grassroots marketing and making sure that they're aware of their opportunity to apply and that they are in that priority Zone and I too have met with some some groups to talk about that to talk about this is where you are in the priority Zone and you do have a priority to apply to
150this school and receive a seat so we do see the demographic makeup Qui closely match what we've seen in a comprehensive applicant pool um and we have strategically marketed to try to make sure we're touching all those popul ations because diversity is one of our magnet objectives but if we are targeting our marketing how are we ending up with a prek with no African-American students in it it's when you're talking you're talk when you say that it reflects the the applicant pool reflects the community you're talking about all 40,000 application you're not talking about the applicant pool for the 58 seats at George Watts not the greater Durham demographic makeup but the applications across all of our magnet schools all of your magnet schools but is it true that the applicant pool for George watts
151does it reflect the neighborhood yes because it's the priority zone so if you look at that zone to the greater portion of that is that that what is it a mile radius half a mile radius around watts and that's where that shift has happened where in the past that before gentrification that that neighborhood looked differently when wat was created as a magnet school so as they've revived it like Mr enre said it's changed that Dynamic so it's been a successful magnet in that way um so that's shrunk and there are some pockets of higher poverty are in that priority Zone but um again we might want to look at that Trend and that's something that did come up in the board's recommendations in the magnet review but but two folks that had that concern here
152tonight that is not a recommendation before this board to look at the priority zone for this year at at least I mean the three sliding scale is completely in isolation of anything diversity wise or academic I I just see it as a very difficult um issue to tackle especially when the number of seats they're not being represented by the priority Zone which we've defined here as pretty reflective of what the school looks like right now and simplying preference those few seats the way we stand right now if nothing is done which is being proposed but not proposed but being suggested let's just wait the number of the number of seats is not going to grow it's just going to shrink and shrink and shrink and then it's going to be a lock eventually there's one
153or two seats for all these people who are applying and whatever it takes uh whatever we have to do we um we we have to fix that because um I know I know of people who moved in that area specific you know spe specifically for that I know people who have rented Apartments who don't live there because the apartment rent is cheaper than the daycare and you know outside outside wise right or wherever okay there's we have to do something about that because five years from now if we're pausing and I saying we'd pause for for five years but if we pause if we don't do something to address this not going to be a a magnet school anymore because we're completely booked with a very jint to fried priority Zone and sibling preference so
154is not so for me um it's it's it's that was one of the triggers for me that said that that we need some we need some reanalysis of our magnet programs that that it was board action that sort of drove the creation of the magnet report um last year there were no magnet seeds for prek for Watts correct Donna two two years ago okay this past year there were five 10 yeah all of all the seats were filled by sibling attending and priority Zone I think there was one seat that went to general population right so we've we've now filled Watts for two consecutive years with no one from outside of the priority Zone except for siblings nobody get an opportunity right correct and to be fully funding that with local funds um in the
155the prek climate that a lot of us are still living in and and the costs that are associated with that that is something that that to me requires action and Morehead is not there yet uh there there are still double digit seats going correct Don and I you've talked about this a lot um double seeds going to the broader Community um but it's still an issue for me and and it's an issue that that for me makes the sliding scale sort of a middle ground between you know really reanalyzing what kinds of schools these are um versus better supporting the the investment that we're making there as opposed to investment that we could be making elsewhere it it hurts me to see Hands raised in the audience when we're not really in a position to
156be able to have that conversation I appreciate Mr putting this um timeline up I don't know if it'll go back up because to me when it did work has turn yeah yeah it did say that this board approving this scale is just the start of this discussion and when I heard comments from almost all of the Watson Morehead family tonight I heard you guys sharing the same goals that this board shares which are equity and racial and social justice and those are playing out very much within your school communities and we're going to need your help figuring this out in the in the coming months and and years to make sure that your community does reflect Durham and that your school Community does in significant ways introduce and address the concerns of of the I
157don't like the achievement Gap what do I like um what's the language Equity Gap you know that serves all children that challenges all children that that gets all children um together in a in a school community that is representative of us um we've talked you know we talked about this years ago and we identified this issue we said well maybe y'all don't need prek as an entry or maybe Latino families aren't finding you all at prek but we don't want to take prek away that's that's so fundamental to where we're trying to bring this community um we think school for children that that struggle and any acade academic gaps we think the best um evidence-based solution is early childhood education and so that's why this this scale is here but it's here as a first
158step of this discussion it's not the last step and um I feel like we're going to need y'all to help us um and work with our our staff as we figure these things out but I do think that we can figure them out together um and and we're actually more united in this than than it might feel like um so forgive forgive the putting on the spot Dr Lum but what we we have I feel we have sort of board level questions and I feel like we have some administrative questions what is the best Avenue for some of these questions to be answered as we go forward as we go forward we certainly um it is through um Dr Stacy Wilson Norman it's also through their principal at the school and and I think that
159uh Dr Norman is um interested or has planned to be meeting with the uh School Improvement team and others at um judge wats already so I think that that would be import that would be the important conduit of information the one thing I wanted to address that that I saw in an email that kind of ruffled my feathers and I'll just say it was somebody used the word you're going to profit off our children if we took these fees in we're still not covering the cost of of the prek at at watts and Morehead and there's there's no profiting there are still significant significant local expenditures you know enriching your schools and and we're committed to doing that but there's that notion of profit just um I think is a misstatement um can I my
160feeling is that some of the P should have put this candy in my mouth sorry uh my feeling is that some of the public commenters know that there are members of your community that actually support the sliding scale initiative and if they haven't I I encourage you to work with your communities to find out who they are we certainly have received emails um both when this came up two years ago when I came to a Watts PTA meeting and um in recent weeks so um while the public comment has kind of came in One Direction um and um tonight it this is a complex issue for for our communities and and there are two and five six seven different sides of this so um okay so any other discussion here and none I'll entertain a
161motion for is this information okay all right all right voted on in the work session okay all right thank you thank you I I do just want to say that that I that I'm committed I I know this whole board is committed to continuing this conversation around increasing the diversity at at both these schools U and that I'll be talking and I'm sure a number of us will be talking with with parents after this meeting to see how we can work together on that okay can I also add I think increasing diversity is important but I also think Equity is important and I think that the sliding scale allows for us to think about how do we provide more pre- options for lots of different children across the district that may not have that opportunity
162and so I think that diversity we want to make sure our schools are diverse we also want to make sure we have Equitable opportunities for our students yeah all right thank you all that was a very good discussion there's a very very complex very Deep Emotions on both sides all sides it's not two sides it's all sides and we have to we definitely have to work together to get that solved okay we are moving to the operational services and policy work session reports good evening evening have the next two items um again discussed in great length at the committee meeting there were some editorial changes to the budget priorities and guiding principles um those were changed and put in your material I'll quickly highlight what was changed in our second bullet point the language um
163initial language was dropped and the guiding principle was changed to DPS is dedicated to the principle of social justice and Equity no language prior to that um the guiding principle related to the salary study was changed to say Implement a salary study determine fairness and equity and the pay levels of all positions across the district and compare within the larger community and the last bullet item along the area of operational Services it was changed to say review all operational expenditures to maximize efficiency and potential savings and continued emphasis on Energy Efficiency so after numerous discussions those three points were asked to be changed um and I bring those to you tonight for approval move approval second has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the uh 2017 2018 budget priorities and guiding principles any
164discussion all in favor say I I all opposed please use the same sign that passes unanimously um the next item was uh just for informational purposes the changes be brought back to you that were recommended again at the committee meeting for the fiscal year 2016 17 budget calendar uh what was changed in this calendar was the activity related around us delivering a draft budget to the County Commissioners in March and then the um qual um things that will have to go on prior to that that meets our statutory requirement of a May 15th budget but holding our budget hearing taking the actual final budget to the community um then to the board in May April and then uh board approval in May so those changes were made based upon the comments again of not finalizing
165the entire budget process prior to March but delivering a draft budget to the County Commissioners in March and then having the sub sequential activities after that to complete the budget process this was just for informational purposes any discussion okay thank you thank you Aaron I will entertain a motion for close session uh is it listed on the first page of the agenda yes great I'll do it I've never done it you don't have to read it you don't have to you can make you read it no you don't you just say listed on the agenda okay I never got to read it okay you can read it you can read it I move that we go into close session to consider confidence of person Personnel measures under ncgs 43-31 18.11 A6 and 115 c319 and
166to consult with the board attorney and to preserve the attorney client privileg provided ncgs A3 one second second wait wait wait no no no sorry is there a Freda Marsh here he was a parent here earlier she was at the dinner okay I apologize she signed up for public comment on the budget guiding principles and priorities and I failed to see it Miss Mar about two hours ago two hours ago oh that was before we can email her right before ask her email her and ask her for information I apologize I missed that has been moved and properly seconded Mr Kon um that we go into close sessions for the reasons Matt stated all in favor say I I all opposed please use the same sign we are in close session e you're on okay
167we're now back in um open session superintendent LOM chairman Lee members of the board you have the Personnel report dated October 27 2015 that has 61 teacher appointments approval second it's been moved and properly second that we approve the 61 teacher Personnel report um all in favor say I I all oppos same sign passes unanimously chairman Lee members of the board you have the Personnel report for administrators with one uh administrator for your review and approval move approval it's been moved and properly seconded that we approve the uh Personnel report recommendation for the one administrator is that correct all in favor say I I all opposed same sign passes unanimously thank you sorry chairman Lee members of the board you have the Personnel report for contract extensions for 10 members of the senior staff for
168your review and approval approval second been moved and properly second it that we approve the contract extensions for the 10 senior staff members any discussion all in favor say I I I all oppose same sign I passes 42 with that we're jour