001thank you the next item on our agenda is celebrations it is a pleasure to be here tonight we have a metric fun of students here as well as their staff we have a number of spark recipients we have a number of uh competition planners machines let's get on to it with our yes from jordan high school and i'd like to like would you like for us to come down the road you are you are fine for who you are the durham public schools student of the month is uh as an individual who has chosen for perseverance academic excellence uh hard work character and to introduce to you the april student of the month i present to you ce jordan high school's principal susan taylor okay gabriella gabby mencia mencia was selected to represent jordan as
002our april student of the month gabby is a hard-working student who emulates soar supporting fellow falcons optimizing opportunities appropriately responding and respecting the community according to her math teacher mr upright gabby readily works with other students explaining concepts and collaborating to learn new concepts she takes advantage of opportunities to ensure she has a solid understanding of content gabby loves math and adjusted her schedule mid-year to take honors pre-calculus second semester after taking math three first semester in order to meet gabby's rigorous learning needs her teachers have reserved challenge problems especially for her to accomplish gabby plans to take advanced placement math classes next school year she was also selected to be a founding member of the jordan chapter of the chick-fil-a leadership academy gabby is on track to graduate on time with many options in
003her jordan family cannot wait to see all that she will contribute to the world congratulations gabby [Applause] gabby we have a few tokens of appreciation for you that we would like to share and then we will have a large number of students at various points during celebrations so in the interest of uh distancing and spacing we're asking that the board and superintendent remain behind the desk stand up and shake hands or fist bump or otherwise uh show appreciation to all of our celebrations recipients recipients tonight back to tokens of appreciation i want to present gabby with a certificate of our appreciation and a spark pin which we reserve for the students and educators and community members who have demonstrated leadership in durham public schools and there's one more thing which i think your mother is
004going to have to help you with because because you're going to have your hands full otherwise from our friends at triangle e-cycling we have a brand new laptop for you for your academic pursuits in the future uh and it's a really good one things we'd like the board members and superintendents we'd like you to walk the red carpet shake their hand and receive [Applause] board members and superintendent thank you for your patience as we're working with the new logistics and coming back to uh this old uh format we're now about to bring in a number of students who have distinguished themselves as winning teams for the dps battle of the books they have enjoyed a nice cookie reception outside where they received their individual awards uh but we wanted to bring them in for you
005to enjoy the team awards and i'm going to turn it all over to low dewalt board members dr mamenga and fellow dps staff it is my extreme pleasure to stand here before you and celebrate our 2022 battle of the book champion teams as part of our ongoing celebration of school library month um we'll present them in grade band order um and so their coaches have already received uh the trophies and plaques and you'll notice that they will be wearing their medals um and they've already received certificates and their cookie reception here so first up we're going to bring in our elementary champions the george watched watts elementary team coached by kathy carringer our our elementary team won our dps competition with 107 points um you're going to skid right on that red carpet darling right
006on the red carpet nothing but the best for y'all they these students are amazing they had 107 points uh they will hold on to the title for another year they also participated in their regional competition where they placed third in the region they finished with 80 points one point behind the first two teams so we are incredibly proud of their dedication and hard work um i'm gonna read out their names so that you you can see who's here in front of us we've got patrick daley violetta flores addie goldman alice heary isla height august karthik esther norberg meredith olgar olinger i'm sorry to meredith eliza grace rutherford eve smokowski natalie solomon elliott wihi anduel a blacksheer and nozomi oyste so thank you all so much [Applause] principal crime we are incredibly proud of your students
007thank you there's a quick quick quick picture talking's right there [Applause] next up we have our middle school battle of the books winning team from lakewood montessori middle school they were coached by media coordinator carol watson they won our competition with 173 points our middle school team is headed to rocky mount north carolina uh on this uh this upcoming tuesday they will head to rocky mount north carolina to compete in the middle school regional championship i'm sure you will join me in wishing them the best of luck i'm going to go ahead and read their names as well and we've been working in the hall so y'all gonna correct me right all right we've got ilsa bergman ella cohen nola eisner li lilah goldstein isabelle halpern izzy hossie lena tonkin jane gray and lucy heary
008[Applause] thank you so much mr jones thank you mr jones for for sharing your team with us we're very proud of them congratulations and last but certainly not least i'm going to also present our high school battle of the books winning team from durham school of the arts they will hold on to their championship for another year as well they were coached by kim gagino who is unable to join us today and assistant coach hannah morky csa won our high school competition with a stunning 271 points and they they will represent durham public schools in the regional competition on monday when they head to lillington north carolina and we know they are going to just be awesome and totally rock it i'm going to go ahead and take this moment to read their names as
009well we have ava bitsis emma bush alexa chambers will burn burrows coward the fifth lisa guys geisler avenell o'keefe eloise let's litzo i'm sorry eloise ian moran layla niblock caitlyn ryan keb fills and ryan wolfe thank you so much dr tobias for your support of this team we are incredibly proud of them all right i'm about to turn it right back over to dr dewalt because we have a couple of special people associated with the battle of the books program who have been nominated for spark awards and we'd like to tell their stories thank you all again uh so i am honored to award two spark pins today to two extraordinary community members who go above and beyond for durham public schools if we can bring in dr kim mayo and ruth key dr mayo
010and miss key are retired media coordinators who work tirelessly to support our annual battle of the books competition these two incredibly deserving women coordinate five separate competitions for us they have worked for years both during our in-person competitions and switching to our virtual format in 2021. collectively this year alone they worked almost 400 hours to make sure our competitions ran smoothly [Applause] they created programs scheduled the matches trained every volunteer scorekeeper moderator ran the actual events on zoom platforms worked with our local vendors to get medals and trophies let me be very clear this competition would not happen without them they do it with a smile with strong communication to our dps staff and bob coaches and most importantly for our amazing students they handle any bumps that come up during competition with grace and
011kindness they are truly truly deserving of this tremendous honor and we are so grateful for the support that they give during public schools battle of the books thank you both for all you do thank you red carpet and exempt accept the board's acclaim the next three off the next three spark recognitions come from our operations division and i'd like to invite jim keaton our director for school nutrition in we have two folks from school nutrition who i'd like to come in with good evening dr mo banger and board members we appreciate you giving us this time to recognize two of our very exemplary employees school nutrition employs over 294 employees and they work hard every day but we don't get a chance to recognize them and we wanted to do that tonight first we'd like
012to introduce you to angelique parkstone she's the cafeteria manager of glenn elementary and we are recognizing her for her support leadership ms parkstone joined nutrition services in 1998. she demonstrated exceptional skills as leadership as she rose through the department from a school nutrition assistant to an assistant manager to a manager and now she's mentoring others ms parkstone has assisted her team members at her school providing informal mentoring to fellow assistant managers and managers over the last few years ms parkstone has assisted the central office supervisors by conducting twice annual reviews of the after school programs most of recently ms parkstone began a successful mentoring program with one of our first bilingual cafeteria managers at neil middle school and she's been very successful with that implementation and ms parkstone shares her knowledge willingly and supports her
013team and co-workers in a very patient and welcoming manner and the second person would like to recognize is wanda mclean she's the personnel relations supervisor and we're recognizing her for her educational leadership ms mclean joined dps child nutrition in january of 2019 just before covet hit she previously served as the director of school nutrition for the eastern carolina school for the deaf mrs mclean has provided all required training and professional development for the all team members she's conducted multiple classes and provided the exams for the national services certification most recently we had a struggle we had 10 people she gave the exam to sent them away they were lost in the mail mrs mclean worked with the staff re retested them and we had 100 pass rate and we're very happy for our hard work
014ms mclean created a new employee welcome training session for all new hires she created and conducted ongoing manager and training programs to promote internal staff development in addition ms mclean continues to advance her own education and career on april 7th through the 9th ms mclean received a scholarship to the institute of child nutrition to attend the train the trainer leadership program in nashville tennessee we're very proud of her for that and in addition to her role with employee relations and training ms mclean supervises the daily operations of 19 of our schools so miss mclean thank you all for your time we appreciate it and we'd like to have you alone ladies i'm going to jump ahead for logistical purposes and present to you um our instructional coordinator for early childhood beatrice springs if miss springs
015could join us mrs beatrice springs was nominated to receive a spark award by sue cotterman our leader of early education ms springs supports the early education assessment teams dps is the gateway for every ec preschooler evaluated in durham county and this is a big job our two assessment teams do more than 300 evaluations every year and ms springs organizes and schedules multiple iep meetings onboard new iep team members ensures compliance works with our federal child account indicators and most importantly makes sure our families and students have a great experience while getting the services they need we have a phrase in the office of early education what would be do she does everything with grace calm and dignity and builds relationships with families and the community the spark pin is a recognition of your leadership in
016the office of early education and our gratitude for all the work that you do on behalf of our youngest students and i have one more staff presentation to make and that is from our transportation department miss merica forbes i present to you tony leake assistant director for transportation services good evening dr mobingen board members this evening i wish i could recognize all 45 of our employees that work behind the scene of transportation 175 school bus drivers and 54 monitors but unfortunately i can only do one today tonight i would like to introduce miss marika forbes miss mariko force joined transportation as a school bus driver in june 2013. in october 2021 she was hired as an admin assistant to the director of transportation ms foyle goes out goes the extra mile as a transportation admin
017assistant and assists as a school bus driver with the bus driver shortage ms ford has created a bi-weekly transportation newsletter for the department to keep all transportation employees informed she also assists in the back to school bus driver appreciates the celebration ms forbes [Applause] thank you for your leadership i hope you'll wear this pin proudly as i durham public schools leader thank you and our final pr uh celebration of the evening we've got a lot of kids uh coming up once again dr hardy is going to present the superintendent's student advisory council brilliant outstanding phenomenal advocates of social justice reflective passionate these are just a few of the words that come to mind when i think about this year's superintendent student advisory council tonight it is my pleasure to introduce these young people to the
018board and our community for their service and dedication this year our council members met quarterly with dr mabinga to provide valuable input on issues facing our students and the dps community they served as advisors to dr murbinga and the administration on a wide range of challenges and issues including district accreditation magnet programs cte planning social isolation and stress due to the pandemic input on vaccinations mental health resources and supports the district's social emotional learning curriculum and factors that would determine whether schools would be able to hold their spring proms students were honest forthright and very clear in what could be done to make dps the best it can be for each and every child we are grateful to each member of the council and the high schools that are represented we want to thank our
019high school principals for recommending such outstanding young people to represent our schools our families our parents and caregivers for their support to ensure that they were able to attend our meetings and for raising such wonderful young people that are going to represent our community i do have the privilege and honor to call each of our young people's names recognize the schools that they represent i also want to share with you that at our previous meeting each of our students were able to receive their t-shirt they look so great they will also receive a spark pin this evening just want to thank our principals but especially our young people for all of the work that they have done and that they will do for the dps community schools that are represented city of medicine and some
020of our unfortunately some of our students were not able to attend so schools that are represented this evening city of medicine durham school of the arts hillside high school hillside new tech middle college high school northern high school riverside high school southern high school early college ignite jordan high school those are the schools and now i'm going to call the names all right jada duncan lauren futrell cormac baxter jasmine parker omari scott ariana young larry gill samia powell riley horton anthony aguilar fuentes hayton price haley lancewell edwin korean party nicholas brown summer mullen congratulations and take the picture [Laughter] short short people in the front thank you [Applause] congratulations and thank you to the student advisory council madam chair board members superintendent mubinga that concludes celebrations for the evening thank you so much for those
021celebrations a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our students our staff and all the volunteers that help make sure that our district can run make sure that our students have what they need the next item on our agenda is our superintendent's update i'll pass it to you dr mabinga thank you madam chair madam chair members of the board good evening last week durham public school had our five-year district accreditation review in some ways an accreditation review is unlike an audit on how whether we do what we say we do embrace educate and empower every student to innovate serve and lead board members community stakeholders including parents and students have the opportunity to participate in the accreditation review along with educators and staff the accreditation review team finished their work last wednesday and we will receive the report
022within five days 45 days but for my conversation with the review panel i am confident that we will see significant improvement from our previous review five years ago driven in large part by not only having a strategic plan in place but also committing to do the work of implementing the strategic plan i'm also confident that they will have some specific recommendations on how we can continue to improve dps and i'm pleased to receive those recommendations as well i spoke last month about reclaiming where we were a school system prior to covet when our enrollment growth had turned around and academic progress was leaping forward independent objective feedback that is informed by the voice of our community is essential to ensuring that we are the best choice for every family in europe cognia the accrediting organization
023will come to our board to present their full report as i said 45 days since uh they left us i want to thank you all both for participating in the project i also want to thank dr hardy and especially miss stevens our director of school innovation we organize our district strategic plan leaders and preparing in-depth review finally i want to thank our outstanding teachers our administrative staff we do hard work every day to fulfill our mission we will use the information that cogney shares with us to provide better support to our educators and our students i am excited to for the future of durham public school we are with authorizing our schools we are looking forward to a capital improvement program that will renovate and build more schools worthy of our students in our community
024next year we will have dramatic expansion of outdoor learning facilities on pretty much all our campuses also next year supported by the information that we are currently collecting from our families in the back to school form we will have more efficient bus service for all our students that come to dps most importantly now that we have reestablished in person relationship between our educators and students and we are beginning to we open our doors to volunteers and community partners we can look forward to accelerate our academic growth and recapturing the progress that our students were experiencing before march 2020 finally i want to share with our community that over the next week we will be releasing more information about growing together project a project that has been more than two years in the making taking in
025public feedback and identifying historical iniquities that have risen as durham county has changed throughout the last 30 years we will be presenting our plans for expanding families access to elementary application schools and a draft adjustment to school boundaries to improve equity and efficiency we will also present our plan to involve the community in the coming months to ensure that our roles for lottery access to application school and our roles for supporting students with program may be transitioning are fair and equitable this is the work of school of industry leaders to ensure that we have a better tomorrow than we have today that we serve our student better tomorrow than we do today that we don't shy away from important decisions to make our district better tomorrow than it is today and that we celebrate those
026teachers staff administrators we work hand in hand with our community to ensure that we are today supporting durham county children with everything that we have to give madam chair this concludes my remarks thank you dr moringa the next item on our agenda is the agenda review and approval we have approval of the agenda as presented a second it's been moved by miss fire seconded by miss valyadares any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is the board of education monthly meeting minutes dated march 24th 2022 with approval of the minutes from march 24th 2022 second it's been moved by ms buyer seconded by mr raven any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please
027use the same sign passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is general public comment so we have a quick review of the rules before we get started first please state your name and if you are speaking for organization please state your name and the name of the organization second we ask that speakers are asked to present their comments within three minutes when the yellow light comes on you have one minute left to start winding up your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep and that will indicate that your time is up complaints about named staff students or parents should not be voiced in open session however we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to public education the safety of our students or to the operation of the school
028system finally the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments but do we do not engage in a discussion with our speakers we also have some submitted public comments online that will be read out loud during the public comment period we'll listen carefully and consider those tonight will be the last night that we have the online public comment option as we switch to our kind of formal in-person setting and so we want to make sure that we also communicate that with the public you can email us at boe at dpsnc.net and always submit public comments that way we will get started our first public comment speaker is in him street and i please apologize if i mispronounce your names the next person will be abby bender and if you can make sure that mike
029is on green there we'll start that again okay hello uh dps board members my name is anne sakauye hempstreet i'm with rainbow collective for change my pronouns are she or they i am white queer i'm a parent and i live in durham with my wife and my two young children thank you to those of you who have taken the time to meet with several of us regarding our request for a school board approved gender policy comprehensive training for all district staff and administration developmentally appropriate lgbtq and gender inclusive and anti-racist curriculum for pre-k through 12th grade and continued collaboration with your lgbtq community organizations and stakeholders i believe most of you want dps to be an lgbtq and gender inclusive district where all kids at all schools can feel safe to be themselves have a
030sense of belonging and thrive this advocacy work is deeply personal for me since i was young i felt different from and struggled to make deep connections with my peers i was bullied struggled with depression and anxiety and ultimately dropped out of high school because it wasn't a safe space for me it took me well into my 20s to openly identify as queer and i often wonder how different the first half of my life would have been if i had ever heard or saw examples in my classrooms or at home of lgbtq people and families or any suggestion that gender was not binary i imagine i would have had a much better sense of self confidence and pride in who i was and might have found the spaces where i could have belonged i now have
031two young kids who i fully planned on sending to durham public schools but i have raised my kids from before birth to understand that gender isn't binary why our skin is different colors that systems are racist and unfair that families are all different but love is what makes a family and how to stand up when they see something unfair they use they them pronouns and grown-ups instead of moms and dads as default gender inclusive language they will show up in your classrooms and advocate for themselves and others they will share with pride about their two mom family and their non-binary friends but based on what i'm hearing from families right now at most durham public schools my children will be silenced they will be made to feel wrong or different they will be bullied by
032the grown-ups who should be their role models inspiration and advocates that's why i'm here i'm advocating for them so they don't have to when they step into your classrooms i am very aware of the privilege i have to be here before you today i am aware of i'm aware of the privilege i have to be able to choose what school i send my kids to and my children have the privilege of having two parents who love them unconditionally and embrace them for exactly who they are thank you sorry ian with the country right there thank you abby bender is our next speaker and then stella not s i can't read the full sent thank you my name is abby bender i use she her pronouns i'm here again in support of my child and all
033transgender gender expansive kids i'm also a person who has always been adamant that my children attend public schools we picked our neighborhood because the local public school had language instruction and diversity that i feel is so important for my kids to grow up as whole people people that are comfortable around and advocate for people of all races nationalities religions and genders i've never thought i would have to choose a different education path for my kids and i am disheartened to have to even consider this in order to protect my child from harm yet i'm still trying to make our public schools a safe and welcoming place for my child and hopefully for all kids that come behind them the things we're asking for would allow them to live out their identity with less bias and
034discrimination i'm not naive my brave kiddo face bullying for the length of their hair the supposed gender of their clothes they develop the strategy to avoid a certain bathroom because that is where they often find one of the children that bullies them they've had to say clothes aren't for boys or girls purple is for everyone more times than i've had to remind them to brush their teeth at night when i asked them what i should talk about tonight they responded with this everyone deserves to feel that they belong are respected and are seen my eight-year-old is wise well beyond their years i know they will need to continue to be brave in the face of this discrimination but my hope is that representation education and policy as it often does will open doors for this
035tied to change i am here again today as a person who has the time resources and knowledge to advocate on behalf of my child and my meetings with school officials continue to this day and there have been many at this point providing the support for my child to share their pronouns training for bias in the principle and administration involved in scheduling a conversation to ensure measures are taken to protect my child's safety after sharing have been extensively and harmfully delayed i am a parent who accepted my child's transition from day one and they are still not able to exist in that identity at their school many of these kids won't have this parental support and school may be the only place they have allies for these kids if dps gets this right from the beginning
036the statistics surrounding mental health may not have to apply to them my ultimate hope is that their uphill battle for acceptance and recognition would become less steep through our efforts here today thank you next peter speaker stella sn sen i apologize and then oneetta fraser so the mic is on right yes okay i don't have to press anything so hi good evening everyone my name is ellison and i identify as she and her i'm a parent of elementary student at dps i am here today to advocate for gender policy and dps to ensure that lgbtqia plus kids are recognized celebrated and supported during their learning journey at school my child's cisgender and so what that means is that she identifies with the sex that she assigned with during birth so this policy really doesn't directly
037impacts her but it has significant meaning to our family last year a chosen member of our family gathered their courage to come out and share their pronouns with us my daughter was curious and had some questions and i tried my best as parents you know to answer them as best as i could i'm not sure how successful i was but at the end of the conversation she responded with a shrug this doesn't matter this wasn't a big deal for her you know they are still who they are they are still their friends and she still cares for them just as much right so no major disruption no major identity crisis no major blowout that was it that was the end meanwhile i get to see the incredible transformation of this young child who has become
038so dear to me over the course of the years they have truly blossomed in their freedom to be able to express their true identity their bravery and their their bravery and face of so many opposition is so humbling and i would like to protect that i would like dps to help me protect that for them and for all the lgbtqia plus kids school is where kids spend most of their time learning to socialize and develop skills to navigate society because let's face it school is a mini society right i mean they are kids now they will grow up and they will change the world they will be instrumental in shaping our forever evolving society if this is not the time to teach our kids to accept diverse cultures and identity and embrace differences when would
039be a good time i say act now i mean let's embolden the rainbow gradient that's what we display as our hashtag we are dps let's put meaning behind that right this is what matters and that's what i have to say thank you josetta frazier and then ann clark my name is rosetta frazier and i didn't prepare anything to um you know to read from but i'm here just trying to protect my daughter she goes to scs and she has you know from a little girl she's just struggled with a lot of things the you know health and um you know her education or you know learning difficulties and okay so i have put a lot of time effort and money into keeping her keeping her up with you know the rest of her class um
040she is starting to blossom and she is starting to realize her potential and now the problem is there are some students in the school that fight a lot and i have i've worked with um renee the principal i forget her name sorry i'm nervous so um she's been very good at keeping my daughter safe having everyone know um that she was me being targeted um but last week she was sitting with her friend and one of these same two girls actually both of the girls jumped on her friend and i have video of it um and then across the way they the other girl jumped on another girl and it just was terrible so i'm here trying to find out why these girls are in school because i was told that um one of them
041one more time and she would be out so i'm just trying to keep my daughter safe dr watson is thank you miss frazier we'll have someone from the staff follow up with you in in clar hi my name is anne clark and i use she her pronouns i'm a durham resident and a mom to three children two of whom are in dps i shared the story at the last meeting about my transgender kindergartener who has gone through the process of socially transitioning over the last six months since an announcement has been made to his class about the change in his pronouns he is happy he's no longer complaining about going to school this announcement in the classroom took months of advocacy i was told no many times i was told that no discussion of gender
042could be discussed in the classroom by the teacher i was told that this was district policy in my advocacy work i discovered that there was no such district policy restricting an announcement and when i brought this information back to the school there started to be movement on making an announcement in the classroom this was more than three months after i first asked after more than 60 school days of questions from my son about when this could happen after dozens of emails phone calls and meetings with school district school and district administrators i was able to do this work to advocate for my son we had a principal guidance counselor and classroom teacher who were open to supporting him we were lucky but it shouldn't be about luck every kid deserves to be supported and celebrated
043at their school i want to be clear that i don't think in our situation that this delay was malicious i think it is an example of how little this topic has been prioritized in this district and how little attention and education has been given to principals administrators guidance counselors and classroom teachers regarding gender support and inclusion one or two powerpoint slides skimming the surface of this issue is not sufficient comprehensive education including anti-bias training is needed for all staff members district-wide to better support our children and better prepare them for a diverse world there are a lot of competing priorities for this district i get that there are racial equity challenges there are kids who are hungry who are falling behind who are struggling with with mental health there are teacher shortages and bus driver
044shortages and budget shortages the need for a comprehensive district-wide gender support and inclusion policy should not replace any of these other urgent needs but it deserves to be included and prioritized alongside them thank you to all of our public comment speakers we know that like i stated earlier we don't respond and engage in with public comment but all of our board members are listening we're listening carefully and we can respond via email and follow up um as well so thank you all for coming the next item on our agenda is our consent excuse me do we have online public comments i apologize mr sutter board members the following public comments were submitted online and are available now on the dps website we have 10. we can give each about a minute a piece that should
045wrap up our public comment time all right one minute a piece the first is uh just an accidental fragment may goes to escuchar i like to listen the first full comment is from catherine tall did you know that students are still being forced to wear masks on buses kids are being sent back into the school building to get a mask from the office where they can't get on the bus my child's teacher was asked to leave in the middle of class for breaking board policy by not wearing a mask why is it that the same disciplinary actions haven't been taken for bus drivers who refuse to follow the new board policy why aren't they being put off the buses like the teachers who were put out of their classrooms the teacher shortage is only going
046to get worse in this county with antics like this next comment is from jessica rubio transgender and gender non-binary people have always existed our societal support and acknowledgement of them is what has fluctuated so far my children ages 7 and 10 attending george watts seem to align their sex assigned at birth with their gender identity but their experience in their bodies and their expression of their genders should be theirs to explore having a dps policy in place that would protect their rights to be safe at school and feel comfortable expressing who they are is very important even if they never question their gender identity some of their friends already have having a policy that protects trans and gnc kids and curriculum that includes education about gender identity would help my kids feel like their friends
047are being respected and not treated differently than them isn't that what we all want for our kids for them to feel safe at school and supported to express who they are so they can learn comfortably without worry about discrimination at this tinder time when other states are introducing legislation that targets and discriminated against transgender youth making them even more vulnerable to depression and anxiety as a result of how they are treated why don't we proactively choose to stick up for our kids the next comment is from abby williamson as a district-wide policy please resume offering lockers to middle and high school students so they do not have to carry heavy backpacks for the entire school day my 100 pound 7th grader carries a 20 pound backpack which is 20 percent of his weight well beyond
048what safety experts recommend he also totes a french horn for band practice for some portion of the day at dismissal i see even smaller framed students carrying similarly sized packs please also ensure the 2022-23 bell schedule allows students reasonable time to make use of the locker in between certain periods thank you for your consideration the next comment is from michelle edwards as an educator and a member of the durham community i implore the school board to pass policies and offer training for staff to support and address our lgbtq plus students we need to come together as a community to support these students and their families who are we to say we value diversity and inclusion if we leave out a part of our community that is marginalized the next comment is from beth have you
049considered offering part-time options for families to enroll in aftercare it seems likely that staffing will be an issue impacting the number of students able to participate if families that only need a few days of care are able to share a spot this could help alleviate the strain thank you for your ongoing work for our kids the next comment is from finn franklin i'm an lgbtq plus a community member and a recent high school graduate my hope is that students of all ages who identify differently feel supported and appreciated any policies acknowledgement or support is a step closer to positive school environments and happier students everywhere i didn't often feel supported in the durham public school system and i'm hoping all students will feel the opposite going further no matter their identity the next comment is
050from catherine ruiz as the parent of cisgender dps students i was genuinely shocked to recently learn of how one of my child's classmates who is a gender minority is being treated their pronoun not being respected unnecessary complications regarding which bathroom they can use etc this child is also being bullied by classmates and i strongly suspect that this to a large extent stems from how adults in the school are treating the child i am sure dps staff is informed about the importance of respecting children's gender and the serious outcomes of not doing so including a significant increase in suicidality so i won't get into that but i am very disappointed at the example adults in the school are setting for this child's classmates it does a disservice to all of the children by failing to prepare
051them to live in a diverse world and be able to interact respectfully with people who are different from them i urge dps to adopt a uniform system-wide policy as quickly as possible regarding appropriate treatment of children who are gender or sexual minorities and encourage counseling or ongoing training for administrators and teachers who have not already implemented such a policy in their school the next comment is from alex adrian when was the last time principals of all grades received comprehensive training in regard to how to recognize and address discrimination and or harassment of protected classes under title ix my understanding is that each principle is responsible for the discipline culture and inclusion in their school until they are each trained in the latest understanding of what title ix covers including the clarification from the june 2020
052bostock versus clayton county u.s supreme court ruling in regards to the interpretation of sex to include sexual orientation or gender identity there is a looming liability in the way lgbtq plus students and staff are treated on a daily basis in many schools in dps placing the burden of educating the school staff and administration on individual families and students is wrong harmful and unnecessary as one example when a student or staff member is ready to share their identity which includes changing their name and or ways of address within the school procedures can be in place to make that transition quick and efficient and unique to the individual the next comment is from mark franklin my children are students at jordan one of them is lgbtq i strongly urge dps to create policies that are supportive of
053him and other lgbtq students their needs are unique and how dps approaches lgbtq kids greatly impacts their mental emotional and physical health and academic growth make a difference for these students by supporting them and meeting their unique needs and the final online public comment is from ev perry having had supportive administration in my high school i felt more comfortable and open with my identity instead of becoming far more reclusive if lgbtq plus issues and discussion in a school environment had been suppressed as such i believe it's important for other students to feel the same way being able to talk about your experiences in school where many individuals congregate and learn about different experiences can aid others in either different thinking or learning why any individual can feel a certain way with themselves such as how
054i felt uncomfortable with myself prior to coming out in my 11th grade year educating staff on these topics would also enable thorough discussion and subsequently allow for students to feel more welcome and comfortable while in the education system madam chair that completes our online public comment thank you mr sutter the next item on our agenda is our consent items consent items have been sent to the board in advance and have been read and discussed and questions were asked to the administration we have five items in our consent agenda well accept emotion i move that you approve the items in the consent agenda second the movement is seconded by ms lewis any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously the next item on our agenda
055is operation services we have new dsa recommendation i'm gonna turn it over to dr monk thank you and good evening chair olmstead dr mabenga and board members i'm joined tonight with uh frederick davis and dan schnitzer and they're going to present to us the our recommendation for approval to negotiate a contract a design contract with o'brien atkins purchasing wheel mr davis thank you dr monk good evening dr mabinga board chair today we're going to describe the board policy for selecting and the use of architect when visa over 50 000. we'll wait for the presentation and basically what we want to do is highlight our process we use a qualification process so before you today is our process for the professional design services for the new durham school of the arts next slide please and so
056in february we sent out a request for qualifications both locally regionally and across the state we received 11 submissions i'm in your board packet you will see an example of one of those semesters submission excuse me from the recommended qualified architect on this evening in march we received those proposals of 11. we narrowed down uh those 11 candidates based on the qualifications that you'll see in the next slide and we perform interviews in the board packet from various academic operations and community members the selection criteria as you see were comparable experience we wanted to make sure that the engineering architecture firm had shown evidence of doing k-12 design as well as particularly a school focused on the performing arts first visual and performing and we also want to make sure that they understood the vision
057of dps and other similar clients as well as our importance to mwbe participation how both on the design side and the construction side how we're able to galvanize and be inclusive of minority and women-owned businesses and then how they could make sure given the tight schedule and the urgency of this need to adhere to the schedule and have the capacity to both design and oversee construction administration next slide please and so as you see in rank order this is a recommendation we have before you today i want to make mention that the names that you see before you are highly qualified that have done numerous both state and nationally recognized schools so we're very honored that we had four of these partnerships before you today the decision was very tough but we felt that based
058on the information that we provided our recommendation was to have a right to negotiate design services with o'brien atkins and perks and will next slide please before you today is some of the images that they gave uh the short list committee during the interview as you can see um they use some precedence from previous work um just showing us the potential of what we could do uh once we get into the design and the community involvement for the new durham school of the arts next slide again today before you we want to recommend approval to negotiate a contract for professional services for durham school of the arts with the following ring order based on our long-term plan we hope to be before you fairly shortly to begin the program and planning stages which will include
059a various stakeholders both on the academic operation and our community we know that this is a high profile and want to make sure that we get it right for the citizens and durham public schools with that we'll entertain any questions that you may have thank you mr davis board members any questions start with you ms buyer i really i really appreciate it um mr davis and it's good to see you here in person and um i know people will be glad to see your face this um even as recently as today i was getting um emails from folks at dsa who still think we're contemplating renovating the old campus versus the new and so i thought it might be a good opportunity for y'all to just kind of summarize some of that again i i
060i think you know y'all have done a lot of work reaching out but the pandemic has not helped us at all in in terms of having in-person meetings and really getting out and and being in the community more about this and i think some folks recently learned about it in an indie week article that was recent within the last week so do you have do you want to clarify any of that that we've been through in those steps for folks do you want me to do that i mean do you all want to do that so just to reiterate here since we are live in october we came before you with a facility assessment that showed the much needed decision to make that this board made on moving towards a new site a greenfield site
061versus renovating we then presented that information to the county and the county has then thus increased anticipated bond to reflect a new school in february dr monk and a part of operation services met with staff and the current interim principal at that time to reiterate the decision to move towards a greenfield site and then in february through the community liaison we then met with stakeholders in the community that involved both parents and staff and we took questions so again as we move forward we'll have ample time to continue those conversations with the community members and hope they can understand the reason why we made this decision today i appreciate it that's that's kind of what i shared with folks today and and it's and that that you all plan to involve community members in this
062design so this first step will be us approving this these firms for you all to proceed with and then there will be teacher input parent student input at the table on on dreaming up what this vision for this school will be and then the rumors keep flying about the existing site if you want to squelch any of those i you know what what what you told them in our meeting and and dr monk told them for february was that we submitted three plans and let dr monk say that to the county sure thank you um to the first question about involvement in the design uh mr davidson and his crew would do the exact same thing that they did with the recommendation of selecting the designers which is put together a project team and we
063would do just that working within durham public schools design guidelines or learning environment guidelines as it relates to the existing facility we also submit it as a part of our request capital improvement request to the county um it was i feel like it was 30 million 35 million dollars for renovations to durham's the current durham school of the arts with anticipation that we would use it as both additional administrative spaces we have durham school of technology that is a much smaller school that is in need of space as hillside continues to grow as well as ignite which is a new school for us and while it's virtual there are classroom spaces that are needed for student testing and things like that so um that is not a part of the uh the current bond as
064it's currently situated it have to be a second phase uh bond and who knows where we'll be then and what needs we will have but as it stands now that's how we plan to program that space yeah i think i really appreciate you clarifying that and reminding us of the journey that we've been on and that we intend to keep that site which is beloved for so many so many folks as part of the dps family in some way um but i really appreciate you going through the the rfq process and these are as you said stellar architectural firms and design firms that are coming to the table so i'm excited to see kind of which i'll dream up with them thank you any other comments from board members miss lewis i was going to
065go ahead and make a motion i moved that we approve the right to negotiate contract for professional design services for durham school of the arts my second the move by ms lewis seconded by ms validar is any other discussion i'll just echo miss buyer's comments i've heard a lot of folks who are not sure what's happening with dsa so as much as we can communicate to the community i think the folks who live in that neighborhood are also very interested in what's going to happen there so as much as we can communicate the better any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is academic services i'm going to turn it over to dr hardy good afternoon board members dr
066ravinga we can pull up our summer programs presentation thank you so much in march of this year we brought before our board one specific summer program for approval take two tonight we will bring our comprehensive plan for the remainder of summer programs 2022 for information i would also like to recognize and introduce miss ashley stevens director for school innovation who also coordinates our summer learning efforts next slide please each summer we work to provide opportunities for durham public schools students to engage in a variety of summer learning we will take a look at an overview of our summer programs the landscape and provide an opportunity for questions next slide please in alignment with strategic plan priority one goals one through four our summer program is a vital strategy in increasing academic achievement for our young
067people next slide last year durham public schools responded to the impact of covid in hb 82 with the development of one primary program this year our offerings are more similar to that prior to the pandemic our goal within all summer programs is to improve learning outcomes by providing summer learning opportunities to targeted students next slide our focus this summer is to ensure that we are meeting the expectations of our required programs targeting students for academic acceleration and meeting the diverse needs of our specialized populations while you will no longer see one large program we have worked strategically to collaborate across the district to ensure our students who required specialized needs will have various opportunities this summer some of these have resulted in separate programs and some of these needs will be met through the integration
068of our required programs next slide please on the next two slides we will highlight the required programs as well as some of our additional programs that are supported by durham public schools take two as presented in march is an opportunity for students to receive remediation and retesting for their end of grade or end of course next we will have our dps summer school at each level while each grade band focuses on targeted population all programs have the overall goal of academic acceleration this includes opportunities to integrate for our english learners as well as students with disabilities as we support our summer school settings in elementary school dps summer school will fulfill our requirements of the read to achieve legislation this will be elevated through the use of our esser funding to include students in other
069grades where targeted supports are necessary for our students middle grades will focus on bridging the skills needed to prepare them for the next grade level by providing engaging age-appropriate enrichment that allows students the opportunity to become more route well-rounded academically in high school we will continue with the model used last year that allows all students the opportunity to recover credits needed to stay on track with their cohort for graduation this includes seniors who are still eligible to graduate on cohort over the summer extended school year or esy services are offered through our exceptional children's department and students qualify through their iep team esy services include special education and related services provided beyond the school year when necessary to ensure that a student receives a free and appropriate public education next slide please in addition to
070our required programs we are able to offer a plethora of other programs to support expanded opportunities for our students listed we have ignite next acceleration an opportunity for rising 9th through 12th graders to participate in a various e-learning courses to complete courses that will allow them to access a more robust variety of classes during their high school careers this is also an opportunity for students to take these courses if they are getting back on track with their graduation cohort we are also able to offer spark camp as an opportunity for advanced learners to explore universal themes with depth and complexity we will continue our partnership with duke young summer scholars research institute this provides an opportunity for selected students to foster collaborative and an interdisciplinary approach to stud to the study of the causes and
071consequences of inequality and require students to produce an individual research project related to inequality and possible remedies for achieving equity and social justice our career and technical department will offer our cte summer experience it has dual purposes one credential skills which provide students hands-on skills and knowledge required to take and pass a credential exam such as cosmetology cna or emt and cte exposure these career exposures will provide middle and high school students career tracks and pathways through hands-on activities to increase their understanding and recruit students for our cte pathway programs in dps next slide please our summer school will operate on a regional model elementary will have nine sites middle school six sites and high school six sites we we also want to acknowledge our collaboration with operational services this will help us ensure transportation
072as well as child nutrition for all of our sites please note that we have capital projects and renovation projects that are occurring on many of our campuses this summer the capital projects and schools that are impacted are located on the slide mangum little river watts holt mowerhead moorhead club bethesda glen and creekside next slide please all of this work is made possible through the hard-working staff and district leadership that we have in dps serving our young people all certified staff operating in a certified role will receive the summer incentive pay of forty dollars an hour for summer programs all classified staff engaging in summer programs work will receive five dollars an hour bonus on top of their current rate of pay next slide this summer we are anticipating that with our required and highlighted programs
073durham public schools will impact over 6 000 students offer employment opportunities to over 1200 staff and utilize the six main funding res funding sources you see on the slide all of our employment opportunities and student opportunities opportunity programs are now available on our website we would like to thank public affairs for making that possible next slide please at this time we will open this up for any questions and this is before the board for discussion thank you dr hardy for the presentation and all the information about our summer programs board members we have questions for discussion i'll start with miss lewis and miss valiodaras thank you for this update for the summer programs dr hardy um it's definitely good to see the programs that are coming and then the who they're going to reach one
074of the things i didn't see was the dates what time frame will these programs occur i missed that absolutely so on the website we have the dates outlined our primary two programs are take two and dps summer school take two will happen june 15th through june 24th and it is a window based on needs per student and then our dps summer school operates july 11 through july 28 monday through friday full day for elementary school and half day for middle and high school thank you and then looking at the number of students that this is going to serve is this how's this compared to how many we actually served last year projecting 6 000 this year so last year due to the house bill it definitely had a larger reach and it was very broad
075and any student affected by equivalent 19 which we could argue are all of our students so optimally ultimately that's what we did we opened it up to just about every student this year we've gone back to having a really strategic focus on our students that can be impacted through this additional time and working with some of the required legislation we already have so our like for instance our elementary school dps summer school we focus on read to achieve that's what the legislation says we have to but now with our esser funds we're able to add in rising fifth graders some of our rising first graders depending on the need of the student and that we know that we can strategically impact their outcomes for the next school year whereas other groups of students who of
076course could use additional time we know that we can make that impact during the regular school year so it sounds like it's very intentional which was going to be my next question is it targeted outreach for our families and students to get involved absolutely okay and then i heard dr hardy talk about child nutrition for those that are um i know last year we had more expansive child nutrition than the community so i am curious to know is a child nutrition that's going to be offered just for those in the program or will it be offered for any student so using this regional model um this is uh partly why we did it excuse me these schools qualify for that summer uh feeding program and so uh people will still be able to come like
077they uh have done in the past at these schools as well so what you're saying so anyone at these schools for summer nutrition that's right during this one we'll be in school that's right we're going to run the summer school feeding program like we have before thank you that's all the questions i had thank you it's good planning thank you so much for all this work um i'm really encouraged when i uh look at all these options and you know we're shifting our framework into you know strengths based and so i really love you know just even the strategic focus i think that that focus is also carried out in the programming it's also carried out in the rationale behind having these opportunities for the students it's focused time um and so um we continue
078to work towards uh not talking about kids that are uh deficient or the deficiency wording has been changed you know i mean we've been talking about that and so this is an opportunity and the focus is definitely very appreciated um i wanted to ask a question along the lines of locations so i do know the schools that you mentioned um from the elementary schools to middle schools and the high schools and these are sites not the ones that are going through renovations or capital improvements when it comes to the summer learning opportunities are all of them in-house or are there any opportunities where students will have to go into the community or into an academic campus you know i'm thinking more about the the young scholars summer research so we do have some opportunities our
079um duke young scholars will actually be coming into us so they'll be serviced at hillside high school but we are partnering with durham tech we have professors from durham tech coming into our schools to service our students and this also supports us with our transportation so we don't have to put more stress on those resources but we also have some students who will go to durham tech specifically within our cte summer program to be able to access the career exploration that's wonderful thank you so much mr raven and miss fire first thank you all for for all of this great work i i was looking over everything and i'm really interested and i try to look at this like i have no clue what's going on in nx these open-ended questions if a if a
080parent has has a student that's a high school student and they maybe they're not able to get their student to high school maybe they just want them home for the summer is the ignite academy is that something that's open to more students or is it only for students that actually attend at night no so the ignite next accelerator is open to all durham public schools high school students and they would just work with their school counselor the idea is that some of our students as students have challenges and accessing specifically some of our higher level courses and this removes that barrier from them when they're able to take courses that they may have usually taken in middle school in order to get to the level of class or so that they may need to double
081up on a math class they're able to do that over the summer time so it's open to all of our students but we do have them work with their counselors to make sure they're choosing appropriately and one thing that i just would like to add is i do think that our counselors and our school our school leaders they are really integral in making sure that our students do have access to our summer programming and they are aware of our programs and we'll be working with our young people to make sure that they're connected so that if they is an opportunity that they need to recover a credit that we're identifying the right young people or if there are times where they need to accelerate and all of that together if you think about the celebration
082that we have because of our graduation rate was really the work of our principals and our counselors and ensuring our students were able if they needed to to either accelerate or to recover credits thank you and my other question it kind of goes back to right there early on in the slide where it dealt with the priority one goals of the increased academic achievement i know that we're coming up near the tail end of the strategic plan and i know that kovac kind of threw off the our ability to really report actuals but i would like to give the community an idea of like i guess more or less like a retrospective of of where we've come from and where we're at now um in regards to the strategic plans how's that kind of roll
083out gonna be or kind of like a debrief on everything maybe even before we get to the very end just so people can actually see the gains that we've made as a district so our summer learning when you think about our four the four goals that we have in priority one goal one is regarding specifically to student academic growth so that is determined based on the first time you take that assessment end of grade or end of course so that's what we're working towards now to ensure that we finish strong for the remainder of the year how summer learning does help us is that many students that may be involved in summer learning this particular summer they're going to to yield higher growth next year 1b is around proficiency so your approval from the board
084at our month i think was the march meeting to allow us to retest our students that is going to specifically we will have proficiency preliminary proficiency results after the first administration then we will have intervention for those students who did not who were not proficient take two will allow us to improve and increase our proficiency one c is graduation rate and the opportunity to work with our high school students to recover any credits especially to make sure right before june our students are able to remain on cohort if they've had any challenges this academic year that helps us with our graduation rate and then finally all of our programs will be integrating and using not only in person and our traditional activities but integrating technology in a manner so that our students have the opportunity
085whether it's through ignite accelerate or through some of the resources and instructional tools that they'll be using during our summer learning program thank you again not just not just for doing this work but also to explaining how to be able to access all of these great resources so thank you so i want to start with thanks and appreciation for all the thoughtful work and ashley also for leading that cognia work that you've been doing it's incredible it's deep it's monotonous and i also want to challenge you all to think if this is enough um we're coming out of pandemic we're still in pandemic and a third of these slots are take two slots that then they last for two weeks is unless i'm reading the calendar right that's right but we know you know there
086are going to be kids that could use much more intensive support than this and i don't want us to not have everything that we can think of on the table so as you all keep dreaming and thinking like you know we miss yeah we're taking this the second through fourth graders we don't have anything targeted at the fifth and the rising sixth and the rising ninth i mean we there's gaps and holes the way i and i you know i'm just kind of taking a glance at it um and i know it's all dependent on on what teachers we can get to staff this and i know it's really expensive staffing but as you all are continuing to work with counselors and teachers if there's more that we need to do then let's like open
087some of that broaden it make sure that we're not losing any children who whose families really believe that they've struggled so much this year and would really benefit from let's just continue to get creative i found the programs online and i'm glad they're on the website it's under programs and services down under summer learning that's where it's found but it doesn't look like parents can apply yet so what are families supposed to do if they're interested and and how are y'all gonna make sure to make that connection for folks to to get their children placed so within each section online it tells them um how if there is an open application process because many of our programs are specifically targeting student it doesn't have an open registration which would mean you would get a letter
088from school saying you're eligible or that this opportunity is available for you and then it would tell you specifically how you can connect our programs that have open registrations our spark program our hub farm program are camp fantastic that information is connected in there we'll say for additional information where they can sign up but given the nature of the targeted nature of this year's summer programming it's not an open registration as it was in last year's school year and if parents do have questions and we can make sure that it is clear on the web page they can reach out to their child's principal or classroom teacher or to ms stevens they have questions for programs that do not have that open enrollment and we can work with mr sutter to make sure that that's
089on the website i appreciate it it just um there's so much catching up we want to do and our folks are doing it every day but but the the trauma that kids are dealing with is is real and um i i i want our families to know that we're here for them and we're we're not going to have any gaps where we're not reaching reaching any child that they think we need to reach um so i appreciate everything that y'all have done and if there's more that you can do let's take some of that federal money and spend it on these programs this summer these children um i can't imagine anything better we could do with it but i appreciate it thank you all for the presentation i think oh hold on i got a
090question though before you leave um and that it's similar along the lines of this buyer's question if i'm a parent and i'm like i really think my child needs something but i may or may not fit into this list or i may be i do but i didn't get a letter from my school how can i advocate for my child to be a part of the summer programs and we definitely want our parents to advocate they know their children the best first starts to start with your child's teacher you can always reach out to your child's guidance counselor as well as your child's principal we will make sure i work with ms stevens will work with mr suttas to make sure that that's explicit on the website and then they can also contact ms stevens
091as well if they have questions about any of our summer programs we appreciate miss buyer's feedback and your feedback as well thank you i think if there's any way we can even add for folks who are only going to be in take two here are some other opportunities in the community we know that summer learning is a time where especially for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch the summer slide can happen and we are in a time where we want to be building our students academic skills so we don't want to let that slide happen so we can make sure we provide opportunities we know parks and rec and ymca and some of those other programs are out there that students can be participating in during the summer absolutely we can add that
092to the website so it will show our dps programs as well as community programs and we'll work to get that updated as soon as possible thank you all so much this is just for information so thank you go to our next item i think is that you again dr hardy i'm going to ask dr danner and miss tracy super edwards if they will come to the podium and if we can pull up our before and after care program presentation you can go back a couple of slides please perfect thank you so much good evening again board members and dr rabinga tonight we are going to provide an update on the district's before and after school programs for the 2022-23 school year you'll go forward two slides perfect our presentation this evening includes a program overview
093staffing budget and next steps before i begin i would also like to thank the following departments human resources public affairs pre-k exceptional children child nutrition transportation and finance for their collaboration and support in program implementation next slide please our intended outcome is to maximize before and after school programming for our durham public schools families and align with our new start and end times dr dietrich danner executive director for professional learning and federal programs and ms tracy super edwards director of community education will lead our discussion at this time i will turn it over to miss tracy super edwards okay good evening four members of dr novinga next slide next there we go thank you our elementary before and after school programs are licensed by the north carolina division of child development and early education under
094the leadership of the department of health and human services all durham public schools before and after school elementary programs have either a four or five star rating and must adhere to licensing regulations including student-to-staff ratio of one to fifteen and staff qualifications per campus license 26 elementary before and after school programs are licensed federal street students are transported to w g pearson burton and cc spaulding students are transported to arn harris y e smith students are transported to eastway for program participation eight middle schools offer encore or 21st century after school programs dsa and school for creative studies offered before school programs only due to the late bail schedule encore programs include bronden giffens lowe's grove lucas and lucas and little river and rogers her 21st century community learning centers are offered at carrington neal
095and shepard next slide our elementary and middle school before school and after school program hours have been aligned to the new bail schedule for the 2022-23 school year next slide this slide provides an overall monthly enrollment average we have compared our pre-covert monthly enrollment average from august 2019 to march of 2020 and the current school year from august 2021 to march of this year for both elementary and middle school programs this school year we have been unable to operate at pre-covet capacity due to staffing shortages next slide the next two slides will show program capacity by elementary campus the north carolina division of child development early education determines the license capacity for elementary before and after school programs based upon approved spaces at each facility the number of staff to meet full capacity is based
096upon a one to 15 ratio and the overall capacity determines the total number of supervisors needed for each program next slide the before school program as well as the after school program can each serve a total of 3 940 students a total of 271 staff in each program including 52 program management are needed to achieve program capacity even with potentially reaching our full capacity some programs may have a wait list due to the state license capacity and parents interests next slide this line provides the program capacity for middle school campus a minimum enrollment of 10 students is needed per campus to operate a before school program the number of staff to fulfill program capacity is based upon a 1 to 15 ratio which will allow for 150 students to participate in before school programs and
097480 students to participate in after school moreover to achieve program capacity we will need 10 group leaders in before school and 27 group leaders in the after school program and 10 employees for program management next slide please the next section of the presentation provides a breakdown of staffing needed to operate elementary and elementary and middle before and after school programs by various capacities next slide for our elementary needed staff in need for program operations at 100 capacity the total number of staff needed for each before and after school program operating at 100 percent capacity or 3940 students and no wait list is 540 employees next slide to serve 1970 students or 50 capacity the total number of staff needed in each program with anticipated wait list is 218 employees next slide the total number of
098staff needed for each program to serve students with anticipated wait list is 56 employees next slide for middle school staff are needed for program operations at 100 percent capacity to achieve 100 capacity or 150 students in before school programs and 480 students in after school programs 36 employees are needed with no wait list next slide to operate 50 percent or 75 students in before school programs and 240 students in after-school programs six employees are needed with the anticipated wait list next slide please next slide recruitment efforts in collaboration with human resources we are working closely with human resources to recruit and hire staff hr recruiting efforts include intentional marketing marketing such as social media platforms and advertisement additionally several in-person hiring events have occurred within the last month including participating in district-wide job fairs since
099these positions are part-time our primary focus is the recruitment of college students and retirees we continue to work with hr in exploring dual employment positions for continuous program recruitment including other dps employees who are interested in working in before and after school programs in partnership with hr we also plan to survey and meet with instructional assistants bus drivers cafeteria workers to share how we can partner with them in working in our programs as well as continue to comply with fair labor standards next slide while we have the capacity to serve a combined total of seven thousand eight hundred eighty students in elementary before and after school programs historically we never achieve full capacity due to staffing shortages as well as low family interest by sites contributing barriers that may impact staff vacancies may include the
100following group leader positions are itinerant part-time positions and the inconsistent work schedule may not be appealing to potential employees before school work schedule of 6 15 to 7 30 a.m which is 1.25 hours in the morning 1 in the afternoon 1 45 to 6 o'clock p.m 4.25 hours there are also a limited number of non-college student applicants 75 of our employees are college students with class schedule changes each semester this constant change contributes to the staff turnover and the number of vacancies 15 percent of our employees are also retirees for the elementary license programs potential employees are required by the state under the north carolina child care act to have a qualifying letter issued from the north carolina division of child development and early education before they can begin working in order to obtain this
101letter potential employees must register and complete the criminal background check at the state's website and then they must be fingerprinted at a chef's office sheriff's office within seven days of completing the application there is a backlog in scheduling fingerprinting with 75 percent of staff being college students frequent schedule changes and other challenges of part-time employment contribute to high staff turnover each year the department sends out flyers to primarily dps classified staff to recruit them to work in our programs there are a limited number of classified staff that are interested in working in the programs due to the long school day this year we currently have 26 dps employees that are on extra duty who work at least three days a week and we have 51 that are available to substitute when needed next slide our
102retention efforts to sustain staff after six months of working at least 20 hours a week employees earn part-time status as a recipient of the american rescue plan at stabilization grant for child care providers we are able to provide staff with a recruitment and retention bonus of up to two thousand dollars in june and october through june of 2023 and we will provide the state supported 2.5 percent raise for all staff in july next slide it is essential that we share with you the program fees for our programs our programs remain competitive as we continue to offer licensed well-rounded structured and free choice activities designed to support the academic social emotional and physical development of our students next slide our program fees for elementary before school is 60 dollars per month 540 yearly and after school
103is 205 a month yearly middle school before school per month at dsa and school for creative studies is eighty-five dollars and seven hundred and sixty-five dollars yearly and encore is fifty dollars per semester or hundred dollars yearly next slide this slide shows our program fees compared to other local programs such as the ymc before and after school rates and the city of durham parks and recreation after school rate next slide dps pre-k sliding fee scale is based on 400 of the federal poverty level and was adopted in 2020 in order to align with durham county pre-k universal sliding scale for families the pre-k sliding fee scale is based on a full instructional day program our program financial assistance program is is based on 200 percent of the federal poverty level next i will share with
104you our scholarship and tuition assistance for families next slide 15 off financial assistance is available to qualify families based on a 2022 federal property guidelines at 200 which allows more families to qualify for assistance discount for the first 300 families who register and enroll for the 2022-23 school year by june 17th of this year 2022 as part of the district's best school yet best school year ever campaign we also provide a multi-child discount and community education is the largest child care provider in the county and the recipient of department of social service vouchers vouchers are accepted for our elementary programs which is a free and sliding fee scale for the 2022 school year we will offer 300 scholarships utilizing the north carolina division of child development stabilization grant funds across the district next slide incentives
105for dps employees for enrolling in before and after school programs for the 2022-23 school year we will have one week of early enrollment for dps employees we will continue to offer the 15 employee discount we will have the multiple child discount and they will receive priority enrollment next slide new for 2022-23 school year a tiered program registration system will be implemented in which dps employees would register one week prior to the general public before school programs will be offered at at all elementary and middle schools however a minimum of 10 students must be enrolled for the program to operate program rates have been the same since the 2015-16 school year and we are planning for fees to remain the same for the upcoming 2022-23 school year next slide please next slide the operating budget is
106based on full capacity of 3940 students in before and after school the projected tuition revenue for before school is approximately 2 million and for after school is approximately 7 million for a total projected revenue of approximately 9 million anticipated program expenditures including program administration salaries and benefits site managers assistant managers and group leader salaries and program is approximately 9 million this budget is based on fees remaining the same for the upcoming 2022-23 school year next slide please next slide our next steps registration begins in may early enrollment begins for dps employees on may 2nd and opens for the general public on may 9th our goal is to not have a wait list we must adhere to our state license ratios to provide safe programs for our students for the 2022-23 school year we will begin
107enrolling at 25 capacity serving 985 elementary students with at least a minimum vacancy of 56 employees we will monitor family interests and staff vacancies to gradually increase enrollment for accommodating program capacity per campus for our middle school programs we will enroll at 50 capacity with at least a minimum vacancy of six employees our department will need to hire a total of 62 employees not including any anticipated resignations before june we will continue to aggressively recruit in partnership with human resources including recruiting dps ec departmental staff to support identified ec students and continue collaboration with community partners i now yield to dr hardy thank you so much miss super edwards and dr danner our community education program has worked um once our we approved our before excuse me our beginning start and end times very closely
108with dr lesane and mr lassour this is before the board this evening for information and discussion at this time we are more than happy to entertain any questions that the board may have sure i'm instead thank you dr hardy and to the team for this presentation board members i'll start with mr lee uh thank you all for this uh presentation is very timely and needed um with us announcing the bail time changes there was an influx of concerns from parents and community about the availability of after school i think the majority of the comments i remember i think it was an ek poll or something like that because it was it quickly sold out um we we got the same level of engagement when we did our time changes previously as well um i don't
109remember the the before school or after school increasing that much it wasn't a huge increase it was an increase a little bit but you kind of touched on the your enrollment in schools coming up here is there a process of scaling in certain locations you know so there's an anticipation right now anyway um that some of the parents are expressing about uh after-school care in the schools that whose bell time will be changing uh so i would expect um expect at least the thought of you know those those parents are thinking well um we're going to need more spots how does that work you know and the reason i'm asking is because i'm sure parents are listening and may have seen this on the agenda and uh they're still concerned they're obviously concerned about um
110um probably more after school care for elementary uh than before school but how does that work um when we're looking at capacity at a school like ek po would we send more staff over to increase the numbers if needed or or still wait list or how does that work yes so we can have because i know you want the public to see if they can pull back up the presentation there are actually two slides that actually show the site capacity based on our licensing so i think that will be helpful for our public to have an opportunity to see that and then i'll let miss super edwards talk through the licensing guidelines and how that impacts our ratios that was slide yes you'll go um towards the um earlier portion of the presentation that's the
111tables right um one more there yep there we go there we go elementary yes yeah so what we look at exactly um what you were mentioning is that we look at the size of the program historically how the size of the program that each of the schools will have and we do try to send more staff at the larger programs to make sure that we can meet the need of the families we also look at the vacancies of the staff that we have at those particular sites but we try to maximize and make sure we can reach the capacity at those sites where we know we have the high demand of interest of our families so what is the capacity what what is i see what the capacity is but how is that calculated is
112it the number of kids that could fit in a certain area or the number of staff people that are licensed to be there the capacity is based on the state license when we initially got our license from the state that is determined by the state the state consultants when they come out to license a program so they set the parameters based on the spaces that we have at the program that we can use at the facility so they have calculations that's what determines why some schools have smaller capacity size some have larger capacity size for example when you were mentioning ek po their capacity is 101 so we will not be able to go over 101 students at uk post so if we have more families than 101 families that are interested we will have
113a wait list at ek po because the state has set that license at 101 but based on i'm sorry to jump in here mike but based on what because if a school has a capacity for six or seven hundred children what is the state looking at and how long ago were those they they look at the spaces that we are allocated to use so when they come they do square footage and they measure so typically the after school program is in the gym um the cafeteria the auxiliary spaces so they look at those spaces and measure based on the square footage per child and so they come up with the calculations and determine how many students um can be in that space so they're not looking at the entire building because we do not use
114the entire building just the spaces that we are in which is typically the gym in the cafeteria um in some auxiliary spaces so that's how it's determined in each school space and square footage is different there is there ever a review project you're answering this great this is excellent don't don't take the continued questions to say that you're doing anything wrong please don't because it's excellent um i'm just i'm curious so is there a is there ever a re-evaluation by the state in efforts to do does the criteria ever change uh that that will require that with that may allow more students the reason i'm asking is because again like a couple years ago ek po sold out like in the same day right and so i have a feeling that's going to be the
115same that's going to be the same there so i was just curious you know um is there ever an opportunity to be reevaluated for the possibility of more students yes there is an opportunity to be re-evaluated it is based on an allocated space in the building for example we're using the gymnasium we're using the cafeteria if we use the media center but if we're allowed to use additional space in the building such as classrooms then we can be reevaluated to it's to increase the number of students in the school but we must be allocated that space to you for additional students and we have to be approved by the state okay who makes the decision of the allocation of the school space so for programs that um you know as we are thinking ahead we
116know that there are some anticipated programs that we have had wait lists before so that will give us an opportunity to work with our principals in regards to potential space and in regards to potential re-evaluation we are happy to make sure that we explore that as we do that please know that that also when you think about the other slides within the presentation as i increase space as an opportunity then i also have to still maintain my licensing ratio which also means i have to increase my staff that's right so know that all of those decisions they're interconnected we have identified i think there are three or four campuses that in the past have had wait lists as you mentioned mr lee very quickly and we'll happy to work um with our principals as well
117as um to see if we can be re-evaluated um and provide updates to the board okay that's what i was trying to get at is with the wait list and this bail time changes the fear associated with that um with fear associated with that increase what are the options and so thank you very much for answering going through that process but i really appreciate that we're going to miss valedares just so i just want to follow mister a little bit here just a caution here a little bit or with a classroom use users for after school program when a teacher set up their classrooms for that to be used after school while they're gone there have been a lot of reservation in the past so that they don't want this classroom to be turned on
118and they have to be there preparing for the lesson for the next time so that has been a dilemma in the past that's why sometimes we've been confined in the cafeteria and other locations as well but again like dr hardy said uh if we have specific names specific schools we can work with principal to see whether or not that can be an option as well i just wanted to bring it up as a caution that it can be a challenge i i wouldn't advocate for using classrooms i'm talking about like media center some some you know like the public open spaces right because that's what what did you say some of the common um looking at the common spaces that could potentially be used see that's why you guys are so so so much smarter
119than me i couldn't get that word out um the common spaces in the schools i would not absolutely my kids they're not in after school now but they used to be and i've seen what they do to places so i wouldn't advocate your kids in particular your kids in particular it is what it is can i get a quick question about space though before we go down the line just real quick um i saw i think someone a presentation and talked about some students being at aftercare at another school how's that spacing decided when do you use a different school for capacity yes so the that just goes into the overall enrollment um of the capacity at the school that they are transported to so the it doesn't um as long as we do not
120go over the capacity at the school that they're transported to so for example is that yeah so even before that how does it decided that these children from this school are going to be transported to this school that's because there's under enrollment at this school so there's more space at the other school the reason is because it was low enrollment at first right we had less than 10 students enrolled at the at um burton cc spaulding and federal street we had less than 10 students enrolled at those schools and so we still offer for the students to be able to participate we just transport them just because of low enrollment thank you i'm gonna stop right there i just want to get one quick question i may have some more miss louis if we do
121have enough enrollment then we can have programs at those particular schools however what we've tried to do is we did not want any young person at any school to not have the opportunity to participate and so if there were less than 10 which means we are not going to be able to operationalize the program then they have the option to be transported to those other locations if we are able to meet that 10 threshold then we'll be able to have programs at those sites thank you so much for this presentation um you know a lot of the considerations that you have to deal with you know along with staff along with size um common space dimensions and everything um i do want to ask a question in terms of how we are communicating to staff
122who need to get the um nc child care qualifying letter about how they can go about it because i i get a test it takes time i i actually have that letter so i can tell you i was waiting day by day and checking into the website just to be sure that um my letter came in and it took weeks but i've heard as much as two months and so i commiserate um but i will say that you know the options are definitely local but then ncbi in wake um my experience if i can lend anything you know that's that's definitely an option for folks to go to wake county um and try ncbi and so i just want us to make sure that we are exploring all options i mean folks are willing to
123to drive you know a couple of miles out it it could help in in getting the process started sooner than later but this is something that is beyond our control this is something that statewide everybody and anybody who's involved you know in working with children has to have this and so there's definitely a lot of demand for it and i'm just hoping that we can continue to kind of keep tabs on what's what's happening how much is the wait time here um i think that that would be really helpful so that folks don't get discouraged you know when they're going through this process um the other question that i had uh was definitely related to [Music] uh just with any with any opportunity that is in high demand there's always a consideration as to who
124are the people who have it easier and you might understand where i'm getting at whether there's a barrier and i know that you know i was so grateful to kind of look at some of the barriers in terms of our staff and limited part-time positions um it's internet part-time positions and you know who who we're hiring but also in terms of the opportunity when it comes to are is everything available in more than english you know and and is there care in terms of like what what the demographics look like um you know i do see that we are definitely bound by um when it comes to income there's definitely that's already made for us right and when we have that designation but when it comes to who has access to this i mean there
125have been some questions in the past of you know is is there is it easier for some parents depending on on on demographic uh categories like to get this versus other parents and i and i and i'm always just very cautious with this because we do the best that we can but we also need to make sure that that's also into account and so i'd love for future presentations to kind of give us a gist of who exactly are we serving with these programs um mrs edwards i just wanted to start with just thanking you i have been here a long time and this is the most detail i have ever seen on our before and after school care and it goes to show you how easy it is for us to say make more
126slots for students and how hard it is for you all to actually plan and do but it's so reassuring that you guys are thinking through all the logistics on behalf of our families and our children um as you've looked at you know the the major shift is half of our schools going to 7 45 start times as you've looked at the existing schools that already have that start time does that give you any clues to the demand that you will have for before scare school and whether that will drop is that is that something y'all have looked at and you're modeling that's that half of our schools are already starting kind of early anyway um that helped you all as you plan yes um when we initially switched i guess about five years ago we
127had um a couple of programs that had less than 10 students but before school so some of our sites um do not provide it before school programs because it's very low interest and they did not need before school so a lot several programs um we did not we do not currently offer before school um so we are looking at that looking at you know the parent need for before school which will probably um go down quite a bit um and looking at of course the interest in after school and seeing what we need to do so we have looked into that um and then taken and see which schools will have the high peak and how we can try to shift staff and to see where we can meet the demands of the schools where
128the increase will probably be for interest and it would be helpful maybe in the future just to know kind of what these wait lists are like are they 20 families are they 100 families you know kind of and and you don't have to know it off the top of your head at all just um having some scope of that i think we see it on social media a lot that folks are surprised because they always assume that we can accommodate every student um well if we could we can share with you as of today we have 638 families on the waitlist there are a lot of numbers here 6 38 okay that's good to know for after um and can you remind me we are now paying people at 15 an hour yes 15 38
12915 38 and that's great and um because there were there were years not too long ago when we weren't so that that's significant but as we talked about our labor market has shifted so strongly um and i heard you say that you're looking for more collaborations with our instructional assistants our classifier certified folks that are willing to do this extra duty work that you're you're coming up with ways with hr to be able to do that because we've had folks express interest so that's exciting and who best to stay with our students than those that know them already so i really appreciate it i appreciate the thoughtfulness and keeping fees flat for families and um scholarships strong so i really appreciate those programs y'all have put in place thank you all so much let me
130just make a quick comment here i saw we exploring options to start bringing our ias we also have to think about overtime if someone is making 15 an hour overtime is about 22.5 so we have to make sure that we're gonna be able to balance the budget in the program so don't be surprised if we get to that point we may come to you say we have to increase the fee in order to be able to balance our books thank you all for this presentation i i have a few questions for you and most of them they're just kind of operational and i'm just trying to make sure that i'm understanding clearly on what is what is a potential outcome so the first question deals with um i know that it was mentioned that all
131of the programs will at least need to have like 10 students and i'm wondering because this is going to be so vital to to some of the parents that need to utilize this would we still potentially have the program open even if we don't have 10 students pre-enrolled or pre-requested because a lot of times with the beginning of a school year parents are still trying to figure out what their true schedule is looking like so i don't know if there's going to be like a like a barrier or a gap period of maybe a few weeks or up to a month where we could actually see is this program sustainable or not but um yes we would look at that and try to have a um cut off what we've done in the past is
132look at typically like september we haven't established a date yet but we will give families times and have that date out there so families will know when there would be a hard deadline is to determine if we don't have enough families by this particular date so families would know it would not be the first day of you know it wouldn't be the first week or the second we would give families enough time to um register right my next question is going to deal with when i'm looking at the charts and and i know with with the elementary schools seems like just about every one of them needs at least two staff at those locations if if not more but on the middle school side i guess because the um the enrollment would be so low
133you're looking at one and i know that you all mentioned um sometimes having to rely on college students and retirees to be able to operate that and we're also looking at a low amount of hours where people are actually able to work in a before school program would there be ability to maybe have some of these people that are working at the before school program at the elementary schools be able to cover a middle school as well because since you know with that gap in that build schedule maybe that can allow them to get i don't know three hours on the before school side maybe even potentially if they're working on after school that's almost like a full-time yes we do we can definitely match up programs we do have some staff that work both
134before and after we have some that were split only before school only after school so we try to maximize and keep as many staff as we can and offer as much as we can to employees we do yes try to keep them as much as possible so that kind of goes into my to my next question and it's a little bit it's just a little bit outside of what we're talking about now but i know a lot of what we dealt with this school year was uh the lack of substitutes um and i'm wondering if i know we kind of talked about it before i know a few board members have floated at the idea of actually being able to have a substitute teacher on hand in every school anyways and if we are going
135to be operating these before school programs having a substitute teacher on hand every day it would build in a little bit of resiliency and i know just saying that it sounds great but actually getting the bodies in in the building sometimes but i just wanted to kind of say that to offer my support in in that type of um that type of agility and flexibility um the next question dealt with the the operating budget so so when i'm looking at it and i heard dr hardy talk about you know as as we increase the enrollment it on the other side it actually increases the amount of staff that's needed but when normally when we think about operating the school we understand that if you're operating a school at at a lower enrollment level it's actually
136costing you more because you're having to pay for an assistant principle that may not be allocated or anything else like that in this situation it pointed out that the break-even point is essentially 3940 students and um and i would just be curious maybe this isn't something that could be done today but i would be curious if we were at that 50 mark with students like does that bring us into the red because it looks like you all are are operating pretty pretty efficiently because i'm looking at the admin staff and it only accounts for seven percent of the cost so it's it's not it's not a lot of fat in that budget so i'm just trying to figure out if the if the capacity um if the enrollment is is only half of what this
137max is i'm thinking that it may be a little bit in the red is that is that accurate we provided for you a projected budget if we were at full capacity we've been operating our programs about 25 currently and so we're we're doing pretty well as it relates to our budget so we're not in the red and we always proceed with caution to ensure that we always remain in the block good deal thank you and this is one of my last two questions uh one one of them just dealt with i noticed that the dss subsidies was on there and and is that coming directly from dss which is maybe from the state or federal or is that actually income that's coming from the county that would still have a portion of it um reallocated
138to charter schools how does that how does that work that is that is from um that is from the state and from from durham county so it's part it's not reallocated that's from the from social services comes directly to us for child care fees actually and my very last question this one just deals with um kind of what everybody already mentioned about overcrowding at schools like the ekpo that fills up so quick would there already be a plan in place if that happened to still allow the families to to be able to register but maybe allow them to go to a different school is is that the idea already or something that could be considered well we will have to look at that because all the other schools are already the capacities based on staffing
139so here again we have to look at as i mentioned earlier projected that we need a total of 62 staff at what we are projecting to open with and so we're going to be short staff so it's going to be it may be a little challenging to be able to shift students to a different site that may have a smaller capacity really depends on where the schools um which site that would be but that's something that we're hoping we could be we can look into we just will have to see and be strategic about how it could possibly uh be done and have to work with transportation and see if that's something normally it is to those on particular those particular sites because of transportation and getting them there in a timely manner um based
140on routes and all of that so it sounds like if if uh if a program is being underutilized it's a lot easier than if they're being overutilized because they just make certain situation a lot more difficult and also the geography in terms of how close the other schools are that are also over at capacity however i do think this has provided us with some additional ideas and those ideas are definitely helpful a couple of one point i do want to to note is we're going to be monitoring enrollment by site very carefully so as you think about we're going to hire initially at 25 and 50 but we're going to be monitoring sites very carefully so i might be hiring more earlier at ekpo given the enrollment that i may at another school so we'll
141be monitoring that and that'll help us as we work with operations as well as the staff that we hire think about the creative ways whether a program is underenrolled how we can partner or if it's over enrolled as well as looking at maybe spaces in the schools that we can use in terms of the licensing so i think all of those are good options for us to explore so that we can kind of think innovatively to provide as many seats as possible for our families well thank you all again because i know i had to utilize this this service before for my kids so i know it's greatly appreciated so thank you thank you for your presentation um this has been very informative and the questions from my colleagues i think fred took all of
142my questions and thoughts and ideas [Laughter] but no that's good um i was gonna ask i guess did you do you have about a i know you said you want to utilize as many people as possible for before and after school do you have a percentage of what that typically is is it typically 50 do both 75 um i would say you probably have um probably have about uh because our before school programs are much smaller so we don't have as many staff as our product in the present we don't have as many staff in our before school programs we only have about 35 staff in before school so in after school our after-school programs are our largest and so comparing working both it's a very small number probably a good 20 percent 15 percent
143that may do both certainly our managers that manage the program they do both programs but as far as group leaders we don't have but only a few we don't have that many that do both and then going thank you for that i was just curious to know again when you're saying how many people you need to be at 100 capacity when i look at this operating budget you share that this is at 25 capacity um as a projection that this would be the budget um the budget that's in the five percent the presentation is 100 capacity the operating budget yes it's a proposed budget at 100 capacity well at 100 capacity but right now currently we're operating at 25 capacity okay so this budget i was going to ask is it middle school and elementary
144which percentage is which but it's 100 of both elementary and middle school to service both at 100 is that right it's 3940 which is based on our elementary number of elementary schools thank you i'm catching up thank you and then with that um i know i appreciate the slide that has the comparisons for other um programs that are out there i know that mr raven mentioned the dss stipends as well do we offer scholarships for after school and if so how many were those offered as well yes we do offer um scholarships for currently for after school programs and as i mentioned for the new year we'll be off in 300 okay um coming up utilizing the grant um currently for um for our after school for middle school we have about we have 54
145scholarships that we provide in right now and i don't have this at number four elementary but we do have um currently offer it's about 100 scholarships that we provide for our families close to about a hundred i get the exact number but it's about 100 okay that we provide okay and then my last my last point i was going to make and i appreciate i'm hearing dr hardy weigh in on this just the the creativity and innovation um if we already know we're going to be over capacity at a particular school under capacity and also understand the balance of you know make sure we have enough staff as well but if there's a possibility and geographically with transportation for we us to use an additional space that we have if the staffing is there to
146consider that so that we can make as much room as possible utilizing the spaces available to us with transportation no that's going to be additional costs but seeing how we can again accommodate the needs of the family with this bell's schedule change and what that may call for so thank you i appreciate it and ms valued ours thank you so much um i i also just want to encourage you know every every person who's out there um to take advantage of community offerings i mean this is so necessary because the demand is so high the spots that we have unfortunately based on all these these uh factors whether it's staffing or all all the other factors we discussed um you know we we have the city of durham listed here i'm so grateful that you
147you put that in here in terms of um city of durham parks and rec um you know their fee 132 for after school only i'd like for us to continue to engage with parks and rec because i know that they have done their own analysis they are also looking by quadrants they're looking by zip codes they're looking at who uses their scholarships those are opportunities they do have scholarships as well um or you know sliding fee they do they do all that so they're also analyzing that the city is also working towards equitable engagement there's a whole lot of of conversations around equity um and so with the city of durham and especially for parks and rec i do know that i heard from uh city of durham staff some of the analysis that they
148have done about the zip codes and about some of the the ways that they are trying to make sure that families have access and and also that question again demographics uh you know income you know where are these opportunities going and who's utilizing them the most and so thank you for keeping in mind also the ymca so these are other opportunities as well we know that our families need this and we have availability but it's also limited and so if we can continue to work with our community partners it will be yeah continue to do to do to do the work thank you so much for this presentation hold on before you pack up i got a few questions sorry everyone gets all excited when they see me come back on i just have a
149few questions um thank you all for the presentation and i think to sharing the complexity of the work that you do um i think a lot of people think after school we just you know all the kids go in there but no there's a whole licensing process and a lot that goes into it i think um i'm concerned about staffing we got to already have a long wait list and thinking about what the waitlist is going to be as some of these schools shift time so i'm glad that we're thinking creatively about solutions i would like to consider can ias that be positions that they take at schools i think you know if we have someone who's consistent who's in a school building already who knows the children already that's going to help lead to
150hopefully some consistency with your staffing efforts and i think it would lead to a better relationship with students so i hope that we could really explore that i know dr mabinga mentioned there would might be some time and a half but i mean i'm okay with us exploring that option to pay our folks a little bit more to stay and do some really good work so i think that's you all but that's probably over to mr lesor and his team to consider what that looks like um he's not in his head that y'all can't see on the camera i do want to explore those options and run those numbers because i do think families are looking for this option i know a lot of families emailed us beforehand and want that um and then i
151was wondering you mentioned this long wait list is the majority of that capacity or is it because we lack a staff or some combination of both who's lack of staff lack of staff executive staff so if we look that if we were able to serve all of the students that are on the waitlist we would be at our pre-covert numbers of enrollment um so we lost um that many staff after covet so it's it will put us back at our pre-covert numbers you have to be 18 to work in the after school program yes 18 high school diploma 18 high school diploma some recent graduates might be available with some durham tech students and mississippi yeah you just did a high school job fair at the um northern put on cte did a job fair
152at the library just this week and so we participated in that for um students are getting ready to graduate so that is wonderful i saw that posting online and a wonderful opportunity for our kids i think the staffing is going to be crucial and i think families are going to be waiting on that i wonder if there are other ways that we partner or do some other programs inside of school so that we can help fill the capacity because i know families are going to come back to us in august and say wait y'all said that we were going to expand these options so how do we get creative about doing that so thank you for the presentation um i think that's it thank you all that is the last item on our agenda for
153this evening i'll accept a motion to go into closed session i move that we go into closed session for the reason stated in the agenda second the move by mr yodaris seconded by miss uh lewis any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously we're now moving into closed session uh we are now back in open session dr mubinga madam chair i'm here to seek for your approval for the personal reports as discussed at a closed session i know that we approve the personnel report as discussed in a closed session dated april 21st 2022 second it's been moved by ms lewis seconded by ms buyer any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously and with
154that we are adjourned i'll see y'all tomorrow you