001living good evening everyone the durham public schools budget hearing is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and empower every student to innovate serve and to lead we'll be focusing that attention on the budget tonight the interpreters are martha romo iguiles and marti ramirez thank you for taking the time to join us so the first item on our agenda is the agenda review and approval move approval second it's been moved and probably second any other discussion all of those in favor say aye aye and then pose please use the same sign passes unanimously do we need a roll call vote
002with alexander i was my next statement was going to be we do have one of our board members who is joining us virtually today alexandre valladares um and so we will do a roll call vote on that agenda item we'll start with you miss validaros hi everyone i'm here at a conference for micronet migrated education um i will vote aye thank you miss buyer i vote aye thank you mr raven hi uh miss lewis aye mr sears all right and uh the chair votes i as well passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is public comment we have one person who signed up millicent rogers before we get started um millicent you can come on in miss rogers here are the rules for public comment submitted public comments will be read out loud during
003the public comment period and board members will listen carefully so for those that are submitted online for those who are in person please state your name if you're speaking for an organization please state your name and the name of the organization speakers are asked to present their comments in a specified time we'll ask for 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 which indicates your time is up complaints about named staff students or parents should not be voiced in open session however we are interested in hearing your concerns with regard to the public education safety of students or to the operations of the school system finally the board members will listen carefully and consider comments
004but we do not engage in a discussion with speakers millicent uh rogers you may speak hi everybody i'm millicent rogers and i'm singing on behalf of myself i am back to thank the staff again for the budget that they've put together and presented but to make sure that you're remembering that our nutritional assistance and instructional assistants and other classified staff are looking for that same pay increase that bus drivers got earlier this year and they want it now as they should have it but we also need to make sure that our students have enough people in the building come fall to serve them and to make sure that educators don't remain overwhelmed i'm not going to take up any more of your time i just want to remind you to go back to at least
005at 17 an hour for those folks okay have a great night thank you miss rogers that is the only person who signed up for in-person public comment uh miss oh yes okay mr cedric did we have any online public comment for the budget hearing all right he's sticking his head so it says says no uh next we'll go to our presentation on the budget good evening madam chair board members dr mabenga uh tonight we come to you for this budget hearing just to hit some highlights of where we are where we're headed uh but not take a lot of your time in that regard as we know we have brought this to you a few times you've seen it with the county commissioners as well that ask has not changed we have not received anything
006from the state that would make it change at this point in time so we'll just we'll just move along quickly i won't spend a lot of time on the slides just wanted to point out that our average daily membership we projecting here in durham public schools that we're going to have 31 620 students that's what we're using for our allotments to start off with we did receive the allotments from the state as far as our adm for the year adm is always lower but that's at 31 305. so we're benefiting the schools to ensure that they have what they need to get started with next slide um we're just going to move to the next slide please so the the real highlight of this budget presentation is in regards to the salary supplements that you're
007looking to ask the county commissioners for for the purpose of certified staff moving moving it from a beginning of 5675 to 4500 [Laughter] good one i didn't even see the yellow light anyway um but that's really the key is is this the majority of this ass that as from that standpoint is primarily for that that's one largest request in this budget again chapel hill wake county bringing their budgets forward they're going to have some changes to their salary supplements as well we'll have to see how that plays out because they're just going i do believe tonight to talk about it in chapel hill but from this standpoint that's your largest item if we can just go a few slides more i just want to point book back one i didn't think it came that quick
008so the in the green area that is our daily operating expenses as far as the needs for the salary increases classified and certified two and a half percent next year the state has approved it in their two-year budget and then um we're asking for the million dollars that we increase the bus drivers to backfill that push that you all made to ensure that we had staff in place to transport kids all year the other items are the ones that gets get us the best it's the hospital insurance and retirement rates continually going up uh that's almost 1.98 million nine million dollars that is going to be needed just for that those two items themselves and then our other operating costs for utilities and things of that nature that comes out to be 5.3 the next
009one was the four million that i mentioned on the previous page um and then for the salary supplements uh it starts at f 6500 and tops out about 11 725 for a bachelor salary scale implementation as we move down to the next item this is where we are asking for the lion's farm increases we need operational costs to get them started and we have in there one ap we have some salary administrative staff as well as custodial staff costs that we need to to have in place so we do not have to eat into the current budget that we have and then of course with esser funding we have 13 tech assistants working with us with the one-to-one initiative and we're asking the county to provide us seven of those positions coming out this year
010for a little over five hundred thousand dollars for those seven positions to be implemented uh that is to ensure as we move forward we have guaranteed money in the budget to keep that at least seven in place and as we phase out the s for funding we'll ask the county for the remainder next budget cycle so overall we're asking for 10.3 million dollars of course we know the cost of a charter school is almost of whatever dollar we get from the county so that's another 2.575 that we're asking for for the total of the ask 12 million 8.75 are there any questions in regards to the budget ask yes sir thank you for this my question was in regards to the 2.5 i believe you stated that the state is funding are they funding both
011the certified and the classified 2.5 yes both both are 2.5 increases and explain to me also how that works for like i know that you all mentioned before how we have a ratio of how maybe how many assistant principals that the state funds so we the district have to kind of absorb that cost that 2.5 percent doesn't go towards those type of positions is that correct it does they're part of the the certified positions okay so this is your local ask for the local positions that we have in place the state will cover their their share of those certified salaries that's good to know thank you just be reminded uh that whenever the state funds us they don't fund us at 100 of whatever they approve because the money comes to us in formulas and
012usually uh we don't get the the funding that's needed so it gets pushed down to local funds to absorb as well so that brings up one other question um the the way that was worded i'm wondering if there are vacant positions at the time of the request is that still unfunded for the 2.5 as well yes we have those in as part of the calculation to ensure that we receive the needed funding if all positions were filled thank you again are there any other questions from board members inspire oh thank you uh mr lazor i really appreciate all the work that you all have done on this and and i know we've gone through it quickly and um but it's it's really important work when you all are calculating uh the charter school projections for
013next year are you also taking into account the expansion of kip into the elementary grades we always uh include an additional bump on those schools because we know that they can continue to grow um i think they're coming in with their eighth grade this year um from that standpoint and i think that's the last year of their implementation yeah i think they they're adding an advertising for a new elementary school opening in durham so i believe that we might check into some of what's going on on that campus as they're adding um they've been a middle grade school but i believe they're at heading elementary next year as well yes we as soon as we hear something from the state that becomes another number that gets put into our our calculations and are you looking
014for feedback you just really wanted public comment and folks can continue to comment in the comments yeah great thank you all for your work so so i had a question i think some other districts have started putting out their budgets this week so i wanted to know if you all had time to do the analysis on teacher supplement and where our proposal will land with those new kind of budgets coming out i know they also just came out recently um we've we've heard from lake county that they're going to land just below us but they their higher end might increase above us and that's just part of the the current calculations they have in place right now so uh i think chapel hill is looking to go up another two percent to three percent um
015overall and uh so that's going to put us very close when those calculations come in but i did see that uh this morning thank you any other questions from board members uh mr raven one one last question because i feel like i remember seeing it last year but i'm not seeing it up here now and maybe we've kind of encapsulated that into another part of the budget but we used to account for i guess what is the replacement cost for all the laptops that we have since we're doing that one-to-one is that something that we're absorbing into the budget directly so it doesn't necessarily need to be shown on here because i know that that seems like that's something that could get pricey year after year with 30 plus thousand laptops so right now we're
016still using our esser funding okay to cover those uh those replacements as we go along and have have some left in the budget for that purpose it all we were using it between the hot spots that we still have budgeted for that have dropped off precipitously this year compared to two years ago so from that standpoint we're in a we're in a good place with having some additional funds to support the the refresh on loans so so it sounds like that means for this upcoming school year we'll be good to go and then next school year will be excuse me that following school year will be 23 24 that will be the last year that will have access to that funding like halfway through that year so in that subsequent years is when we'll kind
017of have to put that back on the table correct we'll start looking at that i think we have them for three years um in our uh refresh program um and as you well know we uh we replaced close to seven million dollars worth of or implemented seven million dollars worth of laptops that first year thank you miss buyer yeah thank you i i hope that when we discuss this again in two weeks that we might have a proposal just to cost out i know we have what it would take to get our folks to 17. um i i think that's just so critical i wanted to put in this space that dukes just announced as of july their minimum wage is going up to 17 an hour um that's where this market is i know
018that wake is looking and moving their folks up i'm glad to see this has built in for bus drivers to actually instead of starting at 17 starting at 1743 like i think we've got this salary study coming and i think we need both and we can't wait on wages for these folks they won't be here halfway through the year so i look forward to really robust discussions with this board on that as we go forward and i thank you all for all the work that you're doing you're welcome any other questions from board members yes um i i just had a comment about the um information technology the seven workstation technicians i'm really happy about that and you know it's been echoed about our needs for it my my question with this department having half
019a million dollars a little over half a million dollars of budget um what else is going to go into it more than just hardware and i guess just obviously their expertise and technology i'm wondering and this is a conversation that i've had um including with with colleagues here on board about digital equity and what that how we can build something along the lines of digital equity so that our professionals who are in i.t can also understand some of the the the gaps that were in terms of our system addressing you know where families are at it's not the family's got but it's more of our gap in terms of where we're moving digitally and some of the ways that um this department half a million dollars can keep in mind you know the communities that
020we serve um ways to be uh you know to have the trainings that are needed in terms of not just knowing and having the expertise in the i.t world but also like being able to navigate um you know the conversations community members with families with students um with staff along the lines of uh about it and i'm just wondering if this is just a start to this and we're hoping to have digital equity as a focus for this or if this is something that's going to live across multiple departments but i'd really like to see a focus on digital equity i'm i'm gonna have to pass on that one in its entirety uh i'll let dr moving you take that one i'll give you a son mr lucille you did not get it miss faraday
021is uh well noted and i think as we all embarking to this one-to-one initiative uh we gotta keep in mind we also have a department that uh in academic departments responsible for integration of technology as well i think we really wanted to start with hardware make sure that we have those positions that we have enough fund with our ssl funds but we really wanted to go to county commissioner to start funding those technicians as we're moving forward if we're going to need additional positions um in academic department to make sure that our families and uh making sure that uh we are really bringing them to make sure that they're feeling comfortable with those devices i will not hesitate to come and bring those positions forward i think we're moving in the right direction making sure
022that seven positions are put up there we've got the commission to fund those then next year we're going to bring the other six along the way as we have other needs in our different departments we're going to look at our existing budget to try to really maneuver move funds around to make sure that some all other needs are also made so um if i can summarize myself well noted we don't want our forks not just to have devices and not be able to navigate those devices as well thank you dr mubenga just just to add one one piece of clarity to this um because if anybody is not if anybody's at home they may not have missed this but the seven workstation technicians to phase in local support of one-to-one initiative that that's only staff
023that's only just personnel costs right and even out of that i'm assuming that you are probably a factor in like 30 to 40 percent of that cost is probably benefits so maybe almost close to two hundred thousand of that is just the benefits so that's really three hundred thousand dollars that's for the seven new positions that we're trying to hire correct that is great thank you any other questions that this will conclude our budget hearing thank you so much mr lesor for it let's take a five minute break and we can start or maybe let's do nine minutes so we start at 5 30 for our work session thank you everyone the durham public school board of education work session is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to
024everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and empower every student to innovate serve and lead tonight the administration will be presenting information to keep you up to date on our strategic plan the interpreter for tonight is martha romo irgales and marty ramirez and thank you for taking the time to join us tonight all right we will now move um to the second item of our agenda which is to have a moment of silence please thank you all right thank you so item three on our agenda is the agenda review and approval um board members are there amendments that need to be made to the agenda move approval of the agenda as presented
025a second all right it has been moved and properly second that we approve the agenda as presented any discussion if not we will do a roll call vote miss valuedares hi hi buddha miss bayer aye mr sumpstead aye ms lewis aye mr lee aye mr my sierra is frederick and i vote i as well it is approved unanimously we will now go to the next item um which will be the board work session minutes all right and all the board members should have had the opportunity and time to uh review it the remove approval of the work session minutes too it has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the work session minutes um we'll go ahead and go with a roll call vote ms validariz why aye ms lewis aye mr lee aye
026mr sears hi my name is frederick i go i as well it passes unanimously and we will now move to the public comment section uh we do recognize that the agenda noted that it will actually be beginning at 6 00 pm so what we'll do is we will accept our public comment speakers now and at six o'clock we will circle back if we have any additional public comment speakers we'll go ahead and allow them to speak and use the balance at that time for the online comments so we will go ahead and begin with our first speaker but before we do that allow me to read the public comment rules submitted public comments will be read aloud during the public comment period and the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments a quick
027review of the rules first please state your name if speaking for an organization please state your name in the name of the organization second speakers are asked to present their comments in a specified time usually three minutes when a yellow light comes on you have one minute left to start winding up your remarks when the red light comes on it will be which indicates your time is up complaints about name staff students or parents should not be voiced in open session however we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regards to public education safety of students or to the operation of the school system finally the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments but we do not engage in a discussion with speakers our first speaker name is maximilian matthews good evening
028and if you can keep your mask up for us please thank you waiting here your mask oh i'm sorry good evening um my name is maximilian matthews i'm a durham native um i'm here i'm representing uh safe schools nc uh we are we are an organization that advocates for lgbtq plus youth um i attended parkwood elementary lowe's grove middle and hillside high school uh and i was a product i was withdrawn public schools from 1991 to 2004 and the entire time that i was there i saw no examples of queerness i couldn't read about um queer authors in my english class i didn't learn about queer figures in my history class to my knowledge none of my staff administrators or teachers were trained to serve a student like me uh but you all have the
029power to do something about that you know across the country we are seeing anti-queer bills florida oklahoma idaho and even today alabama i believe passed a bill but i'm urging uh the board to please be proactive in your services to lgbtq plus students by uh implementing training so that staff can be trained on how to serve such students and also implementing lgbtq a plus related items and curriculum so that in a developmentally appropriate way that k through 12 students can learn about such issues so i just wanted to share my story in the hopes that you all will remember that as you endeavor to hopefully better serve lgbtq plus students thank you for your time our next speaker will be dean fitzgerald good evening i know that uh the people who oppose gender inclusive school
030policies come from a place of fear and misunderstanding about what helps children feel safe i'm related to some of them they deserve to understand as much as their children do little kids put themselves and others in categories to make sense of the world but when they're told that they're wrong about themselves for long enough it can have disastrous consequences for their mental health and physical safety not to mention their education my preschooler's classmates routinely undermine her gender and criticize her clothing choices even this morning she was too embarrassed to wear the new dress she had so excitedly picked out at the store the kids at school have already told her that she is wrong about being a girl and that she isn't supposed to wear dresses these kids are three and four years old but
031they are teaching one another that my child isn't who she says she is and that she's better off in hiding i hate to imagine the impact this way of thinking is having on my kid and others like her as she prepares to enter kindergarten at a durham public school this fall other families tell me there's no guarantee that a gender expansive child will end up in the classroom of an affirming teacher supported by an informed and respectful administration this is unjust and the school board now has an opportunity to fix things and i hope that they do in the first weeks after my child told me she was a girl i absent-mindedly referred to her as a boy she corrected me i apologized and told her that i knew she was a girl but that
032i might slip up from time to time since i had thought she was a boy for so long she told me it's okay to make a mistake and it is but if teachers and school administrators are allowed to disrespect neglect and fail to educate gender expansive children and their peers that is not a mistake there is a difference between an occasional slip up and despite having all the information you need choosing to do the wrong thing i ask that you approve comprehensive policies and support for dps teachers and staff so that children like mine can learn an environment of safety and respect thank you for your time our next speaker is anne tsukawi him street good evening my name is anne sakawi hempstreet and i live in durham with my wife and two and five-year-old
033kids i use she or they pronouns pronouns are the words we use in place of a person's name so you can say anne is speaking she is speaking or they are speaking see how easy that was did that feel inappropriate for a child did it make you question your gender identity or sexual orientation in any way teachers and administration at safe and equitable schools for lgbtq and gender diverse children make sharing pronouns a common practice this creates a safe space for all children to consciously consider what words feel good for them it prevents gender diverse children from being singled out bullied or put in a place of having to explain or advocate for themselves over and over again respecting and normalizing sharing pronouns is a small yet meaningful piece of a more comprehensive and district-wide
034approach to gender and lgbtq inclusive schools that we're here asking you for today i recognize that lgbtq rights have long been politicized and people in leadership positions like yourselves are often in situations where they fear backlash for standing up for equity human rights social and racial justice i don't envy the position you are in but i do believe that we can't allow that fear to stop us from moving our community and culture forward towards equity we also need to consider that if we and particularly white cisgender heterosexual adults feel some fear about speaking up for gender and lgbtq equity imagine how these young children feel every day advocating for themselves in your schools advocating for the safety and support to be who they are i am the founder of rainbow collective for change a program
035that builds safe and equitable spaces for lgbtq and gender diverse children and families i've worked with hundreds of classrooms to become spaces where gender diverse and lgbtq kids and families feel like they belong when we moved to durham i figured this beautifully diverse progressive and vibrant city would have had this all figured out already but the more conversations i have with parents and teachers the more i realize there is still work to be done i believe the majority of this community and probably most if not all of you believe that gender and family diversity adds to the beauty and strength of this incredible city but it seems like many of the systems need to catch up including durham public schools i've spoken with several dps administrative staff and so i was not watching that um
036i brought the letter here today i organized a group of people um we have 650 signatures as of right now so i would like to leave a copy of the letter for you all on the podium here and appreciate your consideration thank you thank you if you'd like to put the letters right oh somebody's going to pick it up thank you our next speaker is anne clara hi my name is anne clar and i use she her pronouns like many people here tonight i want to talk to you about the importance of a district-wide gender support and inclusion policy i could talk about the scary statistics about the prevalence of depression anxiety and suicidal ideation amongst trans youth i could talk about the many reasons why representation and inclusion matter but today i'm going to
037talk about the story of a child my son a kindergartner and dps who is brave and courageous enough to express his authentic self you see when he was born we were wrong about his gender he gave us clues along the way that we had misidentified him but we didn't get the message about six months ago he said it explicitly his six-year-old self found the strength and bravery to tell his family that something was wrong something didn't fit something wasn't comfortable as a family we jumped into the action of supporting our son in his journey we started socially transitioning among family and friends and we are so lucky to have the community that we have it was bumpy and emotional and filled with big feelings but found out foundationally it was joyful he was joyful and
038he soon decided that he wanted everyone at school to know we were fortunate to find some support there teachers staff and administrators were quick to update the pronouns they used and were open about their need for more education our son would come home each day excited by the acceptance but there was reluctance from the school to discuss my son's transition with his classmates there was a lack of understanding about how and why it is important to have these conversations there was fear there would be discomfort from parents about disgusting gender in class it was suggested to us that my son could have the conversations with his classmates but he's six and that is an unreasonable expectation what does it communicate to him that the adults in the room wouldn't talk about this change or answer
039questions from his classmates what message does he receive about his own validity and inclusion it's important for everyone to be talked to and about in language that feels good and right it hurt him every time he heard someone misgender him he asked every day if his teacher could make an announcement to tell the other kids his new pronouns it took a lot of advocating and educating behind the scenes but we finally made it happen it was clunky and there's still more work to do to help teachers and counselors and administrators get comfortable with this discussing this topic but it needs to happen because the difference it has made in the everyday lived experience and happiness of my son is huge every kid deserves this school should be a safe place for kids to be themselves
040to be supported so that they can learn and grow and thrive i hope this district will live up to its progressive values and pass a district-wide gender support policy so that we can provide educators and administrators with the education and training to have conversations comfortably and fluidly about gender thank you our next speaker is abby bender i'm here to talk to you about an incredibly important issue to me and my family um both my kids are students at dps in first and third grade recently my third grader came to me and told me that they would like to use the pronouns they them and identify as non-binary um i immediately sat down with them and said how do you want to proceed who do you want to share this information with and tried to follow
041their lead they told me that they did want to tell the adults at their schools to move forward so i i want to tell you about the situation and kind of how that went when i was interacting with the school at that level i immediately emailed the principal and asked to meet with the principal to to set up a plan to try to try to share this information more widely and i didn't get a response for about three months from the principal no response at all i might my child's teacher was on maternity leave and they asked me just just let it go until the teacher comes back and then try to contact the teacher and we'll get in touch and so i immediately contacted the teacher when they came back the teacher responded immediately
042we set up a meeting they were incredibly supportive they immediately started thinking of ways they could change the environment in the classroom not not genderizing boys and girls doing things that would allow my child to feel more accepted i finally was able to set up a meeting with the principal and a couple other administrative staffs and what ended up happening was was a really horrible experience for me i'm really happy that my child hasn't had this experience but really the whole meeting was them telling me that my child needed permission to share their identity at school from the families of other kids at that school um and that was the conversation they told me that that was district policy um i i presented multiple examples of how you know maybe they could share their pronouns
043or their identity they said okay they can share their pronouns but they can't share their identity because other kids might not understand that or other families might not want their kids exposed to that and that was what the principal of my child's school told me i'm gonna say i cried during that meeting because i did not expect to have that reaction um it was a really emotional experience for me i work with transgender patients i'm a physician and so this is an area that i know a lot about and i just i don't i have a lot more to say and i don't have enough time to say it but i think you know i've been jumping through hoops i've been meeting with administrators i've been doing the advocacy and i it's a privilege that
044i get to do this advocacy and not every parent of a transgender child would have the time and energy that i have to get to the point where we can share this information and my kid can be who they are in their school at this point in time their pronouns have not been shared they've asked for support to share those pronouns my their teacher is not allowed to talk about gender in the classroom we haven't gotten to that point yet and i'm just asking for something different for other families moving forward because i don't want anybody to have to have the experience that i had going into this situation and i'm still having to this day thank you for your time our next speaker is alex adrian hello i'm alex adrian i use he and
045they pronouns i am employed by the lgbtq center of durham however i'm here tonight expressing my own views and experiences as a resident of durham and a parent of two former dps students i stand before you with privilege that is not shared by many current families in dps i was a full-time stay-at-home parent for my children's entire school experience i am white i have a college degree my family was able to take advantage of educational choices my son and i no longer fear retaliation for speaking up there are many students who do not have parents with this privilege and who themselves do not have support from their parents my story is not their story their story will be told when they feel safer to do so which may mean never ten years ago my son
046asked to see a gender therapist he was an eighth grade student in a small local charter school during that spring semester he decided to socially transition over the summer and begin high school as himself i was nervous about this nervous my son was going to walk into a building of 1200 students would he be safe who would he turn to if he needed help navigating bullying harassment discrimination things he'd already experienced at his small school i found who the gsa advisor was and i invited myself to their classroom and had a conversation it did not exactly put me at ease it did however allow me to respect my son's wishes and enroll him in dps for the fall i was in the meeting with the counselor selecting classes the talk about ninth grade gym and
047longer rooms was rough the counselor called him by the wrong name but we came out of that meeting with a class schedule my son attended two of the three days of freshman orientation and refused to return we re-enrolled him in that charter school because sometimes the challenges you know are easier to tolerate than facing new ones being asked if you're a boy or a girl being told that's not your name teacher is refusing to use his name and pronouns only being allowed to use the nurse's bathroom the principal well after being in a meeting that i had arranged with a national advocate for transgender student rights and practicingly practically ignoring all that he should have learned i know now that title ix could have been our tool for a more successful accepting education for him
048instead he missed most of that year spent a second ninth grade year in another charter came back to dps and ultimately left the dropout prevention school at 18. a school where he was yelled at my staff to get out of the bathroom while he was getting paper towels for a friend who was bleeding in the gym my son survived multiple hostile environments period our next speaker is jackie turnwall good evening my name is jackie turnwald my pronouns are they them and i'm a trans non-binary educator after talking with the lgbtq center of durham the rainbow collective for change and hearing from families of queer children in durham public schools i come before you to request that dps take the time to develop and implement a thorough and representative gender equity policy for students and staff
049while exploring this issue i was told that dps already has a policy and a link was shared with me outlining said policy which in my 12 years as an educator with dps i had never seen and had never been a part of any training i received and it certainly wasn't enforced because i can think of numerous instance instances over the years where i regularly had to ask staff or administrators to do something as simple as to use the correct pronouns for transgender students in fact i shared my concerns about the lack of support for queer students and staff with dr mabenga when i exited dps at the end of 2021 however i know that as recently as last june the dps communications office refused to put out an internally developed statement written in support of
050pride i know that because of that refusal i said i wasn't interested in an opportunity to return to dps as a now out trans non-binary educator further i'm aware of a queer elementary school teacher who was sent to hr after reading a children's book with their elementary school class from the school library called prince and night where two males get married at the end of the book they were told they needed to use good judgment and to send home permission slips before reading such materials administrators then started doing extra observations and requiring additional lesson plans harassing them until they quit due to the added stress this begs the question our permission slips needed in dps elementary schools to read children's books where a male and a female get married at the end of the book
051do children in classrooms need permission slips to talk to their queer classmates or their classmates with queer parents these are certainly not equitable policies and it's well past time that dps sat down with organizations representing our queer community and families of queer kids and dps who have experienced these disparities to develop more comprehensive policies preferably modeled after the best practices being used in orange and buncombe counties do extensive trainings and incorporate appropriate grade level curriculum that is inclusive of the queer community in dps thank you for your time this evening as we stated before we began and we recognized that the agenda was slated to begin at 6 pm so we we will go ahead and circle back to finish up on public comments because we want to make sure that everybody has enough time
052to have been here by that 6 p.m and also i had enough time to to sign up okay so we do have one more please good evening everyone my name is jenna meehan i use she her pronouns i'm a white woman in my mid-30s with dark blonde hair that is tied in a bun and i'm wearing a sweatshirt that says protect trans kids i am the parent of a gender expansive child who attends parkwood elementary school as my family learns and grows to support and affirm my child we are also required to be constant advocates monitors educators and protectors due to durham public schools lack of policy and protection for trans and gender expansive students it is exhausting unsustainable and emotionally harmful for my child and also highlights this reactive strategy to systemic problems of
053exhausting parents and caregivers who have the privilege to attempt to fight the inequitable system until they no longer can under the protection of title ix no person should be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance currently dps is not upholding title ix and rather has recently added a list of unenforceable guidelines to its website and states that it will determine gender inclusive needs on a case-by-case basis the lack of policies and protections for students who are and continue to be discriminated against with only possible support for students and caregivers who have the ability and privilege to advocate for their students individual support is inequitable and illegal against the protections of title ix i joined the voices of advocates for my own child and
054all the students who deserve and have a right to a public education without discrimination bias or harassment my child has an amazingly supportive caring and compassionate teacher who we are so completely thankful for miss dolores wade has supported and affirmed my child educated other teachers in the building about their pronouns and gender identity and is wholeheartedly growing with us as we learn how to navigate it all and assist school system without policies or administrative guidance we are incredibly lucky to have such an amazing teacher however even with that extreme luck and support there are still so many things to advocate and educate in a school building with educators and administrators that do not have the knowledge gender affirming training or enforceable policies about how to support and affirm students my child wrote a letter to
055their principal asking for help and they agreed i could share it dear principal rusconi i don't feel safe at school no one is using me them pronouns sometimes i feel like i do not belong here and sometimes i want to eat lunch alone and one more thing sometimes i hear adults talking about me that's the part i hate so i like what you say on the announcements because on the first day of school and every day i feel like a total it would make me feel better if all the kids and adults at school knew what it meant to be non-binary or trans if you can please help me thank you for prioritizing the safety and well-being of all of our children i will see if we have any other public comments okay so there
056are no more in-person public comments and it looks like we have been going on for about 25 minutes so uh mr sutter do you have any online comments we received 26 online comments and we maybe give 30 seconds per comment absolutely thank you thank you for sending the timer miss smith 30 seconds for each comment first comment comes from aaron james crook i urge you to consider the removal of the mask mandate i urge you to reconsider the removal of the mask mandate indoors at dps schools on the 11th of this month on the durham county coveted dashboard test positivity has crept up recently 1.8 to 2 and cases have plateaued at a level almost three times higher than last july when mass were mandatory for the start of school 17 versus 45 average cases
057a day the north carolina state dashboard shows that ba2 is starting to increase its prevalence and wastewater monitoring in durham county is seeing an increase in covet load the next comment is from chelsea earls as a proud dps parent and as a former public school student i want to join the chorus calling for action to make our schools safer for queer and trans and non-binary students when i was in high school i decided not to think about whether or not i might be queer because i knew it wasn't safe in my school environment when my daughter started kindergarten in a dps school she was comfortable and used to being referred to with multiple pronouns even though her teachers were supportive and wonderful she was clear after one week that she needed to go by she
058and be a girl to fit in there next is from bonnie dye today i am writing to urge that the dps boe develop a more consistent policy to ensure that gender diverse kids are loved and supported no matter which durham public school they attend without a district-wide policy and comprehensive gender in lgbtq education support for gender diverse kids is inconsistent and inequitable as it's based on the school administration or their individual teachers i believe the changes suggested below would create a more supportive and accepting environment for all children at dps i would like to urge the beoe to pass a gender support guidelines policy the next comment is anonymous for staff members who have not complied with the vaccine mandate please require them to continue wearing masks it is not fair for students or other
059staff to be exposed to them especially given their non-compliance with board directives next is from jennifer moynihan wynn gender inclusion and safety for lgbtqia plus youth is so important there is a large amount of evidence that suggests that lgbtqia plus youth who grow up in a supportive and affirming environment have significant protective factors against suicide the next comment is from samuel it is not dps's job to teach my child gender identity it is your job to teach reading writing and arithmetic let parents handle this subject the next comment is from jan harris gender identity is a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl you don't have to be a biologist to know this it's not your place to teach them anything different i'm so glad my child will not be in the
060dps system in the fall the school board has failed our kids by politicizing everything instead of focusing on actual studies you should be ashamed of yourselves for hurting our children next comment is from lynette as the grandmother of an easily kindergartner whose two-year-old brother still can't receive a coveted vaccine i ask you to consider postponing the board's earlier decision to drop mask requirements on april 11th new data show the spread of the ba2 variant of covid in north carolina and letting down our guard next week means not only putting school-age kids at higher risk but also their younger unprotected siblings this is especially germane since some evidence indicates that ba2 can impact children under five more seriously than older youngsters removing mass requirements now is all the more troubling next comment is from rachel torcasso
061i would like to express my desire to not support the implementation of the gender support guidelines proposed by other public comments in their entirety as written i would like to see the board have a community and staff discussion before any policy or guidelines were implemented please give the parents staff teachers and students a chance to speak on these matters either for or against before you implement any kind of mandatory training or curriculum changes for pre-k through 12 students i would like to point you to the cross versus loudoun county school board case and count cautioned you to work with not against your teachers even those who might have differing opinion next is from jenny schaefer goldberg i'm writing to support the adoption of a gender support guidelines policy similar to those passed and enforced in
062neighboring orange county and buncombe county that is being advocated by the rainbow collective for change i'm a parent of two children whom we are raising to be allies intolerant of people of different races cultures genders family structures and abilities we are new to dps from new jersey where lgbtq friendly and supportive policies were in place i'm not aware of how kids who are non-cisgendered are supported in either of my son's schools and i want to be sure that they are i want to know that if my son's at any point identified differently the next comment is from dana calder there is much work still be covered for gender diverse education having a policy allows for reinforcing a commitment to training educators teachers and students this commitment helps people who are gender diverse or have people
063they care for who are gendered first feel they can bring their whole self to school without ridicule vital for young adults and shows progress toward inclusion i'd ask dps to really consider making this commitment similar to orange county it will attract more diversity to dps and strengthen the bonds of diversity in durham next is teresa o'donnell i'm writing to advocate for policy changes to increase support and acceptance of lgbtq plus students staff and faculty i became concerned when i heard my child's former elementary school was putting limits on how a gender non-conforming student was allowed to express their gender identity at school including needing permission from classmates parents before they were allowed to ask their peers to use they them their pronouns as a dps parent and a college counselor at a public school in
064north carolina i can speak to the vital importance of allowing children of any age the ability to name and claim their own gender identity next is the comment from stella sin i'm a parent of a dps student the topic of gender equality and belonging are of great importance to me and my child from the very beginning my child has shown great acceptance of gender equality and would readily form relationships with kids without not even questioning their identities because that is just not important for her friendships she has formed are now an intricate part of her family as she is becoming older and recognized the lack of lgbtqia representation and exposure at her school she expressed concerns about her lgbtqia friends are treated at their schools as a cis agent female she next comment is from
065shoshana carroll trans students deserve school support if you are lucky enough to know or have a transgender student in your life you will be astounded at their creativity overjoyed by their enthusiasm and encouraged by their care for others trans youth are simply put amazing in the midst of a country that has introduced over 250 anti-lgbtq bills this year alone trans youth are resilient community focused and empathetic trans youth are leading the way in their communities showing the beauty of diversity in action trans units have been disproportionately attacked by state bills across the country and in north carolina the next comment is from eric it's not the teacher's responsibility to teach children gender identity sexuality or to look at each other by the color of their skin this is the very reason our children are depressed
066and full of anxiety leave them alone and do your job by teaching math reading writing etc my child will not attend another dps if you allow this to happen it's time to vote in another school board one that will build their children up and give them confidence and knowledge to go out into the world and know they can accomplish anything no matter the color of their skin gender or anything else you have gotten so far away from martin luther king's dream next comment is from neil kaner dear board members i would like to put yourself into the shoes of a job seeker for just a moment below are both the substitute opportunities and full-time positions at one of our elementary schools a job seeker will likely evaluate how difficult a daily temporary long-term sub-assignment will
067be likewise a full-time job seeker will determine if a position on front line will have multiple openings there are six sub-opportunities at eno valley this morning four of them require a commitment until the end of the school year four of the six are for ias in an ec classroom another is for an eec teacher this saddens me greatly it also informs me that this school cannot hold on to its ias and has an issue within all ec classrooms there are 12 job openings the next comment comes from apologies having to do a lot of scrolling here next comment comes from anonymous wake chapel hill carbo and orange county school systems have a great deal of information about their summer learning not just camp programs they also have staff openings listed to make applicants better informed
068about deciding to work there dps's website has scant information and no way to apply for a job at present how was the budgeting done garbage in garbage out is a common refrain when preparing budgets i believe that this applies to dps the next comment is from abby marshall good afternoon i am a third grade teacher in dps and i wanted to take a moment to share an experience i have had this year regarding the lgbt community the amount of resources and support for our lgbtq community is disheartening i have experienced firsthand that dps is not yet equipped to support these students especially at the elementary level having a student that identifies as non-binary has brought to light many of the roadblocks that similar students are facing including not having curriculum resources that help students learn
069about diversity racial cultural gender family structure ability the next comment comes from ashley gosselin ildari coronavirus caseloads have been exceptionally low throughout this academic year thanks to wise guidance such as vaccination for dps staff and indoor masking for all students and staff with the ba2 omicron sub variant on the rise across the country and with less than 40 percent of children fully vaccinated in durham county now is not the time to drop the mask requirement our family including our kindergartner is fully vaccinated but we have friends with young children who are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine loosening mask requirements now puts those children at unnecessary risk please reconsider next is from shannon kulinski my name is shannon kolinsky and i am a teacher in dps and also a mother i'm submitting a comment
070today in light of a situation that has occurred at my school with a former student that is dear to my heart and in support of any other students and families that have also experienced similar situations regarding gender identity and expression and lgbtq equality my partner of seven years has a transgender child who currently attends a school in orange county however he will be attending dps next year for the start of high school i am advocating for him too i have experience with the impact that gender identity and expression has next is from eleanor anderson please continue with your plan to go mask optional updated today durham is still in green as noted by the cdc despite cases in europe rising we are not yet seeing a surge from ba2 we have not heard of any
071significant outbreaks since wake county schools went mass optional nor in other counties across nc i know many parents are anxious about making mass optional i've seen threads on parent groups however i worry about coddling parents and indulging their anxieties in this way we know kids are low risk and we know people are able to keep masking in schools next is maria i urge the board to pass a policy for supporting students of all genders and sexualities similar to policies adopted in orange and bumpkin counties as well as to provide and require comprehensive gender and lgbtq training for all staff and administrators and to provide learning about all types of diversity for k-12 students it is so important that students are supported through all their differences for their mental well-being and for the purpose of creating
072a happier healthier and more inclusive society many students live in lgbtq homes or are lgbtq themselves and they are still faced with many stereotypes and negative outcomes i am a bisexual woman married to a man and my oldest daughter went through a period where she thought she was in love with her best girlfriend she has reported hearing several negative things from kids at school like them next comment is from brian calloway i want to state my objection once again to including capital funding to the tune of six million dollars in the annual operating budget of dps outside of grants or some or other similar earmarked sources capital projects should always be paid out of borrowed or bond sources so that users can contribute to large capital purchases over the course of their residence in durham
073it is equitable to for me to contribute towards the new durham county library as long as i am living in durham we didn't ask the snapshot of durham taxpayers of next is aaron bristow my name is erin bristow my pronouns are she her i apologize for not being present in person i ran into child care issues i am a nurse practitioner in the community as well as mother to two children a kindergartner and a third grader at forest view elementary last summer my then seven-year-old came to me and said mom i'm a they we had previously in sort of vague terms introduced the idea of gender as a spectrum and my and as my child grew and started to witness their peers begin to engage in traditional gender expression the concept of identifying as non-binary
074became more and more resonant for them next is kendall solomon being a non-binary pansexual person it's been hard in middle school for me i was just figuring myself out and i felt like i had a bunch of people against me it was even worse because my parents were non-supportive because of their religion and i couldn't talk to them about anything i was so glad to have a non-binary teacher this year so there was someone who might have had similar experiences to me all the teachers and staff are very lgbtq plus friendly and i feel like i can talk to them about anything i'm glad that i have people i can go to if i have any issues and then our final public comment comes from sarah may our school should be focusing on helping our
075kids excel in reading math and science schools should not be discussing gender and sexual identities in the classrooms and especially not to those in pre-k to fourth grade thank you that concludes the excerpts from the online public comments all of the public comments are available on full on the dps website on the page for this meeting thank you mr sotov um public comments allow people to be seen and heard so we're just really acknowledging that we see them and hear them and just my thought on this some of what we've heard today not a direct response it's more or less discrimination of any kind should be disavowed um you know we constantly talk about representation in schools and that that's not limited just to race so this is a time where we could always remember
076that bullying of any type should not be should not be accepted at all so we will now go ahead and move to our consent items i believe everybody has had the opportunity to review this in advance um are there any thoughts or or action if not i'll accept emotion move approval of the consent agenda second it's been moved by mr sears and seconded by misfire we will go any discussion if not we'll go to a roll call vote on ms valuederris uh before we do that did you have any discussion on this no um uh i looked over the consent items and i'm glad that we're okay so i would i miss peyer hi mrs umstead aye ms lewis aye mr lee aye mr sears hi my name is frederick i vote i as well
077it passes unanimously and we will now move to academic services the strategic plan priority for update and i believe that will be headed by mr sodorf and dr hardy mr soders is coming to the podium we are always excited to share updates with you regarding our strategic plan and i will turn it over to mr setters to provide an update for priority four thank you very much dr hardy i'm inviting in uh my colleagues who lead the priority for goal teams to have a seat and join me and we have a few more members of the priority four goal teams outside in the hallway i appreciate them all for being here recently in durham public schools we've been having conversations about reclamation as we have experienced two very very hard years of pandemic a pandemic
078that is not yet over but as we are beginning to reach out to our community in traditional ways once more yesterday we were able to announce that we are able to open up our facilities for rental for uh community events once more little examples like that of being able to reconnect with families uh with uh with the with the community in ways that we have been accustomed to i'm going to take a very brief uh amount of time on this update and i'm happy to speak to anyone of you at length uh and anybody else in the community afterward to to talk about ways that we can improve i'm going to give you some examples of some great things that we are doing in strengthening school family and community engagement and i'm going to close
079with an announcement about the way that we are going to make it systematically better moving forward through the collaborations that we have in this organization durham's values circle around community engagement that is who we are we are a noisy active integrated community we have conversations with each other about how we want to improve things we envision we dream in the last two years we've done it in different ways but i think that this is who durham is we can go to the next slide please and then if we'll fast forward to team members and i would like i would like my team to please stand up and be counted tina cooper michael tweetmeyer dietrich morris and danner melissa watson greg jones leadership and members of those gold teams priority goal for a if we could
080go to that next slide two slides ahead this is an overview of the this is an overview of the three prongs of priority four goal a being that dps will improve the perception of each school goal b that we will strengthen family and school and community engagement and goal c that every school will have a community partner that's committed to providing meaningful programs and services we'll go to the next slide i've said over and over when we've been talking about priority four and particularly about goal 4a is that we used um the teacher working condition survey as the best available proxy for gauging uh community support and satisfaction for our schools we asked we look at the questions about whether the community we serve is supportive of this school whether the school maintains clear two-way
081communication that there's an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in the school and that overall my school is a good place to work and learn and we identified benchmarks starting on where we were if we could go to the next slide i'm pleased to let you know that from 2018 to 2021 we have made improvements in every category and with the sole exception of uh bench um benchmarks for two-way communication we are ahead of the benchmarks that were set in 2018 at the establishment of uh the of the strategic plan next slide please here you see some of the strategies that were adopted by the 52-member uh community panel that created the strategic plan to be rather than to seem that's our state motto you'll see that the strategies talk about communicating but also uh
082but also engaging and the importance of two-way communication if we go to the next slide we have some updates and again uh people can take a look at these in depth when we uh if you go online to the um agenda packet in place in progress and next steps as you're used to seeing we've done some incredible work particularly with the growing together project to reach out and provide two-way communication online and in person we are providing information in magazine format we have phenomenal work that's being done right now in media relations you couldn't turn on a computer in the last 24 hours without seeing frank at bethesda getting going out to uh the scripps spelling bee we are telling the story of durham public schools but we're also doing the work to make sure
083that we are being rather than seeming in progress i want to highlight the board's approval of the expenditures on the dps app that is on the way we'll be starting that next school year it's going to be great people are going to be able to download a dps app from the apple or the google play store there's our logo they can go straight to their school information that's on the web school's websites will be translated to the app it'll provide smoother true way communication um more reliable text messaging if we need to let parents know about an emergency it's going to be a great thing um one next step that i wanted to particularly highlight and i'd like to call sheena up for just a couple of seconds is the parent ambassadors program that we're
084excited to kick off soon thank you so much good evening chair umstead board members dr mabenga and colleagues parents and guardians are an essential component of durham public schools community they are the lifeline to our students champions of our schools and staff and can advocate for dps in a way among families that the district cannot research shows that people value the opinions and information shared by peers friends and neighbors more than that of media publications and other entities it is necessary to engage our parents in our efforts to deepen connections within the district and our school communities and throughout the durham community the office of school relations title 1 family engagement and the office of public affairs have worked collaboratively to create the durham public schools parent ambassador program the program aims to develop a
085core group of parents and guardians to assist in the districts assist the district in strategic initiatives strengthen relationships between parents the district and community members establish an additional gateway from the district to schools evaluate dps elevate excuse me dps messaging and pride within one of our most important stakeholder groups and further exhibit the connections between family engagement and student success the ambassador program begins with its inaugural cohort at the end of this month and will be scaled over the next school year to include parents and guardians from all dps schools we are excited to work with our families more closely to support student outcomes and celebrate the outstanding achievements of our students staff and district thank you if we can move forward please to goal 4b that dps will strengthen family school and community engagement
086by demonstrating a 20 increase in parent and family participation in school programs this is an area uh where of course we've had to change what we've been doing the last couple of years um family academy and title one did some amazing amazing things online particularly at the at the start of the pandemic when ever when we were so completely remote the family academy really is the gold standard and what they are doing with title one is what we want to replicate across the district how we do that it's a little complicated because how the title one schools do family engagement is prescribed uh dietrich makes sure that they are supported and held accountable and making that happen how do we how do we extend that to our non-title one schools to make sure that everyone's
087having that same experience it's still a work in progress but if you look at what we have been able to do in family engagement in recent years i just want to highlight just a few examples i promise that won't take long um durham public schools has partnered with isla to provide online platikas uh to inform pamela families about topics of concern during the pandemic a really really strong uh parent family relationship online that was an outgrowth of many of the uh latinx family meetings that board member alexandre valladares uh spearheaded prior to coming onto the board other things that we have done with the with the latinx community uh we provide virtual simultaneous spanish language interpretation during these very work sessions that's a gold standard not every district does that and we're very active in
088making sure that our electronic comment our digital content is language friendly as well that's just one example family engagement is happening whether it's speaking of bethesda elementary school thinking vaccine clinics that they have put together and working with the school pta i will get to the systematic piece of this but rest assured that our schools are engaging and they're they're doing the work how do we make sure that everybody knows it and that we're doing it consistently and evenly across the district that's our next step i also want to point out that the uh that the durham county uh pta council has invited us to work with the north carolina pta as part of the national pta process of updating the national standards for family school partnerships they've invited some of our leaders to participate
089in that process as well great things are happening here finally uh goal c that every school will have a community partner that is committed to providing meaningful programs and services to meet diverse needs of students we thought that getting to 100 percent would be a five-year project we're not quite at but last year in the midst of pandemic 99 of schools had at least one community partner and if we go forward to the dps definition of community partner slide let's go um one more please one more we have a fairly rigorous definition a community partnership is an agreement between a school and an outside group whose goal is to meet a meaningful academic college career readiness or social emotional need for its students at 99 percent of our schools they have at least one community
090partner that meets that definition we have another strategic plan to work on 2023 is the last year of this one what's our next step but we're still working the strategies if we could go to the next slide we're still working the strategies to figure out what those next steps are and also to improve the quality and the consistency of those partnerships which brings me to the other announcement that i want to make tonight um the systematic piece we are creating either dr mobinga's authorization a dps family and community engagement team if you go to the next slide these are the one more slide please these are the dps departments that are leaders in different kinds of family and community engagement there's no single home for all of that at this time but public affairs school
091relations federal programs and professional learning title 1 equity affairs multilingual resource center we all have boots on the ground we've been getting the work done sometimes we haven't known what each other has been doing sometimes we've been duplicating effort we can work together on this so we have created and formalized this organization this team to expand efforts in supporting the district and schools to better engage and inform stakeholders about district and school-led activities and initiatives we're using best practices we're working together we will find ways to strengthen the internal infrastructure for that work but it starts with us being intentional around the table and making sure that we are working together with our community and then we'll invite our families to tell us what they need and we'll continue that work school family community engagement
092we can always do better but it is the heart of durham public schools and it is how we will support the other four um priorities of this strategic plan i'm happy to take your questions i hope i didn't breeze too fast through this but i was important that it's important to give you the highlights miss valuederes would you like to start off or do you have any questions yes um i just want to thank um mr sutter and dr hardy and the entire team um that was experience and looking at all the different ways we try to engage in dps and there are some areas where we can definitely um improve and focus i'm really excited about the app i think it is definitely something that we found during the pandemic when there were so
093many resources out there and just you know the question is how to connect how to connect community members with the resources they need right now um and uh the you know when it came to covid there was a 360 app that was being used uh community health workers were being trained on that and you know there's a lot of development in terms of how that app um would be willing to connect all the dots and connect things i think when it comes to dps we have a long-standing history of engagement parents as you mentioned in this team school improvement teams parents in the ptas parenting the affinity groups and the different community groups that have been partners with dpas for a long time providing supports for specific affinity groups and also across the board with
094the strategic plan with uh you know decisions that dps makes and ways that we communicate and so i'm excited about this app i do have a question about using blackboard um i do use blackboard i mean maybe it's it's it's something that i haven't really seen because i've been using blackboard for years since i was a student at nccu um and now i'm a student also university of vermont and it's like blackboard is just being used everywhere but i'm wondering how the decision for blackboard um how we came upon that and just would love to hear it i'm curious since i use it in different ways i'm pretty sure the way we're gonna use it um it's it's it's there's considerations behind why we're using that so just just had a question on that we
095used blackboard largely because a decision was made to transition to that platform several years ago we are comfortable with it as an organization and moving from that platform can be a difficult thing for our schools and constituents to manage we have additional support in the app and the package that the board approved that integrates with blackboard well so it is an opportunity for us to provide better services for our families and constituencies with a minimum of disruption to our school communities and leaders thank you so much chip i'm really excited to look forward to the development um and things that are added to the app in ways that um again you know parents can feel more connected to their school site to their school community but also just to the district and and to understand
096a little more about the different departments i think that our website has a lot of information but i'm always finding parents that say i don't know you know they're learning something new from the website and the information uh could be made even more accessible i know that we're always trying to make it even better but i think this app is definitely a way to go thank you so much for all your work thank you mr sears thank you i don't have any questions or critique um but a lot of us are getting asked questions in the community right now because of the time of year and the year it is and this presentation along with the other updates we've gotten make it very easy to respond when folks ask me what are you going to
097do to fix this district my response is we have a five-year strategic plan and we're working the plan and you you continue to demonstrate i have in my eight years i am the most comfortable i've been in the seat watching what the district is doing so thank you for the work kudos keep pushing we hear every meeting we have more work to do the plan can be a million pages long and we'll keep working it but i'm appreciative of these efforts um miss lewis and they miss sevenstate thank you mr sutter that was um again here where we are and where we're going is always so helpful you had me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the big reveal at the end um but i definitely again appreciate even hearing in the
098beginning that we are opening our schools up to the community because those community partnerships can continue to solidify and grow with each other with the work that's happening and we know that there's a lot of partnerships in our school so it's good to hear that the district is coming together with a comprehensive plan i remember dr dana and i talked about this probably four years ago there's so many different touch points for parent guardian caregivers engagement but what does it look like to bring it together systematically and i know that you all been working really hard um on that effort um there's now the parent ambassador says beginning and there's a title one parent advisory group that's been meeting for um you know consistently at the every month there's a meeting so i'd love to
099see i would love to see how these parents are going to come acro together across the district uh to be a support and resources to get better academic results for our kids what this partnership looks like covett has definitely presented us an opportunity to bridge school and home when our parents were the teacher aides um to our educators right so again not getting back to the way things used to be but using that opportunity to learn and grow and develop these relationships even deeper for the success of our children so thank you for this um presentation one thing you did you talked about the systemic work of the um the different departments well i think that was the main thing i want to say is how are the parent groups going to be coming together
100and then with with the system happening you know i just want to hear more about the updates on what this looks like as it moves and grows we will absolutely do that thank you all for this update i echo a lot of the praise that my other board members have given i think i'm really excited about the parent ambassadors you're so right that parents are the ones when they talk to each other that can and uplift and share their experiences with our school system i think i also want to highlight family academy and the videos that you all did throughout the whole while we were virtual and i've seen a lot of those videos continue right and i think that having that on facebook and that presence on twitter has really allowed us to engage
101a lot more families and so i think that is awesome and i'm glad we're going to keep doing those um i think one two questions that i have about this presentation and one is just something for us to consider i would love we could have parents as a part of this working group as y'all are working i know that can be challenging with schedules but we want to make sure that we're providing the opportunities for families to give that feedback and i want to make sure that we're looking at that really holistically so sometimes there are families that might be easier to tap or parents that are easier to tap for opportunities and i want us to look for the folks that maybe don't always get that opportunity to bring to the table and when
102we think about communication how are we thinking about that for those families as well so for some folks a robocall is great or the email but for some families the text and i think the app will be a better option um than app you might not even sell for servers for you might be able to get on wifi and be able to do some of that communication so i think that will also be able to really support some of our families that may not have access to the same materials that others do i think my other question we can save this for the next strategic plan is we using teacher working condition survey data for this but i wonder if there's a way that we could evaluate community perception i think we all have our
103um quantitative data on what that means but i wonder if there's another way that we can consider that um as we're moving forward to add as another data point for this i think that's a very important conversation for us to have as we are in discussions with how to do how to put together the next strategic plan um the resources that we have for like broad quantitative polling are limited um at the time that the plan was being developed there were questions about i know that the city county do uh the county does a uh public opinion poll about the broader county that includes some questions about durham public schools but we don't have a lot of input in that um so there was some reluctant to go reluctance to go there in 2018 but
104we absolutely have to you know we did what we did with the tools that we had available to us we've got some time to really consider some better tools mr lee just really quickly on that um i want i seem to remember about six years ago i thought we had a community perception something done like that it was an external company that we brought in to survey the the entire county about durham public schools like that sort of thing we may want to look back and it may have been underdocumented yeah like that something like that it was a while ago that may serve as a baseline if we go into another survey like that okay go back to that yeah so that may serve as a baseline and see what maybe where we've changed
105i believe i believe saying something like that thank you dr danner um for that reminder but thank you all for this i always appreciate uh you all know that i always appreciate strategic plan updates this is like matt said this is um this is what the community asked for this is what we got if you want to see where the district is going or how we're go how we're doing in this plan you can see it it's all online the updates and so forth so that's again i just want to show say thank you but also we have i think we have that baseline for community perceptions dps i appreciate you saying that and uh you know this is uh probably ingratiating myself to the boss a little bit but this is why this is
106this was the mission that you gave him when you brought dr mabinga to us and he threw himself into it with gusto with a important listening and learning tour of our community putting together the group and he and dr hardy and all of us in leadership positions on the strategic plan have been working the plan very very hard inspire thank you all i i do um want to thank you all for the work that you've done on this incredibly critical part our parents and families are our partners and even during the pandemic you all have found new ways to bring that partnership in and strengthen that and you know i look forward to the ways that we're going to continue to use the technology but i also know that our folks are longing for that
107face-to-face connection and to be back in the buildings to see the students writing an artwork on the walls to actually come into media centers to come into plays and things so it is my earnest hope that that we could envision a safe enough setting for that in the coming academic year and reassure families that that is what we want back together um we'll all strive towards that um we've definitely had conversations with realtors who love the relationship and the expansion of our investment in y'all's work and i want to make sure y'all hear that feedback um [Music] if folks want this spark magazine where would they find it and how can where is it shared uh that spark magazine will be online but it is a partnership between us and durham magazine the magazine is
108itself an insert in durham magazine if you could here's their cover and here's our cover um so that is uh made available for everybody who is a subscriber or who picks up a copy of durham magazine and then we will have the previous issue and the current issue full together as a standalone publication available for our families later in the year fantastic thank you mr shadow then i noticed changes to the website i didn't hear you talking about that but i thought this might be a good opportunity for y'all to talk about how that looks different to folks the website does look different we have applied a new template that we'll be rolling out to all of our schools over the next month or so it is more attractive it is also more ada compliant
109in and of itself and we're going to be able to do more with that uh to ensure that going forward so um over the summer we're also going to be doing some re some reorganization and streamlining so it'll be easier for people to find things but it is currently much easier to read and much more attractive and it's also going to be the backbone for the app thank you and i'm excited about the dps family and community engagement team i'm excited that you all are going to kind of more formally collaborate your work i know what you all will be wrestling with is what all of our schools and and staff wrestle with is not how to reach the parents we already reach but how to reach the ones that we're not reaching and um
110i look forward to y'all kind of being in space together and and really innovating in that way i do have to say i'm still kind of back in public comment and um wanting to acknowledge to those folks that came here and those are our parents and families and students that we've got work to do in that space as well and i look forward to kind of ways that we can hear those concerns and and acknowledge improvements within durham public schools so i just personally am just still reflecting on on the profound comments that were brought here tonight but thank you all for this presentation and the updates if there are no further comments i'll i'll just say that i'm i'm impressed i think that the synergy and aspire already kind of commented on it when
111we're looking at the community engagement team i think the synergy that you all are creating is going to essentially be more efficient which makes you all more effective and it benefits the community much more so so thank you for that do the one thing because um you you always want to be able to have somebody critique something so i tried to find any problem that i could and i couldn't find one but i did have a question and i think this is something that could come up down the road one of the metrics deals with annual benchmarks of two-way communication and i'm just wondering if you could shed some light on is that like communication gonna be based upon the school is this communication with the district because if you know if we're hearing from
112community members and residents that they feel like they're not being heard and we point to this metric can you kind of put the connotation of how that should be received or how that's actually being communicated with what that metric really tracks the metric is based on the perception of school two-way communication um we have strategies in all of our strategic plan uh goals that go beyond the specific benchmark and go towards the whole principle of the thing um so we are not actively tracking as part of these benchmarks our efforts in improving two-way communication at the district level for example however we've done some incredible things in the last year with growing together project and things like that the equity policy work and the community engagement that was required for that we have examples so
113systematically addressing that as part of the next strategic plan is important to us thank you and thank you all for all your work now this was up for information so there was nothing else that that needed to be done so um we'll thank you and your team again thank you and thank you to all of my goal team members who are here tonight all right the next item on our agenda is going to be the academic services uh 2022 school library month thank you mr raven cheer umstead and board members dr rabinga would like to invite dr canelano executive director for k-12 curriculum and instruction for us to discuss and celebrate school library month thank you dr hardy good evening chair olmstead vice chair lewis dr mabinga and members of the board so april is
114school library month and this particular week is is school live i'm sorry is school school library week um so we would like um to take this opportunity to thank our media coordinators and our library staff that work in durham public schools as we we present to you this proclamation for school library month libraries are integral to school success they're valuable resources for both print and digital resources to support academics they're spaces where students can explore new topics ask questions and feel a sense of belonging there are places where students in durham see themselves reflected in stories and enter into new worlds we continue to work to provide students opportunities to access the best books and digital tools in our libraries and media centers and we continue our partnership with durham county library system through bulls
115city slam providing them access to resources from our library system as well in durham we're committed to supporting our school libraries for our student success and excited to celebrate this month with our proclamation today and celebration of our battle of the books winners which are coordinated by our librarians as our media coordinators as well next month or at our next meeting on april 21st we ask that you sign this proclamation and approve it in support of celebrating april as school library month thank you and the uh administration is requesting the reading and approval of the proclamation so we can go ahead and start uh with miss validariz if you already have it up yes so proclamation school library month april 2022 whereas the school library is to ensure that students and staff are effective users
116of ideas and information and whereas the school librarian's role is to provide the leadership and expertise necessary to ensure that the school library is an integral part of the instructional program of the school and whereas the board of education has entrusted the school library in each school to teach just skills of locating and using information through traditional resources and new technologies to provide literature appreciation activities and to guide and encourage content and recreational reading to every student and whereas lifelong learning begins and is systemically developed through the school library curriculum of the elementary and secondary schools and whereas the school library contributes to the individual growth and development of all students while fostering both excellence in equity and education and whereas the school librarians of durham public schools have dedicated themselves to work for quality
117school libraries for all students now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of durham public schools does hereby proclaim april 2022 as school library month and calls upon school administrators teachers students and citizens of durham county to recognize and support this action and to participate throughout the month of april in celebration of school library month all right miss buyer i love this proclamation i would just request that the last uh whereas therefore can we change that citizens to residents to be more reflective of our community i think that's better language there all right any other comments or discussion on the proclamation i would move that we move the proclamation for school library month as amended okay it has been moved and properly seconded multiple times to accept the proclamation as amended and we'll
118go ahead and go with the vote if there's no discussion all right miss valudares i would i would i aspire aye samson aye ms lewis aye mr lee aye mr sears hi my name is frederick i vote i as well it is approved unanimously thank you thank you all right at this point we will move to the summary of the follow-up items on dr hardy all right i don't know why i haven't readiness except that we are making changes in masking and i didn't know if our staff wanted to make any comments on on the plans for that for the 11th or not and so i know that's not on the agenda but i didn't notice it until we got to the end of the agenda um yeah and i've seen some emails internally and
119i don't know if those communications have been shared with families and i appreciate the work that you all have done is there anything that y'all need to share or will updates be going out to folks and yeah i'm going to pass it on to dr hardy to share the communication that has been shared with all our staff as well as our family so based on your votes of the last board meeting we've been working accordingly to make sure that we proceed and will be ready for mask recommended on april 11th anything else dr hardy thank you dr mabinga and we board members you did receive the communication that has been shared internally with staff and families regarding protocols and procedures for mask recommended beginning on april 11th we also had a conversation with our principals
120yesterday afternoon to ensure that there were no additional items that they needed so that they could ensure that our students and staff were in safe spaces when they come on monday april 11th for mass recommended mr status did you have anything you needed to add i thought it would be appropriate for me to briefly read the email that we sent to staff and we will no okay oh we'll make we'll dr mabinga wants us to move on but we but we have uh we have encouraged our staff to be mindful of and supportive of each other at this difficult time i would like also to add that we have enough ppe kn 95 that any of our staff members will need those additional protections we have them available in their schools thank you any other
121comments or discussion from the board dr hardy is is that the i guess the totality of your follow-up items i'm sorry oh i i didn't even start my follow-up items i apologized i was thinking about cover protocols a couple of follow-up items um to make sure one request is to invite parents to be part of some of our priority goal teams to continue to grapple with our communication with families explicitly making sure that we're reaching out to families who may not be as connected with our schools and our district mentioned from mr lee regarding a community perception data we think about six years ago from tntp that can serve as a baseline and for us to think about community survey data as we are beginning to think about the next round of our strategic plan
122okay so that brings us to the closed session so i will ex i would welcome a motion if there's nothing else a move we go on a closed session for the reasons standing on the agenda a second it's been moved by mr lee seconded by mrs olmstead um we will go with the roll call vote if there's no discussion all right ms valudares hi everybody mrs barr hi miss homestead hi miss lewis hi mr lee aye mr sears hi my name is frederick alvo i as well it has unanimously thank you we are now back in open session dr modenga madam chair i'm here to seek your approval for the personnel report as discussed at the closed session move approval of the personnel report dated april 7th 2022 second the move i'm inspired second about
123mr raven any other discussion we'll do a roll call vote miss vallidares i vote i miss buyer aye mr raven aye mr sears aye mr lee no and i vote i so it passes excuse me five one and with that we are adjourned you