001[Music] um [Music] yes oh okay is [Music] um oh all right good afternoon everyone all right good evening everyone all right the durham public schools board of education monthly meeting is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who's joining us we have folks here in person and we know that folks are streaming online 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 their interpreters for tonight are martha romo erguiles and marty ramirez thank you for taking the time to join us tonight the first item on our agenda
002is a moment of silence um before we get started excuse me in that moment of silence i just want to say as we're taking this time to hold some gratitude for all of our educators who have wrapped up a school year that was like no other but also have started summer school and doing some summer learning and doing incredible things with our students over the past couple weeks i've seen and heard lots of really great stories so i just want to hold our gratitude for our educators who've been working so hard this past year thank you the next item on our agenda is our agenda review and approval um ms homesteader chairman upstate um i would like to add superintendent's uh update right after the gender review and approval yeah no i'd like to do
003that and the um under chief of staff just this is just a quick question uh the uh policy in 1900 did we send that the consent okay that's the equity policy no sir oh we didn't know okay thank you what move approval of the agenda has amended a second the move by misfire seconded by ms lewis any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is the superintendent's update dr mabinga thank you madam chair but members we have completed the most eventful year in a public school in the durham public school history it's been a really tough year but i'm very grateful that we're all able to navigate it uh successfully with less causalities our student proudly uh just
004graduated in full-fledged outdoor ceremonies which we did not anticipate five months ago so our seniors we offer approximately 40 million dollars in scholarships so that's really huge and they keep on growing every year and our middle college students um they beat the records of having 41 students graduating and earning associate degree any parents living in this community if i can just put figures there it costs average about twenty five thousand dollars to send your child to any of the public university in north carolina but our students are graduating with associate degree that's been three years almost about fifty thousand dollars for free and those students uh if they wanted to join the workforce uh they're ready capable in the age of 18. so great program i'm asking families really to take advantage of this particular
005opportunity those accomplishments are built upon enormous changes during the school year we transition from our remote learning to hybrid in-person learning with remote learning still available we provided free curve v19 testing at school sites across the county in partnership with our ortondorf labs this was really a great opportunity to make sure that our staff and our family is also feeling comfortable to send the kids while we had these tests available for our families and our students we also partnered with the abc science collaborative and green light durham to ensure that we were guided by science and prioritize safety and supporting the health of our students teachers and staff for that reason i'm really grateful to our doctors or the abc that have worked with us from the beginning of kovid as uh we're finishing up
006the year as well we made huge strides in community engagement with the launch of engaged dps the nc.net and begin a community conversation about magnet programs and school boundaries that will guide our work into the fall this is really a great opportunity that i would like for our families to be involved in that's going to determine the future of our boundaries as we are growing in durham again the good news we will on lions farms elementary school and are proceeding with the long-awaited new northern high schools i want to take this time to really personally thank our families our parents in northern high it was not an easy struggle for us to be able to get all this funding but they've worked really critical role to be able to work with our commissioners to make
007sure we're getting funding for the new northern high school for that reason i'm very grateful through it all our teachers and staff and administrators have been exemplary prioritizing academic excellence social emotional support and equity we have to be clear about the challenges that our students and community continue to face we all know about all these delta uh variants and all that so our students of struggle and uh suffer throughout our isolation uh during this pandemic but i will tell this to our families we are very vigilant we are well informed and at the right time we'll be able to continue communicating with our families about the guidance from cdc uh as we all know by the conversation about masking or not masking so we know the position of our board and we're going to continue
008having those conversation as we move forward and our priority is the safety of our students as we're educating all our students in fact also we have begun our summer programming as our chair said we have approximately about 8 000 students that's been coming to our buildings that's almost about 25 of our student population and we are really excited if you look at our enrollment in the past we had about less than a thousand in the past now that's pretty much times 10 that we are serving in our schools and we are really excited about it and uh we're gonna see where the progress as far academics needs of our students are concerned as we are going to be with them for the next five weeks i'm grateful to our teachers staff we have given up
009the summers to provide the additional boost of energy compassion and support to our student in the year of covet 19 during public school never went away still it feels very much as though their own public school is back and i'm excited for what the future holds thank you both thank you dr movinga for that update the next out of my agenda is our board monthly meeting minutes from may 20th 2021 i move approval the minutes second it's been moved by miss vagindares second if i'm inspired any other discussion all in favor say aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is general public comment before we get started i want to do a quick review of the rules um first when you get started please state
010your name if you are speaking for an organization please state your name and the name of the organization speakers are asked to present their comments in three minutes when the yellow light comes on you have 15 seconds left to start winding up your remarks there's a timer here on the edge of the table when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates that your time is up complaints about names staff students or parents should not be voiced in open session and i'm going to read a language from our policies that say the policy and laws in the state of north carolina as well as the policies of this board provide that matters concerning the job competence and performance of individual school system staff are confidential for this reason and to ensure the board
011meetings are conducted in an orderly and fair manner the board will not entertain public discussion about specifically named school system employees during the open session of our meeting we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to public education the safety of our students or 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 right our first public comment is kamiyah truitt and the next person will be donna frederick and i apologize if i mispronounce your name please correct me good afternoon everyone can you guys hear me with my mess yeah i think this is great um i'm kamiyah truitt i'm representing the alumni of northern high school and i'm here to critique the size and allocation
012of funds for this new theater department as an alumni from the theater department of northern um when i first heard about the funding i was elated i thought that this would equal a huge black box for me to dream the wildest dreams that i've had when i first came to the school i thought that it meant a bigger stage a bigger scene shot with where we could create you know tyrannosaurus rex if we wanted to but my uh my uncle let me know that that is not what we could expect um professor truitt told me that it was going to be 800 feet and the reason why i'm slowing down a bit is because i tend to get a little bit passionate when it comes to theater because this was the grounds for where i
013learned how to advocate for myself as a woman of color it was a place where i learned how to code switch and chameleon and work my way through the landscape that i know now as a woman in the professional world um it was also a place where i was able to dive into the black art that certain house bills are trying to eradicate the black art that let me know how my people were able to thrive in the context of white supremacy how we were able to create and survive and inspire and so when i hear that that space will be downsized it brings up equity i think sometimes we get so caught up in the physicality of what this is that we don't check in with the things that will be missing by downsizing
014the space that comes with the theater department um so i just come here today humbly to ask you as people of color as people that want equity for all students even if you've never taken a theater class in your life and you don't understand what goes into embodying somebody else understanding the intersectionalities of people that you may have never met through different works of art what do you want to teach students students that may not have an outlet for this type of emotion that they're dealing with um the type of environment that they're growing up in who don't know what a world outside of maybe i don't know mcdougall terrace or you know even upperclass neighborhoods i guess swansmill this gives you a place to dream big and i think that instead of making it
015a physical understanding we should think about the equity that comes into play when you take away a space a creative space for students who are often underprivileged that's what i have to say in essence thank you guys good evening donna frederick and i'm here as part of the community um two quick things one i like to say that over the summer we need to really press into the community of getting some of our students who might have fallen behind even though i know we have a great summer school program i've heard personally from parents whose students did not check in during the whole covet so what could we propose that would really help these parents so that the children do not fall behind because it is mostly as i understand the children of color who
016will be having issues so summer school is great but we've had a really tremendous year and they need resources they need help so i'm asking for collectively for some real um answers so that we feel like we're just just like left behind um second thing is we would like to see um come august we don't have a clear are we mask or unmask you know um we've been hearing that like some teachers aren't comfortable with not having mass in the building and some are so i know there's no decision i think they're leaving it up to districts right now but i think in all fairness every will everyone will not be vaccinated by august that's just not going to happen so to make parents teachers and everyone comfortable i think we should hold off on
017making no mess so thank you the next public speaker is irving truitt and denise i believe it is barnes will be next good evening dr mobinga board members administrative staff and guests dps corps beliefs we believe in equity our students and school deserves equitable access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed durham public schools and the community must distribute those resources in a manner that eliminates inequalities i like to read this again our theater students and northern high school deserve equitable access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed during public schools and community must distribute those resources in a manner that eliminates inequalities i'm confident that you're aware of the inequalities that exist with the design of the performing arts swing at north you're all aware that there was no classroom
018for the theater in the performing arts swing due to a breakdown of communication or error educational inequality that needs to be fixed so you are also aware that the decision to split the technical theatre shop in half to create a classroom is not equitable if this is equal and acceptable let's divide the course room or the band room to make a theater classroom and leave the shop as it is you know that would be wrong on all levels however you fail to see that it is wrong for the theater department this is not fixing the problem of no classroom but theater in the performing arts swing this educational inequality must be corrected and you the board members have the power to do so please make it right listen to and review all the emails and
019the comments and the parents and the students and the staff and the community that have sent you those emails and comments the recent design is not only inequitable but also creates a hazardous and unsafe environment for technical theater students because the space is too small and to take away the stage wing space is detrimental to all of the programs all of the arts programs i was trying to think of a word to describe how i'm feeling it's not tired it's not overwhelmed it's sadness it's deep sadness i'm saddened because i have to work in a system that widens the educational gap for our students by not providing equitable facilities across the entire district you speak on some inequalities but not on all as in the case of dsa inequalities or any qualities there are no
020gray areas i'm saddened that there are not any any communication i'll skip to say lastly where is it dps it is important that we maintain high expectation for closing gaps and begin the work of disrupting the systems that inhibit the abilities of all dps students to reach its fullest potential why do i have to beg for equitable theater facility when your core belief states that you will eradicate inequalities by providing resources and opportunities for all students stand by your core beliefs gps and provide the theater facility my students deserve and the students that i will never meet thank you next we have denise barnes minister paul scott and then joe joyner good evening my name is denise barnes and i'm speaking on behalf of northern high school theater department theater arts this term is used
021as it encompasses all parts of training and instruction in the field of theater one of aristotle's elements of theater is spectacle spectacle includes all visual elements of a production scenery lighting properties costumes makeup set design stage movement dance music are all used to create spectacle for your enjoyment of a theatrical production however the proper safe space to create this magical work is needed and required especially in educational theater safety is of utmost importance while working with students in a technical shop a technical shop that houses manual tools ellipsoidal fresnel lighting instruments light boards sound boards ladders paints lumber set pieces heavy duty tools and all needs to be in a safe space a safe space free from injury harm and risk of threatening danger imagine 25 plus energetic students in a 800 square foot space
022a living room practically moving sawing hammering drilling painting building learning and engaged in this art form without proper accommodations and forget social distancing would you want your child in that class i am concerned and disturbed about the image and you should be also give northern high school theater students what they need to to contribute to the performing arts on any given day free pandemic 1.5 million americans attended arts performances according to the u.s department of commerce and bureau of economic analysis and over 5 billion dollars are spent yearly on arts and culture according to the us department of labor bureau of labor statistics please do not slight our youth from growing developing creating and contributing to this art form give them the safe space they need to make a positive and productive theatrical contribution to
023society i thank you good evening everyone i just want to take this moment to say thank you to the school board to this durham city council and to the grassroots organizers in durham north carolina you all on may 20th where june 10th passed a resolution against house bill 3 24. which is known as the anti-critical race theory bill and let me just read from this book words that wound since most of the people criticizing critical race theory have no idea what critical race theory is critical race theory is grounded in the particulars of a social reality that is defined by our experiences and the collective historical experiences of our community of origins that's all it is that's all it is seeing the world view from those voices who have been historically marginalized so when you
024all boldly put that resolution together you all made history you all are the first school board to my knowledge in the country who stood up against the anti-critical race theory onslaught the city council i think it's only the second city behind memphis that stood up i'm so proud of durham right now because for other cities even in north carolina people are running up on school boards bullying school boards durham stood up and said not here not here we put a no-fly zone around durham we put a wall around durham that says that no matter what happens we care about our children and we care about our children knowing their history so we're not talking about critical race theory we're talking about critical race facts so for those watching i want this to be a national
025endeavor if we can do it in durham other school boards across the country other communities should be standing up and saying we will not be bullied we will not let people dictate what teachers are going to teach about their history we will not penalize our teachers for teaching the truth also sadly the african-american community is still marginalized we're not really in this critical race theory discussion but we have to bring this discussion from the hallways of higher education to the hood so i ask this summer that everybody in your communities make a point to instruct your family your friends about critical race facts and also how we're going to move forward in this endeavor and lastly school may be out for the summer but when it comes to teaching our community about critical race theory
026class is still in session thank you right next we have joe joyner all right lee wrote radio and then next will be joshua stevens thank you madam chair you pronounced it correctly you got it right um i also want to thank you all for allowing mr truett to conclude his remarks i'm here also to speak on the northern theater situation and i wanted to share um you know we've all heard the line visionary effective leaders surround themselves with people that know more than them it was henry ford that popularized that in our modern lexicon um you know a hallmark of impactful leadership is the ability to view experts and expertise not as sources of not as you know points of potential adversity but as sources of collective enrichment and that's exactly why i've been so
027disappointed to watch you know an equity-oriented board full of who i view as transformational leaders in the durham community i know some of you i would like to get to know all of you that's why i've been so disappointed to see this board collectively write off many of you know the experts in this situation and not just them but also the main stakeholders that dps loves to talk about the students you know you've heard from mr truitt a theater professional telling you that his facilities aren't equitable based on what he already has at the current campus you've heard from the other northern high school arts teachers saying that his facilities aren't equitable compared to their new facilities you've heard from other teachers in the arts departments across dps saying that his facilities aren't equitable compared
028to their schools in the new configuration they're not equitable compared to the already existing schools you've heard from mr tabb i don't think there's anyone in this room who who would like to pretend they know more about the technical aspects of theater than mr truett and mr tab that you're about to hear from you know and when they and when you we did get responses it was oh you know it's we we we agree that this is something that needs to be rectified but it's too late you know which is interesting to me because this project has been delayed time and time and time again this project has been delayed so much that it was initially um green light green lit by members of this board who have since lost their jobs in the most
029recent election you know it's been delayed based on the mistakes of board members it's been delayed based on the mistakes of contractors county commissioners dps administration but at the suggestion that the main stakeholders the students want to get this right take the time to get this situation right they're told there's not enough time we have to move forward on a project the ground hasn't been broken for only a fraction of the of the land has been cleared and they're told we don't have enough time we've already secured the contract we've got to move forward i know this board is better than that we're calling on you to be better than that thank you to the durham public schools board dr mabinga i also represent northern high school my name is joshua stevens uh i came
030up here not really knowing what i was going to say but i must try to give you a visual if you if you will this morning when i woke up and i looked at the news i saw that there was a building that had crumbled down half of that building was destroyed and as i watched the news i asked myself well what was going on with this building that would cause it to crumble down then as i continued to watch the news i also looked at what they were talking about about this building and what type of building it was it was a luxury resort and then immediately the first thought that came to my mind was quite wicked it was like why should we care why should we care about a luxury resort building
031that's full of privileged people being able to do privileged things and why does it matter well the point that i'm trying to make is it matters to those people it matters to those people where they have lost space that they once had it matters to those people that there were some people in that building at the time when it collapsed that they were hurt and this type of legislation that you push forward has hurt some people you say that it doesn't matter you say that it's irrelevant it only hurts a certain amount of people but it matters to those people it matters to those teachers who are willing to take time out of their busy schedules to teach our students and to encourage them and to move them forward it matters to them it matters
032to the new students who are coming in in the fall when they see that there's going to be some changes in their school it was hard enough dealing with the changes that we had to deal with this past year with covet 19 and you saw the things that were on the floor where people had to space themselves out space matters and you're talking about trying to work in a space where there's now less than half space to work in there's less than half space to be created there's less than half space to operate and to think and to discover all the wonderful things that our students have to offer but i know that those things are things you've already considered so i'm asking you i'm asking you if you have more than enough don't ask
033our students or our staff to work with less than half thank you next we have sharon campbell and again i apologize if i mispronounce your name toya chinflu you get cool points you said it right um all right write everything down good evening um i'm sharon campbell first of all let me say i'm really overjoyed about you guys moving forward to allow critical race theory or aka i call the truth to be taught to our students i'm speaking as a parent um however i want to say we can't celebrate yet until all the voices are heard um i don't really care what people identify as race sexual orientation religion i care as a parent about my child being taught the truth i wasn't raised in the south my grandmother was and i probably would have
034been had she been treated well by the south but she went north and vowed to never return i came to durham because it seemed like a nice place to raise my children be able to afford a home give them the american dream which black people still have not been able to get equally and i feel like it's shameful that we have to argue and beg and plead to fight for it i'm really proud of durham for going forward with that um and to those that oppose it you know you might want to think about why you oppose it why you oppose the truth and i just want to say we ain't going nowhere until this is done until all the nails are in the coffin we're not going anywhere um i'm glad that durham is
035going in the right direction i hope to see great strides um but that's going to come with hard work determination transparency and understanding um this is bull city and i think that we have the right stuff and before i forget as i was sitting there listening to the teachers from northern and the staff um i just want to say thank you because i'm a parent and my son is going to be going to that school um so for me it's bittersweet you know i'm proud that he's going to high school but i think about my grandfather that fought in a war so that he could liberate people but came back here and wasn't liberated himself and that my son won't really learn about that unless we beg so i just want to say thank you
036for asking for something that even to some people might seem small like a theater like a theater to to even express fiction or something like that trivial we have to beg for it and that's shameful and i hope that moving forward that you guys get them what they need and are asking for um as a parent i'll be holding you all accountable thank you greetings to everyone on the board and the superintendent dr mabinga i am toyota this is my i call me tweet stop following okay so sorry i want to turn my phone off but i have my notes on my phone um i am a 22 plus year employee teacher educator of durham public schools i began my search my i started at dsa as a dance teacher but i'm speaking to you
037on behalf of a parent because that is where i got my my most passion for durham public schools i looked i studied and i examined the schools that were available particularly your magnet programs i like the speaker before me am not from the south my grandparents left i'm a northerner so i apologize in advance if my words seem stark it is just my passion that i stand upon and on the shoulders of those that came before me but as a parent i am very passionate about my students but i'm more passionate about my children that i birthed into this world and it was my son and my oldest daughter that were students at northern high school my daughter started at dsa all durham public schools should actually embrace educate empower every student innovate serve and
038lead because every school culture does not support every child so it is very important that all schools are equitable with the facilities and the needs and the resources so that every passionate teacher can teach the students in front of them because my daughter did not thrive at dsa in the theater department but she soared in the theater department at northern high school and she soared because she had the talent but the school dsa did not afford her with the things she needed to thrive but she got to northern and she excelled and she is a graduate of unc g and she has a degree in mass communications and is pursuing a career in that field and she owes it to her experiences and her education at northern high school that saw her saw her talent
039saw her abilities had the resources and gave her the opportunity so all of the schools that during public schools should be equitable so that all the children in durham can be served properly we can't all fit into one school we should not want all of our kids to lust after the acceptance of one particular school durham public schools should have a district that caters the needs of any student that happens to live in this community and every teacher can afford that student the talent the opportunity the platform and the resources if you give us equitable funds equitable space equitable facilities then every teacher in that particular facility can do their job thank you for your time next is renai rachel glapper and hassai chinflu hi my name is reena rachel galper i actually really love
040that pronunciation though it sounded very musical um i am a durham resident a retired public school teacher a founder and director of osc which is a small local organization that does a lot of anti-racist work and healing work and i am also so proud of all of you right now for passing this resolution against hb and i also want to speak as a white identified person because without awareness around critical race theory and the real history of this country there is absolutely no way forward to take action to dismantle systemic racism to repair and without repair there's no forgiveness and there's no room for change and i'm just really really proud that we are fighting against this bill because of the nationwide effort to just eradicate the true history of our country um the other
041thing that i found out recently which was so disturbing to me and particularly when we think about how hard people are pushing against race education in school is that there is literally four 40 million dollars plus of taxpayer money that is going to fund confederate memorials grade sites museums where a false version of history is being taught to others so taxpayer money millions of dollars is going into that and yet we have this pushback from people who just want us to live into the promise that is our country that can really only come from a true recognition of the damage that's been done and also the beauty that's been done and everyone that's contributed to make this country what it is i also have been listening to the impassioned comments from folks around the northern
042theater which i was not aware of although i lived very close to the school and as a former ec turned performing arts teacher one of the things that really struck me about the stage and the downsizing is that um theater and the arts is where we give young people a chance to reimagine another world and so to the extent that we downsize the space that they need to reimagine we downsize our ability to create a world which looks very different than the one we're currently in so thank you the next person i'm sorry if i'm mispronouncing your name hassayi chinflu all right we'll go windale tab mr window tab and then next will be amman abdul malik good evening dr mabinga board staff there's not a whole lot that i want to say tonight because
043i think mr truitt has passionately given you exactly what you need to hear what i do want to to say to you is that we have to acknowledge the mistake if you board members can first get to the point where you can acknowledge in public that a mistake was made i think that you'll be able to move forward the administration has to acknowledge that a mistake was made publicly as long as you're talking about it behind closed doors and the public doesn't hear how you are trying to move forward we then assume that you're doing nothing and that's what's bothering mr truitt his students staff community because we hear you say nothing and you speak very passionately about all kinds of issues here i'm your biggest supporter i tell people this durham board of education
044speaks truth and you all have heard reverend scott come and give you accolades i do it all the time but this one you have failed because you will not acknowledge the mistake lin-manuel miranda just acknowledged his mistake of the movie in the heights by not putting afro latinos up front in the movie he has publicly acknowledged it when you when you make a mistake acknowledge it there's got to be a resolution if you need to go back to the county commissioners and ask for the money then do it it's going to be some back and forth with it you know that but you got to fix it i haven't heard anything about a theater consultant the whole time where is the theater consultant in all of this where i want to meet him because if
045that theater consultant designed that space then they need to give you the money back this is real so let's first acknowledge it let's find out how much it costs to fix it everybody here is intelligent i know that you can work the figures and whoever made the mistake if they need to pay for it then make them pay for it but it's got to be fixed and so i thank you for your time and i hope that you will continue to listen to the passion of mr truett because he has given you something as an african-american educator that i am so proud of and durham public schools should be proud of as well because he is fighting for his children and that's what every educator should do thank you after amman will have jay raheem
046and katie i'm sorry katie katie i'm angola good evening do you say can i see this fastball we prefer that you keep it on we can hear you really well all right dsa stated mission is to enable students from diverse backgrounds to realize their individual academic potential and creative capacities through a rigorous academic program emphasizing excellence in the visual and performing arts it is clear that dsa is committed to its mission this has been seen through the arts pathways that nurture students creativity and promote individuality dsa's diverse student body the fact that dsa is considered a liberated space that accepts the whole student and the relationship between the students that is largely positive and progressive emotionally and mentally but we would like to highlight that our vision adds the additional component of mental illness that
047is not explicitly mentioned in dsa's mission statement additionally we believe and we will soon demonstrate that the current state of dsa does not allow for all students to reach the goals set by dsa's mission and does not meet the goals of our vision we believe that the institutional racism is the underlying barrier that undermines many students mental well-being and therefore their ability to realize their potential we have therefore focused our attention on identifying and addressing racial and class inequities in our or my past school the community problem we have identified racial discrimination in the zero tolerance discipline system produces three major outcomes this disproportionately affects black and brown students it is punitive exclusionary and fosters recidivism and it produces a culture of fear and retaliation we want to explain these outcomes in more detail and
048highlight the quantitative and qualitative data that led us to identify them the first outcome is that the discipline system fails to promote racial equity by disproportionately affecting black and brown students for this outcome the numbers speak for themselves and we did have a chart but while non-white students make up 60 63 of the student body they account for 80 of in school suspensions during the 2018-2019 school year conversely why students make 37 of the student body but only account for 20 of iss the full racial breakdown for isis during the 2018-2019 school year 76 were white 114 were hispanic and 173 were black and 22 were classified as other the second outcome we found in the discipline system fails to promote academic success by being punitive exclusionary and fostering recidivism what we mean when we
049say that the discipline system is punitive and exclusionary is that it will stay with you after use of your time in rpc and has social and academic consequences serving rpc also has academic consequences because students in rpc are removed from classes or excluded from their structured learning environment of the classroom and many of them don't receive their coursework from their teachers some students might receive some or all of their work but this work is separated from lectures and instructions hi my name is jay raheem um and i'm a recent graduate from bsa a restorative justice system would ensure that a mistake or infraction does not become the student's new identity because the system would seek to restore the harm that had been caused however rpc a dsa is punitive rather than restorative which is best
050demonstrated by how students are labeled as troublemakers by dps's records we can see how prevalent recidivism is at dsa the numbers in this chart so that many of the same students who are receiving iss multiple times during the 2018-2019 school year 385 dsa students about 22 percent of the student population received iss however during the same school year dsa issued 1493 in-school suspensions it's important to repeat these numbers almost 1500 suspensions were issued to 385 students if each suspension had been given to a different student then dsa would have suspended 80 of its student body if the suspensions were distributed evenly um over the 385 students they would have served about four suspensions each we know that these suspensions were not distributed evenly if the discipline system were truly restorative designed not only as punishment
051but as a method to prevent future misbehavior we would not be seeing so much recidivism and there would be a more even distribution of iss among students um we have a specific strategy in order to deal with these issues for recidivism and the punitive culture that goes within dsa um the three strategies is to create a system of accountability of administration to students and to recommend to dsa and dps policy changes around in-school suspension humanize the rpc experience so we begin to collect stories from students because the members by themselves do not tell the whole story and to bring our community problem to dsa administration and staff to gain your buy-in and support um through the numbers and data we have presented we hope that we have brought awareness to everyone here about the culture
052of fear at dsa the punitive nature that still remains with this restorative practice center and racial disparities that exist in the discipline system and we hope that we were able to show how the zero tolerance discipline system at dsa fails to support dsa's mission statement because the outcomes of this community problem do not bring about academic success for all students we have other recommendations so the first recommendation is the racial disparities um who receives rpc so we recommend that dsa address teacher and administrator biases with a first step of implicit bias and racial equity training we also recommend that dsa work with students to define specific infractions that should result in students being removed from the classroom and we also recommend that dsa track which teachers in administration are issuing rpc and report on this
053data the second recommendation is to recommend that teachers and administrators do not assign iss based off of a student's past contact with the discipline system and we recommend that honor societies are no longer allowed to ask whether students have had iss hi y'all i'm katie i'm going i'm yielding my time here um to further on to this recommendation we recommend that dsa eliminates the zero tolerance policy and practice the only way for us to rebuild a strong lasting relationship between dsa students and administration is through the efforts of eliminating the zero tolerance policy that has been an issue with dsa culture um the last uh recommendation is that we recommend that dps create a student advocacy board um or something that can advocate for the students that are going within rpc that will give power
054to students for advocacy regarding referrals and building a trusting relationship between the students and administration we recommend that dps create a policy that holds administration accountable for the mental wellness of their students while in their care and we recommend that dps expand their strategic plan policy too to incorporate goals that target the reduction of iss or any other exclusionary practices including rpc thank you and our last public speaker is dan mckinney before dan begins just really quickly can i ask to get a copy of those requests that she that you were making please you can email it as well yeah if you all could email those to the board that would be great superintendent ford my name is dan mckinney i'm speaking on behalf of organizing against racism durham our leadership team supports the board's
055decision to not renew david hawk's position and encourages the board to recognize that hawks left behind a white supremacy culture that must be addressed over the last over at least the past 10 years there have been many attempts to disrupt dsa's racist culture and hold someone accountable for the staff's racist policies and practices i have spoken with countless community members and students who have brought these challenges to dps admin and i have spoken with admin myself about many concerns and in 100 of these conversations the admin was aware of the racist policies and outcomes i would then ask why has nothing been done about it i would get a small range of responses but there was always one underlying root fear the fear of an uprising of white people who would support the current culture
056let me say that again what kept the admin and some elected officials from acting sooner than now was the fear of a mass of white people who would be enraged because the school performs well and produces good outcomes for our children removing the figurehead of a racist tsa culture is a good start and that's all it is it will not change the culture if you install a new principle that is simply hawks 2.0 we will see the same racial outcomes the current white culture is thriving at dsa because of a deep-seated culture of fear and retaliation that comes against any student parent or teacher who attempts to disrupt it fear and retaliation is the reason why at a previous work session we only heard from teachers in support of hawks in that current culture it
057is not a coincidence that no teachers showed up to support your decision it is no coincidence that the only students you heard from who support your decision were graduates that is not a coincidence this fear and retaliation is sustaining the white supremacy culture of dsa and it must be uprooted you must work tirelessly uphill against a host of my people both outside the school and inside the school who will be attempting to block you at every step because the current culture it's working for my people you must remain steadfast to change the culture dsa to make the system work for all of your students my fellow white people if we are really going to disrupt systemic racism in our schools if we are really going to be anti-racist we cannot allow an administration to implement
058policies and practices that ensure that it's mainly our students who benefit that is the definition of white supremacy culture we as white people do not have to be explicit hateful bigots to perpetuate this culture many times we do not know but now we know when we must support disrupting white supremacy culture at dsa thank you to all of our public comment speakers the next item on our agenda is consent we have a consent agenda and there are several items listed here we have a board policies the transition project b lakewood montessori middle school foundation repairs a contract with la downey and sun inc sea lions farm elementary school temporary construction easement and permanent easement for sanitary sewer lines d trauma informed leadership teams contract with center for child and family health e capturing kids hearts
059contract f education based services agreement g home school policy 3103 nh cyrenic financial and human services software extension all these items are included in our packet and been reviewed by the board and we asked that the approval by the board tonight be subject to final review and approval back of contract terms by our board attorney what's your pleasure move approval of the consent agenda a second been moved and seconded any other discussion i would like to i would like to discuss one item it's not necessarily that i want to pull it but i i think the community needs to hear about the trauma informed leadership teams um with us getting ready to get prep for the next school year and with our ask to the board of commissioners for additional funding to support our our
060students both mental and physical health next year i think it would be a good idea to at least allow the staff to discuss how the trauma-informed own contract will be able to support our students so i do support it i would just like for the general public to be able to hear more about it as well we need to pull that off a agenda item looking at our attorney i think you could go ahead and vote to prove if i understand mr raven's in favor of the contract and then it seems like it's a request to just have administration provide some information that you could do after the consent agenda was approved may i make a comment here um just a clarifying question to board member reverend i don't know if you really want us
061to pull this item or it just wants quick highlights from staff just highlights from staff please could could we include that when we are discussing our social and emotional mental health improvement plan it is included in that plan during that time uh mr raven did that deal that is acceptable thank you thank you reading through that contract i was excited about that as well any other discussion board members all in favor say aye any applause please use the same sign pass this unanimously the next item on our agenda is from the chief of staff um mr giovanni good evening matt excuse me i'm sorry mr giovanni there is a public comment before you get started i apologize uh mr window tab has a comment on 7a board policy manual good evening good evening again to
062dr moving on ford administration um i do want to speak on the field trip policy i'm excited that there's going to be some revisions to to that policy but i want at least to bring you to bring it to your attention that um there's a statement in the policy that says parents and students cannot be notified of the field trip until it is approved that is very pragmatic for people who are planning a lot of us have have executive boards that we need to talk with um especially with band especially with theater if we're traveling we need to be able to have conversations with those parents for buy-in before we present it to the students and so if you would think about also having some type of pre-approval that that we can give to the
063principals and come to you all would be great um but the form that you currently have for the approval asks for things like how many chaperones are going how many students are going to be going what's the cost per student and if we can't have that conversation with the uh with the parents on our executive boards that that makes it very difficult for us to plan because you're not getting in uh adequate form once it goes to the principal then once it comes back to us there are so many changes that's going to be made once we then have to take it to the to the parents so i just wanted y'all to really to to think about that um as well uh also i want you to really think about in terms of students
064who may cannot travel because when we're getting ready to travel now things this is a new normal that there may be requirement of students have to be vaccinated so we have to think about that can those students then go can they not go uh they may not can be able to travel because the airlines are going to say you have to you know to be vaccinated in order to travel so that's something i want you to think about as you are looking at your um your policy for the new normal that we may have to have also for for van is traveling to eat at restaurants you know we have to make decisions on which restaurant to eat at because they may say you cannot come into this restaurant unless all the students have to
065show a card so those are the kinds of things that i hope that we'll be able to think about and finally um if you can look at your insurance policy as well for especially with my company hillside our international theater travel we always have to look at through risk management the insurance policy so if we can make that across the board and what should each student have in terms of insurance for international travel if it's across the board that'll be good because i'm hearing from different school that they were told different things when it's time to get the airlines um for the insurance policy so if you can take a look at those things that'll be very helpful so i'm glad to see this come back up again so thank you all very much and
066thank you for your work thank you uh now mr ivani thank you madam chair good evening board members dr mavenga uh durham community if you could pull up the board policy manual and sunset of old policy that powerpoint i think we talked about that kyle and thank you next slide please the board just finished adopting on consent several of the policies that were brought to the board previously these are two of the policies that were in that section that the board asked for some additional conversation around if you will note on the slide we did convene a policy committee which consisted of natalie beyer alexandra valladares and frederick raven iii and we met on june 16th which was a fairly quick turnaround if you all recall but i thank the board members as well as
067staff members for making themselves available under such short notice and for this important work next slide please the two policies that we were asked to take a look at at the last at the work session included the data dashboard and student searches we're going to talk about the data dashboard first if you recall this was a policy that this board had had been an ongoing and active policy since i believe 2009 but and i brought it to the board to determine if it was something that the board wanted to continue with or amended or edited in any way so we did um suggest a renumbering of that policy to policy 1910 and we when we met with the policy committee there were several suggestions um regarding this policy um the policy committee did determine that
068they did want to um keep this policy with some edits to that policy uh number one being a new name and i pause it actually i believe i was remiss in this in instance dr julie spencer um led the work on this uh with the policy committee so and she's here with us as well so dr spencer please feel free to jump in anytime okay so uh dr spencer and i then um we're tasked with going back and figuring out a new name so from data dashboard and i will insist actually that dr spencer does give us some background on why dashboard wasn't an ideal name necessarily for this but the suggestion and recommendation of administration is that the new name for this policy be district improvement and performance reports and with that i would
069ask dr spencer to share with the board and community some of the thinking behind not using data dashboard and i believe it was initially mrs speyer who had made that suggestion and then dr spencer elaborated on it if you could do that dr spencer i would just say the short version would be that um in the world of data today when we think of data dashboard it is um most often perceived as a dynamic interactive um data set that people are mining and i do not think the policy itself reads that way and or even in our conversation that um the discussion was that way it was um even as you go back years ago when we did do the data dashboard it was almost more like a scorecard or a data report that would
070resemble what we have used for example with our strategic plan to identify specific goals what was the goal what did we actually do and did we meet the goal and so i would say that we just wanted to align the policy language to be a little bit more aligned to exactly how we would use it i will add that there is conversation current conversation about um us developing an interactive data dashboard um and that that is um something that we want to do for our schools and our community but i think the policy itself is much more about a performance report thank you next slide please the other edit that was made to the draft that the board received at the work session included the red language on this slide so the edit in means
071that what we're going to do and trying to figure out the indicators that the board would want we're going to look to our strategic planning process so that it's covered whether we have an active strategic plan or not but we're always engaged in strategic planning so any indicators that are discovered that way any that may be recommended by administration as well as receiving input from community members on what indicators they may find useful on the improvement and performance reports next slide please and i'm sure the board we can ask questions at the end of if you don't want to ask any questions about the 1910 at this point uh policy 4342 was the other the next policy that the board had some additional wanted some additional conversation around and this is the draft language based
072on the feedback from the policy committee regarding how we wanted to lead off as durham when talking about student searches obviously for safety reasons almost every well every school has a policy um that addresses student searches as a result of safety concerns but the policy committee wanted to make sure that we didn't just jump in and say we're going to search you you know and didn't have more of a criminal tone we wanted to step back from that and the board gave some guidance regarding wanting to make sure that we led with the understanding that it was about being safe and welcoming and not necessarily walking in and feeling criminalized so this is the draft language that was that i drafted for the board's consideration as the introductory language for this policy next slide please
073the immediate immediately following that introduction this red language that you see on the slide was also requested to be added or suggested by a board one of the members of the policy committee so that again reinforcing that this isn't the expectation or in the in durham public schools that we're going to be searching students but just leading off that we are so safe and welcoming and but in the event that there is actual safety concern we do have the authority and the responsibility to conduct reasonable searches of students next slide please and the last request that i will be making from the board is that um a full rescission of the old policy manual if you go on the old manual again there are no policies there they've all been addressed um in the new
074manual but there could occasionally be a policy that for whatever reason we didn't have a new policy that replaced it and i just wanted to make it clear for future generations that the old manual is fully rescinded in any policies that are not currently found in the board's new manual as hosted online and available in the central office are no longer the policies of the board so that there's no confusion and that there is some closure with regard to the old manual and at this point i do want to point out that we do have miss tina ingram here um at i did request that she join us since we were presenting the police the student searches policy ms ingram did work with the policy committee um when we went over this policy and she
075is the um kind of took the lead on this work as well and she leads that work in the district regarding student searches and our interaction with regard to any of those safety and security issues so at this point um as i said miss ingram is here and we're happy to entertain any questions from the board mr lee thank you for this i appreciate it it's good to see it closing out finally this is this is nice i could can we go back and could you go back and explain the the idea about the old pilot the whole old policy book being closed out um and a new policy being here but if there is a policy that didn't make it over to the new policies is no longer valid um [Music] i want to
076understand that a little bit um [Music] i'm sure there are policies that we didn't you know cover but if we don't have a policy and a new you know in the new policies that used to be a policy and it's not covered in the new policy why wouldn't the old policy still be like be just transferred over into the new book so it is covered why wouldn't we do that thank you that's an excellent question the only policies that would not have been covered or addressed are policies that a policy committee made a decision not to carry over that could generally was on the recommendation of administration so for example like the 1910 policy there's not a new policy but based on the recommendation of administration i carried that forward and we've i've been doing
077that throughout this entire transition project so there are there are also policies in the new manual from the school board association that we initially that we did not um that didn't meet durham values or basically during processes so our manual is not going to be identical to what you see from ncsba but so to answer your question as we were transitioning what we want to say is that if for whatever people if you don't do this rescission i just want to make it clear to people that let's say that we do have a policy 4 900 that didn't make it into the new manual on the recommendation of administration or on the decision of the board that policy if i just want it clear that no one can come back and say well you never
078the board never really addressed it because it would have been addressed in those committee meetings and not in public so right now all of the policies that this board has elected to move forward through those policy committee meetings over the last year year and a half are addressed and included in the new manual um except and i think in the once we get done with this conversation the next slide there's a couple of those that i've uh mentioned that like the dress code and the field trip policy and i would um i know the board doesn't generally respond to public comment but just to clarify that field trip policy that you just adopted on consent is from 1999. that is simply a name change policy where dr hardy and i are going to be working
079with our principals um to give an updated field trip policy so that that isn't anything new that has um on that so those are those types of policies that um we did do some name changes on those that needed some additional work so by rescinding it you're going to make sure that no one can come back later and say well you this policy was never officially rescinded so right that's the short answer and that and um and just just for for clarity what we're saying is the ones that didn't make it over we chose to not move them over there for various reasons that they were no longer valid in what we believed in or you know it's just it didn't make sense to move it over to have a policy addressing that or it
080was kind of worked into a different policy those kind of things okay just wanted to clarify that i appreciate it yes thank you so get the next slide and then we can if there's no other questions so i do have one question um can we get this as a follow-up item maybe the list of of ones that we didn't move over for the board oh yeah from the old manual from the old manual yes and it also sounds like we will still be getting some updated policies as we're going through also we'll still be doing some update work yeah okay which makes sense right we want to have a collaborative process and make sure our staff and principals are able to be involved so i just wanted to make sure this does not mean it's
081over over it just means that we are sunsetting the old and continuing to work and refine our policies yeah and it will never be over i just what john it will that be um next slide please just to kind of summarize again we will continue to update and bring you new policies the legislature adopts new laws all the time the state board adopts new regulations and periodically we'll be doing establishing kind of a um a rhythm of going through all these policies for example um so that we don't end up in this situation what i would be doing is working with uh the other cabinet members and saying to perhaps like dr lisen like can you take a look at all of the seven thousand personnel policies and uh makes do you have any suggestions
082to bring to the board or any things that needs to happen with those policies so we will be doing that on at least an annual basis now it may be that she says you know in this year nope everything's great we're fine and then we will report that to the board as well also for giving the board the opportunity to say well wait a minute policy 7110 i've kind of gotten some emails and i just want administration to take a look at this so we'll definitely continue with that collaborative i mean it's the board's policy manual right so making sure that there's space for the board to kind of give us feedback and administration so that we always have a current and up-to-date uh policy manual because people do i mean people rely on it
083right um next for example and i think i mentioned this the dress code policy field trip inclement weather absences those are all policies and i know i think mississippi you were in that meeting on that policy committee with the weather absences those are things that we need to have conversations with our principals and our teachers to make sure that um we're understanding how they're experiencing that and that it is definitely a collaborative process and i left it off of this but i was talking with dr julie pack today as well there is a business advisory council standard policy that is included but that one for example is on the list as well to be addressed because we have a very robust um relationship right now that dr pack's uh department works with andrea austin uh
084leads that work with them and we have a lot of very active business community members and we want to make sure that again that this is a durham focused policy so didn't want to just adopt this kind of generic policy wanna because we're doing it right in durham with uh cte i mean our cte work is amazing um just shout out to dr peck and her team on that so those are the kind of things that will be ongoing but i definitely can kind of give you so let me just be a little bit clear there was not the older policy like when you're talking about like policies from 1999 some of those i may not have all of them right i may not have all of that information which is one of the reasons
085we're kind of transitioning to board docs so that we can have that stuff archived um i've gone down into on the first floor in that room but it's just some of that information is not all there but i will make uh my best effort to um provide the board with a list of all of those policies but which is another reason we need to make sure we resend them because not all of them are available necessarily there may be policies that were adopted that we were not aware of because they weren't online and it's you can't go through you know 30 years of minutes necessarily so but i will kind of give you the the quickest version of that absolutely um and i would share that with the board and as a last comment um
086if you recall as we've adopted a new manual there's several policies that indicate that dr mubanga is tasked with crafting regulations or the option to craft regulations so we're going to be working through all of those policies and making sure that there's regulations and procedures that are up to date and actually reflect how administration is uh operating in the schools thank you mr evan please don't go through 30 years worth of minutes but i'm thinking about some of the ones that are already kind of online and as we went through this process which ones we said no to um i'm sure there will be some riveting reading but please please do not do that uh miss valued ours thank you so much um really really uh appreciative miss giovanni of the time that you spend
087engaging with us and and listening to us about impact you know um the policies and also like the uh racial equity um lens you know how we are as a district working towards equity um i am really really grateful for the opportunity to sit you know to have set in and you know been with my colleagues board members to look over these policies one of the continuing uh on the slide where you when you talk about next steps um just as a suggestion we uh have started you know um to translate and to provide these policies uh and make them accessible to our our families we do have um a district that is very diverse and we do definitely have significant language needs and so i would just love to include you know for the
088next steps that there's always like you know just ways that we um strive to access you know um for many years that was a concern for many parents that board policies were not accessible and so and i really thank you for beginning that work i remember you know coming onto the board and you know that was like something we were i don't know one third of the way into that and with the new board policy manual um just really appreciative of those efforts to make them accessible thank you i just would um i believe in giving credit where credit is due and i just want to give credit to uh mr pablo freeman who uh kind of on his own reached out and located a translation company for a much lower rate for us um
089so he was able to work that so we will be able to translate even more policies within that budget range so um and he also worked with me and was really um integral in us kind of moving towards board docs because of that denver policy if you recall they wanted like almost five thousand dollars to translate um these policies and so with the new board docs that we're going to be doing we'll be able to have our policies equitably shared we'll have more policies translated and they'll be equitable on the english and spanish will be at the same level so i just want to um just thank uh mr friedman right now thank you so much so thank you all um and thank you miss giovanni for bringing these two complicated ones to us i
090think the group that worked on them we made some significant improvements with your help and dr spencer's help and i'm appreciative of that i i don't think they're perfect i think policy is living you know breathing documents and so if community members have ideas as we go forward i know we welcome suggestions it was great to hear from miss ingram i think the three of us learned a lot learned how cautious and careful our district is with student searches learned how oftentimes when students are searched it's actually for concerns of self-harm and concerns for the student themselves so i appreciate you you helping us through this complicated um work if um mr tab and others are interested on this school trips policy 3320 that we just quickly passed through and what what time frame is
091that group working on on that do you know and i i really appreciate him bringing those concerns and his expertise to that specific policy that hasn't been finalized yet i think dr hardy and i have a july 6 meeting scheduled right now to talk about the academic pieces but like the inclement weather would also involve dr lisane and some other um folks so we haven't finalized i think we're going to kind of have that conversation at our next cabinet meeting to figure out like when to set up that timeline of because there's other we also need to get started on kind of the spring uh legal update as well so there's a chunk of these policies and but there is urgency because as we get they come back we want to make sure our field
092trips you know i just took a note here you know regarding covet and vaccinations and field trips those are things that you know that's why it's important for the community to share that with us you know so that we can um acknowledge that as well so the short answer is uh at least on the academic policies dr hardy and i have that meeting scheduled after the fourth of july but we will be working together as a cabinet to all collaborate and make sure that we have a schedule that's going to address any data issues operational issues finance issues um i know that mr lassour and i freak you know talk frequently regarding you know what's coming out of the you know state board and the legislature to make sure we're up to date on that
093and if there's any policy implications so emails should go to you and dr hardy or to you as lead of this world yes i think yeah just to me and that they've been and i've been getting those i know that you've afforded several from teachers which were i mean very impactful and we were able to get some policy some good policy work done so my email is still on there um so that you can send it to me and i will kind of facilitate uh the work on all of the on the policy manual going thank you thank you so much madam chair i also want to just add that uh it's not just at a cabinet level that's uh that's policy is going to be look at uh we're getting input from principals as
094well as the other one that's really dealing with all those field trips so we heard here mr tab and we're getting those input from everybody in the school level as well any other discussion i'll just add um thank you all so much for this and one thing i was thinking about uh is how do we sometimes take our policies and create a lot of it is legal language and is there ways that we can create some really friendly language or one pager for some of the processes for parents and students um i know i read the policy maybe three or four times to make sure i like fully grasp what the procedure is right and so how do we make sure that we have it something that's really accessible um is something i'm just thinking
095about as maybe a next step for some of those policies that are really families are interacting with on a more regular basis is this for action it is i can move i move that we accept the second reading and adoption of policy 1910 and policy number 4342. and that we rescind the old policy manual in its entirety and approve the sun setting although policies in the old manual i second it's removed by ms lewis seconded by miss valliodaras any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously all right the next we uh mr giovanni you have the next item policy 1900 equity and educational equity yes thank you madam chair if you could pull up the equity policy slides please and dr pollock is going
096to present the edits that were made in response to to board feedback um at the last work session prior to that though um and i apologize this isn't on the slide this was suggested to us believe last night at approximately late last evening but it was and dr bullock and i met on that so next slide please so while we're um waiting so if you could it's in your manual and again as i said it wasn't um we didn't get this in time to add a slide to it but um it is the recommend on the suggestion of the board member and it is the recommendation of administration that the pillars be changed from disrupt from disrupting and dismantling to disrupt and dismantle so that there are statements so we will be removing all of
097it is our recommendation to remove all of the ings so um it would be build instead of building honor and strengthen instead of honoring and strengthening so and again as i said we don't have it on the slide but it is in your packet that language and that is our recommendation so while you want to take a look while you're considering that i will go ahead and introduce dr bullock as you all for the community members as well dr daniel kelvin bullock is the executive director for the office of equity affairs and he leads our equity work and has done a fantastic job leading the work on the racial and educational equity policy and that task force and with that dr bullock good evening board of education dr mubanga dps educators students and community i'm
098excited to stand before you this evening to share a second draft of our racial and educational equity policy and so i have a brief presentation for you this evening just wanted to speak to a few adjustments that we made in the in the racial and educational equity policy um the first thing i want to note is that some of the language was adjusted in the purpose section of the policy um we wanted to make sure that there was alignment between the pillars the language of the pillars in the purpose section with the language of the pillars in um section three section three of the policies so we had to adjust um the the language from or the order first of all of the pillars um i had noted in my previous presentation that um pillar
099e uh or pillar c was previously pillar e we moved up the social and emotional learning pillar so we had to make that adjustment in the order of the pillars in the purpose section and so if you have any questions about what i'm saying there we just had to make some adjustment in the order of the pillars and the title of the pillars in the purpose section additionally as ms giovanni has noted um we we do have a recommendation also to change the tape remove the ings from the from the pillars in for each of the pillars because we had a line language in each so we will be removing the ings from each um aside from that um we did have feedback from his buyer about adding a note in well not necessarily in
100the purpose section but that is where we chose to add the following provision and it is noted on the screen and it simply states additionally the durham public schools board of education will continue to advocate for resources at the federal state and local levels to support this vital work so simply a note to say that this is a lofty aspirational policy and for us to for us to meet these goals it we will have to continue to work and advocate for the support and resources we need to reach these goals so we added that note in the purpose section also based on on feedback from esparidades we uh opted to we actually eventually ended up deciding to remove the definition of restorative practices that we had in the policy and we decided that and we
101also consulted other departments spoke with personnel from student support services that it would be good for us to come together as a community to define restorative practices we as we've been moving forward with restorative practices in our district we have pulled on a number of different sources to structure our program here and we want to make sure we have a definition that truly reflects what we are implementing in durham public schools and that pays proper respect to indigenous communities from which restorative practice or restorative practices originated so that is a recommendation that we for now we remove our the current definition that was in the previous policy and we will work on developing that for the school system so that actually if we can go to the next slide that actually concludes um the adjustments
102that have been made to the policy and i will pause now for any ques any additional questions you all may have missed ours dr bullock the work that you are leading in durham public schools and not just in durham public schools because this work permeates in the community um your various roles um the ways you also reach out to community and all that this is a uh just work that i i can't thank you enough for um and one of the one most wonderful things is how this work impacts all departments and you know it's it's something that we keep in mind you know like um and that continues to guide to guide us towards like our policies uh the work that is happening at each school site um in terms of equity this this
103is this is definitely a department that um you know is is transforming this district is so transformative so i just wanted to thank you so much for all the ways that you know that that you are thorough and and you know you're also talking to community um you're talking to to admins and you're definitely guiding and leading us you know towards being in district that will really serve all our students i just want to thank you so much for all the work the hard work that you're doing um work that is not easy work that it takes all the courage um you know all the difficult conversations um and all the ways that uh that you are continuing to um uphold you know the values that we have and yeah thank you so so much
104for everything thank you it's a pleasure to serve i'm taking this silence also as excitement to uh to move the policy i didn't have a question but i did have a comment and i just wanted to say um job well done to dr bullard his department the administration and the board for seeing this policy through i remember when your department was created and you began this position and just to see what is led to i remember the meetings from the beginning and different stakeholders coming together so you've again kept this path and leading us to hear so i'm really just happy and say job well done there's a lot of work to get here and it reads very well and i um hope that we'll continue to aspire to this policy and we'll continue to
105implement it in everything that we do thank you thank you madam chair may i move adoption of policy 1900 absolutely second it's been moved by mr seer seconded by ms lewis that we adopt durham public schools racial and educational equity policy any other uh discussion misfire so i so appreciate these improvements including the board member english major somewhere who caught the ing you know and how much stronger it makes it um i would consider asking my colleagues whether it's one thing for this board to advocate it doesn't always work so i'm hoping that we might consider adding advocate this we would advocate with the durham community or with you know with with our community something like that in that language so that it is more than just the seven of us but it is broader
106than that in that language if that is amenable to you all we do have a motion on the table we would need to i think it's just a friendly little amendment quoting ken sue there are no friends uh i i would accept the amendment but i think we have to vote to accept the amendment technically mr attorney miss buyer do you want to make a motion to amend move that we amend the motion is that what i'm moving that's correct to include the wording continue to advocate with the durham community does that do it yes second so it's been moved by misfire seconded by mr spears all in favor say aye any opposed please use the same sign so the motion to amend passes unanimously so we go back to our original motion of um
107or amended motion now of passing this policy any other discussion all right all those in favor um say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously congratulations thank you [Applause] this is one comment um thank you for the beautiful equity shirts that we got um with with definitions that is definitely a very unique unique thing and really appreciate that good thank you thank you all for this work i feel like durham we have been talking about and doing equity work for a long time this really puts it in our policies and allows us to have a kind of backbone to the work that we're doing i'm excited to see where this goes as we roll out um what the procedures and the policies look like as we implement this right the
108next item on our agenda is operation services dr bump or sorry is this uh doctor was saying i apologize that's okay good evening everyone and to chair umstead um dr mubinga members of the board we are excited to bring forth today a proposal in response to the concerns that have been shared with us by our substitute teachers we first want to take time to extend thanks to our substitute teachers for their services especially during covid and to say to each of them that we hear you our substitute teacher shared in a town hall with dr muvinga in human resources on march the 10th 2021 concerns about their pay substitute teachers are paid on a monthly basis and initially when they come on board in some cases it may take up to six weeks for them
109to receive their initial paycheck we heard you substitute teachers inquired about benefits that they would like to receive but they're not able to access because they are not full-time permanent employees of durham public schools we heard you many indicated a desire to grow professionally and wanted more professional learning opportunities some just simply wanted to be recognized for what they do we heard you additionally we heard from our principals and teachers about their justified substitute teacher concerns in 2016-17 approximately 79 percent of our calls for substitute teachers were filled the rate increased to 83 in 2017-18 however in 2018-19 the field rate dropped to 75 and it has dropped to 68 for both the 2019 um 2020 and the 2020 2021 school years this yields an average substitute fill rate of 75 for the past five
110years while this percentage is telling it does not reveal the full story of lost instruction during the 25 of the time calls are not filled it does not tell the story of how we know our classrooms and other functions in the building are disrupted unexpectedly therefore we bring before you today a proposal to address many of the concerns expressed by our substitute teachers as well as our school buildings this plan applies to substitute teachers only due to their unique employment structure and their inability to be full-time permanent employees we want to partner with kelly education services for management of our substitute teachers and as part of this proposal in addition to access to a larger pool of candidates our existing substitute teachers would have the opportunity to become employees of kelly education services what are
111the benefits so for our substitute teachers they would receive ongoing recruitment and training opportunities there's a higher level of services that can be provided to them to help them grow professionally probably number one is they would receive weekly paychecks i don't think any of us can imagine going six weeks or even you know a whole month with un predictable employment and not being able to project a budget for that dr hussein do you want us to hold questions to the end um yes i'm almost there yeah i'm not actually here i'm just a voice oh okay you um our substitute teachers would receive full current compensation we direct durham public schools directs the compensation of at least 15 dollars per hour um and the potential for incentives um we would also it would also provide
112substitute teachers access to benefits and an ability to work five days a week we have some provisions in hr that limits the time that individuals can work or they would have to be offered benefits so this allows a fuller continuum of work available to substitute teachers for our rehired retirees that would like to serve it helps avoid some of the um employment barriers when you're returning as a rehired retiree as well as individuals having potential access to unemployment in the case of job loss our substitute teachers currently sign an agreement denoting that they are not eligible for um unemployment because of their employment status for gps it would increase fuel rates we have a goal to increase those fuel rates from our current um trend of 75 percent to 95 within three years it gives
113us the opportunity to partner with an organization to recruit and train our subs to defray costs such as workers compensation unemployment and different things like that it would also offset our substitute management system costs what we currently pla pay for that system would be taken on by kelly education services and hot off the press today kelly education services will be providing two employees to serve dps so when folks are calling in the morning and they need a sub the that's the work of those individuals that are employees of kelly education services this is um an evergreen contract um that we only have to provide a 30-day notice so we do think that that's important so if ever there is a time no offense but um we would not be satisfied with the services we this
114is not a multi-year um agreement and we have projected cost savings of eighty to a thousand of to one hundred thousand dollars contingent upon how the fill rates fall so i extend thanks to ms kimlery hager who provides oversight for our substitute teachers our collaboration with finance with mr lazur and we have reviewed adjusted and are now recommending that we enter into this partnership and we have here today with us in addition to our team mr ben davis as well as mr bobby shore and um we're glad to entertain questions as well as if mr davis has anything that he would like to add yeah absolutely good evening chair umstead vice chair lee board members and super superintendent mobinga i appreciate your time and everything you've done throughout the course of this i'm president of
115the year uh first and foremost i wanted to mention the word partnership you heard it over and over from dr lissane and that's truly what this is we cannot do this without the leadership of your hr department we're going to work hand in hand with them and we're required contractually by all board policies and state policies and federal policies so we have to adhere to all of your guidelines we're going to work in lockstep with your human resources department i also wanted to mention about the five days a week that the substitute teachers are able to work the reason for that is because the affordable care act limits substitute teachers in the state of north carolina to 29.5 hours per per week because we offer them the option to buy into benefits health dental vision
116they don't have to adhere to that anymore and they can work five days a week they don't have to but they can i also wanted to mention that we offer bonuses and incentives one of our favorites is substitute teacher of the year at your district we'll come to any board meeting and we'll celebrate that substitute teacher the other thing i wanted to mention this evening is that we have entered into partnerships with multiple districts across the state including rohan salisbury school system alamance burlington school system and nash county public schools all that use your same um legal firm so we've been vetted the contract's been vetted and you know we're really excited to start this partnership i believe we started looking into this about three years ago so it's exciting to be here and so
117with that we're glad to entertain any questions uh mr sears you dr saint for that presentation it is weird looking at a pillar i know instead of you sorry it's a night of pillars um so i really appreciate the the the detail around the the rehiring of retirees um i have a couple questions so you know i i believe it's within our own employee base employees can work what 19 and a half hours before you have to provide benefits is that right doctor the saying or no 29 and a half 29 and a half is it just substitutes or that's all part-time employees that's all employees okay and if we were to offer the opportunity to purchase benefits much like the contractor um is that an option for us obviously that will require additional administration
118but are we prohibited from doing such things on our own substitutes are not permanent full-time employees right and so not being full-time permanent employees we would not offer um benefits because that's not the status of that's not the type of employment that is they don't have predictable consistent permanent work okay i'm gonna comment on that a little bit as well it's actually kind of a complicated issue under the affordable care act um if an employee um averages 30 hours a week for more or more than the employer is required to offer them coverage the state of north carolina however and this is what dr hulsane is referring to doesn't the state health plan doesn't consider substitute teachers to be permanent full-time employees and so the normal state health plan options are not available for those
119employees we can however in those circumstances where you if you were to have a substitute teacher or other non-permanent employee working over 30 hours per week but they're not permanent they would be offered what's called the high deductible health plan or the bronze plan that meets the bare minimum requirements of the aca for purchase the employee could purchase it or the employer could purchase it for justice i know that's the right word the the premium employee has would have to pay premiums i don't know off-hand what those are the premiums i don't know the amount off-hand but it's way more expensive when you consider the amount that they would be making and the deductible's very high sure sure okay i think that answers that question for me um i do want to make sure i
120i fully understand the benefit of rehiring the retirees so when we have retirees that want to come back right they are our limited per their retirement agreement i'm not sure i'm using the right language but usually they can't work is it again the 29.5 hours or is it half time you want to go yeah i'll answer just so you don't just shouldn't have to respond behind the filler to you but um yes so retirees are there's a cap on the amount that they can earn um without being forced to uh come out of retirement the amount they can earn it's but it's not only the amount it's also a six months there's a six-month clause that is associated with rehired retirees we can't hire them consistently for more um than six months so that's another
121consideration on top of um the the if they work beyond a certain number of hours not there's the money cap but then there's also the hours cap for them that it could jeopardize their retirement insurance their retirement health insurance so you have to watch that also okay there is an hours time cap also yes so it's not just i believe there was there's a six month waiting period right they can't re-enter public service but also then they're time-bound they can't work for more than six months straight if they're if they're full-time if they're full-time would we consider a substitute is full time based on hours or status 30 hours or more 30 hours or more okay so if a retiree is less than 30 hours then they can work more than six months okay all
122right i'm not trying to beat this to death but a benefit then would be that retirees hired under a contractor can work whatever they want to work and not violate their right they can work over the 30 hours but they cannot work more than the six months okay we still have to watch the six months piece so in that case we may be getting an extra day per week from retirees wanting to come back and work full-time at substitute pay they could work five days a week okay how do you have a rough percentage of how many of our substitutes are retirees right now i would have to pull that information i don't i don't have that off the top of my head that i can definitely pull that information good if an educated guess
123would help is it it's less than 50 right i would say it's less than 50 percent based on other reports that i have reviewed it's less than 50 but i would say that it's the significant percentage of our pool okay all right and then how big is our pool by the way roughly our pool of current substitute teachers i'm a defer to miss hager thousand okay this hager said a thousand okay and then finally um i know nobody likes the word guarantee but look into the the the crystal ball are are we gonna get 95 percent um you know my experience is if there's any sort of choice involved folks go to a school have a bad experience say not never heading back to that school and that's what keeps rates lower than not having
124enough bodies so talk to me about you know any guarantees or something that we're going to have improve fill rates so i will turn it over to mr davis but i want to say that one of the things that we did in our bedding is we wanted to learn from the examples of where they have already been so i would like for mr davis to speak to those experiences as well as the efforts for recruitment absolutely so i will say that everybody loves a guarantee right but we are dealing with human beings right and for me to tell you that at six a.m this morning a teacher calls in and they're sick and can't come to school and then i want a substitute teacher to come and fill that classroom and then something happens along
125the way that's human nature it just happens i would love to guarantee you a 95 fill rate because we're incentivized to fill your absences and we do not build the district until we actually fill that absence so we have to actually fill absences at your district in order to send you an invoice we don't build anything up front so we're incentivized to get to that 95 right um but i would say it's not a light switch it's not something where we're going to come in tomorrow and boom you're going to have a 95 fill rate with rowan salisbury for example we came on board with them in may of the pandemic so 2020 we were up and running within 51 days we went from a 75 fill rate to an 83 fill rate within the
126first few months and they were one of the few school districts in north carolina to remain open under plan b throughout the entire school year so that's a that's a good example that's how i would answer that do you have data for alamance or nash say that again do you have data for burlington alan mance or nash so alamance burlington just came on board we're going through implementation right now and nash county just signed their contract last month and are going through implementation right now as well okay i think my final questions for administration um i know the the weekly paycheck has been something we wanted to do for a long time but and i just want to be clear because this this item kind of surprised me um [Music] the the contract presented offers
127that we don't offer it because it's just too hard is what i've heard over the years can you validate that for me or we could do it but it would take two more positions in finance five more positions in finance what is that what's the comparison look like i'm not going to say it's going to take five positions it would take at least one more position no doubt uh we'd also have to have system work done by cyrenic uh to get that in place and we would not be able to do it on a weekly basis the best we would be able to do is get closer to every two weeks that would be but if we give you five positions could you do it every week 10 positions it's about it's about the get
128gathering the appropriate data okay and can i add one piece to that i think also in consideration is it's not just the additional personnel in payroll it would also be what it would take for that would be additional work for those school treasurers in order to process that on a weekly basis okay so in in general board i mean thanks for tolerating my questions um [Music] a concern i have is that we we just went through a really hard process of bringing our custodial staff back in-house um i'm very confident even though i wasn't at the table that there were a lot of bonuses to doing that back when that decision was made and so we have the lived experience of that that 10 years so i'm a little skeptical i to you know to
129the contractors thank you for bringing this this i can definitely see some of the benefit here um but i i hope we have a robust conversation tonight having dealt with um outsourcing other services that is not even a recommendation i want to make clear from hr at this time we're not looking at any other categories of employment the reason we think this works in this moment is because of the unique employment situation for substitute teachers which is very different than when you're talking about school nutrition or or even bus drivers or custodians or any of those types of employment this is we feel that this is a unique benefit because of the ineligibility of many of the benefits that our substitute teachers would like to have access to that they're unable to access misspeller i
130want to thank all the staff that worked on this i can hear how complex it is and hear that from our attorney as well i want to thank the folks from kelly that are here i have significant unreadiness about moving this tonight um this there is no contract here um this came at the very last minute and i want to make sure that whatever we do on this complex issue we hear from our teachers i know you said you heard from our substitutes i want to hear from our teachers about um their thoughts on on this this proposal um and on the in this transition and i want to understand and since the kelly folks are here y'all can tell me frankly how do you all make money because we're essentially subcontracting a service out
131to you so what is your cut and how do you make money on this or dr lisa and whoever has that answer that's clearly not understanding so what you have before you is not actually the contract it shows that details so if you look on the right hand side of your document you will see where it says ke pricing and that pricing has the formula and that that explains how um kelly makes their money and i'll let you add sure got it all right so basically and and for lack of a better term we we put a mark up on top of the pay rate and what the document you have in front of you shows you that in in most cases you guys are already paying that there's more than the substitute teacher pay
132rate that it costs to employ a sub in your district so that 15 an hour or whatever it may be that's set by the board and then there's cost on top of that what we do is by doing this in volume and many other places and and basically the work that we do is all with substitute and guest educators across the united states we can bring those costs down on our end and that's how we can make a little bit of money on top of it so i see a 1.3 as a markup what i mean yep so yeah what does that mean so yeah understood if you're paying it's just on that's that's a markup a percentage added on top of the pay rate and then that's what we build the district but like
133ben said earlier that there's no bill if we don't fill a classroom so 1.3 like the day rate's 115 you're going to make a buck and a half every time you fill a seat yep well no not make i would say that's what we charge and then we have cost associated with it as well so i should say it's less than that for sure very fair thank you and then one significant issue we had with our custodians and the reason we brought them back in-house is that state benefits are better than what some private entities offer so if you're offering health insurance what is the quality of of a health insurance product that you all are offering sure so it's never going to match what the district would offer it was also the cost is
134different and but there's multiple options based on the employees needs and and what they want or need so there's four tiers of plans there's different you know tiers depending on if they're a single or they have you know a spouse or an entire family just like much of us have in our plans as well so i we have that information and i can get it to you after this meeting so you can see a breakdown of what it is um it is an optional plan it's act it's for them to they choose and how they want to do it even after employment if they choose not to be a substitute anymore they can carry that with them um as well if they choose to buy into that point at a cobra rate i'm sorry at
135a cobra rate at a i honestly i don't know all the rates on top of my head i wish i did i'm sorry i um i don't even i don't want to say because i can't i can't recall and then who's onboarding and training our substitutes in this scenario we are and that's based on guidelines of of the district we so there's a like ben mentioned earlier kind of indirectly there's a long implementation process where we learn everything the district wants us to do and we put that into our training and we bring them on board it can there can be as much or as little oversight from the district as wanted i think it's also important to note that you the board your principals whoever they all have they their final say of who's
136working in their buildings and who's hired by the district go ahead [Music] and even in our review up front of course they would have to meet all um dps training requirements as well as we've talked about providing additional things many of our substitute teachers want to become teachers so we see this as all as an opportunity to partner and offer additional things to assist them in that journey so what would prevent us from hiring a substitute pool of our own and putting them at full-time rates knowing that we have you know calculating our own needs having our own internal substitute pool of amazing dps people i'm sorry ask the question again i want to make sure i understand exactly when you all were evaluating did you consider creating an internal substitute pool that we would
137we would hire we would guarantee full-time or part-time rates and benefits whatever worked for those individuals that we could assign and and send around as needed across the district at least for part of this substitute need so i would say that as part of the consideration of that ms hager just shared we have a thousand on average a thousand members of our pool and we have a feel rate right now of 68 if i take that thousand and i look at offering benefits um mr lashor can tell you that that would break our bank alone and we would still probably largely have the same situation of a 68 maybe max based on a five-year history 75 fill rate the other thing that i would say there is based on the current personnel that you have
138in both hr as well as in payroll what it would take in additional workforce would be costs that would come on top on top of that now if that is the desire then we're glad um to look at that and we would you know but i think that the costs are so much higher than what you're looking at if you're looking at a proposal like this i'm not sure that that would be the most efficient means and that we would even be able to get um better services as a result of it i don't think we we have even an indication of evidence that would tell us that we don't know i appreciate it when i see a third party that's able to make a profit on something then i think there is a way
139to do it if we figure it out but um i understand state benefits are really expensive and that's probably a big part of that um mr lesor i hear i see you have an answer uh bringing um additional a thousand let's say it was 500 even would significantly significantly increase our cost not only um it's really about the benefits okay um i mean we're looking to be in 22 percent for retirement over 22 percent 22.7 is what the senate's put in their budget for the upcoming year for retirement and now they've gone over seven thousand dollars with retirement i mean with hospital insurance uh these costs are significant they're going to continue to increase um over the next seven to ten years uh we're supposed to be at close to 30 percent for retirement rate
140at that point in time which is a huge cost to the district i would add one other piece that i forgot to mention um too mr lesor and that's related to workers comp we add those additional people on with benefits who would be transient across we're building in that transiency across our organization there would be a number of other potential liabilities in the insurance realm and different things like that that we would really have to look into that i think would also add significant costs so please be clear i know we can't bring on a thousand subs as full time but i'm wondering if there's a number 50 75 something like that that that we could and would have you know continuity of people within our schools at least for the majority of our substitute
141needs that's that's the equation i was hoping that we could look into so um we actually talked about that miss fire and i have the experience of having hired full-time subs before and trying to keep them within the district and sending them wherever you need it that day and some of the unintended consequences of that were then what do you do when the substitutes the full-time substitutes that you're paying benefits for then absent um and so that was not i use that that one piece is just an example to say that you you you actually end up dealing with a lot of other things when you you take that model on board you actually sometimes have people that on the days that they know they're going to a site that they like i come to
142work the days that i'm going to maybe that site that i don't want to go to i don't come to work um and so there are other other considerations that we actually discussed in reviewing this um proposal to say how can we even maybe make a step towards doing it ourselves we're glad to reconsider that but those are just some of the things that you have to think of when you're doing that in the realm of substitute teacher employment i'm gonna go mr validares and then mr raven thank you so much dr hussein um you know i i hear the complexity of this and how um you know when it comes to benefits or even liability or it comes to capacity um you know this just seemed like you know the the the way to
143go i think um the community folks who have um you know heard about this i just my thing is just a clarification about more of the um setting precedence and more of the overall um idea i mean some of the concerns uh and i'm just gonna tell you this is something that somebody sent um about privatizing um bps substitute teachers um you know kind of setting a precedent or something about like privatizing or or using third parties um and public money so this is also something like in terms of like are in-house employees versus setting almost like um this example of privatizing what else are we gonna also privatize right in terms of education our educators um in-house is quite a thing it's uh it's investment they're accountable to us um they're a part of
144the dps community and you know with with all the implications of that you know of course like you know we definitely want to foster uh the kind of upward mobility where a substitute teacher can become a teacher but it's more about the community and more about being a part of dps um and the accountability that comes with being a part of dps versus uh working for a third party and you know we don't know if that third party and this is not just i'm not gonna direct this at kelly um this is just in general like say for example their practices of how much they pay like our rate is 15. you know companies will sometimes vary that based on you know their bottom line and so they may not pay the same level that
145we would pay you know um so there's things about practices employee practices and all that so it's more about like i understand the need for it now um but i guess like this is an opportunity also and you know for the community to kind of hear this is not like something that we're wanting to do that we're moving towards privatizing outsourcing and that there's no other avenue um i wonder if there's a way that even if you know using um you know using kelly services that we are not just making that the only way that substitute teachers can serve dps you know that we are definitely making sure that teachers can access you know opportunities job opportunities as substitute teachers without having to go through a third party so i want to speak to one
146thing first whether it is whether we go with another company or not our substitute teachers are our substitute teachers so they're you know i i don't our substitute we have many substitute teachers who have worked for us for years their dps family okay and so the same you know things that are part of being that dps family would still apply i would also say that to the to the notions of privatization there are many different models there's not one model and so some of the things that that um i know are probably playing in folks minds aren't do not necessarily fall across all models of outsourcing that you can consider i still want to go back to the basis the only you know nobody was sitting around saying let's outsource substitute teachers this came in
147response to the very things that they were saying they needed and that's this is just a way that we can provide that and not only the substitute teachers but i don't think a week goes by that i don't hear from a school about feeling positions for substitutes or that we don't hear from teachers when they are asked to cover someone's else's class because a substitute could not be found for a classroom and so we're just trying to not only address the time and yes this is this is a tight timeline but with all of the other things we're trying to get the go-ahead to move forward if this is something that we're interested in trying to have in place as early as possible for next school year so that we don't have another year of
148um 68 fill rate but and and i think that kelly services would tell you also from the beginning the very focus of our conversation is what does it look like for our current substitutes on your end we have to have an understanding of that so first allow me to start off by saying i appreciate everything that you all presented i think that you all are faced with uh impossible situation and you did your due diligence and showed us the most optimized solution um that you all could think of because my my first inclination was as as we've already said is this the attempt in sorts to uh privatize things so because that was my my first inclination i wanted to kind of sit back and try to listen so some of the questions that i
149have already been asked maybe maybe this is just asking it in in a different way or maybe i'm just making a statement on some of them but i just want to make sure that i'm right on on on some of these accounts because sometimes i feel like we make decisions based upon what our current processes may be and it's it's difficult to um make a decision when everything else is static and you're trying to kind of figure out all the other moving variables so first of all the idea of being able to have like a small pool of uh maybe temporarily contracted staff that would essentially be flexible employees based upon the spreadsheet that i saw it show like on average 20 absences a day so even though we have a pool of a thousand
150and hopefully i'm reading that right but when it's under the talent management section it had 20 absences covered daily so i'm guessing that would have had to have been like a basis of staff that we would at least have to account for out of that thousand person pool i'm just making sure that my logic and how i'm reading this is making sense see yeah so there's two different ones it's the average subs requests requested per day and i don't know if those requests are unique i don't know if that's um maybe you could have five requests for one open vacant position for that day and maybe you have to sometimes call around more so i don't know if that is equivalent to 187 substitute roles being filled in that day so you're looking under talent
151management in the spreadsheet yes so so under talent management and at the very top left hand corner under the durham public schools cost analysis it seems to be a statement of the average daily bill versus the average subs requested per day i can't differentiate between those two okay i can clarify so in the top left corner of this spreadsheet the average sub filled per day is the fill rate of 75 so that says that 139 subs have been filling absences on average on a daily basis and 187 absences occur on a daily basis at durham public schools now going down to the bottom under talent management we zeroed that out for pay for principals and teachers covering classes this was a line item that was brought to me by a cfo of a school district
152in north carolina she looked at me and she said i agree with all of the cost savings here i agree with the fact that you all will be taking all of this on i think you need to add this in what is the cost of a principal covering an absence when a substitute teacher cannot or does not make it to the building what is the cost when a school district has to use a teacher to split a class rather than having a substitute fill that absence our goal is to again get to that 95 fill rate right so this has been zeroed out because it's a little bit of a gray area but it's an idea that was brought to me by an administrative person in north carolina thank you um so that that kind
153of answered some of the questions that have been asked another question and i know we mentioned the the payroll piece uh being able to do it weekly i understand that that would definitely be a cumbersome task at best it would it would it be feasible and i'm not suggesting this for for dps quote unquote classified dps staff or licensed dps staff but for substitute educators that are in the classroom is that something where it would be feasible to be able to contract that out to a payroll service um solely for for those substitute staff to be paid for at least on a bi-weekly basis where we can literally pay this payroll here's a check for two weeks worth of work here's the breakdown of the people can you send out those checks is that something
154that could be feasible that was something we would have to look at if that could be a feasible type of situation um again we'd have to have the system designed to re reconfigured to be able to do the payroll twice every two weeks for that type of personnel okay and and keep in mind you still have a funnel that's going to go back to that school site so anytime you're looking at paying individuals more um frequently you're going to have to go back and consider the labor that that's going to be on that school treasurer and how that that fits in with the rest of their functions so that's just something yes we you could look at the payroll you know outsourcing that but you still have to be able to provide the data from
155the school site thank you uh another question and and i definitely understood that you all were under a time constraint in order to put this together i think another thing that can add to your to your case is it would be encouraged at least from my perspective to be able to see some type of uh time cost analysis because from what i hear we're talking about two different areas we're talking about the substitutes we're talking about how we can actually make sure we staff them and get them paid but on the back end we're not able to fully conceptualize what's the total cost that it's costing the support staff in a central office to be able to facilitate that like we have we have what they anticipated savings is share dollars but if we actually
156accounted for the hours and the labor that you all are putting into it and looking at that pay i'm wondering how much would we be able to recapture because i kind of want to look at this in its totality i would have to say that would be a a large portion because 187 people having to be called to the school and then tracking that as well you have not only just the treasurer but you have the secretary if they're responsible for making the calls to people to get them in uh there's just a lot of time and effort that goes into tracking all that and then the reconciliation of that as well is a huge uh part of trying to get the all the payroll done in a month but every two weeks it makes
157it even that much more time sensitive so so all of that leads me to believe that it's definitely this is reasonable that that's that's my position on it um i i still i definitely still have on readiness but i definitely understand exactly where you all are coming from i just wish that we can show the full scope of of what the cost is or what the savings is to understand that true benefit because and the reason i save this for last is because this question is only focused on the money but from what i'm hearing the work the effort that goes into this is a completely different category and i don't want to discount that so when i'm looking at i'm looking at the fill rates and i'm looking at the perspective of being able
158to go from 75 to 95 right and so we're literally going to increase the amount of staff a substitute staff that we have by 25 yet we're able to decrease costs by a hundred thousand i'm trying to make sure i understand how we can actually end up not paying them less hiring more but still having a cost savings to me so this fantastic question i'm sorry go ahead i think we have a lot of really good questions and i think this might take a little more time doctor was saying to like kind of work through and i know that you want to think about getting this ready for the upcoming school year but it feels like the board has a significant kind of more questions that we want to think through i'm wondering if we
159also can hear from substitutes i know i think it was a couple years ago that we had heard substitutes wanting to talk about being paid more um frequently and i know we had discussed that but i wonder if we could just hear again kind of here are two options substitutes um what would they prefer and to see that we can hear from the folks that will be directly impacted by this um so may i offer a suggestion and so i wanted to honor the question first but what i would like to do is to take it back and i'm i hear miss byers point and i think it's fine for us to convene um small groups and include teachers and principals because i think in those in those groups we can they will understand this
160if we're able to to talk to them and share what all of the background discussions have been we were trying to be timely with this but it will delay our ability to be able to do this but if that is the desire of the board then that would be my um suggestion to let us move forward and bring that stakeholder feedback um after being able to convene with them in some sessions and it may be another period of time before we can move forward looking board members that sound good all right thank you um thank you all for coming to join our meeting we we have lots of questions we want to make sure we're thoroughly vetting everything that we're working with within our district and making sure that it's going to be in the
161best interest of our staff right and the folks that are working with us so thank you i think we'll draw saying we can do talk about what follow-up might look like to make sure we can get those questions answered all right move to the next item dr hardy academic services social and emotional mental health improvement plan good evening chair umstead board members and dr ravinga if you could pull up our presentation please while they're pulling that up we do have some team members that are going to be joining us today and i wanted to actually begin our board made a commitment to our strategic plan and our core beliefs and one of those is a child-centered approach dps it states that durham public schools will address the social emotional and academic needs of each student
162we've had a commitment in durham public schools to the needs of our students and staff long before our state board education and legislation provided the opportunity for us to create a plan as heard today from some of our public commenters dps has been pioneers in making sure that they're taking care of the wellness of both our students and our staff tonight our student support services team is going to share with us our social emotional and mental health improvement plan for your awareness and for your discussion this evening this is an opportunity for us to refine the plan components based on the feedback that we will receive but it also gives us an opportunity to share our plan with the broad broader school community as well as our community stakeholders as mentioned this plan encompasses years
163of hard work and a commitment from our board and our community at this time it is my pleasure to recognize some of the staff some who are present with us this evening some joining us by zoom and some watching on youtube dr laverne maddox perry senior executive director of student support services mr james futrell director of engagement and access dr christopher soto social emotional learning and mental health coordinator a trislaney mental health specialist and co-located mental health partnership liaison next slide please from our previous presentation from chief of staff giovanni both of us probably were thinking the same thing when we were talking about when are we having more policies it's an ongoing project given the work of our legislators and keeping up with any revisions and so this plan is actually a direct response
164to north carolina state board of education policy shlt003 which is part of the school health leadership section and it requires every school district to develop a plan for promoting student mental health well-being and for improvements in developing the support structures for the mental and social and emotional health of our students and staff that requirement is by july 1st of 2021 so dpi has set forth that we would submit a plan for their review as our board of education your responsibility is to formally approve this plan and you must do that by 2025. they're asking school districts because many are not in the place that durham public schools is to start to develop and work on that plan get feedback dpi would provide feedback and then boards of education would would approve those plans by 2025.
165as you have heard from our strategic plan updates and the work that has been happening within our schools and community we have been designing a comprehensive approach to addressing social and emotional learning and mental health for students as a result of the direction from our superintendent you all our board members as well as specific and explicit guidance in our strategic plan our team initiated the plan and our plan does include all of the required components as a result of the investments that have been made over the past four years on this slide you will also see some of the required plan components assessment of strengths and needs an emphasis on early intervention professional learning and training memorandum of understanding with our local organizations and a process for re-entry we would also like to acknowledge and
166thank our community partners that have supported our programs with our co-located mental health and supporting our students and staff at this time it is my pleasure to bring forward dr laverne maddox perry senior executive director for student support services we will go through this presentation and take questions and then we will also make sure that we come back to trauma informed leadership to provide an update regarding that and ask answer any questions from board member raven dr maddox perry thank you dr hardy it's a pleasure to be here board members chair unstead vice chair lee dr mabinga superintendent and all board members it is my pleasure to share our implementation status as well as our plans for future integration of our social emotional learning mental health plan you have seen the format that we've used
167next slide please in the past when we've done board updates for priority two or other work that we've engaged in we've chosen to use that same organization for this discussion as well we'll talk about what is already in place what is in progress and of course our next steps as we implement this plan i'd like to invite mr james futrell director for engagement and access to join me in this presentation and he will do some elaboration on the steps that we've taken thus far as well as future plans because his team works very closely uh together to implement and design most of our social emotional learning and mental health components mr futrell thank you dr max perry so in place we currently have our comprehensive approach to social and emotional learning and mental health has
168auditioned well positioned in terms of beginning steps for implementation uh there's a broad plan to expand social emotional learning and mental health awareness uh via social media professional learning uh and social emotional learning hub embrace.com at present we are excited that all of our elementary schools are implementing a self-selected social and emotional learning curriculum we are also expanding our interdepartmental partnerships to ensure utilization of tools to monitor or report bullying or other safety concerns in an anonymous way we have been able to maintain our co-located mental health partnerships during the pandemic through innovative means such as teletherapy each year we partner with our departmental we partner with our departmental colleagues in the exceptional children's program to conduct a shape needs assessment around our social emotional learning and mental health supports and also noteworthy is the
169growth in the number of schools with solid mtss teams that are analyzing data and planning interventions for behavioral or mental health needs in progress we have a strong professional learning program for school-based instructional staff members we have already started our work with the mental health with i'm sorry with the middle school high school seo curriculum selection project team we are working with school leaders and our partners in curriculum and instruction to increase the availability for social and emotional learning interventions and secondary school schedules we are also increasing the number of schools to include some middle schools who are participating in our tilt or trauma informed leadership team training by our partners at the duke center for child and family health a quick thanks to the board for your continued support and previous support for financial
170investments in this effort as we look at next steps as a team we are considering how we have allocated our funding to match our priorities to assess if we need to reallocate and we are also finalizing the social and emotional learning mental health professional learning series for staff who have direct contact with students as required by the new state board of education policy and though it is always embedded in every implementation plan around this topic we are looking to increase our level of stakeholder engagement around this improvement plan we will use this public board of education discussion as a launch pad for highlighting our initiatives and next steps for our community in developing this plan we have we also have to make sure we are sorry next slide please in developing this plan we also
171have to make sure we align existing infrastructure or establish new structures to support social and emotional learning and mental health through our existing mtss framework we can take a tiered approach to support social and emotional learning and mental health wellness we know we will need to follow the design qualities for adult learning to develop our staff training plan in order to meet the professional learning requirements we have infrastructure in place through our partners in the office of professional learning to develop training that is informative engaging and that includes a mechanism for review revision and revisiting key concepts an absolute necessity will be the continual monitoring and support of our dps social and emotional learning and mental health improvement plan by the dps mental health planning team i'll now turn it back over to dr max
172perry thank you mr free trial next slide please every good plan especially a plan with large fiscal implications requires multiple data sources for evaluating the effectiveness and fiscal integrity of that plan here are a few of the data sources the dps mental health planning team will use to determine future strengths and needs of our social emotional learning and mental health improvement plan these sources are already existing in our data-driven decision making across the district and measures excuse me and reassures us that our current infrastructure will support successful implementation of a transformative social emotional learning mental health improvement plan next slide please as i mentioned earlier this plan does have implications for our entire district some considerations for all of our stakeholders include how can we seamlessly integrate social emotional learning mental health training to more
173than our staff members who seem to be a natural fit for this learning we will now work with everyone who has direct contact with students to make sure they are informed and knowledgeable about social emotional learning mental health and that is all in order to respond appropriately when they encounter a student need another consideration what are our priorities and how do we make sure we are fiscally responsible in our allocations to support the social and emotional learning as well as mental health initiatives we deem vital for holistic wellness for both our students and staff and lastly are we monitoring and documenting outcomes that we can proudly share with our board of education and our community that encourages more investment and deeper engagement in social emotional learning and mental health initiatives that is certainly our goal
174at this time dr hardy i will turn to you [Music] before we um go into questions and discussion dr maddox perry or mr futrell if one of you would like to talk about our trauma-informed leadership teams the work that we've done from the support of our board with training our elementary staff and the expansion for our middle and high school sure is is there any uh particular uh would you just like background or any particular question can you talk us to address just just to highlight so it was all it was on a consent agenda item and i think that it's a valuable to the community to just know a little bit more about it and who we're partnering with absolutely okay so i'll be getting now so um we have partnership with our um
175partners at the duke center for child and family health and what is provided is the um the pre the experts there work with our school to build a team of trauma and for leadership who helps the entire faculty have a response when students manifest either behaviors or express needs that can go back to recognize symptoms of trauma so what it helps us to do is to be able to provide supports and we actually talked with stakeholders our principals our team members we talked about with the experts about where we should begin that effort and early intervention was one of our our um main drivers and so we did begin with our elementary schools and at this point we have our elementary schools in um two since we've started in 2021 i think we are up
176to about 22 26. yes so we have now added one middle school to the training and that will continue to offer that each year um and increasing not only the initial training but also layered stages it is a staged uh training there are three stages to it and right now we have schools going through the first and by next year some elevating to the second stage as well in the presentation the there's a page that says 70 staff members from 10 schools and then it lists 10 schools are those new schools or is that saying that in that year that'll be all the schools that have had the training to date yeah so as you um reference heard dr max reference the stages that schools go through so those schools are in the consultation phase
177now where they have you know trained staff who are now they're getting coaching to train their staff within that school to build capacity around trauma-informed leadership so that would be best and how were those schools selected like if all of them wanted to participate how did you all decide or whatever come one come all whichever schools felt they were so we did do a readiness assessment you know um 2019 uh the school year 2019 2020 when we started having this conversation as you know it was quite um challenging and there were some schools who had more readiness to take on this new task it is um very uh you know it is time consuming and it requires that you have uh the willingness to to engage in this and quite a few schools do but
178we went through a readiness assessment and some schools were saying yes i want to do this right now and so we were able to move with those schools and then there are others that are coming on board as things um become more feasible for them the first request that we brought to the board was for those initial schools which gave you all gave us the opportunity to approve that contract so that we could begin that work so that those teams can be trained now that we have those teams that have been trained and are going through training their staff that will definitely serve as an incubation period for us to learn from those schools so that more schools will be encouraged to also participate in the training it's our intent to ensure that we have
179staff that are trained not in not only our school counselors our trauma informed staff and then our partnership so especially as we transition back to in person that we're able to provide the social and emotional support to our students as they are going to be back in person and many of them have been virtual as we know for over a year i just want to say thank you again for taking those proactive measures and essentially implementing the trainer trainer um type of program i i did not want to understate this because i feel like as soon as the doors open next this coming up school year we don't know what to expect so to have that readiness and that capacity built in it's always good to hear a reassurance thank you um when you have
180completed the readiness survey in some schools it might not be ready are we helping provide some support so that all schools can be ready to implement absolutely so um in our regular uh professional learning series that we do with administrators what we do with school-based student services teams we embed aspects of trauma-informed leadership into those to help with with recognizing some aspects or manifestations of trauma we also continue to bring to the forefront all of the knowledge that we have about um responding to all the events that have occurred over the last 14 15 months and what we have been told by you know pediatricians and psychologists and how this could possibly impact students and what we could be looking for so we're continuing to have those conversations in many many groups of educators so
181this is a formalized way through tilt to get the actual training and do the training tomorrow training training model but we are also dealing with all the student support services and school-based staff that we are encountering thank you uh ms valiador dr maddox uh mr patrell and you know student support services team i'm very grateful for tilt um you know we did approve earlier in our consent agenda items capturing kid's heart um i did not bring it out uh because i knew we were going to talk about trauma i have heard considering feedback from schools that are opting to use responsive classroom uh instead of capturing kids heart and i i really appreciate your team giving that flexibility to educators um because there are definitely models are all different um one of the criticisms of
182capturing kids heart is that it's not trauma-informed um it is more about behavioral management and it is like you know what are you doing you know um what steps are you taking to not do what you're doing but there's no uh understanding of like more of a trauma informed of like you know what what happened you know it's not like about what's wrong with you which is usually the model like what's wrong with you why are you doing this but it's more like what happened you know or more awareness of like um you know who our kids are like a child coming from community violence right understanding the awareness of all these things so i'm super super grateful that you're not just going one direction you know that you're definitely looking at the trauma we
183are a trauma-informed district and these are some of the ways that we are leading that work because a lot of these models are in not by educators i think capturing its heart flip flipping is not something like it's more from the business uh standpoint and there are some benefits to behavioral management but our heart is more about like building development um responsive you know attunement um and so this is definitely very important work that you're doing with tilt um in ways to um you know to continue to to provide a trauma-informed um leadership in that way and also again thank you for giving the option to educators to use you know any anything that is that you all vet and you all are the experts and you all look through it and you're like it's
184okay to use these different things but i'm so glad for the work that you are leading with uh trauma-informed practices uh misfire thank you all for this presentation um one question i've seen a lot from folks and i'm sure you all have heard a lot because this is an area where durham led wellness wednesdays and how they will exist going forward because people really didn't know how much that helped until we took that pause can you all delineate speak to how you're going to go forward in maintaining what we learned from that but also bringing instructional time back how are you thinking about that telling folks about that [Music] one of the things that i think we learned um as we went through the pandemic is taking care of each other and the social and
185emotional well-being and how critically important that is as we transition back to in person and are preparing for the upcoming academic year our students will be in school five days a week with minimal social distancing under plan a however we do know that for our staff as well as for our students it's really important that we have the opportunity to create the conditions first to take care of each other and their social and emotional well-being and that's a priority for us we just completed our leadership retreat where we really wanted to make sure that the dps leaders had an opportunity to think about as we transition back taking care of that the partnership that we had with fhi 360 that partnership allowed us to create embrace.dpsnc.net and that act that platform really is the hub
186for social and emotional and wellness wednesdays and we i can't say enough about the recipes because i i did get every single kitchen gadget during the pandemic but the recipes and the opportunities for our families and communities to gather as well as the activities we will continue to make sure that those resources are available and dr maddox perry and her team and working with our student support services staff to make sure that there are opportunities not only with our students but also with our staff we actually had a session from dr maddox perry and dr voyster in the use of restorative circles for our adults and how we can make sure that we are taking care of each other as well so know that that is a priority for us we recognize how important it
187is and although we will be in school on wednesday we will ensure that we have resources available and are using those tools that we learn to provide as much support as possible to our students and staff spiders go ahead i've got one and i'll come back to it i just want to applaud you i mean like just i'm so grateful for for what you decide on the multiple intelligences right like we we we are a district that is about learning there's learning in social emotional awareness there's learning there's multiple intelligences and you know for many many uh years people have talked about like our focus one way or the other we're not just we're trying to ensure that we have whole like we tend to the little child and so i just want to thank
188you for um definitely highlighting the learning that goes into social emotional awareness um which is building the leadership capacity of all our our staff any partner the fact that you're saying that it's not just educators it's like anybody who's has access to our kids needs to understand the importance of the sel work that you are all doing and align with our values with that so thank you for all that and um i just wanted to thank mr futrell for the restorative circle he led with adults at eastway that was fantastic i look forward to us doing that more in the community and with our students in the future um mental health screening and i apologize if you answered this already or spoke to it but are there touch points just like we sweep screen for
189aig are there touch points where we're screening every student and when do those occur so so actually this school year we did implement our social emotional learning universal screener which is providing us some data on what students who we might find most at risk and definitely need a referral for additional mental health services specifically we think about students who um identify themselves as know as having no strengths right on a survey then those students would definitely through our multi-tiered systems of support teams be referred for additional support in those kind of areas is that in elementary middle and high absolutely that is a pre-k through 12 uh universal screener pre-k through two there's actually a teacher um actually administers that based on the behaviors of the of the of the child and then in three
190through twelve it is a um administrative survey fantastic thank you so much chair um said this is before you all this afternoon or evening sorry for uh information and discussion we wanted to also acknowledge the work of our team and that we will be submitting our plan to the department of public instruction as directed by the july 1st deadline we will be bringing updates to you however action is not necessary by the board until 2025 and we assure you we'll make sure that you have ample time to approve that by that deadline 2025 yes mia um and one last thing um as we are talking about um our partners you know co-located mental health um in in previous discussions we've talked about access uh based on having insurance or not like when those referrals are
191done my understanding um is that there are ways that even with our students who don't have insurance that some of these partners sometimes have charity funds that they can use towards services but those are very exhausted pretty quickly by my understanding is that you know they're very limited um and so my um recommendation and just something to you know to look forward to and i'd love to you know get an update on that is how are we as a district ensuring access for students who you know don't have insurance and have to go through that hurdle before they can actually get the services they need through the co-located mental health which are privatized right we're dealing with third parties in this case and as we work as a district to hire and hopefully fund our
192own internal you know staff that can actually see all our kids um just just some ways that we can think around that for access for students who don't have insurance and so currently you're exactly right our partners um do provide a in our agreement they provide a 10 pro bono but i can say they've been great partners in going above and beyond um providing that when students need services but it has also been helpful to secure um those those resources so that our students who are underinsured and uninsured do get the services that they need as well thank you all so much for this information tonight we really appreciate it um i feel every year we're growing and the way we're addressing the mental health needs of our students and we know that's necessary in
193order for them to succeed academically so thank you all for this information are now the summary of follow-up items is it a tag team tonight the follow-up items i have are in regards to the human resources kelly contract and working with the board and the community to gather feedback and then bring that back to the board all right thank you dr hardy my board members i'll take a motion to go into closed session i move that we go into closed session so for the reason stated in the agenda second to move and properly second any other discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign we're now in closed session thank you we are now back in open session dr mabinga hi madam chair i'm here to seek your approval
194for the personnel report as discussed at the closed session move approval of the personnel report dated june 24th 2021 second the move by misfire seconded by mr raven any discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that we are adjourned thank you all have a good night