001hi Melody I don't know if you'll be able to hear me or not can you you want a sound check uh microphone yep thank [Music] you hi Tama we might have one minute you can mic check hello thank you okay great thank you good evening everyone the Durham Public Schools Board of Education work session is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and Empower every student to innovate serve and lead tonight the administration will be presenting information to keep you up to dat on our strategic plan the interpreters for tonight are Martha r Giles and Marty Ramirez thank
002you for taking time to join us tonight we'll begin this evening with a moment of silence and um while I think we're seeing positive Trends in uh the handling of the pandemic here at home I think we're all aware of significant challenges abroad and that this is a global pandemic and a global Challenge and I'd like for us to keep those uh struggling in our thoughts tonight thanks thank you board members item three on our agenda is agenda review and approval mste Mr sers I would like to add an agenda item a proposal for supplemental marketing and engagement funding um if we can put that do you have a preference um Dr Mingo where you all want it if we can include that um before budget if that's going to be item number one would
003be helpful so can we make it um before the operation services or the first item in operation Services either one okay can I can I call that a motion to add a new 7A marketing budget and to move a and b to B and C yes is there a second second mooved by Miss Umstead second in by miss berer any further discussion on the agenda Mr chair I'd like to consider adding the perhaps is item 8D getting feedback um the Durham Public Schools Board of Education resolution opposing proposed di discriminatory and anti-transgender legislation that we had talked about previously there's a motion to add a resolution as a new 8B it's been moved by Miss Byer seconded by Miss VES any further discussion on the agenda additional amendments right we have two amendments we'll take
004those together all in favor say I I I opposed it passes 60 board members item four we have two sets of work session minutes what's your pleasure move approval of the minutes as presented second it's been moved by Miss Byer seconded by Mr Raven that we approve the minutes as presented any discussion all in favor say I I opposed it passes 60 item five is general public comments do we have any in-person public comments tonight's Administration we do not all right my understanding is we have 19 or 18 19 19 and to keep it under 30 30 or minutes or less we're going to limit these to one minute a piece board members any concerns there all right Mr sth thank you very much I'm just setting up all my various timers uh good evening
005board members and thank you uh we will begin with our uh Mr test there was a statement I'm supposed to read I'm sorry about that uh submitted public comments will be read aloud during the public comment period and the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments uh there is no inperson so I'll skip ahead complaints about name staff parents should not be voiced in open session however we are interested in hearing your comments regarding public education safety of our students or to the operation of the school system board members will listen carefully and consider the comments but we do not engage in discussion with speakers thank you thank you very much again uh 19 public comments and none of them were submitted in Spanish language and I will begin our first public comment
006is from Carolyn Allen of quit Road thank you for considering the issue of students losing their magnet placement when they enroll in ignite I'm very concerned that despite great effort by the school system and our individual schools to communicate the message parents still aren't aware of this earlier in the 2020 21 school year parents were told they wouldn't lose their magnet placement if they enrolled in ignite now that has changed but parents aren't getting the message most of our magnet schools have very few spaces available in any grade other than the entry level each year which means it will be nearly impossible for these students to return to their magnet school once they enroll in ignite our elementary students will most likely not be vaccinated by August please consider allowing magnet schools to keep their
007virtual students on their rosters for one more year until all who wish to be vaccinated can be thank you the next comment is from Katie surface of Lancaster Street my comment is regarding your ignite program in kids at magnet schools I have been so pleased with my children's education during this pandemic George Watts has done an amazing job handling virtual learning and I am so grateful my two kids at Watts will continue to learn virtually for the remainder of the school year my family is probably on the more cautious end of the spectrum and I would prefer to keep my kids virtual until they are vaccinated and would be highly interested in the ignite program were it not for the fact that we would lose our spots at Watts getting into George Watts is incredibly
008difficult and it would be incredibly unlikely that one or both of them would be able to get a spot applying as second and fourth graders my oldest son has autism and is thriving at Watts it would be very hard on him and his very sensitive little brother to not be able to go back to Watts when this pandemic is over I complet completely understand that it could seem unfair to hold slots at a highly desirable school but under the circumstances with no vaccine likely available to Elementary AED children it seems like it would be reasonable to extend the grace period allowing virtual Learners to keep their magnet placements until vaccinations are available to all DPS students next is caric sundra Mory of Knox Street language arts prek and all elementary schools need to teach span
009it is a domestic language we see communication material and translations appearing in Spanish but we are still raising children who are illiterate in Spanish and then assuming they are lesser when they speak Spanish recent shocking example that happened was Spanish speaking teachers are thought of as being less that person cannot be your main teacher by their own colleagues this affects our community as a whole the implicit Mantra that one language fits-all is destructive cultures and influences are thought to be less if it is not by English-speaking people translation services are a farce if no new Spanish speakers are educated in our schools respectfully awaiting a response next is Neil Kaner of dear Chase wind I spent last week as a substitute teacher in a cope EC classroom I will be there again this week as
010the person who I'm replacing is recovering from covid-19 I love this work I would become an instructional assistant in DPS but no longer have the endurance to do this work fulltime is there a way to let it be known that I would welcome part-time opportunities a two or three day per week would be ideal about 50% of the open positions on DPSS website are for instructional assistance and the vast majority of them are for exceptional children thank you next is Millie Rosen of Wal toown hello I strongly urge the Board of Ed to request the full amount required from the County Commission to fund the 50 nurse and social worker positions in DPS next year almost 900 folks in Durham have signed DA's petition regarding this extreme need in DPS but the ultimate power to
011make the decision to include the position lies with the seven of you as board members we need you to ask the county for the funds for these positions even if we have to do some Financial negotiation or or aren't able to do it all at once this year because if you don't ask for it we definitely won't get it DPS students and staff are suffering in schools without full-time nurses and social workers and it was bad before covid it's worse now please fight for us to go back in the fall with these critical positions at every school next is Nina Pandy of Duke Street dear Schoolboard our students cannot go another year without a full-time nurse and social worker in every building these supports are long overdue with the hardships students have faced during the
012pandemic educators are now struggling to meet students physical and emotional needs at an unprecedented level Durham County added more than $9 million to its rainy day fund last year money that I believe ought to be reinvested back into our community and children during this difficult time time I ask that you support adding to the budget 50 additional positions for full-time nurses and social workers for our students next is Jessica wac of Winterberry Ridge Drive two unrelated comments please support the de's push to hire additional School nurses and social workers by including this in your budget request to the county you don't get what you don't ask for and this is what our educators are asking for two can we find a way to tone down the standardized testing in our schools it is year two
013of a global pandemic and kids are taking multiple standardized tests what feels like daily for the rest of the year I understand that some of these are state or nationally mandated and are beyond your control but some appear to be District Le initiatives nothing about this year has been standardized kids need more academic time and more social emotional support not more tests I ready is particularly rough as it asks the kids questions about material they have not learned this is defeating for young kids who are already doing their best we are teaching teaching them that tests are valued above learning and that guessing is the way to make the tests end neither of these messages Embrace D DPSS Mission I wish our teachers had freedom to teach more and test less thank you next is
014Dr Ronda Taylor bulock of Willow Crest Road the education and youth Committee of the Durham committee on the Affairs of black people will be sharing policy requests related to hiring training and truthtellah and his leadership team responded to our initial requests made in 2019 under his leadership we saw the school district Implement a districtwide equity training unfortunately the board at the time did not match D Dr mingo's fervor and passed the buck related to their capacity to develop policies that would have met previous requests requests that remain unfulfilled the next comment is from William Jackson East Durham dcab has seen the board extend high levels of energy to make good on budget requests and we demand that same energy be brought to meet additional needs of black and brown children we are glad you're being
015more vocal about holding leadership accountable to issues of racial Equity outside of the district related to our specific theme of truth-telling we demand you bring that same energy when examining the racist practices of school leaders within our district such as the leadership at Durham School of the Arts and Implement policies of transparency that hold leaders like them accountable for their ongoing transgressions against black and brown children in the spirit of Dr King we are requesting to cash in on the check our Progressive policy makers in Durham have made so that we can live learn and educate in a community that matches concrete action walk with its energy talk on racial Equity next is Eva iry of De Marius street thank you for considering the issue of students losing their magnet placement when they enroll and
016ignite I concerned that parents who choose to protect their children and others by choosing to enroll their children in Virtual schools are being penalized by losing their magnet spot most of our magnet schools have very few spaces available in any grade other than the entry level each year which means it will be nearly impossible for these students to return to their magnet school once they enroll and ignite our elementary students will most likely not be vaccinated by August please allow magnet schools to keep their virtual students on their rosters for one more year until all who wish to be to be vaccinated can be thank you next is Rebecca Fontaine of exom Street I am a registered nurse and strongly support the need for increasing School nurses and social workers School nurses are the backbone
017of Public Health for families and communities in fact the field of Public Health nursing in part began with School nurses not only are School nurses appropriately trained to provide care for sick children but are responsible for disease surveillance and education that is necessary during this pandemic and Beyond please help us keep all families safe and cared for in our schools next is Matthew Townsen of stone book Drive good evening I have proudly been the technology facilitator at DSA for six years and I'm thrilled that students and staff will have the opportunity to teach and learn in a onetoone environment I'm also overwhelmed frequently by the workload and frustrated that I cannot provide the level of services teachers and staff deserve at my school I'm the first resource for over 30 techn technology systems from 1
018to one plus to Z scaler and the first person to troubleshoot and fix issues for over 1,800 computers and the printers bright links hotpots peripherals software platforms our students and staff rely on when I started at DSA there were about 210 computers available for students and there was a halftime position from it that was on the ground I did not need to work weeks after school ended and before school started to make sure the school could run I did not need to work spring break to make sure we could stay afloat I never had to put in 12 or 16 hour days I have the time to give but many of my colleagues do not I scraped to find the time needed to Mentor staff and help them maximize the benefits we want from one
019to one at DPS if we bought seven times that is the end of the timer the next comment is from Nicholas Graber Grace of Glendale Avenue I support using Dr mingo's proposed budget as a starting point for your budget conversation tonight each and every position and resource that Dr mainga cites in his recommended request and his list of deferred needs would better enable Durham Public Schools to support our staff and students the proposed $225 increase and the salary supplement for teachers is an important step in working to retain veteran Educators in particular and we are grateful that we were able to implement a $15 base pay for classified staff even before this budget cycle began that would not have happened without the organizing and advocacy of the Durham Association of Educators yet as I look
020at this budget request it feels like a series of very incremental Tiny Steps toward where we want to be we have a unique opportunity right now to Leverage The more than $130 million in federal dollars that DPS has in combination with additional federal dollars awarded the Durham County for covid Relief I urge you to think bigger than peace meal incremental steps the slow conservative Pace Dr MinGa proposes adds just two School nurses this year and that is the one minute our next comment is from Jesse hudleston of Kint Street if I made a list of tools of Peace needed to ensure the safety and security of our schools I wouldn't include weapons because those are not means for generating the qualities we feel when we are safe and secure at best weapons moderately reduce harm
021and at worst they activate our deepest fears and cause irreparable damage I implore you to do what's necessary to disarm all law enforcement officers serving DPS our schools do not need more officers with tools of War they need more people with who function as unarmed equipped and skilled helpers with tools of Peace perhaps you're wondering what are the tools of peace that can ensure the safety and security of our students families and staff on DPS grounds here's my initial list to get things started a physical presence of trusted adults B healthy food and drink resources made with love C the Arts as a means and as an end and D relevant training for managing active crises I invite you to imagine with courage and creativity as I elaborate on these four particular toolkits first we
022need the physical presence of trained trusted adults that is the one minute timer next is paig Holt of Anne Road and in Hillsboro as a teacher in DPS this year has really shown the need we have in our district for more staff to support our students physical mental and emotional health our school social workers are overworked and exhausted I don't know of any schools who have a full-time nurse please request funding to hire 50 new school social workers and School nurses to help meet the needs of our students Vanessa Barnett Loro of thatford road I want to reiterate my support for a fully funded DPS budget please request the entire amount suggested by the superintendent as well as the extra funds required to fund 50 additional nurses social social workers as a longtime Durham resident
023a public school teacher and future DPS parent I know these positions are essential to the well-being and success of students next is Chelsea ears of Glendale Avenue I'm a DPS Middle School Parent I'm recent I recently signed up to send my daughter back in person in mid July when her school starts I'm very concerned about the new covid variants and what they have done in schools in Michigan and Georgia we can't let our schools become the place where the virus thrives and spreads to our community please approve the additional medical and Mental Health Care Personnel to help us Stamp Out the virus and heal from this difficult year we needed these caregivers before this pandemic we need them so much more now next is Zachary sinate of Huckleberry Loop in meon good evening I am
024the tech Champion for Forest View Elementary School I'm writing to implore you to add a full-time instructionally Tech instructional technology facilitator to every DPS school regardless of its size the move to a onetoone technology framework was necessary and most likely saved lives this school year thank you for making the decision to move forward with instructional resources that students need part of moving to a onetoone framework involves investing in human capital to sustain the program the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction offers guidance for sustainable technology programs DPS has not followed this guidance and it is going to manifest itself in a devastating way in the coming years the current tech technology Champion role is an add-on role to existing responsibilities I am more fortunate than others in that my teaching role is reduced to halftime
025this was a school-based decision not District level this was sufficient in previous years when I was managing 400 or 500 devices I now have to manage over 1,000 devices and users in every area and platform that slightly touches the technology program and that is the timer the next comment is from her oline Herbert Caroline Herbert of welen court I have served DPS as a media coordinator for 14 years this year I have spent most of my time managing devices and logistics for the onetoone initiative despite not serving as the tech Champion for my school while we are immensely grateful for the infusion of devices we have not received support in the form of people Tech facilitators and or it support specifically to support this initiative please add at least one Tech facilitator or it support
026staff position to each School so that we can return to the business of teaching research and encouraging a love of reading in our school libraries next is Camilo San fuos if this board truly appreciated teachers you would have rescued our sister in Denmark but you left her trapped there and unemployed I am saddened by the thought of her aimlessly promting through the streets of Copenhagen there are hundreds of millions of US dollars in your budget but your cold Hearts have been against her and against the health of our teachers all year you could have chartered plan to bring our sister home you could have prevented all of this disease by keeping our schools closed we will never forget your callousness and solidarity forever and our final comment comes from Don Henderson of tww Alexander Drive
027here at Village of wisdom we understand there is funding allotted to the states under the Care Act and American Education Act funds sent forward to local school districts to demonstrate parent engagement in support of proposals for funding do you have a blueprint how will you or have you done this work we have led this work in village of wisdom with parent researchers and want to partner with DPS in this work please share the findings from our research with students parents and teachers both their dreams and challenges and a URL is provided and is in the um public comments that are posted to our website and that completes our public comments for the day thank you Mr sth and thank you to our community for sharing your thoughts with us we greatly appreciate those board members
028we will move on to item six on our agenda the consent items we have five items on the consent agenda which we have reviewed ahead of time as a reminder any board member can pull an item off of consent if there are additional questions or discussion board members any questions or motions move approval of the consent agenda as presented I'll second it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Mr Lee that we approve the consent items as presented is there any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed it passes 70 thank you board members we will move on to the new item 7A which is a discussion around marketing budget members are we there yes um I'm chip soter Chief Communications officer for Durham public schools and with me is our director
029of marketing and Community engagement Sheena Cooper I'd like you to remember as Dr manger Remembered in a presentation to the rotary earlier this week um what things were like just prior to uh covid-19 we had we had moved from um 14 low per low 14 low performing schools um let Dr mainga I believe that was um how many F schools down to one F School nine nine F schools down to one F school since Dr since Dr mango arrived growth shot up we were growing academically at a faster rate than we were at the state level or at weight or our neighbors to the East Wake County people were responding to that and for the first time in four years Durham Public Schools gained enrollment by 500 students covid-19 was a System Shock to our
030entire Community it was a crisis and it led to despite all of our best efforts distancing from our from between our students and our families concerns about whether or whether to and when to return to on Campus Learning and competition and I think it's fair to say that public education opponents I'm not sure why my computer decided to tell us what the temperature was in California but there you go um five we went from Gaining 500 students to losing 1500 students in the face of the pandemic how did we lose them we don't entirely know but we do know that homeschooling shot up and that also families sought Alternatives from um education providers that we're continuing to provide in-person learning we need to win those students back and it's going to take an effort from
031everybody involved in Durham public schools in community outreach in customer service in quality education and letting people know about the good work that is happening during Public Schools this week Dr mbinga challenged me to dream big and to and to think about a two-year expanded marketing and Community engagement budget giving us the opportunity to use some tools that we haven't had uh available uh before due to B budget constraints I've presented to you a a summary and I'm going to go over the items on the bottom of the list the technology and direct engagement piece and then I'm going to turn things over to my colleague uh Sheena Cooper to talk about the marketing and Communications pieces targeted toward enrollment particularly at the kindergarten level but yearr round Communications efforts to um restore our place
032in the public Consciousness as well as one time efforts for our summer programs our summer enrichment and ignite Online Academy to make sure that our community takes advantage of those opportunities as well we are proposing a continuation of our use of bang the table um the website address is engage. dpsnc.net we use that that for Community engagement uh jumping off points for communications and Outreach we used it uh most successfully with lions Farm Elementary the naming process we've had even more engagement when it comes to the uh new Equity policy task force that is doing their work this has been previously approved by the superintendent it's on the budget it was added to the budget this year but it would technically be an expansion um as we continue it next year we're also recommending an
033expansion of our mass communication tools we have a mass communication platform that we use for simple emails and for robocalls uh your former colleague uh Mr KAS used to very frequently ask me when we were going to get an app we want to get an app uh we are looking at mass communication platforms that can do all of the work that our current systems use plus provide an app platform plus provide our teachers a onetoone communications platform form with their families we are looking into some competing uh providers for that and would bring and because the because the price tag would be over that 990,000 limit in all likelihood we would be bringing you the proposal later for the exact vendor and that is what we want to do with technology and direct engagement to
034talk about uh marketing um and communication support for ongoing enrollment campaigns as well as some programs inite online Academy I'm going to turn it over to miss Cooper thank you and good evening board members despite the challenges that we encountered with covid-19 over the past year the office of public affairs has made considerable strides uh to enhance our marketing and identify opportunities to further communicate and engage families in the durm community new initiatives have been launched this year which we're really excited about and we plan to launch more in the coming weeks the items that you have before you tonight would further enhance our capabilities to be more strategic in our marketing all supporting our enrollment efforts in the upcoming years and years to come tonight we have three areas of focus our 2021 summer
035program enrollment ignite Online Academy enrollment and year-round DPS enrollment marketing within these areas there are recommendations for one-time spending and also for multiple year spending meaning for the next two years for our summer programs we know that the deadline is quickly approaching so our best approach would be to invest in a digital marketing campaign and also do some um exciting opportunities with direct u mail that we could deploy very quickly these are one-time expenditures we are also excited about the support we have been able to provide aite Online Academy with its initial launch uh we had a very successful Direct Mail effort and we plan to do additional direct mail to targeted audiences throughout the durm community with Ignite Online Academy and also develop a very strong digital footprint for online uh ignite Online Academy
036through some digital advertising our enrollment effort should be year round so we are looking at a multi-year approach for this and we are proposing a comprehensive plan that includes digital advertising radio television Outdoor Advertising meeting Billboards Direct Mail as well additionally we want to develop collateral for each of our schools so they have information readily available that they can share with prospective families to communicate the benefits of each School Community I would also like to note that this plan includes ads and marketing collateral that will be available in Spanish we're collaborating very closely with our local media partners and also working very closely with Publications and Outlets within the latinx and African-American communities as well to ensure that we are engaging all of our stakeholders in DPS enrollment messaging thank you the non salary portion
037of the uh office public affairs budget is pretty small when it comes to when you compare us to the number of schools that we serve the number of students we serve and the comparative uh uh resources that private and charter schools have um our our uh our annual budget non salary is in the [Music] $178,000 range and a good 76.5 uh $76,500 of that covers the technology platforms the websites the web hosting that our district and schools have as well as the bang the table platform um by comparison if I wanted to put a if I wanted to put a sign up at the Durham Bulls athletic part if I wanted to have a a spot on the LED wall the last time we looked into it um last time we looked into it uh
038back in 2017 that would have cost the district $40,000 my total advertising budget for this year unless this is proofed is $330,000 if you look in a play bill at the Durham perform Performing Arts Center you will see plenty of full page ads for private schools um and those cost for a full run of the Season $15,000 as a portion of the entire District's budget this is modest but it enables us to get out there to more families draw more attention to us and reinforce the community engagement work the Outreach that our teachers and staff do every day uh to ensure that people remember who we are remember who we were before covid and look forward to the promise of a brighter future so that is our request um and I'm Sheena and I are
039happy to take your questions so Administration this is this is for Action to approve this recurring budget over a two-year period did I hear that's right board members thank you all for bringing this request to us I'm excited to hear that we're developing an app um the roball call system I think had its day and so we now we know we're in the 21st century and that text and push notifications um is a really a good way to engage with our community um I'm also excited to hear about the ways that you're talking about tapping into specific markets which I think is really excellent and I really think we have such a strong network of people who want to support our public schools here I hope as we're lifting up the digital ads and media
040that we're also being able to engage you know the churches and the nonprofits and other community orgs who can promote this information to our families so I want to thank y'all for thinking about this it's really important as you all also were talking this is kind of related but not it made me think of all the opportunities for students to be engaged in in the public relations work and I wonder if there are ways that we can this is a job I think that people don't think about in public schools they think oh I only can teach and so how can we get our students also connected with helping do this Outreach I think could be really excellent but that's all thank you thank you Mr Ren uh thank you all for that presentation as
041you all know I love marketing so I'm extremely interested in this and I had three um I had three areas that I did want to touch on because I I would love to see this come to fruition and I would also like to make sure that you all have the tools in place to be able to um track the track the benefits of what's coming on so I would love to see something that could track the Direct Value that's associated with the that you all are going to be doing so if there's any metrics that can be related to um you know where are the highest engagement rates where are the lowest engagement rates that way we always have an idea on where we need to work um some other things to maybe even consider
042is when when we're thinking about uh like uh they call it seos but search engine optimization for instance if somebody moves to durm and they want to look up schools DPS should be the first thing that pops up every program that we have it should be the first one to pop up are we we want to make sure that we stay on their radar um the second area that I would love to see is and and this is kind of like within that same window is collaborations with some of the other programs that already exist for instance our our EC Department I would love to be able to see um at the beginning of the year they always have their big push they also have their fairs where we could actually track the engagement rates
043there maybe we could look at um three things what how can we track the amount of students that may be transferring into DPS because they've heard about what we can do they're looking on a website they're worried about how they could support their children that's a great way to Target that um maybe also be able to look and figure out like what group of this is uh students that are already of age what group are just coming in for the first time as kindergarteners and what portion of the group are we um able to reach out to their families even before these students turn three because that that's something that I don't think is is ever truly tracked and and I know it's going to be hard to to fully um account for that but
044some some data would be better than none um the last one this is this is kind of like the little wild card one but I would love to see DPS have a mascot uh so as soon as you all started thinking I'm thinking a lot of times uh even with sports you sometimes recognize the mascot more than anything else we have them at all all of our schools I was a oak grve cougar uh for the first few years of my life and I can visualize us having something like a baby bull so if we want to do community outreach maybe we actually have a baby bull meet up with the DM bulls and you have you know a baseball night but it's something that kind of humanizes it and it's easy for families and
045kids to always kind of look up to and relate and and relates to the city as well so I just love to see anything that we could do along those lines thank you we have gone there with uh our kindergarten program we do have a little fellow named Sparky um Miss Lewis thank you so much for this presentation it's like one of my wishes just came true um as you presented this I promised just this week I said do we have a comprehensive marketing strategic plan and then you brought it today so I'm very thankful um for that uh I agree with what um board member Raven shared if we could have some metrics added to it to capture where you're going that's also in line with where our strategic plan is and the only
046other thing I would say is um as we're talking about collaborating making sure we're working with other departments um there's some work to be done with uh Family Academy and again keeping those personal connections and relationships as well I love the digital ad the direct mail um the target marketing but nothing is you know more important than that Personal Touch so again um kudos for the plan and if I'm just making wishes I also wish that we continue that Personal Touch and building relationships with folks thank you absolutely and those don't cost money they just cost intentionality we will do that Miss FIS thank you so much uh really appreciate the marketing um and Communications uh request that you have brought to us today um meeting with organizers uh you know one of the things
047is definitely reaching the folks um in communities that are marginalized or like you mentioned you know the Latino Community um immigrant Community um which is very diverse by the way um and also black community and so I'm I'm wondering like in terms of like tailoring um of course using all these different means whether it's radio billboard how are you going to ensure language access um and knowing that we have uh yeah it's that's one of the questions and the other one is geotagging I'm wondering if um geotagging is part of this because if you live in easum you know it's like it would be really neat to kind of have all that incorporated and and I think geotagging is one of the things that um in that organizing meeting they were just talking about ways
048that when folks who are in different parts of Durham you know log in like what what comes up what is the algorithm and being able to provide um all this wonderful information about our our our our school system um Shea would you care to say a little bit what we're doing with go targeting I am happy to share that we have already started um some digital marketing of the the district with enrollment um we launched it in April I will have the first set of numbers to look at next week um anecdotally I've heard that we are performing very well we have a combination of display ads and those are based upon Behavior so when people are online Googling things and they're searching things related to children and parenting they can be served a DPS
049ad we also have geofencing ads that are currently out based upon places that families typically frequent and obviously if they enter those facilities or come within a certain range they will be served as um for DPS as well we also have a social media campaign so some of you may have seen the ads that we have on Facebook encouraging enrollment right now and that we do have a Spanish language ad for that and they are both performing very well so we have started down that path and we can certainly um we certainly look forward to enhancing our capabilities through digital marketing also to say that digital marketing is 100% trackable so we will start to get a lot of the data from that and it will help us further refine our our marketing efforts moving
050forward I'd like to add to that that that marketing is only just one t kind of communication um We are continuing to partner with multilingual Resource Center I expect to have a strong partnership with the office of equity Affairs going forward as well as the uh new position if uh it comes through the the budget cycle for the latinx uh representative at the on the equity platform on the equity office we to miss Louis's point as a district we are better when we are working together and some of the barriers to working together are falling away as we are all vacinated we're returning to our offices and we're collaborating uh more directly Miss SP thank you thank you for bringing this and I would just Echo all the enthusiasm of my colleagues can you all
051convince me that this budget for ignite Academy is enough like that is a new option that no one is much aware of and I feel like we need to double or triple that amount for you all to to be able to get some more saturation um soon but that's what you brought so I want to these resources would be uh used to enhance the marketing efforts that are already underway for ignite we have um infused um quite a few dollars um into getting this launched and off the ground which we are seeing some really wonderful success with so this would be in addition to continue um our our and enhance our digital footprint with Ignite specifically and as things go forward if you need to shift funds and and need more I think you all
052will have that flexibility certainly within categories in our own budget and we we know who to ask if we uh if we have an if we have an opportunity uh to that presents itself I will also note that um you know the process is still young for ignite we've gotten good in initial responses to the direct mailing campaign that we did targeting homeschoolers um any new program is a marathon not a Sprint there are some questions that are going to be tackled at the meeting tonight about uh magnet seats and uh and the the role of ignite we know that when there is uncertainty parents defer their decision-making um and we know that sometimes our timelines uh and parents timelines are at odds because people need different things um we will we plan on communicating
053whatever the outcome of tonight's discussion is we plan on including that and follow-up communication with our families Mr Raven I I do have one question off of something that I just heard and I'm I'm not sure if this was a capability but when we're when we're talking about that engagement I'm I'm just wondering especially with us beginning to return back to inperson services and I'm thinking about that um the county has Social Services I know that's a that's going to continue to be a lot more face tace as as they ramp back up to our inperson services that municipalities are provide do you know off the top of your head do we have online um documents or brochures or information um with social services and the the only reason the only reason I ask that
054is I think that is that is a key place that a lot of families go to and and when I hear about people that may be homeschooled we sometimes take for granted um that everybody knows um where they can find additional resources at and I'm and I'm just curious is that something that we could possibly collaborate with with social servicer or any Department within um the county but I'm just thinking of Social Services specifically I think with can absolutely ramp that up thank you board members is there a motion move that we accept this proposal um to supplemental marketing and engagement request second it's been moved by Miss Lewis seconded by Miss FS that we approve the administration's proposal any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you
055Administration thank you very much item 7B operation Services request to negotiate an energy conservation Services contract with site logic close enough good afternoon everyone um we've had numerous conversations about the need for energy Management in the district um historically we have used things like performance Contracting in which uh we used the savings from uh from utilities to uh do Capital Replacements in our facilities um those are that is one good way to do it tonight we're proposing yet another which it not only incorporates what we do uh Capital wise with our uh facilities but it also includes an educational component to a behavioral component to Energy savings so tonight I'm going to be joined by uh Mr Matthew Palmer Mr Frederick Davis and Mr Dan snitzer who is going to provide you with a presentation
056and an update on the RF uh queue that we put out for Energy Management Services give you the rationale for our recommendation to negotiate a contract with um oh I lost the name site logic IQ and with that I'll turn it over to Mr Davis good evening uh Madame chair board members Dr mainga Administration staff and the community a discussion today as Dr Monk highlighted is regarding our RFQ process for energy management and conservation services this topic is in line with our strategic plan and priority number five which to ensure fiscal and operational responsibility in the department of school planning design and construction this topic Falls to ensure that we're doing everything possible to maintain healthy learning environments while saving the district funds that could potentially be reallocated for much needed uses next slide please
057if you remember uh we presented to you a districtwide conversation regarding sustainability uh and what we believe are those pillars to successful implementation under the leadership of Mr snitzer who is with us today uh we have engaged Administration and staff about the vision of sustainability within DPS again these pillars are a holistic process to sustainability utility management design standards Outdoor Learning waste reduction and diversion clean power student engagement environmental justice and curriculum integration all play an integral part in our success next slide please this in information was also featured in our sustainability update last winter as you can see the pillars or governing principles align with our board policy and our strategic goals as a district utility management which is the purpose of this discussion this evening works to provide our students and staff a
058safe environment by having the appropriate lighting and spaces reducing the need for major repairs and replacement and utilizing technological advances uh to increase our Effectiveness and efficiency in our build buildings the district spends on average about 7.2 on electrical and gas each year having a utility management company to assist in managing our utilities as much needed in February we set out a request for qualifications we receive responses from six companies both regionally and nationally recognized next slide please our team evaluated six companies based on the following capacity and comparable projects the project team experience Innovative and methodology strategies and education specific knowledge next slide please of the six psychologic Holistics approach combining data analysis and behavioral change with comparable School District experience gave them the edge over the competition next slide please this is a
059timeline of how we hope to implement this program with the district and the inputs and outputs provided by site logic partnering with pite logic DPS will be able to track and reduce energy consump consumption through behavioral and controls related Energy Efficiency measures while providing transparency for the district and Community with visibility to the district's energy usage and cost at a school by School site basis if the board finds this satisfactory we ask that you would approve the uh to enter into contract negotiations with site logic uh again Mr snit is here with us to answer specific detailed questions if you may have next slide please thank you board members do we have questions regarding the proposal Miss buer I appreciate you all bringing this tonight and it's an exciting area of innovation um but I
060don't understand how we save money this way can you give me the elevator speech on that and and what kind of savings we're looking to generate yes so uh this program allows us to have a a third party look at how we're using our energy um and even in the first year you'll see or other districts or companies municipalities that have used site logic find that uh through Behavioral or or cost information we're spending over 20% more than what we should be and so essentially in the first year would be paying for itself having this third party look at our energy uses and our data uh to find ways that we can mitigate uh the overuses that we are experiencing as a district that's helpful um I know in the past we've done a lot
061of work with hbac and digital controllers and things like that will we be doing Assessments in those Realms as well in ways that we could do some upgrades that would also further that savings that part of this contract yes and I'm gonna ask Dan if he would join the conversation as he's been working intimately with uh this project as well as other sustainability projects throughout the district sure uh good evening everyone and thank you for uh having me here tonight uh Miss Byer to touch on your first question with just a little more specificity as well uh with 50 campuses across the district um energy can be used in a lot of different ways um and a lot of different times so when it comes to times the first area that will be focused on
062are off times when we don't have uh anyone in the buildings those are the easiest and quickest ways to start savings so it'll be evening site walks checking that lights are off that HVAC is off Etc it'll be looking at the controls program um and making sure that set points are where they need to be so are we allowing schools not by any fault of our own but just by uh scope uh creep over time excuse me um are we allowing schools if they put up their thermostats uh to get to 80 degrees in the winter or down to 65 in the summer so it's that type of detailed work uh which again over the course of 50 campuses uh really takes fulltime Focus to do and then the other big area within there uh
063has to do with demand uh effectively energy companies charge you demand charges which are for the maximum energy you might use at any given moment and there are ways to um flatten that curve by staggering equipment when it goes on how it goes on so can we start one Chiller at 5 in the morning and then another one at 520 in the morning then another one at 5:40 there's a lot of math and a lot of analysis that goes into that does that give the building enough time to cool Etc so that's the type of detailed work that really leads to the significant savings over time uh and your second question uh all of this does tie in with the other work that's being done of uh where upgrades are and in fact it'll enable
064us to focus where we have the best opportunity to make upgrades uh we'll see where our sites of biggest waste are and start attacking those first because as I'm sure you're aware it's much easier to get that first 20% than that last 10% um and so all of this data will be able to go through systems and enable us to find out through this individual through this energy manager where we should be spending our time and saying you know what lighting upgrade is great here so let's look at that here but also over here let's look at um more efficient equipment and it all has to be data driven and again with the size of this district and the number of um sites the number of square feet the number of pieces of equipment uh
065it really is a full-time job to uh gather analyze data and then turn it into actionable thank you both all three of you really that is that's super helpful to me and I hope it's helpful the others I look forward to the information from this potentially driving and uplifting some of the projects that we need accelerated in the 2022 Bond that's the bond we're looking to now right I look forward to that informing that work as well but thank you all Miss F Dr Monk uh Dr um well your entire team um I'm just so grateful for this I know that early on you know um I had some questions for you all and uh met with you about you know Energy savings programs and you know thresholds which were a concern right you know
066during this covid season knowing that um you know there energy saving programs through you know uh Duke being the Duke Energy being like the the provider um my attempts were like are we assessing you know where we're at can we um use some of like the lower usage towards qualifying for programs because I guess you have to meet the threshold to qualify for some of the energy programs and I know that I spoke to um reps from the from who work with Duke Energy um and so those discounts apparently like you know some some of our accounts were super large uh we had sizable accounts that didn't qualify um and I mean of course like the heart is like can we get improvements from that and and I know that you were mentioning you were
067looking at all these things across the board so is this a solution to towards like being able to you know assess our energy use consumption which we're we're working towards um goals not just here in DPS but also the city and the county have resolutions about like you know reducing our energy consumption um but is this something that just you know is able to to help us because of those thresholds because you know we don't always have like opportunities for um to to to use to get savings otherwise you know so so can you tell us more about like um how we will continue to to leverage you know whatever savings we can get from from our um energy provider but also uh along the lines of sustainability along the lines of Education like you
068know how this this helps us just just a little more detail about like the uh yeah sure one of the nice things that psychologic oh my apologies go ahead I'll tell you what I'll start and then you um you get me straight okay all right so um I'm glad you brought that up so we're doing it because it's the right thing to do right energy conservation is the right thing to do um we believe that everything that we do in DPS has to be student centered and it should have an educational component to it and so that's why we're taking this program a little bit further than simply replacing equipment um they had a picture of the kids outdoors learning um one of the things we get so excited about is what we're planning for
069elementary school f um having those in uh energy um dashboards and things program into the building design itself so that children can watch how they're saving energy use it in math class use it in science class everything is going to tie back to to education and then also teaching them to be good stewards of the environment that's the behavioral part that we're talking about so it's great to have um automatic lights that go on and off but where there may be a light that's on if kids are noticing that hey this thing isn't going off right they may tell someone and then we can go and get that fixed right so um it's uh for us it's way bigger than just equipment is the right thing to do is what DPS um is going to
070be uh known for is doing the right thing and incorporate in everything that we do into education uh Dan if you want to expand uh upon it with some of the technical aspects that'll be great too yeah thank you for framing it that way I I'll just touch on specifically what stood out about site logic um we've talked about the energy management they've got kind of a five-pronged approach um Energy Management being one and that does include um Bill tariff review so to make sure we're in the right program uh we're paying the right base fees depending on what our uses uh they have monthly reporting which will include a dashboard which will be both internal and external facing for the community and can be um uh filtered by school or by high schools L
071together so we'll really have um publicly available data for that the second I'm sorry the third is um staff involvement training staff both on the maintenance and or shouldn't say training working with the maintenance staff and doing some training with um teachers and other school-based administrators uh energy data hosting which is hosting our information and then the fifth pillar is student education they they provide in this energy manager uh will be contractually responsible for doing student education um which might look at a classroom level or school-based level but um part of their work isn't just spreadsheets and numbers it's making sure that we're creating systemic change and creating this as a fundamental pillar for who we are in during Public Schools Mr Raven uh thank you for this presentation I I feel like we um
072talked about something along these lines when Dan first came on board I want to say it was like around October and November and I think one of the questions that I had at this time at that time was when we look at making sure we retrofit all of our buildings with the capabilities of being able to track the data about the energy energy usage and things like that one is well one thing and I'll mention this later on is I would definitely like to make sure that we vet the vulnerabilities of of this of this software because to the best of my knowledge this is a cloud-based technology so it is part of that whole internet of things ecosystem and I I do know that um that has sometimes at times been a point of
073vulnerability um so so definitely just making sure that that we're in alignment with that but I I also believe that there are because I've seen this done at the city where I've seen that there were the behavioral and mechanical activities that you're essentially tracking in order to figure out how the energy is being used and how you can actually adjust that so I know that we're going to we're going to find some savings and with three new schools being built this is the perfect time to go ahead and start but I would like to see if we can actually figure out a way to track the savings and I I know this is going to be difficult um well it's not going to be as difficult if this begins at the beginning of the new
074school year once we're once the buildings are are full but I would I would like to be able to see whatever we budgeted for our energy cost District sad I'd love to see that I'd then love to see the tracking that's done before any adjustments are done um then I'd love to be able to see what what are the discoveries because in in essence this system should be able to pay for itself the question is how much time will that will that take so that I mean I think it's I think it's a great idea I think it's long overdue I just want to make sure that we're we're properly tracking the cost Savings in order that we can get the return the investment that we expect thank you certainly and and Dan if you
075want to speak to some of that um and your approach to um tracking cost ofs versus um how it's historically been done when um organizations have run Energy Management Programs absolutely uh those that do track uh tend to track it on Excel which is what we have now and quite honestly I'm extremely impressed with the um Excel files that uh um Finance has on our data uh but they're static and they are vulnerable to human error as simple as um typing in the wrong numbers or putting a decimal point in the wrong place with this type of software pretty much what you were talking about is if we had to boil it down is the purpose uh we have to be able to track where we've been where we are what uh implementations we put
076in what interventions we put in and what change that makes and then quite frankly replicate the most um impactful ones in a prioritized Manner and again this is exactly what it's for one of my questions to site logic um was not just about avoided cost which is uh can be a little nebulous to calculate sometimes uh but that there's an expectation to see actual savings meaning at the end of the year when we pull up a budget line uh we will see that we spent less than we did in Prior years uh they were very confident in that in part because again while we have data we haven't been able to analyze it and as Things become more complicated as equipment becomes more complicated uh a monthly bill doesn't really dig into the data uh
077that we need to know where our problem areas are uh so I couldn't agree more without data we're just uh feeling around in the dark and the whole purpose of this is to have data to analyze data to act on that data and then do the iterative process of uh making sure our uh implementations are what is needed most thank you and sorry my last note is I would expect a payback um you know I don't want to to to to put my feet too deep in the ground but I would expect a payback at least of the first year within that first year I think we will exceed um what we we spend year on thank you and and that was that was going to be my my next question um in the presentation
078I think it noted that their cost savings I guess for the school that they supported I believe that was Nashville was about um what was it 18% and I'm thinking this software costs roughly 158 $159,000 a year so if we were spending more than a million dollars a year in in energy costs then that would mean that we would be saving at least $180,000 so is my thinking in alignment not what we're paying in a total cost but just that that type of um framing is that roughly correct uh I believe that's roughly correct without specific numbers um of their cost I couldn't answer that but I I think it's roughly correct and I do want to clarify as well this is not just software this is a human being well we are working with
079them is another staff that they will provide who will be walking our buildings who will be working with us on site day in day out um and the software thank you and and are we capitalizing this are we paying this out of CIP funded is this a is this initially a CIP funded venture or Capital funded Venture in which it will be able to to directly reduce our own operating costs moving forward so it's it's going to be paid out of our um annual Capital outlay um not necessarily the the uh the CIP funds um and ultimately paid for by decreasing amount we have to put into our utilities budget perfect thank you board members any additional discussion or motions quickly um just really quickly I know that we have LED lights that we a
080project that we started and all that and so are we we're continuing with the upgrades and I saw that you know based on even our um Lottery funds we're going to be using Lottery funds to continue those upgrades you know provide LED lights and so this will also help us along with that right it's all it's all tied together um just one little thing I'd love for us to be able to highlight this because I think DPS could lead you know these initiatives are things that need to be out there like the community needs to know how we are you know uh like doing our part to you know be responsible stewards um there's local action plans you know there's definitely resolutions that folks have passed so it's as much as we can tie into
081those uh those those plans because there there's definitely all kinds of metrics that uh you know are out there about how how to reduce and we're doing that and I I just love DPS taking charge with um energy and sustainability and uh and all the great work that you all are doing thank you I'd move that we approve um the agenda item to request to negotiate energy conservation Services contract with site log IQ site logic I'll second it's been moved by Miss Hamstead seconded by Mr Lee that we approve the administration's contract with site logic any additional discussion all in favor say I I I oos opposed it passes 70 thank you Administration next up item 7 C is the approval of budget for next fiscal year Administration Dr mainga staff um tonight coming to
082you for approval of the budget that we will submit to the county that's due on May 15th uh as a right now the state has not moved on their budget we were hoping for some information this week doesn't look like it's happening um from that standpoint so we are uh where we were uh last meeting where we discussed the $16 million uh budget request to the count County which was 4.2 for current benefits and uh and salary increases another $2 million for academic Services adding some positions uh and ser for services in that area adding uh 1.5 for technology services to make sure we have uh money for uh the onet toone devices and to make sure we have the information available or funding available to uh take care of all the extras uh that
083go along with security of those devices and then for oper operational Services another point one point close to $1.6 million remember we're trying to get to the $6 million Mark for Capital outlay and for that we still need an additional $ 2.63 million to make it the Six Million we currently have 3.37 million and then of course we need additional money for all these expenses to make sure that we are covered of over $2 million 2 point close to uh 3,900 for Charter Schools themselves 2 million for additional students that they'll that they'll have and another close to two $2 million for the cost that goes to them could could we put up slide page 74 from the are you going to run through your presentation or can we post the slide while you're talking
084I'm not gonna hit on all of it okay I'm really can we get the colorful slide up on the this power point up that'd be great we can hit that slide so everybody can see the millions of people out there I I think those are the numbers you're sharing it would just be helpful to see it thank you so um also I want to thank you for having a podium [Laughter] put in place for the for for those of us that have to stand up here so this is the local budget request that I was talking about and going through the numbers on um so that comes up to be over $16 million and ensuring that we have the additional almost $4 million overall for Charter Schools um so it's a it's a very Hefty
085ask at this point um but this is where we are today and we we would like for this to move forward um and get final approval on it unless there are other things that you want to add to the budget so I do want to go to if you can go down to the slide that talks about uh some additional positions that you've been hearing about lately uh continue on these are the Deferred needs that we've talked about oh one back two back one more there you go so you you've been having a lot of discussion uh from the community in regards to nurses and social workers uh from that standpoint we wanted to bring to you those types of costs that we have uh that we would have uh if we were to put
086those positions in place we have school nurses we have nine in the district and then we have 15 that are part of the Durham Public Health that they provide to us we would need an additional 32 positions at a cost of two almost $3 million annually for the social workers uh we have 34 school-based social workers uh to get us where we need to be we would need an additional 19 that would be a two point a little over $2 million ask for additional positions for that the total estimated cost 4.5 million uh and then of course we would need additional money to cover and make sure we cover our costs uh to get some additional money for Charter Schools should you ask the county for these funds is that the S just to quickly
087check if would keep that slide up 2.9 Million right correct plus 2.1 million correct gives us 4.5 million no could I I taught math at Hillside oh I'm sorry um we we did not change this number yeah so we're like 5.1 5.1 and then you have to add in the charter school you have to add in 1.1 charter school is 5 point be over $6 million for an ass all right thank you so sorry about that but thank you for correcting us yeah so north of six million to get the social workers and nurses that is correct thank you couple couple things to bring you up to date on General Assembly has two bills out there one from the Senate one from the house in regarding to School nurses uh since March 23rd they have
088not moved so they're still sitting there again we don't know what the Senate's going to come out with in their first budget and then the house will have to come out with their budget um we'll see how much of each that they pick up with uh from the governor's budget request which he had positions in there for School nurses as well um for every school so again these types of positions I just want to make sure that we all understand these types of positions are really part of the instructional programs that the state should pick up and that's what uh we've been leaning on the state for for a number of years to try to get these types of positions in this is the perfect time for them to do it with the four plus
089billion dollars they have in reserve they can do these things and move this this state forward uh for the purpose of everyone across the state that needs services so we are here now asking you to let us know what you would like the final ask to be as we move it to the county thank you Administration um and I know we've seen some of these slides three four five six times now so no worries on the the occasional typo um board members I think we're going to and this discussion with a motion to um send an ask to the county but I know there are some uh desired talking points here so um we have an onp paper ask of 16 million would anybody like to begin the discussion Miss Lewis I think this is
090a fourth time seeing this budget in presentation I do have a new question around some of the feedback we were hearing about Tech facilitators and needing support um additional positions is that something that's being covered in this budget or being looked into knowing that there's more Tech needs as well let me start then I'm going to let Mr lur um complete my uh my thought here I just want to be transparent as uh we all have been um involved with the SL funds that is coming from a federal government so for full transparency I know this is public and everybody should be aware of this we expecting to receive around $150 million $150 million so what folks really need to know about these federal funds they are not reoccurring they are one time if we
091have to fill positions with u that one time funding that means we're not going to to be able to sustain them after two years we also have some specific guideline from federal government on what the funds can be used and what cannot be used so we anticipating probably uh during our next board meeting to bring you um our proposal on how we're going to spend that $150 million we have been involved in the process I have a meeting coming up next week with uh SPAC so superintendent principal Advisory Group I also have a meeting with uh stack uh superintendent teacher Advisory Group we're going to get feedback from all these different groups also we're able to send the survey to all our staff members over 5,000 folks to share ideas on how they would like
092for us to spend the funds but again we got to keep in mind we have specific guideline because it's a grant now there are things that we can do and things that we cannot do I just wanted to say that because there going to be some other things like it support that we may be able to support for a couple years but they are not reoccurring I just wanted to put it up there because there have been a lot of conversation in the community what are you guys going to do with funding yes we're going to bring the proposal here uh again it's very specific of things we can do and things we cannot do they are not reoccurring funds and and and to add to that um if we want to be fully transparent
093schools get allocations on an annual basis that they can decide how they want to use their positions and some of them they convert uh for different types of positions at the school level they could choose to use one as a technology type position from that standpoint should that be their their plan so I I just want to put it out there that as we talk through all this there is flexibility um in there allocations to do this type of thing as part of as Dr MinGa said part of the plan for the next three years we're going to have some additional technology assistance uh for the schools uh out of the technology area and uh we we know that it's a big undertaking uh in regards to being a onetoone district so um with that
094comes additional cost if you want to know what the cost would be it probably about $3 and5 million dollar that we would need additional for those technology instructional technology positions across the district so that's that's an additional body in every building that would be an additional body in every building as was mentioned by the public comment okay I got actually got some more questions after that thank you for I'm sharing about the Esser funds and getting a more detailed um line item how that fund will be used and again being clear C that it is for a limited time but I'm sure we can see um the way it's going to support once it gets here um and hopefully we can continue those roles with additional funding when that runs out for whatever you're going
095to present ultimately um what you just said Mr lur about the schools having flexibility that's where and I'm just translating this to you know when they have certain positions they're able to um where you see some schools have more bilingual staff in their schools because they've converted positions to you know make those amends I'm glad you pointed that out as well because that's definitely a need um and along with Communications in all our schools right now so ultimately we have a lot of needs and we have a lot of resources and we're still going to have needs like all those things are true um and every department has given a budget request and you say you you're even seeking more feedback you mentioned some other places are getting feedback for the um Federal funding that's
096correct we're going to that process thank you um and that's really important um because we need to listen to those who are working closest with the children those who have children in the schools you know to help guide these decisions and understanding what the needs are um thank you Mr lur for also sharing about what additional fees would be um cost to bring in 32 additional nurses 19 additional social workers um in count I know I saw that on the Deferred needs there's 13 additional counselors that would have been a million dollars um as a deferred need as well um I don't want to repeat myself I think again we had the conversation last time about being able to sta nurses when there's a shortage in that area that you know right now I think
097that would be very hard and unrealistic I do want to make sure we're putting our money and making a realistic request um no I guess I didn't have any other more questions that was the main thing is I'm still concerned about the being able to staff those positions but I do appreciate you um bringing that slide to us and just know we do have a lot of needs I'm ready to hear looking forward to the additional plan from s thank you Miss L I'll go to miss Umstead and then Mr Raven uh agree that um thank you all for the work again on this presentation and bringing that additional inform I think um I'm really glad to hear that we're surveying our Educators I saw that email come through as people who are closest to
098the work right we know that they have will have lots of thoughts and ideas and as we heard about the um needs with the tech Champions today I hope that that can be in our deferred needs if there is more infrastructure I remember when we started talking about this last year I said how do we make sure we can support adding all these additional devices um to our district because it's a it's a big shift and so I want to make sure that we if there's other additional infrastructure needs whether it not just be Tech champions in a school but if there are other full-time positions that might be needed that we can have that in our deferred needs um and then I also with the S funding I believe we need more nurses and
099social workers and psychologists and counselors and parent engagement staff in our school so I really hope we are leveraging that fund those funds I'm looking forward to hearing that plan in May um and I also hope that we can think about what sustainability might look like you're right they're Grant funds so we don't want to put a lot of positions and then come to the end of that time and realize okay how are we going to keep funding these so creating some of those sustainability plans in there I think will be really helpful so I I support our ask where it is right now um and I want to thank you all for the intentionality of of the work that you've done to put it together Mr Raven and then miss p first I want
100to thank you all again for for the presentation it is extremely informative and but one of the things that I did want to start with is I wish that um when when we're speaking about what we're asking for that we kind of put it in context because I see the $16 million and I know if people are hearing this at home why is DPS requesting $16 million so just again to put it in in context we're requesting that the county provide 16 million in fund are roughly 12 million of which would come to DPS and four million would go to Charter Schools so I just want to always make sure that we're clear on this that we're asking for the county to provide $16 million in funds 12 of which would come to DPS and
101four million that would go to Charter Schools because that at least puts it in context that you know people start to understand how the funding models work my my next question is going to deal with or my next statement is going to deal with something that as of right now I don't think it should necessarily be in a budget but I think that we should be mindful of um one was already touched on dealing with the tech Champions and I realized the the difficulty in being able to hire a full-time Tech champion at every school so the one thing that I wanted to look at is these these federal funds that are coming in it it's essentially a portion of a stop capap I know that at the federal level there's already been a bill
102proposed that would increase the um Department of Education funding by roughly 40% would that take a year or two to be able to roll out it probably would so you know with keeping that in mind we can make the Assumption and hope that there is going to be some additional funding for for schools Nationwide so to me that that's going to be in the back of my mind um but with that being said the funds that we have that are coming to us now I would like to look at at least having an approach where we have two to three Tech Champions per school so what that's doing is it's not necessarily paying for a full-time person right now but you are um making sure that you have a few more hands working on these
103goals it it will be a stien we can monitor that we can see the progress that's made and from there we can figure out what is and what's not sustainable uh you will also make sure that you don't have a single point of failure right now if we lose a tech champion in any school how do you go through the process of making sure that you you can recover from that unless they document and have Sops from everything who's going to train the new person that's incoming so so that that's something to keep in mind in addition to that um we are on a on toone device um for for all of our students in school not even counting the devices that were already in the facilities before covid and that doesn't even account for
104all of our our um Educators and instruction assistants that also have uh devices when needed so we really have to look at the at this the security or cyber hardening of our of our infrastructure as a whole um I'm going to advocate for us being able to pay a have a a external threat assessment done on our vulnerabilities um I I I spoke with Dr manga so I'm not springing this but I feel with the news that Apple's coming to the community that Google's in a community we are prime target right so I want to make sure that we know that um when something happens because generally it's only of time that we're prepared for that so we we want to hope for the best but we want to plan for the worst so that's
105something that can be paid out of onetime funding maybe after it the assessment may determine that that's needs to be something that's reoccurring but hopefully the the assessment could do that uh my last comment is going to be dealing with what our our ask is I'm more than 100% comfortable with the $16 million ask um that the administration is has um has provided but I would actually Advocate having a second ask and a second ask is going to be essentially everything that we all know uh we're coming back we're working our way through covid we know that we're not going to have a plan B in place we're going to plan a uh which means the proximity of our students is is going to be closer we need to actually put out there the issue
106okay not asking for the money we're putting out there the issue we need a model that supports being able to have a nurse and a social worker in every school uh we we saw in the presentation that the county is already funding some of that okay so that's that's not dollars that necessarily need to go outward again if the county provided us with $6 million in additional funding that's not providing us with $6 million in additional funding that means we're getting four or five million right so again let's put uh the plan in place let's make the request that we're asking for a model that they could support that will provide us with with the 50 needed social workers and nurses and and let's figure out what's the best method to be able to execute
107on this within the next two to three years again the the the federal funds that we're receiving they are one time but they're also a stop Gap because we don't know what our new future is going to look like so if we have to use some of our funds to get to that full model until the county is able to take a year or two to readjust their budgeting that that should be understandable but that should allow us to go head and at least get the ball rolling and start ramping up and being able to do onboarding as we're moving forward with the new school year thank you go to Mr Lee and then miss viar were you finish Mr sorry um thank you all for this um well I agree with Miss Lewis I
108think this is our third or fourth time seeing this um I am I am in favor of you know I believe that we should try to you know include as many nurses as we can however I I am a realist you know I've been doing this for seven years now and working with the um presenting a budget um a realistic budget budget is something that we have to continually try to balance [Music] um I think the district um I like Mr Raven's plan to create a model this is where we need to be and how do we get there to uh have as many nurses as we can u in our district I know that there's competitive challenges that we have um with hospitals and other services that need nurses I know that the salaries
109are a challenge when they when we talk about coming into being schools um but I would really like to see you know what does halfway look like budget-wise I'm gonna I'm G to support this budget where we are yeah I I fully support this budget where we are however um I do think um we need to seriously look at the strategy to move in that direction to get the bodies in the buildings the the the social workers the counselors and the nurses what does that look like a quarter of the way what does it look like halfway um I do take um um Nicholas Grabber Grace's public comment you know and you know not doing the minimum but I think we need to really see take a serious look at what that looks like you
110know what does it look like you know to move a little more aggressively in that direction um um I don't think that we can uh I honestly don't think that we can make an ask for that amount of money in one drop and expect to actually you know you you know say we got that money we're not going to have within a year I don't think that we'll have a nurse in every school you know there's there's Logistics there is recruiting there's things like that um I think it I think getting those nurses in the schools are going to be a little more difficult than the just thinking it would happen um so that's why I'm interested in you know moving forward I would love to see a plan you know if if it's a
111two-year plan if it's a three-year plan or whatever it might be um kind of like what we're doing with our strategic plan how do we get there incrementally how do we get a little more than just a couple here a couple there but how will we get there a quarter of the way I think um we needed 32 so if we did a third of the way you know how we get there 10 at a time you know 10 one year 10 the next year 10 the third year whatever it might be what does that look like um if we don't get funding for them what do we need to cut what will we have to cut to do this you know that's just the nature of our business here you know if we're if
112we're advocating for this and we commit to having this uh these resources in schools what would have to be cut so we have to cut somewhere to increase somewhere else and what would the community be willing to cut in order to get that right I've heard sro's well SRO don't travel through our budget that's a different funding source so we wouldn't be able to cut sro's to get nurses because that's not part of our budget so um I think it's a good conversation to have I don't think it is realistic to say to get everything in this budget request but um as I mentioned I support the budget where we are but I would like to um almost immediately start to move into a phase of planning a strategic plan to try to move in
113that direction what does that look like over a period of years thank you we go to miss viar first and thanks thank you so much I um I support the budget uh budget request I do want to I do want to give a little bit of a context for social workers and um our current situation in DPS because I think this is something that a lot of community members um you know are asking for but I want to be very intentional about what we uh what we really need [Music] um especially uh when it comes to students who would not be able to get resources otherwise so we're talking about a lot of our uninsured students who do need to have Personnel um that they can talk to our model our current model uh has
114a privatization of Mental Health Resources I'm going to go to mental health specifically um if a student wants to access our Mental Health Resources um they're going to go to one of these third parties that we contract with I mean we have collocated mental health we could have upper change you know we could have Carolina access we can have all kinds of things but these are all entities that require students to have insurance now there are charity funds but those charry funds are low and they do not cover the demand of the number of students that need these services so my concern is that the current model of collocated mental health is not doing enough for our students and is not providing access it is not helping us along the lines of you know well-being
115you know our our strategic plan has um student wellness you know um holistic approach and that is in context with some of the disciplinary data that we have I think a lot of these students you know are not getting the resources they need with you know supports and collocated mental health that it's affecting um everything else including academic proficiency growth and all that so when we look at these positions and I see the requests for social workers and nurses my request is that it a social worker can help with mental health for sure but a clinical social worker is the one that can actually diagnose and can actually provide a prescription social workers themselves can't do that and so I want us to be really intentional as we you know uh approve um you know
116and look for these 19 additional positions that we do make sure that we are uh going for the clinical social workers and we're providing that um that support for for our students and um about what you know who will house it we have a model where Durham County uh Health and Human Services does provide positions and thank you um Mr lur for providing all that um and then we have the one that are uh allocated by the state and we have six of those um I do I I do hear my colleagues and especially um board member Raven when he's talking about you know whether the current model with Dr County Health and Human Services you know that would be money that would go directly to them and then we can get them here without
117having to give a part to the charters so I I do hear that I think I think we we we can do this I support this fully I think our students really need um School nurses they do need uh clinical social workers um specifically we are going to add those 19 let's make sure we get the most that we can and and if it goes through the county you know uh as board member Lee was mentioning um with those funds I I support that or but if the county doesn't have any clinical social workers this is this is the part I will support that but if the county doesn't have that you know they they have who they have right um might it not be better for us to hire our own because we have
118this specific need because the needs of the county and the community of course but DPS has a need for clinical social workers will we be able to get clinical social workers from the county and that's my only caveat to all this that's my only question that if we actually uh hire them from within DPS we can be very specific about what we need and who we get I'm I'm going to make some comments and then I'm going to come to missad and if we have additional um comments so in my seven years on the board um something that's interesting to me is that what the graphic that we had up on the screen we do provide a lot of detail to our partners at the county about what we're hoping to spend this on and
119we've kind of gotten in a habit of they actually provide us some funding and then they kind of try to direct where it's going to go which is not really within their purview um they they can provide that feedback but uh it's our job to prioritize our needs um and in those seven years we've had lots of ass I think the biggest disappointment was certainly in the the bond um but this to me feels like an opportunity to deliver one of the clearest messages we we can deliver and I want to compare it to something else we're if we said we're going to take art out of elementary schools I think the Commissioners and the community would say no no you're not we're going to take media out we're going to take music out no
120these are commit commments we've made to have in every building um this conversation we're having feels like we're finally shining a spotlight on something that we've just ignored and I know people have worked hard on it in the administration but this time feels like a chance for us to say no in Durham we're actually going to do that we're going to say we need it as a district we're going to let the Commissioners with the manager decide whether it's a priority for them and if you don't ask you don't get I'm not expecting 6 million and however many 40 new bodies in the district I'm not expecting that um over a one two threee timeline and that's the type of feedback that I think they will provide us if we make the ask of the
121additional six million also having the body of this conversation right maybe even hearing from our Administration on what's the feasibility of getting uh these nurses in place but making the ask is pretty critical to me um and I I just want to respond to something I've I've read recently and been thinking about um the there's there's someone in this community that likes to throw out the number that we're third in pure people expenditure in the state and by number we are um however I I think Mr lur you can correct me in terms of what our County puts into education comparatively around the state we're in the middle of the pack uh we're even below the 50th percent I think we're 60 3rd or 67th and so this is a chance for our community to
122reshape how they're going to invest in education and remember what did the community survey say was the number one investment area right when we asked the community it was education it was Durham Public Schools so I hope we come out with a strong ask of this $6 million yes we we will get five of it for these positions if they come back and say we're going to give you half to get you halfway first year that's great I I that's a step forward if we don't get any bodies next year we're not going to make a goal of two to three years we have got to have some money to hire folks and I don't want it on eser money that's to respond to a pandemic this is a basic need in this community so
123that that is what I hope we do tonight um I'm not going to make a motion now but um I will throw it back to miss Umstead and anyone else that wants to make additional comments you skipped me a while ago but I've enjoy this conversation and it's been amazing you are totally you are totally totally good you you went fourth on my list I'm s oh check me off and I'll just jump in here again I the the actually the conversation has been so enlightening because we all share the same dream for our students and our children and you know I I want you to hear um Dr MinGa that we hear the concerns from the it folks I think they are unspoken heroes in our schools and I hear a commitment from you
124that some way somehow you are going to take care of them and take care of them holistically I'm going to trust you to do that as you lift up them up and lift up that work because the transformation to a onetoone district has been you know on their backs with 16 and 18 hour days and and out of their hearts um so I I look forward to you helping fix that and I'm glad to know we have some federal funding might tide that over I'm glad to hear you're going to listen to our staff and our teachers and our community to figure out what to do with this Federal money I've even had conversation with mayor SCH that maybe we should pull together City County School leadership to actually dream what transformative stuff could go
125on we clearly have a the biggest pot of money but the county has a significant pot of money and so does the city so if all we do is buy PPE and Durham looks the same we we've really missed the mark so I I know that um with the Brilliant Minds at the table that we could really think of some things like centralized kitchen like a new um hotel and for homeless families and and other dreams that are already in the works in the community but um here we are with 16 million which is I would say a modest ask our neighbors in Chapel Hill orange just asked for 11 11 with very different student demographics and very uh smaller District um we are still very much in this pandemic and I asked early in
126this budget cycle what would it look like to have a nurse in every school something we should have had 30 years ago 40 years ago but certainly something we want to Aspire to so I would just implore all of my colleagues what would it look like to add I would I would say six add six million to this ass the 16 plus six not to back our commissioners and our manager and the the leadership over there into a corner not to play political games at all but to continue the conversation to continue it and if if that is is more than folks can bear then ask for half of it and get us halfway there like three like we don't get anywhere in these conversations until we spark it like we wear our spark pens
127and we spark it Dr mainga brought the spark of this by adding a couple extra nurses because he knew maybe I can get a couple more and so to me this is another way that Durham leads this is how we finally got our people to $15 an hour this is how we're working to expand prek we put it in the budget and we put it in the budget and then we bring it over and continue the conver conversation Matt's right we don't always get it all we don't always get it all but we that's how we start and continue the conversation and and have that aspiration so you know when when anybody's ready for a motion I I would make several different ones but thanks thank you Mr chairman um just want to make two
128comments here I just want to reiterate um about font uh is really due very soon to DPI so I will love to be able to get with City and can folks so we can strategize um I think within next week we have to submit a plan and again I'll say this uh there are really straight G lines on how these funds going to be used um I would love for our community to get together with all these innovative ideas that we can do with this funding very very straight with a specific spe ific government I just wanted to say that I'm open to conversation with our community when it comes to how we're going to lead BPS but again anytime you fed FS like that there are some restrictions that we need to abide by
129Dr MinGa is that all of the funds or the first portion of the funds that has a quick deadline oh Paul can you go ahead I'm going to elaborate a little bit more on that um with all the deadlines that we've had recently uh actually we have to submit a initial budget tomorrow um from that standpoint and in that regard it's we're putting it in for all 150 million now what that does is that solidifies us getting money this year in our allotted to us in June so that we can operate in June and in July the money will be available for us to draw we will have to revamp the project the program program in July after July 1st in September we're going to have to revamp it again to put in uh an
130adjusted Budget moving forward so this is a a plan and it's going to be planned again and the money will be available the key is that it's available to us in J in June because we start our summer programs in June so I'm going to go to miss Umstead and then Mr Raven and M Lewis um I like how you phrase this Mr Raven and thinking about how we kind of make this a separate ask and I do would like to see how one talking with our County about okay collectively how can we get to this this Vision or this goal I think there's another conversation too as we're continuing to get this feedback from our Educators across the district as Community is reaching out to us is what do we all want to see
131collectively and how do we collaborate to get there but I also think um second third I would want to make sure that we also can support the positions on our central office staff and our infrastructure again so I would want to also hear from our Administration you know okay here's our Collective Vision here's the plan that we need to get there this is what we can put together and then this is what we might need internally we might need another lead nurse or another um person in support student support services to make sure that we can support all the ask so I think N I think you're right we all want the same thing I think how we're getting there is kind of the questions that we're trying to wrestle with and ask I absolutely
132would love to have a conversation with our County Commissioners around okay here's our DPS ask but here are the other things and needs that we see how can we get there and that might not be in our budget which is a reoccurring um cost for our district but it might be in other ways and I think that would benefit us in some ways to have it um not as a part of our budget ass so I just want to also add that to the conversation thank you Mr R thank you uh Mr Lor I've been in a few of the budget meetings that discuss um the federal due dates um for the for the federal funds that are going out to you know municipalities and schools and things of that sort and and I've seen
133it I'm not counting the federal funds that we've already received but the ones that are supposed to be on their way I've seen two two different dates one that has a due date where the funds have to be spent by 2023 and one that has a due date that has to be spent by 2024 and so that that abides to we'd have to abide by those deadlines as well correct that is correct okay so the $46 million which is the what we call the sr2 funds which were um provided to us by the by President Trump signing the bill that's part of that that sr2 funds is coming to us uh that $46 million the additional $104 million is the sr3 as I call it Sr 2 has to be done spent by September and
134we have Sr 3 that has to be spent by 2024 so so Bas based on that this is this is my thought and I just want to share this with the board because I I want to see if it makes sense to you all one we know that the $1 million everybody seems to be on board with that so agreeing to pass that I feel like that's almost a foregone conclusion my thought is using this time to be able to engage the county on the model on how they are going to fund our second ask and the ask is the funding model for a two to threee approach and the reason I asked for those due dates is from from what I've seen the cost on it is roughly going to be $5 million right
135that's if people were hired day one the first day of school and you run through a full school year but essentially we could say this County we we want to partner with you we understand it next year you've practically already committed all those funds right so what we want to do is if you support this model to have our schools fully fund it for our nurses and our social workers within a three-year time span the first year we'll fund that our ourselves we'll we'll use the cares act funding for that because again even if we had it it would have to be fully staffed with 50 people right to to be able to even reach that $5 million the likelihood of hiring 50 people day one is probably not going to happen so we know
136it's not going to be a full five million so that first year the County's not going to have to fund anything but that second year we can ask for the county okay can you can you at least fund $3 million of that okay because we know that we have a deadline on funds for the 2023 year school year so in between 2022 to 2023 we would be at asking for the county to fund 3 million on that round then on the following year uh 2023 through 2024 we could ask for the county to fund that other portion of of that $3 million that means that we're we're acknowledging their struggles as well because everybody has earmark funds everybody knows what they need to spend money on but we're also acknowledging that this is a need
137that we can't afford to wait on so it allows us to move forward regardless um how the county decides in this fiscal year but if they at least embrace the plan we could go ahead and enact that without them having to do any extra work and from my perspective it makes it hard to turn that down you know it makes it hard for the county to say so you all are willing to accept the cost for the first year you're not asking for anything plus you're going to give us another year to start coming up with additional funds so we could fund this I think that approach it it may not be it's it's not a win it's not uh it's a win-win for everybody you know because everybody has skin in the game and
138I'm just hoping that if we can approach it in that manner we all know that that's reasonable um and I don't think we're asking too much but we are still ensuring that we're going to be able to get our schools ramped up um regardless whether they fund us for the first year or not thank you Mike has a follow-up question for Mr Raven and then I'm going to come to Mr Lewis um I'm curious I I like that plan and in general but um the rules and stipulations around the the money would we be able to do that would we be able to use it for employees like that even if it's temporary even if it's a temporary thing I'm curious because I've been hearing so many stipulations that come with the money as it
139comes in with with salaries with you know employees will we be able to use that money the erer money for that so your Sr money um you can we can use this for positions there is in the chart of accounts the ability to utilize positions or contracts in that regard for these types of positions so we could work through that process uh for the first year using the money U from Esser um when we do this we set these positions up as time limited the the uh job vacancy announcement goes out this is time limited with federal funds from uh the federal government for Esser and there's these a twoe one year or twoyear time limited positions and we pick up the cost for those years then your team has to coach applicants on it
140says one year but we're really hoping it's going to be two to three if we don't have commitment you good Mr the sir that very good ad okay thank you i' been a lot of good points made I'm going to try to be succinct um I think it's hard to compare what other counties are asking for what we're asking for I think we have to be really clear and ask for what we need and what we want based on our needs um I believe Wake County has asked for 22 million they're four times our size District wise and when I hear about you know Chapel Hill what I'm also hearing is or seeing or knowing about them is when you look at some of the equity and education and some of their needs so I
141just think it's hard to compare to other districts needs for what our need is I agree with you Natalie about the recovery and um about coming together with City County um and School Board just like what happened with the recovery renewal task force but DPS has to be there in the beginning and not as a add-on after so many things are already in place with that I really support what Mr Raven is talking about regarding the second ask and what we can get a commitment for I do feel like this eser money is a stop Gap that we can use right away and we need to have a plan for this um I would love to collaborate because our city has a lot of needs and how that how is that prioritized we have the
142digital divide broadband safety you know making sure you know it's not always on the backs of the the school to take care of our youth all the youth in the community so I would love for us to come together if time permits for that to happen but in this moment I think that administr presented us a good plan I think we have some more planning to do with Federal money that's coming in and I look forward to those discussions any additional comments or motions I think to summarize it it's clear that we're comfortable with the ask of uh what's been presented by Administration and what we've all agreed upon in multiple meetings at a minimum um not complaining it's just the budget process um but if there are any motions we'd like to put up
143to see if they can be um get the full support of the board we do that I was I might need some help with this language but move that we approve the superintendent's proposed budget for 16 million and that we um convey convey uh the need for addition additional funding to support and I would say social emotional needs of our students health and social emotional needs of our students including nurses social social workers counselors the list might continue and a phased plan for the next few years I second that okay there's a motion on the floor from Miss Umstead seconded by Miss Lewis uh we'll have additional discussion I I have one kind of response to that and that is I'm I'm concerned even though I think it's clear the direction we're setting for administration
144here I think we get it I'm concerned if we don't have recurring dollars and not not to nitpick Mr Lor's piece about the you know it's it's a one-time funding um that we're not going to spend the next year catching you know the quality candidates we can and moving us forward I mean if we only get five nurses if we only get six social workers that's still progress um I am hearing that there's another way you know we can try to find that locally but I'm it it bothers me that we're not going to make the ass so um I'm still proud of this board and and pushing for the 16 million I'm going to vote no on this round you know but um that that's why my my additional discussion while this motion is
145on the floor is I'm not even clear what that is Miss Umstead kind of that we'll plan towards something sometime like this is our moment to actually put some money ask out there whether it's even if it's a symbolic third of the way there is 2 million like something to say this board is unanimous in this concern we want to talk about it with you all and so I'm wondering if there's any amount above the 16 that you all would be interested in in bringing forward and and just as we've heard that we can use our estra funds for this I never know what I'm calling them it sounds like the county could also partner with us and use some of their estra funds for this so to me it brings that partnership conversation and
146and Mr Raven's idea and I like his math you know trajectory and all of that but it brings us into Partnership if we put something on the table so if if your motion doesn't get a friendly Amendment or accept a friendly Amendment I'll be voting against it as well but I'd love something that we all could vote to support so that's why I'm trying to have more discussion want in that second part of my Mo motion a dollar ask for year one collaborative County we would like you to partner with us for these number of positions is that what I'm hearing that would get me a long way towards being able to support it like let's yes we have some money yes they have some money yes let's talk with some money on the table
147Yeah I think that would go a long way I perhaps a 2 million ask is like a onethird of the sixth in a three-year step or something yeah I think that's doable and and not too overly ambitious that yeah okay so there's there's there's an ask to amend a friendly Amendment to the motion do we want to do discussion before that or do you want to decide if you're going to I would accept the friendly Amendment okay does that need a second uh well there's no such thing as a friendly Amendment first of all um so if if Natalie has moved to amend paa's motion to add $2 million to the ask and remember the budget process the decision that you're making that carries weight in the budget process is how much you're asking for
148there isn't a provision in the budget process for asking for future years funding that's part of a political discussion so just assuming that Natalie has moved has made a motion to amend then there would need to be a second for that you would vote on whether to amend the main motion unless patina just wants to say I accept that and with consent of the board the motion is now the administration's recommendation plus $2 million for nursing positions so so that is what Natalie has asked of patina I thought I heard you accept that I'll accept that second discussion but but is there consent of the yeah is there consent of the board is there a discussion there can be discussion and we're going to vote that up or down so if we don't if if
149a majority doesn't want the two million we can vote that down and and because I I thought and I guess this is my question then when you were talking about having a plan and coming with the coming back to the County Commissioners with a plan on how to use money I thought it was more along the lines of how do we sit down we we do a model of these are our goals as a I hear what you're saying Mr um Ken we don't um you can't do the provisions as a part of it what I was thinking when you mentioned the plan is that it will come through something such as what we're working on right now as anou where we're asking for what we want in the future as far as an allocated
150amount for what is brought in tax based things of that nature that this will be a part of the mou that we will be discussing at the Joint board meeting that this plan can be worked out with the administration and that meeting but not adding an additional 2 million it it sounds like it's Mr so if there's any doubt by any member of the board on that I would go ahead and vote on the motion to amend as a separate motion and see whether that gets anywhere because you don't want to have the whole thing go down sure Mak sense okay so if first is there a second for the amended motion Miss viar is a seconding so we're going to vote up or down the amendment itself to add the additional two million to
151the ask so so just to be clear we're going to vote before we have any discussion uh we we can have discussion before we vote yep right now and just also to be clear so the only thing that you would be doing now you wouldn't be passing the ultimate motion this would just be to amend the motion that's on the floor to add $2 million then you would vote on that if you if it pass my my only question is is that I agree I agree that we can add funds to it um my question would be does it necessarily need to be in year one um because I think the ultimate goal is to get the 50 positions funded now whether we have to pay for it or whether the county decides to absorb
152it like to me the positions is more important than who controls the per per strings on this one and and I probably should have said that um the important things is who controls the funding that to me that's important to some people to me it's what's the net result and the net result is to get the effic 50 additional staff in place so I would the only reason I would be hesitant to ask for additional funding for year one is that to me if it's honestly if it's not needed we want it like they if they offer $1 just as a commitment just just for symbolism I would appreciate that but if we can actually focus on being able to have them if they decide to give us the funding up to $6 million um
153by the third year I would be content with that and I would I would definitely support that 100% so if we could ask if we could have the the model that supports the additional 50 people up to uh a sustaining amount of $6 million at the end of that three-year model I support that 100% I just sometimes I don't want to um convey that we're going to ask for money if we don't absolutely need it and and and I'm not I'm not implying that that's what you're doing I think you just want to make sure that they understand they have some skin in the game as well and and I get that and and it resonates I just feel like this is the one opportunity that we really have that we know that they're looking
154for ways to support us okay they're looking for ways to support us uh they have their own constituents as well that are always going to be pushing back on the school does not need this because the school already has funds so if if we can if there was a way that we can ask this again where we don't act actually imply that we need funds in year one but we can say that we need up to the $6 million in recurrent funds by year three because again we're we're adopting a model the model may be that they decide to take care of all of the social workers and and they'll fund us for the nurses that could be the model but I think it's it's it shows a good sign of good faith if we're
155willing to engage in that manner I would just add to the conversation that we have a new commission um that ran on a lot of pro-education rhetoric at a minimum had endorsements from Educators and making the ask gives them a chance to do something different that the previous commissions have not that we of settled for a third third third slice of the additional Revenue that the Count's brought in um this is a a new commission that has a new relationship with a manager and it's a chance um to set a new tone so that that's why I'll be supporting the amendment additional discussion on accepting the amendment or not may I make a yep and then Miss Lewis couple comments here so uh depending in the founding model that we're going to have that's is
156going to determine how we're going to post the position if we have F then we're going to post those position as permanent positions but if we're going to rely on ASA funds then that's going to be temporary positions that's also going to determine whether or not folks will be really interested in those positions I just wanted to put it out there as you guys are making a decision so Dr M if I could ask you a question if the county decid that and they agree to a funding model in which they're guaranteeing that um after three years they will absorb all of the funding for you know nurses um healthc care providers counselors um in that situation would we be able to post it fulltime or would it still have to have that time stamp
157on it that's will be full time and reoccurring as well Miss Lewis and then miss berer I'll just listen to the answer fulltime and then reoccurring as well so again my model and the and I'm I hear what you saying a third a third a third that asking for two more million showing that sort of commitment that we're asking them to do part of it and we'll figure out how to do the rest um I think that even that two million part of it goes to Charter and and they can again offset and offer nurses under their budget without it going through our budget I'm more supportive of that than ask for 2 million than not getting the 2 million the full amount when we can get the positions another way just it feels like
158it's splitting here because again we have more needs as well and I think we are asking for 16 million knowing that other funds coming in um and that's that's why I wouldn't support the adding the additional two million at this point I'm still support the 16 but guess it's to the you know majority of the board Miss fire so I appreciate both Mr Raven and Miss Lewis who I learned are working on theou with the county I really think that's important work and um I I look forward to like strengthening that and bringing that together to me having been here way too long clearly and done too many of these budgets maybe like Mr Sears down there this is our one annual ask and Mr Raven they have more than a dollar and with they
159can't bind future boards to anything they make an annual budget like we do and so that's why it's important to me for us to bring as you know a significant amount of money to be able to post as many of these positions as real permanent positions to be able to recruit people from out of state with good money that would come here to Durham and um for these positions as we grow this program together in partner parip so that's that's all I'll say on that thanks Mr Raven so I I really I really want to support this and I feel like we are all there I feel like we all want to embrace the model uh we all agree on the 16 million um the question is what do we ask for upfront and and
160I think I think it does show a better sign if if we're all on that same page if um um dollar is is is obviously not enough um but but what what what can we do to make sure it's it's almost like we all need to ask each other what can we do so that that we could find this Middle Ground to to to get it done because we're we're saying the same thing and we're only off by this much so I'm just trying to figure out like where where is that middle ground where everybody's comfortable with so for now I I think that can be a part of the discussion after this motion is voted up or down to see where we are um if the amendment doesn't pass I think that that says
161something so is there miss V's additional discussion on the amendment I just wanted to reiterate like there's there's some urgency I actually have been in touch with uh folks who work at Lincoln Community Health Center um the number of DPS students that go through the clinics I mean we have providers that are maxed out they're they're maxed out they're burnt out is burnout is real and it's not just Lincoln um I just know that the flow of where these students are are sent to you know there's three-month waiting periods three month waiting lists to be seen at you know uh some of the community places um I have actually been talking to families about this so that there is some urgency and as I mentioned you know we have a unique position to provide um
162for for our students every single one of our students deserves to have access to mental health to you know to um wholesome you know all all the all the health and when I think about you know the the supports that we have I mean we definitely need one at each school but we have a unique situation here because we have gone through a pandemic and we're still we're still in a pandemic um and there's a crisis right now um I I think that we definitely need to do the best uh to ensure that this is something that we move on like right now um so I'm I'm definitely going to going to support the motion in the sense that we will work out the rest of the details as to how to get to all
163the the positions funded but we have to start somewhere and there's some urgency um when I mentioned clinical social workers and again I'm talking about folks who are in our schools who can see our kids and actually provide you know provide uh more than more than the supports that that they that they're getting right now um it's making it's making it's it's bringing all the access equity and all that to our students so I think because we have unique demographics um because a lot of our students you know we we we we are a trauma-informed district we are a district that upholds like the whole child and I think that we do need to put something on there and not not let it just be a plan that we're going to get to at some
164point but it's like we need like there's urgency so I do have a sense of urgency I'm going to support this motion okay just to summarize um what we're voting on here is whether to add an additional $2 million to they ask of the original motion that patina made patina made a motion that we send over the superintendent's budget as presented Miss berer asked for an amendment it was seconded by Miss vadz so the vote I'm about to ask for is to vote on whether to accept that Amendment and then we will have one motion or another coming out of that um that will likely be our final vote are there any questions about what we're actually doing here okay is there any objection to me doing a a roll call vote okay um so
165the vote is to um I is approving the amendment nay is rejecting the amendment Miss Lewis nay Miss Byer I Mr Raven nay I vote I Mr Lee I Miss Bas I'm sorry I I all right so miss Umstead original motion has been amended on a vote of five- two is there any I dare say final discussion on the budget had a question for Mr Lor please so we added two $2 million to the ask of that $2 million what is the what goes to Charter Schools of that about $400,000 to go to the Charter School are we asking to increase it by 24 million no um so that means we uh we we net 1.6 right what does that mean for positions uh well we'd have to off top my head I don't know
166but I would assume it's going to uh bring it down to near um we were asking for 32 and 19 so it's going to be probably about um 15 positions so we we would net 15 out of that right by a third okay any additional that's it thank you okay misson I do before we vote want to say for us as a board like our work also is to engage with our County Commissioners around this future plan and so I think we'll send the budget and the budget will you know what will happen with that is what will happen but I also ask all of us um to have the conversations with our commissioners to say this is a priority for us I think I you know even when I I forgot every time we
167asked for increased money did it quickly I knew that that some of that's going to go to charter schools which means even in this increase we're losing some of the positions that we're advocating for and we know that there can be a different way to do it and so I just implore us to have those conversations um we have a joint meeting that's coming up that we can talk about we added this for this reason but we really want to think about how we can do this differently because we know that we'll actually be able to maximize the dollars if we collaborate in the right way so I I want to just put that out there that that's our work and we need to do that work over the next couple weeks thank you missad
168m Lewis with this um vote being an additional 2 million less what the charter school would receive um I've heard time and time again that the County Commissioners can't dictate what line item it goes to would that be up to our Administration to determine that I'm I'm only speaking from experience I would defer to the chair but uh typically the administration re-engages the board after we get word back and hear from the commission on however they want to describe what they're sending back we've always in the summertime because if you follow the board timeline get that information back and then have a discussion at the board meeting as my experience with the with with the board priorities District priorities y we we bring the list back up for a seventh time and we start talking
169about it again thank you may I make another comment too as well but also we got to keep in mind there are some Mass uh fixed costs that we have to address such as uh salary benefits and all that uh so those are some of the Mask before we can go to some other items all right any further discussion the the motion is to convey a request of $18 million to the county is it 18 flat is was it 16 flat or was it 16,23 $8.23 million to the county as a part of the budet 23,000 sorry right 16,23 272 plus the two would be 272 all right it's on the record via Mr lour all in favor say I I I opposed it is unanimous thank you thank you thank everyone yes thank you
170all um board do we want to press on or do we want to take a five minute recess we've been here for two hours and 20 minutes anybody opposed to a recess okay we're going to recess for about 5 minutes thanks thank all right ladies and gentlemen we are back thank you for that pause moving on to item I just want to clarify we had we had ABC the uh resolution is going to be after item a is that correct that's what I have in my notes okay so I'll turn it over to academic Services Dr Hardy good evening board members Dr mbinga Miss Smith if you can pull up our ignite online account Academy presentation for members this item is before you this evening for discussion if you'll go forward to the next slide
171please this evening the administration is going to offer points for the board's consideration of how ignite Online Academy and magnet school seats could operate for the 22122 academic school year as you know the district launched ignite Online Academy as a new school slated to open at the beginning of the 2021-22 Academic Year current board policy mandates that students will lose their seat at their magnet school if they enroll in another school school which will now include ignite Online Academy participating with us via Zoom are several staff members that have worked in collaboration Miss Melody Marshall director the office of student assignment Dr Julie pack executive director CTE and magnet Mr Matt Hixon newly approved by our board as principal for ignite Online Academy and Dr Debbie Pitman assistant superintendent for specialized services at this time
172I'm going to turn it over to miss Marshall director of student assignment to take us through the presentation and then we will have time for questions and discussion Miss Marshall thank you Dr and good evening everyone we could go to the next slide please our current policy 4150 School assignments states that a student assigned to a magnet school through the lottery will be eligible for continued enrollment at that school as long as the student remains domiciled in our school system and that the enrollment is continuous a student who withdraws from the school or becomes domiciled outside of drum County loses eligibility for continued enrollment because families who wish to attend ignite Online Academy for the 2122 School school year must withdraw from their current school students would lose their magnet school assignment under the current
173policy consequently for your discussion Dr Peg thank you Miss Marshall and good evening everyone as one possible option to the current policy the administration would like to offer the following for your discussion DPS Magnet School families would enroll in ignite online Academy without relinquishing their current magnet seat for the 2021 2022 school year this action would require a revision or waiver of policy 4150 Point C and D to allow students to return to their previously assigned magnet school after enrolling in ignite we would also suggest that DPS only offer this alternative for the next school year in order to ma manage the lottery process magnet families would be required to submit an intent to return to the magnet school for the 2022 2023 school year by December 17th 2021 or they will relinquish their magnet
174school seat in light of the unknowns in the current covid pandemic environment this alternative would allow families to make decisions that meet their needs without penalizing them it also provides equity in alignment with non magnet students who could return to their previous assignment or base school after one year in night next slide please sorry next slide please if we hold magnet schools for one year it would require DPS to not backfill any magnet seats vacated by families who choose to enroll in ignite Online Academy therefore we would want to emphasize that this was a oneye alternative so that in 2022 2023 magnet families would have to return to their magnet school remain excuse me remain enrolled in ignite or return to their base school at this time I will turn the presentation over to Dr
175Hardy thank you very much at this time we are open for questions and discussion from the board Miss Lewis thank you um for this time for this discussion one to know how many um people have enrolled in magnets and for have n enrolled have applied to the magnet seats between last year this year might be different with Co but how many have applied and I do have some data in front of me and I I know also miss Marshall does as well for 2020 we had 14,48 applications for 10,872 applications and of that right now how many are on the wait list the total number of students that are on the waiting list at this time Miss Marshall I just want to confirm that's 4,000 362 that's correct thank you would we be stifling our
176growth as a district if we held those seats and did not backfill them if we did not backfill the seats it would students who would have the opportunity to come into the district would not necessarily have that opportunity so I'm going to say yes and is there anything that that can guarantee that the student who goes to ignite would come back into the mag their magnet seat guaranteeing meing they're making a commitment to come back to their magnet if we would to hold it for them I don't know that there's any way to guarantee one of the things um what as part of the possible solution we would ask families to let us know by a certain deadline so give us that commitment so that as we go through the next year's magnet Lottery process
177we would know if we would have the ability to fill that seat but if we did not hold the seat um and allowed opportunities for additional families on a wait list to fill those seats now then the families who went to ignite and say they wanted to come back to their come back to in-person school and not ignite then they would go to their base School so two scenarios the first scenario would be if we followed the current policy which means that you would families would relinquish that particular magnet SE then those students would attend ignite onl Academy and we would have the opportunity to fill those um seats with students from the waiting list for that student and family that made the decision to go to ignite if they wanted to attend a magnet
178school for the next school year the 2022 23 school year they would have the opportunity as any of our families have the opportunity to participate in the magnet Lottery process for that particular school or they have the opportunity as well to attend their base or student assigned School based on their address okay thank you and then just to Clarity for clarity purposes you did say well no for you didn't you you talked about um the policy being in place we didn't change the policy last year so the model was different where ignite was connected with your school and that's why they would not have lost their magnet but at this point ignite is its own School differently from last year right so the one major difference and we'll also make note of that in um
179I think it's the third presentation regarding um reopening for August is that students who are and families who are making the selection for in-person learning will attend their magnet assigned school or their base school if they are making the choice for online learning that option is ignite Online Academy our schools and our magnet schools will not be doing both which is what we're doing right now due to the time when we made our decision for inperson learning so for inperson learning for our teachers if you're attending a magnet school next year you go to that brick and mortar magnet school you're teacher is focused on those youngsters that are in person if you would like virtual learning for your student then you attend ignite and those teachers are 100% focused on those youngsters um or
180staff members that we have on Zoom right now okay and uh my last question um when are we reviewing the magnets and Boundary reassignment at our June board retreat June board retreat yes so some things could be changing by 2023 based on that Retreat anyway yes okay and yeah so guess where I am based on my questions is there's 4,362 students who would want to see I think that ignite is a wonderful alternative I think our base schools are an amazing alternative as well um so I'm I'm I'm for keeping our uh policy the way it is and supporting students wherever they are families with what they need in any of our schools that they choose Thank you miss buer so I appreciate um all the work that's gone into this and I appreciate you
181guys um understanding that the difficult decisions that families will be making as this pandemic continues will largely be Health determined and determined by the high-risk factors perhaps that their children and have about returning to inperson um sooner and so um I would be supportive of the um proposal that you all are bringing tonight um that would be a one- year only to to hold families harmless because of the roots that and connections they put down in school communities and respecting those relationships but also um knowing that they're making Health difficult Health decisions when they're when they're choosing ignite for their students um and I you know I I hear the concern about the weight list and the 4,000 students on that I'm not I'm convinced that those aren't largely DPS students that are in different
182schools and um already established in in those School communities as well so thank you for bringing an alternative um that to to navigate our way forward thank you what I just want wanted to clarify our our intent of bringing this for discussion uh we're not bringing any proposal to you guys we just wanted you guys to discuss this and um provide us some feedback how we're going to be able to move forward that's right uh thank you for the presentation and and I I really appreciate it because a lot of parents have reached out to us and generally like our response is or least mind has been along the lines of what the policy is and also trying to explain the implications of of having to hold a seat empty um because again if we
183allow them to go into an online program to be able to hold that seat means we have to keep it from somebody else who who was willing um to enroll in that magnet program so so I I do have a question just just for an example since so we could use like a real life school can you let me know know like one of the largest elementary schools that we have that is a magnet school Pearson I'm GNA choose Pearson town okay oh I know they're still there I just can't see them I'm but pear I mean Pearson town is perfect because this this is what I'm thinking and sometimes I think it helps that if we kind of visualize the the tough choices and the decisions that have to be made it it helps
184it make a little bit more sense so let's say we have a first grade okay and we have four first grade classes um I think that limit is like 19 is it 19 students for for first grade on reducing to 16 so so it is reducing down Okay so let's say that it was already at 16 because it's the largest one and we maybe we have like four kids from from each of those classes that say you know we we want to go to a magnet program in that situation you then have 16 kids out of the 64 uh that that we now saying we're going to go to the online ignite in this scenario what we would literally have to do and and if I'm wrong please correct me but what we would literally
185have to do is we would have to keep those seats open four seats in in each class at least in this situation if we make this offering we instead of having four classes we could consolidate that down to three classes and then move that one teacher almost not the exact teacher but the equivalent of a staff person to the ignite program to support that increased need because we're we're talking about logistics right so is that similar to like a decision that you all would have to make so we would have to make some of those Staffing decisions to ensure that we have enough staff for ignite and using Pearson Town um as our example we do have of the total number that I shared earlier there are 557 families that are on the waiting list
186for Pearson town so um there would be if students do choose to go to ignite then there would be seats available and then families would have the option of taking those seats thank you I I I think it makes sense um and again normally I I don't think we would we would engage this but going through a pandemic there are tough decisions that we have to make and I think again it's possibly what the federal funds are um to to be able to make these tough decisions make these adjustments temporarily until we could find out what that new normal is and then move forward so I'm appreciative for you bringing this towards us thank you Mr Lee um I too have been getting um emails and so forth from te from parents um just like
187everyone else um with the ask of holding spots I will come at the outside and say I'm not in favor of doing that um I know that everyone has to make the make decisions um for what's best for your family but um I'm not in favor of holding seats open for an entire year um uh holding seats in our magnet programs um with waiting list uh with people who are interested in being there in the building um I just I don't think that that is um I don't think it's fair I don't think it's fair that at the end of the year you have three choices of schools you go to when most everyone doesn't have that same choice you have your choice to go back to your magnet you would have your choice to
188go back to the magnet school you'd have a choice to stay at ignite or you have a choice to go back to your base school um I do think that there is a a compromise that I'd be interested and the possibility of moving along and I've spoken to Dr manga and uh um missad about this is if there's if there's a possibility if you end up having to give up your pro your uh your seat could those PE could those students go on the priority list for the next lottery for that particular school let me give you an example now the number of seats won't be the same but um each grade has a lot has a lottery has a has an allotment let's take DSA for example I don't know how many kids come
189in in sixth grade however U there's generally attrition and in seventh grade there are um spots generally available it's not the same amount as entering in however they're generally spots there spots in ninth grade as well the the the second largest number is in ninth grade however um if you uh get in in the sixth grade for DSA but you choose to go to ignite Online Academy I'm proposing that we do a create a priority zone for students who were in but that ended up going to ignite and they have priority in the next lottery for the next grade level so um there may be only five spots available or 10 spots available in seventh grade due to attrition from the school but those who are interested in keeping their spot will be in a
190priority zone so that that in the next Lottery those people will be considered first and going into seventh grade I just I don't have a comfortable feeling with uh holding 25 30 seats open in a in a school in a magnet when there are long lists of people on the on the U waiting list I think it's a choice everyone has to make a choice um uh what's best for your family and if ignite is best for your family there are there are things that go along with that decision that's where I stand that's a that's just a thought that I had as far as where to meet in the middle as far as this is concerned um but I I know we're not voting on it but I just just I don't um I'm
191not in favor of holding the seats open um holding the seats um especially when there's a waiting list of people who are interested in being in the building yeah I mean I've heard as well from um community members concerned about losing um placement but I think the priority ization of um the option that board member Lee just suggested is is definitely a solution I just I'm I'm still grappling and I'm not committing to uh one or the other I'm definitely considering the fact that this is a waiver of policy and I don't know much about like I know that there are many policies that people would like for us to revise and and wave and all that um I'm I'm interested in in precedent and so what kind of policies in terms of for the
192pandemic have we waved any other policies I'm just wondering if um in terms of just the policy aspect of it if we decide to wave it or revise it um what what other policies during this pandemic have we waved all let uh attorne to to or get involved but uh my two cents will be pretty much anytime you guys want to wave those up is uh it's your pleasure you can do it at any time there have been a number of times in the past when there have been unique situations um one example would be when graduation requirements have shifted and not applied to some classes but applied for example to the Freshman entering class when you've had a policy that said for this period of time this is what the rule is so if
193you wanted to and I'm not suggesting that you would but if you wanted to suspend the policy you could certainly do that for this class CL only it's been done before um I think uh there are a number of critical questions to answer if you're going to get into that and you want to write this the waiver so that it's very specific that does apply only to students who previously attended the magnet program or does it apply to students who previously attended or also were admitted in this year's Lottery um those are the kinds of questions that you would need to to ask so that you're sure that when you wave it the scope of your waiver is as tight as you want want it to be that's helpful that's very helpful um yeah I
194I I I can understand the the concern of families who are Tuesday night based on health reasons and I know that for example when looked at the presentation it says that they would have to disclose that right like they would have to disclose an intention well not not not health reasons they have to disclose an intent to return to a magnet school so so that would already um so then that would mean that not everybody who chooses ignite would necessarily we would be holding a spot for it would reduce the numbers because I mean I would have to say my child is going to return to that school I intend for my child to return um because they can certainly stay in ignite for four years you know um or however number of years um
195they want to be ignite do we have any sense of um I mean it's hard to get a gauge a sense I know we've gotten letters about this but I would imagine that the number is definitely lower than everybody who's ignite everybody every student who's in ignite has we're saving a spot for at their Bay School um so this this uh intention form can you tell me more about the intention form um it says they have to submit an intent to return to the magnet school um does it ask anything about whether there's like a health reason or um I I also don't know exactly what the what the uh form would would look like but I would imagine that we're making discretionary decisions concerning folks who really do want to return to their magnet
196and are probably doing it for XY reasons can you clarify just or give me just a little more details about what the intent form so we would be holding that student seat for the entire Academic Year so if if that is um an option that we would consider and I attended DSA I chose to go to ignite then my seat would be held for that entire Academic Year so the 2122 school year um in preparation for the upcoming magnet Lottery we would ask families to let them know if they plan to return to DSA the reason we're asking is so that we would that gives us an opportunity to identify the number of seats that are available for that upcoming year so if there were 15 students who said that they were going to return
197back to DSA and we would not include those 15 in the number of seats that would be applicable for the upcoming year so it's not about the choice that you made so why you chose to go to ignite it's about how many seats we would have available for the upcoming Lottery um the upcoming Lottery application still considering and I know I'm glad we're discussing this thank you all for this um I know that families are grappling with many decisions right now about what next school year looks like and and fortunately we're still in a pandemic and we're not sure when vaccines will come available especially for our youngest children I know that I think 12 to 15 could be soon so I just want to curious when doesn't enrollment for ignite in like is there
198a date that families need to enroll we have not set a deadline for the commitment form we know that there are lots of things families are considering and you mentioned um things that may happen with the vaccines even for our younger students um we know that this is a conversation that we will we needed to have with the board so that communication can go to families many families want to know prior to making um this particular decision regarding if they are in a magnet school so um more information to come we'll be providing regular updates to you regarding at night I think like Mr Raven was saying it is very logistical so in my mind I'm seeing the people and and the staff and I just my wondering would be is could there be a
199halfway point throughout the year so a semester you commit you either recommit to ignite and lose your magnet seat or you stay and say I'm coming back to inperson learning in January um I don't know that actually works I think that's probably complicated uh when it comes to Staffing and position so I understand that but that's that would just be my wondering um as we're considering different possibilities um to try to provide some of that flexibility and I think it's also hard because we really don't have a sense of the numbers right now um if we're talking about 12 students or if we're talking about a 100 students you know and and where schools are they coming from so I think that makes it more challenging we knew that it was going to be a
200small number it could be something more easily done um and I recognize for our schools that are running magnet programs the challenge that it also means for some of those programs that build upon each other what it would mean for a student to be virtual and then start later like I also recognized that um so I'm just I'm grappling too with all these different complexities of this decision but those are just my kind of wonderings on what we could do just wanted to quickly respond to uh chair Hamstead uh media Point we've been receiving emails um our teachers are doing amazing work with ibrid model and all that kind of stuff moving forward we don't want to put them in that position again in my brain the numbers are perfect so they could be virtually
201just in ignite and then they would come to their inperson learning but I know doesn't work that way always no it doesn't as as as I'm emailing Teacher Appreciation Week notes and the swaps my own family's had this year um okay um board is there a a motion someone would like it's just for information right just just Just for information but we really wanted to see the consensus of the board where you guys are and so we're going to come with a really final recommendation so we just wanted to know where you guys are we're not expecting to get any vot on this great you feel like you know where we are great yes moving on our next item amended 8B is the discussion of a resolution Miss buyer oh I put it at D
202but okay where are we miss uh Miss Smith thoughtfully um put this in a great format and just emailed it to us but this is a resolution that we drafted on opposing what did what do we call it proposed amendment opposing proposed discriminatory and anti-trans legislation do you all have that in your email from Miss Smith so there are three bills still sitting in the general assembly we have some press that um the general assembly doesn't plan to bring them forward but I think we've seen in the past that the general assembly does whatever the general assembly wants to do puts things in the budget puts it under another name puts a motorcycle helmet Bill and brings all kinds of things to bring whatever the general assembly wants to bring so if it is um
203acceptable to you all I would like us to consider passing this tonight both to affirm our lgbtq students and Educators and families but also just to be ahead of what could be coming um soon so i' welcome your thoughts on that I would move that we I would um say that we read it uh so we can have a motion all right does anyone need additional time to pull it up okay we'll start on this end Miss Lewis do you want to start Daren Public Schools Board of Education resolution opposing propose discriminatory and anti-transgender legislation whereas North Carolina is one of 25 states where elected leaders have introduce anti-transgender legislation and whereas these bills are are unnecessary discriminatory and transphobic and whereas Senate Bill 514 the youth Health protection act will prohibit transgender people under
204the age of 21 from receiving any trans affirming care would penalize medical professionals who provide transition related care would require Public School teachers counselors administrators to share with the students parents if they learn that a student may be transgender and will protect the dangerous anti-lgbtq practice of conversion therapy and whereas House Bill 358 the save the woman women's sports act attacks transgender Youth and schools who seek to participate in sports by requiring students on Middle High School and Intercollegiate sports teams to participate in a team assigned aligned with the sex assigned at Birth and the legislation specifically targets transgender girls and whereas Senate Bill 515 the healthc care Heroes conscious protection act is an extreme bill that will allow that would allow any medical provider Pro to refuse to do anything they object to on
205the basis of conscience including even providing information or referrals and establishes a broad and dangerous license to to discriminate against LGB btq people pregnant people or people of uh differing faiths backgrounds and whereas every whereas every lgbtq person must be free to live their life openly with their equal constitutional rights ured and whereas in January of 2021 the city of Durham passed an ordinance protecting members of the lgbtq community from discrimination and whereas due to discrimination lgd lgbtq youth are often at increased risk of bullying stress homelessness suicide mental health issues alcohol and drug abuse and whereas school boards administrators Educators and staff must create safe learning environments for all students free from bullying and discrimination and whereas North Carolina General statue 115 C- 47.5 article 29 c School violence prevention states that bullying or
206harassing Behavior includes but is not limited to acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristics such as race color religion ancestry national origin gender social economic status academic status gender identity physical appearance sexual orientation or mental physical developmental or sensory disability or by association with the person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics and whereas these proposed laws are inconsistent with existing School violence prevention laws in North Carolina and whereas in other states most of these similar discriminatory laws are being challenged in the court system or are subject to invalidation on constitutional grounds and whereas similar disat rights in North Carolina like House Bill 2 the public facilities privacy and Security Act caused tremendous negative economic Fallout across the state of North Carolina therefore
207be it resolved that the Duram Board of Education requests that all elected members of the North Carolina General Assembly reject any and all legislation targeting lgbtq people for discrimination and we urge every elected member to work tirelessly to protect the rights of all people in North Carolina signed the sixth day of May 2021 board members is there a motion around this resolution I would have just one edit that and the therefore be it resolved that the Duram Public Schools Board of Education with that change I would move that we approve uh this resolution and Miss Umstead before we do I um noted that last therefore I think I meant lgbtq people from discrimination so if we can change that for to a from I think that was a miss and I appreciate y'all uh bearing
208with me thank you so I second with those changes it's been moved by Miss Umstead second by Mr Raven that we approve the resolution with the Amendments mentioned any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed it is unanimous excellent resolution thank you Miss SP for bringing it all right academic Services amended 8C fall reopening updates good evening again Miss Smith if you could bring up our fall update presentation while she is bringing that up this is a collaborative presentation regarding what opening of schools will look like Beyond summer learning we appreciate the support of our operational Services team as well as other District departments also on Zoom joining us is Miss Chanel sidbury executive director of K12 curriculum and instruction and Dr Debbie Pitman assistant superintendent for specialized Services if you'll go
209forward for me two slides please perfect tonight we will provide an overview regarding our lessons learned some of the choices for families and students discuss our social and emotional support as well as some of the areas in specialized services such as arts and physical education and of course we'll have time for question and discussion this is before the board tonight for information next slide please when we think about the past Academic Year and the year that each of us have experience collectively we know that we have to pay attention to that as we think about having school in August so the first one we're going to talk about is our social and emotional learning supports we know that isolation is real for many of our students and families and it's going to be critical for
210us to make sure that we're providing those opportunities and supporting both our students and our staff as we transition to full inperson learning we also know when we think in the area of equity um that having access to technology is a basic right we have to make sure that that continues for our families devices and connectivity support must continue to be provided to ensure that our students can participate in learning equitably and that they have opportunities to access accelerated learning communication something the board has discussed earlier in this particular meeting our need and expectation to ensure that we provide effective two-way communication that we are constantly working and connected to our families and often doing so when requested and needed in their desired language that that communication is frequent and that it is not only
211from the district the child's teacher and also from our school community and that we um do our due diligence and making sure we're supporting the learning that's happening so that we're monitoring what's occurring and when we see a need that additional support uh is needed for that particular student that we make sure that we provide that using our mtss process will help us make sure that we use the systemic approach to get and work with each and every student so that we can intervene when necessary and more importantly we can accelerate as well next slide please want to talk a little bit about um the choice for our family so if you'll go forward one more slide families have an option in dur Public Schools so Miss Smith we thank you perfect so we've got
212ignite Online Academy that is our option for virtual learning for in-person learning for the um upcoming Academic Year our student experience will be very similar to the student experience prior to covid we will have increased capacity on our buses so as students are transitioning leaving their home and going to school they will have the opportunity to do that we will make sure that we have enhanced support not only in the area of academics but also in Social and emotional learning as we've discussed as recommended in the most recent version of the strong schools toolkit released yesterday we will continue to have social distancing markers in our schools and at this time the most notable difference will be our continued expectations for face coverings for students and staff inside our buildings next slide I'll go through
213these next slides um since we have spent some time talking about ignite fairly quickly but please know that we do have several staff members that are still available on the zoom if there are are questions so we do have our option for ignite Online Academy just to clarify Dr MinGa did say it earlier we want our community and families to know if you want a virtual online option we have it for you kada 12 is an ignite if you would like your in-person option that's at our traditional brick and mortar and magnet schools um our schools will not be doing both they will only be doing inperson learning next slide please ignite Online Academy is our online option for students providing a focus personalized experience that is going to be connected to our environment we
214want our families to continue to learn more about ignite Online Academy and you can do so at our website at ignite.com we um will continue to provide our board and our community with updates regarding ignite Online Academy as we've talked about our commitment form has been launched you all have approved our principal Mr Hixon they are working on professional learning for our teachers to make sure that they are continuing to learn and grow and teach in the virtual space and finally we are working collaboratively with our operational staff to make sure that we find facility space for our ignite online staff next slide a reminder go inc.net I don't want anyone to forget you can see the virtual ribbon cutting you can hear from Dr MinGa from our board chair for Mr Hixon and that
215is where the commitment form is for you to make your commitment for the Academic Year all right we'll go to the next slide this next section is talking about um our instructional priorities social and emotional learning and specialized services so if you'll go one more slide forward when we return to to inperson learning we will continue to ensure as I mentioned that we're providing students with the social and emotional support that they need making sure that we have access and our excitement for our core content as well as making sure that we're providing any scaffolds that our students need because of what may have been missed during remote learning we will continue to ensure that students have the opportunity to collaborate both digit both digitally but also making sure that we are recommitting ourselves to
216creating that sense of community in the classroom and that sense of belonging because we know how important that is and how for many of our students that has been missed during this pandemic we want to encourage our students to be creators with their technology not just passive recipients and just receiving we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to share what they're learning when we think about the students in dur Public Schools we know that we have future coders and digital problem solvers and have to create an experience for that learning to thrive in our classroom next slide please here you will see just a few and you know it's really difficult um when we are putting together not only our presentations but thinking about the entire experience that happens in a classroom
217to put every single item that occurs in the classroom I want to make sure that our community is aware that um this is just simply a snapshot we will make sure that we use the resources that our board has approved we're thankful for your commitment to ensuring that all of our schools have access to high quality instructional materials and curriculum in the area of literacy and math making sure that we're being thoughtful about ensuring that we do have access to culturally relevant curriculum and books and resources in our classroom so that our students can see students I mean um characters in our text that look like them making sure that we are adjusting navigating for potential learning loss that may have occurred during the pandemic and then making sure that we're prioritizing those Concepts and
218for our students that need acceleration they have that opportunity as well we also want to make sure that we leverage our learning management system so in the unfortunate event that we do have a closure that there is not an an an interruption in the learning that needs to occur next slide please as we continue Contin to build what will occur in our face Toof face we will make sure that of course our students have access to technology and connectivity and working very closely with our information technology department so our families know that in DPS you do have access to a DPS laptop we will make sure that we continue to use Assessments in a manner that not take away from the classroom instruction but provide our teachers with information so that they can better help
219and support our students adjusting our curriculum to ensure that we are spiraling the prioritized information and personalized learning with our continued commitment to goal 1D to ensure that our students are using our learning management system as well as other instructional tools and Parent Portal within power school so that we're constantly communicating with our families in a timely basis next slide we are all getting more comfortable and um being closer together and we are phasing that in as we think about our learning organization so we think about the learning for this spring the secondary level in a cohort model to allow our students to get comfortable as we transition and shared with the board um I was going to say last week I think it was two weeks ago regarding summer summer will be in plan
220a um we are in our Central Services and even in some of our schools starting to have those small inperson meetings so that we are starting to re acclimate ourselves um back to uh face to face as we prepare for summer learning summer learning will be four days a week with face tace inperson instruction our yearround in specialty schools will begin in plan a all of that setting us up for a trajectory to make sure that we are ready for our Traditional School opening that will occur in late August if you'll go forward uh two slides please we're now going to transition to our social and emotional learning support and again I can't acknowledge um too much how important that is we know that that has to be a priority as we transition um our
221students um they need it they yearn for it and also our staff as well so here you will see just a few items in where we will be addressing our social and emotional learning support some examples include morning meetings check-ins intervention blocks professional learning for our staff mental health support and resources continued use of our seal uh screener using Panorama uh staff development with mtss as mentioned before and with the board support our trauma informed support having the ability to train our staff as well as the additional support of our community collocated mental health our student support staff services that we have in our schools behavior intervention teachers Behavior coaches our school psychologists our school counselors all of those in collaboration with our community and our caregivers our parents and Guardians supporting our students with
222social and emotional support you'll go forward to slides please to talk a little bit about some of our specialized services and the areas that many of our students are so excited to come back to you'll go forward one more slide this slide talks about Arts education um we have had a commitment in Durham Public Schools to Arts education and arts programming at the elementary level our students will receive weekly music and visual arts instruction by their music or visual arts teacher and at middle and high school schools students will have access to Arts courses that they have chosen to participate in during the school day we also want to acknowledge and appreciate the strong partnership that DPS DPS has had with the durm Community Arts organizations the durm Arts Council will provide in-person teaching artists
223so that DPS continue can continue to offer an integrated arts experience you'll go one more slide please and physical education um all students will have the opportunity when we uh come back in August to participate in our physical and health education courses students will at this time will wear masks for um face coverings for our indoor activities and we will ensure that we have appropriate processes and procedures in place for cleaning and disinfecting any equipment that is shared among students as you can see we are already in the planning for what fall will look like while we are finishing up this year's strong working on our plan for summer and then making sure we are ready for full inperson plan a instruction and um July for year round early a August for specialty and late
224August for our traditional schools we can go forward one more slide and this is before the board for uh information we are happy to take um any questions and discussion and as I mentioned we do have um staff here um that are on the zoom with us thank you so much thank you so much Dr Hardy board members misson thank you Dr Hardy and your team for this presentation um still feels a little scary to think about going back to full-time plan a but I I know that we are learning a lot from what we're doing right now and we'll continue to have lots of safety measures in place um one of the things I thought was missing from the presentation but I know that we are doing was thinking about culturally affirming spaces and
225one of the things I've heard a lot from families around returning to school is that you know while they've been home they've been able to to really learn with their parents and learn with their families and be in a space that uh a students have been affirmed in and so I want to make sure that as we return to school that that same environment um some of that also translates into the school environment and I know we have we talk about this often we have a off awesome office of equity Affairs but I would love to make sure that it also is in our presentations which means that it's also at the Forefront of our mind and I really tie that directly into that social and emotional Wellness right we have to build those positive
226identities of our students in order for them to be social and emotionally well um one other thing I've also just heard a lot and I also believe that our schools can't look the same um after after covid-19 we've lived through a pandemic and our students have learned a lot of skills and their resilience and Technology um and I wonder how we use this time to really tap into those skills um and I know we discuss learning loss but I also want to consider how much students have gained and how we tap into those skills and use them for the um their academic learning and then my last thought is you know over the last couple of months we've had lots of new companies that are coming to Durham and I know we've already had conversations
227with our CTE office around how do we create more pipelines for our students to Apple and Google and to the other companies that are coming this way and I hope we continue to really lean into that work because our students need to take advantage of this great economic opportunities that are here and so I know that's happening I just want to uplift that and and highlight that some more but thank you all Mr Raven thank you and thank you for the presentation I feel a little talkative today but I I feel so engaged in on some of this and I'm looking at the one that dealt with uh the page that dealt with planning and delivering high quality instruction so I was looking looking at some of the icons below and I saw the teams
228and I saw the zoom icon so my my question and this this may fall into operations a little but do all of our Educators have I'm assuming that they all have Microsoft 365 accounts so they can all um collaborate on teams is that correct and I'm also thinking right now at least from what I see in elementary school with with my kids is that they're all operating through Zoom classes um and I'm I'm assuming that that was partially done because of the benefits of Zoom being able to have the breakout sessions and stuff like that so when I see that now that um Microsoft 365 platform does allow for breakout classes as well I'm wondering is that an opportunity to possibly save maybe few $100,000 on whatever we're paying on the annual cost of Zoom
229to be able to use Microsoft teams as the platform that all of the classes can can run through because one of the things that I've seen is is a little Gap that everybody's had to get used to is if you're on zoom and and you're they're they're on whiteboard or whatever they're using they have to go to a external site but let's say for instance a class is going on and a teacher um posts a lesson if they were on teams the teacher could literally upload that document into the chat box so every student you know kindergarten or or 10th grader they could all click on that link and automatically open it because it's a collaboration tool that allows for all the documents to be stored in that one place so wondering is there uh
230is there opportunity for us to phase out the usage of some of these Zoom licenses next school year to move more towards the the teams especially since all of our students could have free accounts so that way they they have more of their information more their documents in one place thank you I was looking to Dr Monk I didn't know if Dr Monk wanted to speak before me I think there's there definitely always opportunities um there's significant collaboration between Miss Malone and Miss sidbury um regarding the use of the tools that we have and where we do have opportunities for cost savings and where we have the opportunity to leverage the interaction um we are um we use both there are times when I um and our I'm invited to a teams meeting and times
231when I'm invited to a zoom meeting so thank you for lifting that up and know that that is something we're considering thank you again miss p want to thank you all for this plan I want to thank you Dr Hardy but also whoever's on this Zoom that we're not seeing and I want to um commend the the detail and the passion but also wonder what your vision is for actually bringing teachers back to throw eggs at it and like really say here's what worked for us and here's what didn't like teachers counselors social workers you know bus drivers like what is this next step to actually hear more from the people that have lived it um and say what's working and what's not do you all have do we have some work days near the
232end of the year do we have some kind of gap between that the end of the school year and um summer camp fun where we could bring some of our people that not just our cheerleader people but our critical people and and really hear from them like before we get to August or July actually is where year round schools yeah absolutely um on a regular basis we are convening our uh teacher advisory Council and as we're working with our principales and they're preparing their plans for inperson learning for AUST Gathering feedback from their staff as we put that together um and as we mentioned when we transition our our stack meeting next week that Dr MinGa mentioned is in person um we know how important and critical the feedback is is as we finalize our
233plans we also know that we'll learn a lot um from our summer learning just as we're learning right now um from the inperson learning that's occurring and all of that will help us ensure that we have um an inclusive plan when our students come back I appreciate that and and especially I think our Tech Champions are some folks that we're starting to hear a lot from and coming together maybe even with the help of the DPS foundation on really talking about the pieces that we haven't talked about yet we scrambled and got a onetoone plan together but what does it mean what's the right amount of screen time for our youngest kids for our students with exceptional needs what's what's our vision for how to use this as a tool but not to have it
234take over our lives um you know how much assessment are we doing is it the right amount is it too much I would say you know when when our marketing folks are going to go out and Market we assess your kid all the time is not going to be a strong marketing tool right they want to know that their kids are doing the the engaging deep thinking Equity focused work that reflects this community so I hope that um as we' listen to those teachers and folks will hear and pull back from some of that and the the thing that's still gives me pause is this minimal social distancing and especially when we talk about school buses are we going to be running school buses Full Speed Ahead like full buses like we're back on plan
235a everybody's on there are we back eating in the classroom or in the cafeteria what are what are we thinking that this plan a actually looks like um so as it relates to uh school buses we would be increasing the number of students from one to a seat um to at least two uh to a seat um eating in the cafeteria would also um likely be in play as we move into August um there's still discussion on whether or not that would be prepackaged food or um the way that we've served it in the past um yeah and and in the classrooms that the uh will be back to full capacity um in the classrooms as well yeah because you all have been doing such a great job on every case that we have um
236but you know the followup and the emails that we get are largely we didn't need to close a classroom because we were practicing social distancing and masking right so taking that social distancing away I'm curious to hear from nurse Howard how that might change us going forward if we are full in plan a and um we want to make sure that as much as possible we're continuing to keep folks safe do we have any sense also of what percentage of our staff are vaccinated I know we offered to everyone but that doesn't mean they were there yet and um we don't have we actually don't we can ask them but they don't have to tell us so we don't really have a good gauge on a percentage but we are still offering I appreciate it
237I'm I'm interested in over the summer I know there is still significant vaccine hesitancy in the community that that we continue to approach and reapo our 16-year-old students even and and encourage in whatever ways we can um deep vaccination and I would anticipate that over the summer the FDA emergency use authorization would change to regular and we might be able to consider you know requiring vaccination sometime within the next year so yeah um and and so to address the vaccination of our 6an up excuse me we have been in a conversation with the health department um and at least two pediatricians who are offering to do those vaccin inations um and even possibly 12 and up considering if it's authorized um maybe as early as next week um so you should start to see some
238communication come out from both DPS and our partners um getting that information out to parents trying to help uh alleviate some of the hesitancy that they may be having themselves as well as uh what it means to uh to vaccinate students as well thank you that would be fantastic thank you so much m f this is great um you know I I I'm looking forward to um all the different components for how we're taking care of our kids you know uh following comments from my colleagues on um things to look at I'm I'm specifically looking at the social and emotional learning supports um one of the ones that uh that I think doesn't naturally come into this slide but I think it has to do with with it is is the Outdoor playtime Outdoor Learning
239I saw the Outdoor Learning listed um above when you know we were talking about the uh excitement for core content and it mentions Outdoor Learning my concern is uh specifically around the time that students spend Outdoors [Music] um in unstructured time as well you know so so it's not like they're a captive audience and they have to look at the same Le for the same instructional thing but that they have like time like spaciousness right I'm really looking for spaciousness um and wondering a little bit about our policies with um recess because and I might be wrong about this I just you know but middle schools uh that seems to be a concern in terms of like resource recess policy um what is up to the principle in terms of discretion and I was recently
240contacted um about a middle school where uh there was a comment about you know students stud walking the track and being told that they can earn outdoor time um to you know rock around the track and so earning earning outdoor time just doesn't sound right you know so it's I just I would like to see it more like visible that you know every child should not have to earn outdoor time that's already a guaranteed right you know for them to be able to spend some time Outdoors um and that goes along with our social and emotional learning um goals all right Administration thank you so much for the update I know our community really appreciates it thank you guys right item 8D is grade replacement replacement policy 3420 good evening again Miss Smith if you
241will pull up our grade replacement presentation thank you so much want to thank um several staff um that are either here in person or on the zoom um Miss Giovani our chief of staff did help us very quickly this is uh before you tonight for Action Dr Julie Spencer who is on the zoom as well as um our power school team as we were thinking and collaborating and our our High School principles who really have pushed us um to think about all of the opportunities to create a culture of of access for our students if you'll go forward I think you can probably go forward two slides to the agenda slide perfect um this evening um we are bringing forward to you today a recommendation for changes for policy 3420 student promotion and accountability we
242will share the rationale for our proposed changes to the policy A Brief Review of our current policy and the recommendation that is being brought for you this evening for approval and of course we will have opportunity for uh discussion and questions also participating on the zoom are Dr lever Maddox Perry senior executive director for student support Services Mr James Futrell director of Engagement and access and Miss Tama Ward saterfield coordinator for K12 counselors you'll go forward one slide please DPS remains committed to ensuring that all of our actions that we take are part of not only our strategic plan but helping move our students forward in the area of student achievement strategic plan Priority One increased academic achievement often may be referred to as the North Star for us as a learning organization the recommendations
243that we are bringing forward this evening are most connected to goal 1C which states that by 2023 GPS the four-year graduation rate for students who start with us in n9th grade will be at least 90% I think we all know how important um making sure that our students graduate with their school diploma and the doors that it opens in terms of their ability to transition into the workforce or postsecondary education or serving our country as well we believe that we increase academic achievement for our students when we increase access and opportunities consistent with a growth mindset next slide please the existing policy is rather comprehensive in how IT addresses promotion standards standards for receiving a diploma and opportunities for credit recovery as a result of decisions of the grade replacement policy work group that occurred
244during the 19 excuse me 2019 2020 Academic Year our recommended policy changes for grade replacement now include the option of repeating a course for which a student may have already received credit and minimizing the potential negative consequences to a students grade point average if they decide to repeat an entire course next slide please we realize through an extensive review of our student academic data such as grades and attendance that some students may have been more negatively impacted by our transition to remote learning in March 2020 due to the pandemic the decreased academic engagement by some students students has resulted in lower grades for those who found meeting and exceeding course standards more difficult Andor challenging the proposed policy change to allow grade replacement would provide students who earned a c or lower in a course
245to repeat the entire course for a higher grade that would be placed on the students transcript and calculated for GPA class Rank and honor Ro eligibility we are also planning a menu of Summer learning choices which you heard about a couple of weeks ago for students to participate in this summer one option does include high school students participating in summer learning for credit recovery and having access to modules for new credit this proposed policy change would incentivize students to participate in summer learning and demonstrate Mastery of a course by earning a higher grade the replacement of a course on a high school transcripts when they say successfully earn a high school grade which strengthen their opportunities for post-secondary work students with increased GPA can be more selective in their choices Beyond high school and potentially
246earn academic scholarships lastly we promote students ability to recover from initial failure in this policy the opportunity for a student to successfully repeat course and have a higher grade replaced on their transcript minimizes the punitive nature of failure and builds a resilient attitude in our students at this time it is my pleasure to turn it over to Dr lever Maddox Perry senior executive director for student Support Services Dr Maddox Perry good evening thank you Dr Hardy the State Board of Education has granted at local Boards of Education the authority to Define policies that would allow students other than those who failed a course to repeat a course for credit and allow the grade to be replaced allowing dur public school students the same opportunity would prepare our students to be more globally competitive with their
247peers across the state the nation and the world they increased postsecondary options and focus on a growth mindset will ensure our students maximize their potential with this policy change with the ongoing effort to assist students in full engagement and management of their education this policy post pandemic closures offer students a chance to recover from initial shows of lower grades or numeric grades that they believe are inconsistent with their ability even more compelling for adopting this policy now is that all our High School principles have had an opportunity to provide input during the revision process as well as feedback on the final recommendations for the board's consideration we are confident that we will be able to continue this inclusive approach to Swift implementation if adopted this evening next slide please and next slide please thank you
248the policy addresses credit recovery and repeating a course for credit it is important to consider that credit recovery Still Remains an option for students to complete a subset of a course to earn credit when they previously did not earn Credit Credit Recovery marks result in a p or an F with the original course failure grade remaining on the transcript and impacting GPA students will be able to repeat a course for grade replacement using adum North Carolina virtual public school or in the traditional classroom when space is available students must be enrolled in an identical course with an identical course code and matching content to replace the grade as shared earlier repeating a course for credit to allow for grade replacement would be an option for students earned a c or lower with unlimited opportunities for
249students to make requests the unlimited opportunities would be based upon a school level principal approved process on an exceptional basis there should be more extenuating circumstance that prompts a review of a request for repeating a course in advance of the recommended four during the entire High School tenure next slide slide please there are some implications for school staff to consider with the proposed policy change the use of grade replacement is a paradigm shift in grading practices traditionally students earn a final mark for a course and it stays with them grade replacement will challenge staff to maintain an asset based perspective when considering students Ambitions to earn a higher grade this will also require students to be challenged with new and Innovative experiences to earn a higher grade in courses mtss school teams and processes will
250be in integral to support identification implementation of interventions and progress monitoring for students who commit to grade replacement student advisement will be essential as well to encourage students to participate in grade replacement as a means to reach goals established collect collaboratively by the student the family and the school additionally dur Public Schools recognizes there will be limitations to the courses made available for grade replacement during our operation summer learning this year dur public schools did not request retesting of our students this summer therefore we will not be able to offer grade replacement for State mandated tested areas it will really be important for school counselors and teachers to accurately advise students about what opportunities are available for summer learning and grade replacement that best meet their unique need needs in the coming weeks and months
251multiple departments including student Support Services Research and accountability Communications the office of Athletics our principles and other school-based staff will continue to collaborate to effectively Implement Implement a policy change implementation will be coordinated with our power school technicians to ensure processes are in place to allow the technical change of students grades on the transcript the grade replacement project team will reconvene to dis excuse me to discuss the approved final policy if that is a pleasure of the board in order to adopt the changes Athletics will also provide any direction for the project team to consider related to athletic eligibility for students who request grade replacement student Support Services will then be prepared to train high school counselors on the use of grade replacement and share procedures collaboratively developed with our High School principles if the
252policy is adopted now by the board we will reconvene the project team very soon next week and begin pertinent staff training by May 18th by late June we anticipate sharing this policy adoption and regulations widely with dur public school students and families as schools prepare to receive additional requests for grade replacement during summer learning and the 2021 2022 regular school year at this time I will return it back over to Dr Hardy thank you Dr mad thank you Dr Maddox Perry we can go forward to the next slide this is before the board for action um we are recommending and and requesting that you wave the second reading for adoption of this policy this is time sensitive as it impacts our students um for the upcoming close of the Academic Year and for summer learning
253this would uh approval would allow us to begin the cross functional collaboration that Dr madx Perry mentioned to ensure that all components are in place to help our students uh the team uh myself Miss Giovani and the team on the zoom we are here for questions and discussion thank you Mr Raven I just have one quick question I believe it was D1 on the second line uh there was a question that says that the students parents May initiate a retention review um I wasn't sure and basically it stated that they had three days to do so so I didn't know if that was like a hard requirement that they must um I guess reply within three days or or is that kind of like a guideline of that they should but that the um you
254know overall there is still some time baked into that and again that was on D number one under retention review hearing on the second line the students parents May initiate a retention review hearing by submit a written request I wasn't sure if that was intentional so I I can speak to that if you'd like Dr Hardy is up to you yes go ahead Dr madx per um so yes the um policy review team um did come up with that guideline to just have some guidance and and some um way to um monitor how quickly they could include a review of retention decisions the point was to make sure it was collaborative and that there was a process by which parents could request a review of initial decisions on that thank you um the the only
255reason I asked that is I'm wondering how long would we allow it to linger on um like let's say somebody responded in a month later like would that still allow you all to have enough time or would they cry foul um so that that that was my only reason for asking that one given the timelines that we have for the end of the year and for promotion there's not an opportunity for something like that to go that far um so I don't know that that particular instance would be a concern thank you um along the lines of Mr Raven's question I think I would like to see maybe five days just to give parents a couple more um days to respond you know we out going on so making sure that they have that window
256to be able to respond but otherwise I appreciate the policy Miss buer so wow I appreciate all your work on this my head is reeling because I didn't know this was here for us to wave second reading and I didn't know we were passing it tonight I thought we were starting to talk about it so um I am so supportive of of efforts to make sure that our children can move ahead and that we never want um stumbles and teenage things and pandemic things on top of teenage things to to pull down their life so if this is what you all believe is going to get us moving forward um I'm excited about it I did not understand at all why if you took an EOC class that that can't be repeated can can you
257help me understand that I can and also Dr Spencer is also on the call so if you um think preco normally in February or March and one of the reasons I remember that is because that was also a meeting where we closed for the pandemic we typically bring to you our summer learning learning plan and the one aspect of that plan that requires action is the ability for us to implement what we have often called Andor Public Schools take two and that provides the opportunity for we must have board action for the readministration of eogs and eoc's and that action did not occur this year we did not bring that recommendation to the board and so given that we are not readminister eogs or eoc's Dr Spencer does want to speak to this and I
258I know she's there I know I I'm I am here for some reason our video is not on but I am here and I did want to speak to that question um because it is it is a um there we go there we go um I did want to speak to that we this this is part of the guidance around summer retesting and it is actually one that we are still inquiring um to see if there is um additional guidance from DPI which I believe is in process so we will be um hopefully being able to update that once we have clear Clarity on that guidance but it has to do with exactly what Dr Hardy said which is um there is the distinction um is around whether you are re administering a test or
259whether you are taking the test in a course that you are repeating for course credit um so it's a very techn it's all in the words and the technicalities of that so um hopefully we will be able to provide as much um support to our students who need to be able to take that EOC test for their course and also there there are multiple courses that students would have the opportunity to if they needed to with their support from our school counselors that they would have the opportunity to do that are not EOC courses this summer um and to miss byer's Point um and we are obviously open to any recommendations or amendments to the policy this it is our recommendation um however we support the board's decision um if we do bring this back
260for second reading um and if that were to occur we would it would be a little bit more challenging for us to make sure that we are ready for implementation this summer um however please know that we will do our due diligence at um your direction sorry go ahead I was just going to weigh in as an educator um and talk about you know some of the challenges here um though I am 100% in support of this it there is a you know a spectrum of how okay you are with a policy like this and I think it kind of goes back in time to one end of the spectrum of sorry you got one chance you should have done better that's it that's not how modern education should be we we don't care when
261you get it we should not care when you get it of course we want good behavior we want to try all that stuff it's did you get it right Competency Based standards based um assessment and so this this policy adjustment hits that for me if we get to where you know there're where we got people playing games trying to you know up the GPA game we can adjust the policy there I'm more concerned with with folks that have you know that turnaround at 15 16 17 and if you've been an educator you've seen it right and the kid walks by you at 18 and you're it's like a different person right and if they could go back and and do do some of this work um that's great further students can stay with us until
262they're 21 and this is an opportunity for us to to recover um more students if we get the implementation right so I name those things really to really put back on you all I know you know the work but this is going to be hard to implement and um there going to be people that are not where where we want them to be on the Spectrum and it's your job to educate them and get them there and see this as an opportunity for students not um something to game the system because that's what that's not what it is for my view Mr RI can I can I make one suggestion because I'm just thinking about not saying that it would be a large volume but I'm just thinking about how can we help advocate for
263simplifying this process and also creating like a path of path of lease resistance for the families that this would apply to I'd love this I'm not going to say I love but what I'd like to see is if there was a way that families received this where they could have an anonymized number that's that's on the document that they receive and it could say that if you like to initiate a retention review they literally go to the DPS site they type in their anonymized number and they um they they just go ahead and click the button to um essentially it just says this is my request to to initiate that retention review um I think having to go back and forth with the mail or or them having to come to an office to drop
264off a sheet of paper that that written that written part I'm not sure what that has to look like maybe it's email maybe it's in writing but if they could literally just use their phone go to the DPS website um type in an anonymous number that's allocated to the document that they received and just says that they would go ahead and like to initiate that retention review I'm wondering if that could help at least create a process you could have a workflow on it so you could see all this information and makes it a little bit more transparent and that that was that was also coming from the D1 retention review Hearing in that that very first paragraph that uh second and third line just talking about how a written request has to go to
265the principal if if that document if that document had that number on it and they clicked it it could be a workflow where it automatically gets an email self-generated directly to each of those principles that it applies to and and I'm just thinking about sometimes the barrier entries if I'm a parent that I get that maybe maybe I don't know what to say in that letter so maybe I'm a little bit hesitant to to send it off because I don't want people to think less of me or or or think that I don't know how to write I just want to kind of make the PO make it as um transparent as possible and um reduce any type of um discomfort that people could have because it could be a cumbersome process thank you yes
266SP so as I'm reading this and we're hearing the discussion I think of it mostly as a high school issue that you're bringing for high school credit I don't know if that's explicit enough in there but I I am assuming you all have significant data that is concerning you and concerning all of us alarming about how students are doing particularly this year what are you all thinking about the elementary and the Middle School students that are in danger of retention as well will this policy impact them are there other things that you have prepared for them so for our elementary and middle school students that are that have been struggling um with grades and attendance our principals and school student support staff have been working very closely with those families and um operation summer learning
267is really an opportunity for us especially as at the area of elementary and middle um we do um have students at the middle school level that take High School courses for credit however most of the time the large majority of those High School those middle school students that are taking those High School courses are accelerated students so they would not um they would not be in the category of needing to repeat a course for credit I mean I would be willing to wave second reading and move this forward tonight knowing that um maybe perhaps you could bring it for at the end of the summer to tell us how it's going or something I don't know is there some possibility for for some feedback in in the future after you've had some time with it
268yeah I'm again putting it back on you credit if I demonstrated Mastery came out and then didn't get utilized right will this come out and will it get utilized um I'm just gonna add that I've met with um Dr Hardy and Dr madx Perry and and we are going to prepare some procedures after we get some additional feedback from our principles because you are right Mrs V it is primarily a high school issue we want to and they're the ones with the boots on the ground and they know those students and those families so I will work with Dr Hardy and Dr madx Perry and anyone else on Dr Hardy's team and make sure we get those and get those posted on the website and make sure that that is not a cumbersome process and
269that we remove all barriers to Mr Raven's point Thank you so we have a motion on the floor by Miss berer is there a second I second Miss viar is a seconds any further discussion all in favor of waving second reading and adopting this new policy say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you all right unless I'm mistaken item nine is summary of follow-up items let's see here excuse me so with the uh the marketing item um we're going to develop uh effective ways to um evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing campaign um we discuss getting in um implementing the board's feedback for ignite and then including that in the uh final recommendation from staff um fall opening update uh including culturally affirming learning spaces um think about um how we can
270possibly uh phase out zoom and Implement more team classrooms um also reat rece rece feedback from our school level staff about um our opening plan and look at um policies for recess For Recess um and then the policy that we just discussed a lot of discussion on that but essentially looking at uh extending the response time that families have as well as looking for an electronic way to um initiate that uh retention review if you have addition I concur I check them off as I as he said them all right do we have a motion to go into close session for the reason stated on the agenda so moved move Mr Lee it's seconded by second missad any discussion all in favor of going into close session say I I opposed we are now in
271closed session thank you [Music] everyone yeah I'm going far all right I'm a cop e was ready we are back in Open Session Dr MinGa board I'm here to seek for your approval for the Personnel report as discussed at the close session move approval of the Personnel report dated May 6th second it's been moved by Miss Byer second and by Miss V that we approve the Personnel report as presented by Administration any discussion all in favor say I I all opposed it passes unanimously and we are adjourned