001two and so i've got my little jar here so we'll have some random topics they'll come that we have sent in advance but a random uh order that they'll come in tonight i also want to say our board member matt sears was unable to be here he had an emergency work commitment and so he has committed to make sure he's going to listen to all the presentations they recorded and then he'll make sure he'll be following up with each applicant so we are ready to get started nancy cox our first applicant welcome oh excuse me let me give one more thing uh we are going to have a timer uh nicole smith is timing for us she's going to put three minutes warning in the chat if you want to follow that and then at
00210 minutes we'll make sure that we'll wrap up every speech all right okay thank you all right well thanks it's a pleasure to be with you uh you know it's not often that the school board gets to choose their colleague you know typically that's done through an election and the fun of an election is that you get to rally your constituents to your support but in this process you know i've chosen to focus my attention on the communication that you've provided um and the direct communication that i'm able to have with you and so i thank you for this a lot of time uh to share my thoughts to your questions and i just want to know let you know that embedded in my answers are going to be references to when i previously served
003on the board uh but i want you to know that when i watch your school board meetings now the caliber at which you guys are operating especially under the crisis associated with kovid i really am humbled and all i can say is that i think my previous experience um uh is going to be allow me to kind of step in and offer the leadership that's required at this moment so i definitely know that my career in education my volunteer in the schools so i have two daughters who are k-12 durham public graduates and doing great um all of that will be of benefit and of course like the unique qualification that i bring is having served on the board from 2010 to 14. so this allows me to quickly pick up the baton that's left
004by the wonderful mr cason so i you know i understand how the school board works and how to uh you know the time commitment how to effectively manage that time commitment and i'm ready to accommodate you know board service at this time so although i may be a bit rusty i have performed for example evaluating a superintendent and that's one of the questions that you've asked and you um asked us to think about up to three metrics so one of the metrics that i'm focusing on the metric that i'm going to focus on is how the superintendent supports uh teachers for teaching and learning and you know in the process of evaluating the superintendent he pulls together artifacts that he offers as evidence to show his success and in this particular metric teaching and learning
005i would be looking to make sure that he has evidence that comes from the voices of teachers so i'm a big fan of the teacher working conditions survey and i think that this would be a helpful tool so from the teacher working condition survey we can hear from teachers in terms of their perception about things like do they have enough time time to plan time to collaborate with colleagues uninterrupted class teaching time you know do they feel that they're being adequately supported with professional development and by academic coaches and curriculum coordinators do they also have all the resources that they need you know everything from technology to paper so i think that um i think that when i'm thinking about metrics i really am focusing on this one and in the time allowed i'm only
006going to talk about that one but i will say that you know when when teachers feel like they're supported for teaching and learning then that just lays a really strong foundation for everything else that we're going to try and talk about so speaking of those teacher working conditions survey i noticed that one of the questions that's been added within the last few years is this question and it is which of the following statements best describes students relationship with hunger in your school so hunger is an outcome of systemic racism and it can be measured and covet has definitely shun a light on the degree of food insecurity and to achieve equity you know we have to use data so i went ahead and jumped into the most recent teacher working conditions data from 2018 to
00719 and i went ahead and compared two middle schools and i want to share that with you now and answering this question your second question so middle school a um is 68 free and reduced lunch middle school b is 55 free and reduced lunch so in response to in response to the prompt that i read a moment ago teachers could choose the following answer they could say hunger yeah they could say hunger is a problem in my school and it affects my students and it affects my school and classroom so at uh school a 58 percent of the teachers indicated this chose this answer and at school b only 38 chose the answer so i think right away from an equity lens we can recognize that the teachers perceive there's a deeper degree of um
008hunger the issue of hunger and so we're going to need to recognize that you know schools students have different needs and different degree of need and so do schools and the system is going to want to take that into account one of the other prompts that teachers could choose is you know hunger is a problem for my students but we use creative strategies to combat it things like grab-and-go lunch after the bell breakfast so what are the answers from the two schools now so unfortunately only 21 of teachers at school a perceived that they use these successful strategies and 58 of school b does so again from an equity lens um what we would want to um recognize is that we would want to ask okay how do we take the successful strategies being employed
009at school b and take them over to school a so it again an equity lens forces us to remember that the different degree of need for children uh the different needs and the different degree of need and i thought that that was helpful for you to see how i operate but more about that so and i want to also say i am so impressed and thankful uh regarding the district's initiative around the challenges of hunger right now associated with covid and i'm just really impressed by all the partnerships with community groups to address to address hunger and i thought on a hopeful note you know after things go back to normal maybe some of these groups would actually like to look at ways to continue to collaborate with the school system so that you know
010at school a where we have this issue of hunger and maybe we're not being as successful addressing it some new solutions could be identified so to answer your question about how i will work alongside you as a board member to identify solutions to address systemic racism you can count on me to personally dig into data to make sure the superintendent is gathering data from a myriad of sources and that we are supported to understand the data so that we can make really informed decisions so when addressing concerns like hunger during kovid we've all seen the benefits of the vast representation from community groups and in your question ensuring that you know where you're looking at ensuring representation uh across the community i know that that shows your awareness that what can easily happen is that
011we can hear the voices of the larger organizations that are more organized have bigger membership and have like financial resources and other kinds of resources to interact with us and that can quickly become an equity issue because now we're talking about who actually has access to decision making so i know that um as a former board member i made a point to get out into the community and attend a lot of community events and that i will continue to do that if i'm selected my nickname in the community is nancy networker and i really am i'm you know glad to continue to do that so some of the groups that i participated with are the inner neighborhood council durham can the pac meetings um religious coalition for non-violent durham during congregations in action and in
012my pta council role i had developed a lot of these relationships before being on the board and continued them and in my most recent role as the executive director of a non-profit school serving students 16 through adult who are pursuing pursuing their ged i continued those relationships so they're fresh and i made a lot of new friends um including like working with the durham housing committee the parent advisory councils and also the durham literacy center where they serve parents many of whom are see our second language learn english as a second language learners and so those are just other ideas of how we can reach out to the community so i really believe that you know school board members are conduits for uh between the community with their colleagues and with the superintendent and i
013enjoy listening and sharing important information and i think just knowing about these organizations uh is a really helpful um step in breaking down the barriers so that all voices can be heard so i gotta tell you i feel like i talked a mile a minute you know it's not easy to capture all my thoughts regarding these three important questions on the condensed time frame but i hope you'll see that my previous board experience prepares me to serve my k-12 education background informs my perspective and my experience engaging the community in a myriad of roles i think is especially important as we make our way through the challenges of this pandemic and into the future so thank you and i also want to give a shout out um i'm just pleased that nine other folks like
014myself are willing to step forward and serve the community in this capacity and i i thank them as well [Laughter] thank you thank you that was right under 10 minutes thank you all right so the next part of this i'm going to pull a topic out of this jar we would like for you to respond with your thoughts about how we can navigate this and how you'll help us as a school board member um the response has to be under two minutes and so nicole if i can actually just put that in the chat when we're done when the two minutes is up and racial equity is the topic racial equity is the topic okay just one moment i have just some little notes to help me uh okay yeah oh good so while on
015the board i was really lucky to and can you see me okay great while on the board i was really lucky that i discovered rei racial equity institute in chapel hill when they were only in chapel hill so i took advantage of the basic and the advanced and i actually was part of a small group of folks who worked with rei uh to bring them into durham and it's incredibly gratifying to see how many folks have now taken advantage of that resource so i remain active i'm part of the white caucus we meet monthly and i've done basic in advance several times you know i also am a social studies teacher and i have a master's in school social studies and a degree in school administration from central so i i honestly am you know
016trained to recognize um how minority voices are modern marginalized for example in the telling of our history where white typically male voices are centered and i sort of teach and see the world through that social justice prerogative and i'm trained to analyze data within a school and within the district to root out the way that race gender and other identities you know play into outcomes i'm just really pleased to see the investment that you guys have made and if you do choose me to continue to work with you i will absolutely continue to move that forward and i guess you know based on my ques answer about hunger i think one thing that came to mind is that we have to be really careful that we don't do a one-size-fits-all mentality we just have to
017remember as in the example i gave um schools have different needs and different degree of need and so that's using the equity lens and we have to be um in order to navigate the issue of um racial injustice uh systemic racism you know we just we have to be like data hungry so i'm i'm your gal for that thank you so much nancy for coming to present an interview with us we're unfortunately not going to have a time for a live looking answer but the board members will follow up with you as needed thank you so much okay bye trying to leave thank you and so our next applicant will be luke derry i believe i've seen that name we'll just give a second for the transition i think luke was scheduled to begin in
018about seven minutes let's do a little five minute break give him time to get into our um wait our virtual waiting room and then we'll rejoin uh after that thanks you all uh just i found myself at least [Music] now oh is [Music] uh okay problems um oh is luke is here well that was perfect timing because we're at five minutes yes all right i'll admit him now uh mr derry yes can you hear me now i can hear you and we just can't see you all right let me i think i've just got it does say the camera is plugged in once here all right i'm back it does say let's see here well i apologize the video was working just a second ago i'm sorry about that okay technology we're all adapting all
019yeah let me try um mr derry mr mr daryl are you still with us give it another minute maybe well i am not sure why this is not working for video it's okay let's go we can do we can hear you which is most important so we can go ahead and start it um technology it happens when you need it it doesn't work as you as you need so we're going to go ahead and get we can go ahead and get started um miss nicole smith our board assistant is going to be uh keeping time for us so she'll put up three minutes when it's left in the chat window for you all right okay thank you very much all right thank you for being here you can go ahead well i first off i
020want to thank everyone that is watching virtually i apologize you can't see my face um i am luke derry i i live in bahama so i met in the upper upper north region of durham county i appreciate the board taking the time to let me present my thoughts and share with all of those on the live stream this this was a a great opportunity um you know knowing that normal procedure for a board position is through election is definitely it's nice to be able to to kind of forego that in some ways and and it's fortuitous that that the board gets to choose uh in this instance so so i really appreciate the opportunity for this um i think i think the thing that most endears me to dps is their their mission um igniting
021the limitless potential i work for a company called red hat some some people may not know who they are but um they're they're in raleigh uh and we just recently within the last year uh came up with a why statement and it it's open unlocks the world's potential and so the the two two uses of potential there i think is something that has really uh for dps makes makes me want to be part of dps and and help in whatever way i can um things things that that red hat stands for uh we're most known for being an open organization so transparency inclusivity adaptability collaboration and community are like the aspects of open organization and so knowing that that bps shares some of those with uh a focus on equity and shared responsibility and high
022expectations obviously there is collaboration in there that of terms that that is important to me um and then because i have students in dps uh being child centered is also a very high priority for me um and you'll have to humor me i'm known for using really obscure analogies for for describing things uh growing up uh just south of the the oregon california border from where i'm at i grew up there there's a small orchard and winery that that is uh uses wild plums and and when i think about education um the roles that people play within that system are are often to me analogous to things at the winery in the orchard the superintendent would would be like the proprietor of the orchard in the winery while plums like students have to be nurtured
023and and provided for in a variety of a variety of ways and uh they're very resilient if you ever look at a wild plum they they're they're not a really good looking tree or bush rather but they also flourish in very specific conditions just like students do educators and staff and administrators are like the people in the mechanical systems at the orchard and winery that turn the plums into amazing but unique products like wines and jams and syrups so that that's my analogy i'll probably i i think of things in analogies because it helps me to clarify them so using that analogy if if we talk about evaluation which is an important part of what the board is going to be doing obviously the superintendent is equivalent the the evaluation would be equivalent to successful
024growing seasons of the plums and profitability of the final product so those two things uh go hand in hand with with continuation and success of the business and and in this case dps being being the business how do we how do we track the return on investment if if an educated and marketable student is the product you know how how do we track it well we can track the total cost obviously money money is tracked when we send it out but the value of a student beyond the amount of money that they're bringing in is a little more obscure and i and i think in the same way that that we would think about produce and producing things and growing and nurturing them i think it's important that that you use smart goals so specific
025measurable achievable relevant and time-bound those are those are what we use in the workplace i think the three things most important in my view of tracking the the success of what the superintendent and the staff are doing i think standardized testing is a valuable point in that it's not not to comparison across internet you know the whole nation necessarily but as a board uh standardized testing the granular look at that on a per student basis can show growth and achievement on on levels that are not necessarily obvious when you look at comparisons to different schools but if you look at this a student on a basis that is more tracking over time their progress and achievement of mastery of skills and knowledge i think that is a valuable thing i think as a general comparison
026across borders i think it's a lagging indicator of more general things so it's not without use um but but i do think that testing is the way that we test for knowledge achievement and and mastery i think another metric that i would use uh to track success of the superintendent and the staff would be levels of contribution and collaboration not just amongst students but amongst staff at red hat we we pride ourselves on being a meritocracy and that's a tough word people sometimes really don't like that but but when when an organization is open with ideas and and new ways of doing things i think being able to track that in a in a quantitative way uh how much of that is going on you know you can make measurable and achievable things that are
027tracked by staff and students you know students working in the community and and contributing to their schools and and the community that they're in is a vital part of setting high expectations for those students but it also goes to the staff as well i i have two parents that are teachers and and one of my biggest complaints to my dad who was a music teacher was that he never really stretched the boundaries of what was possible within educating musicians he he was you know hindered by low budgets you know it's a country school so music but the fact that a music program even existed was great but the other thing to track so besides contribution and collaboration uh would be exposure so how exposed are students and staff to the time that they're allotted and
028the subjects that they're teaching and learning and and being able to show quantitative values of progress made on growing those those that exposure to students whether it's art music you know the the arts side or math and science the exposure to those things is i always used to joke that just showing up to class you ought to be able to achieve at least a c because you've been exposed to the subject right that that's not accounting for for any type of actual education or anything that was always just just a standard i set for myself but but exposure to a topic is useful as well um i think my allotted time is close but i i did want to cover as far as equity goes i think one of the biggest uh topics for that
029to me is transportation and i know it's not a high priority of the board but but the ability for students to be able to transport themselves is the difference between a family going to a charter school and choosing public school i think integrated schools rely on transportation and and being able to provide that for students is a lower priority for dps but i would love to make it a high priority i'm a big fan of transit i use it to travel to raleigh for work so i think utilizing go triangle would be a good thing for that as far as openness to um to other other organizations and people that are representing uh more marginalized groups i i am a big fan of whatever method of communication an organization would want um i'm happy to
030get on social media i'm happy to set up websites and do things like that i have skill sets in digital communication and setting those types of things up but i also love to be invited to go visit places and hear from people i know that's in person stuff is not as as readily available these days but being being in a place helps to really make things more personal and helps to really drive home the importance of things issues thank you so much um that concludes your 10 minutes yep so i have a jar here i'm going to pull out a topic we'd ask you to share your thoughts on how you can contribute um you would become a board member so this one is reduction of funding for public schools yeah so that one is
031near and dear to my heart as a as a child of two teachers um budgeting for for schools is is a tough tough issue because there's never enough money regardless and then cutting that away is is a big hit i think i think the innovation in funding comes from looking for other sources um and in some cases educational systems can actually produce and make money um through through contributions to things like um you know from my perspective open source code there there's all sorts of ways that that students can be bringing money in as well as as staff and educators for variants to provide for those things that are not either not getting funding or or can't be prioritized due to you know higher higher priorities i think that that's to me that we're i
032think beyond that obviously representing interests of funding to hire higher authorities in the state legislature is the other option but that's a that's also a lagging lagging effort so it's better if to fund things ahead of time than to wait for them luke thank you so much for joining us um we look forward to speaking with you more um if we need to thank you thank you very much thank you for your time you're getting virtual claps from our ice cream our next candidate is micah jeter we planned too much uh time for our transitions i think it's a little quicker maybe in the virtual world so let's take another um i think she's scheduled to start at what time was it 5 40. so let's take another five minute break thank y'all so there
033goes your theory hmm [Music] uh oh [Music] oh micah is here all right let's get started here he comes hi micah thank you so much for joining us today for your application you're gonna have 10 minutes to present um our wonderful board assistant nicole is going to put when you have three minutes left in the chat um so you know and then i'll make sure we wrap at ten minutes okay well it's yours great well good afternoon hello all my name is micah jeter and i'm so grateful to have this opportunity to speak with you all this evening i'm a single mom of a sixth grader at lakewood montessori middle school and i enjoy this opportunity to contribute my time and passion on issues around public education and social justice reform i take pride in
034my ability to advocate and motivate empower others and to ask thoughtful provoking questions and sharing information in my varied experiences as an educator social worker and parent i strongly believe that any organization regardless of its niche should be grounded in the culture of learning skilled at creating acquiring and transferring knowledge and then um adapting to improve if i'm sorry to improve efficiencies and achieve long-term success i believe that three important metrics in evaluating the performance of our superintendent and his staff are number one leading change under strategic leadership the ability to cultivate a shared vision and enthusiasm around improving the existing processes to reach established goals for the future while remaining true to the district's core values and beliefs and consistently communicating clear steps forward is very important number two acknowledging failures and celebrating accomplishments
035under cultural leadership i think it's important for a leader to be able to tell partners and the community members the truth about our biggest challenges and describe all of the success staff have accomplished as part of the school district acknowledging and rewarding them when possible with much deserved accolades will serve as motivation for continued progress towards schools number three is professional development and learning communities under human resource leadership i think ensuring the amount of intention strategies and resources are dedicated to the development of teachers administrators and staff charged with educating the education of our children is critical research shows that being a workforce that is competent enthusiastic free to innovate and well as valued and appreciated yields better attendance graduation rates as well as performance on standardized tests one of the systemic racial equity issues
036that impact students of color in durham schools that i have personal experience with is that children of color are less likely to be identified as gifted or given access to honors ap classes if i was on the board i would suggest quarterly reports from the advanced academics program on their continued progress made on this issue i would then suggest a way to ensure that issues that arise are tracked so that we could ensure things were being managed appropriately and equitably i would also urge there to be a more universal process developed across all schools when students move from middle to middle school and then into high school i believe that admission to advanced courses should happen automatically at the once they've been identified as aig and only if a child fails to keep up or
037to perform that they then move to a general class we all know that children grow to expectations set and i continue to hear various stories across the county that the current practices in place are still inequitable and prove to limit students of color the next question that i'd like to address is how would i ensure cases of those from the marginalized communities would be heard i would suggest focusing on how to rebuild connections with communities that have been for many generations that have found the public school system to be belittling oppressive and cruel those that have been traumatized by different experiences that have then resulted in them opting out and active deciding not to participate for their own psychological safety the way they dismantle those barriers is through outreach i would offer to attend meetings
038and listen to different groups and participate in their events encourage those groups to offer public comment and to show up to ensure that their voices were heard i thank you for this opportunity i'd like to close by receiving an initial statement i made on my application i firmly believe that people are resilient and if they are empowered to take part in designing their own destiny they would like heart and do well doing so if i have this opportunity to create that possibility for the students and family touched by durham public schools i believe i would be an asset as a member of your board thank you thank you so much miss jeter you're getting some rounds of applause i don't know if you can virtually um so i have a topic here that i'm gonna
039pull out of our jar that would love for you to share your thoughts on how you can contribute as a board member uh i promise y'all this is random but it's a reduction of funding for public schools question okay um so in terms of how to establish or to address the defund the reduction fundings for public schools i think the best way to approach that is to increase our campaign around the benefits and the good work that's happening in our public school system i think that um i would encourage um durham publix really focus on the realtor right now what we know is your first impression is the lasting impression and more than ever more people are moving into durham county because the real estate market is booming and i've had a lot of homes
040going for sale here in my neighborhood and i've heard the realtors talk about how the public school is devastated you don't want to send your children to public school so i think we need to do marketing to help sure that when realtors are discussing the value of houses and real estate that they also decide to share the benefits of the public school setting so that more students come into the school and along with them the federally funding dollars that we need thank you so much we appreciate having you here thank you you guys you ready for our next uh applicant he's not here yet they're nice little interlude so we'll take another five minute interlude [Music] looking forward [Music] searching but not finding understanding [Music] from being close together from [Music] is [Music] no matter
041how hard i try [Music] the reasons that we carry on this way great me um [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] do [Music] we every time i see your face no matter how hard [Music] to understand the reason why we can't be on this way we're lost [Music] um so um [Music] do hmm [Music] so [Music] huh [Music] mr jones is here you can go ahead and let them in alrighty mr jones thank you so much for being here today oh likewise we're running ahead of schedule okay good stuff we are we're we're um moving right along so thank you for being here we have read your application materials and you'll have 10 minutes to present on the questions that we provided to you in advance um miss nicole our board assistant is going
042to put when there are three minutes left in the chat just so you have that warning and then i will stop us at 10 minutes all right ready to go the floor is yours oh great um first thank the board for uh allowing me to speak um first my name is antonio jones uh i am a stranger to durham public schools i have been volunteering for over uh for close to 20 years i've been in durham for 20 years and really since touching down i've been a volunteer at durham public schools and in various schools across the county um i think i've been to probably 90 plus percent of the schools stepped foot in 90 plus percent and there's a few elementary schools i haven't been to but um but professionally i am a financial
043management analyst for duke university which is a long title um in short i play with multi-million dollar budgets make pretty presentations and talk to people right that's probably a little bit cooler than saying that long job title but prior to that i was a school treasurer for durham public schools um where i was worked at lakewood elementary and hillside high school prior to going to duke uh university so that's just a little bit of background um about me so really quickly um you asked us to submit i guess answer three questions and the first one was dealing with the superintendent and um the function of the board was to set the policy and hold the superintendent and staff accountable as a chief administrator and the three most important metrics to me in evaluating the performance
044of the superintendent of the seven categories on the dpi superintendent evaluation form the three that really popped out to me and i kind of unpacked all three of these were the strategic leadership the managerial leadership and the external development leadership pieces of it um primarily number one the superintendent for the academic for the strategic leadership piece is the execution of the strategic plan are we doing what we say we're going to do um and we'll use that by using the uh benchmarks and measurable outcomes you know using data driven decisions so the the strategic plan i am a member of the strategic planning committee um also the student and growth equity committee so i am committed to ensuring that we follow that strategic plan because the community put a lot of work into that um
045so that's one piece under the um strategic leadership other pieces of is improved academics you know in particular with black and brown students and another subgroup is black boys and latinx boys are we moving the needle are we progressing do we have a curriculum that's relevant to them um i firmly believe in the whole child that's kind of how i got to where i am right now because someone looked out for me beyond reading arithmetic and ma uh um in writing the other piece of it in that same piece is going to be the um reduced turnover are we keeping our teachers by using the teacher working condition survey and the resources my personal opinion is when people enjoy what they do they'll stay people don't quit bad jobs they quit bad manners and leadership
046um so under the strategic leadership piece of the last piece of it is the increased enrollment um do we see durham public schools moving into space to where our um increased attendance is moving beyond the kind of charter schools in the uh private schools once again our current administration has done a great job of bringing families back into durham public schools because i think the community really sees the impact in terms of what's going on positively in durham public schools thus they are now coming back but uh so under the strategic leadership piece it would be the execution of the execution of the strategic plan reducing the teacher turnover uh rate and just employee terminal rate and increase enrollment of our schools on the up on the managerial leadership piece of which is the second
047piece is the business operations are we being efficiently effective with our resources whether it's through the federal state or local dollars and grant dollars um do we have the resources are the resources distributed equitably you know i think what has happened um in my experience in durham public schools everybody got a car right like the oprah effect you get a car you get a car you get a car when some schools didn't really need cars they needed something different so when we disperse um resources we want to do it in equitable fashion making sure that schools get what they need the last piece of it is the community relations the external development are you a part of the community in terms of superintendents you know formulating and fostering those relationships in our community um so
048those are three things three things to evaluate superintendent strategic leadership manager leadership and external development leadership the other question was dealing with uh systemic racial equity issues and uh how do i use the seat on the board to rectify these i want to talk about the access to advanced academics i think what has happened in particularly as a black male student some classes were not afforded to me based on the neighborhood in which i came up in it wasn't until a teacher asked me antonio do you want to take an honors class i had no idea what an honest class was just because no one asked so that's how i got into honors classes so from that going into honors classes you definitely had a different exposure level the curriculum was very relevant so i
049think what happens is we have to and that's a systemic thing that's not a dps thing okay so we got to make sure that we're not um capping out students based on where they're from um and i see another piece of it is making sure the curriculum is relevant um it's culturally relevant you know we have a lot of uh um a good portion of our student population are not english-speaking so we have to make sure the curriculum is relevant um the third piece of it is i'm rushing through this so we're gonna unpack it later um cte courses you know making sure that we have cte courses that's available that's how we keep the curriculum of um rigorous and relevant you know look at our cte portfolio what are we offering how we are
050making sure that kids are being um trained and educated for future jobs um the last piece the third question is um dealing with the marginalized communities i said i've been in durham for 20 years most of the work i've done has been in marginalized communities currently i'm the vice chair of urban ministries of durham that is the county number one provider of homelessness services um so in terms of my position on board how do we dismantle those very of those barriers number one you have to be visible as board members you are the spokesman for the community so as we look at marginalized communities i have those established relationships with many marginalized communities all over this county you know uh some as simple as me receiving phone calls about the coving me receiving phone calls
051about distant learning how do i access this what happens when families in mcdougall having troubles with hot spots you know how do we get administration to come or school or someone to really look out for them just having those um established community relationships across the county as a school board member it would definitely help um to have those relationships already uh established as opposed to coming coming in brand new trying to build something because as you know marginalized communities work off of trust do they do they trust you do they know you do they trust you so the notion of um me doing a lot of work in durham over these years i mean the simple fact of a grandmother calling me on sunday say hey antonio i made a pound cake come get a
052piece okay so now i have to go to the other side of durham to get a piece of her pound pink because it's something i helped her grandson tie a tie many years ago and she never forgot that you know so that's the love that community shows um and once again with the marginalized communities you have to be willing to hear you have to be willing to understand and listen to the difficult things that they may have to say about their experiences um also bridging that gap how do you dismantle the barriers you have to be willing to bridge the gap you have to recognize there is a barrier and what do you do to dismantle it and for me the whole child that's what it comes down to when you look at marginalized communities
053you know there are children that's coming from them that have a smile on their face and they're hurting inside um my wife she she works at durham county dss because she's a supervisor over there so we see a lot in durham you know she's been doing that her entire professional career almost 20 years work with families in durham so have i so we have seen a lot in durham so i know kids are coming to school partially broken so the notion that you can stop and talk to a child just say hey how are you doing today you know in elementary the kids couldn't handle it as much i worked in elementary school in high school they kind of learned how to mask it right so in an elementary school when a child is having
054a rough day it's not the fact that they don't want to learn how to read they might be hungry but you might have seen some very rough things hours or minutes before getting onto the school bus so having that knowledge and recognizing where kids come from i think as a board member bringing that to um a member of a board and just kind of making sure that those voices are heard that's kind of what i bring to the school board i think i have maybe like a minute left i think right okay um so like i said antonio jones i ran for office before every everyone on the school board know me i regularly attend school board meetings even when there is nothing on the agenda except for cell phone lease tower renewals you know
055so i just don't show when it's something hot and heavy you know i stop and i listen i read the package and i believe in educating the whole child so i have the lived experience the institutional knowledge and the established and verified relationships all across this community from business leaders and university chancellors all the way down to our most marginalized residence and i think i'm done thank you jones all right so we have a topic here that i have in my jar i want to shake it and take one out we'll ask that you share your thoughts on how you as a board member can help us navigate this challenge uh and this one is racial equity oh wow yeah so uh being a racial equity advocate i think uh well in the office of
056um equity affairs opened i was one of the first to advocate for more funding for because i realized um that that was going to be a tough deal you know in terms of really starting from ground zero and building a framework within durham public schools that if you are a durham public school employee you will have to do some racial equity training and that would even entice more people to come work for durham public schools because we actually make that a focus um so once again um even in our hiring racial equity one of the things that i've done is we had a conference here last year in 2019. i reached out to dr mumbing and kim hager i said listen we gonna have a thousand educated black men in durham for a weekend can
057we have a hiring fair dr biggs said i think we should and the result of it is kim heger came set up a booth was there the entire day met with many area superintendents superintendents teachers coaches from across north and south carolina who is interested in coming to durham public schools so i personally believe if you want to fix a problem you have to buy you have to provide a solution to it my solution to racial equity and durham is really reaching out and figuring out how do we connect the dots to the policy and to the reality um i can go on about racial equity but i think my two minutes is up right i think you have maybe like 30 more seconds i don't know oh good 30 more seconds so once again
058racial equity looking at our curriculum once again is the curriculum relevant um you know how many times or when would a teacher receive their first black male or female teacher luckily for me when i well when i was growing up i didn't get my first black teacher until i was 10th grade english i had to get my first black male teacher until i was in college luckily for my son his very first preschool teacher up until his very first his first grade teacher this year is a black female so i think when you start talking about racial equity what do we know what is data uh data driven what can we prove how can we improve thank you so much uh unfortunately we're not having a lot of question to answer but we appreciate you
059coming and taking the time to present with us um and that's all we have thank you okay feel free to call me i'll call you we can talk all right thank you mr jones all right is our next candidate here not yet all right i'm sorry for all the breaks board members i think we anticipate a little more additional time in there that's not a bad thing i i hate for us to be running long this is okay yeah don't speak too quickly before [Music] so oh thinking of the fears [Music] is [Music] all this [Music] is wrong i've wasted all my fears nothing ever i'll is [Music] wasted all [Music] and nothing has to change is [Music] follow up oh my okay [Music] there was something with everything about you i was wrong and
060i just can't live without you oh [Applause] i wish to god [Music] and everything about you [Applause] i was wrong [Music] give me the chance [Music] [Applause] baby come back [Music] i was proud and i just can't [Music] oh [Music] okay um it looks like we're going to move to our next candidate so it'll be frederick raven iii i'm going to add him now all right mr ray mr raven hello how are you doing we can't hear you you can't hear me let's see can you hear me now okay i can hear i heard them before okay it might have just been me and i'm getting old thank you mr raven so much for joining us and for completing your application we're excited to hear from you today you'll have 10 minutes uh when you're
061three min you have three minutes left miss nicole is going to put that in the chat here so you'll see that pop up and then i'll make sure we close at 10 minutes right okay sounds good thank you um first i would be remiss if i didn't take the opportunity to thank my family for supporting me and allowing me to submit this application i have two scholars that are at oak grove elementary school right now so just like them i had to get my permission slip signed so i'm saying thank you to them and also to my wife whose birthday is today happy birthday samantha um secondly i would like to thank the board for this opportunity um i think in my personal opinion this is a exciting occasion because me myself i think it's
062a win-win situation i've had the opportunity to read through everybody's submittals both that we submitted through the dps site and dae and i think anybody is going to be able to be a great addition to the board because what i think you all are looking for is you're looking for the right fit and somebody that could possibly contribute some additional skill sets that they can actually help help the cause and i would like to start with a semi-classic quote from a great american film that says i have a particular set of skills that i've acquired over a long career and uh just uh just to add on to that my particular skills delve into my current position which is the i.t governance and budget development manager and essentially what that means is there are business
063units that have they have business needs and i help them find it solutions to help facilitate their needs whether it deals with processes assets software and then i work with helping to actually be able to align the funding and resources to support that through the entire life cycle so i'd like to go ahead and kind of pivot from that and talk about what we came here for which is the investment in education and um our investments in education are essentially it's what we actually want for the future in the community and how we actually plan on building a fund that i think that our schools are literally uh it literally gives us the opportunity to develop their infrastructure for the actual future of the world and just as a reminder to everyone i say when
064we say investment we're saying that because our children and the students across the community they're essentially they're a prized treasurer and growing up in durham you know from the time i was in oak road to the time i graduated from southern durham high school like i benefited from that i reap those rewards because the community invested in me so i definitely want to go ahead and state that and just and just kind of actually be able to take a step back and remind people the importance of education in the community because we we all have to recognize that it's usually it's the bedrock of the community anytime that dealing with covet 19 everybody always has to talk about what are we going to do with schools because that that's what communities thrive off of so
065if we actually go in and talk about it and look at it from the position of the school board and the school board is elected and what they do is they work with the community to develop a strategic plan in most cases some cases the only thing that they're developing is some sort of mission statement or vision statement of where they're actually trying to drive the school system and the benefits they're trying to read on until the community itself now we're we're fortunate because the the superint the school board's other role is to actually hire a superintendent and we're fortunate to be able to hire dr mubanga and i i think if you look at the last four years of the the success that the districts had and i mean that both on the growth
066and the improvement in academics and achievement i think everybody can see that but i'm sure they even dr mubenga would say it's a it's a team effort to do this you know the the community there are shareholders in our stakeholders uh we have the school board this essentially is the executive team and the general manager we have the superintendent his staff that actually work as the coaches and and the students and the children they're the players on the team so if i had to look and try to find like the three important metrics that i'm looking for on how we actually grade the superintendent what i'm going to do is the first thing i'm going to do is i'm looking at this long term because of course we're talking about investments and most investments if
067you're really trying to reap some rewards it's going to be over a year so i'm going to look at our strategic plan and i don't know if this was done intentionally but it but it was done well it because if you look out at the layout of the strategic plan you know it kind of starts with the academic achievement and it goes into the safety of the whole child so those first two are student specific the third one dealing with the hiring and retaining of outside of outstanding educators then you also have to account for the the strong relationships that you want to have with the community uh with the schools with the parents and the teachers and then the responsibilities that you're just responsible for dealing with fiscal matters and operations but i'm going
068to say that the first two are going to be are going to be given um the children are the most important part of the school there's there's no getting around that i think a lot of times the reason i'm not going to say the outstanding the hiring of educators and staff is because sometimes we have to be able to do a swat or a swap analysis on ourself and understand that there are times that there are external challenges that you face and i think the district did a good job of turning this challenge into a purpose because obviously with with wake county and orange county both on both sides of us and they're competing off of what they can provide dollar wise it seems like durham is as did their own type of pivot and
069tried to really get their community to actually invest back into it and that doesn't just mean with dollars it means with times and volunteer work i think setting up the foundation was a great idea in order to get the give the businesses the opportunity to also be able to donate as well as the regular person so i'm going to say i'm going to actually say grading on that third metric is going to deal with the strength and the bonds that you're actually able to build and garner within the community and even with all that said i think that you're still going to always have some sort of smart plan that's built into the superintendent's work plan and this is just for the for that immediate one year oversight and and just to give the acronym
070i know sometimes people just casually say it but the smart goals deal with actually having specific measurable attainable uh relevant and time-based goals that you're making sure that you're actually able to make sure you're hitting these small benchmarks while your strategic plan is helping you for the three to five period three to five year period and then when we um you know there there was another question that was it was also acts of us that actually deals with uh the commitment and the focus on equity and to kind of highlight that one systematic racial equity issue that impacts students of colors in durham public school and i i definitely didn't i definitely you know i was a kid when i was in dps i don't think my eyes are completely open to the whole world
071but actually being a parent now and um being being the chair of the d snack the durham special needs and advisory committee it's actually helped me realize how how important the ec services are um i want to say roughly one in seven students in the district i received some form of ec services and and that could be anything from having ieps the 504 plans so i definitely think that that just hurts and it it has a hindrance on the black and brown community more than any other one so that's definitely the one place that i would want to focus on and try to hopefully if i actually had a seat on the board just increase awareness and maybe just take another look at if there's any actionable tasks that could be put in place or
072just continually to have the progressive policies to kind of push uh push everything forward and the last um piece that i'll add on is just gonna be dealing with the community um with the q how do you you know how do you foster that relationship with community partners or from the non-profit civic organizations you know i've been i've been a part of a few organizations whether it's dps related by being on a member of the budget process advisory committee or the president of oak roads pta i didn't realize until i actually submitted the statement of interest that i haven't been on the board of directors for evolved mentoring i've actually mentored at the elementary middle school high school and college level even as a advisor for uh the theta omicron chapter kappa fraternity incorporated at
073unc chapel hill so you know sometimes you do stuff and you don't necessarily realize that that you're working on this stuff but it does have an effect and it's always good to see and i just say the the one thing that i'm always cognizant of is just keeping an open ear to everybody and just being intentional about what you're willing to look at and being intentional about sometimes it's okay to actually be the devil's advocate and look not for your organization's weaknesses but also for your weaknesses so you can make that intentional effort to try to bring upon some improvements and i'm assuming that i probably have about one minute left uh so i'll just say that you know on on all of these issues you know awareness is everything i i think a lot
074of times we can look at all the strife that's going on in this world right now and and the protests and what's the one thing that people are asking for they're asking for acknowledgement and awareness and and just being able to see that there is a problem you know once you can actually acknowledge that there is a problem getting over those barriers is the next step and that's the obstacle in the way to greatness but i think that you do have to find some type of consolidated agreement in which you're able to push everybody forward together and i'll stop there thank you mr raven so we have um some topics that we put in a jar here make it a little harder board members we had two of repeats earlier and our uh topic is
075virtual learning so if you could respond and let us know um in the next two minutes about how you think you could contribute as we're navigating that in this pandemic so let me say this some people think i'm overly optimistic about everything um i think that covet 19 bad all-around uh the the only thing that i can look at the only thing that i can see that we can gain from this experience because this is this is why we're now doing this virtual learning is before this year we had a technology gap that was huge there was a digital divide that was vast unlike other communities durham seemed to have been able to acknowledge that and provide you know devices for every single for every single student in durham which i think is amazing you
076know i'm still in audit it was able to be done i think you know logistically it's it's great i think sometimes having too many online courses even for adults is a difficult task and they also note that especially for middle school and high school students it becomes a little bit more difficult because they have that lack of interpersonal communication and that one-on-one support so that's one of the challenges but on the flip side we have a new line of defense with our kindergartners and first graders and they're now you know this is nothing to them i wrote a post yesterday about their minds being so malleable that they can soak this in i have a kindergartner at oak road and like he was ready he pulled out his notebook when it was time to do
077the four squares and he would he was excited i don't know what he thought he was going to write but he was he was well prepared so i think it's amazing i think that this is an opportunity for them to see the world from a different angle and i just hope that we could continue building upon the opportunity that we can see mr raven thank you so much virtual claps i don't know if you can see them but we appreciate you coming and sharing with us today um and we'll be inside thank you for the opportunity have a good one bye-bye it looks like we can move on along without the musical interview our next candidate is melissa rogers and she i'm adding her right now thank you all right good evening good evening welcome
078thank you so much for being here thank you for having me all right well miss rogers we are excited to hear what you prepared for us today you'll have 10 minutes when you have three minutes left um it's nicole our board executive assistant is going to put that in the chat so you should see that pop up and then we'll make sure we wrap at 10 minutes all right the floor is yours thanks hi everyone thank you for this opportunity to present myself to feel the vacancy for the consolidated district b c on the school board i'm melissa rogers i am from durham and a product of durham public schools i have a son who will be impacted by the policies and decisions made by the superintendent and members of the board of education he
079is my real life representation of the needs of every child in dps these policies practices and procedures need to be clear consistent concise and equitable by definition militant means strong work and my community advocacy is demonstrative of my ability to work strong for every stakeholder of durham public schools in 2018 dps in conjunction with various derm stakeholders developed a five-year strategic plan with a focus on five key issues increasing academic achievement providing a safe school environment that supports the whole child attract and retain outstanding educators and staff strengthen school family and community engagement ensure fiscal and operational responsibility the strategic plan even with the nature of the document being adjustable the strategic plan should be the first tool with which the superintendent is evaluated the superintendent and his staff should be encouraged to adhere to
080the standard of each priority and agreed upon benchmarks these benchmarks measure the growth of the district over the course of time the other key metrics that the board of edge use to activate as evaluation tools are stakeholder surveys very similar to the re teacher workplace surveys these surveys should be taken at the time of the service and asked questions specific to how the stakeholder that could be a parent a teacher student when age appropriate local organizations that served durham to make it better felt their interactions aligned with the strategic plan even if they were able if they were able to achieve resolution if they had to follow up multiple times etc the data from these surveys should be correlated with school data so that the board can see what works well across the district these
081should be automatically sent via phone email or any consistent tool of communication preferably the same way the stakeholder reached out to the educator and in the language of their choosing as it would be if you had con contacted a customer service agent or visited a doctor's appointment the ability for the school the department of transportation or school relations etc to be able to adjust the results of the survey should be used to account for how well they are able to adjust to the feedback of the community we need real-time evaluation that the work is being done is consistent with the strategic plan the survey i just spoke about would typically collect data from people who have initiated contact with the school district and the educators there should also be an end of the year or
082mid-year survey that is deployed to evaluate overall impact of the office staff the office and staff are having in durham this survey and its results should be used to increase and improve the marketability of durham public schools it would include mechanisms to evaluate the teachers the staff and schools and administrators and how they are impacting and serving in our community this data can be used to develop consistent plans and practices across the district to ensure equitable practice are being used at every interaction these tools will engage the continued growth of dps holistically the ability for teachers staff and admin to employ the techniques of the strategic plan and determine if adhering to the plan impacts the way the community views durham public schools and it improves academic success one of the problems that i would
083combat as a member of the board of education is being strategic about empowering teachers it is important that black and brown students see teachers that look like them in the school buildings in their classrooms and teaching specialty courses including advanced academics empowering teachers would help with recruiting more black and brown educators if more teachers felt respected and appreciated by the board of education their school administration dps administration they will be entrusted with selecting curriculum that meets the standards but reflects and supports experiences of students empowered teachers empower parents empower teachers empower students teaching teachers join dps joining dps need to know from other educators that they have a safe and equitable space to work and that their plans and ideas are heard and implemented empowered teachers make sure students are encouraged to meet their highest
084levels of academic achievement teachers of color are not willing to be a part of institutions that do not value their experiences or acknowledge them as experts on march on the marginalized communities that they grew up in or they experience in racism in school i would encourage teachers of color across the district to work together to activate and highlight the things that make them feel safe and comfortable in their classrooms in zoom calls and school buildings and find ways to grow those ideas into policy and practice that can be used across the district as a member of many non-profits that have have come to board of education to advocate on multiple issues i have experience in reaching the most marginalized communities in my professional work i balance the same issues and making sure textbooks for duke
085students are available to all communities of students even students on scholarship and with economic difficulties in my work with pta it's been important to reach people where they are and by making programs and events economically accessible for growth of families including babysitting and meal service so everybody can attend i would bring that same experience to the work of the board as a board member i would make a conscious effort to meet people where they are that will mean hosting public conversations in public spaces that are easily accessible in a non-pandemic world that could mean going out to the bookmobile or having community meetings at a local recreation center a local park and in neighborhoods it is important that we host these meetings so we hear directly to the stakeholders that may not have access to
086transportation we need to make sure that we're going to food banks and creating a safe talk zone for these people that don't come to the school building during the pandemic that could be an early morning zoom call after a parent has worked all night this would also mean that i lean on the connections of the community agencies dha durham county social services and other agencies that hear directly from stakeholders that don't always feel safe talking to school officials and finding ways to make that more comfortable for everyone as a board member i would like to rely on educators since they have a direct connection to the students and families and they have the ability to access families and cultivate relationships with people in all communities educators are the key connection to the community for the
087for our board members and administration it is our duty to encourage educators to keep us and our policies rooted in the needs of the community thank you all right so we put some topics here in this jar so we can select one um at random and you'll have two minutes to respond on how you can contribute so this is community engagement so um community engagement it's important to me i think that we need to employ all the resources in durham all the spaces and places that people go and we need to be there and having conversations with them and showing them that the dance recitals are equally as important as the brain quest games on saturday mornings and that um we value the work of every member of our community we need to show up
088where they are um we need to be available to them and accessible to them and um you know we need to attend the fundraisers and uh be a part of the conversations where they are rebuilding and where there's rezoning and be a part of that community so people know that their community matters to us that's everywhere we need to let them know that we are concerned about their ability to sustain themselves in in every aspect and that we're human and that we are part of the living as part of this community and all of us together are all better thank you so much miss rogers we appreciate you joining us today and sharing um information with us you've got some virtual hand claps i don't know if you can see them thank you so we
089appreciate you and you'll hear we'll make a decision next week are you all ready for the next one yes okay it will be miss fatima and i'm admitting her now hello fatima hi how are you miss smith you're doing well can we see your face your lovely face hello ma yes sarah hi hi how are you miss smith you're doing well your face your lovely face yes thank you we can thank you so much for being here we are excited to hear what you prepare for us today you'll have 10 minutes when you have about three minutes left ms smith is gonna post that in the chat so you'll see a little window pop up but we are here and eager to listen thank you so much for your application thank you and i appreciate
090the opportunity to carve out space um the space to do this some of you are i'm probably a face you know somewhat um from school board meetings but it's it's interesting to be on this side and to do this kind of work from here in this angle i want to start with your first question that you posed to us which states and i say the question again because i tend to ramble on not stay as clear as i should but your first question describe the three most important metrics to you in evaluating the performance of this of the superintendent and by proxy their staff i want to say that the three most important metrics for me and it still waivers sometimes in and out but i'm going to do i'm start to with quantitative measures
091which are graduation how many of our students we graduate and get to have their diplomas second which graduation would be a part of priority one in the strategic plan my second metric that i feel is important is along the lines of priority three attracting and retaining outstanding teachers um teachers um of color teachers who are well equipped and raise of racial equity teachers who are phenomenal and do what they do best and to what it is to attract them and retain them in our in our system the third is kind of an off qualitative measure it's measure of relationships what it is that our superintendent and the staff what kind of relation right relationships they've built um what kind of relationships of trust and accountability have they built in their tenure in their time and
092their work and to measure that and find measures of that that you can measure what it is to hold relationships and to hold them in ways that are truthful and honest and where we can maintain trust the second question you've asked name one systemic racial equity issue that impacts students of color in durham public schools and how will you see your seat on the board to rectify this issue that also i have realized if anything i have realized is that you cannot pull on one systemic issue and not pull on a million of them and so i i started pulling on a disproportionate nature of discipline at one school and what happens is when i pulled on that i pulled on academic access and we pull in ieps and ec children and students and so
093it's it's hard to focus on one inequity when it when inequity is actually bound and tied up and it ripples through so one of the answers i'm going to give is knowing and stating that as a part and parcel of what equity is and equity work it's a part of what i would contribute is that i would hope that we could create and i could hope to create with you policy and means of accountability to dismantle inequity especially on those students in which matters of inequity disproportionately impact their success their ways of being their feelings of being powerful and good i would hope to move in creation with you in ways that allow us to be accountable to the students that need us the most and by that every student and staff and administer all
094of them so your third question how will you ensure the voices excuse me of those from marginalized communities are heard how would you dismantle the barriers one way to ensure that voices are hurt and that's what i've learned is that you go to where the voices are being spoken you can't always wait for a board a school board meeting to hear them you go to where they gather you go and you they find you in grocery stores they find you in hallways and gyms and you go to the places in which you can hear the stories of our folk and that would be a priority for me that is what something i bring i don't i value the fact that i want and and i actually it's a part of what i feel is powerful
095about story sharing is that it it creates measures of accountability and our relationship so i will go and hope we go to the voices they don't always have to come to us but we will come to them to hear them how would you dismantle the barriers i think if you hear the voices and you hear the stories and you do the work dismantling racism and dismantling any system of oppression requires experimentation oppression is in many ways dynamic and i would hope that we could move in ways of creation and create ways that we are accountable and create ways that we foster beautiful right relationships with one another and within our community and with each other because i'm sure we all have the same hope that not one single child that every single child in this
096district knows how powerful and good they are and they receive the education they rightly deserve that is the ways in which i would hope to dismantle some of those barriers i finished i think early which is odd for a baptist preacher but anyway thank you so much we appreciate that so i have a jar here some topics that i'm going to pull one out for you to respond to and you'll have two minutes for that as well all right student boundary planning is your topic let's go so student boundary planning i this has been something that i've been thinking about as it's been who gets to name and talk about boundaries matters and how boundaries in fact can in very much be ways in which systems of impression are enforced and how they're and so
097i would ask us to think of how boundaries and who speaks up about boundaries and who we honor which voices we honor when we talk about boundaries so this is just another way that i would say we would have to go to the voices and hear how it impacts not necessarily those who are speaking the loudest or who show up but how it impacts and also how our boundaries support inequity and how do our boundaries begin to dismantle inequity and that matters and that is something that needs to be wrestled with thought about deeply and then also heard and and from from all the voices as many voices as we can as we make those sorts of decisions and i i would hope that every boundary that we that we set or how boundaries are
098made are deeply considered and the ways that it would affect disproportionately affects certain students uh reverend dr fatima saleh thank you so much for being here you're getting some virtual rounds of applause uh we appreciate hearing from you and we'll be making a decision at our board meeting next week have a good night everyone you as well am i pronouncing that right um mike david vonnae how do you pronounce his last name he's waiting so i'm going to admit him now and if you all are ready or did you want a couple of minutes ready david vignette vanier mr vanier hello okay hello hey good evening how are y'all good evening thank you so much for being here today um we are looking forward to hearing from you mr vanier vanier we're looking forward to
099being here and hearing from you you'll have 10 minutes when you have three minutes left our wonderful board assistant ms smith is going to put that in the chat so you'll see that pop up and then we'll make sure you wrap at 10 minutes all right the floor is yours all right well thank you first off um i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to you all and then i'm also humbled um just again for uh this this moment and what this means for um for me and my family and so to begin to begin for me i i want to start off by sharing my own sense of leadership and kind of how i think of of that before i go into the first answer and so for me i think of i i
100think of people i'm leading doing greater works than i do and so part of like a beginning like a ground floor for me would be your genius gives me life and so i want to start by saying that realizing that when when it comes to evaluating leadership when it comes to evaluating superintendent for me truth is tested by the love that we demonstrate as we communicate and so um helping people see themselves their power and their purpose for me ends up being how i how i bring myself to begin to think about what evaluation means and so as i thought about these questions um i was humbled because this is hard work and it's work that means that the outcomes have to find their strength in the unity of the gifts of our genius together
101so it's a collective thing and so um the gravity of what it means to evaluate a superintendent and the strength of that role and the impact in a district with 53 schools 53 communities with 5000 employees serving 33 000 students um it's it's quite it's quite a splash in the ripple effect that it would have throughout durham the impact right and so i want to use when it comes to performance is it and how it's a measure of a lasting ripple effect in the distance of a splash in a pond so i'm going to use an analogy um think about when you were a child and you went to a pool and you were you were at you know you guys were taking turns trying to create a cannonball right and so the dps strategic
102plan and what it represents to me is a ripple effect in a splash effect and right it's at the end but for me i want to go back to the beginning of it and so i want to use three three metrics but i'm going to use this analogy to paint them and so the first one is contextual understanding um second one is teacher participation third one is parent empowerment and so for the first one the thing that would help you have speed entering the water to make this splash would be rounding and smoothing of the ball right and so that that piece smoothing of the ball rounding of the ball is what to me is the contextual understanding and so in that you have a historical understanding of the community a cultural connection to the
103community a contextual appreciation to the community um and then secondly you have the weight of the ball and so in the context of the weight what would give it the weight right is teacher participation so the way is the idea of carrying the burdens carrying the burdens of teachers and parents and so in teacher participation um thus one example would be participating in school improvement team work another one would be communication another one would be a sense of value and trust and and so and then the last metric for me would be parent empowerment and this starts from a place of how you evaluate that is it begins with like a place of not having shame right and it's confidence building um one is it being empathetic to the home dynamics parents seeing parents as
104partners and as valued people and then also trust and so between those three things um for me it starts with the relationships it starts with relationships and p seeing people's gifts um and so moving on to the racial equity question um criminalization of the black men in academic spaces is kind of the topic i want to talk about and so and i i use that topic because the sro discussion right now is one that's visceral it's out here we're really talking about this and so it's connected to discipline rates it's connected to environmental conditions in the home and in the community and the the over policing of black and brown bodies mimics for several decades it's mimicked the prison incarceration disparities and so for me thinking about solving that and just my suggestion is how
105would i engage that from the again this context of the community so if we have a pyramid and we're thinking about top down i invert it and say we're going to go up with this inspirational approach where we're building greater and greater empowerment and so for me it would be recruiting training and employing family members right aunties uncles cousins brothers dads moms grandpa grandpappies um big mamas of the individuals in that particular school so every school would have the communion so you would source the community and so in doing that again we're talking about building trust right we're talking about the weight and the dynamic of of what would impact the biggest flash and biggest ripple you would create more of an empathetic um empathetic culture culture of intervention right another one you'd have this
106inspire increased mutual respect right which is really critical and so and lastly in this piece of racial equity i talk about safe spaces we talk about creating that safe space and oftentimes when it comes to alternatives if you think about ever breaking up a fight if i'm breaking up a fight and it's with my kids or a kid a neighbor kid my i'm not coming out with handcuffs i'm not coming out saying hey you better not hit me i'm gonna tell you but up i'm gonna come out and i'm gonna take one on the chin because i'm i see the value right i see the value in this moment but the training that that requires is me as a brother i'm a son i'm my uncle right and so i'm bringing a whole different perspective
107and so for me the alternatives often aren't trusted when we talk about this because um we're not the those communities aren't included in participating in that solution and so lastly um i i want to go into voices and dismantling the barriers in this piece and so the voices in our community they're indispensable um and so kovid it's interesting because covet is giving us opportunity um it's a default need for something that should have always been a necessity which is present so now we're saying there was a time a couple years back when i was at glenn when i was like hey we should jump in the community right and and and trying to organize that way and folks right now we don't go into community that's not a thing we do but in this moment
108it's like dps is realizing we can't survive if we're not in the community spaces and so for me this it's a default necessity now but that is something that should always been the norm um and so i'll say this this next piece is important because when it comes to the gaps and we're talking about uh dps is 73 black and latino right and so when it comes to the gaps and we say all right for me i'm looking i've been looking like how are these gaps for our good how are these gaps for our good and so for me the distance isn't like we need to close it isn't like we're like on this race to catch everybody up that's behind it so it starts with like all right hold on i'm seeing resiliency i'm
109seeing tenacity i'm seeing hustle i'm seeing courage i'm seeing passion right i'm seeing the community breathe and live and dream and fight and struggle and so my first thought is like identifying the genius identifying those pieces of the community that are saying hey those gaps are for our good because they demonstrate who we are as a people and so i'm saying we start there it doesn't necessarily start for me with the retention rates the grade level proficiency the suspension rates the dropout rates or the eogs i know that's not traditional but for me those are a beautiful part of the ripple effect like i said um and the impact of that it comes around creating tables that invite and inspire enthusiasm for brilliance to emerge from the communities these students reside in and so one
110of the specific ways that i'm going to be that again we had a program that was taken as an afrotech program that was taking technology and using it as a leveraging mechanism right because we talked about math and science and a lot of times those pathways have excluded intuitive learners they've excluded certain learners that haven't fallen into those you know that would have been me i definitely wasn't wasn't that guy to run up this math and science higher achievement pathway but for me the technology now offers an opportunity to harness that and use it as a leveraging tool for equity to create equity and so one of the things that we'll be doing is in september taking a small group of grandkids and going ahead and running that program but we're running out of a
111pod and so this was kind of again some of the part of where we're saying hey those with the most power and this is kind of for me this would be this would be essential those with the most power have the responsibility to create the most ripple for those without and so i start with that i start with the ripple effect i start with the cannonball to show you that it's those relationships so the weight the burdens that we bear when we hit the water that's really what matters and it matters that we're smooth that we're around that we've worked on taking care of our biases our the the ways that we're misreading the ways that we don't understand the culture and as we do that we enter the water a lot easier and so
112the impacts that we look way down the road and the beautiful work in the dps strategic plan for me it's like yeah those are the ripples those are the ripples that come after we really think about men having the power and creating opportunity for those that don't thank you thank you so much that was wonderful getting some virtual applause going on here all right so i have my jar i'm going to shake this up and pull out a topic for you to share how you think you can contribute to this one is community engagement but i'm going to put it back because we've heard that one already okay okay all right this one is reduction of funding in public schools okay right awesome um yeah so for me this is an incredible topic because i
113think when we talk about the economic piece oftentimes we're limited by what raleigh gives us we're limited by what city council gives us and for me for me as an entrepreneur for me thinking about alternative funding methods i kind of take a play from the book of saying hey we need to be able to create economic sources that come from outside of the traditional systems whether it's connecting to a business whether it's doing fundraising and i'm not talking about selling cookies or selling tickets to the skating rink i'm talking about being able to connect say hey we need to get a need met and so we'll step up every school should have a plan to say hey what are the additional needs that we need to get met for this school rather if it's adding
114on if it's hiring we need to have that discussion so when i was pta president glenn and i started saying all right we need uh translators all right what about hiring someone from the community whoa pda don't deal with that y'all don't deal with those those kind of issues and so for me i think again it's inverting the thought and say hi hey the answer to that economic issue is in the community it's in the community so i think thinking creatively about how do we fund the school again we got to go back to the people is it's for we've got to include them there's genius in our community but if they're excluded yeah i'm waiting on raleigh i'm waiting on dc i'm waiting on the federal government and so for me that's not enough
115we got to go past that and be able to give something that's going to bring people to a table in in a win some way in a way that demonstrates that we care thank you i appreciate you guys i want to thank you so much for sharing your time with us today and for applying we are making a decision next thursday so okay all right good night thank you okay mr wilson is waiting are you all ready for our next candidate okay here's chris wilson i'm admitting him now mr wilson can you hear me yes we can hear you all right it is my turn i'm guessing yes mr wilson thank you so much for joining us today um we are thankful and appreciate that you put your name in the hat so we're excited
116to hear what you've prepared you have 10 minutes our wonderful board assistant ms smith is going to give you a warning when you have three minutes left down in the chat window but the floor is yours all right well first of all thank you all for um this opportunity to interview for the board seat um with 10 minutes i want to just kind of give you a little bit of background about me and and my history i am from shelby north carolina over in the western part of the state um grew up as a product of the public schools there and like everyone who attends school they they all have some teachers in their background who made a difference in their life for me there are two educators that stand out first for me was
117my first grade teacher who for a period of time took me to school and brought me home from school um and another is my freshman professor who in my early days and and as a freshman in college said four words to me that just changed the course of my life so i have educators that clearly without those two educators being in my life i would not be sitting here tonight um interviewing for the board seat so a product of the public school system and uh believe in it uh um wholeheartedly and uh i'm really honored to for this opportunity um a little bit more about me i went to western salem state university graduated there was a student government president um there and uh upon graduation i took a job in lexington kentucky uh working
118for an out an oil company as a computer analyst i was there for three years moved to indiana and um took a job with the pharmaceutical company bristol myers again in computer science and when you're from north carolina uh you you don't really appreciate what you have in north carolina in the beaches in the mountains until you move to the midwest um so we decided to come back to north carolina and we've been back in north carolina for the past 30 years i came back to work for glaxosmithkline in the research triangle park and i was there for 14 years and then i i started my own business and we are um owners of 14 h r box stores in north carolina virginia also an entrepreneur running the tag office in south durham on highway
11955 and um so that's a little bit about me and how i got to durham lived here for 30 years moved to woodcrawl 30 years ago and been in the same place fortunately since the time we moved to durham the three questions you wanted to know about for me is um i think the answer the first question was what are the three most important metrics in evaluating the administration and the team and for me it would be the mission the vision and the values that's something we use in corporate america quite often and in case the values i think is for you you call them your core beliefs and they are your equity to share responsibility high expectations and a child-centered approach i think that is the lens that should be used when evaluating the
120leaders of the organization quite frankly i think that's the lens that you should use for most anything you do um as it relates to running durham public schools you've had a a broad-based community of um of a broad-based um group of people that came together from the community to create your strategic plan and out of that came this uh these um this vision the values and your mission and i think that is a good blueprint to use and apparently you all have been using it and uh it is the north star for for all decisions that should be made around everything that's associated with durham public schools um number two name one question one one what name one systemic racial equity issue that impacts students of color and how i would s i would use
121my seat to rectify that issue for me that is having access to positive role models and um i think that is the one thing that stumps a lot of the growth of of students of color is not having access to the to the positive robots and we live in a world-class community right here in durham that can offer a lot of that we have a lot of global leaders in our community and i for one would like to use the high profile position of a board member to serve as a role model for our students i'd also like to have more students of color be exposed to the career disciplines that surround them there are lots of examples of world-class literally everything right here in durham in the research triangle park and um it is
122up to us to to get these kids exposed to everything around us uh and that starts with coach k of course he's a great um basketball coach he's a great leader he's a great manager it also includes the likes of a kevin montgomery who is an architect in our community is helping to shape the the skyline that's here in durham and it also includes a young man by the name of kimani hicks who is a newly minted medical doctor and a current mba student at duke and a product of durham public schools all of these people should have all of our students of color should have access to people like this and i'd like to see a more coordinated effort around an annual program that gets our students out into the community out into the
123corporate world that's that surrounds us in research triangle park and get them exposed to a lot of the act the the um roles and responsibilities around they will be what they can see and we need to expose them to more than what they are seeing at this point in time i was so happy to see kamala harris join the ticket and be the role model that uh girls of color need and we need more of that type of activity uh particularly for our boys of color uh in the public school system how will i ensure that the forces from the marginalized communities are heard i like the model that our prior superintendent used burt long he was very successful and and very intentional about reaching out to the marginal community leaders um listening to them
124listening not to respond but listening to understand and um he reached out he was respectful and um he listened and he he sought their input and in the process of doing that he was able to calm down some of the craziness that was going on around the durham public schools and i think that's a great model for um reaching out to the marginal and being influent and being an influencer in that manner um um so i've watched the work that he did and i was just i was i was a very um i was a student of how he actually um did that and was able to bring people together calm people down and move the system forward so we we've got to we've got to take the initiative and move forward in that way
125um that i think answers all the questions that were before me i think there's a random question at this point yes there is so i've got a jar here with some topics in there oh you all right you pull one out of the hat very random all right um you know this is random but we still have lots of repeat questions so this one is about student boundary planning student boundary planning okay um the maps in durham have not changed for the last 30 years almost i think we put this system together in 1992 and uh the maps have not changed we've had explosive growth in southwest durham we're looking at a potential of another 160 000 or so [Music] coming moving into the to the durham area over the next decade southwest durham needs
126more capacity uh we need to engage the community in a way that is fair firm respectful and transparent um i think giftens is bursting at the scenes creekside is bursting at the seams um we need to do something about that and um i think that that now is the time to do that and i uh and i would i would love to be a part of making that happen we just don't need to have the crowding that we have at those two schools particularly when we can do something about it mr wilson thank you so much for giving up your time and energy for this interview portion we are thankful all right applause thank you uh we make our decision at our board meeting next week so feel free to join in to tune in
127okay all right well i appreciate the opportunity again thank you thank you all right and board members this will conclude our interview portion today thank you all who are viewing and watching us thank y'all for your participation we will make a decision and our board meeting next week august 27th i believe it's at 6 00 pm 6 p.m 6 30. excuse me 6 30 pm is when we'll get started so thank y'all for joining us good night you