BOE Meeting - 3-30-26

001Five. We'll start first with a roll call with the board. We'll start on my left. Miss Janet Gordon, >> present. >> Miss Terresa Calhoun, >> present. >> Miss Paula Jones, >> present. >> Miss Diane Elbert, >> present. >> Josh Roen, present as well. Next we've got on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. We do have an amended agenda to add to and move just a little bit. First item for the board if it's okay with them is we're going to move under discussion number six which is the ACM route for the middle school. Um we got word from the county commissioners we've got some new updates to that. So if we can move that from number six under discussion to number 10 under action items for the board. And then what we'll do

002as well is we'll replace that number six um with the school safe u agenda item there. So we'll add that discussion with number six in the next. >> Anybody have anything else for the agenda? So, I also um put on there that was the Ash County High School CTE bathroom refresh update and interior LED project that you all have approved during the budget meeting to move forward under the public school building and renovations whatever funds with the other RC students for Amanda I can't remember but um we we're hoping to have contracts um reviewed through the court attorney um they're not back yet. Um for those but the amounts don't mean the same back during the uh the board work session on uh budget to move forward. And so what I would like to do

003is to approve it moving forward so they can get started on this project schedule and um I would send you the actual contracts for each of those but that's under that's approved the announce but it's just the actual contracts themselves payments Approve the agenda. Hear none. I'll signify a motion to approve the amended agenda. >> We approve the amended agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. W. Do I have a second? >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? All in favor, raise your hand. Motion carried. The first item is here coming up after the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. So everybody will stand their name is going to pull up the flag on the screen here. So we'll address the flag that I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

004the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We'll go ahead and turn it over to our next. >> All right. Thank you. So, first of all, thank you all for being here today and uh we are celebrating uh arts and education month and this month um we always have our board meeting here at the beautiful arts council. have the opportunity to both celebrate our arts teachers uh celebrate the works that the children have built over time um or have painted or drawn or created over time and um the arts council always um becomes a very lovely host. So, um, first of all, I want to recognize Joanie. And so, if you stand up, Joanie want say hello to everybody. You can tell them because this will

005give you an opportunity to see how our teachers support children in the arts and how our community supports the arts. So, we're gonna I'm gonna call out all the teachers that I know that are here today um or that teach um in somewhere in the arts, not just our our uh the art work that you see around here, but even our performing arts teachers um as well. And then uh I'm going to give everybody a chance who's here to actually mingle around the art, look at what our children have created. And uh the arts council has also provided some uh yummy heavy orders and appetizers. Um so if you like to partake at that point in time that'll give you a chance to relax and see the good things that are thank you and thank

006you to the school board and to the staff and administrators and all of our educators for what they do to shape all of our students here in Ashetown and contribute to our overall success. Uh we do appreciate you coming to meet in this space. You know, this is the only special space that you meet in. So we feel very honored to have you here in the gallery so you can see what our teachers and students have done. Um and celebrate the creativity of our K through2 students. And first of all, a huge shout out to our our educators, not only through this exhibit. So they help round up all the hard work and they hang the show and they help with our new annual um children's art that we're doing in Ash County. We have

007some great community partners in that. So we can give them a little clause. They do a lot of extracurricular activities for their kids that go above and beyond the usual job description. And when we work at a nonprofit and the arts team get to directly benefit and their support, engagement and knowledge about our painting. So we really couldn't do what we do without the professional experience and expertise of our educators here in Ash County. I think you as you get to peruse the artwork, which um I'm glad we're taking a moment to do. You'll notice that we have a big variety of mediums. We also have a big variety of age. And I think it speaks to the talent and the dedication of our teachers who will see here in this room. Um so the

008public schools have been a wonderful partner in the arts council historically and continue to do so. So we're very honored and privileged to bring programming into the public schools. So we do that through performances and artist residencies throughout the year. And we also really appreciate the support with special programs such as our after school jam program which everyone has always been so supportive of. We get about 50 students in that area and we're just so hard to carry on our traditional arts here in Ash County and brings up that next generation of students and um creativity does enrich the quality of life and I'm sure you've heard this before but I always like to drive this point home. It also makes your students more hirable when they go on to careers. Um, even in Fortune

009500 companies, if they have two very similar candidates, they typically choose the one. So, you're not just enriching the quality of life, you're turning out people who are better prepared. Anyway, thank you all for being here. you'll enjoy and if you have any questions about anything you can always get. So before everyone um yeah so before we have a chance to prove everything um I'm going to share um our arts teachers that are here in national schools and if you just stand up when I call your name and then some of them have been a huge part of making this a success every single year that lasts many years and when we talk with kids about some of their favorite classes and favorite teachers. Um, it's always an art teacher or a music teacher or

010a PE teacher um that makes the top of the list. And so, um, I don't take this lightly. Kristen Krider teaches music at Mountain View at Westwood. teach music at Bloomberg Elementary teach the middle school band director and um she's of course I've been in her class that's been a lot of fun um recently Parker Doula who is the band director at um the middle or at the high school let me see Parker who is the mountain music teacher at the high school. >> That is a tradition that I love that we have here in Ash County. So many benefits of carrying on uh culture year after year and our kids thoroughly enjoy it. Um Shane Green is art and photography at the high school. Middle School of Art. Catherine Green from Westwood. Hillingham from

011the high school. Elizabeth Hatch from Blueidge Elementary School. Jonathan Green teaches theater and drama at the early college teaches theater and drama at the high school. I just want to tell this story. So, um, about a month ago, I was at Bloomberg Elementary School, and I just happened to walk in walk into it, uh, the art class, and they were creating these, um, uh, chameleons. And, um, I had no idea what I was doing, but the children were so excited about showing me how to make bulging eyes and how to mold it. And the way they worked with um uh the art teacher worked with uh the core teacher to teach fractions and to um get students to visually and physically understand how to manipulate fractions. So you had equal parts and then how to

012how would you get four parts instead of two and how would you get eight parts instead of four. Um the kids were seeing math come to life. um they were using their vocabulary which I thoroughly enjoyed seeing and best of all I had a lot of fun creating with them and then as I understand it they uh painted my piece as well as their own and fired it up. So that was a lot of fun but um thank you to our arts teachers who make uh learning so special for our kids not just in art and creativity but uh through their work classes as well. Um so with that um like to do a gallery walk there's food back there and really enjoy some of the art and then we'll follow after this session There's

013so much Tell me that's true. It's funny. Mr. J go around the corner but thank you to the arts council for this and arts teachers and all the students that put up work. Nice to see the handiwork. I do not that talent is I would not have made the law just about stick figure is about all I can do doesn't look good at that a lot of talent that we have in our school system wonderful thing to have we'll go ahead and start the meeting back so I'll turn it back over to Dr. dogs to continue living. >> So, we have three of our student representatives here um who have thankfully been giving some updates for the schools. And um I don't it doesn't matter which order you'd like to go in. I think two

014are sharing the time. So, if you want to go ahead up to the podium and then the college probably Well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you guys for having us back. My name is Cla. I am my school student body president. >> And I'm Fel Zoo, the senior class president. And I know we have not got to speak in a couple months due to crazy weather and just we haven't been able to make it to some meetings, but we're happy to do that and we have several updates about the high school and many highlights that we've had throughout the week. >> So starting with academics and testing in March, we held ACT works boot camp session hosted by Europe. We had 75 students attend these sessions. I'm pleased to report that 100% of eligible students completed

015ACT4 testing and over 95% took the AC. We're also proud in dance and rose team in English who were both selected to attend NC governor school this summer from a highly competitive statewide at the state beta convention. Alyssa Rob first in state creative writing and I placed fourth place on the math academic test. We are incredibly proud of everyone who participated in the state convention. Our high school beyond the data honor society competed at the math competition at app state and the battle of books team competed at the North Carolina school sign the map at we're proud of both teams. Moving on to college and readiness. Our seniors have submitted approximately 200 college applications this year. acceptances into several students admitted to UNC, two to Emry Riddle Aeronautical University, one to Bernard College and wants

016to admitted to Yale, Harvard and the University of Chicago. We also have a congratulations, >> a first scholar at college. Our ambassador completion rate is at 46% a 12% increase from last year education. February was CT month. On February 12th, we hosted our annual curriculum fair and rising ninth grade parents, welcoming approximately 100 students and families at the Skills USA competition at Witz Community College. OP in carpentry and OH in electrical. All of all are advancing to state competition in construction. Four students also completed competed in welding. Caleb W 17 Y L and C. We are all very proud of all these excelling students. >> Moving on to school culture and events. This February on February 7 27th we welcome the motivational speaker Josh Perez for an all school assembly. In February we also unveiled

017our new decal at Ash County High School in our school entrance a proud reflection of our school spirit. Um, our teachers recently completed a staff professional development day featuring teacher-led sessions on topic learning ranging from AI tools and career development to trauma informed practices and belonging. Our students have been learning beyond the class really through the field trips through the CEX expo at ASU host state competition and the upper mount region uh mountain research center the forensics class visiting the crime lab in Yawi and easy state and multiple trips to Wils Community College and more. Finally, our community open house is tomorrow, March 31st from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with a senior parent meeting at 6 o'clock. We hope to see all students and especially seniors there. Um, moving on to reward and insensitive programs.

018We are running a March Madness attendance competition within the high school uh with a breakfast reward for the first for the winning first block class and the top two home rooms per grade with the highest attendance are recognized every three weeks throughout the remainder of the semester and a very big uh shout out to Going who donated a very wide selection of breakfast for us to to celebrate that event. Um and moving on lastly to our athletics. Um we will be sharing the winter athletics. We will definitely come back with more spring, but um this winter at our indoor track state championships, Gracie F won the pole title and was nameing field athlete of the year. Gracie in June won the shot championship as well. In wrestling, Gabe S. played third place in the state

019and earned lowered weight wrestler of the year. All conference was Gabe S. Sam, Ben B. And honorable mentions go to Elijah S, and Elijah G. In men's basketball, Bryce P was named offensive player of the year for all. And then for all conference, we had Bryce P., Jordan T, Trent S, and Cole T. And in women's basketball for all conference, we had Karen T, Kinsley B, and Alexa S. And our honorable mentions go to Addison W and Payton G. And in swimming, we also celebrate a historic first for our first ever regional qualifying relay team of Siana G, Leah C, Anna R, and Addison D. And on February 28th, our JOTC Raider team competed at Olympic High School in Charlotte and took first overall out of 11 other teams. So if athletic busy golf and

020I have for these past few winter months, but we will be back hopefully next month with some more amazing amazing news. It's great to be a husky. Thank you guys so much. Davidson and I serve as sweet vice president at Ashley College. Now I'm excited to share a few highlights from this past month. First I'd like to recognize our Beta Club for some outstanding achievements. Ashley College is named one of only five schools in the nation to receive the job leadership. This award recognizes clubs and demonstrates achievement, character, leadership, and service. And as part of it, we'll be able to send 10 members to leadership summit next year. We also want to congratulate Haley Lester for placing second and five awards at the state level. We had a great time on this past Saturday and

021a special thank you to Mr. Kes for being our DJ. We would also like to congratulate him on being named Ash County early Ash County School employee of the month and NCAAT CTE teacher of the year. We'd also like to recognize Mr. Green for growing our theater program from a club to a full class where students perform a production each fall. His hint mystery dinner theater will be on May 7. We hope you involved in attend. Our school was also recently featured in the global leaders community newsletter highlighting how students led our community breakfast and connecting and connected their learning to future goals. Our staff also visited Madison Early College um to learn from their global leaders work and will be visiting Wils Early College in Mon this month. We also had a successful college

022visit to ETSU and attended a trip to Barter Theater to see the Three Musketeers. Looking ahead, Wils Community College will host Maril Fest in April and many of our students will be volunteering to help with the event. We're also looking forward to the hiring fair at Ash County High School at the end of the year. Overall, it's been a busy and exciting month at Ash Valley College. Thank you for your continued support and we appreciate everything you do for our students. Talk about success. A lot of it has to do with the the kids and families that summer, but also the educators that support them every single day and give um children. So, kudos to the three that are here. Um I know the Addison who's also from the Early College is at another athletic

023practice uh or game this evening. Um so, he's not able to be here, but kudos to all of you. So, can I ask you um have you decided what your next plans are? >> I have um I will be attending UNC Charlotte this upcoming school year. Um and I intend to major in child and family development. So, and I plan on being a child specialist in a children's hospital. So, I'm super excited to be 49er. Thank you. just committed to state and I'm going through their biology program and they also have an accelerated master's program for their biology course and I'm planning on doing that um to hopefully attend a graduate school PA. So >> any big announcements yet? So the plan right now is to um commit to Harvard but I'm still weighing on

024options. So if I attend Harvard I plan on majoring in molecular and cellular cellular biology and if I attend Yale majoring in biology >> I just want you to imagine the great teachers that have had influence on these three. They've spent most of their time here in Ash County. And um I just want to say thank you to all of all of those who are watching who have had an influence over them. Um we're really proud of them. We're proud of all of our students. Uh but we're especially proud of our representatives who've been so great um here at our board meetings, too. So, kudos to all of you. We can't wait to hear what what's really next for you. Um, in addition to some of our school successes at the high school, um, in

025the early college high school, um, Mrs. Paula Jones, congratulations. Um, was recently one of 12 North Carolinians inducted into the Order of Hawaii, the highest civilian honor awarded um by the state and Governor Josh So, um, this is not everything about Polly Jones, but not only is she a long time outstanding educator, there's not a person in Ash County, um, that is, uh, out of school in the last, I don't know, 20 years, 30 years that hasn't made Holly is one of their uh, toughest most influential teachers that they've had and many of you are in this room um but not only um Polly is an educator um but she also saved the New River and so I encourage you to Google Polly Jones and New River and you will see that she really kept

026the New River beautiful as it is today versus being damned up um as was planned years and years ago. So um and she did that through advocacy through writing letters and through uh pet rocks >> pet rocks speaking we lobbyed it to father New York. I spoke to North Carolina state legislature. We did an ash county day and a building in Washington DC and I carried pet rocks and bag down in the street of New York. the work sending congratulations. I'm proud of you. Um Jennifer Miller, Jennifer Miller, um who is a science teacher at Ash County High School, um has been named a Morehead Kane impact educator. And so this prestigious recognition from the Morhead King Foundation celebrates teachers who made a profound profound impact in the lives of their students and has shown

027incredible dedication in developing the leaders of tomorrow. I've been in her class. Um, she's phenomenal in so many ways, whether it be biology or the forensics or anatomy, chemistry, it doesn't matter what she teaches, she's phenomenal and she really has a um a class that kids love to attend. So, kudos to Miss Miller. um uh mentioned already was Stefan Coups um who was the um employee of the month and Tanya Seismore, our director of after school programs was also named an employee of the month. We meet two each year and they both go above and beyond um for our children. Um but in addition, Stefan Coun was named the NC I I I don't know the acronym. So, it's the CTE teacher of the year for Ash County um schools in general. In that particular

028competition, there is a state competition for which we got finalists um last year and so hopefully Mr. will get to uh enjoy that as well. Um the Ash County High School Junior ROCT Raider team, which is actually the high school and the early college combined, they have students from both participate. They were first place among all uh 11 co-ed teams at a regional competition that was mentioned. Um but uh Lieutenant Carl Young um is their instructor and we just say thank you for representing Ash County with that one's tongue. we named the battle of the books winners um for the high school but for the um nearly 60 students dove into a state selected reading um style um that was in Hickory um and then March 27th for elementary that was hickory for the middle

029school March 27th for the elementary school and our our children with this invest very well and so everywhere we go we seem to have compliments on how well behaved our children are and they're mannerly. Uh they treat each other with respect. Uh they treat adults with respect. They know how to shake uh someone's hand and look them in in the eye. And regardless of whether we come home with a pop eyes prize, I'm really proud of that. And then middle school student Ben represented Ash County Schools at the regional spelling beam and he actually made it to the uh third round which was an incredible feat. I think um under 10 kids made it to that uh fourth round. Um so he was one of quite a few students that advanced very far. So um

030I know that he has lots of great things um to say about that. Excuse me. And um I want to say we've hosted a lot of things. We've had great across America. Uh this is arts and education month. Um last weekend or excuse me last week our middle school students had the opportunity to go on a coastal trip the first time in seven years so since before co and I know that was a tremendous amount of work shared um all the teachers at the middle school Mr. who went into the uh or on the field trip. Um lots of parents. Uh the kids had a terrific time. But what I enjoyed most about this uh past week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and even into Saturday, we're getting texts um from some parents um from Sherry Pines

031uh the principal and others sharing with me how wonderful time the kids were having. We had a student who had never been out of fashion. We had the Rotary, excuse me, I get choked up. Excuse me, choked up. We had the Rotary who donated lots of money, had their option to celebrate and be able to so students could actually go to that meeting. Um, we've had all kinds of uh community support. Um, many people um uh bought donuts that we weren't going to ever eat. um so kids could go and raise the extra funds. Uh it was truly a community effort and I just want to say how proud I am of the students. They came back with some fantastic memories. Um uh can I Robbie, can I get you to stand up? So my

032favorite picture of the entire time uh was sent to me of Robbie. And was that your first time with tablets? >> No. Okay. But it was your birthday. And so he's there with this plate that is probably I might be exaggerating a little bit, but probably all right. Well, it seemed like it was this big with crab legs and steak and lobster and a little bit of everything that he got to celebrate. Um, can you tell us if you had kind of time you had with him? I had a great time. It was really fun. The most favorite part about it is because it was my birthday and I had bills. I had five, you know, the right museum, the right brothers museum. They got to see the big dunes. Some kids got to go

033to the ocean for the first time. Um anyway, but that was my favorite picture that I saw of anybody out there was the cheesy smile and the crab legs. I loved it. Um, but we had students who truly experienced this trip um differently and I hope that over time we can ensure that our kids are able to go on this trip year after year and hopefully ensure that we have even more trips um planned throughout students education so they have the opportunity um uh to have this experience. Sherry, is there anything you want to add? I just want to say thank you to everyone. The teachers did such an amazing job with this. I mean, it is a huge undertaking to get 175, 13 year olds six hours and then all the way back and

034everybody be healthy and safe and happy. Um the community, you know, I'll be honest, I was not 100% on board whenever the teachers came to me, but the kids wore it down and I am so glad that they did. um the Rotary Club donating all the people that donated to us Memorial Song for this um and I'm just I'm so grateful that you guys agreed to allow us to do this and Dr. Fox and so proud of our kids because we were getting phone calls from customers at other locations just to call and say that was the best that the kids have ever seen. Not people that own establishments, other customers that were interacting with our students. And I think that that is that speaks volumes. So I just want to say thank you guys.

035Thank you to the community. Thank you to the teachers and the chaperons that put the blood together to do this. But thank you to our parents too that trusted us to take their kids this far away. Um it was just I just like I said I'm so glad that we have brought this back and thank you and so looking forward um we have Ash County High School U community open house is tomorrow from 5:30 to 7. Um senior families meeting afterwards so please uh know that and show up. Uh Good Friday holiday is coming up um this Friday and so that begins spring break for uh students. There are optional teacher work days the 8th through the 10th. Um the endowment fund grant application deadline is April 13th. So, it's following uh the return from

036uh spring break and um any of our teachers, educators may apply for the educational grants up to $1,500 to fund new and innovative approaches to learning in the classroom. And and we see um our our kids are the ones who benefit from the uh innovation of our teachers uh with these grants. um our annual spring uh special Olympics will be held on April 16th at the high school. And then of course that evening our early colleges our early college will host the uh mystery dinner theater um on the 16th as well. And of course we're posting things on our social media and websites all the time about upcoming events. And this is the time when those events start happening on a regular basis. So please make sure um that you check those out. invite everyone

037to leave. Uh our father graduation fundraiser weekend will be May 1st, second and third. And we need all of them to come by, get a hot dog, make a donation because this is a very special night for our seniors and a lot of our struggles with that. So May 1st, second, and third out at McDonald's parking lot again. You'll see the balloon. >> Yeah. Thanks to Joe and those guys who helped us last year that the pain is a little hard. We don't have some equipment and they were very helpful last year. So um last thing that I that I have to uh share um you know we have quite a few um a lot happening um lately and I do want to share this um we had an incident at at our one of

038our elementary schools um last week and um you know as a mom, as a teacher um superintendent um that I share your concern. There is nothing um that's more important than the safety of reference. And when that safety is um broken, the trust is broken. Um that's hard. And it was broken this time. You know, we had some things that happened that shouldn't have happened um uh at the school, including a weapon on campus. But I want people to understand that we work really closely with law enforcement. Our first call, you know, the call I received from uh the principal. Um next call was um to the sheriff and his next call was to his SRO. And um you when situations involve law enforcement, uh there are limits to what we can share while investigation

039is ongoing. as soon as it's turned over to law enforcement, um, you know, they're in charge and, you know, they have a they have things that they have to do and we have things that we needed to do as a result. Um, and we work closely with our law enforcement partners to follow their guidance and ensure the integrity of the investigation and the safety of everyone that's involved. And of course when we found out that um there was no threat at that point in time um but we understand that this can impact trust and and it should families should expect that every layer of our safety system is implemented with consistency and with care and we attempt to do that on a regular basis. Um so it's it's natural for confidence to be shaken. Now

040we can't speak to all aspects of the situation because it is ongoing. There are charges tending and um there are minor symptoms um but we can share the steps we need to strengthen our our practices moving forward and I've shared a lot of these online um we posted it sent it to families on Friday some of the things that we are doing right now. Um so immediately kudos to Mr. Um the very next day um the staff that was on duty running the screeners um were retrained to make sure that they understood step by step what needed to happen. And so um kudos to Mr. um for taking the time to do that and everybody followed uh protocol um following that when we were uh screening students in um all of our staff will be

041retrained um at each of our schools and they're in the process right now. I've been working with our law enforcement partners um who've been doing this a long time and um you know our SRO's are at um our schools each day. However, we are bringing on additional um partners so that we can make sure that we're doing it to fidelity on a regular basis. Um we work in coordination with the sheriff's office and our school resource officers to reinforce and um look at our screening protocol. So what do we do? What do we not do? Uh what's first, second, and third um and who needs to be doing. And so we've done that over the last several days and we're continuing to do that in each of our schools. We utilize law enforcement partners to

042observe procedures and provide feedback. So while u there's some things that we can do that our SRO cannot. So for example, our SROs cannot just observe the due process laws in place and they're not allowed to do that. So that's why our people have to do that. And so, but they can they can observe to make sure that we are doing it appropriately when that when when that's necessary. We've increased monitoring and oversight of the screening practices across our students. We've actually looked into our screeners themselves, make sure that they are um calibrated the way they need to be um for different buttons that come in, but they're not going to get everything. They're not designed to give everything. So unfortunately um you know that that is a limitation of some of the screeners. Um

043we have a full review of our safety procedures and some of us have a meeting even tomorrow for some of these procedures. Um but we have a safety team meeting that meets monthly and so we have people that are are consistently looking at those practices to make sure we're doing doing what's right for our kids and our and the people that work for us. Um, while our school resource officers are essential, again, there's some things that they are helped by courts of law that they can do and they can't. So, they can't come and interrogate a kid. Um, even though um we know that they are even suspected of something, they are afforded their due process rights as well. So, our guns at the front lines when it comes to um doing some of the

044initial investigation, but soon as we have a um something like a gun on campus, um our law enforcement officers take over immediately and at that point in time, our interact. So, we can do things like getting getting uh um cameras if they're available. um we can uh you know talk to um students to make sure we're getting statements. Um we contact parents to let them know what's going on. Um but once the law enforcement takes over um the law enforcement is in charge. We have safety measures not just our screeners um and our school resource officers on every campus but we also have things like um local law enforcement like request and police came the very next day um to observe practices at Westwood um that's in conjunction with our um SRO at um we

045have gag alerts and digital monitoring systems so when kids put something on their Google um you know those things are monitored because they are screensh devices and So, um, you know, while I wish it wasn't necessary, you know, we actually often times wish to harm themselves or say things that they shouldn't be saying. And those bad words um alert um a few people Jamie, where are you? Jamie's back there. Jamie's gone. Amy receives them, the counselors um sometimes receive them. And it's more often than you would think that um we have children that we have to intervene. our law enforcement officer is usually Saturday night when kids are at home and we're sending you know late in the morning or early in the morning on a Sunday night or late Friday night. Um many of

046times they're not when they're under our care that we're receiving these calls. Um but we do work with our law enforcement partners so we can do well checks and make sure kids are okay. Um we have say something anonymous reporting system um that that we uh still have. We have threat assessment teams and I'll say that the state actually shares information or excuse me the state requires the threat assessment teams but we had a grant several years before that um to develop those processes make sure that we had them um aligned because we knew that we had um a need um like most school districts have a need for this and Jamie and her team were really instrumental in getting that off the ground before it was even required. Um, we secure our facilities. Um,

047we have different door locks and um, cameras and control of access. Um, and we can go into everything that we do to keep kids safe, but we have a lot of things working behind the scenes um, to try to do that. Um, we have the opportunity to do brand new canine checks and do that. Um, and you know, unfortunately last year we had um, quite a few threats. You guys remember last May um by an outside and moving source which caused a lot of us to be on edge for quite some time um mostly with um the high school and movement. We did bring in dogs to check. Um we did have additional law enforcement partners in place. Um and then of course comes back to people. We have a lot of trusted adults in

048our in our school district, teachers that truly care about kids, administrators, counselors, um, custodians, um, that truly care about children and want to keep them safe. So, um, and they're trying to build strong relationships with kids. And that's one of the things that's on our strategic plan before and will continue to be on our strategic plan is building those strong relationships with children because that matters. We also have students that are afraid to speak up and we need to encourage kids to speak up. You know, when they see something, they need to say something, but they need to report those concerns. And thankfully um you know we've had that happen and we've been able to um make sure with all those layers of systems that um those things are working together. Speaking matters, but it

049also matters that they have a relationship with an adult so that they can tell them what's going on and and adults are going to brush them off and take seriously. And that's what these uh two unfortunate times that we've had this year. I think safety depends on snow and it starts at home. Keep your guns. Not only is it the law, it matters for children. And so I just want to encourage everybody that's a gun gun owner um to please make sure that your guns are put away, that they are away from children, and that your kids know their safety protocol, too. It's okay that they fear um being around a gun. I'd love everybody to know how to use one and not be afraid of it. But I think it's important that we keep

050our children safe. So keep it locked up and make sure that they're out of the reach of children. Um most every case that we deal with um that's the number one. So that's where it's coming from. Um and then of course ongoing collaboration. We need to take it seriously. I know we do. We've met. We're working on our protocols, but I want to be 100% um transparent. There is no 100% guarantee of anybody's safety in the winter time. Not when you go to Walmart, not when you go to grocery store, not when you walk across the street. We've got to be in this together. We're doing what we can to make sure our children and our and our faculty are safe. um within all of our schools, but we really need to work on this

051together. So, um I encourage uh I encourage um anyone to, you know, let us know when there's a breach that we might not know about yet. We'll do something to fix it. We have law enforcement partners. We have two from the sheriff's office that are here today. Thank you for being here. Um we know that safety is number one. um families play that critical role. So ensure not just that you know firearms are locked up have conversations with their children. I don't want to take that for granted and have another conversation with each child. So please make sure that they know what to do to tell um and make sure that they know that that's not a toy for someone to play with them. And looking ahead, you know, we have other safety things that

052we've looked into. So, for example, um prior to this incident, um we had a meeting about clear bag policy for uh next year. Um so, my team's been looking into the costs um for the last um couple of months to see what that looks like. Um that could be another layer of protection um for our students. But is it going to solve everything? No. So, we can get closer and closer to 100%. Um, but we have to do this together. We have to do this together. And I just want to say this, we we take the responsibility um seriously. We learn from every situation. Humans make mistakes and I don't want to hang somebody out to drive and make a mistake, especially when we can fix it now. Um, but safety is not built on

053a single moment. And we really have to remember that it's built over time through relationships and that's I know we've reached trust in this because the firearm needed on campus but when we can work together to make this work so that we become safer on a regular basis. um when students speak up, when adults listen, and when families are engaged. I know that a lot of families here tonight safer. So, I just want to say thank you, and I just want to encourage you to please make sure that um you know, we're partners in this and not working as adversaries because we're really in this development. >> Okay. Next on our agenda, we do have public comment on there while she's getting the list ready. In accordance with policy 2310, the board chairperson will recognize

054speakers in order in which they are. Each speaker will receive three minutes and present his comments. However, the public comment section will not exceed 30 minutes. Total except by a majority vote of the book. If the speaker is unable to present all his or her information within the specified time limit, the speaker may provide the board with additional information in your book. We ask you please refrain from addressing specific employee students board members concerns as a part of this public comment. Concerns can be directed to district leadership as prescribed in policy 2013. Board members will not respond to individuals who address the board except to just request clarification of points made by the presenter. The board chairperson has the authority to speak on behalf of the board and to refer concerns to administration except in

055cases of emergency. Information received during these presentations will not be acted upon at the time received. So, first we've got up here for public comment from Miss Rose Price. All that all that to cover up two main issues is first the school system failed. They did not catch that gun when it went in to that school. Medical detectors. Are the people in schools certified? Do they know how to run a metal detector? A lot of teachers don't. Trust me because I know don't. I know a lot of the people do not know how to run the metal detector. You got that? You got the gun in school. Okay. And from what I hear, the gun went into the school, threw the metal detector, was undetected. Okay. The parent went into the school, took the gun

056out, hit it in her hoodie, carried the gun out. Am I telling you now? This is what Dave Far told me off. It's on the news. I can run it up if y'all don't believe me. But that's what I was told. How did a parent get into the school to get the gun out of the book bag? You all aren't there with our kids. Our kids are talking about committing suicide. There's fakes. There's drugs. There's fight. The the phones the phones that you all take took away from the kids. How's that going for you? Is that going good for you? Is it really? You You're not seeing no of course you're not seeing no You're not seeing the kids going in the bathrooms and fighting and the kids are hating, right? God not saying none

057of this stuff, are you? I'm telling you, you all sit here and you applaud and you That's great. That's fine. And I appreciate everything everybody does, the arts council and all the all you kids and stuff. I appreciate what you do. But we need to look down on the globe and see what is really going on in our school system. I have said this and I have said this and I've said this and nobody don't seem to want to pay any attention to me. But one day I am so afraid. I've had kids in the school system for over 40 years. I've got kids in the school system right now. And one of these days I'm scared to death that we're going to deal with what these other people are just because of neglect and

058carelessness with our children. Just like with this gun, that gun should have never even made school, should it? Should that gun even went through school? Exactly. Should How did the parent get in the school, man? I mean, Mr. Rey, he probably wouldn't even think I was the school, you know, if I had a package in my hand. You don't do that? Why in the world did somebody Why were they able to go in there with their hoodie and get that gun out? And another thing, what time was it when the parents got to notice? What time was it when a parents got the call that there was a gun in school? I'm gonna tell you one thing right now. >> If there's a gun in the school and it's in my child, she's in middle

059school, I better know about that gun being there because if not, I'm going to be really really upset about it. I think >> what? >> Thank you, Miss Bry. >> Can I talk to that? >> You have your preview. >> Can I come on? >> Can you come back next month? Yeah, >> next month. >> Three months. Three minutes. Not three months, but three minutes in. >> Y'all really But y'all really do need to think about that because you failed. You really did. There's a lot of things that y'all fail at with our kids. >> Thank you, Miss Thank you, Miss Brown. >> Next, I've got on here, Mr. Josh Hayes. here. Angie Harden come up. First of all, I've been in the medical. That phone call that he should have made when he picked

060up that phone should have been made to 911. There's a Rachel Tussy that had a tummy tuck supposed to be an outpatient procedure. Come out, milk cover, everything's fine. The husband happened to notice she's not breathing. The nurse called the doctor. She went without oxygen for six minutes. You want to know where she's at today? In the ground. How many how much time does it take to make two phone calls? Y'all know how how fast a bullet travels? Huh? How many kids could he took out while he's calling you and you're calling the law? How many th this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. I went to school in Ash County. We carry rifles in the back window of of our vehicles and we teach our kids about how to use a fire, how to go

061squirrel hunting, how to go deer hunting, but how are you all going to rectify? You saying the uh metal detectors don't catch everything? They should catch everything. They don't even catch their iPhones. I know because my granddaughter has took hers right through. They don't catch. They need to catch everything. And I don't care if you ain't got the funding for that. You cut something else because they nothing more important than a child's life. You all think about that. Just think how how long how many kids he get a shot while you all was calling back and forth. What would you have thought if you had to go up in there and step over their dead bodies? Huh? What would you have thought? Oh, we really messed up this time. Too late, ain't it's too late.

062Think about it. I've got on here Mr. Zillow. >> Uh first of all, want to say thank you for the opportunity to uh voice our concerns in a public fashion. Um I think we all understand that there was an incident that you vented at. Um the first thing that comes to my mind is instead of pointing fingers is how can we brainstorm solutions right because whenever you have an incident we've had a failure so I don't know what can be shared with ongoing investigation if we want to respect the due process there but my first thought is how did the gun make it into school what what was the failure mode that allowed that that weapon to infiltrate our school >> um one of the things that I think we could use as preference is

063the public events that we go to, whether it's a ball game, um, a concert, or flying on an airplane. Um, each time we go into those public venues where there's a lot of people, folks want to go there to cause mass harm in a short period of time. There's protocols in those areas where you go through the detector and if something goes off, your bag gets separated from the first. There's then the wand down check or the the baggage search. So, um I guess not only how did the failure note happen, but um what is the procedure for when the metal detector goes off if we're safety is paramount to me, a child being tardy or a bag not making it into school is secondary compared to ensuring that not just the kids but the

064teachers who were gracious enough with their time and patient enough with our children to teach them. Um, one of the questions I think one of the ladies hinted at it is, um, do we have the funding to get all the staff properly trained on metal detectors? Um, I know that probably teachers when they decided that they wanted to teach children, one of their first thought were, hey, let me go ahead and get my schooling and then let me get training on metal detector, right? That's kind of two separate worlds. How can we bridge that gap to ensure that teachers that are willing enough to teach our young lines have the adequate point training and confidence that hey I'm confident in running this making sure that everybody is safe inside the doors. Um another uh another

065question that I would have is are those metal detectors being used throughout the day? Um my son has braces and sometimes we're coming in late or leaving early um for orthodontist appointments. So, is that something that no matter what time um all school children and visitors for that matter, whether it's somebody coming to teach the kids or or an activity they've got going on at school, are all people required to go through that safety check? Um, one of the one of the things I'm very curious about is and I'm definitely appreciative for the for the law enforcement and the training that that next day is since we've had that training and we've had some reflections and some meetings, what new policies do we help implement, right? Because it's not just, hey, let's let's put this

066stock app in place, but how can we prevent the next item from getting into our school? Whether it's a metal water bottle, a gun, a firearm, or a baseball bat, right? We want to make sure that those metal detectors and those folks running them um have all that they need to make everything squared away. Um just thankful for the time and I'm looking forward to solutions because my wife and I are definitely concerned. Um she grew up in Ash County and this is um a place that we call home and we're just excited to see um the way that we're going to work together to make sure that everybody's safe and has that peace of mind. So thank you all for your time and appreciate what you do. >> Thank you. I just want to

067check in. Josh Hayes, did he happen to come in? We do have another person signed up for public comment and it's not arrived yet. They have made the chair aware of their late being late and I get them permission once they arrive when they back up to hear them. and so I don't see that >> Mr. >> No, I wasn't going to respond. >> You could, I guess. I was just I wanted the parents to know that just that I appear. Yeah. It was nothing to anything anybody said. Um but I like he said I like the transparency. I want us to be transparent and like I said I'd like to see us go forward tonight if we can put at ease how the families feel. You know some protocols. or they want to go

068through um just it sounds like they're having questions on that part of going through and how the med can't be 100%. I saw you earlier there. So, we'll have a little little school that day. >> Um, so I guess everybody seems to still go up to anyone. Um, so now we have moved on to um we got elevated decks installed the first one level and now we have the first LA composite function form. We completed that last week and the plan now is to have a section for each week in the classroom each week and that's weather. So um plumbing work is continuing staying ahead of the concrete. So um work continues on gray on new electricians are also continually wall progressing to the east building concrete loss about 95% and they are starting to

069start and ready for office here. I know you've heard a lot of the discussion about the safety issues. Can you briefly very briefly address the kind of safety um things we will have in our new medical school that we might not have been able to put into existing structures? Is that something that you could just speak off the top of your head of some things you would work I'm not trying to put you on spot there's there's no one solution there many many things we talk about also different philosophies about things um our designer actually um went to the university geek and she was actually a student um when she would know Virginia Tech M. So she actually um done a lot of research on these plans. How do you design a facility that is

070resilient in these kind of situations? While that's been helpful, there's a difference that may also be how they view resilient design in terms of guns versus how the teachers. So, I know that they feel like if you're in a classroom, they think that you should be able to see somebody come in to they think you should have enough glass in their classroom. that when we had a conversation with our school teachers, they did not like that. So, we don't have that. But what we do have is we will have the capacity to prove metal detection at the doors. And with that with an alarm and a system so that when anybody shows up at the front door, they have to identify themselves um before they even walk into the building. And um they have to

071identify themselves to the person at the reception desk and he's turning anything. It's also closed off from the rest of the building. Yes, it is. They can't visual. Um we also have car access control. Um site. Yeah. And all the all of the um the way the hallways are set up. But the technology of the metal detection had a long conversation with a couple of different vendors on these things and I don't know anything about what kind of we have but I know that there are some that you set up so that you know you don't want you to go off with a paper in the bottle. But she won't go off if you have something. I don't know anything about what we have. I don't know what we can accomplish, but there is a

072sweet and um you know to get 500 kids in the building in 45 minutes, it's going to require you know there's going to be a solution. It's not that simple complicating. It's not sit down with us when we're looking at that entryway and go purchase um equipment that can potentially help to screen people in and out. They will be at the table. We have not purchased the new school but a couple different. >> It's just a quick changing kind of new develop. It's not a fix. So the decision made it changed out too. back to our older buildings and worried about that stuff when those old things in you know lip gloss you want to pull that out right there's a we got to find that point at which And I don't know. I'm not

073I'm not a medicaler, but I did talk. So it's nothing as simple as it sounds. I can I can say that much. I didn't spoke to them. So everybody's right. Everybody's right. Everybody wants their kids to be safe. But nothing's as easy as it sounds. So I just say have a great >> thank you back up came in so we'll bring you back up when they're come on up to the coding if we don't care I'm not going to go through reading policy and we got three minutes for for public comment for you there. >> Yes. It's basically the whole speech little longer than three minutes. So anyway, and I resources and references That was >> I am Dr. Natasha Tony of Blue Ridge Elementary and I'm here to express my concern regarding the Alongside

074mental health app that all Ash County students were enrolled in. This program offers mental health support anytime for all students. This product was brought to the school counselors already purchased with a video to show students and instructors how to roll out the program. Each school exposed children to this act differently. At Breeze, we received a letter informing us our children were automatically involved. And to opt out, we had to proactively opt out. If it was offered, it should be an opt in, not out. After researching this particular program, I learned their guidelines and requirements are that parents must be a participant. I know of one situation where one parent who is technologically advanced actually opted their child out, but the child was still able to gain access. My greatest concern lies in the chat feature,

075which is an AI tool. I'm deeply concerned about using an app in minors unsupervised for any level of mental health support. There are similar AI mental health related apps that are currently under fire for misdirecting users, teaching users tools and means to successfully end their lives. and this past pattern and exposing children to resources and means of pursuing or continuing eating disorders among other things. My questions are who is monitoring this? What is the intention? Who or what has access to any of the information involved or shared? What are the safety monitors and who received the alerts? What is the response time? How will the information be used in the app to be integrated into school counseling? Who owns the data that's generated? Who is ultimately liable? What is the process for parents to access

076their child's chat history? Will there be parent and student education? How much discussion and thought and research was actually invested into this decision? and who made this decision. While our counselors are not included in this type of decision. In closing, I ask how many of you have ever dealt with mental illness personally or have a friend, family member, or someone, if your child was the person needing help, your child, think about your child. If they were the person needing help, would you send or entrust them to a cartoon that filters by trigger blend? for the board. We're going items. The first item under action is the consent agenda, which is the minutes for the meetings that we had for the March 2nd and March 16th meeting. This also includes the kinder braver speech and language

077appalachin pediatric therapy and occupational therapy child nutrition bid renewals for the 2627 school year school mental health support local the county schools beginning with teacher support program plans and the affiliatric therapy associates and cooperating contracted speech. So those items are all under the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> I make a motion agenda. >> Thank you, M. I have seconds. >> I have a question. >> Okay. something >> with the um Appalachian um the Kendra Greyville speech and language and the which is item B and G Appalachin Pediatric Therapy Associates contracted speech and language what's the differences between the two in terms of is it the ages of the kids or do you need more than one service um kinderg preschool. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions

078here? Dr. Car. Next, we got the personnel. We have that in our information there. I don't think we have any business to that. Just personnel. We have a motion to approve the personnel. >> I move to approve the personal. >> Thank you, Mr. Warden. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Commissioner Jones. Questions, comments there. There is a question that I have about a certain part of that agenda that I like but we would usually have um placed as that question. I'd like to um at least have the preaching section during close session before that part is approved. We don't generally talk about personality issues. >> Made a motion for that. We can table this until close session and resection unless Our country is not a big issue. It's just something Wait

079until we find holding motion in a second. We can bring it back up after close. That's contract renewals. Okay. >> So, actually the contract renewals are sitting this month. They misplace. They should be under um under discussion. They're they're there to sit out there in case there is an issue and then they will be brought back to next. >> So, the board has those for their references to look over. Any questions to let Dr. Mil know on those? And I'll have those for later. that got the emergency shelter agreement. >> So our um before the hurricane, our emergency shelter um agreement was I think it was 2009 when it was first put into place to that. So there are things that we learned through the hurricane that mountain counties didn't need before then and certainly

080that worked in conjunction with emergency management to make sure it never was used but it was There's some things that and there may be more that are later >> and I'm assuming the date will be updated. >> It's been a little while. >> And I have a motion to approve the emergency shelter. >> Mr. Chairman. >> Thank you, Mr. Jones. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Any other questions or comments? >> I think it's a good thing assistance. I know there were several people who stayed there and it was very helpful. So, we can use our facilities that focuses on Any other questions? All those in favor next the commissioners. Um so uh Amanda and I have been talking about it and the county has sent us a document um saying that the

081increase um that they are thinking for all the county entities that we want have to 2% at most. And if you look at our separately we want them just because of benefits and care costs for employees that we carried out of um out of that area exceeding that amount. But when we're looking at it as a budget in total, it's it's more in line with the three 3.2%. And so I would like to make that edited in the letter that um that I have that Josh and I have signed. It's 3.2% overall. We have really been using our state funds as much as we could to take the burden off of the county so we don't have to increase taxpay dollars um for certain things. So then you know we do got responsibilities and progressive

082around um more of our time. Um we don't have to state budget at all and that's been that's this year. Um however um uh you know we know that the budget next year is going to decrease um our ability to maintain all the teachers that we have. And so, um, we're going to be able to lose people through attrition just like other people, um, with our dollars and people. Um, but, um, we don't know what that's going to be, what that's going to do to local dollars at this point because we don't have a budget for this year, but we also don't have a budget yet for next year. Um, so we're trying to plan ahead um so that we can uh be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. So I would like to make that

083correction and make sure that we're not overstating what the ask is because when you look at the ask is about 3.2 too versus Amanda when they gave us any indication when we might be able to actually plan a budget. So how do we know that we will have a son? It's not going to based on our strong position. So we have we have at least three positions out of one the state um that we will use and that will be through attrition. that as you know with um the a lotion dollars it owns off of every single pot of money that we have. So um and a lot of those pots most of the most of our budget goes directly into. And so what happens then is that when we lose, you know, $10,000 here

084and $15,000 there and another $3,000 here, it adds up to a person that we pulled together to do a certain amount. And so that's what we have to account for. We don't know the exact dollar amount. We have some planning a lotments gets pretty close. Um I don't know what exactly what the hammer is, but that's an addition to teacher positions. But then we also know grants that we've written that are different cycle that might um be cycling off. Um we know that we are dependent on some of our partners and then things like the safety money that is tied directly to a budget which we don't have. We're assuming that they're going to put forward that money, but right now we can't >> I have a question regarding the extended budget on page 10.

085the total requests, the numbers don't add up unless there's something else going on that I don't understand. under the total requests on page 10. If we look at the um if you look at the local sources and capital sources and then I'm assuming you add them together on one line they on the prior year funding they match the math math the math works but on the total requests I came up with over 8,000 800,000 instead of 790,000. checked it a couple times. So if we could look at that meeting, it's very hard to decide on a budget. We personally noticed, you know, if this if the state I know we may have some big changes at the state level which will be very nice. Um primary has been good to us. So um but it's

086just hard to say what this is and the problem is um the commissioners have to know for their as well. I think with the budget meeting um the board decided to push forward pretty much each of the requests to see I think even if we um go back and look at that percentage it's closer to that 3.2% 2%. But as long as the commissioners um give us the flexibility so that if they give us the funds, then we have the ability to decide versus them dictating that. Um that would be funny. the state is going back. But regardless of what the state does, we're still required to submit things to the county. The county still has to have a budget um moving forward to start July one off fresh. So um we're business as usual

087until they tell us. But you know, it's it's uneasy when um we are almost done with the school year and still have do not have a budget for this year. So if they make decisions um you know we have to we have to uh make adjustments and right now we're getting ready to close out this year's budget. I mean it's the end of March um and next year's budget starts um in July one. So I I mean we're closing out right now, >> but we should have a budget maybe by the 20th. No, the 20th is when they go back into session. >> They said she so if they make the decision to keep us steady, >> then we will be okay. The problem is if they decide that they're going to all of a

088sudden open the floodgates and give a whole bunch, then our our local budgets end up becoming. >> What's the chances of that? >> I don't know. I mean, right now, so we're just trying to be careful with the dollars that we do have. And thankfully, we've got a great finance team that keeps us in check. Um, but you just never know. I mean, that is very unpredictable. I would love for them to get a budget this year. That way, we can actually plan and make sure that we're setting it at all essential. I know you talked about this before, but please remind me again while we um we're short. We're asking for $90,000 for the prepaid support. Can you remind me again what we're going to use that money for? >> Yes, the prek nursing

089prek our students get $496 per child classroom of 18 does not pay for a full time teacher in retirement anymore. So um as as teachers have um gotten uh increasingly resil that we've received in the state has not really received that same amount for many many years probably. So just listen up >> and I know we restricted on how many students have class >> 18 says but you got to measure their classrooms per child and then you have to have a teaching assistant that I thought that was okay. I wanted to make sure. >> So, I will send you guys a list of things that administrators and superintendants have got together and consider plus those things that we've seen from a local level in our small schools especially. Um, and funding increase. It'd be nice

090if they paid per teacher and then we have a range of kids that we can have in that class. That would be very helpful. Give us a position that position ensures we can employ a teacher no matter how many years of experience which is important because we have experienced teachers here and they so all you people that are concerned there's some good letters looking back to the state. I just want to share about this one next. Um there's there's an overlap here from this budget thing to the tri state tri. So do we need to talk about that if we approve the budget or is does that impact our budget and try to save very very because and I want to tell everybody there's a wonderful program try called share that we're trying to be

091involved in with you guys bringing today and what it is you get organizations like sky life store all organizations we're asking for their employees um to be able to help support their employees and their child care so they can have workers in the state with them children and the state is bill pay for the child care the parents the child care and the company child care. So, it helps help helps offset parent expenses, helps keep um people working um in the community and um state is offering. Does that Yes, I know we haven't heard enough that they won't affect the NCK um students, but it will affect their private care. that probably made right now that I know um the companies are saying that they will um um pay their third um >> it just

092helps families they're only going to be obligated for the oneird of the cost that pay a third and state give us a share for this program. So are we a participant? Would we be a participant in this program with our own employees and they can't not our school release because we have to pay a third of their child care this time. to um and we start and and we the we I asked a question I will sit here for one of those evening events to actually talk with talk share and um there is um I asked if there was a way that we um did not pay the share, the parent paid two shares, right? Because it would be cheaper than and then the state paid one share. Um, but they won't allow us to

093do that. They are looking at this time. But to me, it's a benefit anyway if we can get some of the information and we do have that program. So, it's just a pretty good distance. We have a space though and that's just program and that classroom that classroom does not classroom we we made it so that we break Even to family, even though ours is discounted, we ensure that we're not making money off of it. Well, we're not supposed to anyway, but we're not making money off of it. Um, the NC3K, the one that is state funded is the shortfall budget over here. >> Any other questions? I'd like to make the corrections to those documents that impact where flags of spreadsheet. unless it's um we accept the changes. >> Thank you, Mr. I have

094a second motion. So without the second thing any other questions or comments all those in favor next we've got the NHSP grant from ASU sub award grant >> I could not open that >> I could not open Mine's saying >> yes >> let me um J you want to share what and Amanda share what those are. Um so this one is the newly awarded um mental health and schools professional grant. Um and in that grant um that we've been awarded, it's a it's three entities that will be working on this. So Ashley schools, RTI International for the data evaluation and Appalachin State is under a um and this is just an agreement that number six and seven go together. >> They're by two different agencies. Two different agencies. >> Okay. So, one of them it's

095the same brand, but one of them were celebrity and the other one was more a contract to do the work. >> Um, both of you can tell where it's going to be. >> Um, yes, this one uh we've had the one in the past that was to increase the number of stu uh clinical students coming into um psychology to work with and we have them working in our schools um through our asset center. This one is to build the pipeline and increase the number of student psychologists. Um because that is another area of you know we have a school psychologist position open typically it will be open for a very long time without qualified candidates. And so that's the focus of this one, but while also supporting our schools with strategies um where these students

096um can work together with our other student service staff such as school counselors and school social workers to work through students who need small group intervention or you know putting some trainings in place to help teachers be doing certain things in the classroom. So our positive on either side is that we get a lot of extra support and we get a a face in what the trainings look like and the and the things we're going to do the trainings do. So I'm going to send this to you. I was able to get on the docu sign itself. Everybody listens electronic. So the sign is a large >> and we just have to be ready. >> Well, we're ready to roll with the earth. So we can't start working on the sun. So am I to

097understand this would be implemented next year? >> We're actually starting the planning processes now in the last spring and summer to implement things next year because the work can't start even with I just it opens on my computer. It's not things that helps. >> Wow. It's so tiny, but it shows what those total costs are. So, >> this is all um very protective of the budget. >> This is this is extra money. This place actually helps us the it was the same grant but the focus was on um psychological relations and school psychologist students. So we typically have school psychologist we have two in our district and uh most of the time um they're utilized for um testing. So when you have uh uh children who are in the exception of children identification process they

098interpret results of tests. They administer the tests and that's essentially what what they do. But school psychologists are capable of so much more. They can actually do small groups of children. to um really dig deeper with family and um do skill-based um activities with children and adults to help um the children right now with only two. Um it's really hard for them to do anything but interpret these results because that's a constant process. And so what this will allow us to do is to um help build the pipeline. We would have graduate students like we've had at our ASK center who or who were regular students at our ASK center who were getting their degree in school psychology uh to be able to work under the supervision of a doctor in school psychology to do

099some of this psychologist some supports in place to not only do work but to support longer term putting things in place to help the teachers trainings modules all got it developed which if these two grants are these two are connected do the term conditions of number seven item differ significantly from those that we can't see. >> So, ASU is a different project. It's the grant requires that we are in um in conjunction on the grant goals and objectives with the institute of higher education which includes the state. the the things that they're responsible to do look very different which is why we are doing a sub award with them. We are the main primary grant order. We are subawwarding with them. We're contracting with RTI because they will do data and evaluation and help us

100build their trainings and all those other things. But really it is an appalachin state school conjunction on the same go >> and we're the one who holds it but they're the professionals who can do this work. we don't have the >> and so would require certain things to be included in their sub contract or awarding paperwork um that fits their things they have to require and then um RTI being the entity as a contract that's why it's two separate things um >> but it's very similar this is over my head so I'm trying to educate myself as a so this payroll salary position If we were able to fire something, would that be a long term? Would that be correct? >> So, we would have pay for everything. There is no cost. >> No. Gotcha.

101Okay. And I had no problems with with item seven, which is the next one. So I I'm in and this so far as I can read it seems it's >> yeah and review it. So I I think I'm okay. >> I think since we have done similar kinds of things it's just a different one that I'd like to make the motion that we go ahead and sign this document and get this process underway. >> I'll second that. Thank you Mr. Motion and second questions comments. All those in favor raise your hand motion on the next search. anything we need to add about >> and it's for the years of the grant the work that they're going to do which help and essentially they're they're doing all the technical pieces that um will help us maintain

102all the uh roles of the grants to ensure that and our notes who they are actually in fact I can move that accept approve this grant as well as they're tied together. I think that's what I think I was hearing when >> Okay. Yeah. >> Yes. Sorry. >> All right. That's okay. >> Yes. >> Second from Miss Alvin. I just want to make sure. >> And Jamie, it's really hard for me to remember the parameters of So the next we usually just give to So could we have an outline next time of what we're actually include the RFP? We're just asking for permission to apply because at that point it's not written. Um, but afterward I'll try to make sure I give an abstract to you that says what the will be, which I think

103I've shared, but I will do that again. Well, it helps me to sort out things what we're actually >> and thank you for applying for various quite a few, >> but I thank you for all the work in getting these grants and doing It's interesting. >> It's a lot of work. >> Actually, we would be lacking a lot of things in our school system. >> Any other questions coming in? None. All those in favor? Try share. I guess as I alluded to just a little earlier, um there's a state program that um allows for child care to um partners for the state and um companies who asking for permission to move forward with this with our based classroom and hopefully um in the future to help support our um teachers and children. Um even though

104they um have told us that um that we couldn't do one they just text a few minutes ago and say that's on the table which how many students will we be helping get involved with this and get the children in terms of getting take care right now I think was in five and we're looking into also um trying to partner over because we have parents that work in boom and other count organizations in our own accounting firms >> and what is the cost to to us no cost no cost at all because the parent is a company which parent works face, >> but we would be more and um as this out there is an economic growth for our community for um um companies to be able to help families to keep them in the

105village and their businesses and not take care of or do not come back. Childare sites are also learning by themselves. I move. >> Thank you, Mr. Do we have safe? >> Yes. Any other questions, comments? All >> favor seating bathroom refresh. you all approved this during the budget session, but um we just wanted to give an update and this would be to whatever is a sign for contracts um that we will be able to move forward um so there's no delay in starting and getting these project scheduled. >> Yeah, that's that's a real good folks. Um we we had submitted the contracts to Fred and it was my hope to to share those with you. So you know we we are eager to get this lighting project underway and we worked with our general contractor

106for the bathrooms too and narrow down a number of pieces there. We want to make sure we're set up for success to get get these things going. Um, a little blur. I'll I'll share a little bit of what we what we've done with maintenance update of this. Um, it looks like we've already saved about $2,000 month over month from uh utility bills from Westwood from installing an LED light in there. So while we've only done small small parts LED lighting um when I pull utility numbers from the last two years we've already saved some savings which makes me more energized go forward with this LED project and hopefully find some savings there. So again trying to be eager proactive use our dollars wisely um and then provide a space that's that's well lit for our

107students. Not to say we're not mad. So I >> Yes. >> Anybody have any questions about this? Again, we just broke it down for the cost of the price that we submitted uh for the CPE project little bit better there. And then we split the uh portion between what we purchased for the lights uh from our vendor and then our electrician who will be doing >> which contract. Well, I I submitted contracts to Fred because they were our contracts that went to Fred and then our vendors would have to sign them. So, I've not gotten back from Fred yet. So, it's just we're trying to get speed along so that we can sign. >> So, I don't have to wait another month to sitting for you guys. So, >> well, Fred doesn't always get around

108to us. >> We we uh we appreciate his support. I appreciate Pearson. Again, I just I want to be proactive on this and that's the reason I come with this um more than transferred I hope to share any information about any >> so these numbers ask for approval to approve these so you go ahead and continue with this >> this is so we can actually sign the contracts so that the trust gets the contracts to us contracts to their information that she wants to move forward without meeting motion we move forward. Thank you, Miss. Do I have a second? >> Two of them. Any other questions, comments? >> All in favor? Raise your hand. Dr. >> All right. So, the next one on here is middle school update. And I know we've been back and

109forth as a county on uh the uh Ruth um but I've included two documents. One is a essentially it's a picture of the financing school and Amanda and Jody and myself, Josh sat down with Todd and Adam and Sandy um to to really take a look at how we might be able to make this project under um knowing that um the county is going to be utilizing the um council be utilizing that building in two layers and looking at what available funds that we have which is not always a lot but we are fortunate to have uh the public school building and renovation uh funds. So um essentially um um you all um we have we have um approximately um we had $500,000 that we had already said that we would and that $500,000 um

110is directly from the public school building and renovation funds. Um Amanda has done a spreadsheet that um is one of those documents there that you can see that has all of the projects that that we have in the works, which is a lot, and what we've completed out of those funding sources. Um so between 2021 um through December of 2025, we've received 2,38,763 um to complete these projects. We've done the Ash County High School awnings ination in CT area. Um flooring for the weight room at the high school. Westwood auditorium lighting. Ashley County High School auditorium carpet. Blue Ridge carpet removal and tile installation. Um CTE greenhouse roof repair. Ash County High School gym floor and auditorium floor. Westwood gym floor and auditorium floor. Um the middle school flooring replacement that was in the middle

111that was in the office area. Um the early learning center roof repair, the middle school boiler replacement, the middle school roof um part one and part two through teracon that was still in progress. Um but we paid out the installment of $56,000 at this time. Um Blue Ridge Elementary School hot water heater. um the roof um part three being the three with um terrain, the early learning center heating system repair and the bathroom partitions at West Village totaling $487,315. Um additionally, um we have committed projects which you know these are the ones that are really expensive. We have a middle school roof um which um uh We've had the engineering payments we've already made plus another 414,000 out of that which would be the $500,000. Uh the Westwood water repair and our estimate on the

112Westwood water repair is 601,230 and that's for the fire system and that's finally in the works. Um we should have back any day now. Tomorrow afternoon we'll have back the water is what I was. >> So, we're getting ready to do that and of course that will be another summer project. Um, we have a CT restrooms which you all um just approved um pre-approved the uh um contracts early learning center air conditioning and the media room the flooring at the early learning center of two rooms. the Blige Elementary School singing repair which was $71,000 something dollars. Um >> has that been completed? >> These are these are committed. >> Um and these to be done hopefully this summer. This is a lot. Um the high school pump system upgrade which um that's a lot. It's

113over 100,000. the LED lights and then the additional um funds for the commit that we would commit to the land. So, um what the county has um said that they would do, they would commit half that they originally said they would commit, which was a little over 1.1 million. Um and then the chiller project, we saved them over 300,000 that chiller project back in 2024 that's been sitting in pot. They allowed us to use um $27,000 for the um sinkhole at the high school paving and then we after the hurricane um the issue at um Mountain View Elementary School where we had the additional single. So those funds came out of it and left from that was about $286,000. So they're going to allow us to place that toward this roof. They're going to give

114us another $100,000 toward and that leaves a deficit of about $22,000 which we can take out of if the board would like to commit if we could take that $222,000 out of the public school um building renovation balance. And what that would leave us is about $130,000 um for upcoming projects. I talked with Dennis Hilton at the state when we should be getting another um installment of those funds and he wasn't sure whether it was 200 or $300,000 because of those come regularly for us unless the state well they come until this May. This May is the last time we're guaranteed it until we actually get a real budget. And so if we get a real budget they should continue those funds. that's been something that they have enjoyed helping out our county so that

115it doesn't come directly from the county. Um so we should have reoccurring funds in there and then when I spoke with um when I spoke with um some of the commissioners um you they've been with us um in projects and um you know buildings are what they're responsible for management. So, I'm sure that if we had any other treatment that we find it, but this does allow us to use those state funds rather than taxpayer fun. They're all they're all taxpayer funds, but this allows us to take it from the spot of the state that we have access to um and apply so we can get this done right. Okay. Um I know that there's been a lot of talk um and we've all felt that way about let's just get something out there that

116gets us out of the building in two years. Um, but the more the more we look at it, there are you potential issues with any type of coating put on it or even taken over the fall. And the coating itself, um, you know, even if it's good two years, it may be something that has to be taken off because it's where travelers. So, um, and then we would have to go through the process of getting that engineering design together, um, like we've already done. So it seems to me that the commissioners have worked with us on this and that we can afford this and for the county this will be more economical long. So I move that we accept this. >> Thank you Mr. I have a motion. Do I >> question? I've got one

117question on that. you have to pass your own. Um then we find out from the state, you know, there was a question about putting more money into it when we're not going to be in the school. That's two years. >> And then did we find out anything different with that? >> Absolutely. Okay. Come back and be >> here. >> The question I have is how soon can we begin getting this on there because I think if we don't get it on by by the end of summer, then >> we need to get on the summer. >> It will not be done by the end of summer, >> but it can be continued to work on during the school year. first part of the school year, but we we have our we have our bid calling

118us eager to put us on the schedule. So, they they spoke to me last week hoping to have an answer. I told him that I was eager to hear an answer this evening and they're eager for whatever options both of our vendors were. Sometimes it gets surprised in the world where people don't want to pay you back money but these folks are interested in taking our business. So >> those are the things which we discussed on 16. >> Yes. The bar b bar in reference to Dian's comment. My understanding was that the most dangerous part and noisiest part the tearing out the old roof is going to be done this summer and there'll be less interference with students in the building. Yeah, that was >> part Jody on that. Um, this keeps up the track

119same time frame that I mean like 160 days I think is what is >> right. So I mean we're still on track with this. Yeah, I mean we're we're gonna start pushing. We're gonna have to read Fred's mail probably a little quicker to call a quick meeting with you guys to approve the contract. >> You're going to hear that again in my update, but we want to make sure that we're crossing our teeth, not our eyes. Uh but yeah, that's where we're set up. So, >> is our contract with Teron still what it was to begin with? this this contract. We do have a side contract with Tercon, but we'll need to sign a contract with the roofing company when they install it. When we when we if we agree to use this money to

120put a roof on, Fred will give us a drafting contract. We'll send it to to the bar bar will view and get it in. But I can I can feel pumpkin if you guys give me give us okay then I'll reach out the bar and say our board has approved this we'll need to get the contract and then I'll work on scheduling dates. >> So I think something you know as far as the uh funds are concerned they are there they hintly will have toward other needs. The county did say that they would help us with this other budget. It's um and it's it's an expensive venture on building this and they will well they will I mean you know I mean you guys have seen what's happening and um anyway we we have three

121options. One is this new roof fund for the $2.2 million um which again to be in conjunction with the county. Um second put a coding on um that has some sort of a a warranty. Neither are guarantee that we're not going to have less. Um but then um the third is two years and not do anything. Um and it continues to rain and operating. Um, you know, we we continue to have some issues. Um, so those are really our three options at this point in time. So, the county does say that they're going to once we push the buildings out to them. They intend to use it. They're great all the buildings there that are brand new because of the hurricane. There'll be a new building down at the bottom that they can use. and

122they do have plans for other entities to perhaps enter that building um beyond us. Um and it is the county's responsibility for funding construction and renovation and upkeep of our buildings. And that's their primary responsibility. And these funds that we would take it from are ones that have to be signed off on by both the chair of the board of education and the chair of the county. So it is a joint effort. But just to put it all out there what the options are that remain on the table. But since they came back to us with some additional funding that wouldn't come from our schools, I felt like it was fair to bring that back to I like to look at it because you know that community they have plans for that and um I've

123been very as I've said many times I've been very distressed by the state. So, I'm excited to see that we might be able to get something going for the kids that >> they said really >> they're not sure they're um from my understanding from what I've read is that they're they're waiting to see what might the needs might be when we finally move out. And there's going to have to be some work done before they can do much over there too. We have great halls which have a great out building that's new and then that front um building that's newer um is a great building space too don't have to be very >> well I know you have the votes here and but the reason I won't be voting for it is just because it's

124a lot of money >> and what if we have another sink pole or something we're not guaranteed what the states small gifts with the county given us. >> Well, I just with the budget that we talked about just a few minutes ago, I just have that's the reason I came and I just run it because I think the money is I don't have any money in my funds. So, any other questions, comments? Any vote? Those in favor raise your hand. Any oppose motion? So next we'll flap into our refresh discussions. We actually got a compact schedule of our exceptional children. Good evening. And um I have a team that we work together with as far as our program and throughout this uh presentation. The questions that were asked, it was a is definitely a team

125member and administrators throughout the town. I am here to say that um this is going to be a very it's a good thing because some things grow with money and things like that where um in our exceptional children program I'm very blessed that we are wonderful stewards of our funds and also great supporters of our children and families and um supporting our schools administration and assistance custodians um nutrition Right. So the very first thing was um NRD students of those are um are state funds, some of them are federal funds, some of them are grants and um all these funs funds are considered to be able to help support our um department with our state 32 funds. They are on on our head count, our 63s, our our children with disabilities for our development today.

126And our PRC 29 supports our behavior specialist. That's a grant. We got 169,000 this year out of that um grant that we wrote. And our behavior specialist helped support SC. And also we were able to uh fund um teacher assistance to give teacher assistance. Our 49 is our preschool hand funds where we provide our teacher and other funds that are necessary to help provide three and four and 5 year olds. Our 60 grand is our school aid support our teachers and our family then supports our um students. Our PRC114 grant is our school grant in which we have applied for and they have a um child that has a very high need that like maybe requires a nurse or CNA or something like that. Um I did um apply for that this year and we

127did get um funding for a nurse. Um our 119 grant is where we um fund it's a competitive grant. We can get um funds for both preschool and our school age. I was able to get $7500 out of that grant this year at right for that. Um 118 is another competitive grant that we are able to apply for and we typically get funds in a state just dictates sometimes we get $1,000 sometimes we get $7,500 I received this year two is our state improvement grant that is our um our um NC6 Miss Casey is our coordinator with that and she raised that grant and um also help support um general ed teachers and special ed teachers to be able to get math and reading and um some trainings math and reading and also some materials

128that we uh move forward within the classrooms. Our PRC 109 schools program that is based on census. So we tell everybody if anybody's listening to make sure to do your census because if you don't then we don't get those funds and few years throughout my tenure here we have not gotten those funds and it averages between 16 and $9,000 that help support um all schools generally um BC and um helping um programs and trainings and materials um local 3206 six 06 helps pay for one school psychologist. Our um sur grant helps pay for another behavior specialist and our mental health service grant behavior specialist and school psychologist. So Amanda, did I miss anything? It does. And one thing I will say that um Amanda and I and her team work very very closely and Joey

129to be able to um the rest of the game through our NC6 stuff and Julie will to make sure that we are great stewards of these funds and that we make sure that teachers if they ask for something we find one of these areas in which we can make sure that they they get what they need in order to serve students. We've been able to be uh good stewards and give in the past probably I think at least five years that I went back. We've been able to give each teacher including related service personnel $1,000 a year spending in the classrooms which have been very helpful. We've never turned down anything that a related service person has asked. We bought um lifts for your lifts. We bought swings um swings for every school wheelchair swings.

130We thought um adaptive bicycles for kids to be able to participate in activities when they're in PE. Um I don't think there's been a thing that we have turned down the 14 years about and we still um continue to um advocate for more funding um in these areas so that um we can make sure that we um continue with providing what all children need, not just a single. >> So, can I say something about the funding? I just want people I want everybody to know this year's planning lot and come back at $125,000 over >> to start off next year. So, not having a budget is a little scary right now in trying to plan for something, especially when you're planning for additional cuts. And so I I hope that they come back. They've come

131back before and given us additional funds. Um but those are not guaranteed. So they're being really protective of the things that we have as best as we can. But that deficit if it sticks um will be very tight for AC for the first time in as long as I >> Yes. advocated when other people have advocated to the state because they took away our April head count and just go on December account, but our December accounts lower than our April account because of all the referrals. So, they finally put out last week and we're working on it by April 17th. I've got to turn in what our differences and and where our difference is like 40 students. So, that would increase our 32 funds is the loss that we had for 95,000. So, I'll be

132turning that in and see where we go and where we stand. But, um, I have a meeting tomorrow morning with Dr. Moen and Anna go over staffing. Um, we are they are going to be in great they're going to be in great shape. Um, students are going to class and ratio which is coming up next is going to still be great. We're probably one of the best around our in our surrounding counties. So, um, we'll go right on. Does anybody have any questions about what? Okay. Our staff structure is is, um, our resource teachers can have, um, 35 students. Um, on a case load, our middle high school can have 50. Our related service can have 50. And, um, now I'm going to go and talk to you all about what each school thinks. >>

133And that's the state. That's from what the state says. Um state also says that not only can they have 35 students on their head count depending on if there resource they can have for elementary they can have 12 students at a time in their classroom and teaching um and resource time we're not anywhere near that. Um and our um it goes up as you go on to middle school and high school like our recent have 14 kids in the classroom high school. you know, nowhere's near that in our schools. But that's just what the state has um that's the graph that the state tells us that we have to go by before we can ask we have to ask for um show um rights to be able to have I never do that. May I

134ask a question here? Um, one of those the regular class students or one of those students are full out. Okay. There is no um no number there's best practice but there's no number of practice. Okay. So >> um that just talks more about you know what the general skills are resource and how much time they have to spend resource time all the way down to where you have um your intensive things which is your self and then your occupational standing that aligns with the class size chart and the general stat. Now the important stuff but over every school which um where our stacking structure is in the Westwood uh we had one resource teacher with 21 students one res this is a portark in CS one resource teacher um with 23 students teacher with seven

135students and three assistants um and we have teacher assistant support students through the general um classrooms, a speech and language therapist and a behavior specialist at least one day a week um or when requested if even more. And um I've continued from talking to all my peer back from state a couple weeks ago and I was amazing contacts. Um people are like how do we do this? And a matter of fact, um, last week we had, um, Avery County, McDow counting spec directors come up with our state, um, person to be able to do this because their numbers are 35 and we're also asking for labors, um, to be able to have their numbers that they serve. So, we are well below what is required by general statute. And also we have to think about

136at the beginning of the year these numbers are all lower except for seven I mean resource because sixth grade moves to seventh grade and you know they don't have as many kinders but then we start the referral process and that typically around Christmas time the number start they're probably one of our highest at this time they did that at the beginning of the year and I've already plan that we're going to talk about tomorrow with um with Dr. Morgan. But um one resource teacher has 30, one has nine. The self-contained um teacher only had one. So um she serves 14 um kindergarteners and um how does she serve? because she's she >> it's she serves them on resource um sessions because that's what they were that's what they are identified as resource. So because she

137only has one student at a time when this student goes out for um her family lunch and to visit the kindergarten classroom then she serves. >> So she serves them inside the classroom. >> Yes. She pull out. It's a pull out. So they're already identified. No change. Then Blue Ridge um they had a resource teacher serve 15 students want to serve 82 a self-contained classroom of eight but it went down to seven cuz one child just left um self-contained uh teacher assistant there's two in that classroom and then one EC teacher assistant that supports Janet oh my does have a BC teacher assistant supports Janet also at the speech and language and the language specialist. Um, Ash County High School, we have when we started getting middle school high school, stacking could be 50, but

138we have resource teacher number one has 20 students. Resource teacher number two has 23. So, has um six students. They have two assistants in that classroom and there is um there is four but there is four AC assistants that are out in the classroom class for OCS and that Oh, sorry. >> This is that's two. >> There's two in the self and two that go out that go out into the regular class high school has um they kind of do a dual roman called individual curriculum where they can pull students out in order to work with them and then sometimes they go into class inclusion. One teacher has 16. One um teacher does OCS and resource and then I have 23. One has um provides resources. Teacher number three has seven students and resource OCS.

139Teacher number four has 18 student has eight students or two assistants. And then we have four other assistants that go out through the out the classroom and help with OCS speech and language specialist um um that um 10 um school that's hired in contract and then specialist one and they can have a middle school tomorrowing inclusion English, math and biology. We do have a teacher system in classroom because um you know students that do an itinerary teacher that works out of the um early center for work preschool of um students that um parents bring in and then also works with passion college. She has a student there and then does home. So she works in 35 years old all very early college. Of course that would change depending on the situation. How many do we

140have? >> Um, it does fluctuate, but obviously we just got another one. So, back that goes up and down. Okay, now we're going to get started with a question about um how do we support um how our um goals and aspirations align with um our um sorry schools and um we started off with and it's ongoing for the past couple of years and the future we already have um activities planned for professional development that lower our my friends here will help um show that here in just a minute with our um with our data and our um strategic plans that they um that we have different things um we've been really working hard on our um population for autism and standard based go and um I can say that every um self-contained teacher and teacher

141assistants have facility hour um RBT training um um registered behavior um detention training. They also have a classroom arrangement training and evidence-based um practices training. Um we do have um um ongoing um specially design instruction that's continuing throughout next rest of this year and next year. But we did um um start off with um having NCPI Terry Queen who's our literacy specialist and um Paige Bowen who's our math specialist and Tracy McManis who's our NCBI coordinator and Katie Cox who's our compliance person come and do we started off with observations and providing them the data of our schools they learn both gender classrooms and specialized classrooms to be able to take a quick look at what they saw as outsiders and what would need to be toward them with our trainings and to align goals

142and our um our um strategic plan and our performance plans that speech traveling actually the first one >> I think >> okay so back a few months ago when we had our school improvement plans probably approved not all schools had to have students with disability lo package. We'll start with the high school. We'll just go through those real quickly. Look at the data source baseline year target and then what progress has been made on that first under and remember the state set goal one, two, and three for so everyone's goal one is to eliminate opportunities opportunity gaps, excuse me. So that's that's everyone's that's every one pardon me. I'm trying to find my words and my bipolar here. So let's jump right on into the performance indicators. What is the hospital going to be looking

143at? What are they going to be monitoring? And of course they're going to be looking at the students with disabilities and their growth math. That's going to be measured on the EFC exams. The data source will be the EMC exams and the baseline year to compare for growth is 2425 which is the most recent. Uh you see the target there is to increase from a negative 2.36 to to a negative one. I think that's a realistic goal and the ENC data we have right now all of our EC students are still in math. They've taken it in two parts year long. uh they've taken it as math foundations and finished that at Christmas and now they're enrolled in math one EMC's and they will be we will be having data as soon as internally we'll

144have data end of June middle of June and then we can share that data after it's been approved at the board of education area of the state in September so that's why we don't have any data since that um the middle school looking and their goal to was improving school and district performances by 2027. So, it's a two-year plan. So, they've broken it down. I like the way they've chunk theirs. If you look there at the target with the baseline last year, looking at this year, the target increase 16 to 20% from 24 256 school year and then from 20 to 25% and 26 27. And our goal real quickly again is to improve school and district performance by 2027 actual school increase students um with students with disability in that sub proficient that's level

145three or higher in the North Carolina grade math assessment by 5% annually. I think that's it's very realistic goal chunking along at that performance indicator. What are they going to be measuring there? You can look at that will increase the percent of seventh grade students with disabilities. Who's more proficient on the North Carolina grade math assessment to 25% by 2027? And I went over their plan there on how they're proceed to show that again. Testing's coming up in I don't know the days like 124 of the school year. So it's coming up in six or seven weeks. So therefore we do not have EFC data. It is not fair to pull check in data and look at that because that is not the purpose of checking data. Checkin data is just that. It's a check

146in to take what student you know where the student's weaknesses where the student's opportunities where the student's strengths and adjust adjust instruction for that. So we have data sets but it isn't a data set that is applicable to to the school improvement goal is doing Blidge Elementary once again goal number three that's what I really like about the state defining those goals and economy schools goal three blidge elementary and this is increase educator preparedness to meet the needs of every student by 2027 again you can see the goal there by June 26% of students with disabilities will achieve level three or higher math GS and Their goal is for grades three through six focusing on seventh grade. High school is focusing on the ninth grade. You can see the performance indicator there as well. Um

147percent of students with disabilities performing at a level three and higher. Again the data source be the EFGs and their targets 50% from the 108. That's a that's a that's a big goal, but we're going to continue to work continue to chunk at that and each year move that progression along the road. And then Mountain View Elementary School is the last school and students with disability goal. And again, they're they're back working on goal one eliminate eliminate opportunity gaps between seven 38% of our students in grades 36 who are identified EC will be proficient as evident by learning at least converting, excuse me, at least level three of the North Carolina grades tests. The performance indicators students will receive targeted small instruction here at Eagle Time based upon school net common formative assessment and start

148interventions and we have that data that's data to look at but it isn't applicable to to looking at comparative goal. Again, the baseline here was last year and the target increase was from 19.6 six to 38% their data source they're looking at star math the coaches three coaches there have been looking at this and they're they're three target is increasing that so 65 to 70% one piece of data I think is really important to look at in case if you don't step in this is this is your area but looking at the districts so we have three we have three assess throughout the year. We finished up the middle of the year and EOI is coming up here in the next three or four weeks. This is data just on our you can see our

149overall K3 data and the students with disabilities in K3 and you can see there's a steady progress from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year and we're actually higher than what we were last year looking at the district data there. >> Okay. You just you just have to trust me. >> You just have to trust me in looking at MC class 8. Same same progress that we're seeing there. 180 students in the overall group. We're seeing a growth percent from beginning of the year to middle of the year 9% and our students with disability see very similar growth pattern of 10% increase. Again, this is this is over and above where they were last year. This Mountain View Elementary looking at the same data set K3 seeing a 10% increase in

150the students with disability 7%. really have a reason why that and then Westwood Elementary >> Westwood Elementary we're seeing the same pattern there that overall students pay three is 11% from the beginning of the year to the middle and student disability we're seeing an increase of 12% and that's higher than we were last year. One other and I saw a slide up there. What does the trend look like from back county schools since we came back from being from testing in 2020 and what we're seeing the percent of grade level proficiency students scoring 11 three or higher in all tested areas. Um what we're seeing with our students with disabilities over a five-year trend is a constant it remain constant and an uptick. If we don't remember the year we had last year we had

151a 4% increase in proficiency overall given everything that we experienced >> 47 days of instruction. So, so the the state, if I could make this one statement, the state of disability, their performance on the EFGs in our lower grade there remain steady and increase. So proud of the work that's going into that. Hope to see um hope to see those numbers continue to increase training focuses. >> Um I'm going to go back a little bit to what Terry was saying. and the DPI consultants came and observed in our classrooms. What we found, what led to all of us work collaborating as a team, what we found when we went in EC classrooms and after we surveyed our EC teachers in when they're pulled out in the EC resource or self-contained, anytime a student is with

152an EC teacher, they should be spending 100% of their time on specially designed instruction. And that means they should be working on targeted skills and filling in gaps that kids have. But what we found when we went in classrooms were that wasn't happening a lot of not nearly to 100%. But the reason was because kids were coming in EC classrooms and EC teachers were struggling to keep them from drowning in JED. they were helping them um work on assignments or do homework or repeating core instruction and that's not really what should be happening in UC classrooms. We're not in the short run we're helping kids but in the long run we're not filling in those gaps. So what we did when we met with the DPI consultants and Casey and Jamie we all got together

153and we brainstormed because the problem we found went back to core instruction. How can we keep these kids thriving in core so that when we come to when they come to us we can fill in these gaps? So we came up and it it used to be on the slide but it disappeared but really there were three things that we came up with. um we wanted to clearly define for EC teachers and gened teachers our role and we went back um Terry and I did some PLC's with gened teachers at several schools and we talked about gened responsibilities are core instruction EC responsibilities are how do we help those gened teachers accommodate and modify things in the gened room and understand that it doesn't just happen in our EC class those modifications legally need to

154happen everywhere where if they get um 50% less assignment, you know, if they did 50% of an assignment, it may not be on grade level, but they're doing what they're expected to do in that classroom. And really, it was just it wasn't on purpose that people didn't understand the different roles. So, the first role was really clearly defining roles. first first thing we did. The second thing was come we came up with um the EC teachers. They spent a day maybe two days and they made case summaries of every student in their case load. And on those case summaries, they have and I I used to have you so you can see it, but they came up with um for each child in their case log, they made a list of accommodations and strategies that

155work for those kids that are in their IEPs and gave them to the gened teacher that belong those kids belong to. So that >> it's okay because I have to find it. So that um principles could see that when they come and walk in a classroom, they could see, okay, these are the kids who are supposed to have modified or modified instruction or combinations in the classroom and we could make sure it was happening so that they could keep up in that class and when they come to EC teachers, they could work on targeted skills. The third thing we did was we came up with three themes that across the board were just good teaching. wasn't just EC, it was for GED. And those were went back to our high leverage practices that we have

156and they were exit tickets so that teachers could do quick check-ins to make sure kids understood what was happening in the classroom before they left. Um we did high response methods and what that means is there are list of we gave teachers a list of activities they could choose from but there are hundreds of them so that they could see that every child in the classroom is engaged in understanding what's going on. For example, um I think we have whiteboards bought for every there's enough for every teacher to have them so that if a student is doing um a math problem, they all can hold up the whiteboard and the teacher can see immediately if everybody's doing it and not just one person on the board there. Think like as simple as thumbs up, thumbs

157down or on a scale of one to five, hold up how much you're understanding what I'm saying. There's tons of high response methods. So, exit tickets, high response methods, and the third thing was learning targets in the classroom. Not just that they're posted, but our teachers referring to them so that kids if you ask the student what they're learning when we were doing observations, I remember um one of the DPI consultants. It was kind of embarrassing at first and now we have to plan. They would go ask the kids what they were learning. And we observed one teacher and she was working on main ideas and um learn um main ideas and details. But when we asked the student what they were learning, they said we learned about Spider-Man. So I was totally over their

158head. So we came up with not just you have them posted, but refer back to them. Make sure the kids know what they're supposed to be getting out of this lesson. So now I think this will come up. I need Yeah, I'm gonna show this. So, what we're doing to make sure all of these things are happening, that's doing two things. It's making sure it's it's good for Jun kids, but we're making sure that these our students with disabilities are engaged in the core instruction as well. So, Oh, that's a very long. So, here we go. >> So, every every um teacher in the county and every principal has gone over with their staff. It's in everybody's walkthrough consistently. every EC teacher, every gen ed teacher, the three things that we came up with are

159in walkthroughs. So, we've been collecting data all this year in every classroom. How many teachers are implementing? How many teachers are implementing high response methods and how many are using learning targets and referring back to them? So, I'm not going to go through all this data, but you have it to look at um everybody's accountable and everybody knows these things are important. Was there an exit? Oh, one thing we found when we looked back at the data was it reminded administrators when we go in classrooms, we may not be seeing exit tickets because we're not going at the end of a lesson. So, we were reminded don't always go at the beginning of lesson, go at the end of the lesson sometimes to make sure you're seeing these things. Um, this is Blueidge data. You

160can see learning targets visible and reference. And look, look at this. This is impressive. This is high response methods that people who observe teachers in Blige classrooms and all of those are listed individually different high response methods that have been seen this year at Blueidge Westwood. There's exit tickets, learning targets, visible and referenced um high response methods implemented. And again, this is Westwood. big list of of high response methods that they're seeing in the classroom. And >> this is after having a consultant come in independently and notifying us that that was a weakness that they saw and how we can improve and just by putting it in place, teachers have really great >> and because we worked as a team, it's not just an EC initiative, it's it's everybody. And that's why we're seeing improvements

161because Janed teachers are helping them in Janed classes so that when they come to EC teachers, we can work on specifically what they need and not just not just make up work from the regular ed class. Um, these are summaries of learning targets and how they were used. So, every school, everybody's looking for the same things. Middle school, I'm just gonna skip through. I'm not going to read all of this. um high school, same same kinds of things. Even at the early college, although Lindsay's walkthroughs are a little different because there's so few teachers, she and I won't click on it because I won't be able to open it probably, but she has professional development that she's gone over with her whole staff on those our three initiatives, our district initiatives, how that how we

162use those. Um, then the last thing, and again I won't click on the link, we've worked really, really hard to make sure all of these initiatives align with school improvement plans, our strategic plan, our MTSS plan, and just last week, we made sure we looked at MTSS plan. How does it align with the strategic plan? Where do these initiatives fit in? So, you can see how it's helped working as a team. And it goes back to what Earl was saying over the last two years there truly is an upward trend and students with disabilities on the end of grade tests because we're starting to get these things in place >> and DGI has put out their recent their recent data on positions of growth and they also identify students with disabilities so on a two-year

163upward trend. for the past two years they have seen any in scores and um anything that we do as far as trainings they tell us three to five years before we really see the big impact. So if we're already two years on upward trend, we can't wait to see what Julie, >> well, we did add feedback this year. Um, I know when I started, this is my seventh year of this curriculum. Feedback was always a big deal for me. I feel like it's time. Um, when teachers give a grade to a student, the student needs to know why, by the way, if it's 100, what did the student do? Well, if it's not 100, what you know, a number doesn't tell a student a lot. So, we're really working hard. We've been doing something on

164that. All of these strategies I will add we didn't mention this we did training with this summer admin training we focused on all these strategies for administrators and then some of the administrators actually have helped either our building in the school or our instructional specialists will give that training to the staff and we give it in chunks. We try to do it in adjust because there's no good time we have to do it try to do it during the day or those few PD days that we do get done in Austin this year due to that wonderful weather we had. Um but I will say that I have seen a lot of progress. I do feel like um some of us have been around a long time who are maybe entrenched in some of those

165strategies that are natural for us. they're not necessarily getting those um in their college prep classes to be teachers, but they're very responsive when they are taught. And I have seen the high school um who are highly trained in their content, not necessarily trained in strategy and pedigogy. Um they are doing that when you show them. And I'm very proud of some of it that have worked and become big partners of of things that maybe as a curriculum person I thought were quite natural. some teachers it's not so they are responding well I think we are in heavy communication with our monitor our federal monitors um they of course relinquished so nice you know to us they relinquished a lot of the overseeing because I think they're losing staff also um of making sure that

166our schools are making this progress whereas they would come in and help. They're not doing that anymore. They are guiding a team of us and then we help. YouTube always does that. Our principles in the school room and teach are constantly looking at data. Teachers, those of you that have been around, they hang out at the end of the school year when tests are coming back because they're so anxious to see their scores. They want to see not just their hard work, but they want to see how their students self grow. And our teachers do that really well. And so we're in a constant we sometimes I tell this team we're always feel like we're looking at the negative, but it's because that's our job to solve problems. And so sometimes we get blind. I

167tell Mr. Foreman that we get blind to all the good things that have occurred and there are a lot of good things that have occurred. Well, we it's our job to make sure that we're constantly working on his students EC. So, I'm proud of the progress they've made and I'm thankful that we're working as a team and I will say we talk DPI a lot, but I will say they were really trying to DPI 30 years in this more than I've ever seen trying to meld on them and not be siloed that we've been for 30 years of my career. They are trying to blend it all together for us for students. I have a video of a a classroom that I observed and I didn't even tell her I was coming. I just walked

168in and it was so great and she was doing all of high response methods. She had exit tickets. She had feedback. Julie reminded me because not only was she giving feedback in the video, it's a seven minute video, but she had taught her third grade students how to give feedback to each other. And you can see that in the video. I'll share it with you because it it's a great example of how all of these things are being done. >> Um the next few slides are just about the um trainings that we are offering um districtwide and which came out of all um um the observations and surveys and the um um teacher feedback and things like that. So we were on we're on year one for our school with 100 practices. Um next year

169will be level two for the BC and CTE Blue Ridge and the middle school but year one for Westwood Mountain View and the early college and the rest of the high school. Um and the administrators also have training. This is all from UPI. It's becoming such a big demand across our state that um and we got on the board early which I'm very very thankful for because that um they're now going to be trained the trainers and they have a group at each um district because they can't get to everybody that needs this training. So we're very very blessed that we're scheduled next year and they are are scheduled for face to face on PD days which is only a couple hours and there's a couple of virtual meetings that are one hour you know

170a few times a year but everybody has this information it's been shared with everybody and also been shared for next year's training and then we also had the end of We needed to do a lot of training before we got the specially designed instruction or standard based goal writing. Um but we are I'm proud to say that we are there and um we actually start to speak with our self-dependent teachers on um standard based school writing on Thursday and then our resource teachers will come for special um stand writing Fridays because they're hard when you have self container resource room you have to scaffold down they should have to use the um either the um content um container contents or the extended content and then to be able to schedule it down to where the

171student's name and then bring them up and close that back. It's hard. So, we are helping them through that process also. And um we also have a resource page um on our BC page that has all this information that has um all the um great things that we know in special ed which I'm really proud of that put together. Thank you for that. And um then yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about um those high leverage practices just in general. It doesn't train. Um the implementation research shows that you've got to train first, then you've got to coach it, then you've got to monitor it, and that has to continue over years in a cycle. So typically speaking um whatever initiative you are um trying to work on it's going to take

172three to five years um because you've got to train it then you've got to coach it and you've got to continue to sustain um that implementation over time then you will start seeing those. So, um, we all have been attending the HLPs and we have an HG education that highlighted practices. Um, we've all attended them with the teachers. The administrators attend with the teachers. And y'all, it is not an easy thing. It isn't everybody. Um, I don't know. I don't really know exactly what's in your um packet or what's on these links, but I did have one pass that I had on just printed out just um so I would have it too. But it is based upon the pillars um of instruction. You can pass it down if you want to and take it.

173But um and we're talking data driven instruction um explicit teaching, systematic teaching, differentiation. We um we do have to be very explicit in our teaching. Now what is the difference between scaffolding, differentiation, and modification? Because sometimes we use those terms interchangeably and they're not the same. Um and so that continuous understanding of best practice teaching come within those pillars. Um just the last training we were in, we talked about classroom management, routines, expectations, everybody. Um and so we just feel really confident that we are on the right track. We are finally all talking the same language. Last week I went to um um the North Carolina Statement Project um grant conference. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. They're great. Uh oh, I took three new teachers to the state improvement project conference last week. It's my favorite conference

174to go to hands down. Um it comes through our grant through the state improvement project. It is an EC funded grant, but it does fund regular education as well. That's where your reading research classroom practice was born, your foundations of math course is born, co-eing is born. And I took those three um EC community teachers with me and they absolutely loved it. We got great ideas. They came back with excitement and just ready to try some new things. um especially in the co-eing world also uh with student led IDs. So I felt like we were all finally talking the same language um and it feels really good to do those things. So stay the course. That's what we keep saying. Stay the course and um we will continue to see our outcomes here. >> On

175the last page and what we'll try as we started this last year, Dr. talks and um talked to me when I was um being evaluated and um like said maybe a little bit parents were um involved in um our um children and so we came up with EC community support nights and um each school this year has um put on or two schools have joined together and put on the EC parent night to help support that. Um we've had a gallery walk. We've had a guest speaker from um Western Carolina to come and talk about being a parent, being a teacher, being a um um a professor in the field of autism. Um our last one is at Westwood coming up and um they've got some great things planned for that and I um and

176we're really really excited. is one more tool on our box that you can do that helps support parents also questions I could do without team and some of the other ones but there are always supportive and um very very helpful and I think DC together working on it. >> It's the max where they don't it's keynote. So I think that's okay. >> It will work driven. We we look at that all the time. We meet as a as a group um and talk about things, but it does take us to I'd like to point out we have seven more items on our agenda and it's been three hours of sitting. I call for a short break. >> Let's take a recess for 10 minutes. >> In number seven, I just moved down to the end

177that was running the action. Up next on the agenda, the one for property value. It's attached in your documents there. Looks like about $30,000. >> Um about 88,000 total. So that was the devalued property after the hurricane >> and that's what I was looking >> included building. >> Yes, that is the building and the land and that is the devalue price after the you can see it's required >> and are we doing it are proposing a direct sale by us? So I move that we um listed at the devalued price with willingness to compromise. >> And if we get more than one offer, obviously we have a different process than I just >> So we've got a motion on the floor from this board to list it at the value price and offers come back.

178Can I have a second to motion? Any other questions or comments for them? >> What's a reasonable amount of time to advertise before we >> get banging on the door? >> Of course, we've had two people express interest. their limit. >> So, let me get that to make sure that there isn't a legal amount of time that it has to be out there. Typically, we have about two weeks or three weeks, but something has to be out. So, I can verify that to be $8,000 and that's the starting point that we All those motion raise your hand. ities and maintain anything impressing that you want to add to that judge. I hate to cut you short. >> I'll make it very >> Yes. Yes, I do. Um um we did we did get awarded $360,000

179from uh state feeding program for clean as well to put a middle roof on top of their own center that was awarded last week as well. So they committed her team and Dr. Cox approve that that was great from all of us. while we don't just able to get some money from other department. So, I wanted to share that. Um, I did I did include the contracts for uh the Johnson Controls and the Bull Man projects coming up. Um, paint a picture going forward. Um when we do the with approval when we do the contract approval for the roof ask approval for those as well that way they get start with the approved contract for the pumps pumping inside the high school. So those are those two are so that's kind of the highlights that

180we all need. Let me just make sure I mentioned earlier the water power should be back tomorrow earlier today. >> I need to make a clarification on that earlier. We were talking about that on the budget piece of that for clarification that water suppression system is only in the auditorium. It's not the whole school that has a sprinkler system. >> It's not unlike out there is. >> Yeah. So So the issue really is with the hydrants. So it's kind of a a languaged word piece. So it's the hydrants that did not meet spec. So this design should allow for more flow through the pipe that will hit that spec. >> And it wasn't that there was no flow. >> It was the flow was >> not sufficient. Yeah. Correct. everything else. Thank you so much.

181Are you okay with 88,000 favor? >> Okay. So, good evening board. I know it's been a long evening, but um I think last month we had had and then tonight we had some questions specifically about this um specific tool. So I just wanted to talk briefly about it. I'll give you a quick overview and then I've provided several documents for you on the agenda and then I've printed those out too. So um this is a student wellness tool that um Ashton Schools has used. This is our third year of using. It's called Alone Spy. Um and so what is alongside? Well, it is a proven skill building um it's proven skill building for daily challenges and it helps with children um with skill building to help in all different areas with goal setting um working

182on certain things that they're you know worried about struggling with. But it's not only available to them during school, it's available to them at any time of day. Okay. So, see the third slide there, Amy. Um, this is just one little portion of some of the things that it's very personalized in. So, students um this year uh grades 4 through 12 have access using their um school emails. So, students um are introduced here to this what they're able to do in the program. it is still growing and changing and so each year there's new features and so they go through and do that at least information for parents to investigate. There's a parent pool, there's an educator pool. Um and they are it is not loaded onto any device. It's not on their Chromebooks or

183anything. Um but they can access it with their school emails. Um and so they also have the option to opt out of that at any at any time. But some of the personalized things that are highlighted there are just tons there. But then you do see these are some of the ones that I actually pulled from Alla and Ash County that our kids have worked on over um the last year or so. Um and a lot of these were made were what we saw was mainly uh middle school and high school. >> Can you name a couple of those just so >> Absolutely. Uh some of the ones that kind of um I was very excited to see was setting screen time limits. our kids are going in there and realizing that's a problem for

184them. Um, and working on that. And then a couple of other things was test anxiety, which I was not, um, and tackling anxious thoughts. And then, um, I loved that we see our kids, there's a mood tracker, and so they can access it each day and it asks them about how they're feeling. Um, it asks them about how much they slept and then, um, how much screen time about and so it starts to track that for them. So it leads them to kind of make you know some realizations on their own. Um but it's also talking about relationships with friends and or boyfriends, girlfriends, which is a big one because you know we're conflicts. And then um we have had a lot of our kids go in there individually and access the vaping um like

185a helpful session about how to stop vaping and then information about it. So those are some of the ones for our kids. Sorry. Okay. So some of the tools inside the platform, the mini tracker, there's a journal entry. It will do prompts where they can freewrite. Um there are videos in there. Um talking with problems without what I have found is that a lot of our students are very comfortable in a digital space. And so what we find is sometimes they're asking questions that they're not really going to ask an adult um or they're afraid to ask a parent because it might be embarrassing, but they want the information. And so one of the really cool parts with this is that um I'll talk about in a minute, but this is a closed platform. It's

186not open to the rest of the internet. All of the responses are clinicianbased. And so all the responses that come back are ones that are like pre-anned by an actual child psychologist and a clinician. Um and so we've had our students, a lot of our students right now are looking through the test prep and anxiety sections. Um and then the school life balance which I thought was very interesting. So um so we have a couple of different start out with Kiwi. Yes, Kiwi is a llama. And um when we first read this, I had a school counselor who was pretty leery until she started using it with a couple of her kids and they did a small group and she was just like, "Okay, I'm going to, you know, we're going to do this. We're

187going to do it." And by the end of the school year, she contacted them and asked for a game cut out with Kiwi along with her office because she saw how the kids were using it. But this year, there's three different ones, Kiwi and Nova and Jinx, and they all have different personalities. The kids really like to find somebody that knows kind of smarty. She's pretty sarcastic and our kids really like her super. >> James is the little purple thing. Yeah. And then there's the mama and I'm not really sure what James is. I think but these are the things that they're chatting back and forth with. So, all right. You look down at the how it works section. Um, and you've got some screenshots and things, but essentially there's skill building chats and it'll

188just say, "What do you what do you want to talk about? How's how's your day going? What's going on?" Um, and then it um it within there it will say, "Oh, well, if you're worried about making a thing, would you like to work on it? Would you like to know more about that?" And then these are actual screenshots of some of the um discussions um that came out of a demo site, but it just says, "I need help studying for the ACT." I'm curious about I'm anxious about upcoming exam. Um I keep second-guessing myself and I don't trust myself. So these are things that our kids are kind of feeling like this is a space to be able to express themselves. Um and I love that it's available for them at any time. So why

189is it different? This is much different than going into chat GPT. This is very different than going into Gemini or any other open AI for app. Um I know that's kind of hard to read. you've got a paper copy too, but alongside is different because um it is not open. It is penish and developed and every chat if it includes certain things that are alarming is reviewed by a literal person on the other end 24 hours a day. Um, and if that is something that needs to be alerted, um, very much like our gaggle alerts and our say something alerts, there's a team at each school, which includes school counselor, um, administrators, Miss Lawford, and myself, and we get those immediately. Um, and so if a child says, I'm very concerned about someone, I'm concerned

190for myself, I'm thinking of harming myself, we get a call, and they don't stop until they get us. Um and those are reviewed by lit like real people. This is not a computerized response. So I know that there are um concerns about AI and I agree that there are things to be concerned with but within this platform I have yet to see anything that was not an appropriate response or a clinically based response. So, um, and then this goes into talking about, uh, the safety products that that is, you know, it is FEMA and HIPPA compliant. Um, nobody is seeing this information that kids put in there unless it were to be. Um, it's something that would be affordable. Um, and it is built by clinicians. So all the resources within this app are developed

191by clinical um psychologists and the knowledge base is developed by clinicians who have utilized these with kids in oneonone sessions to find out if it works. They're all vetted very thoroughly before put into place. Um so the safety alerts very similar to I've mentioned our say something and gaggle. Um staff would receive alerts 24 hours for a day within 5 minutes and typically it's quicker than that. Um it will always prompt if a child is um worried about self harm for them to call 911 980 for help. Um and then this is another five. And so down here at the bottom we've got um it really is like our kids kind of have this thing that they kind of are they feel more comfortable with. That's what we're seeing. These are some of our actual

192um data is that 95% of our students and I think it's it's higher than that now have found this helpfulness rating. They've rated that as being helpful. Um a fourth grader said, "I think I have more ways to feel calm and relax at night." Um with this I can have better sleep. A seventh grader said, "I learned how to calm myself down when I get mad or a bad situation." and an 11th grader said,"I was not looking at things by all angles before, but Nova opened my eyes for that. I'm grateful." >> And here, these are my lower administrators and but um these were a couple of the schools that have utilized it early. One thing is it is a tier one with the mood tracker and the journals and those kinds of things, but

193some of our groups that are working on certain skills, they're working within the the platform as well. Um, and so then they again have access 24 hours a day. Um, I think this this came about at a time for me when we had had a student um death that I just kept going, this is not a student that would have ever walked into the council's office. um everything looked fine. Is there a way to prevent something like this? And and studies show that 95% of suicide related deaths can be stopped if you stop it in the moment because of this tumor. And I thought if there is a way for this child to talk to somebody at that moment and that child is not going to talk to a parent or an adult or anybody

194at school. Um and so we've had some situations come up. Um, this is not a child that we have had an incident at one of our schools. Um, that it was not a student that we were had any concerns about. This student was likely. It disclosed some abuse. Um, nobody in the school was at all aware that we never had any um concern about this child or this family. This children were removed from the home the next day. And I truly think that we would not have known those things of this child. That was the Chicago. So, that's a real quick one. I've given you a ton of resources to look at. Um, but if you have other questions, I'm happy to answer those, too. What you've presented has answered all my concerns. >> Thank

195you. >> My question is why is it an opt out instead of an opt in? Because that seems to be a concern with. >> So, that was the first that I'd heard that and I think that's a really valid concern. I've talked with our counselors about that since we are absolutely looking at that as something to be done differently. I will say um the parents that have opted out is literally an email because I received the response the auto response back. So it's the minute that email goes opt out my child, it's they're opted out. >> It's not that easy for parents to get rid of. >> I do need to show you every other child. I have she invented mentioning one I got the email that they were unenrolled so I don't know if

196the I don't know how that happened but I understand and I do understand especially for our younger kids opt in would probably be better that really had not kind of crossed my mind so I'm happy to look at that for sure um and we've also asked met with the platform folks about opting out of certain portions for example the chatbot piece >> that >> and so those were concerns that had not been brought to my attention Now that they have I'm working on that. >> It would seem to me that we need an educational session for parents >> and I have that lined up and we're going to be doing town hall sessions. Um we're going to redo some things with the teachers so they're um aware of some of the newer features and then

197we're going to do town hall sessions with the platform that are Zoom based. So they will be recorded and so it goes through and shows the platform more clearly. There is a parent portal for them to be able to inter >> is this one uh listed on annual public notices that's on the website that we had to do >> as it is an optional one. It may not be but it we need to do that if it's not I don't know for sure. I don't know that it had to be but we can do that >> annual public notices no because you guys know the five um differently. We don't the list of annual public notices are like a legal thing but this goes through >> and every child that got a letter physically reminded

198um with the same information it might have been pushed out a little differently at each school but it went um digitally and on paper >> help me with this annual public notices because I understood that every website that the kids use or every platform that they use should be listed on this annual public notices that goes on. It's the >> new that has to that definitely has to be on the annual notes. Um there's something hand on the medic. So they we provide annually the opportunity for students to um access the site. That's different than the annual public notices that are not apps and things like that. So like surveys that students do that's individual um notice that goes out per survey. like this one. Uh >> do you still really like this llama? >>

199Today it's more than >> Well, this is just one of the the llama's portion. I mean, it's a lot of different things and I'm happy to sit down and show you all the different things, but every day there's a video of the day and it's by people that I mean the last one is Billy Isish talking about, you know, her eating habits or so it's things that they are typically interested in. Um I don't know. get that feedback about it. Um, and it's being utilized quite a bit. >> Well, I noticed that in this year the older students were using the middle charact. >> What other programs do we have are most of the other programs? I hate to use this one, but it's the first question. Sex education is that looked out for >>

200sex education. We believe >> that you have to opt out. you have to have options, >> right? Well, this is so I don't see how I think you've got some kids that their parents would need to opt in, but you know, there's some that would need parents. I mean, that's what I'm saying. There's a lot and you've got students that are, you know, say grandparents raising, they would know how to get on there and lock them in. So, I mean, if most other programs are options, >> that's the way it's being done in other districts. I I think that um now that the program does go down to fourth grade, there are restricted options for younger students within the platform. Um, and I and I'm happy to have that conversation. Um, and and do what

201the board wishes, but I think that the biggest thing we need to do is exactly what was suggested is kind of more of the parent information sessions and get them information about what it is and that always was not um my intent for that not to be relayed that very clearly. And so that's >> I think those parent sessions will really help in that way. We push them out, give them the information, go through it or have a counselor go through the options and then have a reporter >> and they're planning to do one school. So those might be questions. >> But if you go on the parent website, it says the parent commission, but that's implied that we're off. It's implied that there's parent commission. be given their school email address because it says

202several times. I've gone on that a couple of times. It says a couple of places that I mean they're getting the letter and the information is telling them now if they don't want it that it is opt out but so it is passive in the sort which is is what we utilize our loved ones. >> I would suggest we work on that letter. That letter is not user friendly. So if we read the to do that, the letter needs to be more specific about what we're doing and how we're doing it. It's very complicated to read that letter. It's it's not very clear on what's going on. It's just not. So, if we could do our own version of the letter that explains it instead of the company letter, the one that comes with the

203program. I think it would be a helpful thing. I would also like to see that chat the chat bot for all the students not. >> Yes. If it's not, I'll make sure Any other question? >> We know your door's always open for any questions for parents or guardians to reach out to you and answer those questions. >> Yes, sir. He's going to have to leave. So, Mr. Bowers, transportation update, but the bus will drive. >> So, we will keep this rolling right into some transportation updates. >> Uh, good evening board and everyone that's left >> update of the current state of transportation in Nash County Schools. I'm going to walk you folks through the current staffing challenges, uh, their operational impacts and what that means for our students and families. Um, I'm also going to

204outline the action steps we are taking to stabilize operations and the steps we're implementing to strengthen the system moving forward. Um, transportation is running every day, but it's not running at full capacity. Um, and that gap is what I'm going to walk you through today. So let me start with a clear snapshot of where we are for the summer this fall. Uh we are operating below full staffing capacity on a daily basis. Uh this is a systemwide challenge. It's not isolated to one school and it's impacting all areas of transportation. We are maintaining daily service through intentional adjustments including route changes, combining routes and utilizing all available staff. Um at the same time we are actively recruiting and building our driver pool to strengthen and assist you moving forward. Bottom line the transportation is running

205every day but not at full capacity. So on the next piece for our staffing shift here's how our staffing has shifted from the beginning of the year to now. Um in August we had 31 drivers, three TSAs, that stands for transportation safety assistants or otherwise known as monitors, four substitutes and one full-time sub. This gave us more flexibility to respond to daily needs. As of January, we are down to 29 drivers, two TSAs, and three subs, and we no longer have a fulltime full-time substitute driver. But more importantly, out of those 29 drivers, four have been out on extended leave. So while our total is 29, our day-to-day operational capacity is often being closer to 25 drivers. >> That gap is what is driving our daily challenges in covering rounds. When you combine fewer drivers,

206reduced substitute capacity, and the extended absence, even routine daily callouts been strained assessable. Um so this is the bigger picture behind what we are experiencing locally. Um this conversation was interesting to have with Mr. Jeremy Casey. Um over the past several years um our available CDL certified driver pool has been nearly cut in half from 150 certified individuals in 2020 down to 78 as we're speaking of today. So this reduction is one of the single biggest factors in impacting our ability to operate at full capacity. Now historically we've had a broader pool of CDL certified staff across multiple departments. That has shifted your non-transportation employees or maintaining CVS um which has reduced our overall flexibility and um we just don't have the same capacity today that we just had a few years ago. That's across

207the country in class. >> So what are some contributing factors to that? So here's what's driving that decline. Um as stated before, we had a broader group of CDL certified staff across departments. That included teacher assistants, teachers, study staff, child nutrition, and administrative staff who can step in when needed. um that model has kind of shifted. Fewer non-transportation employees are maintaining CDLs at the same time. Obtaining and maintaining a CDL requires time. Training and ongoing compliance. It's not like you can just go grab a CDL and have it tomorrow. Um that creates a barrier for many employees. Um the result is smaller and a more centralized driver. So what does that mean? That's less flexibility to respond to daily accesses. So I've got to get this off my chest. I promise I do know how

208to spell insure. I do insure. I do not ensure tax. >> So >> yes, >> we both looked at it. >> So what we are doing to ensure students are transported. Um here's how we are maintaining daily service and spots. the staffing challenges. We are combining routes, splitting routes, and utilizing community stops when needed. We've adjusted bus schedules, which means earlier pickups, um potentially later drop offs, and in some cases longer ride times. Now, listen, these adjustments are not ideal, um but they are what allow us to keep buses running and ensure students are transported each day safely. on any given day, even a single driver absence, especially since December, um can require multiple adjustments across the system. Um so our team is making those real-time decisions to keep things moving. Um despite the challenges

209we have discussed, I want to highlight how we're actively managing those operations each day. Um we're making daily routes adjustments to ensure as many routes as possible are covered. In addition, and I'm going to make sure to input this piece, too. This has been a team effort at Boston District. Um, directors, administrators, teachers, teacher assistants, retirees, and custodial staff have all stepped in to help drive routes when needed. >> Assistant principal. >> We are also re excuse me, >> I said assistant principles, principles, some of them. >> We have also restructured routes where necessary um to maximize the resources available. Um, and throughout all of this, it's been amazing to watch. We've maintained continuous communication with schools, staff, and families to keep everything and everyone informed. Um, this has required a systemwide effort to maintain

210that service each day. Um, and we are actively adjusting and responding every day to meet those needs. And before I go any further and before I move into closing, I have to take a moment to thank the individuals and recognize the people who are making this work happen every day. So, originally I had a slide in here and it just didn't make the cut. Um, our drivers, substitutes, teachers, teacher assistants, administrators, retirees, and staff across the district are stepping up in a big way. There are seven individuals if I look at this particular chart who have driven a route individually 40 times or more themselves. Seven six of those have covered 20 to 40 routes and six of those 20 or more routes and I won't get into the logistics of the other piece but

211we've got a small pool of individuals that are covering the majority of these routes. They're covering multiple routes. They're taking on additional responsibilities and doing whatever is needed to ensure students get there and transported safely. What we're asking of them right now goes beyond normal expectations and they continue to show up every day and deliver every single day. That level of commitments is a lot about people. So let's talk about the recruitment aspect. Um here I'd like to highlight the scope of our recruitment efforts. We're taking every approach to reach as many potential candidates as possible. Um that includes community outreach, hiring banners. I know you've seen a couple of those around the county and I'm going to get more back up. Um flyers and consistent communication throughout social media and our school website. We're

212also working with organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and NC Works to expand our outreach. And in addition, we're trying to interpret um our drivers and transportation staff are actively helping recruit. Um we're engaging retirees and working closely with human resources with Dr. No. Recruitment is active. It's ongoing and it's happening on multiple fronts. Um we're not just relying on a single strategy. Uh we're p we're pursuing every avenue available to strengthen our travel and please if you have any other recommendations send them my way. So let me close with this. As we work through these challenges, our priorities are clear. They're consistent. First and foremost, student safety is always the top priority in every decision we make. Um, we're equally as focused on driver safety, making sure our drivers are supported and able

213to operate each day safely. We remain committed to the full legal compliance and ensure that everything we do aligns with state and federal requirements and finally focused on responsible decisions balancing the needs of our students, our families, our staff while operating within these realities discussed today. Um it's been a challenge. This is not a lack of effort. It's a matter of capacity and we will continue doing everything we can to ensure our students are transported safely and consistently each day. And then that wraps up that. Does anyone have any questions? >> That a lot of times the people that have the least resources are the ones. Okay. and um having to pick them up at a community pickup or having to go to school to get them puts additional stress on their resources because they

214have to buy gas and we all know what's happened to gas in the last three weeks or months. It's and I expect to go even higher and so those are the ones that are on the longest routes usually. So what and I I don't know that that's there's a solution by the way other than getting our drivers in but when we say longer routes my stomach clinches because some of these kids are on the bus one way anyway. So are are the routes on further ascended the county more often not to have drivers? I know they lost several of theirs for injury and sickness and all of that on that end for Blue Ridge. I know Blue Ridge have three drivers. So, >> so how you know what can we do to help those parents?

215I mean, they may not have somebody that can take those. Well, and to my point earlier, um it's not specific to one specific school. Unfortunately, this is an not necessarily an issue. I'm not sure that that's the correct word. However, this has been a challenge that we've been facing since December. I personally have never seen this many and I've been, you know, I'm an Ash County native. I'm from here. I personally have never seen this many out um due to uh what I've discussed earlier. Um when you get into that many apps, plus with the limited driver pool, you have to do everything within your power to make sure these kids arrive to school safely and get home safely. And that's challenging with the limited number of people that we have compared to just the

216short six years ago >> and the winter weather. >> And when discussing with other administrators too, I've had conversations. Hey, was it like this back when and it just wasn't. This is not only specific to our county, it's across the state and it's across the nation. every single transportation director that I've spoken with. Hey, come on. Give me your solutions because I love stealing stealing the best from the best, right? Give me what you're doing. If I can do it better, I want to know. business we >> well if you look at the um information in 2020 when when I was speaking with JS he's the ones that he is the one that comes in and trades um was like hey you get anybody else to train um then trust me I'm looking for um

217if we have a larger pool of individuals that are able and willing am I saying everyone needs to get behind the wheels absolely So we would not >> well but would it help ease the system if we had more individuals? >> Of course you've got a larger pool to select from and then when you go back to that list that I was talking about earlier you're not playing strain on the same individuals over >> I have three questions. First, the community stops. I know to foreign said not everybody can get out pick up their would if there was a community stop in Crestston every day say at the fire department or super red or something like that say we'll be here at this time for any parents that can drive and get to their kids

218pick their kids up with the kids that's not able to be picked up get home quick because you won't have as many stops that you would have to because I know up on the press I watch people have told me that You would have several that would actually come out to to bread or fire department. I'd say I'd probably be no problem. But anyway, they would be able to come there to pick them up. Would that get the other kids home sooner and less is my first question? >> Potentially. Um I would have to look at that and see what it looks like in practice. Um, however, one of my questions goes back to would it be possible if there's not a driver's background due to the restriction on time when they get home in

219the afternoon, but sometimes we've ran into someone can't cover and we've not had to do many community stops at all this year. The ones we have had to do have been out of necessity. What I hear is I think there would be a lot of parents that would like plants and it would relieve the driver. It's something you can think about. Then the second question is what if we would give some bonuses or something to our teachers or anybody in the school system that's already able to work up some extra hours have built in some extra stuff like that. time for 16. So it was a teacher driving a bus sometime like a teacher driving by 16. So they're getting that mileage. And then the third question, how many kids are on each bus? There

220are a lot of kids that ride the school buses. So, when we did our initial numbers, it was right at quote me if I'm wrong, Dr. Cox, but it was right at a thousand or a little over a thousand that I reported on the and I can get back to you on that. >> So, we were last year we were I know we were at 1,400 last year because that's how many routes how many kids we had to find space for. Our population has declined. Um and um we have some areas like Mountain View who their riders decrease and their school population. >> Do you know how do you have roughly what the population is on? >> No. >> And some of our buses are full. Other buses have 12, you know, half capacity and

221it just depends um on how far they have to go. So, you know, we take a combined bus all the way up to the three top area, right? Might be a >> that particular not to the three stop area. We we have a combined bus that goes out towards the rest of the area. >> Right. Right. >> I go to Riverview every Thursday morning and I meet the buses and I meet two buses within they're right behind each other every morning. Uh I don't know if they're middle school buses or high school buses. Probably in elementary and middle school. an an elementary because usually our middle school buses up there uh the middle school students rather than elementary bus the town right they go to the middle school those students and then there's one ramp

222there so we've got one high school one bus is there any way we could combine some of those >> and with somewhere else with those high school students instead of two buses that that one I don't know where they get them before they get old school students on the bus. >> Oh, I know >> that's that's the issue that you run into today and then you know Yes. But at what what cost? You're putting elementary school students on a high school bus. So our elementary, >> we have to do that sometimes. >> We do, but our elementaryaries are roughly dismissing at 3. >> Our high school dismisses that. So you're looking at some of those elementary kids going home much later. Maybe maybe next year some of those times can be adjusted if we still

223have most government issues following them closely on time. I know they've done that in other places time where they can use them all for exam and you know we don't like the idea of going to schools on the bus to us but that's what we all did sometimes with student bus drivers um than the kids so we did that but I want them to be safe but at the same time I don't want them on there I don't want them on there a long time, but I want there to be a solution where they do have the opportunity to ride the bus if their folks need to know what the solution is. Getting a bus in the update diversity of options we're you're exploring. >> I believe >> sounds like you're working. >> Yes. appreciate.

224>> Yes, >> school. >> So, um you know, I shared some of the things that we were doing in the beginning of this meeting. Um, I wanted to pull out something that people don't necessarily think about when it comes to the medical type nurse screen nurse and compare it to what somebody might be familiar with on a day-to-day basis with courthouse. Um, courthouse deputy screenings approximately 250 people per day within the span of about nine nine hours. um at single point of entry. They're carrying a little more than their wallet, keys, and a phone. They're not usually carrying all their stuff with them. Was full. Teachers and staff screen about 430 students a day over the span of about 30 minutes on two points of entry. So they're carrying backpacks, laptops, and chargers and three

225ring binders, and they have lunch boxes and school projects and musical instruments and athletic gear. Doesn't matter what, you know, what school, they're all facing some of the some of my challenges. And so it's a tool, but as um Brian Wongo shared with me, it's not a force field. It's not going to catch everything. Um and then of course human error can happen even dedicated and well intention people. Um so unfortunately there's never going to be 100% metal detectors or any other way screening students um for um for anything. The average backpack is between five and 10 zippered compartments. So, if you think I'm gonna have my backpack here and there are all kinds of different compartments and places to log to see if they have something in there. And then your average kid has

226stuff in the backpack that's probably been sitting there since all this. Um, anyway, any parent who's ever searched their child's backpack news that you find completely done homework at the bottom of the back when someone needs to be um anywhere. And then we've got purses and other personal things that are also being screened um that contain all kinds of stuff from feminine projects or products to makeup pencils to lunch bags. So there's a lot of things that our staff members are charged to do at the very beginning of school when kids are falling. And so, you know, if you have 15 separate zipper pouches uh that need to be checked after the metal detector goes off and you don't know, you're not intimately familiar with that particular vacuum or things, it's hard. Um, I know

227that, um, we had a, uh, we had a weapon that got through the metal detector at the very beginning of January, middle of January, and they were screened through three times. Staff pulled out of it, screamed through again. It went off the last time, it went off as green. So, it's not 100% and it was operational and it was doing what it was intended to do. Sometimes when things are not the size of a a weapon traditionally would be, it can be missed. Um, and these are not the ones that have the, you know, that have the X-ray vision to look through either. And these are your your typical um your average screeners that are looking for a certain sized object. Um you know I know some ways parents can help us by bringing out

228the backpacks regularly um so that we have less to go through um when a a screener um or detector goes off. Um, you know, clear backpacks would be helpful in some ways because then you can see through them. If there's a lot of mess and they're like, "Oh my goodness, look at all this mess in there." You know, to, you know, for our parents sake and sometimes that would be easier to have in organiz. But then you're also going to have some couches that you still have to screen with holding less than 10 to 15. Um but nothing is really being part of um is there any way the sheriff department could send over two officers to each school in morning to help get them through? So um we do have an SRO at each

229school. However, um they could sheriff's sh the sheriff's office cannot search the backpack. They can help us run through the screener. uh really they're there to observe in case something else happens. I you know I think you know from our experience some of the things that we typically have happen at the beginning of the school day or you know custody issues um you have other things that need taken care of. It's rare and I hope it continues to be rare um from a uh weapon um but that's not what their primary role is. That's why we have staff members um to screen them through. But they're there and which is good because you know we need their support and they're very helpful. Um but you know as far as additional people to go through the

230backpacks that might have something in them, we have to do that um in each of our schools. That's not a role that our officers can take. they can get them through the screener. So as soon as it goes off, somebody else has it. >> Plus removing that many officers from community availability, lower safety for the rest of the community. >> Well, typically she said a couple things school and you've got so many buildings. I think part of it is um we want our officers also being present and you know when you're when you're screening people through you're highly focused on that bag that child and what's happening our officers need to also have that other vision of what's going on around us and that's where they're most helpful and you know I want officers to

231be able to make relationships and say hello and get the feel for kids to owning through the door. A lot of times this what our principles are doing too. Um you'll see them in the car line. You'll see a lot more when you're looking big picture versus when you are screening somebody through and just getting the bag through and being um intentional about that piece. I don't know that there's any I don't know that there's any right or wrong in uh that other than I know that our officers um are doing the duty that they're allowed to uh within our schools. Um but there is no one right answer and human error can happen. I mean, good intention, you know, things can happen. Um, and and and if the gun didn't come through the door,

232um, you know, if it was locked up appropriately, that's a different story. You know, we're talking about something different. But if somebody has intention, um, probably not going, it's probably going to be before the intent after. many places. We're very fortunate to have rather ours in most all of our schools in most all and have some people that can learn to be available ready to go. And I know that when we had like last last year when we had um all of those threats that happened over a period of weeks, our officers showed up within seconds. You know, their response time for us has been was fantastic. Not ever enough to test that in a real situation, but we do we do have a lot of resources here. But again, it's never going to be

233100%. We're going to try as much as we can to get to 100%. Um, but as you said, the parents can do their job. And that's and that's number one. That's a part of it. Um, you know, this year is the first year that we've implemented um the screeners at our elementary schools. And you know if we did that because we felt there's a need um you know and thirdly you know there isn't you know even though um it may be once but it only takes place. So you know we're trying to do what we can do to make sure our children are safe so that our faculty is safe and our faculty is doing what they can to make sure that um everybody is safe and our students. Um but it's a layered approach

234and you know whether we do uh weapon screeners what not that is one layer people being willing to speak up when they hear something when they hear something that's a layer. Families staying engaged with with their kids that's a layer. Teachers better relationships with kids that's a layer. No one should any other questions. >> Um, so I can have a motion to go into close session for the safe employee personnel under article 7 chapter 126 statute. and con.