001um foreign one in the beginning thank you and thanks yeah all right um we can switch back into words just so everybody knows we're getting there getting us online so that's what's taking just a little bit switching things over foreign okay all right they've got us online there the board is called this meeting to order earlier and in the closed session and are now back in Open session so first item on our agenda if you build just stand and join us in the pledge I pledge of the United States one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice department thank you thank you before we get into the comments from the superintendent I do need to make an addition here to the agenda you have an approval for the amended agenda so if I have
002a motion to approve the amended agenda I'm a commissioner amended agenda do I have a second any other questions or discussions all those in favor if you will raise your hand all in favor what that is we're going to break out on our agenda the Personnel will be the first under action items it'll not Fallen under the consent agenda that's the only change there so with that I'm going to turn that over to Dr Cox for comments from the superintendent well good evening everyone I apologize for the late start sometimes technology takes you a little bit longer to get in and uh sometimes discussions take a little bit longer than we've been but we're happy to be here to share some successes in Ashe County schools and over uh the last month you probably have
003seen we've had some data released and I don't want to put stock in any one test score I don't think that's fair to children or teachers however Ashe County schools once again proves that we have excellent teachers and students here in our community and we'll be sharing some of the results before that I want to say a couple of things we had a our very first community visit to Mountain View Elementary last week it was a tremendous success we had local dignitaries we had representative um uh uh probably who we have here we had quite a few people um present uh in the building to see all the great things going on at Mountain View Elementary and they shared um everything from their successes in literacy to um their stem programs a little bit of
004everything at Mountain View so I'm really proud of this their success and we'll we'll share a little bit about testing here in a few minutes um but that leads me to the other item on here I want to say a special thank you to Senator Ralph Hayes and representative Ray Pickett for the budget allocation to Ashe County schools in the amount of 2.5 million dollars for an athletic field so this will be upgrades um to our High School athletic field that normally would have been Out Of Reach for us you know we don't have 2.5 million dollars just laying around for athletics but from that that school business it to the high school last year Brian Hampton and I were in a group we invited Ray Pickett and at that point in time I've shared
005with them lots of different needs from K reasons for teachers to the needs for mental health we'd love to keep a lot of these extra funded positions that we have that are really doing some great things for us here in Ash County but one of the things that we mentioned was upgrades to athletic fields and we happened to be at the high school at the time and happened to know that Allegheny County Schools they've got an align item during the last budget and so unless you ask you don't know so we asked at that time and asked later on for that money and we're very gracious for the general assembly for passing that budget that included if it includes that 2.5 million dollars so and anyway that's on the good things talking about money for
006some of those extra things for teachers our 21st annual endowment golf tournament fundraiser that you've heard about a few times here thankful to our endowment board and a lot of our teachers that shared some of the great things they do in this monster but we had 88 players that played in the 18 holes either in the morning or in the afternoon at Jefferson Landing Golf Club beautiful course a beautiful day they had 25 Parts sponsors two lunch sponsors and several miscellaneous donations and approach the proceeds have been finalized and so I'd love to share with you that this year's tournament raised 16 930.76 so that's very commendable thank you to our community we stepped up on behalf of our teachers and wow I've got chills thinking of all the great things that our teachers do
007in the classroom and this will allow them to be Innovative and have some extra funds um that they can continue uh to do those special projects whether it be school-wide or within their classroom or even across schools and the endowment board has proven to be a very beneficial to our schools in that way a special thank you to Diane Ellsworth here who serves on that board as well as Marsha Ellis who just retired so she's not here it seems odd not having her here and Bailey little who really hoped on behalf of the endowment board with spearhead that event so those are some of our successes um next I want to share some of this uh testing successes so again I don't want to put stock in any one test on any one given day
008but since the state does we need to share it with you all and I know a lot of this has been out there on social media and will be shared um internally with our teachers and staffs but I want to share with you how Ashe County Schools did so on the screen right now I think here are some of the highlights of the 115 school districts now mind you we are 62 free and reduced lunch so we have a higher poverty rate than your average school district we're at number eight out of 115 school districts in the state of North Carolina I left what happened by accident this is really intentional work from our teachers leadership from our principals people here at the central office um all the way around including our bus drivers who
009get our children to school safely on time our cafeteria workers who ensure that our children are fed our nurses who are making sure that our children are well guidance counselors who help in so many different ways I could name everything our secretaries that make sure things and in the words of a uh a little one during conversation convocations that this school would not run without her we have a lot of people that this school would not run without and so congratulations on all of these successes as you can see our proficiency rate is higher in 97 of all testing measures and if you pull out the testing results infographic nope that's not the one um the uh no that's not the one either the proficiencies versus Ash County Schools if you can pull that one
010up to show them next you can see that this is the 97 yep the other one that one that one's easier to look at um these are all the tested subjects that we're required to have for the state of North Carolina and you can see that we are in all but one and we were pretty comparable in that one but all in one we were way above the states or above the state so you can see in grade six mathematics we are 23.4 points higher than the average sixth grade class at um in the state of North Carolina that's pretty incredible so our teachers and students do a fantastic job how's the one to share with you something that doesn't necessarily go into our um State accountability models it's what we're doing in CTE and
011so if you can pull up the CTE roadmap to success um on this particular document not all these things get into what counts as an a b c d f school or our proficiency or growth but we offer so many opportunities for our students in middle and high school for Career and Technical education and some of the successes that really help kids do well in their other subjects and do well in school fall back on the Hands-On relevant real life activities that come to our CTE courses and you can see that we have had significant increases in participation over the last two years in our Career and Technical education courses we have a 154 percent increase specifically in Industry recognized credentials earned we went from 885 last year to 2172 credentials earned for students that
012doesn't go into our accountability it's not something that says that Ash County High School was an abcdf school doesn't count but that's the way that we are working toward increasing opportunities for our students so I just wanted to point that out as a part of our conversation on how well we do yeah they do English and math and um uh science classes in our accountability model but there's so many other courses that lead to a child being successful our Arts courses my own child was a band child one of the successes I went to visit our band at a competition on Saturday my husband and I went and sat in the hot sun to watch them perform they were out absolutely outstanding you can't tell me that not having a band program or excuse me
013that having a band program doesn't contribute to the success of students at Ash County high school so there are so many things that don't count in this model but I wanted to point out some of them all right you know because I think that's fair to all of our teachers so ours CTE make our students more well-rounded and I think that's where we have the mortgage come on so the next thing I want to highlight is something that is I knew the Ashe County schools at least I'm not aware of any other school I'm getting National Beta recognition in recent years so I'm going to call up some students and also call up our principal Lindsey Williams and teacher Hannah Beach who just happened to be my son's teacher when he was at Adams County
014early college to come up and receive some certificates and receive some recognition from the Board of Education um so that you know after County Early College High School participated in the National Beta Club Regional Leadership Summit on September 21st and 22nd in Sevierville Tennessee and our Ash County high school or Ashe County Early College High School students proved to be incredible leaders among the region and so um Early College they competed in collaborative connection events and then the project proposal event and the team qualified to advance to the national competition in both events so this was pretty significant and this is the first time I think that they've participated from Ashe County early college high school and it's the first time in a long time that I remember a school competing in this particular event
015so I'm going to let the teacher and Miss Williams to talk specifically about what they did but then present their Awards implement you can tell me how I don't know anything about their questions and so first of all uh Nick Williams would you I know I would like to uh yeah here's my favorite being up here no um I I can't take any credit um you know must be without a good chunk of last year because she had um her second child um and one thing that we talked about when she got back was we really wanted aunt but what we were doing they didn't and she has taken that um and and just run with that I mean I I she has sought out um different opportunities for our students to shine and I
016think it's paid off um so I'll just I'll do we want to just go through certificates okay so we will start with Miss Hannah Beach um Club sponsor chicken congratulations congratulations thank you congratulations thank you thank you Silva he's our Treasures certainly not least and if you have oh yeah okay okay um our uh this year's um well and we have two other students that are also a part of what's uh outstanding teams that will be competing forward I saw your green and a curly ham and both of them get their certificates I can certainly make all of them including Miss Williams for their leadership again leadership doesn't happen by accident and um Miss Williams encouraging them to take the risk step out and do something new and uh they stepped up to that leadership
017challenge every single one of them so congratulations and I look forward to seeing you compete at the national level okay I may add a little bit to what Dr Cox was saying more more of success I guess in in public um Sunday afternoon I was able to sit and watch a homecoming parade which I have never been to Nashville county in my life which I thought was very very neat and good for the student athletes that were in that and my kids enjoyed watching it and I thought we went trick-or-treating as much candy as I take up on there but I didn't think that was very neat to have have that kind of come back I somebody said I think the last time we may have had one was in the 70s an actual homecoming
018parade but I thought that was kind of neat to have that and they had to get permission from the town in order to do that so again leadership doesn't happen by accident so thank you to Ashe County High School for doing that they were going to have homecoming festivities all week and then of course the homecoming game um on Friday night so it's exciting for our students that we have these offers opportunities for kids well next we've got public comment as always I'll read the policy in accordance with policy 2310 the board chairperson will recognize speakers in the order in which they are signed in each speaker will receive three minutes to present comments however the public comment session will not exceed 30 minutes total except by the majority vote of the board if a
019speaker is unable to present all of his or her information within the specified time limit because they provide the board with additional information in written form please refrain from addressing any specific employee or student concerns as a part of public comment concerns can be directed to the district leadership as prescribed in policy 2310 board members will not respond to individuals who address the board except to 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 cases of emergency information received during the presentations will not be acted on at the time it is received so with that being said we will open up comment and we've got signed up first and I forgive me if I Tanya
020Tanya okay I knew I was going to say it wrong one way Robin thank you so much for the time tonight I've come before you tonight to address SB 49 also known as the parents Bill of Rights many of their rights enumerated in the bill are already established in state and federal law similarly the Bill's prohibition of instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in the K4 curriculum is redundant sexual orientation and gender identity are not part of the K4 curriculum to the extent new rights are provided they open new avenues for Bad actors to tie up School District Operations and Resources by filing frivolous requests for information and objections to instructional materials while parental involvement in the lives of their children is critically important the reality is that fewer than 40 percent of lgbtq
021plus youth live in homes that are affirming of their identities regardless of its intention this bill could create dangerous environments for the young people who may not have families who are willing or ready to provide the support they need North Carolina Senate Bill 49 better known as the parents Bill of Rights threatens to violate students rights to an equal education free from discrimination and could create School environments that are hostile and unsafe for certain students these are all realities that we as a society must face for example if my child were to say that he wanted to be called something differently would that trigger some sort of protocol at the school currently or does that trigger some sort of phone conversation or what happens when that happens so if my son also were to tell
022his teacher that he wished to be use different pronouns than what he's currently using is there a certain protocol that we currently have in place that would trigger a frivolous call letter or meeting to gain my consent for this additionally if a child were in the K4 age group and mentioned that they miss their moms or their dads being plural indicating a homosexual relationship how is this currently being handled with regards to sb49s perhaps other students will question this or seek out more information on the topic out of their own Natural Curiosity therefore what is to be done to handle such a situation do we discourage the children from learning more about the world that they will inevitably enter or do we lie to them and tell them that they misunderstood the child who said
023that they had two moms or two dads or do we just simply pretend that this familial relationship is non-existent in our world how have Ash County Schools chosen to implement this discriminatory and redundant set of statutes entitled the parental Bill of Rights it has not been mentioned recently and I sincerely would like to better understand how our schools are handling this recently past legislation on a secondary note I would like to be heard regarding the lack of a vote for the remaining of the Ash County High School football stadium there was a lack of discussion regarding pros and cons there was a lack of courage to voice a second to the motion for a vote there is an abundance of speculation concerning the community of why this occurred this way but the reality is regardless
024of how you plan to vote or how you felt about it the least you could have done and offered was an actual vote and some discussion School Board serves as elected officials that are supposed to represent the will of the public however that is not what I witnessed at the September meeting I witnessed a school board that was avoiding the accountability to the people they were elected to represent the public made a large public outpour of support for this move to rename the stadium and or football field after a dedicated teacher and Coach I never had Tom Roberts as a coach for a teacher but he still radiated energy like no other I believe we should have a formal vote regarding this issue thank you so much and if you want one of clarification those
025questions you had if you'll send those to Dr Cox and I'm sure she'd be glad to address those questions that you have so she can stick around to the end of the meeting when we discuss the parents Bill of Rights uh policies next we've got on the agenda is the Personnel Mr Putman I'll have to have you get up but it's interesting down already that's so close so we've got personnel are there any questions from Mr Putman on your personnel hearing none I'll entertain a motion to approve the personnel Mr chairman I'll make the motion that we approve as personal Nails presented to us by Mr Putman do I have a second I second do I have any other questions or comments you're none all those in favor if you will raise your hand any
026opposed motion will carry next go ahead oh next we've got on the agenda is a consent agenda what that is the board will consider several items under this section and we'll vote on them all at the same time hopefully to help speed things up in our meetings so under the consent agenda we have the Carolina School of Science and Math connect program mou the wrestling trip request and the minutes from the past meetings that we had for the closed session board meeting for September 19th Open Session special called for September 19th the closed down Open Session minutes for the regular September 5th meeting do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda Mr chairman I'm a commission we approve the concierge agenda as provided do I have a second and attending the corrections I've
027already handed typos to um any other questions or comments all those in favor of the consent generation raise your hand motion carries next the Lord did make last time in special called meeting for budget and then that leaks the state did pass the budget on Friday I believe it was so um I guess we'll have Miss cold iron come up for the 23-24 budget resolution um six months but it did pass and the governor sat on it so today is day 10 so hopefully it will go into wild or not and we will have more information coming from thank you guys hoping tomorrow so that we can get more info about raises and regular pay and what our allocations are going to be because at this point we don't even know what our state allocations
028are and we're into the second quarter of the school year okay okay do I have a motion to approve the budget resolution 23 24. Mr chairman I make a motion to approve this commission do I have a second second any questions or comments thank you for your hard work .com it gets a teamwork all the directives at least it's approved so hopefully so all those in favor raise your hand thank you so much next we've got the automated external defibrillator policy update I think I see Miss little coming up from the bank you don't look like Miss Walker courted by Jim okay Jane A.D policy which is 50 28 6130 and 72 67 with some um updates that really reflect what we're already doing we're just going to put those into policy so as you
029know we were able to with safety funds last year uh before aeds to visible boxes into all of the schools so now they have three per building and then we were able to get backpack units that could travel with sports teams um and go on field trips with groups so as a part of that we would like to make sure and it's already required by the Athletic Association of High School Athletic Association that all head coaches be trained uh High School head coaches High School head coaches for CPR and AED but we would like to extend that as well to our little school and to make sure and any of our friends and level building that take trips and they'll be responsible for the backpacks so um their changes were uploaded for you that are
030highlighted and it it really is just the addition of that being a requirement and it's not currently in our policy that the High School coaches but it's in the North Carolina High School athletics association's policy so they're already doing that we just request to put it in policy and so that it acknowledges that we have these devices and people who know how to use them and then of course for the middle school we want to add it so that our head coaches and we have upcoming training opportunities as well I think there are three or four upcoming yeah there are two they're two-hour trainings yes and so I actually just thought side with Kelly Welsh Alpha and they have somebody through the health department that can help get us with the purpose that we've not
031gotten so they're going to help us fit everybody Jamie what about uh football at the middle school level does that so they are through the youth football league so they're not considered a school team but we can work with anybody um right yes but they may not have the backpack unit so I'm willing to talk and we've already talked to Parks and Rec a little bit about how we obtained those and what that looked like so let me explain that I wanted to that would be great if we could provide access to those units it doesn't do you any good if you've trained if you don't have something to use I guess home games EMTs there what about the travel is that where we're meeting is that where we're like sure well usually the school
032that you're traveling to will have started yeah thank you so will this training be open to any coach or any yes body that wants to okay and it'll just be required for the head coaches but we will encourage and hopefully be able to offer it to as many as I'm willing to do more of the best coach the training um you know we certify a lot of our school building folks we have so many but this this is specific to those newer units they're about units so we're just not going to move actually in that way so I would like to communicate to all coaches that the board strongly recommends that they [Music] so we can extend that to the Middle School any other questions from us little you're none I'll entertain a motion to
033approve the automated external defibrillator policy update I make a motion we approve the what you just said Thank you thank you that works any other questions or comments all those in favor raise your hands motion carrying thank you and the hope is that we'll never have to use those next we've got on the agenda is a recommendation or an upgrade to the athletic field and track at Ash County high school then we've got coach Hampton here and Dr Cox working on this we can tag team on this one um I think as you know I said in the beginning Senator alpais and representative Ray Pickett made sure that this allocation was in the budget for us so as soon as it becomes long we will have two and a half million dollars to put toward
034an upgrades to our track and field at the high school and we um had talked to on several occasions throughout last year I know I had personal conversations with both Senator highs and representative Ray Pickett knowing that um you know this was something that's Out Of Reach for our community and something that um you know we've been talking about for um a while and so you know as early as last year in September or October whenever that school visit was uh we started that conversation um so Mr Hampton in back when we had that very first com uh conversation had already edit our request from an athletic meeting gotten some quotes on what it would cost us to do an upgraded Mondo track surface which is an Olympic great service and upgraded uh Turf a
035field and I don't know it's more a synthetic Charter field don't want to say it wrong because you know old school me says AstroTurf but that is not what it is it's not that AstroTurf from the 1970s or 80s but maybe the rest of us remember this is definitely a more upgraded surface um but anyway um it includes a shock pad underneath uh um underneath the surface so hopefully prevents some of the injuries that can occur when you're playing football we can't prevent everything that's the nature of the sport unfortunately but certainly we want to make sure our service is the best that we can get um but anyway the recommendation is for a motion to advertise an RFP um which uh for the upgrades to the athletic field in the ground and um just
036because there are multiple school districts that were awarded um quite a few funds to do upgrades we're going to be in competition for the same time frame for work completion because ideally we would have this work completed after the track team finishes their last meet at home at the high school in order to be able to start the work and get it finished in time for you know an August one season to begin does that sound about right Brian yes ma'am okay and there's a picture there that some exact picture I mean colors and stuff are certainly I mean I would love to have a nice pretty green field with you know whatever husky or whatever we'll have multiple options to look at I just thought it may need to be different than everybody else
037we can make it we'll make it pretty that the options there are I think several companies out there have just about every color option that you want between the track and the actual surface itself anybody have any questions anyone I'll open the floor for a motion Mr chairman I'd like to make the motion that we advertise and RFP for the upgrades to the athletic field and track immediately so that we can beat other districts even for the same same Prime detangler life same time frame for work completion we did I get it all out do I have a second to the motion second any questions comments discussion I would still have the concerns or go ahead in this one I was going to say that after reading through all of the information they sent I
038did a deeper dive and found research study of over 1400 different studies on damage to and they looked at women and men and amateurs and professionals and found the incident of injuries was the same as natural turf or lower so with that said I'm much more approved of this going forward I'm still finding a lot of controversy over in the fields and you know how I feel I want the kids to have the safest uh most appropriate service surface to play on um I am a little bit concerned because most of the country is going to a natural graph grass kind of situation and I'm I'm just hoping that the quality that we have will um help prevent these injuries I do not want one child playing whatever to be injured and there are some
039really good studies out there recent studies as recent as this Summer that are showing that it is a higher incidence of injury on a her field now I'm not against the track I'm not against fixing the football field I'm just concerned that we are opening up more injury situations for our children any other well by reading what we have here it sounds like that Brian has done his work Mr Hampton and he's getting the top of the line at everything and the track at this point I'd say is dangerous for other students coming in to run track and the football field yeah I'll be put down whatever Bouncy Stuff On Me should make it safer than the hard ground so particularly our hard ground that we have now in the shape that our field is
040in with the overuse we want as much to happen there at the high school as possible the only way for that to happen is is with her please search has there any been any consideration to the hybrid that a lot of the um soccer folks use where you use the artificial the turf with the uh Rye seated grass and it's a combination of both of those fields have have we looked at that at all no well I have a look at is the the safest Turf out there and as long as last name of the best infield uh and even looked at a product called geocool which is environmentally friendly it's not the rubber it's a natural substance that it reacts with the sand and maybe a safer surface the infield number is the key
041to the safety and that's also why I'd like to have a woven surface like the iron Turf because that holds the infield in place better to give it a better feel in a more grass-like but I have done research on the safety and that's what I would like to put into RP is something like the iron chart for equivalent because it is a woven-backed Turf which means it will last longer we will have the shock pad underneath hopefully with the Geo cool or something equivalent uh infield with the sand which again I know there was some concerns about the environment how it affected that's environmentally friendly compound and it does it is a safer in Seal in the RFP that I've started working on that looks at y'all passes tonight that's that's what that's what
042we'd like to keep awesome question um is this glued or stapled or how how do they put it together because I understand that the feel has to be readjusted and none periodically is that will have to be replaced uh the surface will have to be replaced the major experience now I'm not saying that replace the first not a big expense it will be the major expense is just the field part itself is the grading and The Rock are they good the dirt drainage uh you know the the big thing I think with our view we could save some money on where we dump the dirt the whole bill we get some folks to help us with that and we're bathing on the track so yeah I think we can save some money there and get
043big top one facility with our turf and an Olympic grade track and really right now of course our deal is laying that track surface later this week so if we want to travel down and see that you'd actually see the service I've got samples at the high school if y'all would like to see those but it is the track itself because the study's been done on that surface how much it increases your struggling and I think that will enable us to host reachable events here and maybe some AAA governments in the summer who wouldn't want to come to the mountains where it's cooler to run on that track surface I think that's going to bring some money into our communities I lost that track that track needs to be replaced and I'm hoping that this
044Bondo that you've chosen is more adaptable to our climate and that's the one reason why we want the Honda it's been permeable so the water can't see through it when they lay back surface it's got to be perfectly fine and they'll do water tests on the asphalt if there's some puddles somewhere they'll come back in and redo that to make sure that it is it is perfect and once they put the Mondo down folks have said that when they pull it up 20 years later the asphalt looks brand new and that's that's what we want um I talked to a friend of mine who actually played uh College on high school college on the turf and he said one thing you need to list watch out about and I think you talked about that because
045of the heat that it creates the heat that comes off and it's probably not as bad here as it is below the mountain but but it does create Heat thank you any other questions no not any questions but you know we came together as an athletic Advisory board with Coach Hampton Dr Cox and some coaches and um parents a variety of people and this couldn't fit any better so I'm hoping that with this money that we can keep the momentum to refurbish our athletic facilities completely if possible and make them state of the art and make them something that our students can put out of so I'm hoping that we don't stop now as a result of the 2.5 but instead we are inspired and motivated this is the first step in many steps in
046my mind of what we can composers will do with our athletic facilities at the hospital I've got some Progressive plans great uh hopefully uh once we get this project started but to start on the next and you you know how I feel about those projects because I've certainly bit your ear enough about what he said so I want to invite uh those of you when I see the high school and um the very first step was the upgrade to the weight room uh that happened last over spring break I think some of the things came together and so hopefully uh this will be a nice extension of uh that piece and absolutely keep the momentum going for our other sports but our band our football team Little League kiwi football everyone who uses that track
047our track teams cheerleaders and this will be a great thing once it's together for all of our kids so I know a lot of people are going to be at the homecoming game this Friday night and everybody's there um I know you can't but if someone could be available to show off that Vape Room it would be great because it is something to be proud of and I appreciate all the work that um you and your staff put into it I don't really put a lot of work Adam Elliott was a rock star I do have one more concern or comment uh where are we with liability if there is sues with this type of field has there been any um we so I don't know whether it's like litigation about the type of surface
048on the field because that's something that I do worry about too with everybody moving a little bit more or the professional sports anyway that are moving more toward the natural grass is there any kind of litigation that we're aware of that might be happening from this field that's all research and other projects where Insurance Representatives I'm saying against the company that I've been talking to is for bills and Michael we've got the money in the bankrupt we'll have the money but I do know that well I'm not a tiger alligators built ran over 2.5 million did they add something to that it went to four did they add something to that that we're not adding or is there a reason sure exactly what their entire project was I know they added a concrete softball around
049like they read this hospitals were their Stadium hadn't changed I just don't want us to run into something that we're not anticipating but they did I guess they had a bigger project s so I just wanted to clarify that 2.5 million was based on a one year ago a number I'm hoping that we can do it for uh that amount um but we have to put the RFP out and see what comes back at that point in time and um hopefully rally the community around anything that might um be different from that number but I really hope that with some of the other prices coming down then that will be sufficient it's a huge huge number so we have a lot of folks in our community that have been wanting to help I think that
050we can get that price very close if not right at that 10.5 million few things no I'm not talking about asking for money and I think we can get it done by Hall Bill things and stuff like that I think that we have enough folks that are already enrolled in this project we can save some money and as soon as we can do it we need to do it yes I did say immediately yeah again I'd like to you know Dr Clark said so thanks to Ralph Heist and our uh Ray Pickett uh in the state I didn't notice they gave other rural counties the same monies um and I think that helps our Athletics be more Equitable with what we're playing against with other teams and other areas that have those same things there
051so um I think that was nice of them to look at us for that we do appreciate that any other questions or comments if so I'll ask for the vote all those in favor if you will raise your hand motion carries tomorrow all right so we're going to write it by Brad just to make sure that everything's in there to make it Technical and then yes we will put it out ASAP very good that closes out the action items for the board we've got some updates discussion items and considerations and presentations for the board go ahead did we do the new Middle School updates did I miss Allison oh my gosh if she's back here sitting on the sorry I changed the agenda and it messed me up that deleted me so before we go
052into that let's go to Allison and update on the new Middle School since we're talking about money and new projects let's go let's get to Middle School my apologies that was my fault applications to the court of Engineers at the Carolina Department of Water Quality um we've also received for more um what else in the letter from Frontier gas um just this is something they needed for department of insurance for um them just tell us that we we're going to have gas Services just a formality so design development neurologies are going to be finished up this month hope in a couple of weeks um they're still working through that and we also had a meeting and did not have this online information I sent to you but we also had a meeting with County manager
053um the bond agency their attorneys just to make sure we're all on the same share music so that is also been started so it's a great meeting you can see many many questions where are we on the pump for the from the town are we talking about Westwood no we're talking about the middle school and Brantley was I think investigating some additional funds for that pump that we need from the town yeah I don't know that they got extra funds but that is on the town to handle sewer they had to provide sewer water to us so that is they don't want to do that I don't think they got any funds for this for the state to specifically replace the silver pump because I know that they are working through it that's that's what
054they do yeah I don't think they've got any allocation from the state specifically for that I think they were applying for some grants yes I think that's what they're doing but they didn't get to stay on the kitchen through the budget any other questions foreign Jefferson Offerman have been or how how agreeable they have been and working with us and just willing to do um whatever to make this happen so I really appreciate them yes yeah and the planning board was fantastic yes 100 yeah thank you thank you now we'll back up to what I said earlier so first item under that that we have under updates and discussions Etc is the parents Bill of Rights so this has been quite the talk uh lately of course signed into um law uh passed by the
055general assembly um is the parents Bill of Rights if you all have a copy of the parent Bill of Rights and of course we've been working through some of the technicalities of the parents Bill of Rights essentially the parents Bill of Rights um uh is a list of uh of um rights that parents have most of them are rights they've always had and they are have all they've always been in policy on the ways that we do things have been in policy um but um the general assembly has highlighted in its own bill um but if you want a great summary of those rights so they are posted on the Ashe County Schools website and essentially it's the right to consent or withhold consent for participation in reproductive health or safety educational programs consistent with
056the requirements of General statute and of course it references board policy the right to seek medical or religious exemption for immunization requirements consistent with the requirements of General statute and work policy the right to review Statewide standard assessment results as a part of the state report card and of course those are always on always online at the state and we have links to them as well um the right to request or a value an evaluation or trial for academically or intellectually gifted program which of course we we've done for as long as I can remember or identification as a child with a disability and of course it says within General statutes of board policy again this has been in place for a long long time the right to inspect and purchase Public School unit textbooks
057and other supplementary instructional materials is provided again in State Statute or board policy the right to access information relating to the board's policies or promotion on promotion or retention which we always have parents at the table with regard to decisions about their child uh the right to receive student report cards on a regular basis again we do the report cards on a regular basis the right to access information regarding to the state public education system State Standards report card requirements and attendance requirements and textbook requirements and um again they've always had these rights but the state is putting together a uh a packet that shares a little bit more information that we should have access to by November 1st I'm hopeful that's the deadline for the state to get some of that to us the
058right to participate in parent-teacher organizations which they've always had a right to the right to opt in to certain data collection for their child that's one of them that has changed most of them have been opt out some of them still are like the yrbs data that you'll get to see here in a little bit but the others are opt-in most of ours have been opted in some of them opt out but we are changing our forms as a result so that parents can be made aware of all of them and then of course the right for students to participate in protected student information surveys only with parental consent and of course um you know ours has been and opt out instead of opt-in as moose District so we are working to change those and
059then the right to review all available records of materials their child has borrowed from a school library is set for the board policy and so of course where records are you know parents can see where students have checked out books from the school library so those are posted on our website they've been there since um I don't know middle of September when it was beginning middle of September when it was required to be in there and as our policy changes which tonight you'll see there are seven board policy these that are that need to change as a result of this new legislation the process is is that you can look at the policies tonight they're out there for the public to see we will be having a virtual parents Bill of Rights Town Hall on
060Tuesday October 17th at 5 30 PM it will be virtual I think I have a call set out I can't remember I did it last week I think it goes out tomorrow but then we will have links to be able to access that on our website so any parent who wants to participate and hear more information they can I will try not to make it to laborious and mundane but there's really a lot of legalese language that I'll be sharing at that time as I'll try to make it a little bit more exciting than that but I will also post the presentation so Karen can access it afterward if they don't want to hear me talk for an hour on the different rights that they currently have and what the minor changes are as a
061result I do want to share that we did get this weekend and I apologize it did not work I went to a band competition on Saturday instead of sitting and doing paperwork and I um and I for the first time it was always I can remember did not sit down for a half a day on a Sunday but we did get over the weekend um some special guidance from candidlyn chatley who we've joined their advisor group because they're putting out with permission from Fred and um uh he's sending us because we participated in some of the professional development um their materials um which include some of these suggested updates and Fred said please do this because he's not providing this type of update um to his district so his districts are participating in this for
062the most part but he's given us some forms and stuff that we will be sharing with principals I think I emailed them earlier today and we'll be going over those in our next principal director's meeting as well as some guidance to share with teachers I just want to say it this time versus stuff all of our people are already doing you know we care about kids we want to partner with families and we want to make sure our families are equal Partners in this business of education and um My Philosophy is that parents are their child's first teacher and parents know what's best for their child and we want to honor that to make sure that we are working together so that so that our children all of our children are making the progress that
063they need to be successful so um these policies are an extension of that parents Bill of Rights but there are some updates and no surprise some of our policies needed updated anyway so this one we get to start with seven policies they're here tonight I'll share with you exactly what they are um and I sent this to you also the advisor number two from Campbell and chatley that explains the changes of each of those policies um but anyway some of them are substantial some of them are minor and this is what's recommended the new policies that are on there are from the school boards Association so if there are any changes between now and when this new guidance came out and when this gets approved in December I will certainly keep you abreast of any
064of those changes I expect them to be minor clarifications at anything according to what I've heard so um the policies that are on here what's recommended what's up it was emailed oh a while ago the gambling challenge I can I can put it at the top of your inbox again if you'd like my um sorry it won't open okay my Outlook will not open here yeah I can do this at the top of your inbox again yeah um so the first policy is 1310 4002 it's on Parental involvement and so um essentially um there is a required it substantially revises the policy to address the parents Bill of Rights and um uh in for that particular policy in section g um requires that the board will fill in some specific language and if you would
065like I can highlight where they're talking about but section g requires you to make some decisions and again I want to make sure that we're going through all of these rights you have the opportunity to see the presentation hear what they are and then be able to add add your own language um it was recommended that we share these things tonight and the changes next month to November that we have a special public comment section on the parents Bill of Rights so if there's anything that parents want to share is a result they can and then that way you have another month until December to take anything into consideration that you've heard at that time and any of course changes that happen between now and then because sometimes things get clarified differently then December is
066when these will go under action likely consent so with the next meeting is when you would add your own language but it gives you an extra month to consider them a because a lot of these are substantially different and um B is you time to get input from parents so the um the policy 3210 is on Parental inspection and objection to instructional materials most of these are the changes to this one are recommended except for it adds a process process section in a for parents to inspect instructional materials we do have a procedure already on hand um that parents inspect in fact our principles I know gosh we've had a couple of different times where parents have requested inspection of different materials and you know we do that internally and work with parents all the
067time so you know in a new process but we will tweak the language in there and then if there's anything that we hear with feedback for parents that we would like to see differently about the process will certainly recommend to the board the addition of that language um policy 3540 is on the Comprehensive Health education program and um it adds a provision that's already not and like it's already something that we don't do so up through grade four um it's not in the health curriculum at all some of the things that are outlined in this policy we just don't teach that to um young kids so sexual identity sexual activity sexuality and kindergarten through grade four it's not in the curriculum so we don't do it um um but anyway it's recommended that you add
068the language to that policy which we don't have a problem with because it's a it's a practice it's already ongoing um 43 35 is on criminal Behavior and um this particular one has several required changes uh there's the changes are required for reporting for when their parents for when they're filed as suspected to be the victim of a crime the only time that we have something that we suspect I mean our first call is to the parents typically I mean other than um law enforcement if it's a you know emergency situation but we call parents um unfortunately you know we have to do that so um well unfortunately it happens so we have to do that um uh it requires some updates to Legal references which are new but we'll have that in there as
069well 42 or 47 20 are the surveys of students and it adds a required reference in a state law um and we're talking about specifically opt-in versus opt out and so um it act on many of the surveys parents will have to opt in there are some that are protected that um uh are opted out and we can keep that language and we will have a list of all of those that we do and where it falls for you all um the next one is on student health services and so we've compiled a list of all the different student health services within our district including Mental Health Services nursing Health Services across the board and identified which ones are protected under this wall and which ones are not we do have clarification that if a
070nurse or if a child drops over and is seizing a nurse can provide medical assistance without a parent's permission at that moment obviously we're going to do our best to do what's right for that time and of course get a hold of the parent as as his protocol um so they have recommended and some required legal references in 6120 then in 7300 which is the last one um are the staff responsibilities and um it adds a responsibility for an employee um to support parental involvement and never encourage a student to withhold information from their parents when I read that I thought who in the world would do that I mean of course we're going to tell our parents um you know we we don't ever want there to be a divide between parents and children
071and so you know obviously um you know if a child's an abusive situation that is very much an exception not the rule um but certainly that's a part of the responsibilities in that that are recommended in this update so that was a lot um you know to go if you want to go line by line we can do that or um I just don't know that that's um necessary um because we're going to get some feedback from parents and then at that time at our next meeting I'd like to uh um go over whatever questions that you have highlight the changes that um that are required and then of course if you have any recommended uh changes to those policies we can do that at the October meeting but then you will have had the
072opportunity to hear more on the parents Bill of Rights if you want to attend the virtual parent meeting you will have had an opportunity to hear in public comment from parents at the October meeting be able to add any language do discussions at that time and then of course the December meeting is when um they can potentially go in to consent because you would have worked through those policies what is the deadline for the state again um it's December so all of this has to be done I think it's by December 15th I don't remember off the top of my head um and then for an effective policy um to go into or to go into fact January 1 or the first day of school after January one I read January 16th on something is
073that I think it's a principles also they have to have in place on gen they were supposed to be in September 15th and they moved it to January 16th so this is um if I'm thinking correctly because there have been quite a few updates the January the January deadline is what DPI is going to be providing to us but I think they're supposed to have it by um the uh end of this month so before November 1st so that we can make it as a part of that next policy but we will be discussing this it's on our agenda for the next principal and director's meeting which is next Monday so that now that we have um the most well now that this is in law and we have some clarifications to it now we
074can act upon it differently other than what's already required I do have a question about the school system mental health plan okay um is that going to be different than what we've had Jamie or will it be very similar to what we've had so life coordinating you guys approved the training plan and the other containers and um that that's all that's the same thing it's to my knowledge it's all the same thing it just has to be um available and accessible well dedicated um school counselor still be part of our health plan yes will they be taking other classes instead of continuing to do Consulting with the children and doing the you know the job which they hold that certification for sure um so at each school there's different levels of how they enter um
075how they intervene in their role in a particular situation and so they'll be the person that holds that part well I I'm very concerned about uh if you looked at some of the information that within this field they gave surveys and the sixth grade survey it was not it we've had surveys that showed that our sixth graders are not doing as well as they have been in the past and I'm very concerned about us not having one person who is responsible for our guidance program at each school because I feel like that those folks need to be dedicated to that and to be able to respond to whatever emergency they have I do not like that they might be included in some kind of rotation to provide um time for and I'm all for teachers
076get all the plenty of time they can get but not an expensive mental health and part of that is this Suicide Prevention thing that we are involved in that have written that grant for but I'm very adamant that we keep our guidance folks available for those kids that need that it seems to be getting more and more every year we review a little bit more about our data in just a few minutes with our kids and sometimes you're correct um in each building we're very fortunate here we have counselors in each building and multiple and other buildings and so those folks will be the people on call and that are appropriate to deal with those situations because they will not be in the classroom to um from a proactive basis in mental health certainly we
077want to make sure that our children are receiving some of the social emotional supports on a proactive basis um so that they have the skills to be able to develop some of this self-control and some of the skills to code whenever um whenever they have um issues so you know certainly I don't want to ever take them out of the classroom but they shouldn't be you know 24 7 in the classroom that would never be the case well you know all of our guidance folks have always conducted small groups and and those Gardens the pieces that they're supposed to but I would be very concerned about a person who one of my personal people who are in the classroom that are not available to our students and I'm seeing that that might be the case
078I'd like to see that change because I don't think that's in the best interest of our students we can talk about that in another time you can give me some more information thank you any other questions anything else you have on that no I like I said there that'd be October 17th at 5 30 is when we'll do the uh vertical meetings with parents so that way they can um hear all the updates again most of them are already happening within our schools our students uh our our parents our teachers uh our administrators work well together um so a lot of this is not a big change but there are some things that are a change such as you know uh names and permission and of course um an updated um complaint procedure um it
079has to be added to the policy and we will updated um accordingly well thank you so much a lot more work to be done there next we've got the ELD program highlights looks like I've got several folks coming up Miss Taylor Miss Evans yeah okay all right please thank you for having us uh we're going to talk a little bit about the English language development standards formerly known as English as a second language um I'm Lisa sivaja and I teach English language development at Mountain View Elementary School good evening more Dr Cox my name is Kathy Evans and I'm the English language development teacher at Westwood Elementary School and also at Ashe County High School and like Lisa said we're here tonight to tell you a little bit about our program and the work we
080do with multilingual Learners and their families we also have a third ELD teacher on our team honor Ruiz who is not able to join us tonight in addition we have an EOD tutor Katie Bigelow we're fortunate to have an interpreter and migrant education tutor Dr Kim Pitts and we also work with Julie Taylor our title III director in addition to that we collaborate with Michelle player the migrant education program coordinator for Ashe County we have migrant families who help with the pumpkin and Christmas tree industry in Ashe County every fall so our mission is to provide instruction profession development communication and family engagement in Ashe County Schools we teach and tutor our multilingual Learners daily twice a year we provide professional development for our classroom and content Area Teachers communication with our families is consistent
081and ongoing annually we hold bilingual family nights and bilingual apparent leadership team meetings another thing we want to talk about is our recently adopted English language development standards DPI developed these new English language development standards to support the diverse needs of our multilingual Learners to provide English language proficiencies by teaching language and content together and to assist with planning instruction and professional learning so here in Orange County we have a monster investigative five-part implementation plan to include the items that you see on the slide back in the summer of 2022 the ELD teachers attended professional development provided by DPI on the new standards and since then we've been slowly implementing and integrating that into our curriculum because it is a process we've also provided district-wide professional development for teachers and we started out in the
082fall of last year we talked a little bit about a few language uses that you see on the slide here which are narrating form explain and argue um we also took some time this spring to talk about writing content and language objectives because we felt like uh that would help instruction for all students not just our multilingual learners last January we had a meeting for our Spanish-speaking parents and gave them an opportunity to learn about the standards we also reviewed the North Carolina parent caregiver guide and we celebrated our multimedual Learners accomplishments and in this past spring um annually we completed our needs assessment and reflected on our implementation process and that process each year includes an ELD parent and an EMD teacher and also Michelle and the next steps uh we're going to continue
083with this process we want to reflect on our work and Implement new lessons and resources full implementation should be in place by 2027-2029 and additional resources if any of you are interested can be found at the North Carolina ELD standard resources fund and also you can look at the parent caregiver Drive English language development so thank you very much for your time I'm totally excited about what our students are learning and the new information that they're receiving from the state as well and I want to Bride on these ladies um and um today we had a visit from another school district specifically to look at their work because our students are making far better progress than the average student in the state and it's because of their hard work it's because of the extra mile
084they go on behalf of children and it's because of how they partner with other teachers to make sure that we're working together so that all students succeed so congratulations and thank you for that leadership and I don't know what the problem is but Mike there's not when I open the document it's blank I would like to have a copy of it oh absolutely yes minus two it goes to the downloads you have to go into downloads to find it I'll send you I will put that in you don't see it on here yeah it's everything they had up on the screen there but they don't need anything yeah yeah next we've got the 21st century after school program update good evening hello I am Molly Dallas Porter I am this year's after school program coordinator
085uh let me tell you a little bit about after school so we're the 21st century Community Learning Center scrant we are very proud to have this grant I think it's incredibly needed in our County and I think a lot of people have agreed with that and we're the only School District in the entire Northwest that has received this grant yes we're the only one that keeps the grant all anyone else in the region is an outside resource and not the school system so 2022 and 2023 school year review our requirements for the program was the 150 students meet at least 90 hours in their time during the program we started the program Midway through September and ran until the end of the year we served 161 students total students within the school year 81 at
086Westwood 61 on Mountain View and 19 at Blue Ridge in our results the average student attended 248 hours and attended a 119 days out of the 153 days the program was open and 154 students met all the requirements the few that then don't meet their requirements they started very late in the year and they were more needs based so even though they could they needed the program we weren't able to start them until around spring break so that's the only reason they didn't meet the requirements our performance according to the teacher and parent surveys 98 of the students in the program showed Improvement in all compelling areas behaving well in class participating in class and turning in their homework we're really proud of her homework progress we've worked very hard to do that we sign
087off on all of anything that we help with our homework and we've talked to parents and teachers the same about all of the homework needs for each of our students in the summer of 2023 we did our summer program completely free to any of our students we served 100 students and we were required to serve 100 students for the full summer of eight weeks that we operated and it was Monday through Friday 7 30 to 5 30 PM we served 100 students in total we split the time between two schools so in June we were at Mountain View and in July we were in Westwood our results were a student's averaged around 238 hours of the 400 possible hours we employed 10 group leaders and two coordinators and our field trips we had two field
088trips to GE and the Sheriff's Department our performance 74 of the students who shared Improvement in the following areas behaving well during activities I actively participating in the summer program activities and demonstrating academic progress during their summer programming every day we had our planning which myself and the other coordinate on-site coordinators last year worked on to plan the whole summer ahead of time we provided math reading and enrichment skills throughout the summer so every day we had those different skill sets that were met so we have a lot of plans for this coming year we we are very proud that we started day one of school we did not have to wait um so a few of our students had to wait just so we could remedy some of our staffing but we are very
089happy that we got to start day one of school and provide that um our current plans our community we need more Community Partners I have a whole list of Community Partners down on the list um we'll be utilizing our teachers School parent Partnerships so we've been attending PTO meetings we are sending out surveys to parents we are sending out surveys to teachers and then we are we are all in constant communication with that skill set so we're going to have family nights and passive programming we have had our family orientation night but each quarter we will be planning different kinds of family nights and when we're not able to have nightly things especially during the winter time because it can get a little dangerous to be out very late uh we'll have what we call
090passive programming so that will involve newsletters sometimes we'll send out recipes of the month different things like that that parents can take home with them and share with their children uh we have the green light reward system that we started this year and the green light reward system is all students start out on a yellow and when they start at the day with us and after school and if they are well behaved having a great day being being respectful to their to their teachers and classmates then they will move up to a green light if they are having a really hard day and we are not making great choices they'll move down to a red light and parents will be able to ask what light they were on that day students that earn the most
091green lights during their weeks they will get prizes and rewards and students that are in the supporting lights within this nine weeks will get a reward from me and a very special reward for me and then the school that earns the most percentage of green lights during the nine weeks will get an ice cream party so we we're very reward reward based we want to reward all of our students so we will be operating two full days for a required future BD days where school would normally be closed we will have October the 20th and March the 8th that we will operate the full day for our student we will we had to work it out with our staffing that we will only operate at one school but we will take students from all the
092schools whoever decides to sign up and we're working with bacteria staff and our principals to figure out those Logistics out we have this year we have opened applications to the middle school we are working on it slowly on interest um working with Dr mopen on getting some interest worked up for the middle school I would like to offer 10 to 15 spots for middle school students and they will be most up to Blue Ridge and have their own room where they will do their after school activities so that my court my coordinator up at Blue Ridge will be able to flex between the two um so this current year is we have 173 students currently enrolled we have 29 of which I actually just went up we have 34 of Blue Ridge down and Mountain
093View has 63 and Westwood has 83. so the applications for the Middle School are open and our goal is is to accept 200 total students uh we have employed one program coordinator that's me um we have three on-site coordinators nine group leaders and one more may be hired according to our budget so we are in the process of hiring uh and doing um going through the applications and interviews for that uh this meets our ratio recommendations of one leader to 20 students and coordinators on site for support and administrative needs we saw last year that our on-site coordinators ended up with the group so they would have their own 20 students while also trying to help the other groups and it did not work as well so we decided to change our budget so we
094were able to have that 1 to 20 ratio and the coordinators are available for emergencies and different things like that and it has worked out much better and it's smooth very smooth running um and we will have monthly training planned for all of our employees so we did our orientation plan next month we have some CPR and frustrating aim training as well as trauma training and we just we have a whole list of training which I'll go over at the end on my last slide and our applications we have changed it to instead of just paper applications like we had last year we now have an online application in English and Spanish so parents are able to access that through the Ash County Schools district website and they can fill it out online they can
095look at the handbook online everything is accessible right there they could pull out their phone and that seems to have worked a lot better as far as organization for us this year and I believe next are our plans for summer 2024 so plans for summer 2024 we have more Community Partnerships and experiencing our County a little bit more we want to link with the museum the public library and some other Community Partners so kids actually get to experience action more and really understand where they live and why we live in such a great Community we have transitional instruction plan for Rising K through middle which we are working on the budgetary needs for that at the moment um we will start early registration last year we did not start registration for it until May and
096we will start registration for it starting in April um we will serve 120 students because we were noticing we really only were serving around 80 students full-time over the summer last year because a lot of students decided to take more time off for vacation so we decided to bump that up to 120 students so we really do have a hundred students that are attending full-time and we'll have of course Community field trips and training for all of our staff on specific summer needs and our Community Partners and school Partners we have already started with Tammy Woods our nutrition specialist she has been doing taste testing with after school which is really awesome uh it's through the procurement Alliance that she has been able to provide those taste testing and the kids really enjoyed it we
097have already done it at each of the elementary schools uh the park rangers and McRae wildlife rescue I've been able to contact them last year we worked at the park rangers I'm an alumni of Lisa McCray so we've been discussing having them coming for today with us at the public library everybody knows how you used to work at the library so I have very close connection with them and we hopefully especially over the summer we'll be able to attend their Shopper reading program more and have a little bit more involvement with them because the public library has a lot of resources for students especially using their student numbers so you can check out books with them the NC Cooperative assistant and Ashe County Agriculture we are working closely with them about recipes and nutrition and
098different things that we can do the Museum of Ash of course emergency and safety personnel we did this last year and we are continuing to do it bring in EMS police firefighters and Etc and kids always enjoy that um the African Arts Council I'm working with Rebecca to do some different uh activities with them Ashe County beekeeper Association Kimberly Pitts was able to help me with that last year and kids had a ton of fun you can see our buddy Colton in abisooch and in the corner there uh at the State Employees Credit Union Bank we do a financial literacy month and usually and last year they were able to provide us with some different things and we want to continue that relationship also New River Water and Soil Conservation we're hoping to invite them
099to come see us in March and my last slide is new goals and how we're going to accomplish them at the schools we're able to have more usable space for the students we are very lucky that our principals and our the school staff have helped us in figuring more spaces that we are able to use especially with the amount of students that we have Westwood we have two classrooms that we're able to use as well as the gem cafeteria and playgrounds and now we're able to use the library for any needs whatever they need to use bacteria or something like that Blue Ridge has allowed us a secondary classroom which will be great whenever middle school students are able to start up there and Mountain View we have our classroom cafeteria in the gym for
100essentially the full time that the students are there so we're very grateful for our principals helping us work those situations out um and working with the schools on family nights and other events we have coming up at Mountain View and Blue Ridge they'll be doing their Fall Festival night and I know some of my staff at Mountain View will be participating in that fall festival but we want to make sure that we're participating in as many family nights as possible um and our staffing in August we did our orientation um this has changed a little bit where we had to push back our CPR training uh most of my staff is ricp are first aid trained I think I have about four people that are needing it because they were just tired and October will
101also be doing the trauma and informed practices training November Community Partners in December lockdown and luck look at the data we're going to look at the data yeah and in January literacy strategy strategies that we'll be working with the public library on and beyond that we'll be doing other training and probably start training for our summer program um our students more academic opportunities being able to help for to prepare for testing and other tutoring needs we're very much focusing on how are we going to make our students more academically successful and we're working closely with the teachers like I said trying to figure out who needs help where who might need extra credit who might need extra time on their homework to make sure they're achieving and providing transitional needs for Rising students that's one
102of our goals this year um our partners by reaching out to more Community Partners this gives the students more opportunities to experience new things and also supporting our schools will in turn help support after school of course my communication uh do you have any questions for me I have a plum manner too okay I forgot to see this group work very frequently I have my grandson enrolled and if we are most it's amazing what they get done in the afternoons the amount of children that they are able to help in the afternoon it's very very positive and if Henry's happy man is happy so Mama's happy everybody's happy so we we I can't say enough about what a service this provides for our Working Families because um we would have to have Nana Camp if
103we didn't have after school it would be full rotten so I really appreciate what you guys do yeah any other questions or comments thank you again appreciate it okay I think we've got Miss little and some others coming up sounds better yeah Jane little and um maybe some of our health department Partners the youth risk behavioral survey data [Music] um and then this is our survey this takes quite some time to calculate all the data so um Karina handed me uh sent me a couple of documents that are hundreds of pages long evaluating all that but she has kind of convinced and some of that into um a two-pager which you have had access to and then she's going to go through some of the highlights for us is there a way to bring up
104the slides yeah Jamie is it attachment on the agenda videos it goes down I think it goes scroll stay on doesn't it yeah or just you know it's only two teachers that's all that was on there okay okay well I just know um for the part of the presentation I didn't want to just read off of this because everyone can read themselves I actually was showing Trends throughout the year um because the yrbs has been called since like 2014 2011. um I haven't seen that side this is the only one that was provided yeah okay no worries so I'm just gonna read off this no worries all right first of all good evening I'm born and Dr Cox my name is Karina Romero umika I'm part of app Healthcare on the community health team with
105a focus on health promotion and so I'm here to share with you guys the data from the latest yrbs survey that we conducted in the spring of 2023 of course you show Jamie who helped to support and can coordinate these efforts and as a note with respect to the timelinement of this presentation I realized my slides aren't up but that's okay um I'm not sharing the trends but I'm just going to share some of the certain data points that we have and I'm gonna try to get through this quickly because I know I'm holding us from the end of the meeting so um first we had quite a lot of respondents this past um school year uh drastically increased from the 2021 reports that we did so it's 562 for middle school respondents and then
106I'm 685 for the high school respondents that we received so for the first question um you guys can see the data point on here but the question that we asked was over the last two weeks how often have you been bothered by feeling nervous anxious or on edge and for Middle School um that was 62.1 percent which one went up from 40.6 and 2021 and then for high school it was 56.8 which is up from 53.8 53.8 in 2021. the next question the actual question we asked was over the last two weeks how often have you been bothered by not being able to stop or control worrying um and as you guys can see uh the Middle School uh the opinion is 0.5 and the high school is 22.2 percent next question that we asked
107was during the past 12 months did you ever feel so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that you stop doing some usual activities and as you guys can uh see again 37.2 percent um which is up from 24.6 in the middle school and then for high school it also uh went up a little bit with 33.3 percent um responding that they do feel hopeless for more than I think so and I want to clarify this too um our middle school starts in seventh grade this data was sixth seventh and eighth grade so it really impacts all of our schools yes so the next um topic that we covered and again there are kind of questions surrounding this another time but a handful but we are only highlighting
108one for tonight and it was surrounding suicide and self-harm the question did vary a bit between middle school and high school so the question that was asked in the middle school was have you ever seriously thought about killing yourself um and that data point was at 21.5 which is up from 14.6 and 20 to 2021 the question that was asked about high school um data was during the past 12 months did you ever seriously consider attempting suicide which is at 16.5 of the respondents said yes in high school and so the next topic we're going to cover today are Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drugs um and just to note that some of the ones that you'll see here either we didn't include middle school because of the fact that the question wasn't asked in that
109grade level those grade levels um and also yeah so the rest of them should be on there so the first one highlighting the charter all the cigarette um the Middle School we actually asked this one for the first time it was never included in the past survey I was at point five percent uh students said yes and 4.9 which is going down steadily throughout the years or the next one was about the electronic vapor products also known as e-cigarettes and you guys can also see that 5.8 percent of middle schoolers are saying that they are using it um in the past 30 days with 17.4 percent of pacefulers um thing that they are using the E-Cigarettes um so this next question during the past three days on how many days did you have at least
110one drink of alcohol was what we asked and uh as you guys can see again 3.6 in Middle School responded that they have drank at least one drink of alcohol in the past three days with 11.9 in high school saying that they have the next question that was asked was one that was just going toward the high schoolers um that touched a little bit on binge drinking so it was during the past three days on how many days did you have four or more drinks with alcohol in a row that is within a couple of hours if you are female or five or more drinks of alcohol in a row if you are a male um and this was 6.4 of a high school students responded that they did consume this much alcohol on one
111or more days in the past 30 days the next question was surrounding marijuana use the question was during the past 30 days have you used marijuana and this was no change for Middle School it remained at 1.6 of respondents answering yes and then for high school it did for slightly up at 11.7 from 8.9 in 2021 the next question we asked was surrounding prescription drugs um during the past three days have you used prescription pain drugs not prescribed to you and um the respondents in high school that was that said yes was um at 3.8 and then the Middle School respondents um or 2.2 and both of these went down from the um responses in 2021 and then the final question that we asked around alcoholics was actually touching on Delta 8 and 10. um
112the question was just asked so it was during the past 30 days have you used Delta even Delta 10 and 8.3 percent of um Ash high school students reported using Delta a group up to 10 in the past 30 days so the last questions that we touched on um were just surrounding if the if the student felt alone in their life the question was do you feel a lot in your life and um high schoolers so that they agree that they do feel alone in their life which is down from 24.4 and then um for the final one that we're going to touch on today is the percent of students that do not feel a strong connection to at least one teacher or adult at school and that also went down with the response with
113the responses that they do not at 13.5 down from 18 20 21. and that is all I have I will share the trend which are really cool to look at um just looking at what these questions have garnered and all the ups and downs and um it's pretty interesting things I'll just say one quick note so the 2019 data was literally right before we went home like not many months before falling down then the 2021 day and we were doing a b days so our our response rates were I think execute our data a little bit however um I will say I think some of our numbers for this group of data have gone back to pre-pandemic on some of the good which is good but we're seeing increases of some things that are alarming
114so it's just very interesting to get in there and look and then the presentation does show that over multiple years worth of data um and we try to address it like we're trying to see what what it is to time any reason I know we were they were out in 2020 why did they not collect anything 2020. every other year every other okay all right you know and it's actually kind of different for a middle school um I know the first one was 2021 and then the next one I think was 2017 and the Middle School ones and like Dr Cox was saying um there's some report that only show the sons and eighth graders and then the sixth graders have their own report um so the past few years it's been all together but
115yeah then the data for the high school starts in 2014 2017 2019 2021 and 2023. so the value of all that Trend data is just yeah it's great um just to kind of see going on I just figured it'd be higher in 2020 when we were shut down yeah does anybody have any questions and we did get your PowerPoint so we've been looking at it yeah and you guys have any questions my contact information is at the end and I know the reports Jamie has and that's okay honestly that's okay um and so if there's any other questions that arise feel free to reach out and yeah but we didn't get it so we were all looking at it a little bit and I'll tell you the health department usually utilizes the state of what
116type of educational services and other services to invest in um I know it's critical for our grants purposes uh the ones that Jamie utilizes um so that we can maximize our staffing and support um anyway I it's humbling looking at this data to see where our children really are and some of the negative Trends they continue um the one positive piece I see here especially the question the last question from the high school is that they are feeling less alone and like they do have a strong connection um uh more so that shows that we are at least moving in the right direction as far as the programming that we have the adults that we have in their lives to help make a difference but still this is really it it's humbling now the questions
117or comments hearing none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn make a motion we adjourn do I have a second second I would like to say thank you for coming and sharing this information I'm hoping our Trends are going up it still concerns me that we have 13 or whatever that don't Quark connected one percent's too many in my opinions so I hope we can continue to work on those things thank you thank you James thank you all those in favor raise your hands thank you all so much