001immediately thought of is my daughter is taking AP Lang at Asheville High right now and consistently the content is writers of color and thinkers of color and I've it makes me remember my own high school experience and it was nothing like that and it made me feel glad that um there isn't there's work um because I definitely like Amy said I grew up thinking everyone lives like me because that's the message not because it was naive not just because it was it's just what the message was swimming in and also as you think through that thinking about how our cultures will organize themselves in affinity spaces and so that protects the dominant culture from having to be confronted by other cultural groups. Anyone else? All right. How about individualism? How would you summarize that? [laughter]
002>> Good for you, Jesse. I um one thing that I started thinking as I was reading this, I kind of went all over. that would be much beyond the reading and thinking about um the American narrative and the dominant American story and how how leadership in this country for so long uplifted this idea of the individual and what they can do to um the bootstraps mentality. [clears throat] uh and um how often that's used not just in white spaces but in spaces across the country for folks who might come from disenfranchised backgrounds or historically marginalized backgrounds to embrace that individualism and that's the reason that we don't see success. Um and it was something that I was raised with similar to what you said Amy. It's not that it was I don't remember a conversation
003my parents sitting me down and saying hey this [clears throat] individualism is the way to go but it was just it I was swimming in it so to speak. Marta likes to use that word swimming in that culture for so long that this kind of idea of individualism everyone was responsible for their own um success and um it only depended on their own success. And it's um again Amy to your point to I it's something I have to continue to remind myself of that um that that is a false narrative but it's something that especially United States we love to uplift. Um, one of the nuances that is interesting to me is that I um I mean it's an indictment of myself in the sense that I've I I had I didn't I I did
004work really hard, right? um and um to go to college and to do all the quote right things as an individual. But I also was taught that I was only um I don't know what is worthy might not be the right word, but that my um my faith and and my ethic in my family was that you do those things to uplift the rest of the community. That you do it um you you enter to learn and exit to serve as Welssley's model as I recall. And it's that idea that you know but at the same time what does that mean and um there was the individualism was palpable within that because it is still what can I do um and um so there's a it's there's an interesting nuance around that I think um
005that he this article talks a lot about of course well-intentioned white people of which I think I'm probably in the heart of and Um, it hasn't stopped me from being part and taking advantage of a culture that advantaged me at every turn. All right. How about avoidance? I'd love to jump in on this one because I think like the word that I wrote was centering comfort >> and like thinking about as a a white white-bodied woman and um what this dominant culture does so sneakily, right, is to make it possible for members to just live live our lives and think, well, this isn't for me. I don't have to think about it. Peggy Macintosh's Invisible Knapsack was referenced in this and that was something I read years and years ago and it's a good reminder
006that like there's a lot of us in our beyond like in the biggest possible picture like the idea of avoiding hard things, avoiding conflict, avoiding things that make us uncomfortable. I think our culture like large is is doing a lot of that right now and it's not healthy. It's not good for any of us, but this is a hallmark I believe of the the dominant culture and being able to say if it makes me uncomfortable, I can just not look and I can live a full rich life. >> Well, and I appreciated the emphasis on the fact that we're told not to look. Like [laughter] we're we're educated that not to look. Um, we might be educated to try to um to be aware of others suffering, but we are not educated to see our
007own complicity or even the fact that there exists a dominant culture of which we are a part. Um, dominant being the really important word there. Um, okay. I think the more complicated one is decontextualization of all those ones. What was your takeaway from that section? The phrase I wrote is generational trauma is real. That's what I wrote. The idea that the I think in dominant culture, it's very enticing to say I didn't do anything. Like I I'm okay. Like every everybody's clean slate. We all started off clean and we're all and that's, you know, we just know that that's an unfair way to keep advantage and that's not okay. Well, for me as a student of the law, it was um it's loud and clear [laughter] um how and we can actually look at um
008the Well, I'll just say that I probably should not say more at this moment. Thank you. >> All right. anyone else about decontextualization? I think it builds on the other three. So, you can decontextualize and say, well, you know, I don't understand why that's that problem. I grew up in the same city. I attended the same schools. I was in the same classrooms and I didn't have that problem. So, it's easy to say, well, we all did the same thing. And I obviously, you know, I worked harder. I did something different. So, I am worthy of those benefits. All right. So, that's like the teaser. Get you thinking about those aspects of dominant culture, how they play. And we're going to dig into my recommendation being in August. We kind of we do a refresher
009of all six conditions by going through the second part of this chapter which is processing the first five through the lens of the dominant culture and how it's seen and that at the March not the March the September leadership or the September work session when we have the retreat that's the longer one we do a deeper dive and invite um district and principles to join us in those conversations. ations so that we can all come to some common understanding and what we're going to do now that we have processed this. And the other piece is we're going to offer another round of courageous conversations right before school starts on the two optional work days so that we can invite all staff to participate on days where they have the option to work. Hopefully they can
010join because those are two days that are available for our staff already on their calendars. Um so hopefully we'll get a nice full classroom. any of our leaders who weren't able or joined us later in time will have that opportunity to attend so that we'll have um a nice base for us to work from from there. So that's my recommendation and then I think going forward after that is just always looking through as we're making big decisions and thinking through it's like let's process this through the six conditions to make sure that we're not prioritizing one group over another. Um, and I think those kind of digging in and layering that work together because, you know, a culture isn't good or bad until it excludes others because they feel like they because theirs is the
011one and only and the best. And we just need to make sure that we're looking at things through multiple perspectives and joining um, you know, bringing those to the table that are going to be impacted the most by decisions that are being made. So, if that's amendable, um that wraps up for this one and I'll send out some reminders as we go through um August and se Jul July so that you're ready and we'll move forward. Any other closing comments or thoughts? Okay. Thank you. Um so, Chris Campbell has arrived. Thank you. I hope you got a chance to get yourself collected. and we've pushed we just switched the first order the order of the first two items on the agenda. So, uh my understanding is you're going to spend about a half hour with
012us. Okay, I'll turn it over to Chris Campbell. >> Very good. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your patience. I was uh caught over at AB Techch and a close session there, but we were able to finish it up. So, let me see. Okay, wonderful. So, this is um kind of from periodically from time to time we stop, take a take a breath and go back to some of the things you learned when you first got on the board as board members and working with each other and your your policies, your procedures, the law, some constraints, some other things. So, this is probably a good time to do a refresher. I think the last time I was with you was at your retreat, uh which was some time ago
013now. Uh so now that you've had some time to move forward and to kind of come back together and spend a few minutes coalesing around what's best practice in working with each other, working with your superintendent, your administration as a board and I think it's also important too to recognize I call these adult conversations. These are difficult times. Um I have been associated with the Asheville City Schools for over 20 years. They're like all our other clients, there's always something going on. There's always an issue that some folks are happy about and some folks are not happy about and that's the human condition. But I think we can all agree that just even in the last few years and with the advent of social media and all that it has brought us and all that
014it has taken from us, it makes your job even more complicated. Uh and it makes interactions with the public even more complicated. So with that lens, with that layover or that overlay rather, I think it's a good time to kind of discuss some of these things. So I'm going to kind of go through basic boardsmanship 101 with a little extra that we haven't talked about before, your superintendent's contract, a few other things that you need to be knowledgeable about. And for the sake of time, because I know you have a really heavy agenda, if you don't mind, let me get through all the slides. There's only 20 or so slides and I'll be pretty expeditious and then I'll stop and we can have some discussion and see if you got any questions if that's okay
015with you as board members. Okay, great. This whole thing boils down to a single word, trust. And if you don't have it, you have to find a way to get it and you have to maintain it and you have to care it and you have to feed it and you have to take care of it and you have to revisit it. Uh trust is something that is earned. I think we all know that trust is something that can be lost. Trust is something that can be regained. And you have to keep that word in perspective in your role as public trustees of the Asheville City Schools. And what your role is and frankly what your role is not and I think it's almost more important sometimes to revisit what your role is not as much
016as what it is. But trusting each other is where it starts. uh finding that way to trust each other, to have difficult conversations, to have what I call adult conversations about things is very important. Also, to maintain that trust and knowing that, for example, if you're in close session and you're talking about a difficult personnel issue, having that trust that you're not going to hear at All Day Darling or down on Eagle Street the next day what you said in close session and knowing that your fellow board members are going to keep what you say in confidence. There are only a few times that you can have those discussions. They revolve around students. They revolve around legal issues and they revolve around employees. That's probably 90% of what you're able to talk about in a
017closed session. You've got to be able to trust each other. So, you also have to trust each other that even when you're out there in the public talking about the board, talking about the board's business, you're going to be upfront with folks and you're also going to recognize your role. And I always want to come back to the fact that you're educators. All of you are educators. Well, if I'm a member of the public, I voted for you, Pepe, or I voted for you, George. I did not vote for the superintendent. So, naturally, I'm going to come to you if I'm upset about something. And being able to educate people about what your role is and how that works, I think, is incredibly important. So, trusting the superintendent, the administration, and we'll talk more about
018that. And then, as your attorney, and and Amy was talking about legal education, trust the process. And I'm a huge fan of the process, not only because I'm an attorney, because it works. And I've seen it work. Anytime you have a difficult decision. Anytime you've got a contentious issue, when you funnel it back through the established process, that's there. That's there in law, that's there in your policy, that's there in the superintendent's contract. That is the best way to get to the right answer. It's the best way for all the voices to be heard. It's a it's the best way for everyone to be validated. And when you go outside the process, you start breaking down the trust and frankly it becomes inefficient and can lead to some negative consequences as well. So that word
019trust, I think, sums up everything I'm about to talk about. Just a quick reminder, you're one of a board. You have no authority. And sometimes you have to remind people that I'm only one member of the Asheville City Schools. I have no authority whatsoever. Your chair has authority to run your meetings, to set the agenda. Outside of that, none of you have any individual authority. You only have authority when you're sitting here together as a board making decisions as a board. Personnel is uniquely statutoily uh prescribed in this state that you do not hire, you do not fire unless it is a recommendation from your superintendent. And we've talked about you supervise one person and you work with one person on personnel issues and especially the hiring firing decisions. And that is something that I
020think you have to educate folks about some sometimes too when they come to you wanting somebody hired or wanting somebody appointed to a specific job is to say hey that's not my job. The superintendent makes those recommendations to us as a board and we make those decisions. So I think that is something to bear in mind too as far as the statute. How do we handle people who are not happy? Because again, that's what you're going to hear from, right? You are going to hear from disgruntled parents. You're going to hear from disgruntled students. You're going to hear from disgruntled employees from time to time. And how do we handle that? Well, your policy is very straightforward as far as the process. It should be handled according to the chain of command. And this is
021something that everybody learns when they first come on the school board. But if I'm a parent am not happy then with a something a teacher did then the educational process is I need to talk to the teacher and if I'm not happy with the result I get from the teacher I need to talk to the principal and if I'm not happy with the decision the principal makes that's when I come to central office. You need to educate folks and remind them that there is a process to be handled. You as board members do not solve individual problems. You are not advocates for individual parents or individual employees. That's not your role as a board member. Now, we'll talk about how you can advocate within the process in a few minutes, but you are not an
022individual advocate for anyone because there is a process to be followed so that we can get to the right answer so that we can get all the facts out. Helping folks get to the right person is huge. Saying to them, would you like me to introduce you to the principal? Would you like me to introduce you to the superintendent? Making those connections is I think something that uh you can always do with folks and giving the superintendent a heads up. Always ask yourself the question, if I were the superintendent, would I want to know about this parent that came to me upset about something the classroom teacher said or did? You might want to give the superintendent a heads up. Hey, I routed the parent back to the teacher or the principal, but I just
023wanted to let you know this parent called me. This was their concern. Sounded fairly serious. I've rev they've thought it was very serious. I've routed it back to the principal, but I just Maggie wanted you to know. I think that's always something to keep in mind. Remember, too, that your chair and your superintendent are your designated spokespeople. So when someone speaks on behalf of the school board, it's the chair or the superintendent or their designates. One of the things we've traditionally said is that the chairperson should be very careful when she is speaking about her personal opinion as a board member versus the position of the board to to designate that. It is not a bad idea. And in fact, if you look at, I believe the policy on web pages and things for board
024members makes it clear that board members need to be real careful to designate they are speaking on behalf of themselves versus the full board. And let's stop there for a minute. You have first amendment rights. You do not give up those first amendment rights when you become a public official. If you disagree with the decision that this board has made, you are free to tell the entire world. Thank goodness in the United States of America that you disagree. The point of the process is to be clear that you're speaking to others about your opinion versus the full board. Just an easy example, a cosmetology program versus an automotive repair program. You were in favor of automotive repair. The board decided to do cosmetology. You are free to tell anybody and everybody that you disagreed with
025that decision. It's just best practice. go back to trust to say I didn't agree with that decision. Here were my reasons. That was my opinion as a board member that the board has decided to go in this direction. Now, of course, I would encourage you to go further and say once the board makes a decision as a board member, I'm going to support that. But again, that's up to you. In the United States of America, you can say as a board member, I don't think we should have done that and I'm never going to be in support of it. That's fine. That's your first amendment right. But clearly again making sure that the public understands your position or your feelings versus the position of the full board I think is something to keep in mind
026whenever we're talking about spokesperson. Referring student and personnel issues for investigation, research or study is the big one. If there is a student, an employee, or someone that is upset or there's an issue that needs to be investigated, that is the job of your superintendent. You pay the superintendent to investigate. You pay the superintendent to research and all of her staff and to come back with you with recommendations. It is not your job, and this is an adult conversation, so I'll always give you my honest opinion. it's incredibly inefficient for you to try to research something and to come up with a firm proposal. Now, if you want to look into something and provide that information to the superintendent and the staff to assist them, let's say there's a reading program or something that you're
027really in favor of and the board has asked the administration to look into something, by all means, provide these folks with the information. You know, here are some things I've been looking at. Here's some some research I found. But that is always the most efficient way to do it is to have that recommendation come back to all of you in a setting like this from your administration and to have that information. We'll get into the due process of employee matters and student matters in just a minute. But look at the end of your policy. Individual board members will refrain from taking individual action with regard to complaints other than referring them to the proper administrative person. So right there, it's in your policy that you are not to investigate, try to resolve personnel, student it
028issues. Those are be referred to administration. Here is your contract with your superintendent. Some of you may have forgotten about some of these contract provisions. It's probably been a while since you read Maggie's contract. She is the chief executive officer of the board. She is responsible as the CEO of the Asheville City Schools with all of the employment, physical, and business affairs subject to any powers you reserve to yourself by law, by law, by policy, or board decision. She directs and assigns teachers and other employees of the school under her supervision, organizes, reorganizes, arranges the administrative and supervisory staff, including instruction and business affairs as she deems in the best interest of the school district. She has the authority to accept resignations for and on behalf of the board and in general perform all duties
029incident to being the superintendent under her contract and under law. And her contract says this. The board individually and collectively shall promptly refer all criticisms, complaints, and suggestions called to its attention to the superintendent for study and recommendation. individual board members shall refrain from interference with the administration of school policies except through board action. So again that same sentiment that you as individuals are not to get involved in things other than bringing them to the administration. Now what if a parent or an employee comes to you with a very serious accusation about the superintendent? Well, that's very straightforward. You notify the chair and the chair will decide whether or not to involve legal counsel depending on the severity. The board oversees and deals with the superintendent. And if you're very unhappy with something that the
030superintendent has done, you bring that to the attention of the chair. You can discuss it. It can be discussed in close session. That's personnel. But again, the process is no different. Now you the supervisor are meeting with your one employee the superintendent in a close session to discuss an issue to address an issue just like she would done. So that is the one exception more or less to the rule where you would get involved. And in case some of you uh uh aspiring attorneys who want to go further and say well how do we do that if we really think the superintendent did something inappropriate, something wrong, something unlawful? What you do is you actually will retain an outside, usually an attorney investigator to find out the facts and be able to bring those facts
031to you. Again, you don't do the investigation. You don't look into that. Now, let's get into not only is that best practice, but it's legal. One thing to remember is you are an appellet board. I am back to educating the community. Okay? If I have not had my contract renewed, I can come to you as a board to complain about that. If my child is suspended or expelled and I don't believe that was appropriate, I can appeal to you, the board of education, to have that resolved. If I don't like where my child was assigned to school, I can appeal that. And then there's a catch-all provision that says if it deals with North Carolina law or policy, any final administrative decision made by the superintendent, made by the administration, can be appealed back to
032you, the board of education. So you are to remain impartial because the right of that parent, the right of that employee is to come to you and have an impartial decision maker. And you can't be that impartial decision maker if you're involved at that point. And when we get into this idea of employees who believe they've been wronged being entitled to an impartial hearing ultimately with you if necessary, we're implicating the Constitution. were ina implicating the United States Constitution. And I have to always remind board members, you have qualified immunity from federal allegations, from federal causes of action as long as you don't clearly violate the established constitutional rights of someone, and we'll come back to that in a minute. You have immunity from state causes of action under the state constitution. you have public
033official immunity unless you acted outside the course and scope of your duties and you acted maliciously or corruptly. So again, where do you have the most protection? We've been talking about the protection of employees and students. You have the most protection when you come to meetings and participate in hearings and participate in close sessions and follow the policy. If you're out there doing individual investigations, if you're out there doing things on your own, the facts could determine that you lose these immunities. And folks, this is a real adult conversation. If you were to violate someone's constitutional rights, even without meaning to, not only do you lose immunity, but insurance does not cover constitutional violations. I'm say that again. The insurance policy that you have does not cover damages. Now, the insurance company may pay for
034a lawyer, but they're not going to pay the damages. And with constitutional violations, like we've all seen many times in our society, those can be individual causes of action against the public official, against the individual, not only as to the board. So, that's a very serious reason, I think, to follow the process as well. I don't think any of you got on the board of education to put yourself or your family in any kind of financial risk uh whatsoever. So, that's something good to remember. So that's not covered. So very quickly, the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution says that all of your employees that have contract rights, all these folks sitting here have a right to due process. And due process means an impartial decision maker, somebody to ultimately hear it and make
035a final decision. That means that as board members, yes, and I'll be real quickly your uh employee, you know about me. Uh I'm a teacher. I've been on uh I've had counseling letters. I've had action plans. I've had all kinds of things and you've known about me for two or three years. Okay. That is now going to come before the board because I did something for which the superintendent thinks I should be dismissed. I'm appealing to you. Is it okay for you to know about me as an employee? Yes. You learned about me through your role of being a board member. Not through private investigation, not through something else, but by sitting in meetings, sitting in close sessions. you know things about me. So mere familiarity with the person, the facts, the situation is not
036bias. What's bias is if you've made a fixed decision prior to hearing to vote in a particular way. How is anyone going to know that you've already made up your mind about an employee situation before there's ever a hearing? You open your mouth. Now, let me be real clear. I'm not telling you how to be biased and get away with it. Okay? What I'm telling you is what you say matters. What you say to the community, what you say in social media, all of those things matters. And if you think you know the facts about me and you say things about me out in the public, you may ultimately be determined to be biased and be someone who can't sit on that board because what you have said in the public can be read to
037mean you've already made up your mind. And that's where the bias cases come from. The courts look at what was said in the community, what was said on social media, and then the argument and the conclusion is that board member had already made up their particular mind of what to do. So it doesn't matter that there are seven of you. It doesn't matter how many of you vote. If one of you are biased, then it nullifies the entire decision. So how do you handle that? Well, from time to time, a board will have to designate a hearing panel that doesn't include that biased member so that you don't face an allegation that the board was biased. So, even one biased board member can eliminate it. But then you've got individual rights you owe. Okay. Quickly
038with employees, it's a criminal violation for you to disclose things from someone's personnel file knowingly, willfully, and with malice. Well, what does that mean with with malice? Amy and I will both tell you very quickly. We don't know. That's a jury determination. Over my 30 years of practicing law, I've had cases where judges determined malice that I didn't think there was any. I've had judges determined there wasn't malice in cases where I thought there was. Malice is a mixed question of fact and law. So again, why you were out talking about a personnel issue you learned about in close session, why you disclose something that was told to you about an employee in close session in the public or social media, the reason is going to become very important because depending on how the district
039attorney or someone else might see the reason, it could be determined to be ballots. Uh, and I have seen a I've never in my career had a schoolboard member charged with the misdemeanor of disclosing, but I've seen it come close and I've seen the DA look at it for more than a few weeks in making that decision. So, employees have that confidentiality right. Students have a federal confidentiality right. My recommendation is never going to change to you about students. If someone comes to you to talk and ask you questions about a student, you just tell them, "I can't talk about students. I can't talk about students. There is a federal right that protects student confidentiality and I cannot talk about students." And I would keep it that simple because student issues and student matters quintessentially
040need to be discussed in close session because they've got the federal protection there uh with Furpa. And then finally, you just this is the other end of the flip of the coin or the other end of the book ends. On the one hand, I said you don't lose your first amendment rights by getting on the board, right? You also have no protection from what you say because you are an elected official. None whatsoever. If you say something that is lialous, if you publish, which means tell somebody, put it in writing, put it on social media, send it in an email, something that is false and defamatory, and that means it concerns me, my reputation, my employment, that's what makes it defamatory, then at that point there could be special damages. And that is a lielist
041statement. And one of the tests with a public official, if you're talking about a public official, is whether it was made with reckless disregard for the truth. Well, when you're talking about individual employees, they're not public officials. So, it's not a higher standard for liel. So, we all need to be careful before we say things to make sure we have the facts or whether we can even talk about the facts. But making comments and and making assumptions and conclusions without facts can be liable. And just because it has to do with the school district or a parent or a student or an employee and just because you're an elected official, you have no protection. You have no more protection than anyone else in this room does when it comes to liable statements. And I think
042that's something that's important to remember at all. So, let's put it all together. Okay? Let's put it all together. It's not your job to investigate complaints. It's just not it's not efficient. Um you're not paid to do it. And again, you have to stay impartial in case there's an appeal to the board and you want to hear about things. You have a duty to remain to protect confidentiality. You have a duty to remain impartial. And I use this word in all caps for a reason. It is irresponsibly to comment publicly or privately on matters for which you don't have all the facts. And I want to stop there for a minute because I know this can be frustrating for schoolboard members, but I've got a solution for you. Okay, something happened with an employee. What
043you're hearing concerns you greatly. Point one, you don't have all the facts. So, for you to side with that employee or side with that parent anywhere, especially on social media, when you don't have all the facts, is irresponsible. It is extremely damaging to the Asheville City Schools because if you're an elected board member, if I see that you're making comment about an employee matter, I assume you do have all the facts. I don't know. I elected you. Why wouldn't you have all the facts? So, that's point one. Point two is take employee matters, which you can't know about, right? Well, Chris, we can't know about employee matters, you said, because there might be an appeal. Once a matter is concluded and there is no right to a board appeal and the time frame is usually
04430 days from a final decision. That's usually the time frame for employees to appeal. You can know everything. So let me stop here for a minute. If the board collectively is concerned about what happened in a specific personnel matter, you can call the chair and say I would like for Dr. Fairman to address the entire board in close session as to what happened with that assistant principal, that bus monitor, that teacher, and if the board wants to know collectively because everything you do is as a majority, the superintendent can come into close session and give you all the facts. So, it's not like you don't have a right to ever know. You just can't be involved on the front end. You have to maintain confidentiality and rights. You may be called upon to hear it
045as an appeal, but ultimately if you want to know all the facts, you can know all the facts. And I think that's very important to remember. You're not forfeiting your right as board members. Now, you don't want to micromanage. And y'all knew I was going to say that, right? Just because you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm not so sure what happened with that teacher assistant was the way I would have done things, so I want us to talk to Dr. Maggie about that in close session. No, you this is a democracy. you are a board, you have to go to the chair. You have to tell the chair why you would like to spend time in close session fully discussing a personnel matter. And all of you should make that decision collectively. A majority of
046you, in my opinion, should be interested in it. But in my career, and I've been doing this 28 years now, 30 years practicing law, if it's serious, then a majority of the board does want to know, and the superintendent's happy to give all the facts because, see, now it's been taken care of. that employee was terminated. Well, why? That employee resigned. Well, why? And if it's a serious matter, then you are entitled to know all those facts. So, you're not forfeiting that right to know. And please keep that in mind. It allows for everybody's rights to be protected when you refer to the superintendent and it also allows us to get down to brass tax on all of the of the particular facts. I used to love to talk about the bunny slipper bandit. And
047y'all can imagine how excited I was when I found a photograph of the bunny slipper bandit. The bunny slipper bandit to me is a member of the community who uh I don't know if they have a trust fund or if they just don't work, but they seem to spend all day on social media. Okay? And they get a big cup of coffee and they just go after everybody on social media. I say that jokingly, but you know what I mean. Be careful with the social media sphere, okay? It allows people to give opinions without any knowledge of the facts, which in my personal opinion and my professional opinion is the worst part about social media. It is damaging this country every single day because people are giving opinions on things that they don't have the
048facts on. It allows people to attack people in ways they would never do one-on-one. It can impact the morale of your staff and your entire school system when people are taking to social media and saying these folks are doing things wrong and your superintendent's doing wrong and they're giving opinions on things they don't even know about and engaging those cons those discussions all is very damaging and again if I have any advantage it's I work with a lot of school boards and you're not unique and you're not special this slide these slides are true for every single school board uh that we work with it allows discontented and disc disgruntled folks whether they are parents that are upset with a decision that was made or an employee that was terminated or feels like they were
049deal dealt with unfairly, they will jump on the bandwagon with an issue that they're not part of. Why? Because they're mad and social media allows them to jump on the bandwagon and to come after you. And it is a terrible way to have discussions and make decisions. awful sec, you know, email's bad, social media, you know, it's it's just an outlet for people to express frustration. It's not a constructive way. Constructive decisions are made at a table with the facts with the people that can make a difference. And that's you. That's you. So, I'm back to the process. If there's something going on in the social media sphere that you're concerned about, talk to your chair. talk about a way to bring it back to the board to discuss it at a work session or
050if it deals with employees or students to discuss it in a close session and do the process that way and do the process right. This was the, you know, slide I I've always used about following the process. You're the board at the top. At the bottom is everybody else in the world. Make sure you follow the process and don't let people do an inrun around the process. I I just think this is more important. It just comes back to that one word. I mean, I think if you stop and think what I talked about, everything I've just talked about boils down to this one slide. And if you don't, if this is broken down somewhere, then let's have an adult conversation. Let's discuss it, you know, one-on-one with the chair, if it's personnel in a
051closed session or what have you. But I think following the process builds this trust and really starts to get it uh in a good place. Now, the other thing I'm going to go over very quickly after I stop and see if you've got questions at this point, I'm always asked the question, what if a board member doesn't follow policy? What if a board member doesn't follow what is in the superintendent's contract? Well, as an elected official, the only way to deal with that, unless it's a statutory violation or a legal violation, is through a censure. Now, censure is not just something you do for fun. You don't just show up to a meeting and raise your hand and say, "I would like to uh censor Liza for what she said last week. Uh, who's with
052me?" Okay. Censure impacts somebody's, and I'm going stop here because I don't want to get too far down the road, but it does impact somebody's reputation. It does need to be very business-like. There does need to be advanced notice. All a censure is though is a is a notice or a declaration of displeasure by this board that we feel like a fellow board member has acted inappropriately or is not following pro policy and the censure is the way that we deal with it at that particular time. So that's why you have a draft censure policy for you to think about. It's not on the agenda today. It's not going to be on the agenda on Monday. It may never get on the agenda. Okay? Okay, I want to be real clear about that. This is
053just a draft policy that I developed. I developed it years ago. I didn't develop it because of you. Again, I'm going to keep telling you, you're not special. All boards face issues and ask these questions. But Sarah asked me that question. She said, "What is the action a board could take as part of this training if they feel like that someone's not following policy and procedure?" So, that's there for you to look at as well. Um, and with time constraints, I'm happy to talk about it. I'm happy to not talk about it tonight. And it may be good just to let it lay because I think the policy is very self-explanatory uh in that respect. But I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody might have. >> Um, I just have a quick I guess
054question or thought. So if somebody you talked about the first amendment rights obviously of anybody to be able to say what they think about a particular decision. I think that some of what I have seen is summaries of what happens at meetings that to me do not reflect what actually happened at the meeting by other board members or whatever. So it seems like can you talk about the importance of like not characterizing what other people said or didn't say because the public can see for themselves and make their own judgments about that. >> Yeah. I think it comes back to this again is that I if you are going as a board member, if you're going to make statements about what happened in a meeting or what the position of the board is or what
055fellow board members said, if you're going to make those types of comments in any format, then I think to build trust, you have to be very careful to not either intentionally or even unintentionally try to mischaracterize the discussion or what somebody said. In fact, summarizing what someone else said and what they meant, I think is inherently fraught with danger. In other words, you have a 30inut discussion and I try to summarize what Jesse said in an email to somebody. Inherently, I'm going to get that wrong. I'm definitely not going to get it right. And there are parts of it that I might get wrong. So I don't think and again this is this is not you don't find this in a statute but part of trust is Jesse can speak for himself and I shouldn't
056be summarizing necessarily where he is versus where I am or how I feel. And we come back to that slide we had a minute ago of always saying look I am one board member and this is my opinion. the board made a decision to do this. This was my opinion. But I think inherently when you try to summarize what someone else said or what they were thinking, I think that inherently creates the possibility that you're going to start losing trust. People are going to get upset. That's not what I said. That's not what I meant. Why did you write that about me? Um, you know, you start to impact the trust. And I know I've hammered it, folks, but if you can if I'm treated badly and you come to me, I can probably convince
057you that I've been treated badly, okay, by George. But don't you need to go hear George's side of the story before you decide if I've been treated badly? I mean, I really want to end on that. I mean, you inherently and legally can't know all the facts. And that's why I use the word irresponsible in all caps. Just wait. I mean, you know, that's just the way this works. Uh, you can't know all the facts. So, to to try to weigh in on something, and I'm not talking about administrative decisions that are made in a work session or made in a board meeting, you know, I'm not talking about a uh, you know, a policy on something. I'm talking about employee matters and student matters because as your attorney that's what I care about. Policy
058is yours. As long as it doesn't violate a statute or implicate a statute, with all due respect, I could care less. What I care about is employees being following the process and not doing an end run and coming to you and you letting the process work its way out so that you have all the facts. And I've said it before, I'll say it one more time. You do have the right to know the facts eventually if as a board you feel like you want to know those facts. You absolutely have that right. >> Other questions, other board members. >> Thank you. Thank you, Chris. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next on the agenda is Dr. Furman with uh letting us know about something to come with monthly updates. >> Yeah. Um this is one
059of the things we are working on. Um you guys approved the contract in May for a um data dashboard support called Aubrey. And so we're beginning to work with the company called Aubrey to build dashboards for um sharing very clearly the KPIs that we'll be working on through strategic plan but also student data. Um, and we'll be able to sort it and look at it by school, by demographic until we get that up and going. Um, I think one of the things the board is curious about on how we're progressing is school level some school level data that we can share at a board meeting so that the board is up todate on things that are happening at the school or when um there's surveys or data that comes out, you're getting a preview of
060that um data, not only sumitative but also some individual level data. Um, and this is a just a KOIC report that I threw together with some of the highlights of things that I thought you might want to see from the school level. Just any list of celebrations. Um, some curt some rolling data on enrollment. So, how's our enrollment look? Ins and outs, a summary of that. Um, and then really getting at three core areas for students such as attendance, discipline, and our students on track for promotion. Um, disagregating that. I you know just disagregated it or the numbers I put in this template are are totally made up but dividing it by black white that is the biggest achievement gap that we are um trying to address I can add other subgroups is that if
061that's helpful or that's what the board would like um so just curious on if as your input and then as other reports come out or data is available we can add those specific things at an ongoing basis but the the the core of it would be here's celebrations but then here's Also an update on school level data regarding these three main topics. So is this helpful? Is this not helpful? Is there more information? Not enough information. So curious on what you want to see. So when we start generating these reports, we're giving you exactly what you wanted to see. Uh I'm sorry which uh the heater kicked on right when you were saying the name of the company that were >> AB RE >> AB R E. Okay. >> And they were a contract that
062was um information only but approved on the May agenda. >> Okay. Thank you for that. Um I would like to see for for my own clarity and for the board's clarity um a um measuring ADM separate from enrollment so that we're just very clear on on um uh cuz my understanding is one impacts you know the seats that are filled in the rooms and then the other impacts funding and I know they're connected but I just want to see them separately. >> Yep, we can definitely do that. And there's actually a monthly report that is published um and it's actually on the DPI website as well, but we can definitely share that link when it comes out with the board for sure. >> Okay, that's helpful. Maggie, as [clears throat] I were going through this
063and as we as you put more information on it, is it possible that if we decide to have our own little um print out or whatnot? Is that possible if we can do it separate than Ashford City Schools if the board decided to have their own? >> And what do you mean your own? like print you out your own version or >> No. In other words, if I'm not mistaken reading this, there could be some information that the board would like to have. >> Yes. >> Is it available for us to put our own information in there to get it that we would have it not as for city school staff? >> Yeah. If there's confidential information, yes, 100% we can share that confidentally in close session. if it's a personnel or student related matter
064but then you know I can send you know detail a more detailed report in the Friday focus now just that is always open to open records so just because I present it only to the board if there is an open records request that can get produced um but that's unless it's personnel or private student information but of yes if there's additional information that's not on here that the board would like to see I can produce that if that's the wish of the board and share that with the board via communication knowing that it is depending on what it is subject to open records. >> And how much information can this thing give out to us? I mean what >> information about >> about I mean once you put this together and put out your uh
065[sighs] you know Matt I mean is there an endless um >> yeah I so couple of the it's called an early warning dashboard is what we're working on first with Aubrey um and it's an academic attendance and grade reports that we can disagregate by race by school by grade level by classroom teacher so that's the first dashboard Um then the second work we're doing with them is just kind of a look at the numbers. So how does our enrollment look? What are their demographics? Um another dashboard we're working on is um shoot I just lost it. It will come back to me. But basically oh out of district students. So something we always want to know is our out of district students in good standing is if they're not in good standing we want to
066intervene and try to help them get back on good standing so that when the end of the year comes they can remain Asheville City School students. So it basically is endless. Um the membership we have with this company is to build dashboards for us. Um and then once they're built they just self-populate and update on a regular either nightly or weekly basis. So if there are additional reports that the board would like to be built into our public dashboards, yes, we can build those as we go along. >> Okay, last question. Can it tell which teacher giving out the most um grades to I mean I mean can it if we ask for one particular teacher and what type of uh disciplinary actions of kids being expelled or the level of education that why there's
067so many kids failing in this particular class. We can get that also if we once you start putting this information in there >> potentially. Yes. And I would caution to on a public facing dashboard not put teacher names on it but to say teacher 1 2 3 4. Yes. >> So to make it more general so that it wasn't like one teacher's name out there or a particular um like employee. But I would I would try to make it anonymous so that we know and then I could say, "Hey, this teacher one is Maggie Ferman." >> Right. So, Jesse, one thing I heard you say and that it it it might be what you were saying, but it's definitely think got me thinking. You said public facing. So, is this something that anybody from a
068public can then go on and populate their own reports at any time? >> Okay. Yeah. So in other words to maybe Jesse to your original question is like we as board members at any moment could go in there once you work with operator to get the certain data sets that you want >> by a filter or sort data you won't be able to drill down to individual student data it will be general graphs and charts and tables but you won't be able to now at the principal level they will be able to click on a list and say well which students are these which teachers classroom are these coming from so they'll have access to that data as well as district level employees But it wouldn't be of that level of detail would it not
069be available publicly. >> I'd love to just jump in quickly. Um the the agenda item is on sort of a bridge to this. >> Thank you. >> So we'll learn a lot more about Aubrey, but we don't have it yet. But what Maggie's proposing is in the interim that we'll at every month get what we see on these slides as sort of a a bridge. And I think that's what we're talking about right now. and giving feedback on so that come August we can see this and then when Aubrey comes online there'll be so much more. So any questions or comments or asks about what Maggie's proposed in these slides? Pepy. Uh, I'm aware that in the past we've been told that NCDPI will embargo information that concerns is it fewer than five students or
070fewer than >> 10 students. And so it's very likely that the that granular information on a public-f facing website would have huge gaps in it. And I'm wondering is the board able to see anonymized might the board and this is just an open question be able to see anonymize teacher one teacher two teacher three that we can see that isn't embargoed but we wouldn't want to share or >> so >> like it can't be public information >> and do you mean on these slides for our meetings? No, I'm talking specifically when we get into Aubrey. >> Okay. >> Um I'm aware that it was you were able to conclude because the number of black students were fewer >> and the number of white students were greater than the threshold. then you could look at the
071white students for a class in another school's um online stuff and deduce something that was supposed to be embargoed. >> So that's going to be an important topic for when we have Aubrey. Okay. >> And so for this agenda item, I'm looking forward to this Maggie that this is a small amount of information, but I'm glad that we'll have it and be able to look at it regularly school by school. I know when I looked at it, I would love to see percentages and actual numbers. Some of our schools are bigger, some of our smallers, and that's something that can be helpful for just wrapping our brains around it. Amy, >> yeah. Um, so I understand that this is a bridge. That said, because it starts with like celebrations and good news, which is fine.
072That's great. I have wanted for a while and I want to say it again that I really want to see what the challenges are at each school in specifics. In other words, um teachers are really struggling with um time for planning or really struggling with X Y or Z. What are the top three things that the principal and assistant principal in that school are having to deal with? So that doesn't I mean I I thought when we talked or sort of got this information that we were going to get monthly reports that this was kind of going to be a continuing thing, not just a bridge. Um but I always feel like if we're going to put the positive out there, we should have the challenges, especially because that's the stuff I feel sometimes surprised
073by when we get a lot of comments about an issue that I didn't know existed. So that's what I would request. Thank you. >> Okay. I'd also Maggie love to see um yearover-year comparisons. So when we're looking at this data to see how it's changed from last year to this year, etc. That's okay. >> I can't hear you. >> No, this is a this is an internal process that has no cost whatsoever. This is Maggie acknowledging that there is information we requesting and she's coming up with a way to share it with us on a regular basis and that's what we're going to use this for and I love that. So there's the suggestion of um what what are challenges that schools are facing. All right. >> Yeah. Beyond the the staff time that it
074would take to prepare this which I understand. >> Yeah. Because these are stuff these are data reports that we should be able to pull very easily from infinite campus. It's like it'll take a little bit to set up the, you know, report that we need to run, but then it should populate pretty quickly. >> Okay. >> When we switch over to Aubrey, may we have, and you can consider this an overlap period so we can still see what we're familiar with. >> Certainly. Yep. All right. So, next on the agenda is our facility needs assessment presentation. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um we are very excited to give um us all an update on where we are in the ACS facility needs assessment and continue this board's conversation around long-term facility planning. I want to remind
075the board this is more than just about buildings. It's about understanding how our spaces and um support all of our students and our staff today and help us plan to maintain the future of Asheville City Schools responsibly. Since our last presentation, the team has completed a deeper analysis of district en enrollment projections alongside school by school space utilization and capacity across all of our campuses. That includes this campus um the Randolph campus all all of our campuses. This has allowed us allowed us to move forward move from reviewing existing conditions just looking at that little snapshot that we shared with you last time into better understanding how our buildings are functioning today where capacity pressures exist or opportunities now exist and how these findings align with our educational and operational needs. We're going to share
076three new pieces of information with you tonight. an updated enrollment and demographic projections and what they mean for the long-term planning. District-wide capacity and utilization analysis across each school and the initial capital improvement scenarios developed from the for the board to review and discuss. These scenarios are not recommendations. There's not going to be any action tonight. This is just planning options that are intend to help us frame our discussion as we continue to redefine our pro our priorities. Following tonight's presentation, we are going to have two community town halls. One will be virtual and one will be in the evening. We'll allow our community to engage in this conversation, including how where they want to see us go and to help us inform our final recommendation that we will bring back to the board. And
077I'm going to turn it over to Aubrey. All right. Thank you, April. Lovely introduction. Took one of my agenda items away. So, thank you. Quick reminder, my name is Aubrey Donalan. I think Aubrey stole my name and then took some of the syllables away [laughter] and then made their own branding out of that. Um, tonight I also have John Clayton, a colleague of mine. So, make sure to ask him some really hard questions later. That's what he's here for. All right. So, the first question kind want to ask tonight is, are we growing and by how much? Where and by how much? [snorts] And the district provided us with your um 2024 demographic projections report. So, we're going to review some of the key takeaways from that kind of as our starting point tonight. So
078Asheville City Schools has experienced a decrease in enrollment over the last or since 2014 2015 and they're projecting to continue to decrease. Age distribution in the region is shifting. Population of 65 plus has increased about 37% while ch children under five is actually decreased by 14. School competition is starting to reshape enrollment. So 68% of K12 students in Bunkham County go to a traditional public school. So that leaves about a third of that student population going to either home school, charter school, or private schools. Population growth does not necessarily mean that there's student growth. We all know that there's been a big housing boom in Asheville, but that population is largely driven by retirees or families that do not have children. And then lastly, the total district enrollment is forecasted to decrease about 12% over
079the next five years or so and then another 5% 5 years after that. And to show you a more graphic representation of that, we have this this bar chart and we've updated the historical data to include the last couple years as well as this this school year. So while it is declining, it it's slow and it's steady. So no major cause or for concern or major impacts that we think you would feel from that. >> Are we allowed to ask questions now or do you want us to wait till the end? >> Whatever you would like. >> Do I'm going back to that bullet point about um the percentage of students enrolled in public schools. Do you know how that compares to other districts in the state? that I don't I don't know if >>
080do you mean other urban areas? Would you like us to [clears throat] compare? >> Yeah, I would say maybe similar size districts or maybe similar to Yeah, if we want we're we're pretty good about like finding districts across the state who have some similar demographics. >> Yeah. So for a reference to know if that's kind of within normal >> Exactly. That's that's exactly >> can look into that. I also wanted to ask it says in Bunkham County is are those numbers different for Asheville city >> that the the previous report kind of combined the Bunkham County and Asheville skit city schools um projections and enrollment. >> Is it possible to have just Asheville cities? >> I'd have to look back at the at the report for that. Yeah. >> Thank you. All right. >> Um,
081I think I know the answer to this question. Was there any analysis about the impact of out of district policies on out of district enrollment or opportunities to increase out of district enrollment? >> I don't believe that was part of the um that 2024 report. No. No. >> And this is just the 2024 per report. >> Yes. It's a demographic projections report that was completed in 2024 by a different company. >> And my understanding is that we've had some positive adjustments that the superintendent has made to anticipated enrollments that turned out to be a little bit better than this this past year. Am I accurate on that? >> Yeah. The 2026 report did show um kind of a a hold more hold steady but it for from last year to this year but it did
082you know continues the decline. >> Thank you. >> Right. The next big question we want to answer is can our schools handle enrollment change whether that's decrease can our schools handle that? And before [snorts] we answer that question, I want to review what we mean when we say capacity. So there's three values that it produces that NPS personally likes to use. The first one we call theoretical capacity. So that's the number of your enrollment generating spaces with your expected or maximum number of students in those spaces and that maximum number is provided by the district. So essentially your student teacher ratios. So it's a baseline value, but it doesn't account for how that room or those rooms may actually be used throughout a school day. So then that brings us to our maximum capacity. So
083then we do start to factor in the daily usage of those spaces based off of scheduling and programming. And then this will differ based off the age of the students because you know schools function a little bit different based on ages. And then we also like to factor for target capacity. So we're going to assume that there's some level of uncertainty yeartoear in cohorts. So we we like to call this the flexibility factor which you'll see later. And that and that helps determine our target capacity. So really the target and the maximum is forming a range. Then for those who are more visual learners like myself, here you'll see a standard general education classroom through time in a high school. So you have one teacher assigned to that classroom and they have one planning period
084throughout that day where no students are in that room. So each rectangle represents one period throughout that day. I don't know why the teacher's moving around that room so much, but >> but they are. [laughter] >> They're supposed to So through time this one classroom generates 25 students 67 or six out of seven periods of time. So you'd be 25 times 0857. So that's your utilization percentage for a capacity of 21 students. But I mean this is just one room. So thinking about a school as a whole, you take your number of spaces times that target number of students to get your theoretical capacity. you factor in that utilization percentage. So how your room is actually utilized. Then you factor in that flexibility factor. So then your target capacity is really as 800 is not
085realistic. Most schools are not going to shove that you know that many kids in those spaces. Let's see some other kind of important notes relating to utilization and capacity is that the facility types matter. An elementary school is not a middle school. Middle school is not a high school. So they all function different. So we have to factor that in and calculate those differently. Instruction time as the basis for capacity. So non-instructional time such as lunch, recess has all been taken out of the equation because we want to get a consistent comparison across schools. It also gives us a measure of how effectively the teaching spaces themselves are being used. When you start adding in those other spaces, it'll kind of muddy up the numbers a little bit. Utilization percentage by grade. So for these
086percentages, we were provided the master schedule of all of your schools. And if you have not seen a master schedule for an elementary school, it is significantly more complicated than I expected, much harder than the high school. Um, so that was a bit of a surprise. Um, so this is kind of the the average of all the schools and across the grades for elementary, kindergarten, first through fifth, 6th, 8th, and then 9, 10th. So these are the percentages or the utilization percentages that we used for those those facilities. I I do want to say with respect to principal Edwards, I have seen the high school ma master schedule and I have a hard time believing that the elementary school master schedule is more complex than ours. >> It might just be all the colors >>
087that are the elementary ones there. There's a lot of colors happening. And the [clears throat] last kind of point I want to talk about before we dig into the numbers is current use versus higher use. So in your current use calculations, any large group instructional spaces that maybe they were classrooms in the past, but now they serve as offices or support spaces, those are not included because they're not currently being used as classrooms. But then in the higher use, we do factor those back in to kind of get a more maximum, you know, usage of that of that facility. So to [clears throat] take you a little through our process, we like to start with a floor plan. This example is Isaac Dixon. And then first we want to identify specific types of room types.
088One is your general education classrooms. So these are enrollment generating at all schools. And then design electives which art, choir, band, you know, those types of classes which elementary school they're not enrollment generating but they are when you get to middle school and high school. And then flexible learning or itinerant spaces. So students are not in those classes throughout the entire day. they may get pulled out for one period. So those spaces are not utilized all day. So they do not get factored in. And then EC or exceptional children. Their student teacher ratios are different. So we like to identify those separately. We then take all of these spaces and then we create a list of your space types. We quantify all of those and then we multiply it by that maximum student number that
089was provided to us. Then that gives us our theoretical capacity. We then add in the utilization which differs based off of grades. Before we showed you just kind of an average so that it does differ by grade factor that in to get the maximum add in that flexibility factor and then now we have your target capacity. [snorts] So at Isaac Dixon theor theoretical 380 maximum 325 with a target of 309. And then I know it's a little hard to see, but the notes at that bottom that lists those large instruction spaces that are currently not being used as enrollment generating. So we like to identify those because in the higher use, we then redistribute them back. Aubrey, can I jump in for a second? Um the what's linked in my presentation says it's Claxton Elementary.
090>> Yes. >> Can you just verify which which example we're looking at? >> Yes. So I realize that the floor plan and the spreadsheet were from two separate schools, so I had updated it late. Yeah, apologies for that. >> No, no, if anybody >> Oh, sorry. If anybody else is looking for it, we were sent this right before not I mean earlier today. So, there's an updated uh presentation in your email. Thank you. >> All right. So, now looking at the higher use, those four classrooms have now been kind of redistributed back into the enrollment generating spaces. So then your target capacity went from 309 and as currently used to a higher use of 371. Um just to give you an idea of kind of what we do for each individual school. And then looking
091at the district as a whole. I know it's a lot of numbers. I apologize. Tried to highlight kind of the the highlight points that we're going to talk about tonight. So in that yellow rectangle there, we're going to look at current enrollment as well as the target capacity. And what we're really going to look at is that percentage of target capacity, which is the I guess the red highlighted boxes. So that is your current enrollment divided by your target capacity. And then the number to the right is essentially the delta between those two. So currently CL as used currently Claxton and Isaac Dixon are showing that they're a little bit over capacity. But then when we look at the higher use calculations, Claxton is just barely over and the remainder of the schools are showing
092that they have adequate capacity. Um can I jump in and ask a couple questions? >> Uh one, I've been in the high school classrooms. They're jam-packed. So, is this just I'm confused about how we could end up with 300. What is it? Yeah, like under capacity by 300 when they're in like sardines. So, the high school we also have to factor in. So, electives count as enrollment generating because they could serve as a home room. CTE classes also count. even the gymnasium because you have varsity athletics that may you know be using that and it >> it's considered enrollment generating. So the high school just has more spaces that serve as enrollment generating. So um yeah and I think it this this notion of enrollment generating is very interesting to me because I certainly know
093people who go to Jones for the for the um drama the theater program there or go to Claxton for the arts. I it's interesting because you didn't include those as enrollment generating specifically saying those are not enrollment generating but they are at the high school. So it it you don't really need to address that. It's just something I know other but if I may go to one question that I do have um the William Randolph campus did you restrict yourself to a particular part of that campus to get 132? that when we looked at the building as a whole and what classrooms are and are not currently being used, but now we know their district operations has moved in to those. So, William Randolph was a tougher one because it is an alternative school with
094different scheduling, smaller population. Um, so it's it's going to show up as under utilized. Well, I understand that, but like did you think that in the end the biggest the the maximum capacity of that school was somewhere in the neighborhood ofund I mean the target says 134 but if all the spaces at Randolph were used bit in I mean I'm used to be more kids in that school is it limited to 134 if you used all of the spaces that are currently being used for other things other than classrooms for classrooms or is that on another slide? >> Are you looking at the current the current use? >> Strike that. I have just figured it out. I apologize. Thank you very much. Stop Amy. [laughter] >> Hey, can you do us a favor? Can you
095take one like the middle school and go across and just briefly explain each and every one of those categories for us? >> Yes. Okay. So, >> take the middle school as an example. >> Yeah. Would you look like we can do the the current use? Okay. So, Ashual Middle School, that first column, that's just showing your building square footage and then your grade levels. That first gray column, that's your theoretical capacity, which >> it's pulls directly from this spreadsheet. Um, so you have your theoretical and to the right of that is your maximum, and then in bold you have your target capacity. Okay. Which numbers are we looking at? The one on the other slide or this one right here? Which one is the updated version? >> Well, current is how you're currently using your
096buildings. So, most relevant to how you I guess currently see the schools. Higher use is more if all those empty classrooms were used or vacant classrooms were used. This is what it could be. >> Continue. Is that an art on the cart usage? Like we have specials going around to classrooms as that maximum use. >> No, we factored it in as we didn't change that type of use when we went from current to higher. The only thing we changed was, oh, that classroom's vacant. Let's add it. It's add that back in. Or this giant classroom was an office. Maybe in the future it could become a classroom again. So those are the only changes that we did. We didn't change utilization or anything like that. >> So resets reset rooms would disappear under that use
097or they're included in >> So reset rooms don't factor in because they're smaller than a typical classroom. >> Okay. And so right now we're not using full classrooms for that. this one over here. >> I believe there's actually a couple schools that >> that may potentially be, but for the most part, it's a smaller flex space. So that's not factored into enrollment generating. >> But if we had in situations where full classrooms were used for an alternative use, those were factored in as higher use or >> Yes. >> Okay, that clarifies it for me. Thank you. >> There there's maybe one school that it used to be a classroom, now it's just an office. So you have this entire classroom used, you know, just as an office. So then we factor that back in. So
098>> and and what I'm not seeing here, like I don't see the William Randolph, I know we had something like 425 elementary school students with Spanish and art and being itinerate, having to come to the individual classrooms. I know we had as much as 220ish middle school students and I don't see that refle that kind of use reflected. Um and then I don't see anything reflected as far as classroom counts or potential use of 441 Hwood Road. >> So we did this study on active schools currently in use is what the utilization is study was on. Yeah. It might be helpful to remind the board that the theoretical capacity is current teachers. The number of teachers assigned. So like William Randolph right now has currently with the teachers assigned could have 184 students. But higher
099capacity goes up to I did not wear my glasses tonight. I think it says 394 but I can't really 604. Sorry 604. Does that make sense? Can you do you do you understand that, Jesse? I think that's what you were trying to ask. >> What what those mean? >> I'm still looking at I will get George to explain this to me later on. [laughter] >> It it I mean it it takes a long time to really dig into these numbers, but it it really does. >> I [laughter] must see if you know what you're talking about, dog. [laughter] And then we do understand that it's not necessarily realistic for rooms that have been converted to offices, which a lot of these schools weren't designed for specific programs. Now you have those program needs and it's
100been um kind of renovated. We know it's not realistic to say, oh, all of that's going to be a classroom again. But we still want to show what it could be. So re realistically, we're looking somewhere in the middle between current and higher. But it's hard to we didn't want to provide data points that were like well maybe. So we wanted to give you kind of two solid points then you can kind of work in the middle of that. I wanted to ask um the updated presentation that the board received this afternoon is not the same numbers as is on this presentation. Should we be following along with yours as the most accurate or >> Let's see. >> The only difference was the school. >> Yes. So the the overalls should be the same. It's
101the example of Isaac Dixon, which was formerly showing Claxton. Now we're showing Isaac Dixon. So it matches the floor plan. >> So Liza, there there's two that look very similar. The two charts. One is current use and one is higher. >> Those are the numbers that these are exactly the same. They're not the same on our presentation >> on the one you got today. >> Do you mind if I can look over your shoulder? >> Sure. [laughter] >> [snorts and laughter] >> Randolph says 175 here and 134 on ours. >> While um while April's doing that, this is really Maggie for you and maybe for us as a board. Um if we go back, we don't have to physically go back, but if we go back to that the original data points about enrollment projections,
102um I hear so often from city council, from county commissioners, or just the conversation out in the community about affordable housing and economic development, etc., etc. I really hope that we can share this with our elected officials. Um, and here I'm going to soap box a moment because April's helping out, so I figure here's a moment to soap box. Um, we as a community tend to focus on like tourism dollars, etc., etc. And I'm thinking about what how that impacts the folks who are moving into our community. And if we can be um advocating for a more robust economy that supports all kinds of wage earners, that might be bringing in not just retirees or not just individuals who don't have children, but are bringing in high-paying um industries, [clears throat] etc., etc., that can
103support a different kind of population increase than what we're seeing. And I I think this is valuable information that's not just useful for our district, but is useful for Asheville City and the county at large to see the types of families who are moving in because of the economy that we decided to have and because of the type of housing that we've decided to build. That's my soap box. Thank you. >> There is a slight difference the William Randolph campus there was an adjustment made to that line. Now I'm remembering. Yes, >> I was when I was reviewing the numbers that something was missed so I had added it back in. >> The higher capacity one is still correct. >> Yeah, there's a slight difference. Thank you for catching that. >> Y so what's presented
104here today is the most updated accurate numbers. >> Yeah. And then to zoom in just a little bit more on that percentage of target capacity. So So these numbers here represent kind of the the recommended target percentages for elementary, middle, and high. So then looking at elementary, this is kind of the average of all of them. It's showing that the percentage is kind of above the recommended capacity, which we just reviewed. Two of those schools are currently overutilized. So that you know is the reasoning for that. And then your middle school is within range but a little on that higher end. And then high school is also in range a little bit on the higher end. But then when you look at the higher use that elementary drops to 84%. Middle school actually drops much
105lower which kind of tells us there's just you have a big building and not enough students to put in that building. And the high school goes down to about 79%. So still within that recommended range. So I guess some some quick takeaways is overall the district is operating within normal operating ranges at the middle school and at the high school. Normal operating ranges for most of your elementary schools. So from a capacity standpoint, three out of your five elementary schools stable or declining enrollment and adequate capacity. Two of them are over that normal operating capacity range. And then the middle school and high school also stable or declining enrollment and are and have adequate capacity. So any utilization questions before we move on to scenarios >> regarding the over that is based off of current
106staffing levels. >> It's based off the current number of students and teachers. >> Okay. >> And number of spaces. Yep. Great. >> Thank you. All right. So the next big qu question now that we have all this data or is what are the ways that we can improve our schools? One of the big ways is through capital improvements planning which is long range planning that identifies needed improvements for all facilities within a district that are above and beyond kind of your normal maintenance funding capabilities. So, as we know, data-driven approach, so demographic and enrollment, which we've talked about, we've also gone over physical conditions, and then educational programming, space analysis, your attendance zones, space utilization, community partnerships, and importantly, the district's vision for the future. And you may wonder, you know, what what's the difference
107between a capital improvements planning and just your ongoing maintenance plan? And the capital improvements plan usually has bigger goals that go over a longer period of time, typically more expensive, more scheduling involved with those, and also different types of funding strategies. So to our options, there's a big giant question mark because nothing has been decided as April mentioned before. [laughter] Um, so MPS worked on these scenarios internally. We then presented that to the leadership committee for discussion refinement to then bring it to to all of you. So scenario one default pay as you go. Really this is just doing improvements based off of that maintenance planning. Um I don't want to say it's the do nothing plan but it's the just do your general maintenance plan. Scenario two, that is your school renovations with targeted
108improvements to address educational adequacy and functional needs of individual schools. If you're unfamiliar with the term educational adequacy, that's how a facility is functioning to support the current educational programs, instructional goals, and student needs. All right, starting off with Isaac Dixon. It is functioning well overall. It's your newest elementary school. So, we actually don't have any major recommendations for for that facility. It has the most wonderful outdoor learning environments that I have ever seen in a school. Um, brought colleague from Charlotte to come look at it and she was in love. So, kudos. Claxton Elementary School redesign of the gymnasium and adjacent spaces to improve functionality of the main entry admin theater and gym or gymnatorium while freeing approximately 3 to five classrooms for instructional use. So as we know Claxton is a wellloved very
109popular school with a excellent drama program and has we think probably the smallest stage of all of the schools that you have and there's no dedicated auditorium. So you also have a kind of interesting security sequence. It's an old school admin has kind of been one tiny spot and then they put them across the hall and they had to add more upstairs. So they're a bit disjointed. So is there a way we can kind of attack all of these things at one time by renovating the gym that adjacent space? Can we enlarge the stage so the drama program has you know a larger theater space to work with? Um then Hall Fletcher minor renovations to address equity and consistency across classrooms such as outlets, caseworks, and sinks. So a little history, Hall Fletcher was originally
110designed as a middle school with larger classrooms. Those were then subdivided. What happened when they did that is one classroom has your casework in your sink and the other classroom doesn't. So one classroom has more power while the other one has less. Um, so can we make that a bit more equitable between those classes? Another is a minor dining expansion. There's a roof overhang that kind of allows for kind of an easy way to push that wall out. It's our understanding there's some kitchen renovations that are happening that are going to kind of take away a little bit more of that space and it is fairly small and a bit loud. So, you know, can we address those those issues? Lucius Herring infill the floor of the reading room or greenhouse. There's been a lot
111of names for this space. It's that two stoall two-story fun space um to create a PLC or a flex flexible space for staff that'll then allow the music program to relocate into an actual classroom to then free up that auditorium for more flexible uses. So, currently the music classroom is the auditorium. So now you have this big beautiful auditorium that is only used by one class. So can we free that up for more use and then that that reading room has kind of a tiered seating which leaves a very small footprint to actually work within that space and it it would make a beautiful staff space we would think. Ira B. Jones, major renovations to the administration area to address ADA accessibility, security, operational functionality, along with a minor some minor courtyard improvements to support
112some more outdoor learning opportunities at that school. Um, [clears throat] beautiful courtyard. We think it could be utilized a little bit more efficiently. Um, then Asheville Middle School, it's I mean your newest school. It's functioning well overall. Uh there could be some targeted renovations to improve the use of those collaboration spaces, expand some outdoor learning opportunities because you have all these elementary schools with all these beautiful outdoor spaces and you get to the middle school and you kind of lose some of that. So, can we bring that to your middle school and then add a fieldhouse to better support the athletic program as well as spectator needs? Um, we noticed that athletics has kind of started taking over other spaces in that building because there's spaces for PE lockers, but not necessarily for your varsity
113teams. Um, and then William Randolph opportunity to add a prek class as part of the CTE programming and then also add some day treatment opportunities. Just any questions before we move on? Hey, let me hit you with one real quick. Teachers lounge. Do you see any spaces that could help the teachers, you know, with lounge, you know, teacher space for teachers lounge? Because nowhere in here have have you mentioned anything that to support the staff, the teachers? >> You have a particular school that you would like for us to >> uh what about all five of them? >> Most of the schools do have teachers. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Is is there one that doesn't? >> So, in terms of like staff offices, Lucia's Herring has probably the smallest offices for staff. Um, a lot
114of the other schools do have some pretty adequate lounge and break >> type spaces and a lot of so in some of those like in at Lucas Herring, a classroom was converted into a PLC room. So PLC didn't exist when most of these schools were built. So teachers have had to kind of take over different spaces. >> All right. Thanks. >> Yeah, >> they have a really nice space at Hall Fletcher. I don't know if you've seen that. It's down where that used to be a locker room and it's a it's like a zen room. It's very nice. Don't tell the other teachers though. Scenario three would be change your elementary schools to an attendance zone model or a school enrollment cap to balance district-wide enrollment. So, as we talked about, we know Claxton is
115a very popular school. IRB Jones is kind of the lowest on utilization. Is there a way to spread that enrollment out a little bit better amongst your districts so teachers don't feel like they're so cramped? Um, scenario four explores grade reconfiguration, a distributed prek expansion at the elementary schools to retain more district-wide middle school enrollment. So, this is trying to solve a very specific issue. The data is telling us that fourth and fifth graders are the ones that are leaving to go to charter schools, private schools, home schools. They stay away during middle school, but then they come back for high school. So, is there a way that we can try to retain those students? And we understand that's scary transition to go to fifth grade to this giant middle school. So, could we create
116three K through 2nd schools, two third through 5th with expanded prek wherever it makes the most sense? And then that instead of going from five elementary schools to one middle school, now those kids are going from two to one. So they get to know each other a little bit better for a little bit longer. Maybe it'll be a little bit less scary for them. >> I'm curious why that would be the recommendation um rather than the intermediate model where it's fifth and sixth graders together. So, we did talk about that at length and it comes down to you have a middle school that was constructed for three grade levels. So, you would end up with an entire wing or floor of that school being completely unused. Um, yeah. Can >> I also just point out
117that first of all, I like this. I appreciate the thinking about how do we make sure we retaining more fourth and fifth grade students. Uh, and also just the narrative around middle school. Like when we talk about it being a scary transition, I think that automatically makes it a scary transition, right? Middle schoolers are amazing. Our middle school is amazing. Um, and the more that we talk about it in that way, I feel like the less parents are going to be afraid about what that process is. Like middle school is great. Middle schoolers are awesome. >> Yeah. Um and I'll when I my previous school district they used to have um a four or five academy and the students come in one year and then the next year they've already got one foot out the
118door. So there was a transition to three grades and three grades for elementary and upper and a lower because then they're in there. They're there for you know three full years that two-year what we found with our parents was just felt too short of a time to be in one building. I do want to add just to uplift the things that we had talked about in the team. Not only do we talk about going from a three going from two three five schools to one middle, we also talked about the importance of teachers having that expansion of colleagues to work with. It it does increase the number of third grade teachers in one spot and they're able just to work together and have that opportunity as a PLC. Was there consideration of um going with
119like primary, lower elementary, and upper elementary? >> Well, so instead having it K through three, then fourth through sixth together, and then seventh and eighth building. >> Oh, because the building. >> Yeah, because of the building. Yes. I um I want to acknowledge that there are families regardless of what we do who look for a smaller school experience based on their understanding of of their kids' needs. And I know that um at our middle school we have been striving to provide that smaller school within a larger school experience which I greatly appreciate. Um, I am a little confused because maybe because of the wording here, is the expanding prek somehow connected to retention? Like, are we going to have prek classrooms at the middle school because somehow we learned that the demographics say that uh
120fifth graders and preschoolers, fifth grade parents have preschool children or anything like that or is that just a kind of like a sidecar? So it would be the prek expansion at the elementary schools only. And kind of how that's configured depends on your your population, your enrollment. But if say Hull Fletcher becomes a 3 through 5 school, you still have all those classrooms that already are outfitted for preK. So you may actually be able to expand the number of preK classes because before I had preK, kindergarten, first grade, and those classrooms are very similar. Um so it would allow you to expand at c at certain schools. Okay. And I should just comment like I'm not um this approach at the moment doesn't make sense to me because of how our magnet theme engages a
121feeling of choice for families. Um but I would like to learn more about some of this rationale maybe at a later time. >> All right. So scenario five is specific to the high school. The first scenario involves the CTE area. Improve circulation, accessibility, and security between the existing CTE buildings, including a potential enclosure of exterior connections to create greater cohesion and internal connectivity. So, if you're familiar with the CTE building, it was built in the 70s. You have one bar going one direction, another bar going another direction, and then you have an exterior elevator right next to your EC wing. So, it's and also you have a roof that is very accessible to students and is is quite easy to get on top of. Um, so that's where some of the security part comes in.
122But also, you're having if you want those CTE programs to kind of work together a little bit better, they're having to hop between different buildings. So is there an opportunity to provide improvements within the existing kind of building configuration? The other option would be evaluate the construction of a new onampus CTE innovation center. So when it was built in the 70s, you had programs that are not necessarily re relevant to today. So you're force is a strong word, but you're having to force programs into spaces they weren't originally designed for. So do you have an opportunity to do a purpose-built CTE for today's programming and be able to plan for the future? um just has a couple options. >> Aubrey, can I ask a question? Can you explain why scenario five is separate from scenario
123two? Is it an eitheror from a certain standpoint? >> Not necessarily. Yeah, it's just it was just kind of to break that up because that was a long scenario kind of its own >> big beast. Got it. Thank you. >> Yeah. The next is EC or really just anyone in any sort of assisted mobility device. You know, site accessibility improvements to provide a more direct and equitable access to campus spaces which would reduce unnecessary travel distances and physical separation from core student areas. Um, so when we went to the high school, the principal over there was telling telling us that if an EC student, say in a wheelchair, has to get down to the track, they have to go all the way to the front side of the building, all the way down to a
124gate they don't actually have access to. So someone has to come open that for them to get to the track. And then what might be the worst part is it's uphill the entire way back. And we know that there's a lot of elevation change at that school. I would note that uh just recently um I've I've I've encountered a lot of elderly folks who have similar difficulties getting in and out for events. >> Okay, that's good to know. Yeah. All right. And so the next scenario we're going to talk more about district operations and admin. So, opportunity to evaluate renovation, repurposing or redevelopment options for 441 Haywood Road facility to support a consolidated district operations and district admin, but also provide space for progressive education program to further strengthen and expand support for your exceptional
125children's services. So can we kind of group those together which a costbenefit analysis would need to be run to see you know what's what portions of the building could be saved. Does it make sense to build new? Does it make sense to keep part of it build new? Um that would really take a lot of further study. >> Go ahead. >> Would somebody clarify what is meant by progressive education program? >> Dr. Dr. Maggie, this is one that we talked about pretty extensively. This is um the PEP Academy and currently our children attend Bunkham County schools um and for that program to have access to that program. But this would allow us an opportunity to not only partner with Buckham County but expand that and better meet some of the needs of our children who
126have different abilities. >> Yeah. And one of the challenges with 441 is the acreage is small acreage. You have roads on three sides. So you have NC DOT, the I26 connector coming in that we don't know exactly what the full impacts of that are going to be yet. And I will also add benefit, this is a benefit for the whole county. It's a more centralized location where the current PEP Academy is located. [snorts] >> Then our last scenario is if your district administration is able to move out of this facility is then explore partnerships for staff housing at 85 Mountain Street facility. any questions, comments on >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you so much, Aubrey. So, next steps from here, I heard April say there'll be public time for public engagement and we'll keep
127learning more. I appreciate the time to ask the questions. Um, I'm going to look at those spreadsheets more. I swear. Um, and it's it's an extensive process. So, thank you for all that you're doing and keeping us in the loop. >> Yeah. Thank you for having us. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I I would like to thank you, Aubrey, for um your tenacity. >> Um I a little bird told me that you came in having heard certain things about certain buildings and you really looked and and questioned and discovered what was rumor and what was accurate and just were meticulous through the process. So, I thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next on our agenda is Dr. Ferman and Heidi taking us through most recent updates on the budgeting process. All right. I'm going to
128let Heidi start. Are you going to pull it up on there? Okay. Thank you. And then I'll just tap when you're ready. Or do you want to take it? >> I'll take it. Thanks. >> All right. All right, Heidi, go ahead. >> All right. Um, so we just tried to start back um kind of where we were um with a summary of the budget calendar [snorts] and I like check marks. So we checked off about where we are at this point and we are nearing the end which is exciting as always this time of year. Um, so what we're going to share with you tonight is just a little bit about what we've heard about what we assume will be the new state budget. Again, we don't have anything in writing. Um, a lot of
129this was all conversation that was summarized and this particular slide came from the school board's association as far as summarizing um where that budget looks like it might end up. Um, what we're excited to find out is if actually June 15th week we get something in writing. So then we can make some more formal proposals and projections for you. But right now I hesitate because like I say right now the only thing um we have in writing is that next slide which is the Am I just not close enough? >> It is. >> Yeah. So, um is this next slide which is the proposed new teacher salary schedule um bachelor's teacher salary schedule. Um just to point out in case you're sharing this with anyone, there is a typo in that next to last box
130at the far bottom of the schedule where as you can see obviously from the year 15 to the end there's a 5.5% increase that someone had a typo and put a 9.5 in there. So, uh, I know everybody would like for that to be the case. Um, where there's a little confusion, too, um, as we go, um, as they went through those slides, um, the school board presentation makes it look more like the raise will give an average increase um, to everyone of 3% that's not on the certified schedule. um which will come out to $1,000 for those over 65,000 and $1,750 for those under. Most of the wording in the um news releases that came out actually say it will be a 3% increase and a bonus for that amount of money. So um
131and then the bonuses for the teacher salary schedule are smaller um because those increases are more significant than they have been in the prior years. So more more coming. Um we'll see how that comes out um hopefully the week of June 15th. So uh the next uh discussion item we wanted to have is about the local supplement. So last year when we went through the budget uh we all agreed during the budget process that we would freeze those. Um what didn't happen this year? What didn't happen this year is we didn't get a raise. So we didn't put out new salary schedules. So, a lot happens in the course of time and conversations from last spring to now, and there seemed to be some misunderstanding as to how the local supplement would be impacted or
132not. So, when Dr. Maggie and I took another look at this, we suggested that we might discuss a recommendation to you to kind of have a reset so that way all of the employees in the district fully understand that there is still a local supplement. you're still going to get as much or more that you got before, but that um we would correct some things in the prior schedule while we reset at a new amount to make sure that we also honor those strategic initiatives in the strategic plan that are coming up, which was to try to provide a way for better compensation for all our staff and to do that and encourage recruitment retention efforts. So if you look at the supplement schedule the way it is now, it is those numbers on the
133left. So if you had 0 to four years, you were at 11%, 5 to 9, 11 12%, 10 to 14 and 15 to 19. Now what what happened was here somehow compared to Bunkham County schools we had one big long span of 10 to 19 years all at 12% and then at 20 we went to a higher percent than they use which is 20 or more at 18 and a half%. So Dr. Furman suggested that we um make a correction there and align better with what their supplements are so that when we are promoting those positions for recruitment retention purposes that we get in the same brackets that they use. Plus the reason I liked it too which is what we did with the hourly pay table and the other initiatives is we lined it
134up. Those are also the brackets for longevity. So it makes a lot of sense that they all line up. Um so our suggestion is because moving to a fixed schedule we were going to round up anyway um that we round up slightly on every level and that way we can also say that not only is everyone getting an increase but these are the highest local supplement levels in the county. Um the only exception to that would be that first level and that would be because all of the certified staff as you saw on that last schedule are going up way up in the first part of that schedule. You've probably heard a lot actually from veteran teachers really complaining about how that is going to um aggravate the already existing wage compression in the schedule
135from when the legislators about 10 years ago went to that point where they thought they were never going to pay a legislator more than 50,000 I mean a educator more than $50,000 a year and that compressed the whole schedule. [snorts] This would actually um better uh align and give our more veteran teachers just a little bit more money as well. [snorts] And it would also let that um line up with Bunkham as I said. And then also in the process of fixing those to a fixed amount versus a percentage, it would assure that we make sure we give every position at least as much or more than they have now. Um, so like I say, there's a little parenthesis because the hourly folks we would I would actually have to physically round up to make
136sure they get at least the amount or more that they were get for next year, but we were going to look at the whole hourly pay table anyway. Um, so we will make sure that happens in the course of that process if this is something you want to pursue. >> So many questions. >> Do you want to ask questions now? you want to take a break and ask some questions? >> I'm going to suggest that for this we listen to the whole presentation. So, make notes of your questions. I'm going to be hawkish on our time. Okay. Right. Um so, another area as I was looking um at our pay um and noticed some areas that I think we could also make some improvements on is um updating our central office salary schedules to make
137it more unified and equitable. When we're looking at contract renewals, I'm noticing that staff that are on the both, you know, two staff that are both coordinators but making a very different salary. Two staff that are on directors but have very different salaries. Um, so creating more consistency across the board for all central office staff. And this isn't a pay raise. It is not increasing salaries for central office. It is just making it standardized. and then any staff that would be above the standard that we set would be frozen until the state raises catch them up. Um so it's a way to help create a more equitable salary distribution um at the central office level as dependent base. So making sure that there isn't question or room for inequitable salaries to be um assigned to
138staff depending on their position. So if you're coordinator, we've got a salary schedule. if you're a director. Um, and that takes away some negotiation and it builds in the longevity support through our local supplement and the longevity pay from the state. Um, I'm also strongly in favor of adjusting our principal salary schedule. Um, for most of our principles, they probably could make almost as much um, as a teacher on the salary schedule as they would as a principal. So, we do need to make some in my opinion, they've been trying to do some work at the state level as well to adjust principal pay. It did not get passed last year. It doesn't seem to be on the budget agenda for this year, but I think because we're a small district, we can create um
139a a more um appropriate salary schedule for our principles without a huge cost across the district. Um it's a difficult job. It's a big job. It's the second most important position to our teachers. Um, and we know we are we there is a tendency as we talk to staff that are could make amazing principles, they're like, "Eh, I don't really see the financial benefit of that." So, wanting to make sure that the people who choose to move into that are getting that compensation matching. So, that's a recommendation Heidi and I will be working on and collecting more numbers on the financial impact of that. Just giving you a heads up that we are looking at that for central office. There are several staff that are at one level, but we will need to recategorize them.
140So, I can think of someone in our student services department that is on not even a coordinator level, but is really doing director level work, and we want to make sure that we reclassify several positions to put them at the level to match the work that they're really doing. Um, so those are where you would see staff moving up, but for the most part, as we update the salary schedule for central office, it will standardize it. It will freeze salaries. um if they're above that level that we set um for across the district. Um so review, you've seen this before. This is our updated staffing aotment or not updated but this is our staffing aotments. Um just for review there, this is a chart that you saw part of this data at our last presentation,
141but I've added two columns here. um the columns that says 2526 to 2627 aotment delta that's the change in aotment based on student enrollment. So, if you look at Asheville High School, um we or let's say Asheville Middle School, we we're looking at taking because of enrollment changes, taking two positions out of their aotment because enrollment was projected to decrease. And then when we met with Principal Johnston, he was asking for six positions. Four of those would be in addition to what he currently has. Um and so you can see those aotment changes based on our formula. Then the positions requested are encompassing of the enlotment decrease based on enrollment changes. So the difference the delta between a lotment change for AMS and what he was requesting would be four additional positions um for the
142Asheville for Asheville middle school. So that's what you can see on those to make sure we are making sure that's clear clear as enrollment changes we are going to follow the aotment proceed um procedure formula uh but then principles have that opportunity to ask to keep positions as they would see would be beneficial to their school and then on the last column we've added based on my uh review of the data on the review of requests these would be the re the positions that I would recommend that we approve um in the budget for the upcoming school year. So went through and looked at each category um and tried to make some adjustments based on class sizes as I'm watching enrollment change um and kind of make sure we're addressing areas of need based on
143our um school district improvement plan. Um then some addition those were ones you saw last time. Then additional requests came in after our presentations. I wanted to capture these separately. Um we have two new sports um that have are going to start next year. A women's flag football and a men's volleyball. So adding those coaching stipens. Um also looking at our William Randolph campus staff. Um the new kind of organization we have, we wanted to add a month of employment for the academic site coordinator. Um so that's a 12 months position and then the school counselor is very um critical at that school. So putting that counselor to an 11-month position. And then as I mentioned there are two positions one in CNI and one in student services where like work has been added to
144a person in a current position but they have not changed their classification. So we want to make sure we address that and rectify that. Also this was accurate as of Friday I think around 2:30. These are open seats. So based on staffing aotments um for what we have at the middle school, this is inclusive of the positions that if if the board approves the recommendations that I've listed on the previous slides, these are the open seats um that we have. We still see we're we're kindergarten is my is concerning. We have the most open seats across the district in kindergarten. Um first grade um a little ups and downs. Second grade is our fullest grade level. Um, so you can just kind of see where there are open seats available um at our different elementary
145schools. Uh, this is middle school. Um, and I put some notes here. So, we have to make a guess for sixth grade. We don't know until July 1st which students actually do withdraw for sixth grade. Um, or to that point for fourth and fifth grade. U, we don't process all those withdrawals until after the academic year rolls over. Um so just a note that we are still projecting for sixth grade. That number we just give our best guess. Um and then for seventh grade that is still 17 spaces over um even adding the staff back um into seventh grade adding that extra position there. Um and just because we don't really do like quote open seats um for the high school in Silsa, we just wanted to give you an update on their total enrollment
146as of the moment. Now I'm going to pass it back over to Heidi. >> Thank you. So, um, as you know, uh, the community did a lot of work last year to get our supplemental tax rate back up to 11 cents. Um, there was obviously a lot of discussion about reassessment this year, which uh, the revenue neutral rate has calculation has not changed. It is still at 8.14 cents. But we did preview the um commissioner budget presentation for tomorrow evening and she is recommending an increase from 8.14 to 8.64. So a half a cent increase in her presentation. So that is the newest information we were able to gain today about the budget. All right. Um um all these other slides are review from last time till we get to the last slide. Um, let's
147stay a minute on the the basketball one. So, back to our, you know, this year is going to be a much better raise year than we've seen in a very long time, but still we don't have those numbers definitely. Um, some of the dollar aotments will get adjusted from DPI. Some will not. And the only ones we're guaranteed, just as a reminder, are those position allotments. So, Dr. Maggie asked that I summarize that on the last slide of where we might be right now. Now, I did not get the news about the half cent increase in the supplemental tax until we were just walking in here, actually. So, this was as if we would actually get the 10 cents. Um the 8 um 64 cents will generate about $775,000. So, um I'll have to back
148that number down uh a little bit there. Um but the other numbers basically our non-s salary based cost increases would stay the same in either scenario. Um obviously the more supplemental tax that we might have had passed the more leeway we would have to address the raises and any enhancement requests. And so this is just kind of a range for you initially to see where we might be on use of fund balance based on the information we have now. Like I say, I'm hoping we get some more in writing the week of June 15th so I can give you some better numbers. Okay, thank you. That was comprehensive. I really I want to say how much I appreciate the progression of these um presentations. I feel anchored. You're updating us. This information is changing literally
149as you're walking in. So um it's helpful for me to be able to follow. So questions for clarification. and Jesse [clears throat] >> Maggie, since we are at the bottom of the one of the bottom three of the achievement gap here in North Carolina, where elementary, middle, high school, where are we putting our most support into trying to close that gap within the next five years? >> I mean, I'm looking at you. I mean, >> that's why we're adding the math interventionist. So, that is really focusing. We've already got great tutoring and making good progress with reading at the elementary schools. Um, but math is an area of focus. So, we know we need more support for math. Um, and then at the middle school adding a full-time interventionist and also an halftime interventionist at
150William Randolph. So my recommendation is adding more intervention and support teachers so that they can do some targeted small groupoup instruction when students need that extra support and aren't on track to make benchmarks. >> So we're talking about putting more IAS into our elementary classroom. >> Not IAS. These are actual uh certified teachers >> into our elementary schools >> and middle school and William Randolph. >> So there'd be more than one teacher in the classroom. >> They would pull it. Not sure yet how they would work. Would they go in and co-e and do some small groupoup instruction? Would they pull students out for small groupoup instruction? We haven't figured all those details out, but know that that is a need. Um, and so that's why I'm recommending those. And then keeping our class sizes
151at the middle school level smaller. So adding the two a teacher back at the at the is it two? Yeah, two teachers back at the middle school level. >> Okay. Other questions? Oh yeah. Okay. So, we're going back. Um, I would like to hear a little bit more about the hourly rounded up that I'm seeing in the percent of annual salary with the local supplement proposal and understand better the 0.55% piece that's tacked on there. Um I I believe I understand the rationale for having a different rate for 15 to 19 years and and that makes a lot of sense and then I see the large jump for 18.5 uh percent for 20 or more years but can you tell us a little bit more about that rounding up process? >> Yes. So all of
152the local supplement amounts on the left side and the 18 and a half is where we are now. So Dr. Maggie suggested bumping them just 0.05 05 to make sure we're at or above where we are now when we fix those rates and we were also the top in the county as compared to Bunkham County schools and so in order to align with the new 11.55 12.55 13.55 um I had suggested we do 10.55 on that first level and that will require that we have to round up the hourly folks just a little bit more see because the new If on the s teacher salary schedule slide uh those new zero to eight or nine years actually will be getting a significantly higher pay increase than >> only teachers >> right. So we have to
153adjust the hourly pay table in order to make sure those folks get a an equitable increase as well. So this these these uh supplements are one piece of it and then the other piece is for all of our classified staff making sure that we're rounding up pay and updating process of reviewing all those payables. But yes, that would definitely make sure that they would get at or above where they would have been had we not made this change. >> Okay, thank you very much for clarifying that. Um I um I am um sharing some concerns with some board members about uh CEO pay inflation or and the larger amounts in our budget um and how all of that interplays. Um I know a board member has expressed some has acknowledged that our our highest paid
154people if we take what is it the the top 20 is we've or um is over $2 million and how it looks when we're raising those things and the effect that it has on our budget when we're raising um top pay and um I'm I'm still struggling with our decision to control cost by outsourcing um uh food and nutrition and the impact on on those staff that that also are student facing and serve our students. So um >> Pepe, do you have a a question that >> Do I have a question? Um I I guess I until I I see what this means, it makes me very uncomfortable. So, I'm hoping that we'll get more specifics. Is that a fair enough question? >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um >> statement, but we'll take it. >>
155Yeah. >> Well, I'm asking for for >> hoping for more clarifying. >> Okay. Other questions? Yeah. Um, two questions. One, um, I asked you at some point in the past, Maggie, and I'm sorry, Heidi, I don't remember the difference between them. Tell me if you don't mind the difference in pay between a media assistant and a media coordinator. A media coordinator is a they're paid on the teacher salary schedule. A media assistant is paid on the IIA schedule. >> So how much? No, I understand that. But it's just so I guess we don't know until anyway I remain highly I really remain convinced that we need two media coordinators at our middle and high school because of the need for specifically to address the achievement gap. I think that those resources are really important for
156those students. Um what about the one at the high school? I mean, I guess that's up to Derek to decide how to use and is it because art is the same thing for me. Like I think that it's an avenue for students who struggle maybe to excel or find their voice in other spaces and art is a place where we can. So, do we know if that means we're going to have a second art teacher or not? Yeah, I believe Derek was going to use that aotment to add art back to that art pos that art position. >> I I will just say that I I I really do feel strongly about the media coordinator and I would love to see us add that amount, however much more that is than the assistant. That's I
157know that that's not my call, I guess, although I guess approving the budget is, but that's my thought. >> Other questions? I wanted to ask I I appreciate the step towards um creating an equitable salary schedule for central office staff. Um but to echo what what Pepe was uplifting that the central office staff the top 20 salaries over $100,000 total $2.7 million. Um, and we talk about, you know, the a lotment formulas in our schools and how we we just constantly have to take away from studentf facing positions. I I would really like to see a an aotment formula for how many of those positions could, you know, potentially be combined and absorbed. You know, we we talk about losing positions through attrition and then, you know, it just creates this constant shortfall in studentf
158facing positions and the the the amount of of people who are making over $100,000 is just really staggering to me. >> Um, two things. want the first one. Sorry, Rebecca's not a question, but um Heidi, to your point about the um about the proposed um supplemental tax, I want to make I want to just clarify that that's not an increase. If we're going from 8.14 to 8.64, it's a decrease from what we currently have. Um so we are currently at 11%. Um and so the proposal by the county to put it at 8.65 is not an increase, it's a decrease. Um, >> I have to respect it and just say it is an increase in money to us for our budget next year because it is >> $775,000 instead of $200,000. >> I understand. >>
159I just right >> put that out there. >> Um, my other question is um Maggie, you pointed out that um when we were talking about principal pay that that's the second most important person in a in a child's life. And the first is uh and all the data shows it that it is a classroom teacher. And I and when I say classroom teacher, I also include instructional assistance. [clears throat] So uh and then to Jesse's point about um how we are actively working to um narrow and eliminate the achievement gap. Um and [clears throat] this is a a a drama I've beat since I kind came on here and I recognize that it that the the supplement is a confusing thing. Anyway, my question would be, are there ways that we can continue to incentivize
160great teachers to stay in the classroom, great instructional assistants to stay in the classroom? I understand the appeal of being able to earn a higher salary by coming into a principal position or even into a central office position. And the data continues to show that it's great teachers who really are the ones who are going to close that achievement gap. So just offering similar to Pepe, it's not a full question, but are there ways that y'all are talking about how do we incentivize teachers to remain in those classrooms? [clears throat] >> So part of that was breaking out the 10 to 14 and 15 to 19. So those teachers that are in the 15 to 19 are getting a 1.5 jump in their supplement. So that's one way um to compensate them at a at
161I think a more not not anywhere near what they need and what they deserve. no way, shape or form, but something that we could do for this budget year. Um, and then the other piece of that is being addressed through strategic plan, attract, achieve, um, advance. So, a big part of strategic plan is how are we ad helping teachers find those leadership roles with and stay in the classroom for sure. Um, one thing that I wanted to ask about is when we're looking at the aotment formulas and anchoring. I think what I'm seeing is that some of our schools are based on student projected enrollment, but also based on the time it takes to get in line with an aotment formula. We didn't do it in one year. We've done it over several years. And
162so then there is this process that's played out for folks to request more and how those get decided. I feel confident there has to be discretion at the superintendent. But I'm I I want to understand how principles are hearing that this is next year if it's over the allotment that that's not nec is a is that a permanent allotment for that particular school or how are they understanding that this is in response to something in particular but the allotment formula is equal and then assessed based on conditions. >> Yeah. So, as I was adjusting the number of teachers at the schools, keeping the aotment formula in mind, I'm monitoring class sizes. So, as I have a class size report that I look at every Wednesday, I'm seeing, okay, well, here's the number at Claxton. They
163were getting up over their class size limit. So, that's when it tells me, okay, I've got to add that teacher back in there. Same for 7th grade at the middle school. when I looked at their current enrollment and open seats, I was like, "Oh, they are above that threshold." So, I need to add that teacher back in. So, it is still keeping within our our formula, but then as we're responsive to students enrolling or students not, you know, withdrawing, we can make those adjustments. So, all the adjustments that I made to add classroom teachers back is responsive and in alignment with our formula. >> And and something we I'm sorry. Are those the same teachers is going to be added inside the classroom that we just mentioned a few minutes ago? Say um say say
164that question again. Just >> are those the same teachers numbers for the elementary and middle school to help close that achievement? Have they already been added into the form? >> No. No. No. The intervention teachers have now been added in there yet cuz they'll pull out small groups or go and co-e. So they're not reflected in the class size. They're in addition to it's in a whole new a lotment to help support achievement gap closure. Does that make sense? >> Yes. Trying to determine how many teachers are we talking about. We're not sure, right? Uh I >> I mean [clears throat] listed the.5 Because just like the the budget is a guessing game this time of year when Dr. Maggie sits down with the principles and she uses those ratios. You know, right now we
165think there's 60 kids in this class or in this grade or in this and and then when all the numbers shake down very often, you know, they don't line up. So, it's your best guess at any point, but she generally airs always on the side of having more than less. and like her IIA aotment is similar to the state but not nearly as restrictive. So we have a lot more IAS in the classrooms than that just what the state provides in their a lotment. So she has always aired on the side of either best practice or or that better number even though she's sticking to that formula that she's developed and hopefully we keep fine-tuning that. >> Thank you. Amy, you have a question? >> Yeah, just a quick question on these open seats. um
166looking at the elementary schools um and noticing I mean I guess one thing that would have been helpful or maybe I don't know um won't be here next year but the to know kind of what those open seats looked like when they were in second or fourth. So what I'm noticing is that there's a lot of kids leaving in fourth and fifth grade which I think we know why. Um or else they were always a small class. >> They or they and so that happens like you get bubbles and as they move up. So this year it was first grade. We were like where do we put these kids? We but now they're in second grade, right? >> So then they move as they move up that's why we then have to say hey we've
167got to move um a first grade teacher up to second grade. So or do we need to keep a first grade and add a second grade? >> Yeah. I'm looking more at how many we have available. And that I think is a response to larger class sizes. So we have a 22 average class size for fourth and fifth grade >> where it's so all of a sudden we have 17 available spots at Claxton which is really close to one classroom. And you know I guess my my observation is I'm curious about whether that class always had that many available or if we're suddenly seeing people believe at fourth and fifth grade because guess what? you better get into some of these schools if you're going charter >> before sixth grade. You you won't have room.
168Yeah. >> And if that's what's happening, then does the allotment formula sort of take that into account that there's going to be a a dip um in need at those schools next year for I guess you know do you do you understand what I'm asking? And I think the other thing I want to say about that is that we have these two schools that we've identified as especially popular. And notice where the kids are coming from. And I want to say that because I can tell you what the race is for most of those kids, if not every single one of them. And I just think it's really important as a school district to recognize how when we have only a magnet program that asks people to decide where they want to go, we end
169up with schools where we get a lot of departures at fourth and fifth grade because that's where the popular the place where all the parents who are in the no and have are white and live in whiteness decide they want to send their kids. And I'm off my soap box. Thank you very much. >> Happy you had questions as well. >> Uh that's a lot to think about Amy. Um one question I wanted to invite maybe not an answer right now. I'm looking at the impact of the state's flat um salary schedule for um what is it 10 to 19 years and wondering if we want to look at if not for next year at a future year having a higher percentage than just a one percentage point difference. Um because [clears throat] you're the
170proposal is to go up to 13.55% which is a 1% increase and whether it will make sense at some point to do a bigger jump. >> Okay. I think as we continue to move forward with those initiatives that HR has, you know, clarified for us, I think we're going to have to continue to look at compensation across the board each year and see what the state provides, what we have available locally, and what's going to be the best initiative to take to meet those goals. So, >> it's a good point. Um and I do have a very specific question about social workers. Um my understanding is that national standards according to the professional organization is one social worker for every 250 students. I know that we may have in our so and I may have
171that wrong so please correct me if I'm wrong. I know that we may have people who serve a social worker type role who may not have that title. My understanding right now is we have four social workers for a district of almost 4,000 and I see only a request for one more social worker and that worries me. So, how do we get more support for our students who need support? And is there a path that I'm not seeing? Or do you have a an aotment formula that will move us to having more social workers? >> Um, we're trying to get to the 250. It's not something we can do overnight. So, it's a work in progress. >> Thank you. Okay. I'm going to move us along. Heidi, you're still on the hot seat. Well, dog
172on it. Okay. So, um this is uh of course the odd month of the year where we'll have a budget amendment now and we'll probably have another small one coming up on the June 30th meeting. Um this is just your uh normal monthly reports. there wasn't any um main major changes if I could spit it out um to really discuss. A lot of this is me taking a harder look at our detailed expenditures as we've gone through the year and trying to estimate what of the several million dollars worth of open purchase orders we still have outstanding at this point in the year and trying to estimate where we'll end up so that we can have the money in the right places to pay all the bills. So, um that's really what this is. And
173like I say, I've made my um best stab at this for this meeting and then we will make a final um review in order to make sure we're in compliance for the audit at the June 30th meeting. But if anyone has any questions, I'll be glad to answer those. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you, Heidi. This process is so helpful the way you do it. Um, all right. Next on the agenda is April. >> Yes. >> Taking us through 441. >> This memo was dated back May the 20th. Um, I'm happy to report to the board now that the HVAC system is up and running properly at this moment, but that does not take away from the fact that we do need some direction provided from the board. We're at a point where we're
174going to have to decide is it responsible for us to keep financially investing in this property in this building. In the memo, I tried to provide some context of like how we got to this situation um and where we are really asking the board for three things. One, do you want us just to keep doing what we're doing? This short-term stabilization. One of the good things is is it is an older building and part of that is it's an antiquated system that's a little bit more simple than the one at Asheville Middle School. So sometimes beating it with a hammer does actually work. Um but that's not that's not a long-term solution. Another option would be somewhere in the middle. Can we just kind of see like what could we do diagnostically um to make
175some adjustments to the HVAC system? I'm just using that as an example. That doesn't mean that there aren't other issues because there's they are there are or something more significant like some long-term um investments. As you know, I do want to remind the board, you know, we are very actively in conversations with the Department of Transportation and the impact of the I26 corridor. Um, this building is empty. There are not people housed there right now in offices. We do, but we do have the building is used for storage for our IT department. We're slowly moving a lot of our EC equipment out. Operations has a significant amount of things still there. So, it is important for us to keep that environment as stable as possible. Um but I have already made the decision to start
176moving things out of that campus. >> All right. So what I want to just anchor us that we've we're on the agenda. These are things for vote. So um these can be on consent if we have consensus or we can pull anything to go on action for next week. But we're talking about things that we can expect to vote on next week. So we've got a memo from April describing options. Um, I'd like to go around and have each board member share just what option you're leaning towards so we can take a temperature. Not not yet a place of um questions or um arguments. Actually, no arguments, please. >> We're definitely going to get questions answered for sure. But just in terms of seeing where we are, I think we some of us have shared
177some already. So, um, George, do you mind if I start on your end? >> Yeah. Uh, at the risk of sounding wishy-washy, I kind of think middle of the road. I mean, we just saw from the facility presentation that that building could be, you know, could be a space for district services down the road. Um I worry that if we're not at least maintaining those vital systems that um we'll find further deterioration in that building at which case then it falls apart and then that's a a huge rebuild. I also understand the budget constraints that go along with like really supporting the the capital needs of that building. So, I guess a question would be, April, and you don't have to answer this right now. Like, if we had to do some I'm glad to
178know that the HVAC right now is stable. As somebody who's facing the same thing in my theater, it's stable right now, right? It could go at any moment. Is this something that, for example, and this is really a question that I'm I would imagine that the public could ask as well. Um, could um lottery dollars help pay for that? But in general, sorry I talked a lot, middle of the road. [clears throat] I am also middle of the road. Um I was excited about the possibility of reimagining student life in that building and with my personal connection to it. Um and yeah, that's that's my short answer. >> Sure. I think I'm in a somewhat middle of the road as well. I want to do what's necessary to protect and leave open options. Like I
179don't want to cut us off. that would be my priority. >> Um I have two questions that I really need answered before I can give any kind of input. One is um as we understand DO's plans, I understand we don't know exactly but do we have any idea where how far they're what they're going to take? >> I I cannot express to the board enough. It is a moving target. We're actually working with another firm to kind of help us better understand exactly where the easement is. I anticipate I will know more in by July 1st. Um that we're in the process of working through that right now. It it literally the survey it is it >> would it come into the building? >> It does not appear to come into the building. No. It
180does appear to take a lot of the parking lot that is next to the and very very close to the gym which has made us more concerned about the stability of the gym. itself, >> right? That makes sense. Cuz if it comes very close, it's an old building. Okay. Second question, um is um we talked about doing um a fence up here. >> Yes. >> To contain equipment. Yes. >> That was there. >> Yeah, [clears throat] there is there are there there is equipment still at on the 441 campus and the fence that we are planning to put on 85 Mountain Street will take some of that equipment. Yes. Okay. Um, and then I guess the other question and because you worked with the facility needs folks >> on this study, the that option of
181using that facility for the PEP program and for whatever else we talked about. Um would it I mean I guess my my kind of thinking about it is that that building needs so much that it would be more costefficient to just start over. >> So that is what she discussed. She a cost analysis of what would it be what would get us the most benefit in the long run and that does include a re a new build and it also includes working on the existing building. Well, we don't we're asking the board for the scenario which you want us to more likely pursue, but we would no matter what we would do a cost analysis. It is entirely possible that a new building is cheaper than trying to renovate the existing building, >> right? >>
182Um I do also want to caution it is kind of an island. We would have that we would have to work with our partners on um Argyle and change that that flow of traffic as well. So that is something to consider when you're thinking those of you who know this campus intimately think about the big picture and what we could do and the potential for that property not just the building. I know that's hard but I just we have to think about it both ways and we have to be responsible long term right and so that would you just said and I don't know that building intimately uh I mean I've been in it lots but not way back and around. So, are you suggesting that the long-term when you say we'd have to work
183with our partners anyway, does that weigh in favor of a new building or using the old building? >> It could go either way. Okay. I don't want to speak. >> So, my my response to this is I would not put much money into this building at all. I would be fine with um I suppose this $12,000 diagnostic cost or whatever. Pardon me, that was just an example, but >> Right. Understood. I mean, but I am I'm really not confident that at the end of the day between the taking that's going to happen on some significant portion of the parking lot, the age of the building and what it needs, I would rather have us move everything out and find space and then imagine that property as something new uh longer term. But that's so I
184I I'm understand we have an HVAC system we got to deal with, but my instinct is >> least amount possible. >> Jesse. >> Okay. I totally agree with uh Amy. How much would it take to get about five storage bin and move everything that is use uh that could be used in the future to place inside the storage. I have learned a lot of things as the chief op of operations for the school system in my tenure and I have I have determined that the extra storage is not the solution. Um there we have a lot of things that we hold on to because we might need it later which in theory is very good and smart but in long term it becomes damaged. It gets moved a lot people change their ideas. Principles have
185new great ideas and there's not a whole lot of thought going through it. That's why we really have to work together and have some long-term planning. So the things that are in 441, I have asked a team of people that includes members of CNI, student services, my team to go through and like really analyze what's there, what should we keep, what should we put on gov deals, and what is just not usable, like something we should just get discard of. And so I'm reluctant to just move everything into the pods. I really want to follow through this process, which is why I asked Dr. Maggie when the chiller broke. I was like, we're in this situation. I've got to fix it. Um I need I need the board to kind of help with this guidance.
186Like here we are. And so that's why I'm bringing that. I'm not saying that. So I don't want to put a monetary I'm not sure how many pods it would need we would need to be honest on how much stuff is in that building. Now I'm saying we're using 441, but I assure you that every nook and cranny in Asheville City Schools has something in it. >> Okay. So So if we don't need it, we need to just get rid of it. >> Right. that but the being the person who's in charge of it. I want a group of people to help inform us on what we need and what we should keep and what we should sell. I don't want to be the person for obvious reasons that makes that decision. >> Okay. Me
187and Mark can come over there and help you put that together. >> Okay. I will make sure [laughter] that you deal with what I have. >> But my suggestion just like Amy is to is to let's smash it down and build something different. And in this particular moment that the question is how much money are we going to put into the today? So you're saying the least amount of money because you don't want to throw >> No. No. We shouldn't put no more money inside the building. >> No more money in the building as we're >> No more money in the building. No. >> Okay. Um I will thank April and um uh Louis Justice for taking time to meet with me a few weeks ago. And then I went over with Louis Justice in
188the rain and looked at facts on the ground. Um what I saw and this is I think important for us to consider facts on the ground. Um and in talking through the history with Louis Justice and April Dockery um we have a few points of failure. One is when we have a building where the temperature is not kept in a tight range, warm air hits cold walls, condenses, and that is the cause of mold. I have a longer email that is already drafted that I spared you from today and this weekend because we had so much stuff on the agenda. Another point of failure besides the temperature range and the remember that if we have a pod, warm air hits the walls of the pod or hits the objects in the pod and it creates
189that same water comes out of the air, precipitates like on a a cold can of Coke and it and everything sweats and that's where you get that mold. So those pods are, you know, like it's really hit or miss and we're liable to damage a lot of stuff if we went that route unless we've got climate control in those pods. A second point of failure, um it was something that got overlooked in the building. There were plumbing fixtures that were um not in use. water was turned off from stagnant water accumulated in the bowls evaporated allowing vermin gases um stuff coming in. And so a lot of the issues that I'm hearing about, that I've heard about, and that I saw get addressed by implementing a maintenance schedule for any decommission space that makes sure
190that the traps are maintained. The third thing is when we have a decommissioned building, we still have to make sure that the drains, the gutters stay cleared. What I witnessed was pooling and the major water damage that I was shown was specific to pooling of water in the courtyard. But I also saw pooling out outside the building that was causing problems and it is doing that maintenance requests having maintenance requests even on the decommission buildings because we still have to maintain them. So could you in terms of the question of the three tiers where would you put yourself in and what you'd advocate for for April to do? >> I am looking at a building that if we took care of those three issues that building would be good to be back in service. Obviously
191anywhere where water condensed in ventilation systems that has to be cleaned where mold was allowed to grow in some spots that may have been identified. But I am looking at a building that really can function very well as is. And so I'm in the absolutely, you know, do the maintenance stuff in that middle road and we need to be looking at um updated chiller solutions because that chiller has only one side operating. But in terms of like right now, April's looking for, you know, what can you maybe orient us to how the guidance we're going to give you >> officially? What timeline do you need it for? Like how how's it going to support you in making decisions that lead us to longer term decisions about this building? I'm very hopeful by at least the
192end of the summer when we come back in August and we're really looking at we're getting our community input on where the facility needs study and where we the scenarios we want to tackle, we'll be able to make some more long-term decisions on that property. But like right now, you know, it's kind of every single day you don't know, you know, like we immediately checked the building and we had a significant amount of rain. Um, but I also have a very limited crew and I have a very significant issue happening on a very large campus that has lots of children on it that my crew has to go and support. I mean, that's a priority. So, that's how we're prioritizing it. Um, and that that 441 is the least priority campus in the district just
193to be crystal clear. Um, and 85 Mountain Street is pretty close and if you look at the parking, we try to defer as much as we can. So, I just need I just want you to know I'm doing the bare minimal just trying to keep it stable. But I if you want us to be more moderate, then I can work. We only have one side of the chiller is working. That is true. Um, but we have we've got it we got kind of we think we have it stable for now. >> So, what I'm hearing is some board members want absolute minimal financial investment in this building. Um, and some want the required to keep options open. >> I just want to promise I just I can't promise that the middle of the road is
194going to keep the building open. >> Well, and what you I don't think you're hearing anybody suggest we want more than that, >> right? Yes. I'm I'm suggesting more than that because we've >> the idea that >> the immediate like right away >> in the immediate >> the drains that that are allowing water to pull >> have to be cleared. The gutters you still have to clean them even if a building is taken offline because it's going to prevent >> Thank you. I'm sorry. I appreciate that. and flushing of toilets and even if it's by bucket, >> the the traps in the sinks, you can't have sewer gases coming up into a building. >> Okay, I'm tracking now. So, that's the array that we have. Um, and April has shared that the current approach is
195prioritizing buildings where students are um when there's, you know, literal day-to-day what where do we send people to do what? So, um, it we're covering a lot of ground on on where to land here. I wonder if anyone has a proposal or if April if with your operational expertise, if you've heard anything from what's been shared that do you have any questions for us that might help us get to the type of guidance that would be most useful to you? So, just for a point of clarity, um the middle of the road to me includes making sure we properly seal that building when it's not being not being occupied. That we go in actively get as much sitting water out as possible, clean and and seal it up. That has not been something that we
196have done yet. Um we just we're just now kind of getting settled. School is very active. It was not done prior to us going back. So, that is something new. It will take time. I'm not sure how much investment and time and money that will be. So, I want I want that clarified. Um, and then of course this the the groundskeeping in general, it is very minimal. Again, um the gutters of our all of our campuses get cleaned twice a year. It's very cumbersome. So, it's just something to think it through. Just I want you to help me identify what that means. >> Okay. So, I think what I'm hearing you say, Rebecca, is like if this is showing up on our I assume it would be an action item. I don't want to presume
197that we're just going to throw it on consent. Um the action that this board would take would be a recommendation of one of these tiers. Is that is that what you need or do you need like a a dollar amount? Like what would be >> I don't think it's fair to ask the board for a dollar amount. very specific what you what what I what you want us to do. >> Gotcha. >> Right now, we're just offering on the very minimum. >> Okay. And I will offer that the refrigerant changes over the past couple years with these HVAC units, we may actually benefit waiting 6 months or a year as the change over to the latest refrigerant happens and not be stuck with the next to last change. So that may be a reason to
198go for that middle road if it includes those, for lack of a better term, winterization or, you know, plumbing. >> Rebecca, if you want my vote, >> go ahead, Jesse. >> My vote is to no more money goes in it. Let's get ready, prepare ourselves to clear it out and knock it down. >> All right, Jesse's being very clear. So we've got two ends of the spectrum represented on our six voices for sure. Can I can I offer another component for the middle ground? Um, hearing about the the potential for using that building for a PEP program. Um, I was curious if there might be um any appetite for a community partnership with either AB Techch or UNCCA or other higher learning institutions in um creating a lab school that could potentially include preK expansion,
199could even offer an opportunity to partner with Bunkham County Schools um to to use that that campus as a a community asset. >> I I think there's a lot of opportunities that we can explore. Um I'm not sure prek is the best option there only because it's a lot of people in and out dropping kids off, picking kids up. Um pup academy is something that um Dr. Jackson and I have had couple small passing conversations about what is a potential for collaboration as we talk about this threat of you know potential consolidation. Is there an opportunity for us to you know partner and create a space that both county and school city schools can benefit from. So that is like an initial just like hey are you interested? Yeah I'm interested. So that would be
200a much deeper exploration as it goes to creating a lab school. I think that's a really further out than I think I'm prepared to talk to this evening. >> So, >> and can you have initiate those conversations though and just, you know, feel Dr. Jackson out? >> So, one point of clarity, a lab school by statute is operated by the university. You would just be a landlord. So, we recognize I think the point I'd like to elevate from that is it's it's there's opportunity and we don't want to miss out on an opportunity with a short-sighted decision right now. Um, and whether there's clarity that that comes through demolition and rebuilding or something where we would need to retain it in some way, we just don't know. We don't know. So, we've got a couple
201far ends of the spectrum and I think some more middle ground. Is there a version, April, of your option two with some guard rails to protect us on financial investment? >> Well, I I won't be able to do a whole lot without asking you anyway. >> Okay. >> But just know that's what I would like some clarity on. >> Okay. I don't think we have consensus, but I'm wondering if we could live with going forward with an option two on for a vote. But what I mean, I'm confused about why we're going to invest money when we've already been doing this. You're asking if we want to keep doing the same thing we've done or add more to to do a little more to this. >> Buy a little time. >> Buy more time. But
202right now, we're continuing to buy the time we've been buying for the last five years or whatever it is, right? We kind of been doing the same thing for the last five years. >> I I don't think >> Excuse me. And I understand that there have been things that have been happening in the building that are negative because we haven't invested further in it. Get it? Um anyway, I just I'm confused why we would aside from the chiller, that's what's been prompting this. Yeah, >> the chiller prompted this initial discussion. Yes. >> But I don't want the board to think that we just abandon it alto together. I want the board to understand that we have priorities and we're trying to make informed decisions for the long term. >> And right now I've we've just
203been able to stabilize it. We've just a little bit here. But we have there has been a lot of money spent on 441 this year. Yeah. >> Because of the circumstances. >> Yeah. I mean to me we're spending enough to stabilize it. That's sort of my point. It's like we're we're already spending money on it just to kind of keep it where it is or prevent complete destruction internally. And that's I don't mind continuing with the same level of maintenance we have had. I do personally I will vote against investing any more than we have for two reasons. One, I don't think we should because we've got a highway getting ready to blow through there. We have wonderful, beautiful ideas about using this possible campus for housing and that for something completely different which I
204do think would wisely if you're going to in like do a PEP program that would be exciting maybe new need space. Sorry. And then the last thing is um your staff is already maxed out on on campuses like the high school that need it now. And I don't think we need to be funneling more into that particular campus. And I want to acknowledge that there are heart issues here for a lot of members of the community who lost a school that was in that building and they felt like and I I don't want to get into the debate about that other than to say it was thriving for those families and it was heartbreaking and all of that said and acknowledged and appreciated I wouldn't put any more money in it than we already are.
205So I'd like to clarify Jesse when you're with what you've said. Is that in alignment with what Amy just said? Like what we've been doing. >> Okay. Thank you. So [laughter] Oh, good clarification. Got it. In alignment with what Jesse said that I appreciate that because I think I was hearing it differently. So thank you. >> So >> Okay. Um, Miss Dockery, April, has have things changed as far as the understanding of the boundary? Because when I looked at it with Mr. Justice, the concerning um stakes in the ground, we were able to look at it and identify those stakes not as a boundary line, but as a place where you put an instrument for sight lines. So that is what I was sharing earlier. That's why we're asking a third party to come in
206and help us with that process. >> Just to clarify. Okay. So at this point, all we know is they're taking out a little square for a utility box on the corner. We don't know for sure about any other land that's being taken away other than the land we were using for free on the other side of the trees. Well, we have gotten notification of easement and so that is the part where we are we are working that is I'm actively working on that piece. >> Okay. But we don't have clarify any clarity on what that is yet. >> No, but >> Okay. >> Yeah. All right. So, George, >> no, no, no. You were about to say I think what I was about to say. >> No, I'm I want to see where we are.
207Are we getting >> I was just going to say that sounds like we have a sense of what a vote needs to look like uh next Monday. We can't we're we don't have the ability to take action right now anyway in a work session. So I was just going to say it sounds like we can put this on the put on the action item. >> An action item. >> Take it off consent. Put it on action. >> This will be an action item. >> Yeah. >> And every board member's homework is to clarify a motion um to bring forward. >> And I think if you have questions, this is the time to get clarification. If there's something that's making you think it could go one way or the other, reach out to Maggie and include
208April to get that information. >> Yeah. >> And to something that you and Sarah do I think do very well considering Amy to your point the the history of this building. I think some time to I forget the word that Sarah uses, but you know, in that vote, it's going to be there. It's a hard vote. So, if we all have time to just kind of share where we are, I think that would be really helpful. >> Got it. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, moving on, Dr. Deckant will walk us through a couple items. >> I think student fees will be a lot easier. Um, so you have a a link to 2526 student fees. And the reason that I gave you this current year's set of fees is because if memory serves me
209correct, um, George had asked last year to see what the changes were that it was important for the board to see any changes reflected. The only change that you will see will be um for 2627 will be the cap and gown fee going from $53 to $57. And so we will reflect that change and put that on the agenda for next week. But this kind of gives you an idea of of >> So student fees are staying the same with one small exception for cap and gown and this can go on consent. >> Okay. Okay. of >> elementary, high school, and middle school. >> Just for high school, just for uh for Silsa and Asheville High, it'll go from $53 to $57. >> Powering down. >> All right. Yes, there is scholarship money available for
210students who are not able to purchase that. Great. Okay. Next you have contracts andus. Um all of those are for information only except for the four contracts that you see um listed there. Those exceed the um dollar amount and require board approval. Do you have any questions about those four contracts? So the four contracts have staffing, police, um clean environments, and um ESS Southeast. I must admit that I um neglected this part of the agenda and I may have questions later in the week. >> So will these go on for these will go on for action? >> These will go on for consent if there's nothing. >> Okay. >> And anything can be pulled off consent um at any time. So we can start with it on consent. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay.
211Any any other contract questions? Excellent. Okay. So, April, walk us through buses. We just need the per our board policy, we would like to ask the board we to use yellow buses for summer programming. That includes uh elementary, middle, and high school and our AVID summer bridge. So, I just need your approval to do so. >> And that's an annual requirement. >> Annual request. Yeah. in partnership with CNI >> that'll go on consent. So last agenda on open session is to Dr. Ferman around our calendar for next year. >> Yeah. So similar to last year, um planning out just a a general list of topics for the board to consider. Um so we can plan ahead and be ready for presentations. Um and I put some things on there that are reports I already know
212we're going to have to present at certain months. Um and what you'll notice is um where there are going to be um reports for strategic plan. You'll see those noted in purple text. There's some trainings already out there for board that I know about the NC SBA conference core training um as we'll be having potentially at least one new board member and our budget updates on there as well. Um so and then at the bottom we have two board retreats um which we'll do a quarter 1 update and a quarter 3 update on those retreat dates um in addition to other topics. So wanting to know from the board are there any big topics that the board is interested in working on. We will work on a reform policy. Um so in August I'll bring
213several options. I can tell you the one that's rising to the top for me is our discipline um policy. That's one we haven't tackled yet, but I think it's we're ready and it's time. Um, so I think that would be the one I would recommend to the board, but I'll have several options for the board to consider as we tackle our next reform policy. So, I want to know is there other work that the board wants to really dig into so we can research and present and bring some options um to the board and calendar that out through the year. knowing that facility kind of needs assessment is also going to be probably an every other month report on where we are with what steps we're taking um in that process. >> That sounds great.
214And so I think the way that I'd like to handle this is, you know, this is our opportunity to to bring up, you know, I think many of us at times have thought there's something I'd really love to see our district learn more about or get presentations on or find out what's the plan for that like what are we doing to improve that or could we start that? And so this would be a a bit of a space to say maybe this is we can get this in a pipeline. So, I'd like to go around and hear from each board member just what is is your top what would be the top thing where if you said I'd like to have at not just one like not just one presentation but like maybe a an
215ongoing learning not every meeting don't worry Dr. Ferman but like you know something that's we're going a little deeper with and then we'll see kind of where we are. So does anybody want to start Liza? Um, I'm thinking fallish. >> Just the topic. >> Oh, yeah. What's the topic you'd like? >> I would like um an internal teacher working condition survey. Internal. >> Yeah. Cuz and I guess this is great. This is a great example because as I was asking Dr. Ferman to get me oriented. What's helpful? What's useful is like there's lots of things we could do. I mean, we're always holding this idea. We could do this, we could do that. There's all these things we could do, but any one person, especially any one board member, thinking that'd be cool is actually
216probably a year's worth of work. Figuring out who would do it, how would it be organized, and so getting us informed is what we're looking into how we could do that. So, internal teacher educator working conditions. Yes. Okay. um survey and a a school breakfast and lunch participation gauge throughout the year. >> Nutrition. That's two. I'll take it. >> Sorry. That's >> nutrition. [laughter] You can do it in the same. >> Who wants to go next? Jesse. >> I would like to see the EOGs. I would like to see um how we're making progress within the uh achievement >> achievement gap >> um just get more knowledge of students >> how students are doing >> yes they get more knowledge of students >> got it thank you will popcorn Amy do you feel ready >>
217um I would like to see this kind of um intertwined I'd like reports on um how do I But this um the intersection of challenges students who need more than the regular classroom can provide and the behavior sort of the the challenges that that causes. How we can educate all of our students and how are we using William Randolph the Randolph school to address those challenges. What are the potentials for that and what are particularly I'm curious about K through five and is it possible to use that campus in part for that and you know basically a Randolph report >> Randolph report >> that accommodates the issues of some students being so challenged in what they've not been able to learn ahead of time that they are maybe causing behavior disruptions that are interfering with
218the learning of all the students and what are we doing for those kids? >> Got it. Awesome. Pepe, do you feel ready? >> I would really um want to see a deep dive into preschool options and opportunities. I was going to guess that it would >> with um three-year-olds and foury olds specifically, but also, you know, what we can do cuz I understand we've got a staff member who's waiting for one of those infant spots. Um so, you know, it's um just the deep dive on that. I appreciate and agree with everything that has been said. Um, and so >> that's your I >> if I'd had a wager in Vegas, that's what it would have been. So I'm glad you >> Hey, can I add one more to it? >> I'll come back. We're
219not This isn't your only chance. This is just a start. Let me get to George. >> And I also Liza got into, but that's >> May I please add um we used to at these um uh board retreats. See, and when I say we, it means the public and the board. Um, bygrade by school, what was going on with assessments and EOCC's. >> Got it. and that by grade by school it was a deep dive and I remember a superintendent collecting all the paperworks of embargoed stuff at the end but just being able to look at it because sometimes there are specific needs that a school has um we had a lot of deaths at one school that were impacting students and that was a missing piece >> and what kind of thing we needed
220to bring in priority >> I'd love to to hear how we are engaging with community partners um not only nonprofits and others who are serving our students be outside of the school day but also businesses etc. So that we are expanding opportunities for all of our students beyond the classroom. >> Okay. So we've got a pretty Oh, Jesse's got another one. That's right. I would like to hold a meeting at every school as we go through this every month. Go to a different school every month and be there on that particular day to support, you know, just see us at, you know, see at a new school because we're going to have new school uh board members likewise. So, let's just go to one school every month and >> spread it >> spread out and
221do the right thing. And so the way I'll think about that is that would need some thought and some planning. And so you're asking like could we start looking into how that would work. So here's the thing like and I know I can hear it. We've done it. It's happened in the past and we dropped it. So there's something to learn there about what was good about it, what was hard about it, what worked, what didn't. Cuz we've done it. It's not a new idea. It's it's been tried. I know cuz I used to wonder where the heck I was supposed to go to go to the board meeting cuz it's hard to keep up with where they were taking place when I was a mom. I'm still a mom, but like Okay. So, >>
222there was [laughter] to mom >> there was also a point in time when the board would meet here or meet in whatever their designated place was and then um continue the meeting to the next day for lunch. >> Yeah. >> So, they would go over to different schools for lunch. >> Lots of different variations that might be worth studying. So, we've got a list for the sake of time. I think would it be appropriate for I guess we've heard I'm going to I'm just going to do it. We've got expanding prek. We've got um an working on building an internal educator conditions survey and looking at what's going on with our school nutrition program. We've got looking carefully at EOG and EOCC data with an eye for our achievement gap. We've got reports on the
223intersection of high need students and services at the Randolph and where that's headed so that we're um pushing for the highest quality there. We've got community partnerships and how those are coming together and what they're doing for our district. Okay. There's one that keeps coming up in uh occasional text messages of news articles. Um and that is uh screen time and that balance. >> Screen time. >> Yep. [laughter] >> Okay. >> I was bringing somebody else's thing to the forefront, but bring it please. >> So I guess Maggie, here's what I'm wondering. Would and actually Chris Campbell, here's what I'm wondering. Would it be appropriate and useful if when we meet next week it similar to just getting a presentation we I could Sarah and I could work on an activity to gather you know
224almost like some version of the dots like where we what we want to do so we can't do all this. It'd be cool if we could do all this but we why not? Yeah, exactly Maggie. We're just going to do all of it. So, um, and I was reminded, um, sorry to cut you off, that the board at your vision statement workshop created a list of the things you wanted to see in 3 years. So, I'm going to send that back out to the board as a reminder and see if we can connect these to what you already said you wanted. And I don't know why I didn't think to share this with you ahead of time. Great. Um but maybe that can help us coalesce on one or two topics cuz as you know
225board meetings get very full very quickly with just normal operational things. So finding one or two big work projects in addition to the reform policy it's already a lot of work and anything the board wants is work on that team. Um so just I think that's a good reminder and what it anchors us in is that this is not this is not our only chance. Um the strategic plan lays out for us what order we take things not what will we just because we can't get into it next year doesn't mean it's never to be gotten into. So, um, just for the sake of clarity, what we're going to be looking to do when we're together next week is, um, some consensus building on how to prioritize. Can everybody live with that as an activity
226during a regular board meeting? There's no vote to take here. This is a um I mean, you you had put it on for consent. >> Yeah. >> Is it possible to like maybe my suggestion? I mean I want would be to do it maybe at another work session. That seems like a more of a work session thing than a >> to what degree help us understand our next work session will be in August and is that an appropriate Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. And and also I think there's a distinction you you may have been drawing this while I was uh you know taking care of my business >> but to the extent it's just a report that's different from do something >> and I just think some of these are are reports that
227it would be helpful to have >> and some of these are probably already they might just be uplifted it's already something that's going to happen but we could take it deeper and then some of them are sort of very different and new and so You can spend some time with this and I'll I'll get you um our list. >> Okay. >> Yes. Send me what you have so I can compare. >> Great. I mean it's impossible to read right here, but don't worry. I'll decipher it. Um all right. I think everybody wants to do a few more things together before you leave. But I would ask for a motion to go in close session. I move that we go into close session for all of the reasons that Sarah usually articulates. and Chris Campbell could
228articulate if he chooses to or it's rather right here. It is that uh we're going to go into close session under uh general statutes 143 31811 to prevent the disclosure of privileged and confidential personnel information and under subsection well to discuss matters protected by the attorney client privilege. Do we have a second? And can we do the announcements before we go into closed? >> Yeah, all the announcements are on your agenda. Take a look at them. They'll tell you lots of interesting things. do. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Liza seconded. Um, all in favor of going into close session, >> I.