001Good evening. Welcome everyone. We're glad you're here. I am going to open our meeting by reading our equity statement. In Asheville City Schools, we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and thrive. We recognize that our positions come with power, responsibility, and public service for the entire ACS community. We will model our commitment to equity through our practices and decisions. During this meeting, we invite a pause if harm has taken place, a moment to name the harm, and space to practice repair. Thank you. All members of the board of education are present and we have a quorum. And at this time we will stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America >> and to the republic
002>> for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this time, I will take a motion to approve our agenda. >> I move that we approve the agenda. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I >> Great. Thank you. At this time, sorry I have too many agendas in front of me. We are ready for good news. Good evening, board. Um, I'm excited to come to you this evening with our September good news. Um, Asheville City Schools is proud to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. We recognize and honor the history, culture, and contributions of Hispanic and Latin Americans who have made our school district a unique and special place. During Hispanic Heritage Month, we encourage everyone to learn more about the incredible impact Hispanic individuals have had
003and continue to have on our nation and our world. Asheville City School's first day of school was a huge success thanks to all of our amazing teachers, staff, students, and families. And we know this is going to be a truly great year filled with learning, growth, and joyful moments. We can't wait to see the amazing things that are going to happen in our district this year. And you can see some of the pictures of happy students and happy families from our first day of school. Asheville Ca Schools kicked off the start of the school year by holding our annual convocation on the Asheville High School Silsa campus. Central office staff along with our maintenance team grilled lunch and served all of our staff that day. Our high school marching band and cheerleaders brought fun and
004excitement to this event, and members from our student advisory council delivered powerful speeches that set the tone for a truly successful school year. At that event, we were excited to announce our 2026 Principal of the Year, Blair Johnston from Asheville Middle School. He has um has been nominated by his peers in recognition of his exemplary leadership, deep commitment to students, and dedication to building strong school communities. Blair has been a part of Asheville City Schools for more than 18 years, serving in multiple capacities as a teacher, administrator, and a mentor to his colleagues. His passion and dedication to creating a school culture of belonging as well as championing innovative instructional practices make him a truly exceptional leader. Congratulations to Blair and we would love for you to come up and get a picture with the
005board. This summer, our rising fifth through 7th graders from Hall Fletcher, Claxton, and Asheville Middle School had an incredible learning experience in the Youthful Hand program. Students took a deep dive into American history and civil rights by reading the graphic novel John Lewis's March book two. Students explored the bravery of freedom writers and the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Their work culminated in a hands-on exploration of slave deeds with Bunkham County registar of deeds Drew Risinger and an opportunity to discuss Asheville's history with local leaders like Sheriff Quinton Miller, city council member Kim Rooney, and youth mentor Daniel Young. Their guiding question was based on the book's dedication to the past and future children of the movement. When students were asked to generate a list of the people they thought exemplified the qualities
006of a child of the movement, many of the students listed their teachers. This program connected historical literacy with meaningful community engagement, preparing our students to be engaged and informed citizens. And I would like on behalf of the district to give a huge special thanks to Cassandra Wells for her leadership in this project and to Bets Ki for her support and the inspiring community leaders who made this enriching summer experience possible. If y'all will come up to the front and get your picture made with the board. [Applause] Several schools across our district hosted fun and celebratory back to school events. Hall Fletcher, Lucius Herring, and Ira B. Jones did a fantastic job of bringing families, staff, and students together to reconnect and kick off the school year. We especially loved seeing Asheville High alumni Freddy White
007generously donate his barber services, offering free haircuts, touch-ups, and fades to students at Hall Fletcher. And this is selfishly one of my favorite parts of giving good news as I get to recognize one of my kids, one of my Claxton kids. Um, and that leads us to our alumni spotlight today. We want to highlight Freddy White who graduated from Asheville High School in 2021. During Freddy's time in Asheville City Schools, he played for the Asheville High School basketball team all four years of high school, ran track as a freshman, and what Freddy appreciates most about Asheville City Schools is how diverse our schools are and how being surrounded by so many different students enhanced his social skills, which is a skill he taps into daily as a specialized barber and hair stylist for OG Cuts.
008Speaking to his volunteer work in Asheville City Schools, Freddy said, "I believe that this is important for students to see alumni because it gives them something real and physical to see that can motivate the next generation to achieve whatever it is they desire. And having good role models to look up to is important. Thank you to Freddy for being a role model for our students and for returning to Ashaw City Schools to share your talents with our students. Freddy, if you'll come up and get a picture with the board. >> Congratulations. And for those of you who don't remember, Freddy was on um I guess last year one of our billboards that we ran uh promoting enrollment. [Applause] We are extremely proud to announce that more than 75% of the Ashel Sea School's parents have
009successfully set up their parent portal in Infinite Campus. That is a huge undertaking and we want to thank our data managers and our IT department for working exceptionally hard with both parents and infinite campus to ensure a smooth transition to this new system. had a few bumps, but I think 75% says a lot about their dedication and hard work and getting that information out there. And so with that, it's important that we be a champion for our public schools. If you don't already do so, get out your phones and follow us at Asheville City Schools on Instagram and Asheville Schools on Facebook. Now more than ever, our schools, children, and teachers need your support. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. At this time in our agenda, we're going to move to public comment. And I will
010call first on John Bighgam. John, the board of education greatly appreciates your interest in the Asheville City Schools. We welcome your comments and uh please be mindful of the threeinut time limit. >> Thank thank you very much. Um I have three minutes. Bey please be patient with me. I was a teacher um for four years. My third semester I was teaching earth science um to ninth graders. And um I found as a teacher I found the slow students more interesting than the smart students. Like the smart students learning it's like there's no fun in that. Like I and Um, the result of this is that everybody was always mad at me. The smart kids were mad at me because I was holding back on them. The slow kids were mad at me because I wouldn't
011I wouldn't let them up. And it was painful. I'm watching these kids and the kids are struggling and not learning. And then there's kids that are not paying attention and picking up everything. It was bad. I go to my principal practically in tears. George, it's so unfair. And he said, "John, nobody ever said education is democratic." Nobody ever said education is democratic. And I like the saying, "Education is a messy business." And I think that also came from George. Um, this brings us to Silsa. Silsa, this theme is it's kind of kind of a subthe here is that we're going to take these kids and put them in in a different group. We're going to put the kids separately and we're going to get better educational outcomes because the diversity will be less. And there's
012a complexity to it, but that's certainly one of the themes. And um I want to I want an image of a college of there's a woman I'm giving her the name Mary. She's got a um you know a pile of files. She comes to um Kathy Callahan's file and she looks at looks at her resume and looks at her grades and you know sees this and then she gets the diploma and it says Silsa on it and she goes, "Oh, whoa. This Silsa that's a special program. This is a special girl. I bet she has special parents." Oh, this is this is sounds like a college. No, she looks at Silsa and says, "This is a dysfunctional this is a dysfunctional program. Why are they still doing this? This was the rage in the 1990s
013and it's been gone a long time. Nobody ever does this anymore." Um, and um, so the takehome here is that if you're in Still, you need to get your name off the you need to get your name off of your high school diploma. this will follow you the rest of your life that you went through to a dysfunctional school. And then as I'm putting this together, it occurs to me that a move that school worker would make would be put everybody on on Asheville High School as they graduate. Every time a student goes out with the SILSA on their name, it's a it's a slap in the face to the Asheville City Schools. Everybody knows these these programs don't work. And then um one last idea is the objectives of SILSA are better met with
014Silsa gone. Sila Silsa it appears to be it doesn't it the objectives of Silsa are good and I believe in that but it's better it's more effective with Silsa gone and um and that's it and um I want to proess um project extreme gratitude to the gr Asheville city schools I feel affection from them and and it's really valuable to me >> thank you John >> and thank you and thank you for your patience Lisa, I'm not seeing anybody else signed up for inperson comment. And is there anybody signed up for online? Okay, that concludes our public comment. At this time, board members, um, we're moving to the consent agenda, and I need to explain one one thing. Um, so if y'all will just indulge me, I'll explain this. On the consent agenda, we have
015our draft minutes from August 4th, the close session minutes from August 4th, and our regular minutes from August 11. We have the student releases to Bunkham County that we heard about last week. I'm going to come back to the contracts andus in just a second. And then we have all the policies on second read and the personnel report. Just a note on the you may recall the only contract for approval was the one um through Mayhe Mayheek and county human health BC whatever it stands for. I'm getting the acronym wrong. Um Pepe noticed three relatively minor not substantive errors in the contract. um an older statutory reference um a a reference to Bunkham County Schools instead of Asheville City Schools. So Pepe was uh comfortable with this remaining on the consent agenda for our approval
016so that we don't interrupt uh providing services to our kids. Um and if the board is comfortable with it, we will send it back for some of those corrections to be updated. >> The whole thing or just the last bit? Um, if the board is comfortable keeping it on the consent agenda, we can approve the contract subject to it going back for fixing these small errors if you all are comfortable with that. And Pepe said he was comfortable with that. So, it remains on the consent agenda. Just noting that. So, any other questions about the consent agenda before I move for its approval? Yeah, >> I I wondered if I could invite a pause um briefly and during public comment I I heard references to slow kids numerous times and I just like to pause.
017>> Okay. To that arm, you can do that. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you all. Thank you, Liza. Um, any other questions about the consent agenda? >> Are y'all ready to vote on it? >> Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> I move that we can approve the consent agenda. And as to the contract that we're going to approve that is subject to corrections later to be made. >> Minor corrections. >> Minor, very minor corrections. >> Uh, second. All those in favor of the consent agenda. >> I opposed. Okay. The consent agenda passes. There are no action items before the board this evening. And so at this time, I will turn it over to Maggie for her report. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. Um I have a b
018a few brief comments um for this evening. We'll just wait for that presentation to get put up there. as they're queuing that up, I'll just go ahead and start. Um, I did just want to highlight, um, um, as Kim Deck mentioned in the good news, we had a wonderful convocation this year at Asheville High School. Um, it was a great time for our staff to get together and have time to mix and mingle. Um we did adjust convocation this year um dependent upon and reflective of all the feedback we got from the year before. Um so we're excited to be able to make some adjustments based on that feedback. Um again excited to have a team of students being the presenters um and the lead facilitators for convocation. And we're going to take that even
019to the next level for next year where the crew that was facilitating convocation this year will help lead and train the next group of students um to facilitate the following convocation. So excited that we've built some leadership um with our students. Are we able to because I'm about to show these slides. Okay. Screen beam. All right. One of our big initiatives this year was launching student crew. And we have been able to student crew is so that every single student in our school system has a time to meet uh with a small group. I'm just going to click through these. I'm not. There we go. Okay. Go back one more. Yeah. So, every single day um well, actually not every single day, but I'll I'll get to that. So, our students are meeting um pretty
020much daily um to work in their student crew and to hold their student crew meetings with their crew leader. Uh their crew leader is uh a staff member. And through our crew lessons, our students are working on cultivating habits to become ethical people, effective learners so that they can make contributions to our world to be a better place. And at our high school and middle school, yep, you can go to the next slide. um high school they are meeting Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. Um those off days, Tuesdays is a club day. Um and the Thursday is another type of meeting day for students. And then in elementary and middle school, they are meeting for student crew every day. And the typical crew lesson takes about 30 minutes. Middle school and high school do have a
021crew curriculum that the teachers are using as kind of their foundation and then are able to tweak it and modify it to fit their needs. And each elementary school uses their morning circle time to meet with their students and use the crew structure but are following uh whatever social emotional learning time that they had set up or program they had set up from last year. A lot of them are using purposeful people um as kind of their foundational piece um to build on for crew. Okay. Thanks. Um, also did want to highlight, I didn't know if we were able to shout out all of the students that came to meet with Bernie Sanders, Senator Sanders, when he was here um, for that rally. It was amazing opportunity for our students to to meet and speak
022with the senator and share their priorities and things that they think need addressed, not just in our state, but in our nation. So, we're really proud of those students for showing up and um, being great role models. Okay, I want to give the board um, an enrollment update. So, there's lots of slides here um to give some information to the board about where we are with enrollment. So, the first slide shows us a five-year trend in enrollment changes. Um so, the black bar is our total enrollment and then you'll see a a smaller red bar and that is the change from one year to the next. Um so, you could see for the past four years we did have a slight decrease in enrollment. Um but we were excited that this year our enrollment increased
023overall from last year by about 40 students. So saw a little uptick in that enrollment um for this current school year. Um this graph shows us what our total student enrollment is per school in our elementary school. So Claxton continues to be our largest school which we expect. Um and then Hell Fletcher and Lucy Herring are a little bit smaller. Jones and Dixon kind of in the middle. But you can see um based on those those stacking graphs where those class sizes line up from year to year. And the next one will show us middle school enrollment. Um so excited in middle school that our enrollment actually increased. Um overall for middle school we're sitting at about 709 students and I think last year we were in the 690s. So our middle school enrollment did
024go up from last year. Um Asheville High and Silsa. Um you can see those two separate graphs there. Um, we do have a really large class that was in 9th grade that has moved up and then our high school senior class that it graduated um was a bigger class than um what we replaced it with it with our rising nth graders. So, if we look at the next slide, I wanted to share with the board just looking at enrollment changes by grade level um from last year to this year. So, you can see the green bar is last year's enrollment. The red bar is this year and that yellow bar is going to be the change from one year to the next. And you could see as you saw like your general enrollment went up
025a little bit, but what we're seeing is cohort sizes kind of have a size and then they move up or down and just depending on that next cohort behind it that may be a smaller group or a larger group. So you'll see some big changes. So from second to third grade um we or third to fourth grade we saw a big change in that enrollment. um dropping because that cohort size was really large that one year and when it moves up it's not replaced with an equals sized cohort. So that's going to show a drop. And go to the next slide. This is our middle school numbers. Um so we're happy to see that we grew enrollment from last year to this year in sixth grade. Did drop from sixth to 7th. Um but again
026increase from 7th to 8th. And a lot again is that is a lot related to just those cohort sizes. And so the next couple graphs are going to show you students that withdrew versus students that enrolled. So if you want to go ahead and click on the next slide. Um this is kind of an in and an out. So the green bar are the students that enrolled to us from the last day of school last summer to the first day of school um from the last day of school last year to the first day of school this year. So anything that happened over the summer months. Um, and the red bar are students that left Asheville City Schools to go somewhere else. So, we earned over that time period 53 students from Bunkham, but we
027withdrew under 40. So, you can see that change in where we're getting students versus where they're going uh when they leave us. Um, so just some data for you to look at. Um, and just really pulled out some of the major categories uh for our student enrollment changes. And Maggie, that's all 12 grades. >> Yes, that's all 12 grades. Yes, this is every Yep. This is K through 12. And then the next one, I narrowed it down by grade level. So, here you can see where our students are going and coming to us from um by grade level. And that's all those numbers from that previous slide kind of put together into one slide showing the changes. And we do typically see more students leaving in fifth and sixth grade than we're getting in. and
028then a lot of students coming back for high school. Um so that's the pattern we've seen in the past and we're continuing to see that trend um for this school year. You can go to the next slide. This is a quick update um on the goals. This is kind of a midterm update on the goals that I set with the board back in December of um last year. Um so the first goal was around communication of our vision and our priorities. Um, I did send out a survey to staff, collected some baseline data, um, and from that ba data was able to put a couple things in place to help support communications um, about clearly defining the connection between our three promises, our theory of action to what we're doing and how we're making decisions.
029Um, really focused this year on building a district work plan that the schools can use to develop their school plans and have been continuing. Um, we started last year with our Clawsome Cougar recognitions and that really seems to be taking off and highlighting which staff are living and exemplifying those three promises. So, we've got some next steps on the um following slide. So, we're going to reissue that survey in February to see what growth or changes there were. Continue with staff recognition as it aligns to our three promises. The board on Thursday at a retreat will be starting to work on revising the vision, mission, and developing some core values. Each department at central office has developed key performance indicators to show their connection to outcomes across the district and then attending community events and
030neighborhood meetings are some of the next steps um for this goal area. Second goal was related to equity and it was focused on building a systemic equity transformation framework which we were able to build. We launched that at the beginning of last school year. Um however we know Helen came in really side railed a lot of the work that we were moving forward on but still kept that moving forward. Um we did have uh continued our collaboration with the Dudley Flood Foundation for leadership development and are going to you'll see we're going to continue that and as we were creating work plans focused on incorporating the CI4E which is a continuous improvement for equity cycle so that we can continuously look at our data with an equity lens and make decisions that are helping us
031drive equitable outcomes for our students. The courageous conversation about race protocol is something we've continued to highlight and focus on during every one of our leadership meetings and I was excited to introduce that to the board at our work session last week and I think to for me the biggest work we did around equity were the reform policies. Um so I think those are some big lifts as we move towards systemic equity transformation um and aligning that with the work that we do. some next steps um continuing that partnership with the Dudley Flood Foundation um monitoring now that we have those work plans in place actually using those continuous um for improvement equity cycles and then starting our next round of reform policy development as well as implementing or really designing the strategic plan with
032equity at the core and the center of that. So as we then move forward in our um strategic plan that we'll know we are always touching and focusing equitable outcomes as the core of what we do. Um and the third goal was around getting stakeholder engagement in the strategic plan. Um so I was able to launch our student advisory council and engage with students on gathering their input and feedback not only on strategic plan but on the reform policies as well. Um, at the end of the day, we engaged with over 1,000 stakeholders to gather input and information for a strategic plan. Um, and that we continue to gather staff, student feedback, and parent feedback on those critical reform policies. Some next steps, uh, being continuous in our engagement with stakeholders to make sure that
033we're always getting stakeholder input from multiple perspectives. making sure that um we continue to um I had the wrong word in there. I was like, whoa, that was a big typo. Um to continue to engage um with equitable representation um of voices and that we're including all of those um diverse voices and as as we plan um and then working through the communication cycle. So, not only are we gathering that information, we also give information back once we've received it. So they um so our stakeholders know that we have listened and processed that data. And I think that is that's the last slide. So any comments, questions uh or discussion from the board? >> Maggie, do you mind going back to the um enrollment data? Uh the one that showed withdrawals and >> Sorry, I
034guess barely is doing it. the one that was by grade or by where they went >> by um enrollment. So the one the one >> go back one more primarily. >> Um yes, thank you. So I'm curious at some point I'd be fascinated to see that the second to last bar for private and how much that has changed over the years if we have that data visav the expansion of the um vouchers, right? because you know a lot of the talk about that and I'm not of course I'm totally opposed to the increase of the voucher system but a lot of the fear across the state was how many more kids would be going to um private schools and I'm just curious if that's borne out in in our district. >> Um I appreciate you
035bringing up George because I believe we've seen some initial data that shows that the vast majority of students using vouchers have never attended public school. So, um, yeah, >> I don't know if it's just something to keep an eye on going forward. I'm certainly not advocating for a data project. >> Um, but, you know, how that impacts, I think, is to be seen and we should be watching. >> Yeah. If students never enroll with us, we never know where they're if they're not with us. But if a student enrolls at any time and then withdraws, then we'll get we'll wherever their records go, we kind of mark that as where they've gone from there. So, we can track it that way. Another way we can track it is they are releasing how many dollars are
036being sent to private schools from the voucher program. Um, and I think Dr. Deckant shared that it's like 11 million of state money has gone to private schools in Bunkham County alone. >> Yeah, >> I do have a question. Okay. >> What is it on this slide? >> No, it's not. Go ahead. >> What does western region mean? They went somewhere >> counties within the western region. Thank you. Henderson, Haywood, Madison. Okay. Yeah. >> Jesse, go ahead. >> Okay. Can you go back and tell us what part >> of our board retreat you're going to discuss on this particular? You said there's >> Oh, I didn't have enrollment data for discussion during the retreat. The board is going to work on revision of the vision statement or the mission. I can't remember which. division of
037the >> of Asheville City Schools. >> Right. >> I would um like to see um this data with the previous year. I know right now this data is comparing last year to this year. Um, I'm very interested to see how our enrollment changed from the prior year to last year. Uh, and I'm also seeing that the the individual grade levels would be um more easily interpreted if we had say second grade from one year compared to the third grade in the subsequent year so that we matched up cohorts. I mean, I can kind of do it by switching sections, but it would be easier to look at it that way. I don't know where that fits into your plan for sharing to the board. Um, but I think we're we will be missing um some
038things if we don't look at that previous year as well. >> Um, quick question about the you said you got a baseline survey of teachers and staff and what was that about? What was the survey about? >> Yeah, and I shared a memo with the board with some more details on that um that we can discuss on Thursday, but it was asking about do they know what my vision is? Do they understand my priorities? It was gathering information on that first goal and their perspective. >> Okay, got it. And then um I guess one of the things that I would really love to see as we go through this is you know we've invested quite a lot in our e program and in crew and I would I know that it's going to take some
039time for teachers and students and staff to really um see the the benefits to that. Um, I have heard a number of folks questioning how prescriptive those lessons are for um for the teachers that maybe some of whom have already kind of been doing the same type of thing without the Anyway, I would love to see us survey the staff halfway through the year sometime after we give it a amount of time to see what the what they feel about it. And the other thing that I'm I would suggest is um maybe talking to staff about because one of the concerns was they got this big book right at the beginning of the year as opposed to last year or whatever. So, um, I would be curious to know how staff feel about that week
040that they have to prepare for the school year, how their time was spent, whether or not they were given enough time to plan or not, or, you know, it just it it feels like a lot is packed in there. And I would be very curious to know or at least maybe for I I don't really need to know but I think that your team needs to know and principles need to know how the staff were feeling about that time and whether they felt prepared. I think between infinite campus and crew there was a lot this year and I don't think that's necessarily normal but I also would suggest there's always things to learn um from those and I I I I do want to say that I think that what I still hear sometimes um
041is that teachers don't feel like they have a a way to provide constructive feedback that they don't necess necessarily have the time or feel like they can go to you or maybe their principles without fearing some re retribution which may not be fair at all but for that reason because that is still a perception as much as you have tried and your team has tried to build a community of trust. I think anonymous surveys are just maybe a helpful way to actually get specific feedback on on changes or how things are going. That's just two cents. Thank you. >> I'm good. >> Yeah, I I want to thank you for for voicing that, Amy. Um, I continue to be concerned about whether staff are are fearful of retaliation for speaking up. And I'm hearing um
042different feelings of safety from staff of color than white staff. And just whatever we can do to make sure that we are open to um feedback from all directions. Thank you. Can I say one follow? I do think I want to say that I do think that this this uh administration so to speak is open to feedback. So I really feel that it's important for me to acknowledge that. I don't think that those fears are all the time justified. They're just from history. But the other point I'd make is that teachers are so busy. And now I appreciate that in a way that I didn't used to appreciate it um even though I had been a teacher. But if you've got a teacher with a family or whatever, to find the time and space to
043communicate concerns in a constructive kind of thoughtful way is actually really hard. It's just daytoday to dayto day. And so I feel like any ways that we can solicit their feedback and give them opportunities to to speak is a good idea. Thank you. I have one more question. Is there a way that maybe the board and your principles can talk on one can talk as a group? I mean, is that something that can happen with just the board and your principles just to maybe get some type of feedback of it will help us out with any type of u eval you know your evaluation. I mean sometime I would like to talk to one of the principles but I would like for them to be comfortable and honest but if they talk to us as
044a group you know maybe they can just brief a little bit and just u ask the questions that we might want to know to see how things going within their school and how the school's running without no type of you know feedback from the superintendent. I mean, is that something that can happen? Maybe. >> I'm gonna jump in and say that maybe. And I think we can let Maggie think about how to do that. >> Um, I think there is a perception, real or not, that staff may not feel comfortable going directly to Maggie with concerns. I would caution the board that I don't know why I think we should think we're such a neutral ground either. I think when you set meetings like this, people when we're the board and we're her boss, you
045know, I I don't know why we think we're going to get more neutral feedback. I just would offer that. I I think we think we're these really open neutral people to hear the feedback and they might tell us something they wouldn't tell Maggie and that may be and that may be useful, but they may also tell us what they think we want to hear. I just I'd like to be careful about how we set that up. Does that make sense, Jesse? Well, it go back to what Amy was talking about earlier about just being freely and talking to people and getting knowledge and without any type of retaliation or anything else, you know, just I mean I'm just jo I'm just throwing it out to see if it was possible. I >> I think it's
046a I'm going to defer that to Maggie to think about how we might do that. Um, and I think what I'm hearing, Jesse, is if we could provide a place for the principles to share information with us, that may be good and appropriate. I'm just cautious that the board think we're going to get necessarily better information by doing that. Maybe we would. I don't know. Um, >> I I would note that of course that would have to be a public meeting. So, uh, it would have to be an open meeting and that might change the dynamic. I do think though that, um, similar to what I said a second ago, anonymous, um, can work and for us to receive feedback both from, um, staff as well as principles on Maggie's performance at this stage, three
047years in, we three years, two years in, beginning the third year. So, we're still really early. Um, but we can kind of comprehend that anyway. That's that's not I wouldn't say that's a terrible idea. Um, but I think that anonymity can be helpful to get candid responses. Um, and I don't think we can just sit down with the principles without it being >> an open session. Could I I also as to participate in in where this is going which I think is helpful want to reiterate that the goals that Maggie just shared with us are the direct result of our evaluation of her last year. So something that I appreciate is that we gave feedback, Maggie turned those into goals and then six months 10 nine months later is saying here let me tell you
048what has happened. So this just in case anybody lost it went quickly. The presentation went fairly quickly that these goals are the direct result of her evaluation which I as a board member really appreciated your willingness to share publicly the places we told you we'd like to see effort. We'd like to see movement and now you're bringing them back to us in anticipation of us doing it again. And so in that space of evaluation there, I wonder if there's a place to talk about something that looks more like a 360 evaluation where we're evaluating you and there's also a way of gathering information for you to use in the same sort of systematic way where it's part of the whole picture. I think you've shown us skill and finesse um with being able to say
049I take feedback and then I take action and you can watch the thread. Um and maybe maybe there's a way through that mechanism to be bringing in anonymous feedback for for how this comes together. Other comments from other board members? Yeah, I think um I appreciate Maggie's presentation. The board did exactly what the board is supposed to do. Give her feedback, food for thought. Um I this um seat has a long history of uh people wanting to make sure that there's a good back and forth of information and we're still voicing that in many ways. So obviously there's still work to be done and it's good to to know that this is part of the work to be done to be very upfront about it. Anything else about Maggie's presentation? Okay, thank you Maggie. Um,
050at this time I'm going to sort of just weave some comments which are really just dates in with the announcement of future meetings just to kind of put some stuff out there courage uh excuse me put some stuff out there chronologically. And the first is I we did last week talk about the courageous conversations um about race and the compass. And it was not just a one-off conversation, but I forgot I left them on my desk. I was going to bring the paper with the compass for each of us to have in front of us as a tangible reminder. I just didn't get them here tonight. So, I'm telling you, I plan to do better because I do think part of the courageous conversation protocol is that we talk about it every time we meet,
051just like we read the equity statement. So, just wanted to acknowledge I forgot to bring those. Um, second, just for your information, I had breakfast this morning with Julie Mayfield, our um for most of us the representative to the U. State Senate. Um, and that was very good. It was good to catch up with her. Uh third, again, these are chronological. This Thursday is our half-day retreat from 8:30 to 12:30. I know many folks have a hard and if not they have to leave a little early, so we're really going to try to start on time and get done everything we hope to get done. Um, fourth, following our retreat, uh, Maggie and Rebecca and I are meeting with the county um, manager of Rainder and the chair and the vice chair and Rob Jackson
052and the chair and vice chair of um, Bunko County Schools to continue our conversations with them. Um, 5th on October 4th, I just think this is um, worthy of people um, knowing and I haven't had a chance to send the email yet. there. Um, one of our most famous alumni from Stevens Lee is James Ferguson who passed away earlier this year. There's a celebration of life at St. James Ame Zion down the hill and they are taking this opportunity to have a reunion of all the AORE um members because Ferguson was one of the founding members of AORE. So, they expect a lot of people back. They're um the reunion is possibly going to be at Delta House. We haven't worked out all the details yet. Um, and they particularly want students to come. So,
053I have passed that message along to Copeland for the reap and the dream kids. Let the student government leaders know. Anyway, I think it should be a a very good event. Um, we have our work session October 6th, a regular meeting on October 13th, and then board members that have signed up for the school board annual conference, I will be in touch soon. We need to elect delegates. But more from me on that. It's a new thing they're doing. That's it for me. Um at this time, if there's anything else, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> I move that we adjourn. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Great. Thank you all for a very good meeting. [Music]