Asheville City Board of Education Regular Session 6/9/2025

001speakers right now. Welcome everyone. We are going to call the meeting to order and I'm going to ask Liza if she'll read the equity statement to start us off. In Asheville City Schools, we are committed to equate 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. Um, all board members are present. Amy Ray is present from afar but is with us remotely. Is that right, Lisa? Yes. So, when time comes for a vote, you will see Amy and

002she will participate in any voting remotely. Um, but we do have a quorum. Um, at this time, we will do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this time, I am aware of a couple items which are coming off the consent agenda and will be moved to action items on their own. And if you are looking at section 4 consent items, those include um 4.8 the contracts andus and 4.9 the personnel report. So, both of those are being taken off the consent agenda and moved to action items. Are there any other proposed changes to our agenda tonight? If not, is there a motion

003to approve as amended? I move that we approve the agenda as amended. Second. Second. All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? No. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm gonna pause here. Do I have to take a role a vote by each person since Amy is remote? No. Do we? Amy, can you hear? I vote I. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Everyone has voted in the affirmative. Um, and so the agenda as amended has been passed. At this time, I'll turn it over to Kim Deckant for good news. Good evening, board. Dr. Ferman, um, I bring to you some amazing good news this month. Um, at this time I would like to introduce uh Copeland Rudolph, the executive director of the Asheville City Schools Foundation, who is going to kick off good news with all the

004amazing things that are happening at the Asheville City Schools Foundation. Good evening board, and Dr. Ferman. Thank you so much for having us this evening. Um I am just thrilled to be here to report on sort of a endofear uh recap of our funding in all of our schools this year. Um as many of you know our mission is to collaborate with our community to do whatever it takes for all of our Asheville City School students to thrive. our board of directors this year was a super strong amazing group of community members um Asheville City Schools representatives and unique to Asheville City Schools Foundation three students who move through um being board members 10th 11th and 12th and we're celebrating Bella Glover's graduation after three years on the board um we are unique as a

005foundation in that we serve both as a funer of our schools, but also a program provider prek through 12. And you can see those programs. Um, we see all those programs linked through a leadership continuum that starts with exploration and creativity in some of our programs like TOPAUS, um, our grants to educators and then moves into in our middle school program in real life after school, which has been in partnership now with the district for 15 years. And then at the high school, um, our m many programs there, including our scholarships. So, this year was very special. Our racial equity ambassador program ran uh won the 2024 Dudley Flood Center History Counts Award, and you can see Miranda Williams, class of 2021, who started REAp, um, accepting that award. We also took a team to

006the National Association of Education Foundations. Um they were the only seven high schoolers presenting at this national conference of education foundations. Um we had a robust event. Thank you Heidi Freeman. Uh with Ross Gay uh 1,200 students and almost 700 community members that night. And we've also been recognized by the Ark of Bunkham County as a 2025 organization of excellence. Um yes and then community advocacy. We have done mult multiple um op eds help sponsor things like lifting the veil and uh the two cent campaign in our prek program this year. Uh the total investment was 5572 between artist residencies and educator grants. At Claxton Tapus educator grants and holiday party for a total of almost 5,000 at Hall Fletcher we had three artist residencies, three grants awarded for education and PD and holiday party.

007just remembering that um educators apply for residencies and grants and so we always want to work to make sure everyone knows they exist. We'll continue to get better with that with principles to knowing um and by educator it's anyone in the building can apply for those grants and those PD awards. There's IRB Jones. They had quite a few um residencies this year. Isaac Dixon also coming on strong with five artist residencies for a total of 8,579. We did some cool stuff this year like supporting the science olympiad and the robotics teams um at uh the different elementary levels. And here's some bigger numbers here with Ashel Middle. As most of you know, we serve as a hub of service for in real life after school for 15 years. So, we have three full-time staff that

008are in the building all day long so that they also um support the staff at Asheville Middle during the day and our new William Randolph campus invested there at Asheville High and Silza combined um almost $23,000 in grants. They did a lot of residencies um this year which really aligns with how the students talked about creativity being one of the durable skills that they want to uh have when they graduate. High school programming between REE reap Dream our writing and learning center that we've funded for six years now community engagement and alumni center. We were thrilled to award uh almost $300,000 to 60 students this year. Our largest awarding ever. Really big class of 2025. Um and then large district initiatives. Uh post hurricane, we were the fiscal sponsor for uh distributing over $142,000 in

009emergency assistance directly to educators. Um community advocacy, that was the two cents campaign. Um, and um, we also, I want you all to know, paid it forward. We sent money um, to London, Kentucky after their storm, we sent them $2,000 to sort of pass through funds that we received so much from the nation all over. And we asked ourselves, when another school district has a disaster and their schools are shut, what would we do? And so we um sent money directly to them and they were super grateful. Teacher of the year, every IA uh all our different staff each received $500 award from us to do whatever they wanted to do um with that and hope support themselves in doing something fun this summer. So our total investment this year is almost a million dollars

010in Asheville City Schools and that is our good news. [Applause] We're good. Oh, no. We We have Yeah. Yeah. We want to do a picture. We're all about the picture. [Applause] It's going to be hard to top a million dollars, but I'm going to try. So, we are so excited to welcome the class of 2038, that's so crazy, to Asheville City Schools. Thanks to all the staff who made kindergarten registration a huge success. And you can see some of our future Cougar graduates in those photos. On Thursday, May 22nd, we celebrated some of our outstanding educators at the annual educators of the year dinner and celebration. Dr. Furman eloquently reminded us of a fundamental truth. Every single staff member within Asheville City Schools plays a vital role in shaping the success of our students and

011embodying the profound public good that our public local public schools champion each and every day. Congratulations to the staff who were recognized for their commitment to students, schools, and community. And at this time, we would like all of the educators of the year that were recognized that evening to come to the front and have your photo made [Applause] It's It's always an amazing event. Beautiful view. We have it at the Crest Center and it was it was great. The fifth graders, uh, rising sixth graders now, recently experienced an unforgettable day at Asheville Middle School. they they were getting a glimpse into the next step of their educational journey. Fifth graders were welcomed with an enthusiastic pep rally, met their future sixth grade teachers. They explored the campus and connected with peers and even enjoyed a

012taste of the middle school cafeteria. The entire experience was designed to showcase the amazing and incredible opportunities and vibrate vibrant community that await them at Asheville Middle School. Thank you to the AMS staff and to our elementary schools for making this experience a huge success and it was really fun. Um, Mr. Johnson had some great activities that the kids engaged in and I think a great time was had by all. Congratulations to our exceptional nutrition staff at Irab Jones and at Asheville High School. Um they scored a 100 sanitation score this year, which is a testament to their unwavering dedication to providing our students not only with nutritious meals, but also the safest and cleanest environment possible. Is KA or Travis here with us this evening? If you see um the nutrition staff at those

013two schools over the next couple of days, please give them a huge shout out for their hard work. Do the Right Thing is a powerful initiative from the National Campaign to Stop Violence that empowers middle school students to explore the impact of youth violence on their lives through writing and envision their role in creating positive change. We are incredibly proud of the students who participated in this year's program, using their creative writing skills to advocate for safety and kindness within our community. Congratulations to these amazing contest winners. And the first place winner will get to travel to Washington DC. And I don't see we'll see if anybody's here this evening. Cypress Greer was our first place winner. Evan Abine was a finalist. Maya Leroy was a finalist. Gray Mims finalist. Nora Lanahan finalist. And CA

014Kanye Whittenberg was a finalist. Do we have any of those students with us this evening? I think everybody once school is out on Friday, they decided it was time to go on vacation. We would like to take a moment to highlight Gretchen Ross, a phenomenal sixth grade science teacher at Ashaw Middle School, who was not only named AMS 2026 teacher of the year, but also received the prestigious Keenan Fellows Scholarship. She is one of 30 teachers across the state selected to participate in a year of intensive professional development focused on STEM, humanities, and special education expertise. We are incredibly proud of educators like Gretchen who consistently go above and beyond to pursue professional success and development, directly enriching the learning of our students lives. Gretchen, if you'll come up, we want to recognize you and

015get a picture with the board. [Music] [Applause] Asheville Middle School and Asheville High School AVID students recently celebrated their achievements at a special awards ceremony. AVID prepares students for college with strong academic support, college readiness skills, tutoring, and visits. Thanks to Mr. Jerome Hughes and Miss Amy Sheieler for their outstanding leadership. This summer, AVID scholars will attend a summer bridge program at UNCCA Asheville for hands-on learning. Congratulations to all of our AVID scholars, and I'm looking to see if Mr. Hughes or Miss Sheieler is here. If you see them, please give them a shout out. Um, and a thank you for all their hard work with our AVID students. We're proud of our Save Club at Asheville Middle School in Asheville High for their strong anti-bullying and antiviolence efforts. Recently, students participated in an anti-bullying

016poster contest. Their inspiring designs will be displayed in our elementary and middle schools. And congratulations to all the participants. The winners from Asheville High and Silsa, Takia Reynolds and Mallayia Vazquez. Asheville Middle School, Fletcher Hughes and Margaret Bledoso. Are any either one of those any of those students here this evening? Let's give them a huge round of applause. Tomorrow morning, we will be hosting a brunch to celebrate our 15 outstanding retirees. Between the 15 retirees, they have 343 years and 15 months of service to the great state of North Carolina. Are any of our retirees that are going to be celebrated in the morning with us this evening? Oh, come on up. [Applause] Thank you, Chris. The North Carolina Principal Fellows Program is a state-f funded initiative established in 1993 by the North Carolina General

017Assembly to prepare outstanding candidates for school administrator positions via merit-based scholarships for exceptional educators. At this time, I would like to recognize Kelly McCarthy. Is Kelly with us this evening? Kelly just graduated with her mers in school administration from Western Carolina University as a principal fellows at his and will continue her work at Hall Fletcher Elementary School. We have two staff members who will be joining the program this year. And at this time I would like to recognize Ann O'Brien and Karen Evans. Meet the first cohort of Dr. Ferman's Cougar Call Academy of Learning, Leadership, and Learning, cohort 1, who participated in a book study with good to great and engaged with district leadership about their various areas of service. At this time, we would like to call um the members up, and Dr. Ferman

018has a certificate she would like to uh present to you. Ann O'Brien, [Applause] Casey Jones, [Applause] Jeter, Jennifer Fowler, Carmen Mangum, Carara Labella, Karen Riggsby, Maron Leroy, Karen Evans, Ann Cap, Carol Smith Hill, April Collins, like Tiffany Dellhagen, [Applause] Amanda [Applause] Riggsby, Lisa Smith, and Latana Best. [Applause] We started good news by welcoming in the class of 2038. And we are rounding out good news with well wishes to the class of 2025. And so here are just a few pictures of it looks like dry pictures of graduation from Friday night. So thank you to everybody who made graduation a huge success. Um the students were very happy uh despite the rain. They were like I think it was probably they were living their best lives. So anyway, thank you and uh that concludes good news

019for June. Thank you, Kim. Um, before we go to public comment, I just want to cover a few things. Um, Amy Ray is participating remotely, which is permitted under our rules. And I just want to remind everybody that she uh let us know earlier she had out of town travel. um she is participating by a permissible means. If any of us is texting or communicating with her, it is subject to open meetings law. So just remember that. And um she is entitled to participate in open session and close session. Um and last just because I did lose my confidence about it. Um because she is participating remotely, we have to have voice votes instead of hand votes. And we never do hand votes anyway. So, that's not an issue, but just wanted to let folks

020know those are the rules. Um, at this Thank you, Amy. There she is right on Q. Um, at this time, we're going to go to public comment and I would like to remind everyone of our guidelines. Thank you for your interest in Asheville City Schools. We welcome your comments to the board. The guidelines are posted on the signup sheet. However, please keep the following in mind. Please be respectful. Public comment is designed for the board to hear from you about school district issues impacting ACS. So board members will not typically respond or ask questions. Employees and students are entitled to confidentiality and due process. Thus, the board does not accept personal complaints or hear student matters in public comment. Please see our superintendent after the meeting if you have concerns about a specific employee or

021student matter. Public comment may not be used to endorse or support any candidate for any public office. In addition to public comments, written comments to the board can always be submitted to the office of superintendent. So, we will now hear from our first speaker and all speakers have three minutes. Just for the board and everybody else's purposes, we have seven people signed up for um public comment. Um and so, first, Christopher Gordon. All right. Thank you. Um, good afternoon. My name is Chris Gordon. I'd like to commend all those who have worked on the grading and promotion policies that have been put forth. The grading policy focus on mastery, actionable feedback, and habits of scholarship is right on and should help improve student performance. The promotion policy focus on high expectations, access, and opportunity, and

022early identification of struggling students should also help to improve outcomes. As we move toward implementation of these new policies, I would like to submit a few notions for your consideration. Assessment should always guide instruction. Too often, it's used as a summitative report, terminating the learning process. Assessment should be a tool to inform students about their progress and provide them with feedback on what learning is needed to move forward towards mastery. Grades should only be used to indicate progress towards mastery. Habits of scholarship should be taught and integrated into all instructional settings. These are the foundations of lifelong learning. On the new promotion policy, I am concerned that the recourse for struggling students is intervention started midyear and summer school at the end of the year. This is a wait to fail model that has never

023served students well. From 2006 to 2009, I was part of a state pilot program called the problem solving model or PSM. Over several years, we developed the model and worked. Our work eventually morphed into the MTSS program that's been adopted statewide. An important aspect of PSM was a rejection of the wait to fail model. PSM called for the use of curriculum based measures to screen kids within the first two weeks of school to identify who had not mastered the skills that are necessary for success. Identify students immediately receive targeted interventions and supplemental instruction before they began to fail. Currently, we've moved away from this approach in favor of using benchmarks, but unless benchmarks are used to adjust adjust instruction, they do not help strug struggling students in PSM and intervention plans are individualized and detailed,

024including diagnostic information so that we could target prerequisit prerequisite skill deficits. Progress monitoring was done on a regular schedule so that instruction could be adjusted if needed. The original intent of MTSS was to replicate this process. Uh properly implemented, it could play an important role in helping kids achieve their promotion goals. As we move forward, let's make sure our implementation strategies do justice to the new policies and help all ch children flourish. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gordon. I'll now call on Franklin Keel. Good evening and thank you all for advocating for us to the commission. I'm encouraged by Drew Ball's statement saying, "We only have to get through this year and I look forward to with to uh working with you all in our continued work to advocate for adequately funded schools in our

025community. I want to personally thank you for your work in finding a way to keep our string orchestra program running through these hard times. I know from my conversations with many of you that you all recognize the value of a comprehensive music education here at Asheville City Schools and your continued support of the arts in a time like this is deeply moving. Currently, the low numbers in the strings program are a product of a few different issues. The pandemic and the removal of music works from Hal Fletcher certainly contributed to a recent sharp decline in participation. But the sustained period of low um enrollment in strings distills down to two basic problems. At the middle school, it's recruiting. At Hendersonville Middle School, I tripled the participation in strings from numbers comparable to here to over

02675 students schoolwide. The way recruiting is set up here works well for chorus and band, but it fails to attract students to strings. I've been in dialogue with admin to explore alternatives, and I believe the program can grow significantly under a different recruiting model. At the high school, the problem is scheduling. The middle school schedule forces high school strings to meet during a time that competes with high priority academic classes. And so a significant number of students are currently excluded. I have a solution that moves strings to a better time at the high school. Mr. Johnston and Miss Gileiam both seem to think this solution is workable and we look forward to exploring that in more detail. Your support means that Asheville City Schools continues to distinguish itself from 80% of school districts across the

027country. But I believe this strings program distinguishes itself from just about every other strings program. Where else are students writing and performing live music, their own original underscoring to accompany high school theatrical productions? We're not just teaching students how to play their instruments. We're cultivating musicians who can express their own ideas fluently in the language of music. We will continue to explore and expand ways for students to find new avenues of expression and to extend a collaborative hand to other departments and the greater arts community. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Before I step down, I want to echo the concerns of ACA as um they will present them uh moving forward. Thank you, Mr. uh is Cassandra love. Hello. Um I'm here to talk to you tonight about a position that

028is potentially on the chopping block and that is the position of the digital lead teacher. Um because I think when you hear that position, you think that's somebody who helps with technology and that seems like something that can be shared among schools. But in reality, from a classroom teacher perspective, that position is integral to what we do. Um at our school, our digital lead teacher is a key component in engagement for students. Um, she has started a news program that the kids are so excited about that I've had parents say to me that they their kid didn't wasn't anxious to get to school and now their kid is waking them up and saying, "Mom, I need to be at school early. I need to get to there for hering news." Um, she also is not

029it's not a position where students go see her once a week. She comes into our classrooms on a daily basis and collaborates with us to help us make our curriculum more engaging and to help it come alive for the students. Um, just for an example, if um you ask some second graders to write about life cycles, that's great. That's cool. But if you tell them that you're going to take what they wrote and they're going to learn to um to to um code it in a Makey Makey and wire it so that when somebody presses a button on our bulletin board, they'll hear their voice explaining about that life cycle to the to them. That is an entirely different level of engagement and that is what the digital lead teacher brings to the school system.

030And before that position is cut, I would really like um to see if there's some other way or other position that isn't so integral to the teaching and learning in the schools. Perhaps a consulting position or something that could could go [Applause] instead. Thank you, Miss Love. Samantha AOK. Hi, I'm Samantha AOK. I teach kindergarten at Lucy Herring. Um, and I'm here alongside Miss Love to talk about um Suzanne Heinsley, our DT, and just the amazing things that she does at our school. Um, we were in a flurry this afternoon when we found out that DLT positions could be cut and I felt compelled to come let you know just how integral those positions are to our school and I'm sure other schools in the district as well. Um, Suzanne is one of those people

031that you go to I go to all the time and I'm like, "Hey, I have this idea. I want to do this thing. How do you help me make it work?" And she is there. She is with our students daily in the classroom. We even had a conversation about being able to give her her own space now that Lucy Herring is finished with construction so that she can have even more exciting projects set up for kids to come engage with robotics and minky minky and uh the there's Bbots. I don't even know the names of all the things that she does, but they are incredible. And she works with students every day in so many capacities. Not just in her official DT role, but she's doing Odyssey of the mind. She's helping with the Moog

032Sound School for second grade. She's helping run all of the programs that connect us to our community. And I truly cannot imagine what our school would look like without her. And I'm sure you could hear from plenty of other schools that would say the same thing. I don't know how our schools can continue to offer some of the incredible and amazing things that we do every day without our DTS being able to support in the way that they support. And um so I'm sure you recognize me because I've been, you know, advocating for Asheville City Schools with the county commission. I'm part of the crew district leadership. Um, I'm signed up to help with crew lesson planning this summer. I love crew. I love the idea of creating the sense of belonging. I feel so

033passionate about Asheville City Schools and I know that we are up for looking at theou contract to renew our EL consultant. Uh, I worked with her this morning. She's great. But if that comes at the cost of losing our DT positions, you're not building crew. You're taking it away. The way that we maintain crew in our schools is by making sure that our important studentf facing positions are there. Suzanne Hinesley, our DT is a cornerstone of our school. You ask any parent, they know who she is. She was up on stage playing drums during our PBIS reward for something that we got. And the thought of losing her, I mean, I'm literally just I've been shaking with anxiety all day about what that means for my school next year. So, I'm asking you to consider

034any other options and possibilities, especially are there ways that we can instead of paying a consultant to do crew, use this as an opportunity to build crew within our schools by protecting the staff that we have to make sure that everybody belongs, everybody feels valued, and nobody feels like their position is less important than any others because that is how you build crew. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Miss AOK. Um, next, Paula Martinez. Hi, I'm a fifth grade teacher at Iraby Jones. Um, represent. Uh, and I actually had a unique opportunity last summer to be part of an Outwardbound um course. So, I'm very familiar with Kurt Han's like philosophies and I really believe in the work that we've started to do and I love it. I think it's really important that those cornerstones are

035brought to um our school system and are being sort of disseminated throughout the building and not just for staff but also for students. I think that that's a really great direction and not to deride that at all because I do think that that is the future and that's what we should be doing. Um that being said, um we're not passengers, we're crew, right? And so if we are crew, we cannot make people walk the plank. we have to actually you know stand up for each other and make sure that we are keeping student facing positions as intact as possible to the extent that we have the power to do so and I think right now you guys are in a I don't envy your position having to make the decisions on these kinds of things

036but I do think that it's important that if we're saying these are the values that we have that we live those values out in what we're actually advocating for. I really don't know how we would survive the next um sort of uh software change to Infinite Campus and have really cool things like maker space that like truly transform like kids engagement and incentive to be at school. Like I've had kids that go from being super uh truent, for lack of a better term, not coming to school, not being excited about what's happening. And then they get to try a maker space for the first time, and suddenly they're at school at least four out of five days of the week where they weren't before. And that's incredible. like we can't deny the impact that these

037positions have. I've definitely reached out to Kathy Sornson more than my fair share um for help on all manner of things and she's done more for our staff in terms of uh making sure that we're prepared and when we don't have the capacity to look into these cool innovative platforms and programs and we don't even have enough time to fully realize what we already have at our disposal. She's the one that brings that to our attention and helps us utilize those things so we can be the best educators that we can be. So, I just urge everybody to take into real consideration the impact of not having those positions anymore. Thank [Applause] you. Thank you, Miss Martinez. Next is Scott Johnston. Uh, good evening. My name is Scott Johnson. I'm a teacher at Silsa and

038I'm bringing you good news uh just about where Silsa is and where Silsa is going. SLSA is currently ranked 47th of 686 North Carolina high schools. That puts us in the top 6%, the 93rd percentile. Nationally, we're ranked 1,474th of roughly 27,000 high schools, which places us in the top 5%, the 95th percentile. We've continued to have a 99% graduation rate for almost a decade. As we often discuss the achievement gap in ACS, over 90% of our black and brown students are accepted to four-year universities before they graduate Sulsa. In just the few last few years, this has included full scholarships for minority students to Yale, Penn, Chapel Hill, NC State, H.B.CU, and many other great schools. SLSA's yearly list of college acceptances demonstrates that our students are qualifying for the best universities in the

039country. For example, one of my favorite acceptances this year is a very hardworking female student who will be studying chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the premier research institutions in the world. Furthermore, over 10% of this year's Silsa's graduating class has been accepted to UNC Chapel Hill with many more admitted to NC State. These are the best universities North Carolina has to offer. Also of note, Asheville's last mayor as well as the previous Bunkham County Commissioner chair and a number of UNCCA professors have sent their children to Silsa, all of which were accepted to excellent universities. This year, Silsa and Asheville High once again combined for almost $9 million of scholarships. The path to success is clearly there. Silsa provides the opportunity students need only take the steps and follow through to

040achieve great heights. Silsa is continually refining our North Carolina cooperative innovative high school special designation in reference to its college preparatory focus. With AB Tech dual enrollment program, we're graduating students with high school diplomas as well as their associate degrees. More Silsa students are graduating high school with more college credits, thus saving their families thousands of dollars in tuition for their next degree. Our teachers are now offering more college credit classes on Silsa's campus than ever before through AB Tech's Career College Promise program. We have one of the highest college credits per high school student ratio in Western North Carolina. We definitely have the highest ratio of students of color in honors AP and college classes in Western North Carolina, if not the state. We continue to exceed expected growth in every ACT grouping, including

041English, math, reading, science, and composite scores. Our freshman Pathfinder classes and e portfolio college career guidance initiatives are helping students prepare for unity university admissions years before they're expected to begin the process. This year, every 10th grader at Silsa registered for College Foundation of North Carolina. There's more good stuff, but thank you for listening. Thank you, Mr. Johnston. And last we have Timothy Lloyd and he is speaking on behalf of an organization and so has five minutes should he want them. I only planned for two and a half so I won't speak slowly. Um you know me Timothy Lloyd AMS custodian ACA president. Uh when ACE began our no cuts just commitment spring campaign, our overarching goal was simple. Do all that we can to keep as many positions as possible. We firmly believed that

042putting positions into a hierarchy of more important and less important was ultimately a race to the bottom and instead decided that uniting around everyone's job being important to students was a much better strategy. And look at what we accomplished together by approaching this strategy. 70% of Asheville City School staff signed the no cuts just amendment petition. 55% of Bunkham County school staff did the same. 100% of this board voted for a no cuts for budget request. And the BCS board did the same. With 2500 people in total signing our petition, over a 100 people giving public comment, over 400 people at our town hall, over 200 people marching downtown. We showed the power and broad consensus around of of uniting around better schools for everyone. A future with no cuts matters to thousands of people.

043And I'm not even including the thousands of students as well that it matters to. Sadly, reaching a no cuts budget easily is not the reality that we have right now. We are facing down a year millions of dollars in the hole. I also believe that we were extremely correct when we said that there was no fat to cut and thus that would mean that all cuts would cut directly into our muscle, the most necessary positions. So because of this, ACA emailed every board member before the weekend asking that since we are on a diet of rice and water that the EL contract with crew be paused for a year, saving the district over $300,000. We also ask that any other non-essential outside contracts be cut and is it is our belief that these outside contracts

044do add much benefit to our district. But when we are given the choice between school-based staff and outside contracts, we will choose staff every time. That is all. Thank you. Let's continue vying for no cuts to staffing programs or compensation. Thank you, Mr. Lloyd. Do we have any virtual uh comments? Nope, there are none. Um, so that concludes public comment. Thanks everyone. Um, at this time we will uh vote on the consent agenda. And for everyone's reference, this includes draft minutes from both of our May meetings, student releases to Bunkham County, the listed policies on second read, the AIG plan, the state salary supplement recommended update, the reform policies, the use of yellow buses for the summer, and the budget amendment and expenditure report. Is there a motion to approve that consent agenda? So moved.

045Is there a second? Second. Okay. All in favor? I I No, I just need Amy to say Yeah. So, sorry. Can we do that one more time? All those in favor? I I And to Amy, Amy is an I. Thank you. Okay. So, those consent item agenda pass. Um, and Mayor Thornberg. Yes. Um, we have something that we read at the beginning about harm and taking a pause when we've done harm. Um, and I wanted to acknowledge um, uh, Copeland Rudolph brought to my attention that I had spoken behind her back after a meeting and I wanted to publicly apologize for that. I've had a moment to think about it. I know we had some heated words before the meeting. Um there's some things I'm still upset about, but I acknowledge that any conversation um

046needs to happen with you present and we need to resolve that in a constructive way. And so I think that's appropriate for me to say I was wearing my PTO hat at the time, but I'm still always a schoolboard member. Okay. Thank you. Um and with that we will turn now to the superintendence report. Okay. Thank you. Hi everyone. Um, my name is Dr. Maris Lavender and I am the founder and managing partner of Love Joy Liberation Community Relations Firm and it has been my pleasure to support the strategic planning process along with Julie Kinky. And today we're presenting um pieces of our final report to you all and it's great to be here tonight. Thank you all for having us. And first uh let us congratulate you on making it through a really phenomenally

047difficult year. Um and to be celebrating your uh little kindergarteners that are coming in, our class of 2038 um as well as our uh students who are leaving us for our class of 2025 is a real accomplishment. you've gone through hurricane Helen as a board, budget cuts, the list is long. So, just congratulations on that. Um, our charge, my name is Julie Kanki. Um, we've been a partner with uh with Connected, the National Center for College and Career and we're excited to share some of the findings we've had this year. Um, our charge from Dr. Ferman uh was to do a couple of things. One was to do a deep dive into a ton of data that the Asheville City Schools has collected over the years um really over the past five years from I

048think four different handover reports um the different listening campaigns that have been held by various consultants and to compile for you one kind of streamlined data lit review of some highlevel findings. So we'll share uh a bit of that today. We'll also we have a little bit of cleanup, but we want to share the preliminary pieces today. Open to your feedback. We'll clean all of this up so you'll have a final report of that. Um, and then the second piece was to do um a large community engagement session um to find out where what does our community want from our Asheville City Schools, particularly as we think about our 2038 kindergarteners um and where where we're going to take them and where our community needs to be. So, um, we're going to start with this

049data review. I apologize. I don't know that you all had the link to this yet. Um, I did link it into the PowerPoint deck as well. So, um, so we're just going to kind of real quickly um, we compiled all of the data from these various sources. So, your 2024 achievement data that was compiled by the handover research uh group, your uh doing a deep dive into the North Carolina state report card over the past several years, your advanced placement enrollment data, your labor market report that handover recently completed, uh parts one and two, along with the creative economy report that the Asheville Arts Council has completed, uh um right before Hurricane Helen and the Chamber of Commerce. uh report that they released in 2022. Um along with all of the data that Dr. Ferman

050uh collected during her listening campaigns um the North Carolina teacher working condition survey and the hurricane Helen recovery reports. So um all of that is in the attached slides. So there's a I learned a lot about the Asheville City Schools. I got to say I felt like I just took a a master's course. Um, and we tried to distill this into a couple of really big uh, pieces. Uh, and that is things that you probably hopefully already know. And that is that your um, racial and ethnic demographics in terms of who you serve, it's held steady for the past several years. However, students living in poverty is increasing which has some real implications as we think about how do we spend how do you spend time, resources and energy uh to make sure all students

051are being lifted up. uh your uh enrollment is project is declining and projected to decline by 277 uh to 1,090 students based on that handover report and those projections which as we know is a a sum to a lot of revenue uh decline. Um how well are your students doing? A couple big ideas. Uh white students are graduating with the highest grade level proficiency and the greatest participation in advanced coursework. I know this district is well aware of your um racialized achievement gaps. Um graduation rates um have improved which is great news for many student groups including black, white and students of uh two plus races. Um however, black student uh grade level proficiency uh particularly in reading and math um and ELA 9th through 12th um has declined from 2019 to 2023. So while

052students are graduating uh at higher rates, your students are leaving with lower proficiency. That has great implications for our community in terms of college and career readiness and what we're preparing our young people, particularly our black and brown students, what our system is preparing our young students to do. Um and then how engaged and connected are our students? looking primarily at attendance as a as a big um you know data point that we know from educational research that attendance credit attainment are the big pieces around engagement um and that your um absentee rates have increased from 20 in from 2019 to 2023 they went from 15% uh to 27%. Obviously, lots of impacts of COVID 19 um and lots of other things that have happened, but uh that's a that's a significant um significant increase.

053Um a couple other big ideas that emerge. I won't read all of them to you, but I think in general you can see that the community from Dr. Ferman's listening sessions uh are very feel very positive about the relationships. This is a highly relational district. Um people know each other, people know students, and that matters a great deal. Uh and the the there's a great deal um that teachers identified around facilities and resources um and teachers leadership of students. Those were kind of the top areas in the working condition survey. Um the big questions or the big concerns from those listening survey, you're going to hear some of those themes emerge again. teacher retention and pay, student behavior, discipline, equity and inclusion are big concerns in this district and students man um and the system

054that we have um or I should say your teachers identified that the managing of student conduct uh the ability for and time for professional learning and the use of their time to focus on instruction were places where we rank below some of the state averages and that teacher again on that teacher working condition surveys. Um and then just a couple things about the context. Uh there is continued economic and employment growth for Asheville even despite the hurricane. Uh there is um a plenitude of jobs. Many of the jobs uh require some type of postsecondary. That's true across our country. That continues to be true here. uh that at least a third if not more of the jobs will be projected to have some type of post-secary education and what I mean by that is industry

055certification to a credential to two-year to four years so we're not talking just fouryear um and uh you know I think the other thing that we know is that many of our employers are identifying both in the recovery effort and before the hurricane that the one of the biggest challenges for them was finding a skilled workforce not just in academic proficiency but in that sense of those durable skills uh that we've been talking about as part of the graduate profile students ability to future employees ability to communicate and work well together. Um and then just kind of a a big idea some big ideas you want to talk about these amirs. Okay great. Um the the four big ideas in terms of what are those implications uh that we felt as we looked at all

056of that report kind of aligned to the data and pulling out the big themes from all of those different data sources is um while there is a ton of effort and energy being placed on strengthening community and belonging it needs to be done in service of learning and that has not always been the case. Sometimes this the sense of belonging um based on that has felt like that is good enough and belonging is the sort of balm that helps all young people lower their cortisol, get their brains open to be able to learn. But if all we're doing is saying our young people are are feeling good and comfortable in school, we aren't yet raising that rigor or creating that learning environment, um then we're going to stop seeing some systems improvements around learning. So,

057uh, strengthening community belonging in service of learning is a big theme that emerged in all of those different pieces. All meaning all. Uh, so what I mean by that and what we mean by that, I just want to be super clear. This does not mean that the district should take its eyes off the ball of focusing um on black and brown student achievement. In fact, this means that we should double down on that. What we can see in your data is that the students that are the most successful are students who are um in our 60% enrollment rate. This district is working for a bunch of students mostly in the demographic of white um not living in poverty. Um and students uh but students who are uh black or brown living in poverty if they

058have a special need of some type or they have English language learning supports needed. the system itself and I'm not talking about teachers or principles. I'm talking about how our system is organized from the allocation of time to the allocation of resources is not yet serving our students and that's the place where all needs to mean all uh not all for some and then separate programs for others but all the in the core and programming. Um and then based on the places where we had some challenges based on that data um uh a renewed interest in centering learning and teaching would be encouraged. Um and then developing greater connections with and across the system uh kind of some highlevel ideas. Of course we can give we can go into the weeds on all of that.

059But I'll pause there before we hop into the other report for questions, concerns, comments. anything. Okay, I have lots of questions and concerns, but I think we want to hear more from you about what you're seeing. Okay, great. So, we'll hop over now to the strategic planning findings and recommendations. Um, and again, let me just Um so uh what we've done is again distilled a whole bunch of data. So um over the past uh several months from starting in about February uh late February we've held several community focus groups and convenings. Uh every principal led school input sessions um as well as we launched two surveys. one for students thanks to the Asheville City Schools Foundation and the REAp students that reached um 600 plus students um and uh the Asheville City Schools launching on

060their website a survey that reached um over 300 um in total we've we we the best we could calculate this we engaged over 160 students parents educators and community members in a variety of modes I think the best we could count that's unduplicated so we know we had some people that weighed in several times times. You can see here the majority of the folks that weighed in was our students, which is awesome. We're getting uh a big part of their per their um view. Uh educators, community members, and parents kind of weighed in at a a an additional third of each of that area. Um so the findings that we had first are what all of the stakeholders held in common and then we'll get into tension points based on stakeholder groups. Why don't you

061start this one? Okay. Um so that we asked all stakeholder groups the same set of questions. One was what were the top existing strengths in the Nashville city schools? And you can see here um what some of the key things were that student educator relationships emerged as a very top as like the big theme. uh people felt from students to teachers that rel the relational um connections that we had was what makes this district special, unique and really positive. Um the other pieces were extracurriculars, access to technology, and kind of school culture, which was talked about kind of more broadly than just relationships, but how students are treated uh within and how teachers are treated within that school environment. You can see some of the other pieces um in terms of um those very top

062strengths. I won't read through all of these um but you can see dedicated and caring teachers emerged. The small size and strong school community um enrichment um that was talked about through extracurriculars or arts. We heard some of those comments this earlier in the meeting. And then innovative and favored programs. Uh so uh from the magnet themes to AVID to Sulsa to dual enrollment um these were all things that emerged as programs that were meaningful to the community in a variety of ways and to different stakeholder groups in a variety of ways. Um the second finding was uh there's some top emerging strengths meaning that things that people wouldn't say this is great but we're seeing improvement and we're putting in this category and that was this positive shift in school culture. uh a positive

063kind of emerging leadership direction from Dr. Ferman and her team and a kind of renewed sense that there is becoming a direction for the district um a beginning commitment to learning focus culture and that there has been some communication improvements um across the district particularly with parents. Um and then there's been some emerging improved safety and support structures. And then the big barriers that were emerging was uh or the big challenges was this idea of a learning I think I screwed up here but uh really had to do with a learning focused culture. Um and that was around both student behavior and learning disruption. Um, and in looking at some of the feedback, it also had to do with time focus to be able to really spend on instruction. I think from teachers to students,

064it felt like there was a lot of time being pulled away from the classroom and from the ability for for educators to focus on the most important task, which is learning and teaching highquality instruction. There also seemed like there was some variability across the district in the quality of that from one one school to another. uh which had to do with the in inconsistent and inequitable school culture. Lots of comments about the the experience my child had differs greatly from school to school. If I have one child here and I have another child here, friends over here, friends there, differences. So, not yet that united Asheville way of doing things. Um a lack of teacher, uh lack of support for teachers. So, um, then that's not just around pay. That's about being able to plan,

065being able to focus on, um, that task of, uh, my students, what they know. We heard some of those great ideas, um, from our, um, uh, was it Chris, Mr. Gordon? Mr. Gordon. Um, and then curriculum and instruction gaps. Again, a lot of uh, a lot of comments about disconnected in an adequate curriculum and curriculum that may lack a sense of rigor. um and relevance for students. And then lastly, um there's some questions around what the academic expectations are and what the accountability is for those expectations, especially for for students who may be struggling. Um and then your top uh characteristics on a portrait of a scholar. Uh you can see both from the student survey you can see that the top pieces there critical thinking communication emerges the top pieces which aligns to the

066national trends um critical thinking problem solving and communication again collaboration. Um, so you can see in the the next pieces, uh, those top five portraits of a scholar. And then where does the community really want us to push into as a as a board and as a school district? Um, there's a continued push on that safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment. That that is a top priority that emerged across all stakeholder groups. the idea of real world and project-based learning. Not necessarily that those are one and the same, but students uh the desire that students are doing something that matters is what I would say in their classroom experience. Um that human connection relational culture is a continuation. Um and empowered and respected educators. uh a lot of I would say recognition across stakeholder groups about

067the level of stress that the classroom teacher and building level educator is under and wanting teachers not to feel that way. Um but wanting teachers to feel empowered and respected both in their profession and in this district. Um and then lastly um an opportunity around equity, belonging and voice so that every student uh feels valued and represented in how the school operate operates and and is managed. So those are the big themes um across the district across the district and then a couple more you know a little bit more detail on the top uh themes that emerged around learning experiences which you can see those as well that learning is relevant that learning is aligned to standards and purpose. There were some questions in a lot of the comments that while learning might be relevant

068for my student I don't always know that it's aligned to standards or it's aligned to a purpose. So sometimes kids are doing cool things, but is the cool thing aligned to the learning standard we want them to be doing? Um, and this I would say was the big summary. People want deeper and more meaningful learning across the district, across stakeholder groups, from students to parents to community members, um, to board members. That was a lot of what you all talked about as well. Anything you want to add? N I can do that. I'm here to talk about tension. Um so a part of this work wasn't just looking into data or talking to current stakeholders and seeing what folks wanted but understanding that uh any report the hope is to create or an impact or

069to elicit change. So in an effort to do some change management support for you all we also wanted to point out where are there some tension points within the district around some decisions that you will have to make. Um, and one is around discipline and inclusion. Talked a lot about and I know you all know about your discipline disparities. Um, and there's some responses within the district that seek to just include folks or talk more about restorative practice, trauma-informed care, and other folks who want stricter discipline uh practices within uh stronger consequences and not feeling supported by the lack thereof. So there's a deep tension between what will actually be a supportive practice to respond to these discipline disparities that we all know are here. Um the second is around rigor and academic expectations and

070a whole child focus. And I can say that we run into this too as we did facilitated these meetings. there uh comes up a tension point when we start talking about academic standards um or clear expectations that some people might believe that then we lose the individuality and the ability to customize or have a whole child focus for uh particular children um and that is a tension point that has to be addressed by the district again in service of teaching and learning and providing resources for all students. Um the second is this explicit focus on racial equity and cultural responsiveness is something that is deeply valued in the district. It is on a lot of sticky notes. People really care about this. Um and other folks believe like while that's all well and good and

071they also support those efforts, they believe that sometimes this distracts from a a clearer focus on academic priorities. Again, are we prioritizing belonging rather than academic rigor and excellence in our schools? And the fourth tension is around the teacher experience which Julie outlined where they may be feeling overwhelmed, unheard and unsupported. But their families, the parents that they serve are not feeling that way about their school community. They are being delivered positive experiences. They believe that they are getting strong communication. And so there's this disconnect between the internal perceptions of the people providing a service and those who are receiving it which is a deep challenge. And uh the next one is around the small personalized system. As Julie mentioned, we are very relational. People really love their schools. There's individual magnet programs. So people

072have grown really accustomed to the intimacy of the small district field. Um however, there is a a risk of duplicating services or uh mismanaging resources. Could there be a greater um consolidation of costs in order to u increase the efficiency of the de the district? Yes. And it may come as a tension point to folks who really like that their kid gets to do this one thing. Yes. Okay. Gotta stop my rants. Okay. Our recommendations for moving forward. Julie talked about this. The first of I I should say we're educators right in this room. So the purpose of schools and is teaching and learning. And so our first recommendation to this board is to make decisions that align with the best practices to teach and uh have environments where students can learn best which would

073include all of these things that I won't read to you. Um the second is that all students should have an opportunity to develop their voice and design their future. People should know why they're going to school. Adults should know why they're dropping their children off to school. And everyone should understand that that child, each one in this district is building towards a future that they are a part of designing. That needs to be a part of the district's practice of what we're talking about. Where are all these folks going? And every student should be able to tell you that. Um there needs to be a ability to strengthen the school and district community. Strengthen school and district community and sense of belong belonging. Um so since this is already um something that some folks are

074feeling strong about, we can double down on that. That's really great. But there are other groups within um the actual city schools district that do not feel that way. I've have experienced harm and are continually experiencing harm. And I know you all know that. I know that and we all know that. So there's this way that we all need to work on um building that for all students together. Um in the hope of making sure that it's a high quality professional learning environment. So that all needs means all. And to develop good you talk about this. Perfect. So, those are big the big six recommendations, questions, comments um that you want to vet or clarify as as you read through these board members. Will we have a future time to ask questions or reach out

075and to as it's the first time I'm really delving into this? I'm just wondering if if this is an ongoing you're continuing with us into the fall, correct? No, not at this point. Okay. No, this is their final report. We have a follow-up meeting in July to kind of align the work that I will be taking on as next steps, but this is really the summation of their data findings. I appreciate everything y'all have done over the past year plus and I've particularly appreciated the thoughtful way you've tried to include um folks from across our community, the businesses, the parents, the the community stakeholders. Um and I appreciate the very thoughtful and realistic information you've given us. Thank you. And if I've understood this correctly, um this work that you have done on our behalf

076will now inform Maggie's work and will inform our work as a board as we have heard from our community and we have um more knowledge about what people want to see in our district. So I'm Thank you. Thank you. I um I keep looking at these tensions and I keep thinking about that the expression or the the value system of yes and and as opposed to yes but and thinking about how we as a board can use these tensions or should use these tensions especially in service to um to those recommendations you have. how we as a board oftentimes because of everything that's happening not with not necessarily within the district oftentimes within the district but also beyond the district. how often it feels like the the there's a butt always at the end and

077how we as a as a board can think can switch that and think yes yes this is the reality and are we continuing to focus you know are we in service of learning are we continuing to focus on students who we as you said we continue to um not work with and work for uh so I I really appreciate the the enumeration of that this so thank you and one one process I might suggest that I think could help you as a board would be to do what's called polarity mapping, which is a process where you map out the tensions that exist in your system and identify the positives and the negatives of those. Um, and then try to pull from the positives of both as you move into an implementation as well as identifying

078like if we were to go off course, what would be some early warning signs that would tell us we've gone too far in one direction. So, it's something that I've seen um and work with districts around say around this idea of discipline verse inclusion, right? That you would see if you got too heavy-handed on the discipline side, you would start to see certain things. What are those things you would not want to see and how would you avoid that? But how do you take the best of both of those polarities to uh map map out your solutions and your action steps for moving forward? Because you're right, it's not going to be in this district with potential loss in revenue and dwindling enrollment. uh if you get into an eitheror um and we heard even

079some of that tonight, we're going to not be in a place where we're going to be able to best serve students, right? So, it has to be a both end. I also just want to share gratitude for how you did this. I think that when we were coming into this process, I heard early on that, you know, our community has been surveyed to death and as a district where we've had so much leadership turnover, we've asked for input over and over. And when you showed us all the places you went to gather information in addition to actually listening in real time, I think that was so enriching. And what you shared lands on me is so accurate and I really like George, I really appreciate the tension. It's hard to look at. Mhm. It's uncomfortable

080and it's so important because what I think I'm seeing here is that we have made some really important achievements around our community as we've been through really difficult years and to uplift to me what's standing out is to uplift instruction proficiency. you know how and it's not did we leave that behind, it's how do we take what we've done so well and build it into something even better for children and students. So, thank you. I I really appreciate this. Do you have a question? I have one more, too. I have a question um for Dr. Lavender. um you spent and are continue to be on our reparations commission and I think you've been in charge of education focus group. Many of us went to um the meetings that you held last year. Do you find

081that your what you learned in this uh undertaking aligned with what you also learned through your reparations work or would you offer us any insight about that? Yeah, thank you for that question. Yes. Um, I feel I have to say this feels very full circle to me. The first time that I started speaking to this board, it was with Chris Gordon about as representatives from the education impact focus area. And so the gratitude and the honor that I extend to you all is bringing me in on this pro. It all happened how it happened. But um you know it was a really wonderful um opportunity to hear greater from the the uh community and I didn't know what we were going to find if it was going to be intention with one another and I

082have to say that it wasn't u a lot of the recommendations I can sort of map them out. I think the first I came and we talked a lot about the desegregation order um and the harm that that caused. I think the recommendations and Julie can do a really great way of explaining that some of the recommendations, the challenges with programming, the way that the schools are built are directly tied to the implementation of those orders and how the district tried to uh respond to them. and it's now calcified around uh you know percentages of students here or there both the 1972 order which its implementation was just harmful and wrong and then the the addition of that 1992 order because of the lack of the implementation uh with the dwindling numbers in the district

083and the the the decrease in diversity there's a challenge in that DEG order but that didn't stop there um with the recommendations the ones for uh deeper uh focus on an curriculum culturally responsive curriculum um one that would prepare students uh our black and brown students and engage them is aligned with our findings across the district. Uh there was the heed program which was a program to help have internship and mentorship opportunities. These real world opportunities embedded within school programs was in the reparations recommendations are directly aligned with what some of your other families are saying. Um I would say the focus on accountability or task force are in our recommendations or the uh people actually monitoring the progress of the implementations of these recommendations. The need for this information to go somewhere and for

084there to be a body and a group responsible for monitoring the progress on any sort of policy or practice is just seen as something that's crucial. Um, and again, the stop the harm that was actually authored by Chris Gordon around discipline and student suspensions are seen throughout this district. So, um, to sum it up, yes, yes, yes. I mean, there's some clear ones for black teacher recruitment and having educators and folks that work in schools that reflect the identities of students, but, um, the the needs that people see for what young people need in classrooms are more aligned than I actually anticipated to find. And um I think I said at one point I told you I was like typing the um post-its. I felt I said, "Wow, we can describe every challenge happening in

085the district from tip to toe." Like I mean every like no stone left unturned. I don't think that there is a lack of understanding about the challenges faced or the nuances of changing a decision. I do think it's the and and we are saying but and and we are competing with one another for special interest groups and putting one group ahead of the other and because there has been so much disparity there is a deep fear that is rooted in historical understanding that if one student or one group starts getting attention others will not. So I think the greatest charge to this district at this point when all needs to mean all is how will you create policies and practices that ensure that that keeps happening for everyone in the district but to really ensure

086that everyone knows that we're not in tension with one another about what we want for all students. Okay. I do have a question. Uh the last couple meetings that community have had, there's a lack of certain groups of families showing up. Mhm. And your tension uh number four, teachers, parents versus family, student experience, how can how can you connect black and brown parents to come to connect them with community to bring them inside? I mean, how can you take this right here and bring them in? Um, I cu some of the things that I would say is that there's some things I've learned so much information. I feel like I've been on a four-year deep dive of this district. I know way more than about Asheville than I ever thought. And I I so I

087say that to say I think that there are so many levers to pull that need to be changed that I can't answer that. I don't know if that's the first thing to answer. I think that there are a lot of outside programs that come into the school and engage with families. I think that there are a lot of programs that happen without the district and that's where this all means all things where they where students of color or their families feel like we belong in AVID so they go there but they're not going to larger broader district activities. That's the challenge of creating these particular spots in some sense. Um and I think the other piece of that I this will not be a shock to anyone. I think that there has to be a

088better job. we did um a listening session and there are programs that are maybe enacted at the school level and it's like we're going to do this parent engagement for XYZ reason. Then other things get added to that person's plate or calendar and something has to go. They don't realize that that's falling into another initiative that is upholding someone else's scaffolded programming and that is related to internal communication about why we're doing things that we do. I jokingly um said that there needs to be a calendar of these things like where is people supposed to be because you all can only be one place at once. And so before I think about So my my answer to you is there's always like how can we get these families in here? Are you prepared for them?

089Will when they arrive and they show up after their shift, will the people that they expected to be at that meeting be there? Will the event be prepared in the way that they deserve for it to be? Um are they going to have inclusive experiences? Did you answer their email about their actual student that day? I think parents are engaged and they do care about their students, but there has been a lot of times where this has the ball has been dropped. And before you ask people to come sit with you again, I think it's really important. You should you can't make it seem like they've never talked to you, that they're not sitting with you already just because they're not coming to particular meetings. I think there is an engagement there. add. Yeah, I

090think one thing that I would want to point out is that our system for engagement um is somewhat reflective of the system that this district has in place. Uh so we we work through and try to add on some additional pieces, but what I would say is there is not yet a system built in this community that engages the members of the community in the ways Dr. or Lavender is talking about where child care perhaps is an automatic where um after school or evening programming or served with a meal is an automatic way we do business. Um and because of that uh we did put this caveat to your point Mr. Warren of some families. I would imagine that there is a group of people we did not have access to uh that might have

091a different opinion about the experience their child is having based on uh what we've learned through the education reparations. So we don't we don't want to this is based on the data we were able to collect. that data is faulty um because it does not yet um yeah I I'll just say this I do a lot of these sort of assessments across the country um and different districts have different systems in place that enable them to get better or worse data from the community based on the cultures that they have and so if you're interested in knowing what uh the folks that I think you're alluding to Mr. war are really interested in. You have to build different systems. You have to have different types of staffing structures. You have to have people whose job

092uh works into the evening. You have to have a whole different set. You have to have folks that look like and know the communities deeply that you want to engage at all levels from students living in poverty uh to black and brown students to students of uh where English is a second language. Then that's what the staffing structures need to be paid for. and built around to get that level of engagement. And I don't think to be honest that we are there yet as a district otherwise we would have gotten different data results because we would have been able to use those systems rather than building new systems to try to create new types of um uh engagement. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you. Still with Maggie's superintendent report, we'll now talk

093about fiscal year 26 budget updates. And first what I'm going to talk about is kind of what are the next steps for strategic plan. So now that we've got this product, the first thing I really want to talk through is how do we know when we've met our three promises? We have these three highlevel promises to build a sense of belonging, to provide our students with challenging and relevant content and instruction, and then that we are going to make every second count. We're not going to waste one second for the work that we know is ahead of us. And when our um when we've met that promise, we'll know that when we have every student that walks across the stage um will have met the attributes that we're going to identify in a portrait of

094a scholar. So next steps for planning um is to come up with some basically a lack of a better word is some marketing for to get people energized. Um we want people to see this plan as something that's active, something that is focused and aspirational. Um, so I've just been playing around with a couple ideas um and thinking about um this idea of that as a school system we're ascending to the apex and beyond. So we've got mountains, we've got mountaineers and hikers um but thinking of what does that look like? You don't just climb the mountain from the bottom to the top if you're going to Everest. You have to pick base camps. You have to get all of your things arranged. You can't just turn around one day and decide I'm going to

095climb up to the top of Everest. So if we're going to make that ascent, what is that going to look like for us? And building on the work for that sense of belonging is we also know with the all means all that individual success is not enough and we have to reach that top together and that in our school system we are all members of this cougar crew and that together we'll be able to do more than we thought possible. So that's kind of our first kind of iteration of thinking about how to really market and capture this in some language that people can coalesce and and get get around. Oops. So as they were talking I really was and sharing these results with me. I think what resonates for me is student achievement is

096needs to be first and foremost on our minds at all times. But student achievement isn't onedimensional. Student achievement is multi-dimensional. Um, and it's mastery of knowledge and skills. That's what's the typical piece we think of when we think of student achievement that the students will know and understand and be able to do math and read. But that's just part of what that what that means. It's not just regurgitating information. It's being able to do something with that to develop a deeper understanding for that critical thinking, analyzing and then being able to communicate your knowledge and understanding in a clear and articulate way. Um, and through variety of of of medias. But we also know that this mastering knowledge and skills is not the only thing. Um, and we have to work on character as a

097dimension of student achievement. Um, and for this we we know that we want our students to become effective learners. And that's why it was so important in the grading policy to identify habits of scholarship. What does it mean to be an effective learner so that we can have our students prepared for college, career, and life. Um, but also being ethical, treating people with respect and dignity is is something that's important as well. And then how are we putting all those things together to contribute to a better world and improve our community? And then there's the third dimension of student achievement which is creating highquality work. So you may have great mastery of knowledge and skills but if you're going and you're you're going to move on to college career or a life skill, you've got

098to create quality work that everyone is evaluated on the quality of the work that they that they produce. Um and we need to start helping our students understand how they can create complex work using their higher order thinking. How do they demonstrate craftsmanship and that it's authentic and they are creating original work? And that that idea of curiosity and creativity in the data that they found on the surveys for the qualities really resonates to me also through these three dimensions of student achievement. And if we want to move towards looking at student achievement in this multi-dimensional way, we have to also change what our schools look like, feel like, and sound like. Um so again aligned with each of these dimensions um for our teachers and leaders for mastery of knowledge and skills we must

099make sure that we have rigorous meaningful standards aligned curriculum. We have to use assessment practices as um Chris Gordon said it's not a oneanddone. Our assessment of learning should be in service of taking our students up to that next level of what they're capable of doing. And data needs to be meaningful just not for teachers and students but in a look we're going to look at our data but how am I then as a student as a teacher tracking my progress towards meeting a goal and then we really every single day our students need to be engaged in critical thinking. Critical thinking can't be left for that final project. It's got to be woven into everything that our students are doing in the lesson. So really reimagining what does that typical instruction look like in

100a classroom. For character, we as as Dr. Lavender shared, we've got to continue to elevate student voice in the classroom and across our school system. We have to help our students understand what those habits of scholarship are and that we are embedding those throughout every class every single day. And that schoolwide culture of respect and compassion and also embedding that social emotional learning is going to be very important. And for high quality work, our teachers need to make sure that they're designing tasks that help their students apply what they're learning. They should be analyzing, evaluating, using models of excellence as demonstrations for what our students have and what they can be capable of and then connecting what they're learning in the classroom through either meaningful fieldwork experiences, research or service learning so that they're producing

101something that they're proud of, something that means something more than just I've get I've taken a test and I got a grade on it. Um, so these three dimensions of learning were where I was kind of framing my mind and thoughts is thinking about what could our portrait of a scholar look like. So aligning through these three dimensions, developing continuous learners and having our students and for character also be understanding what it means to the to be the member of a crew that we're all in this together. We've got to work together. We've got to stand up for what is right and ethical. um and really making sure that we're understanding how do are we working in service of others. And then I really loved this idea of being curious and being a creative thinker

102instead of just reproducing something that you've already seen. So how are we challenging our students to be curious to dream of something different to investigate and understand different viewpoints and solve new problems in a new way? Um I don't think we can stress enough that critical thinking aspect. Um I think we can kind of a everyone would agree that that's hugely important for our students. And then the communication is the fifth kind of area that I picked. So the next phase for this portrait of a scholar will be to take this draft, get some feedback, see what kind of edits we make, um and then bring it back to the board in August. Um but also at our leadership retreat, our building principles will be aligning their work plans with these different tenants and how

103are they then supporting these throughout our school system. So then building the action plan. So that's kind of where we're headed. Then how am I going to help facilitate that we do this? So um very similar as I've led strategic planning in the past, that implementation piece is identifying what are these big buckets of work ahead of us. Um, and we know very first and foremost, we have to focus on how are we going to make sure our students are attaining all of those attributes that are in our portrait of a scholar through those three dimensions of student achievement. And we mentioned it before, we need to keep understanding we have to have highquality professionals within our system that are trained and skilled at delivering high quality instruction for our students every day, every class.

104Um, and the way I like to think about it is how are we having a life cycle for our staff that's from hire to retire. We want to hire and recruit the very best. We want to keep and retain the very best. And we want to celebrate them all the way and show them opportunities for growth and leadership opportunities all the way until they have worked hopefully their 30 plus years. And then we want to celebrate them. We know we need organizational effectiveness and efficiencies to make this possible so that our teachers can focus on teaching and learning. That's their main job. So, what are we taking off of their plates so that they don't have to do other than focus on their curriculum and their teaching and learning? And then again, I we always

105need to make sure we're keeping and capturing that culture and climate. So, these are just the four kind of work groups that we will start putting together to move this work forward. Um, and each of these work teams will be using a continuous improvement for equity model to make sure that equity isn't just something that gets added on at the end. It isn't something that we do just because we're told, but it is woven into every single process in our continuous improvement cycle as we work through these processes. So, and this beginning of this year, we had Dr. Dr. Hinn Crawford speaking at convocation and her model for this continuous improvement for equity is really the basis of what our strategic teams will be using as their um kind of guiding light. So these teams

106will they'll identify their purpose? Why do they exist? Why is it important? What can we achieve from the work of this team? Setting those long and short-term goals, identifying what are the processes, procedures, and key performance indicators that we need to have in place so that we can be successful. And then they'll be really working on that detailed three-year implementation plan in general, but start with a really high focus on what does that first year implementation look like so we can get that really tight, but the other areas may be loose. So as we continue the continuous improvement cycle, we're then looking at what's ahead and what's next and how do we tighten up the next phase of implementation. This is an example and and I was so glad to hear Dr. Lavender mentioned, we've

107got to keep our eye on and monitor progress. So, when I was in my last district, we created um some really interactive um dashboards. So, for each of those areas where we had identified a strategic team, they created a tracking progress. So, it was like just a a round circle and as we moved through the implementation, that circle changed color. So we were able to see like how far is this group moving along with their educational with their effectiveness and efficiencies. How far are we moving along with attainment of the you know what what we're doing to make sure every single scholar is reaching those portrait of a graduate criteria. And then we had just a really simple dashboard to to monitor priority outcomes that we identified. And it was just very simple like here's

108our big goals, here's the things we're going to do. And then we're tracking student results with the green. That was like, hey, here's where we're going. That was our baseline or I'm sorry, that was our goal. And then we had the baseline and we started filling in the rest of that those flags as we moved on. So that's kind of where we'll be going over the next school year um to eventually end up with a dashboard with priority outcomes and a plan that will help us move this work forward um in our in our district. So before I move into budget, are there any questions, comments or discussion about next steps for strategic plan? Megan, is this part of your is this part of your crew or this is crew involves crew? Yeah. So as

109we implement um some of the tenants of EEL, one of those is the model of crew which supports character development. And so that is a part of what we want to enhance not just we've been doing that with staff and rolling that out for our students so that they're understanding that we're in this together and they're not sitting idly by as as things happen. They're saying, "Hey Sarah, you know, this is what we're supposed to be doing now. You know, you shouldn't be in the bathrooms smoking. you should be in class. So that's that student accountability within and of itself within crew and AO. Correct. Yes. Correct. Right. Maggie, can I ask a question about the um CI4E teams? Yep. And what your what your timeline is on getting those teams together? Yeah. So, next

110phase will be to finalize the portrait of a scholar. really iron that out and get that really tight. And there's a lot of underlying things that also go with the portrait of a scholar. I can statements, more clear definitions. So, there'll be some work to kind of first get that really tight. And then, you know, I really haven't ironed out the exact timeline yet for these CI4 teams coming together. Um, but that will be kind of the work over the summer is to plan out a more detailed timeline for the work to move forward. And just so that I'm clear on this um building the action plan slide with identified champions to lead strategic work teams. These are four work teams that what you just described will begin in the summer starting with portrait of

111a scholar and then we'll see teams developed. who who how big are these teams and who serves on them? Um, typically you want to get a good representation from different areas. So, the portrait of a scholar team, that's going to be a much bigger team. Like that's going to probably be one big team and then divided up into a couple smaller teams. Um, so that one is, you know, more dynamic as well. The quality professionals, organizational effectiveness, climate and culture, those can the particularly two and three can be smaller teams. um partic and people that are kind of attuned to what are these what are we doing with these with these um with these groups and what do we want them to achieve? Um like we don't need 300 people sitting on a finance team.

112We've got a really high quality finance um director or CFO and her team knows great work. Um so it's you know we'll just be making sure we're starting to align with who really needs to be involved. culture and climate I think also touches on um portrait of a scholar and the high quality professionals. So that one could be kind of a smaller subset from each of those two groups. So I would say typically you know for the portrait of a scholar I think that one could be between like 20 and 30 but divided up into some smaller groups with representation from different grade levels subjects different areas across um the subject areas. And what I think I'm hearing and I hope I'm hearing is that these aren't like I'm going to use a very charged

113word. These aren't four silos of work. No, these are interacting and portrait of a scholar's starting place. Y Okay. Thank you. Other questions or feedback for Maggie? I'd just like to say thank you for all of the work that's gone into this and connecting all the the components of community especially into this. Um, and I really appreciate the emphasis is placed on character and producing high quality work. Yeah. Board members, not hearing any other questions or comments, I think we will move on to the budget updates. All right. Um, yeah, you can go ahead and put my presentation back up there. Thank you. Um, so as I move into Why did that There we go. Okay. Before I really want to dig into this year's specific budget, I think we need to talk as a

114as a board on what should our goal be with budgeting. Um how do we budget long term instead of like, hey, we've got to look right what's happening now, but planning for a future three and five years out. Um, and that goal in my mind needs to be how are we balancing our budget? And and Heidi supports this is we we have to be able to create budgets that aren't using fund balance. Fund balance used to balance the budget is not sustainable, particularly when it's used for ongoing costs and not one-time costs. Um, so that really needs to be how are we structuring our school system to be able to have long-term sustainability and a balanced budget without use of fund balance. Um, so really looking into one of Heidi and I will be taking

115a deeper dive into this is state and federal funding. How are we aligning our work in the school system to make sure that that is fully maximized and we're getting the most out of our out of most bang out of our buck in our public and our state and federal funding. You also need to take into the greater context public school funding landscape. Particularly, I think in North Carolina, we're seeing continual efforts to defund public schools. And I think we should expect that that's going to continue, not that it's going to get better at the state front, at least not for the the next 5 to 10 years. And also just looking at enrollment trends not only in Asheville city schools but enrollment trends across the United States are decreasing. So we can have pockets

116of ups and downs but we know the trajectory for public school enrollment because of declining birth rates is on a downward trend nationwide. There's just fewer children being born. So we're going to have smaller and smaller um cohorts of students entering into kindergarten across the nation. The other piece that I think is so important is to understand that with 85 80% of our budget is personnel salaries and benefits. When we count Chartwells, ESS and the Bud Group, it goes up to 85%. So we have to think about for those expenditures on salaries and benefits, what can we do to control anything that we can control with personnel expenses? One of the recommendations that I think we need to continue looking at is our local supplement and how have we assigned that local supplement and how

117can we control that because when our staff get a raise of a like a two or a 5% raise at the state they're getting an exponential raise with our local supplement because it's a percent not a fixed amount. So how do we create uh you know we still have a very attractive local supplement. It is one of the highest but how do we change that so it's something we can control instead of always waiting for the unknown of what does that look like once we know what raises are coming from the state. Um looking at our work calendars. So, not adjusting what our current staff is, but as we move forward, looking at what how many days of employment are we um using for new hires that are in positions that are only working um

118or not only working, but they they work with students, let's say, 186 days, but we're paying them for 215 days. So, we've got to really understand like where where do we want to invest our money and is that a place where we can look at work calendars for future hires in categories and just have them coming in knowing that hey, this job is 186 days a year. That's what I'm getting paid for. I'm hired for it. I've signed on. and then continuing to review and evaluate our staffing formula um to match our needs, to adjust as we need, but to also use it as those guide rails to keep our expenses within a certain um expected amount. Before I go on, any questions or comments about those kind of multi-year planning topics? Oh, yeah. Um

119absolutely. maximizing the use of state funding. Sure. Of course. Um and the public school funding landscape, the biggest thing we can do is to work productively with our county commissioners and with Bunkham County Schools um and do everything we can to plan in advance. Um as far as the enrollment trends, I'll continue to point out that there are things that we can do to improve enrollment. I know that we heard that enrollment is decreasing nationally, but I also know Bunkham County Schools enrollment recruit uh increased year-over-year. And so any steps that we can take to improve enrollment, we attract students from neighboring counties. We attract students from outside of the Asheville City Schools District and we can also work to rightsize our district boundaries in collaboration with Bunkham County Schools and the county commissioners and

120the state legislature. So, let's do what we can that can help us increase our enrollment uh even if it is uh encouraging housing to be built that's affordable housing inside of our district boundaries. Um, I do have concerns about um changing the way people get paid. Uh, and I see that you're you're now limiting that to future hires, but it's still an an ongoing concern and an equity concern because I don't want us to be balancing our books on the backs of our lower paid staff. So, you know, that's where I'm coming from and I appreciate you hearing those concerns. Maggie, I um knowing that in years past we've had conversations with county commissioners about more thinking more long-term budget planning as opposed to yearbyear knowing there was a hurricane and etc etc. How much

121of this can be folded into or be a part of whatever further conversations are happening between district leadership, the county, and a long-term funding strategy with them? I think it's 100% alignment and need this needs to be guiding that conversation and the conversation needs to be our funding from the county can't be restricted to just growth of the tax digest. So, we've got to help. My strong opinion is we have to separate the educational um tax assessment from the rest of the general operating budget at the county like those because that's how we can really understand what and make changes to what we need even if it is hey we're going to decrease our millage rate because we can. So, I think that that is a way I think would be very very beneficial for

122public schools within Bunkham County, Asheville City, Bunkham County, and um our charter schools is to help to get those separate. I appreciate that and I'm in agreement on that point. Um is it an appropriate time to ask that um when we think about the local supplement? I mean, I I don't want to get ahead of you, um, but just asking that we look at ways that we can more equitably and more impactfully distribute those funds in particular in the district. Yeah. So, Heidi's kind of done some work on this and has an example from I think it's Wake County. Um, but looking at just a a set schedule, then instead of it being a percent, it's a dollar amount. And then that dollar amount changes as you move up in years of experience or, you

123know, it's it's easier to adjust that way to fine-tune where we want to invest local supplement. Okay. Thank you. But that will be something the board will have to approve. Okay. So, let's look at this year in particular as we keep those things in mind. Um, so as we talked way back in February, we anticipated um or projected a a revenue short a shortfall of about just under $7 million. Um, updated information from the most um recent um budget from the county. Still no state budget and I don't anticipate that we'll have that by the end of June and possibly not until later in in the fall. Um so the the what hasn't well what has changed here is um increase in local fund balance allocation for next year to 3.5. We were trying to

124keep that down to three. Uh we know that the increase in the local supplement to 11 cents will generate somewhere between $400 and $500,000. Um and that our Bunkham County allocation it's an increase over what they took back. So it looks like it's an increase of 90,000. Um, but we're just going to kind of play with that number. What all that means is at the end of the day as we start figuring out where do we need to to kind of shore things up is that we still have just under $3 million of a shortfall um as we plan for our budget for this year. That overall is about a 3.2% decrease in expenditures um as we look forward. I do also want to point out because as we plan long term, if we want

125to plan to not use fund balance to balance our budget, we have to know that if we allocate $3.5 million, then we have to cut $3.5 million the next year or get an additional $3.5 million in revenue. So that's why using fund balance is tricky because it looks like you've balanced your budget, but you've actually just kicked the can down the road hoping maybe you'll get increased funding the following year or you've got to double down on cuts that next year. So that's I wanted to just make sure we called attention to that use of fund balance um for reoccurring costs. So, as I was crunching numbers over the weekend, really started to look at where could we maximize positions that are open that we could potentially not refill. Um, so some of these are

126So, what I can say very strongly is I do not have plans to reduce force in any way. So, no staff will be let go. Um, everyone has a position. um we're just trying to figure out where all the pieces fit, but we do have a good idea of these people are certified for this and this is a space where we have a need. Um so just I had went down and looked through what we're what we're kind of outlined here. Um so even though these are position reductions, it's not a separation of any employees. Um so continuing um you kept the orchestra teacher um but still reducing one FTE elective at the middle school. That teacher that's in that position um can be moved into a social studies position. Um our core teachers at

127the uh middle school we were looking at reducing four. Of those four, we've got two resignations. One that's out on military leave and one that can move to Claxton. Um we had an EC teacher at the middle school resign. Um, so we can just not fill that and I've talked with Holly and she says we can definitely continue to provide all needed services without that EC position. Um, at the high school we had three a reduction of three FTE three and a half FTEES. Um, of those one's a retirement, one's a resignation. We'll be moving one staff member to the William Randolph campus. There's an opening there. And then one teacher is leaving halfway through the year and we do not need to replace that teacher when he um moves to be close to his

128grandchild. Um we have two a positions. One was at the high school that um that staff member resigned uh like a month or so ago. We don't need to refill that position. Um we have an IIA position because we're we're we went down from four. It's either four or five. I can't remember. At Dixon, we we lost one kindergarten classroom because of enrollment decrease. So that because a kindergarten classroom also comes with an IIA, then we have this IIA position that we don't need to refill. Um we had five core we had five teachers resign uh retire at the elementary and we can definitely um not rehire those positions. Um as I've mentioned all along the way, we have six FTEEs that we're reducing at central office. Three of those are open positions that we're

129not refilling and then three of those will be reassignments to open positions. Um we're also reducing days for admin positions. We're going to ask for volunteers on who which admin staff would like to give up some days and then basically I'll give every department a number and say hey you need to either reduce contracts or admin or days and contracts um to meet your number. um the change in the local supplement that also is something that I'm going to recommend um that we adjust that so that we can really control and plan ahead for our local supplement and then capping that local supplement at never never to be higher than $15,000. Um I thought that we had approved the work calendar for the school nutrition workers last month that which should have come back up

130on the consent agenda this month but I thought it was approved last month. Um so this reduction in days for school nutrition workers just aligns that um salary with their new um work calendar. Um we had a media specialist that is going to take a job at a high school um and planning on not refilling that position. And then I think the the excitement today was looking at how to restructure our um digital lead teachers going from seven to five um and reassigning them how we support um the schools in their work. And it was so great to hear that there are really great DLTs that can support even more teachers instead of just being at one school. So that to me I was like kind of a win-win. Um, I love that our people

131feel at home and connected and we've just we've got to figure out how to do the same um with tighter restrictions on our budget and aligning this work. Um, and so that we do have open classroom positions that our DTS are certified for and could move into. I did do a just a quick capture on our aotments and then how that is structured kind of where the rubber meets the road in the schools. Um so this table shows you the grade level the class um class size recommended on our formula the ones with the asterisk those are class sizes that are set by the state and we have to abide by those then you'll see our average class size with the current aotment with the reduction of these positions and then there actually is some

132flexibility here because as I ran all the numbers today um like for kindergarten our current average class size with the number number of teachers we have would be 15.7. It should be around 18. So, we could technically decrease that by two positions. Um, kindergarten and second grade, those are actually a little higher than what they should be. So, those could technically take up two positions. Um, third and fourth grade, um, should go down each one position across the district. Fifth, 6th, 7th, 8th, you can kind of see fifth and sixth are, um, no changes. They're pretty much spot-on. um seventh and eighth could each go down one position. 9th 12 I this was a awkward way to formulate it. Um but their class size kind of ranges from 9th grade to 10th 11th and 12th

133being at 28. Um and as I was taking the staffing and thinking how do you pull staff out when there's planning? Um trying to come up with a a good number there. So, this one I'm not as comfortable with, but you know, if we look at it with my not perfect math, could potentially reduce another two positions um across the two high schools. All that to say, even with our aotments, we are in the current aotment set for next year, we're still, as I look at these numbers, could reduce even six more classroom positions. So the plan um and there's really nothing to vote on for this plan, but know that this is no reduction in force. We have a position for every single person. Um it is looking at reducing some um or shifting

134some folks around. Um but I think it does pro um does protect our student facing positions and even invests more in student facing positions um by reallocating some central office staff to those positions and the DTS. Um also continuing to align our staffing with our enrollment and being responsive to that and it does allow us to continue to de um invest in our professional development. And I think what I hope you heard from the strategic plan is that we need to center teaching and learning. That has to be our priority and we need a very strong rigorous professional development for our staff in investing that those our resources in EL will pay dividends in the long run for us because it's a rigorous program. It aligns things to those three dimensions of student achievement and

135it is handson support for our principles and for our teachers. We're one year into our work with EEL and we've heard a lot of positive. So I can just imagine at the end of the next year even the greater gains that we'll see as we continue to do this work together. Um just a couple quick other updates I wanted to share with the board. Um we did apply and we're accepted to serve as an anchor district for the West Carolina and Resiliency Project. Um so it's a partnership with these four groups. Um and what it provides us is some grant funding um for us to pay for additional professional development, help us offset the cost of the EL contract. It can pay for subs to cover in classrooms. So, it's a really great opportunity for

136us to have an extra layer of um support to work with us and help us move our work forward as a school system. I will get lots of additional information about being an anchor district and what we kind of get and what we have to give for this um at our first meeting that's coming up um later in July. Did also want to give a quick update. Um Heidi had sent me this to share with the board. Um just some updates on different Helen um legislation and insurance and FEMA. Um so we did receive um a check already from FEMA for just over $65,000. We are looking at probably another check from them. I don't know that it will be as high as 250, but we do have another claim out there. Um, we've also

137from the state received um $114,000 to help cover the cost of paying for our school nutrition workers when that we were closed in October. Um, also $89,000 to um provide additional mental health support in the upcoming school year. And then the great um um just about $350,000 for summer programming um through the state. Um, and then for our local insurance, uh, we've already been reimbursed about half of our claim. Um, we had two deductibles, so each one of about $100,000 that we're hoping to get reimbursed from FEMA. Um, and then we have another one that Heidi's trying to work through for another um, $107,000 to get reimbured. And that is the conclusion of my comments. So discussion questions Maggie I think there there will be input from the board. I think just to help us

138structure this your plan is on June 24th to bring us a recommended budget and I get I'm so sorry I'm not asking this well. What is it you would like from us tonight to hear where we have questions, concerns, approval? Is that what you're looking for? And then what would happen next? Gotcha. So great question. Um, so on the 24th, because we won't have the state budget, we will just bring you a spending resolution that just says we can continue to pay bills and pay staff until the budget is set. So there will probably be no action on a budget until August, September um, at the earliest because once the once the state passes the budget at the legislative level, it's got to get filtered through DPI and then they've got to flush all that

139out. So, it will be months before you actually vote on a budget for FY26. So, I would anticipate the earliest being September. Um, I think last year or the year before it was December when we vote when you guys voted on a budget. Um, so yeah, I'm not asking you to take any any votes on a budget. The reduction or the reduction in positions um because I am not riffing any staff. I technically do not need approval from the board to just not refill positions. Um, but what I would need permission if we did have to do a reduction in force. So, this is just reallocating our staffing. Um, and it's not a riff. So, there is no technical approval from the board, but I always do want to hear your input. Um, and understand,

140you know, your priorities when it comes to staffing. So, that's really the action. There's a question to us. Yes. Go ahead, Jesse. My question here is [Music] um the ACA I mean you got this anchor district application and you and the FEMA right and you should and you're not sure if we're going to receive neither one of them correct um so the anchor district will come with some grant funding they haven't ironed out like how much funding that's available um we're really going to focus for this first year of implementation at Claxton and Asheville Middle School um and supporting their roll out of the EL practices um and crew at those two schools and then we'll we can grow from there. So, it's just um it's an opportunity for us to have additional funding to

141support the work and potentially offset some of the costs of the EL contract, but I don't have hard numbers on that yet. Okay. Um that's part of my question. So, we can't delay the EL contract until we see how much we're getting from um this anchor district application and the Helen claims update. Is there No, we Yeah, we really need to um take a vote on the E contract this evening so that we can continue the work with EL. Um, we're in the midst of writing our school work plans and district work plan. Um, and their support and guidance on that is really what we're going to move on to next. Um, so yeah, it really is not something we can wait to vote on. Um, as far as the FEMA and insurance goes, it'll

142be payment from one or the other, but that is completely reimbursement. And at this point, we're unless something crazy happens at the federal level with FEMA, we're uh fairly confident that we're going to be reimbursed fully for all the expenses that we had to put out. It's just a matter of timing. So, the district should be at or above where they were before the storm. Heidi, while you while you're speaking, I think when I appreciate getting the Helen claims update, that's really helpful. And I think grounding me in how much we had to put out, you know, like I've been learning so much lately about cash flow and public schools funding and how tricky it can be. So, I I want to make sure I understand. I assume that all this or maybe some of

143this or most of this we had to cover through our fund balance right while waiting for these to come back to us. So is this just neutral basically at this point or is any of this helping us improve our fund balance position? There is part of the reimbursement that will come from FEMA that would have been hours that Mr. Shelton and his team worked anyway that they're willing to cover because their work was repurposed. So, we have some benefit of that. And then, as I said, they've worked really hard. Without them composing all the detailed spreadsheets and details of the hours that they've worked and GPS locations of trees and all this crazy stuff that FEMA requires, um, we wouldn't be where we are right now. But all of our submissions have been made and

144we can only get paid by one entity or the other. And that's the part we're in right now where insurance is paid and now we have to try to secure the rest of the funding from FEMA. But by the time it's done, it just may not be done instantly. We should be at or above where we were before the storm. So, we should I I don't anticipate any losses from the from the storm damage. Okay. I think what I'm trying to make sure I have my head around is I'm back to the slide, the start of FY26 budget. There's an asterisk. It's in italics. For FY27, we will need to either increase revenue by $3.5 million or decrease expenses by $3.5 million. I think I'm grateful that we're looking at long-term planning right now. We're

145in a very difficult year. I listened to the county commissioners very closely in the decisions that they were making and what they were forecasting. And I don't I don't want us to be making any decisions right now hoping that however we deal with this for FY27 that we don't have our eyes open about what that is. And so when I'm seeing all that money coming in, I'm just wondering, is that in any way helping us or is it neutral or could we be in an even worse position based on these reimbursements coming out of the disaster? We're neutral or better. Neutral or better. Okay. Thank you, Jesse. Did you get your question answered? Okay. Um, I'm gonna take a question from Amy and then Jesse will finish up his and I know I know Pepe

146has a question too, but Okay, Amy, go ahead. Uh, thank you Sarah. Um, okay. Thank you Sarah. Can you all hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, Dr. for question about the DTS because as you said it's generated a lot of uh we've gotten many many comments um on those two positions and so I'm trying to understand from what you said I understand that the plan is that two of those teachers will be able to be put into to open um classroom positions what is the answer to the question because you almost seem to say I think and I'm I'm trying to say this and not uh but I think you almost seemed doing would would still be done. Um and go ahead. Did somebody say something? No. Okay. Oh,

147am I frozen? I'm gonna turn off my camera again so you can hear me. Okay. Can you hear me now? Is that better? Yes. And Amy, we could hear you the whole time. So, keep talking and I'll holler if we can't hear you. Okay. All right. I'll keep talking. I Okay. I apologize. So, short end of the I'm trying to make it quick. What happens to the two DLT positions that go into the open classrooms? How can how is it the case that that work is still done? If a school that has right now a full-time DLT now has a halftime DLT, I guess, or a twothirds time. I'm really unclear about that. And if there's a way for you to answer that, the concerns that we heard in a way, you know, that that

148might be useful. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. No, I'm happy to. And I um had talked with Matt um about this earlier um to kind of get a read on that. And the the feedback that Matt gave me is what's in the DT's job description is X, but they're doing X + Y + Z plus T and not all the time. They're the work because of the school size is what Matt shared is that sometimes those smaller schools don't really need a full-time DT. Now, they've, as we would hope, kept themselves very busy and have added really meaningful stuff to the school, but not always 100% what is outlined in the DT job description. So, with alignment of what's in the job description with what they're doing, he felt very comfortable that two DTS could cover

149mult that we could reduce by two DLTs. And so that would be um and that's at the elementary level. So I gather that I think is that am I right about that? This is just elementary school. So there would be three covering five elementary schools. Um I think he was there was two secondary, two elementary, and one that would kind of bridge some projects and specific types of work at both sides. Okay. So right now, do we have one at every elementary school? We do. Okay. So, we would go down to two that would be designated specifically for elementary school down from five and then a third would kind of bridge the gap. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yes. Okay. Okay. I I I guess I think I I do hear the concern

150at least from the teachers that yeah, I understand what you're saying, which is exactly right. Okay. But they were doing a lot more. And if you just take it down to the job description, they're not um they're not needed in at least Matt who Whiteside who's phenomenal has assessed that they're not needed for that to meet the job description. I would encourage us and Matt especially because he is creative and brilliant to um think about and and you know what what those folks were doing. I I think the challenge is for a school that's had somebody who feels like an integral because they get to go to multiple classrooms and do all this really creative work to lose that feels like a huge loss and we can understand that. Um especially as teachers are you

151know we've we've even just heard that they are sometimes feeling really stressed out and really you know this the parents may feel like hey my kid's getting a great education but from the educator's standpoint they are being asked to do too much and um when you take away a digital lead teacher who is now able to go into those classrooms and help ease the the job for them by doing something really creative in a new way that I'm sure the parents would appreciate. I just want to make sure that we're asking our building level staff, um, our principles to help figure out how to how to still make those things happen. And maybe even with the two or the three that are available, we're still getting that kind of work done because that is really

152special what they described. And that's the kind of thing that can take what feels like a normal assignment really ex make it extraordinary. And thank you that I I know that we don't vote on this. It's just I I was curious. So, thank you. Okay. Thank you, Amy. I'm going to let Jesse um finish his question and then Pepe has a question. Are you good, Jesse? You know, I'm old. I forgot the question. No, can can I piggy back on what what Amy was just saying? Pepe, I'll defer to you if it's right along with what Amy was saying, but I just don't want to lose track of that particular issue. Pepe, did you want to talk about that issue before I talk or go for it if you wanted to to mention DTS in

153particular? Um, I certainly will get there, but um yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead. We're good. Thank you. Um, yeah, I hear again and again how impactful the DTS are because they are able to kind of relieve the pressure. Um, is there is there a dedicated how many dedicated DTS are there at the secondary level and where are they located? There's two. There's one that serves Asheville High in Silsa and there's one at Asheville Middle. Okay. Yeah, I just I I I'm really hesitant to to think about like spreading the wealth by eliminating those positions at the elementary school. Um, it to me it it sets us up for diluting the impact of those positions because they'd be sharing time between different campuses and um, you know, every every teacher goes above and beyond their

154do job description. Um, and you know, we we we've heard very clearly tonight from public comment and through emails that that these positions are incredibly valuable. Okay, Pebby, go ahead. Okay. Um, I want to I do want to echo that. Um, whether you want to call it equity, fairness, whatever, um, having a dedicated AIG teacher and a dedicated DT at every elementary school is something that we should be working towards. Um, I appreciate the thinking behind um, uh, aotment formulas, but I also know that that is, um, a shadow cast on a wall of what good education will be and what um, stewardship of our funds are. And it's not the real thing. It's just a metric. Um I I do want to go up to I've got some questions about the FY26 budget slide.

155Um it said anticipated shortfall uh 6.19 million. And so that's based off of what um baseline funding level passed before clawback or after clawback? This that was what we initially projected as the shortfall when we were starting to look at what were anticipated decreases in revenue from decreasing enrollment charter schools um loss in revenue from the state because of decreased enrollment and then um increased cost of doing business. So the increased cost in health care benefits that we have to pay the increased retirement increases in insurance and utilities um the in uncovered costs that we don't get funding for from our EC program which is about $2 million uh the half a million dollars we invest in preK and then a half a million dollars that we invest in um that we plan to use

156to cover unmet cost for our school nutrition program as we move into EP. Okay. So, pre-post claw clawback, we don't know off the top of our head, but it's that's the 90,000. That's that 90 plus, that is the postclawback additional revenue. Okay. Um, so, uh, one of the amazing things, surprising things, new things, uh, that you don't often see at county commission meetings from this past Tuesday is that the county commissioners in their budget resolution included funding that didn't exist yet, but was reasonable to anticipate. the article 39 diverting article 39 funding um from the school uh capital fund to be used for operating expenses and they had voted to divert $4.1 million. I know there was a slide it's a little fuzzy as far as how much revenue comes in but they start with

157a balance and I think one of the slides listed 44 million as the starting balance for that fund. Um I would love it if if George would clue us in if there's any more details um since you're on the capital committee. Um but my understanding because um is that that 4.1 million um I'm not seeing it on this slide or our portion of it because it doesn't exist yet. But when we go to balance our budget, I think it is reasonable to use their precedent of including funds that we can reasonably anticipate. And I will also say that um there my understanding is that if those funds do not materialize by the end of the month or if there's a poison pill with SB131 or other authorizing um uh legislation to make article 39 funds

158available that the county commissioners will be back on the at the table to adjust things before their budget deadline. line comes up and that is a really new thing. Um and that's from my conversations with them. So after the meeting on Tuesday, I went and spoke with almost all the county commissioners, had an additional conversation today, and that 4.1 million that would be split between Bunkham County Schools and Asheville City Schools to try to get us back up um to pre-claw clawback levels, not including the um supplemental increase. That 4.1 is a floor, not a ceiling. and the county commissioners that I've spoken with, I think all except for one, um, are good with the idea of using more of those funds if Bunkham County Schools and Asheville City Schools agree that it's a good

159use of funds. And so we have an opportunity to continue to work with the county commissioners, to continue to work with Bunkham County Schools to see what the right number is of article 39 funds to temporarily divert. And that being said, I'm not a fan of SB 131. I'm not a fan of using capital funds. But I also know that in fiscal year 2027, the county commissioners are going to be able to adjust things to make things right, so to speak, because we're doing a re-evaluation and a re-evaluation that's supposed to have more accurate assessments for a lot of properties. Um, so we've got a lot of opportunity to make up lost ground. We don't know what it is, but I I come from an aspirational mindset and I want us to keep open using

160the tool that the county commissioners used for their education budget and their budget resolution, which is including anticipated funds. Is that TMI? And those anticipated funds could be, you know, the applying for the ECE grant and also requesting additional article 39 funds because there's some room in that $44 million starting amount. Not a whole lot, but more room than what they've already authorized. Um, I think Heidi has some information to share. I I'll just give you my perspective. I I don't I if we get funds from the county commissioners from that number one we have to share it with charter schools. Um, so we'll get only ex like 85% of whatever is allocated through that. And then I look at these article 39 funds as basically if they pass that and give us additional operational

161revenue, that's basically we have to save I would say if we use $500,000 of it, then we have to bank basically like we've used $4 million out of our fund balance. So because that's not a continuous income or continuous revenue stream, it to me operates more like a fund balance allocation because if we let's say that stream dries up and it will in two years if the assessment of the county don't come in higher or they don't agree to how we're you know separating the funding for public schools out then we're going to still we're going to have to then have a $4 million reduction later. So, it just adds to what we would try to allocate from fund bound in my mind. Um, I'm kind of curious what Heidi would share. Yeah. And and

162I'll I'll just say yes and we need to figure out what we need to serve students and have goals and be able to communicate that. Um, and I feel like the budget I've the changes I've presented do meet those goals. I I I still have concerns that we are eliminating staff that are key and that I I'm I'm concerned particularly about the um uh impact on changing the food and nutrition workers schedule which is only getting us $35,000 and I'm concerned about some positions that I think are unnecessary um elsewhere. But we can have those conversations in close session. Um, I appreciate the work on this and I appreciate you opening it up for us to look at. I appreciate that we are acknowledging that that strings program can actually build enrollment and bring in

163new students and keep students. So that's positive, too. So, I guess I would just remind everyone that article 39 is a sales tax stream. And George might want to say more about this. In our preliminary meetings with the capital commission this year, they were already really concerned about where the the status of that fund is and funding future projects. So, the fact that we would pull this much money out of that fund is extremely concerning to me for our future capital needs because that's a lot of money. That could be, like you said, there's even some leeway to take more. So that could be four to$10 million in the next two years. Um that is also means that fund will earn less interest because there's less money available to earn interest on. Um Dr. Ferman's

164points well taken. you know, it's a very steep cost that we would actually have to pay 15% of this to the charter schools if this option is actually goes through. So, that's a really I mean, because that's not just a you could look at it either way. It's a lost operations or a loss to capital projects we won't be able to make happen. So, I I wish they had had a a more in-depth conversation with everyone before this started because uh it they've already moved to a more pay as you go um method in that fund because the interest cost in that fund to to make those projects happen was also going up significantly. you know, whenever we see us earning better interest on our savings accounts, we celebrate on this side, but we also

165have to take um into consideration what they were talking about and preserving their bond rating and everything. The interest paid out right now in the market is much higher than it used to be. So, that already has eroded that buying power in that fund. So, I mean, I think Dr. Ferman's points are well taken that we we will get very little benefit of this. I mean, when you factored out the amount we would probably get less the part we pay to the the charter schools, we might come close to break even. But that perspective then would keep us from investing $3.5 million of fund balance this year to only having to invest 2 and a.5 million or 2,250,000. So it it is good for future years, but I don't think it really impacts the perspective

166we would be taking in the current year because we still have that significant fund balance we're investing this year and possibly into next year. Well, the money's out there. It is an option and we can ask the um the county commissioners to fill it with revenue replacement funds if they get it. I also understand that there is an effort to potentially shield that those funds from uh charter school use, but I'm just not sure about the status of that at the moment. Um, but as long as we keep in mind that that 4.1 million is a floor and not a ceiling and that we can go to the county commissioners and we can work with Bunkham County Schools so that we can support retaining uh more staff so we can serve our kids just to

167keep our options open. Just to offer one counterpoint to that Pepe, of the 4 million, 4.1 million, we would receive only about 15% of it and then you there's this an additional 15% reduction to be shared with charter schools. So, it's a relatively small amount for us. If I cannot speak for Bunkome County Schools, but the loss of that capital fund to them is devastating. I don't foresee that they would be interested in talking about us taking more from capital. I'm just I don't think that would be um anything that that that that's been indicated to me that they would like to do because they're in a fairly precarious position without all the capital funding. So I just offer that as a counterbalance. I'm not sure it's quite as straightforward as you say because I

168think there are competing interests as there is with everything. Absolutely. No, I appreciate that clarification. Again, for clarity, um I'm looking for more input. I know not all board members have had a chance to speak. Um these are Maggie's preliminary um proposals to us, not voting on anything. Um, but now is the time to give her feedback. We've she's heard some already about um other concerns you have or other uh decisions that are in the proposal that you want to go on record being in favor of. Dr. Ferman, I have a question. Last last week, we heard from groups for a potential contract um for a feasibility study. Could you tell us how that does or doesn't play into this. Yeah, I um have delayed um picking a vendor for the feasibility study until we

169come back in August. Now, timing is an issue because I think the results of that feasibility study could give us some really great information on potential restructuring of different or you know, different ways we organize where we could even maximize our resources even more um without closing a school. And I think that at this moment I wanted to see what wait and see what's happening with the art with state bill 131 um before we made a decision on that. And I'm also going back and forth to adjust the cost of the the one vendor that I like to see whether we can come down in cost um to try to account for the work that's already been done in previous studies. So I wasn't quite ready to make a recommendation yet. I would ask that

170in that workflow we have an opportunity to to think about um what they identified as our work which is setting some priorities on what kind of extra space and extra use. um so that we're not going off of um raw numbers or square feet or whatnot because we've got things that we use our facilities for. And I think that's our work before we have any study to do. U Maggie, I was intrigued by um Franklin Ke's public comment and offering ideas about how to I mean that was specific only to strings I understand but offering some ideas about how to bring more students into that program. And so the question I have for you as we look at one recognizing that we're going to have some some empty positions in the coming year. Also recognizing

171that also want to fully acknowledge the the hourglass that Chris Campbell is so good about reminding us like where we are, where you are, where everyone else is with in this in the structure when ideas like that come come up and I'm not I don't know the validility of an idea like that, but I do appreciate the c creativity and the thinking around hey here are some options. what what are avenues that staff have for coming for that kind of creative problem solving when we are facing a budget crisis like this and the understanding that we cannot or the yes and is really hard to get to right um what are some options that staff have to say hey I have this idea that kind of thing to think about different ways forgive the expression

172but to skin this cat um you know I was hopeful that we'd have a meat convert collaborate meeting prior to this. Um but they've just elected their group. Um so at this point I mean that would be their avenue to communicate to their um ACE meet collaborate team. Um I think that's the main one and then people just email me what they think. Like I've talked with Franklin several times about growing that program um because I have seen really large amazing orchestra programs and I would love to see a more thriving um orchestra program here and chorus program. I you know our band is great and they kind of suck a lot of the students in. Um so even thinking about like what are some different ways that students could be in band and orchestra

173core is in orchestra. So, um I'm open to always hearing ideas. Thank you. The other thing I thought about was um the presentation last week. I cannot remember which of the three feasibility study groups said this, but um but he used the adage of, you know, nature hes a vacuum. And I think in a school district that's very true. When you have things that have to get done, the folks in the building step up to get it done, right? Um, and just acknowledging that when we think about, you know, if it comes to the point of having to move to digital lead teachers into other positions and all that, I'm not saying I'm I'm fearful about it coming across of, oh, someone's going to step in and do the work. That's not what I'm saying.

174What I'm saying is um how that vacuum gets filled, I think, is very important. how those vacuums get filled and recognizing the work that educators do because they're not going to just sit down and, you know, let the thing fall apart. You know, that's what an educator does. An educator does what's necessary. Um, and it makes me even think about Asheville City Schools Foundation's mission, like whatever it takes. And so, I just I don't have a question, but I do appreciate kind of that mindset of like whatever it takes. And and we've got to we're being creative. we're thinking about this recognizing that ultimately we're trying to center the students. We need to center the students and what's going to be best for them. So anyway, I I could go on for hours. I'm not.

175Thank you. Well, I appreciate that, George, because I think [Music] I'm anchoring to the strategic planning presentation as well, which really illuminates in such a like expansive way with all the input that they got and all the data that they looked at that there were moments in that presentation that were really about, you know, you can't ask humans to do all the things and expect it to be done well. So at a certain point as we keep facing I think for me as a board member I I've now been through three budget cycles and I've now heard three times county commissioners and educators say can we just not have a crisis every year? Is there some way we could not just be in a crisis every single year? And I I want to be part

176of moving out of an every year crisis in any way that we can and um taking some time to be thinking about through that strategic planning process. So we're already holding it that and and I think you said earlier days here there's a lot that's happened that hasn't been sunset. Nobody said, "You know what? We're going to evolve in a different direction." And I think that's going to be an important part of how we get where we're going together. I do want to have us think about what we could do less than the proposed EL contract to um maintain some resources and some support. But for me, I can't conscience spending $365,000 and eliminating staff. um or shifting staff into alternative positions to the extent that that you're looking at. And it may be that

177there's a a $50,000 contract or something closer to that that can be used as a bridge. Um the EL contract is on our agenda for action tonight. So, I'm going to encourage us to save these comments because we will get to the E contract. Um, any other comments for Maggie about her budget presentation? I just can I just echo and uplift a voice in that we received in public comment. One of our teachers said that taxpayers were asked to support tax increase to preserve teacher positions. and we we saw the incredible outpouring of support for that ask in ACE and BCAE's efforts to coordinate that at the county commissioners meeting last week and leading up to it. Um, and I I I do think it's really important that that particular notion be taken into consideration

178here as perhaps we moved move into the next agenda item. And you know, this it's kind of tricky to have these two items up for discussion separately. Um, knowing that the, you know, the response last week when I asked if the professional development funding could be used in other ways that yes, it could. Again, I'm just trying to make the the best use of our time. I think Liza, the point you're making is if we choose not to approve the EL contract, that would free up funds that could be then used for other purposes. And and I understand that's the point you're making. And we would in fact then not be paying for professional development because those are professional development dollars. And I I'm trying to respect where things are on the agenda yet also

179acknowledge what you're saying that these are intertwined. Um, and so let me let me suggest this first of all with anything not related to EEL. Any other comments for Maggie about her budget proposal because I'd like us to move on and if somebody wants to make a motion that we do EL next, we certainly could. But I'm excuse me. I'm sorry. I thank you. Okay. Sorry, Amy. Thank you. I just had one quick statement, I think, which is to say thank you to Maggie and to Heidi because you all have spent an crazy amount of time, I know, and Heidi's team coming up with these options and trying to get to a place where we didn't have a riff. So for all that we're, you know, sort of struggling a little bit with the the

180edges of this, and I don't want to be dismissive of what those edges are because they're difficult, painful decisions and people's um how they perform their work is involved. I want to say thank you about that. And I want to also really kind of think about what we heard earlier this evening about not pitting one thing against another. that that was something that we heard from Amiris. Um I think Dr. Lavender pretty loudly and clearly. Um as we're thinking about what to do, we do have to make hard decisions, but I want to be careful about how we pit one thing against another as if we can't have both. And I think that uh Dr. Ferman, you've done your best to offer, you know, kind of what you feel like is is both. And um

181so I just want to encourage us to kind of think in those terms if possible. But anyway, thank you. Okay. Thanks, Amy. I think I'm going to make an executive decision here. Um all of this was for Yes. So Heidi and um uh Maggie um is it your preference not to even if the county commissioners have awarded it um and are able to do so to not use article 39 funds and draw down our fund balance if those funds come to pass? Um, my recommendation would be if they pass on article 39 funds is that we use it to offset what we're spending in the fund balance. Okay. I guess my my only other comment is I I worry about um having not enough or having not enough middle school teachers and making those ratios

182high because I know that mom for Northstar Academy got good results with a 1 to 21 to 21 ratio and so you know more teachers fewer students sometimes can be really helpful. Okay, thanks board members. Um, I appreciate everybody's uh feedback and this discussion. I'm going to move us forward to our uh five action items that we need to deal with before we are adjourned this evening. And just so everyone is tracking, we have um student fees, then we have the facility use fee schedule. Then we have contracts and memorandums. The way that it was presented that would have been for the EL contract. I'm just going to keep following this. And then the two items that were removed from the consent agenda we will take up next in order. So that would next be

183other contracts and memorandums of understanding. And then last will be the personnel report. So knowing that we need I some of these perhaps at the beginning here may be more straightforward. I think they we discussed them last week. They were taken off the consent agenda so that we could have a proper vote on them. We we can say again what we said last week, but I'm hoping we can say it efficiently. Um so I'm going to start with student fees. This was the three-page document we saw last week that each school set forward its proposed fee schedules. Um would welcome a motion to approve this. I um can you give us a moment to get there? Yes. 61 6 6.1 is the item on the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve. Is there a

184second? Second. Okay. Is now before us for discussion. Um I know some folks are still trying to get to it. And this I think the links are a little confusing. Um but I believe I'm sorry bear with me while I myself get to the right link that we are talking about the student fees. So not the facility fees but the student fees. And I think you have to click on the first link that says student fees 2526 just to does that make sense? It's a little confusing in the agenda, but you should have in front of you the student fees 2526. There is a motion and a second. It is before us. Is there any discussion before we have a vote? I do have some questions. Um, so some of the travel fees or something

185like Glitch, how is that in this? So, Glitch formed a booster club and they do fundraising on the side to help supplement the cost of all the Glitch travel and expenditures. So, if there's an outside booster club that's covering the fees, it's not on this. Okay. So, anyone else do we I'm trying to move this towards a vote. Okay. Are we ready to vote? All those in favor of the student fees as presented, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Uh Amy is an I. Sorry. Sorry, Amy. Amy's an I. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Student fees have passed. Next is the facility use fee schedule, which I think has two links. one is under 6.1 and the next one is in 6.2 which is actually the item that we're in. But again, this was the

186breakdown of forprofit versus nonprofit use of our facilities. So, we'll let everybody navigate to that. I'm going to navigate 6.2 or the bottom of 6.1. I think you get there either way, Jesse. I think both links take you there. I Let's see. They take us to different documents. the one. Okay. If you go to 6.2, the first link takes you to the fee schedule. Okay. So, we can just all use that. That's what we vote on. Under 6.1, the link takes you to one with an asterisk that adds an organization with a 501c3 or designated as non not forprofit under NC law and and the that bit and it says updated 6325. Okay. I Are we looking at the one that was updated 6325? Has everybody got that one? However you navigated there, uh the

187little paperclipip link that has the the number three in the Yeah. Yeah. Under 6.1. Yeah. So, is there a motion to approve this fee schedule? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. It is before us for discussion. Any questions or just a voice that I have ongoing concerns about lumping parent teacher organizations, boosters or the Asheville City Schools Foundation, organizations that are fundraising for for us in or are meeting a statutory requirement um like electing SIT team members, which I've mentioned before, uh lumping them in with just any nonprofit because I think that's a different thing. But I believe we've we've talked about addressing that at a future time. From memory, it's in October. I think we'll take that up on the agenda. Yes. Anything else, folks, about this proposed agenda? Excuse me. This

188proposed schedule. We ready to vote? All those in favor? I I Amy. Amy is an I and I'm a no. So, but the eyes carry it and this fee schedule is approved. Next is the way it was presented on the agenda was the updated EL contract. So, happy for folks to navigate to that if they want to. And um knowing that this one had the the two that we just did I felt like had been discussed last week, I didn't feel the need to take that much time on them again. This is before us and I'm going to s suggest procedurally that we not start with a motion and that if we just want to have an open discussion to crystallize our thinking and then have a motion on this contract. I will also point

189out that I did go back to E and was able to reduce the contract amount by um just over $45,000. Um but um did feel like the coaching days are just essential um and really important to move work forward at our schools and thinking about this idea that we could have some like yes people within us can always do the work and it's extra work and the idea of having an organization that has such proven results and embedded support that is also an accountability partner for us so that we don't say this is getting too hard. We're not going to do it anymore or we're going to forget about this or cancel this meeting because that just got really difficult. It's that embedded accountability for us as a school system to take these big brave

190steps to move the needle on student achievement and closing the opportunity gap. Are we commenting on the uh country? What is that dollar amount? I think the new one is 319,000. 319,000. 400. Okay, I'm going to recognize Jesse. $319,400 is the total cost and it's Thank you. It's on page two. Okay. So, we are discussing the EL contract right now, correct? Okay. I do understand EL creates a focus and cultural belonging. Um, I would like to delay until beginning of the school year. Um, I think we do have enough uh as for city school staff that have been trained and could continue to implement um the training with loyalty and accuracy over the course of maybe half for the next school year. Um, I just I just feel like because of looking at the F26

191budget and the shortfall that we might need to start saving. But if that other fund uh that we talked about earlier can pay for this e education, I think we should wait and see if it can pay for it and and um so that we can go forward with this e education. That's that's my point. That's Um, just because there's a silence and Amy, is now I'm just wanted to make sure we hear from you. Is now a good time to hear from you or you want me to wait till you feel moved? No, I I've been uh I've actually my little sound thing on so I could speak. Um, two things I would say about this maybe. The first thing is that I note that last week in the work session for anyone who

192wasn't present or wasn't able to hear it, we heard from nearly every single principle that they um not only value eel, but that they really strongly recommended that we continue this work. Um that's number one. And the second thing I'll note is that at least from the um the the feedback that we've received in the last 24 to 36 hours from staff familiar with the e contract and the e work. The vast majority of it were from high school teachers who um had been at least that that I got um high school teachers that had been trained in Minnesota, were familiar with it and felt like Derek could sort of serve the role um a as the e facilitator for the high school. And my response to that is two things. There just two things

193that sort of made me pause about that. one, I appreciate that they feel both that Eel is really valuable and that they trust Derek's leadership, but Derek himself wanted, as I understood the his comments last week was is is in support of this um extension of the contract. And then the second thing is I think part of the work next year is to move EL more definitively into the middle school and elementary schools at least one of them. And so I feel like that's great. The high school feels really well trained and feels like they're getting ready to sort of roll this out in fifth period and do a bangup job with crew this year. And and that's all super exciting. and um maybe maybe they could do that without the facilitation of of a

194an e paid um uh consultant, but I'm not sure we would say the same about AMS or Claxton, I think, is the one that I heard earlier um maybe getting the the sort of fullcourt press e um next year. So from my mind, we have professional development money and our superintendent has brought in a program that is not like the ones that we've seen before. This is a program that seems to really have um buyin from the staff and the only question is whether or not we need um continued input from the EL professional team and the the the leaders in our buildings, the administrators that run our school level buildings are saying yes. So for my part, I think the two reasons the superintendent recommends it and she um has a better sense of

195what her her teachers and staff need in professional development. And I also don't know that I feel like this is what I was talking about with Dr. Lavender. We're sort of pitting these two DLT teachers against EL. And I hate that. I just don't I think that's a false way of looking at it because many difficult many difficult decisions had to be made including some at central office and in other staff people. I just I I don't think that that's the um the best way of looking at this or the most holistic and helpful way even as I said earlier that I hate that we have to um kind of we're in this position and I'm blaming those people who fund us at every level for our being in this position of having to make

196difficult choices about sort of rem moving to DTS and putting them into classrooms. Anyway, um so I I don't think we should pit it against it. I'm in support of this contract. I think it is going to transform and already is transforming our schools and I believe that it is the best way to move equity forward. If I thought it wasn't right for our equity work, then I would feel very differently, but I think it's absolutely paramount for our equity work. Thank you. I know that was a long statement. Thank you. others on this side of the room comments again just trying to crystallize where folks are this motion would go. I I appreciate that Dr. Ferman you were able to make some compromises on the contract to reduce it by 45,000. Um, and to

197reiterate something that came out of the portrait of a graduate presentation earlier tonight, um, an area for improvement was that teachers are burning out. They need real support, not more initiatives. and two of the positions that are proposed to be cut DTS have been presented to us as incredibly impactful and incredibly supportive to whole schools. Um, I also as a former studentf facing position in the district and longtime big fan of Asheville City Schools. Um, I can also acknowledge the long-standing pattern that our district has of abandoning programs before we can know or even sometimes gather the data to know whether they work, whether they're impactful. And already a year in, we're we're hearing that that EEL is impactful, that it's valuable, and people are excited to continue to grow with it. I I wrestle

198without considering that horrible scarcity of resources mindset that pits one thing against another. I wonder if there are additional reductions in the EL contract that could preserve those two positions of DTS in the elementary level. um you know whether it's reducing the the amount of coaching days across the board or whether it's you know eliminating the virtual coaching days I that I don't know that's you know where where it becomes you know below the hourglass but um I guess I I would really like to see a continued reduction in the e contract so that we can preserve all of our studentf facing positions and deliver on the notion that we're all crew and that we all belong here. heavy. Um, I would, as I said earlier, I would like to see something. Um, uh, I

199think that Eel will understand that this is a challenging time for us financially and they understand the hurricane that has been that we've been through. I think that it is reasonable to pause this or ask for minimal resources so that we can maintain where we're at and and grow some. But I can't support um uh spending this much at this time. other board members. I um I keep thinking about the long-term approach. I think with what we've been through this year that I'm reminded over and over again that that's where we need to stay in our thinking is teeing up decisions and strategies that positively set us up for the long term. and things like looking carefully at using formulas for a starting place for staffing buildings so that there's fairness in how buildings get

200staffed. I mean, one of the things you said that is hard to stomach, but there's so much about publicly funded schools that forces people into kind of perverse ways of getting to where you want to go, right? Where a school of a small school with a full-time DT and a big school with a full-time DT don't get the same, it's not the same. And so, um, professional development is so important. I don't think it makes sense to reduce how much we're supporting our staff. with what we've seen of where we want to go and how we want to elevate and improve and take this team of amazing amazing educators and wrap them in the types of support that get us to where our strategic plan wants us to go. It does not seem to me

201like the time I've for as long as I've been a parent in this district, I've watched us try something and then back off and try something and then back off. And I don't think this is the time to do that. I very much appreciate that you did go back and revisit the contract and say, "Can we take this down?" Um, so I appreciate you doing that and I am in support of this contract. I um I want to offer I understand that we keep saying professional development. I want to also offer the the a phrase of culture building. Um so e education is not just professional development. It is a um it is not a perfect builder of culture. Nothing is um but it's also very rep very much represents Maggie what you what the

202vision that you have for this district. And I think about that image you and that um metaphor you're using about getting to the apex and beyond and what it takes if I'm going to extend that metaphor and I do this all the time so forgive me but I always extend metaphors sometimes too far but I'm I'm going to extend that metaphor that to to summit a mountain the amount of training that it takes to get there the Um, if someone is trying to summit a mountain of that size and they begin their training and they pull back on that training, what does it take to restart that effort to get back up that mountain again? And yes, I acknowledge that the the dollar figure feels intimidating in this moment, in a moment of Rebecca, you're

203right. every year is a financial crisis, but this one especially. Um, and what will the long-term cost be if in that training that we as a district are engaged in, we pull back? What happens to our musculature? What happens to our the lungs that we've been building up? All of them. Taking that metaphor again. Um, what happens to that? It's not [Music] um to me I really want to focus on that. Yes. And how are some lot how are lots of different ways like for example that grant that you're talking about other ways that we're not pitting things against each other but we're thinking about lots of creative ways that we can solve all of these things and continue to train to develop the skills we need to get to that summit that you're talking

204about. Um, so in that respect, I will vote in support of this. Um, and I want to thank you all for those comments and for your multiple perspectives. I really appreciate hearing all the different ideas and the advocacy for supporting what's really good for our students. And you know, first of all, I want to know that EL is not an initiative. E is a school reform model. It's how you do continuous quality improvement with expert coaches and professional development services. So it's not like this is an initiative. This is EL is a reform model to transform Asheville City Schools into a school system that will build the scholars that we are outlining in our portrait of a scholar. It is providing our teachers and leadership with those supports and scaffolds so that we can keep

205the work moving forward. Um, can we do it on our own? Yes. But it will take longer. It won't be as effective and we won't see the results that e can help us get to faster. Um, the other thing is I keep thinking and Rebecca you touched on this is e this we have we are allocating $3.5 million in our current budget proposed to balance our budget. 80 to 85% of our budget is staffing. We can only cut so much out of non-personnel before we we have to make adjustments in our personnel model if we're going to be long-term sustainable. When you're that much of your budget is personnel, that is like the hugest impact of our budget. You know, I I get that the EL contract seems really big and it looks like it's

206positions. You can think about it that way, but then we're still going to have to make those reductions later. We have to make sure that we've aligned our school district to be financially sustainable for the long term. We can only allocate fund balance for so long until it's gone. And we can't continue to do that time and time and time. We've got to invest in our staff and our leaders. And if we value centering our students and creating a school system that will get those results and the the small what I consider kind of a small investment in this work and support will get us places further and faster will get us to that summit and beyond. Um and then I also just the other thing I would want to share is if and this

207just I will regardless of what happens with the E contract I will still recommend and make the changes for the staffing because I need to invest in staff. This is a really smart way to do it but our staff need professional development. Our our staff need training and that's we're getting the results that we're getting because we haven't invested in the staff. And Dr. Lavender said this really clearly. We're trying to program our way out of an achievement gap. We're trying to program our way through all these different things instead of investing in each and every staff member. So, we're saying we're just going to we're going to add more people, but if they don't have the skill set and they don't have the training, we're going to keep getting the same results. So until

208we take this as a systematic approach to centering teaching and learning, it's not we're not going to get we're not going to see different results. So that's kind of the way I want you to frame this. This is an investment in your staff so that they are going to deliver the results that we know they are capable of doing with coaching and guidance and support in a highly effective way. And it's not an initiative. this isn't you're going to do X Y and Z. It's forming professional development communities asking those really difficult questions and helping our teachers understand and being everyone and teachers and administrators being reflective on when we are getting the results instead of saying well it's I don't have enough of this or I don't have enough of that we're saying what

209could I do differently as a classroom teacher as a as an administrator as a bus driver to change those results. It's helping everyone see that as a part of being a cougar crew means you are self-reflective and you do lean back and say maybe I could have done something different in this decision or in this model to improve student outcomes because we have to put our students first and if we do not invest in supporting our staff in every way shape and form then we're we're going to continue to see the results. We aren't going to be centering teaching and learning as we're seeing is the main recommendation from our strategic planning team. Can I ask a question? I I know that we discussed this earlier. Um but when when will we revisit the local

210supplement formula? that would be a we well what I'll recommend on the 24th is that we freeze it where it is right now so that we can dig deeper and look at what would with more time. So I would ask that we freeze what we have and don't change any of those amounts going forward and that we then say okay we'll then next year look at those supplements. Okay. I I would like to just push back a little bit on the investing in staff notion because I think perpetuating the idea that we're investing in staff and then saying, "Well, next year we're going to have to reduce staff." I I worry that our staff members won't be allin for this with the knowledge that well I'm you know I'm dispensable and um you know that's

211that's when like striking a balance really comes top of mind for me. um and and looking at ways that we could further reduce this contract and preserve it and preserve all of our student facing positions. I don't y I don't think that it has to be all or nothing. Correct. And I will also say the way the the model works is it's building capacity so that over time that number we're seeing on our contract decreases. So, as we have built the capacity in our leaders to carry this work as instructional leaders and then they're able to develop, we're developing teacher leadership. It isn't just like, hey, you rip the band-aid off and you're ready to fly. It's you've got training wheels on right now. We need extra scaffolds to help us move the work forward.

212And as we've built that capacity and can stand on our own, we start pulling that away. And that's that's kind of that model with EL is coming in and helping support, develop, and train so that we have internal capacity to carry the work forward. I got one last Oh, I got one last question. Um if we do receive the funds from the anchor district and elite and the Helen uh Hela yes what what are we going to actually do with that? Are we going to put in the fund balance? Are we going to This is a three-year contract on the EL. Correct. It's a one year. We renew it annually. It's a one year. So it's going to take three years. I think it's from 20 25 to 28. So every year it's going to

213be the same amount give or take to it. It'll decrease over time. It would decrease, but not as much as we want it right now. I mean, so we're going to have to go through the same process, but maybe instead of uh 319, we'll probably have to go with maybe 285 next year. Correct. Or give or take. I'm just Yeah, I'm just throwing numbers up. Okay. I do believe in um I do believe in the schooling of our educators, but I feel they have the knowledge and the capability for maybe a half a school year to put that in place just to see if we can bring in all of our staff and start the staff off beginning of the year in in a good way instead of having to find money to reduce other

214people between now and August. That's the only thing that's hurting me is I really don't feel like it's going something's going to happen, maybe happen that we need to find another way to pay a bill and that would be decreasing staff instead of I would love to wait and see if we don't have to in order to approve your professional development. Would you, Jesse, are you thinking that we revisit this in September or October and see where our finances are at and see how staff is doing with implementation or what are you thinking? What I'm thinking here is our profession development is I know you need to continue. Could we delay this for maybe until August the 1st if we have all teachers in place? Probably can't. No. So, we have to A lot of

215the work is happening over the summer to plan the work that will happen next year. So, we need to make a decision today. And I'm I haven't spoken yet as a board member, so I'm going to do that and then we're going to call for a vote. No, you're good. I'm just going to pull this all together. I think um I am in favor of this contract and I think it is a false logic that it's tied to two DL teachers or this I mean who's to say we wouldn't save this money and not cut other people. Like I don't I think that just setting it up that way is not helpful. Um, I also think that if we're saying we're not going to pay for it this year, there is no reason we should

216think our budget situation is going to be any different next year. We're not going to get more money from the county. I I don't it best is instead of getting article 39 replacement funds, we get enough money from them and we preserve our capital. That's my opinion. And I don't see how we could possibly say that the new normal is we don't provide professional development. I I've never been in any organization either nonprofit or work organizations where you don't invest in the culture of your workplace. And so I'm just really struggle. I mean I I laugh the number of people that have been mentioned in emails that could do this instead. I mean somebody mentioned Derek earlier. There's a everybody's been mentioned. Oh, so and so could do it. And I don't think that's fair

217that we would say they have to do their job plus do e like I I understand that this is a big price tag and we are also looking at changes in staff. I just think from my perspective it is unrealistic to think we wouldn't support professional development because if we say no this year it's we're not going to have the money to do it next year either. It seems like a very this is not a one-year austerity budget. I think this is our new my perspective this is our new normal and we've got to figure out um I am persuaded by the fact that we've got these staff nobody is losing their job the it's going to look different in the schools and Maggie has the flexibility to change that mid year also if the

218way things are working out it's going to change I mean we are not involved in who staffs the buildings that's not our role so I that's my perspective as a as a board member I just wanted to share that um just listening this purpose of crystallization is to figure out where folks are and I think it's a 4-3 vote just based on what I've heard but people also have the opportunity to change their mind. So folks who spoke early on one side or the other may have changed their mind. So I don't want to um I'm going to ask for a motion. You all can work it out what you think is the most efficient way to do this. And I'll ask for a roll call vote. That's fine. So, I just I need a

219motion. I move that we I'm happy. Go ahead, Rebecca. Nobody was Okay. Rebecca has moved. Amy, have you seconded it? Sure. Okay. So, at this time, I'm going to call for a vote, and we will do it by roll call. And Amy, you get to go first. Amy is a yay. George, yes. Liza, no. Rebecca, yes. Sarah's a yes. No. And Pepe is a no. Okay. So it is 4 to3 that this contract has passed. So we will now move on to what used to be 4.8 and um it has been asked to be removed from the consent agenda. Um, but there are there's just one other contract listed which is the Dacon uh contract. And so this is before us board, the Dacon contract for the rooftop unit. To clarify, I asked for it

220to be removed because I had some additional questions and I was also looking to get some information on the expenses or amount of service calls we've had over the past two years for the for those uh five units or whatever they're replacing. and um see what the impact would be or whether it may make sense to delay the purchase by a year or two, particularly considering that the R32 refrigerant, which is a new standard, may actually be transitioned away from two years from now. So, I would love to hear if I don't know if if Mr. Shelton is is um able to talk about how much we've spent maintaining the current systems and what their status are. But I'd love to hear I apologize. I did not get your email till late this afternoon, but

221I did look into it briefly uh very briefly and um uh just going through the work orders. I found within the last 9 to 10 months, we have replaced six computer boards on these units. uh one gas valve and some small various things. Um the question with the units is the heat exchangers. Uh one of them we've had to completely shut down because it we have a it's called a sniffer that we can sniff out gas exhaust and things like that. We are expelling gas out of this unit. So we had to shut it down. Um, we have been mandating that unit for a couple years and the price back in 2003, December of 2003, was a little over $17,000 to put a heat exchanger in that unit. This doesn't make much sense to put

222that kind of money in an asset that's past its life cycle. Uh, a new unit is about 32 to $35,000. Um, even if you exchange the heat exchanger, you still got old compressors, things that aren't going to last. Uh, compressors are, you know, three to $4,000 depending on the size. So, and also in putting a heat exchanger in, you've got to braze those back in. And a lot of times slag will get in those units and go through the system and blow other components out. So, it's a gamble. The other units that are up there, the heat exchangers have cracks in them. That's typically what happens to a heat exchanger over time is it gets some age, it develops cracks once it starts expelling gas, which we are keeping an eye on them, we have

223to shut them down. Um, we cannot go and purchase a heat exchanger and get it quickly. They're about six 12 to 16 weeks out. Um, same on units. They they're not just readily available. Um, so we it's a gamble. I mean, it really is. I I don't know. I don't know if those units will last another year, another week. Uh the heating part of them is what I'm concerned about mostly. And if we start those up the heating season and then we have two of them that start expelling out gas, we we can't go get heat in there quickly. And that's my concern. Uh the assets are just they're just way beyond their life cycle. I mean, they're um um they need to be replaced at this point. and I can get you some more

224accurate numbers. Like I said, I just had a uh small opportunity to go back through the work orders. Um if I remember correctly, a board is right around depending on which board it is, anywhere from about $2 to $500 on average. Um I have no idea what a gas valve would run these days on those. Um but I could get those numbers for you. I just don't have those available. The information that the that you've got a heat exchanger that is cracked and expelling gas and that you suspect that the others will fail soon is the that that's enough information for me. I just wanted to see if it is reasonable to extend that by a year because it's um what is it about $200,000? I think 165 167 165 I'm just trying to like

225pinch pennies and so you know you've given me enough information where I can feel comfortable approving this. Okay. Thank you. Any other um questions, comments about this contract before we vote or if there's a motion to approve this contract. I'll make a motion to approve the contract. Second. Second. All those in favor of the contract, please say I. I. Amy, thank you. Amy is an I. Okay. Passes unanimously. Um, the last thing on our agenda then is the personnel report. It has been pulled from the consent agenda. I remind all board members that this is confidential personnel information and cannot be discussed in open session. And so we can uh we have two options. we can just do a straight up or down vote. You can vote for the personnel report or not. Um, and

226that might be the simplest way forward. Um, I I want to note that the personnel report that we've got in front of us is different from the personnel report we were looking at a week ago. It looks like a name has been removed and that was my concern. So, um, uh, I am having reviewed it again while we've been here, I'm fine going ahead and and, um, voting to approve it. So, I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. Second. Second. All those in favor? I I I I Okay, thank you folks. That Amy is an I. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Amy. Thank you. Um, you are so excited to be almost finished. Amy is an I. Thank you. Um, hold on one second, folks. Okay, folks. Sorry. One other item of business. If you go back

227to 6.2, I'm going to say this and I'll be corrected if I say it wrong. We approved the schedule for pro uh nonprofit and for-profit uses of our facilities, but we also have to approve the procedure underlying it. Um and so just and just to remind everybody, we know in October we're going to talk about all the things we want to talk about. So that doesn't need to be before us tonight. Um, but is there a motion that in addition to approving the actual fee schedule, we approve procedure 5030P? And as a point of clarification, generally I thought procedures were not ours to approve. This one is different because it got pulled as an action item. Because it got pulled as an action item. So that that what was pulled was not just the schedule

228of fees. We we've it wasn't it. So it was recommended at the work session that this was an information only. Um, but then I'm not sure I can't recollect why it was pulled out to be an action item, but it was and it just needs approved. Okay. So, I'm going to interpret this. If it had remained on the consent agenda as it was presented last week, it would have been voted up or no. By pulling the schedule, the little schedule, it also pulled the policy. And in an abundance of caution, we just also need to approve the underlying procedure. I'm not sure we know why, but we are just going to do it. If does anybody object? I I kind of do because I'm I'm worried about the precedents being set. Does that mean that

229any moment any of us can could pull any action item and pull it up for an action vote? That just that seems I'll let Kim Deck clarify. When when the motion was made that it would go on consent, the fee schedule, a board member said that they did not want it to go on the consent, that they wanted the fee schedule to go on for an action item. When we talked about the procedure, which procedures should or information only a board member did not feel comfortable putting that on the consent agenda, they wanted it to go on the action item, right? But and so that's why it went on the action item even though information only should really not be an action item. Well, information only shouldn't even be on a consent item. It's information

230only. It's not for vote. So that is accurate, right? So I to me it seems like this doesn't have to be voted on at all. It's a procedure. I think I'd also just like I don't want to belabor this but I do to George's point. So what's on our agenda are two different versions of a fee schedule. Neither of which are a policy both or procedure. They're fee schedules which you did tell us once a year we h it's a board requirement. So it's not a procedure, but the board must approve student fees every year and it's an annual thing we have to do. Is that right? Not as accurate. The student fee schedule and the facilities use schedule has to be approved every both fee schedule procedures um should only be information only. So

231what if you look in our agenda at the links that we have on 6.1 part of 6.1 includes a fee for the um facility one version and then 6.2 what's called procedure is actually just a fee schedule. Can you tell me why the fee schedule for the facilities is part of 6.1 and 6.2? So 6.1 uh should just be the student fees and the facility fees approval. For 6.1 the fee schedule should be a standalone for both sets of fees, students and facilities. 6.1 was meant to be fees. Yes. and y'all approved that in your in um in via an action item. But then last week the decision was made to put the procedure as an it was not it was not um agreed upon to put it as a consent item. So 6.2 what's

232called a procedure in 6.2 is simply a fee schedule that we voted on. No 6.2 two is is changes to the community use of facilities. So, our link takes us to a fee schedule. Okay. Procedure code 5030P facility use fee schedule. Just the fee schedule is what we have here. Okay. Then you're good. Yes. We don't have the procedure linked. Um, so is that something that we can ask for the minutes to be updated to remove that uh procedure code 5030-P facility use fee schedule? Is that appropriate? Yeah, because I don't think it's relevant at all. Are you okay with that, uh, Miss Jones, or do you want to have us all give a thumbs up, Sarah, or how do you want to handle it? Um, it's just an accident that it's in there. Correct.

233I trust the minutes will reflect what accurately happened this evening, so I think it'll get worked out and we can all be paying attention to that, okay? To make sure it gets done accurately. Okay, I think I saw you all put your laptops up. I know. I know. Um, okay. At this time, we're good. Um, I'm just going to point everybody's attention to announcers future meetings. Our next time to meet is um not on this, but it's June 24th when we have a special call board meeting. And then the next regular work session will be in August because we do not meet in July. Um at this time I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor of adjourning, please say I. I. I. Amy.

234No. Amy is an enthusiastic I. Yes. Amy, thank you for being a good sport and hanging in there with us. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much.