001Good evening. Welcome. Good evening. Glad to have everybody with us tonight. I am going to call our board meeting to order. Um, all members of the board are present and we have a full quorum. Before we get to the pledge of allegiance, um, I am just going to ask that there be a moment of silence. Some of you in our community may know that we had a student die over spring break. And I'm going to ask for a moment to remember that student and the students family and other students and families in this district. And also to say a word of thanks for all the staff and teachers that support that family and other families. Thank you. At this time, we are ready for the pledge of allegiance. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What is Oh,
002I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, y'all. I got out of order. Um I It's actually myself that's in charge of reading the equity statement tonight and I skipped over it and I apologize. So, let me now read our equity statement to center our work. In Asheville City Schools, we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and thrive. We recognize that our positions come with power, responsibility, and public service for the entire ACS community. We will model our commitment to equity through our practices and decisions. During this meeting, we invite a pause if harm has taken place, a moment to name the harm, and space to practice repair. Thank you. And now, the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
003to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. As we look at the agenda, I um am gonna let the board know if uh three changes. Um sorry, two items are going to come off the consent agenda and be moved to the action items and those are the minutes of the March 10th meeting and the uh school nutrition workday calendar. Both of those had been on consent. They'll be um on for discussion and action items later in the agenda. And then a third, I'm going to call it possible action item, and we'll also hear it with the action items, is a short discussion about Senate Bill 131 and article 39 funding. Sorry. Oh. Um, sorry. We're going to move the March 10th minutes and the school
004nutrition workday calendar off consent agenda to the end. And we're gonna also at the end add a short discussion about Senate Bill 131, which is article 39. Sorry. Okay. At this time, I I move that we adopt the agenda as amended. Thank you. Second. There's a second. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. The agenda is approved. Uh Dr. Deckant. Good evening board, community, families, students. Uh it is always my pleasure every month to bring good news and I think this is a testament uh every month of all the amazing things that are happening in public education especially in Asheville City Schools. So tonight I would like to start with Odyssey of the Mind. Lucy Herring's Odyssey of the Mind program fosters creativity, teamwork, and confidence in students through engaging challenges. The international program allows
005students to apply their knowledge and develop essential skills like budgeting, time management, and public speaking. Congratulations to all five Lucy Herring teams who competed at the state competition on March 22nd. A special shout out to the omazing vehicle team, Maple, Hayes, Amelia, Rex, and James for their second place win and advancement to the world finals in May. We're incredibly proud of all the students and grateful for their coaches. So, if the Lucy Sering OM team will all come up to the front, we would love to give a picture of you and recognize you for your hard work. And if their coaches are here, um, their principal, their assistant principal, all of the Lucy Herring family that supported these students, please come up. Mr. Gibbs. [Applause] Miss Bllozy's fifth graders at Isaac Dixon were published in
006the Mountain Express for their inspiring reflections on what motivates them. Congratulations to young authors Theo Maddox, Walton Goldman, Kira Dyson, Robin Kho, Selma Weatherly Hunt, and Dela Zumski. Thank you, Mrs. Belozi for fostering their writing talents. And if those students from Isaac Dixon are here and their teacher, if you'll come up to the front, we would love to get a picture of you. They're a field trip. Okay. Thanks. They're at the zoo. Well, that's a good place to be. Summer 2025 Governor's School acceptance. Congratulations to the following students for being offered seats at the summer 2025 North Carolina Governor's School. And if you're here, if when I call your name, if you'll just go ahead and come up to the front. Magdala Aen Badard in Spanish. Samuel Cron in theater. Olivia Agina in English. River
007Harlon natural science. Francesca Russell English. Jackson Shawl in theater. And I also have to say Jackson is up there in the picture. Is Jack There's Jackson. Jackson, I just found out today had made a perfect score on his ACT. [Music] And we also have Grace Wallace who's going in visual arts. Is Grace here? And there we go. [Applause] Congratulations to Asheville High School and Silsa's robotics team, Glitch 2.0, for winning the sustainability award at the Hickory Regional Competition. The award recognizes their innovative innovative and environmentally responsible approach to robotics. Their ingenuity highlights the importance of s of sustainability in the future of technology and engineering. We are excited to see their future accomplishments and though if any we have any members of Glitch 2.0 if you'll come up to the front now. [Applause] Oh, Congratulations
008to the Asheville High Theater Department on their success at the state thespian festival. All Asheville High School students who performed received an excellent or superior uh rating. Sam Centron, actant for acting, Jake McAuen for playwriting, won the critic's choice award, recognizing the best of the best, and Ava Manderson was elected to represent Asheville High as a state officer. We also want to recognize the incredible performances and production of Asheville High and Silsa's Anything Goes musical. And if you saw this, it was absolutely amazing. Audiences were blown away by our students talents. Thank you to our students, our theater department for demonstrating the intrinsic value of artistic expression and creativity. Thank you to Lori Hillard and her amazing team. If anybody from the Thespian um group and the play would come to the front to be
009recognized and have your picture taken. Congratulations Sarah Monson and the culinary and hospitality students. 12 teams from nine North Carolina high schools competed in the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association Foundation's annual North Carolina ProStar Invitational. Say that 10 times. On the on March the 13th through the 14th at NC Central University Student Center in Durham. After two days of rigorous competition, Asheville High took top honors in the management competition and will go on to represent North Carolina at the 2025 National ProStart Invitational in Baltimore, Maryland on May the 2nd. We are so proud of these students in demonstrating their culinary talents. If Miss Monson's here or any of the culinary students, if you would come forward at this time so you can be recognized and that we can get your picture. [Applause] [Music] Asheville
010High and Silsa's dedicated school counselors are effectively assisting students with fast completion through workshops and raffles supported by my future North Carolina grant. Their hard work, sorry, has resulted in our district ranking second in the state from the most FAF FASA completion rates, which is amazing. Um, ensuring that more students have access to critical financial aid for college. We deeply appreciate our counselors committed to our students future successes. Are any of our high school counselors here this evening? Right. If you see them, please, please give them a huge shout out. That is a major accomplishment. The Asheville City Schools band program has been a phenomenal asset to our school district. The musical talents of our students are evident. Congratulations to the Asheville Middle School eighth grade band and the Asheville High School Symphonic Band Win
011Symphony for their superior ratings at the state music performance assessment. AMS was one of only two middle schools in the Western District to receive a superior rating this year. Additionally, the Asheville High School bands performance at the Charleston Music Festival received superior ratings as well. Congratulations to Asheville High Jr. William Nunan, who won the Hendersonville Symphony's Young Artist Competition, which is an award of $1,000, a performance in the Mosart Bassoon Concerto as a soloist. We had eight Asheville High students who were selected for the all-state band, and four students from Asheville Middle School who were selected for all state band. We are so proud of the instructors and students in our band programs at the middle and high school level who continue to make our school district stand out across the state and across the
012East Coast. If we have any of our band directors um and our band students here with us this evening. I think I saw Mr. Workman earlier. If you'll come to the front and uh Oh, we have the whole crew. This is awesome. [Applause] Thank you. [Applause] Asheville City Schools is celebrating a monumental artist achievement. E Edwards from Asheville High School has been awarded a national gold medal in the esteemed Scholastic Art Awards, a tradition of recognizing exceptional student talent since 1923. Her winning piece, Cicada Mandala, is a personal rattle design illustrating the cicada life cycle and was created in Miss Strivever's art one class. This is a tremendous honor and we are incredibly proud of Ev's creativity and skill. Congratulations. If Ev is here, come on up and have your picture made with the board.
013That's amazing. [Applause] The Asheville High and Silsa speech and debate team won two state champions and several several other awards this month at the Tar Hill Forensic League state tournament in Southern Pines. Congratulations, Grace Wallace, who won the state champion in humorous speaking and was declared the state champion in informative speaking. Congratulations to George Johnson, who won third place in informative speaking and was declared the semifinalist in impromptu speaking and and semi finalist in original oratory. We are so proud of these students and the entire speech and debate team on this incredible win. If our SE speech and debate team members who are here will come to the front as well as their coaches. [Applause] Two of our students from SILSA, Asher Johnson and Mia Shim, made qualifying scores at the Western Regional High School
014Math Competition. Asher took first place in the comprehensive division, and Mia took sixth place in the level two division. Divisions are determined based on students math courses. These scores qualify both of them to advance to the state level competition at UNCCA on April the 30th. If Mia and Asher are here, if you'll come to the front, if you haven't heard and if you haven't clicked on the website to see the popup, Asheville City Schools strategic planning is underway and we need your input. Please, if you have not already, complete our community input survey and help us build a brighter future for our schools. You can stay tuned for strategic planning updates by following our social media and website and you can scan the QR code up here and it'll take you directly to the strategic
015planning page where you can learn more. My emotions this evening are emotions of joy. And as you can see, our kids are not only thriving and succeeding at the local level, but the state level. And as you heard tonight, moving on to represent Asheville City Schools at the national level. It's important to fund our budget so that we can continue to be successful in Asheville City Schools. Thank you. [Applause] Thanks to everyone for coming to participate in our good news. As folks are exiting, we're going to pivot to public comment. For the board's purposes, there are uh six people signed up in person and nobody online. If you're here to speak for public comment and you didn't sign up, you can see Lisa in the back. There's a signup sheet. I just don't want to
016miss people. I only have six folks listed. Okay, I apologize. There's one thing before public comment. Um, do I understand correctly that Isaac Dixon has a presentation tonight? Yes. Yes. Okay. We would love to hear from you. Stand up here with me. Hey friends, I apologize if there was any sort of miscommunication or snafu at the agenda. I think that we should just do it without a PowerPoint at this point. All right. So, we're just going to not have any like slides or anything. We're just going to like share for a minute, right? Like that's going to be fine. It's going to take a few minutes, which is great because I My name is Mr. Scott. I have the privilege and honor of being a teacher at Isaac Dixon Elementary School. And I am very
017good at creating authentic learning, engaging experiences with children. And I'm very bad at taking pictures of myself while I do it. And I also am very bad at talking to other people about it. So this is very much outside my comfort zone. I just want to say very briefly a little bit about the program that I run because we are in the third year of launching an experiential education specialist program at our school which means that in my classroom the project room students um cycle through once a week the same as PE and art and music and they have an opportunity to engage in our school's garden and greenhouse which also leads to cooking projects as well as STEM projects and designing and building projects in the classroom laboratory where I work and live. And
018this year, we've also taken on the experiential rolling cart. Like, we've taken experiential projects outside of my classroom and pushed into other rooms around the school, too. For example, we had an applesauce cart for a while that went to different classrooms and teachers signed up to make applesauce. But it wasn't just making applesauce with kids because we're able to connect to grade level standards. So, kindergarteners and first graders talking about physical characteristics and what do you observe and second graders and third graders talking about states of matter and how things change over time and fourth graders and fifth graders are all talking about heat transfer and what happens to the energy and the electricity which makes the apples hot and melt. But really, all of it's just making applesauce, right? You with me so far?
019Awesome. So, we have a schoolwide program uh called the kids inquiry conference that's a big science project that many of our students participated in that all began with um them having a question from their own little curious hearts and then they developed some sort of experiment to have an answer to that question and could my first grade and second grade Jack and Paxton could you come up here real quick and share a little bit? I have a couple of students who are going to share a little bit about their experience because you'd rather hear it from them than me and I'd rather not share about it. They would. Up first, would you like to please step up to the top and introduce yourself? My name is Paxton and I'm in first grade. And will you
020tell us what was your big question? You remember it? Say it. I don't remember. Okay, I'll start it. What kind of rocks? What kind of rocks can you find at Isaac Dixon? So, he had to do an experiment with some partners. And um what was your favorite part about the experiment? What did you love to do? We got to dig holes and brush and wash the rocks. And what was your big takeaway? Like what big thing did you learn? Do you remember this? This says three types of rocks. That's what you said. I don't know. Do you know anything more than three types of rocks? Will you say what they are? Ignous, metamorphic, [Music] and what was the other? Sedimentary. Thank you all so much. Final question, Paxton. I'm just curious. What is your absolute
021favorite thing about being part of the Isaac Dixon community? What do you love most? I like checking out books from the library. Thanks, Paxton. [Applause] Can I turn this around? Yes. My second friend, Jack, would you please uh you can hold this. You're in charge. You got it. Hello. My name is Jack Payne. I am a second grader at Isaac Dixon. My kick project is about sound. This is important work because without sound, we wouldn't be able to communicate. I took a lot of time to prepare this project and it helped me learn all about how sound works. My favorite thing about being a part of the Isaac Dixon community is they are kind and loving and help kids. And finally to share about a couple of science projects, we have two third grade partners
022who can step up together. Backup plan. That's what you want. Hold it. Hello, my name is Virginia Sandlin. I am a third grader at Isaac Dixon Elementary School. My cake project is about how the weather affects the pond. This is important work because I learned how the weather affects many things, including the pond in many ways. It took a lot of time to prepare this project and it helped me learn all about putting an experiment together. My favorite part about being My favorite thing about being part of the Isaac Dixon community is all the nice teachers and kids that come here to learn and teach. Hello, my name is Zoe Thompson. I'm a third grader at Isaac Dixon. My kick project is about how the weather affects the pond. This is important work because it
023can apply to a bigger scale of questions like how does the weather affect affects ocean or rivers. It took a lot of time to prepare this project and it helped me learn all about weather, the pond and how they affect each other. My favorite thing about being a part of the Isaac Dixon community is having fun but also learning at the exact same time. Thank you, my friends. And I have one final speaker as we climb the ladder from first to second to third and now on to fourth grade. I've got a fourth grade friend who's also going to come up and share not about a science project, but rather in the AIG program at our school. They uh did a poetry unit among other things and uh studied a poet named Emily Dickinson. And
024one thing that they specifically looked at was the the rhyme and meter that she uses. And I am no expert, but I know a little about amic feet and the way that the rhythm is supposed to go like 848. So we have in the style of Emily Dickinson an original poem written by our fourth grader who will introduce himself. My name is Ellery O'Neal and I am a fourth grader at Isaac Dixon Elementary School. I wrote this poem about May. The month, not the person. May. One day I went outside at spring. I saw a little bee. And then as he fair saw the spring, he was a sight to see. I went into the house to see a fair delightful thing. She was a snow white little dove come outside from the spring. I
025went outside into the spring to watch a little bird. He licked his feathers happily. He truly looked absurd. Thank you, Ell. That is just a small taste of the many fun activities and talent we have going on at our school. Again, I'm not the best at taking pictures, but I would love to offer an invitation to any of you to come visit my classroom anytime and see the wonderful magical things that we do every day. Thank you so much. On with the show. And if you want to see more of Scott, please go see Into the Woods at Asheville Community Theater. Thank you, Isaac Dixon. That was great. Some updates about public comment. We now have nine speakers, three of whom I believe represent groups. Um, and so we are going to exceed our 30
026minute time slot, but I would entertain a motion to extend. So move. Okay, go ahead. I think I got a motion and a second. Okay, I move you second. You move, I second. Um, all those in favor? I I Okay, so um, let me apologies read some comments. 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 Asheville City Schools. So, board members will not typically respond or ask questions. Employees and students are entitled to confidentiality and due process. The board does not accept personal complaints or hear student matters and public comment. Please see our
027superintendent after the meeting if you have concerns about a specific employee or a student matter. Public comment may not be used to endorse or support any candidate for any public office. In addition to public comment, written comments to the board can always be submitted to the office of the superintendent. We will now hear from our first speaker. Individual speakers will have three minutes. If you represent a group, just let us know and you have five minutes. Um, our first speaker will be Christina [Applause] Shimrock. Is it on? Oh, yeah, it's on. Yes. Yeah. Hi, I'm Christina Shimrock and Kelly, could you come up too? So, we are representing families of Asheville City Schools. Um, so we'll just go in succinct. Um, and then yeah, but and so we might not go over 30 minutes. Woohoo.
028Um, so my name is Christina Shimra. I have a daughter at Claxton. She's a third grader. And we are here because we want to one introduce this newly formed district-wide advocacy group that represents each of our schools, all elementary schools, high school and middle school. And our goal as a district-wide advocacy group is to celebrate and defend our public schools. And so that's why we're here. And um as you may have seen when you walked in, there are a bunch of signs that kind of look like this about how Asheville City Schools need our two cents. And we're going to introduce a little bit more about what that is. Ally will explain what the two cents campaign is all about. Um but for facts, I just wanted to kind of list out a little bit
029of what we value and why we have come together. So we believe that public schools are a common good and a public good. We believe that when we invest in our schools, we invest in our in community and above all else, we invest in our students. We believe that democracy is not a uh a spectator sport, which means it's time to get our frustration um out of the group chat and into the public. Um and so one way to do that is we do that by our vote. We do that by how we uh interact with our community, how we interact with our neighbors, and how we show up at places like this. Um, I also just want to say thank you so much to our board and to Dr. Maggie. Um, we didn't know
030if tonight we'd have to form public comment to really plead for a full no cuts budget. And we left the work session, I'm blanking on the date, as a uh we felt like our schools were celebrated. We felt like it was an inspiring budget night, which normally those two words don't go in together. And so we we really really are thankful that we have elected officials that believe in fully funding our schools and they're showing that through your words and your actions. So thank you. Um, I this our next person is going to explain what the two cents campaign is. Thanks, Kristen. Uh, good evening. I'm Ally Engard. I'm here in grateful anticipation of your vote in support of Dr. Maggie's proposed no cuts budget. I'm not an educator, but I am the product of
031public schools. I worked in insurance, banking, and technology for more than 20 years. We became an Asheville City Schools family when our oldest child started kindergarten at Lucy Herring in 2022. And we plan to continue being a Nashville City Schools family until our youngest graduates high school in 2041. I'm here not just for the sake of my own children, but for every one of their classmates. With your vote for Dr. Maggie's no cuts budget. We put the challenge to our county commissioners to find the funds. We understand the hurdles they face both in the short term and the long term. The families of ACS propose a simple solution to fund next year's budget. Restore the 2 cents of supplemental property tax that was reduced back in 2021. We're talking about going from 10 cents to
03212 cents per $100 of property value. You can learn more about this online at twoenseavl.com. Every single student and staff member at ACS deserves the best, most inspiring, and safest learning environment we can provide now and for decades to come. Thank you for your vote for a no cuts budget and thank you for your commitment to our schools. Hi, my name is Kelly Moore Spencer. I'm the parent of a first grader at Claxton Elementary and a rising kindergartenner who's already counting down the days until he starts school there. I'm also a member of the newly formed group, Families of Asheville City Schools. For those of you live streaming or watching the recording, if you want to be involved, we'd love to have you join us. I want to just begin by saying thank you. I
033was in this room two weeks ago and was really encouraged to hear that this board not only sounded like you were all committed to a no cuts budget, but also really expressed an real interest in building a budget that actively works to closing the opportunity gap. As I'm sure you're very aware, in 2019, the Asheville City Schools was identified as having the fifth largest racial achievement gap in the country. that gap which is truly an opport. It's okay. You had also signed up separately as a speaker. I am. Are you gonna speak twice? No. Then keep going. Okay. This is my one and only time. I promise. Okay. Um so that gap which is truly an opportunity gap is unacceptable which I can imagine we all agree with. Um several of our county commissioners have
034also spoken out against about the urgent need to address this issue. So, I believe that a budget that seeks to close this gap is a necessary and powerful step in that right direction. So, I volunteer in my daughter's classroom each week and see just how hard our teachers are working and how stretched they already are. Even now, support staff are shared between classrooms and teachers are asking parents to help just to ensure students get the small groupoup instruction that they need. While I'm very grateful to be able to volunteer, I know this isn't a sustainable solution and it's definitely not equitable. We know that cuts, even though th even those made through attrition, don't affect all students equally. It's our most marginalized students and students, including students of color, students from lowincome families, and students
035with IEPs who suffer the most. And if we're serious about equity, then our budget must reflect this seriousness. I fully support you voting for a no cuts budget today, and I hope you see this as just the beginning. I'd love to see this board commit to expanding the budget in the future to fund initiatives like universal prek like was talked about two weeks ago so we can truly begin closing the opportunity gap and starting at the very beginning of a child's educational journey. So, thank you again for naming this issue and for being open to real and sustainable solutions in a time when public education and DEI efforts are under threat. I hope you'll continue to lead boldly and push for a budget that doesn't just prevent harm, but actively invests in our students in
036a way that reflects the values of our community and is in alignment with the equity statement that you state at the beginning of each of your meetings. Thank [Applause] you. Um, is Martin Tatara here? Great. Boy, wasn't that great just to hear all the students and all the accomplishments that they did. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair, and distinguished board for letting me speak. Um, you know, one of those things that all those people share are the teachers. And, uh, I have an interesting perspective because I am a substitute teacher. I am not a employee of the school district. I employee of ESS. I have um, two master's degrees. One of them is in education. I taught in Spain. I taught in Peace Corps for two years in West Africa and I also taught at a
037USAID program. As a substitute teacher, you get uh $130 a day. The district is charged 174. How it works, I get no benefits, uh no tenure pension, etc. I go to a website. I choose a job that I feel I'm qualified for. I check it. I go to that school. It happens. Usually happens fine. No problem. One of the things that it says is um that you the staff is supposed to let you do your job that you're given and not not necessarily change it. Uh it often happens at at certain schools that it does get changed and you have to fill in go to a planning period for another teacher who's gone. Uh a regular teacher would get compensated for that. If you're in the high school, you'd get $45. Substitutes get nothing. You
038can't go there and decide, well, I'm not going to do that. I don't feel qualified for that particular class or it's, you know, outside of my interest or range. Unfortunately, one feels bullied to accept it without pay and that's actually adding about another quarter 20% of your work to that. So, uh, I'd like to ask the board to take a look at this contract with ESS, and I ask not to be bullied or to bully people into taking these jobs, to be compensated for that, just like as you stated in the equity program. And um, and if you choose not to take it, a job with other this extra work, that you not be penalized or uh, punished for it. And um, you know, there is a shortage of teachers and some of this is
039because it's uh the conditions aren't so great. So, they have to have the substitutes fill in. I love teaching. I love Asheville. And so, that's pretty much it. I would like you to consider those sorts of things. One thing uh I was at, uh school today and during the pledge of allegiance, everybody kind of sits there without standing up and there's there's uh either get rid of it or have some sort of policy on that. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I call Christina Mason. I'm Christina Mason and my son is a second grader and an exceptional child at Isaac Dixon Elementary. My message tonight is don't buy it. Reject the fallacy that there's not enough county funding to go around for public education. In North Carolina, students have a legal right to a
040sound basic education beginning in early childhood. County residents have begged the commission for years to raise our taxes to fund schools. I mean, how often does it happen that you go and ask people to raise your taxes? The commission can raise the school district supplemental tax, can raise the county property tax rates. They could reform the unfair property tax assessments. They could set the TDA occupancy tax to zero to force them to the negotiating table. They could cut elsewhere in the county to keep our schools going. people and people a lot smarter than me have already made a lot of innovative suggestions, but the county has yet to act and we need to pressure them to do that and not accept that there's just not enough money. It's not Asheville City School's responsibility to solve
041the funding shortfall for the county. I suggest that you make the full ask and you fight for it and you let the commissioners decide whether it's in the public interest to educate and invest in the next generation. My son's teacher has a quote in her classroom that reads, "I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous." But honestly, isn't this a little bit too true in Asheville City Schools? We rely so heavily on personal individual sacrifices to keep our district going and more than we should. North Carolina has steadily cut education funds for the last 25 years and redirected those public dollars to charter schools and private schools and elsewhere. So, we really lean
042on our teachers and staff to bridge the gaps and probably more than is fair. And they're coping with low wages and insane schedules and case loads and understaffing, especially with EC mental health translators and other behavioral and support staff. We've heard so much already about the financial stress, burnout, and employee attrition that these cause. And it's hard as parents, too, to keep up with all the fundraising and donation requests just for the bare necessities in our schools. And our families are paying the price. Our students are paying the price. We close and consolidate schools. We cut IAS and support staff. And we increase class sizes, all to make ends meet. Test scores are not really where we want them. Behavior postcoid and post hurricane is a problem. and we don't have support staff to help
043with that. The district we heard will soon max out IEP funding. I don't really know what that means, but with an easy child, it's really scary to hear something like that. There's so much instability and unnecessary stress when the budget is too small. So, board members and superintendent, here's my challenge to you. Demand what our students and our staff deserve. Go big or go home. Thank you, Amanda Wild. Hello. Um, I'm reading a letter to the editor that I um that's published in the Mountain Express uh today. It's on the front page or of the digital version. And I'm just going to read that letter. Our children are facing battles they don't even know about. Year after year, their education gets chipped away by our county and state government. Historic norms are being broken on
044a national level, and the right to a good education moves further down the line. I went to North Carolina public schools when education felt like it mattered. Politicians kept it high on their list of priorities and treated it as important. That was 20 years ago. Since then, we have seen a steady decline in valuing and funding our public schools. Public education saves lives, literally. Many children would not be able to attend school without it. Public school communities must fight relentlessly for every dollar. And now we're being forced to fight again. To keep students in public schools, we constantly shift resources and juggle staff levels. Parents must fund raise, act as public relations representatives, and convince neighbors to enroll. It's exhausting. Our community is already struggling after Hurricane Helen. Our kids have endured so much. Cutting
045school budgets only adds to the chaos. Our county commissioners went through the same disaster. How can taking away critical funding from our schools be the solution? To continue retaining kids in public schools, the 2025 to 2026 education budget must ensure no staffing or public p program cuts. Asheville City Schools and Bunkome County Schools should be reimburs reimbursed to 4.7 million by July and the Asheville City Schools special tax rate should be restored to 12 cents per $100 of the assessed property value. Let's work together to continue building strong public schools and retain kids and celebrate them. Demand County Commissioners return this funding now. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Cassandra. How? Hi, I'm Cassandra How and I have two children here who go to Lucy Herring and um yeah, just honored to be part of that
046community. We moved here in August from an intentional community in the North Cascade Mountains where they had a remote but necessary public school of like six total student body. And so I was a bit anxious about the transition to a new city and also a larger school. Um and it has it couldn't be like Lucius Herring there there was no better school for them to enter into like kind of a normal public school after that experience. Um our first experience was a garden work party before the school started and um just the community that was built working together on a common project outside connecting with the earth and um my kids have had a lot of really amazing you know experiential learning experiences there. So a big heart for for Asheville City Schools. Um, and
047then my second part is that the idea of cutting is just absurd. I mean, it's like what poets write about um like as far as our values and um how much money we spend on, you know, the military and other things that aren't lifegiving. So, um, I guess one other thing was, um, yeah, it's in the self-interest of North Carolina and Asheville to fully fund our public schools because it's not just child care. This is our future economy. And it's also our resiliency as a community because it's at the schools where students are learning creativity and problem solving and things that we really needed after the hurricane and and coming together and that sense of community and that no one um is left behind. So thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you. Next, I just
048have Clara. I don't have a last name. Oh, excellent. Hi, my name is Clara. Um, I'm a student at Claxton Elementary School and I'm in fifth grade. Um, I'm here today to help Asheville City Schools budget. And what I love about Asheville City Schools is all the teachers are very nice and care about their students and um every everyone there um is really um really helpful. So that's what I love about Asheville City Schools. Thank you. Thank you. The last speaker I have is Carrie Holloway. Hello, I'm back. Um, I'm Carrie Holloway. I'm an Asheville City resident and a sometimes Asheville City School parent. Um, roughly four years ago, I spoke up here and I was gave down. So, I have learned my lesson and I'm going to speak in generalities. Um, it has come
049to my attention that contracts are up for review for some of our central office employees who make over $100,000 a year. Ashwood City Schools has the second largest budget in the city. Yet, our teachers and staff are barely able to provide for themselves and their families with the mentioned central staff members are making almost triple what my teacher friends are making. I would ask the board to go through a professional audit of central office and share it with the community. Can you clearly define what their roles are, especially those members who roles seem to continuously change? Do we really need to be taking away from our schools to pad the pockets of bad actors? As a resident of Asheville, I would like to see evidence of improvements these central office members have made. Are teachers
050happier? Our students where they need to be academically? Are enrollment numbers up? Is our community more engaged? Personally, I am not seeing it. What I have seen is abuse of power, and with my own personal experiences, it's enough to make you want to leave the district. My children have now been in two schools that board members have voted on closing. Asheville Primary School and Montfort Northstar closed to save money, and there are still whispers of more school closings. Wouldn't it be so much easier and be so much less disruptive to just get rid of one or two of the central office members who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars? If there are not enough resources to educate our children, how can there be enough resources to renew contracts for folks who seem unable to
051help with the school systems problems, who fail to provide any objective measures showing how they are succeeding in handling these funding issues. My youngest recently got a bad grade on a math test for not showing its work. I am asking the board to have certain members of central office show their work. The community is just not seeing the benefits of having some of these people in their positions. Our teachers and staff certainly aren't seeing it. Ultimately, by allowing certain contracts to be renewed, the board would be taking money away from our children in exchange for fewer resources and continued low morale. Thank you. Thank you to everyone for participating in public comment. Those are all of our speakers. I'm going to turn now to the consent agenda. And I'm reminding board members. How about this?
052I'm going to read what's on the consent agenda. It's the draft minutes from March 3rd, the closed session minutes from March 3rd, student releases to Bunkham County, the budget amendments and expenditure report, the 2026 27 school calendar, the audit contract, the stated policies on second read, and certain contracts andus, all of which have been before us. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. Thank you. I I Okay. The consent agenda passes. At this time, we will hear from Dr. Ferman about the budget. All right, Lisa, I guess it's just not meant to be. We keep trying to present from my iPad, but that's not working. It's okay. Um, good evening board members, community members. Um, I am um presenting I want to preface this
053is this is our budget presentation. This is a draft of the presentation that we will that I will present to the county commissioners as our official request. Um, so this is kind of your opportunity to provide input on any changes or updates that you would like to see in the presentation before we present it to the county commissioners on May 2nd. So just going in with that. Um, I'll particularly point out new slides that were not in one agenda. Correct. Right. The one in your agenda is not this one. Right. It's the one I shared with you via email. Yep. The one in the agenda is the one from last week, two weeks ago. Um, so as I go through this, one of the things we always have to report on to the county commissioners
054when we do the budget is our report on student achievement. Uh, what I did is I took screenshots on where our student achievement has increased overall. Um, and then also paid attention to our black student group and how that achievement has improved. Um so what this bar graph shows you as a snapshot is overall so all of the accountability measures that we have to submit to the state. It measures how our students have um their achievement has changed over the past four years. So from 2021 22 23 24. So overall student um achievement that year of COVID was 2021. So you'll notice that's kind of a a baseline of 46% proficient. And then 2022 it increased by 7.8. 2023 overall achievement increased by 1.3%. And then in 2025 above that 1.3% another 2 um 5%.
055So that's how those graphs read. And at the bottom I also included the overall achievement um indicator increase for the state as um as a comparison of how we're achie how our achievement compares to the state. So overall our students are improving. we are growing and their achievement is increasing. Um so last year um at the end of the year between 2023 and 2024 our percent of students um proficient overall increased by 2.5% while the state only increased by6%. As we look at our black student group, um, from 23 to 24, our black student group improved their achievement by 3.5% while the state improved achievement for student black for black students, I think that says 1.8%. And I pulled out our reading and math scores. So for reading all students, we increased by 1.9%. Um,
056the state actually went down by 0.1%. For our black students, our overall uh proficient percent of students scoring proficient increased by8% while the state increased by 6%. In math, we saw a much more um growth in our math areas and improved achievement levels. So, our overall math scores increased by 5.8% students reaching proficiency where the state growth was 1.6%. And for our black student group, our overall student achievement for our black student group in math in three through 8th improved by 6.8%. And then our overall growth um for the state level was plus 3%. So you can see over these different groups we are improving in all these areas and we are outperforming the state in all these areas as well. did also want to point out our graduation rate um for overall 232 24
057is 90% while the state graduation rate is 87%. Um and then I think a big highlight for Asheville City Schools is that none of our schools are designated as low performing schools which for a school district to be able to say that all of our schools are achieving and meeting their growth and achievement levels is um is a really good thing to say and to highlight for our county commissioners. did want to highlight and I always like to highlight kind of where we were the previous year for the county commissioners. So I share just an overall snapshot of our 25 budget FY25 budget and then talk through some of the things that we did change from the 24 to 25 budget. Um as we did implement our new hourly pay table to make sure that
058we have much better progression um as our hourly staff move from years of experience and move up in pay grade. Um and then major reductions that we had from last year two years last year to this year um is the school consolidation um at the middle school level implementing our staffing formula and then oper our budgets that are non-personnelbased. So basically what we call our operational budgets for what each department spends to purchase things we reduce those overall by 10%. So this is a new slide the achievements a new slide. Um, so as you're kind of thinking of any suggestions, we'll um, make sure you we focus on those. The other thing I wanted to highlight for the county commissioners is state funding effort. And this snapshot um, this is taken from NCED policy forum.
059And what they have done is created some tables that show you how states what their funding effort is. And on this first slide, this is states that receive an A in funding. Um, and you'll see that there are I've got to pull it up on my I cannot see that far. You got it. Let me pull up here so I can see. Thank you. Um, so you can see there's a list of states on there that are receiving an A in their per pupil funding and effort. Um, and it also looks at their per capita. So very clo quickly you can see what those levels are. And I think what's very telling is our neighbor to the south, um, South Carolina, kind of well east and south. um is ranked as an A in their
060public school funding. Um so I think that's telling for us as a school system. And then I went all the way down to the bottom of the chart to compare where North Carolina state funding effort is. Again, pulled from NC Forum. Um and you'll see that North Carolina is second to the bottom in funding effort. Um oops, let me go to the next slide there. Um funding public schools at only 2.8%. So, I think that's very telling for us to kind of see where we are as a state and their overall support of public school funding for schools. Um, did also want to share with the board some of the updates on the North Carolina budget. Um, so the budget did come out from the Senate. We have not yet seen the House budget recommendations,
061but we do see that they are proposing several increases. um an increase for teachers, an average of 3.3% over the two years, and then each year getting a $1,500 bonus. Um our healthcare staff workers, which would be our school nurses, um an increase of 3.5% um in the next school year, which would be the upcoming school year. um assistant principles getting an increase tied to their teacher salary um level as well as um a $1,500 bonus annually, a 1.525% increase for our principles as well as a $1,500 bonus. And then all other staff would be a 1.25% increase with that $1,500 bonus. The Senate budget does present several cuts, one being a 5% reduction to the allotment that they send to central offices. and they don't send positions to central office, they send dollars to
062the office. So they'd look at your total dollar amount that's allotted to the district and they are proposing to cut that by 5%. And then the other uh major cut that's really there's lots of other cuts, but the other one that's big to impact Asheville City Schools and our students would be a reduction in the dollars that they pay to cover for um advanced placement testing. So they do have some other increases in there that will impact our budget significantly as we look and plan um ahead and is that is two increases. One is the increase of our contribution for employee retirement um and then also an increase to the state health care plan of what our responsibility is to pay for those two benefits for our staff. Um and you can see those increases
063there. So, an increase of um for this coming year and state healthcare $8,500 and then um just for next year, another increase of about just over $400. So, that is going to be significant. Um the increase to retirement um also a significant increase for this year from 24.6 and then anticipating another increase for the following year. Um, as we shared also local funding, our state funding effort, um, I shared this with the board last week, um, about our local funding effort and one of the requests from the board was to look at comparable school districts, um, and compare their funding effort as well as then looking at if our county funded us at that same funding effort, what would the result be in our increased funding? Um, so we have Bunkham County there. Um and
064this is all from N NC NC forum as well. Um their funding effort 21.8 which ranks us 79th out of 100 school districts. Um the request was to look at Randolph which is where Ashboro um is located and their percent funding effort um from their county is 34.09% ranks 19th. Um and if our county commissioners funded us at that level that would be an increase in 17 just over $17 million for our school system. One thing I do want to point out about the Ashboro and the Randolph County is they have a much different economic base, their income of average income for their county um residents is much lower. Um so it's a much different type of economy in that school in that county. So um Heidi pulled up three districts that she felt had
065comparable economies to Asheville City um and Bunkham County. And the first one is uh Carabus and their funding effort um you can see ranks them 37th which puts the funding effort for Bunkham County at that rate of 29.69 at an additional 12 million 12 and a half million dollars. Um Chattam County also at a 24.13% of the effort ranked 69th. So not that much further than us, but um for us that would result in 7 million. And I see I've got some math to fix there for the 29.3 in Durham. Um I think I've missed a decimal when I calculated that, but I will update that. Um so I think it's $12 million um instead of $1.2 million. So I think I made a change there. Um so that's our local um funding effort just
066for digestion. Um the other thing I wanted to highlight in this presentation is we've just finished that consolidation study and want to point out that the consolidation study did find that there is nothing about the act of consolidation that would guarantee increase in any of the outcomes or improvement in the outcomes that they were asked to measure and that was improved student achievement and increased financial efficiencies. Overall, Prismatic also did not find areas of excess in central office staffing at either district. Um, so they did note some areas for um to address which is facility usage in both districts and shared services. So, we have posted an RFP for um requests for proposal for a company to come in and do some long range facility plans for us and to assess what that might be
067as well as looking at what are some of those shared services that we potentially could combine with Bunkham County to find some increased efficiencies. Um, one of the requests from a board member was to explore the cost of additional prek classrooms. So this is what we have already been working on. So this data is about a year in the works to try to gather this data. Um so looking at the what we've been exploring is adding four prek classrooms at the Montford campus. Um right now which is the the William Randolph campus. Um and we've included the startup costs for each of the classes for a prek classroom about $2,700 to for a startup for the materials for all the things we would need to put in place. Uh the reason the prek is a
068lot higher is because those students get music classes and a lot of other extra things that we don't have in infant and toddler classes. Um the infant toddler class is about just over $16,000 um and 16 um for both of those two um to start up the and get all the materials ready. Um staffing costs per room just depending on the level of experience that a teacher may have and the studenttoteer ratios. We average that the cost to staff each of those rooms would range between $132,000 and $175,000. Would also need to invest $8,000 in updating the playground. Um but we did not yet have a quote for what the fencing would be because each of those playgrounds does need fenced in. Um so the startup cost if we were to do two prek, one
069infant, and one toddler to fill those four classroom spaces would be approximately $100,000. Um and the recurring staffing fees to keep those up and going would be a little upwards of um a half a million dollars to about 3 um 75 million. Um so just some information on that. We did not explore any other additional prek spaces because just to get these numbers took us a significant amount of time. Um the one I'm realizing now I forgot to put in there is it does cost us a million dollars um to update the bathrooms. those do need brought up to code before we can put prek classes in those two rooms. So that would increase that startup cost um by about a million dollars. Um did want to remind the board um this is where we
070started with our budget planning document um with our revenue losses and increased expenditures. Um we do have some updated numbers based on the Senate bill um for the budget. Um it's so just so you remembered where we were and our numbers are changing. So um just updated based on what we're seeing in the Senate budget which is typically kind of more of the in the realm of where the state budget will end up. Um still anticipating having to use about four the trying to cover the $4 million in fund balance that we are using in the budget this year. Um we updated our um loss of revenue from the um ADM or our state aotments down from 500,000 to 437,000ish dollars um due to where our enrollment is and what came in on the state
071projections. And then the other two pretty much stayed the same chart charter payments and school nutrition um $50,000 and $500,000 consecutively. Um, our increased expenditures did decrease a little bit. Uh, we've got to make an adjustment. Still calculating some numbers on the local supplement decrease. We estimated that to be about $28,000. It is going to come in a little bit under that. Um, but the three $1.3 million for increased salary. Um, social security retirement did have to significantly increase insurance um to $242,000 of increased expense. And the utility and property insurance did stay the same. Um, but our updated shortfall now is n uh $6.91 million. So, just another one, we shared this last time. Why do we have such a shortfall? You've saw the increased expenditures, the decreased revenue. That's number one. Uh, but
072three of the big pieces that are four of them are listed on this um page is our preschool program does not operate costneutral. So, we invest local funding of about $.8 8 million to keep our preschool program up and running. Our school nutrition program, we are moving to um free lunch and breakfast across the district and that's going to cost us about point about a half a million dollars. Um hopefully that will decrease as our student participation rate in eating breakfast and lunch goes up. Um but this year we are estimating having to invest local funds of about a half a million dollars. Um our exceptional children program exceeds what the state will pay us for that. So locally, we do have to pay about two million $2 million locally to meet all the needs
073of what our students in our special needs program have. Um we do know that there are these unpredictable variables that come into our budgets and that the changes um with Monome County um um schools and what we share with Monome County Schools changes as well as charter schools. Um the last one is really what I was sharing about the increase in state and um state healthcare benefits as well as a change in the retirement. So those are all unfunded um increases that we have to pay for out of our own pockets. So you can see there's a history here all the way back to 200910 um of some additional funding that came in pandemic funding during the 201920 we had some additional costs with Helen um but what we're seeing is if you look at
074this percent increase in health care and retirement just from 200910 to 1920 or percent increase um was from n 2009 to 2010 sorry for retirement was 174% increase in our local cost and then health insurance an increase of 78.82%. So what we're looking at an estimate for this current year is another increase of about 24.6% for retirement and that increase of 80 to $8,500 for state healthcare benefits which is an increase of about.5. Is that right Heidi? What's the percent increase? Oh the 5%. Okay. The 5% increase. Um, so as we dig into our state aotments, um, these are still preliminary numbers that can change. Um, they're planning numbers. They're preliminary. As the state finalizes things, they'll send us updates as we go through the, uh, budget planning process. We probably get, and this is
075why we always do budget amendments as well, like they'll either send extra money or they'll change something. So, um, we always know is it is what it is based on what we have and know that it could change at any time. um state all lots us funds based on our ADM and those funds come in either numbers of position, months of employment for certain categories or dollar amounts. Um so it's different depending on the category. We did get our allotment on April 4th knowing that that's preliminary and starting to look at what how those um allotments will impact what we have um to from the state. But we do know there are several bills um still in the work at the go at the um state legislature that could impact these aotments. Al number one
076any changes in the budget depending on where they land with um raises that could really impact our u bottom line as well as salary changes for school psychologists, nurses, and other salary increases. So we know a lotment formulas can be helpful, but they're also not perfect. Um, and we do have our local aotments that help us determine how many staff are allocated at each site. Um, but we know that those really oversimplify the complex work that our teachers have and that education is. It's you can't reduce the what you need to educate a student down to a simple like one full-time equivalent point. um we know that that's that's not appropriate, but we do know that we do have to start somewhere um and create some equitable guidelines for how we staff at all of
077our schools. Um the other thing I want to point out is, you know, as we look at staffing a lotments, sometimes based on the number of students in a school like let's say Claxton would earn 3.68 kindergarten teachers. Well, I don't have a 68 kindergarten teacher. Students aren't coming in um to parts. we get a whole teacher. Um, sometimes we can share teachers, but we do have to create options where we may have to round up or round down um to fill classroom positions. So, I did want to highlight these are the same numbers that I shared uh with the board two weeks ago just highlighting where our local aotment is different than the state allotment. So, I highlighted our elective teachers um which serve grades 6 through 12. Based on our a lotment of
078one teacher for 150 students, we allocate 15 staff members between the middle school and the high school. This does not include CTE teachers. This is art, this is music, um or sorry, this is art, this is PE, these are all the other positions um that our students take, Spanish, um those are all funded through this formula. And so we are funding 15. The state all lots zero. So that difference is 15 locally funded positions. Uh music teachers, we do fund our music program at one teacher per 175 students enrolled in the program. So of all of our music programs, we earn seven teachers. The state allows us zero. So ours locally funding seven music positions. Assistant principles is another area where the state does not fund at what we do. Um so I've created the
079formula where it's one assistant principal in elementary for every 350 students. uh middle school one for every 250 and high school one for every 300. Um and then I broke it down by months of employment per student as well. Um and just so for comparison, the state allotss us one month of an assistant principal employee. So assistant principles are typically an 11-month employee. Um so one month of their employment is covered for every 900 98.53 students. Um so from the state formula, we would only earn 3.88 88 assistant principles um times 11 months um so just know that that's 3.88 88 time 11. So, we get that many months of employment. Um, but we have 13 assistant principles in the district. Um, having served as a principal, I don't see how you can do the
080principal work without having an assistant principal. Um, I think it's very important to have a good administrative staff. Um, but our difference then is we're locally funding 9.12 assistant principal positions. Instructional assistance. Um this gets kind of complicated on how the state determines the number. How we determine the number is much more clear. So we for every kindergarten classroom we all lot one instructional assistant. For every first and second grade classroom we all lot one um IIA for every two classrooms and for every one um IIA for every three third grade classrooms. So that's when you hear comments about IAS having to split through classrooms that's based on how we have allocated this formula. Now the state a lots it in a in a different way. They create for your K3 they look at a
081ratio they for every 21 students that's a classroom and then they use that ratio to create one for one on kindergarten. So even though we may have because this the minimum class size maximum class size for kindergarten is 17 I think um but they use 21. So those numbers don't match. So they're never going to fully fund how we fund our IAS based on our class size numbers. Same for first and second and third grade. Um so the state allotss us 26 instructional assistants. We have 39. Um and the difference would be 13 positions locally funded. Another big discrepancy for us for when it comes to school-based positions that are enhancement teachers in K5. Um those stu classrooms are funded we from the state level at um sorry one teacher for every 191 students. We
082fund those at one teacher for every 80 students. Um so we staff 21 enhancement teachers across our five elementaryaries where the state only all lots us 8.3 for a difference of 12.67. So just within these five categories alone we are locally funding 58.09 09 positions. Um, and as you can imagine, as we look at all the other staffing aotment formulas, it just keeps adding up for what I feel is appropriate staffing, and that's the minimal staffing, just to create a baseline um, with what the state allocates for our students. One thing the county always asks for in their presentation is what is the percentage of our students or our staffing that's paid for locally, paid by the state, and paid by federal. Um, and just so this number will change depending on the time you
083look at the data. So, as Heidi's making sure we're paying all of our positions as much out of state funding as possible, she'll positions will shift from state funding one day based on salary to another category another day. So at best kind of average um it could fluctuate a couple point percentages. Oh, thank you. Um so locally funding somewhere around 42% of our staff are funded locally about 2.4 2.5% federal. Um and then state funding about 55.8 probably 56% somewhere around there. Um so that's just the breakout of how our staff is funded between our different funding sources. Um, one of the things the board asked to to look at is why are how does our funding formula implementing that funding formula actually impact our schools at this time. So based on enrollment projections from
084this year to next year, we're estimating about 100 students um decrease in the enrollment at the high school in Silsa, which takes three, which would reduce them by three core teachers and a.5 of an elective teacher. um at the middle school. Their enrollment next year is approximately the same as it is this year. Um but we did the merger and we held that school harmless as we were implementing that merger. So that um to to start implementing that formula aotment going forward, I didn't want to rip the band-aid off all at one time. So reducing them by four core teachers and one and a half electives. And then elementary, we're still looking at our final numbers. Um so elementary actually is looking about the same. um number of students K5, but it has shifted like
085we have less kindergarteners, but we have more third graders. So, we may have to shift some classes. Um so, still waiting to see our final enrollment numbers before we make any decisions. Um but what I'll tell you on those four core teachers is those are positions that we anticipate being vacant next year due to retirement. Um so, right now those are unfilled positions that we could fill if we need to. Just a reminder for the board on our budget calendar. Um, a noted change is they did change the date of our presentation to the county commissioners from April 29th to May 2nd. Um, so we will be presenting at 11 a.m. on May 2nd to the county commissioners. So that's just a change on that budget. We do have the state law requirements of May
0861st um for my presentation to you to make sure that you are approving our request to the commissioners. Um, our deadline to submit our budget request to the county commissioners is May 15th and by July 1st, the county must complete action on the agenda. So, they either have to by that date approve what we've asked or um well or not approve but send us our final budget. So, there we are. Um, kind of a information on the budget, the information that I um am planning on sharing with the commissioners. Just a quick snapshot and reminder why we have a a $6.9 million shortfall. and then sharing with the board the two three budget options and we'll come back to this um but we have budget option one which is $3 million allocation from our fund
087balance um increasing our supplemental tax to increase our local tax from the supplement to $ 1.5 million asking the county to increase our local allocation by $2.45 million and that would keep us flat um from this year to next year. um came up with option two and three which in the red you'll see the areas where we're um could make some cuts to try to minimize any additional impact to our student facing positions. Um but the lines in gray are those reductions I talked about from the um aotment formula and decrease in enrollment. Um but looking at cuts on both options for um cuts between eight and nine central office staff positions. Um which I do want to highlight. Our the central office staff work very hard. Their jobs is to are to support our
088students and to support our schools. And I tell them that every single day and they do a great job supporting our schools. and our if we have less central office staff, our schools are going to have to pick up more or responsiveness on how we get things done will slow down or will decrease. So, um that is an area that it is concerning to have to say we could cut this, but I'm trying to eliminate cutting any student facing positions. Um increase decreasing number of days of employment for instructional assistants, bus drivers, assistant principles, and other admin positions would also save us some dollars. Um if we change our local supplement formula, refreeze that um that could save us about $200,000. Um and then again another cut to positions would be um media specialists and
089DLTs. So e those are the three options that um Heidi and I have put together for consideration to the board. Tonight we're going to ask the board to vote on one option to um put in this presentation so that we can send that to the county commissioners. did want to just remind our board that anytime we use fund balance um to cover funds and to balance our budget, I caution the board on doing that. Um we can do it because we have a very um comfortable level in our fund balance. We were able to do that from that increase of COVID funds. Those are no longer available. So anytime we have to use fund balance to balance our budget, that means event and if revenue doesn't increase, we're have to make deeper cuts the next
090time. So it is one of those are you robbing Peter to pay Paul and how are we going to then get either further increase in revenue the next year or make deeper cuts. So those are just the two things to balance. Not that one's better than another, but just so the board clearly understands, you know, using fund balance to balance your budget is not ideal. you want your revenue to increase or expenditures to decrease. Um, so if the board votes on option one, what we will present to the commissioners is to restore our supplemental tax to 0.12, which we anticipate would be an increase in revenue by about $ 1.5 million, and then to increase our local appropriation for Asheville City Schools by $2.45 million. Yeah, thanks. Um, and then one thing we always have
091to include in the budget presentation is we do get a community impact fund and we use those funds to mulch our playgrounds. Um, so we always have to put that in there. But anyway, so that's that's the the gist of the budget presentation that we are working on for the county commissioners for May 2nd. Um, so one of the things the board will have to decide tonight is which budget option you want me to present and submit to the commissioners. Um, and then if you have any input or feedback on changes you think and you're welcome to email me as well on what you think we need to update or change in our budget presentation. Um, so we are up for discussion. I will take notes and answer any questions. Um, board members, a couple
092thoughts just to organize us at some point and we could do it first. we could take a vote on which budget we want to present and then second and and there's one way of thinking we could do that first because then we can give feedback to Maggie about the presentation and um what should stay or come out of her presentation. Um so I will look to you all what is your preference. um point of a question I guess if we have concerns about potential cuts if we don't get what we would like to get. Should we be discussing that tonight or should we be waiting on that? My recommendation to the board would be that we wait and see what we get from the commissioners. We already have options one and two. We can kind
093of mix and match on what if we have to cut where we would cut from within those other options. Um, so I would recommend waiting and then that would be our June uh board meeting because we won't have their final budget until after our May board meeting. Um, so it would be our June work session and board meeting is where we would finalize any budget changes based on what were allocated from the county. Um, so I guess I just do want to follow up with one thing that I didn't think about too much, so forgive me if it's a bad thought, but I'm hearing a lot of concern about obviously studentf facing positions. I'm particularly concerned about the middle school because I think it's had a great year with the additional staffing and I'm very
094concerned about removing any positions because I think it's the school where people are fleeing for no reason especially now it has become a place that's just great. So I guess my question would be and the reason I bring this up is because it can't wait until June. I would like to ask our staff whether they would prefer a reduction in student-f facing positions or a reduction in the supplement given the the increases in salary that our staff have experienced based on unfunded required increases to their salaries. So, in other words, last year we gave a big bump in the supplement and I know we've talked about reorganizing the supplement um that Heidi has proposed and is in our I think our third option or whatever that is. But I would like to know from the
095teachers kind of, you know, hey, what would you prefer? Does that make sense? It does. It makes total sense. Um and that's something we can try to assess and gather some information. My concern is is that that's one I get where you're going with one school, but then I've got seven other schools that aren't getting the same courtesy. So that just I I worry about equity in that just that's my honest response. No, I understand and I think that I mean I I I have responses to that, but I'll let that lie for now. My bigger concern is kind of just asking our educators, you know, when we look at these options, one option that's not up there is the possibility of reducing the supplement to bal kind of counterbalance. And I know that's terrible
096because everybody wants an increase and none of them are paid enough. I just want to say that really clearly. Our educators are not paid enough. They're working hard for too little money. And what would you prefer as an educator to have fewer people in your building helping with what you like? Do you want harder work or do you want more pay? And that kind of comes is where we end up in some ways. And it's a sad state of affairs. But anyway, I just wonder I'm not I only use the middle school as just an example because I happen to know about it a little bit more. But I know from Isaac Dixon where I've been for a million years and from the high school where our kids were that all of them need more
097and nobody can afford to lose anybody. Um so I just I wonder what the answer would be because I know we've had I' we've received a lot of requests as a board to increase compensation and when we're faced with this kind of thing, what's your preference? Because we've increased that compensation and so has the state. what would you prefer? And anyway, that's my thought, but I throw that out there as an idea. Okay. Yeah, that's something I can definitely look at. I'll need some time with Heidi to look at like how much cut in or freezing in the supplement or pay would actually generate additional positions. So, it is it is a little bit of work for us to try to figure that out. Totally understand and I'm sorry. I know I just ambushed you
098and I promise not to do that. Generally I just thinking about waiting until June has me a little nervous if we can if we want input from our right we will have time before June if it comes to that but we can start working on that question I do have a lot of notes we're going to wait until some of these can wait but can we push back to uh what's on my mind right here and probably on everyone else's can you go back to ACS staff and formula FY26 school impact what what I don't see now I see where you got the schools the impact with the changes within the schools the question a lot of people are asking right now is how are you going to adjust your central office to that right
099there I mean it would have been nice if another slot would have been you know this is happening plus my central office staff will have to be I mean if we going to drop a hundred do we still need I mean how you going I mean what's your central office oh I appreciate that question um we just I don't have a staffing aotment formula for central office at this time um but that's something that I am working on with Heidi is how do we determine how many central office staff we need and that's just a formulas that we're still working on and trying to decide like how much work is it for one department? So like do we need four people in HR or can we go down to three? Do we need this many
100staff in curriculum instruction or this much? Because every time we take a position away from central office, it's not like a classroom where you can distribute 200 students between 12 teachers or 11 teachers. It's when you have to take the work of central office and distribute it between three people instead of four. Either works. we have to stop doing something because the work of a full person can't be absorbed by three or can be a little bit but then there are things that we'll have to say sorry we just can't do that anymore so that's why we haven't developed that formula yet but that is something we are working on. Okay, my last question here is uh are we looking at an increase maybe in 27 28 or 28 29 with the U students? It
101could be an increase, right? We could come back. I mean, yes, it 100% could increase, but our enrollment projections for that we did a study on two years ago is showing just a general decline by, you know, a couple students here and there every year. And that's not just Asheville City Schools. That's not Bunkham. That is a nationwide declining population that's driving decreased public school numbers. That isn't a Nashville city school problem. That's everywhere. I mean, I was reading articles every day. I probably get X number of emails from companies that are like, "How do you downsize? How do you try to, you know, match your budget to your It's not an Asheville City School. This is a national problem because populations are decreasing. So, there's just fewer students to educate. And like I I
102get what you're saying like if we do pull back, you know, gain some more students from either private or charter, that number will peak artificial, you know, not artificially, but that number will go up. Then it'll keep going down. Unless we convince the uh TDA to run their ad campaign about how Asheville is great for families. Um, I'm happy to move for um us to ask Dr. Ferman to present option one. There's a motion and a second for option one. Just to pause, I don't know that we need any discussion about option one. I think everybody's pretty clear on it. All I'm sorry. Oh, I thought you were saying something. I have my mouth open ready, but uh Okay. I'm um all those in favor of option one. Oh, we're not there yet. We have
103time for discussion on uh when a vote is called, right? I'm sorry. That's what I just thought I called and you didn't see. You were turning the other way. It's this spec, you know, about the noiseancelling effect of sitting in this location. So, yes. Okay. Then discussion on option one. Yes. Um, so I've got a uh a number of of uh concerns, suggestions. Um, I have emailed you and Rebecca. Um, I appreciate that our superintendent um provided us with the presentation with a presentation similar to this at the work session two weeks ago. Um, and that I believe Thursday we got a presentation with some changes. Um, and last night we got the presentation that we're looking at tonight. Um, because I was in transit, I wasn't able to sit down and and look through
104everything until today um with all the updates. Uh, and so I'll just point out that that there are a lot of things that I would ask the superintendent to review um that I had emailed to all the board and the superintendent. Um, and I I am really wanting more than option one and for us to ask about a no cuts budget and be able to say things that will close the achievement gap. And I think lowhanging fruit would be to ask for money from the other bucket that they have for early childhood education. Um because the county commissioners really do look at that as another bucket. But we're right now subsidizing it heavily from our general fund. And what we could be doing is asking for the percentage of the funding gap, which is I
105believe it's 40% difference between what we receive for Head Start reimbursement and NC preK, but I'm not sure about that number. It could be 30%, but I've heard of different numbers over the years. And I think that that can be an ask that we can make of the county commissioners that they allocate the funds for that gap as a way for us to um I mean $4 million out of our general fund is a lot. And then the other lowhanging fruit would be to return to our IIA aotments of just a few years ago. I mean, I would ask for an IIA for every classroom up through 8th grade, but if we can do, right now we're doing one IA for every two second grade classrooms. If we can up that to one IIA for
106every second grade classroom, I think that is something that we could staff for next year. um and that we just ask for a little more than just a no cuts budget because for me no cuts means we're still living on austerity. We're still cut to the bone. So that's my commentary on that and thank you for allowing the discussion. Do we know how much that we we've looked at restoring one point whatever it is percent. Do we know how much it would be if our awesome ACS parent group were to succeed in convincing the commissioners to do 2%. I'm just wondering if if somehow first of all, I've I've made the motion, so I'm good with option one, but I'm curious about whether we could modify that slightly in terms of how we present it
107instead of just an increase. But if you gave us the 2% that they're gonna you could restore, you could give two. Do you do you understand what I'm saying? Okay. What I'm hearing, Amy, is that you're asking to add amend the option one to include the the 12 cent per 100 um property tax value. It does include that. Okay. Okay. Okay. You I thought you were talking about something different. I think I'm I I guess what I'm wonder I thought Let me go back to my slides and I'm not asking to amend it. I'm just suggesting a thought about it. Um you have revenue increase of 1.5 which is is that that's the whole 2%. I stand in corrected never mind. Thank you. Just for my purposes Amy understanding is we throw two cents around
108because it's clever. Yes. And it's, you know, everybody remembers it, but technically we're at 10 six 10.2 whatever we are 10.68 to get to 12 cents is less than two centreas, but we keep saying two cents. A lot less than two cents. So I sort of wonder if if we're asking for two cents. Oh, sorry. Now, I've got my if we're asking, but I'll I'll just let it do where we There could be some confusion on that front, but where the um voters voted in 1930 whatever was 12 cents, right? We're not going to get any higher than that. Okay. I mean, we would need the voters to vote. Oh, okay. They've got a ceiling of 12%. Thank you. 12 cents. I'm sorry. Thank you. That's all I need. We had just to be clear
109because there was a point a month ago we talked about asking the county to simply increase their revenue across the county and whether we were talking about 2% or not I don't remember but so just to clarify you could have meant ask the county to increase the tax across the whole county but you were actually just talking about going to the full 12 cents. Um as long as that's what our Yeah, sure. I mean, look, I think they should in increase both because I think we need to be better funded and we have no business being 79th in the state. But I'll leave it there because I think our effort right now is focused on getting them to at least return to 12%. What's this 12 12 cents y'all? We got it. We know. Thank
110you. Related. I hold I just wanted to follow up with Liza. Did that whatever question you had of Amy get answered or whatever question you had? I I think it did. I I would just like to ask for the benefit of everyone following along at home um and in this room about the the line item when we when we're looking at the slide that presents the three budget options. Um if you could shine a little bit more light on the the line item revenue increase BC local allocation increase the the difference between the 2.45 45 million or the the 489,000 between option one and option two, what what would be the what would happen to have either of those scenarios? So, if um the the 2.45 45 number came from asking for the restoration of
111our 12 cent um supplemental tax allocation of $3 million in the fund balance. So the difference between those two things and having a a no cuts budget is that 2.45 million. So that's the increase we would need from Bunkham County Commissioners above what we got this year to make us have a no cuts like a no cuts budget to cover that decrease in revenue increase in um we have to got to make up that 6.95. So that's where we're trying to balance the budget between those. So then option two, I was trying to find kind of a middle ground of hey, we know it's not like we, you know, we're not sure what the county commissioners are going to allocate. If they would allocate the increase, that would be yes, that's awesome. But reading the
112tea leaves, I'm anticipating that they won't. So was already coming up with some options for us to consider knowing that that increase might not come and if it does, what would a little bit of that increase? So, as I talk with the county manager, you know, she's like, "Hey, if we can't do this, what's a middle ground option that we might be able to come to terms on?" So, I always try to come with like, "Hey, here's a middle ground of where we could get a little bit extra from the commissioners, but we know if it is a little bit extra, it might not be a whole lot." So, that option two is trying to find a middle grounds. Option three is they don't pass the 12%. We keep revenue neutral on our supplemental tax
113and they don't give us any they keep us flat from where we were this year um with their aotment for us. So it's they don't increase us a penny, but they're not cutting us. So that's those are the the reductions we have to make in um our budget to get us to a balanced budget. Does that make sense? It does. Thank you for explaining that. Um so two weeks ago when we met in the work session we we talked around the idea of like what would our ideal staffing aotment per school look like um if if we had IAS for across the board for where they're really required for for teacher teaching staff to to feel comfortable in their classrooms each day. Um, has there is there another space where we could look at that
114sort of utopian option if we were to increase employment and and that's I'm sorry and I thought that's what we had kind of ended that conversation with waiting for that kind of aspirational budget until we finish strategic planning so we can align those funding efforts with our strategic plan. So that's why we didn't really invest any time on what does that aspirational budget look like. Okay? Because still trying to finish that strategic plan and setting that core direction and then having a very close tie to here's why we need these positions because it will help us achieve this goal. I guess I would I mean for the final presentation I would I would like to see what what the dollar amount would be to have our schools fully staffed as it is without without considering
115the prek expansion that we also spoke about. Um, so technically our schools are fully staffed right now. Like based on our local staffing aotment formula, our schools are fully staffed and based on next year the only cuts we would make would be to align all the staffing aotment formulas with decreased enrollment. So technically they'd still be fully staffed. Um, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So I so we would have to then go back to the drawing board on our aotment formulas and update those and that would generate the n increased number of positions um so that then we could pull the numbers for those. Okay. Thank you. So where we are procedurally is there was a motion and a second for option one. I'm sorry. All right. Thank you. Um So the uh 2,450,000
116um I've I've shared this with the board, sharing it with the public. Um I I understand that if we get our 1.38 cents that we may be able to recover close to 1.7 million. That's I'll cross my fingers on that and that is based on a professional's estimate. Um but it's not a sure thing. Um and I would say that the 2.4 five uh million that we would get as our 15% approximately of the whole increase that I think Bunkham County Schools is asking for. Do we know if they're requesting? We don't know yet. They meet on Friday. Hm. They meet on Friday. They meet on Friday. um that that would be approximately based on those ratios approximately 2.5 cents of a of a um increase in uh assessments. You lost me on 2.5 cents.
117Uh well, if we for that uh $2,450,000 to be available to us, there would have to be an across the w across the board county increase of of a tax rate. And so for us to know that that's approximately two cents, maybe a little more. Well, I I'm just going to I did the math. I differently than you approached it, Pepe. I'm sorry. I got to find my That's fine. But if you take 245 million and you divide it by 0.15, you get 16.3 million. Hey Sarah, what will you talking the mic? I can't hear you. It would if the county does what the county always does. They give an amount and it's divided between the two systems proportionately. The whole ask would be 16.3 million for our portion to be 2.45. Right? And that's
118instead of asking for 126 million, we'd be asking for 130 13. Somebody help me out. 126 plus 16 whatever it is. Thank you. Anyway, that's what that's what would happen, right? It it's uh it would require the county commissioners to reallocate some funds from their current uh property tax rate or increase that property tax rate. But for me um uh 1.38 cents and then the remainder of approximately you know three and a half to four cents um so that our schools are appropriately funded is is not um uh is an appropriate ask. Um so this is where I'm trying to have clarity. I really wasn't for all this before. I am trying to focus this in. It is not our job to tell the county how to raise money. Yes, they can raise taxes. That's
119going to be on them. They can reallocate how they want procedurally. We have option one on the table. If there is discussion and and please keep in mind the presentation is coming up like we've been talking about this and so I I want to check the pulse of the board on asking for more than option one. Yeah. for me. I just want to make sure that we also ask for additional preschool funding. So maybe maybe I just need to call the question on this. Okay, I don't know how else to do this. I need the whole board to eventually agree. So let me just break it down. Do you all that very specific example? We know what we want to ask for to have a no cuts budget. Do we also want to ask for
120more for prek? I would love to ask for more, but no, I don't think we should ask for more. And the reason is because it's a matter of strategy. I already think that um we're doing this and we're making our ask and we're serious about it. And we have also been I think it's a I think that's poor strategy. I'll just leave it at that. I'm not clear at all that that helps us to ask for even more than this. I I would like to request that we include a mention that we know that prek, universal prek would help to close the opportunity gap and that that is something that we are anticipating including in strategic planning and potentially, you know, just saying that that would be an increase if we were to ask for
121that for the following fiscal year budget just to plant that seed. Not that we need a specific dollar amount at this time, but just to to get the ball rolling and in the spirit of collaboration between us and Bunkham County Schools. Um just just that that be included somewhere in the presentation. George, sorry. Dr. Ferman has a slide um additional prek classes that that lays out the funds um as they are or as they could be. Um and so just to to moving it forward a little bit more from what Liz is requesting. I don't you know I know what this is sorry this is probably for the later discussion but including a slide like this in the presentation to say this was a consideration that this board spent some time on and we understand
122that early childhood education is a gamecher in terms of narrowing achievement and opportunity gaps along racial lines. Um, we also understand, especially that that bottom line, recurring staffing costs and what that would mean to increase early childhood, that um, I'm sorry, I'm I'm almost echoing what you said. I'm just putting in different words. Like, here is an opportunity to embody what came about. One of the things that came about from that consolidation study is real collabor collaboration across our two districts with with county commissioners and how we can help get to that point. Uh having said that, I also agree I don't know if this is the year to then say we we're going to ask for this 100 or 875,000 on top of the 2.45. Um but I think putting it in their heads
123I don't think is a I don't I don't mind that part of the strategy. I would add that I also think we asked for option one without further add-ons. And we talked two weeks ago about the concept of signaling. Signaling to them the efforts that will come out of strategic planning, signaling to them that we're serious about showing up as a key partner in increasing prek access. We can't pay for it. That's what we've learned and you know like this is a serious move we're making into what we think about when it comes to addressing the opportunity gap but not in this year's ask or maybe that ask goes through their normal process with their early childhood education and development fund. Um but just so that they know um I just want to say thank
124you very much. I am in agreement. If we can include language like um the our three uh honored members uh who are to the right uh left of you, Maggie, if we can include that kind of thing in our presentation and plant those seeds, then then I am good with moving forward with this. And I'll just add on to that. Um, just as a personally as a board member, I've reached out to county commissioners and had conversations with several of them. And although not against early childhood education, at this moment in time, it is I'm not getting the sense it's the priority that it once was because they have so many other big concerns. So, I feel that that's timely and authentic of us to recognize. Um, so I feel like I don't want to
125over talk this. Are we ready to have a vote on option one now that we've had this good discussion? Because I was just after we vote, we're going to have just a minute, not a whole lot of time to give additional feedback about the presentation, which is where some of the signaling comes in. But are we ready to vote? Okay. All those in favor of option one, I I. Any opposed? It is unanimous. Okay. Um, I would like to ask I don't want to take a lot of time because you all can also email comments to Maggie and I know some folks already have done so. Um, but if you have specific input for her about the presentation that you think you need to offer. I'm going to open up a brief window of time,
126like very brief. Is everybody good? Um, Maggie, I will I've got a few things, but I want to highlight one thing I really appreciate, and it's it's a total it's just a um a visual thing, but the new arrows, having them different colors. I don't know why, but I think just maybe as a graphic design afficionado, I think that design is important. And I do think design, you know, what we're putting up there for the commissioners and people are going to be watching online, etc. I appreciate that change. No, thank you. Can take no credit for that. That was Rebecca. Thanks, Rebecca. Not this Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca abide. She is the master of the formatting. She does such a great job. Other brief comments or feel free to me email them to Maggie. Okay. Thanks
127everyone. Um just reminding folks this Maggie and um Dr. Rob Jackson will present Friday, May 2nd. Um, so that'll be that. Next on our agenda is the personnel report. We have all received an amended personnel report. Obviously, personnel reports are confidential. Um, but we did all receive an amended personnel report and it is now um appropriate to vote on the personnel report as amended that we have all received. So I will entertain a motion. Yes. Motion. Second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving and receiving the personnel report, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Okay. Thank you. Next, we have the two items that were pulled off of the consent agenda. Um, for the March 10th minutes. Um, and let me look back. Yes, the March 10th minutes. Um, all of us
128have received um some comments from one of the board members. I wanted to offer a little perspective and then a a possible way forward. Um the person who does our minutes reached out to me for my recollection of what happened during the portion of our meeting when we talked about the CDBG grant and my understanding had been that we were curious about it and had more information um but had decided not to do anything at that time. I'm not sure that that is really what's in question. Um, I think some board members have questions about whether things that were said were accurate or not. And I guess I want to a recommendation from me would be that we don't vote on it tonight, that each of you look more carefully at the March 10th minutes
129and send me emails that you think of things that were misstated. Again, if just because somebody said something and you don't like what they said, that's they still said it um whether it was right or wrong. but just looking for accuracy about the minutes. And so if that's acceptable, we can move forward in that way or I'm open to other suggestions. I'm sorry. Um I don't know. We pulled it off the consent agenda. I guess I would need a motion to um seek further input and then we would vote on it at our next meeting if that I don't know. I'm making this up. Does that sound process-wise you got concerns about? I'd make a motion to table to to table the approval of these minutes um until a subsequent appropriate board meeting. Is there
130a second to table? Second. And just to be clear, we're only tableabling it for a little bit for you all to give me the input so we can fix the minutes. I don't intend this to take a long time. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. So, that's how we'll deal with the March 10th minutes. The next thing that was pulled up the consent agenda was the um school nutrition calendar. Um we Pepe, I may just need you to address your concerns about this, but to remind the board, we talked about this two weeks ago. We looked at the calendar and um it was Melissa I've forgotten her last name. Sorry. Changed I can't remember. Okay. The the school nutrition director recommended to us and at that time it felt like the board was ready
131to move forward on the consent agenda with the calendar as presented for purposes of clarity for employees so they could plan ahead. Um there's now been a request that maybe we want to have more input from affected staff. And so my question to this board is what would you like to do with the school nutrition calendar? And Pepe, why don't you just go ahead and speak to what you had said to me? Would you say that again? You're it the audio got garbled. Um just that last bit you you when you were speaking to me I the the calendar was on the consent agenda at your request it was pulled yes for further discussion and what this board has an opportunity to do is vote for the calendar we can just have a straight up
132vote um we can have discussion about it um and and I just wanted to offer you Pepe a chance to last week we were unanimous that this would move forward forward to the consent agenda. I think you've had some additional thoughts. Why don't you share those? My conscience tells me that I well I do not I am uncomfortable and aware that in the past the board has sometimes approved a change not knowing what the consequences are. Um and we had a bit of an issue with with uh changes in bus driver compensation. And so I just want to either table this until the next uh work session so that we can get more information about whether there are any staff that this would negatively affect um or that the board be open to if we
133get negative feedback about this revisiting it. And I'm also curious whether this change fits into the option two or option three reductions that were in the budget presentation because if we're going for option one then this change might be premature. And so if if Maggie can clarify that that would be helpful. Yeah. The the option one that the board approved we would not reduce their days. Um but we also Actually, Heidi, I'm not remembering. Option one includes no cuts, which does not include a cut to the days for instruct for new school nutrition staff. The area where we do need to rectify at some point is school nutrition staff are getting paid for days they don't work, which is against the law. So, this is just a proposed cut for for um uh opt for
134optional work days or to kind of revisit what was said last week. So, thank you. I came from other districts and I also researched this with other districts to make sure nothing had changed before I actually jumped the gun last year and talked to Melissa, not realizing this needed to come to the board this year. And um there aren't other districts that pay cafeteria staff on days basically that don't generate revenue. Now they do also, you know, value the fact that those employees need training. They need to open. They need to close. You know, there's other events we might want them to participate in. But overall, that fund is unique and it's an enterprise fund and it's expected to break even. and we've had other prior conversations where we understand that's not happening. So when
135I saw our practice here was out of line with the standard across other districts, I discussed it with the director last year and she had actually already announced that to staff last year to let them know this calendar was coming, but then Dr. Maggie felt like we definitely needed to let you know and weigh in on that to make sure you were also comfortable with that decision. But I apologize for that. I jumped the gun on that. But that is a standard practice across other districts. And we have also made sure to incorporate those additional training days and days they can have crew and days that they can participate in other activities like other staff, but try to trim those days back to something that would help sustain that program. Thank you. So this is
136not a surprise to the staff, right? And just as a reminder, the the point was to provide clarity to staff earlier rather than later. I do feel like that was said two weeks ago and I just want to remind folks about this. So it is off the consent agenda and it is up for a vote about whether we want to approve this calendar as recommended to us or not. I have a quick question. Have we um so with the bus driver and other examples that I can recall, we get feedback pretty quickly. So, have we received any feedback from our nutrition staff that is negative or concerning about this proposed calendar change? Back up. So, obviously none of us ever want to hear that we're not going to make money on certain days or we're
137going to work less days. Um, but the truth is most of those staff definitely did not work any of those days. So the director and I felt like as long as we communicated that far enough ahead for planning that they the majority of people would understand why that's structured that way, especially since we were an outlier compared to other districts. But I'm not going to say that that won't affect those families that will have fewer days paid. I mean, it's obvious that that is going to happen. Um, but again, we're trying to rightsize everything here and that is the the way that that program has been structured. Did Did you say and I think I recall Melissa saying that she has talked to her staff about this change? Yes. Last summer. Yes, ma'am. Last summer.
138And then as I recall, she said most of them were okay with it. But am I misremembering? Yes, she did say that. And because a lot of the entry level people also actually don't even have enough of leave days to get paid on those days that are those non-working days anyway. Um so it's more your veteran staff and then of course Chartwells has a whole another pay structure in place for all the new hires and they would not pay on those days anyway. So we have that kind of discrepancy already built in with our grandfathered in school district employees compared to what Chartwells does as a contract company and Chartwell is going to stay with us for another couple years. Right. As far as right we're not we we have a couple more years in
139that in that contract. Yes sir. Was that not approved for a one-year annual renewal or we've we'll be bringing that next month for the the annual renewal. Okay. And just so that you're not surprised, I will be asking for a version that has those employees on our payroll but still working with Chartwells. Um because for me having the discrepancy in how staff is paid and having our some of our lowest paid employees um uh us balancing the books by having them outsourced through Chartwells. That's something that is a concerning thing for me. Well, pay equity was part of that contract so there isn't a discrepancy including benefits. No, not including benefits. Yeah. So that's the piece that that is concerning to me now. I appreciate that. Okay, folks. What's your thinking on this calendar? In
140the the interest of transparency, um, with the proposed calendar in hand and having been released, um, I'm open to tableabling it until next month to vote just to give a period of of due diligence to leave an opportunity open to staff to let their thoughts be heard. Um, knowing that this is the vote is forthcoming. Is there any um downside, Dr. Ferman or Heidi, to that plan? In other words, I know we wanted to give them advanced notice. Would next month still suffice? I believe it should work fine. Yes, ma'am. So I understand we are there's going to be a motion to table this and the thought is we will see what responses we get over the next month and then this board will have to deal with it because we have to pass the
141calendar. Okay. But we can give it a month and see what it says. Um see what folks tell us. Um is there a motion to table this till next month? So moved. Second. Can I ask a question before we vote? Sure. Was there There wasn't a second. So, oh, a second. Okay. Thank you. No. Yes, please. Um, in the expectation I believe I'm hearing by tableabling is work to be completed to gather information. Okay. Thank you for that clarification because I didn't appreciate that. I'd like to clarify that then. What did you hear? I thought we were just waiting to hear from staff. What did you hear that you had to do that? We'll have to we have to gather that. So, I'm not going to anticipate that they review the agenda and send us
142input on their own. We'll have to actively send them an email, gather feedback, analyze that, and Okay. Well, um I wasn't I wasn't expecting that just for the record because I was kind of I'm sorry. I I thought the concern was just that we haven't heard we haven't had it out there long enough potentially for somebody who was concerned to identify that concern. I don't know that I personally think it should be that the staff needs to go out and solicit that information and then report. But I kind of Yeah, I would offer then from that perspective that the information has been out for a year um with and so that's why I asked because without there being an active effort to do what seems to me like a staff project to intentionally go get
143more information, the information's been out there. Melissa shared with us that she's shared it with the staff. They've talked about it. They've for over a year now. So I I have a concern about just tableabling to see what happens. Okay. Could we use the opportunity to engage with ACE and invite their collaboration in this rather than initiating a new staff project to gather it? I think that if ACE has a concern, they will let us know between like soon. I also think if they had a concern that we already would have heard about it because I find ACA to be quite responsive and diligent and so I think that after last week's work session, if they had any real concern, we would have heard about it. I'm not um I don't think we need to
144table this personally. I'm only kind of open to it because it's not going to cause harm, but I don't think that we should ask staff to go in and dive in and try to ferret it this out because at this time of year, I think our staff is busy doing other things that are maybe Anyway, I'll just say that I I I am in the same same vein of thinking, Amy, that we I don't need a formal data dive on this, but just to to provide with with spring break having happened between the work session and this meeting. I would just like to table it to give ample time for anyone who is at home pouring over our agendas and discussions. Okay. So, there's a motion to table. It's been seconded. I don't think we're
145asking for any affirmative action to be done to seek input. I think we're simply allowing more time for input to be received and then we will vote. I would like to tell all board members that if the county does not give us everything we want, we have difficult decisions to make. I just want to look all of you in the eye. I know it is very difficult to make decisions that decrease compensation to our valuable employees. I hear all of that and I agree with you. I am just we are not going to be able to always solicit information on every decision we make. It gives me some concern that we're setting a precedent here, but I'm because again with the bus drivers, they just let us know. But what I that's my personal opinion.
146Um, but the motion is to table this for a month and see what happens and we'll vote next month. Okay. All those in favor? I. Yeah. Pepe seconded it. He did. Yeah. I Any opposed? Name. Watching you work up to that, Rebecca. Okay. It still passed. Okay. The very last thing we are going to do and we are only Did it get tabled or It got tabled, but you don't have to do anything else. It is tabled to be voted on next month. Um, we all received an email from Representative Prather about uh Senate Bill 131, Article 39. This is not a protect protracted conversation this evening, but we all received this and anyone can reply to her if they wish. I wanted to find out what she asks in her email is um all
147of you have seen the revisions to Senate Bill 131 and how it's been amended. Um she would like to know if our school boards have consensus on our position about the new language. Whether we're in favor, neutral, or in opposition. She goes on to ask if there's changes that would be made that would lead us to support it. We can let her know. And so I I I'm putting the question out to us. Do we have consensus on the amended version of SB131 that we wish to convey to our state house representatives? That's who's seeking it. Sarah, I know that you're uh you said that we don't need to have a prolonged discussion about this. I do think it would be helpful to enumerate what those changes are because we're the only ones who have
148gotten that language and for the public I think it would be helpful to know what that those distinctions are. Sure. And I think um right it's a public bill. Um, but I can from memory the original way it was introduced by Senator Moffett, it asked that article 39 funding as allocated to the school systems in Bunkham County be suspended was not the word used, but for two years that it go back to the county for general use. Anybody can correct me, but that was kind of what it is. I believe it was in the finance committee that this got retoled recently. I'm not sure about that. So, don't quote me on that. And the way it reads now and any moment, this is gonna pull. I printed it for Here we go. Um, does anybody
149have it? I can't get the bottom half. Hang on. Oh, you want to go ahead, Jesse? Okay. Uh, what I read, Are we talking about what? Yeah. Right there. Yeah. So basically what it says is that um instead of all of it being suspended for two years, it will be 50% um would be allocated for school capital outlay which under a normal terms that is to say right now 100% of that funding goes to school capital funding. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. And under the amendment 50% would but read the debt replacement. Nope. Start read what isn't there a sentence in there about debt. Do you want me to kind of summarize it? Yes, please. Okay. So, under article 39, the this the county levies a 1 cent sales tax. They keep 50% of
150it. So, they keep 50 cents. The other 50 cents is allocated to capital projects for Asheville City Schools and Bunkham County Schools. Every year we go to the county commissioner, the county capital commission fund meeting and say, "Here's the capital projects we have. here's what they can fund from that 50 cents that they're collecting. So what the bill has done is said for the next two years instead of those 50 cents coming to capital projects is there are abide they have to do to abide by the law that the county commissioner the county the capital county commission group will decide do those funds need to go to capital projects or should we allocate them to the general school fund and then the k the that recommendation will go to the county commissioner ers and the
151county commissioners can either vote yes, we'll uphold what the capital fund commission is saying or nope, we're going to go ahead and decide one way or another. So, at the end of the day, it owes up to the commissioners to decide what is going to happen with article 39 funds that 50 cents fund for to go to operational costs or capital cost expenses. Sorry, capital or operational expenses. If they vote to move those funds into operational funds, we have to share a portion of that with all of the charter schools. Also, the way I'm reading it is that that funding would be allocated in a similar proportion as our other um educational aotment. So about 15% to Asheville City, the other percent remaining percent to Bunkham County. And just one other make sense. So, one
152other change because I want George to speak to this actually is instead of the school capital fund commission being in charge, the amendment actually says that the use of funds would not be under the control of the commission, but would be determined by the board of commissioners. So, George is our member who serves on that commission. So, I wanted actually to call on you about what you think about about you just want to hear my opinion like what Okay, cool. Um, I think we we met as a commission a couple weeks ago and there was some consternation in that meeting about the first of all the way that the um the lack of communication as this thing was starting to move through the general assembly. We as a commission weren't even really apprised of what
153might happen until this most recent meeting. When we as a commission get together, Bunkham County and Asheville City um each present their lists of capital projects and that can sometimes be a project like for example here in Asheville City Schools a very recent one was the complete rehabilitation of the Asheville High School auditorium. Um that was a almost a $5 million project. There are sometimes very much smaller ones. There are sometimes much larger ones and it all depends on the scope of the work. The commission then is given kind of a they're given basically a cap on what they what we should be spending in that fiscal year or approving in that fiscal year. And we decide not based on ADM but just based on need or capital project what projects are going to be
154funded both for Nashville city and Bungham County. Historically over the last few years Asheville City Schools has actually been funded at a fairly nice clip if we're if we're comparing ATM right or we're comparing even number of schools. We have nine or 10 buildings and Buckn County has 47, right? Um, and then that commission makes its recommendations to the county commissioners who then decide or since I've been on that commission, every single recommendation that the commission has given to county commissioners has been approved. Um so reading this knowing that that the decision around capital expenditures could get pulled out of the commission's hands uh just means that then it goes straight to the county commissioners who then can make those decisions. I think there is real concern if they choose to fund operations then those
155money those monies do have to be shared with our charter schools. There's also from my perspective in those meetings and every meeting even if we're not deciding where the money goes, you have folks from both districts going deeply into the work that's being done. And so that's usually the CFOs of both districts, but also the um facilities people, the operations people of both districts who really know those buildings in a way that I don't I mean no shade on the county commissioners, but that's not their job. They don't know those buildings the way that the people who are living in the or working in the districts do. So that would be another concern is that putting it in the hands of the commissioners, they just might not have all the the knowledge or the understanding
156of what our buildings need. One final thing just to mention and this is this comes up a lot is um it's not the commission's decision well the commission actually I guess it is it's the finances behind the commission to decide whether capital expenses are paid for outright or what's called payo or um if they are um if they're released through bonds and paid overtime through bonds. And of course if they're paid through bonds it's a it's a longer process. there's interest acred, so you're you're spending more money. However, the commission has never had enough money to fund, say, the building of a new school, something like that. Some things have to be bonded, but that's also a real consideration we're uh invested in in this commission. And and if this passes and there's fewer monies
157coming straight to the commission to decide, um my guess is that there will be less things that less large projects that could be funded because we just don't have the capacity to put bonds out if we don't have enough money coming in to pay for the interest and the um and the payments on those bonds over time. Is that okay? Um, again, Lindsey Prather has asked if we have consensus. I I'm not hearing anybody so far saying they're in favor of the bill. I don't know if we wish to be unanimous in our opposition to it. I don't know if we I'm just sort of looking for the will of the group. Um, I'm going to speak for myself. I sat through my very first commission meeting recently. Um, and the needs of our buildings
158is staggering. Um, the I remember the auditorium, it wasn't going to pass fire code. We didn't do it because we needed a pretty auditorium. We needed it because we weren't allowed to have kids in there because it was a fire hazard. Um, we I sat there and listened. There were presentations about school safety efforts and how to put lobbies in the buildings. Um, there are buildings in the Bunkham County school system that have no sprinklers. I didn't know you could do that, but like these buildings really are desperately in need of capital. Um, so the I'm just going to speak for myself. I I don't know how we support this when our capital needs are so great and the county's capital g needs are so great. Um, but that's just me personally speaking. Yeah. And
159I'll also say that there for me there's a real fear that if this passes even though it's under two years that it could just be perpetuated over time. And then um then that also brings up the fear of whether the commissioners will just use those monies to supplant what they can't give us otherwise. Right? And therefore it's that we're, you know, that ask that we're having gets drawn down a little bit because the commissioner and are saying, "Oh, we've got these extra funds coming in at the expense of ongoing capital projects." The reason this commission was created, my understanding was that for years in both districts, capital expenses have been deferred, deferred, deferred, deferred, and and the buildings were really in rough shape. And so passing this law helped create this commission that could say
160yes, we've got to put this money only to capital projects. And so eliminating that through this um legislation, I think really could set both districts back for years in terms of capital expenses and upkeep of our buildings. I'm I will happily not happily I will say I'm certainly opposed. And I note that um Rob Elliot, who's the chair of the Bunkham County Board of Education, noted, I think, that the sponsor of the committee, highlighted that there would be an examination after two years as to whether to make the change permanent, which is exactly the concern that I would have that you speak to, George. um that this is one of those times where you make an easy fix theoretically in response to um a geologic event that was awful and now it becomes a way
161to make that more comfortable and we go back to before. So I I think it's an easy no. I think Pepe had something to say for me and I I shared this uh with our board chair and with Mr. Elliott earlier today. The only situation where I could conceive of supporting a bill like this is if they amended it to require that all diverted funds would be covered by the community development block grants for disaster relief uh North Carolina's chunk uh or uh covered out of the North Carolina general funds um because diverting this fund we need the these monies for our capital needs. We've got a lot of grandfathered uh situations in our buildings and in Bunkham County schools that we really uh need these capital funds to address. Thank you. I don't know
162that we need a formal vote. If you all are comfortable with me reporting back to representative Prather that we are unanimous in our opposition to the and I think we would authorize you to uh chair Sarah Thornberg to if if you and Rob Elliot want to do another joint letter. I think we would authorize you to do that. That doesn't mean you have to. I second that. I'll circle back with you. Okay. Thank you. I felt like it was it was important to respond to her. Um, so I appreciate y'all giving me a few minutes. Okay, we are now Do you want to call the question on on you being designated or or authorized to speak on our behalf for whatever you and and Rob Elliot or you decide is appropriate or is that just
163implied that you're authorized? I would have assumed that you all were okay with me doing it. Okay. It would be within the realm of the board chair. Would it Are you all comfortable with it being within the realm of the board chair to do what we talked about? Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. All right. Superintendent's report. Did I mention it's my birthday and I would like to go home? Yay. Um Okay. This Yeah. And I my report is pretty short. Um, so I did want to celebrate that we have um and I met with these I met with our middle school students this morning. I met with the high school students this afternoon. We have convened our first official student advisory council meeting. Um so super excited to share the names um with
164the board and um what I and our first meeting they dug right in. They watched the board work session about the grading presentation and were ready with feedback on those five core principles. Um, so really just they jumped right in and we're ready to go. So I was really excited to get their input and capture that and I'll be sharing kind of their input with the board when we do our next work session um on those grading policies. So they were a great group of kids um and then gave them a homework assignment to start thinking of like what are the things that you think changes we could make as a school system to significantly improve the experience um for every student in our school district. So they've got some homework um and they're going
165to start thinking about convocation because again next year these will be the facilitators and the MC's of convocation for our staff. So really excited to highlight these student leaders and to um have them support the work that we're doing. The other thing that we are going to start is each uh board either work session or regular session two middle school students and two high school students will give a report to the board on how things are going um at their school and once we start adding elementary we'll be adding that that as well so the board can hear directly from students. So we'll talk more through what you the board wants that to look like um so that you can hear from our students on a regular basis. So really excited for this group to
166start. Um couple weeks ago I went to the um North Carolina Administrators Association conference and on behalf of all of Asheville City Schools um accepted with great humility um as well as all the other Western District superintendents the Raymond Scarboro leadership award for our efforts as a school system on um how we responded to Helen. So that was a really nice honor. And then that again is for our whole school system as how we showed up as leaders in our community um to support. So that was a really a really nice honor. Um also that's I think it was the same week there. It's all running together. Um Marta and Matt Whiteside and I um facilitated a panel discussion with NC Park scholars. And I didn't realize this is a really prestigious scholarship award. Um
167but they had a a question and were studying the digital divide and equity. Um, and Marta and Matt had to facilitate the conversation without me for a while because I was running late, but they did such a great job um, facilitating this discussion. So, had a great time. Got some really, really good feedback from the scholars. They each wrote letters to us sharing what they appreciated. Um, and I've even had some additional follow-up email conversations with several of the scholars. So, so it was a really great experience to meet with those amazing um, NC Park scholars. Um, also, uh, that same day we talked to the scholars, Melissa facilitated our first community partner summit. Um, so one of the things the board had asked that I do when I came on to this position was
168to inventory and take note of all of the scholar of all of our community partners, what they do, who they serve, what their areas are. So Melissa has really taken that um and has created a really um detailed list of who does what in what service and what area, what their supports are, how they serve students. And then she brought all those partners together to map out as a as a group committee where they serve, what they do, what their core values are, who they serve, so that we could identify where there are gaps. And then the next phase is once she's kind of collected all that data and analyzed it to then explore like, hey, if this is a an area like we need more support for the arts after school, is there a
169community partner that wants to step in and fill that gap for supporting the arts as an afterchool program? Um, so that was really great. And the other thing that came out of this is the community partners want support from the district on how they can help us meet the goals that we have for our students and achievement outcomes we have for our students in so much a way that they would like to like if we're do if we're using a curriculum resource like Bridges or Whiten Wisdom helping them know how they can plug in after school and support that um those efforts and even having some of our staff go to their programs to deliver many some mini group instructions or small small snippets of instruction. Um so it was a really productive event. Um
170Melissa, she's not here today, but she did such an amazing job with her team um on facilitating that conversation. Copeland also helped kind of group facilitate. And the picture that I had at the very beginning are four of our high school students that came to help present and share information as well. So it was a really great and productive event. I'm looking forward to what comes next um from that convening. I did also go uh to Raleigh a second time and attended the state board of education meeting um which was very interesting. It's actually a two-day meeting. So they do their work session on the first part uh the first day of their meeting and then they take action on the second. Um so a couple big things that are coming up. Um they are
171they did approve permission to start looking at new math standards. when that will come into I don't know but I was like okay so you know te signaling that we're going to start looking at new math standards across the state was a big takeaway for me. They also approved phase two or this draft two of our new language arts standards which is going to be a big shift for our teachers. It really is changing um what the language arts standards look like. It's decreasing the number while it's increasing depth. Uh, but I think it's a much a much needed revision to our English language arts standards to really make our students at that college and career readiness level. Um, so I thought that was a really good signaling um, from the state board. Another thing
172that I'm taking away from that board is um, they really appreciate Mo Green. Like they had a lot of support for Mo Green. Um, there was no real dissension from one state board member to another. you could see how he has brought them together as a state board of education to support public schools. So that to me was a really really refreshing update as he shared what he's learning from his listening tours and his vision for public schools in North Carolina. Um and then uh also he led the charge with this meet with the state board on how they should respond as a as a committee and as a board to the changes coming down to the US Department of Ed drafting a letter getting ready to send that. So I it was a really
173a good way to see our new state school superintendent shine in his leadership role. So I really appreciated that I was able to go and attend that meeting. Also want to highlight um Derek uh Edwards and Anna Gillespie who just did a presentation at the legal conference for North Carolina State Board School Association on implementing the cell phone policy um at Asheville High. Anna gave kind of the legal perspective and information and Derek gave some really great information on what it's like kind of implementing a no cell phone policy kind of the the pros the cons the you know the little hiccups and potholes that you might hit along the road and they also got some really great feedback on that um panel discussion as well. So I want to thank Derek and Anna for
174leading that um panel discussion. Do want to highlight uh strategic planning is up. We're going the community survey is out there. Um, hopefully you saw a really fun video with a cougar running crazy on campus um, at the high. That was a lot of fun to do. I really enjoyed that. Although I realized at the end I should have done my video at Derek's desk before I ran around the field in the school because it was so hot in that mascot uniform. I took that I was like, "Oh my god." U, but it was a lot of fun to do and I hope it caught people's attention the way we wanted it to. Um, so that survey is open. and we're collecting that data. And then we've got our business partnership and community partnership input
175meeting next week. Uh we are hosting it this at Wickedweed um to gather community and business partner input on what they want to see for graduates what they're looking for in employees to really polish and round out. We've got student input. We've had staff input, parent input, um Asheville City Schools staff input, and now we're going out to the business and community partners to get that well-rounded multiple perspectives on what we should be putting in our portrait of a of a Asheville scholar. So, kind of where we are with that, we're with that phase. Um, we've got a lot of data and what I've really appreciated about Dr. Lavender and Julie Kanki is their understanding that we have tons and tons and tons of data but not a lot of information. So, taking that time
176to look at all these reports, all the data we've gathered across so many years in Asheville City Schools, including some of the reports or some of the um studies that we've completed, which is our enrollment projections. Um last year, we also did the facility usage report. Last year the handover did a massive strategic planning notebook for us. Um we also have um our CTE we had the handover also do a CTE labor market report for us. What are the jobs growing um in our in our region? What are the needs um that we have so we can align our CTE programming with some of those job um markets. And then at last year, I also did a listening session where I went to every single school and really took time to listen to our staff
177to understand what they love and cherish about Asheville City Schools. They did a really great summary of what the key takeaways were from that listening session. Um, so they're taking all of that data as they're starting to put together kind of where we are and a map of our current state of Asheville City Schools as they build the portrait of a graduate. And then the next step will be for all um for kind of taking all that information, meeting with our staff and saying, "Okay, here's where we know we want to go. Here's all the things we have in place. What do we need to push to the side that's not serving us and what do we need to either scale up or add to enhance what to get to the results that we're looking
178for with our students?" So that mapping the state is next. Um the plan is for June for the report to come and the presentation to come to the board on what are those what does our ACS portrait of a of a scholar look like um for board approval and then the phase of that too where we know we've got learning outcomes what we want to see with our students but we also want to take a look at and be good stewards with our facilities and this ties back to that consolidation study on how are we planning long term in a really smart way for how we're using and taking um being the best stewards with our funds, but also understanding what's the best use of the facilities that we have. We've got all of our
179schools, we've got central office, 441 Haywood, um William Randolph campus. Are we using all those facilities to the best of what our community needs? So, what that long range facility plan will take a look at every piece of Asheville City School property, look at our enrollment projections, our facility usage, and lots of community data. That's another piece of that study is gathering input from our community to to come up with some options for the board to consider. Do we want to sell X property or do we want to add pre-K programming, you know, in a in a building. So, they'll come up with some long range options for the board that is aimed at meeting the needs of our community and being the best stewards with our um financial resources that we have available to
180us. So, that is the the window closes for submissions on that RFP this Friday. Um we'll look through those. We'll interview those companies and then decide which one we pick. Um and then once that's done, we'll have to bring a contract to the board um that includes here's what this um project will look like. So um we'll need approval from the board because I'm it will be above um the cost of what something I can approve. Um so that's kind of where we are with strategic plan, where we're going with strategic planning. And um now any questions or comments from the board? Thank you, Maggie. That was great information. Appreciate it. That is a lot. Um I I'm looking at these things as things that I want to read and know more about. Um so
181maybe I can reach out to you about um reading what we've already got. Um, I am concerned that we take old studies and we run them through a meat grinder and and come out with recycled conclusions. And I think the the board would benefit from um having conversations at some point about um what capacities we need to have in our buildings, what we need to reserve in case a charter school goes out of business and other considerations um beyond what the what the cookie cutter capacity um or the capacity numbers on the old maps will show. And so I'm hoping that we can have that conversation in the next year so that we can provide guidance for what kind of planning we want to have. Other comments for Maggie? Maggie, I think you've given us
182a really beautiful picture of all the things that you've been up to and how you're pushing forward with our priorities. And I'll sort of in response, you know, to what Pepe was bringing up acknowledge with the time that I've been on this board that uh one of the really intentional aspects of this approach to strategic planning was to not go out and ask questions that have been asked and asked and asked over and over. and that the my take on the list of studies and reports already completed is that they're they're not very remote in time. I mean through our hiring of you and through the the various projects that have been happening just recently the the group had an awareness that we didn't want to go seeking more information when so recently we've been
183seeking information um and people feeling a sense of getting the same questions asked over and over again. So, I just want to uplift that that that was a intentional focus and that all the work that's happening now to gather more information. I appreciate you can't go to our website right now without being asked every time you click to fill out. Um, so I thank you for all the ways that this group is working. I would I would really quickly add if I may that all the responses have been really consistent too through the times that we've been asking. We've been hearing kind of the same answers about what our priorities are as a community and as a school community and so I I think that reduced the need to go out and ask again. Any
184other comments? Thank you Maggie. Um we have no other business before us. Our next um work session and board meeting in May are back on the first and second Mondays. There's other dates in the agenda. And would anyone be willing to make a motion to adjourn? I have an announcement. Okay. Um, I was uh was blessed to stumble upon the Sold the Story podcast series. Um, and I just wanted to bring to the board's attention and the public's attention that there are three new episodes for that series. And the first of those new episodes, episode 11, talks about uh a school district um with a high degree of p of poverty and challenges um overcoming and exceeding um uh performance goals being an outlier. And one of the pieces of their success story is near
185well 80% of the students uh have early childhood education provided for I believe it's a $100 a month if they can pay um for third you for three year olds and four year olds. So, it's a real success that builds on that early childhood education. And I encourage all of us to check out those newest episodes and sold a story and you can Google that and find it on any streaming service. Thank you. Appreciate that. Tomorrow is the Dr. Bob Moog um Moog. Sorry, I know it's Moog. Dr. Bob Moog sound school at 9:30 tomorrow. Orange peel. At the orange peel. Just have you say it. So that is a reminder. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. Motion. Second. I move that we adjourn. Oh. Oh, I didn't hear you. Did you just say that, George? Did
186you really? I'm so sorry. No, I think you were. I think I will second that. I'm ready. You're ready. I I opposed. Okay, we Happy birthday, Sarah. Happy birthday. Birthday Sarah.