001e e e everyone for being here I'm going to call the meeting to order um all board members are present so we have a quorum and we will open our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance two three Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and my apologies I did um skip over the equity statement which is what we typically read to open every meeting and so at this time I'm going to ask Amy Ray to read the equity statement in Asheville City Schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and thrive we recognize that our positions come with power responsibility and public service for the
002entire Asheville City Schools Community we will model our commitment to equity through our practices and our decisions during this meeting we invite a pause if harm has taken place a moment to name the harm and a space to practice repair thank you um we will now um vote on the agenda and I note that we will pull the 2420 excuse me 2526 Schoolboard meeting calendar off the consent agenda to speak about it separately but apart from that I'm not aware of any other changes to the agenda board members is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended by that consent item so moved second all in favor I I thank you our agenda is now approved and at this time we will hear from Derek Edwards about a high school field trip or his
003standin as you can tell I'm not Derek Edwards but I am here to um get permission from the school board to go on a beautiful trip um so we have we put in in Octo I mean I'm sorry right before Christmas to take a trip to China and this is our Chinese class that we have over at the high school this is our most Equitable trip that we have outside of our country for our students and this is due to the um due to the relationship we have with the Chinese universities all our students have to do is get over there and then they pay for everything else and then so um the trip which takes place on June 11th through the 26th is a 14-day three City trip the students will be going to
004uh Beijing Shihan and um Shanghai and uh this trip is called touching the veins of civilization the students will also get to go to school with Chinese stud students and um spend the day inside of their school and see what it's like but also be able to go out into their community and see what it's like to live as a Chinese student so um we have um we're just really excited for our kids to be able to do this um it's not only about being able to take the trip but it's also about learning tolerance and learning about another culture besides what we on TV and that is that is very important to our kids and we just really would like to be able to take them on the street thank you Miss Jefferson um
005board members later in our agenda we will actually have a formal vote on this field trip but um do you have any questions of Miss Jefferson before she leaves any other information you would like about this trip um thank you Miss Jefferson and I appreciate uh the effort to make this Equitable um just one two questions I guess I have in terms of making it Equitable if a student can't afford to travel to China is there any way that any any thoughts about how you might make it available to students who can't afford that fair which has to be pretty pretty stout yes we do um I've Mis leang his has always said if there's a student who cannot afford it to let her know and the the company that we work with um allows
006for that type of um help for our students okay and then um let's see I see 10 to 15 students and then I'm just curious you mentioned that they would be going to classrooms um with Chinese students do they stay with a Chinese family at all or is it they staying they will be staying in the same place that we're staying at so we'll always be able to be in contact with them I say us because I'm part of that you're one of the chaer yes yes I appreciate that okay thank you very much yes this sounds like a fantastic opportunity uh I did want to ask in the event that a student becomes ill or there's a um uh a need for them to return home are there provision ISS like accident Insurance uh
007to take care of the students and the chaperons yes we do have um we do have insurance travel insurance that that um the cost which is 2500 will pay for it pays for their ticket it pays for the registration fee and it pays for their insurance I have complete confidence that this is going to be a fantastic trip thank you so much for being a part of it thank you Miss Jefferson no problem um I understand there is a second field trip that was not listed on our agenda but there's also a field trip for Lucy Herring that we will hear about good afternoon almost evening board Dr Ferman it's good to be with you tonight I am here to represent a new club that we've opened up here at Lucia's heing and it's Odyssey
008of the mind and so we have had several five different teams who are working with students and um so I don't know how much you know about om but it's a very interactive way for students to delve into science topics and so they have a vehicle team doing the Amazing Race um a technical mechanical animal sidekick team a classic Classics cooking with books a structure save me structure and an astronomical Odyssey team so we have a lot of parent volunteers that have been working this school year and we are excited that we are going to be hopefully taking a overnight trip March 21st through the 23rd I believe it is the event takes place on March 22nd and um they would be departing at 12:00 on that Friday and then um they would be competing
009at the state level in Jacksonville North Carolina and so the fee it looks like um if parents can take students and drive it would be around 2500 for gas boarding and food for the whole team and then if that is not possible Cassandra love our second grade teacher who is running the OM teams um she has gotten an estimate from Young bus line and it would be about $6500 so we are looking at applying for a grant through Asheville City Schools foundation and other grants um and I believe there's a possibility of other fund fing and we might need to do some other fundraisers as well some local school fundraisers so um this is something that in my time at the school we haven't been able to offer something like this to students and it
010is serving third fourth and fifth grade students so we're really excited about it board members do you have any questions this too will end up as an action item at the end of the agenda but other information you'd like from Mr Amerson when do we vote on this one tonight also uh Dr Ferman can you remind me when we what is the parameters of when we have to vote on these and when we don't what makes this one that we have to vote on okay thank you so it's not this isn't asking us to commit any funds outside of this is just can we do it okay thank you um this sounds very exciting um similar to Amy's questions could you talk a little bit about um how many students would be going and how
011students you know could you tell us some about the diversity of students who participate in Odyssey of the mind and and how students are made aware of participation and are there any barriers to participation for families who may have a challenge with paying so we do have 28 students in these different sessions and um we have two diverse students out of those 28 so ideally that is not where we want to be this is our first year going into om and so that like in preparing to present this that's one of the things that I looked at and evaluated from an admin side of things and I do think one of the barriers could be that if we could find a way to integrate this into our hearing Hearts after school program next year then
012we could reach a lot more diversity that way and those students I think that this would really be invigorating and so that's that's my goal after today and looking and preparing for this is that we're able to really think broader in terms of how we're um making this even more Equitable and just so you know we we do have some students who are identified as academically gifted and then we also have some students who are serving are served by our EC teachers that are in here so we are reaching students across the board that way as well and giving them the the opportunities that they deserve thank you very much we appreciate thank you I appreciate it I'm sorry George did you it's actually a question for the board um and for for both um
013requests knowing how we've we've talked in the past about wanting to have some time to consider before something comes up to a vote is there a reason that this is on the action item tonight as opposed to next month is there some time frame that we're working with yeah the Odyssey of the Mind One it was the where they got in qualifications and the kind of the immediate turnaround for the next trip if they like if they get through the next level then it's like a short turnaround so we wouldn't have time before that trip to get approval at this time I'm call on Dr Kim deant for our good news so this is our first good news for 2025 and it's really bringing you a lot of great news um Asheville City Schools is
014proudly celebrating Black History Month we recognize the profound effect of black individuals on our history culture and future our black staff students and families enrich our district every day the district kicked off the month with a strategic planning Community launch event featuring a screening of black and Asheville a documentary by Asheville High School alumnist Todd grag followed by a community listening session R Jones Elementary celebrated Black History Month with its black Excellence scholar event featuring student performances art shows of historical black figures and local leaders and as special performances by Shirley whide the Delta house jban Bishop elect DL M mcday and Johnny Hayes majorette and drum corp principal Cobb and the staff were thanked for organizing this successful event and thank you to principal Cobb for your outstanding leadership and to the staff and
015organizations who worked hard to make this incredible event a success and I heard that we have some students here this evening who would like to come up to the front and read their poem [Applause] what is black Excellence by Samantha rers what is black exellence it's you and it's me displaying of a talent for everyone to see black Excellence is power Black ex is resilience dominating many fields without anable Brilliance right black excellent is inspiring black excellent is strength chasing our Dreams by any means or length black excellent is outstanding black excellent is Unstoppable knocking down countless barriers to achieve the impossible black Exodus Dynamic black excellent is breathtaking being a role model for the future stars in the making black excent is Zer black exent is me striving to become the very best we
016can be all right thank you guys thank you thank you 24 Asheville City Schools Educators were recognized for exceeding growth Targets on the EOG eoc's and mclass assessments the curriculum instruction team surprised these outstanding teachers with with certificates of appreciation and small gifts congratulations to these Educators and their High achieving students at this time I would like to recognize the 24 teachers who exceeded growth and if they're here if you would come forward and stand in front of the the board Brian Schultz hotti Freeman Tess Tarico Ariel Robinson Jessica Norris lovia Jackson Elie Lindsay Victoria Allen Paula Martinez Patty Evans Katherine Gooding Chelsea fiser Mitsy Levering mallerie cesla luri Jones Laura da Sarah Ballard Margaret CA Maryann Simmons shenica McDaniels Lee Smith Marie smitka Priscilla green and Cynthia Watkins [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank amazing Asheville
017City schools has six new national board certified teachers Tessa tallarico Kathleen Turner and if you're here if you'll come to the front uh Dan Edward Coleman Ashley Lauder Allison shilot and Victoria Allen re research demonstrates that board certified teachers improve student learning particularly for underrepresented and lowincome students enhance their own practice and show a commitment to Excellence these teachers also receive a 12% pay increase from North Carolina thank you so much Asheville City Schools celebrated school counselor Appreciation Week recognizing the invaluable role counselers play in supporting students academics their social and emotional well-being their tireless efforts and compassion make a lasting difference in the lives of students at this time I would like for Kim Jones I mean Kim Robinson to come forward and make a special presentation we have way too many CS good
018evening as Dr decet stated last week the state recognized school counselors um and this week along with last week Ash for City Schools will be uplifting and celebrating school counselors this year student services decided to vote for recognize the school counselor of the year a school social worker of the Year mental health and nurses so seeing how a school counselor week was last week we're going to recognize school counselors from February to February when we sent out the spreadsheet the form for people to uh nominate a counselor they were also asked to give a reason or share story as to why they recognize uh nominated this individual and I'd like to share one with you all this counselor started out as a school social worker quickly became an excellent school counselor in just a few
019years she is constantly seeking knowledge to better herself and input from colleagues and professional development she is also willing to help her colleagues staff members students and parents above and beyond what is expected of her our jobs can be difficult and heavy on our hearts and Minds yet she does an excellent job of providing the social emotional support for her students so this year I'd like to recognize Miss Courtney Booth as school counselor of the year yeah thank you and if we have any other um student services staff and would you please pleas stand up to be recognized thank you for [Applause] coming there is a lot of love in February and February is love the bus month we're celebrating the dedicated individuals who ensure our students safety and wellbeing on their way to and
020from school let's show our appreciation this month for our hardworking and dead dedicated bus drivers if we have any bus drivers with us tonight if you would like to come to the front and we'll get a picture of all of you in in front of the board come on [Applause] bear I'm spending more time in front of your than you are yeah [Laughter] [Applause] awesome come on in [Music] thank you thank you February 15th is resource officer Appreciation Day Asheville City Schools thanks its sro's for keeping our schools safe supporting students staff and families and building vital relationships that help them protect and serve our community and I don't think we had any SRO that were able to make it this evening this past month seven Asheville City Schools teachers were selected to receive $2,000
021Awards each from the Rotary Club of Asheville this is their annual teachers of Excellence ceremony over 40 teachers from bunkham County and Asheville City Schools were nominated eight teachers out of 40 were selected and seven of the eight were Asheville City Schools teachers the Asheville rotary awarded a total of 14 ,000 to our Asheville City Schools teachers and this year's ACS Award winner recipients are Gabriel aler think Carol's here Sarah Duffer hope Willis Rodney Workman Jesse pit Samantha acock and Marie smka I think she's already left if you see these teachers please uh tell congratulate them and tell them how much you appreciate their hard work and dedication Dr Ferman has been out spreading the love this month as well superintendent Dr Ferman presents the clom cougar Awards to ashel City School staff who exemplify
022the district's three promises creating a sense of belonging engaging in challenging and relevant material and making every second count staff are nominated by colleagues for going above and beyond and here are some pictures from uh when she went out into the schools and gave out the awards congratulations to Asheville City School band students over 115 Asheville City school students from Asheville Middle School Asheville high and silsa earned all district band region jazz band and western region Orchestra honors a record of 47 students qualified to audition for All State the most in the district's history and more than any other Western North Carolina School the district is incredibly proud of these students and hard work and musical passion Mr Workman wasn't able to join us this evening so when you see Mr Workman give him a
023huge Shout Out Asheville High School's football team received the Army National Guard's next greatest Generation award one of only 10 given Nationwide the team was honored for uniting the community and providing hope after Hurricane Helen demonstrating strength and courage during a challenging time the members of our football team were recognized by the Army National Guard during Tuesday's game for their demonstration of strength and courage during what was an was an exceptionally challenging time for our community and if you uh last week in the paper um they were featured on the cover of the sports section for their hard work and I will say that uh some members of my team were able to serve them lunch this summer when we were going through the hurricane as a thank you to what they were doing for
024us during that time and I could not say enough about the politeness and the kindness of those teammates and um the coaches have done an outstanding job of uh serving as positive role models so this time I'd like for Coach r to come up in front of the board and and show you this amazing Banner he got and we are very appreciative of all their hard [Applause] work Co appreciate thank you thank you at this time we would like to recognize Dr Jim Cosby who some of you have have seen before and uh has served in the interim superintendent capacity for us and we are glad to welcome you back for this special presentation do I get an award also members of the Board of Education uh superintendent mie it's a it's a pleasure to
025be here with you and it's much better sitting down here than where you sit me but it is a just wonderful to hear hear all these accolades and of course those of us who've been associated with the system for some time know that this is the kind of school system you have and these are the kind of folks that you have working for you I'm here tonight representing the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching now I don't work for them I volunteer for them so this was just a chance to put on a tie you know I think I I don't think I've had one since I left I might have worn one to church one time I'm not sure but what we're here for tonight is talk about the beginning teacher of
026the year award the official long title of it is the buroughs Welcome North Carolina Center for advancement of teaching beginning teacher of the year a war uh this is our SE sixth year that we'll be presenting this it's actually covered seven years but we missed a year because of covid when we could not come together I guess it was sometime in uh 2018 and I was just finishing up an interim superintendent in a system just north of here Madison County and I got a call from my good friend Brock W Brock is executive director of the incat center uh incat is a state-funded operation it was put in place initially by Governor Jim hunt a number of years ago and they have two locations they're located on okre coke Island and they're located in col
027and K is the largest campus they have a beautiful facility there with uh Motel top where they bring teachers in for a week and do staff development with just fantastic training and they also reach out we've asille City schools has used them for a lot of different things with teacher uh training activities but Brock asked me he said I want to run an idea by you I said okay and he said want to try to come up with some kind of a way to recognize beginning teachers and also to help encourage folks to become teachers and to enhance the availability of folks and said want to try to do that through incat and maybe have an award of some kind and I said that sounds good so I thought that he just wanted my advice
028and I said is there any way I can help and he said yes he said would you be willing to Cher the steering committee putting this together and I said how much of that project do you want me to do and he said all of it all of it and it's it's been a a real wonderful thing for me enjoyed it very much and we've recognized some wonderful wonderful folks Karen suer is here she's executive director of encad and she'll share more information but I do want to also say to you of the six years that we've done this and she'll give you numbers and kind of about how the process goes but Asheville City schools has had three state finalist okay out of six years yeah you can do that cuz I don't know
029if any other system that has done that I think you're the only one so and in fact the F first one was actual runner up for the state award so it's my pleasure to be here and i' really delighted to to help honor a real outstanding young educator you have you going to hear about it okay Karen if you'll come and you all so many of you know this but working with Dr Cosby on this project for the last seven years um has just been one of the blessings of my life and I consider him um one of my most important mentors so it's always an honor when I get to to see him and and celebrate this this labor of love with him so good evening uh Luca will you please come forward and
030I'll have you hang out with Dr Cosby here for a minute we want to celebrate you for a little bit on behalf of the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching it is my privilege to announce that Luca Clemens has been selected as a finalist for the incat 2025 buroughs welcome fund North Carolina beginning teacher of the year award this recognition highlights Mr clemens's exceptional contributions to the teaching profession and his remarkable impact on the students and Community here in Asheville City he is also a UNCA graduate go Bulldogs very exciting the beginning teacher of the year award was established to celebrate the creativity resilience and dedication of first year teachers across North Carolina each year more than 7,000 new Educators enter classroom Statewide and this award honors those who exemplify the best of
031the profession while addressing the unique challenges of beginning teachers Luca Clemens will be attending a week of professional development with his fellow finalist in March on March 27th incap will celebrate all of these finalists at a recognition event on the campus of UNCC Greensboro at incap we are committed to advancing teaching as an art and a profession and we're thrilled to celebrate Mr Clemens as a shining example of this Mission please join me in congratulating Luca Clemens on this outstanding achievement we are pro pleased to provide you with this certificate recognizing you as an incat 2025 buroughs welcome fund North Carolina beginning teacher of the year finalist I've got a second part to this presentation but could we take a few pictures with Dr Cosby and Luca and the board [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay hold
032that hold that spot for just a second if you don't mind we would also invite Deborah rety on behalf of Empower to present Luca Clemens with a check for $250 ower thank you thank you Empower supports North Carolina Educators in their retirement investment plans I am thankful for Empower support of Education in North Carolina [Applause] yay thank you for being here to celebrate this outstanding outstanding educator we appreciate Asheville City schools for recognizing Luca Clemens and the beginning teacher of the year program thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all oh so the winner will receive um $5,000 cash uh $250 additional $250 for classroom use and a Go Global trip um in 2026 that's worth about 6,500 and Counting so some good stuff let go and a diamond bracelet so you know there you go and
033we would love to see as many of you as possible on March 27th in Greensboro as we celebrate all of those finalist we we really lift them up so thank you so much thank you just a special thanks to enat for being here and celebrating with [Music] us before I conclude good news this is what happens when you go off script I want to uh also give a shout out to anab bolic and Tina Robinette who are our band directors at the middle school and also to Joe fig leolo who is the assistant band director at Asheville high school so if you see any of them please give them a huge shout out for the major accomplishments with um all of our 115 band students moving forward forward and so with that that concludes good
034news for February [Applause] 2025 thank you Dr deket at this time I ask Shannon bagot our assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction who's going to share some information with us good evening board members and Dr Ferman I am joined by some of my teammates here in our curriculum instruction Department Molly peoples Ernest sesum and Tiffany delhagen um this evening we will be giving you kind of an update of where we are as far as middle of the year um in our data and I just want to first kind of Center some of the goals that we've had in our district work plan three main goals at standout first all student groups will either meet or exceed growth 50% or more of our black students will score proficient or higher and then 100% of our staff
035members will feel a strong sense of belonging know what's expected of them and have the tools to meet those expectations so centering those goals we provided um some information or going to provide some information to you about our achievement with those goals so this evening we're going to share with you our current demographics we'll talk a little bit about some Universal screeners and tests that we're using to measure student growth we uh the star test being one of those mclass usns which is a math number sents we'll talk talk a little bit about our tutoring initiative we'll talk a little bit about the walkthroughs that we've been doing with our El coaches and share some bright spots and the next steps for some continued growth so first of all this is just a little snapshot
036of our district overall demographics I'm sorry do you guys have a copy of this in front of you awesome thank you I know sometimes those numbers can be a little hard to see on the screen and this is also a little snapshot of our free and free and reduced lunch percentage by grade level in grades 3 to through 12 just to give you a little idea of where we are with our free and reduced lunch numbers yes sir sh do you have some raw numbers besides percentage that we can see instead of a percentage actually ual numbers of students in each grade level yes especially the first category um the current District demographic and all the rest can you share those numbers with us the actual numbers of the for the demographic slide for this
037one yes I'm curious about it yes I don't have them in front of me but I could get them for you I I've got them in front of me and I can share that link uh to the website thank you so some of the data that we're going to share with you today um for elementary is going to be mclass which is a a measurement of literacy the usns for math for secondary we're going to share some star data and then for high school some end of course tests for first semester which is math one math 3 English 2 and because this is a year with new science standards we won't have any of the biology or science EOG tests until August because it's a new Norm tests we also use NC checkin for um
038for some formative assessments but not all of our schools have that second Benchmark done yet since we've had a loss of that 20 days everything has shifted a little bit so not all of our schools have that middle of the Year data in so we don't have the check-in data right now for you so I'm going to have Molly come up and talk a little bit about our mclass scores so mclass is a universal screener given to kindergarten through third graders across the state here in Nashville city schools we give it to K5 um here you can just see our students where they scored at the beginning of the year so at the beginning of the year we had 55.5% of our students at or above Benchmark and then at the middle of the year
039year we climbed up to 60 um even though we missed 22% of our school days from in that first semester we're still seeing growth at every grade level and in almost every subgroup um at the middle of the year last year we had oh I'll go back so this is um also a hyperlink here um to this Universal screener data dashboard that you can get to and manipulate if you would like to you can go in and you can manipulate it by school you can see it by race you can see it by individual subtest um but that hyperlink will um take you to a data dashboard that should be able to dig deeper if you're interested in of that data um and then if you break those numbers down by race um at the
040beginning of the year we had um for our black students 32.1% at or above or Meeting those what we call Universal screener benchmarks and then we saw that go up a little bit at the middle of the year with 33.33% at or above Benchmark one thing I want to note is that these Benchmark shift so for example at the beginning of the year in first grade a student to meet that Benchmark for say phon name segmentation fluency they would need to read 31 sounds in one minute by the middle of the year that same subtest a student would have to read 43 sounds correct per minute so this really isn't just Apples to Apples each one of these benchmarks you're shifting those subtests and that overall composite score quite dramatically um so these are the
041scores for the middle of the year and the beginning of year sorted by race and you can see that on that um dashboard as well and then for our fourth and fifth grade students this we had 62.2% at or above at the beginning of the year and we saw that shift to 68.1% at or above in the middle of the year um what we're really seeing that is very heartening to me is that even though we are off a little bit compared to um last year at this time we are still seeing growth so here is our racial demographic breakdown at the middle of the year for fourth and fifth grade beginning of the year we had 31.2 at our above meeting Benchmark and then we had a little dip down at the middle of
042the Year by race in fourth and fifth grade to 28.75 meeting Benchmark do want to reiterate that if we look at middle of the Year from last year we had 64.8% of our students meeting our benchmarks as compared to 60.4 this year um this is a really big deal to me because we lost 22% of our days in that first semester and we're only off by about five percentage points in the growth that we saw from year to year so this tells me that our teachers are working incredibly hard to make up these gaps and they're working hard to catch up these kids where they are based on their targeted needs that was it for mclass Greetings everyone I am going to In The Same Spirit of universal screeners after Molly has just shared with
043mclass for literacy I am going to share some data for our screener for math specifically number sense so I want you to understand and and just keep in mind that these are basic fundamental skills of math these are just representing one domain of the many that are tested on our state assessments so there you'll see our beginning of the year data in terms of proficient students basic below basic and then well below basic so you can also see the comparison from beginning of the year to the middle of the year and this is also showing a shift whereas in the beginning of the year there's going to be one set of expectations and then that changes for the middle of the year as well so as you can see with the 72.5% and the beginning
044of the year we are still holding on and sustaining at our 70.5% for the middle of the year in spite of the absences that we've incurred on the next slide you'll see a comparison for beginning of the year and middle of the year for our student race composits for K12 I'm sorry K2 and so you'll see our groups broken down at the bottom I did want to make sure we shared our proficiency for our black students for beginning of the year we were at 4539 per. and then for middle of the year we were at 39.2% also if you look at the other groups you will see that there was very little shifts from beginning of the year to middle of the year but our teachers are working very very hard our leaders are working
045very very hard to sustain achievement and to fill those gaps um due to absences from the hurricane lean as well as inclement weather now you can look at how we compare from this year's middle of the year for 2425 and last year's middle of the Year 23 24 so as you can see and looking at our proficient students um you'll see that we're at 76.9 and we're currently at 70.5 so if we're looking at comparing where we were last year to this year we're definitely seeing some optimism considering the days that we were absent the first semester the next Spirit of information I want to share with you is relative to our North Carolina EDG Corp um we partner with North Carolina EDG Corp for literacy tutors for ele school and here you'll see just
046some demographic data of the students that were served last year and the students that are being served this year very similar to Graphics from year to year so we always want to make sure that we're impacting our students and that we're utilizing resources and initiatives that are making achievement gains so here you'll see for kindergarten first second and third the beginning of the year and end of year results and these are students that are at or above Benchmark so for kindergarten you'll see a growth from beginning of the year at 12% to 60% % at the end of the year first grade 19 to 55 second grade 30 to 57 and third grade 31 slight increase but definitely something to be celebrating 36% what's different from this data that will be for this current year
047is that we've also included fourth and fifth grade being served for North Carolina Ed Corp as well so for our Middle School we're looking at the star Universal screener so this is reading grades 6 through 8 and you can see we've uh broken It Up by um white and black students and their growth with the total number of students in each subgroup and the performance from the beginning of the year to middle of the year so we're still not where we want to be as um I said for our goal is 50% or more of our black students being proficient in all areas so we still have some work to do here as well as in math um this is the same cohort grades six to8 broken up by black and white students the number
048of students um for your reference in each cohort sh Shannon can I ask a question yes ma'am these are just beginning of the year Am I Wrong beginning of the year our middle school has not taken the middle of the Year star test they're only taking two this year and due to the hurricane like I said everything has shifted so we don't have a middle of the Year data point for them so this is just beginning of the year okay thank you we also look at Asheville high and their first semester eoc's for um English 2 math one and math three you can see where each demographic Falls for each of those tests and we do have plenty other eoc's second semester actually most of them are second semester but this is just a snapshot
049of what is offered first semester and for silsa silsa only has a couple of courses uh that are math three and all of the rest of the silsa eoc's are going to fall second semester because most of their courses are yearlong rather than for a semester so we just wanted to give you a snapshot of where they fell the first semester and I want to give you an idea of how teachers use some of this data now um the NC check-ins which I know we didn't show you the data here for that because we don't have all the data points just yet because not everybody's taken those middle of the Year tests but I wanted to show you an example of some data that teachers are looking at um after these tests and how that
050informs their instruction so this if you look on the um across the top there this is a snapshot of third grade my Pointer's not going to work so well on here nope doesn't work on the screen if you look across the top there are three different domains for this data this is third grade math and for the third grade math for example the first domain is measurement and data the second domain is numbers and operations and the third is operations and algebraic thinking and so what the teachers are going to see is they're going to see all three of those domains each one of those columns is a particular question and it tells you the percent of students that got that question correct both at the class level the school level and the state level
051for example so when teachers get this data they're going to see how their students compared to the rest of the students in the school in that grade level that took the test and then also across the state so in this next slide I just wanted to take just a little chunk of that so if we just looked at measurement and data for example and on the third grade math test that particular standard looks at how well can students interpret graphs and interpret meeting from those graphs and make inferences so if I were this particular teacher for example and I looked at uh my class percent correct and compared it to the school in the state so um for example one of the questions you can see that the teachers's class got 80 81% of that
052teachers students got that particular question correct whereas the rest of the school only 69% % of the students got it correct and across the state only 61 so the teachers may ask themselves you know what is this teacher doing to meet this standard because that teacher's student scored so well on that item and so then that teacher may share that data with the rest of their third grade colleagues for example and even vice versa let's say that that teacher's students scored really low on that particular standard or their that item then we dig a little deeper and talk about okay how can we teach this differently um is there another teacher in that same building that scored higher how can they share practices so we drilled down pretty deeply in this and if you had
053this uh if you were one of those teachers the blue hyperlink you can click on that hyperlink it'll give you the actual question all the choices and so the teacher can use that as a teaching tool moving forward so this is just one example and I I'm using the checkin because the checkin is more closely aligned to the eoc's and the eogs and it's very standard-based and it's pretty rigorous so teachers are really drilling down into um into these item analysis more closely so if we look at some of the bright spots in the data excuse me across um K through 12 we are noticing that the number of our students that are at Benchmark are above Benchmark are slightly increasing we also notice that in comparing particularly for our elementary students their reading compared
054to this point last year we pretty close as Molly said even with missing 22% of our days to both the hurricane and inclement weather we're still not far off from where we were last year even with that loss of instruction so we feel like our teachers and our leaders are working really really hard with their pacing to make sure that they're keeping up and then we're also so showing some really great effects with our NC EDC core tutors the students that are working with those tutors are showing some great growth and as Mr sesam said we've expanded that to fourth and fifth grade in the past we were only going up to third grade but now those tutors are serving our fourth and fifth grade students as well Shannon I'm sorry and um I didn't
055want to interrup interrupt Dr sesum but I'm going to interrupt you will you explain a bit more about that NC core Ed to tutoring like where does it come from and how are students identified we have a partnership um with NC edore and we do pay for the tutors we use and feel free to jump in if you like we're um primarily using our Title One funds to fund them and they are more so focusing on literacy not not math but literacy but they're there's some pilot programs across the state with their tutors in math so we're hopeful in the next year or two they'll include the math as well but the teachers um identify the students Based on data do you add anything absolutely um just in to add to that that um North
056Carolina airt provides training for our tutors as well so we really lean on them to provide the Equitable training that they need to work with our students um we have a tracking system where we can actually look at their progress every week so we're always monitoring that our principles and their leadership teams they've really done um deep dives into the data to identify those students to be um serviced with the tutorial programs as well um this just this year um they gave us about $116,000 for instructional resources to support our tutors and just intervention overall in our schools so just with the partnership with North Carolina Ed tutors uh we're excited about their impact for literacy we're also hoping they'll give us a math component as well in the future um but yes definitely because
057they're funded by Title One one we want to make sure that those are the students that are being serviced primarily by the by the tutors could I ask a followup question before you head off about how many students are receiving NC Ed cor Services right now doesn't have to be exact I the information I can give you right now is that each School based on their Title One funding the determination about their needs they requested certain numbers of tutors so every school has the number of tutors that are customized for their needs um so one school may have two another may have four based on the needs of their students and so that is um how the elementary school principal select their tutors uh with that it's really about the grade levels that they're targeting
058and so that would determine how many kids they serve but it's about a 30 minute uh instructional block per day um throughout the day for different groups and um I will tell you from looking at the data and looking at the grade levels that are served the most part it's a full day of tutorial service um another question are we able to see the data from each school I mean right here you have all the schools together correct are they broken down by each individual schools yes that data is available you but we don't have that information in front of us right it's not in this presentation but we definitely have it broken down by school we receive a report um every week from latera and that's their platform for inputting data so it's definitely
059available but something we can get to you is there way you can send it to us I'm looking that is what I would like to see Pur scho this information if it's possible he I appreciate it thanks don't step away too quick um I'm really curious um having uh volunteered for several years with Reed to succeed whether this is a substitute for that program or some students are served by that some are this or how does how does that compare with with this program absolutely uh our read to achieve initiatives those are separate from this this is a supplement so this will supplement those requirements um the requirements for re to achieve are really primarily housed with the class room teacher and the number of minutes that are supported for those students that qualify making
060sure they have those additional literacy instructional minutes during the day but the tutorial services are an additional support majority of our schools if not all of them have an intervention block so during that intervention block which is outside of the literacy block they're able to get those tutoring Services uh that is uh great I was um uh wondering whether Reed to succeed a Asheville was still um providing tutors to our schools different from read to achieve I don't believe they're in every school my understanding is in ashel city they're only at claxon right now no they're at Hof fler as well thank you for the correction um that's a local nonprofit that has been doing tutoring and I'm aware that they've connected with NC edore and share information and work well together so that there
061is no you know misplacing but a lot of collaboration between those two groups yeah thank you Rebecca Molly was just saying that they put the re to succeed tutors push into some of the after school programs as well and so we can get those numbers by school the tutors that are served um with the number of students served school I can get that to you so some next steps for continued growth and this is K12 we uh we in curriculum and instruction are supporting substitutes for teachers when they want to do some data Dives we're also supporting um so we call it tots teachers observing teachers primarily for beginning teachers as well we will continue using the check-ins mclass usns and these screeners to make sure that's informing instruction kind of like the example that
062I gave you we have uh some phenomenal coaches K8 instructional coaches who are working with our PLC teams on a weekly basis we're using some of our uh TSI funding to support student subgroups we have four schools that have some additional funding to work with students with disabilities in our black students we um are using some Title One funds for some math tutors in addition to the NC edore tutors we're trying to make that shift in plc's to focus on standards which is what our eoc's and ergs are focused on so our coaches are doing a lot of that work in plc's we are utilizing title two funds like I said for the teachers observing teachers and some letters training title three funds are used to support our ml teachers and our ml students and
063we're hopeful that a project serve grant that um our team has written will come through for afternoon Academy which will be tutoring for grades 3 through 12 so we're hopeful that that will come through but we don't have any final word just yet on that also wanted to briefly talk a little bit about our El school work plans the work that our El coaches are doing with our schools is to address that third goal of making sure that 100% of our staff feel a sense of belonging and our coaches are working with leadership teams at each individual school and we feel like those leadership teams are getting stronger and stronger they're grounded in common learning work on walkthrough indicators and the three primary uh indicators that we're working on is that teachers promote peer-to-peer problem
064solving that they use a gather and go which is a way of grabbing students attention when they're getting off task and also making sure that stud students are effectively engaging in protocols and so right now we have done Baseline walkthroughs with all of our schools and some of our team members have been a part of all of those walkthroughs at each individual school to get Baseline and at the same time we're doing some professional development with teachers there were some staff surveys that went out about a month ago to all of our staff to ask them kind of where they are with the development of this staff crew and here are some of the bright spots that our e coaches gave us that overall there's a positive perception of respect and acceptance that crew supports
065professionalism and reflection and that there is there are some effective small group engagements are feeling like when staff members have opportunities to truly engage in smaller groups the conversation gets deeper and they're able to build those TI of relationships amongst staff then also out of this survey there were three areas for growth that our EO coaches gave us they would like to see us increase our opportunities for participation in leadership and Dr Maggie has started a kind of a Leadership Academy as well we've had um a lot of participation um surrounding that but we also want to make sure that within schools our leadership teams are giving leadership opportunities to other staff we want to improve our conversations around race and Equity making sure that we're getting to some deeper conversations um around race and
066equity and not like some folks are saying that with our crew activity sometimes we know we just kind of start off with some low stakes questions and low stakes greetings and readings for example but once we become familiar with each other we want to move to those uncomfortable conversations about race and Equity so we want to start moving forward with that and then strengthening our administrator and staff relationships we know that as an administrators of buildings um the day-to-day operations get quite busy but we want to make sure that our administrative staff is still building those tight relationships with their with their staff just want to read a couple other things um really quickly that our El coaches gave us they said that from the walkthroughs that they they've been doing at our elementary and
067secondary schools they're saying for elementary that the classrooms feel warm and inviting and respectful they definitely see a sense of culture and character that's very evident across the buildings students are ready to learn that most students feel focused and on task there are some students using academic vocabulary without any prompting and most teachers support student ownership over learning for secondary classes they're saying that in most classrooms most students were deeply engaged in learning they observed that teachers were deeply committed to supporting all students and in 60% of the classrooms they saw evidence of teachers providing support encouragement and opportunities equally well for all students in class and that students were using academic and content vocabulary during student collaboration activities so those were just some comments they made and they've done quite a bit of walkthroughs
068in our schools over the past few months are there any other additional questions that you guys may have for us um the that last point just caused me to have a question you said I did you say 60% were teaching all students sort of from different backgrounds equally was that the statistic in the secondary schools they said in 60% of classrooms they saw evidence of teachers providing support encouragement and opportunities equally well for all students in classes okay super and so I guess the follow-up question is I understand that's just a walk through and so it's a snapshot it's not the whole time um but I wonder if we've considered what kind of supports we can offer to the 40% um where they didn't see that because I think if they they were probably hoping
069to see it and if they didn't see it that causes me to wonder whether or not we can provide some support to make sure we could see it in 100% and that's what this whole work plan is all about like the entire work plan is moving this work forward and like I said this this is just a Bas line and there are some really great spots like for example um at the middle school Tiffany along with our instructional coach an O'Brien uh did a professional development session now they've hit all three grade levels and all elective teachers where they were modeling some of these practices some of these protocols where you engage all students all the time so we want to make sure that we're sharing common language common experiences common strategies across an entire
070school and then ultimately across an entire District so that these Protocols are engaging every student it's not just a few students during the activ ity it's certain strategies that engage all students that's excellent and and if teachers are not able to attend that particular because I think that sounds really important if teachers Miss that is there a way for you to Circle back or are you circling back to make sure that they get the content absolutely and it's also a team effort because um for example the one that um I attended one of the sixth grade sessions and each team decid decided like for example um one sixth grade team said we're going to try this you know back toback face- Toof face protocol and literally When Tiffany and I were leaving the school we
071were in the parking lot a teacher was texting me saying look I did it like she took a picture of her kids she literally left that session and went and tried it and so their team is committed to chunking or taking one practice at a time practicing it doing it well so that the students become familiar with the activity as well and then they'll move on to the next one so they're they're teaching each other together as a team as well doing that work together thank you um when you start talking about staff at a school developing a Common Language and uh common processes um it recalls for me the importance of um on the elementary school level for example um having time for staff to work on their common approaches to classroom management discipline
072guiding students and when I say discipline I really mean guiding students not punishing um and so I'm wondering is is this part of what you're talking about or is that a whole other thing and is there space being made in this whole process for staff at the elementary school level to um look at something like conscious discipline love and logic developing common practices within that school how is that support mix in with this kind of support I think it's a both and because when you have that common language and common strategies amongst a team and a school then students become more familiar with that expectation right you're and ultimately it's about changing the culture of a school and that is our ultimate goal um and these strategies that the E coaches are working with us
073it's it's building that sense of community it's building an equitable engagement participation and student voice so I think it it's a both end that's fantastic thank you it makes me very happy to hear this I just um I thank you all for that presentation and I'm going to say something that we all know I just want to make sure it gets said like you all um we appreciate the goal that 50% or more of our black students will score proficient or higher and like you um we're you know continue to be concerned that that is not um we're not seeing significant growth I know you all are working on that and we trust you I just wanted to say out loud we we continue to find that a very important goal and we appreciate your
074efforts behind it I think that's a perfect segue because the the question I wanted to ask is you youve a I I really appreciate that we're looking it can be pretty scary just to look and that's for you and for teachers right and to build up our ability to say no if we don't look we can't do things differently um and a lot of the data you shared with us was really impacted by the time out for the hurricane and I wonder from your perspective with everything you've been looking at and thinking about if you have any Reflections or ideas or more to share about what you think for the rest of the time we have these kids I think obviously your your bargraphs made us very interested in tutoring right um what what do
075you what's your sense of what it's what's going to move us the farthest towards our goals having just had all that missed instruction so our teachers have really been look looking at their pacing right like as soon as we came back from the hurricane we we knew we weren't getting those 20 days back so it's like okay where do we concentrate our efforts and there are U and we have it on our Hub and we've talked to our coaches about this for each of our EOG EOC tests there are testing specifications which basically say like for this third grade math for example it'll say what percentage of the tests May cover the you know orders of operation and algebraic thinking or the measurement in data so they know what percentage you know of their entire
076standard course of study where those weights are right and where um which area carries more weight and so we of course want to make sure that we're assessing those areas first so they have been looking at their pacing they have been looking at um those testing specifications we're hopeful that we can and not only use our tutors that we currently have in schools but I'm really hopeful that we can get this funding from the project serve Grant which will allow us to have after school tutoring what's in the grant is Monday through Friday grades 3 through 12 all the way for the rest of this year and next year I've written the grant through June of 2026 so is transportation in there as well so I'm hopeful that we will be able to serve our
077students outside of the school day again not just you know in an after CARE program but more intently with their certified teachers um but our coaches have really been working really closely with our teachers to keep our teachers on track and their pacing knowing that we just won't get those 20 days back yes please I think also it's staying really focused on our El work plan that is grounded in continuous Improvement for equity and so making sure that we are holding that plan with Integrity that we're monitoring progress on our walkthroughs that we're providing the professional development to teachers after we do those walkthroughs and continuing that cycle that strategic cycle of improvement um the more focused we are on what we said we're focused on the better the results are going to be it's
078when we get distracted by situations that arise um that takes us from like where the true work is so we're looking also longterm and thinking like yes it is however many days that we lost but also we have so many more days ahead of us with our students and we need to make sure that we're focused on that plan thanks um specific to Sarah's point about our black students um I noticed that middle school and I think this was the only beginning of the year you haven't completed the middle of the year but the our black students were in in every grade and subject matter were in the teens in terms of proficiency um and thinking about that goal toward 50 my curiosity is on uh is actually somewhat related to what was just said
079which is um other than kind of the forgive me but kind of the the corporate speak of of the cycling through how do we keep the main thing the main thing um which is the Improvement of our black students to get to that 50% I mean I hear like we've got a real walkthroughs we cycle through we cycle through but like specific well maybe not even specific but um but yeah how do we make sure that we keep the main thing the main thing for those students a good example is I was sitting at one of our elementary schools with their school leadership team and looking at their El work plan and in that work plan like just like every school has they have a very specific goal for the achievement of black students and
080so when we're centering that and saying okay we we're saying and I don't remember that their specific goal off the top of my head that instructional team that instructional leadership team is talking about okay this week you know the principal said I want to be able to pull where are these students just so that I'm keeping my pulse on where are they whether it be in mclass or the usns or um some of these benchmarks so the principal of that school was very intent and saying I want to make sure you know I have a list of the names of the these black students and where are they so putting a name to a face and being intentional about it and it kind of bring come goes back to what Tiffany was saying that's in
081our work plan it's a goal we said that that's important to us and that's what we're going to keep in the Forefront and you have to like it it's something that you have to just keep coming back to yeah so the macro right is the work plan and then the micro is in those walkthroughs and we have those indicators that are directly connected to equity actually they are all connected to equity um but there's on there's at least one that specifically is about are all students engaged or I don't know the language exactly Shannon read it earlier but essentially we are going in um when we're doing those walkthroughs and that is that's the lens that we're using so it's showing up throughout the whole process of the work right I appreciate yeah I appreciate
082that Clarity that's helpful do you have a sense of when we'll have those middle of the Year assessments and the and those data so I believe the Middle School's finishing up this week is that right with the the NC checkin NE the star we have some math in elementary that's being finished and then the middle school should be done by next week I believe um I have oh sorry Li I have a follow-up question and I'm really curious about this um 5% of our students at the beginning of the year in sixth grade were proficient I guess is that the right term in reading and I wonder really causes me to wonder about the difference between our Elementary reading that says we're at or above exceeding expectations and then we bot them out before they
083get sometime between fifth grade and when they get to sixth grade that's a startling statistic to me um and I can't even describe how troubling that is right that we have 5% at the beginning of the year was this year just an anomal or and and how do we explain the difference between how they're doing in fifth grade which again isn't acceptable but setting that aside it's more acceptable than 5% why do we start out the year so at 5% it's a good question and for something for us to look a little deeper also though I believe we're using mclass of course which are the two different tests mclass and Then star are I believe is the data that you've just seen here so they are two different tests however they each do have benchmarks
084for proficiency so we're not we're not comparing the same test um but it is something that we do need to dig a Little Deeper to figure out why is there such a gap and and 10% in math so it's not just reading right it's just it's really interesting yeah that's concerning um I really I wanted to say out loud that I really appreciate how all of this is really grounded in eel and that the walkthroughs are happening consistently um and I I had a follow-up question about the edore tutoring program um knowing that black children and specifically black boys are typically historically overidentified for discipline issues um special needs Etc um and looking at the percentages of students who are being served by the tutoring program how are teachers and school leaders supported in in
085balancing the need to not over identify black children as needing support but also you know identifying where there is support needed [Music] so are you I'm just want to make sure I I understand your question is your question that you want to make sure that we're not overidentifying our black students for multiple tutoring no just the opposite looking at the the percentage that from last year to this year that there's still only 25% of of Black Elementary students being served by the edore and the percentage of white students being served has gone up um see what just wanting to to know how that balance is struck and that black students are being served equitably yeah in some of our schools we use our NC edore tutors to serve students who are just below grade level
086and then that frees up our teachers to see the students who are well below grade level okay so just because our NC EDC tutors are seeing students it doesn't mean that they are seeing our students with the most intensive needs okay in a number of our schools we reserve our teachers for that work because we know they're the most qualified people to help those kids that's really great to hear thank you one more question to follow up on Amy that 5 perent can you give give us a raw number what that 5% looks like is I didn't see it talking about the star reading for example I got to go back in So for six grade that would be two students out of 39 proficient for seventh grade 11 out of 57 students proficient and
087for eighth grade 10 students out of 42 does that make sense um I guess I wanted the public to know that the goal that you have of 50% being proficient is really an aggressive goal in many ways because of the way that these tests Define proficient um and I wanted to to ask about some of the tests I'm less familiar with I'm aware that um eight years ago or so the end of grade CL uh courses end of grade uh end of course tests the end of grade tests um they changed the de definition at the state level from the bottom 40% not being proficient to the bottom 50% and so we're really when we start looking at some of those we're looking at um who woke up and had a good day of testing
088and I'm wondering if where that um uh and you you may not know and it may be something that we can follow up later um these other uh tests that I'm less familiar with um like um uh the universal screener for Num number sense that may have a different point in the curve that defines proficient or proficiency may be defined differently and so it'll help me if I can follow up with you to understand where that proficiency or how that proficiency is defined um because I think you know we we have this policy about naming harms and one of the harms against our students and against all students in North Carolina is that North Carolina defines by default half of our students on many of these tests is non-proficient and I believe that that harms
089our students and it saps their motivation so anytime I see improvements in this that go against the narrative that's fantastic you I know each test would probably that threshold for proficiency would look a little different for each test I don't know what it is off the top of my head for each one but see your point thank you all of you for being here and sharing that information and we look forward to continuing to see you at Future meetings at this time we will move to public comment um I note for people's purposes there are four in-person speakers and one virtual speaker um public comment guidelines have been um given to everyone I'm just going to read a short summary for everyone's information we thank you for your interest in Ashville City Schools we welcome
090your comments to the board the guidelines are posted on the signup sheet but 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 Ash C 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 Personnel complaints or hear student matters in public comment please see our superintendent after the meeting if you have concerns about a specific employee or student matter public comment may not be used to endorse or support any candidate for any public office in addition to public comments written comments to the board can always be submitted to the office of the superintendent and we will now hear from our first speaker and
091all speakers will have three minutes so I will first call on Ron Abraham my name is Ryan Abraham and I am um concerned grandparent grandaughter in Asheville City School my concerns are we are um we're expecting the executive orders given by our president to be upheld and executed enforcement of title9 under 2020 title rule enforc consistent with President Trump's order orders ending radical doc do doctrination in K12 K through 12 schooling executive order 29 2025 this order targets de uh Dem Democrat demor help me yall not Equity ideology CRT and gender ideology and protect parents rights you know I I uh is I am a grandparent and All rights of my my granddaughter as referring to the school should come from the parents the grandparents I don't feel like the school board should uh determine
092or should overrule the parents because we are the one that are taking care of of our children so I feel like you know all rights I'm not saying the par the school boy don't have the right to teach my child but that's what I sent them to school for but when it comes to a a g gender ideology that should come from home and not the school board that's that's my right not the school board my last concern is defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth in other words uh uh to me you know uh this uh uh uh restroom for men and women it should be separated there's two genders male female and the restrooms should identify the same male restroom female restroom thank you for your time thank you Mr
093Abraham I now call on Mr Christopher Gordon um my name is Christopher Gordon several months ago I addressed this group concerning The Chronic underachievement of black students in Ashville City schools and the need for radical change in how we approach educating our children I want to continue that discussion by highlighting another critical issue the disp disproportionate number of suspension of black students in the 2023 uh 24 school year although black kids only make up 18% of the school population black kids accounted for 53% of out of school suspensions while this represents progress from the year before when black kids accounted for over 60% of suspensions these numbers indicate a pervasive syst systemic targeting of black students for suspension this is destructive on several levels suspension directly reduces instructional time it causes loss of personal connection
094to the school creates a lack of trust between students and staff this trifect is directly related to school performance and harms not only the individual student but the entire population of their peers who have reason to believe that they may be next Ashville City Schools claims that you belong here and that every second counts and yet we're are willing to tell these students that they're not good enough to belong and that their time in school doesn't really matter we've known for years that suspensions are ineffective and counterproductive and yet we continue to throw away kids because it's convenient for us so how do we change this culture and construct the inclusive of Equitable District we claim to be we make sure that each student is valued and respected for those who for who they are
095and the assets that they bring to the classroom we understand that some kids lack the skills to respond appropriately to their problems and frustrations we use tools like functional Behavior assessments behavior intervention plans and collaborative and proactive proactive solutions to diagnose treat maladaptive Behavior by teaching replacement behaviors we include the kid in our Solutions and teach and retach adaptive skills so that kids have the necessary tools to function in their environment we understand that punishment does not change behavior and it's not a substitute for instruction we make sure that teachers have the skills and support to work with diverse students and behaviors as I've said before this requires a shift in the prevailing culture of our district we must address the misinformed beliefs and the inequitable actions that continue to label our as troublemakers I
096am aware that an effort has been made to convene a task force to look at some of these issues due to a variety of factors that has not met for more than a handful of times in two years and now seems to be on indefinite hold I would encourage the expedited reconvening of the group as this issue is too important to ignore and is intimately linked to overall student achievement thank you thank you Mr Gordon I now call on Scott Johnston good evening um I haven't been here in a while but it's good to see everybody uh some of you have known for years um been a classroom teacher for almost 20 years uh coming up on 10 with Asheville City Schools was at the middle school AB Tech um I am here on behalf
097of the unanimous complete silsa faculty to further reiterate and more broadly share our support for um Stephanie day on behalf of 100% of the SSA faculty and staff we are writing to you an advocacy for Stephanie day to assume the position of principal at the school of inquiry and life science at Asheville when that time comes Miss day is currently our assistant principal she has served exceptionally for over two years in that position and has more recently taken on the majority of responsibilities of principal with Grace and commitment Miss day has over a decade of experience in educational leadership and aside from Miss Kush she is currently the longest serving ACS High School administrator her wealth of knowledge and experience is essential for a school to continue its success from 2018 to 2022 Miss day
098served as dean of alternative education in our grad program for ACS she did many of the acts of a school principal when she took over the SS's assistant principal she brought a wealth of knowledge ideas and enthusiasm to the role U Miss day is absolutely fabulous I've worked in a number of urban districts I've she's just one of the best I've ever seen she's fantastic this day is currently pursuing Doctorate of educational leadership at Western um with lure for PK 13 superintendent M committed to continued learning growth and preparing school ining life sciences into our future M's vast experience leadership abilities and continued presence will make her an outstanding Sola principle we wish for our preference to be considered for our community's health M day officially taking on the principal Position will provide continuity and
099a smooth transition fering a positive inclusive environment that supports silsa Educators and students to their fullest thank you for considering Miss day to take over as our principal um if you have any questions please let us know and it's signed by 100% of the silsa faculty across the board they uh they said they all wanted to be here tonight but it's late I wanted to share just a few other things about silsa just to kind of paint aad Brader picture um we continue to have a 99% graduation rate which we have for almost a decade over 90% of our graduate students uh had have are accepted to fouryear universities um the others generally choose abtech or need to get started on work due to financial situations over 90% of our black and brown students are
100accepted to four-year universities before they graduate silsa recently that has included full rise for African American male to Yale one of my favorite students a African and female to Brown last year and we have dozens that are accepted to Chapel Hill NC State hbc's and others thank you Mr Johnston um and our last iners speaker Reverend Ronald Gates [Music] well good evening uh chairperson uh superintendent board members and uh to the people that are here today uh I want I am a parent of a parent of a child here in the Asheville area also uh con a leader in the community along with being a affiliate member with the family research Council along with a Judicial Watch and the Heritage Foundation I wanted to address throughout three uh three executive orders from uh president Trump
101the first one is uh the education uh the the enforcement of Title 9 2020 uh the enforcement consistent with President Trump uh that this executive order will defend gender uh defend from gender ideology and extremism uh restoring biblical truth back uh definitely addressing two genders uh a man is male and female uh we definitely want to get back to common sense as it is stated uh the second one well let me finish on that one is that you know we want to make sure that make sure that there's designated areas for women girls and Fem males and Men boys and males are designated by designated area by their sex not identity uh the second one I want to uh acknowledge is ending radical indoctrinations from K to 12 uh this executive order will begin to
102address uh the practice uh uh these practices are not only eroding our critical thinking but also sowing division confusion and dis trust which is undermining the foundations of personal identity and parent Unity so we definitely look forward to the school libraries uh removing any books or videos that relates to gender anology uh definitely any flags that are in the school uh that are in the classroom of lgbtq to might as well go ahead and shred the gender support policy uh the last one is defending women from gender ideology and extremism we definitely want to make sure that we're defending the women definitely protecting them it is time that we get back to Common Sense it is a sad state to hear the deficiency of the children especially the African-American children uh we put our focus
103on the wrong things now we need to get back to the right thing and that's educating them appropriately thank you for this [Music] time thank you sir uh we have one virtual speaker who's with us I'm looking at the back of the room Lindsay can you hear me yes can you all hear me you sound great you have three minutes thanks my name is Lindsay brol I'm the mother of a kindergartener at Claxton Elementary I'm here today to express urgency around altering the board's policies around remote learning days there are four particular points I'd like to focus on uh first the inclement weather policy should be altered to prioritize making up time in the classroom as opposed to First utilizing remote learning days after considering State restrictions it appears to me though correct me if
104I'm wrong that the school calendar this year could extend a full five days longer than it is currently anticipated to until Friday June 13th my also understand you have the ability and have noted in your annual calendar that you could use teacher work days or optional teacher work days or parent teacher conference days to make up days or even potentially extend school hours to make up loss days as well I believe it's imperative to prioritize student learning in the classroom and that you take the approach first of making up days in the classroom rather than first going to remote learning days the policy should be that we make up school days in person until we hit State limitations and then utilize remote learning days as a second option it's particularly disappointing this year that ACS
105hasn't taken that approach given that our students have missed 20 days of school from Helen and with five additional remote learning days they've now missed 25 days when five of those days could have been made up without any accommodation from the state second to extent to the extent remote learning days have to happen we need to do more to prepare for them these closures are last minute decisions and parents are left to scrambled that day to find a safe place for their kids to be especially those that are Elementary age kids are often at work with their parents parents or at friends or families or neighbors houses at after schools or daycares that are open I personally did not receive a packet of activity sheets for my kindergarten until after the fifth remote learning day
106prior to that I received a single sheet with some high level ideas a suggestion do one to two hours of learning with them I think especially for elementary age students I think we need to be realistic and realize that there is very little learning going on on these remote learning days and we need to make it easier for parents by providing more detailed resources at the beginning of winter Zoom op ions Etc third when assessing whether to close school days during in incidents of minor inclement weather we need to take an approach of maximizing the benefit for the most rather than a lowest common denominator approach to close everything when only potentially a few bus routes may be challenged the winter weather we've experienced to date this year is not out of the ordinary we've
107had no significant snowstorms yet we've had five remote learning days on multiple of these days I strongly suspect that 90% of our students or many of them could have at least a safely gotten to or from school especially if there had been a two-hour delay or an early closure the roads are deemed unsafe yet most businesses many Child Care Centers and workers across the region are still using the roads to get to work it's much better for the vast majority of students to go to school rather than a remote learning Day When likely the vast majority of students are not getting a full day of learning in and lastly fourth i' like I understand that there are State Li limitations that significantly limit your ability to control the school calendar I encourage you to continue
108to Advocate to the state on behalf of our students and inform the community about the advocacy you are doing in this realm and lastly to arm families and parent teacher organizations at the schools Etc with the information so that we can do so ourselves thank you again for the opportunity to speak um and would be happy to welcome a further conversation about it thanks thank you you thank you Lindsay um at this time which is almost at the 2hour Mark um the board is going to take a very short break four minutes and then we will reconvene e e e um thank you board members um just a couple of um organizational things we're going to take up the consent agenda next as a reminder school calendar is not going to be on the consent
109agenda and we'll pick that up in the action items um we after uh consultation with Maggie we're going to push the board Norm conversation to March or subsequent board meeting and not try to tackle that today so just so folks can plan accordingly um so at this time um I will note that the consent items are draft minutes of uh the work session on December 2nd December 9's regular meeting special called closed meetings special called open meetings in January um our special called open meeting board retreat our special called closed meeting also includes the budget amendment and expenditure report and it includes the specified policies on second read which we all agreed to move forward last week and it includes the Personnel report um so at this time is there a motion to approve the
110consent agenda so moved thank you and seconded second all those in favor I I I excellent thank you the consent item items are approved so we'll now move to action items and um I'm G to let I'm going to just keep these in order putting the calendar on last so Maggie is going to talk to us about the board response yes good evening board members so as we discussed at the work session a week ago um we are wanting to write a response uh to send in with the consolidation feasibility study that's going to the general assembly um so I had drafted a letter shared it with the board subsequently um we found out that um the County Commissioners wrote their own letter have already signed and sent that in um bunkham county is interested
111in potentially collaborating with us on a letter where they do not meet until Thursday um SO waiting to hear back from their board on what their thoughts are I've shared the text of our letter with Dr Jackson um for them to consider as well so um just looking for any feedback from the board on the letter and um go from there board members yeah and actually Maggie I'm trying to find it also do you happen to remember what day you emailed it to us or what it's called it's oh here it is called Boe response to consolidation study yeah mine says ACS Boe and it was emailed on February 6th as a word excuse me a Google doc February just while people are opening that I'm just reminding folks of what we talked about last
112week which doesn't have to control anything we do this week last week we did talk about a desire that all three boards might agree to a common letter um bunkham County Commissioners have signed their letter and so one question for us is whether because we spoke of this last week um do we want to sign something with bunkham County meaning our vote tonight would be contingent on them also approving it or do we want to send our own letter and in either case what are our thoughts on these words and Sarah just to clarify when you said bunkham County you meant bunam count count Board of Ed because the yes' got it sorry how do you want to proceed uh sure um I think this the draft letter was a great start um I I
113think whatever we come up with we should read out if we're going to vote for it um one of the things that um that I noticed is that the letter um talked about uh several areas where the two school systems um should collaborate and I was wondering if we could refer to that as several new areas um because we already do collaborate in certain areas which I think is great between our districts including providing services to migrant families and their students and also with our shared Transportation maintenance um and then there may be some other areas that I'm not aware of yet um I also wonder and this is not a you know like a a be all end all but I'm wondering if it's helpful for us to um recognize the Prismatic Services identified
114certain dis economies of scale which was kind of a refreshing um uh point that they made uh these are things that would increase the cost of operating uh consolidated agreement um and I had some other wording that I had shared out with the board um and um I think we could explain a little bit or maybe we don't need to the relationship of Prismatic Services uh in this process and those are my only comments and I think uh I've sent out a um an edit to uh all the board members earlier um so yeah uh pepy I really appreciate your edits um and I appreciate your explanations behind the edits because I actually do feel like um with these edits it feels to me a stronger voice from Asheville City Schools um I appreciate I
115know that I'm speaking now with the board because no one else's has seen these edits but um I I appreciate homing in on the findings in a way that um doesn't create much great areer for anyone looking at the study and our letter together right so um I know that we last week I remember us debating whether we want to send something separate from the other two governing bodies if we choose to do that I think the way that that the edits that you put into it um make it a really strong letter so I concur I I appreciate that it's um it's just grounded in in factual and specific um wording I think that that edits are um appropriate and they they add more information I think I've always felt that there's I think
116being as brief as possible in this letter is a good idea and so I I don't think this makes the length anything that is problematic so that's not that's what we're to bring up so I'm I'm fine with the edits that you've proposed as well um I also just based on what George said would would still like to see if BCS would sign on to this not that this is I didn't I don't know if I misunderstood J George but not that this would be something we would be putting forward on our own but I'm hoping that um this would be what we would offer and then collaborate with them if they want less or more um I hope we still have that opportunity um can I ask you pepy to send it again because
117I had it and I don't know where it is and I just want to glance at your edits one more time and so can you may have explained I'm just try to remind me why oh okay I'm never mind I'm gonna be quiet for a second I'm gonna let Amy read I think I'm just trying to find out where the board is um part one would be if we have consensus that this these are the words um second would be whether we and I'm going to look for input from board members we choose to approve this as what we're going to say regardless or do we approve it contingent on bunkham County Schools also signing off on this or a variation of this so that's where I'm feeling the next two questions but I want
118to start with and I'm really been letting you read um what what does everyone think about the proposed edits um so I think everybody else almost everybody has spoken to them I'm fine with them I would have kept in was pleased with the results but I'm good with leaving it out I I agree that nobody probably cares but I was so pleased with them that I wanted to say that um anyway but I also will um say that I think if bunkham County I like a joint statement and so if they wanted to modify this in a way that was not inconsistent with the substance of this I would vote for um allowing that to happen without a return to us other's thoughts on that I see a lot of nodding heads yes is that
119a noing not sure I'd be happy to second that if it was a motion so um trusting the board chair's discretion right what I'm hearing is this the language in front of us the um revised version which I can share I typically share with Rob Eliot Maggie can share with Rob Jackson and they will meet on Thursday um it is my understanding that our response should we choose to give one is due on the 15th I think for memory so it would be Friday that we'll know and they may Decline and out of all of it they may say yeah we just sign off on it and I'll just keep you all in the the loop is that what I'm hearing okay is there a motion to do that I move that we accept the
120revised letter um whether or not bunam County agrees to sign on to it is that is that an that's not what I was hearing so sorry so i' let be clear about that I thought I was hearing this is the revised letter I'll share it with bunam County we want them to sign off on it and if they have some back and forth with us you all trust my discretion yes okay yes is that that's that's where I was going with that although I do I do want to be clear I mean if they just say no we don't want to or we've decided I hope this isn't the case but if they've decided not to send anything what you know if they come back and say oh don't worry about it we're not going
121to send anything do we still as a board want to send it so I think that is a great question and I'm going to now speak just as a board member and I would only like to submit something if signed by both school systems that's just coming from me I think if the county has sent its own letter excuse me the County Commissioners have sent its own letter and bunkham County Schools chooses to say something different or nothing at all I don't know I liked the idea of us in bunkham County doing the same thing that was important to me but I'm just one board member with that opinion I I agree but I will I would say that if they decide to send something different I don't think we should be the only person
122who does only party that does not respond so I think if if they say we're not going to respond I you know I haven't seen the county commissioner's letter so this is part of my challenge if I had seen that and I think it's somewhat consistent with what we're saying then I'm content to let that stand if it's entirely different from what we uh are saying then I feel like maybe our voice needs to be heard um whether or not bunam County sends something and I hope it's that we can come up with a joint statement but if they send something different then I think we still need both ways I think we need to send something in that's my opinion and so I would I would I would go air on that side as
123opposed to just joint or nothing so that makes a really complicated motion I can I can okay oh okay so I move that we submit the all the edited letter the letter as edited by Mr ASO um with permission authorization to the board chair to agree to relatively minor edits that are consistent with the sub in an effort to achieve a joint letter submitted by bunkham County schools and Asheville City schools and if that cannot be achieved that we go ahead and submit the letter as edited by Mr AO longest motion ever that's my motion okay second that makes sense I second okay short version is we're approving this edited letter you will um let me take my best efforts to achieve a joint letter but if not we'll submit it as is right okay
124all those in favor I I I any opposed okay it's unanimous thank you all okay at this time the next two items on our agenda and we'll take them up separately first is the field trip um that ashel high is taking with the China Chinese class um I move that we approve the proposal for the ashwa high school students to make a trip to China second thank you any other discussion all those in favor I any opposed unanimously approved next is the proposal for the Odyssey the mind field trip at Lucy Herring I move that we approve the that field trip second okay any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed okay unanimously carries um at this point the one last thing we need to deal with is the calendar um which was
125taken off the consent agenda Maggie shared that with us I think earlier today um there's a link in the agenda to the calendar if anybody needs it thank you it's in the consent items and the oh go ahead you talk say the only changes um is I followed our typical Board calendaring of the first and second Monday for January to go ahead and schedule those uh work session and regular meeting and then um picked September and March um kind of midterm like late enough that we'll have beginning of the year data or midyear data to share um for the half day board Retreats so to clarify by September 18 we'll have beginning of year data y like oh okay great and March 18th or March 19th is that's when we would typically have the the
126midyear data it typically gets done kind of end of um January early February but if there's you know any kind of weather delay it just gives us enough time to really review it and analyze it and put it in a really well digestable format okay I do have a question about um two other dates um uh and I guess I should couch this in real iing that um over a year ago a calendar was approved for next school year based on the idea that we would not get a waiver um of to start a week earlier uh and I'm noticing that the April dates are um later in the month because we've got currently an April um first week in April spring break and I'm just want to recognize for the public and for us
127that if for some reason bunkham County Schools finalizes their calendar and it has a different spring break we're going to want to shift that like if they have spring break a week earlier we're going to want to shift to move to match it because it's been an issue in years past the one time that we didn't have the same spring break so just know that we may need to change the or May we may choose to change the April dates at a different time and then I wanted to ask if we can make that April 21st Tuesday date whether it's okay to have it be in April 20th Monday date just so we're doing our um meetings with public comment um regularly on our Mondays would you mind repeating the very last part that you
128said about what you want to change about a yeah and I'll pass on the the traditional calendar for next school year that was approved last December because it shows that um uh the schedule around Spring Break um so on the April 21st is a Tuesday April 14th is a Tuesday and those are currently marked as a work close session and a regular meeting and I uh like this year for for the comparable thing we have a delayed uh work close session uh on a Tuesday but we've kept the regular Monday for this year and so can we do that again next year or is there a reason to change it April 20th instead of the 21st for the regular meeting just to have a regular meeting on April 20th just to follow the same pattern
129y sorry that was a typo I don't know how we missed that one but yeah it would have been the 13th and the 20th and then am I wrong that in our school districts spring break is anchored around Easter traditionally so in that vein the idea that spring break would change seems unlikely right I mean it could go the week before but so I just checked Easter in 2026 is April 5th so it could theoretically be the week before because right now it's scheduled to be the week after but I don't think it would in any event go later and we have an a weird year this year because Easter is on the 20th or something like that this year we have a very late Easter this year yeah but it usually we usually are
130the week before Easter so the odd thing is that next year we're going to be the week after um that's unusual for this District yeah and it's also unusual for this District to have approved the following Year's calendar more than a year in advance right that was a move we but we could you know we could continue the trend we just have to be flexible to respond to bunkham County's changes in their calendar well and I would say that that's true of any of these dates right I mean we're we're setting uh expectation that the these are when they happen we had a hurricane that canceled right so um so for any of these dates we have to acknowledge that they might have to adjust so fair and I think we'll all celebrate if we
131get the calendar waiver um just to clarify Pepe we're going to correct the April dates to be I don't have my count it's the 13th and the 20th the Mondays right the reason to keep the 13th if we're if um we've just had spring break is to keep the staff from not from having to have a um a work session and close session on the day that they return from spring break so that would okay I mean I don't we'll have the board agenda ready I mean the new cycle that I've got our team on we'll have it done oh so that doesn't affect you so Mondays Mondays can be fine and then we want to then put a star by the um by the two half days to indicate that they're not on Mondays
132and remove the stars from what will become the 13th and the 20th thank you and then I I just want to clarify those are the only changes I'm hearing articulated and the only thing I'll I'll offer which may probably doesn't need to happen I may not matter it's very unlikely I will not be here on March 19th next year it's oral argument week I never plan for anything that week um I could be but I might not be and since it's a half day Retreat I'll go ahead and offer that that's a risky day for me and I won't know until January next year okay February obviously this calendar can be changed as George knows fine otherwise does the calendar with the correction to April 13th and April 20th and any attendant changes in asteris
133are there any further comments I move that we accept the calendar as corrected second second three seconds um all those in favor I I any opposed okay unanimously passes um we are not going to talk about board norms and so we have a superintendent report and then just you know I have brief brief chair comments after that Kim would you get that window off of there sorry I don't know why that popped up there thank you all right good evening again um I don't have a whole lot to share this evening um did want to share that as um the new year started prioritizing times um visiting our schools um so as I set my calendar up scheduled time at each school and when I'm doing that I'm setting up appointment schedules so the staff
134can schedule a one-on-one appointment with me they can invite me to their classroom or if they want to have a small group meeting um I've done that so far at Isaac Dixon and Jones and it has just been a really nice opportunity to provide that one-on-one time with staff or see what's happening in their classroom so that's been getting some really good feedback from the staff um for those um opportunities to really engage directly with the teachers and the staff at the buildings also did our first round of Muffins with Maggie um we have one more to do and just wanted to share with the board kind of the three main takeaways from those from those meetings is first of all there's a desire for us to really work on improving communication from central office
135from the superintendent's office also including making sure our our web page it's a brand new web page still working out the Kink so that we still continue to process and make sure that we're fine-tuning um our school our District web page um and the other one kind of leads into that is the a big request from our parents is the need for a a very clear parent student handbook so we have our student code of success which touches some things but the parents are wondering like okay what about you know a procedural thing or expectations when students are absent so what I've started to work on with my team is what do those procedures that need to be ironed out what do they look like so that we can um enhance our student code of
136success with um some clear details and expectations for parents and then the other big piece that came out of um all of the meetings was just overwhelming support for from the parents for Ashville City Schools the work that we're doing the commitments that we make to do that work in a really honest and focused way but then also wanting to know how they can advocate for public schools how our parents can advocate for the needs of Asheville City Schools across the Greater Community um so it was great to give them some pointers and some tips on ways that they can Advocate and really share their um share what they're happy with for Asheville City school so those have been great and I'll be continuing these throughout the year we did a a quick kind of
137lightning round to get the a good group in before the um before the end of January we've got like I said one more to do at Isaac Dixon um but then I'll be scheduling them at more at like different times these were all in the mornings but we'll do some lunch we'll do some after school so we can hopefully get different um parents to show up when they have opportunities or open space or available in their calendar um we did start our Cougar Academy of leadership and learning also called call um this is the list of amazing leaders that applied um and were accepted into the program it's about it's 16 there were some additional staff in there that once we publish the dates said sorry that's not working with the graduate school class or
138something but we've let them know that you know we'll be doing this cohort every single year um so really excited for this initial cohort and just an overview of what we are going to be covering so we've already had session one and I facilitate the first session and really talk about foundations of leadership as well as just an overall um structure for how public schools are run and organized in the state of North Carolina um our next session is coming up at the end of February and U Mark and Kim Dean are going to be facilitating that session and over review of Human Resources policies equity and Communications um third session is at the end of March and April jocker and Shan and baggot are going to facilitate that session give an overview of operations
139curriculum and instruction and then our final session which is in May we take April off um with testing and Spring Break um we do our student services finance and Community engagement um so we are also doing a book study across this whole session um on the on a book called good to great it's not a book about schools and public schools per se but it's about leadership and some general leadership strategies um to how do you move an organization from a good organization to a great organization and what are the qualities of a leader that can help to do that um so we'll be doing completing that book study um did want to update the board we are chipping away at making some progress on the reform policies that we um suggested to do um
140so the first one um and our last well both of these at the last EAC meeting um we broke the team up into groups we did an initial review of the policies to get some feedback from our staff on those interestingly enough policy 3400 evaluation of student progress which is about our grading the and I didn't tell them any more information than what was in the policy they read through the whole policy did the whole kind of protocol to process the policy and never knew it was about grading so it tells us that we've got a little bit of clarity to to make sure we're clarifying the language a little bit more in those in that policy at least um and so what I've asked the staff to do um in EAC is I'm not
141going to try to fix something that's not broken so what they're going to do is bring their current School grading policies to our next meeting and then we're going to review what are those are there consistencies across the board are there key differences is it clear and easy to understand and when you look at a student's grade does it communicate I have a very clear understanding of here's where my student is mastering or where what level of Mastery they have on the standards um so we'll go through a protocol we'll review the grading practices and um see what we need to make some improvements on and what we can keep that's working well already um policy 3420 promotion and accountability again we reviewed this with the EA see last month um Shannon and her team
142have been researching best practices and drafting some language um and once we get that language drafted we'll bring that back and review that with the um educator advisory Council in March um update on strategic planning um we have been deep into strategic planning and I want to shout out Tanya pche has been just an amazing help with me uh organizing all the events facilitating getting all the stuff done done invitations I would not be able to be managing anything without um Miss Pet's help on this so she's just been a lifesaver and getting this strategic planning process um and keeping it going um for Dr lavender and Julie um so we've been taking stock January and February we've had a veterans listening session um the board had an update we did our community launch we've
143met with our steering committee so we are well on our way to getting the deliverables finished for um phase zero um which is going to be a very robust data assessment um and summary of the history of Asheville City Schools as well as a pro um a summary of our achievement and other um data to help us guide the way so then we'll start moving into March and we're going to be setting the vision in the March work session we're also going to have Dr lavender and Julie back to facilitate more discussion with the board on your vision and what Vision you see as a school board for Asheville City Schools um we'll do some districtwide input meetings um for our staff as well as with students and parents and a big meeting that we're
144going to have and we're trying to find a great spot for it um is involving our business and Community Partners um to make sure that we are sh getting them involved in our strategic planning process as well so we know once our students walk across the stage um they either we want them in in a job here in our in our um local neighborhoods or we want them going to a school and we need to know from our business Partners what are those employable skills that they want our students to have and then the last phase the May through June um taking through looking at our data getting the input doing some root cause analysis and identifying our strategic priorities so at the end of June we will have a portrait of a graduate we
145will have clear priorities that we want to implement as a district and some identified strategies for how we think we are going to make this um process move forward Magie can I I'm sorry oh well there you go you had the questions and I was about to yeah go for it um will you clarify veteran ACS listening yeah so what we felt was really important um when we started the strategic planning process as we know we have staff that have been here a long time have lived through strategic planning have seen a lot of the history and we wanted to pay special attention to those veteran staff to really get their perspective before we kind of jumped in like hey what were some of the pitfalls that happened before what should we make sure we
146avoid going forward and honor that history that those staff have um my only question first of all thank you all great information what is the objective as you communicated it to your you have some fabulous people in this call program and I'm just curious what the what your vision for them you know I see what they're going to be doing what's the idea that they might come away with like what what's the objective for them so the objective is it's more of a general for this cohort um for well not this cohort but for this level of the academy um is just building General leadership skills so we know regardless of what level of the organization or Department we've got to build a bench of um of leaders that can fill a position so whether
147it's the next Transportation director after One retires whether it is a lead School nutrition um director we know we're about a build that capacity with just starting with some general leadership um training and support for those staff so this one is really about overall understanding what how does a district operate what happens behind the scenes at the central office and then layering in those leadership skills um so that they can start working on demonstrating those and being leaders where they stand and be ready to move into additional leadership roles later yep of course um greatly appreciate that does that conclude your report um just an ad hoc board chair report um last week um Amanda Edwards called me she and some um County Commission staff um were in Raleigh and met with what I'm going
148to call the bunkham County legislators um Representatives Brian Turner Eric Ager and Lindsey Prather and Senator Julie Mayfield and first I heard of it was after it had occurred and Amanda called me and what they asked the local legislators to propose would what be a local bill um to reallocate our article 39 funding and bunkham counties and just to remind everybody article 39 is a statute and and it has to do with state sales tax revenue and local sales tax excuse me local sales tax state statute local sales tax um this is the funds that come in to fund our capital projects when Tim Shelton has his big long spreadsheet that we all know and love um those are funded with capital dollars it is a county fund meaning we share it with bunkham County
149schools and so over the years um this group at the county level manages the money and says it's time to fix the auditorium at Asheville high it's time to make WD Williams ADA Compliant they manage this money so the request that the county made of the bunkham legislators was to um reallocate new capital projects for the next two years to bunkham County's budget so yes that's right so we would um Amanda assured me that current projects underway would continue but there would be no new projects for two years so she also called Rob Elliot and Rob and I have spoken and I am working on a letter and I also spoke with Brian Turner um and Rob Elliot spoke with um I think lindsy Prather and Eric AER um and we are going to write
150a joint letter offering additional perspective and so I wanted to bring you up to speed about this I wanted to tell you currently the points I'm making in the letter um and get feedback from you all and then um again as Rob Elliott and I work on this I will report back to you so okay I know you're all scowling um let me just tell you what I have emphasized so far I wanted the um bunam County legislators to understand that this reallocation of funds is an addition to the current uh year where the bunkham county budget amendment has had us give money back it is not second Point um Capital funds are not used for new schools this is not us you know um building new schools these again are things like like repairing
151cracked walls and you know doing facility work um and then third just reminding the legislators that at every level now federal state and local schools are not getting funded um and just sort of asking them what are we to do so that is my current take in the letter I have not had a chance to talk to Rob Elliott they may have things they want to add um I will share with you I'm pretty committed to keep keeping the letter one page or less it's not going to be a massive encyclopedia article on school funding but I would welcome your thoughts that I could um keep in mind as I work on this letter s do you mind if I ask a clarifying question before I even add any actually I probably won't add anything
152or is the request to to or is the intent of the request from your understanding so that bunkham County could just use those funds however they choose not only for schools but for anything that's that's a county need it is my understanding the reallocated funds will not benefit the school system okay now what will they be used for I didn't ask my I I think I assumed the general fund for their General Revenue purposes but I didn't ask that okay that's thank you um and I think by implication I understand I'm hearing you say maybe this caught us off guard we weren't consulted true I think that's a fair point at least to bear in mind if not State explicitly that the County Commissioners did not talk to us and say what you know what
153are the I understand that they may feel like their Capital committee they know what the ramifications would be for us but it is a little bit um troubling to me that there was no conversation with us to let this know let us know this was coming that just seems fair play to me and to clarify I'm I'm on that Capital commission and I have not heard anything myself so it is definitely at the very and then the other point I would make is I do not know and this may be my own fault how bunkham County got itself into a position of being having to take millions and millions of dollars out of their own general fund which is why we ended up because now the bond rating is at risk etc etc and how
154we ended up feeling really compelled to go along with as much as we had a choice um the reductions that may not be either here or there but I I do wonder how that happened because that was an extraordinary measure that they had to take that they haven't taken I think they said since 2002 um and if a mistake was Mak made if it was just I don't know if it was an accounting error if it was funding they didn't get that they thought but if it was a mistake it's just one of those things that feels like um I don't want the schools paying for them for a mistake that wasn't made by us and I appreciate that they have funding they need to provide for all kinds of people in the county and
155I obviously don't want them to have to pay for it either but anyway the main point I would make is if we weren't consulted I think we it just common courtesy is by the way we're going to go to the legislature with this request it's going to impact your funding we want you to know why we're doing it and that didn't happen um I'm certainly a bit flabbergasted I think this whole board knows that I've been trying to communicate ways that we as three different bodies can play well together and take a difficult situation after Hurricane Helen and as I've said make lemonade out of lemons so I really um I will keep trying to make things better um but I want us to all continue to work bunkham County government uh bunkham County schools
156and Asheville City Schools on being collaborative and uh doing problem solving as a group because we're we're all in this together happy for you all to um I'll keep you posted talk to Rob Elliot um I'm sure I'll be talking with um Amanda Edwards again and do feel like it's appropriate for the school system to offer our perspective to these four legislators about the other side of the equation Sarah I'm sorry can I add one more thing just thinking about possibly putting in this in the letter it's just a suggestion and it might not be helpful but maybe it will um you know there's there's the I hear a perception across the state that our educational lottery funds are key toward capital projects and um from my experience being on this board this District does
157not get a lot of money from the educational lottery and so if it's helpful to kind of show that distinction because I do wonder if that could be an argument that someone else could raise oh well there's C there's education dollars out there so we don't need this um article 39 um but a comparison with what the the educational lottery funds are dollar amount versus the dollar amount for article 39 could be a a compelling Point H there is nothing further on our agenda this evening the um there's some upcoming meetings and parent teacher conferences listed in every everyone's agenda um I would be happy to entertain a motion to adjourn I move that we adjourn second there's a motion and a second all those in favor I I hi thanks everyone