Asheville City Board of Education Work Session 3/4/24

001all right y we're I'd like to call tonight's work and close session for the ash City School Board to order um welcome everyone who's in the room and who's joining us online uh we will start with our Equity statement read tonight by Sarah thorberg welcome in Asheville City Schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and Thrive we recognize that our positions come with power responsibility and public service for the entire Ash City Schools Community we will model our commitment to equity through our practices and decisions during this meeting we invite a pause if harm has taken place a moment to name the harm and space to practice repair thank you we do have a quorum tonight and so I'll ask for an approval of tonight's agenda

002so move second it's been moved and seconded uh all in favor I any opposed great um one thing to mention everyone um just the layout of the room is a little different than how we've been doing it in the past with work sessions um we just wanted to acknowledge that tonight we we might have had a larger group just um with the things that we're considering so as folks come up um for agenda items I'll just ask them to approach and um sit along here unless you're working the laptop up at the podium in which case of course you can go over there to speak as well so the first um item on our agenda is uh student releases to bunkham County and um just to want get clarification we have no releases this month

003but so Maggie that's correct no no releases so that's a very quick agenda item uh moving on to agenda item number two um discussion of the B Branch Trail um Lucy with city of Asheville is here to present welcome back Lucy thank you can you hear me okay sometimes have to really kind of be right up to the mic how's that better yeah is it is it on can you hear me like this there we go okay thank you let me get like that okay good evening thank you very much for having me again Asheville City Schools it's uh my pleasure to come and talk again about the beot branch trails the key takeaways of this presentation today is that the city formally adopted natural surface Trails technical difficulty why they let me T this

004I have a I do not have a voice that projects either the key takeaways tonight are that the city has formally adopted natural surface Trails as part of our Greenway program in the greenway American with Disabilities Act transition plan and The Pedestrian plans which are three plans that we did together on purpose in order to form a stronger pedestrian Network the Asheville and paved Alliance is a group of community nonprofit profits who have raised funds for the construction and maintenance of three natural surface Trail projects the proposed beote Branch Trail will be a multi-use trail surface Trail for walking hiking dog walking biking Etc aside from the alliance's a awareness and fundraising campaigns the city conducted their own public Outreach for the beote branch Trails specifically to the adjacent neighbors and impacted neighborhoods and an

005easement or another legal document is needed to allow public access to the school's property the trail will be located outside of the campuses perimeter fencing and at the conclusion of this presentation the city is Seeking a motion that will allow the superintendent to work with our legal support and City staff to finalize the legal document so natural surface Trails that's a fancy way of calling dirt trails we are part of our Gap plans our goals are to create natural surface Trails throughout the city to add to our connected Greenway Network work with communities to um create these trails and to ensure that they are built to the highest standards of Trail building standards to ensure durability and less maintenance Asheville unpaved Alliance is a group of nonprofits in our community who have stepped up and

006have offered to help this city with the fundraising construction and maintenance of these natural surface trails the alliance is committed to building these trails at the highest level of Trail building techniques that will enhance the trail sustainabilities and accessibility Trail heads and online Communications will also be prepared through our alliance for user trip preparations so community outreach this was a question that was asked the first time I came and my answer at that time was that we hadn't started our community engagement that I wanted to come and talk to the property owner first to gauge your interest um without your interests we weren't going to move forward but since then uh the Asheville unpaved Alliance has been out in the community doing public engagement specifically for awareness and fundraising through Community open houses meeting with

007neighborhood groups and conducting a public survey we as City staff did a different type of community engagement which was to talk with the people whose properties were adjacent to the area that were wanting to put the natural surface trails and address any of their concerns without the pressure of being in a larger public setting and we also engaged with the neighborhoods where these trails are proposed to be built we had three adjacent neighborhood meetings one was for residents on Charles Street and Timothy Street and the other was for klingman Avenue neighbors that back up to the forest uh we had another follow-up meeting with both of them to address their top concerns and how we can deal with them once the trails are in um individual Communications with all who had questions were also followed

008up and we had two neighborhood group meetings one with the South French Broad neighborhood and the other with weekend neighborhood what we found the top concerns to be were parking in their neighborhoods specifically on Charles and Timothy Street because they have a big impact with the school pickup in the YWCA they were also very concerned about camping and campfires in the woods um this was our meetings took place not too long after uh covid and the impacts were even more uh extreme than normal at the time and trash and needles in the woods is also concerned and then um some concern for wildlife was also a regular comment so this map shows the uh Trail the proposed Trail Network that we'd like to build within City and school property the green dash line shows the

009trail and this is a multi-use trail it'll be about 6 feet in width and um a nice uh terrain so that more people will be able to access it um than a normal trail that you might have seen in on a steep hill that dotted yellow line that you see uh to the west but still in the green area is the future beot Branch Greenway which will be a 10-ft wide paved Greenway uh it's still considered a future project we currently do not have the funding to build that Greenway however um if we build the trails first which we would like to do when we do have the funding to build the greenway the natural surface Trails will not be in the way for us to move forward with the construction of the Greenway at

010all the there are two um trail head accesses to these natural surface Trails one is in the back parking lot of Aston Park um if you can see my cursor there and then the other one is down off of Kingman extension across the street from the Gray Eagle um and it comes out onto the Kingman Extension Road where we will have a Greenway connector facility to tie it into the river AR district and down to the Southside neighborhood where the nasty Branch Greenway will be constructed so the beote branch trails are one of three projects that we are working on with the Asheville un paved Alliance the um this is the one in the circle is the beot Branch Trail uh across the river not too far from there and very well connected so an

011easy walk or bike ride away would be more trails at the French Broad River West area where the new French Rod River West Greenway is constructed already and open to the public in those Trails we will also have multi-use trails and then a short course that's built for uh bike for bikes only and then the third pilot project is in in the east at the aelia Park area so the benefits of having Trails behind middle school as we've been told from our community and Educators is that the inreal life after school bike club would have a direct facility right behind the school for them to enjoy some mountain bike riding um that will be a good combination to the onroad cycling that they're learning um AMS cross country team would like to have the trails

012to use um kids will have the ability to commute to school via a walk in nature we already know that exposure to Nature improves mental health for everyone and there's always the options for class field learning opportunities so the way that we would like our agreements to work would be two different different items one would be an easement that is between the Asheville City schools and the City of Asheville and the other would be a memorandum of understanding with the Asheville unpaved Alliance if all goes well uh we would like to finalize the easement in April and go to counil to seek the memorandum of understanding with Asheville unpaved Alliance so that they may start their Construction in the summer we definitely like to do as much of the construction in the summertime so we're

013not um disrupting the school year in any way and then um have an ribbon cutting ceremony in October and from there the alliance in the city will begin ongoing management and maintenance of the trails the City Ashville City Schools would not be responsible for maintenance of the trails so uh with this presentation we're asking for a proposed motion tonight from the school board uh this is a a draft or prop a proposed motion which reads motion directing the superintendent to coordinate with the city of Asheville to finalize an easement agreement or other legal in instrument to allow public access to Natural surface trails to be constructed and maintained by the city of Asheville and their Community Partners so with that I would like to open up the floor for any questions um I just thank

014you that was very um helpful to see that background and all the additional work that's been put into this concept as a mountain biker anytime you can see a extra Trails love that it's particularly close to where our students are um so just so the board knows if you're in agreement of moving forward with the easement this would be a motion that would be on the consent agenda for next week we actually won't make the motion to the action today but it will show up on Monday's agenda as consent Lucy I have a question for you and I think it's slide seven that shows the Middle School slide [Music] seven I went on the um tour last week which was great thank you will you explain to me where the fence is currently and how

015at the back the trail will exit yes so the perimeter fence goes behind these um athletic fields right here and the terrain in this area beyond the fence line is very steep so although the trails right here look close to the to the athletic fields they're actually below them a six foot tall person would not be seen from the athletic fields and and the entirety of this Trail is behind the perimeter fence that's what I wanted to know thank you excuse me uh Char Street I spoke to some community members this past weekend and they never heard about no one had came to them and asked them questions about this particular Trail we had written invitations that we personally took to every house and if they weren't at their house we left them at the

016door for the invitation at the YWCA okay my second question um it just going to be like a tn4 hours trail behind the it's going to be like 24 hours right that means that people can be walking through that anytime they want to throughout the night throughout the day while school is going so we would encourage people to be there during daylight and the trail head signs will tell them that they um that the trails are open only during the day day like our other parks and during the time school is going correct and during the time school is on now you know we're going to have a safety problem with that correct I I don't agree I do not think we'll have a safety Pro problem with the trails and one more question you

017said it's going to be a while if you if we are if if we agree upon it now and you haven't gotten uh I can't remember you haven't gotten the appro uh the fund in for something else how long you think it's going to take to get the fund in to get the rest of it taken care [Music] built the the ashell unpaved alliance are the ones that will be paying for the construction of the trails and their fundraising is nearly complete including a 180 ,000 um Grant from the TDA so we're not sure when it's going to be started correct right I don't see a problem with the timeline if we are able to go um with your easement to the city council in April 26 then they will be able to meet the

018timeline of construction July this what yeah but it was it was another question that said that if something weren't you didn't have the funds or the something weren't actually Jesse I think you're talking about the um the yellow code yeah so that's the that's the green way that will go right here those yellow dots and the GRE the green one is the trail and they have the funding for that they don't have the funding for the extra one that will go oh for the extra one okay okay that's that's like the paved one sorry for the confusion okay last question if we don't approve this is there an alternative uh that you guys have already in place if you looked at another way to build Trails for bikers and everything else is there a second

019choice um the Asheville unpaved Alliance is very involved with the IRL after school bike program and with that they are very excited about this particular project and this project means the most to the Asheville and paved Alliance and the other two if we are not able to get the eement from the school it won't be possible for us to build these Trails because the area is so steep that instead of building Trails down a hill like we shouldn't do those aren't good well-built trails they need to be longer and on a on the um terrain um and so they need the length to be able ble to go behind the school and then um have a a fun trail but um just being able to build within city um owned property would not make a

020decent Trail project Lucy I'm sorry go ahead Amy I was having taken the tour I just thought if you didn't care Lucy can I offer some addition information that you didn't necessarily cover that I found really helpful is this really loud or is it just me um L I don't know if there's a if you guys have the map of the school in front of you but where the yellow line is the city already owns that property that's their property it's not ours they hope to find the funding to put in a paved trail to be called the bot trail that has nothing to do with us I'm just trying to put this in perspective um I got to be on the van with Matt bot Senor his son was there his granddaughter was there

021who's a teacher here in our system and the grandson and again this has nothing to do with us but the plans for the yellow bot Branch Trail go all through the South slope neighborhood um Lucy I think you said there's going to be some what do you call plaques what do you call those things like markers about the historic black neighborhoods and I did find the city again this has nothing to do with us but the city is being thoughtful about the yellow paved bot Branch Trail not anything to do with Ashville Middle School it's not on our property the green not all of it not the part on the right hand side but the part on the left hand side is our property and I just want to confirm that it's behind the fence

022so Jesse I was worried about school safety too but where the fence is they're not going to be inside the fence of course it going to be yes it going to be outside the fence but it's still an issue being closed to as for City Schools those kids play out there during the time of if I'm not mistaken where the meddle scho um the kids still use the field to play For Recess right and then you got bikers going to be going in the same time that the kids going to be out there correct okay I mean it's okay I didn't know that so that's helpful to me so I was under the impression it was the side of a cliff but kids are playing back there past beyond the fence well that that's my

023question if I may just jump in to ask this the way you just described it alleviated some of my safety concerns which is as you just described it if I'm standing on the field I can't even see the bikers because they're so far down Fair okay and there's a fence and they can't see me on the field because they're so far down they're six feet down so for someone to go from that Trail up to the fence climb over the fence to do harm to our children they would have to scale a 6ot steep embankment of some sort uh you could probably do it easier than that there are existing foot Trails already there that pop up right on onto Charles Street okay um that could be right anybody can access at this point but

024if somebody was down on the trail doing something nefarious like smoking weed for example on the trail that didn't have to do with our students thank you very much but they wouldn't be able to see them they I mean then and if they're riding bikes I mean I I think that is helps with the safety aspect because there's not a visual there's no visual between our students and those who are accessing the trail I'm wondering how IRL will access the trail will they have to go over to Aston Park to ask to access it right now our main is at Aston park in the parking lot so there is a way to get down Charles Street to there or they would probably do the best um learning technique which would be to ride on the

025street to Timothy or um over to the main Park but there won't be any kind of gate in the fence or anything for them to be able to access it directly from There's an opportunity for that but that would have that would include more discussions and only if the school would wanted okay and it also doesn't look like the trail traverses any of the vehicular traffic areas that come into the school that's okay so um I can actually answer that a little further and Lucy please correct me if I'm wrong because I was also on that tour um if you're looking at um the baseball field and the and the line right below it is Charles Street U no I'm sorry it's the access road into the the back of um Ashville middle didn't you

026all say that there's the possibility that's where another access would be so it's technically not going through our fence it's on the outside of Asheville High the kind of the um property proper so to speak is where there's possible access to those trails from Charles Street right it would be on Charles Street approximately where your buses line up in that area there's even a curb cut in the location that would make the most sense for that access point but like I said our two um trail head points which are the ones that we're currently planning to build are in the back parking lot of Aston Park and then at the bottom where um Kingman extension is approximately across the street from gry Eagle and I had the opportunity to walk back there last year um

027with Tim Shelton and Dr Cosby when he's with us and I can tell you that like it's it's not like the slopes like that but there certainly are it's sloped for sure so I mean it's it's a it's significant grade if we're talking about where the gry eagle is to get up to where the fence line is it is a challenge to to walk up that slope so um for anybody who's curious about like how flat it is George I'm G to ask a question because I want to make sure I understood something Jesse said but do our Jesse what I called a steep slope and it's apparently more whatever George did but do our kids play there now so I just want I mean Jesse I don't I think there could currently there could

028be all kinds of Nefarious activity out there right I mean and so I I guess I just want to make sure I don't I want to make sure I'm addressing your concerns Jesse but are kids using that area now if they're not this might be more activated use might actually make it safer um I'm I'm just engaging in dialogue Jesse my friend I care what you think Jesse I want to know what's not can I ask another question while if Jesse pondering a response um I I want to believe that Ashville and paved is here for the long hul I also recognize that they were established in 2021 so does the city have some contingencies in case that um partnership falls apart for what would happen to those Trails yeah yes we do have contingencies

029So currently the um memorandum of understanding that we're ready to enter into with Asheville unpaved Alliance would have them maintaining the trails for three years at the end of that term then we can either discuss with them another round of you to to do it again or we can hire a professional Trail Builder to do the mainenance or our parks department could do it themselves but most likely through the parks department we would have a a trail Builder doing the work it could even be one of the Asheville unpaved alliance members pisas sorba which is uh a a mountain bike National mountain bike group our local chapter are the ones that will be doing the construction management and we have a record of working with them and they're they're very good at what they do

030including maintenance I'll just say that I am with in terms of safety that was like the biggest thing when we first talked about it for me as well as a community engagement and I feel like having more use back there is actually going to be safer um so I'm just throwing that out there now that I've sort of heard the whole plan I think that that might actually deter what right now is already accessible property to folks who want to be back there I I do want to point out I've heard some um in regards to community conversations around this and and Outreach um I appreciate because that was one of the things we talked about was making sure you're engaging community outreach I have still heard from some folks um in the Southside Community

031um and we can who who this is for them still a surprise so I'm just I'm I'm i' just love to kind of dig a little deeper into um if that Outreach for say South French bro Community we can was similar to the way that you engage the property owners who are right there the ones on Timothy and Charles were you were you hand delivering um and invitations to those communities as well or was that a different kind of Outreach no on the neighborhood level we were um going to the neighborhood group meetings and relying on their neighborhood Outreach to tell them that we were talking about it gotcha thank you Lucy I have one more question we we talked about this a year ago and I don't I don't know that you have any

032data for us but we've also heard from community members who worry about gentrification obviously it's expensive town to live in do you have anything to offer us about how knowing that again one day the city may have a paved trail through there regardless any thoughts about whether adding these unpaved Trails is there show that that leads to gentrification and I don't know that you can answer that but that's something we've talked about there are very few studies that show that natural surface Trails can add to gentrification I can honestly say that the immediate area has enormous development happening right now with apartments and condos going in on hilard and on uh klingman extension I I don't know the number but it's a lot um so thinking of the immediate area I believe that it already

033is being um gentrified and that there is a lot of development happening people in apartments that do need extra areas to exercise because they won't have their own yards question so within the last three to five years we have put this plan together instead of 10 15 years ago it was not even thought about right natural surface Trails were being thought of more than five years ago and but coming through this area that you come into a community right now that's not sure if they want it or not because of unification right um since new homes are being built people are moving in that wasn't part of the original that wasn't part of the community 10 15 years ago since things are changing now it gives a better opportunity to have these type of uh

034Pathways and to to give people the opportunity to walk and bike through the neighborhoods now because we feel that now it is more of a maybe a safety process that have went through within the last 3 to 5 years with new homes and and different people moveing into the community is that part of the reason of the generification of the trails and everything else that is been made through the community can if well it's okay um I won't repeat it it's okay you don't have to answer it I know that the beot branch Greenway was designed before I started working at the city nine years ago so the forest which at the time was called klingman Forest um but has been renamed for the bot's um matriarchal mother grandmother aie beote um so people have

035been considering this forest and the ability to recreate in this forest for more than years the natural surface Trails became a reality after our Gap plan was adopted which in um allowed us to include natural surface Trails as a part of our Greenway program does that does that yes any other questions for Lucy all right thank you we will put this uh request for the easement on the consent agenda for next week thank you Lucy all um okay so the next one is also um interestingly enough about a Greenway um so the city reached out and wanted to know if the district would write a just a letter of support at this time before they start engaging in any type of study um they're looking at extending the greenway way the Reed Creek Greenway um

036down monford Avenue they want to take the greenway it was originally going to go down to Hill Street and down Hill Street to the the pedestrian bridge that crosses over the Highway by on the right near Isaac Dixon and and Hill Street Baptist Church but on their new kind of Investigation they're looking at redirecting the greenway in between Montford Academy and the Chamber down kind of along that sidewalk that runs right so right along the you know in the property line for and I don't at that point I think it is it's on chamber property it wouldn't be on Asheville um school property and then kind of running it down through some properties so all of that they don't need our engagement on what they are looking at a letter of support is they want

037the trail to come out near Isaac Dixon and then run parallel to the Isaac Dixon property line so that we can then um the trail would then end at Hill Street and then they could use Hill Street and it wouldn't be on Hill Street very long because that is such a busy street they were trying to keep the trail away from there um so that is kind of the updated and what they're looking for is a letter of support knowing that not doesn't bind the school district to anything at this point but just says yes we are okay with you kind of still exploring this and then to with more information later so I'll jump in as a long time Isaac Dixon parent and and actually res resident nearby in Montford and I will say

038that this would be a dream come true for many of my neighbors um to have a safer way to take their kids to school than going downhill Street which feels like you're taking your life and your child's life into your hands every time you do it so um I will speak in support of of a letter of support for the screen way Maggie did you send us a map did I did not send an official map I don't have an official map because this is just even like before you really get into that just to before they start dedicating time to this knowing if the board had any appetite to investigate this and if there is some interest then it would start going forward and doing more mapping out would we vote on this next

039week then just a letter of support which is really just my signature and George's signature um I guess I just it would help to see a map for me oh I'm sorry Sarah what was that it would just help to see a map I not being is familiar with so um there James and I just found them um on the city of Asheville website oh good okay it's up there um so um Jame James is going to send it to everybody actually yeah it's also if you go to the excuse me email that Maggie sent to us back on the on February 14th there's a link to the public project page on the city website and that's where we found it oh send a link to the it yeah so a link just was sent

040oh yeah Lucy [Laughter] yeah that'd be great Lucy yeah let's yes thank you so this map that that's on the project page shows it going um down Elizabeth Street over then down Barnard and then coming out right across from Asheville I mean from mford Northstar so this I don't think the map this on here is correct in what what Maggie was saying um it would cut between the chamber and Northstar but then cut over to Hill Street or is it going to go parallel to Hill Street and then cut over it would um cut between the Northstar and chamber and then go down to gudger Street at which point it would cross gudger street and um go through the property that's immediately across from there um behind a development a future development and then meet

041up to this Isaac Dixon property towards the northeast corner of the campus not down by the creek not in The Gulch but up on um between Michael Street I think is the one that's the most West um and just hug the properly property line between the school and uh the the property that will be developed so it wouldn't be on our property and then it would come to the front of your property to get to the pedestrian bridge which will be a new bridge not the one that's existing now oh okay a nicer looking Bridge okay and I should also say we're in a feasibility study phase of this project it's not eminent um we're in the first baby step so we've got several other steps including engineering and design which is where we would

042really get down into exactly where the greenway will be this is just an idea um that gives you um a sense of where the alignment is proposed to be and we're looking for a letter of support that just says that as we move forward and we get to the engineering and design that the school would be willing to consider the greenway on the property what's the timeline that Yer unknown okay I I'm I live over there um you know Rebecca and I both live very close to there as well and um seeing and hearing now where you're talking about going um it I I originally was just why don't you just use the sidewalks but that was me uh so but seeing where you're talking about going I it's it makes more sense I mean

043I would be in favor of it as well so I think that considering the his history of the Hill Street Community and the challenge of gentrification in our neighborhood I'd be very interested to hear more Community feedback prior to us moving forward with any kind of support similar to how you know the the order of operations that we've taken here this is um a very important black neighborhood and it's one that I think it's true James said it used to be so I'm curious about how that's honored how that's uplifted and how that aligns with a future for this micro neighborhood because it it isn't very developed right now and um I hope that whatever comes there is something that really supports its history I appreciate that um I will say that I don't think

044as it's described it's going to be going going through close to many homes that are right that are there now those are mostly there's a business or two along Hill Street some private homes but um not very many I do believe that there is a development that's planned and I think it's going to be a significant development that's planned for that empty space and that parcel was purchased I believe last year right Duke sold it and it was purchased by a single developer I think y exactly so I mean I think I I think in other words that like the we're probably going to have little to say about what goes onto that property um in ter and but I hear you and I I agree with the um the premise of including Community input

045and I will say I don't think there are many homes in that area right now to consult I appreciate you looking up Rebecca because I think one thing to consider and Lucy you actually mentioned this when I went on the tour is um when we're looking at the bot Trail when it goes behind greens and um up up you know up toward Livingston nasty yeah nasty Branch um that you know there are going to be markers um showing the impact of the original black neighborhoods in that area uh and also you even mentioned it the the effects of urban renewal and so I think what what I would like to lift up is how ever this process is going for any of these things um we have as a board you know we at in

046the fall of last year um the reparations committee for Education came and spoke to us about what they're working on in terms of harm reduction repairing harm and all that kind of stuff so while there aren't any Properties or not many homes there right now I think it's also incumbent upon us as a board to recognize that harm has been done to that community over decad decades and so as these conversations are going in addition to community conversations what you know what is the city what are the city of parks and rec offering in terms of being a part of that reparation idea about repairing that harm that's that's what I'd like to lift up I wonder if you've asked the church have you consulted the church yeah yeah we haven't uh we typically don't

047do the level of Engagement that we have done for beot branch on a feasibility study level for a paved Greenway we we do that during the engineering and design because then we can assure that the alignment we're talking about is the one that we're going to proceed and uh we make sure everyone in the area and in the city understand what we intend to do at that level so this is like the baby step yeah I appreciate that I think that that is the big big most important step if you're going to ask the school I think you should ask the church at this point just because it's kind of the biggest thing we have there in addition to Isaac Dixon and a group of commun a community that's strong and also houses a lot

048of little children during the day thank you for the comment so um this does not need a vote correct you would just need to know consensus whether there's you know we offer our support for yeah so um so again no motion needed but just carry us where we're Landing as a board if we're prepared to just offer a letter of support to go through with I'm fine with a letter of support I mean it's going to have to if an easement is needed it's going to have to come back to us anyway but in order to get the process started then it sounds like the letter of support is what is what it's being asked for um I would be fine with the letter of support um again looking at you know I just pulled

049up a better map of the area and it's very undeveloped um so uh I think and they don't have a specific timeline so it it could be a year before this happened or two years but I think just doing a letter of support would be fine so I would be fine with that is there a difference between this process and the one we've gone through on this other like we did not provide we said we'd like to hear more before engaging how is this different and why would this am I missing something I think this is different because when the city first came to us last year for the Middle School it was a direct ask of an easement this is not an Ask of an easement right now it is just an ask of

050um you know that it's essentially my understanding and please Maggie correct me if I'm wrong or Lucy correct me if I'm wrong um is just saying that the city's come to us to talk to us about it we're aware that this is going on and we you know letter support be like yep we got support so right we support that the fact finding that then goes into it the feasibility all that I also would offer and I agree with that distinction that at least for my way of thinking um there is with the middle school property there wasn't necessarily the only safety concerns that I had were the inverse of what they are now for me and for the community that um I'm aware of at Isaac Dixon there is a direct danger to the

051families that go downhill Street every day to get there so I just think there's a safety issue that I would I think caused me to go through the process maybe be willing to at least offer a letter of support slightly earlier because the Dixon community Community has already reached out at least to me to say we're really excited that this might happen um if I might just jump in here I'm Jessica Morris I'm the city's interim Transportation director so I I work with Lucy just to kind of explain some of the differences between the two projects and like where we are in the process um first of all we're not asking for an easement or anything of that nature at this point that's um where like Lucy said we're in the baby steps like just

052doing this feasibility study looking at different um alignments that could be could be become a Greenway so we're in the Gathering data gathering information looking at different options we have done some Community surveys that have been sent sent out to um the neighborhoods in and around that area so this is just a a very preliminary request from the city to say it's more of like a notification we're working on this we want to have your involvement because it is going to be near the school um and of course we will engage with the school and other nearby property owners and neighborhoods when we get closer to a final um alternative if that makes sense are we in agreement with a letter of support Jess you want to say something my support comes with the uh

053church and the community if you can get their support if you can go uh with their letter of consent she can just go by there and just speak to them speak to the church speak to the community members and come back and say we have their support and then you can probably uh persuade me to give my support but I need to know about the community community in that area is too important just to let people wait just to let things just happen well without most of them know about because I know people get up early in the morning and on the beautiful evening they're going to be biking throughout the whole day and it's going to be walking and it's going to be walking dogs and everything else gonna be walking through the communities

054so I want to make sure that they are aware of what they about to get themselves into if they agree upon or you know just be prepared within the community absolutely please yes abolutely and I would offer in addition just like um I I we appreciate here well I I'm not going to speak for everybody I appreciate um updates you know as y'all are going through this process especially because it's going to be around two of our school properties right so um yeah the updates as you're going along would be be very helpful thank you definitely yeah great thank you you um okay so next agenda item is board reform policy 1710 um gender support this has been a procedure there's been some significant updates to this procedure to turn it into a board policy

055um so this is the first read for this policy draft um transfer to get input from the board to see if there's any other things and then it will um go from there but Anna do you want to is there anything you wanted to say okay that's not what I thought are we is the first I will ask does the board still want to move forward with making this a policy versus a procedure I know we have ask this all the time but just to clarify and if you would the difference between a board policy and a board procedure especially when it might be something that doesn't align with what SBA North Carina School Board Association might have sure so um the big difference is that procedures don't require a board vote they are sort

056of in the domain of the superintendent um and since they don't require a vote they're a bit easier to alter um generally the board will be informed of them um but the board does not have to vote but they're but of course the board's input is always sought on these matters um policies do require board approval um they're generally more of a process to go through and change and um it's a little bit easier if there's something that's out of alignment in a procedure to make that alteration to bring it into alignment than it is with a policy which does require going through the boards first and second reading process from an operational standpoint benefits like I If if we're trying to figure out should this be a policy or a procedure benefits drawbacks is

057there a way to think about um so generally on something that's detailed to this level and especially something like this where the area of law is very much in flux um across the country we would tend to recommend a procedure um just because of those changes in law that may come um as and since it is such a sort of changing area and fluctuating um issue so we we would tend to recommend that it be a procedure rather than a policy um just to for ease or St staff required to follow procedures in the same way they're required to follow policy yes thank you I think we decided to look at this because we were interested in affirming very clearly through our policies now having had to go through the parent Bill of Rights process

058and that's anyway I'll try not to comment on the name of that um that we wanted to have a policy in place to welcome and let all of our students know those who were transgender lgbtq queer Etc and our Educators that are fall into the same category and families that it was important to have a policy that makes that clear right um so I think that's the impetus behind this am I right Dr Ferman okay the one thing that I would say or that my my observation would be that it might be possible to take this policy and distill it into some the this procedure rather and distill it into some some core principles without going into the detail that is here that would might have the same benefit of having a policy in place

059to say transgender students queer students queer Educators we welcome you we we appreciate your presence here we will protect your right to be here but maybe doesn't have all the minutia that's just a thought I have a two questions when we passed the parent Bill of Rights Act I'm drawing a blank on the number no the the particular policy 1310 thank you we chose to move some things out of policy and we said we're moving them to procedure does this then comply does that does that check that box so this procedure as it reads would check that box box um and bring everything into compliance that is required to be in procedure by sp49 and I have a second question is that okay um Sports and physical education which I'm a big fan of if

060I'm reading this correctly you are permitted to participate in physical oh in miral that's what it is thank you I had to get there thanks so we want to move so I guess let me kind of get a feel from the board moving for with this as a procedure fine but then writing a more General policy for the board's voice on supporting gender identity that's my thought could we not put to to what you were saying Amy I know there is a lot in this procedure but could we not it looks like there was already something at the top talking about affirming I mean as a quote from someone but could we not instead in that introduction area there do what we are what you were basically saying um in the introduction it it gives

061a I mean that's a lot in that introduction good but could that introduction be cleaned up to where to to basically say what you just said we're affirming we we we want people here we we don't we're not going to discriminate against anyone uh we don't improve of that we don't encourage it or condone it could that not be in the introduction rather than that really amense paragraph actually it's not a paragraph that book that's in under the introduction yeah so James let me just make sure I understand are you suggesting that that first part become the policy essentially not not so much the policy CU I I think for me when we start making policies like that it then gets us into with the procedure it's easier for us to like Anna said to

062do things with the procedure um I think that we have addressed a lot in this procedure that was that we heard from people when we were talking about s sp49 so I I think think that we don't need to do a policy because again as Anna just pointed out staff have to follow the procedure just like they have to follow a policy so we've covered it we we we have support here um I wouldn't do a policy I would just leave this as a procedure but Encompass what you were saying within that first part in that introduction ask a followup question building on where James is on our agenda this is called board reform policy and we've had in our Retreat we took some time to hold the difference between operational policy and reform policy

063and reform policy is the place for us to name our values and so I'm I guess I'm curious if there's any precedent yet for how we already use reform policy or if you have a vision for reform policy what I'd hate to do is leave this out of a package of Reform policies that then it would have aligned with with other values we hold versus so that's I'd ask for some reflection on that and and you mean a good point this is a very something that's very wordy for a policy per se um you know it does more align with the wording or what you would see for a procedure um you know if we want if the board is Desiring reform policy which I do recommend because those are statements from the board on

064how you as a board will impact and change the educational outcomes for our school system for our students one of those would be we want to affirm that our students that are trans by you know that they are supported and seen here um so we would want to I mean that to me is a reform policy it doesn't have to be as specific as this um but would be something that would be a reform policy such as an equity kind of statement or Equity policy um yeah and I think it's important just to respond to that the this is the a policy is the board statement it's not a statement of the administration and I'd like for us to have a board policy that is in support of this community and I would also note

065that I would really like it to include Educators and families as well right now this is only in the language of students and we have Educators who also fall into this category and families so just yeah I I would Echo what Amy just shared um you know just every every member of the Asheville City Schools Community um but I also just wanted to thank you for um spelling this out in such a a really awesome and detailed way um that you know handles handles it with respect the due respect that this issue deserves give a lot of credit here to Chris and Anna they crafted a lot of this language thank you okay so we'll move forward with this as procedure um and then we will bring back um when we start continuing to look

066at reform policies on a subsequent agenda uh mag you can actually add a couple things and I know you don't like surprises I'm trying not to surprise you with this um but um in fact this isn't a surprise it's just a question um if the stays of a procedure as as someone who's actually had this gender Support guideline effective in my family um so I you know I've seen iterations of this I would love to see as we do with policy specific to this one if there are ways that we can track changes over time um because as I'm reading this through I can't remember how you know you say it's it's updated but how it how it varies from the time that I last saw it yeah and and I have the track changes

067version this I just posted the final version um but yes be track changes version as well and then finally and this is maybe where the surprise part comes in um but it's really just a request um I think duly we spent a lot of time on how we as a board have responded to S sp49 and the real troubling um legislation that that is if we're having and I think it's important that we have a procedure code like this for support of our transgender queer students i' also would ask is it possible and maybe Anna you can weigh on with this is it possible to do something aligned like this for our black and brown students as we start working at and um I mean we we we've heard it in public comment we've heard

068it a lot we've talked about it as a board um in terms of our Equity work and repairing that harm and especially in line with the IFA I'd love to is that possible to do that yep okay okay okay um so we'll move forward that one next up on the agenda um I asked several of our staff and I think we also have a a previous student um that used to work at the Randolph Learning Center um and they cuz I feel like the Board needs to see hear the history hear what it was like at that program um and then the subsequent iterations of that program um when it was housed at a school and kind of trying to share space so I've asked um Carrie who was the assistant principal when Randolph was

069also occupying a space at Asheville high school she was also the a um freshman assistant principal Derek was one of the founding memb members um very early on at Randolph Kim Robinson as well was very active in that program and um I didn't touch Bas before but were did you ever have a previous student that was able to come okay that's okay um this is a big you know this is a difficult place to come and try to to share experiences but just wanted them and I think probably Derek and Kim are the the best people to give that history of Randolph what it was like what the learning experiences were like how how the program ran um and then um I've also invited the ECA staff to come and kind of share how things

070are going there and then as well as you know we're starting to Envision what could the next version of that program look like as we look at providing um those supports for students and expanding services available so I'm going to turn it over to Derek Carrie and Kim O Okay um I guess the first thing to acknowledge like alternative Ed is not one specific thing um there's multiple versions um all kinds of different iterations of it um to be frank I think we may have done them all at different points in time in our in our district um our own definition of alternative Ed um I guess I personally feel as has not been particularly consistent um over the nearly 20 years that I have been here but um just a brief overview of kind

071of our history it um when I came into the district was the second year that it existed on the current Randolph campus prior to that it was ALC and it was housed in the old acock school building uh Pat Griffin our former uh board member was the leader of that school um and at that point it transitioned over to the mford campus um where we stayed uh for probably a decade plus my whole time I was there um and we kind of transformed from that time we were a 612 school um sixth grade there also was a brief moment of a year or two where Kip Academy was under the bottom floor of that uh facility but it was the alternative school was a 612 School uh it was very clearly delineated where the middle

072school program was at on campus and where the high school program was at at we had a full um slate of all the teachers for all the content areas as well as CTE teachers we had a function in cafeteria uh we graduated our first class in 2010 uh we were not a graduating um program until I guess that was 2008 we kind of took that um guide of of we were going to do that and the first graduating class happened either in 2011 or 2012 2011 thank you um and we also trans we through the school board we changed our name from um Randolph Learning Center which um just having a name even though we had our own Lea code and we were on our own School having a name like Randolph Learning Center made

073students feel less than because it was not a school like the word school was not on the um on the building on the sign so we really had fought for a few years to get that change to the Will William Randolph school um there was a time where the school board went through a heated debate around uniforms we were the only um School in the district that chose to go uniforms personally I loved it I wore the uniform every day for many years green polo and khakis um and then at the very end of my tenure there was when the decision was made to move well we lost our Leo code when Gordon Grant um moved to Hall Fletcher and we became a program of the middle school and the high school at that point

074and um we lasted I think one more year and um maybe two and then that was the point where they made the decision to move that program and those students into uh modular units and the south side of town near the um what's now the Edington Center um so anyway that's kind of a brief history of it I will say I really want to talk about what I felt like was really vibrant and beautiful about the school that I belong to and the community there um we were I spent nine and a half years there um I was a lateral entry teacher we were between 90 and 120 students at our largest like I said 612 it was mostly a School of Choice which I think a lot of people will forget Maybe 80 90%

075of our students chose to be there um our classes were smaller we had Innovative instruction a lot of pro pro Project based learning we had we built a greenhouse a living roof shed a lot of community outreach constant Pro projects we had a recording studio um I was joking with some folks earlier I had a running club for several years in fact there is a picture of me in with a mohawk where a student uh beat me at the chamber challenge and got to give me a mohawk when I call my wife that's still the picture that comes up um 15 plus years later um we had really strong leadership and really strong creative staff uh we had a lot of mental health supports day treatment was housed there at one point a lot of

076Community Mental Health that pushed in we had arts and Community Sports Supports like Leaf The Design Lab go green the Chamber of Commerce helped us out a lot um that really there are challenges having sixth grade students in the same facility as um 12th grade students for sure but there was something beautiful about building a relationship with students years well I did not teach Middle School I knew them very well Elie Lindsay there are a few of us still kicking around none of us are as young as we once were but Elie was the middle school math teacher and I was the high school math teacher we collaborated because we didn't have a a PE so we collaborated all the time I knew his kids he knew my kids when they came to ninth grade

077we would sit down have a conversation like you know here's what Little Derek is great at here's some places you'll need to support him um let's see the students really felt like they were belonged in love there like care and support came first it feels weird as a principal to sit here and tell you the academics were not the first thing we worried about but that's true like we worried about the kids were they taken care of what did they have needs that they needed to be met and then we academics came second after that um one of my favorite things in all of Education we did a Thanksgiving meal each year where our kids and our staff spent time preparing a meal as a math teacher we' bring in um recipes from Grandma maybe

078long gone grandma and we would scale that up to be able to feed 200 people and we would do that math and then we would spend days preparing a Thanksgiving meal in um and participated we had our own prom uh we spent a lot of time in homes I was there in homes a lot um to be frank we had a bit of a US versus everybody else mentality um and about we really were focused on succeeding at all cost uh we were part of a state RTI Grant we were the small high school for the state there were three high schools uh at the time and that was really important I will not over smooth over some hardships too I mean there's parts of being small that are hard uh scheduling is a exactly

079opposite Beast that I have now at the high school you had to plan longitudinally um being really small when there's an issue of whatever a community issue altercation on campus something that happens at a home it affects everybody and you had to be prepared for that we also had Metro which was alternative suspension program for the district um and then let's see after that that's when I left became an assistant principal at what was then Vance now hearing um we moved our folks into the trailers I will not speak to that in a public form but I will tell you in nearly 20 years in our district I think that is the worst thing we have done um if you'd like conversation about that ask me privately um then the trailers had had to be

080shut down um yes and then we moved into the old RC building which and Carrie was there for that wait a minute and yep so before that so the middle schoolers were dispersed back to the Middle School originally when they came back to the middle school they um it was a conversation should they continue to wear uniforms and which they stood out because they were housed at the the downstairs in the Old Middle School building and so we decided that it wasn't fair that they wear uniforms so they didn't wear it and eventually uh the program merged back into just basic the middle school program and we um did away with the Middle School alternative programming when the middle school students so let me back up a little bit so I go even back before

081Miss Griffin with ALC when Ernestine Watts was the director there and so um um my uh um I'm a pro I am a result of alternative programming so let me say so asro City schools has been trying this for a long time and we really need to get it right um but miss Watts I had two children at ALC of my own K Academy I had two kids at K so I've seen it all and been through it all um when you guys were at monford at Randal I was the social worker for the middle school and um when the RLC was first created and everybody moved over there the middle schoolers weren't a part of that program they um middle school and that was one of the students former students I was going to

082have speak was one from the middle school and one from the high school and the middle school um sort of was more of the the parents and staff being frustrated and so they were like we've got middle schoolers what are we going to do and so in my opinion the middle schoolers got dumped over there uh when I would go over there to work with them it wasn't as structured as more of the high school uh programs were there were two classrooms correct me if I'm wrong that housed the middle school students and I just think in my opinion when the middle schoolers came it wasn't much like I said much of a thought process for them to go over there and when the middle schoolers got there they decided to act as if from

083what they heard how the high schoolers were and they like started mimicking those behaviors again they were only there for two three years tops and then they were uh the trailers they did go to the trailers but when everybody went back to their schools the middle schoolers came back over there uh like Derek said you know it was house Community member MERS were housed there where they supported with the students at Randolph as well um and let's see and and I've already spoken on about how the middle school as far as I'm Carrie okay so first of all I was at the middle school when they were brought back um as a teacher and and um some of the things that I remember because my son was friends with some of the students in that

084program where you know they they were served their breakfast like a whole hour later than everyone else am I I'm correct right um had eaten um they weren't allowed off the first floor at all um they were brought their lunch downstairs so it was kind of like they were isolated um and then I think it was the next year they were back with us in our classrooms um but then when I went to the high school in 2016 the alternative program then was called aha I do not remember exactly what that was stood for it was aha it was a terrible name it wasn't the best um kids hated it um we later changed that in two April of 2018 to the grad program um but when I went to Asheville High as an assistant

085principal when I was first hired I was asked to be the assistant principal for n9th grade and the administrator for the alternative program not the easiest totally two different buildings um but our students were housed in the ROC building there's several people in this room that can speak to this Jesse was on the same hallway as them um he shared their space there were at least 30 plus kids expected to be in three rooms four rooms there were four one was divided really three rooms but one was semi divided um their expectation when I first arrived were they arrived at 9:00 they left by 2:00 they were only allowed to be in the ROC building um at that time they really had been given um the year before um their lunch was not allowed to

086be at the same time as their peers um and if they were caught in any other building Administration was called immediately um on my arrival um someone who was working with student services at the time she and I changed it to where they arrived at 8:30 they left depending on what they needed either 2 or 3:30 they had the option to stay a full day cuz some of the CTE courses they needed were only during fourth period our fourth block and um so there were like some quick changes we made in 2016 to make them feel like they're a part of the school and not just they have to stay in that building I will say though that um the expectation did not change that they were still not expected to go into the main

087building or into the Arts Building they could only go to CTE and ROTC which I think was anyway um so I didn't want to just give my perspective tonight but I did reach out to several former students who graduated in 2019 2020 um they were unable to make it tonight because their mamas and they're taking care of their babies but um they did give me permission to quote them um one of them said they really liked being on the ash High campus Because she was on the same campus as all of her friends but we were treated like we were in jail she said and then she said and admin were called and she was like and no offense Miss buin but it was always you we were you were called every time we were

088in the other buildings and she said that was really a yucky feeling um also to mention while they were on that campus they were actually moved three times while I was there in the two years um they started in the ROTC building it was condemned my second year there they were moved to get tell me this is right the 400 room which is in the CTE building downstairs so all they did have four little spaces now they had one big room that we were going to divide into two classrooms um and then by the end of that year we were able to create a space across from the media center which at that time had housed Ash high and silsa classrooms I believe um and it became the space for them and it stayed that

089way until they moved where they are now if I'm correct um so there was a lot going on just in the two years that I was there um but I think the most powerful thing was when I spoke to the students because I mean I think they loved being on campus and being able to see their friends we did change their lunches they were able to be with peers we were making small gains um and then when Terry padet took over she was able to make even bigger gains but um and I didn't stay over the program too long they finally hired someone um because they realized I couldn't do it both um but that's just a small snippet of like what happens when they are on campus and how they feel when it's not

090their own and they're they feel like they're aliens on a campus that they should feel a part of um also the other thing I wanted to share is I did have um a meeting one time with some parents of some students who um got into a little bit of trouble and so we were sitting down with the parents and with the students and one of the parents at the time said I just don't understand why you're keeping them on a campus where they seem to struggle with like what's the point of an alternative program if nothing's changing um and so I thought that was really interesting um thought from the mom because in her mind as was just too big like her child you know just needed a smaller school um and so that was

091where you know so I did want to share that also and then in a crazy twist of fate I came back I came to the high school where the alter School existed in the space across the media center in a temporary space that was none too temporary and was the point where uh building code we had well outlasted by the tune of like two years the temporary walls that were put up and that had to had had to change uh it was we were didn't have a choice at that point so um and Stephanie day was the uh coordinator at that point and then we've to where we are now I will say um people often ask and I think there was an impression of what Randolph was like when we were had our own

092School in our own separate space um I will argue that it was a beautiful experience uh it was a place of choice that most of our kids and we did have some students who were place there for sure um because it was the alternative setting but most of the kids chose to be there um even when they were wearing school uniforms and they were the only ones at a bus stop with a uniform on they still chose to be at that school um because of the type of care that we provided and the kind of community that we created um and that was really it was really touching and beautiful and our kids didn't really want to go back to the big high school um they wanted they may they may have been mad when

093they were placed there but they continue to persist and stay there the rest of their time and education because that's where they became home to them and it very very much the staff and the students kind of wrapped around each other and made it a home um oh I don't remember to be honest um and I think when we talked to Maggie about like a recommendations and how to move forward the first thing is I would ask we got to figure out what we're going to do for out alternative education like what is it going to look like because we have had everything I feel like under the sun the possibilities in this District I mean alternative Ed could be a computer in a little room all by itself that could be alternative education or

094alternative education can be a whole school all to itself with all the things and everything in between so we've got to figure out first what what is it going to look like the next thing I would ask is figure out a place that is theirs um because part of the issue with the trailers with where we're at now with all the things moving at the high school is nothing was there we have to figure that piece out um and then once we have those two things figured out have a multi-year plan with benchmarks across the way so we know what's happening are we growing a program is it going to be capped it whatever ever you know arbitrary number um I would say continue to look for strong and creative leadership and staff because alternative

095Ed is different like it's a you have to have the right people to be there in that right spot U and that's I think is really important I've been who want to be there people who want to be there I've been a part of had some staff members at different times with me who did not want to be there or were placed there and that that was a recipe for disaster um the one thing that I feel remiss that we've never really done I would Advocate that really explore alter some alternative hours um that's the one thing in alternative Ed that we may be the only thing we've never tried but I do know I remember us having students asking like what about Twilight hour they didn't say twilight hours but like what about hours

096from four to seven or 4 to eight and I know there's programs out there I think really looking at that but I think ultimately we first had to figure out like what is it going to look like where are we going to put it and and can they own that space and and and that's the two big looming questions it's all I got and Twilight is what worked for me uh a couple of things we didn't mention was um when the students returned back to the high school again there weren't any options for the middle schoolers and so we did try to form day treatment programs at the middle school and that quickly fell apart and it was just because we rushed into it we were just trying to find Solutions and we really have

097to like figure it out and then also while students uh over at monford we sent middle schoolers over as an alternative to suspension we had a program cougar something was set up I can't think of the name of it but students were sent over there as well and some were permanently placed over there in that alternative to suspension program not a part of the monford um students but as they were housed in just a couple of rooms over there so those were some options that we've explored as well currently and and we do have ECA staff here and I think Dr Magie is going to uh talk about that in a little bit but currently the model the three-prong model that we're utilizing is the same model that was utilized at RLC which is gened

098alternative to suspension and Credit Recovery we do offer that um we and which is another reason why we've capped it at 30 students because we have to allow space for that as well when students transfer from alternative programming if that's a choice that they want we have to honor those choices and when schools are making those recommendations when they're a disciplinary hearing panels making those recommendations we have to honor that can I ask a question because I don't know enough to know some of the words you're using there's gen at general education you take core classes and then are you saying some kids were not taking general education classes like I'm a little fuzzy on I just say jet I know we have EC and Jet but I'm just saying the general population over there

099like those are the students who are assigned or want to be there right are the kids in the program taking core classes and CTE classes yes so they're they're they're taking all of those classes like all other students some we're limited with CTE courses and uh Dr Johnson can speak more on that but we we have tried to be creative uh some of the CTE courses can even be taken uh whether the elective courses can be taken through uity the online programming online format uh however we're really trying to get the kids more engaged and there's a lot of more teacher content teaching right now that's happening as opposed to where we were this time last year okay are there any other questions for Derek and or Carrie yes I do I I'd like to

100ask and then we'll bring up the the ECA staff that's right you can stay there Rand yeah I just have a yeah please go ahead I want to the board to have an opportunity to ask any clarifying questions or you know dig in for some more information um on you know what the program was yeah I'm really um curious first of all if Derek you're probably the best person to speak to this or maybe you Kim can you talk about the outcomes that you had when you had a full-fledged school as compared with what you have seen happen to kids who might have benefited from that school that have not had it what have the outcomes been for some of those kids do you do you see a difference in what we had outcome wise

101when we had Rand offers is where we were two years ago and I know we're on the road back but we're not there yet well and I I will say Ian first off like I'm really still to this day I miss teaching math and the alternative setting every day like if I that that is probably still to this day the best the best that I had in education because it really like I I was able to be creative and um there weren't a lot of Reign on what I could do and and we were really successful in I was really successful the students and I were successful in that in that realm um they met high growth there's very few people around that still probably even remember the old ABCs um but I mean that

102we were able to do that um I feel like the fact that we got our students to grow graduate I know for a fact that there were students that would not have graduated otherwise um and part of that was this that full rap around because it was small um as soon as you know little Dereck didn't show up like somebody was going to find him um or calling him or or doing whatever they needed to be done or and probably they would have gone to the house that afternoon so it was just it was just a different type of environment that is much much harder on a big campus right I mean it's my classes varied the smallest class I ever had was a class of seven the largest I ever had was a class

103of was 22 um if you come on my high school campus right now like you'd be lucky to find a class under 20 and and we go up to 30 so it's just a different setting and I think acknowledging that that different setting is is necessary um to make students feel like they belong and they're at home but I think that's that goes back to why I think my my core around making sure students feel belong even on that feel belonging on that Big Campus where I'm at now is really important because that's my core and where I got as a teacher so the outcome i i a lot of that's anecdotal I would have to really dig into some data to go back and find find things but I know that we were exceeding

104growth um in math and part of that was like Elie and I right I mean we would we would talk about incremental steps in sixth grade all all the way through all the graduation requirements for mathematics we knew that frontwards and backwards and we knew how to get our kids through that because we just worked together for years so and I when I and I appreciate that and when I'm talking about outcomes I'm also asking do you think it saved lives oh absolutely and I also won't sugarcoat it right I mean I mean I just want to I want to hear it I want to because I know that from my work and I'm just going to say this I read pre-sentence reports every day and some of them come from students at Asheville high

105school that I know might not be in federal court were it not for those for for for and I just want to hear from you all if I'm right about that and there is a time and a place we can sit and talk about some of the tragic circumstances that some of our students came out of and how they persisted through some of that uh this is probably not the the Avenue for that for sure but I mean there are students that I I mean I have off I have attended and and to some degree it's not always successful right that's the harsh reality the harsh reality in alternative education is I have attended several funerals of my former students that I was really really close with I do have students who are incarcerated um

106but I also have students who are mamas at Hall Fletcher who are parents of students at Asheville high school right now there are parents I still contact with and and they need something they call me and like let me help you you know find whatever thing it is you're needing um same thing was at claxon I had a ton of parents come to claxon when I was the principal there because they knew the relationship I had with them so they brought their babies to me as kindergarteners um so it's just a different type of setting that you have a really hard time creating in any other type of school I mean even in elementary school you have a hard time creating that type of setting again but 100% while yes I may have lost some

107students I will sit here and swear to the end of my days that we saved way more than we ever lost because of the hard work that we did one last question I have which is do you have a sense of what the racial breakdown was at Randolph in terms of how many students of color you were serving versus white students so it in Truth it varied over the years um but it was always predominantly our black students students um we were really high fore introduced lunch that would that would vary between 90 and 95% our racial breakdown at the time would range anywhere from 80% maybe 75% African-American and then white students after that uh it probably was as high as 90 to 10% at some points in time particularly towards the towards the

108end when things started you know it became a program and all the things there was a point that last year or two where it became mostly a placement um option and not a school of choice and that really was a big downfall I think to it being a separate school um but yes I mean it was P predominantly our our black students um I remember vividly Kim and I talk about this uh I think Adams sorry not Robertson uh we remember vividly at a time where our that school was being looked at to be closed for Dixon to move in for that and I remember you know part of that belonging was building resiliency in the students and self- advocacy but it was our students then we went with them to support them but it

109was our students who came to this room uh who also came to the County Commission Chambers and City council's Chambers to advocate for themselves uh in a way that U most people probably wouldn't have given them chance to do and that was really hard for the end end result of that but it was really empowering to watch them stand in front of governing bodies and advocate for themselves and their school family u in a really productive way because I don't know is that would have happened otherwise thank [Music] you um I just I wanted to ask and this might take some sort of creative visioning um about what what overlap is needed between the high school potentially the Middle School um in terms of availability of services classes Etc resources um you know you spoken

110about CTE and proximity to that that how how could you envision that working um before we move down that jumping too far ahead no yeah yeah any other questions about the history of Randolph in the programming because I want to bring Kim has been already crafting some visioning and I want to have an opportunity for her the the staff that's here as well to come up and share in that what they think they need let me add this part to it um I think they had a program they had teachers the on the most important thing that Randolph had that hasn't been seen since is they had people teachers staff there that supported them that loved them and took care of them yeah yeah thank you Derek that's what they had I'm sorry yeah sorry

111hey Dereck I got one more question you might not be a to answer this or or Kim you might not be able to either but um I I'm just curious if there's knowledge in the room to know that or to know the answer to this when when the students from Randolph were moved out of that building to accommodate the Isaac Dixon students MH was there was the idea to bring them back into that building or was it always just going to be like we've got to find another place for so I would first say I want to be very clear because there is a school that exists in that building right now so I want I want to be very clear I'm not advocating one school program against another yes in all three chambers our

112students went and for themselves in all three chambers told them to their face these are young people 15 to 18 that they would get their school back once once Dixon was done um and then the district made different Cho ources and here we are where we're at now but right yes okay all right uh other if any of the ECA staff that's out there if you guys want to join R if you want to come up you're welcome to if you're more comfortable where you are feel free to stay where you are and Jesse I do want to say when you said it hasn't been done since we do have committed staff who really love being there and working with our students I just have to speak I have to take up on [Laughter] yeah

113okay okay so um I'll let Kim start um kind of talk about her vision and then um well why don't we start with how things are going right now at ECA with the staff let you guys kind of share what your successes are [Music] all right uh thank you all good evening to the uh to the board uh Dr Maggie and Ash City Schools uh we represent I stand as director of uh alternative programs for asille City Schools education and Career Academy to lead the people you must love the people Dr Cornell West I was once a former teacher at RLC from 2005 to 2010 we did have strong leadership we had a creative staff we had Dr Gordon Grant as our school leader he was also my mentor and remains my mentor to this

114day uh he helped me through the first year at uh ECA and he's still on call now as I need him currently we have 30 students uh we would like to have more uh but we do not have the the staff to have more than 30 if we were to have for one before I even go any further we need a place of our own our students are like refugees they're going from place to place without a place a home for learning if these were the students from mord Northstar and also ashal middle our students would have a different outcome when they will have a home they do not have the parent support that other students have in our district we want to talk about Equity now is the time for Equity our students need

115a place to learn a place to call home we have a dedicated staff we just do not have enough staff when we had RLC we were fully staffed at this time uh even for the first year we only had four teachers one admin we do not have a custodian we do not have a SRO we do not have cafeteria staff these are essential things that we need we do not have a school nurse these are things that we need as we move forward we do need to be fully staffed so for one we need a home for two we need to be fully staffed and as uh principal El had said before our first task is to make sure that our students are cared for and loved from 8:00 to 2:00 we give our students

116our very best my team here our team they are also teachers our staff we need more support we need a place of our home as we move forward please board consider these students to be your students your personal students consider these students to be the students of mford Northstar to be the students of North Asheville yet our students come from Southside Asheville and we do not get the same treatment as other students are in this District we do get support I will say that and we are in a great place however I feel once we have a place of our own we are fully staffed ECA will be one of the greatest places to learn in the area this I do know and at this point I want to share this with my share my

117the podium the panel with my staff and we will go from there Hi I'm the English teacher I'm Jamie Stevenson um I just wanted to share I asked some of our students um what they're like why ECA is important and why the alternative program is important to them um I'm just going to read some of their quotes kind of summarize um the most the one that really struck me the most is that um this student said that before she felt overlooked and uh felt impossible but ECA made me feel possible and that's really the one that stood out to me the most um other students have talked about um they enjoy a smaller environment that Asheville high and solo were way too big for them um a lot of our students experience like mental health

118issues anxiety um and having thousands of over a thousand students on the campus you know it's it's a lot so a lot of social pressure um uh students talked about that they've been able to have better attendance a lot of them said that for this for that reason um ECA has supported me in many ways I've had better attendance better focus and support from teachers um I think ECA helped me with wanting to be something in life and helping kids not get put out of school and being able to finish school um other students have other students talked about uh bragged on their fellow students they said all the students are loving and caring um ECA has helped me to get better grades and to actually come to school and it supports me because there

119are a lot of people to help if you need it um ECA has helped me to grow as a person and as a student by being understanding of my struggles and supporting as much as they can through it um so a lot of students have also said that you're able to they're able to recover their credits um we do have credit recovery so they were able any credits that they failed before they're able to go back um and take those and they're able to get them them done in a faster way so um that's just I just wanted to give you all an idea of what our students have to say uh I'm sorry there's I don't have any kind of prepared remarks or anything um I wasn't sure exactly what uh you know the

120the format would be today and what you would even want to hear um I think I would Echo what uh has already been floating around the room uh kind of everything that principal Edwards described is is kind of what we're trying to build up I I think he's right in uh saying that the students have to be cared for they have to have a place that is their own uh that's the same as what Dr Johnson is saying um we've been able to make at least in my opinion U some some fairly uh remarkable game given uh the students we haven't given the the resource we're in this place from you know 8: to 2 uh and at 2:00 you pack your stuff up and you get out because uh after school's coming in at

1212:30 I mean how there there is no way that you can uh teach in a way that you need to and engage the students in a way that they need to be engaged uh from if you're there from 8 to two it it just doesn't work um so we do our best uh we we build good relationships with the kids um we get them at least coming to school they like being there um but we're real limited uh in our current circumstances um and you said a lot last week as well well yeah if there's any specific questions I mean we'd be glad to to hear them thank Lisa r got ahead of mic radio yeah I am new to the district and I am very passionate about this program and it has ruffled some

122feathers I owe Miss Kim an apology first of all and I would like to say that um I have been squirreling away at my desk when I have minutes making plans because that is what I do um I love kids but I also know that one of my strengths as a teacher when I was a behavior teacher was I had to plan I had to have a plan and I had to work my plan even when it was hard and I feel like in order for us to build a program that is bigger than Dr Jay bigger than me bigger than Miss Robinson bigger than all of y'all we have to be able to articulate a plan and a vision and work it step by step because what is concerning to me right now is

123I don't think ECA should be pitted against Montford Northstar all of our students matter Dr Maggie has made that incredibly clear all of our students matter we we should not be in a situation where Montford teachers are on one side and we're on the other because we love our kids and the one thing in the three years I've learned is that Asheville city has more resources than any place I have ever been and I have worked in a million districts I've never seen or experienced a system where when I asked for help I got it so quickly I know you guys love our kids I feel like you love our kids I feel like Miss Robinson loves our kids I feel like Dr Maggie loves our kids I think we need to sketch out a

124plan and I don't I don't want us as the leaders to box ourselves in where we say if we don't get this this this year we can't make this thing happen I don't think that's true I think that's limiting thinking I think that the teachers at this school I've never seen a group that does a better job of Dr Maggie's promise of belonging wherever you send us our kids will be loved and taken care of they will now do we have a wish list yeah we do um I and I I admit that I have gone off on my my own and kind of done things because as someone who's not from here it's easy to hear all the stories and compile them and I don't have an emotional connection to the history it's not

125that I don't respect it I just don't have an emotional connection to it um and I do have some connections to Community High School and their middle college and so for me I think well I I did want to say this I was so touched by um when Mr Reynolds came to speak at the high school and one quote that he said that really stood out to me that I want us to keep in mind is he said when I was in school I didn't want the teachers to save me I wanted them to see me and that was so powerful to me with Equity because it's not my job to go out into the world and save all the poor black kids it's not my job my job is to provide Equitable High rigor

126opportunities for them so that they don't thank me they thank themselves that they F the accomplishment not that they were some sort of like a charity that we're doing something nice for them like that's not what we're about so having said that I think that the resource of AB Tech is really where I have tried to put a lot of my energy I feel like it's so important that we walk these kids across the stage and into a life it doesn't matter the piece of paper if there's if they're not going somewhere else after that I think as we increase what we're offering we can also increase our expectations of kids because they want what we're selling and that's what I heard in Randolph is I didn't hear Derek say he said yes we took

127care of them first but he also said we had high growth and I think we can do that I think that we can aim for 90% graduation rate at least I think that as we grow we could look at getting additional funding so that we are more self sustaining doesn't have to be perfect but um I just would like to see us all come to the table at the same time and map that out and and what does that look like we can't do it all today we can't do it all tomorrow but like what does it look like this time next year what I would hope and pray is that we're not having the same conversations I that's what I would love to see is that we can at least come back at the

128end of the year to our community and say okay these were the steps we took these are the things we've added on and this is our next step and I am so grateful for the opportunity Dr Maggie gave me to be a part of this I appreciate y'all giving us a chance to talk we we love our school and y'all are always welcome and Mr Jesse come sees us sometimes uh first of all I just want to correct myself it wasn't as though it wasn't love since then it was that we have as a community we have not given back that love to you guys throughout all of these years because seem like I travel with you guys from Randol all the way to the all the way to the trailers all the way to

129the RC program all the way over to across from the imedia center that we were were there together and I saw that nobody really gave care to those kids and mainly to a lot of other staff they just play staff in positions without giving the a staff the May the the whole process that work is you want you have to want to be there and that's what we going to have to find for ECA is find those people find the staff that want to be there each and every day to help support kids and support you guys right and hopefully we can help find that so one of my ideas that I think might increase sta sorry Rita we need to get a mic on you sorry that's okay is to really focus on teacher

130leadership while I appreciate that Dr Jay and I are both there the experts in the room are our teachers and I really would like us to consider how we could create a teacher Le school so that a lot of teachers right now in education feel hopeless and helpless and like they don't have the creativity to teach in the ways that bring them Joy I heard Derek say that about like he had all this freedom to think of new ways to think and invent and I would like to see us perhaps you know if that's okay look at a more teacher Le um building and I think that would increase the teachers desire to work there because they're going to have smaller classes they would have more input in how the school is run um we

131can make a teacher leader model and we can Implement that I think that there's money to support those teachers for their extra work and I think that would be really exciting thank you any other questions from the board teachers you have anything else you wanted to share um so I you done um yeah I can so I've been in alternative education this is my 11th year before this I was in Haywood County um I can say that this is the most United group of teachers I've ever worked with when it comes to like um understanding the population we're with um I have worked with with teachers who have been placed in programs um and they are usually not on the same page as to what the PO who the population is and what they need

132um because I do see like like uh Mr Edwards said like the well-being of students comes first and until you can understand that like you're not going to be able to reach these kids um I will speak from like empowering teachers I like I think we made a great great uh step in giving our kids belonging and I think we've made like huge strides in that but I as a teacher have a really hard time convincing my students they belong if I don't have a place to belong if I don't have my own my own like classroom to set up my own like the like physical systems stuff like that when I have to pack up everything that I have and be out of the classroom at 2:30 it really help feels like I don't

133belong so it's hard for me to show that belonging and I'm not blaming that on anyone it's just like that is the that is like the visceral feeling so I I appreciate you lifting that up because it's something I forget about the ECA is the students have to be out but I forget that because we're in a space that's not ours yeah there's you know I've been been there and just now that it Dawns me like there's not it's it's unlike going into another school where you're seeing artwork on the walls and all you know all the stuff like all that stuff has to come down so I appreciate that um a question I had is recognizing that that right now ECA is a program of Asheville City Schools it is not does end have

134an Lea number you know I know we have to have a certain capacity of students in order to to have an Lea number but um the students that are at the ECA right now are either part of asille high or silsa what like being a program separate from or or or housed in a different space than those like what what I I would assume that the end all be all would be that to have ECA having the Lea number be able to call itself a own school but but without that what does it what do youall do to make sure there's any kind of cross intersectionality between the students at Ashville high and silsa with soon as ECA what's missing from that given that you are housing this other place where you have to be

135out by 2 p.m. I'm just curious to kind of talk about that as being a program versus being your own school right as far as it being a program and it being a school as you just said the school will have a Lea code uh also the policies may be a little bit different and expectations the standards are different as far as that like attendance uh they're a little more flexible with attendance uh so that helps out also uh as far as the high school uh as far as sson as for high they have firsttime talk classes like math one be the first time we have uh more so of credit recovery uh if we were to have a large uh larger space we'd have more teachers therefore we could also offer firsttime courses and

136that would be a big difference uh also uh being connected to ashah high we still participate in sports the prom uh all those things of that nature uh so we still still have the social aspect the only difference is is like the like again the attendance those standards and things like that I would prefer to be a program uh until we get to a place that we could be a school right now as we're we're new we're building we need that flexibility that flexibility to help us grow uh more uh more so yes appreciate that one one a quick followup is thinking about you know I appreciate that there's opportunities for those students to be a part of what's happening on the high school campus thinking about fifth period at the high school right now

137um where you've got clubs youve got other things happening are ECA students a part of that at all or uh they they do have that option uh I will say but in many of the cases the students do not want to return to the building not necessarily that they don't belong but that that's the largest setting uh like you said you go from 30 to 1,200 students plus s so you got 14500 people that setting is more desirable uh at ECA so many of our students we've tried to offer a fifth period uh if we would to grow right now we have four teachers we do not have an elective teacher but we would need uh I would say four more core teachers and even elective teachers to help us you know to give us

138more options for our students right now we can't grow because we're limited we don't have the staff to take it to that next level uh such as having a permanent CTE teacher art on on campus PE on campus things of that nature thank you we ALS there's also the logistics you because our buses go first so because and I'm the AP so I know the buses so because we share buses with Elementary School our buses come first they take our students home then they go to the elementary school then they go to the high school so we start first which is quite the juggling match and major props to Amanda rsby because every time we add a student we have to figure out a new bus and we currently have five buses we have three

139EC buses that are coming because they're going from one side of town to the other um thankfully by working at Jones i' I've been able to identify those but like the amount of bending over backwards just to get the kids home and our buses to then get to the elementary school to take those children home has really been unimaginable how one student can be a like a a Snowball Effect for that so so for our kids to go back to the high school is quite challenging because then how do we get them home because they don't even know what bus they ride anymore who's responsible for them on the high school campus um we haven't really been able to make that work so instead Dr Johnson has um done a great job on Fridays we

140have speakers I know Mr Jesse has been a speaker we do our own clubs um all of the teachers have a club and the kids get to choose so we've tried tried to manage that and then we have like we have a prom committee to help bridge the gap between us and the high school and those are students and so we're we're trying to bridge what's important um and then we also have to acknowledge that some of our children have done harm on the high school campus and we have to acknowledge that and we have to acknowledge that some of our students have come to us under very harmful circumstances and their presence back on the high school is a problem and we have to figure out solutions for that so that our kids aren't

141othered but we are also you know restoring those those relationships with the children that they've harmed so um it's it's way more complicated than you would think as far as just go back to the high school campus it just it it's not working great um and so we've we've sort of had a policy of you don't have a class over there so during during the school day you cannot be on the high school campus I just wanted to ask a question um Dr Johnson you said that the currently the students come from the south side of Asheville I was curious about how how ECA came to be less a school of choice and how students are chosen for enrollment uh let's see when we first started the program of July 2022 uh there was a

142list of students many of those students were former students from uh the grad program and then some of the students were potential dropouts uh then we were able to go get them and bring them into the building and when I say Southside students uh I'm talking about urin area Livingston Hill Crest uh many of those students are coming from that area of uh dis uh disadvantaged communities uh I've only had one student has out of District uh student that's white uh he's more than welcome his family's been very uh supportive uh I just wish I had more students in that situation uh many of our students do not have both parents uh some of our students are many of our students have only one one parent is incarcerated one parent is deceased uh uh we

143have parents students that are living with grandparents and guardians of that nature so we are somewhat Limited in those cases uh but we do accept and we welcome all of our students I hope I hope I've answered that correctly yeah I appreciate that um yeah I'm just curious about like how how a student can opt into it op in and then also through parent request student requests uh sometime that's been you know through the panel uh administrative placement uh but for most of our students they have uh been requested we've had students students come to the building the families they've been homebound for a while they come into the building they uh they feel the energy we've had parents that are white and they want their students in the building and that makes me feel

144good and I've also had black parents to stop me in the middle of the road I heard you helping kids over here how can I get my kid into your school and it's by parent request uh student request and and also again uh administrative placement right now we are becoming a national model uh with Nae National alternative Education Association uh we working with them I'm representing North Carolina on April 30th we will have the ncdpi normally they have 15 to 20 admin to come uh to these reflection uh sessions however right now they've asked that I could they bring 40 administrators across the state to ECA on April 30th I invite you all to come out to the building and please be a part of what we have because we are becoming a model I

145meet with them uh every two weeks a cohort a national cohort uh I'm working with people not only in the state of North Carolina but Kansas Missouri Baltimore Tacoma Washington people from Across the Nation they're looking at the model that we have and it's not a GAA it's how can we help you grow and they see the things that we already have in place we've had seven graduates thus far uh this year we've had three early graduates and we have four more coming along so if you do the numers S out of 30 those are good numbers so you know we we we are not where we want to be we have a lot to grow but we are headed in the right direction so with a a home fully staffed and a team Vision

146we are becoming a state and a national model and I'm very appreciative because throughout the state what I have heard Ashville City Schools I got to thank you all we do have resources and we do have support the other districts do not have at this time thank you and it's just one more thing I want to add uh to what Dr Johnson just said students who have been administratively placed or those when uh who were recommended for long-term suspension and the and the panel uh decided to send them to uh ECA there's been dates that set where the students when we get to reassess the situation and students get to go back and we haven't had a student to want to return they they feel a great sense of belonging at ECA once they're there

147thank you guys really appreciate your time it's late um but thank you I think this was much I wanted the board to have a full picture of history of what's happening right now and you know kind of thinking and in the presentation I've got some updates as well and some future visioning so um thank you appreciate that thank you guys thank you Al [Music] umse Matt whide has a quick update and then do we want to take a break how about that yeah yeah well so let's get Matt stuff out of the way and then we'll take a a short break yeah if that's okay Matt's always quick though he has this stuff to tight well good evening everybody nice to be here it's nice to be out from behind the screens and see what

148it actually looks like up front so there are I have drafted uh recommendations for purchase uh for your consideration the first one is for security additions and I believe you have that available to you um this is a total value of just over $190,000 what we're doing with this is replacing some of the surveillance cameras as well as adding additional surveillance cameras and uh badge swipe controls for various doors across the district that the district Safety Council with April Docker and myself um built a consensus that this is what that team wanted to do to enhance security this year um the goal there is you know Security First uh keeping kids safe and looking at behavior management as a secondary aspect of having a lot of security cameras and door controls in place I'll pause

149there to see if there's any questions about the security okay Matt are we going to get to sorry are we going to get to the point where students will have badges to swipe in and out more than likely I would say that's coming okay uh we don't have any um explicit plans other than at the high school where the student parking area uh is controlled by badge swipe access okay um but this particular set of doors that we're adding on the Ashville High silsa campus will uh allow easier movement on class change than we have doors scheduled to be unlocked during class change but um as we have more of the perimeter of the various buildings with badge control doors that will certainly help us to move to every student having a badge that controls

150doors at certain times of day Etc um you got to get the controls in place first yep is this separate from or in addition to the badge swipe controls that we looked at last year we have added door controls every year for the past several years um Ashville High did the first round um about a year ago that included a gate up top and the the parking and then several doors on the um various buildings to make sure that staff at that time the goal was to make sure staff had access to the building off hours and weekends um and so we made sure every building was accessible this next layer is adding in the class change and more more exterior doors from various areas essentially that uh you know Derek and the folks over

151there identified if we had this door and this door it would allow people to move more freely and still maintain security thank you um Matt the the 190,000 um is that where where's that money coming from where where's it budgeted from do you know it's my understanding that U perh I believe it's 115,000 is coming from a grant that uh the district was awarded and the rest would be coming from local Capital funds but uh perhaps Heidi would like to address that the the same safety Grant was just received so to the extent that it's available that will be utilized to pay for those items and then as I understand it I am still working through those numbers there is an allocation in the capital fund to um address those kind of needs as well

152and it's set up annually and we are going to work on the process for reviewing how we do that moving forward to make sure everyone has a clear understanding on what their budgets are at the beginning of the year and as we move through and have to amend it for different needs that we might meet so great thank you is is that the safety Grant that's not the money that the state put aside for school safety is that a separate Grant is that the one Mel Melissa had got for us no it's the it's a grant that U Miss Robinson and I wrote together yes that is exactly what it was and we were as a competitive Grant so we work together and we were rewarded in a substantial amount actually more than we had

153previously hoped okay I didn't I I know that there was money set aside by the state for school safety as well I was just wondering if that was in addition to that okay part of it thank you okay the next item is labeled a C2 e- rate purchase memo uh C2 is referencing e- rates Category 2 funding which allows for certain interconnections and um maintenance of basic service and what we're doing with this uh application is looking for funds to replace our core switch on our Network and various Hardware that goes along with that and then replace the wireless controller so with this um it would bring total throughput across the network potentially up to 40 gigs we're at 10 right now um this core switch in place is well it's been in the central

154office longer than I have and I've been here 12 years so it's it's up it's up there um and the wireless controller provides additional uh tool sets to eliminate uh potentials for interference you know we have a a room right now on the mount for campus that is getting a lot of mysterious interference and we're having a hard time sorting that out so having a better wireless controller gives us better tool sets to eliminate interference and still transmit quite a bit of data without um and you'll see that the eate support covers some aspects of that um and that North Carolina connectivity fund supports other aspects and it leaves us with a bill to Asheville City schools of about $22,000 and we will receive about $140,000 worth of hardware and software how long will it

155take to do the switch Yeah it's not an insignificant task this is going to be hopefully something that we can do over the summer perhaps around the July 4 weekend if we can find people to work um it will mean you know taking down the full Network for at least a day we have to change out all the connections any other questions Matt I have a basic question yes it refers to eate program and eate funding is zate the manufacturer of the software oh yes so um rate is a program supported by the f CC so when you pay your um you know your Verizon bill or what have you there's going to be a line on there for FCC charges that is essentially funds the rate program so rate is put in place specifically

156to support schools and libraries uh to have internet connections and so we can tap into the program yes there's a very specific application process we do every year to access those funds and it's very tightly regulated Federal program lots of funs fun and one last I guess one last question this wouldn't so unlike the safety one that's $140,000 or 190,000 our fund we're only having to do $22,000 out of this so doesn't require you can do that okay just wanted to make sure yeah the contract agreement is over the 990,000 so that's what the PO will say so legally we need to be here but it will 22,000 out of our pocket if you want to think about it that way and the final item is the fiber lease renewal um in 2016 we entered

157into a five-year agreement with Charter to lease fiber between the central office and each school and um that came to term and it included additional one-year renewals so we're in I believe it's the third renewal cycle and this is um just keeping the data flowing between the central office and each of the school campuses and you'll see that that one ends up costing us nothing it's my favorite so if there's no questions um thank you very much and um for your consideration I don't know if we can take action today or if this is for a week from today for next right thank you thanks Matt great yeah why don't we um take a five minute recess is that good great that's for the recess everyone ready all right we are uh we're back in

158session and um next on our agenda is updated Middle School study from Dr Ferman okay uh welcome and um we'll get our presentation up on the screen shortly board members I shared a link with you as well so you can follow along and we are I think we're ready to go so um just kind of a reminder on the timeline uh started these discussions with the board back in November about some potential budget shortfalls and examining our capacity at our buildings um which drove us into really digging deep and making some an you know doing some analysis and that is what we're going to share we've held two public hearings um got lots of questions and information from our Comm Comm also held the community input meeting in January um so feel like we are

159ready to give an overall summary of this information for the board um this evening and um have a discussion and then um be ready if the board is ready to move this to action items for next week that is the decision we'll make at the end of this presentation all right so again just a reminder the charge that the board gave me was to um use the use my team and look at feasibility of potential consolid a ations as means of improving our academic Effectiveness operational efficiencies and long-term Financial stability for the district also as we've heard from our historical Randolph team and the current ECA staff um to see if there's a space that we could find um within Asheville City Schools facilities for the expansion of our education and Career Academy as well

160as making sure that we're then able to provide that programming to meet the needs for these diverse students um when we know that Traditional School is is not re not providing all the things that will meet their needs um I went ahead and and created based on those charge some I some really specific outcomes that we want whatever decision is made to try to help us achieve these outcomes that's increased academic Effectiveness so all students have an equitable opportunity for success in life Equitable learning space for the Academy um with space to grow so that they can have uh the provisions for additional mental health support for our students that's much needed also the financial stewardship um we know we have to as the as the Commissioners have asked um asked us to right size

161our district so looking at that making sure that we are making use of our available resources as well as improving any operational efficiencies to reduce cost where possible so the initial analysis this is a high level I've had I've shared lots of more initial um or initial analysis Det details but when I just really hit the highlights here from the previous presentations is that as we looked at our enrollment versus capacity even though we know some of our capacity numbers are not as accurate as we would hope they are we still have a good idea of that we are under capacity at every one of our schools um we do also see that our enrollment has decreased by about 600 students since 20145 but we have the same number of Staff across the district um

162that we did back in um 20145 um as we were forecasting our budget looking ahead for next year we see that we are going to lose a million dollar in funding because of decrease enrollment we're going to lose a million dollar in federal funding um from uh the Esser Cliff that is pending um and that we do anticipate at least a minimum increase of about $1.5 million um from State salary increase as well as increased cost of Health care benefits for our staff and then we also in um based on the 2% local supplement increase we do anticipate that of an increased expense next year to our budget of another million dollar so that what that's what makes up this approximate $4.5 million as we forast to the Future so looking at potential Solutions um

163first and foremost uh looking at our staffing allotments at central office and at our schools and a staffing allotment process that will be responsive to student enrollment so if we gain students we can increase allotments if we lose students we'll decrease allotments and that's really the beauty of a staffing allotment formula is that it is responsive to student enrollment so if we gain 100 students for some reason we can quickly adjust our staffing allotments and increase those and higher additional staff cons U conversely if we lose 100 students we adjust our staffing allotments so that we then right size our district to match the student in enrollment um we also are doing efforts to increase student enrollments um we've did mailers we've done Flyers um we have uh a 60-second um 60-second video plus another

164promotional video as well as bulletin U bulletin boards still focused in the classroom Billboards U electronic Billboards out in our community just advertising the really great things that we have available for our students another potential solution is looking at consolidation options um we did look at consolidating from five elementary schools to four um we do have an update for our Lucy Herring Community about upcoming construction that will start in June of 2024 um we are meeting with staff and students our staff and families tomorrow at the end of their school day to give them the information on how that is going to impact Lucy Herring for the upcoming year but basically what it means is we don't have as much space to spread things out um or do other consolidations because of that construction at

165Lucy Herring and we after we update the community of Lucy Herring we I will share more information publicly here as well we've got information and communication going out districtwide um about that and then even looking ahead further H Fletcher is the next on the on the list of constructions for that similar kind of updating that they're doing at Lucy Herring um we also as we are here tonight to continue looking at decreasing from two middle schools to one also decreasing from two high schools to one um we did take a time to look at ECA placement at either the um the 441 Haywood campus or central office neither of those buildings um are ready to take students that would be ready for next year there's a lot of updates at both buildings that need to

166be completed um we did run some initial analysis of what it would cost just to update Mountain Street to get it ready for students and that would be a minimum cost of $4 million and that is old $4 million like that's $4 million from initial projections on work that needs to be done here to get it student ready but that from a few years ago so we anticipate that being a very low number to upgrade this whole building to get it ready for students um we also looked at other options um but at the same time we have the feasibility study in partnership with the county to look at options for the 441 Haywood campus um where we know that we were exploring opportunities to put to partner with the city or the county to

167build an operations hub for our team on that campus as well as adding a library and an EMS Hub and a prek hub um and exploring space for um ECA programming so all those things have been examined in that feasibility study we don't have information that we can share publicly yet but there's some great opportunities on the horizon there but those are 3 to 5 years out so so it's not something that we that I think is feasible to wait for that to come forward so just another update on some budget savings we've taken a closer look at our central office staff and I feel comfortable that we can reduce central office staffing by approximately $475,000 next year also decreasing our central office budgets for FY 25 by 5% across the board and then continuing

168to work on our central office staffing formula um and then again the school School based formulas I'm still in conversations with the principles looking at student enrollment kind of putting all these pieces together so that we have a solid formula that is enrollment based so it adjusts as our student enrollment population adjusts so it's responsive to increases in decreases in student enrollment so we don't get to a place where we're 600 students lower than we had been and we still have the same number of staff so that is that's what overextends US is having more staff without the student enrollment and that's what's going to that's something that we need to make sure we've got a formula in place so it adjusts on its own as those changes happen um there was a request for

169additional outof District applications so this is a snapshot of the last five years of outof District applications um knowing that I came on board here in July most out of District Applications had already been either accepted or denied I heard several appeals when I came on um but out of District applications previous to that I can't really speak speak to um you know there is an opportunity for we looked at each individual one there was a question about capacity capacity is fluid so it you know if we look at potential enrollment and deny a student in Octo in August but then students don't show up then space is open so we may have anticipated a full class and we didn't accept a student but then Here Comes our counts after the first month and we

170realize actually like 10 students didn't show up so we would have capacity so capacity denials for capacity to me is is hard to nail down because of enrollment counts you'd have to look at the enrollment count on the day that the student application hit and decide is that are we at capacity now so that is a lot of recordkeeping that we just didn't have time to dig into um in light of this presentation but what I can say is talking with enrollment staff you know our take is we want to accept out of District students I can't change the past but I can make sure we are addressing it as we go forward as an Administration we also had some questions about achievement Gap so we went back and looked at um achievement gap between

171maford and Asheville middle school students um and here you can see this is subgroup growth um where the zero is kind of the line but you have growth negative growth or positive growth you can kind of see you know the differences between Asheville and monford and this is total comprehensive so all scores together so accumulation of the scores for the student so this is um growth scores just individually this next one is achievement scores individually and this is Gap so this is the difference between our white students and our black students so if you say here's how our black students are achieving here's how our white students are achieving this is the gap between their achievement between the Blue Line being maford and the red line being Asheville middle school so this is achievement difference

172so that's the it's the Gap so that is 54.8 different like a number difference between and is I can't remember if that's the percent difference but it's basically what you see here is you see that it's similar y as you see that there's not a glaring difference between either school that they're a their Gap is similar and then this is growth and achievement together and that's what the state uses for our scores so you can see again there is not much of a significant difference between achievement and growth for our black and white Gap so that brings us to um these three options that we initially proposed and have spent some time exploring um we're going to go through each of these a little bit one by one and talk about those indicators of success

173that we identified um so analyzing increased academic Effectiveness for all students identifying which of these options provides that Equitable learning space for the academy and then which of these are Financial stewardship is demonstrated so are we fiscally responsible by using the resources we have available um and do are we improving operational efficiencies and reducing cost so way back when I also Shar this decision-making model um because we know this isn't a unilateral answer it's not a simple yes no it it does this and it doesn't do that so we're not going to do it we have to look on it on this Matrix that talks about our learning opportunities our in our like what is our increased academic Effectiveness have we created learning opportunities that are inequitable um or have we created learning opportunities that

174gives everyone an equitable opportunity for success but then also layering on to that Financial stewardship ship so use of our resources maximizing those or are we not making use of all of our resources effectively um so any of these options is going to put different things on the on the Matrix in different places so let's explore some of the decision and Analysis regarding those for option one so first I just did an examination of what could be Equitable spaces for learning opportunities if we um keep to schools as is right now so looking at space and mford on the first floor for potential Academy space taking one of the eighth grade pods for an Academy um at the high school we saw limited numbers of open rooms in a in a way where we could

175group the students together um and abtech as I talked to Dr gos said he said that they do not have space available um for our students at this time but also lifting the conversations about what it was like for our for students in the academy when when they were on a shared campus and I don't think that I could say that is really the best EX the best opportunity for our students to have an equitable learning space um so my my summary here or my conclusion is that option one does not provide an equitable learning space for our students nor does it provide us a space where that that program can grow to serve additional needs for students I did some additional when it comes to academic analysis I wanted to hear from our teachers

176on what is impacting their ability to teach the best that they can so we sent them a survey um and at the time we pulled the data we had about 216 responses we had about 15 to 20 more come in um when I look pulled the data this morning so we will update these slides for that most accurate information um so what we ask the teachers is how much instructional time are you losing during a class or a block due to students who are not meeting your norms and expectations so we see that about 25% of our teachers spend less than 5 minutes per block and and that's where we would want to see we know kids aren't perfect you're going to have to address students when they're not meeting expectations Middle Ground is between

1775 to 10 minutes that's even acceptable but that is kind of like that's getting a little bit into the caution stage but if our teacher is having to spend more than 10 minutes addressing student behavior that to me is an indicator that that's something that needs to be addressed and when we total up the time potentially lost for our teachers addressing student behavior um we're losing between 500 70 minutes to 16006 1,646 minutes each day um now we know we're serving 3900 students so this is kind of dispersed over that but I think this makes it to me a pretty significant impact on our teachers ability to provide um that most effective instruction was excuse me was this survey sent to all all teachers all teachers yes we only had 215 respond that's probably that's

178actually a really good response rate for a survey yeah I was actually pleased that it went up to about I think 236 or something like that 230 240 so how many wait it ended up being about 240 okay 240 out of 600 and well that's total that's total staff oh t total how many classroom teachers I don't have the number off the top of my head I was just curious yeah well we can pull that um and then we also asked for um another follow-up question on that is how often do you have to stop instruction so do you have to stop instruction less than once a class or per block two or three times or more than five times per class if you're having to really stop more than five that's kind of your

179indicator that oo you've got some significant issues um not there's no causation here like this isn't interpreting causation or you know seeing what that is but just saying that based on this survey our teachers are spending a lot of time addressing students that aren't meeting expectations and they feel that that's impacting their ability to effectively teach their students so the other question we asked is how many students so what we're curious on is this over half of your students between 5 to 10 3 to five the overwhelming response is that this is like one or two students that they teach over the day that is really interfering with their ability to provide that high you high level instruction to their class now they had several things that they could rate here they could say um

180you know the this is a high number because they had sleeping they had not following directions they had harassment they had disrespect you know not using cell phone without permission so it was a wide range of options of behaviors um but really what I wanted to capture here is we're not talking about a lot of students this is these are singular students that staff are really struggling with um moving into the financial analysis for option one um and then just this is um where I feel like we could create some um more um Financial stewardship is we have a $41 million building um that is beautiful and could it be and it is significantly under capacity it's got a capacity of a thousand students its current enrollment is 543 um projected enrollment next year is

181for 486 projected enrollment for the following year 476 and that's if we keep mford as is and its enrollment is 220 um and with a capacity of a th000 we see that we just we're losing capacity and financial efficiencies these there and because we'd still continue to operate two buildings we really could not realize or come up with any operational efficiency savings so let's move into option two and sometimes here because option two is to move mford into another site or it's combining them into one new school like bringing them together merging them some of them I've did option two and three together um so option two and three because we are vacating a building I feel like it would provide that open space for the Academy to have that facility um and it's got

182sufficient space that could allow that program to grow as we looked at academic analysis um this is kind of the summary that I didn't really pull in but um when you see that something's happening at our schools where our teachers aren't able to provide that high level of teaching they are losing time so if we identify uh well first of all we could increase our academic supports for students at an expanded ECA so if we have that opportunity to really grow the program um and and provide that meaningful instruction and that loving environment for our students I think we would have way more than 30 students in that program um and then because we have that opportunity to provide a growth in that program some of the students that AR are not they don't have

183that match they're not getting their needs met at our schools if we can pull those students into and have them the opportunity to choose a different school then we could recoup more learning time for our teachers because then they're focused on teaching um and providing that programming for their students um we also examined exceptional children services um at one middle school and do feel strongly that while Montford is a ADA Compliant it's limited in where it's ADA compliance is um so that a fully ADA Compliant building like Asheville Middle School would make things a lot easier for students with um disabilities as well as a broad spectr broader spectrum of services for our special need students we know that because we're dividing resources some students can't even choose monford because of their disability and the

184services that they have because it's not ADA Compliant and because it just doesn't make sense to create two separate programs when we could create one program so we know we have uh an extended content program at the middle school and you know there's only I think six or seven students in there wouldn't make sense to split that and do three and three so we've put those students together to maximize resources um and then a wider variety of course selections at the if we have one middle school as well including Health Services related Services all being in one space felt like that could be maximized and there would be significant trans portation that kind of goes into some of our financial analysis so again financial analysis for options two and three um so $41 million building

185um is closer to full capacity um and looking at the enrollment um looking at our projected enrollment over the next 3 years um it still is below that 1,000 um but it does keep it at a higher occupancy rate than we would if we kept two middle schools operating um operational efficiencies we see those and I'll share sh some of the numbers that we provided earlier in transportation and school nutrition as well as that Staffing allotment formula being able to use some economy of scale by having more students in one space um will provide us opportunities for efficiencies there and even if we do not combine schools we still have to start moving towards implementing a staffing allotment formula so we will see increased class sizes over the next several years as we move into

186this still a reasonable amount we're not trying to cram too many students into one classroom um but we do know we have several classes um that are significantly below what they could have as I was looking through especially at the middle school or electives classes some electives classrooms are sitting with seven eight kids in a classroom and we just can't I would love that but we just can't afford to keep having classes with seven to eight students this is um the information I shared about Staffing potential Staffing savings um if we move to option three option two we really keep all staff as is so we wouldn't see these savings there um but it we do see some potential savings um when we do look at combining the two schools into one um and I

187didn't realize this when I initially made this but on um on the side on the right a couple down it says High School Middle School clerical staff AA data manager and that should say bookkeeper um and then on the bottom under the CTE teachers music teachers one per 7 175 students enrolled in the program so making sure that we're always Staffing our music programs um because I just I think that's a a core thing about our schools is the is the wonderful music programs we have so just a summary of the potential saving options for option two and three um transportation for both of those is is a significant savings um you'll see the the number of the leases that was 90,000 we did pull that down to 27 ,000 because we've already vacated the

188um property we've been renting for transportation and school nutrition and have pulled them into some office space over at um the 441 Haywood campus School nutrition savings we would anticipate seeing those and then option three does have the added savings for Staffing um so I had some initial questions about um how could we predict some changes to financial efficiencies or decreased student enrollment um so our Capac our enrollment data is finalized our study and what this um graph what this table shows is historic enrollment um over since 20145 until this year um so what that number is so if you look at 2022 23 to 2023 24 if you look at the the column that's K to1 it's 95.2 what that means is if we had 100 kindergarten Stu kindergarten students last year as a

189district this year only 95 of them moved up to first grade so it basically tells you what percentage of our students are staying with us versus leaving our schools so we know um APS closed at the end of 2021-22 so we um we've the the theory was that we lost hundreds of students after the closure of APs so when I look at the survival ratios um I know that that holds true so you can see from K1 to two um we Lo we our survival ratio there was 89 or 98.7 76% so out of every 100 students we kept 98.76 of them now the next year we did lose more students so we lost 95 we kept 95.2% of our kindergarteners to first graders um I didn't really look at the birth to one or

190birth to K so then I looked at first grade to second grade um um the year mon the year APS Clos we actually gained students in second grade um when you look at second grade to third grade we lost um we kept 93% thirdd to Fourth we kept 97% and fourth to 5ifth we kept 92% so what I looked at with the red boxes is of the year it closed the year following or the overall average of our survival ratio which was the highest so three out of those five years the year APS closed our survival ratio was actually higher than the next year and our over overall mean overall average um now there's two years second to third third to Fourth where the average was higher and that tells me that yeah we did

191probably lose more students than we would normally see during that transition time so then what I did is let's try to capture those two years together so from kinder G to first grade over the 2122 to 23 20 2223 and the 2223 to 2324 which is this year what was the total loss of students what was the change in the survival ratio so you can see on this table um looking at that total ratio um and then I average them so some years we lost some years we gained but the overall average survival ratio was 1.77% less um the year after now we don't have any additional data because the the primary school only closed two years ago so there's only this data available to to anticipate so the comments that were shared was we

192should use this survival Ratio or this number of students that left our district to anticipate how many students could leave if mord closed so I took this same formula and looked at our anticipated Middle School data and applied that increased uh of losing an additional 1.77 students to our um anticipated class size which for 2526 is 696 students and if you subtract the 1.77% that is a a loss of anticipated additional 12 now whether that information holds true I can't foresee the future but what I can tell you is I was asked to create a formula to try to decide would we see similar loss after a close of another school so that's where this formula came from um also there were some questions about stakeholder engagement so did wanted to kind of summarize what

193our stakeholder engagement was over the time here um so we did the community input session in January um with over 200 attendees we collected over 531 written comments and we collected 118 initial preference collection um we tried to do the online version of that preference collection that is what we weren't able to but there weren't that many of those so we really did focus on the data for what we collected in person when they attended um we received 37 emails through the feedback group and that's as of this presentation with parent feedback um we've had two public hearings um we had 55 individuals and five groups speak so virtual I what did we say I never did we ever get a final answer for that thank you so we also did have virtual I think

194I was around six or seven six or seven um I also held a student discussion at Asheville Middle School in monford and talked with students directly um part of that conversation that the students really brought up and focused on was what would it look like what were they fearful of if the schools merged or didn't merge um and their feelings on that um and then I also held staff meetings at Asheville Middle School in mford and a lot of both of those conversations were about why the staff at mfor love their school want to see it stay open um also had an additional stakeholder engagement opportunity um a few Mondays back at my daddy taught me they brought in students that would be the students that would potentially be those that would really benefit from

195choosing a separate school like ECA um and when I gathered feedback from those students on what did they feel that they need to be successful first and foremost they said they needed a safe and supportive place for black students um they also shared that they wanted more career Readiness classes these were high schoolers um that would help them prepare for their future as well as personal finance and internship opportunities they wanted more Hands-On learning they wanted teachers that would come into their community and they wanted more mental health supports um you already heard some earlier today but also Kim shared with me some feedback from the students at ECA on what they felt they needed um and how ECA helped them um so they said that they come to school because they feel supported and

196they see scen they feel like they can focus better they have more opportunities for success and can get their academic support that they need they feel that their staff really understands them and the struggles and that helps them grow they feel like they get the mental health support that they need and they feel like the staff there help them accomplish their goal even stuff like helping them get their driver's permit um and then I also did as you heard um talked with um the staff at um that worked at Randolph when it was um its own school as well as some of the staff that interacted or supported that program through its several iterations um and got some information from them and they felt like that um when it was Rand off it really provided

197a space um where they could be with their students in community and they used that a lot like we could be with our kids in community and in with them as a as kind of a family um they used Project based learning to bring their curriculum to life and you heard some of that from Derek with the gardening the Thanksgiving dinner um Derek also said they built a boat I was like wow okay um and they also raised that the flexibility in their space provided them really supported them and made allowed them to adjust for what they needed for what their students had all of that to kind of bring the board back to at some point a decision needs to be made um and I put up here your the board Equity statement and

198one thing we read the equity statement at every single meeting but we never read the working definition so I was going to see if any board member wanted to read the working definition I'll read it says uh Equity is a sustained practice that removes structural barriers to opportunity and resources and results in the Eraser of bias and disproportionate student outcomes based on race centering black Latin Asian indigenous and multi-racial ethnicity socioeconomic status language of origin disability sex gender identity and SE sexual orientation in Asheville City Schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and Thrive we will model our commitment to equity through our decisions and actions this is an equity statement and a working definition that I wholeheartedly agree with and as I think about the

199decision that this board is the work the board has charged me with looking into and the decision that the board has to make is not an easy decision this is something that I have struggled with a lot um but when I started reflecting on it I started thinking about what are these structural barriers that are in place in Asheville City schools and is this an opportunity to remove some of those barriers so that our students have an equitable opportunity for success and as I pulled some additional data um looked at our thinking about our students hearing the story of Randolph what happened you see that our students that have been most marginalized we've continued to put them on the periphery we have not centered what those students need um when I look at our in

200and out of school suspension our black students have lost 420 days of learning our white students have lost 126 days as of this morning we also see that at Nashville city schools continues to have one of the largest gaps in our achievement between black and white students and the lowest proficiency so as I reflect on this decision I'm centering what option will provide the students who are most marginalized an equitable opportunity for success that's where at night I have to go to sleep at night and I know that I've got to make a a recommendation to the board on what I think will really support support our students that are most marginalized we have students that are have lots of opportunities we have a beautiful $41 million building and those are things that I wrestle

201with I also wrestle with the students at mfort that have love their school the teachers that are doing great work I'm not dismissing that um but I also know that we have an opportunity to do something really courageous to really put our Equity actions in front and prioritize that so I started brainstorming and thought how do we how are there ways that we can try to satisfy everyone is there something that's possible to create a school system or make changes in our school system where we have something that can help all of our students um so I don't if you don't know about the house systems this is a an idea that kind of rose up for me as um we look at pulling if the board decides to pull mford into Asheville Middle School

202creating kind of this what they call a house system so it's a sixth grade team a seventh grade team and an eighth grade team and they operate as a house so not only within their grade level they have horizontal opportunities but they also have vertical opportunities to build community to support each other and I can think of some really wonderful things for our students and what I love about this thought um or what really stood out to me is something that could be helpful here is creating like house Navigator like this are our Montford students we still can provide a steam Focus for those students across grade levels um but then also pulling in our other magnet themes we have Arts and Humanities that's widely successful at Classon so could we create an arts and

203hum's house um and then we know our um our Community has been sharing and I've if no one asked me but I'm very supportive of dual D dual language immersion so thinking could we create an international perspectives team and really focus on enhancing their language acquisition for a group of students letting and this are just my ideas I really think if this is where the if the board wants to if the decision is to merge the schools could we really take this opportunity to also engage students and staff in designing what this looks like um to take this to the next level because I believe if we pull our staff and our students in they will have some really Innovative and creative ideas to make sure that whatever happens we are building that sense of

204belonging um pulled some numbers as well um So based on projected enrollment for next year the sixth grade teams if we divided them equally among the three houses you'd have about 69 students on each team in sixth grade 88 on 7th and 78 in 8ighth grade for total house population of 235 per house also started brainstorming with Kim on what the what a Randol version 2.0 could look like so having it serve students in all grades and really focusing in on continuing with Project based learning I think we have heard I'm a huge proponent of Project based learning I think it is a way to make the curriculum come alive for our students um I think it's what's needed in 21st Century Learning so students see the value of what they're learning um so definitely

205and hearing from Derek and other teachers that work there that's what helped it be so successful so continuing that Project based learning um strengthening its connection with the CTE program and career Readiness including internships um Dr cheeks has a grant she's been awarded by the Dogwood Association um the trust and we are already she's eager to figure out what we can do with that Grant to help increase um Career Tech programming um it would also provide the behavior treatment as you saw in the data our staff are struggling with students they feel like they're the counselors the therapists and the classroom teacher um so what would that look like if we had a place for students to go and get that behavior treatment that we know that they need also increasing alternatives to suspension for

206our middle school students um enhancing our credit recovery um now we do know we kind of brainstormed space for growth and what could be possible um so two Elementary School classrooms looking at four Middle School they said they had two I do believe strongly that four would probably be best at ele at Middle School um six High School classrooms the four Behavior treatment programs and this isn't something that we would put in place right away this is something to grow into um and then also looking at the available space at um if if the board decides to merge the two schools is moving our student services and potentially all of central office to that building space as well um so as I said it's um this is a difficult convers this is a difficult decision

207and not one that I haven't thought of probably every second of every day since we started this conversation um and still am waxing and waning on where I fall on this um but feeling strongly that we need to make sure that we are making a decision that puts our students who are most marginalized giving them that Equitable opportunity for success in life cuz they don't have an option to get it anywhere else that concludes my presentation any questions discussion from the board so um I I do want to just say before as we get into this conversation recognizing that [Music] um as you said D deferment like it's hard it's painful all this um I'd like to if we can as a board you know obviously there can be Global questions that don't relate specifically

208to a single option that you presented to us um but if we as we do get into looking at the options I think it would be helpful to kind of spend the same amount of time on each um and then we can Circle back to all of these options again just just so that we are giving time for each of these options um because I do think it could it it it we could end up if we don't have some kind of framework we can end up speaking about one option till you know we're you know into the we hours having not looked at the other options so if if we could again Global questions great but as we start talking about options maybe focus on just option one first questions about that then we'll

209spend you know 20 minutes whatever it might take moved option two Etc so um just looking at option three financial analysis the historical enrollment data um I think that we need to be looking at a different line what line would you look at at the 2019 to 20 and 20 to 21 line it didn't close until 22 the closure decision was made in December of 21 right so then the year ended in June of 22 which would be 2122 school year which is the the year that you're looking at but right but oh okay well so just just to clarify are you saying we should look at the year 2020 to 21 and then 21 to 22 so the so there there's if you mind to come we go back to it so it's up

210on the screen um I there numbers on this but we're looking at the option three financial analysis the historical enrollment um so there's a the line for 2122 into 2223 is highlighted in yellow are you saying Lia we should look at the one above that two lines up two lines up because 19 to 20 that was that spring was when APS families were told that we were going to move into Hall Fletcher and then in December of that year that was when the the vote to close was made so I think that that to my mind that's the the percentage that we need to be looking at but the vote to close came in 2022 school year not in 20 to um so those are school years it's not those are school years it's not

211okay correct I also think that you know 1920 to 21 to 2021 with covid is an anomaly year so I don't know that that's a really great year to use as a comparison for any type of enrollment data so that just to to understand the way that the years are um the one that I said we should look at was the year when covid happened that spring M okay yeah um so since Liza since you started with option three I think I think it's great um like to just entertain more thoughts and and questions about option three um which would be to merge both schools into one um I I'm obviously there's a lot to process and so it's possible that we you know that you know I'm saying we can take that we could

212talk in the we hours it might be that we need to process and whatever but but just as I'm talking out loud and thinking out loud thinking about um your um one of the brainstorming ideas about the three houses in the Middle School yeah um if that option three is what we as a board ended up doing I'm curious have you thought about how you would engage the entire community in terms of establishing houses and then what kind of um understanding that a school Community is just it's the people in inside how how fluid like would are we talking like Hogwarts where hous has been established for thousands of years and never change or is it like like you know like how flexible are we as those hous I think it depends so some type

213of some housing some schools that do house systems you know pick however many houses they want to create a manageable group and they pick different terms like you know Integrity team unity um and then the students basically get sorted into a house just like you see but they use like a wheel or a generator but they do sort students and through a sorting thing and every kid gets randomly assigned to a house um some of them do preferences is and the kids kind of get their you know first or second preference for a house um so there's different things for this one I was thinking it makes more sense for us to look at our magnet themes as our house structure we know we've got stem at Hall Fletcher we want there seems to be

214a strong desire to keep a stem Focus um so continuing that stem Focus um through Middle School regardless of where it would be I think is important um and then thinking of as I've been to all of our elementary schools the magnet themes that seem to resonate more with our community than some others um for various reasons and just I just picked these because they made sense so you could say let's you know let's do some visioning activities and pick different themes I I'm not really particular about what the themes are for the house and it could be we don't want to pick a theme around a type of you know like Arts and Humanities or steam we do want just a more General so I do think there is community involvement in that and

215that's really important um and that's having some town halls with the staff with parents getting engagement from your students on okay what makes more sense um and then is anything with education you give it a try you do your best and you know make edits as you go sometimes you have to live in beta for a little bit so you figure out what's working and what's not working and living in beta for most people is very uncomfortable but it also gives you an opportunity to figure out what's working so you can scale can you talk to us a little bit about for option three the like a project timeline to get to an appropriate beta yeah I I think we could definitely um get to an appropriate beta not a perfect scenario but get enough

216ironed out and figured out if we hit the ground running um I've already got some teacher leaders um pegged at both schools to start kind of brainstorming and seeing what does this change look like how do we implement this Kim has already started getting with her team on how do we vision for what we need next year at ECA if it if it has a space wherever it ends up so that we can grow that program over time so it's not going to be what we want it to be the first year neither will the house system those are things that people Implement over years and years and continue the kind of continuous Improvement cycle to get them where they want them to be but I think we could definitely get enough set to make

217them viable and workable and a POS POS experience for students where you going but would it be more appropriate if we could delay that for about two years and concentrate on ECA uh for the next coming school year so that it going to be a lot of mindblowing activities going at one time we can you know like hit ECA real hard this coming up year and maybe option three and about two years from now once we get ECA going that's great um but it's a real question of where to put ECA for next year the Edington Center is not available no no no we are discussing option three right three have ECA at a location right now right oh yes in option three yes it would be yeah it has at a location right now

218so we could concentrate place in ECA according to uh what you show about ECA remember what it was up there yeah yes I think we do both actually if that's what you're saying yes we could definitely do both because Kim and her team are going to work on things and that's a completely separate Department than what the middle school team would be working on I think you could do both simultaneously I think what I what I'm hearing um or what I'm seeing and thinking about the two days of the two evenings of public comment um and hearing from a lot of monford parents and students is um I heard a lot of the value of of the type of programming that's happening in mford especially that Pro Project based learning um and so what I'm

219seeing as you put in that in that middle house the that steam house the what you call the house Navigator is um kind of a demonstration of if option 3 was chosen um for those monford families that are feeling like you know the the world gets turned upside down by the by the merging of the two schools is here's a space in that excuse me in that astral middle building where a lot of the things you valued excuse me in mford are now housed inside asille middle so that idea I think I'm hearing that you can you we can do both that you you've got again if this is option three you've got a space for for ECA where Kim and her team and ECA staff who are already with us are working on developing

220that and also you've got that Collective of the middle schools looking at a a way um to provide what was happening at monford within the building of M for Northstar and I think if we if we delayed that too long then I think we're we're that actually I think puts um if we delayed that kind of house structure or some kind of structure right um then I think you I from my perspective I don't know if I'm I'm just trying to acknowledge what monford North Car families and and the kids value about that school we're still talking about option three right we are we are yes yes okay yeah and that is getting rid of Marin no sorry that is merging the two schools mer yeah I'm sorry merging two schools y That's option three

221yes okay yeah yeah I think I think what George is saying is if you don't go forward with sort of both both parts of the strategy if you go forward right now with the house system then you can retain at least a house specifically for those who are in Montford now and and can have the steam program and Project based learning and everything else that they have the one thing I want to note is Montford is capped at 80 students per grade as I understand it and based on your numbers here the pods and I realized that one of the huge values that Montford families have said that their students need is a small school right that this is that that they can't have it at Asheville Middle School the merging of the schools because

222it takes away the small school I will say as a as a parent of of somebody who went through Asheville two kids who went through Asheville middle school before we had the new building and the parent of someone of a child who's there now with the new building it is an entirely different experience with the pods that they do in fact create a small school within a school and that these pods the the Pod system as it would apply to the house Navigator and the other two for that matter are very close to the 80 per grade Target one in seventh grade you go over by eight students but in sixth grade you're at 69 which is pretty close to what they've got right now as I understand it in each of their grades and

223e8th grade is 78 which is under the 80 80 student Target so um I really appreciate I just want to say that all of us are feeling the the um the emotions and the pressures of this decision no matter where we have been in our journey to to where we're going to land next week I appreciate the courage that it takes for any administrator to come out in her first year and recommend something like this and I know that there will be people who will fault you Dr Ferman for that and I'm going to tell you that I appreciate the courage that it takes to say this is where I think Equity leads us and Equity is always requires courage and and um this is I I just I could never overstate the harm that

224I've seen from the closure of Randolph and I think that that program needs a home and I'm not I don't see another option and I'm sure there are others who are going to say there are other options but I don't see an option that's going to serve that school and that program and those students and their families the way that option three does I have a question in in the house system um we know that right now at AMS it's 6 on one floor seventh on one floor eighth on one floor do you then put an entire house on one floor how does that look that's and that's I hadn't thought about that I think that's an option and a disc discuss for the the staff and the students and the community at at if

225this is the decision the board makes I think that is an easy decision for them to make um I can make a decision one way or the other but I think their input here would be key I see benefits both ways I was thinking keep maintaining a grade level on a floor and then put like house you know Da Vinci on one you know at the end put the middle one and then put another one on the other end that way you each they each have stairwells too that they can use as houses to go up and down if they're going to do something as a house um and do some of that vertical alignment and and mentorship I I have another question um you stated that monford was not ADA Compliant can can you

226elaborate on that uh yeah some of the bathrooms still need modifications um to get up to ADA Compliant so there are still some bathrooms in that building that are not yet um upgraded so how how are they currently accommodating students with Mobility challenges so they take those students they do have some bathrooms that are um because there are students there in a wheelchair and there is a you know an individual stall bathroom that that student uses okay yeah we're still yeah option three yeah randomly can I ask a question about what we're talking about um Maggie I look at the Staffing numbers with option three acknowledging that this is a the staff ratios and all of this is a very difficult piece of this um when we look at where the budget shortfalls come from

227900 100,000 was from Esser funds which in my mind is Staff it is okay and so is I'm trying to figure out where the overlap is are there $900,000 in Esser positions that will be going away and in addition these are Staffing um change changes that we'll also see with option three or is there overlap like is some of this over there's some overlap so you know one of the one of the biggest areas where we would have to determine how we could um if we could bring keep on the student um the Specialists um the student support specialists at each school um those are all Sesser funded positions um there's also some central office Sesser funded positions that were're already saying if we can't fund them they have to go can I ask a

228question about things like our fund balance is in a good position and so thinking about a transition as large as this I think that there could be a more expensive transition year leading us to a more stable like that beta time is actually going to be need to be resourced yes okay and so maybe would it be feasible to consider that with the amount of savings that option three would give us that we could retain some of these positions temporarily as part of a transition to make it not you get where I'm going does that sound is there it's something I'm not considering no and you know and my estimation is this switching over to a student enrollment based Staffing formula will take between two to three years it's not going to happen overnight unless

229the board is saying hey yep we're going to cut positions and I'm as I read the board that's not something you're comfortable with so allowing positions to be vacated as staff um naturally um leave the district for various reasons and not refilling those positions but you said that so looking at the that Staffing formula um or the the savings there you've got 18 positions a potential poal reduction of positions U is a potential Savings of 1.5 to2 million but that's just looking at merging into one single middle school what are we looking like across the district so because I know it can't I know we potentially are not just 18 positions heavy between the two middle schools correct so what does what does it look like across the district because if we're if and if

230you're saying it's and what you just said was also it take two to three years to get to that Staffing the that the Staffing model that you were saying but this is 18 positions that are gone right away no this is potential savings so if let's say you the board decides option three we you know can anticipate that some of the staff won't be happy with that and may decide they are not going to return and that way we could use those natural attritions to save some positions um but then also knowing that this is not potential Savings in the first year this is potential savings over time as positions open I have a question about extracurriculars because one of the concerns we've heard from the mford families is that they'll lose some of their

231extracurricular um opportunities and I think particularly for example Science Olympiad is a hugely popular program and um um well it's interesting I was actually just thinking about Battle of the books and theoretically you could have a battle of the books between the houses um but anyway Science Olympiad and other programs that might be unique to Montford is there any reason why those couldn't occur if you chose option three I don't see why not no and as I think you said earlier but I want to just make sure I'm understanding I think under any circumstance or any the the new Staffing formula this will not not cause bigger classrooms bigger class sizes because they move to because the merging happens right the the bigger class class sizes are going to happen over time under the new

232Staffing allotment correct is that fair to say yes okay and also James do your point about Elementary and high school I am working on those Staffing allotments with the with the principles so as we see updated enrollment numbers and working with this the the principles we are saying hey you can go down to two second grade classrooms or you can go down to you know four instead of five fifth grade classrooms so we are also making those adjustments and and those adjustments are you're looking at those now because open enrollment ends on March 11th correct yes y so um if it's all right with with the rest of the board um I've been watching the time we spent about 20 minutes on that one um it doesn't mean that we don't again talk about option

233three but I thought now would be a good time to transition to option one or two whichever one people are feeling like questions about Jesse you got questions about option two so we can start there option two examine the pros and cons moving Mar North Star to a shared space and another ACS facility let's say that that shared space would be AMS I think that uh our kids for the best success they can probably get is to have choices uh and to move M for Northstar into another place like AMS where kids can have a choice um for like a two-year trial that's reason why I asked that first question question is it possible to delay it for about two years to make sure we get everything correctly according to your vision um if we

234put if they had choices you more or less put in the high school in a I mean putting that Middle School in like a high school setting so we are preparing them for high school by giving them choices and I'm not sure if um s and as for how would still be there so it it's choices choices is one thing that we can offer our kids and to have that option to would be like giveing them choices keep off open and see how it works and see what type of dream can we come up with because I think we are good educated individuals in this community here and I know that we can make two schools work because we already done it once before right and um just just option two is just give them

235choices I I hear you with that I um I don't know that I would say having two schools Under One Roof is as efficient and effective as it could be there are continuously challenges with that um between Administration between how they run their buildings there's certain things when you put everyone Under One Roof that you have to come to agreement on um and this additional challenges of that make it very difficult so I mean if that's the choice of the board we'll go forth and do that but I would just caution you on thinking that it's the best solution but most of the challenges it wouldn't be with the students it'd be with the staff because the kids were there's also some othering um between the students at the high school um they do have

236kind of nicknames for the solsa students that are not appropriate nickname for me too you know here but this thing it's not as it's not as rosy as as it could as it could be if it was a single SCH not saying that we take silsa away in any way shape or form but I don't know that I I don't know that at this moment I'm ready to recommend option two because I've seen the challenges with that and would caution us on getting the two administrative teams together and seeing what could be worked out that's just a caution and technically you were saying that uh based off the slide that option two saves potentially a total of only $284,000 MH but one thing you didn't put on there also was staff attrition which could um

237see because some people may leave anyway yes I know you can't predict what that would be uh necessarily but um I think it would be helpful to to have at least some Staffing in there but also again as you're looking at your Staffing your school Staffing allotments um that needs to be taken into account as well I mean if we if we're over if we're overstaffed by let's say 12 people um and I'll be the bad guy and say it um that's and that and that that 12 people can save us across the district not targeting one school one grade level um but can save a million dollars um that will that will be helpful yeah uh we always we also know the Esser Cliff that's coming up that if we don't retain all those

238individuals there's going to be a savings there as well so um I just think that we need to look a little bit closer at those numbers um in an option to type scenario uh because uh you know and I've said it to others on on the board as well I mean UNCA is going through the same thing right now you know instead of 4.5 they've got over a $6 million shortfall next year and they're going to have to make some very hard DEC you and Kim need to get together actually and have a drink uh because y'all are in the same boat um she's new you're new um and these are hard decisions um but at the end of the day it also addresses something that the county has told us about right sizing as

239well our district is very topheavy um even with the what you've shown on the the safe savings on the co level we still very top heavy so um I I just want to say I didn't include these as I was focusing on Middle School that's why I didn't include any other potential savings because this was really designed to look at Middle School options um but yes we are going to realize some staffing savings um and until we finish going through those allotment formulas with the principles and kind of figuring out all the next phases once we also look at the Lucy Herring updated construction um we'll have more accurate information after that can you give us some insights into the progress and the um logic behind a central office allotment strategy I think it makes

240sense to either come up with a formula like a student-based formula and saying hey you know here's the number of looking at other districts and saying other districts similar size what is their number of central office staff um there's a certain amount of work that needs done and what we've seen is central office if people aren't here there's no backup for central office staff so someone's sick someone's out their work just doesn't get done and that puts things behind um so it's not like April's out and she's got a sub that comes in and fills in for all the work that she's doing um and it's a lot of just administrative tasks um it's supporting principles um so there is a minimum amount that needs done so you need some central office staff for certain

241reasons because we the work work done at central office takes things off our principles and our teachers plates because there's work that needs done regardless of central office being here or not and if we're not here to do the work it has to get done by someone so then that goes to who's going to do that work in our school buildings um so there is a a level of figuring out how many staff do you need to get the work done um part of the other um process we're undergoing is looking at all job descriptions rewriting those as we settle on you know the new organiz ational chart and who does what updating all of those um so that it is a process and it's a data Gathering and it's hard to gather data it's

242not something that you can easily get like hey Hickory um city schools has similar number of students as we do how many central office it's a relationship with that superintendent to say hey tell me what who's on your or chart who reports to central office um and then some school districts also you know people that quote report to central office are based out of schools so even though they're quote central office they are based out of a school so they don't count them in their central office count because there is this perception that Central offices get bloated and this is not in Asheville City Schools this is every school system in the nation has this perception That central office gets overstaffed I have a question about option two did you in your conversations with students

243and staff um you know my my impression from public comment was more that the the students sorry um that the I have a question about whether or not that mean I got the impression that many of them didn't want to be in the bigger building in the bigger School period And I I'm questioning whether or not putting them putting that program in and moving a school within a school really satisfies the primary concerns of a lot of those families so that's one question I have I'm wondering if you heard anything that related to that the other question that I have about it is the um school is set up so that sixth grade doesn't have any contact with seventh and eighth grade and that was always very important to me I know when I sent

244my little fifth grader over to Asheville middle all three times so far and that seems like that would destroy that possibility um so do you have any comments based on what you um unless we unless we did it a different way but in in in terms of having an administra Administration have its own space and I assume it would be on one floor so I'm making that assumption anyway did that did you do you have a sense from talking to to the staff especially at both schools about how they felt about a school within a school uh that I didn't really dig into to be quite honest I did um with the students particularly at the middle school one of the things I asked them as said guys you know I hear that you know

245everyone you know this is a big school and it's scary it's a big school and resoundingly every student that I met with it was about probably 12 said and know it seems big but once you're in here and you get to know the space you're in your pod you're with your team it's really not every student said it wasn't a big scary school that was just the middle school now that's mouth that's directly from the students that they didn't feel like it felt like a big scary school I have a question about option two regarding I know we've been kind of circling around staff anyway but if if option two were the one that the board voted on would each school have their own electives or would or similar to as asille oh high in

246silsa Works would all students go to the same electives I would probably give them their own electives because mer like that is one of the areas that kind of jams things up for um silsa and the high school is that they share teachers and then they their own teachers is there space at asille high to to have dup sorry asille Middle School to have a duplication of all of our electives so there's three four electives teachers at Asheville at mord two Career Tech an art class and a um the PE class okay so on like if we picked a floor and said hey we're going to put Mt on that floor um you know they've got their 4 8 12 teachers it would be tight some of the the seat some of the specials are

247connected teachers may have to float um but yeah we would have to anticipate we could work it out does that include band though Maggie uh band Yes sorry I did remember yes band and that would be a pretty interesting yeah one to find space for floor as well right I mean yeah well that's yeah yeah yeah okay thank you but under option two would you go down instead of having uh a separate PE teacher for either either one they would share right well that's what we'd have we' have to decide saying no but yeah I mean you'd have to decide um at any rate we do have to really look at connections or sorry connections that's way back way back electives classes at um Asheville Middle School um you know on the new Staffing allotment

248formula they don't earn anywhere near the amount that they have I have a specific question and then a a thing about option two I always forget until you said it that some of the central office positions or Sr positions when the figure was somewhere about 475,000 is that sort of like everywhere else part Sr funds and part not Sr funds yeah there are some Sr funded in that month that number okay thank you um to the extent the point of this exercise is to walk through each option I one of the things about option two we've been hearing a lot about hit the pause button and with option two what I'm processing is is there any benefit to doing option two for a year and giving more thought to you know how to integrate the

249schools better and half the time I tell myself well it really doesn't help because probably the the parents that didn't want to go to the Middle School are not going to go there anyway even if it's a school within a school and I do take your point about the school within a school model has its flaws so I guess I just wanted to acknowledge that I started thinking about option two as a place to get a year of planning but I'm not really sure it does that for us so just offer that for conversation I wanted to ask um and this is taking a back step a little bit but not too much I promise um I just wanted to ask about both option two and three and the amount that it would save our

250district and how that would translate to a salary increase for the Educators that work directly with children so I think that's I don't know if that's something that we have really looked at it's down the road um to keep looking at that as as we go through each budget cycle so every time we go through a budget cycle we can look at where we are with Staffing we can look at what we are expecting for expenses versus what we're expecting on revenue and decide as a board like hey if we've got additional Revenue we want to push or you know if we're in the positive we want to push that to staff salaries um so I think that is something that we're going to have to just kind of look at every budget cycle I

251want to make the observation at least or the thought in response to what Sarah was saying that you know it seems to me that trying to put a school within the school is not going to be any less challenging than just doing the three houses like trying to develop both would be difficult both will present challenges and um and I also will observe that one of the things that I've seen in this district for a long time is when you start something and you you say we're going to do a school within a school for a year but then the people who are in the school within the school don't want to change it it's going to be really hard to make it just a year so that's not to say we can't say that

252and do and commit to that but that to me kicks the can down the road in a way that I'm not sure benefits anybody because I think we end up with still having to navigate where they're going to be what's the administration going to look like how are the electives going to work and it may even be simpler to merge the two schools in a way where you've got house navigator that still provides much of what not everything for sure but at least it provides a space for Montford staff and students to land within the merge school and the one thing I want to add is with as you heard Derek talk about you an expanded ECA program or kind of looking back to what Randolph was as a choice School parents who really still

253feel strongly like hey I still want a choice I still want this small small setting can choose to go to the new Randolph if that's what they choose it's open for everyone it's not just all students that get selected or you know kind of assigned there but it is still an option and you know really doing the Project based learning like it was done it there's no reason why gifted and talented students canot go to a small school like that and get a very deep and rigorous education so it is an option there still is a choice because we're the plan is to expand ECA to be a choice school as well and the the Project based learning that is successful at Montford can be incorporated into all three houses correct and also whatever is

254happening at Asheville middle that's good there can be some collaboration and Coop you know learning from each other sorry I have a really quick question because a couple people have asked me this if with option two if we did that and then pretend the following year we said we want to consolidate would we have to do this all over again yes can I ask a question about I guess option two I mean it it also potentially falls under option three um but you know what I what I heard a lot about Randolph and ECA is is that part of what makes it successful is a smaller School community and that's a lot of what I've heard about why people choose mford um so I'm I'm curious why it hasn't been considered to co locate ECA

255at Montford if we're looking at accommodating 30 students um and then you know looking at potential construction down the road as a temporary collocation we did and that's where I pulled in Carrie Buchanan to ask her what it was like um trying to have two separate this ECA type program along with the high school program um and yes we could technically squeeze ECA into monford I think that is doable I think we could space at Asheville middle school as well um but the the goal is to grow that program um and give them a space that's theirs sooner than later that's what the board asked me to do so that's the options that I've put on the table for consideration and would there be room in that scenario for K through 12 it would only

256be able to do 912 because I think that okay cuz I mean so it would answer the concern of the the staff and the hours we're losing and the the need for students who need more to have that that are k through eight right it would just serve still 912 I have more questions um but it's it pertains to to the construction plans and we don't have I I mean we can talk about that we can do a special called meeting after we have the Lucy Herring meetings but at this point I want to wait until we've had that opportunity to meet with those families yeah I'd just like to to see you know a temporary collocation on a small campus looked at um just to to be able to look at a temporary you

257know a year or two um collocation on Montford campus um where you know what what we've heard about Randolph ECA and mon part of like what makes them successful is a smaller smaller student population and you're saying collocation and I'm I'm projecting a little bit but thinking about what we heard from some or what I heard from some folks at public comment over the last two sessions was um a space like a Lucy Herring or a Hall Fletcher is that which means so collocating ECA in the at monford now and then ECA within shift over to a place like a Lucy Herring with extra space something like that is that what you mean or or Montford or monford I see okay is more what I was thinking okay got you yeah okay um again not

258to cut anyone off but that's about 20 minutes on option two we and again we can Circle back to all of these but let's go ahead and talk about questions about option one does that work so I I actually prefer the for right now I I prefer option one I know it's not your your your one that you would like um but um in all three options uh ECA is going to go somewhere um I I like the idea of um putting ECA while it is only 30 kids now yes it can grow it can expand but for next year we know that we are going to have 30 kids because we don't have enough teachers to take more than 30 kids said the principal and and and I mean said Dr Johnson um I

259like the the idea of having it on the first floor at at Northstar um and I mean I know it it you said this historically hasn't been positive experience um but I don't know how positive it would be for us to if we were to move Northstar to asual Mally neither two or three option um you're having 30 kids in a huge building that's not good Financial uh or fiscal responsibility um at that point um you also have um one of the good things about collocating or right now North uh uh ECA into Northstar is and something I didn't realize until I spoke to our transportation department um you have right now at the Edington Center they get their lunches delivered those lunches are not hot by the time I'm sure they they're they're warm

260maybe but they're not hot and if you have them in Northstar by themselves are we going to keep a cafeteria open for 30 kids it's it like I said financially fiscally it's not responsible but my I I really I like op one um because uh it gives um a home uh there is the opportunity on that first floor there's a separate entrance if there was a need to have a separate entrance um the buses already go there so we can actually count those students in our bus ridership which we can't right now um there's the aspect of the safety aspect ECT of Dr Johnson said they don't you know it's it's a safer environment it's a secure environment it's something that we control um and uh you know just looking at option one for me

261um the reason why I like it is also we have a we have a big Target on our back right now this district has a huge Target on its back um January 2025 uh will be here uh we will have uh a consolidation study at that point with a recommendation um I can almost guarantee if it comes back that they recommend that we consolidate it's going to take a couple of years but Northstar will not be around the county is not going to keep two middle schools if we have to if we have to consolidate um also you know we sat here the other night and listened to uh Miss allers um talk about how she had joyfully and gleefully helped 50 families not come to our district so she has said in front of

262everyone and taking credit for destabilizing our district um and she got Applause too so that's a whole separate situ situation that I will discuss later um but in this study that's going to be happening over the next couple of months starting probably in the summer you're going to have those type of individuals those small voices that can be really loud that are going to be talked to by the person the company is doing this consolidation study um I would rather not pause because I hate that that term um I would rather do an option one um and then I won't be on the board in January of next year um the board at that time which will be a fully elected board as people keep telling us um also at that time hopefully we can

263have a strategic plan um that I think that we really should start pushing on that we could have something to start a strategic plan that we could roll out to the community by the beginning of August um that would lay out a vision going forward but at you know come January we'll have the the the consolidation study recommendations and at that time the board can look to say if it comes back all right you don't need to consolidate well that's the opportunity for the board to then um kind of go through this again unfortunately but um it will give time to plan as well for the district um I you know you've already said that that immediate it's not immediately realized the Savings in the 18 positions potentially um but there are other immediate as

264you're working your Staffing allotments that will be immediate for the fall um so like I said I I I am leaning not leaning I'm sitting on option one uh because I just think that it also helps our district uh a little bit now I have had individuals tell me that well you're just going to do the same thing that what happened with a APS and oh you're just going to close us a year later so that gives time to for us to plan on leaving um if you're going to leave you're going to leave okay um but I think it gives us it gives us time um um as a district to to get a little bit more clarity and a more of a plan working forward I I'm huge on the Strategic plan I'm

265huge that on that we haven't had one four years uh we have been working blind for four years essentially um and uh I just want us to take this opportunity to do some thoughtful planning going forward that's all I got to say I'm going to offer just a couple of things and thank you James I respect and appreciate your thoughtful and I know it's well considered a couple points one I don't think that next year ECA has 30 students at least not in any visioning process that I could imagine when we need a k through 12 program next year or we lose teachers to be clear like we lose teachers because they can't teach right now so I don't think we're talking about 30 students um and Maggie and or Kim can correct me if

266I'm wrong on that but I'm assuming we're looking at a a more expanded program than 30 students by next year I think we could definitely expand to at least 6 through eight some programming K5 is going to take a little more um but yeah I think definitely we could we could at least anticipate 68 and looking at some of the Staffing allotment form formulas and saying hey opening up that opportunity for some of those staff who want to teach Middle School alternative an option to go there and having those staff well they won't leave our quote books they will help reallocate some staff okay thank you um I think the shest way we get Consolidated is by not doing uh making a financial decision that is about stewardship and um I think that in my

267conversations at least with County Commissioners in the last two years and I've had lots of them and I'm not saying that I know more than anybody else but I will say that what I'm hearing from most of them is if Asheville City Schools doesn't right size its district and make financially difficult I mean difficult decisions to um such as and they've specifically mentioned middle schools a lot um that's the most likely possibility that the county at least decides that they can save money by consolidating us so that's one point that I think is and I don't think that parents who choose to recruit families not to come to our district destabilize us at all frankly I think that Asheville City Schools is strong because we have strong students and strong teachers and strong administrators and

268that if we are smaller because people choose to leave or because they're not happy with us that's okay that's their choice and my hope and expectation is that by creating and making decisions that that are Equitable for all of our students there is no reason for any parent to take their child somewhere else in Asheville I just I there you will never convince me that there's a reason to do that because Asheville City Schools is able to serve all all students because of the quality of the education that we provide and I'm not going to not make decisions that are difficult for fear of those parents who think that their children need something that can't be provided at Asheville City schools that is the opposite in my opinion of progressive decisionmaking and it is it's

269their choice absolutely but at the end of the day it can't be just about my child it has to be about all of our children so my kid might get some something better if they went to French Broad Academy or Hangar hall or whatever charter school is out there Evergreen Etc that's not what it's about for me at least it's about where all of our students well I'm going to put my kid in the school where all students are served so I don't think it's destabilizing I think that that's that's the right of parents and I respect their choices it's just not the choice that I I think we as a board have to make the financially the decision that is both a financial stewardship decision we were given a building the county paid $41

270million and for a beautiful building that can serve all of our middle school students and if we choose not to use it I think we risk consolidation um so I mean we can respectfully disagree and that's totally fine um but that's my response at least to concern about destabilization and consolidation and 30 students well I and I just want to say it's not I'm not my comments are not made out of fear uh people leaving uh but you know we are in this predicament because we riged on a commitment to the academy um we had a $41 million building that was built and in the same year that those kids went to that new building a new school was opened so this school district made this happen Okay so let's let's with the academy could

271have very easily gone back and been very successful because it was a successful program um so when I say that and when I say it is destabilizing I don't know how many kids those 50 families have but let's even if they only have two each that's still a 100 kids that are not in this District so that is destabilizing okay that that is telling people don't go to there and go somewhere else and take your tax dollars which come from us you know uh which we have to pay out every year to every Charter School who has our students that is destabilizing okay so that's why I said that um I appreciate that the academy could be up to 60 kids but we just heard that we have to have teachers for those 60 kids

272okay um I don't know if we have teachers actually I can say that I don't see teachers clamoring to go to work in the academy I don't know if Kim can tell me better but I don't see teachers that could possibly not be in this District or or or say oh I'm just going to go to the academy I want to teach Middle School um we also know that it's going to be right now for the start it's going to be high school it's not going to it's going to be high school to start because that's what we have right now um I just like I said I we have some financial decisions that we can make and again I'm not I'm not afraid to be the bad guy um we are staff heavy it

273it sucks but it's the truth um so these are those hard decisions that we didn't make last year that we are going to have to this is a way you know you've SED the county has said that you know talked about our staffing this is a way way of of helping to achieve some Financial stability by again pulling back on on on on staff positions that's why I I mentioned across the district not at a particular grade not at a particular school but across the district itself um you know I I don't and and I'll be honest I you know my nephew went to Northstar uh he thrived at Northstar um he is on the on the autism spectrum uh the smaller class sizes work for him he's at silsa now and it's doing a

274great job my daughter was at silsa and she stayed all four years uh so there is something to be said about that smaller class size I get it um but I also know that um we we we've got to make a a very difficult decision um that is going to impact students families teachers across the board so um and I appreciate your your your responses um but this is not done out of fear I don't you know uh because I I and I'll be honest I was also one of those who was thinking at first oh yeah just just go ahead and and move it but I thought more and more and more about it uh because I want to make sure that whatever we're doing we're going to be able to sustain down the

275road we want I I want us to have a plan as we move forward um and I'm not saying that this is no reflection I'm not saying that you haven't planned uh Dr Perman um because I know you have put a lot of blood and sweat and and tears into this um but I just think that a decision made now versus a decision made in January uh January of next year um I don't think that I I don't think we're going to be in any better position either way so thank you no thank you and I didn't mean to suggest that your decision making was out of fear so I apologize if that's what I implied I absolutely do not mean that I have a question and I consider option one can you tell us

276with with whatever level of certainty possible based on enrollment projections do we have is it reasonable to have multiple middle schools in multiple locations or would financially are we sort of headed in this direction what I don't want to do is choose option one just so that we're slow we're going slowly towards a destination um I think that change is turmoil and when we have a vision and we go to it we that we could set ourselves up to successfully achieve it and so I don't I want to be thoughtful and planful I think that is very important and I don't want it to be protracted in a way that you know we we know what's possible in three years so Mike sorry we know that um you know next year we're down to 706

277that's the projected number um the year after 696 and then 654 total um and it just keeps going um in that direction so at some point we're going to have to say how many like we're not going to be able to staff a school with full-time teachers so we're going to have to then start splitting teachers between campuses at some point so we do get to a staffing point where we're like hey we've got you do halftime PE at mford and then you go over and do halftime PE at Asheville middle school so some point we will have to start splitting teachers like they won't be able to continue in the same building it happens slow if you keep them to if you put them together um but at some point I mean we're just

278going to have to look at you know based on the allotments you're only going to earn 045 teachers so you either hire a part-time teacher or that teacher goes to do different campuses so at some point you know it does get to that point and then I mean where do where does it continue to go that makes sense to me and I'm also thinking about um like I know in the projection study that you got even in the best cas case scenario we're not trending up we're not even holding steady and it I mean when you think about Asheville that it's not shocking um I also think that we I say very optimistic that in a future of really really solid schools where kids do really well here um more people will want to send

279their kids to asille City Schools right um so I'm I guess I'm also just thinking of a situation where you know we've talked about other configurations if if we take time like K8 conf configurations these sorts of things but the but the building on South French Broad is so like is there a point at which like just keeping it so small is like even if it grows a little without with having another Middle School campus that still applies what you're talking about right there's no way out of that through various configurations that aren't just to Standalone Middle School oh I see like adding fifth grade to the Middle School as an option so doing some K4 schools and it's just really going to depend on how if we can start attracting students and increasing enrollment

280or keeping enrollment steady so what's really great is if you can keep enrollment steady no growth no decline you want to keep your numbers because then you can really get good programming going um so that's really the the key and I think you know getting to that spot where we are showing what we're capable of as a school system and the great programming we have and how we support students and engage them in learning in really creative and Innovative projects and problem solving then I think we get to a point where we're like you know what we do have to cap our out of District numbers we can't take everyone um you know with population decreasing you know we are going to get to a point where if we're not attracting students to our district

281we are going to keep losing so the goal in my mind is create this great programming show everyone all the awesome things that we're doing here in Ashville City school so that we do get to that point where we're like you know what we're good with with 800 kids at our Middle School even though it's underc capacity we're comfortable with that number or we're comfortable with X number at our at our elementary schools so I think that's to me where we want to get to is really holding that enrollment steady at a certain number so we don't have to keep adjusting um thank you m enrollment um and I appreciate your question Rebecca think sorry suddenly a headache started coming on so I'm filtering through that um I've heard and I think we've all heard

282the the argument that closing a school inev means that we would lose enrollment folks would go elsewhere I know that relates to two and three but I'm this does relate to to option one um but part of the enrollment challenge for Asheville City Schools is not only the other options that are out there for families is that we are seeing lower birth rates we're seeing not as much housing built within our district etc [Music] um I think there's a question tied to what I'm trying to say where did the headache come I have no idea why I'd be getting a headache right now [Music] um but I guess I guess kind of piggybacking on what Rebecca is saying or what her question was until there comes a time and we don't know when that would

283be when all forces align in addition to all the things we need to do as a district to attract more families and um state law might change where it's not as easy to open up a charter school for example and um birth rates increase and there's more housing um built inside of our city district etc etc down thank you down like imp perpetuity with option one is there a place where we see that sorry the headache just is changed my I guess what I'm asking is financially and enrollment wise if we are looking at $4.5 million shortfall for next year that's going to have to come out of a$1 15 million do of um from our fund balance where does where does that get us to down the road I'm done that was a terrible

284question do you think do you know what I'm trying to ask how long can we sustain option one there you go I would say no more than two years my question was how long can we sustain no more than two years no the answer is no more than hold that for two years and then we get to a point where we are like we can hold monford at 220 if that many students want to still go to monford um and we're not at well we can hold it at 220 they have capacity for 240 we haven't had a weight list for mordt we don't have that's why we're at 217 right now numbers of kids there so there's space there even as we speak um so do we keep only taking the kids that want

285to go to mford and what if that number keeps shrinking and we go down to 150 kids at mford you know what do we do then when we all then have you know only 400 students at Asheville middle school so that's another question is you know we don't have the we didn't didn't turn away any out of District students for any reason other than not in good standing I you just said something that I've heard some parents some very concerned parents worried about the future of our district just describe that what we're holding right now represents um the term one parent used with me was a death spiral so as you talk about like a decreasing enrollment with numbers that sounded so Stark like that right like I mean none of us we want to

286make choices right now that uplift and ultimately make us more attractive and so um I I hear concern that closing will immediately make people say that District they're closing schools it's a bad look it's you know we got to stay away um versus like and I also offer the counternarrative where I've had three parents come to meet with me who have said how much they appreciate that we're having this conversation so it's not I mean I mean when I say yes we hear a lot from the parents that don't want to lose mford I get it it's a great school I think we can recreate that opportunity in Asheville Middle School in a way that creates that small atmosphere continues Project based learning continues a scene Focus um and provides a space for our Academy

287um and I think that I think it's possible I can see that opportunity up there um and creating a sense of community in that school that would be really special for Middle School I've worked in middle schools for 17 years I know very much how middle school kids are um and middle school staff kind of followed their middle school kids um and I also worked in schools with 1,600 2200 students and because of the way a middle school model is set up it creates that small feeling you create that sense of family within your team or your pod um and I know when you kind of tell your kids sometimes hey I've had many times to tell kids this isn't a this isn't great but we're going to we're going to go in and we're

288going to make it the best of it and I know when you take that approach and you really focus on resiliency you can also accomplish really great things um so I just I kind of offer that as just a food for thought as I've been mulling through this you know this decision in my own head and trying to come up with what would I recommend um to the board when we meet next week because I'm still weighing the options like I said I'm still continuing to go through the thought process and the decision-making model I think that you know just I made it clear last week that I was in favor of option one um and I I continue to to be in favor of that because I think that you know when you talk

289about making a change being intentional about that change and slowing down and really hearing and considering the community's input from like such a a cre creative outof thee boox thinking Community um that would Poise a change like that for Success um in a way that that trying to make it work next year would come with I think more Growing Pains um and you know one thing I've been mulling over is the idea of expanding the academy to K12 for next year and that's a really really really drastic change um that's why I recommend only 612 next yeah yeah and you know I think that 612 could be very easily accommodated in the on the first floor of Montford and um yeah I'd really like to give that some consideration I want to speak about option

290one and I don't I can't get to option one being a temporary solution because for a couple reasons but one is the amount of time that this process takes and demands is really keeping us from doing other things and it does worry me and I'm not I mean I look at those um growth and achievement scores and I'm not sure either Middle School is doing a great job and that worries me and I feel like there's so much this board wants to do and for us to take two years to talk about middle schools is is really disheartening to me I just I feel like we've spent and I I feel like we've really been committed to this um I believe I speak for everybody that we've kept an open mind I've changed my mind

291every day about what I think makes sense but I am having a hard time with option one being a temporary solution um because I don't see how we get to strategic planning because all we'd be doing is ramping up to to have this process again and I take your point that there are Creative Solutions out there I'm sure there are Eliza I'm just sharing my thoughts here that I'm having a hard time with it I also think for us for budgetary purposes again across the district there's going to be Cuts in staff and mon for norstar is going to lose teachers everybody's got to lose teachers right like mon for norstar can't stay the same that wouldn't be fair that that stays the same and everybody else has a cut um and so I think

292for me I'd like to hear more about how we can use our resources in grades K through 12 to look at growth and achievement in all our kids so that's where I am Dr Ferman can you talk to us about a vision for strategic planning and how it is or isn't impacted by um moving forward with change um yes so I think I think strategic planning is about the vision and the possibilities and where we want to go as a district and then you know the how many schools we have is kind of just almost like policies and procedures like we've got you've got your board policy that's your vision that's what we want to accomplish and then the procedure is how we get there so it is just then if we have this many

293schools we'll do it this way if we have this many schools we'll do it this way so that's almost a function of the Strategic plan not a driver of the plan can I um offer something just and it's totally selfish thank you Amy for some pain relief but it's still there um so this is a totally selfish um option for us um I I I I want I want us as a board to make sure that we're giving as much time as we absolutely need because this is a as we've all said this is a major decision no matter what decision it's made it's a major decision we spent a lot of time on it already um one thing that Sarah was really kind to point out to me last week was uh that we

294do have something within Robert's Rules of Order which is what governs our Board of a Time called what we call or what they call crystallization and and so looking at the clock again not wanting to stifle any conversation but recognizing we've been here for a while an option for Monday is to have some crystallization time where we um hold off on making any motions it's a time for us to continue as a board talking amongst each other and I appreciate that we've been talking to each other and with each other through this as a you know we've obviously directed questions to Dr Ferman as well but we've been talking to each other as well and with each other um and um so I just want to offer that like if if not to say we've

295got to move along but also we've been here a long time there's a lot to weigh and do we want to just add and recognizing that our regular session has lots to cover as well but this is an option for a vote on on Monday of next week and we can spend some time with that crystallization where we're not you know where we actually agree that we're not going to make any motions and it's just a time to continue conversation but then we do make the motion but then but then yes the same night right I mean if if we decide if we decide to make anybody decides to make a motion to do something other than keep the status quo we would still make it because I think the community needs an end to

296this process as well I agree yeah no I I agree I'm just saying like crystallization would be the idea I think would be to as a preface to right either no motion or a motion well I also think the community deserves if we choose and this is not none of us has to do this but James has offered some compelling reasons why you're supporting what you are elizza you have as well I mean we've heard the in Amy you have as well I'd love to I mean my headache not even withstanding I'd love to kind of crystallize my thoughts right and to be able to say to the community if whatever decision I vote on this is why I'm voting love to have that moment too so um I just think it would could be

297a really helpful thing as we're kind of as as Sarah said too like I wake up every morning and think differently about this and going all over the place and so um even if we were Comm conversation for the next hour or two here I could be thinking something very different tomorrow right and so I just want to offer that for everyone George I got one last question yeah is it possible just by using certified staff to put up a little short make out a short survey and send it straight to the board so that only us would get it and a survey about if if option one happens option two option happen this is uh this is uh this will hurt and our forcoming raises or anything else I mean is it is it

298a does it make sense if we as certifi St to send nothing but the board a little survey so we will have the knowledge and not giving it to central office and so that we'll know what to decide more or better as Monday since we all are hurting one way the other and it's the teachers I think for me that will either going to make progress or going to hurt on our decisions that we're going to be making so is it reality in this or I'm just once again in my [Laughter] [Music] dream if you're asking me anything is possible and if the board directs me to do it I will make it so I mean we could talk about it but again yeah I mean I'm not I'm not hearing a lot from the

299rest of the board whether so okay all right um but we you could encourage I mean every staff person knows I hope that they know after all this time that they can email us anytime they want they I mean they do email us their concerns and their thoughts so I would just throw that out there to any staff listening that you know if you have concerns or your thoughts uh you know reach out to the board um instead of having to do some you know create a survey and all that stuff I mean anyone can email us all our information there for them to see so so it sounds like discussion for this topic concludes for tonight and we're ready for information only items any questions or El go ahead K the part we've all

300waited for um so uh you have your policies for second read and final read list listed and then information only you do have school assignment and I just want to U be very clear that the school assignment it's only a general statute update it's a tiny little thing you'll see in the reference there's no major changes it's just to keep us current with um with the policies and then you'll see there's a policy uh first read uh 3620 for extracurricular activities um the only thing there I just want to make you aware of is the State Board of Education is now involved with the North Carolina school um athletic um and so it notes that change throughout and then uh school trips uh that is just um an addition of the approved motor coaches that

301changes periodically when a a motor coach has pulled off the state list and we have to pick one of the ones that are on the state list due for safety reasons so that's just an update and then you do have all Theus and contracts if you have any questions about those I have a request I'd like to request that we we pull uh 4342 student searches from second read and I'd be happy to say why or not since it's really late uh the only substantive change that I noticed in that was to change the term gender to sex and I uh want more information about what that means and how it impacts student searches okay yeah so that's on was that um number three of part A is that right Rebecca yeah it's um it's

302part A of 40 4342 um number three the pad down searches correct it's three and four oh three and four okay yeah yes three y I also want to thank you for Rebecca for looking at these because my brain this week was in you know other places and it's important like I'm glad that these all these policies don't get and then totally skipped over and then I just have one more thing and and can I ask a question before we leave that I'm so S no you go ahead I thought you're fin sorry um that's just taken me a long time to formulate this if there's a policy for first read tonight and we say nothing about it it just goes on to Second read that is correct so if there are concerns about it

303and but one is too tired to fully articulate one's concerns like what is the option here what I just did well yes you can you can do that and we can we can put it we can keep it at first read for next great 3620 please yes that would be great thank you okay and do you have no no I'm sorry is that the wrong it's the one about sports uh that's 3620 and 3620 does state that you have to um play a sport that identifies with your birth gender just right I know what the law says just like process okay yeah thank you sir thank you so if we could just do whatever you do on that one thank you any other questions about policies for second read um I know everybody's tired but

304I I've been holding this since the beginning of the the meeting and I just I in going back to her Equity statement I would be doing a disservice to my colleagues if I didn't um bring this up but I do want to talk about the fact that um a moment to name some harm that happened very early on in the meeting and I'm not going to speak for Jesse but I wanted to say what my interpretation of what you heard we were talking about the bike paths was that the bike the the the feeling that the bike paths were a result of more white people moving into the neighborhood and that and that's what I heard you like that was my interpret interpretation of what you heard and I just want to like in this

305moment honor that and recognize that I heard what you were what you were saying so yeah and I just it kind of got brushed over but I wanted you to know I I heard so um that's that's all I have unless you have any anything about contracts or M us right thank you Kim um so in a moment I'll make the motion to um go into close session I do because I don't think anyone's going to hang around after a close session to hear my um upcoming meeting so I'll go ahead and share it now um I do want to remind everyone that we do have our next regular board meeting at uh next Monday March 11th here in the boardroom at 5 um and this will go out in addition to this comment because

306who knows who's still listening almost at 10 o'cl but we will have two public comment um sessions during that regular meeting we will have one specific to this these considerations around the middle school um and then we'll have a regular more open public comment period so again there will be specific time for public comment around the consideration we will because we've already offered um the this two other um sessions of public comment we will um try to keep that um specific oh my sorry the head is just not making speaking very easy right now the the public comment specific to our Middle School considerations will limit that to 30 minutes so that's um next Monday then just for everyone with students in the district to know we have an early dismissal for students on Friday

307March 29th Elementary is at noon secondary at 1 p.m. and then that's the start of our spring break which is that first week of April um we will return to classes um on Tuesday or did we return on Monday Monday we return on Monday um but because it's Easter Monday I suppose our next work close session is Tuesday Tuesday April 9th here in the Board Room and then our regular meeting is Monday April 15th and with that I will ask um and I will entertain a motion for the Board of Education to enter and and I'm G to try this myself tonight even with the headache to enter into a closed session pursuant to General statute 14 143 31811 for the following purposes under subsection A1 to prevent the disclosure of privileged and confidential Personnel

308information pursuant to General statute 115c 319 321 and under subsection A3 to discuss matters protected by the attorney client privilege so move second moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right we're enclosed thanks everyone