Asheville City Board of Education Regular Session 2/12/24

001good evening good evening and welcome to this Ashville City School Board of Education regular board meeting I'm so excited to see such a full house so many uh Educators families in the room so thank you for being here um we will start with James Carter reading our Equity statement uh Equity statement in Asheville City Schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and Thrive we recognize that our positions come with power responsibility and public service for the entire ACS Community we will model our commitment to equity through our practices and decisions during this meeting we invite a pause if harm has taken place a moment to name the harm and space to practice repair thank you uh we do have a quorum for this evening uh so

002we will move next to our Pledge of Allegiance what if you could make investing decisions like the best people in Wall Street it's easy now thanks to dyf investing it's the only place where you can of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you and that was Clon correct second grade did I read that right Isaac Dixon I'm sorry my eyes are terrible I'll now ask for a motion to approve tonight's agenda I move that we approve tonight's agenda second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right so our agenda is approved um before we move to the next action item I do want to just say to um everyone in the

003room happy Black History Month this is our only regular board meeting during uh the month of February and uh you know historically before there was Black History Month it was black history week um which was celebrated during this second week of February so I'm grateful that we get a chance to honor that uh today um chosen because Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas both were born this week and in fact Frederick Douglas um a little history lesson for everyone did not know the exact date of his birth and he chose February 14th as his birth date and so with that holiday coming up on Wednesday um I think it's a good time to acknowledge that across the country in the month of February we Center and uplift the history of black people and their contributions to

004our Civics economics education our justice system and our culture the fact that black black history month is in February our shortest month means that telling all of these narratives has that much more urgency this year's theme and yes each year there is a theme to Black History Month this year's theme um is African-Americans and the Arts this means in 2024 we celebrate specifically the contributions of black people to the Visual and Performing Arts literature fashion folklore language film music architecture culinary and other forms of cultural expression I know in our classrooms our educators are creating lessons around black Excellence this month but also not just this month it's necessary for us all to Center black history during February not so that we can ignore it for the rest of the year but because too long

005black history has been erased from our textbooks our cultural understanding and our arts and also because centering black excellence in February is practice for centering it around the year after all as Nicole Jones reminds us there is no American history without black history All American history is Black History All American Arts are Black Arts if you need any further proof of this just watch last night's halfon show where at least in my household three gen xers and three teenagers watching wrapped in the living room dancing and shouting and throwing up hands is proof that American culture is Black Culture so again I say happy black history month but also happy black history and with that we move to um first item on our agenda possible action consent items right yep um city of vual interlocal

006agreement so M do your mic's did you have an opportunity to review that agreement board do we have a opportunity to do you have any questions for me that I can answer for the board at this time um this is is this the same interlocal agreement that we continue to do with them with the city for like our gyms and things like that and ball fields it does include facility use as part of the agreement but is the Parkson wreck is also under new leadership and so there was a lot of time and energy went into forming a stronger relationship with parks and W and and how to support both entities and how we can serve our addition to what we used to what we've had it's an addition to wanted to make sure yep

007it's an ongoing agreement we won't have to revisit this every year okay great yeah any other questions for IT about it so it will be on our consent agenda um for later on the meeting so thank you so thank rapel with that we'll move to your good news right great thank you thank you for this opportunity we have an amazing amount of good news to share with you in February so we're going to get jump right into it we have a lot of guests and um we're going to take pictures at each presentation first up we would like to congratulate uh Mr Jacob Kerber he was nominated or received the rotary teacher of Excellence award award Jacob teaches at Asheville high school he's a history teacher he's amazing I can personally say that he has

008my child in his class he's amazing he's also a graduate from Asheville high school and attended K12 is that correct yep CL and Ash middle right so if you would please come forward so we can honor [Applause] you thank you thank you than Miss mccormic can you please come join me for just a minute I made I made one big mistake I'm so sorry January was board appreciation month and due to the fact that we didn't have a regular scheduled meeting we have a special gift for you yeah hello everybody it's nice to see so many friendly faces and old faces of over the years I've been in the district for 10 years in different capacities but I switched to Ceramics last year um the board is enjoying some of the students handy workor and

009um I thank you to Miss Jones where are you for encouraging me to share my students work with everybody and she asked me to just share a little bit about what students do in the Arts and ceramics at Ashville high in silsa students come in in Ceramics one and they learn how to work with their hands to create things and to use the pottery wheel in addition the Arts Encompass all of academics so they learn a bit of History I make them write they do some math and science um as well as learn Art and Design some students go on to Ceramics 2 three and four where they're able to go on a deep dive and more independently explore the medium but but what's most important is that the Arts teach resiliency and students have

010a safe place to fail so every day students come in they think creatively um we work through problems and we get to connect the hand the heart and the head every day in my classroom so thank you for supporting Arts um our school board and our administrators we would also like to thank the board for your service we know that this is tireless work you spend many hours in this room and in meetings um and we really appreciate all that you do for our school system right okay so Avery has to tell me because she actually did this presentation for me so thank you Avery we would like to take just a minute and and rep um celebrate some of our our schools and we were ask each school to come up individually their principal

011and any staff that is with them a big congratulations to silsa for their outstanding growth rates and also for exceeding academic growth award come on up keep them all we're also going to go ahead and call up Asheville high school for their exceeded academic growth award any Ashville High staff please come up with Mr Edwards yes a big congratul ation also goes to Asheville Middle School in their academic growth award any staff principles principles if you'll still stay [Applause] sorry thank you principal andreth if you'll come off to the side please thank you congratulations to monford NorthStar Academy for their academic growth award come on for [Applause] me thank you congratulations to Lucy s hering for their academic growth [Applause] award thank you congratulations to Hall Fletcher for your academic growth award he congratulations to

012ARB Jones and their academic growth award [Laughter] and congratulations to Claxton for their academic growth award [Music] principles if we could take a quick picture of all of you together we could have all of you up together one more time for a quick picture all of you up there go go go go go [Applause] board tonight we also have some special guests from the eth grade at monford Northstar are here us about two example projects based learning the Cherokee project and the trolley tour [Music] project hi y'all oh that's not [Music] good hey guys is that good okay I'm short so um I'm Angela Cloud I'm the art teacher at monford NorthStar Academy and I'm here tonight to talk to you about one of our special um projects that we've done together so at our

013school our motto is to connect collaborate and create and I've never worked anywhere else that allows their staff to be able to do this kind of thing together um so basically what we did is a social studies and visual art collaborative project for our visit to Cherokee and so students um learned Cherokee double wall basket weaving so these are two student examples here um and there's one in the photo um basically the prep for this project was really extensive um I myself worked with Mr leot our eighth grade social studies teacher um Miss bagot graciously agreed to let us adjust the entire schedule for eighth grade so that we could get every one of our eighth graders so like all [Music] 706 73 of them into the cafeteria at once for a two-day period to

014weave baskets so I put together with uh Matt and several other teachers including Mr s over there who helped untangle me uh 90 basket starter kits containing 11 Spokes and one long Runner and so um Lowe's donated buckets for us to use to soak all the basket starter kits in uh because if you've never done basket weaving before if the reads are not um still damp they'll snap so you have to be able to get them to bend and weave in and out and over and under so um so that was really nice of those and we had the entire eighth grade in there they were engaged and working in this ancient Cherokee cultural tradition that if you've never done before is super hard to start so like if you want to see little eyeballs

015kind of like explode almost like their brains are like what um this is the beginning like one of our students here is holding up the very bottom of the basket on the left and um oh yeah I forgot I pre-taught every eighth grade teacher how to do this too in their own time yeah right yeah so um I would not be the only one sitting there like you know Miss Cloud Miss Cloud I don't know how to do this I'm stuck um so yeah they were gracious enough to like walk around passing out extra Runners making sure that students weren't stuck in a certain spot um but yeah students worked hard and stayed focused throughout that two-day experience and um they were able to you know overcome this Challenge and realize what it takes to

016actually make something you know that they thought was really difficult and they were able to achieve like a difficult thing like they could get through it um the end result I think are super worth it there's one of our students there pictured with what he ended up with after two days that's pretty good um his was impressive he is not an art student like I don't teach him so I was like whoa dude that's great um so yeah here are some more pictures um but yeah I think this kind of went off without a hitch we figured if they can realize what it takes to make something like this um they'll have a greater appreciation for the crafts people that they would go and then meet and interact with at okona Lefty so and there's

017a video I forgot about this we have an awesome news program um that is basically under Mr house and Mr what are you learning from basket weaving uh it's breatht and time consuming what is the hardest part about basket weaving the weaving what is what are you learning about B weaving um let's see um we're learning about you know you know about over under and uh that's pretty much it yeah what is the hardest part about basket weaving I'm not sure um well I pretty much all of it are it's it's it's a pretty hard paint yeah what is your favorite part about basket weaving uh I think Going Under and Over like that cool thank you so much what are you learning about basket weaving how to weave baskets what is the hardest part

018about basket weaving weaving the baskets itself and probably starting what is your favorite part about basket weaving you really get into Rhythm I'm just going through the weaves it's really fun to weave except for sometimes really disappointing if you're like me oh cool can I see your [Laughter] basket all right wonderful have to good I'm really good at this and so that was shot anded by our all right bear with me we're gonna get oh I'm sorry I'm messing this all up ex I'm gonna take the long end of my Runner and I'm gonna go cool so my name is Matt Leed and I teach 8th grade social studies at maford NorthStar Academy and you know I will say I'm going to preempt this with my technical difficulties I have classroom jobs in my my

019classes and one of them is Tech assistance and I actually have students who come fix things when I mess them up um because it keeps my class moving forward um I did a lesson on the Cherokee and I actually did a lesson on the three main language groups in North Carolina which would be the Tusk Aurora the Kataba and the Cherokee before we did this I had a friend of mine who is just send from the actually Lumby but it would be as close to the Tusk Aurora and he did a virtual conference with all of our students and they got to ask questions and he did a whole thing on the history um so we did that my goal is to find someone from the Kataba so we can represent all three language groups

020I'm not there yet what I was able to do though is we um we did this activity on the Cherokee and as you can see um I I really use standard um 8 h23 to guide us and that explain how the experiences and achievements of women minorities indigenous and marginalized groups have contributed to the development of North Carolina and the nation over time so we did a whole bunch of just like notes and different activities then we did the Cherokee weaving and and the the impetus for this was the idea that when we go to Cherokee and visit one of the places they're going to see are people who are actually weaving and at Montford we have this belief that if you put your hands on something it connects you to it a little more

021than just taking some notes or just listening to a lecture so the the goal here was to build in this empathy that all of these kids were going to have when we went to Cherokee and regardless of your appearance you have something in common with another human being and that's really important you know being a part of a global or being a global citizen in in a world as large that we have and you know it was just an amazing experience we got to do the some of the different dances and all that kind of stuff and um you know the kids loved it and we one of the buses even got lost on the way there but somehow we all got there and I went in and I was like man I'm so sorry

022we're late but we got to get these kids through now and they let us just kind of like get these kids through there see everything and get on the bus and eat lunch and go home um but it was an amazing experience and and I'm I'm really forever grateful that I got to be a part of it with such wonderful colleagues hi I'm Vicky Allen I teach e8th grade language arts I'm Alison Gooding I teach e8th grade science and at Montford we did a trolley tour problem based or Project based learning project with our whole entire eth grade um so we are located did really close to the chamber where the greyline trolley come you know throughout the day and our students see that um and they noticed a need so they were tasked with

023creating a trolley tour that included cool spots for teenagers um for students like them they wanted to kind of highlight their favorite places because some of them have been on the tours and noticed that it's missing from those tours um so they put their heads together and um in small groups groups of three we came up with 24 different plac um actually within of Montford um and so these were some of their favorite places and then once they had found their favorite place they did a lot of research a lot of work to kind of talk about the history of the location and the areas surrounding it the environmental impacts the economic impacts influence from important figures in the community and also cool facts and personal stories that they have about those specific places so

024once they had done all of their research then they actually put together a trolley tour and greyline tour uh company of Asheville donated three trolleys and three drivers and we got to take our students on for some of them their first ever trolley tour around Asheville and they were the guides um so we had three different trollies going in three different directions um and here are some of our students doing their presentations um and they all did a really great job for some of them they do not like to um necessarily speak up in class they were all up there in front of everybody sharing um all of the work that they had done um and we wanted to highlight one really special group hey hey everybody my name is CL and I'm here with

025Al in chel and today we're Our Charlie stop is the gr Center and one reason why I picked the gr because I went there a lot when I was little and they have a lot of fun summer things you can do for opportunities to get out the house and they also just built a new gym you can go there practice for B volleyball is any indoor gym type of sports they also have an outdoor gym you can go run I'm an outdoor Court black top you can go play basketball out here too also have a Auditorium for people who want to dance you can go in there and dance um and it's really fun they also have an after school program for um kids after school stuff you need to do and sometimes in the

026summer you go out of town and you will be able to go to water parks you um go to uh Washington DC to um auditoriums black history stuff a lot of good fun stuff and it's good for you so you can get out the house and know your history [Applause] right and then I'm back I'm G be quick just one other thing that we were able to do is in teaching geography I have a challenge for my students I tell them that there's this huge deficit in fourth grade geography all over the country and they need to fix the problem because part of PB is sometimes presenting a problem and having kids create a solution um our essential question was how can I create a learning station about the geography of North Carolina that is

027engaging for a fourth grade student and what we did I'm going to be real quick on this is Step One is we plan and create and I do want to say as far as our mission statement goes at mford I'm going to rewrite it right now and say our mission statement is to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty and fail three times so the fourth time is amazing and um you know step two is we went and visited Hall Fletcher and to all those teachers who've ever planned field trips bless your heart because it's a lot it's a lot um and then step three is the kids went in they set up their stations and they taught fourth graders the eighth graders taught the fourth graders about the geography of our state

028and this is the second year in a row that I've done this and afterwards the kids come back and they have a lot of fun and I'm like well what do you think and they're all like Mr Leed I don't know if I'm going to be a teacher and I'm like well you know they're like that was a lot of work I'm like you're right um and I had a video on here but it looks like it's not working so it was a video I'll just briefly tell you it was two of the teachers at Hall Fletcher who were just talking about how earlier that day they had the fourth graders go down and teach the fourth gr first graders how to do some simple math and and then they came up and the eighth

029graders came and taught them and it was like this giant Continuum and you know I think that's the goal of any educator right is to make it meaningful and make it something that just goes on and on forever so thank you all for your time we were not expecting such a robust presentation thank you so much we would also like to gra congratulate you might remember that back in December the cni team went out and did prize patol for all of the teachers who exceeded growth in last school year so if you are here tonight we would like to call you up so we can publicly celebrate your hard work and dedication Erica Engel no I saw her thought I did Chelsea fiser Heidi Freeman I know I saw Heidi but okay Priscilla green yes

030please come on yes yes yes like hiding Lori Jones Kelly Kenny Mitsy line Kathleen Martin Cecilia Melville Colton Pence Ariel [Music] Robinson Brian Schultz Tessa [Applause] [Music] tarigo Cynthia Watkins Dena Wilson Victoria [Applause] Allen Sarah Ballard Jake cordello who I'm sure is at basketball practice and Margaret Cecilia Greta please [Applause] sorrya cisla sry I well you know what sorry thank you Greta Greta please charge that to my tired mind and not my heart this is something we should all be quite proud of so let's please give them one more round of applause the Asheville Middle School cheerleaders and monford Northstar cheerleaders are in the house kind of they're on the porch if you've never been to a middle school pep rally you haven't lived we want to congratulate [Applause] [Music] them these the spying group

031won their conference cheer tournament and they are now going to cheer for you because you need it let's let's Go's Go Go's go let's go g let's go let's go go ladies we want to take a quick picture quick picture quick picture back with them [Music] [Applause] coaches let's give them another big round of applause in case you didn't know those fine ladies cheered our boys basketball team into a conference Championship last night last week we would also like to honor Miss Tina Robinette one of our Asheville Middle School band teachers go right on up [Applause] [Music] y Miss Robinette was voted the west region jazz music educator of the Year this honor is voted on by all of her colleagues in the Western District congratulations thank you finally we want to put out to

032Good News those of you who have been here minute might remember that author Jason Reynolds was planning to speak in Asheville City Schools right before covid and he was unable to come but he is coming on MAR on February the 29th to the high school campus we are this is in partnership with the Asheville City Schools Foundation it'll be in the evening at it will be at Asheville high right at abtech AB Tech somebody just say that so thank you so much I must say that was a really fun good news thank you for allowing me to lead a pep rally for the board meeting and that concedes that's all of [Applause] it just kid gotcha Prince Jameson would you please come on up good evening board and everyone that's here thank you for being

033here and I want to introduce the first ever ukulele Club at Lucy Herring Elementary School along with mrco our Music Teacher you're in for a [Applause] treat e [Music] ch [Music] want [Music] you [Music] e [Music] everything w [Applause] y [Music] away B I'll take he all righty that's what I was waiting on so y'all can see these first pictures so good evening members of the board and Dr Ferman I'm here to just highlight our preschool program good evening and welcome to tonight's uh asille City School regular board meeting um for Monday October 9th uh we do have a quorum we are expecting other board members to be here um they will be arriving um throughout the meeting so we'll go ahead and get started I did not plan that slowly so they can be

034here for every um we will start um with the reading of the equity statement and tonight just do a repeat of the word Nashville city schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and Thrive that even that was an old old yeah think that's good all right just as a reminder the vision for our preschool program is that we prepare children for lifelong success and our mission is that we prepare children to reach their fullest potential through development appropriate and family guided education our goals academic goals for this school year are that um 85% of our children will meet or exceed expectations in literacy and math and that for our School Readiness goal we will exceed 80% % of our children will exceed or meet expectations and

035that's using our teaching strategies gold assessment tool and we actually increased our literacy and math percentage from 80% to 85% because we felt like we could hit it this year because most years we do hit it so we did do an increase this year some of the highlights of our program is that we utilize the creative curriculum which is an investigative curriculum and so how this works teachers select a unit based on the children's interest and then they investigate that topic for 6 to8 weeks and they incorporate all domains within that investigation So currently our children are learning about clothing a lot of our classrooms are going to close out the clothing unit we have a couple of classrooms doing pets and we have one classroom for the first time doing Wheels because those students

036were very interested in cars and trucks and that's actually at the high school so they're actually going out and exploring the campus some to look at Wheels different wheels so it's been really cool um and then we also have curriculum supports in place which include fundations um hegr we utilize storytelling story acting and for social emotional support we utilize conscious discipline and the North Carolina preschool pyramid model our classroom at Asheville high school will be undergoing their um three-year licensing review for their fstar rating and actually this kind of got put on hold from covid so they haven't been reviewed since 2017 the state is just now getting back to reviewing and so we are in our prep year at Asheville high and so what that means is that licensed childcare centers during their prep

037year can choose to go ahead and do their eer assessment and if they don't score high enough we can do it again next year to gain a higher score I'm confident they're going to score at least a five probably a six or higher it's on a scale of seven and so we are going to go ahead and submit that paperwork this week so we're excited about that um another highlight is that last school year myself and our nine teachers completed our letters training for Early Childhood which was a state requirement for all NC prek and K through five teachers we also have been partnering with the um Asheville City Schools Foundation we had two teachers receive a grant to attend in conscious discipline for autism spectrum spectrum disorder in the fall and then the biggest

038thing that we've received recently is a grant to collaborate with the JCC Aquatic Center to provide our children at Asheville high with swim lessons and water safety and if we have funding left over after that in collaboration with the JCC who has applied for another Grant we're hoping to add one more classroom in the spring and that's a picture of you can just see the Joy on his face I just love that picture of him and another big F big thing that we have going on we are working with building Bright Futures which is out of Governor Cooper's office to become an approved a pre-apprentice and Apprentice site at Asheville High um this is an effort under Governor Cooper to build the Early Childhood Workforce across our state as we know there's a huge shorters

039across our state and County and by doing this um we're collaborating with the CTE program at Asheville high and what this will allow anyone age 16 older can become a pre-apprentice in our classrooms um this includes like if I have teacher assistants who are working on their associates degree if they do the pre-apprentice portion of this program their college tuition will be paid for for their associates degree so we do have one high school student who is interested and we are hoping to sign her on in the fall so we're finalizing that and we're very excited about that collaboration um our Play and Learn program which is a separate grant that we receive from the bunam partnership for children to serve all of bunam County currently they are serving 158 families for and children from

040ages five 0 to five across monom County their weekly classes are currently being held at the Burton Street Community Center Trinity Episcopal Church H Fletcher Elementary Johnston Elementary Lester Elementary and then they have an online remote class through the Black Mountain Presbyterian Church I wanted to share our demographics we currently have 114 slots and as of last Thursday 113 was filled we have one opening in Asheville high that we're in the process of filling this week and so as you can see you can see the breakdown of the number of classrooms across our sites you can see that we're currently serving 18% of our children are three-year olds 82% of them are fouryear olds you can see our gender breakdown 18% of our children are children with disabilities we are currently serving 27 children with

041transportation in a collaboration with our transportation department which has been wonderful this year um you'll see the breakdown of our funding sources now keep in mind those numbers aren't going to come out to 113 because several of our children do qualify for multiple funding sources so when we can get them into multiple funding sources we do do that and then you'll see our race and ethnicity breakdown and then the last thing I wanted to share with you this is our beginning of the year data are we are actually currently our teachers are finalizing midyear data this Thursday um so I didn't have that data ready but just by looking at our data our midyear data preliminary um without all the finalization we're looking at a 10 to 20% growth from the beginning of the year

042to the mid year but once that is final I will share it with you all and with our stakeholders um but we're looking it's looking really good and um for the middle of the Year benchmark and as you can see you know you can see you know the areas that are lower this is the percentage of children who are meeting exceeding and Below Benchmark that's all I have y'all have any [Applause] questions thank you s any questions from the board sorry I'm I think we're good thank you all right uh next on our agenda is public comment and as you all know I get to read this long list of our policies around public comment um the Board of Education greatly appreciates your interest in the Asheville City schools and we welcome your comments to

043the board please be mindful of the following guidelines per policy 2310 unless otherwise approved by the board the total time for public comment shall not exceed 30 minutes um we might we'll see what the list is and we might need to um check on that members of the public may speak for 3 minutes the time remaining is indicated by lights directly in front of you and with this many people um who I think are coming up for public comment please be respectful of that time tonight um multiple speakers from a group who are presenting on the same topic may choose to elect one speaker for the group if that's the case then they'll be allotted five minutes um and must um if that if the group chooses that option please identify everyone in the group

044when you sign up to speak if an unusually large number of people wish to speak again we might get to this um the board can decide to either extend that time or um uh change the time allotted substitute speakers will not be permitted and speakers may not donate any portion of their time to another speaker please be respectful A disruption by any person or persons of a public meeting will not be tolerated and can result in and removal from the meeting incorrect or misleading information presented by a speaker may be responded to at the direction of the chairperson public comment allows you to provide the Board of Education with your thoughts Andor relevant information concerning Asheville City Schools therefore board members will not normally respond to individuals who address the board except to request clarification

045and then please uh note that confidential student and Personnel matters may not be discussed during public comment and the board does not accept Personnel complaints through public comment uh if you have um issues like that please see the superintendent after the meeting or I know that Maggie is available a lot so with that um board we do have oh just the first page so I think it looks like from here I think 30 minutes should be enough I'm looking at the list of speakers um and as far as I know we have no one else on Virtual okay um so everyone is is uh in public so we will start at the top uh and first speaker is Clara Goldman uh and CLA you're representing a group so you will have five minutes yeah yeah

046that's yes that's fine hello my hello my name is CLA gold men I'm B Carson and I am Iris Martin we are student leaders at AMS and leaders of the Asheville middle period project we would like to start off today by thanking all of you for letting us present our concerns about hygiene needs within the schools we are a group of young girls with the like-minded idea that menstrual products are a basic hygiene necessity that needs to be provided for the girls in the restrooms that they use this started as a pilot project at Ashville middle school in the fall of 2022 to to see the impact of providing period products in the school restrooms we succeeded in this by raising money in providing period products in all the girl and gender neutral bathrooms at

047asro Middle School our group believes that the way to create an easy accessibility to our to products is to cut out a yearly budget for asille City School restrooms period products need to be accessible to all middle school and high school men administrating students women spend on average $9,000 to $18,000 on period products during their lifetime some people can't afford this when they can barely afford to put food on their table 2third of students that eat school lunch need reduced or free lunch if many students can't even afford lunch how can we assume that they can afford the $25 per month on menstrual products a study in New York schools also found that attendance increased by 2.4% when they made period products accessible So Not only would it financially benefit students but it could also

048increase attendance for struggling peers we need to invest in our students health happiness and ability to attend school no girl should ever have to choose between her education and her personal hygiene by supplying money for period products we can ensure students never have to experience that choice again with the data we have collected at Ashville Middle School the best way to implement this plan is by providing a budget for every Secondary School of $1,000 per School within the Ashville City School District this totals at around $4 per student every year and shouldn't a student's health be worth at least $4 Not only would aiod products benefit female students but they would also send a powerful message demonstration is nothing something to be ashamed of but a natural part of life that needs to be Ed

049many students have had to grow up with their health needs being treated as less than and that should not be something they experience within their school which is supposed to be a safe place for all students without access to period pro products many women resort to using unsanitary things that can cause medical problems this is dangerous and has a negative impact on students we need to protect our peiod and young girls our group our group has worked hard to implement free period products within our schools but we believe that in order to ensure a more Equitable future for all women free period products are a health necessity that no one should have to fight for if the school board can provide the funding needed which currently amounts to $1,000 yearly per secondary school we can

050ensure the health happiness and hygiene of all menting students thank you so much for having us um thank you thank you very much uh Linda cobal has to follow that so Linda is next and Linda you'll have three minutes thank you my name is Linda kobal I've raised three sons in the Asheville area and I now have two grandsons so um tonight I'd like to speak a little bit about uh safety issue issues in Asheville City School System you probably have read this um article for the Asheville citizen times and the um date of it is Sunday December 2023 it goes on the um the title is what goes on report unreported at Asheville City Schools I'll just read one paragraph in total the investigation found at least 39 alleged crimes over 5 years at

051Asheville City's schools including rapes robbery with firearm and assaults inflicting Serious injury that were in Asheville that were in the Asheville Police Department reports but were not part of the annual accounting to the general assembly the through though included one oh I'm sorry let me the the school years examin by The Citizen Times ranged from 2017 through 2021 though included one report from 2022 and that comes to about eight per year that were unreported according to um this Citizen Times investigative reporter he seemed to do a really good job of interviewing um some spokespeople from the Asheville City schools and this is what he came came up with so what I'd like to do right now I'd just like to pray Our Father hallowed is your name your kingdom come Lord your will be done

052in Asheville City Schools we pray that your kingdom will be a safe place and where the law will be enforced where there will be accurate factual accounting of any needs that need to be reported so we thank you Lord we thank you for your goodness we thank you that you will bring about repentance where there needs to be repentance we pray that there will be forgiveness where there needs to be forgiveness and Lord we pray that um most of all that students at Asheville City Schools will be able to love one another better Lord we ask that you'll be on the move and that you'll bring this about through the administrative in in jesus' name amen thank you thank you next up Timothy Lloyd go ahead and go yeah three minutes thank you I'm sthy

053Lloyd I'm the president of Asal City Association of Educators and we are um at our core a organization a group a union that lifts up worker voices so I have something that a worker um shared me in the union he says around 10 or 11 months ago my co-workers gathered to speak about our dire economic situation and I submitted a written comment as I was not able to attend the meeting in person I had just gone through a serious house fire I was living in a friend's basement and looking for a house housing in a community where affordable housing does not exist many of you personally responded to my comment with heartfelt words and you took action that ultimately led to the plan being discussed today as an update I have finally found housing that

054I was able to make work by taking on additional employment and at the end of the day it is my family that loses my children need me and I need them and if I'm taking on extra jobs just to make rent then my children ultimately end up growing up with an absentee father and it would better us to find another Community to live in or another job that will afford me the time with my family that we need and deserve but also over this last year I've listened to countless accounts of my co-workers experiencing stresses similar to my own in fact it doesn't take a a catastrophe to create the kind of stress I've experienced in the last year I have no doubt that you have all heard many of these accounts but here we

055all are gathering again to divide up scraps that the state of North Carolina is willing to throw our away I have been watching the North Carolina General Assembly systematically dismantle the public school system over the last 15 years or so under the guise of teacher accountability and school choice but their intent is clear they view public school as an entitlement and they don't want to pay for it anymore over the last two decades we've been made to do more and more with less and less the result is that we are all overwhelmed un overworked and underpaid and the stress with that shows on everyone's face I can hear in everyone's voice we are exasperated we are tired and we show up every day in spite of our stress and exhaustion because we believe that what

056we do is critically valuable to our community we deserve better we can continue to have this back in forth every you every year while you and the city government weigh the risk of raising taxes but wouldn't it be better if we stopped bickering with each other and addressed the problem at its source wouldn't it be better if we stood with other Educators around the state and demand that our general assembly provide adequate public education for our children none of us can affect the changes we need on our own but we can do it together I joined acae because as I believe in what they are doing and I invite you to stand with us to collaborate with us to figure out a solution that includes a living wage for all employees and adequate resources for

057our students there is no excuse for not providing these things and that responsibility lies squarely at the feet of the general assembly or we can get by with what we have but we'll have even less to work with next year and the next year and the next thank you for your time and attention thank you [Applause] next up is Pamela oi good evening I'm minut I'm a mom and a grandom and I just feel for our teachers that so many of them are not earning the living wage that's not what I came to talk about but I just feel because that affects our students too I'm here in support of our parental right Bill 49 and one thing I just wanted to talk about is the age appropriateness instruction for grades kindergarten through fourth grade

058and I'm just going to read the bill I know tonight you're going to give us information there's going to be a presentation from you but I hope that you will uphold parental rights and regarding this instruction on gender identity sexual activity and remember this is for grades kindergarten through fourth grade sexuality shall not be included in the curriculum provided in grades kindergarten through fourth grade regardless of whether the information is provided by school Personnel or third parties for the purpose of this section curriculum includes the standard course of study which all teachers are taking care of and you're doing an awesome job support materials locally develop curriculum supplemental instruction and textbooks and other supplementary materials but does not include responses to student initiated questions our children that are kindergarten through the fourth grade are too

059young to be exposed to sexual contact and in my opinion sexualizing children at an early age kindergarten through fourth grade normalizes sex we have innocent children that do not need to be shown books that show how to have anal sex and we're still asking that some of these books be removed not banned removed if we were in a county that we had a Sheriff that would honor pornography some of these books were removed I can tell some of you had not heard this you need to go online and read about what the parental rights are and what you as parents have the right to do and to oppose in addition to sexualizing Children the sexual education it can teach in some cases children to consent to early sex and when the previous speaker was talking

060about the young uh about the incidents that were not reported I don't know if you had a opportunity to read one of the other cases where a young boy was um beat up basically by an older student and a instructor thank God for an instructor rushing into the bathroom and rescuing that child and if you read and do your own research and I encourage you to do that you'll see that it's not always reported thank you thank you I'm so glad next up is Priscilla green and Priscilla you'll have three minutes that's fine I don't need that hello as previously stated my name is Priscilla green and I am a teacher for ACS I stand before you today in red red is historically the color Educators use to Mark errors or mistakes on assignments which

061is why it is chosen for red for Ed I also stand before you wearing a secondary color of black black symbolizes morning and bleakness which describe the current state of education I could give you the reasons for choosing to describe education as blink and morning of what could be an alphabetical numerical and by date list but for time Shake I will make it shorter specifically today I stand dressed in in my colors to speak of an issue Weighing on my Educator's Soul the retraction or possible retraction of a promise earlier tonight you recognize me for my efforts I put forth last year that paid off by my students making significant growth later tonight you possibly plan to take my money away as if to say good job go home pay your rent with our Applause

062or thanks for making us look good keep doing that while you starve how insulting obviously I am a professional you just celebrated me as yet it has been deemed that I should not be paid or treated as such unless it is in a room full of people you would like to impress when the oil company brings me oil to keep me warm for the remainder of the winter I'll be sure to pay them with my compliments I'm sure that is sufficient rather than the $4 a gallon Buckner oil charges over the summer a measly and insulting 2% raise was promised to me and now you want it back a pathetic 2% isn't enough to keep up with inflation as inflation is up 3.4% from from 2022 and in 2022 that inflation was up 4.7 from

0632021 the rest of the county and City received 8% this year the blue collar workers the men but us in our pink collar field the ladies are undeserving of such money however my opinion a teacher pay being a modern-day form of female oppression leaving the involved males as sacrifices needs to be pinned to the list I just told you I had in my social emotional teachings I teach my second graders not to take back promises and they understand if you are going to take it back replace it with 10 this makes us even with the men ignoring the fact they are allowed to be paid a decent wage before an additional race the claim is that ACS doesn't have the money but we've added two positions to central office we have also started a study

064to find out why our numbers are dwindling I can tell you why the the numbers are dwindling two reasons and I'll tell you for free they're going away and it's because of gentrification Asheville has out priced their population they cannot afford to live here so my poverty earning self goes to work every day to create newsletters and make copies and communicate with parents thank you [Applause] next up is James pcot my name is James pcot I wasn't going to talk about this but um I was Fe if when you just had your budget meeting wrestling with to very best for their for their staff so I just want to honor you for what I saw I'm here to give the board a word of encouragement uh full disclosure comes from a Biblical worldview where I

065believe that the Bible is the word and in it it has truths wisdom and principles for living to where if we follow them we will be we will do well I'm going to capsulize a story that from the word this encouragement comes from Jesus who is a son is a Son of God came to this earth to redeem Mankind and while he was here he was loved by the multitudes but there was a small group of people that despised him and ultimately were responsible for his death they were the religious leaders of the day however he rose from the dead he commissioned his followers to continue to do this uh to to continue the work that he started and then he rose to heaven so now you have a bunch of guys that are doing

066the same thing that Jesus was doing and the religious leaders are beside themselves so they had this meeting they said what are we going to do with these guys and one wise man got up and said of the group of the religious leaders said be very careful what you do with these gentlemen they will it'll Disappear Completely on its own however if God is involved then you will find yourself opposing God and they were and they did and ultimately I think it's because they were thinking with their head and not only and not and not also with their heart their heart was hardened I believe that you guys have an extremely challenging job I I don't I just honor you you have a responsibility to other people's children those people are those children are loved

067by their parents and they're dearly loved by God in all your decisions and whether whether you allow into the school what you don't allow into the school here's my encouragement I know that you're going to use logic I know that you're going to use years of of experience I know that you're going to use uh logical thinking but I'm encouraging you tonight to open up your heart to the principles that are in the that are Timeless they in the word of God to the truth that comes into the truth that comes from the word the wisdom that comes from the word because when we don't when we only use our head we can very easily find oursel on the wrong side of an issue and find oursel opposing God just like the early religious leaders

068did God bless you thank [Applause] you thank you next up John Brigham and John you'll have three minutes when I was third grade we started out by saying the Pledge of Allegiance I I i' like to say that see if it'll help me relax we'll see not long ago it became clear that the Asheville primary school should be abandoned as part of the Asheville City Schools made a painful mess the school board thought it needed Community input everyone was fighting this change monory program was a jewel of excellence in an otherwise dysfunctional School District after stirring up a horn opposition the school board held to the original and obvious solution and shuttered the building everyone was appalled a big issue for the Asheville City Schools is declining enrollment this was not anticipated even a few

069years ago a similar situation has come along with fing enrollment monford Northstar school is on the chopping block at the February 5th work session this was a week ago right now exactly a week ago the school board spent almost an hour discussing how when where and who should be asked for input how are we going to close them on Northstar this all implied that it would be put up for vote some of the discussions were along the line of I I watched the video this will be painful how are we going to mitigate the pain this is definitely going to involve P but we need to know the position of those giving input but what do the man mford parents think but what school do you represent wait wait wait don't we input parent groups

070we need to be sure everyone is included the pain is about about 80% related to how the situation is handled I present this as a sypt symptom of dysfunctional school system the Asheville City Schools needs to make the decision almost like a business decision the de the decision comes from school management and this is orchestrated by the superintendent then the school board need support the superintendent the school board is orchestrating this for maxim parties this is under the category of a abuse of power violence is abuse of power parents are concerned about their children if they had confidence in the school district they would go away but they see nothing but mediocrity and indecision the parents are scared and send their kids to other schools the monford north Northstar campus is on monford Avenue just

071a few minutes walk from downtown this a really special place perhaps I could add my two cents about the future of the monford Northstar campus I Envision the monford campus is the headquarters for the new larger bunkham County School District my name is John briam and I really appreciate being able to talk thank [Applause] you next up bayy Griffith and ba you'll have three minutes thank you hi my name is Bailey Griffith um I'm the media coordinator at Claxton Elementary and I'm here today to speak on the increase to the supplement that the board is going to consider this evening um last year many staff and teachers at my school and across the district excited by a newly elected board and the opportunity to impact important changes in our district mobilized to fight for a

072living wage for all of our staff uh we attended meetings we reached out to the board to County Commissioners to share our thoughts and we worked in collaboration um we shared stories about the realities of living on $17.73 an hour um even with the local supplement that isn't enough and for me last year it felt like such an important moment to sit in this room when the board had this long meeting and came to the agreement that they would ask the County Commissioners for more money to allocate to increasing our local supplement uh and then I sat in on the County Commissioners meeting and I was impressed that they agreed to give us some more money to allocate to our local supplement with a very clear directive to to use that money to pay our

073staff so that they could afford to live in the community where they work we all know that budgets go slow and it took a long time for everything to come through there were many iterations and the state took its time but I'm here today approaching one year since acae and bcae delivered their petition that was titled our kids can't wait and none of the staff have received Financial benefits from an increase in supplemental pay that we discussed starting this time last year the dedicated staff of Asheville City Schools who were struggling financially in February of 2023 are still struggling one year later it's frustrating because I don't believe that I need to convince the board that our staff deserves a living wage I don't believe that I need to convince you that we should be

074able to live in the community where we work I think you agree on those points so I'm just here today to say that this is the moment when I hope that you'll follow through on the agreement that we worked hard on last year that you pledge to use the money from the Commissioners for our local supplement increase and all of my colleagues across the district are watching and I think we're looking for this as an opportunity for more Trust so that we can keep working together in the future thank you thank you next is BET kti and bet you'll have three minutes thank you uh hi friends my name is bets kti I teach fifth grade at clexton specifically math checking some math um I actually already left the classroom once in 2021 I was

075burnt out I was exhausted I was pregnant and I had been teaching online for over a year and learning how to do that for the same rate of pay that I had been getting before and I decided that it did not make Financial sense for me to continue teaching the cost of daycare for my child was going to be around half of my take-home pay and why in the world would I pay for someone else to take care of my child when I am doing that for other people and not getting paid fairly it didn't make sense but I missed it and I'm from here I graduated from Ashville High my mom graduated from Ashville High hi I love Asheville these children that I teach are my neighbors they are the children of my friends

076my work is important and you know that we all know that and you guys were having the conversation about a supplement and I was like great this is a this is a positive step maybe things are finally changing you know what with that and my husband's raise we can afford for me to be a public school teacher for me to do the thing that I love awesome so here I am back in the classroom loving it it's great now I'm paying tuition for grad school and half of my salary is going to pay for my child to be at the YWCA they raised their tuition so that their teachers could be paid a living wage and I was for it right the people who take care of our children should be a able to live

077and if you do the math I make less than $20 an hour when you factor in the work that I'm doing at home at night after my toddler goes to bed because I'm certainly not going to do it while she's awake the students that I teach this year were having a competition in class to figure out who had the fewest number of teachers left in the building the cohort that I teach has lost three out of their last six teachers there is a child in my class who has no teachers who know him at school this is a problem you guys know the right choice you know what to do you've already agreed on it once and you know our job is hard and you know it's worth money right $50 an hour for summer

078school do the right [Applause] thing next up Laurel Foley did I read that right no might Ry I'm sorry Laurel Foley no maybe left okay um then we'll go to the next person pep AA and pepe you're speaking for a group so you'll have five minutes because I don't have representatives of that group group um just put me down for three three minutes fa okay sure okay um I wanted to take a moment to speak at this Podium uh about an organization that I have the honor to be co-president of and that is the Asheville High School silsa parent teacher organization uh this organization also repres reprs the parents families and teachers of the education and Career Academy um our PTO in our district uh hear listen reach out to try to get as many

079perspectives as possible to support our schools and get resources to teachers and encourage our teachers with love and affection and encouragement um uh our are we have amazing teachers in this District we also have an official relationship with all of our PTO with our uh Asheville City Schools uh District um in the board policies and procedures and then also under state law where we are specifically tasked with the role of getting uh School Improvement team parent representatives for each of our schools um I ask implore the board particularly with all of these conversations about closures and consolidations to reach out invite our parent teacher organizations that are affected to be able to present like other organizations present to the board where they have a Time on the agenda where they can share slides if they

080want to and graphs um our superintendent I'm very encouraged uh few uh board meetings ago she said very clearly that our uh School communities our parents and staff would have opportunities to correct any inaccuracies um and provide additional information to the board and so I'm just here just to ask that you include all of our are affected parent teacher organizations when you're talking about doing uh consolidations and closures and then oh I've got 28 seconds left I have to say our teachers I know that you guys are looking at funding Cliffs for covid I heard the County Commissioners say that they were going to give money for Teacher raises and that to me is a commitment that they've made to you to support that in future years years so where you're looking at permanent and

081temporary raises I would say make them all permanent and just as much as you can thank you very much thank [Applause] you and next we have Chuck L hello my name is Chuck l i teach at Asheville middle my wife and I love living in Asheville when we moved here we felt like we were lucky to both get teaching positions with the asille school system we even took pay cuts to move here it took six years before our salaries matched what we were making in Charlotte meinberg and while we managed our financial situation we still felt lucky now with the rapidly rising cost of living in Asheville and the surrounding area working for a school system system which has not addressed the rise of the high cost of living in years it doesn't seem so

082lucky we all know Asheville is one of the most expensive cities to live in in North Carolina I don't see how Asheville City Schools could even begin to attract Educators to consider a position here despite the supportive Community the Fantastic staff and faculty it would be a hard cell considering how other school systems are taking care of their teachers it is getting increasingly more difficult to survive teaching and living in this community we now have too many teaching positions unfulfilled because Asheville cannot entice Educators to move here if I were to move back to Charlotte my salary would go up more than 6% over what I make here right now instead of me feeling lucky Ashville City Schools should feel lucky because we stayed in real numbers when we bought our house 13 years ago

083our property tax was $3,300 our cost of living supplement topped out at 16% 6 years later in 2017 the tax bill was $4,500 the supplement stayed the same for 2023 I just paid $5,100 every time the bill went up we thought well maybe now we'll get a raise it never happened meanwhile other school systems were increasing their supplemental pay some even reinstated longevity Asheville has done nothing except cut the hourly pay rate I had been making driving a bus after school asille City must step up and treat their staff better we all know the state isn't going to thank you thank you I do want to offer one more opportunity if Laurel is has come back into the room lur fley but if y oh Lori I'm so sorry I just couldn't read your handwriting

084I'm very sorry and I'm even using my reading classes and I still couldn't read it so I'm I'm sorry but I'm glad you're able to speak I'll be more precise no it's all good it's on me so thank you guys for um giving this us this opportunity I have been with Asheville City schools for this is my 16th year I absolutely love the people I love the community I love the children I am so devoted and that's the thing all of us have been we are so devoted as Educators and it shows in lots of different ways going to our students houses dropping off things getting things for our children as far as needs they have acknowledging their birthday making making special you know Connections in order for those kids to feel like they belong

085here in this community but I will say I've worked at least two jobs while I've lived here and I've lived here 24 years and the reality is is this is a this is not just an expensive place in North Carolina it's also one of the most expensive places in the nation so for the people who don't have necessarily all of the opportunities that have come from moving in from another place and the real estate and driving the real estate like it is it's a real reality of me trying to figure out how to make sure that I can take care of my family and it's it's a true struggle and I know that I'm I'm an educated person with a career but with all of what's happened in the cost of living and just the

086cost of groceries and all of what it's incurred like I'm one person who is sitting better than other people comparatively economically but with my struggle I can tell you that all of the people that I come ac across working together and and not being able to survive because there's not a living wage a lot of us are working multiple jobs in order to try to be able to be here and stay here so I'm super committed I just hope you guys hear the passion and the commit liit that we have to this the schools and also you know we have followed along and been extremely passionate as Educators um to really um advocate for ourselves we did a lot of work a year ago and we had some hope that there was going to be

087some opportunities for us that it would lighten um the load um slightly and we just are asking if you can just please remember that we didn't forget that we had those conversations and all the work that we did together um with the campaign to really really be able to support our students because ultimately we're here for them and we just want to be able to stay and maintain um our you know our commitment um based upon you know financially making sure that we also are taken care of thank you for your time thank you for all you do thank you and that concludes public comment thank you so much to all who um gave public comment and everyone who's here in the room we'll move now to uh the next item on our agenda which

088is the consent items and I'm not going to read them all because there are plenty of consent items there are um on the agenda but I'll ask if there are any questions about those consent items that include but isn't limited to draft minutes from previous meetings contracts and M us Personnel um and employees reports I move that we accept the that we approve the consent items on the agenda second okay it's been moved and seconded any questions then I'll ask for a vote all in favor I any opposed all right consent items are approved next action items and the first one is is um consideration of the local supplement enhancement for the fiscal year 24 budget uh thank you board Heidi's going to join um at the podium as well if you have any questions

089that she can respond to just wanted to summarize some of the information that we shared at the at the at previous meetings and at the at the budget work session is that we have shown that we we are going to have there are going to have to be some some tightening of the belts and some places um because of decreased enrollment because of the Esser funds um Heidi and I are predicting that next year we'll have to make find um some we're basically anticipating a shortfall of about $3.5 million for next year's budget 1 million of that is decreased funding from the state for decreased enrollment and approximately another million dollars from Esser funds that are expiring and then we're anticipating an increase in Fund in um cost to the district for the raises coming

090from the state as well as increased health care benefit cost um so that is that 3.5 million shortfall um so just want to make sure the board has all the information before you make a decision um and as a reminder any percent increase to the local supplement will add about a $500,000 to that $3.5 million shortfall so if you have any questions Heidi's also joined the um joint stepped up to the podium and um if you have any questions we're ready to try to help answer those so looking over the spreadsheet again um the 2% increase what you're saying is that if we are if we were to go up 2% local supplement increase for for this year the 23 24 year uh we would then for 2425 be looking at uh $4.5 million shortfall

091is that what you're saying that's what we've um yes that's what we're predicting yes and our current Supple uh no our current um Reserve fund is at 15 million that's an anticipated amount um that we just predict based on where we ended last year as well as the budgeted amount um for the current year however if spending doesn't align within the budget if it spend less then that goes that fund balance goes up if we spend more that fund balance comes down so that's where it is anticipated we've already allocated approximately $3 million um to get it to that point um to cover costs and the total amount from the county was an additional I know they didn't give us what we asked completely we initially asked 4.3 and we only got two yep so

0922.3 2 between that or 2.7 okay so does that um the funds that we're talking about that everyone has brought up this evening about the county um giving us those extra extra funds what does that do in terms of our uh our local funds um that we would use for the supplement because we know that all of that money comes out of the most of it comes out of the local fund uh the state does give us supplemental dollars for the staff that we are allotted by the state so that's a very important thing that people should also know uh that we do get funded by the state for a certain allotment of of teachers and staff and anything above that allotment comes out of our local dollars so but where are we at uh

093what does that dollar amount look like with the two uh the 2 point let's say it was 2.5 that they gave us rather than the 4.3 that we asked for either one of you do you have that information Heidi you speak to that rep that please I want to make sure I answer St so the county gave us we asked for 4.3 the county gave us let's say it was 2.5 I can't remember the exact number what does that dollar amount due to our local funds does it does it increase it enough for us to I know we're going to end up having to dip into our local dollars um either way it looks like because if we've got a $3.5 million shortfall for next year and the county only gave us 2.5 this year

0942.3 they're not going to give us more I mean they increased us but they're not going to increase us $5 million we couldn't get five million this first time this last time well not an increase we give us sorry our local um the M we get a lot of money from the county we just got an increase of 2 three I think but it still didn't get us to where we were trying to get to correct that's what I'm saying correct so I'm just wanting to make sure that again we're going to have to dip into that we're going to have to dip in the local funds we know that um but I'm looking at the 2% local increase and wanting to make sure that if that were something that we did do and you

095know as everyone has said to make Perman permanent um you know what does that look like that's what I'm asking I'm sorry if it's being confusing that's fine um so obviously I wasn't here at that time to hear the conversations directly but with all the notes that I've reviewed you know those those budget proposals at that time were very complicated um it involved a lot of asks and it involved a propos proposal of cuts that would be made at our level most of which have not come about this year and then also it's dependent on what the pration of all of the money the county approves for all the public school students in bunkham county and how that is split between bunkham County us and then each of us with the charter schools so as

096I outlined on that original proposal you know there was a significantly higher portion of our share of that appropriation that was redirected to the charter school students this year which also impacted that budget deficit total and will impact that for next year so not to say that there isn't fund balance currently to meet whatever decision you make this evening but just like we've talked about in Prior sessions whatever you decide this evening rolls into every year thereafter because what you have here as opposed to where I've worked in other districts is a percentage supplement so um just just to make a little clarification on some of the comments made earlier so the state approved a 4% raise so you actually already funded significantly more local supplement this year than you did last year because everyone

097that received the local supplement got that percent on a higher salary than they were paid in the prior year now granted we have not paid the Retro amounts yet nobody get excited uh those are going to we saved the Retro payments until the board got a chance to make their final decision ision this evening so um but every time any employee here gets a raise then they get a percent supplement on top of that race so that that is what complicates that forecast moving forward so I I would like to sort of follow up on that I mean I I feel like we have to be the stewardship in terms of the money that we we have been the increase that the county gave us that they want dedicated to salaries has to go to

098salaries like that's to me that's really important because they're one of our primary funding sources and we've all collectively fought for that two questions related to that and I but one is do we have those funds yet and you know right because like isn't there sort of a lag of a year or something when do we now back to Mr car's point point I mean we did receive $ 3,973 42 more in local funding than we received in the prior year okay but that had to be applied to every increased cost that we have so again back to the point on what we get funded for and what we do not get funded for um we have a significant number of people uh employed in federal programs those do not respond at all to any

099local decisions on salary infringe benefit increases uh we have a significant number of people employed in non-all outted state positions we get almost no increase for any state past increase for those positions because there those are based on specific formulas usually tied to either ADM or poverty or um the at risk status of our students so honestly unfortunately for us and the county um we're left to make up the difference for all the shortfalls of all these other funding entities and so that all rolls into a much bigger picture on what you will or will not be able to do in future years and that will all again be dependent on what money we receive next year so I understand all of that now was it a 1% increase in the taxes property taxes right

100didn't we get 1% have we can we discern at least what that amount is do we know what that's going to be it not till this it's one cent just to 1 cent sorry not 1% 1 cent got it right right and so we won't know what that amount is until property taxes from this year right because the supplemental rate stayed the same currently it's the same rate for this year you said supplemental rate but let's clarify just because language is confusing supplemental property tax rate remain the same for this year it goes up for next year no the school district special school tag that stays the same that stays the same understood we got 1 cent uh they increased it for the whole County we get 15% so that those monies would also go

101to bunkham County Schools as well right we get we get I want to be clear we get 15% of whatever the one cent yields right and we don't have it yet and we don't really know what that will be well and I don't want speak for the county but the county will increase property taxes and then they they work with all of their sums of money that they have coming into their system and then they determine what an appropriation is going to be for each entity so that could be directly tied to that one's one one mill one mill or it could be adjusted depending on what their costs are as well because they have to allocate funds to all departments and the schools thank you um and just one point of clarification right now

102it's 15% I just want to be clear that we go moving forward we're not sure because we know the County's enrollment actually is increasing or our ours isn't and so those percentages could change so um yeah I mean and I think the other thing that I'm going to just say not that that informs I don't want folks to hear this as like the only thing that's in my head right now because it's not at all but I think it's important to recognize that we have at least two District in the state that are getting ready potentially to be taken over by the state because of the funding situation that they are in for having overextended um it has caused enormous problems in school districts because our state doesn't fund well enough and the districts have

103tried really hard as we are trying hard to strike that right balance so that when we hear we we're going to have potentially a um $5 million shortfall or $3.5 million short fall next year that's it begins to get scary because of seeing other other districts that are so far in the red that the state is threatening to take them over and I don't that's not going to happen to us but I just I just want to say that like reading about what's going on in Durham and Burlington and places like that is um something we can't we unfortunately we don't Levy taxes ourselves we don't get to fund to decide how much money we have to work with and I think it's really important to say that because um for example in the district

104that Dr Ferman just came from they did the school districts got to Levy taxes um and we are required to Simply live with the money that we are given and then figure out how to allocate that George I got it I got a question I think we are here for one reason I'm going to throw it [Music] out can we pay 2% to our teachers we can pay that to our teachers with use of fund balance yes sir okay so we can do it yes sir but that comes with ongoing decisions I just I in my heart of hearts I have to say that that person that WR Check Yes I do understand that but we can yes sir okay yes I appreciate that question because I'm thinking about um our budget meeting at the

105end of January where you presented us that we have 2.1 million um possible for it says available for local supplement in um and so either way that we land on this whether it's a onetime what we would call a bonus or a permanent increase correct me if I'm wrong that 2.1 million at least for this year would offset some of the 3.5 million just for one year right um I because you because again you 3.5 million was quoted for next for next year but that's does but that so that um one 2.1 means that's because the fund balance increased at the end when they Clos the books and we didn't have the midyear um deduction from the state that gave us $2.1 million more than we anticipated this year which means we could pass on

106that $2.1 million in a supplement to our staff without have for this year without having to dig into fund balance so yes that's what that's what that means we have that funds available but if we're going to invest that money into a 2% increase permanent then we know that we're going to have at least a million dollar extra to pay out so that shortfall of $1.5 million now becomes a shortfall of $2.5 million doar for increased staff salary and benefits okay does that make sense no no yeah I just wanted that clarification yep one other thing I'd like to just lift up and it it I can't remember which board of meeting it came up came from um I recognize that every District in the state gets to choose how their supplement how they use

107their supplement some districts for example have just a flat rate other districts do percentage other districts do a variety um bunkham county has their structure is a little different but it is percentage rate right now Asheville City in general this is not true of everybody but in general our percentage rates are lower than buckham County public schools in general part of the schedule yeah right again it's not you know there's a lot of there's a lot of Staff in both districts so yes it's not applicable to every single person but in general we are around 2% lower as you go through those steps again our steps are different I know that but um and so I'm just I you know the I point that out because I'm looking at that that potential short or that

108shortfall for next year but I'm also looking at the fact that the folks in the room today as some of you have said came out around this time last year and are we going to be sitting here in the room like this a year from now with many of the same people sitting in the same chair s asking for the same thing and I get that I understand because it drives me crazy what our general assembly and Raleigh is doing to public education it drives me bonkers especially someone sitting up here as a board member looking out at a sea of Educators who for whom my children have gone all the way through this District it drives me crazy and I so want to be able to take all of this energy and put it

109right in front of the state house every single day when those folks walk through the door and say that things need to change my hope is that happens down the road it's not happening tomorrow it's probably not happening in the short session coming up it's not probably not happening next year right so so trying to compartmentalize that and say what can we do in this District right now um especially because of you know it was it was a it was a big ask that we asked of the county the county did what they could but they have given us funds as Amy has pointed out and others have too to to increase our teacher supplement I understand that that Cliff coming up that shortfall and yet I don't for my heart I don't know just

110a onetime bonus is enough to say to this to the folks in this room and those who aren't in this room we want to do what's right for you I just want to say that and I know I usually don't take that opportunity as board chair but I just want to put that out there for us as a board I'd like to make a motion I move that we increase the local supplement permanently by two percentage points second it's been moved and seconded any questions about that motion I want to offer I am very aware of the recommendation that was made for it to us and I'm very aware of the budget that we face in the coming school year for me this supplement was something that but for a time we would have done

111last fall I mean we had the benefit of some time to try to get some more numbers and it's made us realize how um difficult our financial situation is but but for the passage of time we would have passed this last fall and so I believe we and I seconded the motion that we need to do a permanent 2% raise but we're very clear that we have significant budget issues that we have to face so I just as long as we're all very clear about that um that's what I would offer yeah I I I would uh I appreciate that and I think it's important to say that there this this does not this is not the end of pain right this is uh if this is something that we feel not only did we

112want to do it you have a board that is fighting to do what we can for your salaries and for your well-being on a number of levels including the way that your classrooms look and feel every day and whether or not they feel like places where you can productively teach and so all of those things are part of the conversation but I think it's really important to say um we do have a funding Cliff coming up and so we're going to do the very best we can as we move forward v a mo there is a motion yeah so all in favor I I any opposed motion passes [Applause] our next action item is the um 3540 Comprehensive Health education plan that Heidi presented to us back at the budget session and we discussed um

113on Monday are there any questions I move that we ex uh approve um polic is that policy yeah thir policy 3540 Comprehensive Health education second it's been moved and seconded uh any questions about that this is at the level of $220,000 correct let's that was oopsie sorry yeah yep we're taking them one by one so um the original recommendation was to initiate uh you got it okay all right yeah thank you I did too actually all right so what's are we talking about the 49 yeah yeah so we are on to S sp49 yeah okay I'm sorry I was expecting the order to be different okay so so now we have a different motion or do we have a motion that's outstanding we have y'all are all making motions to me and now I'm really

114confused there's one motion right now right because we were taking each part individually got it so this is policy 3540 Comprehensive Health education okay part one this is the first it was a motion I made was to approve this and I think um lies has seconded it so now it's just up for a vote so yes however I do want to clarify that I totally misspoke about what it is about so I was talking about something very different than past and consent um so this is is a specific policy but Sarah you wanted to not yet say something okay come good we're good okay I just want to make sure Jesse is in front of the mic so a motion um is on the table just want to make sure Jesse is in front of

115the mic okay all in favor I I I any opposed all right so 3540 passed now it's 1310 Mr chair may I make a motion to amend please yes what is your motion sorry hang on just a second um I make a motion to amend policy 1310 to remove all language in section e.1 and pardon me while I I know some of the uh numbering was confusing this is the section procedures for Parental involvement in student health and there's two parts to my motion I move that we remove that we modify the policy to remove all language in section E1 accept the first sentence and part two is to remove E4 in its entirety second so that um amended moot I'm sorry that motion for amendment has been moved and seconded any questions about it

116okay then um I'll ask for a vote all in favor I I any opposed all right that amended policy passes am sorry that was the the vote on the amendment now we have to vote on the policy so now I I move that we adopt the policy as amended second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right now it is passed uh next uh policy 4720 survey of students I move that we accept policy 4720 second it's been moved and seconded any questions then all in favor I I any opposed that one passes uh next is 61 20 student health services I move that we pass 6120 student health services second been moved and seconded any any questions all right all in favor I I any opposed that one

117passes and finally um policy 7300 staff responsibilities I'll move that we adopt 7300 staff responsibilities second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right those have passed um I do want to say thank you board for that work um I do want to say that at its core we know that s sp49 or the so-called parents Bill of Rights seeks to harm our queer Youth and families as misguided and obtuse as this legislation is it is written in such a crafty way that as a school board our hands have been tied State Bill 49 is a law whatever policies and practices we as a board and we as a district choose to enact they do nothing to change the harble effects of this law therefore refusing to pass the

118policies as a matter of moral principle would neither negate the law or protect our kids in our view so first of all to the P campaign for southern equality I want to thank you deeply for your work not only advocating for our youth but also seeking legal ways to challenge s sp49 particularly by bringing a complaint that the law violates Title 9 personally I hope that complaint gets its Fair Day in court in the meantime we remain focused on what we as a board can do to support our youth now in the face of the law and for this board that means combing through and revising policy language to make sure that our staff and students know their well-being is foremost in addition to these revised policies policies that are unique to this District by

119the way we will be discussing a reform policy also known as a district procedure in our March work session this reform policy will focus even more on protections for students impacted by this legislation I want to assure everyone that this law and the policies around it do little to alter how our staff works with and supports our students particularly our trans and queer youth before this bill our staff list listened to loved and worked with our youth who are exploring who they are and how they need to be in this world after this bill after today and every day Hereafter our staff will continue to listen to love and work with our youth this is their charge it is our job as a board to make sure that our staff can fulfill that charge and

120with that we move to the superintendent all right thank you chair thank you board um so April is going to pull up our presentation for this evening um so kind of rewinding and making sure that everyone's up to speed when we started identifying some potential shortfalls and some less than um desirable numbers in our budgeting um once our new CFO came on board once I started having the opportunity to really dig in and look at our data and our budget numbers it became clear that we were starting to anticipate some budget shortfalls going forward um so during those presentations um go ahead April um the board charged me um with and my administrative team to look at the feasibility of some potential school consolidations as a means of improving our academic Effectiveness operational efficiency and

121the long-term stability for Asheville City Schools concurrently the board also identified one of their primary goals to determine a space where we that's housed on Asheville City school property or a campus for the expansion of our education and Career Academy also known as ECA and being able to enhance this program to make sure that we're meeting the diverse needs of students where Traditional School has not been meeting their needs um so we took that charge and and started to do some initial analysis and that is very small um but this will also be posted as a web page um for everyone to access so the initial analysis revealed that all of our facilities are under capacity to varying degrees uh the analysis also revealed that since 20145 our student enrollment has decreased by 600 about

122600 students but during from that same time frame Ash City Schools today employs the same number of Staff we employed in 20145 um we also are looking at our state and local Revenue sources um not being able to sustain the rate of expenditures such though that we are now with a 2% increase in local settlement already to predict a 4.5 million shortfall um for next year's budget so we started brainstorming some solutions for consolidation such as decreasing from five elementary schools to four going down from two middle schools to one two high schools to one also throwing around options for other consol uh reconfiguration options looking at splitting elementaries to primary and Upper Elementary like K2 35 having your 68s and 912 as well um also is there a potential to form a K8 School

123of some sort or a 612 option um and then the last one is how are we kind of taking that second charge of the school board to make sure that we've got a K12 option that includes specialized programming for our students who we know their needs are not being met um in certain ways at our traditional schools um further analysis also revealed the need to adjust our a lot Staffing allotment um at central office and at our schools but that we also need to investigate ways to increase student enrollment um through updating our marketing materials launching a campaign and then also understanding why families have selected out of Asheville City Schools um so we did some deeper analysis uh looking at our enrollment um and on this slide what you'll see is that we've looked

124at every school um its current enrollment what its capacity is and then in parentheses how many potential open seats there are um when we pulled these numbers we were very deliberate in making sure that we were using a number that we had uh data to support um every building has a facility study completed and we've used that facility study to pull the DPI standard um and have reported that number as the capacity for each school um except for Asheville High School uh there is a capacity uh DPI Capac standard and then there is also what they call a core capacity for some reason at the high school they always previously all the data I can find have used that um core capacity which is 1658 um instead of the DPI capacity which is 1935 um

125I also wanted to address the Haywood campus um at the Haywood campus which was our previous um Asheville Primary School um if the board does remember previously this year the fire company redid the code for that building so it's no longer categorized under the fire company as a school so we cannot put students in that building at this time um and that we are already partnering with the county to explore feasibility of other um facilities departments prek programming alternative programming that could be housed at the Haywood campus that is years away so it's not a feasible option to consider for an immediate need um as we try to address that first charge from the board thank you April so we dug through as a team some of these options to identify what is a tenable

126option that we could potentially take action on um in the short term to rectify some of the issues that we're seeing um as we look at our budget um so when we were looking at consolidation options we knew we needed a space that would provide for these critical needs um for our students um that the traditional schools aren't working for as well as the expansion of the education and Career Academy when we looked at the numbers um we tried to find options for where we could potentially consolidate uh as exploring the K8 option um we looked at the only schools that could po potentially have room would be Lucy hering and Jones but neither of those schools are set up to support um students in grade 6 through eight so there would be significant amount

127of investment to be done to get them prepared for students um on the up on the middle school grades um we also explored could we downsize and go from Four elementary schools to um go from five to Four elementary schools and at this point in the conversation we felt that that was just not tenable due to the expansive amount of administrative work Community engagement required in all of those five distinct communities um we also knew that the option must demonstrate Financial stewardship by ensuring the long-term feasibility uh sustainability for Asheville City schools and making sure that we have an equitable learning environment for all students that that is optimized so we settled on really to digging in and exploring first the middle school reconfiguration as the option that really would impact the fewest students and

128staff at this time that was man manable to accomplish um and would expand uh provide space for the expansion of ECA and enhance programming for students who need more support and it would improve our financial stewardship and financial savings um we also are currently reviewing Staffing allotments um I've reviewed current Staffing allotments with our principles we're working on you know where can we land in the next immediate year as we look at Staffing allotments um so we're getting the feedback from principles on that um and we have also La launched a marketing campaign um in my next presentation I'll share some snapshots of promotional videos uh Billboards flyers and updated um mailers that we'll be sharing um out with our community to try to attract more students to our school system so as we muddled

129through we kind of came up with three options and the middle option two is kind of part A and Part B um so very much an option is not to change that is something we did investigate we are exploring and are C ious if there's things that we've um put in this that people want to know more about so we definitely want to make sure that the public knows and our community and our staff know this is still the exploratory process there's no decision made the other option is to move mfor into another site whether it be Asheville uh Middle School campus or one of our K5 campuses and then the third option is transitioning from two middle schools to one um and really hoping to combine on some of the unique gifts and talents

130and strengths of both schools um if we transition from two to one so we started exploring advantages and potential hardships for each of those options um so I'm not going to read through these and wholeheartedly the board you've had an opportunity where to review these and this is by no means a comprehensive all encompassing list we understand that from everyone's multiple perspectives you will have very different hardships and advantages based on where you sit and your experiences um but some of the uh just kind of highlights from no changes is it does provide at both campuses um increased if we don't change anything options for increasing enrollment at both um Asheville middle school and monford does provide that choice for our families it creates sustain um maintains stability it's not going to be disruptive um

131and it does that whether is potential to find space at either campus for the education Career Academy not an expansion of that Academy as it is but that could be housed in its current form there um so some of the hardships students at ECA haven't had a permanent location since 2008 um they have been relocated several times and bounced around a various types of schools places trailers um there is transportation between Asheville middle school and Ash mord for sports after school programming like IRL um we have identified that you know we do have a non we have Financial writing to do we need to take some action for that and I um just I don't see how we can continue to operate as we are currently without continuing to create a bigger um financial gap

132um and then it does also create some competition or duplication of resources so the next option is um like silsa is at um in Asheville High School is putting two schools into one building and this one really explored using Asheville Middle School um as the place for that so some advantages um the taxpayers paid $41 million for the building of Asheville middle school and it would allow us to really maximize our use in that space um does put students on one campus as they prepare to move to one campus at the high school level um it eliminates the need for transportation it improves our racial balance between the two schools and it does provide some opportunity for those expert staff to provide um work to collaborate at and be um better thought Partners together um

133some hardships for that there's two separate schools um on one campus um it's not a perfect scenario it is difficult I think as well as principal Edwards and Kush work together there still are times where their interests are competing um within the building and how schedules run um and that it would be a hard um a hard way how do you build a sense of belonging in one building when there's two schools um moving on to advantages and hardships for a K8 school um so we do know that there's research out there that supports K8 schools having improved academic achievement and positive culture um it Fosters that stronger sense of community and mentorships across grade levels um there are fewer transitions for those students um shared resources amongst uh K8 program and definitely I think

134families could see some conveniences there um some of the potential hardships that were brainstormed um is transitioning to a small PRK experience to a significantly larger high school at some point could be difficult um we'd still have the transportation costs and um of course limited course options because of a smaller group of students and some staff being stretched further um and also it would disrupt a greater number of students and staff and then also the increased cost um to set up the middle school at an elementary site um and then finally we looked at some potential advantages and hardships for um putting two Middle School schools transitioning from 2 to one Middle School um again some of the advantages is being able to fully utilize the space um at the Asheville Middle School site um

135having students on one campus again prepares them to move to high school um that eliminates the transportation cost um it improves our economy of scale reduction in expenses which we'll give some more details on here in a second um and just an opportunity for our students to really come together as a middle school Community obviously hardships um you know there's just two listed here but um you know this for our mord community and for our staff at Asheville middle is are weighted very heavily so potential loss for of students who desire that small school option um the disruption and the uncertainty and just loss of something um that we know is a really great School in our community um that would be definitely a loss for Asheville City Schools um so then what we've gone

136through is we've pulled some qualitative and quantitative data um at this step uh when you link this on our web page you'll be able to click on the video and we'll make a an indicator there so you understand that that's the link to the video of the recording from the community input session and then all the community input that we gathered we transcribed that word for word and have um published that the board has already had a chance to review that input um but we gathered approximately input from about 200 stakeholders um and gathered over 500 about 531 comments um and then 118 stakeholders shared a preference of the different options that we discussed so I do want to say we've did um put out an electronic um form we were able to pull the

137stakeholder comments from that but the way the form was rate allowing people to rate their preference of the different options it wasn't clearly translatable but I did want to summarize some of the feedback from the the community night um so initially they had some concerns about the data that was presented um they felt that it was limited information they didn't want to prematurely create four options um they emphasized the need for more data really understanding those financial costs and benefits um some of them shared that they would prefer to have a fully elected board before making a consolidation decision um there was also some um expression of distrust and fear from the options presented could lead to more families being uh leaving the district we also asked for some specific feedback on the options um

138and they were really diverse they ranged um kind of all over and also generated some additional suggestions like redrawing our diff District Lines um reorganizing programs to different campuses and also increasing property tax um to help fund our Public Schools um but again concerns are raised about the cultures in the Schools teacher efficacy student enrollment and Equitable learning environments we also gathered um input and um some of it related to financial and enrollment concerns um so again another a call for in a detailed financial data including the costs of running schools um specific places that we're in deficit and questions about enrollment numbers student to staff ratios and just some other considerations um were raised about neurodiverse students um how they have differing learning styles and the impacts um that decisions may have on student

139safety and well-being um and then just concerns about long-term strategy I am fully transparent I did put this into an AI bot to create the summary for me it was very helpful um enrollment projection so we did complete our enrollment study um and we are just pending the draft title being removed um but we did contract with um Cooperative strategies and December they've completed well 99% completed their enrollment projection um and when they do enrollment project sections I've worked with this company in the past they come up with some pretty accurate numbers on their recommended enrollment so they give you four versions of predicted of enrollment projections one is the his well you you'll see the historical enrollment they also give you a recommended enrollment number they give you a moderate projection a low projection

140and a high projection regardless of their projection you can see that they are anticipating enrollment in Ashville City Schools to decline and there's lots of reasons for that we'll have the main publication released as soon as they polish up some of the language um in there to make it they use their language and we wanted to make sure that it was similar language that we use in this school system um so you can go to the next slide um so the this slide and the next slide give um deeper details in that enrollment data but they examine historical enrollment data they use Census Data they use live birth rates cohort survival rates to create these projections and and the main part is the cohort survival rate so they look at every time students transition from

141birth to kindergarten from birth to first grade and then every grade transition they look at historically what that transition looked like so from kindergarten to first grade do we historically gain students or lose students from eth and I'll give you a really clear example is from 8th to 9th grade we gain lots of students so they give us that cohort survival rate and then they apply it to our student enrollment numbers and come up with this recommended projection so as you can see by grade band and the prek DAT data was frozen at 104 because that was the number of seats that we said we had available on an ongoing basis um so you can see they are anticipating in the numbers looking at decreased enrollment and if you go to the next slide April

142it's colorcoded here and it's broken down by grade level and what you'll notice is you'll see some dark pink um cells and you'll see some dark blue cells so the dark pink cells are the higher numbers and the dark blue cells are the lower numbers and when you look on the on the chart down in 2024 25 and you go over the three years for 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade we have this really dark grouping of students so that is a cohort of students that is a much higher number than our other enrollment than are other grade levels and as this group of this large cohort is working its way way out of our school system and we're looking at decreased birth rates across not just Asheville but our nation we're seeing student enrollment

143going down so yeah we do have students that leave and go to Charter Schools but the main decrease for decreasing enrollment Across the Nation is just significantly lower birth rates some of the data uh that the board asked to see in that um members of the community as to see was um the next slide here shows our out of District applications from for this current current year so this current year we totaled up the number of applications that we received um and how many were denied at each grade level and then there's a code at the bottom to help you understand why those were denied and per board policy we can deny students for space and capacity we can deny students that are not in good standing or we can deny students that uh because

144of resources resources typically aligns for students that have special needs and if we don't have the capacity to serve students with um the special needs that they would coming they're coming with we would deny them for that reason um so you can see we did accept 86% of um applications um in the district applying to the district so the next slide um catches up with some of the additional data that was requested by the community um and this slide shows historical Middle School enrollment in particular um so the green line is total Middle School enrollment uh the red line is Asheville middle school and the blue line is mordt so monford also does um had capped its student enrollment at 80 students per grade level and you can see when they opened they did start

145with 80 students and that is um just that's their capacity so 80 students per grade level is what they started with another piece of data that we pulled is um historical Middle School withdrawals um so this is um a there's a bar for black students a bar for white students on how many students leave the Middle School um we didn't tease this out for various reasons but you can see that students that come to us are less likely to leave us so we did see that you know in over time students that came to Asheville middle school or uh mford were more likely to continue through their middle school years um the next slide is another piece of data that was requested and this is transfers between mord and Asheville Middle School um so this

146year we had six students leave Montford to go to Asheville middle we've had 12 students leave Asheville middle to go to mfort last year it was four going to mfort um from mfor to AMS and then nine going from AMS to mordt another piece of data that was requested was uh student to staff ratios at our schools um so went ahead and pulled our student to teacher ratios and this is core teachers and elective teachers um but it does not include um e teachers because they are Bas allocated based on student um Services um so you can see for each school they have the student to teacher ratio and the blue bar and then the red bar is all staff at that building so you can see those different ratios there I also did calculate

147central office staffing ratios so um office staff here at central office it's about 65.8 students per every central office staff member and I pulled maintenance out that's bus drivers um lawn care workers so I wanted to make sure they were kind of separate from that um and did U maintenance staff is 97.6 three um students for every U member of our maintenance team the next several slides show student achievement data and we pulled student achievement data to show a historical look at Asheville middle before students left and went to mord so we have um each there's four slides for each subject so it's reading um for all students in grade 6 through 8 their performance on the end of course assessment and you'll see a red line for Asheville middle and a blue line for

148Monfort the next slide in each of the groupings is white students achievement on the reading assessment then we have reading achievement for black students at both schools and then we also pulled um achievement for um students and economically um disadvantaged students and that's the fourth slide so you can see where Asheville middle was before and then after um students left to go to monford um so we have the math data as well on the yellowish kind of cream colored slides you can scroll through those um and then we have science um for those four groups as well so the next slide is potential savings and Staffing so I pulled some initial numbers for the board at the budget work session um pulled some additional numbers so if you will remember the red and the blue

149are the Staffing numbers that I shared with the board when I first started talking about optional Staffing um updating our staffing allocations and then reviewing updated allocations for a single middle school so I've got our projected numbers um we're Staffing sixth grade at 20 three shoot I can't remember what number I pulled for that one um I can give you those numbers here in just a second so we did that um sixth seventh and eighth grade students based on um dividing core teachers that's just core teachers on the top and then allocating um um an allocating formula for and this is a little different um I met with the principles we had one formula adjusted it since then so these are new numbers based on what I've shared with them um so one elective teacher

150for every hundred students gives you seven electives teachers however that does not include your CTE teachers or your um band Orchestra and chorus teachers those are additions to that um so school counselors uh allocating one counselor for every 250 students and that is an allocation recommendation based at the national school Counselors Association um Middle School assistant principles allocating one for 250 students um then clerical positions their clerical staff um again allocating some additional clerical staff school nurse um social worker Association of the United States also recommends one social work worker per 250 students uh student support specialist one per School an instructional coach the digital Lead Teacher um for music programs so one student for every student enrolled in a music program like band course or orchestra we've done one student per 75 um to

151add 4.5 um music teachers so the in school suspension uh full-time substitute and a media specialist um so the difference between those two allocations is a total staff of 81 operating two middle schools and you could potentially reduce to 63 staff um with this formula and like I said this is still in draft form and is an initial option um and then thinking about how to potentially reduce those positions over time um to make sure that we're trying to utilize attrition as much as possible so the next slide shows some anticipated budget savings for the different options so for option two because we're picking up one school and put putting it in another school we don't anticipate Staffing savings there um so we did calculate Savings in transportation um we did calculate recouping costs from

152leasing buildings if we have another space to use that's Asheville City schools and then a savings of $90,000 for school nutrition um and then option three calculates those same numbers but then adds the potential savings from Staffing so the next timel uh the next slide is the timeline um that we've been using so this is our February 12th initial presentation um at the 19th and the 27th we will hold a public hearing for comment um they will be at 5:00 pm in this room March 4th we will update the presentation and study documents and present that to the board and then March 11th will be the finalized study for um presented to the board for approval so all of this is going to live on our website and actually we can magic of canva you

153can turn this present right into a web page we have a link here um for information so there's a community survey that's ready to go out um for Gathering additional input from our families from our staff this is open for every single person that would like to complete the survey um there's also an opportunity to provide written feedback if you cannot come to one of the hearings you can submit your feedback in writing to the board via that email and then we'll also be linking all of the exhibits um which are the documents that informed this presentation as well as a draft of the complete study um so this is open to questions comments from the board I'll start with a comment which is this is a lot of information was a lot of work

154um and I appreciate that it's uh [Music] um that it covers so much ground thank you for all that you've put into bringing us and being responsive when people say what but what about can you give me more and I thank you yeah um and my goal here is to help the board make an informed decision on what's best for students and also helping ensure the financial sustainability of our school system so you know my goal is to help identify a good plan that we can meet the needs of our students but also understanding that we have some there is we're going to have to make some changes um there's just no question about it and we know change is difficult um but wanting to make sure that we try to help the board be

155informed of the data and then be ready to make the best decision you can you can think go I have one question are we goingon to be able to maybe reclassify I saw 18 positions that maybe shorten if we have staff that are within the 18 can we ask them if they want to be reclassify or if they would like to move to another uh within the uh within our as for City School Community yes 100% so as um we look at if that's the option the board select yes we would very much go through a process to any staff member that wants to say we would want to try to keep keep them on as soon as possible but we do know that every year staff retire and staff move um so we would

156have potential openings that they could move into at a later time and work with those staff to try to find the best fit and then we can do this as quick as possible so they can get yes for the next school year everything else corre thank you Dr Fairman I wanted to thank you for this information which is excellent and will take us all the while um I was particularly interested in the the comments that you captured at the meetings and um I was struck by reading them several things got asked over and over and I think for future meetings not tonight there were a couple that jumped out at me that you might could gather some data about and share with folks one of them was a lot of talk about if this building

157got sold and that building got sold it's always been my impression we don't get to keep the money if a building is sold but I wondered if you might just at some point gather some information if people are asking this question like they think that might solve our problem it would be helpful to know if it would or wouldn't um on these comments people said things like sell the central office building and things like that I just think that would be helpful for us to know if that's um something that would be useful um a similar one that came up a couple times was about redrawing district lines and I know our attorneys have talked to us about that it might just be good to remind folks what that involves if people I don't want

158anyone to think we left options un um explored and so getting more information um and then I had one more sorry um just a lot of discussion about central office staff and I just think if you could provide more information about that that would be helpful and the very last thing is actually for George a couple people or at least one person wondered why the board was absent from these meetings and I just wondered if you wanted to remind people why that was well I'll I'll share to that one and thank you for raising those those are definitely additional data that we can pull um share and I am going to talk about central office staff um in my next presentation I'll touch on that a little bit um but know remember I've specifically asked

159the board not to attend that meeting because I wanted honest Community input so this was a opportunity for me to hear directly from the community before involving the board in the process because knowing that this is coming down I really wanted to have that opportunity to share what we're challenged with what are some solutions and gather that honest feedback I have Dr fman can you remind I'm sorry Liza go ahead that's okay go ahead um I have quite a few questions um first off and I I know that this is difficult to quantify but I'm curious to know about the the things that are happening at Montford that make it successful um you know is it is it that it's a smaller student population is it the way that staff are interacting with kids you

160know just just looking and maybe that's a staff survey maybe it's a parent survey um but I would be really interested in in seeing that um and then I I wanted to ask um it looks like there were 29 out of District applications denied um and I I wanted to ask specifically about elementary um why if all of our schools are under enrolled why are we denying students for space or capacity reasons yeah good question so last year uh we did deny two second graders one was um a re what was that one space capacity I haven't looked at the individual students that could be the programming that the students in um another other one was for not in good standing so the only time we deny students is if it follows board policy if

161we look at the student we examine them and they've met all the criteria um we go ahead and accept those students um but every student comes with its unique um re like unique need so if a student is coming and needs to have um like so many hours of Special Education Services if we can't serve that student with their needs we we don't have the space or capacity so there are also special education classrooms that are um you know like a a small room that's small group for students with really significant needs and if that class is already at capacity we wouldn't be able to serve that student in that capacity so that could be a potential for um student that was denied for space or capacity so if I don't see here whether it

162denotes um it'll say denial reason yeah so when it says space or um capacity or resources is that just a flat out denial or have we attempted to place them at their second choice third choice fourth choice we've looked at all options yep yeah our goal is to bring in as many students as we as we can specifically I will say that is my goal to bring in as many students because I know the programming that we offer at our schools is phenomenal Dr Ferman can you remind us the um you mentioned to us in a session um about a process for um working with principles on the these plans these options and um do you have feedback directly from principles is that something that you've been able to gather and discuss with you in

163particular Middle School principles but all the principles thinking about the health of our overall District as we go into the budget shortfall yeah I did meet with principal landrith and principal bagot um and did start talking about what what that process would look like to start exploring kind of envisioning if this is the if whatever option the board goes with how might we flush that out to be a you know to build this to put two schools together or how we figure out a map and you know allow a school Within in a school model to work so we haven't started meeting on those yet but that's coming I think I'll just say that from my perspective when we look at big change um there are as you've shown us there are a lot of

164options they all come with benefits and drawbacks and my perspective is that when the people who are going to be involved in making it happen have you know Vision then they have excitement for implementing the vision so I know that there's only so much that that can include but as you're like I'd love to know where they see their opportunities and to build on lies this point like if we have a a middle school program that's doing great things like I want that for every middle schooler that's all I want I want every middle schooler to have access to excellent programming and how can we learn from ourselves um to build it in a way that we can afford to sustain it in for as long as kids need school I did ask um principal

165baggot and landrith to make sure that they were identifying some staff who could be involved in starting to brainstorm some of these processes also loving to get student voice involved in that as well any other questions from the board I I I recognize that this this presentation is focused on the middle schools um but acknowledging that the academy is also part of this conversation I wanted to ask about the the need for the Academy to have access to um abtech and CTE um and how those needs are being considered yes 100% so as we start exploring let's say we keep our setup as is and we you know put the find some space in either of somewhere let's say even at the high school we find space for our students in the academy how would

166we make sure they're engaged in that so that is very much something we are keeping on our list of things to make sure that those students are getting all that they need I think probably it's fair to say is it not that when we put the academy into the mix we're going to we're going to add expenses um if we if we were to go along with if we were to go to uh merging the middle schools or even just moving Montford over into Asheville middle to make space for what I think you've described as a K12 option for students who have greater needs than we can serve in the um in the Traditional School environments that we have in our elementary schools middle schools and high school so that program will require possibly transportation

167to some some you know so that that's going to be an added expense that we'll cut in a little bit into these savings but that at least from my perspective is an added expense that we have to take on anyway uh in order to both serve those students and ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn in the classrooms in which they sit and I greatly appreciate this information you know I'm tempted to like go through every slide and say what I think is awesome but um I won't anything else from the board okay so uh we will have this published to the website tomorrow um and we'll start collecting more data reviewing and digging into the questions and additional information um I will say the survey has asked um community members and stakeholders

168olders to kind of say what they think something will be beneficial or not but then we also provided an opportunity for community members and stakeholders to say like here's what's an advantage of option one here's maybe a hardship you haven't thought of so we will be gathering additional qualitative data to really make sure we're capturing that voice um so the board has a full comprehensive um understanding of what we what our community is saying um okay uh so Miss Docker you can go ahead to um the next slide um just a reminder we keep focusing on our three promises um and I will say that does keep driving um what we do as a district and that's uh really nice to hear staff and students share how they're building that sense of belonging how they're

169challenging our students and then you know what they're doing to make sure that they make every second with our students a meaningful moment um and then one of the things I wanted to expand on you go to the next slide is we are updating marketing materials I wanted to take a chance to highlight for the first time in public our promotional video that we will be sharing so I'll let you go ahead and press play on [Music] that I'm Dr Maggie Ferman superintendent for Asheville City schools and I am thrilled to share that in asille City Schools we have developed what we are calling our three promises and those three promises entail building a sense of belonging and that means that we're going to build a sense of belonging for our students that honors what

170they bring to us that recognizes their talents and gifts and treats everyone in our school system with an innate respect and dignity and our second promise is that we will engage every student in challenging and relevant learning experiences that are on or above of grade level and that means that our teachers are highly skilled know what they are charged with teaching and have the resources and supports to make sure that they can do that effectively and finally we believe in Asheville City schools that we have to make every second count we only have our students for about 175 days for 50 minutes a class or 60 Minutes a class and we need to make every second we have with our students an impactful moment for their learning we are innately able to create a very

171seamless prek to 12 uh grade experience for our students so we take our kittens and our Cubs we get them ready to learn we climatize them to our schools and then we all the great skills but we do that with exciting their curiosity for Learning and through the elementary school experience then we launch them up into our Middle grades so our Middle School experience is very much focused on how do we support our students not just academically but social emotionally and then we've given them all the tools so that they can move up into high school and take those College and Career classes be ready to jump off as graduates into the next phase of what they want for themselves whether it's jumping right into a career or moving on to a technical or a

172four-year College we want our students to be successful academically so that they have the tools and skills to take their life wherever they want to go but we also know with that we've got to support the whole child their whole development so we layer on social emotional learning supports for our students at all grade levels we also have opportunities for um extracurricular activities clubs I think our high school now has over a 100 clubs for every student to find something that they can connect with so they are a part of the community Beyond just coming to school and doing academic work one of the greatest things about Asheville City Schools is that we are a small school district we are a family and we want our students to understand that there's going to be challenges

173there's going to be difficult situations that they have to navigate but my hope is through developing our students and the whole child that we've given them all the tools that they need to be successful in [Music] life Miss doer so that's one and then I've Linked In the presentation um a snapshot of some of our flyers and mailers um so we have um kind of recruitment Flyers that we are we've had built we also have an electronic we'll look at this one first thank you so just a flyer that we can get out into the community about um our school system just really highlighting some of the main things about our three promises um obviously showcasing our beautiful high school um sharing some of the accolades that we have as a school system with the

174achievements that our um schools have and then on the back of the flyer just really then bringing back the idea of growing the whole child and then giving a highlight and overview of the schools that we have and then the next one is a an electronic draft of one of the electronic Billboards that we're going to have put up um to Showcase just some what it's see what's fun about Asheville City schools and then we also are doing mail to all potential Rising kindergarten students and um low Elementary School grades that's okay um so it's a preview of the flyer that we have um for that yep oh that's all right well we'll you can see that it's a really good it's a really good snippet um so I'm really happy with the work that

175the company we've been using has done they've really captured what I think is the spirit and some beautiful things in our school system to highlight just a what a wonderful place Asheville City Schools is as a system um so there the next thing is I want to talk uh revisit central office reorganization um so I did speak in December about our reorganization chart um obviously this is very small but just a reminder of the what was what was centered I am going to share who our um assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction is momentarily um and some other highlights but just a reminder that this initial reorganization yes did create some new positions but with these groups with each department there is going to be an examination of what positions can be moved to the

176schools so that is the focus for the reorganization is to make sure that we are putting the support in our schools where they're most needed um I've been visiting each school I get to go to Jones tomorrow for the day I couldn't be more excited but what I continually hear from our staff is they need more support um they need to see the central office staff in their buildings helping them being that resource um and that's what I'm dedicated to make sure that we do um so that is our um that is our promise with that and we are looking at some a lot formulas I'm going to touch on that here in just a second um but without further Ado I do want to congratulate um our selection for um assistant superintendent of curriculum

177and instruction um principal Shannon [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] bagot this bag went through a rigorous vetting process and interviews um and stuck out above um every other candidate um she has a successful track record of doing great things for students thinking innovatively um and has produced some amazing things and I know that with her at the helm of our curriculum and instruction Department we will see continued growth on all students that we come to expect um from wherever Miss baggot is so we want to congratulate her um as she comes on in transitions um Melissa het as a reminder is transitioning to our um um Community Partnerships and has already done some really great work and and I'm going to highlight that here in just a second but she's jumped in with two feet

178and is already working on grants and getting working with our partners so we want to congratulate Shannon um we're excited we are working on finalizing the TR uh transition timeline um I do want to say Miranda wheeler who is her assistant principal will be stepping up and filling in as interim principal um at mord so super excited for her as [Applause] well um okay so Staffing allotment formulas I do want to go and touch on the work that we're doing with this um so as I shared in the Middle School um presentation this is the Staffing allotments at our um at all of our schools um and just knowing that that teacher count does include enhancement and elective teachers it does not include EC exceptional children teachers because they're allocated based on a different formula

179um and that the red line is the student to all staff which includes clerical instructional assistants um administrators and so on and I already touched on the overall so one thing I did want to capture is the overall student to staff to student R student or I'm sorry teacher to student ratio over all for the district is one teacher for every 12.795-ft at other school districts that are like sized to see where our student to staff ratio at central office Compares um to make sure that we are operating in a way that's would be expected in kind of similar sized districts um I have met with every principal and reviewed um the draft Staffing allotment this is going to take some time it's not going to be an immediate hey we're going to be able

180to rip the Band-Aid off in one or maybe even two years but it does provide us some direction as well as good data on what our staffing looks like um so that we can plan for a a more sustainable future um so principles are going to be giving me some feedback on the formula how that looks um our District staff are doing um there's certain staff that are district allotted such as our EC staff our gifted teachers social workers School psychologists our U multilingual teachers custodian School nutrition staff all of those are allocated from District departments and serve the schools uh but they are working on what do those Staffing formulas look like to assigned staff um and then also as I said looking and comparing our School District central office staff um with comparable

181districts so that we can make some informed decisions on how many what should we expect when it comes to Staffing a central office for a district our size um and then finally a couple a little more good news um we also um as Kim deket moved up to the chief of staff position uh we did have to replace her in human resources es um and April Collins who is an assistant principal at Isaac Dixon was selected um for that position so we want to congratulate April Collins to move into that human resources position um finally planning is underway for our summer programming which includes Credit Recovery applications are out there and we're Gathering those um staff who are interested in taking on that role as well as which students are interest uh we are inviting

182to participate uh the curriculum committee held its second meeting um and they do continue to review policies related to curriculum um and just as I said Melissa hat has already secured a $73,000 grant to enhance our after school robotics program so let's give her a round of applause that was a big that was big work and that is K12 after school programming for robotics so really helping build um our robot robotics program starting in kindergarten and getting taking those students and supporting them through um their high school years um and again when we talk about Community Partnerships she's already worked with staff in the curriculum and instruction team um to meet with our Community Partners those um companies and groups that are providing after care for our students to make sure that they are trained

183in literacy strategies um and know how we are teaching what we teach so they can work and partner with us to enhance that learning when they have our students with them after school um and then she has another session coming up about social emotional learning so really excited about that um meissa had also worked with Moog sound school to get them back into our school so really excited to partner with them um continuing to incorporate music for our students in second grade and then just a final reminder open enrollment is open now through March 13th and um we will be reviewing those um applications coming up this week so that's all I have for the board any questions or comments from the board that was a whole lot and thank you pretty busy yes thank

184you okay thanks again Dr Ferman um next on our agenda uh is the board chair report there was a time when I would put something up on the screen but many of you know that I was recovering from illness last week so was not able to get that ready for you but uh just a few things to highlight first of all um just want to commend and um continue uplift that board members continue to be out in the community we show we're across levels of the district at Arts events sports sporting events um you will find us and we love showing up for those I for example was able to go to mford northstars um trolley tour with one of the trolleys and that was super cool to hear those students stand up in front

185and use the mic and explain why we were stopping why we were stopping the majority of the time for this board over the last month has has particularly been around pouring over policy language for senal Bill 49 um and I tried to calculate the hours but I it it wasn't it was a feudal effort because the hours are probably countless not only in specific board moments like work sessions or close sessions where we in deep conversation especially with our legal council um but also um time outside of board time where board members all of us looking at these um policies deeply looking at language and I'm really um I'm just proud to be on a board with with the people on this board who looked so carefully at um specific words and uh what they

186what might they have been meaning to say um and finally we're also deeply invested in the conversations around U the Middle School configuration I I appreciate Dr Ferman you're mentioning um that it was your request that we'd not be at that um session last month um that first information session and that first work session with the community um the board of course is going to be uh here on Monday next Monday for one of two um public comment session specific to the middle schools and then we'll have another one later on that week that is a time really for us to hear from we hope a wide variety of voices uh we understand that as soon as there's conversation about a change in this District specific to a specific school or schools that um concerns

187are raised and fears come out and we want to hear those we also want to hear ideas we want to hear thoughts thoughts um I am I'm so grateful that to he when folks come up for public comment whether it's tonight or any other night the appreciation that a lot of folks in the community have for this board um none of us have taken this position lightly we understand uh especially now and I'll say it again especially now when the state um continually fights against public school that that we know what we're up against as board members um and so we so appreciate the fact that so many of you come to speak and almost to a person come and speak candidly but also professionally and respectfully to us um because you understand what we

188are trying to weigh and I also want to acknowledge that from the board that the bo our board members understand what we're trying to weigh so uh it's a it's a very short board report board chair report because of the work that we've been doing on Senate Bill 49 and now what we prepare um to work on with the with all that we have to consider around our middle schools and and I also just want to remind everyone that it's not even though right now um we're looking at the middle schools as Dr Ferman showed in her previous presentation it's about the district as a whole it's about the district as a whole and what we can do to transform this District I personally got on the board um at a time when I was

189thinking as we were coming out of Co we had the opportunity and this is true of every District across the country we had the opportunity after students were at home and teachers were working um remotely for so long we had an opportunity to absolutely transform how we educate our children and as a as a nation we didn't take that opportunity I'm not saying that now it's all falls on us as a single District however we do as as the old saying goes if we missed the time yesterday the ne next best time is today to look at how we can make sure this district is working for every SLE student and every single family um but we have to do it in consideration of the the funding that we that's available to us so I

190just again want to uplift everything that the board holds right now and when we leave the room just like well very similar to our Educators take their work home with them we are taking that work home with us as well so with that I just want to highlight as you I joke about it every time about the announcement for future meetings but these are every meeting is critical right and so coming on up on Monday we have our first special called open meeting about a hearing about specifically to the middle schools um that's at 5:00 P p.m. again I encourage a diverse range of folks coming and sharing their thoughts we'll have another special called open meeting on Tuesday February 27th so a week and a day later um again here in the boardroom at

1915:00 pm and again I want to i' would love to see as many people as we can um because we all understand the challenge the charge that we have as a board and the more people that we hear from the better we'll able um to have a a very full idea of what these options mean for us for our families and especially for our students we'll have our next work close session on Monday March 4th and then we'll um have our next regular meeting on Monday March 11th meanwhile there's plenty of other things happening in this District that we encourage you to go to and we'll try to be there as well um I can say this personally because I have a high school daughter um that we've got um not next weekend but the

192weekend after is quick soda which is the student written student directed and student acted onea plays um that has been a highlight for students um it's pretty it's pretty outstanding what students I mean it it shouldn't surprise us right but it's pretty amazing what they put together um we know that spring sports are starting what this week next week tomorrow well there you go tomorrow um so very soon we'll hopefully with as spring comes along we'll have to gather outside and watch our athletes but then there's also um are there any playoff games or any other things coming up in the winter sports or winter sports basketball basketball right basketball this week and playoff yeah basketball this week and then playoffs yeah so um any way you can go out and support um these students

193even and even especially if they're not in your school specifically um this is something that I feel like Dr Ferman is really trying to uplift that we we are um a district and so yes I'll be a quick s at because of my daughter but I also will be at the basketball games even though my children don't play basketball right um it's an opportunity for us all to see what happening across the district prek all the way through 12 I just want to jump in and ask if you're a principal and you have something exciting going on in your school let us know we won't be able to go to everything but I'd love to know I appreciate it being invited to the um Science Olympiad this past weekend from Montford I intended and then

194just could not make it which I was regretted but anyway if you've got um something great at some point we're going to get together we're going to have like a global calendar that we will be able to access but we haven't figured that out we haven't been able to make that happen yet so I just want to encourage principales to let us know because I feel like sometimes really great things are happening and I find out after the fact and that's not your fault at all but just if you think about it thank you thank you yeah thanks Amy I yeah I appreciate you uplifting that too because that was going to be my next point that we are we've asked Dr Ferman to start working on a a um I was going to say

195Global calendar but that's not what I'm trying to say a districtwide calendar um so that we can see all the amazing things that are happening in this District um we know that this is an amazing District I'm grateful for your support of it and um I look forward to next week and the weeks Beyond and with that unless there's anything else I'll ask uh for a motion to adjourn so moved second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed