Asheville City Board of Education October Work Session - 10/2/23

001good evening welcome to tonight's uh Ashville City Schools Board of Education work session uh and close session for tonight Monday October 2nd 2023 um thanks for your patience as we got started I have to stop scheduling meetings at 4 hoping expecting that I'm going to be here on time so appreciate everyone being patient while we um get everything set up uh we do have a quorum we have um our board member Sarah thorberg is online tonight um so we will have to take not that we're doing a whole lot of business but we will have to do roll call vote um with Sarah online um so I will um first ask um as is our new policy to open the meeting with our Equity statement and tonight um Jesse Warren are on the board will

002read the equity statement for us Equity statement in Ashville City Schools we are committed to equity 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 a through our practice and decisions during this meeting we invite the apoll if harm has taken place a moment to name the harm and space to practice repair thank you thank you Jesse so I'm going to ask for an approval of uh tonight's agenda it's move it's been moved second moved and seconded um again we uh we'll have to do a roll call so I'll ask down the line um for favor so Jesse vote on the agenda do you oh yay or nay

003yay yay thank you Amy Amy I li is I George is I James is an ICA is an i Rebecca is an i and Sarah I thank you it's quite loud in here all right um so we will start now with our possible consent um action items um just as a reminder as we discuss these these um are possible to show up on our um Regular board meeting agenda for next week um so we'll start with t pase and student releases to bunam County good afternoon board as you see before you we have a list of four students that we're asking to be released to bunkham County School most of these are continued placement and um work uh proximity any questions any questions on student releases thank you thank you Mr CH next up on

004our agenda we have a water meter discussion Tim Shelton good evening uh this afternoon we have Larry lewison with Cavanaugh Associates um and Brandon Buckner with Asheville Water Resources to give you a little short presentation on uh the proposed water meter on Lucy heren and Hall Fletcher SES L Lewis with cabin I appreciate the opportunity to share some additional information with you uh I think the first thing that I wanted to share was you see the acronym on the information that calls it a DCU uh a DCU is a acronym for a data collector unit um so this is the unit that is going to be responsible for collecting data package from the water meters in in these two locations about a one M radius is their collection uh span uh to get data packets

005from each individual water meter They will receive the data packet and then they will transmit the data packet to What's called the head-end system there's roughly 67 of these DCU are going to be placed within the the City of Ash water system and they're all to form a network uh that collects water meter readings um so that they can be automatically transferred to the billing department um to receive uh water usage consumption um but also as an opportunity for residents uh water use customers to see their usage uh on a daily basis um so that's what this poll and cabinet and there's an antenna on top that's actually going to be sending and and transmitting the data um and then each one of these particular poles is also going to have a solar panel uh

006that provides um just a small trickle charge into a battery that's inside the data cabinet or the control the control cabinet um and it's a self-contained unit um that doesn't really need any maintenance hopefully um but that's the the purpose of this um the data collector unit so okay I was gonna just want go to our old meeting last the last meeting and look at that okay okay no that's okay I just was wondering what I was I do have a few pictures um if I I don't if it's helpful to pass those around um this is what a typical one looks like so how tall are those yeah it's a standard wooden utility pole they're 40 foot tall to start with and then they're buried 8 feet so exposed above ground is 34 32

007feet um and that's where the antenna will sit on top of that 32 foot and those are at the two School locations is what you were saying and then that will cover the entire District or just those two schools it'll just cover a one mile radius around the center of that pole okay so it'll send and transmit in that particular region what other oh sorry go ahead what other types of properties around these so this is two out of 67 so the 65 other poles what types of properties are they going to be located on uh all the water systems storage tanks are going to be utilized all the Water Systems pump stations are going to be utilized so as many of the city of Asheville Water System maintained properties that they have have these

008poles or these these particular systems set up there but they don't have 67 of them they they only have about 30 of them so roughly 37 go on polls so yeah so kind of to carry that question forward of those others um I'm just curious you know this is what what arose last month when this was brought to us is what other types of property have you engaged with in terms of easements across the city um buckham County Schools um there's roughly four School sites have the same exact configuration um eot rways where they have right away and we're able to get an encroachment permit to put up a pole um and that's that's really it so far two two School entities and then doot right away and the city's facilities do we have um

009Tim a picture I see the pictures that we have um but they don't really tell me where in the whole property it sits do we have those we can see thank you Serv can't see none of can so you you said hopefully no maintenance needed or repairs needed but but in the event that maintenance repairs are needed what's the protocol when would work be done how much equipment needs to be brought in ETC yeah so they're pretty it's a pretty simple piece of equipment um the one maintenance item that could come up is the the battery um just gets a bad cell uh needs to be replaced and therefore uh that's just kind of a simple simple replacement of a 12vt battery um you know when I say hopefully my my inference with that would

010be that there's no kind of water seepage into the cabinet it is a sealed cabinet locked and if there's water intrusion that could get into on a circuit board or something like that and blow a circuit um that's possibility but these are all going to be maintained by the vendor aara is the name of that vendor uh they've been purchased by Hubble large Electrical uh company and so they are responsible for coming back in case that particular collector unit is not receiving or transmitting meter water meter readings and um then fixing it it's a 20-year life cycle so they'll be up and operating for that period of time so I haven't seen these photos yet can you answer me this question are they on a are they in a field of play are they on

011a are they or are they in sort of I mean I'm looking at this one here but I guess um okay that one I see that's Lucy Herring is this also Lucy Herring that is Hall Fletcher that is the athletic field down the right side of the school about halfway down just inside the sidewalk and there's a very steep bank right there below that why wouldn't this be located on the city's easement rather than on our property um great question so there's a as you can see there's a power line that goes down the edge of the side the street um they have a 30 foot RightWay uh 15 feet each side of that overhead utility power line and so we don't have the right to be within that 15 feet and put a put

012another pole can you ask for the right It's Curious um I mean you're asking us for a right so I'm just curious about about I'm not I don't have a huge problem with this but it is a poll that's on the other side of the sidewalk from most of the utility polls it would make a lot more sense to me to put a utility poll in that in that R of way that the utility company has owns and so I'm curious about whether you've asked the utility company if they would Grant an easement that would allow you to put that poll there or if there's some legal reason maybe Anna knows that that couldn't be possible well there's another reason that the sidewalk is about 16 feet from that utility line it's because it's outside

013of their RightWay too and you know they're not going to give us a right away just because if if the PO if the pole something were to happen to it and they were to damage the electric lines you know that's a it's a public liability kind of thing and and therefore you know they pretty strict about other utilities coming in in within there right away and utilizing it for other purposes of course if your 32 foot pole fell from where it was it would hit those lines um it's close enough there's a chance it's it it's close enough that if it went that direction it looks to me like it would hit those lines yeah they're about 15 to 20 feet higher than okay up of our po okay okay fair enough thank you you

014said that these are installed on bunkham County Schools properties is that something that is already in place hey y'all I'm Brandon with Ashville Water Resources Larry's the intelligent one with the articulation yeah again y'all hear me better no thank you Brandon Butner uh operations manager Ashville water so yeah we have worked with bunkham County Schools uh over there towards my neck of the woods at Irwin uh Clark Wyatt who's my equivalent at bunam County um we've put one of these polls up it's the Hanes polls you see you know like with you p and stuff like that is what these are um we reached out to Tim we were wanting to dis discuss because that's the thing about the schools are there in a central location we're going throughout the entire system with the Ami

015project Advanced metering and we got to have the collectors you know it's like a puzzle we got to have these collectors up to get the information for this project to work so that was a reason why we thought we might reach out and see what y'all thought just to be a little bit more specific with the schools that are these are located at Ena High School Ena Middle School um Charles Owen High School and then we got one going up at K Creek Middle School um Avery Creek Elementary School there was one more that I can't think of yeah when we last met we were curious about any um educational benefits for our students uh our charge as the board of education is to focus on what's good for students in our schools and wondering

016if there's any information you could share this project is all about you know it's going to be information and data we've never had an opportunity to have before I would love the opportunity to do some cross networking with it if you wanted to see what the actual software can do excuse me I yeah if if you wanted to work something out with that between the schools and the city I would love to collaborate on something like that what were you thinking yeah I I know I I have have thought about that as well and just the Curiosity of uh Elementary School students getting the opportunity to see what data is collected how it's used um you know what that machine does that's sitting in the middle of their or right on the side of their

017um field or whatever so I certainly I think that the point of that is to say that we're giving up a little bit of property uh the right to put something on our property and we want it to yield some educational value absolutely and what we could do is is one of the things that we run is a non-revenue water program un accounted for water loss and that's one of the things that this tool can show us it can show your actual demand and you know we can translate that so I'll let Larry do the teaching is there as far as where this is placed on on both of the properties is there any flexibility so that it's not like in the middle of um an area that is you know could impede future use

018yeah let me back up when we first started discussion where we were talking about it was going to be like moved you know the whole school was going to kind of be repurpose repurpose yeah yeah yeah so we number one let me say we are very appreciative that you're even considering this this is absolutely y'all are doing us a huge solid by you know even considering it so if every anywhere else we could put it that would be beneficial please let us know one of the things that is important in terms of location of the pole is other easements that are a part of your property including well one I've already mentioned utilities is really important um whether it be you know MSD or Duke Energy or other utilities that you might have those are

019typically things that we need to void um but the most advantageous location or placement of these poles is at a higher elevation that's where radio signals transmit the best um and then in a clear in a cleared area where we don't have vegetation that is kind of interrupting the signal possibly um where we're having exposure to South sunlight uh is most advantageous and so it's it's helpful to have these things kind of out in the open is um as much of a distraction it might be uh Brandon has one of these in in his backyard where he works he gets to see it every day um I'm I'm assuming that you don't even notice it anymore I know that when I come over there I'm like I have to look for this thing but um

020that's it's probably an exaggeration too uh but it's it's not as uh um of an eyesore I guess we would say is what it probably looks like in that picture and one of the things that we can do if if you're allowing if you would allow us to um to put the pole here is we could decrease the height of the data collector cabinet you can kind of see it up on top of the Pole right there um we can bring that down we want to keep it above uh an elevation or a height that we don't have to worry about vandalism or you know spray paint or stuff like that so maybe 10 to 12 feet high um but it doesn't have to be up at the top of the pole all right that

021brings up another question can the kids decorate the pole is there any reason why they couldn't turn it into an art project y'all are laughing I'm serious so why not I mean if they wanted to paint the pole I mean could they that way we could identify it they can only go up so high though obviously ly I mean I have no problem with it don't be sending them up on ladders or anything though I mean yeah yeah yeah so is there is there anything in this proposal that needs to be changed to adapt it so that it's could potentially be placed Elsewhere on the properties um I think the final easement documentation we would work through and um if yall had changes you wanted to make to that we could certainly do that for

022the final documentation one other question Tim did you consult with the principles at F at uh sorry Hall Fletcher and Lucy Herring about their placement no we didn't know exactly where they were going to be until recently so right okay I would just I would just suggest that they be included in that conversation I I do have one quick question to kind of piggyback off what George was alluding to earlier in respect to maintenance if we do have a breakdown maintenance needs to occur can we make sure that we schedule that after kids have left I want to keep the facilties because I'm assuming we're going to have to have a bucket truck with hot through here so I would like to make sure that we just we all know that this needs to be

023done after kids are gone and and I'm curious um legally so with this easen I mean we I hate to even consider this but I have to as board member if something were happen with that poll I me we talked about it falling toward the wires but if it fell the other way during with with children on that field and God forbid something happened to a child or even an adult who was a part of the district from that poll um it's falling you I'm looking at the easement it looks like it's about an extra 17 ft this is rough um you know it would fall out of the easement zone so legally what would who's responsible um so that's something else that could be addressed in drafting sort of the documentation for the agreement

024to place this on the property um that is something that I think we could address in an agreement oh it's on it just wasn't close enough but um yeah I think that anything like um liability for if it falls could be something we can address an agreement in an agreement um any other questions from the board so I'm trying to honor this um this space um is anybody in the this would be staff here actual City School staff around the table or sitting in the wings who has anything any other questions and we'll and students we'll get to yall we'll provide time for yall later um but anything from staff right now questions that might come up I'd like to ask is this part of the recommendation from the water review is this part of

025their recommendation yes ma'am uh independent Review Committee did recommend that we exibit out the Ami project and that's what we're trying to do okay thank you yes ma'am all right anything else from anyone in the room or board members well we appreciate y'all coming and giving us some more information it was really helpful to have youall here um after our conversation last week so are we then ready to say let's make some adjustments to the positions um and i' add that section about liability if something Falls and we're ready to put this then on the agenda for November or seem like the two most important component that the principles are consulted on location and that liability is appropriately covered right okay and then I I'm not sure if this has been asked but there is

026there any possibility of it being placed on an existing poll structure great question um the only poll that we've been able to share with Duke Energy for these particular applications is there it's a light pole only it's got to be a Duke owned light pole um and we've got roughly 12 of those proposed submittal for these applications uh the distribution poles that are running down the side of the street these are not uh an opportunity to share the poll with with Duke Energy on those it's just the light pole only but elsewhere elsewhere in that vicinity there's no just light pole that's not on City School's property I that I saw that was a Duke pole wanted to actually actually we do ask you to speak in the mic just because we have people online

027all right thank you yeah we did we we try to share as many polls as possible because we don't want to have to plan the polls any more than you know what I'm saying it just puts a lot of extra work but yeah we did look into this one and there was we didn't have any there otherwise we would have definitely we would have definitely tried to work in collaboration with Duke on this one too so it sounds like come back with those details added and okay great thank you thank you gentlemen we appreciate you being here than y all right next on our agenda um mckenny vento report Kim Robinson and Jordan Mayu [Music] there we go all right hi I'm Jordan Mayu I'm the mckenny vento and foster care coordinator for Asheville City

028schools and I was asked just to provide a brief refresher for what we're doing this year and the numbers from last year as well so the mcken vento ACT is a federal law designed to increase School enrollment attendance academic success of Children and Youth experiencing homelessness this does fall under Title One funding we also receive a a subgrant fund um I just applied for this last year and it's increased this year so the past three years we received 30,000 each year and now we're receiving 60,000 for the next 3 years we also have received the ARP 183 and 184 grants and those have gone to support supplies support um salary for some of our positions as well the definition of mckenny vento is really Case by case for all of our students but bottom line

029it's any student who is lacking a fixed regular or adequate nighttime residence and then that goes into these categories following so doubled up is where most of our students fall that's about 80% of any of our mckenny vento students and then we have hotel motels campgrounds some shelter stays and then unsheltered would be cars Parks public spaces abandoned buildings substandard housing bus trains stations and similar settings um fortunately in Asheville City we only had two of those last year so most of our students are sheltered and then our migratory youth can fall to mckenny vento if they're meeting these standards and then we also have many unaccompanied youth um who are experiencing homelessness so this is the data from last year we had a total of 176 students identified and with mckenny vento we serve

030the whole family but we also have to identify birth to five even if they're not school age so we had 15 students in that category and then a total of 21 for unaccompanied need youth experiencing homelessness and you can see we're right about on average nationally the doubled up is about 80% which is the national average we are a lot higher nationally for the total mcken vento numbers typically they suggest that it should be about 2% of student population and we're closer to 4% um and then you can see the breakdown for each school and for race typically Asheville High has the most students and then and here we are for this year we have increased our efforts for identification so we're already at 116 total students from mckenny vento we have 13 for students

031ages birth to five and then only six unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness right now and likely that will increase throughout the year with students running away from home or guardianship issues kinship issues so some of the challenges we've been facing with mckenny vento of course it's housing um housing is a very large stressor for Asheville city um the Housing Authority closed their weight list in August they're hoping to relo to reopen that for next year but right now if our family is not on that weight list we can't get them on Transportation is a large issue as well with mckenny vento all of those students are able to remain in their school of origin is their educational right if they move outside of the district it's a challenge for our bus to be able to accommodate

032their route so we will have best interest determination meetings for those students to see if it is a feasible option to get them to their school of origin and have that discussion with the family involved and present um we really try to consider have they gone to this school their whole academic career have they made those connections and how long of a bus ride it would would be um if they're far out in bunkham County then we will discuss is a 2-hour bus ride really appropriate for a kindergartener and have those conversations a lot of times there's a high correlation with mental health needs for this population given the trauma of being unhoused or having housing instability the basic needs food shelter and clothing often aren't meant lack of community awareness and just the overall

033stigma attached to homelessness we don't have an agency that solely focuses on homeless families and youth and we no longer have a drop in or runaway Center for any youth experiencing homelessness but we do have a lot of support so I want to end on a positive note of what Asheville City Schools is doing for our students with the Asheville Housing Authority we have a preference list that they can move up on the wait list so when it closed in August we can still add anyone who already had an application in so it's still a long way it's still several months but it does bump them up a little bit higher we have two tutors that serve K through 8th um they're housed at our middle school and they build great connections with those students

034and help with that academic success piece last year we were able to hire a youth and transition specialist serving all of our high school students and this really focuses on those students that are unaccompanied so that we can help them with applying for colleges or figuring out what their next step is we have prosity donations we have great community supports we provide case management food bags hygiene kits cleaning supplies school supplies and then really good collaboration with those community supports along with bunkham County Schools I collaborate very closely with my counterpart over there and we've been able to provide a lot of trainings for the community so thank you for your support and I'd be happy to answer any questions first of all I want to say congratulations on the increase in funding um thank

035you for I I know that applying for federal grants is not easy and um that's a big win I appreciate the work that you obviously put into that thank you um I wonder if like looking at the the slide of successes if you might give us an example of what it looks like when the collaboration and coordination of services is really working for kids I mean the the numbers we're talking about are overwhelming to me and these are um these are kids that are should be learning they should be thriving and they have this extra burden that they're carrying so could you just give us an illumination of what that looks like when it's going really well and what kids experience yeah absolutely thank you um just Friday we had a situation where a family

036is no longer able to stay in a shelter there's a lot of ramifications around the requirements for shelter stays where a male can be present sometimes or there's certain curfews and the family's not able to work with that so we have a family that has three children one is only 3 months old and they're not able to stay in the shelter there's no housing for immediate needs um so we worked together with hark which is helping atrisk kids and they were able to help us provide a week-long stay at a hotel so that the family is sheltered at least for the next week and then ah hope I believe is offering um a family room for them the following week so multiple factors at play all working to support them um I also wanted to

037add we have um a resource book that I provided each of you the foundation helped us print print those last year and we've been able to provide those to families um this gives United Way information this gives information on how to apply for a birth certificate or Social Security card it gives information on Mana Food Bank um so this really helps equip families that here's all the resources take the next step and look into those things and then to improve our identification efforts we also created a new poster that we're putting in all of our Secondary School in the bathrooms so that students can scan the QR code and give me their information a lot of times it's embarrassing or there's a stigma you know that they don't even know who to ask for help

038so they can scan that it goes to me and then I can see if they meet the qualifications Jordan was was the were the the graphs that you showed us are those snapshots from the same time period or was like the first one at the end end of 22 23 school year and the other one like now yes so this one oh it's not up there anymore the first one was the end okay for 2023 and then this year was taken from last week's numbers do we do we know if we because I mean there's a there's a drastic difference and which is I'm hoping it stays low um but you know 176 students as opposed to 116 at the beginning of the school year um do we know what we were looking like last

039year this time yes so last year in September we only identified six students September this year it's been 26 um in 2122 we had 212 total so it was a drop off last year and there was a vacancy in my position which I think accounts for the lower number last year um we're constantly trying trying to increase the number it sounds negative in a sense but ultimately we know these kids are out there and it's more so about getting them resources really you know labels can be detrimental or they can help them find those supports so the more we can identify the more we can help and do what and I was looking through your the guide there with like are you partnering a lot with WC rescue Ministries and the those type of individuals

040yes and we have an upcoming training in sept I'm sorry in November um where we're inviting Salvation Army rescue Ministry helpmate um all of those Supportive Services so that we can get our word out there about what we can do from the school perspective and how we can collaborate with them thank you Jordan as you as you do your work um thinking from the 30,000 foot board perspective anything that you are are coming up against whether it's a policy or something that's in place that the board can support you on to make your work more effective or or quicker or whatever are there any any obstacles you're running up against that we can support with I appreciate that um I feel like we have great support from Asheville City schools and our student services department

041and our Title One Department our federal funds we all work together really closely um to make sure that we're advocating for the best interest of the student even with the transportation piece that's a huge hurdle but they always find a way to get the students there and we get creative with it so there's obstacles but they always get accomplished any other questions from the board thank you yeah thank you so much appreciate it y okay um next um we welcome Heidi cernin our new Executive Director of Finance and Dr Dickerson um with contracts and M good good afternoon uh yes I wanted to welcome Heidi to the Ashville family um I will be present yes yes she picked a fine day to join us on a on a school board day but we're we're glad

042to have Heidi with us um I will be presenting contracts andus today um we have four contracts uh that need your approval um the first one is the Bradshaw security which uh talks about the security at Asheville high and ECA uh we have the Chartwells Dining Services which is an extension of the current contract for fruits and vegetable vegetable program we have ESS uh which is our substitute Staffing management and wild acre landscape which deals with our uh lawn maintenance and leaf removal we have two other contracts that um that are for your information only um if you have any questions about any of these contracts uh each department head will be addressing those at this time any questions from board members about these contracts George yes Sarah go ahead are we talking about Bradshaw

043security that's one of the contracts so yeah if you have a question about it feel free to ask away okay I have a couple questions is this the first time we've contracted with them no ma'am um and I I really was just curious do the principles feel like these I assume they're men but these security people are useful is that that the general feeling the principal of Asheville High School requested support for the crossing guard on McDow and then asked for a third one for Victoria they also asked for support for perimeter door checks throughout the day and they had some issues with parking so they support in those Avenues we have had some bumps along the road but yes ma'am they were asked for by the principal thank you any other questions testing so

044for our Mo getting choked here so forus um we have one 1 two three four five six we have six M us um for your information and just to for your information all of these mlus will be reviewed to ensure compliance with the parents Bill of Rights uh an addendum will be added to anyou that requires parental consent and additionally a means for consent will be created by January 1st 202 four so if you have any questions about any of Theseus um Dr Dickerson are any of these new I recognize most of them so hay help helpmate and our voice are renewals um the literacy the reading apprenticeship is on in a is a two-year three year this is the third year uh Miss Dr Sher shrer sorry this is the second year for that

045one Big Brothers Big Sisters is you know they're all renewal I think looking at uh big brothers and big b sisters in United Way these are continuing M great thank you sorry I didn't write that down any other questions about mlus okay um I'll go ahead and just just ask you know in the room um staff any anything that comes up with contracts anyone wants to share I want to provide the opportunity okay thank you Dr Dickerson and we'll be back to you in just a moment um but first next on the agenda um consolidation study and I get the honor I guess honor of um giving some information about that so um it is now and and I'll ask you to correct me if I'm wrong on this but it is now law um

046that Asheville City schools and buckham County Schools must engage in a feasibility study around the consolidation of the two districts of Ashville city and buckham county County to be presented to the general assembly no later than February or January 15th 2025 um so this is written into law um it it must be done and if we consider that we that from from my perspective September went by like that um January 2025 it will come up quickly and um and we are determined and we have had um Amy Ray and I and Maggie have been the part of these conversations we've talked with leadership at bunkham County Public Schools um we want to make sure that we maximize the time where we have to do this visibility study so that it's not a quick thing so

047it that it is um engaged in fully and completely that we are engaging with Community um having conversation with community so that we are getting a full picture of what um the possibility of consolidation would be like I want to make it very clear that this does not mean that Asheville City Schools is Consolidated with buckham County Schools it is a study that this that the general assembly is making us do obviously um finances have to be taken into account but we in conversation with bunkham County Public Schools have made it clear that we want to make sure that all facets of a consolidation and what and the effects of it be taken into place um so it's not just in terms of Financial efficiencies that might be um found through a consolidation but also

048the effect on families the effect on students the effect on staff um and so um it will show up next week as a consent or an action item for us to actually ask bunkham County government to go ahead and contract with a third-party feasibility partner to do a full comprehensive study um that means that Asheville City schools and buam County Schools are Partners in the process but we're not driving the process we are having a third party facilitator come in um and look at the full effects of what that consolidation could be for Asheville City schools and for buckham County schools and this is also just out of I mean since this was kind of started by the County Commissioners um they're paying for this right this is not coming out of our pockets right

049it that's the last conversation we had we did ask that they take that is not coming out of our pockets okay I I cannot I can't guarantee that that's the case but it was a conversation we've had and we did ask that we not be that we not foot the bill for it okay I just want to make sure because you know this whole thing was started and um well yeah you're yes it was started but I also want to again clarify that it was the General Assembly that made the law to yeah yeah I so any questions from the board I mean I assume that if we were being asked to or if we were being expected to pay for any portion of it we would ultimately be voting on that right or we

050would have to be I andan it would come before us in some way um so yeah and I I do agree that as bunkham County had already stated its intention to conduct such a study uh I trust that that bunkham County will be funding it but we'll see hey George this the uh Community I mean when we when you get that person to come in and talk are we going to have form like we did when we try to find a superintendent go to different schools and have communities over and let people discuss it let people talk about it I mean this been going on for the last 20 years since I've been here about combining are we going to are we going to allow them to get the information and give it to us

051or are we going to be able to hear what is being said to them somewhere somehow uh I mean I'm I'm curious about it because uh I don't think they want to be part of us and we really don't want to be part of them and I know the community once again been talking about this since I've been here about combin it so my question here is uh who's going to have the real questions and answer to take it back to Raleigh that's a great question um and it's one I I posed to um County government leadership uh just a few weeks ago um to make sure that um that yes we are we are bringing in a third a third party um but we because the general assembly has stated it as such that

052Ash city and buckham county in Partnership you know work on this study together and so yes making sure that we're having opportunity for the community to be to be giving input and that we don't just pass the Reigns over to this third party and then come January 2025 we're saying where's your report that we are getting updates on this report we are asking questions like who have you conducted studies or questionnaires with we have that right um and and correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like this legislation is PR fairly broad we can conduct this study and we can dictate like who we want to speak to um no you're exactly right it's just a broad sort of statement that a joint feasibility study needs to be conducted on the merger that's pretty

053much how broad it is yeah it was interesting in that conversation actually uh there might have been one even before this but the the the oldest one that we have access to is from 1967 right so this has been happening for a while um there was one that was conducted by the League of Women Voters here in Asheville um and it seems to me like in past studies there might have been some um there there was some um what's the there was some bias behind it you know there was an outcome hope you know that was hoping to be found what we want or what we're hoping with this study is that they the feasibility will just say what are the pros what are the cons of each situation whether it's merger or keeping them

054separate and with that um that doesn't mean that that then that that report ends up on the desk saying yes we need to be Consolidated or no we don't it that it's the pros and cons of each and that we are then able to as a community look at those pros and cons I would hope even long before that lands on General assembly's desk so we can be already kind of think think about okay here the pros here are the cons now we can be prepared and that's not coming out of nowhere right is that someone to answer your question somewhere but the biggest outcome of this is going to be the financial portion if they find it that it is best for both to combine that's what's going to happen regardless of what right

055regardless of whatever El not necessarily so there are there are there are three ways my understanding and Anna I think you have a better sense of this there might there are three ways that we could possibly merge with bunkham County one the general assembly could enact a law that says that I believe two we could as Asheville City schools and buam County Schools get together and say hey let's go ahead and merge I don't think that's going to happen um or County government says you guys need to merge of those three options I don't know why the last two would ever happen um and and this is I'm pretty sure that those of us in this room would love to stay Asheville City Schools I'm pretty sure bunkham County Schools would love to say bunam

056County school so I can't imagine the two boards ever getting together and say let's merge no matter what that feasibility study shows I can't imagine and I'm I do not mean to speak for any County Commissioner but the the political football that is to say yeah we're going to vote to combine two school districts by elected officials who are voted on by the people in this County that I if I were in that position God that'd be a tough thing for me to do right because of I mean we sit here and talk about what it means to be a cougar right so that only that first possibility I think could ever happen and that would be the general assembly so yeah there is that risk that when we put it in front of them

057they might say y it's just a financial let's go ahead and do it that's why it is critical that we make sure we're presenting everything that it's not just the Financial repercussions of this but it is familial it is students right I mean and and I have personally reached out to folks across the state to see like in other districts where we've seen consolidation can we get some data on the effects of families after that consolidation can we get some data on especially black and brown families what's been the impact right we've got a district here that I mean I said in the last in our last regular session which was on September 11th like all the students here in this room all the students that we serve were not alive when 911 happened and

058yet we feel it still the same is true from what I've learned from people in this community the same is true of desegregation that happened in the 70s right and so that has to be taken into account what like a a a community that still is feeling the trauma of how poorly desegregation was taken on that has to be taken into account when we look at the feasibility of consolidation so yeah I mean that's as my role as board chair I'm going to be determined that those conversations are happening yeah I think that's right and I think that and I appreciate that George um what I would say is because it says joint we have we are critical Partners in this at every stage and we will have um we will be able to to

059influence greatly I think how that study is conducted and we'll make sure that we're meeting with whatever company is hired I don't think that the County Commissioners are going into this or were going into this before the state required it with any predetermined outcome I may not be as confident as George about what that outcome would be depending on the results of that study but I don't think it would ever in this community with these Commissioners be solely Financial I don't think that would be the case with this group of Commissioners I think their interests are broader than that and they care about the well-being of our students just like we do so I think it would be that would be part of the conversation but I don't think it would be all of it

060I also think that the realities of um bunkham County and and Democrat Republican Etc I'm not sure it's in the general assembly's interest either to consolidate these school systems um that said we're going into this in good faith with the IDE that we will participate and make this the best study it can be and the most realistic in terms of how our families and our students and our Educators would be affected by that decision um it's scary to contemplate right um I want to hold that and also recognize that that with Maggie now here with us as a now an elect body um we have expressed to um to folks the importance of the movement that Asheville City Schools now has going forward um and um and that folks inside the district and also in

061buckham county and Beyond see the impact of the work that we're starting um so I'm one of these people who can can compartmentalize um and so I'm I'm holding that fear of what it means to even contemplate um the possibility of consolidation it's not happening today it's not happening tomorrow it's not happening in the next year um a study is being done so I'm holding that and the kind of anxiety around that and also holding like what an amazing District we have right now and what we can continue to do while this study is happening to continue to do to make this a better place for our students for our staff and for our families um and that's it's a lot to hold so I also want to go ahead and and put out you

062know um we're here in this work session we've deliberately created the space to all be here at the same table so are there there Asheville City School staff who have questions have fears have things they want to say I want to open it up to that as well I do have one more question hey can we keep it on the agenda for the next year and a half maybe every four months we can and um bring it up and see where it is and um just uh you know keep fresh because um it's going to I mean we're going to need to yeah thank you Jesse I think we have to yeah not even can we I think yes we need to um again we do not want to be sitting here in December of

063next year all of the sudden seeing the for the first time what's been gathered yeah I agree do we know so they're waiting on a vote from us do we have to vote on this next week as a as a board to say yes we want to do this we don't have a choice I thought I know we don't have a choice but is there a vote or anything or can the County Commissioners get cracking on this tomorrow it would be a vote to ask County Commissioners to get CRA next week to to do that okay bunam County Public Schools is putting on their agenda for tomorrow as far as I I know okay um so as soon as those two votes can happen again I'm not assuming anything but as soon as bunkham County

064government has word yes they can get cracking with an RFP and all that and that's when they okay I just want to make sure that they're starting this process as soon as possible as you said to keep this going and and having as much time as possible to do it so and I will say to their credit um we were in that meeting and we Maggie and I were thinking about how packed this agenda is we're like do we want to add about consolidations to October can we wait until November and it was bunam County government who said can youall please do this as soon as you can again you know assuming nothing but the sooner we can get in on this then I think the better that that stud is going to go [Music]

065so all right anything else about that okay um it's a I want to go ahead and take a pause take a breath because that's a lot to even just kind of consider thank you um all right now Dr Daron you get the pleasure of following up that with policy reads so I'm I'm bringing back um policies 4220 and 6305 for second read and it will need your consent um I'm also bringing a few policies for your information and these policies really they updates to hyperlinks and uh footnotes and um so just wanted to bring that to your attention what those informational policies are questions about these policies um before we move into the information items um I do again it's our practice to have some students here um and so I want to now take

066this moment before we move into the information items to see if y'all have any comments questions about what's been presented on this first part of the agenda okay um is there any specific company that you guys are looking to work with or does this type of consolidation study I I I'm not familiar I'm not a student enough to know of any companies I know they're out there um and so we're um we're asking um bunkham County to create that RFP request for um proposal that's what an RFP stands for they then send that out to the right channels that find lots of companies that do this kind of work and then again because this is the law is that it's asille City schools of M County we're going to have a say in who that

067final company is so they will present those companies will come with proposals and we'll be able to kind of work with them to figure out the best what's best for both districts and the timeline for those proposals coming back would be months or I would I would hope that I mean you know we've got to give them some time to get a proposal together right um so we'll work with bunkham County government to make sure that timeline isn't too short or too long that we can get a response back um that gives them time to put together a compelling proposal but also gives them time to do a full study yeah so I I don't I can't imagine months I would hope that um I would hope that by the end of this calendar year

068we've got a company that's starting in on this study okay thank you good question anything else okay um so we ready to move in I'm just I just want to gauge the room do I mean it's 6:15 so we haven't been here dramatically long as we sometimes can be but do we um I think yeah we're ready to just move into information items so we're glad to welcome back um for the um after our the September meeting Dr Maris lavender um to further the conversation around the reparations education impact Focus area so Dr laer welcome oh yes and Chris thank you for being here everyone hi um look at this um we are grateful to be here again tonight this evening um we want to I think you all have packets of the recommendations in

069front of you so we'll be looking at those um so we want to begin our work together the we minutes yes um we wanted to begin our work together um and introduce our recommendations the first two are specifically about children and students which we thought was important because we wanted to this work of reparations to be not just grounded in the history of what happened in our community in the past and the adult feelings or the adults have that have to move or change their strategies and behaviors but to remember that our work is always to better serve the youth that are in our schools um so that they can Thrive while they're there of course and and then also be prepared for whatever future um they see for themselves postsecondary so um let's take

070a deep breath in the possibilities of Youth you know and um I asked that while we're in this conversation that if there's ever a moment where you get prickly maybe you come back to a student you really care about or um have someone that you hold in your mind yourself even um about what it meant to be a student in general and what it might mean specifically to be a black student in Asheville City Schools um the two recommendations that we're going to start with the first is just about black student and school experiences and the second will'll look specifically at uh student suspensions and the recommendations around that I'm going to ask you all to describe as you and and I recognize that you haven't had a chance to study these so we'll just

071go one by one um and to think through the things that when you read them you're like oh we're we're doing that or we have something on the way of that to make note of it but for the point of our conversations I apologize in advance I'm not going to let you live in the like yes we're already doing that we're going to focus on what's not on the table yet um so we can make sure that we're holding the whole of what our students need in mind but I promise we'll come back to the successes and wins I just want to get a understanding of of our gaps ready to go all right so Chris is going to start us off with the black students in schools with a description of the recommendation good

072evening everybody um excuse me Chris Gordon I'm a commission member and also a staff member at silsa uh I just wanted to put things in perspective to begin with um recently Asheville City Schools celebrated the fact that most of our schools in the district showed growth in the latest round of State Testing while we applaud those efforts uh taken to Reser reverse the damage that Co had on learning progress of our students we want to point out the Grim reality of the performance of our black kids if we disaggregate the state data provided we see that according to the state data only 133% of our black students in Ashville City schools are grade level proficient and even worse only 5% are considered College ready proficient we've had similar percentages for at least the last several

073years um this cannot be acceptable under any circumstances clearly this is an issue that's deeper than just what happens in school buildings but Ashville City Schools is charged with the education of our children so it is respon our responsibility to employ every resource available and create new resources to ensure that our kids reach their potential it's part of the work in our education IFA we wanted to define a non-negotiable outcome for our work what we came up with was this every child graduates high school with the skills necessary to earn a living wage or to successfully continue their education at a post-secondary setting including trade schools in the military true test of what we do here is what our students will be doing at two years after they graduate they're not productive cens at that

074time then we have failed them and so that kind of drives um that's our IFA our impact Focus area and so we've come up with a number of um recommendations you'll see two tonight that are directly involved with Ash City Schools but all of our recommendations are kind of interrelated and they all kind of work together trying to bring schools and Community together to improve our outcomes um the first one you you will look at tonight um black students in schools education programming those of you who have a copy of it uh I think we looked at about four areas curriculum healing uh equity and staff considerations and we've made some recommendations around each of those areas and I think Dr Lavender is going to uh go into further detail about those for so our

075first substance is the curriculum we would like um to request that the curriculum of the ash City Schools um district is what we call decolonized that we teach a full and inclusive history of America that we don't consider black history or the history of this community to be a month or a subset of information but a total history of United States um that we are committed to telling the truth and being honest in our school SCH at every grade level where developmentally appropriate um but our we all know that our youth are consuming information um from everywhere and you know might call into a question what is developmentally inappropriate if uh they they are hearing it already um oh thanks I didn't know that was a hot thing um we want so the the curric

076it should be inclusive we also want it to be localized we want folks to be proud of where they're from and to know the the history of this community ashel has a rich powerful history that I myself enjoy learning as an adult and as a black adult from California with a completely different understanding of what the South was taught in those schools over there um there's such a deep Pride that could be embedded within our school districts that could really amplify um Community the scent of community and again it does not need to be relegated to particular months of the year um we want to ensure that there's a review of curriculum that already exists so as to determine if the diversity and inclusivity that we believe or purport to have is actually what we

077the story we want to tell about black folks in our schools um and I would be remiss if I did not mention that I understand that while we might have curriculum as written we also have it as enacted and then we have the daily work that teachers must do which is a great work to build lesson plans I understand that at times sometimes things enter classrooms that are not in curriculums and I believe that it's the work of this body when those those um instances come up and it's harmful that there's a way to move forward to move past it that doesn't continue to happen again um do you all get what I mean by that um so I don't want us to rest on our curriculum doesn't say anything harmful if we know that

078on a Wednesday in a random February a student could get still get a worksheet page that is racist right um what what can we do about that to collaborate so that doesn't happen um and I want to mention that we should have job core programs and and and embedded resources within schools so that students get a sense of what they can be um and also culturally relevant instruction now when we say that we don't need to stereotype black children into thinking that there's only particular ways in which they can learn or access information but that we understand that what it means to be a young in America what it means to learn has vastly changed and um our instruction must do the do the same in order to stay relevant so that all students can

079Thrive and be prepared for the the Futures that they design for themselves um that is the curriculum portion of this recommendation the next is uh Focus On Healing so I think I mentioned in our first time together that I would always speak about healing because that is what reparations is its repair and so it's not just repair of harm but the healing of that harm um there has to be schools are already places where people have to be um and many humans are there but that doesn't always mean that you're in a community or that there's valuable connections happening um it's the request of the reparations commission and really the demand really and what students deserve that um every school is a place of true genuine connection and Community for them that means that we

080have to make way to protect meeting times that are special to our students like black student unions groups um you know Bell schedules are hard to navigate but when our students say that this hour means something to them um and it matters we have to preserve ways to make that possible um and that's directly from the students who attended the IFA meeting by the way we just didn't make that up there that was big FS um we have to intentionally create space so that students and staff have opportunities to speak to one another um and get to know who each other are as human beings we want mindfulness and mental health support and self-regulation supports built into the school this could look like sound healing we're in Asheville it could be really creative um we

081all know someone I'm sure um and that we Embrace non-traditional approaches to what healing might mean in our schools that we have true restorative justice practices um and Alternative forms of discipline and conflict resolution that are truly genuinely supported um at the school level but I would go a step further and say that it has to be true at every level of Education we cannot ask our students to be uh transformative Justice folks and not and our teachers not be treated that way by their principles and we can't have our principles ask teachers to do things for students if they're not experiencing that by the superintendent and the Board of Education and we cannot do that in our roles if we're not doing that in our lives so truly when we we say restorative justice

082and practice it's a commitment to each treat each other differently um and then I would believe that it could actually show up in our schools after we do some healing or while we're doing some healing um we're going to commit to being accountable through an equity audit um which might look like each School examining and Reporting out very um dis with disaggregated data um as an aside I'll say that even uh Governor Cooper's uh state report card or this any sort of state level data if we don't disaggregate it in this District we will Pat ourselves on the back and still be doing a bad job so I think it's a commitment of this District to always disaggregate every piece of data um in order to to truly see the racial distribution of students within

083um our schools as well as specialized programs and to be curious as to why we aren't seeing diversity in things like AIG or job training programs um we should be also mindful of our racial and gender distribution and it should be reflective of our student population and this could look like student voice projects conducted throughout the school year so there's a constant feedback L of students experiences not just to their school Community but to this board as well um and then we have staff considerations for bias training which are more deeply um specified in the following recommendation in the spirit of time I'm going to do the both recommendations at one time instead of CH chunking them um so next recommendation has to do with suspensions and and um forunate suspensions and expulsions of African-American

084students uh clearly again this is a big problem area um not sure of the exact numbers but we have about 15% student population black student population in Ashville City schools and about 60% of the suspensions are those students uh clearly it's it's not an acceptable um situation uh this recommendation we have um probably eight or nine different uh recommendations again they all work in concert um you know the more we can put out there and more we can change the more we can um coordinate things uh the better it is going to be for all of our kids so I'll let Dr lavender go through that now so the first piece of uh this recommendation is that there's racial Equity social justice cultural awareness implicit bias training for all teachers and administrators that cultivates a

085culture of thank you wow well thank you we'll just have three three backup mics um uh a culture of empathy acceptance tolerance equity inclusiveness and affirmation must be established in every classroom and school B building districtwide I think um Equity education is a journey um and it's beyond just the PowerPoint as well there has to be practice and um an enactment in order to really get a culture of empathy right that's beyond a training um in it of itself we recognize that teachers aren't always uh provided behavior management management education in their teacher training programs that could be remedied at the district level with behavior management and racialized Trauma informed care training for all administrators and teachers that uses a functional Behavior assessments to analyze problematic behaviors teaching of replacement behaviors instead of punishment and

086behavior management grounded in social justice principles that creates connections rather than divisions we know in this community that black children can start being expelled from schools in Child Care um which means that by the time they get to asille City Schools they might already have an experience of being pushed out of classrooms um I think this board can decide that that's just not true anymore um by making some different choices uh we believe that there should be an establishment of a suspension review board consisting of community and District stakeholders to examine current suspension protocols and propose alternative school-based Solutions and provide accountability to the superintendent school board and public by public publishing discipline data I think it's really important to name here as we did this research I'm I'm not entirely sure if this is

087true for as City Schools but there are so many discipline policies at each school that is the first way to not have Equity every place having different rules establishes no consistent rubric or criteria for anyone to behave or or a way to hold accountability so there's uh if that is if that is the case here that that is implied in the suspension review board as well um there should be an establishment of community- based Advocates these Advocates would attend pre-suspension meetings as a parent student representative to ensure that alternative options are always on the table we know that Guardians may or may not be able to make these meetings but it doesn't mean that student shouldn't have um someone with them in them to help make the decision uh we believe there should be an

088establishment of a day treatment program to work with students who have been referred to ISS SS ISS and o on on campus and off- campus okay uh this day treatment program would be staffed by instructors social workers and therapists to provide instruction counseling restorative justice the idea is that students shouldn't really lose instruction time over the course of their suspension and that they receive counseling to address the roots of the behavior that have caused the suspension and that there's some sort of restitution through community service required to address the disruption perhaps uh the successful completion of the tment program program could erase the suspension from the students record or reduce the number of days that students are out of school um I also feel as I'm reading this I must say that it's not always

089on the student and we'll get to that too um and we have to have a use of culturally adaptive cognitive behavior the theory we would like an exhaust all possibility strategy which is a checklist to be established and completed before a rem remediation for student behaviors made uh establish a tracking system for teacher referrals teachers with high level of referrals receive coaching additional supports and professional development if that referral continues there should be action for that teacher um who is consistently referring children there should be strict guidelines for student resource officer intervention into school discipline issues there should be uh we should cease bringing criminal charges for adolescent Behavior period um the involvement is should only be allowed when the imminent safety of students and staff is in question know your rights resources should be

090shared with parents early often all the time every parent should be knowledgeable of what their rights are there should be Child Development parenting and support at every educational level in the school district there should be a mechanism to ensure compliance with the tracking policy to ensure that school data is not skewed by a lack of reporting of suspension or expulsions um and there should be overall an increase in campus access to mental health professionals and social workers just a couple things um so with that I think I have a few more minutes if you all is there are there any things in these um recommendations that jump off to you as things that you are certainly not um in the process of doing or operating surely we had that in pockets in some of our

091schools with community resource teams um but that idea is much needed we just do it in isolation like we'll talk to student groups and we'll talk to District leaders and then School leaders so I would like to unpack that a little bit more and especially the idea of pulling that through for suspension in general what what are the um under curriculum you had the job core programs what are you talking about job training are you talking about um like um oh God my brain just stopped uhuh well not so much when I see job core I think more of and you were talking about job training you were talking you talking more like um CTE thank God thank you for CTE are is that what you're talking about in those type of situations or are

092you talking about like job core itself the federal program I think we're talking more about job training we really like to see you know vocational education come back uh and and expand the CTE program so that we're we're you know giving kids lots of opportunities to earn or to to learn skills that they can take and use if they decide they're not going to college oh okay thank you I do have a question yes how are we getting this out to the parents to the community so that the parents can talk to their kids as the teachers are trying to connect this with them you know like having that kid in the middle and the parents and the teacher both trying to educate that particular student on this information here are we getting this out

093to the parents to the community so that we it' be easier um us um by chance yes I mean as as I said earlier this is these are only two of about eight or nine recommendations and most of our other recommendations have to do with u bringing Community Resources to bear on educating kids and and helping the community help the kids so we want we're looking for a partnership so it's not just all on Ashville City Schools um we understand the community has to do their part also and so we're trying some of our recommendations will bring them but we have a lot of those programs already developed correct are are those the ones you are talking about bringing in are you talking about another outside program that's being developed already are I mean we

094have a lot of good programs out there that is supporting a lot of this here for our kids um why isn't this all coming together like we want it to CU we're working in isolation Tru like it's because we're in isolation um I'm gonna say something that's spicy sounding maybe but I think you know just by the stats that Chris read what whatever we're doing is not the right thing right like if if 133% of folks are not prepared something's in correct um so I think first you know reparations is about is about committing to doing something radically different yes and it also means that we have to work way better together so absolutely parents have to be involved the students excuse me have to be involved um all the folks in this room have

095to be involved and bought in and all those words that we use and we have to really be clear about what we mean by Community because sometimes we say well we called ex andet parent and they just didn't show up they just aren't bought in that we have to erase that thought do you have a genuine relationship with that family right like we're talking about ways in which you build genuine relationships with other human beings so that you can best support their needs so that isn't just calling and having spots on boards I mean we Community review boards but it's like how do you get the right people in place you have to even know the right people you can't keep going to the same five people that you know to resource things right so

096like I mean how are we how are we how are you how is the community at large going to like go to the folks and show up genuinely so they can be trusted so that our schools can work like they should it's the distrust in some parts that make a lot of this work very difficult but you can't do that if you're not living in authentic values in the day-to-day life because you don't know who's watching you when they're watching you and how they're watching you they watched you make a decision three months ago and they don't trust you today right so like what are you going to do about always living in the authenticity of your of a value system that supports the reparations vote that you can make at this meeting right doesn't

097mean anything if tomorrow you're rude you know so we have to draw harder and I was going to add it's also a matter of accountability that there are a lot of groups out there doing something and maybe not accountable to to the folks who really trying to help so you know one of the things that's built into all of our uh recommendations is an accountability piece uh if people say they're going to do something they need to do it and they need to hold themselves accountable okay last question we just [Music] can't think that that classroom teacher can cover all of this so we're not just going to put it out on that particular classroom teacher correct we're not putting all of this on any one person it really is all of us however if

098you we know our colleagues the best do we not and schools you can walk into a school and the teachers can tell you okay the students can tell you we can't act like we don't know this information and we have to wait for data sets to come out of this you I remember in high school I know who could get give you a referral for breathing like this is not you know hidden everywhere we have to be accountable because students are watching that too right like we all see it so no it's not on one individual person but if you have a role in a position of power and in that power you are trusted to enact it and you're not enacting it for Equity to better serve students you've lost me you lost now

099you lost everybody we're lost we're 13% and 5% reading right like something is drastically wrong here now I have to say um you're asking me questions but I was asking you guys questions um um so bring it so so I I was I was curious I do want to leave here with a little bit more understanding just of which parts of the recommendations I really appreciated you naming the community accountability board um but as far as um if we started with student suspensions um I can jump in and say one thing if I may um I think what we haven't done well in fact I think we've been it's just been an abysmal failure in our um this makes me so angry 10 years ago at least we closed Randolph which was our school that

100assisted students who needed extra help and so when you think about the day treatment program prog or you think about ways to help students that are struggling um or teachers who are struggling um we have to find a home for our Academy which I know is a top priority of this board and in that process we need to expand the services and I'm I'm thinking about what we haven't done which is we have not served a a significant and important group of students well at all for a long time and so I think those those day treatment programs and how you handle students who after you go through hopefully a suspension review board it's finally determined that they need some time out of the classroom in which they to which they were originally assigned we

101don't have effective places that I know of that they are receiving instruction and I believe that we need to make it a priority to find space for that and to find staff for that and then the other part uh is the mental health component we've done a lot thanks to our Esser funds and the commitment of of our student support programs to increase our mental health and behavioral support um Personnel but we're still we still need more and I think finding some funding some Community funding now that Esser funds are going away is going to be critical to our being able to increase um the support that we can offer students who um are are black and brown students and their families and all of us as we try to improve our um do better

102and help our students succeed all of our students and I'd like to I'm sorry go ahead Dr Maggie I was um I think of all these recommendations there's little bits of it happening here and there um all over the place but what is the beauty of this is as we get ready to do strategic plan there's already been a great deal of community input and solution finding and this is at the core of what the a strategic plan should be embracing um and that process I think you know having this resource already there provides us you know saves us a lot of time moving forward more quickly um which is going to be really important that we've already this has been Community vetted it's been part partly built by students by staff um so this

103is it's a really great start for us to take to the next level and Implement strategically and thoughtfully with intention and accountability measures included in that so what you know what I'm looking forward to is taking these documents and these recommendations and utilizing them them as kind of the foundation of where we go with our strategic plan along with lots of other things but this needs to the equity needs to be at the core of what we're doing and how we're building a system that's going to work for every student and that means some things are going to have to be deconstructed so that we can build the system back better so it works for every student because right now we know it's not working for every student because the system was built intentionally to

104segregate students and until we break that down down we're not going to have that opportunity to build it back better so thank you for this because I think we're doing little bits of this but all over the place in different ways instead of having one United Consolidated plan we're all rowing in the same direction headed towards the same goal um I'm a piggyback off of Amy um my career was semi started at the alternative school when it was at its best and thriving so I just I want us even know we say it's a priority our actions through the years have said it's not because we don't want to discomfort uh other groups um and our kid the kids that are going to the alternative school are not there primarily for Behavior and we have

105linked our alternative school to just behavior and that's not fair to the students that go there they are there because we as adults have not done what we needed to do for those students so I want to caution us as we are talking about the alternative school it's not just for Behavior it's for kids that may want to graduate early through the 22 credit differentiated diploma maybe they need a smaller class size maybe it may be a combination of mental health and reduced credit they may be behind is all kind of reasons why our alternative school is a alternative school so please hear me I take it personal because our alternative school school is not a behavioral School those kids have a heart they feel just like we feel and we have to action wise

106make it and show that it's a priority because we as adults have done them wrong for 10 years ten thank you for saying that um uh everyone knows that uh the academy is is is the heart is it is it's something that um I'll advocate for every day and just listen to everyone talk and and provide feedback and just uh Dr lavender to hear you talk about the alternative programs and Amy um we do have alternative program and one thing that I'm trying to eliminators the name alternative because are the students there like Tanya said they're not there for behaviors they're not there because they've been arrested they're not there because they've been you know in trouble some of them do come there for fighting because guess what we have an alternative to suspension program

107so students who have been suspended for five or more days are allowed to go there instead of being home in the community but the community does not know that we have students there primarily because they were cutting class and didn't come to school guess what we have yet to knock on any doors to ask a student to come to school and they come to school we graduated seven students last year right now in December uh we're looking to have four students already finish up in December and more to graduate this coming spring there's a lot of good things happening but at the same time we say like Tenya said the academy the students there the program is a priority we can't even grow right now we're over at the Arthur Edington Center and we can't

108have any more than 30 students over there because of the space allotted so we can't even grow in that program and keeping in mind those are regular gened students alternative to suspension and students seeking credit recovery so they can graduate on time or early we it's called the education and Career Academy because there is a focus on uh their careers not all students attending the program will be going off to college but there are students attending the program that will be going to a four-year college or even a two-year college but they're going they have goals we set the goals and they're motivated to do this but again we cannot and again we cannot even attempt to grow attempt to have a day treatment program there uh because we don't have that space and I

109do ask that we continue to make it a priority name it be intentional about it not just keep saying it's a priority we really have to we keep funding other things but we're not funding programs or a facility for our students to be able to thrive because the vision we have for the Academy is an amazing Vision that will support all students in Asal City Schools thank you I think you bring up a good point that none of this should push out a resource right that already exists and that we have to take stock of what we're already doing and not doing to the the best of our ability and I think you also make a good point to say that a student having exhibiting a particular Behavior we have to get to the bottom

110of what that what that is and they have to be given the resources to support and and make and go to whatever school or place or placement that works for them you have to have enough space and capacity in our schools to be curious about the behaviors of our students and meet their needs so I think the um the the real Spirit of the day treatment uh uh program or any of the recommendations of to stop the harm is that instead of saying like this student always gets kicked out of class and we're not curious about why the teacher does it all the time and then we're not curious about what's going on in the life of that student all the time and they're just being sent into hallways or whever the case may be

111that that has to stop we have to say that you showed up here or you got here like what do you need to to be supported here um Can can I answer your question with one thing I noticed um a word that that that stuck out for me around um on the recommendations around suspensions was the word affirmation um and I look at that first recommendation 6A um and Dr Ferman I I I agree that things like this are happening in Pockets but um I mean I I I I I appreciate that the recommendations are not only programmatic but they're also what's what's the opposite right what like what they're systematic they're they're cultural right um and so think about a culture of empathy acceptance tolerance equity inclusiveness and affirmation um if we're if if

112it's only happening in Pockets then we're not doing the work the fact that that um every child we we have to empathize with every child we have to accept every child we have to to you know we we have to affirm that child every single child who walks through our doors um and so um again I just want to say I appreciate that there are programmatic things but there's also that real deep the Deep cultural recommendations um and I and I think about you know at some point all of these ifas and the recommend and the reparations commission as a whole will go in front of Asheville City um and in front of buckham County governance um and present recommendations um and a lot of reparations and the has to do with the money that

113both entities both the city and the county are putting toward reparations things like this don't cost money um and so um so while I know that part you know part there's this waiting happening within our our our County for what recommendations might look like these aren't things we need to wait until you go before Asheville City and Bam County to enact these because they they don't they cost nothing um and so I really appreciate that too in fact I'm looking down here and I'm think I don't see my my my budget mind isn't think oh my God where are we going to find the money for this this this is all things that we can do almost for free and many of them for free and so um so thank you for for giving it

114in that way no I I I understand I understand thank you um yeah for sure trainings and things like that um but also there are plenty of things like like affirming every child I don't think we need to yeah anyway I said what I said back thank you thank you actually I'm sorry before I do want to because we do have students sitting here uh you know this is a moment you know they've been a part of this I'd love to hear their thoughts um I just wanted to say thank you so much I got goosebumps through that whole entire thing um and just one thing that really stuck out to me is that talking about how you were asking about like why why is there not a connection happening and that like we have

115the resources so what's happening um and I think it's really important for us to remember that just because it's there doesn't mean it's being used in the correct way um I think that this is something that all students should be well aware of of what can they like what is important to them and like how is this resource going to help them and so that's something that really stuck out to me is that this should be talked about in front of our whole student body and that this should be reminded every day and reminded of our students how important this is and that we should not go a day in school without remembering like how can we support others and so I just wanted to say thank you and that was very beautiful and I

116appreciate it everything Sophie said um I wanted to ask if you had looked at um like CCP enrollment for black and brown students um someone at um on the ash City Schools Foundation board actually brought it up in our meeting um last week about how there is such a gap in black and brown students and bipo students participating in CCP those are kind of like the job core programs that you're talking about like you can fully graduate with your Associates or I know one of my friends um had her like mental health certificate she got it from abtech like so I don't know I think I don't know has is that something that's in one of the recommendations yes I me I was at that meeting last week also and certainly we want to you

117know strengthen the the bond between our CTE program and the public schools and moving into abtech and that kind of thing um but you know you guys got to get the word out and and we've got to get you know PE kids excited about being able to to take courses that will lead to you know maybe not going to a four-year college but maybe a two-year program where they can come out and make a good living a living wage and do well um that's also why we wanted to try and expand uh what I would call a vocational program which is you know not just uh medical technicians jobs and things like that but let's look at you know Electronics I mean this the whole world is going into electricity everything's going to be electrified

118in the next 20 years or not even 20 years five years so we should be getting kids excited about um electrical engineering and things like that so expand those programs so that they're you know they're where their future jobs are figure out where that's missing thank you that was great um and so I had some questions about the alternative options to suspensions and what that would look like for students um yeah I think um we're we're open to all kinds of ideas uh the idea is we don't want kids out of school or out of a learning environment if kids have to be out of school for 5 days or 10 days there should be something in place where if they can't be in the school they can go to a center or somebody can

119go to their house and continue their instruction um particularly at the high school and the middle school you miss five days of class and you've missed a whole lot and then you're playing catchup the whole time um so you know we want to support our kids you know if if our kids have difficulty and they can't be in school and they and they're suspended first as Dr lavender said we want to figure out why we have to go back and say you know you what what's what's causing this behavior um I come from Special Ed and special ed we do functional Behavior assessments which is looking at the behavior and what's causing it so that we can correct it and then we teach a replacement Behavior but that has to be done by somebody but

120if we send a kid home for five days and they spend five days playing video games we've lost them and and we've lost the opportunity to to teach them so we're looking at all different kinds of different ways I also want to say like uh you know the history of education the purpose of education is like to create citizens right you have to think about the kind of world that we want to live in if we want to have a world that is punitive and reactive then we would keep doing what we were doing right like who says that when you do something wrong you need to be so harshly punished and exiled from the world you know that that would make you a better Community member being alone and that would be better for

121a child right so it does it doesn't it's not really logical to what we say we would be doing in education so I I really don't think punishments are the point and you know we're just one IFA this also leads into Criminal Justice Criminal Justice had a recommendation for Education too it's a feeder system right it's a school to prison pipeline if we want to interrupt it then there has to be a way to remediate student behavior that doesn't result them result in them being you know alone for five days um and that you know they're they're act like what does it actually mean to create a community isn't to kick people out of it basically point and then going off of that um the spe the suspension review board um who would would the

122your ideal people on the board be and at least from what I've been thinking I think that it would be a good place for high school students to be on and have almost like a peer review board um and just maybe something like that but I was just thinking about that as a high school student and I think we agree with you again again we want students we want all stakeholders so students parents administrators teachers um everybody should be involved I mean we basically we're trying to save the life of a kid so everybody needs to be there Dr lavender Chris thank you so much for being here um gratitude for your spending your time I want to um a knowledge you know that as we start we we always we're now starting to say

123this Equity statement so I think this is a wonderful time to kind of pause and reflect um and kind of breathe you're so good about reminding me and all of us to breathe um and so I just want to yeah take that moment right now just to kind of breathe and reflect thank you for being here I think this is a good time also to go ahead and go do like a five minute recess for bathroom break or whatever and we'll also then go into close session but this is a good moment so 5 minute recess please and we continue with our work session with um School Improvement plans we'll start with Sarah Wright principal of Claxton Elementary hello everyone and good evening um I would like to first show you guys our Centennial logo

124for Claxton we're really excited about this is the one that's in color we also have it in black and white too um and next week I get to tell you about the really awesome things that are happening this year um and this week I'm going to talk to you about our school Improvement plan so I just wanted to reiterate our core values for everyone that we believe every child can achieve grade level benchmarks emotional well-being and healthy relationships are foundational for students to thrive in learning in in life every child is valued and empowered through socially just learning communities the Arts are fundamental to teaching and learning and everyone can be a leader and our mission at Claxton Elementary School of Arts and Humanities is to cultivate a learning community where students student leaders Thrive

125and feel successful through rigorous academic social and emotional learning social justice and the Arts and our core values do Drive our four teams that we have um at Claxton that our staff members are a part of so our strengths in 2022 2023 overall we did meet growth and so was very pleased with that we met growth for our students with disabilities we met growth in Reading um and we did have great cohort growth with our fifth graders that we sent to the middle school you're welcome um and they grew 17 points from the time they were in third grade to the time that they left us in fifth grade as a cohort so in reading so we are really proud of that um growth areas so this is you know we're in the same boat

126and we re recognize that um and we have we' put things in place to work to improve and to do better by specifically our students of color so we were a b School overall for white students and an F school for black students so that's a really really hard thing to name um and it's driven a lot of our conversations it's driven a lot of our planning this year um and it is and we're constantly bringing up this data and remembering that you know yes we are serving our students but are we serving all of our students same thing what we were just talking about um so our black students did not meet growth in any area we our fourth grade reading and math scores were both below 50% and we referred last year 54

127students to school-based therapy the majority of which were on Medicaid and students of color and only 10 of those students were able to access those those Services last year due to Insurance barriers this year we have 37 students that we have ready to go if we ever can get a school-based therapist um and we are waiting to process those referrals right now we have one therapist who has four spots and they are private pay insurance spots which do not serve mostly our students of color um so those are our growth areas that's what we kind of built our um School improve Improvement plan around this year and areas that we want to see growth so by our first goal is by June 2024 all staff will understand and Implement a multi-tiered system of support in

128academics behavior andal and attendance in order to more effectively communicate with families and improve student outcomes so um we'll talk a little bit about action steps in just a minute but one of the things that we've talked a lot about in our sit team in our leadership team and our grade level leadership team is the fact that in order to reach our students in order to engage our students we have to engage all of our families and so that's something that we've been really intentional in um and we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second about what that looks like with that intentionality um so the performance measures for that first goal are tier one academic plans and behavior plans um our attendance data our ntss referral data which also then

129goes into our wraparound team which is like our our SWAT team um our tiered proficiency data and our intervention Plans by our second goal is by June 2024 all students and staff will be able to identify their emotions and Implement a strategy 80% of the time um so this comes a lot from regulation and realizing that um students that are disregulated are not learning and so when if we can help students self-regulate and re-regulate um then we can get them back in the classroom and then back to learning um the performance measures there are decreas in referrals compared to previous years I'm looking at our reset room data and our Panorama data once we are actually allowed to give that again um and our third goal is by June 2024 proficiency for black students in

130Reading will increase by 20 percentage points from 133% to 33% and proficiency for black students in math will increase by 20 percentage points from 15.2 to 35.2 so our action steps um for our mtss goal um we did recognize that there was some process clarification that needed to be done with our staff specifically and for our families and so we have created a flowchart for our staff where we we show them the tier process we've talked about you know what happens at this process what happens at this step what happens at this step and so that's one of the things that we have really worked to do is to just help our staff understand mtss better um and then we've created Norms across the building for how we are referring kids into different tiers of

131the mtss process um so we also have mtss for seal and behavior so that's where those tier one academic plans come into or sorry tier one Behavior plans come into place so all of our staff have those and then um we move students to tier two as needed and we use zones of regulation for that as part of our tier 2 process as well and part of our tier one process um and so we're doing mtss forcl behavior and attendance and academics so we're trying to do the tier process for all kind of three of those things going on at the same time and we follow those niss timelines and um using those five by fives those are all part of the mtss strategy of how we are having those tier plans throughout the building

132and the academic coach and the mtss team provide opportunities for teachers to observe each other and learn from each other um it's a process called TTS and it's something that we're working to implement this year where teachers are having an opportunity to tell us what they want to see in other classrooms across other grade levels and we are providing the coverage to make sure that that's happening and so um for example like if it's a third grade teacher and they want to see a second grade WT and wisdom lesson so they can kind of see where those foundations are coming from then they can we're making that happen for them um so for our seal goal uh our action steps are to train staff in zones and to have resources which are the books and

133the tools to try and what we actually did was we created a whole month of lesson plans for introduction to zones of Regulation because like I said we did realize that that was an area of need and we um created lesson plans for each day for those zones of Regulation and so all the teachers had to do was just click on links like everything was right there for them in one spot um they each have the tools to try and they each have the like road map to regulation strategies so that's something that we've been trying to implement uh schoolwide because we saw that that was a huge concern um also those tools and those strategies we're embedding those in our tier plans so they're embedded in our tier one plans as a total like

134this is what we're doing schoolwide and then when students are needing that tier two Behavior Support we're including those zones check-ins in that as well as a daily zones like which zone throughout the day are you in um and we've actually seen a lot of success with that so far um daily student check-ins we've when um students are on like a tier two Behavior plan we are really implementing that check-in checkout system and really trying to um get them connected to specific adults in our building and then we also are partnered this year with the North Carolina Center for resilience um to create traa informed um uh cultures and Trauma informed schools and so we've been doing a lot of work with Brian Randall through the center for resilience on um teaching our staff trauma

135informed practices and what does that look like and how do we um use the trauma informed practices with zones of Regulation and um restorative practices to have a complete trauma informed school um so that's the next part of that is training staff in trauma informed practices and continuing to Implement and train in restorative practices and so then um along with all of that goes and with our third goal as well where we're um being really intentional with our intervention times and making sure that we're not pulling students from core instruction for interventions and so we had to be really creative with our master schedule because we wanted to make sure that we were getting that small group time where students were not missing core instruction um and then academic tier one plans and providing those

136goals in the we've partnered with several of our after school organizations and we have established like a a that's my child sorry um a so we've like created a document that we've shared with our after school partners and our Community Partners that shows um them where students are with wit and wisdom and Foundations and different things like that to give those interventions across the board um and then we've also provided uh opportunities for extra support throughout the day such as site words in the car rider line different things like that um and then kind of combining the second and third goals one of the things that we realized is that we do have families that will come to Claxton you know I always say like they would come to Claxton to watch paint dry and

137that's cool and we want them on our campus but then we have families that we are not engaging and that we're not reaching and so that's also embedded in one of our action steps is that we are going out into communities and we are being intentional about our work with all families and making sure that we are including all of our families uh especially our black and brown families so that's included in both the um two and three that we're being really intentional with that work through our social justice league through our parent auxiliary of our social justice league and working with um different Community Partnerships to make sure that we are being really intentional with that work and going out into communities and not just always expecting people to come to us um so

138this is our fun run last year and next week when I present to you guys you'll get to see our our fun run from Friday if you guys are free and you want to come to um John Bel Stadium please come but um any at this point I'll take any questions about our school Improvement plan that you might have hey can I have a question yeah how many average how many black and brown kids do you have a collection 87 87 mhm uh what was degree for black students last year that was an F okay what about the year all subjects um I haven't looked as much in the last year's data and stuff because we were still coming out of coid so much that I was just kind of trying to get like a

139baseline for where we are right now um but it was an F it was an F in 2122 um it's been an F for multiple years have we try any of this recommendation that you're doing right now was that try the year after that once we hit that level elf I mean so this is only my second year at claxon um and so I can really only speak to like what we've tried since I've been there but um I do know that it's been a focus but we are trying to be very intentional with our action steps if that makes sense I'm curious um I mean first of all thank you I appreciate the specifics uh very much and the painful acknowledgement that we have to have right so that's that's appropriate and I appreciate

140it I'm wondering who you're sending out like who are the folks who are going out into the community to try to reach families that we haven't been able to reach so far or you know try to envelop them and create a sense of belonging for the entire family yeah so for example we had um our back to school bash at the Edington Center um and so that was with our social justice league um and they prepared the event and everything like that and we also partnered with readed to succeed for that event and our very own DJ um Dickerson um and um but so like that was like we used our social justice league as a way to like um work in that community and that's we want continue to do that and so we

141we'll have family voices night coming out in um December and then we also want to do a spring event as well um where we're actually going out into communities um and so also we do have um okay um it's a little scary but um so we we do have we've now partnered with my daddy taught me that um and we are um like I said read to succeed and so so like we're trying to use those Community Partnerships to help us to kind of get into the community I've got a question about um your third um your third goal I'm just I'm kind of struck and just want to hear the the thought process around this um I mean you've you've acknowledge the for black students you've acknowledged that there have been some shortcomings but

142we've got reading increase by 20 percentage points from 133% to 33% um and then thinking about one of the core values is that every child can achieve grade level benchmarks so I'm just curious where where that 20% increase as opposed to 90% of students should be a reading proficiency that kind of thing yeah we actually had that conversation a lot in our school Improvement team um and we do recognize that there's like a long-term goal of trying to get to that proficiency level of 90 or 100% proficiency that obviously would be our um long-term goal but then in talking about our what is achievable over the course of a year that's where we came on the 20% because if we can get 20% more students to proficiency then that would help raise that grade overall

143um and so um yes I do acknowledge that and that's also something that is a multi-year goal and it's part of addressing these issues and realizing where are these where are these deficiencies coming from and how can we put systems in place to address these things and that's I feel like that's kind of where we're starting at is like the putting the systems in place process I just wanted check in like I recognized you're in year two and so last year you know leadership turnover makes this sort of progress really hard yeah and so um I think we're you know wanting to focus in any way we can on the type of longevity that it will take to see these efforts go from ideas to fruition but um I'm aware that like Claxton has this

144long-standing social justice league like just such a institution there and people who've been involved with it for a really long time so what kind of insights when you when you guys were getting to because I know you have the new partnership around regul like zones of Regulation and that's really evident here and I think really exciting but in terms of building on what's been tried in the past how those lessons have come into how you got to these goals what did you under uncover in those sorts of conversations um so we there's like a lot of layers to that question so I'm trying to unack that on first so I want to like name that even though we're no longer a leader in me school because that's unsustainable um and it's it's just to be

145honest an unsustainable partnership that we cannot afford to continue um so but we still are a Leadership School and we still Embrace student leadership we still and you get to hear all about that next week but we still have a student leadership team I still have students on principal panel we still have safety patrol we still have the musical we still have all of these other opportunities for leadership and so um I think embracing that core value of every student can be a leader and then giving them intentional leadership opportunities that's kind of like our Baseline of where we started as we move forward into the work this year um and so also I think that we are now at the point where kids are coming back from coid and have actually had like a

146full you know two years and so we're that's a lot of what we unpack too is you know the effects of coid and what that did on our data what that did on our students what that did on our communities and just all of that kind of coming out of like okay we've had this we had a normal year last year I mean the year before every kid was like still a mask so I encourage you to come try to teach a foundations lesson in masks um that because it's not it's not giving you the same um kind of lesson that you would have as like a fully normal year um and so that's kind of where we started at that too is like we are collectively coming out of this huge um kind of

147era in education where last year was really like our first set of like normal data since you know the 2018 2019 school year so I don't did that answer your question a really hard question it was a really hard question there's there's a lot yeah yeah um I I I'm curious about the the leadership stuff um and you just described how there were various ways that students could be leaders in different opportunities they're coming next week P well but my question is have you also do you do the same analysis of students of color and whether or not they're leaders and where they're leaders in and making sure they have opportunities to be leaders and and spaces absolutely um and so in every so like for example in our art show last year in every

148single facet of um Clon that we are having students represent in our variety show in our um in our student leadership team if we don't have students because like for student leadership we have them apply for those roles because they're fourth and fifth grade roles and you have to kind of tell us like why do you want to be on this um for example last year we did not have enough students of color to apply and so we specifically took the application to them and we're like hey we need you to fill this out um and so our goal is to have leadership that reflects our student population and so we are very intentional about um our students of color getting the information their families getting the information making sure that they have rides making

149sure that they have all the resources that they need to be involved in whatever leadership opportunity they want to be in and so are you tracking how many are you tracking percentages and things like that okay yes with every like you can look at our musical you can look in our after squarts program you can look in our student leadership team in every facet of student leadership we are tracking that yes anything else for Sarah yeah really quick can you sorry I'm over here oh sorry like just looking around um there can you explain to me a little bit more about the the multi-tier system and like how students are classified by what tier and like what why are they put in that tier and kind of I just didn't understand that quite so um

150multi-tier systems of support we base it on reading is based on mclass data um and so that's a screener that we use um schoolwide and then they're like students are progress monitored everything like that and also we create tier plans overall for um our grade levels and so then when a student is not meeting that tier plan or when they're not able to get those skills that's um like that's when we look at like how can we first of all do a tier one intervention um and then we move them through to okay that tier one intervention is not working let's move to a tier two intervention and then we move on up to a tier three um intervention with like a specific interventions but for reading we use mclass for math we use usns

151which is universal screen of number sense anything else for Sarah thank you we'll look forward to seeing you next week too yes get to talk again and next Joe land with asille middle school I was going to come up here and make a joke about only taking an hour to do this but I am not making that joke um I'm over it now no um I would like to give a shout out to uh my school based Health Center who was able to give me both a coid and a flu test this morning before I was EX out in the general population apparently I just have a cold but it is getting worse by the moment so um I am going to make this quasy short and sweet so thank you for having me again

152to come visit with you uh this is the current naal Middle School vision and mission statements they were drafted like six or seven years ago that is one of our goals is to work on those again with our um this year what we have not in there yet there's a whole lot of information on here we were asked to come with strengths and we were asked to come uh with growths and to be honest my personality does has a hard time looking for strengths because I'm always looking for what to make better so I found some to share with you uh the first one actually I'm really proud of it doesn't sound like much but the very first thing I had to do as Ash Middle School principal last year was to fill out a

153form explaining why we had not had at least 95% of our students take the test at the end of the year and all this information to DPI which I didn't know because I hadn't been there and so one of our goals was to not have to fill out that form again so we had 100% of our students to take the end of grade and end of course test which we had homebound folks all kinds of folks that were involved in that we had to use to make that happen so that was pretty amazing um and then in even boss we did meet overall growth and specifically in Reading we met for the following subgroups hispanic multi-racial white multilingual and students with disabilities um students with disabilities is certainly a group that we don't always meet

154in so that was that's definitely a highlight on the strength um piece a great puzzlement in some ways to me always is that science EOG continues year after year to be our strength out of the three kinds of eogs and I spent a lot of time trying to think about that you have to read it's a reading intensive test there's math that you have to do on it a little bit it's more reading than math and yet we can outscore each year in science versus the other two uh so that is a strength the last chart's going to take a little bit of explanation I was looking for something else to put on the strengths and I was doing a deep dive into different kinds of data so I went into the discipline data over

155time and this first of all I will say um caveats to this this was of last Wednesday I actually do have a different number in one of those rows uh as of this week it also um last year's data we removed like if you were to look at Educator's handbook our data also included students from ECA so we did have to take that data out just to look at the one students that were on our campus um so if you look look in the rows you can see it's number of days of OSS uh number of days of ISS and then the third row down there days of exclusion are ISS and OSS combined um and you could kind of see the historical uh numbers that don't really fit a trend of any sort of

156course 2020 2021 was when kids didn't come back to school till the very end and very few of them came and many of them home and that's just zeros all the way down what's interesting to me to the bottom is the number of referrals and I do encourage teachers who are struggling with students behavior to write minor instances or referrals because the inclination is often the people who are having the most difficulty in class write none and you hear nothing and you think everything is okay from their perspective so I do say like if you feel like you need support write one so you can see last year we had a lot written 741 but I think the important data is to show that out of that we were able to use restorative practices um

157meeting with parents Behavior plans other things so that we were not excluding students based on that so um like I said that's and that's the data I calculated I think we're at either 12 or 14% of the school year is over at this point 25 days out of 172 or 74 and so that is where we were as of last Wednesday we have had two days of OSS um but I feel like we're on a pretty good trajectory there so these are the growth areas and again it's going to mirror a lot of what we've just heard from other folks we did not meet for math overall that is the biggest area of need at Ash Middle School is math we did not meet for black students and economically disadvantaged students our math overall proficiency

158was only 42% um and then other areas of growth in the discipline data this one's a little complicated but if you look at incidents per enrolled students um well let's back up so even if you looked at particular instances so you looked at similar um like similar referrals are receiving pretty much the same cost as far as the same outcome um even though that's the case the number of incidents per enrolled students is higher for students of color than for white students so while each individual instance looks like an equitable outcome because there are more instances it ends up with a higher risk ratio and to in that definition of students of color that includes our Hispanic students our black students our multi-racial students and our Pacific Islander students and there's also a high a

159risk ratio for boys is three times that of girls as far as referrals and referral outcomes so those were those are all areas of growth so the first two smart goals are essentially the same thing one just says math and one says reading that our goal for the year is to increase at least 15 percentage points over the 2023 EOG math scores for all students and for each subgroup to either meet or exceed growth and then the third one is very similar to the one that Sarah presented for claron concerning our mtss process and I think in the Middle School world that has never been as defined and I don't mean that just here I mean everywhere when I talk to people in middle schoolers middle schools it's less Define than than the way it

160is in an elementary school and I think middle schools struggle to implement the different tiers um I think there's a lot of variables to that and so our goal is to really strengthen that and our evidence for that is going to be by data that we're collecting in learning circle um to make sure that we're using learning circle to collect that data and that we're able to see in there that we do have students who are Rel receiving the different levels of support and then there's a lot of different action steps in here and I'll just overview some of them uh a lot of them again on the first two columns are very similar they're just one's math focused and one's reading focused so we do have a time in the morning called cougar advisory

161time as I explained last month which is part advisory and part acceleration block and we're using CFA and Benchmark data to put students into acceleration groups and about a 3- we rotation to make sure that they're getting exposed to the things that they need to our focus is on moving forward so for example if you have a if you have a group of students who might be missing a particular skill from several grade levels behind you will put them in we would put them in let's say a math group where we might pre-teach what we're about to learn but making sure to include lots of practice with this old skill so it's not just going back so let's say multiplication for example we're not going to have a group that's just multiplication but we might

162pre-teach the next unit to those folks with lots of multiplication embedded in it is the strategy we are using that's a little bit different than strategies we used last year um again reviewing data weekly to flexibly group um as needed teaching the entirety of the curriculum it sounds like a no-brainer but I think my experience from last year showed that wasn't always happening so we're working on making sure we're checking that pacing regularly utilizing the district approved curriculum in each of those subjects making sure that you're teaching grade level standards and above and not get caught up on that trying to dig like this kid can't do this third grade skill and they're in sixth grade but making sure that we are teaching and exposing kids to their grade level standards because that's what's going

163to be on their test grade level standards and that's what we're supposed to be uh teaching them in obviously utilizing our p c's for this um our Avid and padaa strategies on the second column there's a few extra things um our elective teachers have asked us to come up with a specific vocabulary strategy that they want us to share and so that they can use consistently to help support vocabulary development a goal of just making sure students put eyes on text every day um and I think oh and social studies and science teachers are using non-fiction informational Tech strategies pretty thoroughly uh this year more so than I think I've seen in the past as another step and then in the mtss column again that daily acceleration block um we are using just words curriculum

164with a group of sixth grade students who started in fifth grade um as a and that's basically a phonics based reading program uh we are using RP our restorative practices for our advisory proactive Circle in the morning we're using character strong curriculum a lot of this I think you heard me saying last month um again setting PB goals around things that we want students to achieve um not just the administrators but our entire instructional leadership team are doing walkthroughs um and then again one of our goals is to find some middle schools where the mtss process is working really well so that we can try to learn from them exactly how to make that work questions so you have less than 600 students right I have 547 I believe oh what's the percentage of black

165students you have the percentage of black students I do not know the exact percentage at this moment I would have to look it up do you know the number of black students you have um not off the top of my head no it's less than 20% I think um would you remind me of how long in that cougar advisory time do students who need the just words or even the accelerated how long how much time do they have every day that's a great great question so on Mondays we do the character strong curriculum so that entire 50-minute block is doing the character strong um on the other days of the week it's 15 minutes of the advisory Sur Circle and 35 minutes of the acceleration block so enough to get something done but not enough

166to drive children crazy from doing something that might not be the funnest thing that they do all day T 34% okay thank you princi Landreth I just wanted to say that I appreciate your description of risk ratios and the way that you dug into that that's a piece of data that we've struggled with before and I like I appreciate that you pulled that out that way for us um and I also I'm impressed by the depth of these strategies thank you anybody have any other questions for Joe I mean like let her go get healthy it's a great strategy always come sick and you get get off the hook thank you guys yeah thank you Joe all right um next up Mr pet again with the enrollment Point enrollment report if I may may I

167sit down here and okay I have my own mic yeah I'm the one who's probably had Co the most here so I'm gon I know Joe is negative but I don't take no chances so April thank you for driving so thank you um I will be giving you a overall enrollment um all the way up until day um day 20 is not available because I need to submit and complete the Dropout report before um I can give give you the 20-day membership number so we'll be looking at day uh 10 just FYI enrollment is students who are registered within Power School um average daily membership which is the ADM those those are based on a attendance and so we're going to look at our ADM today um so those are the two differences yes thank

168you April so we're looking at the historical district membership starting at 2007 2018 we were at 4,421 and the 10day membership right now is 3,896 so we've seen a decrease of a little over 500 students since 2017 when we look historically and we're going all the way back to 2011 from 2011 to roughly 2016 we saw a drastic increase and I think at that time it was predicted that we might be at 5,000 but as of 2016 to now our 10day we have um uh seen a decrease and roughly um it is about the decrease from 2011 to now is roughly over 600 students next one love thank you thank you and so what you see before you now I've broken them up between kindergarten and fifth we've seen a decrease again from 2016 to

169[Music] now and we see 6 through eth it's been a a slow decline from 2020 to now and our high school 9th through 12th have seen an increase when we look historically at the ADM and this is by school our high school has increased over a period of [Music] time silsa has seen a slight decrease our middle school has seen a um a decrease as well uh a slight decrease for um monford Northstar and all of our middle schools have seen a decrease we started out in 201718 at 4,421 and the 10day membership ADM is 3, uh 896 ten can I just interrupt you to say one thing or ask I yes I mean my impression has always been that we lose most of our students in middle school but it looks to me like

170our enrollment in elementary school is what has really gone down am I misreading this no it has been K8 where we've taken the biggest hit over the last three or four years but I mean our um okay I understand that over three or four years but if you look back to 2011 2012 771 students in middle school now 761 so that's only 10 down over that period of time and yes we had the increase so I guess we have to look at that anyway it's just interesting to me because even the even that graph shows how much more I think the elementary school our population elementary school has gone down more percentage wise than our Middle School when you look at the raw numbers on the next slide that's the that's the telling story if

171you're looking at 2017 through 2018 yeah that's the number right there and then when you compare it to the 10day we've saw a significant increase yes in our elementary school but also when you look at Asheville Middle School yeah but you have to take mford into account it came into existence and took a bunch of the students that otherwise would be at the middle school right so the overall numbers are not that much lower compared to if we look at our elementary schools Claxton from 473 down to 388 Hall Fletcher 315 to 268 Jones 448 to 350 491 for Isaac Dixon down to 361 I mean those are drastic numbers um and there's no school making up for that whereas the ash Middle School numbers go down as Claxton increases and yes they both go

172down in total it's just something I note it's interesting because um I've always been under the possible misimpression that we lose a lot of students in middle school and I know we do lose a lot of students between fifth grade in Middle School but it looks to me like our enrollment in elementary school has gone down quite a bit so okay I got a question to hip you out when do we lose that housing area you excuse me the Walker Heights when did we lose it we lost it when could that be the difference of the reason why we got low it was like 18 19 it's one of the contributing factors I mean it could be that you know because we lost a nice size it is a lot of factors that go into

173our enrollment numbers um it's not one versus the other um 8 I understand what Amy is saying we have a lot of nuances now that are affecting our enrollment what typically happened at middle school we were combating Charter Schools well we have a lot of other things that are going on now with private um vouchers um just a whole bunch of other things and it just pulled pulling the data and taking a deeper dive we're going to have to rethink how we have just took for granted that everyone wants to come to Asheville City Schools we can do all the song and dance hoopla we can get them there you can get them there but what's going to keep them in our schools because Charter private bunkham County that that's where they're going but we

174but we're losing I know that I know that we're losing more families to the county schools because of housing availability outside of in the county versus in in within our district lines so is but they're losing them too so bunkham county is losing yeah they're they're losing them too just for the housing crisis as well and that's having conversations with um Dr Shane Cass and Dr Jackson as well um we are in constant communication um but they're combating some of the same things but we're a smaller school district and we should be able to do a lot more than what we're doing like the immersion program they have we have a lot of kids going there so um just reimaging and I've talked with it talked to Dr Maggie about this we have to reimage

175ourselves cuz we're losing students at an alarming rate in a year's time homeschool is a small fraction for us it is a small fraction um for us um so April if you could go back any questions about that one Amy or any Bo remember okay this is a Hot Topic our out of District um I've been doing this now for two years so I have two years worth of data on the out of district and so I've breaken it down by race and you can see how many students are going to the high school middle school all of our schools and where we are right now is 591 and we were at 500 last year we were at 578 so we're down about 13 we're up about 13 students and we're roughly have over 70

176additional that Dr Cosby wanted um brought to the board asking um to increase out of District at the high school by 100 so we're roughly a little over 70 um but that in itself I don't know if we'll get to the 100 because we have to look at each individual students um what they need because we may not have a schedule form any questions just a comment um so if I'm doing my math correctly essentially 15% of our student enrollment is from out a district to me that feels really big George it has been much larger than that in years past we've all we've been up to like 8900 easily and that's going back 2011 12 13 yeah I'm just thinking like if all of the sudden all of this out of District we're not

177in District I mean just thinking about what our enrollment would be oh my gosh and what I've shared with you because I know you guys want to know about the Open Enrollment applications I put together a summary so you do have that uh what how we did with open enrollment the applications versus uh applications that came in after open enrollment if it wasn't applications after open enrollment I don't know where we would be but roughly we had 948 new applications this year and that's down by 56 applications from last year and I share each school with you their number from 2007 to the 10th day of this year so you could get a closer look at that 2017 yeah 2017 I'm sorry 2007 was life changing for me I came to central [Laughter] office any

178questions he I appreciate you putting this together I'm I'm I'm it's something I'm I'd be curious to dig into I make this like a weekend project for myself looking at where we peaked in enrollment um and thinking about like move shifting that as the high school gains more students and we're seeing this decline I mean I do wonder what what the correlation is it's just something I'm going to do I'm curious it's more a question for Maggie than it is for you t like as you see this thinking about you you know three months into your position um I mean almost kind of a brainstorming what are you thinking as you look at these numbers um several things one question that came up for me and I didn't even think about looking at the Historical

179out of District enrollment as a layer of our actual enrollment so that's I sent you an email t to see if you can pull that data and layer it onto that bar graph so you can kind of see that um there's I have have more questions than I think answers um got the email addresses for the parents that withdrew and didn't come back last year and getting preparing a survey to send out to them to see like what what was the deciding factor to make you and I think I need that information to start really considering what are some of the options because I think I need to hear from those parents on why did you make that choice um and the you know we sent I think about almost 90 students students left here

180to go to bunkham County 100 or so went to Charter Schools private was around 60 home school was small it was less than 10 um but you know there is a large group of our students that are deciding to go to bunkham County and Charter Schools that's the biggest hit um so what are they getting there that they're not getting in Asheville and that's my question um and I think until I have that answered I don't that's my next step any other questions for T you know I don't know that it's possible but I'd be interested to know if you can even go back another year you know and it's just because I think that or even two I mean I don't know how many this would it's a lot of work for you but

181um curious about just the the trends um thank you but I appreciate you doing whatever you can on that do we do you get a list like when people would leave you you have to approve that or it it comes to you but do you get leave when they leave the district so what what Dr Maggie is saying you know looking at those why did you leave so that email that you're wanting to send to those parents why did you leave but do they give you a reason when they withdraw from our district because if they withdraw from us they have to get permission to go from us to somewhere else if they're in District right sometimes it's on the uh D sometimes it's not and we rely on the DAR and we were Li

182when they withdraw where they're going next so I depend on Tish and I depend on the data managers at the school to gather some of that information and we're going to add another layer at the request of of uh Dr Maggie being a little more detailed with the the root cause of the why not that you're just going to bunkham County school why I was just wondering if that would help with what Amy was just saying if you've got that two years you know last year year before last if you have any of that kind of even little little bits of tidbit data to be able to say this is why you know no we would have to do what Dr Maggie is suggesting which is the survey we just have like the location but

183we don't have the root cause why why okay and it takes some finesse you know to get that sometimes this is not some folks don't want to say you failed me and this is how they just don't want to and our employees don't want to say it it's the same thing I've been asking Dr Dickerson for you know when someone leaves why let's find out why and it just requires so much skill on our staff's part and I appreciate everything you put into that because I really think that has to inform our areas where we need to improve if enrollment is a is a concern we need to really understand why our folks leaving and ask them to be honest with us about that um and so the more information we can get on whatever

184form and then but with follow-ups and it may be that if we just add some more questions on that form I don't know what form you're talking about but if it's possible to ask and then they may say they may say you know I quality didn't wasn't happy with the quality of instruction I was wasn't happy with um whatever X Y or Z and if we get that specific then we don't really need to follow up with them but for those that aren't specific I think followup is helpful thanks I'd also be be interested to see the the enrollment capacity of each building um and particularly looking at the class size requirements anything else Dan thank you thank you feel like I need a breath after seeing those [Music] numbers always forward right um all

185right next AIG updated plan with Melissa head and Taylor thank you um last year in 2022 Asheville City Schools submitted its new AIG plan to the state and um feedback was provided by the state and they been some minor revisions to that plan um the revisions do not require board approval but we thought this was a great opportunity to make sure the board is aware of the key points in that plan so I'm going to turn it over to Taylor she is our AIG specialist at Montford and also half of her time is The District's AIG coordinator Taylor thank you hey board hey everybody I am Taylor like Melissa said if y'all don't know me I am the AIG coordinator and I'm also a teacher at mford um and my team and I I am

186just one of seven of our wonderful AIG Specialists that we have here in Nashville city schools and like Melissa said we did just want to give you a brief overview because you might have remembered I presented this plan last year of what our plan looks like now um what it looked like prior and where we hope to head moving forward and how our plan is embedded in our three Focus areas um in Asheville City Schools so we have a one-pager which I think is the next slide that outlines that um and when we did when the board did approve our plan we did hold several family information sessions and we got a lot of great feedback from families as well families students teachers um and so that was great we held those virtual and in

187person so we got a lot of great feedback on that so we are continually looking forward in how we can improve and be better within this plan but this one pager outlines our work work as an AIG team to hopefully make our plan um and specifically in terms of identification and services more Equitable in Ash City schools and we know our work is not done in terms of making that 100% Equitable so we still have some pieces that we are working for and we've outlined some of those and what that looks like moving forward um but I'll just go over I won't go over all of it because you have this but I'll just go over some key pieces of what it looked like prior and where we're hoping to head moving forward um in

188the past in terms of identification we tried a pathway four which was more a performance task um to try to identify a more Equitable uh group of students um but however um it just it fell short a little bit and our we were tied up with our service time if you look at our plan in the past because we had a specific amount of time we had for each subject that a student was identified in that we had to serve them so it it prevented us from being able to be classes and serving more students um so we tried in the past and our current plan we made a couple changes and in terms of identification and services um we upped the percentile for aptitude and achievement to 9899 um and we are including top

18910% of each racial and ethnic subgroup to be identified um and this has allowed Us in terms of identification to have a flexible service model which has been really great and I think this piece too I don't know I'll give this to you if you are interested in it um but this shows what our services actually look like um and because it is flexible and we are able to have small group instruction that rotates we're able to serve more students um and because we're in more classes and we're differentiating that instruction with those teachers it allows us to see more students and be involved in more plc's and it's just this is a tailor opinion I think I think it's going great for me in the school that I'm at now um I'm in four

190core classes and I still pull a full class of 22 students for enrichment identified and non-identified so that's just a tailor take on how our current plan is going for I am thinking we're doing a pretty good job but we are not there yet because as you can see we have some things we want to do moving forward and I have been working with other um Regional AIG coordinators in our districts and I have gotten some good feedback of how they equitably identify and serve their students as well one piece that I recently learned from bunkham County and actually Cherokee um for ML Learners is great so like I said we're we're we're making the right moves but we have some I'm we're taking in feedback and looking at what other counties are doing when

191it comes to identification and trying to maybe embed some of those practices moving forward um as well trying to think of what one thing they do is they do a non-verbal aptitude test to kind of help identify by those ml Learners and they look at those access scores so like I said we're we're moving in the right direction but like I said we are learning and we are the work is not done and we are we are we are trying different things um we even talked about maybe next year piloting some of those in different schools just to see locally how it's working for us um so yeah we are receptive to feedback and um we appreciate the opportunity to kind of go over a brief overview of the timeline of how our plan has

192progressed over the these last couple years um the next slide has some data as well and the only reason you we do not have the current this current Year's data we have it however because we identified second graders last year they have not been entered into power school yet so that is a big population of students that we identified um that is not in there so I do I want to make sure that data when I do present it to you is as accurate as possible so after the last year's second grader our current third graders are inow school because they were identified under our plan um I will give that I will let you see that data broken down as well and if you're interested in seeing how we compare to other um counties

193in the district or not in the district in the state um that link right there will take you to dpi's um website and and it'll break it down by their um by demographics and also the uh exceptionality that they are identified as yeah yeah I believe the board has the comparison yes um we are number two in the state in terms of percent identified and and the top two um districts are well above 20% identified um the state average is 12% most districts are somewhere between 10 and 18% so we are significantly higher and we're funded correct me if I'm wrong at 4% so everything above 4% is locally [Music] funded could you tell us what you think are the top factors for us having such a large identification rate I think it's a combination

194of contributing factors I think we're a a community that attracts um you know certain types of families and I think some of our previous plans overidentified our threshold was significantly lower than other districts um and in particular identified overly identified specific subgroups um and some families like that um I have a question and are you finished that Rebecca okay um one question a couple questions but one is when you looked when I was looking at the criteria for inclusion identification one of the bullets had is National Norms so what does that mean yeah um the national Norm numbers if it's pretty much because we have a we can be flexible within AIG um so every District does it or every District does it a little different um some of them look at what like identified

195numbers look like for every region in Western North Carolina um or you could focus on every region specifically um so looking at local Norms would just allow us to kind of hopefully identify and serve students a little better based on our region if that make if that makes sense I mean I guess be a maybe I I could ask you to be a little more specific uh for example when you're saying National Norms what are you looking at specifically in with respect to those Norms are you looking at how many is this demographically or is this testing or what are the National Norms that you're using yeah it is it's all of it yeah it it really is all of it um because North Carolina like I said every region can kind of identify and

196serve students in the way that they choose um so some some some districts choose to look at it kind of full spectrum broad like that in terms of what those numbers look like for the whole state of North Carolina and some some districts choose to kind of focus what's working in those certain regions of North Carolina so would somebody not I guess here's would someone not be identified in all of the other categories but be identified because somehow they meet a national Norm they would have to be identified under our plan right um but our within our plan um we looked at what everybody was kind of doing um so maybe a shift we could make would be to look at like I've mentioned I've learned so much from these Western North Carolina Regional meetings

197um in districts similar to our size and what they are doing so I guess focusing less Broad and more specific okay and then the next question is kind of related to Rebecca so have you seen a decrease in the number that we're identifying because as I recall if I'm not mistaken those who were identified for example two years ago they maintained that identification nobody's pulled out of the program right and so are we seeing a smaller percentage of students identified now that is the goal um I will let you and I'm asking for the last two years have they has those have those numbers gone down or is that just still a goal um well the data is right there besides for this year just because I didn't want to include it yet because our

198our identified students um in second grade are not in power school so I wanted to wait cuz that's a that is when we do our Universal screener is the end of second grade so I wanted to make sure I got the majority of our identified kids in our numbers for that data but I can speak to the fact that in the past we tried we tried to lower the achievement and aptitude percentile to hopefully cast a wider net and serve more students equitably but it didn't do that it fell short so I think that's why there's some influx in our numbers is because in the past we really tried um to lower the percentile but we weren't we weren't seeing that was making a difference when it came to the services that we identify I

199mean I guess part of what I'm noticing is that we thought we were going to get a smaller group and instead we went from 10,25 identified to 1100 meanwhile our population is decreasing now um another question and that's just an observation and it's honestly not a criticism it's just an observ ation that I think cus us caused me to ask some questions about whether the even the what we have right now is succeeding in sort of working on the fact that maybe we think we're identifying too many students as academically AIG whatever I mean can I just speak to that quickly yeah please where are yes so here what should happen over time with the new plan is column B total number identified number will decrease right column C the percentage of bipox students will

200increase yeah I get that it's going to take time because we aren't we aren't exiting kids from AIG so what I would recommend is if you're interested in that layer of data that we do a third grade comparison for the current year and last year and the year prior and so then you can see how the plan is working for the new cohorts because the the older cohorts are it's those changes aren't going to show up for them well I knew that and I guess that's but I guess I assumed that the overall number would still decrease if you had fewer third graders identified last year than were year identified the year before and we're not making changes to who's identified once they're fifth or sixth grade then the overall number would have decreased particularly

201with our decrease in enrollment we can look into that it may be that kids came in who were already identified and it's no it doesn't I mean it's just an observation like I said I don't want y'all to feel like you have to go I I just this is a number that is a trend that is interesting in light of our decreasing enrollment and then the other question I have is when you say subgroups are you including white students as a subgroup as well is that right okay so when you say the top 98th percentile on these achievements and then the top 10% of the other sub of all the subgroups also includes um white students okay and again I'm I want you to hear loudly and clearly that I am not I I I

202don't really have I'm agnostic about I think it's good for us to have a decreasing percentage of kids but increasing obviously in bipac kids and being more inclusive and that's exactly what you all are working towards so thank you I just wanted to get some clarification on that um especially the identification part to understand what that was thanks yeah you're welcome and moving forward like we said up with like an a committee that consists of parents family am maybe board members as well to maybe before the next plan to try to get some feedback and see where we want to go moving forward um because we have been trying and like we said some the numbers are like what like we are trying to put in some work to make our services and our identification

203more Equitable um but sometimes you it's a it's a learning it's a learning game so we're still learning and we're trying and I'm trying to um get feedback from other counties has been seriously the most helpful thing for me personally who is fairly new to AIG but yes that's been very helpful but anyway if you want to read our full plan um the AIG link is there um I've also included this one page handout and then also um if you do not want a paper copy that there's also what we send home to our families that outlines the services and the identification that they receive and then there are all all of our contact information is over there for the Specialists and how we're split I do want to just say though I did mention

204Personnel um and because we're doing a more equitable plan and we're trying to reach more students it's harder when we don't have the Personnel to that we did in the beginning to be able to try to reach more students in this Equitable plan um so that has been a struggle being split um and taking on extra roles and responsibilities and I do know that you're pushing in more and all of that and that all the things those Services changes seem to be really exciting yes absolutely and I hope this also affects overall like our achievement scores because pushing into these rooms I've already seen um what I can do to help when it comes to standards and curriculum thanks while George is walking I'll just add that um I'm very appreciative for this Services column

205or mix and this intentional Focus I think that that when we're talking about our gaps and outcomes to Silo the concept the concept of AIG is harmful children know what AIG stands for and I had an AIG teacher tell me that she goes overboard to make sure they don't so that those children don't contribute to some unhealthy Dynamics children know what it means and when more children get access to to the AIG teacher more of them see themselves as worthy of those type of services so I'm very appreciative for the push in and the diverse groups of kids that get access to this instruction um me too that is a personal win for myself being referred to as Miss Rathbun and not the AIG teacher under this new plan and actually there was a student

206in this room that I see in their math class that was literally in this boardroom so and that's unidentified but they know me as Miss wrath buun so that has been a win for me being able to do those enrichment activities with as many students as I can and that that that conversation came up recently Rebecca when some AIG staff were meeting together and we do know that um there's stigmas and that students um are aware of those and it can create some big feelings um I've also been looking into some other districts where they phased out a the term a IG and they're using accelerated learning instead accelerated learning teachers so that's another thing we can consider is some rebranding and you know looking at not just shifting our practices but our language as

207well um our team just appreciates y'all listening and hearing our plan and we um welcome working with yall to hopefully develop and push forward a new plan moving forward okay anything else thank you allk all right next we have uh policies first read with Dr Dickerson so we're continuing to bring updates from the school North Carolina School Board Association um I'm bringing before you the policies for first read and also I'm including the parent Bill of Rights um policies or the policies that relate to the parent Bill of Rights and um these revisions and updates um they need to be approved by November the next uh board meeting in November so I'm we're we're trying to follow the timeline here so this is the first read and then by next board meeting in November second

208read and consent and then at the November is it the November October board meeting where we're going to add the um public comment specifically for is it November or October um I think that we had recommended it be sorry yeah we had recommended did it be prior to the meeting that the second reading would occur at an approval um so I think that would be your October meeting yeah so for the parent for the bill or bills for the policies we've got to update based to comply with the parent Bill of Rights um first read tonight second read in November and tentative date for approval in November but we also have to have a special public comment section at the October board meeting next Monday for parents who or public who want to comment on

209the revisions that we are going to read over tonight yeah I want to repeat that um I know that we've a lot of folks have have you know it's getting late um but for folks who might watch this again or whatever we can get out to the public that there will be special public comment next Monday about the policies that we need to enact around the parents Bill rights and on these um changes in these policies that we're looking at for the first time tonight all of these changes or changes that your firm has determined are necessary in order to comply with this bill there's nothing in here that's especially um that we have a lot of control over Fair um yes that that is a pretty fair assessment all of the changes are the

210ones that one NS ncsba has recommended but all of them are just to get the board in alignment with what is now statuto required um I mean if there are specific changes that yall have in mind you know we can discuss that um it's our strong recommendation however to adopt the policies as these changes are um because within csba and having this service that sort of updates them as they go go um the more changes you make the more complicated it is to sort of keep up with the changes as they come right and also as as long as you have something of a baseline then as litigation ensues you will also have a consistent understanding uh based on the policies that most boards have adopted if if they've adopted the we love having lawyers

211on the board yes yes that does make it a whole lot easier to analyze issues as well right and that doesn't stop us from considering other policies that are not inconsistent with these that may be not I mean just broader policies that are not inconsistent with these that are not inconsistent with the absolutely have these have nothing can be inconsistent with the policy that we make otherwise anyway I just wanted to be really clear for everyone that these are Pol these are policy decision these are changes to our policy that are mandated by The General en assembly as our attorneys have interpreted and the School Board Association and their attorneys have interpreted are necessary we don't have a choice about them I don't think and um that also as a board we've tended to just

212do these legal changes without really doing a whole lot of um assessment I think about maybe policies that we could put into place that are not inconsistent but might be useful to our teachers and our staff so so um that's something that is is a project for another day but right now these are necessary because they bring us into compliance yes thank you so it's my understanding that you know originally we had to be in compliance by September whatever now that you know General has granted us till January is there a reason why we need to have these voted on in November as opposed to December so December 15th is technically the date that we we have determined is sort of like the last opportunity to get into compliance prior to the January deadline so

213our recommendation is sort of go ahead and be up to date in November or plan to be up to date in November that way should anything happen that we need to make you know like if y'all are interested in any changes or anything or if anything comes up we need to reschedule or anything then we have that sort of buffer okay but we could choose to have a second reading and delay the vote until December you could we could if we don't anticipate any challenges with that process yes December 15th I just want to our date I got you but I'm not eager to put into place policies that are early I'll just say that and I think that was animated but what I think George's question was suggestive of that thanks it's a lot

214it's a lot to weed through um we'll have time to um go through them any questions on the you know from the periphery I just I have a question about why the um the language has been changed to eliminate Guardian why some of the language has been changed to eliminate the term Guardian from um that was because parent was specific specifically defined in the parents Bill of Rights and it does include Guardians in that but it's because of that legal change in the definition there thank you and this is just for me um clarification when when we see changes sometimes things are underlined and sometimes things are double underlined is there a reason for those for the difference sorry so I for the parent Bill of Rights policy policies I link them as PDFs because

215they include the footnotes and normally you get them without the foot notes um but they're colored and you can see the strikethroughs but with the parent Bill of Rights I felt like it was probably appropriate for you to see the footnotes on these um I can also send the strikeout version that's colored with no footnotes and that way you can have both versions but the I guess I didn't as far as the underline and the double underline it's the difference in just in the difference in the way they look but I can't remember exactly but I believe um some of those are when we looked at those were were they the additions that were underlined and I can't remember I'm sorry but if you um but I'll send you the other version and then you'll

216be able to tell the difference thank you all right anything else on policies thank you okay um data report from Melissa and Ian yes thank you um so last month in September we received our official accountability results from ncdpi and we would like to take a few minutes to share those results with you this will include both proficiency and growth measures um so Ian Nelson our director of testing and accountability is going to walk us through some details so uh school performance grades uh there's a wide variety of indicators that go into it but there's two large Concepts that contribute to grades for schools um proficiency uh which is weighted 80% in the average and then growth which is weighted 20% in the average um the details of of getting those numbers are slightly complicated

217but essentially uh what's arrived at is a 100o conversion for a school way you'd get like a grade on a normal test right so um the letter distinctions are distributed across 15 points so uh 100 to 85 is a b is 84 to 70 so on and so forth so each of our schools receive a grade from DP based on uh assessment data uh at the elementary and middle school levels at the high school level there's some other indicators like um graduation weight for example but all of them take into account a denominator a numerator right the total number of students who are possibly engaged in whatever the activity is and how many of those students were either proficient or successfully completed the the indicator um thanks um so I think it's pretty self-evident but

218just just just just as a for clarification here proficiency is a uh a fixed bar right it is how many students met that bar or exceeded that bar whereas growth is measured by uh students uh past performance and we use in North Carolina um a SAS product called evos which uh takes into account a student's past performance and so that that graph there on the right is an example um for a student it makes a prediction so you see the the yellow Square there and I'm oversimplifying here but that that is this student's particular prediction for this upcoming assessment so whether or not they meet exceed or below that yellow dot speaks to their personal growth in that subject area then you graduate that up to a classroom level that would speak to a teacher

219growth score you take all the students growth scores and average them together and then you graduate up to a school growth score by taking all the students together and then District growth score so on and so forth so when we look at school grades 20% of that grade is accounted for by this growth index which is taking in account all these individuals growth scores you'll notice in this in this particular graph the the little red Dash that is the level three or the proficiency level Mark so in this context this student if they met that that yellow dot they will met growth but would not be proficient so they will have positively contributed to the school uh grade by meeting growth it would negatively contribute to the school grade by not mean proficiency does that

220make sense what um so so this is kind of a a synopsis we did this last year I think it's kind of a good pulling together of a lot of different um sets of data so on the left there you have each school's uh letter grade and numerical grade in the middle section there is evos growth status so that is again um an overall score for the school and here broken down by uh all black and white other subgroups are also broken down but this is our achievement Gap and so we we identify this explicitly um uh the in terms of the numbers of the the growth index um above a positive two is exceeded meaning that as a group not every single one of the students but as a group those students exceeded the

221expectation the growth expectation between netive -2 and positive two that whole wide band there is met um meaning that that group of students met from from the state's point of view the expectation and then below negative -2 is not met so again that doesn't mean that every single student indicated there in that subgroup is um either exceeded didn't meet or met but as a group average together that's what the that's those this group score um and then the far right is the overall just proficiency score levels and so that's been referenced a number of times this evening but it's just all black and white and the number of students um proficient um overall for all the assessments given in those schools and the last data set we have for you is a document that we

222uh been keeping up since 2014 which um again tracks all black white and then it calculates the gap for students I'm not going to uh go through this whole thing for you I mean the the short of is that we still have a significant Gap and we have a lot lot of work to do but this is a kind of a historical document that keeps track Year bye of those subgroup scores and the gap between them uh one thing to note here is that DPI won't report numbers below 5% or above 9 95 so in that case it's kind of an approximation of the difference and that um the spreadsheet that we just looked at you can also track cohorts over time you can go back previous years and look at cohorts um so some

223summary points um highlights for last year's data both of our high schools exceeded growth over all and that's important growth is what leads to proficiency so we want to continue to work toward exceeding growth with all students um eight of nine schools met or exceeded growth overall and Montford moved from a letter grade of a c to a b so those are some highlights from last year um big areas of growth as we've talked about in multiple times during this meeting this evening um the biggest one being the disproportionate outcomes between between black and white students that is by and by and large our greatest area of growth um Dr lavender earlier said whatever we're doing is not the right thing so um it is very clear in our data that we need to take

224a step back and look at some some shifts um overall proficiency rates are low our overall percent proficient is are not there those rates are not very high they hover between um 40 and 60-ish per. um and then again moving from meeting growth to exceeding growth if we meet growth with all of our groups we'll continue to perpetuate a gap we have to exceed growth in all of our schools especially with black students especially with the subgroups um that are we see the disproportionate outcome so um there's a lot of work we have to do and um extremely grateful to have a superintendent who number one has an instructional Focus um has a lot of expertise and background in teaching and learning and lastly is hopefully here to stay for a while so that we

225can get some traction um there have been a lot of people in this District who've worked really hard and some really good things have been put in place and we have not had the ability to get very good traction because the merry go rounds spins and Spins and Spins and I say that not as an excuse but just to name that um people in this District love kids they care about kids they want to do the right things and we need some guidance and what that looks like Mela can I ask from your perspective right now what are the primary strategies that we use or we could be using to um [Music] promote what's going on in schools where they're have having growth in other schools we're a small District so what what does it

226look like for them for our schools to learn from each other where they're succeeding yeah that's a great question so we are going to go back to doing some peer observations that was a practice we did um before Co quite a bit um so going back to peer observations um also along those lines looking at the data more frequently to examine where where we see students um making those large academic gains and then getting into those classrooms to see what's happening and putting those teachers in front of other teachers so um we are very well resourced we have a history of throwing resources and people at issues and um this is not a situation that we've been able to Resource our way out of we need to be working together and really on the same

227page with the strategies that we're using and tapping our in-house expertise um we also have to be okay with something I've heard called hospice leadership recognizing that there are things that haven't served us well and being okay with thanking them and saying goodbye that's another thing in this District historically that has not happened we layer on layer on and layer on and so the people who work here feel the the weight and the burden of all of that and are unable to really focus and work together in collaborative ways and we need to free up some capacity of the adult adults in our district to be able to do the work that we know needs to happen with our kids I appreciate you saying that and I'm mindful of the Clon principal earlier acknowledging that

228there was a long-standing partnership in leader in me and she made the decision to say this is a cost and a layer that we have to let go we have to say thank you and let go um I have a question about the asterisks that we see so for example with silsa um English and math both math three that is we've got does that mean that there were no black students in those classes or what does that mean these are W enough to populate the subgroup there probably were black oh sorry there weren't enough students to populate a full subgroup so DPI won't report uh 10 or below um and so that data exists but what this this Gap document does is we reports from those internal results review documents that are shared which is

229just sort of a um it's a copy and ping of what DPI provides we have the data from if you know if there were three black students in a silsa math 3 class we have that data but they don't report subgroup data with that few students and so for example with Jones We've Got not enough black students who took the EOG and reading and math and science to produce a comparison for which um can you Jones sorry I Jones 2023 I'm just looking at uh sorry grade five grade I think that's from 2019 Amy and so no that's correct oh okay I was also I was looking okay yeah I mean is and the numbers 10 or do you know I mean yep and so you know it it's um we could pull the demographics

230of Jones I I don't know at the top of my head can kind of pull that apart um I'm I was I'm just surprised we didn't have more than 10 okay that's no problem I'm just curious um well it is I will say it it does compound the challenges when it is very hard for a student to be one of the only students in a classroom and is really hard you know to build community and classroom settings when um there are not stronger percentages of students who look like each other right and so when enrollment goes down and class sizes go down you have now created conditions that makes it more likely for a student to be one of one or one of two in a classroom or none and then the school leaders have

231the additional challenge of if there are five black females in a grade for example do you split them up or do you cluster them I mean these are these are issues that compound the problem well and it also makes the com as you're looking at schools and and assessing where they are compared with each other you can't make that assessment if you don't have the numbers to support an assessment anyway I'm I'm again there's not any I appreciate the information Ian I have a question going back to that ACS internal results I'm I'm I'm trying to figure out why Dixon got a C and has two not met categories but Hall Fletcher has a d at a 48 but they met across the board yeah so that that speaks to the weighted average so it's

232because 80 because proficiency accounts for 80% of the average that's what happens there there has been conversation at the state level whether or not that distribution should be different like 50-50 for example but right now proficiency weighs much more heavy on the average than growth yep I just want to say out loud because it's all here but it's just this is just devastating I I totally appreciate the growth also Al so I want to hold that up for those that were able to do that and this has been hard but seeing these gaps is just so hard and painful anything else from the board around about this also want to offer student you been sitting here for a while you've gone through quite a few presentations during this but you all have anything to add

233questions comments as you're looking at all of these presentations since our break okay great appreciate you being here and look forward to seeing you next time um anything else from anyone you know ACS or from the board before we close Okay um George before we go into close session y be allowable for you to read the future meetings and announcements yes that's what I was going to do and in fact before I was going to do that I was going to thank all of you who have been here for a very long day I mean this was this is probably our longest and we've had some long meetings this might be this might take the cake um so to staff and students um and all of us who are parents thank you for being here

234for this long um thank you staff for putting all of this together it's a lot for us to digest I'll still be digesting it um but thank you for your time and your commitment um yes but we will go in Clos session and just a reminder for those who have stood with us this whole time um when we go into a Clos session that's about usually around Personnel um we do everything else in Open Session during a work session or open meeting um so we will come out of close session just to adjourn the meeting there will be no other um public information afterwards so I'll go ahead and read read our um calendar um upcoming calendar stuff now um as opposed to someone having to wait through Clos session just to hear this because

235I know that's why people hang around um our next regular meeting is Monday October 9th here in the boardroom that's at 5:00 pm um and I will reiterate there will be a special um portion of that meeting devoted to public comment around um the parents Bill of Rights and those policies um no school for students um on October 12th that's a Thursday for our first parent teacher conference day of the year um and then Friday October 13th is a required teacher work day that's another day no school for students um and then we get into November and of course October is going to go like that because it always does um optional teacher work day no school for students on Wednesday November 1st and then our next work closed session um is Monday November 6

236at 5:00 pm here in the boardroom there's plenty of other things coming from November I won't take the time to read all of those out um I will also just encourage everyone listening to make sure you're um part of parents Square so you are getting updates uh you're getting calendar um information we'll continue to provide um things here in the meetings also keep in mind there's other things going on across our district and across our schools um that we invite um families and the community to be a part of for example you're going to hear next week about the um musical at Claxton Elementary um and that's not just for Claxton parents um and you will hear about other things going on you know we've got sporting events Etc being a part of public parent

237square is a way to get a lot of that information um so with that I will um ask for a motion to move into Clos session pursuant to 143 3811 um okay sorry under subsection A1 to prevent the disclosure of privileged and confidential Personnel information pursuant to 115c 319 3321 so moved second moved and seconded and again since we have one person online we'll have to do a roll call vote so Jesse you in favor of close session uh Amy uh yay IA is I George is an i i James is an i is an i and Sarah she left she had to leave okay well then I guess we didn't have to do a roll call vote we are in Clos session thank you everyone