001testing testing 1 two good evening and welcome to Ash City Schools Board of Education um Regular board meeting for tonight Monday September 11th 2023 um we do have a quorum here tonight um and before we get started you just want to acknowledge this date of September 11th um recognizing that this is a um a date that some that that for many of us um holds a lot I also just think it's interesting that all of our children in our schools um were born after that date um and yet it still affects our children every day what happened on September 11th 2021 and I think that's important for us to recognize as we um as we teach our children as we move through this world that a an event that happened before their birth still impacts
002them um and so we know that tonight um there are people who still mourn that day um and we mourn with you um and we recognize and acknowledge what that day me meant um to many um not only in this community but across the country and across the world so thank you for for um for allowing me um to express that we'll start tonight with um today tonight's Pledge of Allegiance um presented today by krie Robinson second grade class at claxon elementary I pledge of allegiance to the flag to the United States of the America and to the public for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Miss Robinson and and thanks to your students as well um I'm going to ask for for an approval
003of the agenda though I am going to um ask for one um action item that we're going to need to take off so it's going to be a revised agenda um on the action items 6.3 um abtech Board of trustee appointee um we are going to table that appointment until another date um so I'll ask for a motion to approve the agenda as amended I move the agenda be approved as amended second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right so um in calling us to order I do want to acknowledge that um this uh this body a few months ago um voted on and approved an equity statement brought To Us by the equity team at Asheville City Schools um and so I want to go ahead and
004um show you that that statement is up on the board um it's going to be an action item later on in our agenda um but there it is our Equity statement um in Asheville City Schools we are committed to equity and anti-racist policies for all students and staff to learn and Thrive we recognize that our positions come with power responsibility and public service for the entire ACS Community we will model our commitment to equity through our practices and decisions during this meeting we invite a pause if harm has taken place a moment to name the harm and space to practice repair and with that we'll go to our um School Spotlight principal Joe landrith with Asheville Middle School TR this good evening and doesn't like me oh maybe it does okay I'm setting a timer
005I thought I had 10 minutes I have 5 to 7 I'm going to talk fast you're gon to think fast here we go so super excited to come here tonight to talk a little bit about ashel middle school I know the goal overall the spotlight is to hear all the exciting things students are doing but when I was putting this together we'd had nine days of school and I don't even know yet which students can have their photos on social media so as we're still collecting those forms so you're going to see some vagish distance photos and some photos of staff and things so um we're going to go over some fast facts I want to talk about some things that are new for the school year and then at the end I'm just going
006to talk about our Focus strategies and some other things that we've been thinking about this year so this picture I love it was the first day of school and what I loved about it was all the students were in class where they needed to be learning um that happened uh I was kind of like are they all in electives there's not even a kid going to the bathroom so that made me super happy we have uh 540 students although I think we enrolled three new ones today so that might not be accurate this was yesterday's numbers um I am really excited we have 50 more sixth graders this year than we did last year our numbers overall are lower but our eighth grade cohort was really large um we did meet growth overall that's not
007true for all subgroups and we definitely have plans to work on that but we did meet growth overall as a school which puts us at a grade of C so here are some changes things that we've done differently um for this year created a new bell schedule and we'll see how that goes it was something I just kind of came up in our mind our old Bill schedule um every grade level was completely different to the point that things didn't line up so let's say you were a seventh grade new teacher and you wanted a chance to go see like an eighth grade teacher and how they were doing the blocks weren't even at the same time they were all Jagged um so there was definitely some ADV advantages to the new bell schedule uh
008We've also embedded movement time around our lunch for all students in the past we were only able to do that for two grades um our Cougar advisory time is a combination of two other times we had we had an advisory time and later in the day we had cougar time we've kind of melded those together we'll talk more about that in a minute um it facilitates Specialists who need to go from grade level to grade level they're able to do that they can be in this block here and this block there and they're not coming in late and showing up and all those things and then it as I said before it makes it easier for peer observations and hopefully we won't need it this year but if we have to do peer coverage it
009makes it easier for that too so a little bit about the revamped cougar advisory time which my assistant principal um Miss Adams says I'm supposed to go and make a cat sound every time I say that so cat time um is a combination of those two things I said before one traditional advisory that you do in the middle school as you can see in that first box to the left focused on social emotional curriculum um and community building is what happens during that time and that's really all we've done with it for the first 10 days of school uh and we are well first nine days of school and then we're transitioning to where starting next week well I'll tell you about this week in a minute but starting next week we will have a
010um it will be they will start in the advisory the community building part and then they'll move to an acceleration block that we will use to try to give everybody what they need so what that looks like on most weeks is on Monday is just a focus on social emotional curriculum we use the character strong curriculum you will notice that there are links throughout this presentation I am not clicking on all those links but they are available for you to click on later if you want more information um advisory time the community building part happens Tuesday through Friday a 15minute circle where we talk about something get to know one another and then that next part is where we are designing groups based on information and what's happening tomorrow at Ash Middle School is we
011the plc's will be looking at their star data that we've already completed and determining what groups kids need to go to starting Monday so what is happening this week you may say embedded most months we take a break in December and may but most months we spend a week of that time uh following um some pidea principles it's technically pronounced pidea it's a Greek word about the whole child whole learning but everyone calls it padaa so you'll see me just starting to say that too um there is lots of information here about the 12 principles of padaa how it relates to a characteristics of a school that nurtures creativity I do want to talk about the three columns of instruction that you see so the pidea model has lots of pieces most people are familiar
012with the last column seminar which is a Socratic seminar that's what we're we're working on this week uh today we talked about padaa in general and tomorrow we will prepare for a seminar Wednesday we will have a seminar and then Thursday and Friday we will do follow-ups to our seminar So reading and writing um around whatever the seminar text is Big a seminar text can be um a piece of writing it can be a song it can be a piece of music it can be a map our first one is um I and The Villages by Mark shagal it's a painting it's what we will be doing this week so you can see that in a padaa model you would try to use your time according to these columns with 15 to 20% of your
013time in seminar 60 to 70 in coaching and 10 to 15 in dactic instruction so it's really a whole model of how the classroom can look our goal this year is to focus on the seminar model and then as we move into a second year we will start to pick up some of the other pieces as well not that we're not doing didactic or coaching we've just not really been not focused using our energy on the padaa model version of that you will also see a place you can find out more about the journey to certification and accreditation as a padaa school on here the most important thing I would love to have the board read later is the article in the top right hand corner it's from the Middle School journal in 2005 it
014was an article about padaa at Asheville Middle School um and that's where their research was done we were pretty close to like the first padaa school before that was a thing and you will see how it really increased student incomes for us uh if you look at the picture at the bottom which I stole off the internet I believe that may be Melissa head in that photo uh which was on another website about the history of padaa at Ash middle school and the model teaches Civility and communication encourages critical thinking is uniquely focused on both academic and social emotional things at the same time uplifts student voice closes gaps and the research says it benefits the students who are on the mark margin are the ones that benefit most from these practices um here is
015just a list of what that's going to look like for the year we have months we'll do schoolwide seminar months we'll do grade level seminars we will have a faculty seminar tomorrow and will be what our faculty meeting is um there'll be another one of those next month and then we will also have some Community seminars if you're interested in knowing more November 30th we will have a community seminar and everyone's welcome to join us as part of our community night we are a community school I know you've seen that before so one of the things we've done is revamped Community nights um they used to be called homework diners post pandemic people don't seem to have as much homework and if they do they don't want to come do it so people weren't coming
016to the community nights so we now call them Community nights including homework Diner uh in low low because people were saying we're not coming when we don't have homework so we have also taken time which I'm really excited about to attach each Community night to something else so our goal at first is things people want to come for anyway get them coming for Community night and then later hope that people just keep coming so you can see um this week we have a cougar closet um revamp ribbon cutting of the new cougar closet which is where we have items for members in our community clothing and other things and then you can see like next week lots of eighth grade parents are going to want to come for the Washington DC trip informational meeting and
017then we have open house so we're hooking folks back in into the idea of coming to community night it's free catered meals for family any family in the ash City Schools you do not have to be a national middle school family so we're just trying to get people out I was going to talk about this but I'm not my time is up I'm going to Bove this these are the three big strategies we're focusing on this year Avid strategies padaa strategies restorative practices they all have one thing in common they all have parts of them that talk about circles and The Importance of Being in circles and just like at ashel Middle School like everywhere else the relationships among the folks in the building is the most important thing we do and that's how we
018Circle up to make a difference for our students thank you for your time oh nine minutes I didn't do it thanks any questions I don't know if there's supposed to be a question portion good thank you Joe that is going to be a really hard to follow but I'm going to bring some good news to the board tonight I'm excited to share our September session of good news good evening how's everybody doing good ready for the fall weather for sure we're g to start off by celebrating Asheville high school and silsa the US News and the World Report has ranked both of our high schools Asheville high school and the School of inquiry and Life Sciences at Asheville and the top five best high schools in the western region Western North Carolina y this achievement
019is a Testament of the unwavering dedication and hard work of our exceptional students our passionate Educators and the incredible support of our community we couldn't be more proud of all of our schools and all the exceptional education they have provided to all of our students congratulations to everyone who has contributed to this amazing achievement do you guys want to come up principal Kush principal Edwards would you like to come up to take a quick picture as per I can't wait they were refusing to make eye contact with me for some reason I'm not quite sure we'll talk about that tomorrow but I definitely that is why we're doing it principal Kush yeah yay all right principal Kush if you could just stand there we would also like to congratulate you silsa has received a $2,000
020North Carolina go out grants for the nth grade Pathfinder annual field trip [Applause] congratulations North Carolina's accountability report has recently been released by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction eight of our nine schools met or exceeded growth in all categories that's 89% of our total schools give our principes and their staff a round of applause Jones Elementary School had their pizza and popsicles to welcome welcome back to school their school picnic with an awesome success they were had an incredible turnout with an amount with around 250 families showing up yep good job the school organized a book and school supply giveaway during this event discussed how families could support their children's literacy and ensured that all of their families were signed up for parents Square additionally families completed the title 9 or title one
021compact and signed up for volunteer training the pizza and Pops events was made more even more special because they had the Jones dad band perform which I hear was pretty amazing congratulations principal cob mod for Northstar since 2013 since the 20134 school year student performance data has been used to assign letter grades in North Carolina Public Schools as required by the North Carolina General statute the grades are based on each school's achievement score and each school students grow academic growth the total school performance score is used to determine a school performance grade of a b c d or F we are very proud of the staff and students at Montford NorthStar Academy as their grade went from a c to a be joining both silsa and Asheville High congratulations before I call you up hold
022on there's one more thing monford NorthStar Academy has also been nominated as a school to watch by the North Carolina Association of middle level education the extensive process is based on criteria established by the national Forum to recognize schools who have been who have established successful practices and on our trajectory of continued success mon Northstar we have some of your staff here we like to come up and congratulate [Applause] you congratulations thank you and that completes the good news for September thank you thank you April and thank you so much to our staff um our Principle as our Educators for all the work you're doing next on our agenda item um Melissa H with after school bus contract updates hey good evening um this is not so much a contract but a yellow bus use
023permission that needs board approval um this is to allow us to use our yellow buses to transport students in our elementary after school programs home at the end of the program these programs were previously funded through the 21st century Grant and are now funded through a dogwood Grant and I believe they're on your consent agenda any questions for Melissa thank you next up is public comment and I'm still waiting for the list so I'm going to be very slow as I say this even though I'm trying to shorten everything I have to say for public comment um so the Board of Education greatly appreciates your interest in the Asheville City schools and we welcome your comments to the board please be mindful of guidelines followed in uh per policy 2310 personnel and student matters are
024confidential and are therefore not appropriate for public comment if you have a concern about an employee or a student matter please contact or see the superintendent after the meeting um individuals speaking public comment will be given three minutes uh there's a timer on the podium uh and then if you are speaking on behalf of a group we do ask that you recognize the group and then you have um five minutes for comment um we do ask that you keep it respectful um and that it is focused on um this this District we will start with inperson public comment we've got a list tonight and um first on the list is Pepe ASA and pep you'll have three minutes thought I'd save a little time and go ahead and walk up here um lots of things
025to say uh the um I think I mentioned to you George uh about a week ago that I was going to speak on the importance of this board uh not selling or signing over any property without anou that the district receives the property back and continues to use the property for education uses and this is in response to um a letter that was in your paperwork last week which listed a bunch of potential uses for Asheville Primary School a letter from uh County Manager AAL Pender um saying that that property could be considered for use for library or um housing Emergency Shelters preschool I'm pretty sure that that letter was overe expansive and that the intention of the County Commissioners is to have that property become a preschool again and to support that in whatever
026way is needed but when you go through um working with the county on that uh it shouldn't be competing uses please um I am thinking about words of advice a couple years ago in regards to APS um from commissioner Whitesides commissioner Whitesides um uh told me that when he was sitting where you are now on the school board that a proposal was brought to the school board to sell off part of the middle school property and that if the board and he was one of the folks who said no we should keep all of our property because we don't know what the future will hold um he said to me that if they had sold that property as was proposed or got rid of it or disposed of it in any way um they wouldn't
027have been able to build the new building there uh just from the logistics of construction so when I look at the proposal to put a water meter station and deed property over to the city I think about what happens in a few years down the road when we need to build a new building over at Hall Fletcher and will that deeded property then be in the way of construction or one of the suggestions for aeral Pender was to build a facility and maintenance building over on that property and would that building be in the way of educational uses down the road so just keep that in mind that you want to keep all of the property that you've got because Asheville is not making new property so thank you very much for your patience before
028I go I want to say um we've got a lot of guests here tonight and I just ask that you speak with kindness George is the only one who was not added to this board a year ago uh and he's only been here for a year and a half B I'm sorry your time so kindness thank you next up is Linda kobal I hope I pronounce that correctly good evening you you have three minutes sorry you have three minutes I'm sorry to interrupt you okay thank you let me begin with prayer I'm going to begin with the Lord's Prayer our heavenly father who is in heaven holy is your name your kingdom come your will be done here in this board meeting and all throughout the Asheville City schools and bunam County Schools Your Kingdom
029Come Lord let your will be done and Lord we ask you to forgive us for the many things we've done wrong especially myself Lord forgive us for you supering Authority from you not submitting to your Authority Lord I feel a grief Lord I feel like grieving especially for my own lack of submission to your your Authority Lord and ask that you'll help us to forgive those who have sinned against us lead us not into temptation Lord help us to know where Temptation lies and Lord Deliver Us from the evil one Deliver Us From Any OPP opposition of deception to deliver us Lord from all evil and we thank you Lord we thank you that you have control over this crazy world we thank you that you have ultimate control Lord and ultimate Authority thank you
030Lord that one day you will make all things right but for now Lord would you help us would you help us to know what is true would you know help us to know what is right and we do love you Lord we do love you and help us to love you more and help us to love one another Lord even those that we disagree with we thank you so much Lord for your kindness and your goodness and for your loving kindness thank you Lord Love You Lord in Jesus name amen next up we have Courtney blossman I know I know about um two of you in on the school board and I'm looking forward to meeting with more of you in the future but I want to know if you are aware that with no
031one allowed in your special work sessions that you're um violating the open meetings law which is a state statute so I consider I'm hoping that you will consider reassessing the way you hold your meetings and when you're allowing the public in critical race theory was installed in our schools without parental permission and it permeates all areas and subject matter to expose the children I can't say teaching is even happening in some of the schools in which we've gotten firstand information this does include some of the County schools and I pray that it's not so in all the schools I know everybody works hard we all care about the children and there are outside forces that sometimes come into communities and sort of take over seal and social justice programs are being installed and I feel
032they're going to be harmful to the children the gender ideology is being drummed into the D the brains of the young and made to seem normal to all children it's wrong it's damaging and it's causing confusion and anxiety the attempted gender transitioning of school children is beyond diabolical thrust on them in the midst of their brain development and before decision making is mature enough to make such serious decisions this school board I'm hoping will develop a conscience about what you're doing with the children in your care I think 80% 90% of what you're doing for education is wonderful I had five grandchildren graduate from Asheville City schools and they got got a great education things are changing and I'm not sure they're changing for the better we're hoping you can make a change for the
033better and allow a classical education to be afforded to our children that includes textbooks serious classes and teachers who are teaching the Core Curriculum and yes we are expecting movement in our coming requests to remove the list of books in the school libraries we thank Dr Foreman for allowing us to have an appointment in October it's very encouraging and we look forward to working with Dr foreman and everyone on the board next we have Pastor Ronald Gates and Pastor you will have three minutes I forgot to mention that in the previous superintendent Ronald Gates local Pastor parent taxpayer I or we a group sent a package to the new superintendent regarding all the sexual explicit books uh graphic and also ideology and indoctrination the first thing is I want to adhere to is the Senate
034Bill 49 uh that you and the group will adhere to every word and letter with Community watching that you take time to Bar any in information any instructions of gender ideology sexual education in the kindergart through the fourth grade which has been taking place without parents knowing got a list of good schools that has been seeing this so it's it's evidence that it's in the it's in the school system you got a handout schooling session you got a handout with a graphic picture of vagina and a penis it got dots to it uh I need you to put your name on it on the top and then I need you to make sure you write where this penis and and uh vagina is located on a male and a female then you got to write
035how it's used it's right here follow the dots it's easy classes in session art class that's one of the books in the Middle School here's the other one in which you're breaking the North Carolina General statue 14- 19013 here's the next one here's a reading CL class schools in session touching and rubbing this is in in Middle School you ought to stroke his penis insert your finger into his anus his finger is to go into the vagina here's the O this is instruction Middle School that you are to take your mouth and that you are to give good blow jobs to other men now here's the part with the woman is that you ought to make amen genal and that when you go down on a woman that you ought to not allow your teeth
036to be able to touch her here's the anal sex is that you to put your finger in the penis put your penis in their in their but hole with sex toys and that you ought to that you ought to put your finger in there I got you I got you right but I got a freedom of speech brother I I got my first Liberty don't I I I you just taking my minutes that is my Liberty my first amendment Reverend Gates and that's in the school system it's in the school system Reverend Gates your time is up thank you but you took some of my time it's in the school system R Middle School you want them to read it you want them to the diagram you don't you don't want but you don't want
037to listen to it your time is up Reverend Gates thank you next we have Matt leot and Matt you'll have three minutes what's that three minutes okay am I good yep can y'all hear me usually the mic's really low and I have to bend down so my back really appreciates this thank you so much really quickly Miss Ray I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for showing up at bunkham County Commissioners and having our backs because as teachers sometimes we don't feel like anyone has our backs that meant a lot um Dylan quick idea I would love for you to come out and do the Pledge of Allegiance with our middle middle schoolers I think that'd be a lot of fun what I came to talk about was Senate Bill 49
038and I know there's a lot of people who are very angry and there are a lot of political agendas that are being pushed into our classrooms and I am there to make sure that every student in my classroom has a voice and is respected and I believe from the bottom of my heart heart that this board of education is going to do the right thing I understand that it's a state law I understand that we have to finagle and finesse all that but I just pray and I'm G ask yall right now as we go forward with this new legislation which in my opinion is and again I'm not a child psychologist but I've been teaching middle school for a long time and I think this was designed for people's political purposes and it's the
039kids who are going to suffer and we just saw that and I will say after that last gentleman I'm grateful my kids weren't here to hear him talk cuz they sure as heck although they probably have heard all that stuff but Lord knows they don't need to hear that crap but please going forward I really just ask youall to keep our students every one of our students regardless of the way they ask to be addressed or the way they present themselves keep them in your hearts and please just make decisions that are going to benefit the kids thank you and next up we have Bill Robinson and you'll have three minutes my name is Bill Robinson and I'm the father of two girls and the grandfather of two more I come here talk talking about
040the suicides again of young girls in bunkham county and the City of Asheville these are we're talking about young girls 13-year-old Kylie Wilhelm hung herself on May 12th uh it didn't happen because of traditional schoolyard bullying everybody loved her it didn't happen because her boyfriend broke up with her via text it happened because you've created unhealthy toxic School environments for our children it's happening all over our country our public school systems are crumbling and you know every time I ask about this nobody ever says anything from the school board there's nothing in the paper you don't hold any press conferences it's like you don't care some data for you suicides among School AED youth in North Carolina have increased by 103% more than doubled for every one youth suicide there were nine hospitalizations for suicide
041attempts and 47 emergency department visits for self harm there's a serious problem and it's time to stop the good news the Clapping like trained seals the the selfies with the school board the handing out of certificates it's time to stop all that until we solve this problem and like I heard the middle school teacher say it's it's not great news that 50 more sixth graders are in the class that's not great news especially for a school board that is low on money and is trying to find money so this this this idea that everything's great and hunky dory has to stop it really does wake up now I'd like to see a show of hands amongst the Schoolboard members if you're very concerned about the suicides of seven Young girls in this County and this
042city please raise your hand if you care at all oh great that's 2310 again isn't it what a stupid rule you should be forced to respond to the concerns of taxpayers and parents you should be forced you shouldn't sit there with dull blank looks on your face you shouldn't do that at all and pidea principles and you know formulas and platforms forget it sell that stuff down the street dactic teaching uh-uh we don't want our children being teached by morals by their teachers we want them to learn math reading Science History real history and social studies and Civics you don't you don't get to train our students up on what's right and what's wrong that's the parents job and so I I've got to say that uh that concludes inperson comment Dylan do we have
043anyone online we do not okay so that concludes um our public comment next we move to consent items um before we do that I do want to um I I understand that per our policies we typically do not respond I do want to say given the public comments we've had recently um there is a difference between reading something in a public forum at a at a public microphone um as compared to a child finding a trained educator to find the book that is right for them and so um for future public comment and it should be happening anyway if someone is reading something publicly I do have the right to gel them to ask them to stop reading that there's a difference between reading something and a public form that anybody and everyone is watching
044versus a book in a library that a trained professional will help point this this student too item one um item number two under our consent items which we are about to vote on at our work session last week Kim Robinson head of student services gave us a very detailed a very detailed Improvement plan for social emotional learning and student mental health um and so that is something that we are going to vote on tonight on the consent items are there any questions about the consent item or any comments from the board before we make that motion I'd like to take a second to um appreciate the work that's done that Garners our claps and our photographs I want to appreciate every single one of our Educators and all that you do in the face of
045sometimes belligerent [Applause] ignorance I also want to say with respect to the bill that has been passed that we will comply and adhere to the letter of the law as we are required to do and we will do no more we Rec I I will say I will say this for me I'm not going to speak for the rest of the board but as a matter of personal privilege I'm going to say that we will comply with the law and we will do everything that we can do in our power to mitigate the harm that is intended by that law and as a member of the community I feel that I have the right to say that right now so thank you any other comments or questions about the consent items then I'll just I'll
046read them out real quick so we know um we have work session minutes from August 1st Clos session minutes from August 1st um Clos session minutes are when we are discussing Personnel matters everything else is in Open Session and those work session minutes are available for anyone to see um Regular meeting minutes from August 14th student releases to bunkham County um again these repr presented in the work session last week I'll reiterate um Kim Robinson's School Improvement plan or or City School's Improvement plan for social emotional learning and school mental health um that is support for the students contracts that we reviewed last time um including the bug group um Personnel report number two and the after school bus contract which was just presented to us and if there are no questions I'll ask for
047a motion I move that we adopt the consent items as offered second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I any opposed cons items are approved next we move to action items um we've I said it at the beginning of the meeting we discussed it l work session um the equity statement was approved by this body a few um months ago but the um question about whether we are going to read this um at the beginning of every meeting is now on the table so as our action item the motion would be to to read the equity statement at the beginning of every board meeting are there any questions about it okay I move that we read the equity statement at the beginning of every board meeting and work session I second it's been
048moved and seconded all in favor I I any opposed all right Equity statement as pass next on the action item superintendent evaluation tool uh again which was presented to us in work session um and I'll open it up to comments and there's one one clarifying comment to make I have a comment I'd like to make and understand that tonight we'll be voting on using this tool um and we discussed it in our work session and I am looking forward to voting on using the tool um but I would like us to have more conversation about how we will use it the timeline the structure so that we're sure that we're incorporating all of the thoughts and feedback of every board member when we do that so tonight's vote my comment is to clarify that tonight's
049vote is the we're voting on The Tool itself and that we'll continue to work together in future public forum on how it will be used and what timeline and um those sorts of considerations good so was that a motion I'm sorry I was no it was not a motion and in fact it was an invitation to make any other clarifications I think in our work session we we have more to consider together and there were uh more voices that we can uplift and hear and work together on how to implement it I think without um without any commitment in terms of when this will be used or um exactly the timing of it or even how we will respond to it or engage it I move that we adopt the superintendence evaluation tool second it's
050been moved and seconded all in favor I any opposed all right the superintendent's valuation tool is passed and we at the beginning of this meeting um tabled the abtech board trustee appointment so with that we move next to our superintendent report Dr Ferman all right thank you so much good evening board members good evening everyone here this um for this board meeting um I are got the presentation up there just a couple slides for tonight first I just wanted to reiterate um that we are moving towards implementing and flushing out all the details when it comes to the promise that we are making to our community our students and our staff about developing a sense of belonging for all students um making sure that we partner with our students families community that we will honor
051the equal worth inherent integrity and lived experiences of each person that we will promote and sustain a sense of belonging that affirms the gifts talents and backgrounds of each of our community members and our students and our staff um along with that we know that we have work to do when it comes to our student achievement and we want to make sure that we are living up to that work um so focusing our work this year on making sure that we are setting a bar that is high and challenging and that we are supporting our teachers as they work tirelessly every day with our students in the classroom so that our students can meet that bar um and then we want to make every second count we've already completed two weeks of school so we
052are on we've got 34 left um so we need to make sure that we make every one of those minutes we have with our student important and focused on and instruction um and making sure our students feel like they belong in that classroom and that they are part of that classroom so um that's our promise to our school system to our students to our staff uh I want to make sure that we lift that up and as we flush out the details about how that looks um we'll be sharing that information um Marta and her team the equity team are looking at how can they ARR um partner some of the checklists that they're using in our district Equity blueprint to align with this promise U Melissa and her cni team unpacked this uh document
053with her group and identified what they can do to help support this um throughout the district so we are taking this we're looking at it in many different ways to see how we can make sure that this is part of what we do each and every day um just a couple updates uh can we it was last we just started a school year that just happened um and it was an amazing start to the school year made it out to several schools I want to thank um all the principles that are in the room for making it such a wonderful start to the school year as we've been around seeing The Smiling Faces I want to Second what Joe said the best part of the first day of school is when all the kids are
054in the classroom and the learning has started back up that's also my favorite part of the first day of school is the kids are in the room and you already feel the energy and the excitement about what they're learning so um shout out for that also had a great convocation um to start the year want to thank the team that worked on making it such an amazing day it was filled with energy and excitement and I really think it motivated our staff to feel good about the upcoming school year um we did get some feedback on convocation and how we can make it better for next year so we're looking forward to already start planning for what that next convocation will look like I've continued meeting with stakeholders from across the district had some really
055great meetings um over the past couple weeks um one was with Dan leeor and United Way um and talking about about how we can deepen and strengthen that partnership and scale some of the work um from some of the small pieces that we're seeing across the district to making a bigger impact where we see those bright spots um also had a great couple meetings with economic development Coalition and some of the exciting things that they are um partnering with the schools and the community on to bring more um job opportunities to bunkham County um and one of the things talking about is how do we keep the people that graduate from our School in Asheville for a long time and he's got lots of there's so much opportunity coming to our County to our city
056we want to make sure that our students are ready to take on those challenging jobs um had an opportunity to sit in the Asheville Fire Department community meeting and give some input on some of the updates that they are making and then also had a great meeting um first meeting with pin with ail Pender um from the city I'm sorry from the county and uh just have a great working relationship with her already and looking forward to some of the great things we've got on the calendar and things we're going to accomplish together started my weekly School visits um I've got it on my calendar to visit four schools every week um so I'll be carving out time to go into classrooms to meet with principls and to really see the hard work that our
057teachers are doing each and every day and I'll tell you that's my favorite part of the week is when I get into the schools and can see our students learning because they are learning a lot even within the first two weeks um couple Department updates Finance is continuing to work on their audit for FY 23 um if you've ever seen a school district having to go through an audit it is paper paper paper and they do a great job I want to thank Georgia and her team for being so responsive to the Auditors when they come um Human Resources reported out that we right now knock on wood wherever you have it um 100% of our classroom positions are currently full which is amazing yay I remember when I started on July 17th we still
058had quite a few to chip away at and um Mark Dickerson was like don't worry about it he's like we got this and it he was right I was nervous but he got it done do still do have a couple positions that we're feeling when it comes to um instructional assistance some after school staff and some maintenance um but I overheard a conversation today about some of that maintenance staff um so it looks like we're making good Headway on that if you know anyone interested in these positions uh please refer them to our website um to fill out their application and for more information student services we've welcomed three new counselors one at Asheville middle one at mord Northstar and one at the high school um so want to welcome those new staff members to
059our team also a new student support specialist um that is at at Asheville high school and silsa as well as one at our um education and Career Academy supporting our students um with what they're dealing with each and every day and helping make sure that they can spend as much time time in their classrooms as possible um student services is also holding their first um Youth and mental health for I don't know if this's the first one but first aid U Mental Health First Aid training um is being held at the high school for the staff on the 25th to further um create more supports for our students uh again operations um they had a wonderful article highlighting our four International teachers we have three from the Philippines and one from Jamaica so that was
060a nice highlight um and then just a reminder to parent September 27th is the due date for all um Health ass documented Health assessments and vaccinations that are required at those age groups so make sure that those are completed um so that your child can stay enrolled in classes and then as I mentioned already the equity department is developing a blueprint for their Equity work that will align with those three pillars in our promise um and then um that is it for updates I I feel like I've been meeting and meeting and meeting so I told my cabinet today I was like we're going to like rearrange a couple things so I have some more time to really lean in and start doing some of the important work but like I said I'm prioritizing being
061in the schools meeting with the teachers seeing what's happening just to get that really good assessment of what are the wonderful things already going on in our school system so that we can continue to uphold those as we move forward and start looking at building that strategic plan thank you that's all for tonight thank you Maggie any questions from the board we appreciate you taking the time to to develop those relationships to ask those questions we know it's a lot to it's a big rock to to start to Chisel away at so thank you for taking the time to do that um anything else from the board before I do my typical calendar thing um I do want to want to mention um as um as the father of three teenagers um one of whom
062graduated from buckham County one of whom just last year graduated from asille high and one of whom is now a high schooler um at Asheville High um and as a former Middle School teacher proud seventh grade ELA teacher um this and I'm sorry that some of the staff have and some of our Educators have left but those of us and there's many on this board who have been in classrooms recognize um the work that it that it that is fulfilling and also hard um to be with our students and especially in this current world we live in um and so yes we we are Maggie you lifted up so well the creating a sense of belonging for every single child who's in this District um and also creating a sense of belonging for our Educators
063um and our principles and everyone who works in this district and um and yes we have to pause when harm is done to our children um when when we lose them too early whether it's to gun violence or they're taking their own lives we have to pause and we also have to uplift the amazing things that the children and the staff in this District are doing um and we have to find that balance so I'm grateful that we we find time to do that um I look forward to Joe coming to that Community night and doing more padaa um and with that that's actually a really good segue into our calendar because I do want to mention again um or mention here in the space how important parent square is um I love that Jones
064like got folks signed up like how important for folks out there listening and people in this room parent square is because there is there is so much happening in our district football games and volleyball games and um and then we've got padaa seminars and we've got community nights at the middle school and at the high school um you know as a again a daughter of the high school I know that pretty soon we're going to have um a fall theater production right and those all of these things are not reserved just for the students who go to that building every day they are for this community and so I encourage you to get on parent Square get on the Asheville City Schools website and find out what's happening um and and go to these things
065um and see the amazing things that are happening with our students and our staff um I get to read out like the board calendar which I know you're all thrilled to hear every time when we're closing the meeting but there's also amazing things happening in our schools each and every week um and so I encourage you to look those up um and go and support our students um especially if they're not even in your school and going to other schools and seeing what's happening um so now the stuff I know you're all waiting to hear early dismissal and this is the actual calendar not last week's when I misread it um we do have an early dismissal of for first one of the Year this Wednesday September 13th K through 5 will dismiss at noon
066um and then um uh middle school and high school will dis dismiss at 1 pm that is an optional teacher then we have an optional teacher workday on Monday September 25th Wait I messed that up see this is why you wait for me to mess up um that um Monday September 25th we have our next work closed sorry I'm reading this wrong I'm still learning learning how to read diligent Community my goodness okay option or teacher work day is Monday September 25th um that is um no school for students correct okay um then our next work closed board meeting is Monday October 2nd here in the boardroom and then our next regular meeting is Monday October 9th here in the board meeting boardroom um there is a link to all of our meeting schedules on
067your agenda and now that I've put that completely it's probably time for me to go home and get some dinner um any anything else from the board before we adjourn all right with that I'll ask for a motion to adjourn I move that we adjourn second it's been