Asheville City Board of Education September Work Session - 9/5/23

001foreign good evening and welcome to Asheville City School Board of Education work closed session for September tonight's Tuesday September 5th we do have a quorum we want to first of all thank everyone for your patience as we were getting a little bit of a late start um but we're glad to see so many people in the room and hopefully folks online as well I want to start with the call to order I do want to acknowledge at the last board meeting and it's something that's going to come up a little later but I'm going to go ahead and acknowledge it right now that we as a board um back in May I believe it was we voted on an adopted and Equity statement and so we're going to talk about that later but um we're

002going to talk about how this goes about but I do want to read that Equity statement I'll read it again I want to go ahead and read it right now um so 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 pop 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 uh and so with that I will ask with this Quorum for a motion to adopt tonight's agenda I moved that we adopted tonight's agenda second it's been moved and seconded all

003in favor aye aye any opposed great so again welcome um it's a we've got a packed meeting tonight there's a lot that's been going on over the summer um and as the legislature from North Carolina comes back in so um we want to talk first um uh kind of to ground us tonight we're going to start with something that's been happening in Asheville City for a while now um Asheville city is one of the few communities in the country that has um empowered a conversation around reparations and one thing that the reparations commission that's been in in session now for over a year has done is they've identified some strategic areas one of which is education and so that education impact Focus area IFA is here tonight with some a first of many discussions to

004talk about what the reparations commission is um is doing and what suggestions and that sort of thing they may have so we have a wonderful woman in our community um Dr Ramirez lavender who is here with some of the others of the IFA for education to do a presentation for us and and start this conversation that will be ongoing so Dr lavender welcome and we'll invite you up to the table hi everyone can you all hear me hi um my name is Dr mayor slavender I am so excited to be here and this is hey Chris we're going to ask you to use the mic because of people online Chris Gordon um a member of the commission member yeah um so I am the education facilitator for the reparations work group and we have been

005meeting since July of last year two times a month to discuss the educational impacts and outcomes for black youth specifically in this community as well as black teachers and Educators so um as George mentioned this is just the first of what will be many conversations hoping to just Orient you all to what we're working on and things that are coming out of our group something that I've discussed with our group and George is that the reparations process the commission process has a sort of set of rules of you know the recommendations is going to go to the city and the county to be reviewed the Commissioners themselves will vote on them however in the case of Education the governance or the purview isn't with the city or the county necessarily necessarily to enact any of

006the recommendations that we are proposing so it's integral for us to have a strong relationship but this body and for you all to be clear about what we're recommending LCS can all sort of fall flat in a way that doesn't serve any of the work that we've been working on so um we are not finished with all of our recommendations we have eight strong that have been submitted and they'll probably be about 10 to 12 recommendations and these are more comprehensive matters addressing 10 core issues of Education I'll get to that um so I talked about that I'm saving time for discussion and questions at the end and if there's a possibility maybe we'll join you all at the table for a conversation um there's a lot of work going on in defining reparations and

007giving an overview of this process I won't really try to do all that right now the RDC has a lot of great resources on their website which I would direct anyone in this room or online towards but I do want to just say that reparations is the making of amends for a wrong that one has done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged in the case of this we're not just thinking about the students but also their families we're thinking about the communities that were once grouped around schools that no longer exist and we're thinking about the Educators and the black educator community that was launched large and thriving which no longer really exists here um our group our body has never done reparations before this is new we're one

008of the first municipalities to do it and every city that has taken this on has had a different approach so at um Asheville and it's very particular case chose to have five impact focused areas and we had to come up with a way to develop harms this is the process that the education group began and followed some of the other groups did something similar but the first thing we were charged to do was to document the harms this started and and we used the proclamations by both the city and the county as a baseline for the timing of this our harms go back to segregation and particularly ramp up around the implementation of the desegregation in this community after we had a page full of varying harms we brainstormed what would you do around these

009issues to remedy them we developed some models and rubrics around how we would evaluate our ideas we did research on other program models and things happening in the community and then we refined our recommendations to make sure that they were both local locally specific to remedy the harms as well as evidence-based as well the an example of the harms um are outlines here in just three buckets so the first is around the implementation of the desegregation order which closed um all but two black schools in this community um that and then sort of started um a series of events that perpetuated further segregation including School of Choice magnet schools School lotteries the desegregation order which is still in place today um and then there's the impact that happened to black students who were then forced

010to integrate schools where they've suffered mental and physical abuse the riots that happened at Asheville High those living memories that still exist in the bodies of the elders in our communities who remember what it was like to go from an all-black supportive learning environment to being busted across town and then getting beat up off of after getting off buses and then around that time also realizing that your house was taken in urban renewal and your communities were dissolved and your community centers were closed and then you went looking for Stevens Lee and your school was gone and all they left was a gym you can I feel it in my body and I'm not one of them um and I wasn't here and that is the student impact which is now an elder impact in

011our community and that lived experience I hope we all believe that trauma lives in the body and it's passed down has been one that continues and is pervasive in our community though the black community is um dissipating for a variety of reasons um on top of the black student impact that happened at that time there was a black educator impact all these schools were completely filled with black Educators who had high degrees of Education who were not offered opportunities that were commiserate to their educational experience in white schools some of them chose to take those jobs and opportunities which has an implication for generational wealth accumulation and others left the community altogether there's a brain drain of our community this was a huge loss and won that one that isn't being recovered from I think

012when we look forward to the opportunity and achievement gaps that exist today we cannot underestimate the impact of what happened in the implementation of the desegregation order which completely erupted a system of Education that has to be equal not dissipated um so that can that sort of leads into an issue that I'm sure we're all aware of today which is the racialized discipline disparities in Asheville City I should mention that our work covers both Asheville City and Buncombe County but we're actual today so um but both Counties have a very um have similar challenges in the in the discipline disparities that exist with black students being disciplined at higher rates than their counterparts which results in a lot of things including the school to prison pipeline but the loss of Education opportunities and time within

013the classroom we have now organizations coming in or individuals coming in to to sort of mitigate the harm of what's happening when students are pushed out of schools but it's not their work to ensure that students are in classrooms learning it's the work of this body and Educators to make sure that our classrooms are places where all folks can Thrive and if there are situations in which students do need to go to outside resources that they're still educated it's not it's not an either or it's an and those Solutions aren't working and then we need new ones um and the last bucket here is the opportunity and outcome disparities again I'm sure we're all aware of the literacy scores uh the math scores that are not um commiserate with the promise that black students have

014and unless we believe that there is an inherent inferiority of black students we have to look at the data of underperformance and say there's something deeply wrong here there's something ingest here and we have to do something about it else we're being complicit in the system I believe all students can learn I believe and we have a commission member on our team that all teachers should be able to teach all students black children are students and they're human beings you shouldn't need a whole bunch of different racial Equity trainings and everything to be able to educate a youth to make sure that they can read and if you are having difficulty doing that in your classroom there should be a system in place that make sure you either learn how to teach all students or

015that you're not able to persist in under teaching generations of Youth in our community um the impact of this are numerous including the fact that black students are just underrepresented and are academically High achieving classes again if you look at the data it's not matching what should be possible for for Youth and students and we all have to look at our classrooms and say does this make sense does it make sense for what I believe in about our school systems and our Educators for that not to be representative of the body and the populations of students that we have I sincerely believe that the education system being a sort of I'm trying not to be too hot um the education system failing black students don't know how to say sort of it is has an

016implication for all of our work across our ifas because as a i as a person with no children I cannot fathom placing my black child in a school not being sure that they would be educated I have a PhD in education policy and I think they would be okay but I'm not sure and so as we try to attract and increase the housing opportunities and the academic Economic Development opportunities in our community if our schools are not safe places for youth that undermines the possibility of all these other programs because I'm sure you folks that I'm looking at I'm sure you have children think about their implications of their futures and right now Asheville City schools and Buncombe County cannot guarantee a fair or adequate education or future for black youth it has an implication

017economically not for individuals but for our entire city and the diversity of our city so we have a host of recommendations as I mentioned some are community-based education programs and support for that those are things that I think perhaps will work together on on what is in the purview of this group and what can be funded on outside entities we have recommendations for black students in schools internship programs a stop the harm specifically around student suspensions accountability measures that we seek to put in place for our education systems and the true Community conversations that goes between both the reparations group that will be formed after the commission is no longer in existence that will hold all of these systems hopefully accountable to what they agreed to do we have a higher education recommendation forthcoming we

018like to develop some sort of community resource campus and one of our larger projects is a black teacher Recruitment and Retention package which seeks to pair that grow your own work that already exists here the work being done by groups like Asheville City Schools foundations with creating black educator ex black educators of Excellence to create Community around black Educators thanks through compensation packages and support for what it means I think something uh I'm going to pause and say that in developing these recommendations we worked with and had teachers come and Educators come and what was not lost on me or any of the commission members was that every time because of our the lacking diversity in our teaching populace and our student population we are still forcing our current students and teachers to do a

019work of integration every day when you are the only teacher going into a school environment when you're the only black person that's going to be in rooms repeatedly there's a cost to that and there's a toll and just in my you know short time here I've heard of great black Educators coming leading School environments and then leaving very soon there's a lot of reasons for that okay there are so many reasons for that and one of them that cannot be lost on anyone in this room is that it is a big work to go in and lead a school at period it is an even bigger work to go on and lead a school and you are the only black person and you are experiencing racialized harms not only by you know your colleagues perhaps

020and your leadership but also parents and students themselves that's a big ask so when we ask someone to do something big we must reward them in a way that matches what we're asking and understand that we can never really pay back someone for what they're giving up by in training spaces and then early childhood education is also going to be a big bucket for us because it's a lacking resource in our community and one that sets up the school system to truly serve youth in a way that is not able to do because it's not currently being funded at the way it needs to be I have sources just linked here in the agenda some are just about reparations this bottom one here has a stop the harm and letter to the school board that

021we wrote prior to the hiring of this um current superintendent and then these are just some questions that we have for that group moving forward but I would love to answer open it up to you all or if there's anything you'd like want to go anybody have any questions yes everyone real quick would y'all do you mind would you hope you all come set the table with us that'd be great thank you okay are we ready hey the first uh first question here is uh how many scholarships uh it's given to our local student a local graduate to HBCU College how many scholarships yeah how many scholarships do you have to prepare our kids to go forward out to graduate from high school are you guys I mean are we given any HBCU colleges I

022mean a scholarship out there for yes there are scholarships for atvc news are we given it's reparation is part of this so that is not currently one of our recommendations although we are looking to ask the county and and um in the city to provide support not only for scholarships but for training opportunities and things like that so all kinds of post-secondary opportunities so we don't limit a test hbcus but it's any any college University or a training program that that a student would like to um attend okay we talked about uh black Educators coming to Asheville right have we looked into uh setting aside a a community of homes for those Educators to come in and to uh probably uh live while they are teaching at the high school are are within Asheville City

023Schools so again in the recommendation we've made we have several initiatives from help with down payments to building communities or possible communities for black Educators I think we have a it's without going into detail if you have more detail feel free um I think so we had um some folks from Asheville City come the human resources department come and talk about the Housing Community that already exists and I think the waitlist is astronomical that they you all don't even advertise it as a benefit anymore because it's not possible to get into um the issue of housing is huge and it is a part of our black teacher Recruitment and Retention package but we're thinking through maybe giving housing credits for rental units um and private land owners in addition to communities of Educators when we

024talk to Educators they said that there was some pause about working where you know living with colleagues of where you work and that sort of thing and so it didn't seem um people wanted to choose where they lived I think also what's important to know is that in many cases when we think about repairing harm the Educators lived in the neighborhoods in which they worked and that allowed you to have community and understanding of who your neighbors were and now because of the cost of living in Asheville and a host of other things teachers are commuting into their school communities and they're not actually a part of the fabric of the communities in which they work so the suggestions and the recommendations that we're creating are to go back as much as we can to

025that model one by allowing Educators to live where they want to and hopefully making it possible for them to live closer to where they work and incentivize folks to be able to provide that housing voucher that rental assistance or whatever is possible and not just rental assistance but the ability to buy home and live here long term okay my last question uh data is there indebted to show what you guys have done within the last couple years that you guys been up is there like how many with this reparation we're talking about reparation right so have we besides having meetings and besides just getting together and and talk about it is there any data to show what maybe you guys have done so far so the charge of this body of our reparations group was

026to actually get data from the school systems the city um and to complete and and use that to map it onto the harms that exists and the data for what we've come up with is right there in the eight recommendations that exist so you don't see them there they just like look like little things but behind that I could almost linked it but I thought it was a lot but um our pages and pages of notes and and research that led to the creation of these being the 10 issue areas and the recommendations that exist you're curious to see them sooner they are linked on the city and county website and have already been submitted to the government and the commission for the government for review by lawyers and then we'll be sent to the

027commission for voting so our we're not creating data on these Solutions because they haven't been implemented yet so yeah if I'm I just want to follow up and and just be really clear I don't think that the reparations committee has actually expended any funds on the reparations toward education or anything else right now is that right so they're so they haven't haven't started that part I have a question about um I guess the community resource campus and what kind of thinking you have around that and what does that what does that mean so one of the things coming out of the commission is a sense that we need to have as kind of a centralized um facility whereby we can offer all kinds of services including Educational Services tutoring Services mentoring Services internships a place

028for um previously incarcerated people to receive re-entry type services so it's it's not only education but it would Encompass all the five focused areas and it's we'd have a centralized area but then into each of the five Legacy communities we'd have arms that would would go into those communities so that we're actually going into the city communities as well as having the centralized area but it's kind of a um the idea of their concept is to have a a generalized area where people can come and receive whatever kind of services they need whether it's housing assistance educational programming financial literacy classes things like that so that's what the campus is and we we see it as being more than just one place but being several different um facilities we're hoping to use some of the

029recoup some of the city-owned property that was expropriated during um urban renewal um and and then I know I'm honking the microphone but I won't for long I promise um I want to thank you both but Ameris in particular for articulating the Harms in the way that you did and um and the work that you've been doing I appreciate that I want to also move then to black students in schools and think about you know um one of the challenges I think that we face is that our students who have not succeeded as well in our traditional classroom environments haven't always had the resources that they need and that tends to to affect our students of color far more than white students So when you say black students in school what are you I'm curious

030about what you've explored to as as Avenues for that group in that section um I think you know one of the things we've talked about quite a bit is having our black students better supported and know and having teachers better prepared to work with black students have you know many of our students are are coming in with a lot of trauma so our teachers need to be prepared to work with students with trauma whether that's um you know education or teacher education or professional development opportunities or whatever but we lose too many of our kids at a really young age because the teachers don't understand how to work with them how to get the best out of them and tend to just you know push them off to the side when we're seeing you know

031young kids in first and second grade be suspended or or that's ridiculous people need to learn how to work with students I know a lot of kids coming out of our teacher education programs don't take a behavior course and that seems to me to be ridiculous you know teachers need to be able or need to understand childhood development and behavior and so those are the type of things I think need to be addressed in particular working with black students so if the if the there's a vote to approve your sort of overall plan what are the next steps for the reparations Committee in terms of moving these ideas to concrete programs with funding um I think that part part of that depends on which part of the recommendations are going where so if we're thinking

032about in the case of black students in schools there's a desire to have more mental health support for students well there's the the paying for that role or those roles or the center whatever is designed and the implementation and the training and and to me all of those things seem a lot simpler to enact it's money hiring a person putting the resources in there and making sure that students can use them that seems like a clear implementation path I think for ones like black teacher Recruitment and Retention we have to acknowledge that having although black folks are a protected class having directed compensation and benefit programs for black folks has proven in the city to be a problem and so that's going to be a little bit more complicated and that's why we will have

033to be in lockstep with this group to think about which parts of of that package you all are able to implement in ways that have both Fidelity and protection for the the city and the school board and which parts maybe can go to a private entity we're open to breaking apart ideas as long as they still are able to be enacted in lockstep I think a good thing to also know is that in the Asheville City and Buncombe County resolutions they both wrote that they were willing to petition and Sue Holst ever to change laws that made that this work hard and so I think to both answer and not answer your question is that we have to all be very willing to deal with something that is murky and possibly a fight to get

034to the end result of implementing something that will remedy harms cost to black students and some of them will be easier than others and I hope that we all agree to do the hard thing okay thank you I have a question I think I saw on the slide that came later a reference to this but I want to check in about it like in terms of this process there's like it's following from a start to a big end and you know that that exists but I see today as an opportunity to be iterative about not waiting until it's all buttoned up and beautiful because I don't think that's likely right and so that there's this learning that we're starting now before we don't have to wait for everything to be finished and so in terms

035of opportunity for would you imagine opportunity with a school district for um a process of like overlaying kind of our operations and policies and standards with some of your emerging recommendations so that we can get out ahead and start looking and doing our own self-examination of where are we in alignment that we could uplift and maybe we're do maybe we have tools that we're we're not we're not making ourselves we're not putting at the front of our mind and we can uplift and maybe we'll find places where we need to address something without waiting for all of this to be finished does that seem useful or possible that would be ideal um because this is the group we have to work with to get it done and you know we can recommend something and you

036say that's already in the plan well then we can move that somewhere else you know we don't have to argue about something that's already a yes with a government entity that's not even responsible with implementing it so we would be behoove ourselves to do that and some of our subsequent conversations I hope to actually submit the document I mean you truly can go find them but to work through the packages and say like we're already on it I think we're talking with someone from um your organization and it was like oh we've changed that already or we're implementing this idea new already and some of your staff have been really helpful to us in developing our ideas to say you know to your earlier question about hbcus we've tried that for years right and what

037happens is folks come from these didn't communities where they have support and then they're asked to walk into places where they only they're the only one it's a it's a it's a values mismatch someone has to be agree knowing what they're choosing and agreeing into it so the grow your own is powerful creating communities for folks is powerful and then also recruiting people with an intention and honesty about what it means to live here and be black as a person as a person of color and maybe a young person is what's going to actually allow us not just to recruit but to retain I got sorry I got too hot anyway um to your point yes we can overlay ideas and I hope that as we lay out some of our initiatives I hope it

038would be it would make me very happy if there was already a lot of synergy between the work this you all were planning to do and what we're recommending can we scroll to that to the last slide that I think had some up past sources discussion and questions um so I want to acknowledge that this is the first of what we expect to be more you know many conversations um and certainly don't want to kind of get into this pattern of like trying to move as quickly to the next thing we do have a packed agenda but thinking about what you've brought to us already today think about that first question first request to continue the conversation on October work session um and could we use this time right now to kind of think about

039I mean you've already somewhat Rebecca and Dr Levin you've already kind of laid it out but what could that October work session look like um to be you know something that I love about a true work session it's like get into the heart of the work right and um and so what could that look like in October I'm curious if you have ideas or if other people on the board have ideas about that um my idea right now and I would discuss it with our whole group would be to begin with a set of our recommendations that maybe are more of a long-haul effort I'm thinking specifically about the black teacher Recruitment and Retention is a large package of a variety of things and sort of just talking through the parameters and ideas around that

040and um maybe taking it out of the larger document and putting it in like an Excel one idea at a time and saying like is this in your purview or someone else's purview and thinking through it in that way I also would love and I think the group would love to see the I saw something about the Strategic plan or the areas of focus that you all have um I again would be surprised if you all have been meeting together and haven't discussed achievement of students okay so um I I'm hopeful that that you know there's a conversation to be had about what your plans are and what your thinking is and um as our recommendations have already been submitted there's a way that we we still have to present them to the commission and

041so if there's something that we can adjust I would love to be able to say and this is already approved by the Asheville City School Board I would love to say that at a commission meeting and they're just it's already moving so um that would be a goal of mine We Begin voting for some of our recommendations next week apparently um so uh we'll see I mean again we're still in a process that this part of the process will be completely new for us we don't really know how the Voting is going to go or the budgets and that would also be a question that I had for you all is about money and and dollars and and how that works um one thing that that may be helpful Dr Fuhrman as you're still in

042the first stage of your superintendency is maybe seeing what practices we already have in place whether it's from a macro level looking at the whole District or maybe on a more microscopic level like how what data can we bring to the table that is going to show places that we are we're closing the achievement Gap and the discipline Gap as well I think it's important for me to remind myself that you know here as from the board position you know we're of the governance level right policy making level so um thinking about how much Dr Fuhrman and Dr lavender all can be collaborating on on like deciding what that first or those two specific recommendations we want to start with in October and they're looking again like what Elijah said what might we already be

043doing and then are there things that we from the governance side of things need to be doing as far as rewriting policy or sending this recommendation to the policy committee that kind of thing um I also just want to um acknowledge well a couple things acknowledge the work that the IFA has done I've sat in a couple of those meetings and it's it's important and powerful and I can only imagine the amount of work it takes to get to the heart of these Harms in the community that's your own as opposed to coming from the outside as a white white man just kind of sitting on the outside um and also acknowledge that this is um this is picking at scabs and picking up wounds within the district itself um and so um just want

044to I want to have that in front of me as we move into October we move into further conversations like this is um this is kind of the opposite of bringing in a classroom and celebrating that they made it to the Science Olympiad right this is which we is also equally important or it is also important but this work is critical to um to the sustainability of our district it's critical to Dr furman's work it's part of why we hired EU into this work and so um just acknowledging that like this is um it's not going to be pretty I guess is what I'm trying to say and then finally thinking about how you know we've got or the reparations commission has five ifas right and we um uh anybody who's paying attention I think

045recognizes that they all intersect right um and so there are going to be moments where we have to acknowledge the things that it reminds me of my teaching days when my principal reminded me the first year you can only control what's happening in your classroom right um and so they're going to be moments we have to acknowledge that there are things like housing for example or what higher education is doing in terms of training our Educators or what they're failing to do right that we have to acknowledge that but then what can we be doing within our area of control so to speak to really make the impact so I think that's that's great and the last thing I'll add here is um so I I talk a lot about my area of focus was

046policy and program implementation at the school level and so um although this is a governance body and policy is really important it's the people who have to enact every one of these ideas and I'm of the opinion that there's been a million great ideas that have failed at the lack of at the People level and not maybe because of lack of interest but also not recognizing specifically the values that individuals hold that they they use when they walk into a classroom as they interact with programs policies and ideas and so something that I will always bring to the conversation is the interpersonal work and the personal work that is required of everyone not only in this room but in this community to be willing to see and change things that are different which comes down

047to the student level to the parent level to the folks who are advocating for the rights and the and the promises of their child at the expense of others and the leaders who have to be willing and supported in order to stand up to that family and do the thing that supports other students just to the fact that some people are going to have to Grapple with their own personal ideas to enact some of these changes you know to look at their colleague and think that they're getting something ahead of them and really have the coaching and the support around them to work through those feelings so as much as it's about you know a different discipline policy or something like that it's also about what levels and layers of support are going to be

048embedded in the school system to hold the feelings of folks because we do acknowledge we'll be picking at scabs of not just white folks but generational black people who have gone to school here it is a I gave a presentation to at the YW which is my day job and I was on education reparations and I was just talking about desegregation and there's a gentleman in our staff who desegregated schools here said wow I have not thought about this in years and began to tell the stories of his experiences of being beat up and mistreated and his friends who ultimately then killed themselves just from the weight of adults adults not protecting them when they were walking into these schools adults saying get over it as they were bloodied and beaten walking into classroom adults

049who did not do anything to support them and and and I think that it's important to remember that those folks are still in the community and that unfortunately their descendants are not experiencing something that is so different um so for Summit to scab and for some it's an open wound and there will be a lot of support needed to to hold this and move forward thank you I just wanted to say thank you both it's a lot of work you've done and we appreciate it Chris Nuttall Abner thank you both so much and yeah we'll look forward to talking again in October yeah thank you thank you so next on the agenda student releases to Buncombe County for August I didn't I didn't take long enough pause yes let's take a breath yep yep what

050you have before you are the releases um for Buncombe County Schools and of course you know we are in that phase of 20 days of kids checking in kids checking out so um these are the ones that have applied that need your approval and you can see thus the reasons um out beside it if you have any questions Daniel will you remind me what can fall under other can follow on another is it could be and this is just an example if they have a specialized program that we don't have they can check other if it's that their parent is working in that District that is the other um and so all those other things are considered other but because this is a specialized the Dual language program that is identified by the county we

051um can we start to just give more information when you have it in other words even if even if they checked other but you happen to know it's because there was a program there or the parent I don't I just think more information is better for us absolutely thank you foreign thank you thank you guys and thank you also as a native and a cougar appreciate you I'm serious that's yeah all right next on our agenda Haywood Road facilities started probably several months ago and got to the point where um there is an opportunity for us as a school system to partner with Buncombe County to upgrade a facility for us add some usage to it so the proposal has been to do a facility study um over at the previous site of the Asheville

052Primary School to add several things to that area one being a hub for pre-k an emergency um response Hub a library and also some potential space for our education and Career Academy so what they need to do next is go ahead they've put out their rfps they've got proposals it's the County's time right now to choose which person they want to go with and they need to hear from us if we're still interested in participating just exploring right now this possibility before they go ahead and approve the vendor to the firm that's going to complete the the study so opening up for conversations and hearing from the board on where you are as a board on moving forward with this feasibility study so just to be clear it was it's Buncombe County is now in

053the is ready to now put out an RFP they've already put out the RFP they're ready to hire higher they want through their evaluation process of the firms that submitted and are ready to take action at their next meeting to hire that firm right and just to be clear that's the firm that will do the study itself correct is not an Architecture Firm it is not a engineering firm it is only a firm that will do the feasibility of that space to work for all those three desired things right yeah I'm assuming it could or an engineering firm yes it is but but it is not for the purpose just to be clear of deciding we're not deciding tonight whether to put a maintenance facility at Hall Fletcher I'm just going to name that right

054no um we are deciding whether or not to approve uh or I guess support support really the County's effort to look at that facility and and I want to just give a little bit of context because when did we meet uh six months ago maybe six months ago your chair and vice chair met along with the chair and vice chair of the Buncombe County School Board and um one County Commissioner and um Avril Pinder our County Manager and we at that time identified some priorities that we we were just concerned about if they wanted to if they wanted to use certain parts of the aps property uh we identified the need for a space for the education and Career Academy as one of our priorities long term that didn't mean it had to be at

055the aps property but it was saying to them if you want to use some of our property here's some of what we need at somewhere at some time so in other words we're not we we were uncomfortable just saying sure go use the whole thing because we knew we had some space needs ourselves and the maintenance department was what is there currently so during that conversation I think that's why some of these priorities were identified by the county one question I have and I don't know if you know this Dr Fuhrman is whether or not um we you know because the challenge of course is that we need to do our own facilities study and we need to do our own assessment of our buildings the County Commissioners have basically directed us to do that

056in some ways as part of our being fiscally responsible and good stewards of the funds that they provide us is to ensure that our um we're not we don't have schools that are underused and duplicative services at different schools we have to right size is the term that was given to me specifically um and so we're going to be and that's also just something we would probably be doing anyway along with our strategic plan is to look at the the facilities we have a new superintendent we really haven't looked at the long-term possibilities for our spaces in a long time and it's time to do that assessment so the county is is undertaking this at the same time or approximately and so that's a challenge I see which is the potential that we identify yes

057we need to put the education and Career Academy somewhere and maybe we want to make it very different than it is right now maybe it needs more space than we would ever have at the Asheville primary school maybe we want to make it a facility that's available to middle and elementary school students as well not just High School level students just trying to come up with different ideas so my question I guess would be whether or not there's room for us along in this process to to be clear with them that we are undertaking our own facility study and we're not really wedded we know we're probably going to require some space there but we don't necessarily know how we would use it is that does that make sense yeah and that's exactly what um

058Avril and I talked about on Friday so I explained that's kind of we're at this jumping off point where we're looking at planning strategic planning but also facilities planning for the future and trying to mesh all these things together at one time is a pretty big effort so wanting to also you know we've got this opportunity to partner with the County Commissioners which is a great opportunity but we also need to know the Asheville City Schools property is our property and we need to make sure that we first are good stewards to our constituents and our parents and our students to make sure that they've got the classroom spaces and programming that they need yeah and I I will say one more thing and then I'm not going to say anything else I don't think

059about this um but you know the preschool part of this is absolutely part of our mission and so I don't care if you count it as ACS or Buncombe County we will never eradicate our opportunity Gap until we address Pre-K and until our students all students come in with essential preparedness so I think that that part of that plan is um really important that we recognize that that is not giving away property for the county to use for something that is not critical to our mission Amy I'm glad that you said that because I I don't know in this process you know where does it become a negotiation but um Amy and George had the meeting to say these are the things that we prioritize in terms of our operations but I as I prioritize

060Pre-K access I hear that they that there's a library there's EMS that there are these other kind of community priorities that they're tackling and holding as well but whatever communication we can have to be able to name like you said whether it's Buncombe County I mean we are a K-12 School District in a state that continuously underfunds us to do K-12 operations Pre-K is necessary but not funded through us so I don't I don't need to we don't need to we have great Pre-K we do an amazing job with that but we just need more of it and I hope there's a way for us to articulate and communicate that that's the priority alignment between our two systems that I would love to see maximized I I would just like to to acknowledge that we

061we are a pre-k through 12 system though and that's that's something that sets us apart from other school districts in the state of North Carolina and the nation um and I'd also like to acknowledge that there was some rhetoric that entered the public Sphere not so long ago that insinuated that the building was uninhabitable and I I guess it would be I think it would benefit our community as a whole to know definitively whether that held truth I have two questions and the the first is timing are we voting first of all I don't know if it's tonight or next week to say yes you have our blessing to do this or are they just taking our pulse like what what specifically are we the city or not the city sorry the county needs to

062know if we are giving our blessing to move ahead with this saying that we are still open to exploring the options of this mutual agreement because they're ready to award their contract at their next meeting um so that's they do need to know like is this something that's still on the table for us so they can keep investing and move it forward or are we saying you know what never mind because then they need to find another site to do a feasibility study at in our blessing that is sought is that uh uh it's not really an official yeah we don't have to vote yeah well so here's my real question and I needed to know if we had any time I don't a feasibility study tells you what you ask them to look at

063right and I see the email we got in June and it said the county wanted to know about Pre-K alternative excuse me we Asheville City Pre-K alternative school management transportation and Food Services we could add others the county wanted to include Pre-K Branch library and EMS base and so I guess I'm curious like what what are they going to look at is that the things I just said or not yeah that's a that's a good question I haven't dug that far into it I can get those answers and say you know do we need to join them at the table to approve the feasibility study I don't know if that train has already left the station or if that is something we can come back and say like here are our must-haves and can the

064feasibility study show that or make say if it's feasible or not and I think generally speaking I don't know that we're opposed to the feasibility study if we understand what it is they're looking at and so I I just feel like we need to know the parameters for me okay uh I was I was just going to say that at least from and I appreciate that um it was just the chair and vice chair who were in short and I were in the room and not not the rest of everyone what I sort of took away from that conversation was that in some ways the county was going to be doing was going to be paying for a study that we might otherwise have to do to figure out what could we do with this

065property and they were going to and that's not I know that you're not suggesting that was a bad thing you just want to have an idea of what those priorities are right I mean let me just say it a little bit differently to the extent we want to build Goodwill with the County Commissioners and the point of this is you know we're not going to pull the rug out from them under I just am curious what they're looking at so that we can say with a clear conscience for the reasons you just articulated yeah I have no concerns about what you guys did no yeah no right I understand that and I just and I I didn't I didn't take that otherwise um Sarah I thought that I just was saying that at least from

066my perspective we sort of gave them a list which was Pre-K and education Career Academy and we have maintenance folks over there right now and so I think that's and and then my assumption was that those will all be part of looking at it along with whatever their priorities were but I think it's exactly the right time to clarify that now before we formally say yes go because it is our property so yeah well if later on we're not going can you can you just pull that a little closer thank you if later on we have an issue with the things they looked at which weren't the things we looked at the horse had left the barn by then that's what I don't want to have happening I guess it would behoove us to know

067for me as I move forward in this what are the non-negotiables on our side of this what we need at that location like we say oh you know we would be open to putting you know a phys you know maintenance facility somewhere else but we need X Y and Z at this or it's a no-go for Asheville City Schools it's a pretty day for me sorry Amy okay yeah I mean I I don't know that there's anything that I would say absolutely has to be there other than I agree that a Pre-K Hub is is probably the most powerful um for me the most powerful reason to look to the most powerful way we can use that campus Because of its location in part and because it's already been used for pre-k classrooms in the

068past is to just build a massive wonderful fabulous Pre-K Hub and then whatever else they need I I am passionately interested in what we're going to do with the education and Career Academy I'm a little concerned that it wouldn't have enough space there ultimately to be what we need that's that facility to be long term which I don't see as three or four classrooms I see as a much bigger and so I'm not sure you could have both a Pre-K Hub and an education and Career Academy there I'm not sure that would even be wise but for sure I would say that I personally would want the Pre-K to be our priority that that that's just my own five cents I can't recall now who throughout the idea of it possibly being pre-k through middle

069school but that had come up at some point as a possibility and you know just just given the the intimate knowledge that I have of that building and the the benefits that it offers um I I could see that really being impactful for our district and also being able to offer something [Music] um well I think if building just so you a building for schools you have to put Pre-K and kindergarten on the ground floor so you've only got enough space of the footprint of the building like you can't put those classrooms up on a second level they have to always be on the ground floor so that does limit the number of classrooms that you could put there just because it's only the footprint of the land so just something to think about when

070we think about numbers of classrooms that might be potential well my understanding is with the visibility study they they the feasibility said he could even look at raising the building and just and just building a new building area right they could okay sometimes it is cheaper to tear down and rebuild than retrofit if it's beyond a certain the the gives us the the interior of the building as well as the exterior as possible I think it's likely that I think what they're going to do though is a feasibility of the entire property and how it can be used and my guess is that they are going to start from scratch as if that building and Courtyard do not exist and that's not to say that that's what they will decide upon but I think that's

071they're going to go forward as if they're on a clean Blank Slate with whatever it is for how many I don't know however many acres it is yeah I was gonna say four or five acres the other thing we're they're hoping that we can take into consideration or I'm hoping they will is the construction on 26 is going to continue up that Corridor um so that'll be something to really consider how that impacts the build of the building like capacity at that site yeah so it sounds like answering those questions through Avril and maybe does it make sense for us to put this on the agenda for next week just so you'll have those answers for us and we can say yeah your native if we're yeah sounds good that makes sense thank you all

072right still working on this diligent Community things let me see where we are um all right next on the agenda uh is the Improvement plan for social emotional learning and school Mental Health good evening everyone this evening we will be presenting to you the Asheville City Schools improvement improvement plan for social emotional learning and mental health updates and other questions answering other questions that the board members had as well I say we and I would like to start off by introducing you to our team because um they are the ones who helped pull all of this together are 27 page um implementation our plan which will probably be the largest plans submitted to the state so as for City schools has a lot of wonderful things happening and we wanted to make that known and

073present that we didn't want to leave anything out so as I introduced my team we have our lead social worker Lavette Campbell we have our mental health liaison Laura host representing SEL our director of social emotional learning time of Williams and representing restorative practices she's not here Karen Evans thank you so um April if you would click on the link up top um that's not that's not us go back to the PowerPoint there's a the second page is the link nope there's a link in the PowerPoint right there up top as to the schools there you go yeah so I just wanted to like show you um what this blueprint looks like and you have in front of you the whole entire plan I'm only going to be talking about the updates that were requested

074by the state I'll also reference pages that you guys can look at if you have additional questions during that time I'll start with the why and we believe prioritizing students social emotional academic interests with an equity mindset leads to the success by implementing a multi-tiered system of support we ensure the well-being of all students catering to the unique character of each child as you will notice our vision statement it connects the work of two different departments student services and um SEL with intention our vision statement we will look through our Equity lens to empower engage and create opportunities for everyone to learn discover and thrive vision for social emotional learning and behavior we work together with intentionality to create a sense of belonging in all of our school communities and if you can just scroll

075down to give everybody an idea of what our format looks like and this is this format comes from the state and so we have um the focus area and then we were asked to create action items and the status that status is what made our plan so long um the peop the timeline and the individuals responsible and tons of resources uh on the other side of on the end of it so if we can go back to the PowerPoint our Focus areas social emotional learning and mental health prevention strengths and needs prevention initiatives build align infrastructure align with academic objectives prevention curriculum prevention instruction prevention environment prevention data evaluation student data and early intervention treatment referral re-entry and I prefer to call it reset so our first update that uh that was requested by the

076board recommended for improvement by the board this each year this plan uh is submitted to the state and they came back with reference that through five pages five through seven if you have any questions quick question can you tell me what Panorama is I I tried to figure it out but now I didn't try very hard and I would love to some explanation sure sure is that just data collection or is that something else it's a student where we have this data collection it is a data collection to where students go in and um complete surveys and I think how often do we do those time so it is a data collection it is a perception survey so right now we have three per year for students we do one in the fall we do

077one in the winter and we do one at the end of the year we also this year will be adding some staff surveys and some family surveys so that we can capture that data as well and that's connected the Panorama is connected to the Playbook which is a database of resources that are vetted for staff to use in the classroom based on those surveys in other data collection tools we're using learning circles the shape assessment which really helped us identify a lot of strengths and also a lot of deficits that um we that we need to address and that's also in the plan that you'll see and those deficits were really mental health deficits that we had to identify in some SEL but primarily a lot of Mental Health next slide was there a specific

078age group where those were particularly impactful uh no not on the shape assessment the shape assessment was more about are we doing these things or are they like the different departments uh social workers counselors mental health uh EC Department are those things being done certain things been done and uh we just didn't score really high on a lot of them which is something for us to start with the second one was aligned with academic objectives and those can be found on pages 12 to 15. I don't have my glasses on so I gotta look at my own and the recommendations were SEL lessons or Castle aligned for skills that support academics Elementary and secondary schools have specific times built into their schedules so they wanted to know how we align and this is what our

079updates are relational practices utilizing the restorative practices framework and continue to build more Awareness on the link between SEL competencies and academic standards any questions on that okay next prevention curriculum and instruction this specific um request was to identify which trainings pertain to new hires who needed to receive the six hour trainings and returning staff who would receive at least two hours of training we reference more of the vector trainings however there are additional professional development opportunities for primary and secondary levels and the last recommendation was to talk more about the treatment referral and reset process improve access we are going to improve access to Transitions to school based and community-based services this has been an issue in the past and now that we have our amazing Laura host uh we've already started creating those

080relationships with the community based [Music] um based entities such as when a student is even being released from a level three facility mental health facility and such they'll be making connections with the schools so we'll have a transition meeting for the students to come back to the schools and we'll know the plans of what happened when the students were away from us from us so we can better support them with those needs uh formalize a protocol for students returning to school following the acute care I also added the reset conferences students who have been out of school suspended will be addressing that and having those conferences and review uh quarterly the processes of service system ensure we're doing what's right by our students so I had a couple of questions asked of um by board

081member schreimer [Laughter] and one of them have been answered so about the Playbook you ask about specifics on the Playbook was that answer was that answered yeah I've I think so okay okay um you asked for the org chart for student services with the staff names and I have that Somebody went past that down so the org chart is included and then you also inquired about the number of mental health clinicians in the schools and we added both of those into the plan but we also um what you'll have in front of you are the specific agencies we're working with and the clinicians who are there in additional resources that that's in each school I think one of my intentions with the question I asked which was based on these names of entities that provide

082that are our partners you know not staff of our building but mental health service providers who we contract with to provide services to our students um as a member of the student services committee you know our conversation last school year which was candid and honest and challenging was that in these places where we contract for them to provide supportive Clinical Services to our kids they don't actually have the ability to hire the number of staff that we contract them for and I'm curious to know at the start of this school year do we envision a similar shortage of mental health clinicians good question um currently we do have mental health clinicians in all of our schools the barrier we're facing right now are the insurances that's accepted we have two schools who have clinicians with

083them which are represented through your next chapter and they do not accept all Medicaid and so that's our barrier right now we do have clinicians we have clinicians who potential clinicians coming in in October and by December but we're also however we're also if Laura you want to talk about it we're meeting with other providers Laura just had a meeting with someone and you can speak specifically on that one but we're looking at like outside agencies who are not school based and we've created some mousse with them what you'll see on their spark foundation and some others and where they will still be providing the services whether it's at the school or outside at their agency or in the homes as well so do you want to speak on the agency you just met with

084so one of the things that um I've been trying to work with our school counselors on and with our agencies is finding out that the caseloads are there in the specific numbers for the caseloads because our agencies are sometimes hesitant to hire a whole bunch of people that then won't have a caseload so really finding out from them you know from our school counselors hey how many students do you have that could right now go into school-based therapy and then getting those numbers from them and having them go ahead and draft that up somewhere where I have access to it I can see it and we can send those referrals in as soon as someone is hired and then communicating that to our school-based therapists so they're not hesitant to hire a bunch of people

085who then don't have any ability to make money or have any ability to do their job so um we've cleared up cleared up some of that confusion which has been helpful um and they are now opening up uh some hiring for a lot of our positions that have been uh that we needed I've also been able to communicate with some new agencies who are also accepting Medicaid which is another barrier that we had and are really open and flexible to possibly accepting and paneling with other insurances which was also something that we were excited about and I'm just going to keep reaching out to other people and seeing what we can get thank you and we're thinking outside of the box even you and you know we have the Telehealth that some students are open

086to and anything any type of support that we can bring in we are considering and looking into that just to touch a little bit about what speak on what Lord just talked about the stigma has happened in the past because there hasn't been enough school-based clinicians or individuals coming into the schools referrals aren't being made because they're like why do we make the referrals because then we'll create this big waiting list so we're trying to eliminate that and just get people to go ahead and start putting in those referrals so that clinicians will come in and so that agencies will hire thank you and welcome Laura thank you for that um I also at first meant to say and want to go back and say how I appreciate the specificity in this the thoughtfulness in

087it like for you to say this is probably the longest one in the state I think is a badge of honor that we should wear very proudly thank you and I loved going through and digging through and one of the things that I became curious about and I would love for our board to continue to learn from your department about is this multiple data systems and information that's flowing to you I had to like make a chart for myself if we get Panorama data I want to know what are we learning what is it telling us and what are we doing learning circle with real-time information and then school health and performance evaluation as well as mtss assessments there you have to deal with a lot of systems for gathering information that sometimes can be

088the kinds of tools that bring up Solutions and ways we we wouldn't have imagined them otherwise but also can be difficult to maintain and and manage and I think I'd like to understand how what benefits we get from all the ways that we track information on our kids on our families what are we learning and what are we doing about it because I didn't know we had this many ways get information and I'm I'm curious about it and I'm sure on our committee I'll get to learn more as well but exactly thank you for this thank you and I we I was excited to see that it is so detailed because anyone reading it and I hope everyone would take the opportunity it provides an overview of what's happening and what we're doing and the

089resources and supports that we already have in place and that we're looking at it provides a great overview of what's happening in Asheville City Schools yeah I um will say that I found it almost completely overwhelming uh because it was so detailed it was great but I had the same sort of response to okay there's data collection in all these different places um one question I have is where the where are your referrals typically coming from I mean are these teacher referrals parent referrals both everyone anyone oh a teacher referrals they refer to they come to the counselors or School social workers to process those referrals uh parents are also asking for you know support school-based therapy particularly and I'm I'm distressed that we have a provider who doesn't accept Medicaid so um I want

090to make sure that we're doing all I know you are um if if the board can offer you any supports let us know not just on that but anything because I think that this is this work along with Pre-K and so many other things but it is part of it is part of what we have to be doing post covid it's where the need is right we can't learn our students can't learn if they don't have mental health supports and um and if if students are in the classroom who are struggling like that then frequently the other students aren't learning either um so I appreciate your work I know just from attending that committee meeting last spring that you've already done a lot and so thank you for that and I hope we can get

091regular updates especially in terms of you know if I I know reading this was challenging for me because it was so much information and if we can get updates that are really concrete we were able to add this many therapists we were able to add we were able to either get rid of your next chapter or add one enough that takes Medicaid that their their inability to take Medicaid didn't matter um just give us those updates of of how you're doing and what we can do to support you because we really appreciate it and one thing I do want to add for clarity and um to be fair to your next chapter they do accept Medicaid just not the ones that most of our students have gotcha and I'm not trying to cast I'm not

092trying to cast aspersions on that organization either I trust that they would if they could but I don't know I just know that our students need those services and the students who if most of them are on that kind of Medicaid that they don't take we need to be and you you already know that and y'all are already working on it so thank you for that yeah and uh George has been real helpful as well is connecting us to other Mental Health Resources in the community so I appreciate that thank you and and I did meet with the connections that you um had that you brought up and we haven't moved forward on it but that's something we will be moving forward on soon we just hadn't had time to really get to that yet

093but it's there so thank you all right Kim I got one quick question problem hmm we just heard from the reparation impact Focus area right I believe in Puzzles all right I look at everything like proposal is can they connect can they somewhere somehow blending with each other touch each other I mean are we looking have you ever thought about it before today or can we somewhere somehow make both work within our Asheville City school or what can we do I hadn't thought about it until today when Dr lavender was presenting and I'm like okay what about mental health what about the support that they can provide and that I made a note of it and that was something I was going to follow up with okay all right thanks you help me clear up

094a little bit Yeah so thank you for breaking that up yeah um I want to um thank you Kim first of all my time on the board I've never seen anything this comprehensive so I appreciate it I'd love to we do not have to get into this conversation right now but thinking about everything that you're has to do recognizing that mental health and SEL are vital to our students even pre-covered but especially post covet and that we sit down here we will be sitting down in November and December into May talking about budget and all of these things that I feel like you're doing to me feel like they're more than you probably were doing four or five years ago and again I don't think it's a conversation for today but it's I think I'm

095just throwing it out there into the room that um my guess is that the state has not supplemented the these necessary and additional supports that we're giving to our students um and so I my guess is that you and your team are doing um a lot more work with basically the same amount of resources that you have been before yeah right you're doing it magically yes um so thank you for that anything that we can do on the board to and we will continue to advocate for a better pay and more resources from the state for mental health we'll continue to do so yeah I also want to acknowledge on the starting last spring we invited students to sit here at the our work sessions with us and we I'm going to put y'all on

096the spot right here because we're talking about student mental health um put the three of you on the spot and make sure that that we're making those connections right like um and feel free to weigh in if you want to make any comments you have any questions but that you know that um Peyton you were one of those who presented to us last March or April with that survey and it spoke about mental health right the need for mental health students themselves were saying it so um if there's any way that we on the board can help make you know further those connections make sure that that students are getting the resources they need um you know that I you know whatever our counselors and social workers are doing making sure that we've got alignment

097there you don't have to say anything but if you if you choose to you certainly can foreign the only input that I really have would be the lack of knowledge that students have for these Mental Health Resources it's not widely advertised I think the first time we really advertised it to students was this this year at cougar step up and even then we had to say you can't just walk up and do it you got to go to your counselor so I think the ad like advertising it to students because I honestly didn't know until I was referred to one like it wasn't something that's like oh yeah you can go talk to your counselor and you can get school-based therapy it's like you have to be in a crisis to get it so I

098think something um like maybe in high school we have this new fifth period maybe that's something that is discussed during that time but just a place to advertise um these opportunities and resources that we have for students thank y'all and thank you Kim I do have some reason some resources I'm going to bring over the there's a handout about panorama in there and then there's some information on Castle because we referenced that in the plan quite a bit I thought you might just um enjoy seeing what that looks like in a classroom if you have any questions just let me know okay thank you taima all right thanks again um we'll go ahead and there's no other questions move on to the next agenda item which is um Dr Fuhrman the superintendent evaluation uh yes

099so the board asked me to draft um an instrument to guide evaluation the state does have one for superintendents it's really lengthy and cumbersome and it's definitely something that you know is is a resource that I pulled from for this but really wanted to focus on the three big things that the board touched face with me on and one is the development of a five-year strategic plan um and then I and I put for the big kind of area then some more detailed action steps or things to accomplish as it relates to those um so for the Strategic plan really making sure we have rigorous and comprehensive stakeholder input process for that and then also making sure that we include students parents community members and partners that will be engaged in assessing our strengths our

100opportunities identifying where and what the the focus of the Strategic plan should be um and then delivering that with making sure we're centering our work on Equitable outcomes for students and then also clear implementations timelines and monitoring process as well as the frequency for communication and updates to the community so that's kind of where I started with that one and you know want to hear from the board on any recommended revisions or things that need to be added I thought we could kind of go just area by area a question about the um developing proficient accomplished distinguished so as we're a value as we would be evaluating your work Dr Furman um you know you it might be under development and still be distinguished yeah I I mean I I just it does seem like

101they are um yeah I'm used to like a a Continuum of boy you didn't do that well or you did that really well yes and those are open for discussion too that's kind of the typical indicators that you see on evaluations but it could be something like making sufficient progress not making sufficient progress exceeded expectations something like that so you know those are open for your input on what you think is the best way to measure progress on these developing plants developing doesn't necessarily mean it's underway and that's a good thing it means you can get some work to do yeah exactly okay thank you you really need to stop thank you we need you to move we need to move a little faster on this yeah um Chris this might be a question for

102you do you know what like what's our time frame for superintendent evaluation because I feel like in past years it has not necessarily Fallen at the same time so is there an obligate obligatory date that we have to have an evaluation done by each year now can you hear me um the board policy talks about it it's also part of your superintendent contract that lays out a timeline it generally starts about this time of the year for the fall there's usually I believe like a pre-assessment that's provoked from the superintendent that's provided to the board time for the board to look and respond to it and and and move forward with it I think generally that process starts in the fall and it can conclude at the end of the fall semester but I would

103need to look at y'all's specific policy to see okay yeah I'm asking just because like like is there a due date that we want to have like a final draft of this ready to go like I think the state says the superintendent has to be evaluated once a year okay just kind of when the board decides to do it they don't dictate what tool you use or when it happens just at least once a calendar year the superintendent is evaluated by the board which um but I didn't look at the local policy and as far as drafting of the form I mean you know that a Furman mentioned there is a state form but it's not required there's no specific form required that you all use it's your process essentially to evaluate your superintendent we

104also Campbell Shatley has a form and resources that I can provide as well if y'all want to look at any of those as a template or anything you know I can provide a Dr Furman to further that conversation too yeah I mean I think one thing I I appreciate the second action with student parent Community member input right and especially considering that now we're I mean four of us are already elected three other seats are up for election next year like when we talk about evaluating the superintendent um I would love to in my evaluation be able to hear from Community parents teachers Educators students there you know their evaluation of the superintendent to inform my evaluation right so whatever ways we can kind of include that or figure out a way to include that

105do you have a question hey is it possible to skip a year so that we can so that you have time to implement everything that is regulated on this on your um I'm the first part of your question oh is it possible to skip a year of your evaluation I don't think so I mean unless you want to not follow the law no the only reason why we asked the only reason why I'm asking because Astro City School needs you're going to need time for the community to support because we are not we're not totally there until we actually see progress and I don't want I don't like grading when a person is doing their best but people don't see it within the community right it's not fair to you so within a one year

106it's you know delay maybe that's if it's possible because our community is it's hard to it's hard for us to trust because of what been there all of these other years so I'm just asking for a fair evaluation on your behalf is it is it can it be done to delay a year in order to you to get evaluated Jesse can I jump in yes I think legally the answer is no it can't and what I appreciate about what you've done with this is you've provided us with some areas that in our emerging starting Place we've articulated as high priorities and I feel this represents Maggie being very responsive to what we as aboard in this moment where we don't have a strategic plan yet you heard these are things that I heard you and

107I understand to be very valuable and I think there's I feel that we can be brave in leaning into accountability even when we don't know what the outcomes will be and in fact I think that's the accountability we should seek for ourselves and Maggie and our relationship and then what I love most is that the Strategic plan is centered here and I would like to see us move to a process an annual process that is not once a year but that is all year round where the foundational component of the superintendent's evaluation is our strategic plan and at every work session you report to us into the community what progress we're making and then to George's Point how we get more feedback about how that's being felt in our system but that this is I

108think this is a beautiful starting place and as we get into this first one what we can build with our strategic plan is our our approach to evaluating you and our district that's my take on it I I agree that this is a really wonderful Foundation piece that I haven't been familiar with in our recent history um and I'm I'm very grateful that the the Strategic plan is is in Focus um I wonder as an educator I'm familiar with this tool and professional development plans that are implemented mid-year and end of year and I wonder if we could use this opportunity to do sort of a mid-year self-assessment reflective practice um maybe at our board retreat in January timing work out that way that it's mid-term yeah um and then have a formal evaluation towards

109the end of the first calendar year I mean how what are whatever you guys want to do you're the boss yeah I appreciate what you said I and I'll just be honest I'd rather have an evaluation tool ready um even if it is just updates and more informal evaluation this year I think there needs to be as a model for the district like we are holding ourselves accountable through an evaluation tool and even though this may not be like hey this is the official tool it's something we can agree on for a midterm until the Strategic plan is up and going we've got processes in place to really start taking a close look at our student achievement in an ongoing way and evaluating are these things working or not I agree I really like it

110I think you did a great job of of synthesizing and Distilling the the values that we identified for you as core to your work when we hired you so I feel like this does a good job of that and um I I think it's a great tool to begin with and I am sort of agnostic on the timing myself I think whenever the rest of the board wants to I think the idea of doing a mid-year self-evaluation is great no matter what um and a when we when we proceed with actually going through this process with you I would I'm very open to suggestions but great job on the tool I think it's very good for right now and I think to George's point about getting input from the community I think that last um

111area about leader accountability transparency governance and policy there's opportunities to pull in survey results for you guys to if you want to talk to you know community members or parents or students or staff to help inform like you know when we say there's an environment of trust and mutual respect asking those questions and getting that information from stakeholders themselves instead of you know saying yes I did that okay so yeah so what's what are next steps for this um so the next the boards amenable to this um I will start working on um well I've been working on this stuff moving forward anyways but then we'll Target the January Retreat as an update and then at that point I think we'll have a good time to say do we want to wait until you know

112anything's finished or do we want to go ahead and do a final evaluation in June just kind of play it from here in January okay great thank you all right next on the agenda water meters with Tim Shelton okay I was approached a couple months ago from the water department they want to put a data collection system on Lucy hearing and Hall Fletcher basically this is a data collection module a top of about a 25 to 30 foot tall telephone pole what it does is collect data from the adjoined neighborhoods uh their water meters and things like that the sites they've picked out I have looked at both those they're not going to fear with anything in the schools whatsoever in fact they're completely out of the way and I think Chris has some information

113on the easements and all board members um the easements and you should see this in your board packet um there are two legal documents in there but I think there's also I think just to kind of tell the picture the first attachment is the image of the water meter I mean that's what it would look like um my understanding is this is really you know just a sort of a technological upgrade to where it would not require the water company to physically come out and send someone to check you know our water meter they can do that all remotely and that's right there what it looks like they'll be able to do that all remotely if we allow an easement for the construction of those poles one at Lucy hearing and one at Hall Fletcher

114and so the actual easements themselves are pretty straightforward they're they're fairly short but attached with that is also just a picture of the plat map that shows you where those would be um put in on the particular properties so the easement itself is something that you all can approve at your next board meeting and if that's amenable then those will be executed but this is somewhat of a standard form that we've used for utility easements like this before in other places and um happy to answer any questions if I can I will add that these polls are pre-engineered and also they require no power they are solar powered I have a question Tim are those polls well there's a couple questions here are those polls as big as they look I mean they're really big

115they're telephone poles they're not quite as tall as a normal telephone but they don't exist now that would be that's what they would want to install so I mean they're just what do we get out of this to have that placed at those two schools I mean I uh really it does does not benefit us at all um there is the capability in the future for us to be able to read some of our meters during the month as to what's going on but that technology is not there yet that's my understanding that will be something that we will be able to access so why did they pick us I mean to me these just look like they'd be an eyesore and maybe it's not fair but like to put these on a school campus

116and not why wouldn't they put them somewhere else they probably could but it's geographical it's where they needed to put them to be able to collect those neighborhoods so so are they collecting they're collecting the whole neighborhoods water meter modern standing within a certain radius so um why can't they use a poll that already exists a maybe that's a dumb question but I'm just curious I'm not sure but I'm guessing it probably has something to do with the right ways and things like that with telephone company and utilities I'm not for sure I mean the other comment I'll make which has absolutely nothing to do with whether we vote for this or not or approve the easement is if we do it's I really hope we can use this as a learning tool for those

117schools I'd be really interested in having them understand what data is being collected and how and anyway I mean if we're going to let something be an eyesore like that and I agree that it kind of is I hope we can use it positively for the educational purposes um but I I do wonder why I guess I need to appreciate better too exactly where they are I'm trying to I only have one map here am I supposed to have Paul Fletcher there's two I'm sorry will you use a mic thank you there's a church that sits right across the street that has plenty of property across from Lucy Herron there is Carrier Park which is down the street from Hall Fletcher which is property that they own which would still give them one end versus

118the other end of Hal Fletcher I mean other end of Haywood Road which I stayed in the middle so I think those are very viable questions when they do have property out there other larger properties and what are we getting is it a learning tool for our students I I just it seems like the go-to is to ask the schools for everything but when we asked for something it's a no from the city has about a five second life here and then it will it will go dead so yeah I know no one wants to hear lawyers speak for more than five seconds um okay I'll just use those things it works um I can follow up with Chris Campbell as well I was denying the conversations with how exactly the district was approached for

119the location I mean I think what you have before you I mean the easements if you want to approve it um you know we've looked at them and I think it would be appropriate for this use but I think that's a valid question um about I don't know why this location and not another for that particular neighborhood but I can follow up on that for you and Miss Buchanan maybe can like I see Wellington where is that right I I mean I can't speak for anybody else but I don't get this it's in the large Athletic Field heading down toward the greenhouse area on the the road over there in fact I think it's on the other side of the sidewalk which is the street side it looks like yeah it's on the it's on

120the athletic field side of the sidewalk but isn't the the median area from the sidewalk to the street city property oh for sure I do know there is a ton of utilities down through there so I'm guessing that's why they chose that location they did not approach me as to where um what sites they had actually uh looked at uh I do know that they chose these sites specifically for the geographical location because these only emit so far so they would need to be pretty close to where they're at to get what they need one question I had is are they putting booting up across the city are they putting them up everywhere and they need for these neighborhoods these are the best locations that's or we'd like the pilot for trying to get that

121going this is new technology it's my understanding they are going to put these up across the city where I don't know for sure but they are going to go across the city perhaps we should have the water department come talk to us yeah that's what yeah about why these spots why these locations why not another poll I don't know I mean I appreciate Tim you're effort to answer questions but I feel like maybe our questions require a little bit more input from the people who are asking us to give up our legal rights as a formal matter so if the board wants to I mean it's this is proposed to be for a consent item for the next uh board meeting to be acted on if you want to sort of hold that off we

122can try to follow up with some of the questions that y'all posed and um if it can't go on the next action uh agenda that we have um we can certainly follow up or have someone come for an October meeting perhaps yeah it sounds like we're not ready to put that on as a Max item right I mean we need more questions do we need a motion to amend that from the agenda or no we just won't put it on there yeah I just will not go on the consent item anything else about the water meters [Music] oh I just lost my diligent go into the paper what's next on our agenda oh the equity center yeah that's me um so yes I mentioned this at the beginning of the meeting um we as a

123board back in the spring approved the equity statement brought To Us by the district Equity team and I went back and looked at the minutes because there was some misunderstanding or some confusion actually probably the better word about whether we had approved that to be read at every board meeting and based on the minutes um it looks like it was just approval of the statement that we did not say yes we're approving this to be read at every board meeting so um so I want to just kind of ask the board is this something to put on next week's agenda to consider reading it at every board meeting um and that would be that that's that means two different things reading it every single time we meet whether it's work session or regular meeting or

124just regular meeting or you know those kinds of things so um it it has been at the top of all our agendas since we um since we approved it but I do know from someone who sits on that District degree team I do know there has been a request from the district Equity team that we do read it every board meeting so um just needed to acknowledge that first of all I missed that last week or last regular board meeting and I apologize um for not seeing that and not being aware of it and then just asking for the boards if we want to put it on the agenda for next week yes I mean are you asking that we agreed to put it on the agenda to vote to read it at a report

125meeting yeah obviously the discussion right now too yeah right by consent if can it be on the consent agenda next week or do we really need to have that conversation about whether to do it at every board meeting because to me my response to that is heck yeah we do it at every board meeting in part because not of all the same people come to every board meetings so while some of us may have heard it 10 times in 10 months or 10 times in five months um you know so I I don't know but I'm wondering if we have anyone who would disagree with that and if we don't maybe we can just have it as part of the consent agenda unless we want to make a point of having it discussed so that

126we can make a point of doing that but anyway right yeah so it could be a consent or action action of course would be make it more kind of a point but it also could be on consent I have [Music] my one consideration in the alternative to that would be that with repetition it might become um distilled in in some way that there is then the potential to kind of tune it out and accept it as a given and I wonder if reading it aloud at the beginning of regular meetings might be more impactful and that's just a Wonder I appreciate the wondering for sure because I think that our intent is to set the stage to live into our values and not undermine that in any way um and I don't think reading it

127every time would would do that and I particularly think the way it's written resonates for us as a board like when uh in a very particular way and at work session in particular the final statement about when we meet we invite pause if harm is happen and I think we we are intentionally as a board sitting here because we're looking to do work together in this forum and it feels particularly important to have it in this setting so I would say hear you and I think we can be intentional in our holding of that and if I could say something to your point Miss Kelly I think in order to make it as legitimate as it is we have to practice it like today the reparations um that I'm not IFA I'm not sure about

128all the terminology I don't think we took a moment to reflect on that to breathe on that I think we should have had one of our mental health Liaisons lead a little breathing exercise and help us reflect on the ingrained oppression of Education in our city school systems and the practice of on doing that um so I think doing things like that like it would because I do fully understand what you're saying like as you repeat it more it becomes more of a pattern or a memorization thing and not a practice thing and I think I don't know today maybe there was a missed opportunity to name that harm that happened over 60 years ago and to pause so yeah thank you for that thank you thank you Peyton [Music] thank you um I would

129just offer that I think it's I appreciate your concern Liza too and I believe that it's in how it's read and so I think it just means that whoever the chair is that is reading that statement and I know George will do this is that it is given the emphasis that it deserves every time it is spoken and I think that helps it become not so wrote if we give it the inflection and the emphasis it it warrants every time we read it which caught maybe it's also taking a pause after each time or before we could do you know the chair can decide how that should be handled but I think it we there are ways to combat that um oh okay I'm sorry it's just like to pledge we stand for the pledge

130and everything else uh why don't we just put it on the screen and have that 30 seconds of Silence that people read it himself because if we read it ourselves we all might have a different meaning of what that is all about instead of one person and reading it out so if we put it on the screen right now to the pledge let's give that 30 seconds so we can just read it so we can just take that breath before we start into what we see as a long night or it it just help us reflect of the reason we're here and the purpose that we are here if we just take that 30 seconds after the pledge and let people read it upon himself so that no one has read it out loud we

131can just take our time and read it the more you read it some people might read it after 15 times and 30 in 10 seconds some people might just take their time each and every time and take the whole 30 seconds all right but at least it's their choice of how they want to do it just like we give choices here for as for City school why not just let people choose how they want to read it and how they want to take it in all right that's that's not fair I think that's a really wonderful suggestion and I just I I my intent behind sharing my Wonder is just that it doesn't become like the you know the the thing that doesn't get the public comment where it's like you know you have three

132minutes and yeah yeah I I hear you completely I actually was going to propose the um or or consider or just go out there the exact kind of opposite of what Jesse just recommended and similar to how we do with the pledge what if it's folks within the district who know each time or a different person who's who's reading the that statement for us anyway I so um I think um the question before is does it go on action or consent item for next week as does it get read for every board meeting and then from that we can you know what Amy you've reminded me that you know I've in charge of for the board chair to say like how do we how do we do this right if it is approved to be

133read at every meeting maybe there are some times we just let it sit up there right maybe there's a moment maybe there's something that is hurting in our community right where it makes more sense just to project it and let us sit with it maybe there's another day where it makes sense for uh you know a student group to come in and read it or someone from the equity team or whoever it might be so if you all are okay with kind of giving us giving the boarding giving me that kind of leeway then we would just vote on whether it's red I feel compelled to say that I I think it's a commitment we as a board make which means that for me at least it one of us needs to read it each

134time as opposed to having a Community member read it because I think we are making a specific pledge to the community um and but I do think we could rotate who says it and how and that can be whoever's um however that goes so I we don't necessarily need to drill into those details right now I think agree that the you know primary decision is whether to say it every time and I would be in favor of that oh and the difference between this statement and what we say before the public comment is it's brevity and um you know I think it's something we can say and mean every time and I'd love to work on that statement that we say before public comment every time yes I would too as the person has to

135read it yeah yeah um okay so I guess the last thing is to make sure do we want it as a consent item or an action item we just do need to decide that so I would prefer action because then it's individual or you know it's not just part of consent items but you feel good with that okay so if we can make that an action item please thank you okay um next contracts and mousse Georgia good evening we've got four for approval I would like to um bring back the bud group that was one that we had asked that you had asked to to pause on and then the School nurses both of those exceed the 90 000 that we need your approval for the um Asheville City Schools foundation in real life and

136Delta house those amounts do not exceed ninety thousand but it does involve use of our yellow buses and which we would need board approval and I'm going to refer to the end of the table Dr Fuhrman or Chris Cottle if you want explanation on that state law requires that the board is aware and approves that when we you have yellow buses for non-school activities so these buses we deploy we do get reimbursed for the usage but then the buses pick up the kids from these after school programs and take them to their homes and we do need to make sure the board is aware that that is a service that we are getting reimbursed for but that would be included in those two contracts hmm Eliza were your questions answered about the group don't mean

137to put you on the spot but I just want to make sure is this on there thank you um I I still don't have full clarity on on why we are both Contracting with the bud group and also expending Personnel effort on Contracting custodians as District employees so I can give you a an update and then Tim can add to that we have a continuous application posting for custodians which is very difficult to feel we have not been able to hire enough to um reduce the number of contracted employees we have with blood group that is of course our goal but it hasn't happened just give you a little history we have contracted for the 10 years I've been here um it increased right after covid as everyone knows the labor force is very difficult

138right now we had to go from 7 to 12 because we simply we had too many vacancies we could not uh keep our schools clean so we chose at that time to increase from seven to 12 custodians over there in the rain and custodians that were at the high school to move them to the other locations elementary schools Middle School where we needed help um even though we are contracted for 41 575 a month we've only paid that a couple times each month they are audited as to how many hours they give us just give an example um April we paid 36 900 marks thirty nine thousand three hundred may thirty nine thousand three hundred uh June thirty six thousand seven hundred so we we do keep up with their hours make sure that we

139are getting what we're paying for we have not met the Forty one thousands uh contract price since early last year in the fiscal year I think in October of last year it's been almost a year does that help answer the question it helps but Eric Wells where we have we've shifted our operations to them and I just think that it would be helpful to voice The Clarity on what exactly we are paying for for the bud group and what we as a school district are are paying for in our custodial force does that make sense they're pretty much are the same we're we are asking them to do what we would do if we were there our goal is to reduce this and get back to 100 Asheville City School Employees uh with the current

140state of the economy that's going to be very difficult we have a hard time just filling our vacancies and as you can see we don't pay the full contract they're having a hard time just getting the 12 that we're asking for so this is this is not our first choice this was a necessity basically okay this is this is a temp agency just to fill positions until we can hire but we're we're not then hiring the employees that they place with us is that correct so we pay the company and they fill the fill the gap that we have in the lack of being able to hire employees our intent correct me if I'm wrong Tim is to fill all of those positions with Asheville City Schools custodians when and if we get the applicants

141that will apply for that and that we can hire I think I think Eliza's question tell me if I'm wrong is that if if Bud group has if they are truly kind of a temporary right are we not able to hire from bug group yes that's right is that what you're asking so we are hiring from when we can the temporary placements through bud group they're not like Labor Ready Or Manpower where after so many hours we had the choice to hire them here anyone has the opportunity to apply to us at any time we look at all applications but we do not have in rotting a set number of hours set number of months or days that we can hire their employees that is not currently in the contract we have we have yeah

142so it happens but it's up to the employee to apply that is correct right gotcha but you are correct with uh uh Labor Ready and Manpower we did have that uh agreement with them where we would hire they are trying to place employees um for permanent employment there but this is a little different with with buttercrew Tim can I ask from your perspective what is different about what the bud group does even as hard as it is for them but we rely on them fill these positions that we can't fill what do they do differently that they even can get so much closer than we can they have a whole team that goes out across the country and recruits uh I understand it's about six people altogether two primary individuals but they go to every

143job you know any kind of event labor event out there and they're still having a difficult time trying to fill these positions they're just like us they're we're all pulling from the same job pool and um um I think they go a little bit more in depth as far as Outreach thank you any other questions about any of the other contracts I think we are mine's real quick about the nurses that's nothing the state pays for we're just choosing to hire extra nurses and we pay for it out of our dollars I can't remember how that works how many nurses are we allotted we are not allotted any number of of nurses we use a combination of state and local money okay so that's what this is okay thank you any other questions about contracts

144okay in Georgia you need to discuss the mousse or anything are there any questions on the mius so are we good to put those contracts on the consent agenda good question yeah okay can I have a question more for the board the Delta house is what made me think about it we've talked about trying to figure out what outside groups do well um to help with the I loved how they said it outcome and opportunity disparities and Delta house got that 21st century Grant and I'm happy for them to use our buses but like when do we get a chance to go back to organizations and say hey what's working well that we could learn from it I mean do we ever have that kind of question that's one of the things I'll be working

145on over the next several months is gathering data from those organizations one of the tools we want to try to incorporate in all the mlus is that they use the learning circles data collection tool so that we can monitor those outcomes in a more consistent and regular basis and there is just as I review the list it's there's tons and we have so many mous and contracts it's just it's a lot we're putting a lot we're doing a lot all over the place and it's really important for us to know which of those are successful how do we partner with United Way on scaling those things instead of keep like we keep throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something will stick and we need to be a little more conscientious of what is actually working

146with our students who's getting those results and then how do we either scale that work or help train other groups to Implement some of those strategies any questions about the mous or contracts okay thanks Georgia and next week I was going to ask before we get to this because this could be Heavy so yep so how about that is five too short five enough five minute break five minute recess foreign recess continuing with our open work session next on the item or the agendas is legislative updates with Dr Furman and Chris it goes over it puts into law in North Carolina several things for school boards to be aware of and one of the very first most important ones for us to really pay attention to is the 12 rights that it outlines for parents

147um and that and you've got several attachments and um if you open up the actual law it starts at the bottom of page three and goes on to page four and enumerates those 12 rights for parents most of those are things that are already codified into law are things that are already happening um there's there's a couple that I think we need to pay close attention to one of them is that the the outline that the parent has the right to review all available records of materials their child has borrowed from a school library now that's something we would probably give to a parent upon requests but this is I think something new that it's outlining for stu um to be put in place um was that they were thought there was what was the

148other one that's kind of new it was most of these board members as well is you know although there are 12 rights outline in this bill I mean I think what Dr Fuhrman is saying is that a lot of these are have been parts of the law for some time they've already been rights that parents have had this is just putting them in sort of one place if not you know in other parts of the law but also sort of provided for an existing board policies I don't know that there's anything completely knew that you didn't mention about the piece about the library materials everything else is sort of yeah and then the second thing that it does is it outlines processes and procedures timelines and things we have to follow as a school district

149if a parent has a complaint if they want to access resources so one of the things that gives us an outline of is apparent request resources in a classroom we have to be able to provide those within a certain timeline if we don't we have to explain why so it outlines a lot of those kind of processes for timelines when we respond and then what the parent can do if they want to appeal a decision so that's another that's another big one that it does um it puts in place some policies that we need to review and update and that's the second part of uh the attachments in there if you see the list of policies that we need to update that were Linked In the agenda there's there's a quite a list of those

150and they involve parent involvement parent inspection of and objections to instructional materials policy our comprehensive high school education program criminal Behavior surveys of students student health services staff responsibilities are the ones that really directly pertain to policies that we are going to need to update we haven't gotten guidance yet from what those updates should say from gsba so that's still in the works that I did want to provide the board the list of those policies now also that when we get ready to review the updates you've already got them kind of in the back of your mind and have had a chance to read them and process them before we start suggesting what some of those changes might be anything you want to add to that Chris um only two other components so I think

151just thinking about this kind of at 30 000 feet you know there are two major new things that board policy and procedures are going to have to address some of this first thing is informational requests a lot of what the law is requiring now is that parents are getting more that we have more information available for them not stuff that we didn't have before but that it's sort of readily available upon requests and it'll be part of uh notices and information that's provided at the beginning of year to parents going forward so there's sort of you know just I think the law really speaks to access for parents that being something the general assembly is identified as a critical need so those sort of informational requests for things that parents are supposed to have access

152to under the parents Bill of Rights there is a procedure that is Guided by state law which we will have to have a policy for that starts at the principal level and can ultimately come up to you all if information has been requested and the principal hasn't provide um there's a timeline associated with that but that's really just for information that's something that most most often I think your principals are going to be resolving but if it's not resolved to a parent's satisfaction under the law they could appeal lack of information to the board and the board could hear that as it would any other board appeal there's no further right of action on the informational request the other category that there are still some questions about that we also will have to have policy

153to address are issues that are apparent concerns related to student mental and sort of social emotional mental well-being and access to information related to that those parent concerns are going to follow a similar process but if the parents concerns are not resolved by the principal at the principal level the parent does have under this new law the ability to well it's a cause of action for them to file a complaint with DPI and the law is very specific it puts the honest on DPI to put a process together where the parents petition would be heard by a state hearing officer with a decision made that would be sort of option one option two is they could actually just go straight to court and ask for a declaratory judgment that the that their concerns were not

154fully resolved sufficiently at the school level those are new very new things and I think what Dr Fuhrman said and what you are going to be seeing in the upcoming meetings is kind of two-fold one the School Board Association has some proposed revisions that they have already been developing that you all will see probably your next meeting and it'll outline your current existing policies and those changes are to comply with the law so that's the first reading that you all will look at um the law also has a requirement you know for collaboration and to receive input from parents in the community at large so one of the things we'll probably recommend along with that when you're looking at your policy changes is to have um a public hearing doesn't it could be its own

155meeting but doesn't necessarily have to be could be part of your uh one of your work sessions or your regular meeting to give parents the opportunity to come in and provide comment on the proposed revisions and then as you do for any policy revision it's usually a two-step process so you'll get those revisions in the in the meetings to come and then you'll have a chance to weigh in and look at it and decide if there are any additional procedures that Asheville City finds that it needs to kind of bolster what laws requiring as well so that's going to be a multi-step process for you all in the in the coming week and meetings and there's two I think pieces in this that I I think will this board will really want to kind of

156understand and the first one is under that notification of student physical mental health that does put into place that we are required as a school system to notify um prior to any changes and the name pronoun used for a student in the school records it's not permission it's notification so it does put that into law that is a school system um if a student is requesting a change in pronoun or name even something from you know my name is Tim Jones and I want to go by TJ the school is obliged to notify the parents so that is one of the kind of things that I think for our school system is you know something that we probably aren't as used to notifying parents when our students may share that type of information with us

157particularly when it comes to pronoun changes the other one relates to um age-appropriate instruction for grades K through four and this part of the law says that gender or I'm sorry instruction on gender identity sexual activity or sexuality shall not be included in the curriculum provided in grades K through fourth grade regardless of Staff it being our Personnel a third party and then they go further to actually Define curriculum as anything that includes the standard of course study and supportive materials locally developed curriculum supplemental instruction and textbooks and other supplemental supplementary materials but does not include student initiative response and this again is curates K through four so that is something we do need to you know communicate with our k-4 teachers anyone who does work with our k-4 students and just the clarity on

158on what that means when it says instruction versus you know I have a poster in my classroom that is is about supporting you know people from all different types and supporting families that look different it's not it's not necessarily we just don't want to have a poster that says this type of family is better than any other family so we've just got to be very careful on how we instruct our staff because we don't want to we want to make sure they feel free to still keep some of those deportive posters in their classroom but make sure they understand where we we have to based on the law draw the line on that instruction um with our staff can I can I ask a question just you know as a as an educator what if

159it's a student-driven conversation it looks like that's allowable right but does not but also include responses to individuals is as an educator as a teacher in a classroom I never want my students to know who I vote for you know I want to make sure that I'm giving them that opportunity to develop their own thoughts so it is uh you know I would never instruct a student that this one thing is better than another it would be about accepting all things in all ways of life and all messages of being so it's I think that's the clarification that I'm trying to help people understand is you don't want to in the word that um that we don't we don't want our people to say this trying to change the minds of students when it comes

160to some of these General um areas but affirming student so you is how would you answer that right so you know it depends on what the question is you wouldn't tell the student you can't talk about it but you would want to make sure that we've talked helped our teachers understand the best way to answer and respond to those questions thank you so it's not that they can't say anything and definitely if a student is curious and has questions you would want to talk to them the law does also go on to explain that when students are asking those types of questions we should encourage them to talk to their families about those unless there is some kind of threat or worry that a child is going to be harmed in that situation Dr Fuhrman

161you're bringing up an aspect of this that as I read through it I remained curious about the balance between um there's a moment in the law where it says School Personnel are required to an ability list and one of them is to encourage them to talk to their appearance there's there's no exception listed in that bullet and I'm curious about the balance of Staff in these moments when they have concerns that could lead them to file reports of abuse or neglect and a law that requires them to encourage children to talk to their parents and how is it your sense that when we're training staff on being mandated reporters that's there's a hierarchy there that exists and we get to follow thank you you're in if you're a staff member and you are that concerned

162about your that student that is an area where we definitely want to report that concern to another agency if it's we're that concerned about it because we've got to have a threshold to kind of help guide our actions so I Maggie I appreciate you being politic about this um and yet I also just want to Chris maybe you can help me out with this but kind of going back to what Liza asked um in regards to that what state statute 115c 7655 age-appropriate instruction where it says but does not include responses to student initiated questions um if we have a staff member an educator who is affirming the identity of a child in k-4 let's say it's a third grader and somehow that gets out and someone a parent files a complaint what's Our obligation

163as a board right because I want to be able to sit here and tell our Educators you need to affirm that child and um I mean I could get on a soapbox for a while about the about this law and maybe I will one day um and especially this provision um but I I've had Educators reach out and say what what protections do I have and so I want to be able to say and I know we might not be able to answer this right now right I know that we're still waiting on some stuff but but um you know we we just read we just talked a lot paid and remind us reminded us about this Equity statement that yes you know originally intended for black and brown children but we also have lgbtqia

164plus students in our in our buildings we have um students who are um you know um tomorrow we could have a child come to an educator and say these are my pronouns and this is my name and so what can we be doing as a board to add to to support our Educators who are doing what I believe is the right thing in supporting our students in that way so um to answer some of these but what I will say is that's a question I'm already asked to Chris as well he met with the principals and talked through some of this with the questions that they had and a practice in my previous School District was when a kid was going through a transition and changing gender we would invite the whole class to participate

165in some learning and they would read a book and talk about it as a class so that's quote instruction so how do we respond to that because we also want to create that welcoming environment for the students that's transitioned the students that you know doing that that has to happen because if we don't do that we're not building that sense of belonging with all students and every student regardless of their identity should feel like they belong and I think creating that space is something that I think we should continue to do but that's one of the questions I put out to Chris like how do we do that now when it is something I feel strongly about when we're creating a sense of belonging across all students regardless of race identity gender and I do

166think that's ultimately what our policy and procedures that the board will be looking at and looking to implement and fine-tune in the next couple of meetings is going to have to consider and look at and and and strike the balance that you all are talking about I wonder if it's if it's perhaps around defining the the term instruction and you know if if we are inviting these conversations when a student defines their gender or pronouns or whatever it is that we are not instructing the whole class but we're responding instead to a student so I uh I'm I'm gonna have trouble even talking about this bill so maybe I won't but I will say this I guess I will a little bit um it just needs to be stated that this is not a content

167neutral ability it can pretends to be it ostensibly is but it is designed to harm people and it does that said I appreciate that some of it doesn't require major movement on our part some of it and other part will so I'd like for us to think about a couple of things one is um for us to think about making sure that at the school level we have resources people identified as those who are more knowledgeable than maybe others become experts in how to handle these situations so we need to have people at every single school who are there to advise I mean this is just my thought you all decide but my thought would be that we want to make sure that we are concrete and as specific as we can be in our

168advice my fear is that you have lawsuits threatened and they will happen and so we don't really know the impact of this bill for years to come we won't really know what our teachers are allowed to say we won't really know how folks can respond without putting themselves or the school district In Harm's Way that said I'm all about let's go for Equity as much as possible and we will take our risks because that's the right thing to do I um so I think that we should be really I know you're already trying to do this Maggie and Chris but I would say that let's think about making sure that we have the messaging where it needs to be at every level and then the other thing I'm now blanking um I don't remember so

169I just think that um we as we go along I want to make sure that we're careful to be creative and also cognizant of the threat that our teachers are going to feel the educators are going to feel threatened by this that was the intent of the law for them to feel threatened and so we just really need to be supportive of our Educators in addition to our students who are also going to feel threatened and that was also the intent of the law for students who aren't don't feel like they they because they're understanding and their experience of themselves differs from those that the majority thinks is acceptable and so I just want to make sure that in the ways we can we are recognizing and acknowledging that harm and I'd be interested in

170our coming up with this what I was thinking I knew if I kept talking I'd remember the policy that we you know we have this Equity statement and I also want to think about I don't know what kinds of policies I always feel like our policies are in response to things that the law requires and Maggie you talked about this recently when the chair and and I met with you but let's think about what kind of affirming policies we can put into place where we State who we are as a school district because they they haven't told us we can't do that yet and I think we should I want to follow what Amy said which was excellent but the the fear bit is what struck me and Chris this is a question for you

171I I have read this a few times the only person who could file a lawsuit is the parent right section are you looking at well I was just looking at remedies yeah I mean I think there's two different I mean so and I know this is a law to digest to particularly in sort of the remedies and the causes of action but that's kind of why I tried to separate sort of an informational request type of I mean a parent can request information and it tells you what information parents supposed to get in the law and then that is really resolved at the principal level could come up to you all the second one is one that's much broader is that the one you're talking about and I think I was thinking more of how

172to diffuse some of the fear if a teacher knew it's the parent who can either ask for information or file a claim it's I mean we know they'll be outside instigators but they can't file a suit right under this law I mean the the sort of Rights of action that are created specific to what you're talking about are for the parents right and I think I was just to the sense to the extent that we can defuse some of the fear by explaining this is the the extent of who could cause harm and then really where is there a way to have parents waive their rights can you have an affirmative like a parent says to the teacher I'm offered all this do whatever you want like is there any way to make parents waive

173their rights it's not a question I think I'm ready to answer tonight um and it's probably not one that would be would be more appropriate for closed session if we have a specific legal questions about the application of these policies for us to check in with the students Izzy's had her hand up for a moment um so for the um when the school is required to notify the parent over any changes is that just K through four or is that K-12 okay and then going along with that so if I were to go up to my teacher and I was like hey I would like to use they them pronouns in the classroom would they be required to report it to the school and then the school reports it to my parents or would it

174just be like within Power School changes you'd they'd have to note well they'd give it to the person that we've designated and they would notify your parents yeah so can I want to repeat that that part of what we're thinking is that it's not we're not obligating all of our Educators that if that if a child a student goes to a trusted educator and says I want to use these different pronouns that educator isn't obligated they are we're going to have a point person in the school who then is responsible for communicating that right I also and I'm sorry to interrupt you but this is on my mind in terms of communication can we please make sure as we write this policy that that communication is a phone call because a text or an email

175can be foiled and that we risk outing students so I just want to make sure that we're clear on that that is a phone call yes I think one of the point um to Amy's Point earlier too and this is about not necessarily knowing some of these issues being played out over some time I mean there is language in here which I think addresses some of what you all are talking about which we don't know exactly what the scope of it would be but I mean there is just sort of a blanket exception in here if it doesn't prevent again a state official or employee from acting in his or her official capacity than the reasonable and prudent scope of their Authority so there that seems to contemplate that there are certain some situations where

176you know our employees may be able to act on some situations but um again that's sort of a generic part of the law sorry one last uh something you said and I'm sorry um uh wait a minute um oh I know what I'm saying harm the possibility that the child the the student could be in danger if their parents are notified will we be able to I assume have a con I would like to be able to have a consultation from the person who's going to make that phone call with the student before that phone call is made is there any reason why that can't be required okay I just want to make sure that they check in and say we're going to have to call your parents is there anything that we need to

177should be aware of because if they then identify that there's a possibility that they could be harmed as a result of that is then I don't think that phone call has to be made students Maria where we're still trying to figure out a way around this very very harmful policy we can invest in our students because it's very educator focused Educators like I don't know it feels kind of like a remnant of like the don't say gay bill in Florida but you know attacking trans students and uh um I think I don't know I was talking about this with you know in SGA with our advisors and seeing if we could make some sort of intercom announcement something like that a school email um yeah and the use of fifth period to just for students

178to disseminate information especially gender and sexuality Alliance unfortunately Talia the president couldn't be here with us today but um two other students and informing them hey this is the policy this is what's going to happen and it's like I don't know here's safe spaces on campus right and I don't know I feel like I think we can collaborate and if we I know I feel like you guys don't exactly haven't pinpointed like the exact process of what is going to happen in the case of this situation but I think once that is fleshed out I think we can really work together on getting these like this information this very very pertinent information out like oh my gosh especially like talk talk about school climate like the amount of students that oh my gosh like had

179like non-binary I mean meaning like non-like anyways not CIS students was immense and almost half of the students that responded to our survey our school climate survey that we presented on were students of the lgbtqia community and so I don't know yeah I feel like this is a very very big population that is going to be harmed in our school especially new students like and so anyways so I think we should really really work together on students disseminating this information to other students where teachers won't be the ones getting sued foreign yeah this is one of those laws too that was kind of dumped in our lap after school already started I think we were in they were like hey now here it is um so every district is trying to figure this out together

180and there are far-reaching implications that I mean it'll it'll take a while to figure things out sometimes and you know I was shocked when they didn't say you know here's the thing prepare your implementation plan it went into effect the day that it got overrode so so this is currently like if somebody went to their teacher they would have to report it even now um you don't have to report like me when you say report I want to make sure I know what you're saying but this is North Carolina law like it's in the law books it's a law that we are obliged to implement as a school system so I'm gonna go a little out of the normal purview but I do want to acknowledge that we have Craig white here tonight with a

181campaign for sunlight quality and I think he might have some additional things within the research they've done uh Craig white I'm the supportive schools director with the campaign for southern equality I use he and they pronouns and yes every school district in the state is wrestling with this um some are wrestling to say how can we avoid complying with it or how can we avoid participating in the harmful aspects of the bill and other school districts are essentially taking as permission to discriminate and and running out a lot of anti-lgbtq policies and practices so most of my work is in those districts fighting those bad things that are happening um a couple of things that I would want to say one is that Title IX is really important to bring into this conversation Title IX

182is a federal law that prevents or prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex which includes since the Bostock decision of the Supreme Court it also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression whether actual or perceived okay Title IX applies not only to the letter of the law but also to the intent of the law which has already been spoken to and also to the impacts of the law including creating a hostile educational environment which the students have already spoken to so the students here tonight have cause for a Title IX complaint already just because the discussion of SB 49 has helped create a hostile educational environment not just in Asheville City Schools but in every school in North Carolina it is a tough moment um yeah and we keep

183forgetting to pause when there's harm named so actually can I am I allowed to do that can we take a little pause here thank you now the plus side of the Title IX equation is that Title IX also requires the Title IX coordinator the Title IX compliance officer is part of their responsibilities and under the 1972 law the the Title IX compliance officer is required to look at every policy and practice of the school to ensure that it complies with Title IX over the last 50 years that compliance officer role has really been ignored dismissed it's not reflected in most school districts policies but it is still there in the federal legislation what this does for the Asheville City Schools is it gives you whatever window you need so you have time to look at

184what the Department of Public Instruction is putting out you have time to look at what other school districts are doing before you implement any policies because you can say we need whatever policies we're considering we need to make sure that they comply with Title IX in intent in application and implementation in impact and to ensure that they don't create a hostile educational environment for our students now the intent of sb49 is to create that hostile educational environment so you've got some grounds for an argument here so I think that that can help you avoid rushing into to anything too quickly a couple other things that I would prepare for we are hearing from teachers counselors social workers even some principals and administrators across the state who are planning non-compliance so I just I think you

185should be ready for that whatever policies are rolled out that they're just going to refuse to comply with anything that they believe harms queer and trans students if they choose that we will support them you don't have to but we will I think another thing Derek I'm so sorry to mention this I think another thing that you might want to prepare for is what's called hostile compliance or malicious compliance on the part of the students so it's not just that I think you used Tim Jones wanting to go by TJ and that would have to go to the principal to then be reported to the family well TJ could go to second period and say actually Timmy I want to go by Timmy today and he could go to third period and say you know

186what I think timothin I like that so he could he could he they um could change names and pronouns every single period every single day and the principle would be required to report those to the parents every single time under this law and that's just one student so if the whole SGA starts doing this it could get um pretty much take up all the principles time so I would we're hearing students talking about strategies like these My Hope Is that they will roll out in hostile school districts and not in Friendly school districts because I know y'all are trying to do your best but I do think with social media being what it is you should expect a number of different forms of resistance and non-compliance great thank you very much for your time tonight

187I do I do have one question because um I am known by two different names at school Isabelle and Izzy so would that have to be like disclosed I'll just say the law I mean the law I think speaks to the use of any preferred name that could be for any child in the school in the school district I mean it's just that's just how it's written right so I I do um it's a lot to digest right Craig I appreciate you giving some moment to pause um I want to again having Educators having reached out to me um speaking to them directly right now that that this is um I have heard and I know I'm sure others on this board as well have heard concerns like what do we do like this feels

188like it's dropped into our laps as Maggie said it's law right away um I appreciate Craig um and and Chris giving us this space that like you know we have time to create policies we have a district I I'm speaking for all of us right now we have a district opposed to this law and so we are going to do what we can to make sure that we're writing policy that supports our students and supports our Educators so Educators we know we don't have answers for you tonight but please know that we're working on policies that are going to give you what you need to make sure you're supporting our students um and students I hope you hear that as well that we're going to be working on policy with central office with legal team

189to make sure we're writing policy that supports you um we won't have the answers tonight but we'll continue to discuss this and figure out some policy thank you there were two other laws one is the threat assessment law that one outlines a lot of new requirements and steps and things for our school system this one does not go into effect until next school year so we do have some more time to process and plan and get things ready in preparation of that and then the other one this is I don't want to throw fuel on the fire but it is another law called an active project opportunities for women and girls and Athletics and it does forbid the participation in interscholastic or intramural athletic activities um well it requires that you have to participate in

190the gendered sport that you were born with so I'm a transgender student would not be able to participate in um the female or the male sport for which they have transitioned so that is the other one and that is all that one's already law as well that's correct and it and again this is the law specifically defines and instructs that interscholastic athletic teams are identified based on biological sex that's that's specifically what the law requires and so it specifically does not allow biological males on teams that are designated female and that would apply the middle school as well as the high school level and that law is in effect now and there there are several other pieces to that log which create causes of action for students who feel like they've been retaliated against for

191uh reporting or complying with the law as well as students who feel like they've been adversely harmed by the non-empot implementation of the law as well as a cause of action again for a public school unit or employee who suffers any direct or indirect harm from complying with the law so um that that too is is a wall that's in effect immediately Chris I just want to clarify I thought that for the teams it was you can't play on a female team unless you were assigned female gender at Birth but male teams girls could play on the football team isn't that true or still though my understanding is that this law does not impact existing rules that are governed by the High School Athletic Association for those students the ball is considered coed it's a

192traditionally male sport it can still be co-ed but only girl only people born their birth certificate said female at Birth they can only play on the field hockey team I mean I guess that's how I understood the law about that but it doesn't matter I assume I mean it says that you can Define the sports as co-ed female or male I'm assuming we can't just Define all our Sports as co-ed because those go according to the state I'm sure tells us whether their girls or boys okay thank you I figured is it you got a question okay do we I'm just curious I understand Chris I appreciate you giving us all the ways that a suit could be filed when we submit a roster to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association do we have

193do we have to put under Edna in the past how we put the assigned gender next to the name you know this this is this is just part of it I think if there are specific questions that we have specifically legal questions I'm happy to try to answer those for you in closed session okay just want to note the irony that the threat assessment procedures don't have to be implemented for a while and yet these other far more oppressing issues around gender identity are immediate thank you okay [Music] let's take a moment to breathe take a couple breaths take some four-part breathing activity face um yeah it's yeah um the last thing on the agenda is some policies for first read as you know Dr Dickerson is not here this evening so I'm going to

194go over those and Lisa's here too if we have any follow-up questions so the first one is a student insurance program [Music] um policy there are some minor updates in the first paragraph and then a new paragraph that was added section B catastrophic insurance this is new a new requirement I have not had a chance to connect with Georgia yet and see if we already have that coverage or if that's something we need and then what the cost will be for that but this has been reviewed by legal and is now this draft is in compliance with the new regulation any questions or comments on the student insurance um the second one is our student um safety and student transportation this change only change here was to remove the covid related language any questions on

195that policy all right um for information only we have several policies and procedures the first one is board member conference compensation and the adjustment here is the change is at the very bottom of the last one it's the resource and site references and then they also took out the dollar amount but that really was taken out a long time ago so under Section A the policy that's on our website lists the dollar amount but the that was taken out so we don't know why that wasn't updated way back when so just if you were curious why that dollar amounts out on this version and was it marked as a change any questions on that one all right and then there's a couple updated procedures School level investigations and school level investigations for bullying and harassment

196um these are were drafted by April Dockery as just some supporting documents to help guide our response to these situations at schools or two more okay um then we have a transportation this is a form that our bus drivers need to sign related to drug testing and then the last one is an update procedure for rules and use of seclusion restraint and isolation in schools any questions on procedures that concludes updates on policies and procedures we'll move those on to the consent agenda for next week um anything else on the board for me um so I want to acknowledge the the weight of this meeting it was a first of all a long meeting and a lot that we covered but also a lot of heavy information and um and Vital Information so thank you

197all for being here um thank you especially to staff I've been here for a long day I'm sure um I know we're trying to make work sessions shorter but sometimes there's a lot we got to get through so thank you for being here um traditionally I read announcements after closed session but I'm going to go ahead so and read them now because once we come out of closed section we'll be more than likely will just adjourn and so y'all can go home and don't have to sit and wait until because I know you all are just waiting to hear my announcements and all that after a closed session um so next our next regular board meeting is on Monday September 11th um again another heavy day but we are going back to Monday as we've

198of course been on Tuesdays because of the holidays um so we'll be back on our regular Mondays that's next week parent-teacher conferences are September 13th and so there's no school for students but hopefully students are in the schools talking to teachers optional teacher work day on Monday September 25th and then we'll have our next work enclosed session on Monday October 2nd here in the boardroom and then our regular October meeting will be Monday October 9th and also one thing that I mentioned last time I want to mention again is yes we've got these this legislation that we're discussing and yet we still have a budget and the general assembly is also still not in session to pass that budget so Educators we know this is something we're waiting on interesting that we're talking about this

199legislation when we still don't know what are the the pay for educators is going to be so we're hoping that General Assembly will be back in session soon um and with that um I will ask for oh okay so back it up um the 13th that Wednesday September 13th is an early release day and it seemed pretty early for parent conferences um and so parent-teacher conferences it will be in October you're all are going to listen to me next time and I'll give you those dates then laughs um and so with that I'll ask for an adjournment to go in a closed session pursuant too 143-318 11 subsection a to prevent the disclosure of privileged and confidential Personnel information under General statute 115c-319 321 and subsection A3 to discuss matters protected by the attorney client

200privilege so moved it's been moved second it's been seconded all in favor any opposed all right we are enclosed thank you