Asheville City Board of Education Retreat - 1/6/23

001foreign good morning everyone can they hear me hi good morning everyone foreign now I can great so good morning everyone I'd like to call to order I don't have a gavel uh but I like the call to order uh the special called meeting of Asheville City Schools Board of Education um before we even ask for a quorum uh or we do have a quorum but before we ask for uh the adoption of the agenda I do want to remind we that we're all in this room where sound is not always great we only have five mics to share and pass around so please do keep that in mind that you do need to be speaking on the mic um if only for me because I won't be able to hear you if you don't have

002it um I hate that I can't be there in person but thanks for everyone for getting this organized look forward to a productive day um can I have a motion to adopt today's agenda seconded so it's been moved I didn't hear who moved it but it has been moved and seconded so the agenda is adopted right yeah thank you uh yeah I just asked everyone's patience as we get used to passing the mic around and making sure everyone's heard um so we'll go ahead and get started and uh first on our agenda item is Dr Cosby with uh organizational chart good morning everyone can hear me I think I've got it up close to my mouth so it's a pleasure to welcome everyone this morning and see everyone here smiling faces we'll say just in

003I'm Chris Caldwell by the way for those of you that get to meet from Campbell Shalley um I don't know that the board voted to adopt the agenda and then we had a emotion in a second if the board wants to vote on that sorry my bad don't forget everything I said you look horrible go back it's early and we're dealing with technology soon right my bad so it's been moved and seconded all in favor of adopting the agenda say aye hi hi I think since we're online I think we'll have to have don't we need to have people saying their name and yeah correct yeah you have to do a roll call vote roll call right so uh so where who has the mic right now thank you Rebecca streamer aye James Carter and

004hi George steberg uh any Nays I guess there wouldn't be since everyone said hi all right so it has been moved seconded and adopted so thank you Dr Cosby thank you again once again welcome to everyone we're delighted you here I think we have a wonderful agenda planned today with lots of information probably a whole lot more information than you board members are going to want to deal with right now but that's just the reality of your life now uh just just lots of things to find out and learn that will help you later as you have to have to deal with the board business so I'm delighted that you're here I'm delighted to welcome the new board members actually your second time here you got sworn in one time before but this is your

005first time really getting into digging into things a number of you went to the School Board Association training recently we had a great time there and a lot of good information when we shared just a few housekeeping chores first of all to make sure how we're going to operate today that's uh you know we only have a few microphones and you cannot hear folks who might be watching us from home online cannot hear it all if you don't use a microphone so it's a little inconvenient we have more ordered with their own back order like everything else these days but when I get here we'll be able to have more spread around the room and be a little bit easier to deal with so just just take your time if you don't have one handy

006wait till someone hands you on and then go forward all our presentations are linked to the agenda I communicated yesterday with all board members and all of our staff to make sure you brought your computers with you I think all of you know how to access that if you're a visitor and you're here and you do not did not bring a computer we do have hard copies of all the presentations and uh Kim has those if you'll just make her aware of that I don't see anyone that I think would not have access right now but if you don't let her know she has copies of everything that we can we can get to you so if you need access codes to have checked check in and get online on your computers we have a

007sheet for that information also is there anyone is having trouble getting online very good I had to go back and redo mine because it kept going to sleep all men it's new and it's the first day I've used it so I had to go back and change some settings on it and hopefully it'll stay on now board members sometime during the day and Dylan helped me with this you want to get head shots photos of each individual board member and we want to get their badges set up when do you plan to do that during a break okay so during that time just see Dylan and he'll he'll take your picture and make the men look handsome and women look beautiful like they are so we'll deal with that lunch will be in the uh

008training room over across the way I will be set up over there there's seats in there plenty of seats for all the board members the rest of the folks who are uh here with cabinet members and stuff there's also lunch for you but you'll probably need to just pick it up and take it to your office or somewhere unless you see vacant seats in there but I want to make sure we take care of that so now my parts I don't have a lot because I'm sure I'll leave you've probably already looked at them I may primarily want you to look at the organizational charts to show you how we organize a system to give you an idea of different names and where people work and what they do I won't go into a lot

009of detail on them unless but you can ask questions as we go along let's let's keep this very casual as we go through the meeting if you have a question raise a hand we'll get a mic to folks and then we'll get a response either from me or from yeah from whoever's appropriate person to do it so there's a bunch of attachments on chart organizational charts and they're no no certain order so we'll just go down the down the line the first one is cni Department organization I'm sure if I can get it to Oak mine to open there it goes you can see there Deputy superintendent and the person who's over accountability instruction is Melissa head and then you can see her administrative assistant who feeds it and then you can see the different

010areas that fall under curriculum and instruction and the name of the individual who who deals with with those those things again I'm not going to go into those many of these folks you know some you may not know some will be in and out during the day but if you have questions about anyone to see me or Melissa we can make sure you understand who they are any questions about how this is laid out okay let me get out of that then go to the next one I'm trying to maneuver this one-handed while I hold a microphone the next one is exceptional children and federal programs area and again you see Sarah Kane is executive director for those those areas and you can see all the different departments that's a very very important department we

011we have about 13 percent of our student population who is uh who participate in our exceptional children's programs and with a multitude of different kinds of services and at some point in time later in the year we'll we'll have a presentation and really give you a lot more in-depth detail about all those different services but you can see here some of the different psychologists related Services providers Behavior Liaisons the early intervention Specialists those kinds of positions okay the next one is the equity Department and you'll say that's a one-woman show [Laughter] and she deals not only with Equity but with family engagement and stays very very busy and we will spend a lot of time later I'm sure talking about Equity because that's a real priority with our school system and our community and we

012have lots of things going on lots of folks who've been trained with REI training and things going on some really fantastic Student Activities going on in that area and we'll get you lots more details later but Marty does a great job in that area if I can get out of that one there we go the next one is the operational area April Dockery it's the executive director for that area and fallen into that area's Communications skill nutrition student health services safety and crisis management and transportation lots of different areas that's a very busy busy area it's absolutely constant in those areas the next one is the basically my areas the responsibility and you can see the different ones that report directly to me which I'm blessed to have Kimberly Jones who does a fantastic job

013of keeping me doing what I'm supposed to be doing all all of the school principals report directly to me I do their evaluations and work directly with them and then you can see the all of the cabinet members that report directly to me and then we're showing you some offshoots of what report directly to a couple of those areas so you can see how those flow also with the Kim to chant Randall Johnson with the education Career Academy that flows to Kim Robinson okay and then auxiliary or a maintenance area delighted with Tim Shelton our new acting director in that area he's gotten broken in really quickly although he has lots of experience working over Christmas getting boilers running and things like that anyway but he and his staff and we're going to recognize him

014better at a February meeting but he and his staff just did a fantastic job over the holidays because we had four or five schools that we had some issues that could have really been severe you know he deserves a round of applause so those they won't do that that's you'll make him feel uncomfortable if you do too much of that clapping but Finance these are the folks who deal with all the money pay all the bills get everybody paid and get it to open there we go Georgia Harvey is our chief finance officer so she really has a fairly small staff for handling a roughly an 80 million dollar budget all the purchase orders all the paychecks they do a fantastic job just do a fantastic job every one of them is very good at

015their jobs okay Human Resources is the next one uh Dr Mark Dickinson is our assistant superintendent for that area and you say he has a fairly small staff also and the numbers that they've dealt with this this last year with all the recruiting it had to be done with the turnovers has just been an amazing job and then you're still dealing with it I know but and it's uh but it's much much better than it was to start with so very much appreciate what what they're doing and then let me scroll down here a little bit I've got to use two hands foreign technology I wanted to desperate here because it's a very very big operation we have literally thousands and thousands and thousands technology devices in the school system that all have to be

016maintained and kept up and it's system-wide with it just everything that goes with technology today and they do a superb job rarely ever do a we have situations that they don't take care of almost immediately so we appreciate them very much and then the last one is our student services organization and our new executive director in that area is Kim Robinson Kim is a long time employee of the school system I won't tell you exactly how long she'll accuse me of telling you how old she is but she has a wealth wealth of knowledge in the areas that were having been a school social worker and working with counselors in all those areas and has just really jumped into that role and is doing a great great job and I appreciate her and you can

017see all the things that report to her while some of these folks report dually like social workers if they're in school they report to the principal but they also report to Kim counselors the same kind of situation the mental health student specialist McKinney vinto the homeless program education Career Academy follows under her and there's a listing of those folks and staff staff names for your information okay any questions on any of those we're very very fortunate we have really well qualified outstanding people and uh yeah this is my I had three full-time superintendencies and this is my sixth interim this is as good a staff as I've ever had anywhere and you you just need to be aware of that uh Central Central folks sometimes you know people holler out on the screen because you

018think well what in the world do they do do they sit around all day and drink coffee that kind of stuff unfortunately that's not the case I'm the only one that gets to do that the rest of them have to have to work all the time but they are they are a great staff we have nine really good principals who who are doing a great job with their schools and I'm just very proud to be associated with all of them so moving from there Dr Cosby I'm sorry to interrupt you sure um I just want to thank you you know because um this is I know even putting together an org chart um takes time so thanks to all of the directors who put that together it's really helpful to see it's the first time

019since I've been on the board that we've had something like this and and have it all in one place um I think it's not only helpful for board but also the community um and especially you know we'll be talking about this later as we embark on our superintendent search I think this is also a really helpful thing to have in place so thank you to the admin for putting that together I know it's it's can be time consuming to move all of those boxes around and put in the you know even putting that together so I just want to say thank you thank you George yeah one other thing I think it's it will be helpful as we as a board start talking about how we engage in the community is thinking about our Community

020Partners and who they um are in contact with and who they kind of I hate to use the word report but report to um and so thinking about how that might look adding those into the org chart okay so I just want to I just want to have that kind of in a parking lot as we can get to that point yeah any board members have any questions at all about any of these organizational pieces very good alrighty one of the big areas that you're going to have to be dealing with very quickly now will be your preparation for next year and there's a lot of knowledge and information there that is important that you have some knowledge of we're not we can't get a hold of it in a short period of time today

021but we're going to give you a cursory overview of it and feel free to ask Georgia questions anywhere along the way Georgia is one of the best Finance folks I've ever worked with her knowledge and ability and work ethic is second to none sometimes I have to remind her that just write the check anyway she's very very tight with money so Georgia if you'll go ahead and and your presentation thank you thank you make sure everyone can too um duplicate what Dr Cosby said this is a brief overview of the finance items I would recommend sometime in the future that if you would like we'll do a deep dive into finance budget to include Federal funding Esser and our capital and capital commission it's much more than we can cover today so I'll start with

022the we duplicated the organizational chart let's start with budget coding our budget code contains up to 19 numbers and when the reason it's important is because the board approves a budget at the fund and purpose level and then we um get more detailed for our line items so the first chart of accounts the first one is the fund um budget code and we have budget codes fund one which is state two local three Federal four is capital outlay five is Child Nutrition which is a freestanding Enterprise I will not talk about that today and then fund eight is other specific Revenue which has uh restricted funds and some County funds that we use and again feel free to ask questions along the way the second stage in the budget coding is the purpose level and

023purpose means it is what it's used for and this is included in the budget approval it includes activities or actions that are performed for the objectives of the school system so you approve at the 5 000 through 9000 level 5000 would be all instructional Services six thousand are system-wide support um seven thousand again uh Child Nutrition eight thousand and things like indirect cost and our charter schools and nine thousand our capital outlay the third segment is program and this is how our funds are allotted generally from the state and the FEDS in a planned activity and we've got examples there I'm I'm not going to read it word for word unless you would like me to we do have a full list linked at the bottom of the um PowerPoint the object code object code

024is more specific about the expenditure 1000 and I mean excuse me 100 and 200 deals with our salaries 300 is uh purchase Services 400 supplies and materials Etc George I'm sorry to interrupt you um we use purchase services that would be um contract it could be okay yes you um I've given you an example of what a four segment budget code would look like and in the next slide again some examples of uh even further we do have the Fifth Fifth section does designate the location and then um the further segments are for us to designate specific things like we have one just for safety we have one if we have special projects for uh for example if we were going to do a new roof we might designate a number just for roof so

025we know that any questions questions on the budgeting right now coding a real basic question so from the state fund 51101 classroom teachers is a certain amount and then there's some from the local fund where do all those feed together so that we would see the cumulative like classroom teachers no matter what the fund does that make sense yes so um in the state funding that would be in the but that is just for certified teachers and you would see that in fund One Fund three fun um well not all of them know there are other ones like o32 which is um Sarah Keynes that would also contain teachers so so and I'm so sorry I think that's okay it's more basic basic different source of funding to see the amounts at each different level

026and then either add them up together or correct question was is there any kind of comp is the budget have a overview where all those numbers feed into the same place not the one that you approve okay yes I don't go deeper into that at a further time Georgia go back to one of those codes just one example you've given just walk through one of those to show exactly read it what it means okay so the um the last page that has the two examples fund one would be your state 5110 means that it's instructional funds 001 is designated as teacher funding the 121 is for certified teachers who have a classroom roster and then the 302 designates the school that was that is uh Asheville High School um and I think to further answer

027your question we could have a 151 1001 I'm sorry uh yes 001 131 which would be a facilitator they don't have a classroom roster but they do support the classroom um fund two a five thousand fifty three Thirty remedial Services 069 would be at risk um an example is would be tutors during the regular day or after school that are helping those students that need a extra work 143 and then 304 again is the school designation Georgia the um in that example the remedial Services they can come out of fund one right we have yes yes or they could come out of fund three yes so these are just your this is just another example of local funds being used correct this is probably a silly question does the um does each individual position position

028that we have is it funded by only one fund or are there do you combine they're funded by many funds right so so for example if you had a classroom teacher that had was supported by maybe that's not a good example because maybe those are all the certified teachers are probably all supported by state funding is that right or no no also local funding right okay Federal funding and you sometimes have a hybrid of those correct okay and so that would be very interesting because you can't really tell how much What proportion of any particular position based on the coding is going into that right not based on the coding but based on the allotment the state gives us and that we use for local and federal funds yes for example the state uh gives

029us a planning budget at the first of the year and they may say you get 181 teachers than anything above that we pay locally or yes yeah Georgia yes a funding source for teacher might change during the year for example if one person leaves and someone else is hired and depending on where it's best to pay that first because the state will pay full salary benefits if it's a state position so we pay the highest paid people so if someone comes into higher paid we may she may have to switch a teacher who was maybe local and switch that person to State and vice versa and she has to watch that constantly throughout the year and I may not have understood Amy's question but I think what she was asking was if we were to

030see a list of all classroom teachers I think but you could tell me I'm wrong that a certified classroom teacher gets x amount of salary from the state of North Carolina and that is showing out of fund one in addition I believe every certified teacher in a classroom gets a local supplement and I may misunderstand that that's correct but so in theory a paycheck would part of it came from State dollars part of it came from local dollars and it I don't think Amy necessarily wants to drill down on that but those numbers would be available so we have a sense of how teachers are paid and then just to go further some teachers are not covered by State dollars and they're just 100 out of local funds or partially federal funds like it's a

031just a grab bag is that yes so yes is that right you were asking Amy I think that my aunt yes I mean I was also trying to figure out like if there was any place where each particular position has an allocation of and doesn't really matter but just sort of an allocation of which you know this person has these this is the person is a little pie chart right um that idea but I don't know that it's important but one thing that is important to me at least is to figure out and you know this but it's the fun like looking at these budget codes I'm struggling to figure out how I find out how many teachers for example or how how many teachers are funded in what percentage from what fund exactly and

032that's something we can go into okay um again the state gives us an allotment like Dr Cosby said they give us a number of teachers for certified teachers in that allotment it doesn't matter how much money those 180 teachers cost us they're going to pay it so we always put the highest paid teachers longest number of years of course determines that into State funds our beginning teachers generally fall into local funds because they are making the lower salary and it is it changes monthly depending on who gets um you're depending on what comes from HR out of DPI to deal with their salary so if a teacher gets national boards added on like some have in January they may move from local funds to State funds and somebody gets swapped because of the dollar amount

033I have another question I'm sorry but no I'm not going to apologize um um so what about principles how is there I'm very curious about how a principal's salary is determined who determines the principal's salary because I've heard some little stuff and I'd like to know how to answer that question that's a great question DPI has a formula and they tell us where the principal lands in the chart so a principal's pay is um determined twice a year July and January is determined by ADM and by school growth um testing growth yes is there any wiggle room or do you are we just are they just the number comes from DPI and that's that the number comes from DPI if we if we pay them out of state funds differently from what the state says

034then it throws an exception and they will not accept it that is the um for example if a principal is supposed to earn six thousand dollars from the state and the board and the superintendent determined that they should make sixty five hundred then the 500 would have to come out of local funds okay and that that gets to that's part of what I'm wondering so the principles salaries can be supplemented with local funds and I trust sometimes are supplemented there are well I know that I assume they all get the local supplement as well right and then do you also make judgment calls about this principle has been super outstanding and you know where is it no we don't have any authority to do well we could if you did locally right basically it's the

035local the site is determined by the state then there is a set amount of a local add-on to that depending on what's in elementary school middle school or High School and then there's a local supplement on top of all that so there's three levels on principles pay now you could add a fourth if you wanted to for performance or something but most systems don't do that okay thank you other questions before we move on okay so I'm going to talk more in detail about some funding and where our money comes from our Revenue sources fund one is solely State funds and the state has a variety of methods in which they determine what we're going to get the largest one being average daily membership ADM and our projected planning budget for the year is based

036on the best average daily member membership from the first two months of the previous year so our planning projected ADM for this year was 4210 we have completed our best one of two for this year so our actual ADM for DPI reporting is 4033 it can vary for the rest of the year but this is what funding is based on so unfortunately we dropped more than a hundred that's the the gateway to losing money so they will take money back um from our planning budget or a projected budget um we estimate around five to six hundred thousand and then there will be a charter school membership adjustment this month or next month and I have no idea what that will be so they they do take money away for Charter School membership and for ADM

037Georgia would you explain the charter school stuff a little bit more yes um so students that live in the Asheville City Schools district that go to a charter school are reported as students that we have to share our local funds with or schools that we have to share our local funds with so I have a slide later on that shows our trend for the last three years but with our local funding we share um to a variety of charter schools if they are if the charter school sits in the Asheville City School District then we also share the supplemental tax per student with those schools only Georgia I'm sorry I didn't I didn't understand that so in addition to the the State dollars going with the student some proportional math is done and a share

038of the local dollars goes to yes I did not know that thank you if the school is actually located in in our tennis area they get part of the supplemental tax if this goes outside of our tenant series they don't get supplemental tax but they get the county amount would you say that one more time yes I knew I shouldn't have said it uh first thing they get to go to a charter school state allocations follow them okay secondly then the local allocation from the county follows them if that Charter School happens to be located physically in our Asheville City School District boundaries then they also get money from our supplemental tax okay but if that school is not within our boundaries they don't get the supplemental tax they just get the state money and

039the county money okay so I this I think this is most easily answered by Georgia in the budget that ended June 30th 2022 the number going to Charter Schools was 1.654 Million what is that that's our local or that was the state that was our local this what the state does is they they essentially give us our budget at the first of the year tell us what we're going to get and then they take it away as the year comes in depending on the charter school membership so charter number for State dollars is simply adjusted up at the state dollar level and that payment is local dollars correct that's only local dollars thank you okay um fund three is our federal funds and again this is a variety of methods that ncdpi uses most programs

040require an application prior to approval of the budget or the funds some examples I gave you PRC o17 this is CTE funds program Improvement and it's based on the average daily membership of our students a uh that should be grades I'm sorry grades five ages 5 to 17 grades um fifth through 12. and then they also look at the student enrollment in the CTE programs there's quite a few things that go into that um determination PRC 103 this is supports effective instruction these would be funds that we use to ensure that we have highly recruit and retain highly qualified teachers the various things that are used with that those funds the biggest thing with federal funds is to know that um and Sarah Kane does an excellent job of this is documentation of the use

041of federal funds many of our federal programs are audited every year and sometimes two or three times a year we have so working for the Department of Justice I know that there are we have various grants right that we give out um to Asheville City Schools sometimes anyway but but do you do we have anybody who sort of keeps an eye out for possible grant opportunities local state or federal I'm wondering if we have like the equivalent of a development director no all of our directors keep all of our directors do that okay so um Sarah Kane and um our other directors are constantly looking at state and federal opportunities as well as local and I will say I think our foundation is great at looking at our locals too or any other opportunities that

042she has to find money for us but we do not have a Grant person specifically fund two we received these money from the local government these are pass-through funds from our taxpayers for property tax sales tax fines and forfeitures we also receive supplemental city tax from Asheville City and again the charter schools receive a portion of some or both fund four is our Capital again we receive it from the County Government there are specific tax areas that we get this money article 39 is a one cent tax this is for the school Capital commission we do not hold that money or budget it or um you know we work with the county on that they take care of that money and we um work with them and now Tim will work with them on projects

043that for this year and then going forward article 40 and 42 are half cent tax that are designated for school education and we receive our portion of that based on Buncombe County schools and Ashland City Schools ADM Sunday is other funds generally these are restricted funds from state federal or local grants and we also put our sales tax which pays our local supplement let me jump in there and say just a couple of words about fund eight this fund didn't used to exist it was created after Charter Schools were set up because there were a number of court cases over what monies we had to share were charter schools which we did not so the state clarified which which funds for example uh previous to that so yeah Asheville High School might apply for a

044Federal grant just something themselves and they would get that charter schools are trying to claim they should get a cut of that when they didn't have any similar program or any kind of thing like that so fund eight was set up to allow us to put those kind of things in One Fund that did not get shared with Charter Schools and that's where your your city sales tax goes which is used to pay most of our supplements a big portion of our supplement so they don't get any of that um another question but backing up Capital fund those have sent one cent tax all of that you're saying I think what I understood you to say was the County government basically gets and manages that fund is that radical 39 yes right and do they

045also include other funds in that Capital fund or not or is it just just these three things and that's what's available to the year for all County Schools so article 40 and 42 is what they allocate to Bunco County schools in Asheville City schools and we manage that fund they give us that money okay article 39 they hold those funds and we do that through um I don't want to say an application process but we we um collaborate with them on the projects that we could not afford to do yeah so we ask them so we have those the bottom 240 and 42 are our Capital funds that we control correct and we use that to get a new roof or whatever it is that we need and then article 39 is Buncombe County holds

046on to that and we get to say please please we'd like to build a new school and we need more money for that correct or um Tim can which projects are we funded for this year okay we uh currently this the county is doing a fund that um Hall Fletcher uh they're doing one over at Lucy hearing and we can see it and we just got recently approved for renovations at Asheville High School auditorium just completed the the new Jeep building which was funded through that in Asheville high school and the auditorium is in the planning process right now the G building is currently finished up now they can they can add more funds into that other than article 39 and they do that sometimes to bond revenues think that James just told me that

047George sits that County yes he does yes so we have an inside person awesome thank you let me ask a quick question it's actually just a sister Cosby said so the supplemental city tax part of it goes to fund too but the part that is restricted goes to fund eight no no all the supplemental task goes to fund to the sales tax sales tax that comes in goes to fund eight thank you okay so um again just some information on Revenue sources fund one is State allocations they give us the planning budget at the beginning of the year um and give us weekly and monthly updates they either give us some or they take it away fund two is um Buncombe County Government we know July what our funds will be for the year fund

048three Federal they are partially allocated around October November and again with weekly monthly updates fund four we know that in July from Buncombe County and fund eight the sales tax we know the other restricted funds are either if there's any left are carried over or um we we do use every cent of the Buncombe County sales tax for our local supplement every year that's their funds are this is just a note those are those have been budgeted through fund three and those are specific we're going to talk about that in just a minute Georgia could you also just remind people that um yes we know our fund to fund balance we know what that's going to be in July but also you know a lot of people have always said oh you can just ask

049the county for more money but explain that how we can't just ask the money because what happens so when the county allocates their School Educational budget our portion is determined by our ADM so essentially if we went and asked for an extra million dollars they would have to end their budget see if they could give Buncombe County schools because it would be a requirement 85 percent greater than that so it's and that's what we do every June right or so we go before the County Commission and we ask for what we think we are going to need and we try to justify it just like Buncombe County did last year to justify and then we got a little gravy train off of that perhaps yeah because whatever the allocate for one system for people they

050allocate to both for people I want to mention one thing also for you on Thunder don't mean to confuse this but you need to know it at some point in time the federal budget is different than our our budget the federal budget begins October okay so we have issues with Federal budgets making sure we have carryover funds to carry from first to July up until into September to get to that new budget comes in so we so sometimes it's a little confusing how those funds flow yeah we might use local funds and then transfer later on in the year I'm sorry go ahead George no Tim go ahead I will say this on the capitol we have a projected priority list that we're working off of that changes depending on needs of the schools periodically

051uh I think it's projected out about five years but we're looking beyond that as far as 10 years as well uh one thing that we didn't mention is there is a track at Asheville high that is being uh awarded and looked at early spring here with uh completion date before school starts in August but that and we can go over this later in depth there's a lot to it but there is a lot of components to the capital that we look at each year so uh at some later day we'd love to go through that I'm in more detail with you there's also some State Lottery funds that it's great no useful for that in fact I'm probably going to bring you a recommendation in February to look at to use some of the lottery

052money on a couple of projects pottery here in the funds the state I mean how does so the state holds Lottery funds we have to apply but yeah and they have to be approved by this board and then by the County Commissioners also and then we get to get the fund into you and there's regulations on what you can use it for George that was actually going to be my question is because we as board members get lots of questions about the lottery funds and why can't they why can't Lottery funds cover some shortfalls wherever they may be um so yeah George if you could just repeat that the the constraints around Lottery funds and that kind of thing so again um if the poor if the I'm sorry if the board and the superintendent

053determined that they would want to use the lottery funds uh the board would have to approve the county has to approve and then you would send the application to the state they have very strict regulations on items that you can use it on um and those those funds flow on an ADM basis we it's not a grant kind of process each quarter it's added to our account right now we have about a million half and sitting in that accounts okay now I'm a little bit confused so we have so the lottery money comes to our district for ADM well it's there but we have to ask lots of people well we don't actually get any direct Lottery money for ADM that flows through State funding from yeah so when you say though we have a

054million and a half sitting there that's in that's in Lottery money for facilities and that's but but it is hello okay I'm back um but it is allocated for Asheville City Schools correct in some little state pot of money it's a little fun though there and we have to go through a ton of bells and whistles and Hoops we have to follow the regular oh we know how much is there and so if we see a need that one of the pro thank you yeah and that there are other there's another part of let's call it public school facilities fund we don't qualify for that because we our property valuations are too high for example there are a number of systems systems across the state have just been allocated like 40 50 million dollars for

055new school we don't qualify for any of that funding that's fair also with our Lottery funds they are based off of it's the county itself yes okay could you explain that a little bit because I don't think it's very similar to how we receive our money from the county um the lottery funds are given to the counties and then if there is a city school within the county they they separated out from that so hence the need to go through the county now it makes a little more sense correct thank you okay the next slide is um an overview of our current revenues and budget that was presented so um the state funds the 31 million does not show the charter school or ADM reduction um can you speak to the the volume that we

056lose based on the charters in terms of Revenue so um they look at the dollars per ADM at the state level for charter schools and then our Charter School membership and they reduce certain pockets of money from the state for example teachers is one that they will reduce so um for example if we lost five for our 200 students that we are less for ADM our Charter School enrollment of course doesn't doesn't hold as high a dollar reduction they haven't told us what that dollar is going to be per student but if we have a hundred students charter school students then they will reduce us per that number which would include again it's only certain pockets of money would be instructional money teacher money and it's important to remember we we constantly watch the numbers

057adjust with allocations of how many people are put out there when we don't have the kids we don't have to serve them so why we say it's a loss it is a loss of revenues but it's also we don't have to expend as much which is critical to know if a student transfers to a charter mid-year what happens we pay we don't get the money back from the state though there's a cut off Charter's bill is monthly monthly voters Bill s monthly for the local but the state we never see State funds so the state that's a good question the state gives us money at the beginning of the year after the best one of two even of charter schools they take the money away there's not another adjustment from the state later on in

058the year we could have we could have a hundred kids come back to us it will not be adjusted this year if we had a hundred kids leave us they will not adjust it again it's not adjusted again right that's at the state level yes yeah in addition though yeah you're also paying 1.6 million dollars locally and that that varies month to month depending on the Charter School enrollment but it is important to remember that if we don't have them we don't have to serve them I appreciate you saying that Dr Cosby but we don't there's I'm assuming in my mind there's like tipping points where you don't need another classroom teacher and like you can't you can plan for that to a certain degree but when things are moving that's why I wanted to

059know if we if money ever becomes in jeopardy during the year because you're not going to let go of a teacher you're going to so that's stable it's it's not big numbers it moved during the year okay you may you lose a handful during the year most of them start their new new school year somewhere okay thanks local funds and fun to age the first one is local expenses these are expected or projected local expenses with sixty percent going to salaries um the um second one which is fund eight or other funds we have 62 percent going to local supplements Georgia yes where do where does transportation fall under this transportation is uh State funds and um some some of it will come out of our local salaries and local expenses but we get a

060we get a certain amount from the state for for our transportation yes and that's a really complicated issue we can deal with later if there's an efficiency formula that considers everything from a mountainous you are to how flat you are and what the prevailing wages in your area to the how many kids you have on the bus it's a very complicated things that they the experts who create to tell us we can't understand all right then Georgia before you move on so in these two pie charts local expenses the 60 almost 60 percent that's salaries not local supplement the local supplement is from this other right that I just want to make sure that those two things never get combined in any month's mind especially mine so that's a great question so in the fund

061eight right I would say 98 of that salary is local supplement there are a few that come out of fun day in local salaries that does include the local supplement that we don't have enough money to cover from the sales tax thank you the next slide is an example of Charter School payments and it's a breakdown again um the highlighted Francine Delaney and Peak are within the Asheville City School District so we share this the supplemental city tax with those two schools Georgia why do we have to give Lake Lord we don't give Lake Lure money right um we have we have no share in Lake Lure but if we had a student who would have been Asheville who drove all the way out to Lake Lure to go to we oh son of yeah

062so in 2021 we had one student that we paid for you'll notice the two virtual Charters also the NC cyber and NC virtual we do have some students who do that that's a Statewide school Tuesday my schools yes the two Statewide Charter cyber schools there's a department list NC cyber NC virtual we do have some students who attend that not a lot but some students who do that and Sarah came reminded me that our Title One funds are also shared with Charter Schools and excuse me private schools for services um this next one I think is very important people don't understand Banking and availability can I yeah real quickly the private schools out because of the iedea is that why we're paying some private schools right oh I'm sorry I'm sorry it's okay so if

063they're from our attendance Zone same thing at school the Money Follows the student but they have to be they have to need the private school Under the individuals with their disabilities and Education Act am I right that's EC so for Title One a little bit different okay so we're looking at those poverty levels at those private schools so private we actually fund okay federal funds for Title One title two and title four and those Monies go with students but even when okay so I think what you were going with the private school so I know that the state passed something about what five years ago that said if you want your child to go to a private school will help fund that that doesn't that's not these dollars I think you're talking about the voucher

064system the voucher system the voucher system doesn't affect this right okay good okay Banking and availability of funds uh I think it's a misunderstanding that we get the money the minute it's allotted or approved that is not true we do not receive allotments in advance or in large lump sums All County funding is received monthly um All State funding is received when we request the money to be able to pay the bills or the salaries we hold no state or federal funds at all the state funding the same thing when we request to pay invoices or um payroll um and then special grants um generally those are it depends we receive some of those when we need to pay the bills sometimes we receive those in advance but that we're not talking about large pockets

065of money foreign funds we were able to request those how did we request those or when did we get those so that's federal funds so we get that as we need to pay our bills but I am getting ready to let Sarah can give you a little information on Esser funds I'd like to preface that Esser and capital that's we could do a deep dive in that so it's um this is just surface level and to do one more question when you do you said with the payroll and invoices from the state um you get those when you request it so when you when do you request payroll funds basically so we request um accounts payable weekly our payroll request once a month and there is a five to six day period of the transfer

066of funds so it's very difficult to explain that you can't just write a check in the and the check be there we we have to have a process in requesting the funds then it's direct deposited into our account which then is deposited into our um individual payroll accounts so the answer funds fund three these are in combination with all of our federal funds but what this slide shows is just our Sr amounts there was sr1 we were that has already expired so those funds were spent so we're down to sr2 and sr3 and then there's miscellaneous subgrants but these are two big areas and we did link my presentation from October because it was a deeper dive so you know I would encourage you to kind of go to that just remind everybody Esther was

067about response prevention and recovery from coven 19. it's not just general funds for any use very specific areas and allowable expenses as are listed here and while it shows our our current balances many of those funds are already encumbered due to salaries or it's a grant all of these are grants and so they were approved allowable expenses that we requested for very specific uses from the state you just said most of this 5.1 million is already encumbered if you had do you have a sense of how much is not um so you can kind of go into the prep deeper into the presentation and I'll show you for allowable areas what we have budgeted for this year um so there is there are funds that we've kind of done a general budget for the next

068two years if you're looking at sr3 um but a great deal that when it shows we have three million and five hundred thousand dollars that money has been budgeted for different expenses makes sense thank you so it's not just sitting there waiting thank you foreign our Capital funds the fund 4 Capital Revenue that's just a repeat of what was in our approved budget I would like to say that um before I hand it to to Tim that this includes some long-term um capital outlay for example we have ordered five activity buses to pay over five years we are required to appropriate that money in the first year and then carry over the fund balance in following years so I'm gonna let Tim talk about types of expenses and anything else um Georgia can you give

069me though a quick Expo so it says a pro Appropriations fund balance is that what this is is this the thing that we have all the time is the fun yes which might be going to nil or might not be well I know it's not it's a joke everybody that's a joke that's a complete and utter joke we'll get into that in a few minutes okay all right thank you some types of capital projects we might be working on would be like a roof a plumbing project something that we can handle kind of under the capital commission's budget so just real quickly uh examples we've done in the past are roofs door Replacements Plumbing Replacements Bowlers HVAC units chillers things like that the capital commission is for much more higher priced projects more in-depth 10

070million dollar plus projects that sort of thing and I will put together a list and I will give it to you guys about some of the things we're doing in the future some of the things that are coming up in our five-year projected plan to kind of help understand that a little bit better if that's okay okay our unencumbered funds 1.1 million in capital um they're not encumbered but we have in the works um some lost my train of thought we have a technology van that we have not ordered yet Safety and Security projects like fencing that we are getting prices on and then of course other facility projects due to emergencies like our winter weather that were unplanned that um essentially what I'm saying is the 1.1 will have to sustain us not only

071the rest of the year but we'll probably have to ask for approval of some additional appropriated fund balance depending on emergencies that we foresee 1.1 yes question about fund balance fund balance is retained earnings it should be it should provide for emergencies um it should not be for recurring expenses so the general use of fund balance or one-time expenditures again emergencies litigation or um you know to balance the current budget so I've given you a chart of our beginning of the year fund balance that has that Georgia can I stop you for one second you just said it shouldn't be for recurring expenses but then you said to balance the budget could you tell me what you mean by that so if we do not receive enough funds from state federal or local and we

072cannot meet our budget that's when you should go into a fund balance so I'm thinking about things like our ADM being in 100 students lower you started telling us that means we're gonna we we had a budget plan correct but our ADM didn't meet that projection is that the type of situation that could lead to this type moment yes okay so in this year's budget we the board did allocate or appropriate fund balance for local funds for Capital funds and for fund eight so not emergencies if we if our projected planning could not meet our expenses then so in the past has that fund balance in the last five years for example Ben used for things that you would not categorize as emergencies or balancing the budget or is that how it's always been used

073I believe that's how it's always been used to balance the budget thank you that's that's a fairly normal process in most school systems then you try to use as little of it I should have to and and I have to say that it uh close to year end we do a very deep dive into um can we shift some things to State funds that we didn't think we could or we got a little more money than we didn't expect for example we got some state grants at the end of the year last year that we were able to shift local use into State funds um we did a closer look at our Esser funds and we did we were able to use some of those we had spin it out of local but we saw

074that it was um in the Esser use so and then we had some um staff that were not hired rehired at year end so we saved some money that we had not anticipated at the first of the year last year superintendent can add one thing that I think helps board members would fund balance so fund balance is also serves two other purposes that I think it's very important to keep in mind you are required unlike Congress to have a balanced budget it is a forecast it is a guesstimate of what the expenses and revenues will be so by using fund balance to plug the budget in common speak what you're doing is you're allowing yourself to have a balanced budget and you won't know until the end of the year how the revenues and expenditures

075worked out in some years you use fund balance in some years you add to fund balance so it is a moving Target and it's very important to remember that a budget is always a forecast or an estimate the second issue is that this is how you do cash flow not all of your revenues come in exactly when the money has to be expended on the expenses so without a fund balance and I want to say this very clearly a lot of folks will say well why does a school board even need a fund balance you could go to the County Commissioners if there was an emergency well your business office can't pay the bills if they don't have the cash and the expenditure and the revenues don't match up very nicely week to week month

076to month so that fund balance is also used for cash flow and I think when you understand those Concepts it makes a little more sense is there a standard formula or ratio that you that you use to determine a healthy way of plugging the budget like you said I mean we're talking about huge number and so you're not you do have to create it with your best with the best information you have knowing it's going to shift and move but based on historical Trends and the funding structures is there a way of saying once you exceed X percent then you've gone into you know it's a little tricky for me to Grapple with the idea of emergencies but also balancing the budget and I get it and I appreciate the explanation but then what's the

077meter how do we know when we've gone too far you want to start so the state does not um have a for example a municipality they might say 18 of a fund balance is a good working fund balance the state doesn't say that for school systems um and in my mind financially 18 10 at least 10 percent but 18 would still be good for us but um can I ask you to tell me what you mean by 10 18 so to hold in your fund balance 10 of your working budget per year okay within each within that fund within that would just within that fund yes so if will you flip the math for me because what I'm thinking about is then I think it's it's potentially like the inverse like when we go to

078build a budget and look at what we're what money are we expecting right like are there ways to look at what's come in in the past so that if like if we so that we won't get caught off guard like to prevent ourselves getting caught off guard by using more of the fund balance to plug or balance than what is healthy like I can understand methods for knowing how much to have so you feel safe you feel like yes we can address emergencies and make sure our cash flow and our operations are are working but how do you know when it's veered too far I think that what you will do when you get to budget is one of the things that the finance officer will be bringing to you is what is the historical

079use of fund balance and why to some degree from the big picture not the trees but the forest and it is perfectly legitimate to say let's are there categories that we have historically needed or not needed fund balance I think that's what you're asking because you know all of the expenditures are by category most of what you spend money on is Personnel Personnel is 80 something percent of the budget it has been in the past I think we're around yes 80 times 80 your budget is people so when you get to the budget process you'll be asking those questions and I realized too there's no well and I'm also some number that people feel like is too much of a percentage but looking back historically and saying have we over or understent in a particular

080category is something you're going to do during your budget problem and to what degree are the projections and it's important to know that we can't spend more than what's budgeted from fund balance without coming back to the board for an amendment correct yeah okay so I realized I'm a double in thinking it through and I appreciate you going on this journey with me that um I'd also like to know how accurate have our projections like when the state says here this is you know it was 42 but we're at 433 4033 right that how far off how often are we facing a shortage or those projections not lining up and create these problems for us correct foreign so from a financial standpoint and I think Dr Cosby would say the same thing we are okay

081with our fund balance today but we always we it would be great if we don't have to dip into it much the next one is just where you can find financial statements and Etc on the web page um I think it's important to that you see example of a budget amendment these are things you're going to start seeing in February we bring to you this if there is a an allocation that was not planned in the original budget so in this example there was an additional sr2 of 6000 so we bring that to you for approval but also in the same area we moved around the expenditures budgeted based on the need the actual need or um for example we might have thought we were only going to get 11 000 and we ended up

082getting 17. so we put it into one code until we find out the specifics use of that again I want to remind you that the um the board approves budgets to the fund and purpose level and then the last one is the budget planning timeline this is the time of the year we start doing that I wanted to give this to you so that we can um be aware of what we're doing and um certainly when that we need to start meeting on this it's got something else it's like oh are those just want to add this on the capital projects it's easy to put all this on paper and all but I'd really encourage you to set up a tour with me it's better to see it and I can kind of show you

083some of the conditions in some of our facilities and things that we're looking at doing uh visual is the best way to understand that I think so I would encourage you I'd love to take you at any time and show you some of these facilities what we're looking at any other Finance questions just real quick it I think it's critical they understand this because this is different Buncombe County and Burke County are the only two counties in the entire state that have a dedicated local sales tax for school construction that is huge years ago the county agreed it used to be ADM which meant Asheville only got Asheville City Schools only got about 15 percent of that money the county agreed and there was a change at the general assembly it is now need based

084so that's why you and the county schools go to that committee together you present your needs and then they decide who gets what based on actual need and not based on just percentage of daily enrollment so keep that in mind and then also capital and current expense are two separate pots they cannot be interchanged you can't say let's spend our Capital fund balance on operating and you can't do vice versa in the absence of a true emergency with County Commission approval so remember those are two separate pots uh Georgia one question about this timeline so as I'm glancing and I may not understand it um I guess my request is you can tell that we ask lots of questions which is why we're behind and I'm I'm the chief culprit um and so my concern

085is looking at this timeline I want to make sure that we're getting like drafts of everything really early because we're gonna have questions and we're gonna need to feel accountable for the decisions that we make and we have lots of folks as how we should spend our money which doesn't mean that anyway you get the point so as early as possible get us whatever you have because what I don't want to have happen is here's a budget now approve it I agree thank you and and we're looking specifically at the local budget because the state and feds are just um love to have another work session just on budget great great questions great questions you can see one you can see why I put this first on the agenda everybody else is going to have

086to dab now the time wise so if you'll get out of that and go to your next one which I believe is human resources so Jim I'm sorry just real quick I just want to kind of Corral you know that those questions that discussion so we've got this timeline for the budget process um and and Amy I appreciate that that clarifying or that commitment to like we are we are questions oriented board um and so having things presented to us um early so we can start asking these questions I'm also hearing I just want the board to kind of confirm this I'm hearing um you know deep questions about fund balance um so making sure that as we go through this buzzer process fund balance is um is kind of front and center and questions

087and Clarity is coming up around that uh and then also um a deeper dive into Esser funds is is that what I'm hearing from the board or is that I'm just thinking about the timeline that we have the putting together um work sessions as we go through the budget process knowing by a certain date we have to have a budget um approved by the board and presented to the state um like wanting to hear from the board what do we want moving forward work session by work session to go kind of deeper so we have a more thorough understanding of the budget I think um what I've heard a lot of is the local fund and how it's historically been used so that we have a sense perspectively how it might be used and I

088think anything that's I know some expenditures are required right some are absolutely you have to do this but you know we're being asked to to pay higher salaries for example um and which we all want to do um and so I just I think anything any anywhere we have wiggle room I want to know what that wiggle room is sure I think also like ensuring that we are maximizing our per pupil funding and any any special areas of things that you think priorities just shoot a note to me also to Georgia and we'll make sure that we focus information on that for you but this process is designed to get to that it's not a delay it's not a delay tactic in any way there's just some information we won't have until certain times the

089state will will not begin to give us projections for next year and you'll get frustrated as the devil later because the state I've known the state budgets to be as late as December so it's a real guessing game so you know but we'll we'll lead you through that and we'll try to adapt it to whatever you want it to be okay all right so let's move from that then to personnel all right happy New Year uh going for money to people and processes um basically we're going to look at the highs and lows of department and the district so we're going to look at hiring hiring process we're going to look at non-renewals and then we're going to wrap it up with evaluations before I get into the hiring process I do want to acknowledge

090the fact that we have our job descriptions what we do as far as a department on our website so if you go into the district website and under careers and about us those tabs it gives us gives the um the members of the HR department their job title and their responsibilities so that's very helpful for you and everyone else who's listening um so I want to start with the price the hiring process and I know there may be lots of questions but I do want to kind of break it down so you can understand what we do in terms of uh hiring new employees because that is a high moment when we bring in new folks to work for our school system it's a very exciting time so I'll start with the end in mind

091where when we have resignations we definitely take the replacement model as opposed to um you know there was a lot of discussion about teacher allotments and what we do and how we look at that we do have a time frame where we look at teacher a lot allotments and that's typically in the March around March um in the middle of the year however when you have people that resign there's a need in the schools to replace those individuals so so we post those positions in most cases and as soon as we receive these separation forms we post the positions and we post it for three to five days or how long it takes for the schools to hire those individuals so the principles will conduct the interviews the hiring managers when I say hiring managers

092hiring managers I'm referring to principals and directors of the different departments they check references uh there's a minimum of three reference checks for those individuals and all teachers and we were talking about certified teachers all teachers must hold a professional educational Educators license for the subject or the grade level that they teach um and to qualify for a license um there is um they either have to complete a Epp which is a educator preparation program at a university or if you have someone who has been a doctor or a lawyer and decided they want to become a teacher then they have to go through an alternate route licensure program um and that's where we are and today and in 2023 uh maybe 20 30 years ago a lot of people went into the profession with

093a teaching degree and they applied for Physicians and they got the positions it looks a whole lot differently now and I'm not going to go into great detail about that but that's where we are um principal directors of recommendations come in the first thing we do as a department we check uh to see if the person has a license and if not we have to make sure that they're eligible to receive an alternative license uh in the history in in in recent history um yes it's been difficult and they have to go through a residency licensure program classified positions um and I'm going to use instructional assistance as an example are required to complete two years a study at an institution of higher education equivalent to 48 Hours semester hours or obtain associates degree or

094have met a rigorous standard of quality um quality and be able to demonstrate the reformal state or local academic assessments which we utilize the workkeys program at a B Tech so if you have an individual who wants to become an instructional assistant we have provided this as an option now for them to become instructional assistants as to letting them know that they can't because they don't they didn't meet the requirements so this process um it's done we've had one so far to go to the program so we're looking for more people to participate in this program uh background checks and this is something I'm going to be coming to you you guys uh later on about background checks um again times have changed and we have more more people who may have um a criminal

095pass um I'm bringing it up now because there will be a later discussion later on I'm sure but we have to make sure that all of our folks clear the background checks I approve or deny them um and if they have not completed those background checks that slows down the hiring process so if they're coming from a different state it may take up to 10 days for that process to to for it even to go through for me to even review it um Miss Hensley and I from there we determined the rate of pay once the background checks have cleared we go ahead and determine the rate of pay and then I make the job offer and during the job offer I call them and I let them know the position the school these the

096effective start date the licensure information that's needed they must go through the process of affiliate affiliating themselves Within These um online licensure system which gives them directions on how to affiliate with the school district if they're graduating from a university they typically help them do that process but with new folks who have no idea about school or teaching they um there's there's a there's a time where I walk them through how to get to the website to complete the process for licensure I go over whether they're monthly 10 11 to 12 month employees go over their salary whether it's annual salary or hourly rates um and I check to make sure that they are on the right pay scale whether if they're a bachelor have a bachelor's or master's degree I check their years of

097her service and in North Carolina I go over the local supplement that they will receive they're brand new um to to to the teaching area um I give them the percentage of what they would receive that is given to them on a um in the mayor in the month of May that they will received that I also go over the beginning teacher process if there are new teachers and I always end my conversation with hiring is contingent upon a clear background check and approval by the school board um I will say employees potentially start working before their names are brought before the board and that's yes so on what bases I mean when you bring somebody to the board to us what do you tell us about them what's our decision really the decision is

098just to prove the Personnel report their their names are on the Personnel report um I anything that we would bring to you might go to work before it comes to you would be below the principal level okay anything where it's a higher level position would not go to work before it comes to you so um letters are sent to them hiring information and the information that we sent to them that needs to be completed is it's it's it's um state is required by the federal and state that they received these forms that we must have a valid driver's license or State issue picture ID social security card all the information that stayed on the PowerPoint that must be completed and sometimes the delay is because they haven't completed those forms um certain forms are sent

099those forms are sent to the finance department to be processed and completed um and benefits is all benefit information is also sent to the finance department as well um the person in charge of benefits has and uh has in the past has been stationed in HR uh currently they're in finance because the benefits is has a lot to do with the reconciliation of budget and payroll um payroll enters they key the information in the system into the system to generate a state ID number which allows the employee to start working and then the technology department assists with accessing the emails uh Holly Murray provides the power school access which gives employees access to the evaluation system we also provide they also receive a ID badge at that point and then again after their names have

100been approved then that it can sign their sign their contracts um after that we have our new employee orientation because the department has been through several transitions um we're working on ketchy gumple and some of the people that have been hired recently but the new employee orientation is the first start of the onboarding process it's getting them to understand the the processes and programs and the people in the district it is up to the schools to establish their own onboarding process because we're really talking about retention here and that starts day one we want them to feel welcome we want them to be a part of the school district and that that lies heavily on their colleagues in the schools in which they're working on departments they're working in okay so any questions on the

101hiring process I am happy to have our friends on Campbell and Shatley here because we're going to talk about uh non-renewals just a little bit just for you to get an idea of what that process is like um first of all I will say that we have two types of employee relations relationships I should say we have the at will employees and we have contract employees at will employment and contracts so everything I'm going to talk about from here on I'm focusing on every employee um but we're talking about contracts I want to say I want to emphasize that we're talking about not only teachers but we're talking about administrators as well okay administrators include myself and everyone that is considered to be an administrator um so as far as contracts you know I'm gonna

102emphasize on teachers um there was a time where we had career status probationary teachers that has long gone we have moved on from that and what we have now is career status those teachers who were career status teachers before 2013 and haven't left the district are still considered career teachers or a career status those teachers who may have been career teachers somewhere else and they left their District they came to us they will be on a contract okay um and then a few years ago about 2000 it was right before 2018 Asheville City schools had the option to determine that we were going to have one year two year and four-year contract employees um so with that being said if you are a brand new teacher of course everyone gets a one-year contract for three

103years after that it is the superintendent's decision to bring before the board that this person goes to a two-year contract um keep in mind that has determined by their performance they have to have they have to be proficient on their evaluations in order for that to happen a lot of that work is done at the school level by administrators um on the other end where you have directors and principals assistant principals there is either a two-year contract or four-year contract and we start typically with a two-year contract for all new administrators um the the decision to go to a four-year contract of course is going to be based on supervisors in this case the superintendent is over principles he makes that determination based on his evaluations and his evaluations of the administration their work um

104I am summarizing um forget about career status but every teacher at least every four years is their contract is up for discussion is that what I'm understanding after after two years after their two-year contract the we yes we can is up to discussion or is presented the board and the Personnel report that they are being renewed or non-renewed every two years right we can move it uh if a teacher is in good standing after they complete that two-year contract then the superintendent can recommend a four-year contract so you'll have some they've got a complicated spreadsheet some are on a one some are on a two and some are on the floor but even the ones on four every four there's no tenure right that's correct every year with retirements we understood right we have fewer

105and fewer tenured teachers every year because of retirement so you're right so the vast majority at some point are up for a contract the best right so I want to I was told that now renewal was what we wanted to talk about here and I want to kind of go over uh briefly what that means after okay so if you start with an employee that may not be performing well or there is an issue going on my conversation with principals uh is to make sure that you are documenting whatever the concerns are first that you're having meeting with me meetings with them whether it's informally or formally that you're documenting that information and also giving them an opportunity to improve uh and I'm speaking specifically about contracted teachers after that if if they're in that

106that time frame where they're um one year to your one year kind of speak specifically talk about one year contract teachers if at the by January or February that's the conversation that they're having with them about non-renewal if they feel like that they're not uh cutting the mustard as my grandmother would say um so um and then that is brought to my attention and then a letter is is given to them given to the employee that they are being recommended for non-renewal um now at that time an employee has a decision to make um that employee can typically resign or um it could it goes to the board um so if the superintendent decides not to recommend non-renewal the superintendent must give written notice of his or her decision to the teacher by June 1st

107the board of education does not vote to non-renew okay at that point and then the contract simply expires on on its end of the the contract term so uh June 30th is the last day of a contract so that's the date to keep in mind June the 30th will be the last day um now teachers have the right to petition the board for non-renewal hearing and I think this is where you guys come in because you need to know what is the process if a teacher or an administrator challenges um the non-renewal the board has the complete discretion whether or not to Grant a hearing for this individual employee you also shall nullify the petitioning teacher of uh your decisions whether to Grant the hearing um and if it is granted then we're just we

108want to follow the law as it pertains to what the hearing looks like um the one of the things that that a non-renewal cannot be based on or some of the things that cannot be based on it cannot be arbitrary capricious uh discriminatory personal political or any other any other basis prohibited by state and federal law Dr Dickerson I just want to make so when when the superintendent recommends renewal then we have something we have to approve that or no no yes right yes yes Sarah's shaking her head so I'm confused but I no so so we have to approve it in that case this is just interesting to me but if it's a non-renewal we don't unless appealed unless they appeal yeah yeah I find that very interesting you still vote on non-renewals they

109have the right to ask for a hearing so you will still non-renew their contract correct okay I didn't see that I didn't that's that's the confusing Nuance is that the teacher it says the Board of Education this isn't policy this is Journal statute yeah yeah teacher can ask for a hearing but you don't have to give a hearing the law clearly says you still have to know the reasons for the non-renewal right the superintendent will still regardless of whether there's a hearing or not he will still give you the reasons why he's recommending a teacher be non-reneur but it says the board of education does not vote to non-renew that you will approve his that may be where are you reading that I'm reading it on Slide 11. because the board does vote on a

110final decision to non-related that that was what was perplexing to me was the notion that we would and I'll build we would vote maybe say yes but not vote to me a typo on renew which is a little more I apologize for that that leads to more litigation than hiring so uh you're just curious all right thanks all right um my apologies on that typo um again I want to briefly talk about the administrator aspect of this it's it's the same process um in terms of the superintendent May recommend uh a renewed or extended contract to the board the board May approve the recommendation or decide not to renew or extend the contract and that spot that's law um as it comes as it pertains to administrators the superintendent must give written notice of his

111or her decision by May 1st again the reasons the superintendent's reasons may not be uh the same reasons I've stated earlier with teachers and then in terms of other administrators um and Chris you may want to chime in on this as well there are no specific laws dealing with non-renewals of the other administrators and administrators that we're talking about are principles APS administrators apaps principles and directors so and I can kind of short circuit this you're going to you're going to get and I don't bring the shorts short skip Mark's presentation day but you're going to get a lot of information on this in closed session we'll cover some of it in our board training but administrators also the superintendent simply has to decide whether to recommend a renewed contract for them or not if

112he decides yes he is going to renew their contract you have to vote on that if he decides no he doesn't believe they should have a renewed contract they automatically get a hearing before you unlike teachers who get to ask for one administrators automatically get a hearing before you if they want one and again you will make the final decision of whether or not to renew an administrator anyone with a contract is going to get a degree of due process and your administrators get the most due process and as far as the hearing process um so you can the board can appoint a panel of not because they're seven now I don't know if this number changes Chris but they can appoint two or more members to the hearing to hear yeah again with an

113administrator it'll typically be the entire board okay that's the way that we've been handling that and that's the way traditionally the board has want to do it there are times that you can do a smaller panel student admissions School assignment things like that you can do a panel and it comes back to the board but when it comes to non-renewing a principle that's going to be a full boarding gotcha and then a proper notice to all the parties and the record of the hearing is properly and entered into the board records and the board members are they act impartially to provide a fair hearing for the employee so there's there's a lot to kind of wrap this up and summarize but I just wanted y'all to be aware of something I think it's to Chris

114with what you just said and we'll in closed session and we'll or in training things like conditions for recusal for participation is that reviewed with us and we'll talk about that during the training but there are situations in which you would want to recuse yourself and not be part of that decision absolutely foreign lastly I wanted to briefly talk about evaluations and again what we have posted here on the presentation pertains to teachers in particular but I do want to emphasize that there is an evaluation process for administrators as well the superintendent as the superintendent said earlier he is the supervisor over principles he evaluates the principles members of the executive board are the ones who evaluate directors in their respectable departments um principles evaluate teachers of course mistaken did you wanna talk briefly about

115the deadlines for teachers the deadlines I'm not going to read the sheet to you they're they're all on the page but prior to holiday break I did meet start meeting with all of the principals individually to see where they were with their teacher evaluations I still have three principles that I need to reschedule with but we we do do check-ins to make sure that they're on track so all right any questions about the valuation process y'all gonna make me feel bad now they're all ready for a break I think I think what we'll do we're running a little behind we will adjust we will hold the safety and student support for another later meeting it gets back on schedule so Mr chairman start with you now we'll take a take a 10 minute break that

116works for me I just want to make sure uh for members of the board is that our right to to table the student safety cup well let's tell you what Let's do let's just let's just delay if we have time we make up time somewhere later we'll work it in how about that all right that works okay yeah so I you know I know we need to stretch our legs and I need to go take some more medicine so uh yeah let's take a 10 minute break be back um it's 10 57 so actually can we make it uh eight minute break and be back at 1105. that work okay all right it looks like we're all getting back together I see our chairman has come back if everyone would move back to the States

117thank you turn it back over to you Mr chairman all right thank you everyone welcome back uh next on our agenda um a superintendent search discussion with the board attorneys so I'll turn it over to Chris very good thank you Mr chairman board members good afternoon again or good morning uh first of all if you don't mind as a point of personal privilege I hope all of you have had a chance to meet Chris Cottle and Anna Gillespie with uh our office your staff knows them very well they are very involved in answering legal questions for the district and helping out and the three of us kind of work as a team to address legal issues um no Mr chair and no Mr superintendent you are not paying for three lawyers to come to your

118retreat you are yes you are paying for one lawyer to come to your retreat uh Wiggles I knew that Dr Cosby would be the one to ask that question uh it is possible to split lawyers into thirds so that's probably what I'll do yeah but I didn't want you to think that you were paying some ridiculous Freight for us to be here I thought it was very important for all three of us to participate and for you to meet frankly all three of us probably the most important task you have in front of you the most important task you have in front of you right now is the superintendent search and naming a new superintendent it's the number one uh priority of a board of education is to elect and then supervise a superintendent and

119I think all of you know that you have several search proposals that were unsolicited uh Mr Carter when he was chair received those and you've had time to look at those and see how those look we are full-time board attorneys for 11 school boards and work with about another 20 to 30 as needed so from time to time we are asked to assist with the search and we're happy to do that but we are not making a Ozil and we are not a search firm but I think it's important and we wanted you to have in writing the things that we're able to do because the search is completely up to you there is no one-size-fits all there is no statutory requirements other than for you to raise your hands and vote on a superintendent

120so you literally are completely in charge of this process and how you decide to do it and from experience two I know that search firms are very flexible if you want some of what they're offering or a little more than what they're offering they're always happy to negotiate that with you so I don't want you to think that any of the three proposals you have in front of you are set in stone those can be negotiated depend on how you want to go with this process you do also have a sample timeline and I think you have an incredible advantage and I mean this sincerely with Dr Jim Cosby sitting at the table not only has he personally been through this he has helped school boards and Shepherd them through this process as an interim

121superintendent and so I certainly advise to you and recommend to you to to listen to his wise counsel as you work through this process the one thing I do want to say before you start your discussion is time is not your friend you do not have in my opinion a lot of time to consider a search firm if you want to do some kind of an RFP process and open it up to a larger group of search firms that's fine but really you need to have an application out on the street by the end of the month with about a six week period you can do a lot during that six week period while the applications are pending the advertisement is out but typically the the best superintendent candidates will have a job by May

122so even though the latest somebody would probably start would be July 1 the best ones are already going to have job offers by late April beginning in May so I just want you to be thinking about that as you think through the time process we're happy to answer any questions as you work through this but like I said Mr chair this process is is yours and I'll turn it back to you to see how the board wants to proceed that's great thank you Chris um so yeah I think I think um Chris brings up a few things that we would definitely want to discuss we've got this timeline um uh an ideal timeline for putting out an application interviewing hiring um one thing that I think is is helpful to just kind of Corral in

123our minds is um not to throw Dr Cosby under the bus here but he has said he'll stay on until we're ready until we have a new superintendent place and so I think not to say that we want to drag this out forever but it does give us a little bit of a breathing room so to speak um so I think one of the first thing that we want to really focus on is um we have these three unsolicited um uh proposals first from search firms so let's just have a discussion about where we stand with that what we'd like to see in terms of hiring a search firm and that will be at some point we'll have to take action on that when we decide that we want to bring on a search form

124so I'm just going to open it up and hear thoughts on um first of all those three proposals and if we want to seek more um I have a question George and it goes back to something that Chris said ultimately what I heard Chris say is by the end of January there would be an application some form that says if you would like to apply to the actual City Schools as a superintendent complete these boxes fill write these essays like a college application right so given that time frame since it's January 6th would a search firm help us draft that application or are they more on the publicity end like once we do the application they push it out to their channels right in my opinion you do not need a search firm to put

125out an application I will tell you that the majority of school boards certainly in the western part of the state have used a fairly standard application our office has that with the advertisement and remember you just did this not too long ago so there is an application that you could immediately review there is an advertisement that can be updated that you can immediately review so that's an excellent point I would highly recommend that this board go ahead and approve the application advertisement and get that out while you're considering search firms because you're right this is the real the real advantage of the search firm is recruiting candidates vetting candidates helping you through that process so I think you should go ahead with the application and has our application been largely the same the past few

126superintendent searches it has and be happy you know no pride and authorship we'll get it to you and if the things you want to add to it um absolutely would love to to do that and as a board again what you want to do is channel that into and it's typically chair and vice chair so board members would get the application and the ad updated you would then give your comments to the chair and vice chair who would be authorized to go ahead and approve it and you don't need to vote on that I mean we're in a work session if you're in consensus that you would all give your opinions to the chair and vice chair then they can go ahead work with our office and Dr Cosby and get that application posted and

127advertised and then I'm sorry my last question just to be clear so we do all that and we agree on the applications going to ask X Y and Z at a minimum would be posted on our website and it would be shared I don't know in particular ways and then if we've hired a search firm they would come in and help us push it out further they would help push it out further the folks they know it would immediately go on the school boards association website both state and National there's the North Carolina Association of school administrators the National Association of school administrators those are all free then you can put it in education week Publications like that the Dr Cosby will tell you the sitting superintendents that are looking for new jobs they follow

128those websites and word gets out quick and word is already out but there are a few paid services that you might want to consider I believe Dr Cosby there is a a group of urban school districts and school districts that have a more diverse population where you can Target that application a little better looking for a superintendent that has experience with a diverse population so there's a few paid for services that Dr Cosby in our office can help you identify can you tell us which if any search firm we've used previously in the past in the recent past the school boards Association was used with Dr Denise Patterson I know that a private firm who I do not believe has sent you a proposal and may not still be in business helped with Pam Baldwin

129and then the board did its own search with Dr Freeman at that point in time my question is is there a timeline for soliciting I mean I I'm I've looked at these proposals they're all different um they're they're from you know sort of they're they're different in the sense of the capacities right we have somebody a group that's National we have the North Carolina School Board Association but is there if we were to ask I'm slightly uncomfortable choosing from just people who send us stuff instead of soliciting um soliciting proposals so how long would that take and there are only a few firms Nationwide to do this kind of work I think that in two to three weeks I mean I think we could immediately do an RFP and have it out and again with

130consensus the chair and vice chair could look over that RFP and I think that you could have a two-week period because again word gets out it's fairly easy to identify who these folks are and then the board could come together a couple things legally real quick Ms Ray the um there is no required bid process for a service that's good news you don't have to take the load bidder you're not required this is totally up to you since it's a service contract so again what you would want to do is have them um sit sit down with you the one you like the best and work through exactly what you want and then we can develop a contract so the entire process in my mind would take uh hopefully no longer than six weeks from

131today and hopefully we could pull it off in four weeks so that you get that search firm on board pretty quickly and that and you think that would be doable very doable okay I mean I'll just say my preference is to is to put a request down it's with you going ahead and putting on an application now I can't wait I mean I'm excited to draft some I've got I've been drafting this job description in my head for a year so um I'm really excited about it I'm not sure I'm not sure I want to say it oh yes you do oh yes you do with Dr Cosby it's gonna be good laughs so um Chris is that um as far as you said that it can just be a consent um consensus as far

132as um deciding to whether we want to go RFP that kind of thing in this process what Needs Board aboard vote is it the hiring of the great question you just walk us through that the board votes will be the first board vague will be to hire the search firm and approve a contract for the search firm so you will actually solicit proposals and again unless a board member objects it sounds like Mr chair the board does want to go ahead and move forward with an RFP and we'll draft one to get it out right away the board does want to go ahead and see the application and the advertisement give thoughts back to the chair and vice chair we'll get that out on the street so the first time the board would vote would

133be on a contract for the search firm um I assume that in our requests for bids or for search firms that are interested we will get references or we could request references yes and that would be standard is to request references I would like to do that yeah and it's really an RFQ it's important to keep RFP and RFQ straight RFQ is request for qualifications that's really what this is request for proposal is usually a turnkey item where there's a set price and by Statute you might even have to take the low bidder so this would be an RFQ I have a question thinking about the time frame we can get the application out fairly quickly it sounds like we could get requests for whatever the queue stands for qualifications qualifications within a few weeks

134and then we have these proposals and then we choose one correct and I I think I've never done this before but what we really are looking for help with is somebody perhaps with Community engagement and feedback and identifying what we want and that how long does that usually take great question so if you refer back there there's kind of that receipt of applicator the deadline for applications it's kind of your high water mark So before that deadline what you want to be doing with the search firm's help is surveying your staff surveying parents surveying the community and you can use survey there's plenty of online survey tools to do that then you will probably want to have forums in the past the board has had forums and Mr Carter can certainly speak to this where

135you'll go to schools or community centers and solicit and the beauty of that is you're not asking folks to tell you who the superintendent should be you're asking them to identify issues that concern them you're asking them for characteristics and qualifications that they the public your staff parents are looking for in a superintendent so you're doing all of that Community engagement so the day you receive a notebook of confidential applications and I'll speak to that in just a second you already have all the input from the staff and you've reviewed it you already have all the input from the community so now you're taking that profile of a superintendent and you're applying it to the applications in front of you and you're just deciding whether or not or who you want to interview I will

136just say it is our strong recommendation and Dr Cosby can speak to this that you have a closed confidential process being a superintendent of a school system is a very hard job it is one of the most political jobs there is in our nation right now and if you say that the candidates will be subject to public scrutiny public forums those kinds of things in our opinion you will lose a huge amount of very highly qualified candidates superintendents or you know who have a good job and they're happy with it it creates problems if people know they're looking for another job and we just feel like for that reason it should be confidential and frankly it is the job of this board and no one else to decide who the next superintendent will be so

137we do not recommend holiday committees we do not recommend bringing in parents people from the outside by law by Statute you were elected you can make those people part of advisory groups and you can certainly consider that and have them help you with the profile but it is the legally it's the decision of U7 to make the decision and that's our recommendation is that in the end the seven of you make that decision so I completely appreciate the reasons to do it that way um of course as you might imagine we've been um we've been requested to allow you know have you ever had a situation where the school board allowed you know very discreet few people but maybe a few to review the applications there's a duty of confidentiality where you can maintain all

138of that I'm not saying that that's what I would recommend but there is a demand for as much transparency as possible and I think I'm just curious about whether there's been anything that's slightly obviously the seven of us make the decision at least that's obvious to me but um sure absolutely and you know that's the one thing we'll we'll always give you is just the the quick and straight bottom line it is totally up to you that is completely lawful as you say with appropriate releases and you would tell the candidates ahead of time there are folks that are going to vet and review the applications they've agreed to a confidentiality agreement so that the information stays confidential you can certainly look at that kind of thing the the issue again is more a at

139what level do they advise and then frankly too it is the constituent group problem that in my experience in doing this has hung up that kind of a process because you've got community members you've got parents you've got all these constituent groups who all want to be at the table and Boards have a really hard time and frankly I think you know this if you have 15 people advising you that's a really difficult process if you've got two people advising you you've got a lot of people that are very upset that they weren't at the table so that's why most boards in the end come back to we want you to be part of helping us decide the type of superintendent we want but in the end it will just be a selected board members

140I've seen a couple of processes like that and the board was very regretful afterwards if they went that way because it caused a immense political issues and stuff with people share the words get out and they all start getting pressure they have some experiences I've had as a follow-up then I'm thinking already I'm looking at this timeline and the sample timeline shows February less than a month from now we're already in January for public input forums I'm mindful about what it really takes for public input forms to be broadly accessible so are we in a position to begin scheduling things like that immediately so that there can be a deep dive on invitation and making them accessible okay I'm glad to know that we don't have to wait okay I mean we we do have

141a I think you also have access to the tool that we use for mentimeter which Asheville City Schools Foundation uh graciously helped us with last time um so that process and that that tool is accessible and I know we had a process that was laid out um for that that getting that comment from the community so I I don't think a lot of people would say that the last one did not work well in terms of hearing from people um I think you know we heard from people through the mint meter process that never would have spoken of um I would like to probably one thing I would suggest is that we try to expand a little bit more on where we do these forums um so that we're trying to get more of the

142community input uh I know we've got the Eddington Center listed as one that we did last time Asheville Middle School uh Northstar uh Jones um Hall Fletcher and uh the north Asheville library but we've got a lot more options that we can that we should be more in our neighborhoods with so and again your chair under board policy can schedule meetings so again doesn't require a vote nothing prevents you right now if you wanted to from trying to talk about having some forums and and scheduling those you can do that today thank you I'm going to say from my point of view it needs to be today that you have at least a general idea of where and how many so that we can take what was used in the past and evolve it to

143what you would like and not delay it anymore um so that families know how and community members and stakeholders can lean in I have a question about that April so we could today decide I'm totally making this up that these five locations plus three more sometime in the month of February we want to have a meeting okay just say that's what we decide and you could help us figure out times and find ways that they're accessible to as many families as possible and I'm hearing that in addition to these in-person meetings we could do mint meters online right mental meter was oh oh I see okay but in addition we could probably seek I mean I don't know the words here but some kind of survey that people give us input if they can't come

144in person so where I'm actually getting back to is this search firm question that we started with but I mean I I hear you and I think we should start to schedule what happens in February and if nothing else we will come up with our own questions that we ask folks for input on if we happen to have a search firm by then they would have input for us they would jump in is what they would do you would tell them we've already scheduled forums we've already sent out a survey and uh and in my experience they're very happy very flexible they'll take with what you've already got in place and tell you how they can enhance it so just for a timing what I'm hearing is we need to start regardless of a search

145form we can go ahead and do the RFQ and we might find somebody that's really appealing who will then join with us we may find nobody that we really like and we'll just continue on the path we started on is that how that's going to look okay exactly right so I'm just going to go ahead and say it seems more important today that we talk about February then about the RFQ does that I mean I don't want to speak for the board but is that I'm in agreement with that yeah I'm I'm looking at the February calendar right now and just thinking about you know making making the days accessible um you know offering some weekend dates some during the week um yeah I agreed I just was yeah and I I also would like

146to open it up to Virtual attendance too if you can help us is that possible only here okay well I'd like to make that happen yeah but that could be one of the meetings in February is the virtual meeting where we're here and is out just for our friends that are listening um Dylan doesn't have a mic in order for us to do a virtual form it does need to be in the boardroom could catch April unless everyone is virtual like a zoom setup oh so if we do a fully virtual early virtual then we can do it from anywhere oh I think it's I think it's worth doing for only virtual for sure yeah we could do fully virtual and is there a limit on how many can attend when you do a fully

147virtual we don't art your policy does not allow for fully virtual meetings that was a pandemic thing in your policy but we can call a meeting to order in this room and Dylan can still set it up as if it is a totally virtual meeting so we can get there I'm just letting you know some of you may need to be sitting in this room but we can still have people participating from everywhere just so there's no confusion and I'm sorry just I got lost on that I assumed if the seven board members were sitting here it would be fully virtual and everybody would be joining us I I'm not getting the distinction so no the what matters in in our legal world what matters are virtual not virtual is we're the board members if

148you're all in a room together legally it's not a virtual meeting and you can allow people as many people as you want to zoom in but as long as the board is in the room together it's not legally a virtual meeting which is you're just talking about hearing comment virtually that's not a virtual meeting that's just virtual comment that's fine that's fine we'll make it happen yeah trust me we'll make it happen okay and and I know that in the past I don't know about the last search but I was pretty active when we uh when the board hired Denise Patterson and not all the board members were at those sessions but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be but I just the last search just to let you know with the last search we were

149so that we don't violate open meeting laws um I know that there were times where we all were not at the meeting but there were also there was a at least one of those forums where we were there but we didn't we weren't together we were you know as long as we're not discussing board business we're not violating those laws um the open meeting laws um but there's nothing that would say that we we could not all attend different forums or or or so forth so yeah but I'm receiving these meetings ahead of time can't we just can't they just be open because we're giving enough notice correct you know ideally if at least um and right now you're a six-member board it still takes four to have a quorum um if if as long

150as four of you can be there we will notice it as a meeting and that's the easiest thing to do and people can can you know zoom in I think what Dylan was telling you is the technology is set up for people to virtually give comment in this room that would be difficult for him to do in somewhere like the Eddington Center so if you're going to allow people to zoom in make that this meeting do one meeting where people are allowed to zoom in the other meetings they need to be in person is that fair yeah if you if you're planning to live stream any of these public forums they have they need to be in this room we can't like gather at Jones with 200 people and live stream that out to the

151public to watch live stream has to happen in this room I mean I hate to kind of be the the spur but is that only for taking is that a technological thing like is there a way to to make it happen if we want to do it at Jones and and do a live stream not to where you can clearly hear and understand what's being said I tell you spend a lot of money to be able to equip this room for live streaming and we do not have the ability to move it's all in that box over there so we can't move that other places I'm not sure I understand why we would like live streaming you're not getting input from those who are just watching um Tanya did you want to see um I

152just want to be mindful that all of the places that we have identified around town I don't want us to forget about our after-school programs and other organization that deliver Direct Services they have not had the opportunity to be in a room together to voice what they see and what they would want for a superintendent and so I just want to be mindful that even though we have all of these places we know some of them have low turnout and I'd like to see us do something more intentional about people and organizations that are in our schools and they work with our students five six and seven days a week so I would just ask to revisit that um because some of these places we're just not going to get the turnout and the input

153that we need to make sure we get the strongest candidate um candidates for superintendent you know I'd be curious about whether or not we can sorry if uh whether I'd love to hear from yes any everybody here the places that you're interested and what you think and we'll just kind of tally that up you know because I don't think the seven six of us have a um have special knowledge I think you do and so I'd be curious to know what what places folks recommend I don't know if now we want to go through and do that or if we want to do it some way differently the other thing I was going to mention is oh go ahead sir just really I think you're talking about physical locations which I 100 agree with I

154just wanted to Circle back I think what I was hearing Tanya say is regardless of the where it is that there might be some meetings that would be open to anyone but that we particularly sought input from my daddy taught me that Miss Earl's after school program like yes we gave some thought to who we wanted to affirmatively reach out to and say we value your input would you come to perhaps one of them is specific to that that's what I heard you saying regardless of the where it's located I would yes and please go back and look at what were our numbers at some of these places of participation because I'd like to see us work smarter not harder and dedicate some of these places though it's open to the public but Target some

155of these people that are really delivering direct services to our students and I think that's different than what we've done before and we always have to be in the mindset of putting students first and not adults so you're saying both essentially right that there there would still be new locations that are specifically geared toward getting input from those who provide Direct Services yes okay on the I want to just make one comment on this survey I I feel like this survey can come a little later in the process and these in-person meetings in terms of um when how to get that's just faster um and I I would like to wait for this if we assuming we hire a search firm I'd like to wait for them to be able to put in input into

156you know kind of the what questions we ask it seems like that could even if the other stuff can't wait it's just a thought foreign we want to move forward in soliciting ideas about this does anybody have a good idea Amy I thought okay we're just off the cuff here we're used soliciting input from others in the room with other ideas much like Tanya just yes and we could take notes for things you guys have all been around for a lot of superintendent searches just like us so sorry to jump in um no so are you saying let's solicit let's solicit locations like so I'm thinking my brain is kind of going we've got to decide on locations but then we also just decide on dates and times so uh I to from my point

157of view I think it'd be helpful if we just you know if we go around the room and focus on one of those first whether it's location or time and then go back around the room and and do the other that we don't do does that make sense yes I think I think the locations are going to dictate the times in some event okay give me just one second someone has a question so we're choosing a location um we have to maybe wait on a date because some places may not be available the date we want so just keep that in mind let's start with locations and at any time and then I can look and then we can figure out a date after that but we can do a quick turnaround with that so

158um and with the survey um you want to make sure that uh there's enough time for information to be brought back if staff is doing it in the past Ashley Michelle sometimes had a quick turnaround and it's it's a lot when you have hundreds of people replying to a survey with information on who they would like to be for a superintendent so thank you Kim I was thinking that the search firm would be part of that's part of why I was hoping we could wait for them for the survey and as a person who's been in the district for a long time I would also like to see the board intentionally speaking to our staff in a more informal way whether and especially our principals who many of our principals have taught in our district

159and have served in this district for a really long time and in a way to where it is um a safe and they can have an authentic opportunity to give you some real feedback on what they are looking for in their next leader as well and you got to remember a lot of our staff are just really tired but we have a very resilient staff and there's many of us who have been here for a really really long time and have a vested interest in this and I mean like strategically talk to our bus drivers talk to Child Nutrition staff go to faculty meetings spend time with principals talk to assistant principals and get their input awesome one of my questions about that is was actually as you were talking was you know when I

160was sort of listening um before I became a board member there were a number of staff and I think even principals who were not comfortable talking in groups uh they felt like it was I'm hoping that that has changed enough that we could do this in groups but I also want to be sensitive to the fact that some folks may want to provide input not in a group setting um but obviously we have to first create the group settings um but yeah so should we just George I don't want to take over if you have better ideas um but should we just go around and like folks just jump out and tell us places that we should have these things and obviously we may not get all of them um but it sounds like I

161want to hear from you all yeah I agree I mean that sounds great um thank you very much for the opportunity uh please reach out to our parent-teacher organizations and our school Improvement teams and we have title one parent engagement meetings that are usually well attended at all of our elementary schools those would be fantastic of course the programs that Marta has been involved in would be great mother Reed and those would be great opportunities also the Asheville City Association of Educators holds virtual meetings monthly and that would be please show up and and engage with that I'm gonna bring this data perspective um I think it's I think it will be critical to meet with the racial Equity ambassadors and get their feedback I feel like they really have their finger on the pulse

162of what's happening in our schools and some of the the struggles that they're faced with and so I think it would be extremely important to get their feedback as well as any other student group organizations at the high school middle school and even elementary students they have a lot to offer to and and they don't hold back on on sharing their truths so those are good people to ask you want to you'll get you'll get an accurate response from them so I do think student engagement K-12 is extremely important foreign I have a legal question just tied to that so some of these groups that we're identifying they're already meeting and I think what we're thinking what I'm thinking is some of us all of us would go to those meetings and so just using

163the racial Equity ambassadors as an example they have a regular scheduling meeting are we saying hey would you guys reserve us 30 minutes at the end of your regularly scheduled meeting to talk with us about superintendent and then can there's no way all of us can go to all of these meetings um so would a delegation of two or three of us go to each meeting and seek this input and bring it back is that what we need to do to maneuver that yeah I think there's the legal and then there's the Practical correct um and the Practical is more of a concern that you can't be everywhere all the time I think that you know the priority status of the official listening sessions is many of you if not all of you should be

164there so obviously get your calendars out and that's where you start then if you're going to go hear from a group you can go less than a majority without it being a board mem meeting you're just there to hear input because you're gonna you're gonna write up that input and then Supply it to the board so there's not a legal problem we say two of you going to a meeting and you may want to again for time considerations ask the superintendent to work with his staff to come up with a list of all the groups you should go talk to and then you can work to divvy that up I was just that's really where my head was going is I I'm we're getting lots of great ideas PTO meetings and all these things and

165if we can form a list and then we essentially have a sign up process but then meanwhile probably today getting back to the February meetings this is a very concrete notion but I'd like to just state that I like that process and I'd like us to create some sort of template format for listening so that we're listening equivalently across all these groups and I want to miss Thornburg with the idea I think looking it's a bit it's a busy time of year also and maybe doubling up with some things that may already to to have Outreach so if you have a superintendent listening Forum like that may not be attractive to a lot of people to come and spend their evening doing that but if you parlay that with an athletic event that is ongoing

166and rethink how that how that formats and maybe it's not a structure time but it's a roll through so if I'm coming to watch a girls basketball game and that's it but I could come through at the end of the beginning of that to talk about it so looking at that time period and what else we've got going on that we could do in conjunction when people are already oops Daniel I agree with all of the brilliant and out of the box ideas and I'm just gonna Circle us back to my previous comment with looking at some of these locations because some of these locations we have a community site and then a School site but when you look at our largest area which is West Asheville it's only one site so how can we

167work smarter and dwindle this down but still offer opportunities for all so you all can be able to hear from those voices that we know traditionally are not going to show up to any of these sites so I would ask that we hit one site each side of town and then you back it up and say did we hear from a true representation of the school district if we did not then we have these other backups where we are being intentional about making sure that we've heard from a cross-section of our school district so I would ask that that be put on the table to look at um because I don't want us to miss any opportunities so could I suggest then that we you know you make a very good point uh looking at

168that list of seven location six locations that we went to that is a lot Paul Fletcher was the only one though in the west that was the only one in West Asheville um you know we should uh use our partnership with the city uh Parks and Rec uh we could use the Burton Street Center which is I think a comfortable hub uh for people to come to I think that site is very small considering West Asheville is huge I wasn't done so not just all Fletcher but Burton Street but also utilizing as PTO uh Mr acibo just said we have Vance I'm sorry Lucy hearing that we could utilize as well so um you know when I look at this list I look at I see that we need uh you know maybe we do

169something as Stevens Lee um in the uh possibly in the gym as defensively that's a large location it can handle a lot of people um but we need to uh have a more diverse location uh opportunities for people the Eddington Center is a is a good location uh the grant Center is uh with their Auditorium has a great Forum location that we've had things that before so I'm I'm agreeing with you um but let's again we can be a little bit more diverse with and yes Burton Street is a small location but it's still a place that a person may feel more comfortable coming to Tanya's point and Copeland this may be to you when we use men to meet her the way we did in forums can we capture some basic demographic information so

170we know I can't remember it's all captured so that we'll understand you knew exactly who was at the meeting and people have to voluntarily give that information but everyone was captured and and everything was Anonymous as well so you did not know you know that this this comment came from James Carter I don't like that guy you know that sort of things thank you James and I'm a circle back again I'm back around debate to be clear I would like to see this list dwindled down to West North Central and I don't know if we have a fourth that's your general but you're gonna have to take time to go to the intentionals and we know we are talking about our black and brown communities so if you have all seven of these all seven

171of these are not necessary and it's low turnout I want you all to be able to maximize your time and be intentional have time to do the intentional uh authentic conversations because your timeline is short so I wanna at least address the four General and give you time for the intentionals so so where would you recommend I think the Arthur Eddington is a good site for the central um I think uh RB Jones is good for North Asheville um West Asheville uh I I would say probably how Fletcher um and that's what I would keep it at and if you want one at another site well Stevens Lee thank you Isaac Dixon would be another one and then spend your other time with the intentional groups okay and so by intentional groups now we're moving

172away from locations and two groups is that right or or because I know earlier you mentioned uh go ahead well I think this gets to her butt so if we're talking about intentional groups do you have a recommendation about the where yeah oh absolutely um I think um and and in my mind and please anybody piggyback the after school groups a lot of organizations right Asheville City into their grants and they don't deliver Direct Services we know nothing about all of us in this room know the organizations that deliver Direct Services so this would be a site for after school all after school Big Brother our foundation have it in this room it can be open but that's an intentional targeted group that we know are Student Center so that's just one example what's a

173name for this group The after school Community Partners I really appreciate what tayne is lifting up and um what what I was going to add is just that historically what I've seen in the district in 20 something years here is that um there are just as their staff who are not comfortable speaking in groups or coming to board meetings and those kind of things we have a lot of our students and their families in that same situation and unfortunately I think over the past probably three to eight years it's been exasperated and so I think that intentionality around families and students and former students not just who have had successful experiences but maybe have not had extremely successful experiences in the district is really really important and in my mind it's not it's not just

174when and where but it's a how and there are individuals and groups in our community who are um far more successful and engaging some of our um I I don't want to say underrepresented but our bipoc communities and families in our district that they're not going to show up to a big meeting or board meeting so I think that intentionality is super important the last few superintendent searches that was the case you know the the families and the students and the community folks who are comfortable showing up show up and you know we have a lot of the the racial Equity ambassadors at a fantastic program and we have a lot of other students I think about you know Dr Jay's program where you know those voices need to be elevated in this process as

175well they're very important voices to help guide us in how this District can be better for all children and then the other thing I was going to mention is I love the idea about piggybacking on to events that are already happening and having kind of this this rotating door and not necessarily one formal sitting so the big home game on February 3rd the homework diners that already exist through our partnership with the United Way and the United for youth Network our 21st century after school learning programs have family engagement events that are highly attended by folks who traditionally aren't maybe showing up in our more you know formal spaces and events so I think there's many of us on staff be happy to create like a laundry list of ideas so that you know we

176can get that to you all and but that's interesting that tane is speaking of um in my experience hasn't happened in this process and is not something we do well as a district and I just would really appreciate seeing and we're happy to help with that as much as we can thank you all so much and especially Tanya for lifting up all the things that you said I'm grateful that I wasn't the one who had to bring it up first just wanted to see um Sarah to your point earlier when I heard about the survey I had a little bit of like oh right because when I hear surveys right it's it's who has access to surveys and who's going to respond to surveys right so I just want us to really be thinking about

177our language what it is that is comfortable to us it is familiar to us and what it looks like in in actuality for All Families right and so when we're talking about um at Lucy Herring or Hall Fletcher right that's where we have the majority of Latin a families and we were intentional about the day making sure that we had enough families that could come out that we had interpreters right so things like that that if if if you're not living in a body that has to think about the things then sometimes it's just a blind spot or a slip right and that's why we do it here together so that we can always be thinking because when we get the responses from the surveys it's our usual suspects and it's about families with a

178lot of access right and we know that we are here for all students and in our district who we Center because of what's happening right so we would love to have a time working we can say all students and staff without having to Center anyone because we're all being centered so I just want to remind us of little pieces like that and what does it look like I mean it feels like we're dancing around it to have a session and housing we have relationship with the Housing Authority we have relationship with the managers and housing authority and what does that language look like on asking what is it that you would like to see in the next leader because it's going to look it's going to sound very different than it is for even us

179sitting in this circle right I as a Latina I'm going to want something very different than probably Rebecca and probably different than Kim and all of the pieces are super super important especially with what is happening at Asheville City schools for all of us so thank you I appreciate that and I want to bring up similar circling back to something I already said like these sorts of idea generating times are so exciting and when we talk about Jones Eddington Hall Fletcher Isaac Dixon meant to meter we we kind of we know we know what that looks like we know what the information is like when we get it um and when we start being more creative like a ball game um and a homework Diner I think what I want to be careful of is

180that we equally have a plan for how the information We Gather in those places will be equivalent to what we get in more formal settings otherwise we did something but we have nothing to show for it and that's what I don't I want to make sure we're careful of that trap foreign that surveys are not the kind of thing that everyone has access to it's just another way of seeking information um it it's not a way of Accu as a a very well-reaching everyone at all but I love that point Rebecca and I was even every time the basketball thing comes up I'm like oh my gosh I can't hear in basketball games so how is that going to happen so it kind of goes to your point that we got to have a plan

181right um foreign it may also be helpful if you're going to go to all this effort and to improve engagement by asking some general questions not only do what do people want to see from the next superintendent but what do people want to see from Asheville City Schools um because it's not you're asking the community to help you with your work but you also need to offer to help with their with their needs and then additionally this is a super tight time frame and I would hope that the board would consider evaluating at some point whether you want to take extra time and complete the search the following spring because I know I see you shaking your head Amy because it really does take a lot of effort to bring the community on board and

182we don't want to be doing a false search at the risk of jumping too far ahead I I want to lift up that we're talking about getting input on this side on this community what this community wants for a superintendent I'm curious legally and process wise when we talk about whoever is the firm or the agency that helps with this what's happening on the other side where are the youth on the district that this superintendent candidates are coming from how about the parents how about the community organizations or who's doing the investigation and listening to the voices of black and brown folks from the district that who we're hiring from because I'm you're already shock when investors could tell you what they want but I can tell you that if they sat down with the

183candidate for 30 minutes we may have had some different choices in the past because they're real good on authenticity and trusted leaders and and just throwing that out there so I'm just curious that's a question all right yeah I completely appreciate that and I think it's important for us to once we have the candidates that we have identified as our interviewees or whatever as we narrow that down that's part of the due diligence right of getting out and um and and reaching out to those communities but the one question I have is is confidentiality and you got to be really careful because you don't want to in in you know I just did a search at our church for example and you know it was really confidential because no priest wants their congregation to know

184they might be going elsewhere I would imagine it's very similar in school superintendents um so that's the only challenge but imagine we're gonna have to figure out a way to navigate that but just to follow up on that so I I take your point because I heard Copeland saying two different things one was to if we could find information more generically about the community from which a candidate comes that would be worth doing um and I think this takes us back to the same question before I'm not talking about reviewing applications but when we're interviewing candidates is it going to be appropriate to ask a student representative for example to sit in I mean I realize we have the same confidentiality questions but I I think it's the exact same answer okay I gave earlier

185you could with all the challenges I mentioned right running the same risk of who are you not inviting to the table yep what's up is it okay if I say something so Rebecca I think the point you're met you're bringing up a couple times is really important and um a few years ago I think Marta myself maybe a few others in the room served on a um Equity team with the city of Asheville and I think they're about 25 30 of us Miss D Williams was part I mean there was a whole lot of constituents from across diverse communities and we had some things that we wanted to be intentional about getting feedback on and I believe the process we used y'all can help me if I'm saying this wrong we had a series of

186just four um very basic questions and we each volunteered to engage a very specific demographic so for example um I volunteered to engage four former Asheville City school students who were either black multiracial or Latin X and ask these questions and then we brought the what we what we get the information that we gathered back to that group with just the profile but not the name of the individual and I felt like that process we got a lot of on-the-ground information from folks who would none of which would have probably come to a big meeting but it was it doesn't have to be over complicated is what I'm trying to say it can it can be a simple process that's very human based that you can engage folks in that way too I'm piggybacking off

187of that as you can see some of us are very um passionate about change and making sure that there's always a racial Equity lens and I truly believe it starts at the top so if we don't if we're not looking at the next superintendent through a racial Equity lens it's the wrong person and so we haven't had that we use the word Equity but it wasn't with Fidelity or intention and so I know this is asking a lot you can shoot it down I'm okay with that but I feel like we have progressed so far at central office with our vocabulary would our Equity lens um we're able to call each other in and we're asking someone new to be the overseer that may not be on the same level as we are I really

188feel like every process of the way I'd like for our Equity person to be there with you all if at all possible because I feel like it's going to do a disservice to the work that we've already done and it's been hard y'all not just for black folks why it's been hard because we've all identified areas that we need to work on collectively because it's what's best for students and students call us in as well and they're right so I want to make sure our next leader understands where we are with racial equity and Equity all together so I think starting from the top and having our Equity director so to help be a part of that process um is very vital um to our school district so Tang I appreciate you saying that um

189I also have Marta in my ear oftentimes reminding me that she shouldn't have to do this Equity work alone um and that um we especially someone like me in a white body needs to to always have her in her my ears so that I am acting with Fidelity inequity as well so um you know I'm not going to speak for you Marta where you want to be in this process and which of these locations and which of these interest groups you want to be a part of but I think it's incumbent upon all of us in the board to kind of have that in the back of mind so Tom Tanya I appreciate you uplifting that I also don't want to put it all on March's shoulders it's on all of our shoulders to do

190that the the other thing I wanted to just mention and I've actually I've started putting this out so if it if it makes sense I can go ahead and share my screen because we've got these ideas um but listening to Rebecca talking about you know making sure that as we're in these spaces whether it's the the more quote unquote formal places where we're all gathered say at Eddington Center or at Jones um and then also kind of having um those more informal maybe not informal it's not quite the word but those conversations with say the reap students or um you know talking to after school um providers that kind of thing I think it's important with our time frame if we are setting these locations these intentions um and these these times and dates then

191as we start looking at these rfqs that we have that in mind with these with whoever is going to help us in this search these search firms now we are asking them about um about Equity we're also asking them about how do they how can they help guide those conversations in the more formal settings and in the more informal settings so that we're still getting the same kind of information um so I think we can we can go ahead now and set these locations these times and following up with those as we start reviewing rfqs really keep in the front of our mind like these the search form that we want is going to be able to speak to these questions that Rebecca is Raising patania is Raising um that others are raising about the

192um efficacy of the questions we're asking and in the spaces we're asking them thank you George and thank you Tanya again for lifting that up and I would like to be involved at a very significant and deep level and Tanya am I hearing you correctly as far as even the application process okay because Miss per Shay will you please wait just one second staying legally within within the law I think our district is very uh unique and we have some unique needs and I think her being a part her being Marta a part of the beginning to the end so we can honestly say with Fidelity that we are truly starting and ending with an equity lens we're doing things differently in this District Equity matters to Asheville City school not when it suits us

193but it starts with the head and goes all the way down so I I would like for her to be a part of the beginning till we get someone so that they can see Equity really matters to this District so Mr chair it sounds like where the board is right now is in a good spot that we are uh we will send out the application the advertisement from last time to chair Vice chair and superintendent he will share it with Marta and with others that he needs to share with internally for comment it will then go to the full board it will come back to chair and vice chair and then we'll get the application posted and then you will have time to digest everything you've heard today and decide what process but as far

194as getting going we've got what we need the only question I have for you is do you want to Define exactly which locations right now that you're going to do what I'll call the big forums the ones that will be in that the entire world is invited to the rest of this airplane you're going to have to build as you fly it you don't have time to do all the details today yeah thoughts from the board I I agree with that Chris I think we go ahead and set those dates locations I agree with that and I was just going to put forward in what what Kim brought up that if we agree on the locations like the dates if you all can work to make sure you're looking at when we could have those

195locations and and mindful of times that are likely to work for people but I don't think we need a micro engineer at that level and I think the four locations we named I heard Jones Eddington Hall Fletcher and Isaac Dixon they sound good to me would have what I was wondering about the housing authority prosperities and whether or not including one of those would also make sense as one of the formal locations what do you all think about that and which one would we choose I just want to plug really quick that if the fourth one could be virtual as you originally said it would need to be in the boardroom yeah I think that would probably be the fifth one right yeah fifth third fifth okay yeah we could make okay let me just

196remind folks like if we do Isaac Dixon that's Hillcrest okay if we do Isaac Dixon Dyke if we do high pressure that's PVA so I'm intentional about the Arthur anything it's going to take care of the rest okay that's right so that's what my mindset was but I I can go with the fourth one being virtual as well well I think the fourth being at Dixon makes a lot of sense I mean you've got Eddington Jones Hall Fletcher and Dixon my only reason for suggesting the other was if in case folks wouldn't come to Dixon and maybe need us to gather but I'm and I thought that Marta had suggested something like that but I am great with those four and I think we should do a fifth virtually from here correct I thought and

197my goal and I know this is the goal of cni and probably others at CEO is we really need to further our partnership with our after school and programming because they know the students and the parents and they can help us once we've talked to them and we've hurt their needs they can help us get these parents to a lot of these locations so I think that needs to happen early on because they help us when we can't get to the parents so I was going to suggest that we start with a meeting here in the boardroom that hosts specifically the after school Community Partners after they have wrapped up their programming for the day we invite them here and then we begin our rotation through the other locations that have been presented and then

198finally wrap up with a virtual meeting here hosted here from The Boardroom foreign that's correct Kim did you get those notes and I think I have them in my head in regards to the RFQ in regards to the RFQ I would suggest we just followed the exact same procedure we'll get an RFQ to the chair to the chair uh Vice chair and superintendent once we get comments back it can be shared with the full board and then come back to chair and vice chair so why don't we just follow the exact same process okay and we'll jump those the three that were submitted will be on that list to me they're automatically accepted now there may be things in the RFK in fact there probably will be things in the RFQ that ask them to

199focus on specific issues such as inclusion Equity those types of things so certainly they will be specifically invited to supplement their responses in line with your RFQ yep that's the easiest way to handle that so I just wanted to Circle back on the the more informal meetings that we had discussed shall we revisit that I think you need to wait on a list from your superintendent in central office for that okay yes okay yeah your staff and superintendent will work on that and bring it back to you and you've got time to nail that down and Melissa could I invite you to use the example you were thinking of so that simultaneously while we're thinking of informal groups and ways that we might be able to engage in what feel like more like one-on-one questions

200that we could be also like social scientists and gathering information gaining a feel for what you know beyond the superintendent intent search like what are stakeholders Envision for the future of Asheville City that's a really good point I appreciate that um do we need a board meeting sometime later this month to come back with this stuff yes I will we'll shoot you some days since we want to work for you then foreign just so it's so it's spoken onto the room again will you um read to us the the locations we decided on please the first meeting will be at Co and it will include the after school programs um and then next we have not in any order but Eddington Jones Hal Fletcher and Dixon and a final meeting will be a virtual meeting

201here at Co great thank you okay just to summarize really from my own mind so we've got these we'll be hearing more about dates at these locations sometime in the month of January we will meet again and get I'm just looking at Melissa but a group of people will be putting together a list of folks with whom we might want intentional interaction so that we can start putting those on our calendars like the basketball game on February 3rd that's coming up um I'm so sorry when would it be at the next board meeting that we start to decide on the consistent questions and the consistent methodologies to use at these meetings is that what we're saying as a board I like that idea yes and when you say an exported meeting you're talking about the

202one in February not the one we'll add in the end of January is that correct I did mean the new January yet to be today and I assume that's going to be more of a work session type meeting right yes I mean the agenda of which would be questions methodologies we'd set it up as one more you can take action to approve some of these things sure yeah okay notice it is both just in case great okay so do we know who we are okay Mr chair you ready to try to revise this agenda and decide what we're going to do next sure yes because I think we've all supposedly we've already eaten and we're in the mid and we're in the middle of Christmas presentation well and I can offer a couple things one

203is that you know I know people want to eat but we're happy you know happy to do that part while you eat um and then second of all I think that uh I can speak for Anna that she doesn't need a full 50 minutes to do that see because she can certainly do hers in half an hour allowing for questions I think it's probably a 15-minute overview and you'll probably have at least 15 minutes of question so that one right there can be reduced 30 minutes and and we can talk during lunch if you'd like us to so is this something that we'd have to vote on and many agenda or was just good yeah by consensus would be fine you're in a work session um so I'll throw that out to the board I

204mean I do think first of all I appreciate all the voices in the room I mean this is this is to me what the heart of our work is is having these conversations getting to what would you want to to be as a board and the input that we need to um to really be serving our students and our staff in this District so so thank you for that I mean the the time it takes is the time it takes so I appreciate that um I also want to just leave it up to the board like do we uh I mean I could use you know I could stretch my legs but um and then I've got um a zoom call I need to get on during lunch um if you know if we got

205to push that away we have to push it away um but I just wanted to get the over to the board to y'all to folks need to move around and go find other spaces or it'll be good to sit through lunch and discuss I mean I want I know it's going to take time to go get some lunch I'm I would suggest that we take a 20 min 20 minutes or something to do lunch okay what 20 minutes right a 20 minute break and then come back here to do lunch or go do lunch let's say go do lunch and do lunch have a break lunch in 20 minutes just eat fast and if you got to wait back into the room then you did yeah bring it back we've ordered we've ordered box lunches

206for the school board for the attorneys and for the cabinet I don't didn't order enough visitors I'm sorry about that we didn't know how many folks would be here so uh the rest of your own your own but I'll share mine with you if that's okay with everybody so yeah so we'll go ahead and just take that lunch break and just be back in here at a quarter tail yes okay um well thank you for coming back um from lunch and as you can see I'm still eating mine um so next up on the agenda is um the board member rights and responsibilities with with the Chris's so when you all are ready go ahead I'm with c and k C right and uh board members if we could just remind us real quick um

207who was not able to attend the school boards Association training recently okay Liza and George and James did y'all go again or did you go to the school board okay great so we're not gonna We're Not Gonna repeat a lot of that we are going to hit the high water mark of a lot of that for uh for Liza's benefit the other thing that Chris and I thought we would do is we would commit if you will hold your questions and jot down your questions to keep you all on track today we'll commit to being done by uh 1 30. we can do the content part in 50 minutes and then if there are questions we're certainly happy to answer those questions the other thing I want to say at the very beginning is this

208is the beginning of a conversation so it's not like this is 50 minutes to fully explore your rights and responsibilities in addition to what you've already heard at the school boards Association so this is really the first time that we've had this conversation we'll continue to have this conversation and in fact one of the things we don't have time to do today but we will need to do at a future work session is just run over the general statutes that's something that's required as part of your ethics training too and we can do a so that every everyone has that we can do a truncated version of that as well let me tell you though that all of this can really be summed up in a single work Trust you have got to trust the

209process there is a process for just about everything either statutorily or in policy and it's there not to be legalistic or you know not to be restrictive it's there because it works so trust the process understand why the processes work the way they do secondly trust each other you've got to be able to trust each other as board members and a lot of this is is centered on that notion of trust and being able to accomplish things because you do have that trust in each other and then finally trust the superintendent you are a board you are just like General Motors you have a CEO and that CEO is Dr Jim Cosby he is responsible for implementing your policies he's responsible for the day-to-day operations of the school district and you will see a theme

210we come back to time and time again is that when you get complaints when you get concerns those are not something you need to be looking into yourself you have a staff a paid staff that's a very important notion other than the huge salary that you get to be board members you're not paid to take your personal time and time away from your family to investigate those things but you have a superintendent and a staff whose job it is to investigate those things to come to conclusions to bring you back information in the appropriate way so trust trust that process trust the superintendent as well so first of all you've got the slides in front of you but I just want to highlight a few things we've already talked about how your most important job

211there on slide four is to hire the superintendent I also want to point out that hearing appeals and making final decisions is something you do all roads lead to the Board of Education if a parent if an employee feels that they have been wronged there is a way for them to get in front of you as a board through an appeals process through agreements process but they are not permitted to do an in-run around that process or avoid that process by coming you directly now who will come to you instead of following the process well first and foremost people who don't know the process so a lot of what you're going to do as board members is simply educate folks for the four of you the public did not vote for Jim Cosby they voted

212for you so it's natural for them to come to you with concerns and other things if it involves students if it involves Personnel you need to educate those folks then listen to them always listen to them but when you're done listening the mo the next thing you say is the most important thing you'll ever say as a board member you don't know all the facts you don't know the truth yet that is Dr Cosby's obligation and job to get to the bottom of it so even if you hear a list of horribles from somebody don't say oh my goodness that's the worst thing I've ever heard we need to fire that employee so say to that person thank you so much for this information let me tell you how this process works our superintendent's job

213is to look into investigate things handle these things make recommendations and then things come to us as a board as a hearing so I'm going to take what you just told me and I'm going to let the superintendent know and the one thing you can promise is that things can do you can say I will promise you that the superintendent will look into this because my next phone call is going to be to the superintendent don't ever you know promise results or outcomes because you can't and educating folks I think is huge the second group of people that will try to come to you instead of going through the process is people that know quite frankly when they go through the process they're not going to get what they want they already know they did

214something wrong or they know policy doesn't allow them to do what they want to do or what have you and they're coming to you precisely because they know that they will not get the answer they want from Dr Cosby I just want to continue to remind me remind you that's okay because if they feel like they've truly been wronged then they get to come to you after they get a decision from Dr Cosby so again they can get to you in the proper course of things and then the last thing I'll say while we're on this topic is you will have some folks come up to you and say Ms Ray Amy I want to tell you something but you got to promise me that my name will not be brought up if I'm going

215to tell you about this you can't promise that it's time to use your oath it's the time to say to those folks listen I took an oath to protect the school district and to protect the students I can't promise you that I won't have to disclose your name because I don't know what you're going to tell me I can't make that promise but encourage them that if it's something serious they do need to tell you or they need to tell the superintendent see the themes coming up here the superintendent is your One-Stop shop for complaints and people that are upset and there again are two types of people who will do this one type is it's not really even something serious they're hoping that if they give you a little bit of information you'll give

216them some information about something that's going on they're just curious about what's happening the second type of person though is somebody who does know something about serious misconduct or a serious problem they will eventually tell somebody they may not tell you right then and there if you tell them you can't keep their name confidential but in our experience they will eventually come forward because it is serious and people that know serious things at some point decide they do need to tell somebody so that's the time to use the school board oath on page two slide number five I call this The Hourglass and I think this is a great visual representation for you to kind of keep in mind what your job is and how it works the group at the top of that slide

217is you the Board of Education the schoolhouse in the middle of that slide is Dr Cosby and the entire School administration and all the employees they're the ones that Implement again your policies and then the group at the very bottom is everyone who's interested in any way shape or form with the Asheville City Schools think about how big that group is that's every parent that's every student that's local politicians it's vendors it's local Business Leaders it's the faith community it's folks from different interest groups and Equity groups and different folks in town that group is infinitely big that hourglass is exactly that it's an hourglass your policies your decisions your Prime priorities flow through the administration to the world and if the world has a problem or a concern or a complaint it likewise goes

218through the administration first by you letting the administration know about it so they can look into it they can research it they can come back and give you recommendations a lot of this is legal and I'm going to point out quickly why in just a minute but it's also practical I mean I very simple example is what you just heard today you all agreed that you wanted to sit down with targeted groups and hear from them well it's very hard for the seven of you to figure that out right here sitting here today and you shouldn't have to take your personal time to figure that out that's the job of the superintendent a lot of what you're going to do as board members is you're going to say we do want to look into that

219we do want to do this Mr superintendent please pull that together for us look into it get the facts get the details and then bring it back to us for a final decision you now have a paid staff congratulations wouldn't that be nice when it came time to renew your homeowners insurance or look into colleges for your kids or uh you know research vacation spots I would isolate it be to call Dr Cosby and say you look into the top 10 vacation spots I'm ready for a break when it comes to school business you have that you have a paid staff whose job it is to look into things so we'll talk about that a lot slide number seven what is a public meeting anytime four of you are together talking about thinking about considering

220School business in any way or anything related to the actual City Schools it's a meeting can you all come together and have a get to know you better lunch or barbecue at one of your houses absolutely is that a public meeting no as long as you don't talk about school business as long as you just come together and have a social coming together all seven of you when you eventually get your seventh board member can be together the law focuses on what are you doing are you talking about considering you don't have to be voting even considering about school business then it's a meeting less than four of you are free to get together and talk about things it's not a meeting and what the law looks at is intent and that's what that slide

221seven is if you're trying to avoid public debate that's a violation of the open meetings law if you're trying to line up the votes if George is calling each of you saying okay I need to know how you're going to vote I want to know exactly where we are when we walk in the door that's a violation of the open meetings law if George though were to call one of you and say I just want you know Miss Kelly where are you on this are you feeling about this that's not a violation of the open meetings law I mean you're free to Talk Amongst each other intent really does matter and the last thing on that if you go to somebody else's meeting it's not your meeting so if all seven of you went to

222the commit County Commission meeting to hear about the budget you would not have to notice that that's not your meeting ceremonial events are not a meeting if uh there's a Convocation at the beginning of the school year and they're going to play some fun music and welcome everybody back for the school year and they'd like for you guys to be there to stand up and wave that's not a meeting you're there in a ceremonial role you're not there in a deliberative mall in a deliberative role so that's not a meeting so a lot of it is intent on remote meetings what I said earlier on slide number eight your policy does not allow for totally remote meetings and completely and holy remote meeting would mean there is no meeting space everybody is sitting at home

223or at their office on zoom in there's no physical location your policy doesn't allow now that your policy does allow remote participation if you can't make it to a meeting you can zoom in your policy does allow for that it is very specific about if you look at slide number nine it talks about you have to be prevented from physically attending that you have got to give at least four hours notice that you're going to need to zoom in that it is not to be used for your convenience votes are by Voice vote and remote participation by your policy is a maximum of three meetings per year unless you get two-thirds vote for a fourth or fifth meeting to participate remotely so that's what your policy says very quickly just an editorial comment I will

224encourage you very strongly to not zoom in unless you absolutely positively have to and there's no way to avoid it this is an example right here as I tried to gesture George can't help it we were laughing last night on the telephone that the last thing this group wants is a sick person in the room we're all trying to avoid being sick so thank you George this is a this is a great example of when remote participation is Justified but it does make the meeting more difficult cult to have somebody remotely it is better to have everybody in the room at the same time slide 10 yes you must vote unless you have a conflict of interest and you say what that conflict of interest is for the record then you must vote you don't

225get to abstain just because you're uncomfortable with what the decision is now if one of you were not to vote for whatever reason and technically violate the policy it does not count as a yes fact it's just not a vote so if seven of you are in the room it takes four votes to pass something and if three of you voted yes three voted no and one did not vote it does not pass because there are only three affirmative votes so that's how that's handled I do have one client where a refusal to vote is a yes vote it's a stick to make people late uh I don't think you need that I just want you to know that it is your obligation unless you have a conflict of interest to vote we've already talked

226about in slide number 11 that you only hire and fire people upon the recommendation to superintendent your classified folks who are your teacher assistants your cafeteria workers your bus drivers custodians they don't have a contract they can be terminated by the superintendent but they have a right of appeal to you so even those folks get to come to you if they feel like that they've been legally wronged then the next slide slides 12 13 14 15 16 all the way to 18. those talk about your duty to be impartial and to not be biased when you are sitting as a hearing panel and I can sum this up very quickly employees all employees but especially those with a contract have a constitutional right to have a fair unbiased panel hear them and it's almost like

227jury instructions that Ms Ray is very familiar with that you are to make a decision based on the evidence in front of you and not on other preconceptions with one change the court of appeals recognizes that you're going to know a lot about the people in the case already because you're board members and that's unavoidable if this is an employee a principal you're already going to know a lot about them just by virtue of doing your job that's not bias biases before you even hear the case you know how you're going to vote and the only way somebody's going to know that is if you say out loud how you intend to vote I'm not telling you how to be biased and still vote I want to be very clear about that but my point

228is the case is all focus on comments that board members made as to whether or not they were biased the most important thing about bias though folks is if you're biased be biased just don't sit on the panel if a teacher is coming up for a hearing on a potential non-reneur dismissal and your child had that teacher and you feel like that's the worst teacher on planet Earth and you think they should have been terminated or non-renewed years ago then just be biased call the chair and say I'm biased I can't serve on the panel just step off of the panel and when it comes to Due Process congratulations you are all 14 you are all constitutional officers now and you actually exercise the United States Constitution and the 14th amendment's guarantee of equal protection

229and due process it's okay to be biased just as constitutionally step off the panel and do not be part of that hearing and that sums up last thing I'll tell you is if a Court decides that even one of you is biased against an employee it nullifies the entire decision because the court say how are we to determine the effect that one biased person had on everybody else slide number 20 I wish that was bigger and we will get you a bigger copy of that that it shows you how complex employee investigations are and why they take the time they take to summarize if it is potentially a criminal matter there's a group of offenses that we must report to law enforcement also serious other serious criminal potentially criminal actions we want to consult with

230law enforcement law enforcement has no timeline law enforcement can take six months to investigate something law enforcement can take two years to investigate something by law you can only suspend an employee for 90 days so let's say there's a serious issue of misconduct Dr Cosby calls the sheriff calls the chief of police he's going to tell them I only have 90 days so we will stand down we will let law enforcement do the investigation But please understand that we can't wait more than 90 days and law enforcement traditionally has worked very well with the school district once the sheriff chief of police understand that maybe the district attorney if it's a really big issue they will work with the superintendent to get him evidence allow him to interview some basic Witnesses do what needs to

231be done but it's entirely possible that an employee could be on suspension with pay for up to three months especially if we are waiting on law enforcement and sometimes people feel like that an employee is guilty everybody knows they're guilty of some very very bad infraction involving a student for example and they don't understand why the employee is sitting home being paid that's the answer because if we're waiting on law enforcement that's all we can do is to spend with that I will tell you that um noted the superintendents talk about this and Dr Cosby is a leader of this conversation there will be there will not be the acceptance of a resignation if an employee is harmed a child either physically mentally or psychologically there will not be the acceptor resignation given neutral reference

232and let them sneak off to another school district that will not happen but sometimes it just doesn't work out not everybody should be a lawyer not everybody should be a superintendent not everybody should be a teacher and sometimes it just doesn't work out in the Humane and the kind thing to do is to accept a resignation so a lot of times the superintendent will accept the resignation and then he can come to you in closed session and give you all the details so if you hear that a bus driver resigned or you hear a teacher assistant resign and you want all the details let the superintendent know and in closed session he'll tell all of you all the details as long as there's not a chance that it will come before you as a hearing

233you're entitled to know all the details so if there is not a resignation and there's an investigation he can tell you who it involves and what the basic charge is but he can't give you all the facts because again you have to stay unbiased and wait for it to come to you as an appeal and I use real world examples not from the Asheville City Schools from other clients when I do these trainings I never use the client's own examples but let's say a teacher was accused of buying alcohol for a group of students on a camping trip and one of them is now in the hospital because they operated a motor vehicle after drinking alcohol and ran off the road everyone in town knows it the superintendent can call you immediately say this employee

234is accused of this we're working with law enforcement we've got them on suspension now you know now you really know all you need to know as a board member you don't need the details because either that employee is going to resign and you'll get all the details or it's going to come to you as a hearing and you'll get all the details because you'll be asked to terminate that employee we'll get all the eventually trust the process you just got to keep that in mind so that's an excellent slide of how all of that works and I think at this point depending it ever to my public records the most exciting part of this presentation always yeah so I mean and I say that not to be flippant ui's all our public officials now so

235public records are really important um in everything that you're going to do and in interacting with the public and what the expectations and transparency expectations are for the public so we have a couple of slides that are in this presentation that we'll go over and are also just there for you to reference I think the most important thing to me about public records and in North Carolina law is just from a from a basic sort of 50 000 feed just assume that every record that you create as a public official is going to be considered a public record if you start with that in your mind we can work back through some of the exceptions that may exist and a lot of the exceptions will go through them one by one because you need to

236know them are big categories and a lot of the things that we do aren't considered public records but um the law really is construed liberally and broadly in favor of all records being created by public officials in the transaction of public business being considered a public record now what that doesn't include are you know personal records that are made that are purely personal or not public records where that can get difficult as you can imagine right away are electronic records so as board members now you all have email accounts the definition of record a North Carolina law again is very broad certainly includes things like email voicemails faxes I mean the list goes on and on and on can even include things like text messages so that is very important for you to understand that

237every record that you're creating every communication electronically potentially could be a public record so please keep that in mind whenever you're doing your jobs and doing the business of the board um and again it's the it's really the form of the record that matters and the substance of the of of the record that matters so we recommend particularly you know again you're doing the the bulk of the business that you all will be doing in open meetings where the public is invited properly noticed for you to do your job the electronic communications again use your school issued or your District issued email account for those things really not advised to use personal email accounts a lot of people often don't think about that so if you say you're you're going you're you're communicating back and

238forth with someone in the public or another board member or staff member from your private Gmail account does not have to be from the school's email account to be considered a public record what matters is if you're talking about public business now if you're talking to the superintendent or another employee about going to an app State football game and it's purely personal that's not going to be considered a public record but just the fact of where it's housed is really not determined of anything now I say that again to make it easier for you all because on the other side of that there's also a record retention requirement that school districts have to comply with making it's makes it a lot easier on you as a board member to know that all your Communications are

239in one place in one email account so that if there is a public records request which any member of the public can make really for any reason the scope can be sometimes very broad you want to if those things come in and we have to work with you to collect those documents you want to make it as easy on you and staff to go through those to make sure that they're turned over appropriately um so take a look at slide 24 after I've just scared you about how broad the public records is again there are some very big exceptions that apply to a lot of the work that we do um you'll hear this a couple more times from me and it really is kind of embedded in a lot of what we do a

240major exception for student records and Personnel records Student Records are governed primarily by FERPA which is a federal law which prohibits our release of Education records which is defined under that statute we don't have time to get into that today but Student Records are an exception to public records so you know Communications from staff or between board members that are related to things like a student appeal or a parent or student grievance those types of things are not going to be public record because they're protected by FERPA FERPA does have some exceptions but that that's a big category there as well another major one is Personnel Personnel is really governed by North Carolina state law uh per employee Personnel records are confidential under North Carolina law now there are some there there are a category

241a category of information um that is not considered to be confidential things like salary and certain types of dismissal and suspension information are laid out in statute those things are not in most circumstances considered to be confidential but the vast majority of everything that is transacted related to Personnel matters is confidential and that is also it's in a later slide but again part of your oath and also part of the law in North Carolina is that you hold all matters that are confidential under law uh that way on slide 25 there's a couple more exceptions um you all are probably familiar with the attorney-client privilege there is an exception under the public records law for attorney-client communications so a lot of times uh Chris and Anna and I I mean we're working with clients if

242we're sending out things a lot of times you know you may see attorney-client communication on that email those are things coming from us that are not considered public record along with those are trial preparation materials things that are being created in anticipation of litigation or things that are being created and sent out as a part of a pending judicial matter or a pending lawsuit those trial preparation materials are also not considered to be public records the one caveat to the attorney-client communication to be mindful of is that in North Carolina law under the public records it is not as easy of a two-way street as it is between a an attorney and a private client or an individual so the emails that we send are are generally always if it's about legal advice will be

243protected in returning client communication that two-way street back to us is not always the same it really depends on the substance of what's being discussed again does it fall under one of the other exceptions or is it a trial prep material a lot of times it is but just be mindful with that as you are are generating records uh slides 26 and 27 really just kind of piggyback on what I just spoke about a moment ago particularly the the law where you have a duty to maintain confidentiality uh that is embedded in both student records and employee Personnel files uh you can see some of the the criminal penalties for not following uh those duties uh one thing I will say too if you've had a chance I know you've got a lot of information

244today and a lot more to consume after today but I would really recommend that you all take some time if you haven't already to look at your policy manual a lot of what we're talking about today the law can be spread out in a lot of different places but so much the School Board Association does such a wonderful job and you guys have the school boards most of their standard policies they do a great job of categorizing and codifying a lot of what the law is into policy that makes it a lot more digestible for you the new board members to to look and see the categories that we're talking about like student student issues and Personnel issues I would highly recommend you take a look at word policy 4700 and there's a procedure for

245that one as well a lot of the Personnel stuff that we're talking about now is in the 7000 series there's a lot of policies in there but skimming over those to start with would be a good idea to make sure that you're familiar with those yeah thanks Chris George asked me to address this specifically and that is the relationship very quickly between the open meetings law and the public records law okay if you are free to email each other or receive information through email but if more than four or more of you were to have a discussion about school business over email that's an electronic meeting that's a violation of the open meetings law that's exactly what you're supposed to do in this room so you're free to email each other you're free to send

246something of interest to the other six board members but please do not then start engaging in a discussion back and forth over email or text message because that could be considered to be a violation of the open meetings law and then ultimately what Chris said to begin with just assume everything you put in writing is going to be seen by somebody else so be very cognitive of that we literally even with the superintendent before I hit the send button on a text message or an email I actually asked myself the question do I really want to send this do I really want this in writing or is this something that I'd be better off calling him discussing and maybe I don't know all the facts I'm not sure about something so you know if it's

247a student record the parents get to see it it's an employee record the employee gets to see it so really you just need to assume from this day forward that anything you put in writing about the Asheville City Schools is going to be seen by somebody else so that's how those two relate you're free to email with each other but know that you're probably creating a public record but just don't have group email discussions or text message discussions because that would violate the law oh can I ask you a question what about uh when we're just talking about sort of logistics that also violates it like in other words it's public records I know it's a public record but I don't think it violates the oh that's a great question I did it's all about

248intent yeah the open meetings life you're just trying to figure out when you can meet right there's going to be de minimis things that are not going to be violations great questions it's a substantive discussion it might get you in trouble thank you for that thanks Chris um so on slide 28 we've got a couple slides on public comment uh public comment um is is governed again another policy to take a look at by your board policy 2310 um most North Carolina uh public comment policies are are similar there are some minor differences in your policy that I'll highlight for you but again this is the Cornerstone of of the board's business at every regular meeting there's a time for public comment we obviously want the public to uh you know to be present in

249our meetings and give us feedback on things that are important to them and that's really a big part of what we do um we set aside a certain amount of time in every regular meeting generally people will sign up before the meeting and they get three minutes and you know we time it and make sure that everyone gets three minutes not really anymore any less if someone finishes early then it'll take their three minutes that's fine we go on to the next person um it's not a time for a question and answer and that is a really important part of public comment that is your time to listen that is the time for the public to come in and speak um it may be important things that we're hearing that are going to be decided

250at that public meeting but it's not a time to get into a question and answer or a debate that's really not the purpose of a public comment session now an extraordinary sort of emergency situation sometimes there's action taken after a public comment and the policy speaks to that that's really not what you're going to see month in and month out Chris sorry to interrupt you that was loud um sorry but let's say that someone tells us some great news or something we're it's okay for us to say hey well done absolutely yeah I mean that's a response but that seems use your discretion in that certainly um you don't I think I think the point of I'm trying to make is don't feel like you're compelled that you have to answer and have a response

251to something that you just heard in public comment it's not required and a lot of times um you know those kind of things big picture can get also communicated from the superintendent before and after meetings other sort of areas of public comment that are sometimes important you may have parents and you may have students that come in that have pending matters going on with the school board they may have an appeal based on something that's very important to them it could be a disciplinary matter think back and don't forget what Chris said that all roads lead to you so you know you have to make sure that if that's a process still ongoing and a member of the public kind of wants to Corner you on the way in or on the way out always

252remember that you know you're going to be the ultimate decider if there's an appeal to you so you got to make sure that you remain impartial um you wouldn't want to bias yourself in in that regard also you know public comment is not a time to discuss confidential student matters or Personnel matters and that is sometimes difficult and and we try very hard to communicate that to the public that you know you really cannot use that time that you have in public comment to talk about things that are privileged and confidential uh personnel and student matters those are things that you know generally if if needed during meetings we try to inform uh members of the public to that if they come up also just keep in mind again this is the public forum and

253the First Amendment uh is vast so a lot of what you're going to hear is protected speech under the First Amendment you may not agree with it um you may not want to hear it but it is free speech and it is protected by the First Amendment so where's the line on that again there are a couple of exceptions to um to public forum and first amendment that we don't have a lot of time to talk about but you know obviously the main ones are things like defamation threats to individual board members or School Employees things like that that's not protected speech and that's one of the reasons that we uh our firm come to as many meetings as we can to help if needed you know make sure that those things are enforced personal

254attacks is sometimes a very difficult one you got to have thick skin as a board member you're going to get criticism on decisions that the board makes and that's part of the job but finding that line between a personal attack and just some very sharp criticism is sometimes difficult and that's where we have to step in sometimes and help but again do the best you can this is a great time for the public to speak to you and one of the only true times they have to do that in an open setting how are we doing on time Chris what time do we want to so closed session is a part of most meetings well for you all historically it's at least in recent memory it's been usually there's a closed session uh at every

255work session uh as needed you can have a closed session at any open meeting that's been properly noticed um depending on what what the need for closed session might be but they're only we can't just go into closed session for anything that we want to go in a closed session for the law has some very specific defined reasons that public bodies can go into closed session and those are not open to the public so there's a sample motion here in 39 generally the chair will will give the motion to go into closed session and it has to say in the Motions or the reasons and it has to cite the the statutory basis for why we're going into closed session and the next couple of slides you all can take a look at and I'll

256I'll list out the main reasons we might be going into closed session and it's always practical stuff as you can imagine that the board would need to decide on so if the boy Board needs to review Personnel matters or approve a Personnel report the approval of the Personnel report obviously is going to happen in Open Session but to receive confidential information about employees we've got to go into closed session to do that same thing with students again we talked about FERPA protecting student confidentiality so those are two almost routine every month the reasons that the board might need to go into closed session to hear information that is confidential under those statutes the other main one is to receive legal advice the legal advice you're privilege to remain confidential and so we will if needed

257updates on pending legal matters and things of the like we do in closed session as well and real property acquisition another one you can imagine why you need to go in a closed session for that and then to actually hear complaints and grievances against employee and student matters we actually will convene you know a regular meeting and then go into closed session immediately to have those things heard and then adjourn after the closed session is over those are some real practical reasons again why uh the very limited situations where the Public's just not entitled to be in those particular parts of the meeting Chris anything I forgot no I think you're good just know you cannot talk about the budget the county commissioner is in closed session sorry four things and we'll wrap it up

258uh first of all slide 43 be careful of information versus studies uh superintendent is fine for you to find out questions to specific things that you might be curious about from a director or even a principal but what are you really asking are you asking somebody to spend their time and effort to look into something that needs to go to the superintendent he'll tell you whether that's something that can be done and he's happy to do it or does that something that's going to take 20 25 hours of Staff work if something is going to be a study a majority of the board needs to be in favor of it so please be respectful of the employees superintendent's time when you're asking for information slide 44 piggybacks on that to put something on the agenda

259then all you've got to do is let the chair know and the superintendent know with six working days before the meeting you'll get your agendas for working days before the meeting and in the worst case scenario that the chair does not want to put your topic on the agenda you can make make a motion at the meeting to add it to the agenda and as long as the majority of the board members want to talk about it they will but you are a democracy and if four of you do not want to talk about it it doesn't matter how badly the other three want to talk about it it takes four board members to put something on the agenda second thing is visiting schools slide 45 please just keep in mind that you are a

260disruptive Force whether you realize it or not and you're always a board member and no matter how benign or or helpful your intentions are when you come to a school unannounced you are somewhat of a disruptive Force so please pay the principals and the superintendent the respect and the kindness of calling them ahead of time if you want to go to a school unannounced now if you're volunteering you're volunteering that's already set it's a public event and people know you're coming but it's the unannounced visit sometimes that can kind of throw things into a tizzy and whether you like it or not the principal is going to stop what they're doing no matter how important it is just because you walked through the door that's just the reality of it so please just give folks

261a heads up and again Dr Cosby's your One Stop Shop he'll probably love to go to a school with you if you would just wanted to go see something and meet some folks I know that for a fact item number three on plus slide 48 you have immunity you don't need an extra insurance policy to be a member of the school board you're covered by the school board's insurance policy you also have qualified immunity and public official immunity when you are sitting in this room as a board making decisions when you're out on your own doing things on your own you can very illegally lose that immunity you can lose qualified immunity if you violate the well-established constitutional rights of an individual and you can lose public official immunity in a state lawsuit if your

262actions are deemed to be malicious or corrupt the reason this matters is if you look on slide 49 if you were to do something that violated somebody's clearly established constitutional rights there is no insurance policy on the planet that will cover you those his damages will be individual damages and yes your bank account your lake house your boat your car all of your house at risk under those circumstances so that's why you don't want to do them as a board and a lot of time I don't feel the need to spend as much time with this board but late Bradley we've been spending a lot of time talking about constitutional rights of individuals and what people may have said on the campaign Trail you got to follow the law so from time to time there

263are things that clearly would have to be careful about so I don't worry about that I just want you to know about immunity and then the last thing I want to tell you about and we're certainly happy to answer later about any of these other slides is help get the word out if you will look at slide 58 everyone there's been a lot of talk about what social emotional learning is not and there's been very little discussion about what social emotional learning is social emotional learning is not code for critical race Theory and everyone in this room knows that but there's not been enough discussion about what it is legally if you look at slide the general assembly as established in statute that students may excuse me slide 59. per the students with disabilities under

264idea we have some kids that social emotional learning is their education it's 90 of their education because they have behavioral disabilities they have emotional disabilities so social emotional learning is education for disabled kids and kids with psychological disabilities under the North Carolina Healthy Living curriculum the school district must address mental and emotional health required by the general assembly both the reproductive health and the safety education programs must also include instruction on health and emotional problems and then probably the most important statistic one out of every five kids in North Carolina has either a serious emotional or psychological disability or a substance abuse program a problem and the general assembly has made School the focus of trying to address these kids no one wants to give up on 20 percent of our future and the way

265to address that is through social emotional learning so when you hear somebody talk about what you know social emotional learning is not please take the time to educate them as to what social emotional learning is because it is such a valuable and necessary part of the education that we see at this point we have seen for all of our clients across the board every year there is an exponential increase in the number of students that have psychological problems and needs that are not being met and will not be met by DSS or mental health or anybody else the schools literally is the only place that these students can get any kind of services this is the results of drug addiction opioid babies are now in public schools they're now old enough to be in public

266schools all of these societal issues are now playing out in the public schools and social emotional learning and what these folks have to deal with on a day-to-day basis is a crucial part of what they do so um I don't apologize for the soapbox but I did want to make sure that you I'm to that particular issue Mr chair that's it for us Chris is any questions from the board great appreciate y'all giving us some uh guardrails guide rails as we Embark Upon Our work so thank you for that uh next on the agenda um Rebecca is going to kind of lead us through some board brainstorming on our roles and priorities Rebecca you ready I am ready thank you George and I'm just going to go ahead and clarify in that language the what

267we're actually going to talk about are norms and protocols doesn't that sound very different from what's on the agenda um I am really excited to walk us through what will be um an experiential exercise for the board as we form in this new way at this new moment at this exciting time for our school district um and Mr Campbell referenced it pull up my notes several of us were able to go to Raleigh in December to the School Board Association training and they gave us some really great solid foundational um information and out of that there was a piece that I felt particularly energized about and think it's really the perfect place to put energy during a retreat and it relates to how we do our work so this this portion of the agenda is

268not going to be on what we're doing but how we're going to do it um because I think it matters when you're going to talk about anything related to how you're going to do work currently our mission reads Asheville City Schools will create learning environments that ensure Excellence with equity for all students our vision is that we will Empower and engage every student to learn discover and thrive that's what we have right now those words are currently our guide and we're going to use them and hold them as we move into thinking about how we do our work the training that we went to it uplifted a few key Concepts that really build nicely off of what we just got around the sort of League olives like that was legalese and then we turned this

269into lay action understandable approach how we're going to do this a couple important components that the School Board Association called building blocks for Effective governance were positive board culture or norms and the other is clear transparent structures and processes or what they call protocols and we were given a directive that when it comes to Norms and protocols it is our duty as members of the board to Define them and abide by them together so in the materials that you have linked to there's a just two things that they're straight out of that training they were I find them to be clear and very understandable and one is a slide that shows a clock so if you pull open that clock uh you see that it really defines in an image um so much of what

270Chris was just talking to us about too right and if you start at the clock at 12 o'clock start a you know midnight right start a new day um we're sitting on that North half of the clock with the roll of the board and we're talking about governance and at 12 o'clock at the beginning of a cycle we set goals we move along to two o'clock and we as a board establish policies then when you get on to the bottom half the southern half of that clock from four o'clock to eight o'clock the work moves to regulations and operations that are the purview of the District staff the paid staff after eight when it becomes ten o'clock it rolls back to that governance place of evaluation and then we pick back up and that's our

271role is how did it go are we getting to our goals and then you can see where all that learning moves us again into new goals I really like this model as it demonstrates cyclical nature while delineating roles the other handout that you have linked there is just for your own purpose if you want to use it um defining all these places around the clock and thinking about Clarity and lanes and who's doing what so with the next time that we're going to spend together the board members and George you and I can work in concert over text messaging so that you can get your information to us we're going to do essentially an exercise I've got some big sheets of paper over there laid out with some headings that relate to topics that are

272important for us because of who we are topics that are related to what we're being called to do in this moment around norms and protocols and um we're going to use our creativity to start naming and putting on these sheets what do we want to do I'm gonna walk that back how do we want to do it we're not going to talk about what we want to do we're going to talk about how we're going to do it because we know a lot of what we need to do so if we can get clear on how we want to do it within the limits of the law which I appreciate that we have access to that then we know how we're going to do the top of the clock um we won't have different ideas

273about how we wish we were doing this work we can actually start naming it together so um Leslie we've helped me grab these Dr Cosby said that a good use for the day is on a day like today would be for putting big sticky sheets of paper on it so I think those are all like giant Post-it notes and if we can put them along maybe Amy James Sarah boom April's paid but like we're getting big bucks too right now to set these out and then what we have I think many of us have done processes like this every board member is going to have Post-it notes take a pad of Post-it notes and George you can text me or Post-its and I'll write them out for you and the categories that we're going to

274put our ideas in we're going to arrange them physically so that we can see them we have right now our goals and policy right 12 o'clock on the clock and something that I've heard banded about but it's not currently part of our culture it's committees we're now a board of seven we're not five there's seven people on this board it seems like something to consider um evaluation which is a key role of hours what does that mean what could we be doing what would that look like how might we be doing evaluation Community engagement and stakeholder involvement um how are we going to be listening in all ways and effectively structure of meetings and work session which I'll make that one I left it off but that how how will our meetings run we know

275how they've been running is this the way we want to keep running them or or do we want to do them differently transparency is something that many of us have been talking about for a long time and then there's also a parking lot for great ideas that don't fit anywhere else so what we're going to do at this point is have board members write up what's on your mind and put them up here so that we can start considering each other's ideas and and figure out where do we coalesce and where um do we have consensus and then we'll go to another step of the exercise but for now I think we're going to take we're gonna I'm gonna assume we're gonna take 10 minutes but we're a fairly small group and when George's texts

276stop coming in I'll know he's done and then and then we'll reassess where we are it'll be awkwardly quiet for a while but Rebecca since I can't see those those things when you will you give them the categories give me those headings again yes please goals and policy committees I so what did I write yeah I wrote them fast it could be policy too that's actually what we're legally charged um it's 12 o'clock on the clock you know that's that's what we're talking about um I mean evaluation Community engagement the one that's missing that I'll put up right now is structure of our meetings and work sessions transparency and then we'll have a parking lot too George if there's something that just doesn't fit but it's a great idea all right we'll take 10 unless

277we're done early Sarah's got questions to make this better so if we had a particular goal for the board we would write that on a sticky note and go put it on that piece of paper yeah and like herein is my first moment of like bravery right we're as we know we're in a public meeting we're being live streamed and I think we should all feel comfortable to write up anything and maybe discover it's not a great idea because we'll help each other figure that out but that's that's okay that's what this is for and and they'll there may be things that go up there that we realize we can't tackle right now and at the end of this we're going to do something called a harvest where nothing gets thrown in the trash but

278we may not be used today but that's okay because this is generative and we're going to find our way together laughs thank you I know you've got music on your phone foreign thank you foreign okay foreign thank you foreign yeah that's why I'm sorry you can do some bullet points you also could just Google you might find something you might as well foreign so let me say these foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign I know I know well but when we do these great ideas they'll be they'll just keep coming all right I can see that James is full of ideas still lies is still writing now I'm doing that like facilitator thing where I start talking a little bit because it kind of lets it helps me take the temperature of the room

279to see if we could get started again because the next thing we'll do I'm going to let Liza keep writing while we talk about like what will happen next is we'll we'll take a look at what's here some of them are going to be repeats and so um it will be our job right now to get up and organize them and read them and consider them and think about what's something you hadn't thought of what's something you're glad other other people wrote as well as you and then we're going to use our stickers to say hey that wasn't my idea but I really like that idea like I didn't I didn't think of that and and then when we see things so step one is going to be where there's repeats we're going to put

280them together so that they're organized and then we can visually see through our stickers hey it looks like everybody's on the same page about this one and then once we do that we'll read out loud and then organize them for further action from there does that make sense okay so Eliza's got a couple more she's gonna put up and then we're going to organize them and then dot them by what we like and see where we are every board member has to get up they're glad to get out of their seats anyway and start organizing where things are repeats if two are on there just put one under the other Rebecca is it too much for you to start reading them off for me or absolutely oh George I know I'm sorry actually that yeah

281I'll search I don't want to be just sorry no don't um I'm happy to do that because it'll be more exciting for everybody else in the room and hopefully not too distracting oh good okay then I'm yeah I'm gonna start over here because Sarah's already looked at it George I'm going to read off under committees the idea of like using a committee structure or getting involved in committees um relations with local governmental governmental leaders joining a committee of TDA the tourism development joining United Way and getting on a committee of theirs um safety law enforcement cooperation joining a public housing committee Chamber of Commerce getting involved with Chamber of Commerce student and teacher committees meet and greet the board events Community within the board internal student support committee so like a board committee that's a

282student support committee an internal board budget committee and then an internal policy committee foreign this one's Community engagement and stakeholder involvement affordable housing for educators certified and classified staff scheduled meetings with County Commissioners and with City Council high expectations for all students as a means to equity where is it happening and how culture of trust for all stakeholders and employees being genuine and accountable check-ins with our Community Partners a county commissioner liaison superintendent to sit on the chamber EDC boards involvement with my daddy taught me that United for youth the United Way Community Schools effort establishing Liaisons with some Community groups a superintendent's priority list invite stakeholder groups to present their needs for example classified staff ideas School visits sports events cultural events what do stakeholders want the future of ACS to look like are

283we doing it engage with our Asheville legislative delegation foreign [Music] accountability if a program is loved by some but only beneficial to a few and is not promoting our goals will we kindly change gears and quit that program did we improve educational opportunities provided to students of color a superintendent evaluation that lies along District goals that uses District goals set clear leadership goals with measures and follow-up and an annual self-evaluation for the board on meetings and work sessions there's a there's like a group I like this they're all like all put together so it's hearing from stakeholders about needs not just statistics and Good News student voices that are not performative Representatives can share at meetings or provide brief written statements here from Asheville High silsa student body presidents quarterly at board meetings bringing stakeholder

284concerns to the Forefront board announcements at the end of the meetings could include more than just board stuff Sports Arts Theater CTE events soliciting ideas from staff stakeholders Community Partners then there's several it looks like three that are regular updates from acae um as well as the new EAC group our meetings United Way Community Schools updates during our meetings on a regular schedule and then celebrating culture of sharing best practice and effective teaching not just test scores and for culture it's okay to ask for more information before we make decisions um yeah I like I didn't put that on one but the idea of long-term work session agenda items yeah thank you Amy I'll go over to transparency Outreach culture of trust for stakeholders and employees building relationships being genuine and accountable accessibility and opportunity

285for underserved stakeholders to participate in meetings stopping during meetings to ask for questions allowing for more time if we need it that is it takes the time that it takes a chair communicating out to board and staff each time that we are interviewed I wonder if that's like media George is that what you mean yep um and no surprises and then for goals and priorities there's several that are hanging together recruit more employees across the district attracting and retaining excellent Educators especially people of color um being Dynamic and engaging proactive not reactive making a legislative agenda or a policy agenda that will guide work we can do with legislators expanding access to pre-k brainstorming cooperation with the county about Pre-K use of 441 Haywood Road for students a home for the Academy Capital Improvements so

286buildings thinking about our buildings um adapt policies we make decisions based on all students centering student voice and educator voice finding a new superintendent a community-centered superintendent search what do stakeholders want the future of ACS to look like and are we doing it have new three-year strategic plan by Spring of 2024. work collaboratively with Community groups to build trust in ACS including County Commissioners after school groups local businesses reduce the achievement Gap by 10 percent by the end of the 23-24 school year every student able to achieve that student's aspirations educational vocational Etc continue to Center bipoc students and Community Building relationships parents or guardians of 98 of our students participate in some way in the life of our schools when we when and where possible improve improve compensation to teachers and staff and a

287living wage for all staff so now they're kind of grouped and they're put in they're under their big headings and they're hanging together so we'll take just a few minutes and look at now and I've seen exercises done like this where you you get a limited number of dots she can't just put a dot on everything otherwise we won't need to use dots but I'm not going to ask you to just select some small number of dots but thinking about what we're going to do with these is put them into three buckets a bucket of this is ready to go we should just start this now I joked a lot I talked to with Liza like George and Amy go this is it put do the meetings this way right like some of this stuff

288is so concrete it's just ready to go but some of these things need to be put in a category that we might call let's dig deeper let's figure out what's possible and then some of these might need to go in a category called we need to hear more voices we need to unpack that with more people so where we see lots of dots well no we're looking at something we want to pay attention to right away so a reasonable number of dots on the ideas that you yeah any color you want seven specific there's some stickers with like my daddy taught me that United way over there there's more of the same like what if you just want a DOT Better Community engagement do I need to dot every single one I mean do I

289dot every single entity that I think we ought to have a relationship with which I'm happy to do but over here we had a more broad one I forgot what you said exactly of better I'm just yeah I mean it's true that thinking about there's certain things that we can do right away in our structures there's no reason not to do it but that doesn't change the fact that there's an overarching more strategic approach that might be we didn't need to invest in too um it's messy it's a little messy that's okay um you might also find you want to take a sticky note with you and rewrite one in a different way that gets you more you're able to get the idea up there because some of these are very very specific and some

290of them are very big we're here thank you so I'm thinking about like with the my daddy taught me that I'm assuming that what's implied in that is engagement with my daddy taught me that which is at least an action does that make sense yeah lots of it well let's do this then this is ours Community engagement stakeholder involvement I think for many of us this is a value we want to bring in as new board members for sure right so yes thank you some of which yeah how about if you use different color dots for your levels that's a good idea a green if it's something you won't done as quickly as possible yeah a yellow if it's uh intermediate range and uh blue if it's long term okay I like that avoid red

291intentionally so green means let's just get going with this yeah let's move on let's move on this one this seems like we can move on it and yellow is I like this let's let's figure it out let's figure out how to get there and then this actually is it's it's approximating our buckets yeah and blue that means long term long term yeah and then there it is I think that was the right thing to do Sarah all of this it's right now yeah George nobody can hear me I'm talking to somebody don't worry I'm just talking to you nobody else can hear us I'm just talking to you yeah all right how do you want me to do your stickers um let me go back to the notes I made oh okay yeah that's a

292good um so we're doing green for right away yeah Yama for mid-range blue for longer range okay foreign I'm looking at a lot of the just kind of structural things around the way we run our board meetings um so like we can go ahead right now and set aside time to hear from different stakeholders you know putting it on a regular session I heard that was some of the stuff that was on there um it is a little challenging not be able to see it and recreate it but um but yeah those kind of just board structures of how meetings who we want to hear from for meetings I'd also think it's important on the blue is is um I can't remember how it was phrased and under what category it was but um but

293asking what you know when people are presenting what they need like what's working well what also what do they need that we from a governance side can can help be a part of governance and policy making side um that makes sense I remember where I saw that I'm gonna go find that and put a green sticker on it for you yep I really like that idea of finding Liaisons um you know I I hate to ask or not I don't hate to ask but asking folks from other big agencies in our region whether it's you know accounting commissioner whether it's someone from another board or but but seeing putting out that call for Liaisons I think is a really great idea and so and that feels like something we can do pretty quickly I just

294gave you a thumbs up George that was okay sorry I was I'm going back and forth between my what I've written down and looking at the camera um one thing about student voice I just want to throw into the room is you know I've I've I've talked about it a lot actually when I was doing my um fellowship with the center for racial equity and education last year my project was around student voice on the board um but I also went uplift something that Copeland has reminded me of of how much especially these days we and I'm using like the big we of of all of us not just everyone in the room but like Society right now how much we're putting on our the shoulders of our students um and expecting them to have

295the answers when that's really not their job um so so really asking students how they want to be engaged so one thing I would propose is us as board members whether it's for me and Amy or for others to to go to student groups go to the racial equation ambassadors go to Student Government talk let's talk to Derek and um Joe and Nicole about what groups are operating in the schools and go to their meetings and say what do you need and how do you want to be heard um as opposed to saying hey we want you on the board um so so giving them that space and not relying on them to do our work so to speak so that that feels like a blue but also with kind of a caveat of making

296sure that we're not putting the onus on them I like that George I'm making student groups I'm putting it on community and get engagement and stakeholders is that feel good to you that sounds good um Derek isn't there uh like monthly don't all of the student groups get together for like uh don't they all have like Representatives they send to one big meeting Derek says yes okay so that that could be a good place to start I I don't know I mean that's that's something we can work out okay so I'm just gonna offer that I did green on the things I thought were feasible right away I don't think it's important because everything up here is super important from what I from my point of view but it was more like okay um it

297may take us a little while to do a living wage even though we all think it's extremely important yes thanks Amy for pointing that out yeah what's feasible um that makes sense Amy I appreciate you saying that and I just went and added a blue no no um Amy's clarifying for James and Sarah like I actually just went back to add a blue to the yellow because then realizing blue doesn't mean it's less important blue means we're in it for the Long Haul and something like teacher compensation there's not any easy Pathways for us there's not like a road that we just a map for how to do it it's something that is going to be easy to wish away but we have to stay dedicated to it God bless you you're one of those

298people all right so what we have now is a product that we can do something with that I'll be happy to to work on synthesizing this into an electronic document based on the colors I really appreciate um the way you know when a group comes together one idea gets better when somebody realizes hey there's a different way to do it and I appreciate Dr Cosby right now and realizing that we can color code this and leave them in there in their categories and I think I'm hopeful that what will you what we'll have is a document that George and Amy will be able to you know these are norms and protocols right back to the beginning of what the School Board Association said is our duty it's our duty it's not good it's not just

299extra and wouldn't it be nice is this our duty is to be clear about how we do our work and this goes well beyond just how we do our work but certainly the things that are on the meetings and work session I mean there's stuff there that we can just start doing and we we have consensus we've named it um what I will do in compliance with public record laws is type it up and and make it available so that we can hold each other accountable to the things that we're putting here now all right I thank you guys for this time this feels very exciting to me I'm glad and grateful to be here and George I'll throw it back to you unless there's yeah Amy is this the theoretical conclusion to this section

300session Okay the reason I ask that is because I'd love at some point for us this is awesome do you guys love this I love being in this in this space with you all I can see you of you know and hear we're equal right we're not sitting up there so I want to say thank you to those of you who had to work to put the tables up and bring all the food and all that stuff and I know we're not ending our meeting but I just want to as we're talking about you know sort of meeting norms and protocols and how we do these things um I think our intention is certainly to do our work sessions this way um henceforth as far as I think unless somebody you got anything to say

301about that James no okay you were looking at me like you might so he he probably has some wisdom that I'm not privy to yet but you'll give it to me later anyway I love this so thank you to those of you who put this together um like this because George and I sprung that I think on Dr Cosby just two days ago and I really appreciate that we've done this and I know technologically this makes it more difficult but this is really great from my point of view and I would love for us to continue to brainstorm how our regular meetings can feel a lot more like this um so that's just my thought thanks oh I think I'm supposed to make an announcement should I do that later okay later bye thanks your

302turn George sorry oh good um thank you Amy for lifting that up because I I agree I mean there's um the the amount of work it takes to to put something like this together I appreciate that and I know that Chris joked about how we now have paid staff to do it but yeah but we also have paid staff that's doing a lot of other things um that's Central to our to our students and to our Educators so um so the time it takes to put this together I appreciate that for sure one question I had um regarding Rebecca you're going to put it together I I should know this better but I don't um on the Asheville City Schools website is there is a section for the board right uh but isn't it just

303like like who who is your board and what are the meetings but like what can we put up there that becomes public record and I think it's important and the idea of transparency if we're doing all this that um that it's front-facing and that it's public facing that we've we've worked through this you know we've done it during a an open public session of the board um we've got these things that now are kind of lining the room but that we continue to make it um public and that because it holds us accountable I think that's important you're right George and I've just pulled up the board um home page which is full of great information it's got agendas it's got minutes so it's already this great warehouse for the work that we're doing so

304um I think that is a great place for us to think about you know having our our sort of General parking lots like like where how can people see what and as and and for us to continue to refine it in ways that are understandable and serviceable and make the in people pushing the work forward thank you so um looking at the time you know I know we we held off on some things earlier in the morning I just want to kind of you know we can go ahead and push through and probably end early if we want to do that we can also look back at the thing the the one agenda item from the morning which was student safety and support I don't know if those folks are still in the room first

305of all uh if they want to do it now but also offering that up given our time um so that's that's number one number two is um you know we've got now this stuff on the wall and we are gonna we're gonna have a added board meeting um work session and sometime in January but we've gotta we've got then we get back to our regular schedule of uh work sessions and then uh regular meetings in February um and so a couple of things with that number one um you know we we want I want us as a board to be collaborative around putting these agendas together for what comes next so um I just want to throw it out of the room like what feels important to make sure it's on that February work session

306that we can have that's number one um so I'll start with that I'll go ahead and put that out to the board and to end the folks in the room as well so so admin um and fact and staff as well what feels really vital that we make sure is on that February work session foreign thing too to keep in mind um don't feel like you have to because there's a lot of things a lot of business that has to be done so your superintendent is always going to be putting together an agenda of what has to be done so sure certainly a great question but I just didn't want the board members to feel obligated to add something to the plate because the superintendent will always always bring a lot to the plate of

307what the work you need to get done it's not for sure especially as you get used to the board as new board yeah no thanks Chris for reminding me that thank you okay um I would love to to talk about the academy one of these days that I want that on a Works session agenda and specifically I'd like to know or I'd like to wondering if Dr Cosby if you all have done any thinking around a permanent space for the academy and where we are in that and I'd like a report from um um Dr Johnson is that right last name Randall right um and I'd like a report from him about how it's going what he needs I'm just really interested in that program I've been waiting for ever since the closure of um

308of Randolph for this to happen and but I want to want to find out how it's going second thing I'm interested in at some point is to talk about safety and specifically where we are on cameras do we where do we have them where do we not have them are we connected to the Sheriff's system if we're not why not I know we've got I've I've heard tell of like anyway I just want to know what the cooperation between APD and the sheriff's department is like when it comes to schools and I'd love to hear about that at some point that's why I was curious about what you were going to say today because I know I would have learned more but that's one thing because um I've you know we got the demonstration of

309what the County Schools have available to them in terms of seeing what's happening in their schools and I really want to know where we are and if we're comparable at this point or if not what's the plan both ECA and where we are with fuses are part of what we were going to discuss today as you can see in the present what we provided for you beforehand we can do a surface and tell you all of it today or we can dive deeper into the two items that you've asked us to do in the February work session or both I'm not in a huge hurry I like to just kind of put things out there for at some point when it makes sense in terms of agenda items these are things I just want to

310really I want us to dive deeper on the questions that come up and those are just two questions that I have been thinking about thank you I would like to hear about possibilities surrounding Pre-K expansion um we're in crisis as we all know in the county and I'd like to explore options um for expanding our own offerings in District great thank you Amy thanks thanks Liza um excuse me uh so it sounds to me like with um especially Amy's point about the academy but I'm sorry about um student safety and cameras and all that um recognizing that we've had a lot today that it probably just makes sense to to table [Music] um April your presentation yours and Kim's until that February work session uh where we where you can respond to some of those

311questions and then we are um our brains might not be as full as they are right now does that sound good to everyone as far as the agenda Adams George was okay you and I and Amy talked about that some already so we'll start that process earlier sure and the past has been started about a week ahead of time as far as putting everything together we'll move that back an additional week and get two weeks if any board member if you've got any item get it to me or to one of your four chairs and that way we'll have plenty of time to try to work it into the agenda yes thank you Dr Cosby and that's something that's you know we've talked about um Amy and Dr Cosby and I have also talked about

312you know as we know as a district we know what might be coming up it might need board approval like let's say I mean the bunch is the perfect example because it was already presented to us or the timeline knowing that we have to vote in in June July for that um you know really kind of setting the table months in advance so that as questions come up we can continue to answer them move through them um one of my bullet points was making sure that we're being um as proactive as we can we understand as a board and as I'm sure you you know everyone in this room knows that you never know what's going to come up during a day so we also have to be reactive when we have to be but

313the more that we can be proactive I think the the better will feel as a board knowing that we can make the right decision [Music] um so yeah we'll continue to work with that the second thing um regarding all of this conversation is um a point that Chris has brought up to all of us and we just need to revisit it um this idea you know our work sessions right now on the first Monday of every month um we are looking to see if we can and should change that Monday to be the first Tuesday of every month for our work sessions part of the challenges um Chris and his crew um you know are serving a lot of boards and um it's sometimes it's hard for him and others on his staff to get

314here for those Monday work sessions so um moving those work sessions to Tuesday now I don't know Chris you'll have to clarify for me if this needs a board Vote or is this just something that we can you know come to consensus on first of all your own okay can you hear me now great thank you first follow-up thank you let me clarify one thing we are picking on you as opposed to our other clients because you're new so we're just asking the question we are happy to stick with the Monday Monday schedule week we can make that work but the first Monday of the month is a train wreck in our office we literally have up to seven eight board meetings the first Monday of the month so we just thought we'd ask the

315question if it was just as convenient for you to have your work session on the Tuesday before your Monday board meeting then that way we could you know feel better about some priority if that doesn't work we will stick to the Monday this is just an ask but before you respond to it let me tell you that um the the setup works really well regardless of the night the work session exactly sitting here like this is fabulous do all of your hard work in the work session then your board meeting you can bring kids you can bring employees you can celebrate successes and you will have a lengthy consent agenda that does not take discussion and the Public's told if you want to hear about these kinds of business items come to our work session

316so the whole point of two meetings is you hash through things at your work session then you put them on for a vote at the regular meeting and you don't have to have a lengthy discussion at your regular meeting on every single item I just want to throw that out there for the boards that are using that it works beautifully for the ones that are committed to it and stick to it it makes everybody's life a lot easier but this is just an ask if it doesn't work no big deal so my question is I would like to know whether it works for staff and before I we even talk about whether it works for us you know you all are the ones who are coming in talking to us and helping us understand things

317and prepare the real preparation for us is before the first meeting right and I just that's give you're giving us another day okay just Tuesday night which would make that easier Tuesday night work just as well for people as Monday night for y'all I think we have a parent who is reminding us that most of our ptos meet on Tuesday nights of the month are different Tuesdays of the months I don't know the answer to that Marta do you know the answer that they're not on the same it's their staggered so we would have to there are some other ripples that's what I was wondering yeah like athletic events I mean things like that that could cause a hindrance but we don't build our calendar around board meetings nor should we build athletic events around

318for me now there's always things that conflict any night of the week you'll find multiple things happening yes I don't think it would cause us any serious issues if you should decide to do this you would have to do an official vote to change it yeah it's your next meeting though and we could we could do that yeah at the professional January meeting correct one consideration that I have having been in this community as a parent for several years and seeing different ways of doing the structure tried out different locations different times and all in the attempt to make it accessible I have a sense that predictability and stability is what matters most and so obviously when you stick with something it becomes predictable and stable but um I am not immediately loving the idea

319of two different nights of the weeks because you said if you're interested to know what we do how we do the work we'll come to the work session but it's on Tuesdays but these are on Mondays and so I think it's preferable to have them on the same night at the same time so that if anybody shows up whichever whichever one they come to it's like it's like another language when you're just getting here and I I'm in favor of doing anything to make it as accessible as possible maybe that means everything's on Tuesdays I don't know I'm not trying to stop at all but I I think that is a consideration foreign I don't have a comment on what night we meet I mean that doesn't matter to me um I wanted something that

320a few of us have talked about that I guess because of what Chris said and he can tell me about this I think sometimes the work sessions is where the work gets done and then the next week it's all on a consent agenda and it feels um like just so formulaic and I think we've talked about sometimes taking things off the consent agenda not because there's any debate among the board but just so the people in the audience know that we actually gave a lot of thought to this so that it doesn't feel like we buried it on a consent agenda and so I just wanted to sort of acknowledge that I think sometimes we want to take things off the consent agenda Not to cause um trouble but to try to be as transparent

321as possible that's something some of us have talked about absolutely and I think one of the things that the chair should do is go through each consent agenda item before you vote what's an agenda I think sometimes that gets forgotten is really the chair should give a summary of each item and say the board's been discussing this for weeks or we discussed it last Tuesday and give a paragraph summary a consent agenda as you all know is just that all of you must be in agreement also so even if one of you wanted to pull it off so it could be discussed a little bit more elaborated on to your point and invited on that's your right as a board member that's a great point and not looking to move everybody to a Tuesday Tuesday

322I mean again we can we can make Monday Monday stick with that we just thought we'd throw it out there kind of sounds like we'll stick with the Monday Monday that'll work thanks very much appreciate you considering it seriously that's fine we won't have to change that on the websites anyway well what I'll say about this is um part of it is part of what we've talked about before taking on the official position was that we want to think about things so when you ask us today we don't have an answer because I think we haven't really done a lot of thinking about it but I would say that doesn't mean it won't happen it just means right does that make and so that I think is just kind of word to the wise to

323everyone in this room who is used to the board hearing hey make a decision and then they make it we might not be so quick sometimes because we actually want to stop and think about it and I think Rebecca's point was really important foreign thank you well so appreciate that Amy here you know if that's something that we decide we want to put on the next you know agenda for next item then we can but yeah it's definitely a conversation we can continue to have so thank you um so we as the agenda is written for today after this brainstorming session we have time for a break um we are running a little ahead of schedule so we can take that break or we can just go straight into the final agenda item which is

324district lines and student Admissions and assignment I don't know I'm over here so I don't know how the room's feeling if y'all need time to move around and go to the bathroom and all that I'm hearing folks say break okay okay so um 10 10 minute break be back at 2 55. right thank you it's so strange from my perspective being able to see myself up on the big screen up above the doors feels very big brother-ish so anyway excuse me thank you all for coming back um so last of our agenda items is um discussion with Anna Gillespie about District Lines student admission and assignments okay so like he said we were going to talk about um district lines and Admissions and school assignment and you all know having two school districts in the

325areas makes it a little confusing sometimes so I just wanted to start by telling you that you know these District boundaries were set by law and even though our city has changed and continues to change those boundaries don't change um so there are schools from both the county and the city that are sort of overlapping like some like we have a few that are outside the city limits and they have some that are inside the city um and so that kind of does have to go into consideration but um so there's basically two categories for admissions to the schools there's mandatory and discretionary so mandatory is also in-district admissions so those are kiddos who are either domiciled or residing in the school district um so those terms but so the domicile is generally how it's

326determined um a student's domicile if they're under 18 is just assumed to be the domicile of their parents um and if they're over 18 they can establish one themselves and parent is actually defined in this as like a biological parent someone on the birth certificate someone who has adopted them or someone who has a legal custody order for that person so parents do not include other family members that they live with or anyone that's cohabitating with their parent it has to be a legal guardian or parent um so and for just for divorced or for students with divorced or separated parents um that is generally their domicile will be the parent who has custody um if there is a joint custody situation um the parents have to jointly agree which residents will be used and

327submit that in writing to Dr Cosby um and the same is true if a parent with custody wishes for their child to attend school and the other parents District of residence um so something to note with that is that if this is the situation for a student their domicile can't change during the school year without going through the transfer policies on that um so that's just something of note um and also if parents can't agree on what the domicile for the student will be um the school will assign the student based on the residence of the parent with physical custody when the school year begins so um since domicile is generally the way students are admitted under an in-district mandatory admission but there are statutory exceptions based on residency and these are for students who

328are homeless or if they have a parent or Guardian that is residing in the district to work as faculty or attend one of the colleges or universities this is also for students that are in like a group or foster home or in a pre-adoptive home so it's for all those there's also affidavits that can be submitted that are used across the state and certain circumstances have to apply for those to be used for a student to be approved for residence so for those it's that's for cases where like a student's parent is unable to take care of them because of something like death or serious illness or incarceration or the child has been neglected by their parent or the parent is just not physically or mentally able to to take care of them or they've

329lost their home or they're actively serving in the military or injured in the military so those are sort of the exceptions for mandatory admission to the schools so there are certain considerations for school assignment for those mandatory admissions that just have to be considered in figuring out where children are going to be assigned one of those is the desegregation order that's in place for Asheville City and it has to be considered in making assignments there's also just things like the efficient use of school facilities School capacities and if any of the programs have certain criteria for admissions you can also look at if there's documented hardship for the family we also look at if siblings of the student are currently enrolled in the school and try to keep families all in the same school we

330also try to assign children of staff to the school that their parent is employed at and also we do give some consideration to placement of currently enrolled students and preschool that are already in District when assigning their school and try to keep them in the same sort of vein so just to note the in-district students must be assigned prior to assigning any out of District students because these are our mandatory kiddos that we have an obligation to serve um so the assignment process for those kiddos is that there's an open enrollment period during that time the parents apply for assignment or transfer to the school that they want their kids at and part of that is they rank the schools that they want their kiddos to attend in order and the school tries to honor

331the or the district tries to honor those as much as possible but there is a lottery system for the schools that have more applicants than they have spaces to take if they apply during open enrollment generally all of the people who apply will be assigned a random number for the lottery it's not a first come first serve situation there um and if a parent is unhappy with or dissatisfied with their school assignment they can submit a request for student reassignment to the superintendent within 10 days and they have to tell you the reason that they are seeking reassignment Dr Cosby or his designee can consider that request and decide whether they think that a reassignment is needed or not and then he'll notify that parent in writing um and if the parent continues to be

332unhappy with their assignment then they can appeal to you as the board with that um but just as a note for sort of working through this um requests for reassignment that are made more than 10 days after the student has received that assignment are treated as transfer requests rather than requests for reassignment um so that's just something to keep in mind so then we have the out of District discretionary admissions so there are certain conditions that have to be met for students that are out of District to be enrolled the parent or Guardian does have to go ahead and sign a discretionary admission form and provide a reason for why they're requesting admissions um and of course there has to be space available at the district school and program level for the student that's seeking

333admission which just also we consider whether significant additional resources would be necessary for us to serve that student if so that can be a reason to deny discretionary admissions for example that can be if we would need to hire or transfer staff then that could be something to take into account on those discretionaries um yeah just so you know that years and years ago OCR looked into whether or not denying an out of District special education child could be discriminatory and they concluded that if you literally have to hire additional staff you don't have a legal obligation to this child to begin with so if you have to hire additional staff just to let this child into the district who is an child that is not discriminatory so an easy example would be some of

334our autism classrooms which are self-contained classrooms if we are at capacity and would have to hire additional people then those programs are closed to outside students and that is lawful that's not discrimination because think about it that child has the legal right to an education somewhere else they just want to come to the Asheville City Schools so just thought I'd tell you about that OCR investigation because I think that was about 20 years ago now and just as a note on the special ed point is special education can apply for residency placement in the same way that regular education students can as well so even if they are not domiciled here there may be an obligation depending on that um yeah just thought we should throw that out there students also if they're seeking a

335discretionary admission have to remain in good standing and there are certain behavioral requirements that have to be satisfied for them to be admitted for example wait like we don't admit students that are currently long-term suspended or who are expelled or charged with felonies those are all things that can be considered in admissions for students um they also have to provide their records that includes their grades their attendance behavior and immunization records of course and if they're transferring from another District we need a release from that other District so we can see it um so and as I mentioned with the residency it's sort of the same for our out of District students if they're residing with an a little bit less detailed but so if a student who's applying as a discretionary admission is residing

336with someone that isn't their parent or guardian we need notarized documentation showing that their parent or Guardian can sense to I'm attending school in the district so that's just sort of along those same lines on the residency issue so in determining whether space is available we just have to consider not only like I said whether everything is at capacity but also whether granting admission would cause the district to violate class size requirements so that is something to keep in mind as I mentioned with the behavioral considerations for good standing for a student for discretionary admissions for academics they have to be on track for promotion to the next grade or for graduation they can't have had more than 18 absences they also can't have had more than and that's unexcused absences I should clarify they

337also can't have had more than 18 unexcused Hardies or early dismissals and they can't have committed as I mentioned felonies but specifically one of the 16 reportable offenses that's listed on the ncdpi website those are things like Firearms bomb threats arson things of that nature um so something else to consider is homeless students um so homeless students kind of have their own category a little bit if a student attended this school district prior to becoming homeless they can request to stay here they can also request to attend any public school that other students living in the same area are eligible to attend and that is a superintendent decision to make on what school a homeless student would attend and that's just based on certain factors like their age their commute and sort of their own

338personal safety and educational needs as well as the sort of length of any anticipated stays and shelters so those all go into consideration for those kiddos so for school assignment for discretionary admissions there is actually a priority order for this and the process is sort of the same parents will still apply and rank all of the schools that they're considering for their kiddo in order and after all of our in-district and mandatory assignments are given are out of District students are assigned in a priority order starting with siblings that are in the same school so if we can assign families to the same school we try to then it's the children of our staff get the next priority the next is currently enrolled students that are already out of district and and with us we

339do that for both our K-12 and our preschool students um then we also consider currently enrolled students that are seeking a transfer to a different School within ACS um and then it's the students that are seeking their first assignment in the district so that's just our order there um and then once an out of District student is assigned to a certain school that student can choose to remain at that school which I sort of mentioned in that priority order but that's just something to keep in mind um also just worth noting is that out of school or out of District students have to be released from their home district and pay tuition on a yearly basis um and they have to maintain that good standing that I mentioned earlier we actually have a policy on

340sort of the behaviors for out of District students as well and that goes over everything I just told you and the appeals process for out of District students who are unhappy with their assignment is the exact same as it is for the mandatory assignment students so the same thing they would fill out that request form submit it to Dr Cosby he would make a determination and then they can appeal to you again um there's also um so there are also some common reasons just to deny admissions for on a um discretionary basis one of the big ones is if they're making this request to play sports um that's an nchsaa policy that you can't transfer schools to be on a different sports team um that we would also consider if the parent and guardian lives

341too far away to be involved that's another reason to deny Admissions and then the others we've sort of talked about which are the EC resources not being available and academic some Behavior not meeting the standards that we've set um there's also something interesting to talk about here which is the there's an option to transfer someone's real property from the Buncombe County School District to the Asheville City School District or vice versa um so through there's a statute that allows homeowners whose property is in one District but touches the other District to petition the school boards to transfer their property to the school district they want to be in rather than the one they are in that has to be in writing and signed by the majority of the property owners and both boards have to

342approve it but so that's something that may come up but it's our I would say probably the most rare form of admissions let me clarify this how wide this comes up when the Asheville City School District was formed again it's a meets and Bounds description sorry when the Asheville City School District was formed the boundaries is literally a meets and Bounds description like you would see for a piece of real property it never changes except when Beaver Lake was developed somebody back then it would be a fascinating project for a grad student decided that the homeowners could choose which school district they wanted to be a part of so Beaver Lake is a patchwork some your neighbor can be in the Buncombe County schools and you're in the Asheville City Schools the property across the

343street is Asheville City and the one next to East Buncombe County so a lot of times folks will buy property in the Beaver Lake area and in good faith the realtor will tell them they're in the Asheville City schools and they're not they're in the Buncombe County schools and Buncombe County has done an excellent job on their exactly which properties are in which school district well these homeowners will want to transfer their property from the Buncombe County Schools to the Asheville City Schools district I have never and we represent both we don't get involved if there's a conflict but I have never seen nor do I think I will or we will ever see the Buncombe County Schools agree to give up a property because of the simple question of how do you even have

344criteria for that and where does it end if you let this property owner switch school districts then how do you deny the next one how do you provide any kind and and there's free transfer between the two the Buncombe County Schools will allow any student to leave the Buncombe County schools and come to the Asheville City Schools so that's always been the position of the County School Board is leave if you want to you know if you want your child to be educated in the Asheville City Schools that's great but we're not going to agree to transfer the property because where does that end how do we have criteria so I've never seen it come before this board because Buncombe County always says no and just one thing to correct this is my fault I

345didn't correct this when we were talking about it earlier I looked back at the statute this morning it's not a vice versa and I think that's because of and you had it right the first time it's because that's what's that and it's like I knew it I knew he was um you're a tax District and that's why the general assembly has made take a property out of a tax District you can add a property to a tax District but you couldn't unilaterally remove it so with my apologies but I don't think it'll come before you but you're going to get calls from homeowners and Realtors who are going to be upset and say we understand we can transfer property sure but the Buncombe County schools has to agree to it thank you thanks Chris I

346feel Vindicated but okay so I think that's everything that we needed to cover on assignment and admissions um do you all have any questions on that yeah let me say one thing real quick fortanna this sounds all great doesn't it and Tanya's about to tell you is not this is the framework and it makes sense and there's policies in place but applying this and trying to make decisions Miss Tanya I mean that the devil is in the details and capacity okay is not a simple concept and I'm want to give you one example and then Montana to obviously weigh in kids and you're going to hear this so many times as board members kids don't come in class size chunks kids don't come in chunks of 18 kids so capacity means we have to leave

347space for who's going to show up the first day of school so open enrollment we may say a school is closed because we've got to forecast space for more in-district families that are going to move to Asheville so it's not a mathematical equation of how many rooms and chairs are there at Dixon Elementary School it's what do we forecast the population is going to be we've got to leave space we've got to comply with the dseg order what Tanya does and I just want you all to know this is incredibly difficult and she deserves a lot of credit for doing it so capacity is a very theoretical concept it's not a mathematical concept not being partial but I love our attorneys I wish there was a such thing as frequent talk or mouth um thank

348you for the compliment um Chris um I just believe it or not I have one question um when we look at in District mandatory admission the number two can you please address that are you saying that staff at a university that is within our district even though they don't live there they may work there they should be on the priority oh yeah so there is a odd little statutory Quirk on that um where it is um any student who is residing in the district because their parent is either a student or an employee or faculty at a college or university in our district or a visiting scholar at the National Humanities Center I'm so sorry Tanya you don't have to seek that out they have to come to you and tell you that yeah but

349they are residing in the system correct correct and they have to be residing not just driving into yes the district and all their students too at UNCA the way you were thinking yes yeah that's a fair concern and the reason is because if you're a horse domiciled you're not there forever so that's an exception but you got to be residing yeah yeah okay any other questions on that one I have a I have a question that might not be able to be answered right now um but it's really actually it's for Georgia um in relation to all this we were talking you know we spent a lot of time talking about Charter students um if we have students who are coming in from out of District does funding change or is it like I mean

350uh just think about the the way that students can move across different schools and District boundaries what does that do financially for us that's a great question so any student that's sitting in our classrooms regardless if they're within our um in District or out of District are counted in our ADM in the best one of two if we take a lot of students in in December it that are out of District it doesn't benefit us financially through the state for that year the negative though is that you are not getting the supplemental tax dollars from that family you're charging a fairly small tuition charge but do the dollars I think what George was saying do the dollars follow them so yeah the supplemental for supplemental time not the supplemental tax but I'm saying you come

351from Buncombe County Schools oh yeah the county into Asheville City Schools then the dollars follow right like with the charter schools I know what you're yeah I know what you're asking no the only time that money follows a child is Charter Schools this is the specific Charter School statute says if that child is a domicide child in the Asheville City School District whichever charter school they go to and this was your example earlier today the Money Follows them that is not true when they Buncombe County student school student comes to the Asheville City Schools we get no uh additional dollars flowing what this the county does though is the county divides its money by ADM so it does balance out with local dollars at the beginning of the year because the county at the beginning

352of the year and I think there's a drop dead date that they say okay that's the split between the two of you that's what you're going to get so it's a Dr Cosby's point a child that comes to you in the middle of the Year from Buncombe County you don't get any additional local dollars you don't get any tax dollars for that child it doesn't change the state allocation for that child all you get is tuition yeah Buncombe County uses the state ADM number for allocation purposes for the two systems I just want to make sure that people understand this and this is why we charge a tuition fee for students out of District to come to our schools you're not getting addition you're not getting additional funds and I don't think a lot of

353people understand that because I've heard people say well you just need to stop charging and just let anyone come and that's not the case does the tuition charge match the tax no no and in comparison to other school systems where they charge tuition ours is very mediocre 300 currently yeah prior to the pandemic talked about um with the enrollment team at that time did kind of a deep dive into the numbers that you're referring to and that prior to the pandemic we had a plan to bring to the board to raise the tuition incrementally over a five-year period so that it was more comparable to the um to the tax rates and then once the pandemic struck the the sense of the staff was that it wasn't an appropriate time to do that but it

354is important I think for the board to know that there there is a pretty significant discrepancy there and um at some other time we can go into more detail about the cost of a discretionary student versus an indistrict student there's a lot of nuances around services and things that for example in our AIG Services there's a disproportionate number of discretionary students and that is at a cost to the local budget which it has advantages and disadvantages when you know it's it's just information that at some point may be good for y'all to have it's very it's very difficult to figure out what it should be because the easier way to say it would be so take that total amount we get from supplemental tax divided by our number of students and then that's what you

355would charge but it's different because our we have such a business area and you've got all these businesses are paying very large sums so it's not what the families are paying so so it's very difficult to decide really what it would be if I could add one other thing over the couple of decades every board and every superintendent has a different philosophy on enrollment so we've lived through boards where for several years it was bring them all in like let's get as many as we can we were going to have 5 000 kids by 2025 I think we're in 2023 and we've got barely 4 000 so some boards have said be lean and mean let's serve the kids that live in our district well and let's focus our resources there and so the the

356staff and Titania and um you know the folks here in my opinion have really done a good job um going along with whatever that you know the board or the superintendent tells us is the priority so I do think it's important that this board and the new superintendent take some time to really think about what what do you want the priorities around enrollment to be and what kind of District are we trying to be in terms of who we serve and how we serve them laughs I just said in the long-term impact because I think sometimes we focus on the immediate because it's what we want and we want it right now and then we you know forget that it has repercussions at the end right like the numbers decrease or whatever I mean whatever

357that priority is has to be not just right this second but for the duration there are some economics to numbers but just being larger is not necessarily good and I'm not arguing against it you know there's no magic size for a school system 4 000 or so as far as budgeting and economics is pretty good science I do want to make I want to make one get one clarification on the present on the district line presentation or District border boundary um so that when people pull this up and they're like wait a minute what um it says us numerous uh Buncombe County schools located within National City of Asheville and a small portion of Asheville City schools are located in the county limits thank you can we yeah can we fix that uh I just

358know because I was like uh we don't have any schools in the county do we unless there was something new that I didn't know about the easiest example on the students is is Beaver Dam right right take a ride at Ingles you will very quickly get out of the city of asphalt but you will still be in the Asheville City School District hence the Campbell children go to the Asheville City schools and very happily so we're County residents resident Anna had stated that the transfers go through Dr Cosby's office I am the designee and um I look they come in through electronic form um depending on the reason for the transfer if there's a bullying stated we back up because we have a Boolean policy so there should be an investigation so we back uh

359track with the principal to make sure that has happened if it has not then um Kim Robinson steps in and guides the principal um through that process and then it comes back to the enrollment committee um to make a decision whether to transfer that student any student that is reassigned or transferred I go to Dr Cosby I make him aware of the situation and why the enrollment committee came to that decision at any time Dr Cosby can overturn overrule and say Hey I want to go ahead and Grant it and Dr Cosby has been very very supportive um of me and my team through this whole process and we've done a lot of cleaning up to make sure our office is transparent um we've offered payment plans for families um because nobody always has money

360you know um so I've created payment plans for the family at least get half the 300 paid by Christmas if they've done that then they can start the second um we've just really tried to hear from community members and parents that really want to be in our school district and money should not be a barrier but I also understand as a in-district taxpayer the reason why so I understand um both sides of that let me ask you two questions yes yes but you meant into the district and out of this it's both okay my question is how when students in our district go to private school we don't care that doesn't affect us but if they wish to go to Buncombe County they have to come and get a release yes isn't that true what's

361the statistic on that do we see a lot of that um we usually see the release from our end to Buncombe County where people reside in our school district and they wish for their kids to go to Buncombe County I would say at least 75 if not 85 because they work there they work in Buncombe County it's not a big number and all of those come through the board I will present all of those through the board you'll have a sheet with the name and all the information on it and we work closely with Buncombe County we house a spreadsheet we know when a student has been released from which school district um so I'd like to say we have a great relationship in that regard generally speaking more students wish to come into our

362district than wish to leave it yes we have won approximately 500 out of District this year uh 600 and something and we've in years past had nine to a thousand thank you Chris's office did you hear how many things come to me that's why I have all this gray hair and the tax just real quick since you brought it up the school tax rate is set by the County Commissioners so you don't have any say at all in what the school tax rate is you have to request it but they decided there is a limit on it there's 12 cents Mr chair I think your board is tired okay I was just I was I was seeing if that mic was still being passed around um I think that's a good lead-in to just some

363uh quick announcements um so Anna thanks for representing that and thanks for those questions um you know enrollment open enrollment is coming up so um I wanted to highlight a few dates for everyone um Thursday January 12th from 5 30 to 8 um at Asheville middle um is an information night for our Elementary magnet schools so um that is for anyone out there considering Asheville City schools and especially around elementary schools so they'll be representatives from Claxton Hall Fletcher Irby Jones Dixon Lucy Herring um there at the middle school to discuss everything that involves our um magnet system Title One information Transportation School nutrition the transfer process to come into the district uh orb to be in the district for those who are are in the district excuse me um so that's that's on January

36412th from 5 30 to 8 at the middle school um and then um elementary schools will have their open house tours January 26th and 27th and February 2nd and 3rd from 9 A.M to 2 P.M excuse me that's January 26th and 27th February 2nd and 3rd Tanya I assume these dates are also up on our website um so people can access them yes they are great um we've also had the middle schools the Asheville middle and Montfort North Star have um open houses as well for that for Asheville middle that's January 10th at 5 30. and Vermont for North Star that's January 11th at 5 30. uh and then Asheville High and silsa the school of inquiry and Life Sciences has their open house on January 9th at 5 30. um again all of these

365dates are up on the website um and then open enrollment begins February 6th and I know Daniel will bring us more information about that as we get into it further dates for folks um really for the board um and for just the district in general just a reminder that Monday January 16th is um holiday no student no school for students and staff for Dr Martin Luther King Jr day we have an early dismissal on Tuesday January 24th that's a staff development day there is a required teacher work day the following day which is Wednesday January 25th so no school for students we've got um we will be scheduling as we've discussed earlier there will be a another work session for the board in January that that date is to be decided but that will be

366coming out we'll announce that as soon as we can um moving into February we have a work and closed session board meeting on Monday February 6th at 5 pm here in the boardroom um on February 8th preschool has an early dismissal at noon that's Wednesday February 8th we have a late start for elementary and secondary students on Wednesday February 8th elementary schools will start at 10 A.M secondary schools will begin at 10 30 A.M and then on Monday February 13th at 5 pm here on the Board Room will be our next regular board meeting that's a time for public comment um and as we've talked about you know consent items that kind of thing one other thing I want to raise up and unfortunately she's has is no longer the room um and most of

367the people in the room know this but uh the beginning of the school year the uh the beginning of the the calendar year our first day back from school on January 3rd we got to celebrate rafika principal of Ira Jones as um the regional principal of the year um and I just want to highlight that again Regional principle of the year that means that the western region voted her the best principal in Western North Carolina she will go on now to um I mean I hate to make it sound like a competition but she will go on to compete for um State principal of the year and I think it's really important that only we lift up the work that she's done but now Asheville City Schools can claim in the last three years to

368have a regional principle of the year and a regional teacher of the year I'm Susanna Serrato two years ago um had that honor so that's that's really um amazing for our district we are so grateful for rafika Cobb and what she's done at our Jones so we will celebrate her in February but just be for the folks who are on this um call and listening in uh important to recognize um that that honor that she's gotten also a wonderful surprise that the the school was able to give her I'm really impressed without Jones um and Dr Kim deckham was part of this as well now the school was able to sneak every child into the auditorium without her knowing so then when she came into the auditor and they could surprise her I mean that

369was a that was a feat especially on the first day back from winter break so um that was a that was a great moment before we um look to adjourn I just want to see if there are any last questions comments concerns from folks in the room for that special meeting in January I would suggest Monday the 23rd okay people want to look at your calendars and see if that would work Monday January 23rd any problems with that well okay works for me okay we'll get that on the schedule then great thank you um and then just once again I want to thank um board members thank you for for leaving work for a full day to taking a day to be with us on that significant we appreciate it those um in central office

370and staff thank you for taking your day to be in here with this room and preparing um everything that you have done for us again I'll just repeat what Chris said yeah I know that you're on payroll but you also have other things that you're doing for our for our students for our staff and for our schools so to take the time to be here today really means a lot um and Chris I appreciate you bringing your crew and only charging for you thank you but thanks as well for your guidance and support okay all right great um so if there are no other comments or questions um I'll ask for a motion to adjourn so moved second so it has been moved and seconded because I'm on a zoom call we'll have to do

371a roll call vote to adjourn so um we'll go down the road Rebecca I Liza a second oh I sorry Amy I James I and George is an eye so