001foreign just want to make sure everyone could hear me um good evening everyone we are going to reconvene our public hearing that was recessed last week can i have a motion to re-convene our public hearing do i have a second second all in favor shonda i peyton hi martha i george hi and i am an i all right so as we were saying last week um the board is holding the public hearing today to hear specifically on three different items one is the possible relocation of asheville primary school keeping primary school where it is or closing the primary school for the 22-23 school year and be and enrolling those students in other schools so we have a list of people who have signed up one of the things that we had said last week was
002that if you signed up and you spoke in person last week that you would only be able to speak again if you brought new information since that is very subjective on what new information is i'm going to start with the individuals who have signed up who have not been identified as having spoken before and once we go through that list and then the individuals who have signed up for our virtual public comment if there is time and the board sees fit we will go and let those individuals who did speak already speak again you will be asked to make sure you tell us what your new information is uh we do have another board meeting this evening this is uh as much as i love being around everyone um we would like to go home
003at some point tonight so the first person on our new that that is new to speak is andreas braith and i'm not sure if there's people outside um who can possibly who could possibly tell the band um that we are starting and also if you could ask sean dunn to come in as well andreas are you andreas you come up here to the podium please andreas you'll have three minutes and your three minutes will start when you see the green light and then the yellow light will let you know you have 15 seconds and then at the red light we ask you to injure comments all right go right ahead can you guys hear me uh barely but go ahead mr chair should we ask the officer to ask the band to stop saying if
004you wouldn't mind could you hold on one moment thank you so my name is andreas broughton i'm a father of two students at asheville primary um i'm an immigrant who came to the united states and i have to say i'm exceptionally proud to see how you guys run the schools how um i can see how actual primary has been such a blessing for my kids the first grader and a third grader um i will say that the diversity we see in the school and see how kids actually learn is i think is exceptional and i know that you guys have heard this many many many times about montessori but i don't think it can be stressed enough the difference of you know people who have very different levels how they actually learn and how you
005can see younger kids learn from the older kids um i was i i listened to all the stuff from last year when we when all of this came through last year and saying we wanted to keep actual primary open we want to add fourth grade and fifth grade and it what i'm very surprised by now is and i'll get i'll tell you what i see at actual primary my my kids when they go there and they have a work plan and these are the ten things you have to finish this week and if you haven't finished and have a minimum say five of them if you haven't finished it the next week you have to make sure you do finish some of them they're saying these are the things you have to finish and i'm
006a little surprised that right now we're standing here and there's been no plan for a whole year like i don't understand why we can't be more accountable like we have kids be accountable they have to do it they have to show up if they didn't and that you know that's the thing is when you have choice then if you don't choose to follow up with it then there are consequences and it just feels like we're back at square one again and i wish that we can come up with a plan and here's the thing is that in the community there's a lot a lot of resources and we want to help like last year said show up and help us with what we want to do where's the thing we can show up where's the
007thing that we can help with it seems like we're just back it's at square one again and i'm hoping that the next go around that it wouldn't be the same that we're just saying oh we needed to show off but then there's nothing to show up for so i'm really hoping that you guys can come with a long-term plan and i will just wrap it up saying when i deal with business clients they all like that we are accountable and we are predictable and that's why they stay and they want to keep it i would say the same to you be accountable and be predictable that's that's what parents want that's what players want to choose things for the kids thank you very much thank you next i have uh sean dunn and then after
008sean i have been schweichbach sean you'll have three minutes and when you see the yellow that means you have 15 seconds left and then red of course is asking you to end great thank you all for your engagement and consideration over the past month there's a series of speakers behind me that have organized a presentation here to share um that will culminate in an ask from the aps ptc which is we asked this board to make a motion to keep asheville primary school at 441 haywood with a commitment to 2027 to provide pre-k and montessori education and we think you'll find that this ask is not about asheville primary school but about the asheville city schools and the children of asheville this is not about frothy emotional appeals we are bringing strategy data and expertise
009to this board that deserves this in the decision of this significance we have experts in dei in architecture montessori education and engaged parents to talk about the growth of childhood education the importance of 441 haywood to that growth the role of montessori and neurodiversity and in closing equity gaps and the importance of rebuilding trust to acs leadership i'll kick off by talking about some of the broader dynamics that i see so there's an explosion in demand for pre-k and k-5 education asheville has grown 12 percent since the 2010 census this is projected buncombe county is projected to grow 15 by 2030. so over 4 000 babies born annually in buncombe county probably about a thousand in the asheville city district between 2019 and 2020 and 20 20 21 homeschooling has increased five to nine percent
010i don't think i think that's a fact of the pandemic and if you come by my house when our kids are home and we're trying to work i'm sure that will go down so asheville city schools really needs to be prepared for this growth at the same time there's a ton of funding going federal there's 400 billion dollars in the built back better bill 805 million additional in state funding buncombe county lists its top two priorities as kindergarten readiness and third grade literacy and they're funding that and we're here today talking about closing a school that meets those needs it would be pennywise and pound foolish for acs to close this building in this school at this moment of significance in the words of a long-time asheville education advocate honor moore it is a lot
011easier to close a school than it is to build one and i would add that it's a lot harder to build one as good as we have right now at asheville primary school i look forward to the next speaker talking about ask the district's readiness for this opportunity and as always i thank all of you for your public service i really appreciate it thank you thank you sean the next person i have on my list is ben schweizbach no um what we had said earlier was that those who had spoken before because we have such a large list of people i'm giving those individuals who have not spoken at all the opportunity to speak first then the individuals who we have on our on our virtual comment to give them a chance to speak and
012then we will go back to those who have spoken before we want to make sure this is fair for everyone there were a lot of people who spoke last week we want to make sure everyone has a chance who has not spoken to this group to speak for this so ben you have three minutes to share your thoughts and uh when you see the red light that means that your time is done thank you so you can go ahead and start thanks for making time uh i'm the dei professional the person who's booked before uh just mentioned uh i currently don't have a child can you speak michael is this bad okay i can squat down a little bit uh i currently don't have a child in aps however i'm an expecting father that would
013love the school to be open in the future and want to take a few minutes to speak to or speak from my own experience of being a teacher a montessori alum a di professional and someone who really wants the school to be open in the next six to seven years when it could be there could be a chance um and so piggybacking on what shawn's book two before i'm going to talk about the equity that i see within not just montessori in general but within aps both from its location and curriculum uh montessori just by default is equitable in every sense of the word it is not just providing every student like the same type of education we're going to sit and sit in the same way learn the same materials in the same approach
014and be measured equally as well but everyone gets exactly what they need with and every student has a chance to actually choose what they want to learn and how they want to learn it and someone who went to this in the past it's it's a ton of fun uh and i really want this option to be here in the future for hopefully my kids when they have the chance um and then on the other hand outside of just the curriculum and like the actual pedagogical approach the actual access that aps provides seems huge um looking through more of the numbers to see like what is actually available there's 57 montessori schools within all of north carolina they're all private except for aps so the only way for anyone to actually have access to this type
015of education is to pay money and drive somewhere else whereas this school's right in at least for me my own backyard and to have they have the chance to not just be there not just go like have chance a chance to be in this type of curriculum be there with students who have access from all over is really exciting to me and i think makes this curriculum even more exciting because you can learn from students because that's part of how this thing works so i think that is everything thanks so much for your time thanks for having me thank you very much next i have craig i think it's craig huber and veronica's uh sotolongo afterwards and veronica sacca longo if you have her oh you're right here oh thank you um i'm craig huber
016yes craig you'll have three minutes okay um so i i went and i i tried to look you know i don't have a lot of time but i tried to look at some numbers and look at this draft study the of the aps draft study gs 115 c 72 um and looking through there i found that there i found an error in the utility cost is a thousand percent the the total is a thousand percent of what the sum should be there's also in that study every everything that i i looked at is an overestimation they don't state that they're overestimating but they are overestimating and um it's so it's not done in an honest way that that report appears to be done with with a goal of closing aps in mind um so the
017uh let's see um further enrollment needs in the future aren't considered and so um gosh this order said messed me up so okay sorry give me one second uh all right whatever okay so um basically it it takes it says that like if we take if we close aps and move all the students over another school we will have all these savings from from eliminating the eliminating staff but it doesn't consider the staff that will need to be added at the new school i'm not talking about teachers but enhancement teachers and other things stated in this draft study um so yeah so basically i'm sure all right um okay so i looked at this this draft report it is clearly biased and and the numbers aren't represented accurately um and and basing closing the school
018on that i think would be a mistake it also doesn't look at future future costs and future enrollment and so if you close the school and then have to reopen it in the future there will be significant costs that will be incurred i took the architect's report and i i made a spreadsheet and did some calculations to try to understand how we could look at that in a way that we could have future cost savings and so on the architect study they have a 30 enhancement um what do they call it um over over three years escalation in 50 over five years i annualized that to eight percent and doing that if you take the entire cost of of repairing everything and took out a 10-year bond at 3 percent you would have a cost
019savings of 15 million dollars if you did it if you closed aps and and didn't take out sorry if you didn't take out a bond and didn't close aps you would still have a cost savings at 12 million dollars we sent you this thing i'm sure it's much clearer than my speech right now because i'm flustered i'm sorry if you would like to speak to me with about it i'm happy to talk to you i'm happy to send you my spreadsheet and um basically i want to sum it up as is closing the school without having a full inaccurate accounting and and considering future costs as well as is um current costs and and having an an honest analysis not doing an honest analysis thank you likely cost the district money in the future thank
020you next i have veronica and then i have damien wells i think it's wells miss it's not talaga you have three minutes thank you good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is veronica sotolongo i have two kids in the montessori program at asheville primary what i love most about this school is that my kids get to be kids their natural curiosity is at the forefront of their education my pre-k student avery comes home proud of his new knowledge of numbers he and his brother ask each other addition and subtraction problems all the way home from school just for fun his older brother lucas recently completed a big project on dolphins based on his personal interest he was so proud of his accomplishment for me this is about more than just my
021two kids years ago i volunteered and worked at two of our magnet schools i saw children being punished for behaviors that were typical of their developmental stage behaviors like crying or moving their bodies i imagine disciplinary measures have improved since we're now aware of the foundational necessity of safety and connection in the classroom but the thing that's so great about montessori is that it uses the individual child's developmental stage and trajectory as a starting point rather than trying to fit them into a system that was not designed for them in the first place if you let our school continue you will have an effective model of child-centered learning to look towards and study as you plan for the equitable future of our district if you close asheville primary we will lose that opportunity closing asheville
022primary school should not be an option for tonight's vote not only because of the promises you made but because it doesn't make sense to vote on it as an isolated item when your budget problems are much larger and more complex than aps it's like throwing away a piece of your jigsaw puzzle before even starting on the puzzle unfortunately even if aps stays open next year it seems doubtful that my pre-k student will be able to continue we recently moved out of the city because of unaffordable housing costs and you all have not been accepting new out-of-district kindergartners even if they are already in pre-k and have siblings in asheville city schools over the years our district has lost students and with them revenue yet you are turning students away let's start talking about how to
023bring students back into our school system asheville primary families are not asking for special treatment only the most basic thing to keep our school open when isaac dixon's building needed repairs we built them an almost 23 million dollar building our school's small size has been put forth as a reason for closing the school our school is small because you have limited our enrollment and moved classes out of our building allow our school to grow so that the building can pay for itself almost everyone i know with kids applied to asheville primary in the past two years and was turned away expand asheville primary to include fifth grade next year like you promised get in alignment with buncombe county and their commitment to expand pre-k put more pre-k classes in the magnet schools in the communities
024and fill asheville primary to capacity we need all the room we can get because universal pre-k is a way towards more equitable future in education thank you very much thank you next i have mr damian wells and you will have three minutes sir thank you for hearing our comments today i am a eight-year veteran of teaching with asheville city schools four years as a title one tutor and this year i'm a substitute teacher i taught it vance formerly uh formally vance now lucy s herring i feel i have a little bit of uh perspective on this that seems interesting that we had a time when yes uh students were flocking from the county to come to our city schools we had a magnet program where each school was a little bit different and provided something
025a little bit different for each student and that's one of the things that the montessori program does now as we look through the budget items it became kind of interesting to me to look through those numbers coming from this section that there's been a lot of discussion about equity and finances and when i look through there it seems interesting as the last speaker noted that there are three of our elementary schools that have substantial needs financially now the breakdown of those i don't know specifically but it seems interesting that choices were made in the past that were very inequitable if the discrepancies between the schools that need funding are so great now there's no solution to this but as a parent of an asheville primary school student who left to go to a school where
026many other students were going in my neighborhood which was to a charter school we see this flight to look for something different in a school and we came back because that charter school didn't provide the education that we were receiving the community feel that we were receiving at the school asheville primary that we had as these charter schools continue to grow they're getting buses they're getting these things those are students that's student funding and that's going to be important as we move down the road and montessori is one of the few that is truly a magnet program the other schools follow the same literacy curriculum in the beginning they follow the same math curriculum it's more of a school choice and the choices we have make a difference the choices the board has to make
027the funding available to the schools also make a difference but in the past it seems those choices have not been equitable and although these schools maybe have a financial need and of asheville primary it seems like it's their chance to get their equitable share to provide the education that they are providing currently thank you thank you next i have ian gibbs hall and then after that uh no last names but aya hollis and taylor and you have three minutes sir hi um i have a son at apple primary and i when when i first heard about the montessori program i was so excited i grew up in a public montessori school in michigan and it made me who i am today and to have that opportunity for my son was just it was really exciting
028and to hear that it was closing is is really sad and really confusing and really frustrating um if when we talk about budget problems the just the the way that a montessori classroom works can be an asset because you can have more kids in a montessori classroom because the kids are teaching each other and the teacher can be free to move around and it just seems really short-sighted to close this program like lots of people have been talking about like um i mean looking at the study you've got between all the different schools in the district there's like 60 million dollars that we need over the next five years like closing our one school doesn't seem like it's gonna solve the problem um yeah i i'm a big believer in the montessori method it seems
029like a way that can allow children the opportunity to learn the way they need to learn and be the kids they need to be thank you for hearing us thank you so i have aya hollis and taylor and you have three minutes to speak why you shouldn't close asheville primaries because i love asheville primary and i know so many kids that do too i have made such good friends and i enjoy going to school here i wake up and go yay i'm going to school i learned so much here and if you move it or close it down i would not love to go to school anymore and my friends would move schools and i love it the way it is please don't close our school thank you next i have jill uh jensen gelfond
030and laura d'angelo did we come or how okay hollis and taylor sorry i was grouping a bunch of people together i apologize for that hello my name is hollis and i have a couple of statements from some fourth graders in my class who would like to share why they don't want the school to move or close first up is from scarlet what would happen to the teachers would they go to another school or possibly get fired where would the students go next up is from otis don't close our school the special teachers are good and you don't have to do the same thing as everybody else so don't close our school this next one's from evan our school is very old you call them we're going to save it like we did last year next
031up is from leo i do not think or want the school to change in any way except to add sixth grade i want the school to stay because i like the teachers and the school and i like the location and the diversity i want the school to stay next up is from shea i don't want my school to close because there's awesome teachers great friends and the best playground next one's from jaxy i love the school where it is because it's close to home and i care about the teachers and my friends i don't want my school to move because i have memories there this last one's from me some people think the school needs to close why this school is a great place with a good montessori program there is no reason to close
032it and there's the best teachers and great learning experiences so please don't move or close our school because it's perfect the way it is thank you thank you and are you taylor um yeah i'm taylor and um here's my speech why are you closing the school can't you guys ask the government for money and and you don't just close a school of 200 students because of some problems i made it my point and i went to school this school to stay thank you next i have jensen gelfand and justin you'll have three minutes good evening my name is jensen gelfan i'm a member of the west asheville community and the husband of a nashville city schools teacher beth mayberry uh i'd like to talk about why montessori is important to me first personally i was
033home schooled growing up and i was taught about the value of independent thinking and being able to follow your passion and being able to draw outside the lines without being punished and i'm so thankful for those teachings early in my life montessori is the way to do that in community uh with with asheville and inside of the public school system this is our opportunity to give that gift to the children who would benefit most from that montessori encourages independent thinking we are trying to attract artists and entrepreneurs and other independent thinkers to our community that was what attracted me to this community to build a technology company in asheville which has now been strong for for nine years and i want to imagine a world where we are growing these independent entrepreneurs and artists right
034here in asheville we're not importing them from everywhere else we're building them right here and we're giving kids those tools montessori is not the right fit for every child but there are so many kids where a bell-based learning cycle under an hour of you know forced attention to a specific topic it doesn't work for all children it is in fact damaging to some children and some kids need a different style of learning and i see this pushback against asheville primary school as a pushback against montessori and against independent thinking is that the kind of town that we want to be here in asheville a town that out of hand rejects that style of learning that is what we will become that is what our school board that is where our school board will be taking
035this town if we close the most innovative school we should be holding this school up as a cherished diamond of our system of our town the only public montessori school in western north carolina this is something special if this is squashed by the status quo by people who don't understand what montessori is it will be very difficult to bring this back there are dozens and dozens of people out here tonight more even than before because people believe in asheville that encourages independent thinking for our children thank you thank you next i have laura d'angelo hello my name is laura d'angelo and i have had the unique opportunity to be intertwined with a larger asheville city school system ever since my son started kindergarten mainly through the advocacy efforts at asheville primary but also as my
036work in the community as a therapist and just being friends with teachers and what i have seen in these roles is that there is something broken about the way that this school system is operating and the fight for asheville primary school is just the newest battle in what has become a minefield of abandoned projects and politics we are all here in this room because our children and families deserve more we are here because asheville city schools teachers are leaving their beloved profession in droves citing not covered not secondary trauma but the culture of our district's administration and the powerless va powerlessness they feel to fight the politics and to actually create change and guess what asheville primary school is an example of a community-led change that is possible one beautiful glowing solution for a slice
037of our community the most recent solution born out of the dreams and hard work of educators and families who are fighting the good fight a school where children are shining and their unique learning styles are being honored where the children's need to have appropriate control over their learning are being met and they are guided by peaceful classrooms and teachers who want to be there our teachers are shining not one teacher has resigned this year despite the great instability placed on them from central office because they are all passionate about making a change in our educational system and asheville primary school has given them an avenue to devote their creativity and power to am i here to say public montessori story is the answer for hall fletcher lucy herring and other schools no i'm saying that
038by let letting asheville primary school grow and thrive as well as having hull fletcher and montessor the montford northstar academy have sovereignty over their building and the ability to grow under their own direction we give hope to our battered educators families and administrators we say to them yes the system has been broken but we will listen to the ideas and passions of those who have their boots on the ground if instead you choose to squash asheville primary school fully or continue this trend of slowly crushing it you send a message to our school community it's business as usual the administration will continue with the politics and when mismanagement catches up we will pit school against school family against family and throw whatever new initiative is catching wind on the chopping block so i ask you
039what is the legacy this board wants to leave behind hope or politics to keep your promises to our children or to give them a harsh lesson in bureaucracy do not sacrifice the growth and solution-focused thinking of this district in order to keep business as usual thank you next i have maria buchanan and well if you could go ahead and grab julian aiden and jordan ollers miss buchanan you'll have three minutes thank you um i'm maria buchanan my son is a montessori preschooler at asheville primary i really wanted to bring him to this meeting he his name is alden he's four and he loves his school this is his first school experience and he's so excited to go every day he's so bummed on weekends because he doesn't have school he made friends the first day
040and learned all of their names and he comes home every day and talks about what he's learned and the works that he's done he's learning and he's growing and i wanted to bring him but i could not figure out how to explain to him that a group of adults who don't know him or his friends want to close his school and force him to start all over again somewhere else with new people and a new way of learning he would be so upset like his mother so he's at home and i'm here to advocate for him and his friends who are real children with real relationships in a small but strong unique and established community that has been one of consistency and love in an otherwise impossibly difficult 20 or so months to take this
041away so abruptly with such little understanding of what it is that aps offers our community and of what aps could offer our community seems thoughtless and short-sighted at the very least my husband is a buncombe county school teacher and we were adamant about alden being in public school i knew that he would thrive in a montessori program but i thought her only option would be a private school when i learned about asheville primary one of the few public montessori schools in the southeast i could hardly believe that it existed it was by far our first choice for a program for our child isaac dixon is in our backyard but i wanted him to go to asheville primary what in the world is the rush to close what is a revered and progressive program in our
042public school system this won't solve asheville city schools mismanaged financial woes but it certainly will destroy one of the most beautiful aware and unique schools in our system and with it it will upset the lives of the children faculty staff and parents in what has been arguably two of the most difficult recent years for public education the problem is not our school i ask you to please wait wait for a school board to be elected wait until we can discuss and understand all of the issues at hand and wait until we can brainstorm solutions because if we look for it there is a solution if enrollment is a problem let's work to increase it montessori early education early childhood education programs have been proven to decrease the achievement gap parents need to know about this
043if schools need repairs let's talk about a bond we repaired our parks and our greenways let's fix our schools but let's not rush into anything vote today to do nothing talk to these parents and the students and the teachers who have remained devoted to aps even though the fate of their jobs has been on the line please listen to us thank you next i have julian ollers okay go ahead hi my name is julian arlos and i am eight years old my sister is sheri allah's but and she is five years old miss beth is teaching her how to read but she asked me to read her awards she says i get a primary school i like going to my school i love doing my work in a classroom and i like helping i'm learning
044to read and write but i only know how to read i only know how to write my name but now but miss death is part of me and i am a little in the classroom sometimes i love my school because i get to play outside and there is a flower garden we have two playgrounds and i like to play on them with my friends i love my school i hope we can go to actual primary next year and make more friends in along to do more work i don't like that my parents have to spend time saving the school all the time please don't do this anymore it's not fun seeing my mommy cry she likes to make things that'll please ask her to help you she is a good helper thank you thank you
045and then we have aiden hi i'm aidan ellers and i'm 17 years old for the majority of my childhood i was homeschooled using the montessori method education is very important to me and i'm getting my associates in arts from amy tech in the spring i have banned the dean's list every semester since i was 15 years old and i before 0.02 pa i don't believe i'd be in this educational position nor be respon as responsible as i am now if not for the methods of the montessori system that were applied in my childhood learning my parents have told me about how helpful i was around the house as a child and i continue to offer assistance whether that's with helping my siblings with school work or household responsibilities or furthering my education priorities i've noticed
046that my little sister siri who attends asheville primary rushes to help out around the house on multiple occasions before my parents could even ask shuri has rushed to wipe off the table before we eat dinner or is cleaned up for crayons after drawing a picture she's also incredibly selfless and shares her toys with her siblings shari's mature and thoughtful and i believe these qualities have been nurtured and developed at asheville primary most importantly she has learned empathy i am so impressed at how she cares for people and pets and nature i can have meaningful conversations with her even though there is a 12-year difference between our ages whether she makes crafts at school or sees a pretty flower she will often give it to one of her siblings normally me and tell us about how
047much she loves us overall the montessori method has made an incredible impact on both mine and my sister's lives asheville primary is crucial to helping children grow into responsible and mature individuals please expand aps so that more children can have the benefits that my family has little children become adults that can change the world thank you and next uh i have jordan hollers and you have three minutes well i didn't prepare any remarks but i definitely stand here with all these parents in support of asheville primary i think it's a great school the program the teachers the mix of kids the location in the community the facility itself albeit a little run down it may need some work i think it's got some incredible bones and i think we should pump money into it and
048raise it on a pillar and show it as the example of primary school education and i think it's something that this community should be extremely proud of not even considering closing it so i hope that you guys will hear all these words tonight i wish i could speak a little more eloquently and convince you all but from the heart i really believe that this is a worthwhile institution and could be a model for other programs to bring in more kids you know as our community grows as opposed to making less choices for people it just doesn't make any sense i hope you guys will do the right thing thank you next i have marcus coward and then carrick hopkins um marcus you'll have three minutes um i wanted to start off and just say thank
049you taking the time the consideration to listen to all of us i know this is a tough situation for everyone and we're all just trying to do our best i can't say much that hasn't already been said i can't speak to my personal experience with my family here we started with kindergarten actual primary virtually and the teachers and staff and everyone rocked it out it was really amazing they went well beyond their means and here in first grade we're still going strong my son comes home and actually takes the works he learned in asheville primary and teaches it to his little sister who will hopefully be able to do preschool actual primary i see asheville primary as a beacon for our city to bring in more students bring in the enrollment um and we have
050the space to keep building it shouldn't be a a quick fix or a look at for the budget but something that we can pour into to just bring more people to the city as we actual tops to sit and list over and over again is the biggest places to move in north carolina as we teach our schools as we teach our kids in our schools of coming together solving the big problems i just ask let's take this moment as a community teachers parents work together and show our kids that we can do the same thing we teach them and tackle this tough problem thank you so i have carrick hobson hopkins and halsey all hopkins thank you miss hopkins the boys will have two minutes uh three minutes sorry yes am proud to be a
051kid at nashville primary we learn math and science and we learn how to read we work hard every day to be the best that we can be cause i am proud to be a kid at asheville primary thank you next i have aaron brumo aaron aaron brumo it's like the price is right [Music] mr brumo you come on up you'll have three minutes light goes red you will that'll be your time is over hi my name's aaron brumo i have two kids at asheville primary as as i understand the rules tonight you can't respond to me there will be no dialogue no conversation this is for the record only so for the record on thursday of last week two of you graciously agreed to come speak with our school community i thought wow now we
052can have a conversation to share ideas and create a solution that works for everyone we were excited we made an event out of it we arranged child care we ordered 40 pizzas 69 parents and 91 students showed up that's roughly three quarters of the school on a weeknight a week night shortly before that meeting we received a message saying the board members weren't coming there would be no dialogue there would be no conversation there would be no solutions also on that same thursday night last week four days ago your architect submitted to you a complete facilities assessment report this report shows that our city school buildings need work not just asheville primary seven of the nine schools need critical repairs i happen to be an architect and i design schools so i know schools need
053repairs i also know that if you change an educational occupancy to storage it's really really expensive to change it back everything must be brought up the current code as if you were building a new building closing the school would likely be permanent that means no more elementary school classrooms no more preschool classrooms no room for growth i also know as an architect when we present an in-depth study to a client who's responsible for making decisions about its buildings that the client takes the time to read and understand what they just paid us to create throughout my career no client no one has ever taken just four days to make a decision this big so please slow down none of these repairs are urgent the school is safe students are thriving the school does not this
054does not have to be a zero-sum game does not all students in the district can benefit from a thoughtful careful planned solution so what i'm asking you for tonight is just one one thing keep the school open while you form a committee of people who are deeply invested in creating solutions to this budget problem this committee will have representatives from the board county commissioners city council parents teachers staff and community members and give this community time to create viable solutions you can do this tonight thank you thank you next i have ann lanzi and hannah schweiber and lindsay all right uh hannah schweiber i don't know if people can hear outside or not and and lanzi so miss lansi you have three minutes all right hello i'm a parent of a kindergartner at asheville primary
055and i live right down the road from national primary i also happen to work as a school psychologist in haywood county and we have chosen to have our child attend school in the district that we live in rather than where i work because we feel like having her attend the school in the community that she lives in is so important community is the largest reason why i think closing asheville primary could be so detrimental to so many particularly given the current pandemic and the related mental health crisis that so many children and families are experiencing speaking both professionally as a school psychologist and personally as a parent schools are so much more than buildings that that happen to house classrooms where children attend schools are a community where children feel safe and when children feel
056safe they're able to learn during the current pandemic and resulting mental health crisis in so many children this is more important now than ever to quote a position paper put out by the national association of school psychologists there is no more important endeavor than safeguarding the welfare of our children and youth creating safe and supportive schools is central to this purpose it must be a national priority as a school psychologist and a parent i can tell you that asheville primary already has all the things in place needed for these children to feel safe this is not to say that other schools in the district do not have these things in place however if the children from asheville primary are dispersed out to other schools then all school communities are significantly disrupted as a school psychologist
057i feel that a decision to close this school would immediately take away the feeling of safety that every child needs more than ever right now why should these children or their families ever trust this district again with their children's education saying that why should the families of any other elementary school in this district trust in the safety and community related to their child's education during my time as a school psychologist i also happened to see the closure of an elementary school in haywood county in 2016. the children were then dispersed between other elementary schools i saw firsthand the immediate stress that was put on the other elementary schools receiving those students suddenly those school buildings were completely maxed out with little room for growth as more families moved to the area i encourage this board
058to take very seriously how this decision could negatively impact this district especially the other elementary schools for years to come it's my understanding that asheville primary was opened because of the growth that asheville was experiencing and continues to experience closing a school building that already has room to grow given the continued growth that asheville continues to experience just seems ludicrous especially when all options for financial help and community support have not been exhausted please consider allowing an elected board chosen by the community to work towards solving this problem do not make a decision that could be so detrimental to the asheville city schools community for years to come thank you i had hannah schweiber on next that is oh that's hannah oh hi hannah my name is hannah and i'm in kindergarten at nashville primary
059i want my school to stay open because of my teachers helping me learn and play at the same time and because my friends are really special to me and they love learning and finding out the answers to math problems by learning them this school is really special to me thank you very much next i have mr steven edge and after stephen i have jose ruiz stephen you have three minutes thank you my name is steven edge and i'm on the board of the east west asheville neighborhood association where aps is located you have heard from many parents of asheville primary and other amazing elementary schools in asheville city schools districts the following points are coming from a different perspective first repurposing of aps property how will this fit with the city of asheville the development
060planning view of the hayward hayward road corridor this particular district focuses on commercial issues or commercial uses using the school as storage has been mentioned more than once this brings concerned about increased truck traffic providing deliveries changing how pedestrians feel in our neighborhood with upcoming changes to i-240 aps access on the on-ramp will no longer exist and there is not a viable turnaround on aps property for large trucks ncdot has committed to finding new parking and driveways the historic school is there but has not made accommodations or promises for a storage facility geographically our neighborhood has two elementary schools and our boundaries aps and hall fletcher we appreciate the diversity of approach to learning that each school applies in the past five years paul fletcher year-round school was discontinued against the majority feedback from parents
061and staff supporting year round school and now for the second time in less than a year the acs board of education is going to vote on this position of aps is there a stigma against this area of west asheville and its schools it is obvious that when feedback is solicited it is summarily ignored walking around the residential streets of this neighborhood is very apparent that the neighborhood is growing with many infield lots being developed and the amount of babies and strollers by eliminating the aps location you're reducing walkability for students in the neighborhood that is only growing in population density during the tuesday december meeting december 7th meeting it was noted that stakeholders had been consulted as part of the analysis part of the analysis leading to tonight's vote iwana as a neighborhood where aps
062is located should have been one of those stakeholders and was not contacted at all the school is not in a vacuum it is part of a vibrant growing community you're not just affecting students for this decision but our entire neighborhood having students and families in and out all day provides lots of sets of eyes on the street keeping our neighborhood safer a maintenance and storage facility will not do this we are constantly hearing feedback from across the city that closing an elementary school will only reduce confidence that the asheville city school district is being effectively managed we call on the acs board of education to halt the closing of any schools and develop a comprehensive long-range plan with an outcome of growing the district versus the current downward trajectory we are experiencing thank you uh
063next i have jose ruiz you'll have jose that's josie josie my name is sabria they came and got me and said i was up next oh no wait what's your name sabria lindy oh wow you're way down here but i'll go ahead and take you now um i need a jose ruiz after this please go ahead you have three minutes good evening my name is sabriel lundy and i'd like to tell you a little story about equity i was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after my first ever drug conviction it was at the end of my sentence that i was fortunate enough to be selected for a program called vera post vera post secondary pathways solutions i'm sorry i'm very emotionally liked i was lucky enough to be selected for the
064vera pathways post-secondary education program which is launched here in asheville north carolina so after seven and a half years in prison i had the choice of coming to buncombe county mecklenburg county or pitt county i chose asheville because i had read about all of the wonderful ban the box initiatives and equity programs designed to give people like me a fair chance in life when i came to this program i met their father he had been released after eight years in prison and was also part of the same program that i was we have both worked very hard to become upstanding members of this community we found out in our 12th week of pregnancy that our daughter lily was going to be born with down syndrome we were told from that point on that we should
065consider our options at each and every doctor's appointment we attended we were told lily would never be able to do anything for herself we were still in the nicu admission hospital when we started receiving endorsements of asheville primary school and the wonderful work that they were doing for special needs children we just took it as a given that she would be a student at asheville primary school it was endorsed thoroughly by each and every single therapist that she has had along the way her father and i were very nervous about making such a big transition with everything being so up in the air with asheville primary stability but we were pushed to make the right decision when the good news came last year that the program was being extended and that she would have at
066least two years in the program and when i tell you that these are the two years that my daughter needs to be competitive in a normal kindergarten setting she has made leaps and bounds in her progress in the three months time she has been there when she started school in miss mary's classroom she had maybe three or four words my daughter can now communicate what she wants to eat what she wants to watch on tv and how she would like to spend her free time the fact that she can say her abcs and count is phenomenal we would never thought our daughter would make this much progress every day i see her blooming i am here before you today a formerly incarcerated mother of a biracial special needs child to ask you to please give
067her the same chance that y'all gave me ashfield took a chance on me take a chance on my kid give her the two years that you allowed her in that classroom use her as a case study because i guarantee you she will be competitive in a normal world environment thank you okay next i have uh jackie mcard and then sally growl growl good to see you again on some level my dear previous colleagues and on another i'm really saddened and honestly pretty disappointed that i have to be here tonight um one of my goals here tonight is to not let my heart overrun my head i understand the difficult financial decisions this district is facing probably better than a whole lot of folks in this room a whole lot of folks watching a whole lot
068of folks outside i'm here to reaffirm tonight that my previous motion to keep aps on haywood and add fourth and fifth grade is still as firm today and is right for our district as it was when i offered it months ago it is right for the families of national city schools it is right for this community and this is not coming from some whimsical decision i'm not being bent in any odd direction by loud voices or some mysterious rich white group that just pushes an agenda which is a rumor that i've heard there's fascinating rumors i've heard about what motivates me to back aps what backs aps for me is something called peer reviewed research and data driven decision making most of the top blue ribbon schools in this country right now are public montessori
069schools south carolina is closing an opportunity and achievement gap that you can drive a truck through sounds familiar through montessori schools public montessori schools i am befuddled that we are again having this conversation and it feels like aps is just some low-hanging fruit for solving an issue that isn't going to be solved by closing aps i know the heart of most of you all up there i know how you make decisions and i know you care i am begging you as a previous board member and a member of this community and as a parent who could not afford private montessori for her child that we slow down we stop actually we think we study we research we talked of needing a comprehensive strategic plan for our district we can't make decisions like this without that
070plan being part of the conversation first and foremost i know you all are being pulled in a thousand different directions but every single one of these children who have come up here today or the only thing we should be thinking about are all of our asheville city school children and the proven research that montessori when delivered well which is how we've delivered it when expanded which is what we should be doing can close the gap that we say is so important to close thank you next i have miss sally growl and you have three minutes thank you sir thank you my name is sally grau and i'm speaking today on behalf of the lucy s herring parent team i have a six-year-old daughter who's in first grade at lucy hearing and a four-year-old future hearing
071student we watch the december 7th public hearing and we're deeply moved by the emotional appeals of the aps parents and teachers who clearly care about their school and believe in its mission and curriculum several of those parents indicated that because hall fletcher and lucy hearing are both traditional elementary schools that our schools should be combined to free up a building for their program i'm here to speak for my daughter's school lucy herring it's an incredible school community at the heart of our community is an amazing school garden program run in conjunction with feast and bountiful cities miss jordan diamond worked with works with students on a farm-to-table curriculum students plant seeds grow and harvest vegetables and herbs and have cooking classes with produce they've grown themselves my daughter comes home and tells me that she
072tasted mint from the garden and learned about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly which she got to observe first hand walk inside our school's doors and you'll see our wonderful bright and welcoming library run by national board certified teacher miss christian who organizes local and national author readings for our students miss dingle our incredible pe teacher makes movement and sports fun for everyone my daughter calls wednesdays her p.e day and she comes home overflowing with stories about obstacle courses jump rope and the ice fire dragon game before the pandemic must dingle how to bring your parents to pe day every year because it's not fair for kids to have all the fun our art teacher miss leip is also national board certified and she was awarded the north carolina art educator of the year
073in 2017-2018 she is just full of energy and creativity and she wrote to me during my kindergartners pandemic year which was mostly virtual encouraging me to let her draw her own circle even if it wasn't perfect because every circle is beautiful my daughter walks to school with her classmates who are our neighbors and friends every year on the first day of school our elderly neighbors come out on their front porches to wave to the kids and cheer them on i love our school our neighbors love our school lucy herring has an incredible staff an active and engaged parent team and a truly amazing garden program we do need to do a better job of marketing our school during open enrollment so families can see just how special it is all acs students family and staff
074deserve a stable consistent and enduring school home the repeated back and forth about the future of asheville primary has been a major source of stress not only for asheville primary families but for the whole district your lack of a long-term strategic plan has left families in limbo and added undue stress at a time when schools are already overwhelmed and we're hearing this from our teachers at our school we strongly support keeping aps open in its current location we implore you to implement a long-term strategic plan thank you next i have lucine and steven just so you know i don't know if you heard it out there since you spoke last week we're going to let her talk and then if we have time we'll let you come back i understand it okay you indicated my
075name is lucine um i don't i go to show primary and this is an amazing school i love it um i'm six years old i go to kindergarten i'm in the smallies class and um [Music] this is just an amazing school it's awesome all the teachers here everyone here they're so nice i mean i love it i used to go to another different montessori that eventually closed down but i'm so proud that i have this one now this is awesome to be here i just love it i mean all i have to say is that it's awesome here this place is amazing i mean there's a million other things that i could say all i want you to know is that this school is amazing it's the best thank you very much thank you next
076i have fiorella katrina katrina and you have three minutes thank you so um the girl that just spoke as my daughter lucine um and i um you know we moved here from miami florida about a year ago so um i think the first thing i kind of want to say is that in this the midst of all of this uh really difficult times of you know covet for two years one of the biggest reasons we came here and uh relocated to asheville was so that our daughter had the opportunity to attend asheville primary um we really believe in the montessori method as she mentioned she was in a in a preschool that was montessori before we saw how much she thrived there and we wanted to give her that same environment and you know it
077was a big change and it has been a big change for us and a big adjustment um but we finally are starting to feel like we are have our footing here and we have adapted but this whole situation with this school has really thrown a wrench into uh you know us feeling like we're home and for me home is a very interesting thing because i actually i'm from lima peru originally so i was born in a country that was very rich in history and culture but very poor in resources and when my parents moved here i was 11 years old i actually was able to find my way into you know they came here because they wanted to give me a better education and a better life and accordingly i was able to do that
078i was able to actually achieve a phd in comparative literature and a master's in communication and so education is has meant a lot to me i've taught at a university and i believe in montessori and i want to provide that same opportunity that my parents gave me to my daughter and i believe in this program and if you think about that you know you think about like families like us like ours like we came here because of this school if you guys think about what that can do like this this place can be a beacon as other parents have said for attracting more families for attracting that that come with with so much to offer i mean my family we are here we're committed to to this place we want to offer everything uh that
079we can both to the school and to the community and this school would attract so many more people like us and i believe in that because we're here you know you you got you guys have us as us as a proof we are here and and we really so i i really i'm asking just like every other parent has been asking here for you guys to really please keep this school open thank you next i have aaron dunn and you have three minutes good evening i'm the parent of a kindergartner at asheville primary and a younger child who is approaching preschool age at the ptc meeting last week my kindergartner stood up in front of full in front of a gymnasium full of people mostly adults and sang his school song into the microphone his
080confidence to take center stage is a direct result of the leadership skills he's gained from being an older child in a multi-age classroom a hallmark of montessori learning he is someone who struggled with sensory issues generalized hesitancy and social skills for much of the last few years his progress in just the last three and a half months at aps has been remarkable his teacher tells us he takes on the role of big brother to younger children and is eager to help and teach others other parents tell me how kind he is to their children which to me is far more important than him learning his letters and numbers which he's also done he has the most diverse group of friends he's ever had and he comes home every day laughing about all of the fun
081they have at school and telling me what his new friends have taught him i'll be the first to admit no one would have remarked on my child's marvelous social skills when he was homeschooled by me the first few weeks of school he really struggled with the separation through this time the staff everyone from the pe teacher coach ken to the school counselor miss lauren was extremely supportive and worked as a team to help him through these tough mornings sending me texts and photos and calling me with updates throughout the morning he would not have received such individualized attention at any larger school and i believe adjustment would have been much more challenging for him he has truly thrived at aps where he feels the greatest sense of community he's ever known outside her family i'm
082so grateful he's found a place where he doesn't feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole that's what aps is to us a place where children are met and embraced wherever they are for whoever they are while being recognized for their individual needs and strengths the pandemic has changed all of us but no one more than our children for better or for worse they will be shaped by this experience and we will probably not know or see the full impact on them for years to come now is the time for consistency predictability and community aps has brought these into our lives please stand down and let it continue to do so thank you for your time thank you next i have elena or honeycutt thank you i'm a mother of two
083children who attend asheville primary school i have a four-year-old daughter in miss caitlin's class and a seven-year-old in miss katz class i'm also a physician and i've been caring for adults and children in our asheville community for almost seven years now since we've been dealing with the recent news that asheville primary school might close i've been talking with other parents and i keep hearing about the stress and the anxiety that their children have been experiencing since since they've heard that they might not have a school next year i'm here to speak up for the mental health of our children it's no secret at this point that school closures due to covet 19 negatively affected children's mental health children from black latino and low-income families were disproportionately affected experiencing more mental health problems associated with school
084closures this is not my opinion this is straight out of peer-reviewed medical journals the following is from the lancet which is a well-respected peer-reviewed medical journal school routines are important coping mechanisms for young people with mental health issues when schools are closed they lose an anchor in life and the their symptoms could relapse we know that children are still dealing with the mental health effects brought on by isolation due to covet 19. just ask any teacher you all have heard the stories and now you're proposing to take this vulnerable group of young children and throw their lives into disarray once again and the group of kids most likely to experience the most severe stress and disruption from this are the same kids that are already marginalized and the ones that you all need to be
085prioritizing asheville primary school will take a toll on the students mental health and additionally it's a huge step backwards in the march to advance educational equity please commit to keeping asheville primary school open thank you next i have mary aldridge and you have three minutes all right hi i'm mary i am a parent at asheville primary and when my daughter was in kindergarten she was at oakley elementary i wanted her to be there because she was in the immersion program which was really amazing but you know it was even better nashville primary the kindergarten classroom across the hall from my classroom i am also a teacher at asheville primary and i teach in the developmental day classroom i'm a teacher that also gets burned out and i like summers but the developmental day classroom is
086special and is magical and it is year round it is 12 months so that the children with delays i have six children that are a typical typical and six that are typical it's such a magical thing for them to learn from each other the building asheville primary is unique it was made for preschool it was made for early childhood it is made for elementary schools there are so many classrooms that open right out to a playground to an outdoor learning space my classroom we and right this year we have two children that are in wheelchairs that are learning how to walk i can open my classroom and help teach my children how to walk because there is a track i appreciate everyone that has come to visit the classroom it makes it makes me feel
087that you really care because this is not an easy thing and if you do have to close our school because it is not safe take us somewhere where you have thought and planned to where we have access for children with wheelchairs outside the classroom i appreciate you listening to everybody that's come i know that you've heard so many things and i can stand here and reiterate and reiterate but one thing that i know that has been touched on but i want to touch on this one more thing is the bus line it is such a central location i have seen so many of my parents at that bus line other other schools are not this close so these children may not be able to get to school as easily if we change locations this is
088also one of the only montessori class montessori schools for the low income that we serve thank you very much next i have the queen and bettencourt [Music] we had signed up together this is my daughter aquina and so i'm going to read mine first and then hand over to her actually if you would hand over to her first um no offense but we we're trying to get all the kids or the people who hadn't spoken yet right i didn't speak last time my name was on the list but oh you didn't get a chance no i chose not to i was i was feeling too nervous and uncomfortable and oh okay so i at the last minute decided opted not to so just go ahead first no you go ahead go ahead hello board members
089and district leaders my name is jessica de bettencourt and i appreciate you all giving us this time to speak about our love for our school and to show our support of all asphalt students and educators this morning the first thing i said to my daughter was today is an exciting day today is the day we get to save our school i needed to start out our day with that level of positive energy because this roller coaster of advocating for actual primary has been exhausting and stressful for everyone in my home and everyone in her school some of the students at asheville primary don't have any idea that their beloved school might close but unfortunately our fourth graders have been aware of it all because they have felt the changes each year last year due to
090the uncertainty about the future of our school some of our families made the decision to leave asheville primary and asheville city schools before the vote was made to keep our school open in may my daughter's two dearest friends were among them in years prior to that when asheville primary was not expanded to add grades each year as promised the students in our school aged out early and had to go to other elementary schools this meant that the multi-age classrooms lost their oldest learners who would have been the academic and social leaders of their classrooms and the school many of these students and families were dear friends and that loss was deeply felt by my family and many other families in our school community my hope is for a more stable future for asheville primary where
091families can count on the district and board being fully committed to the social and academic well-being of the students we entrust in your care coming here tonight feels like groundhog day didn't we already have a vote on this and decide the public montessori is amazing and we're all in i was sitting in this room last may late into the night while the options were discussed when dr freeman said if you're going to do a special program then we just need to do it right this is the only public montessori and if you're going to do it do it huge dr freeman i wholeheartedly agree when the vote is made tonight to commit public montessori and to keep asheville primary in its own space the district should put their energy into undoing the damage done to
092our school by constantly trying to dismantle it i hope that our district leaders will finally promote our school loudly and sing its praises so that families will know about how public montessori has been changing academic outcomes in positive ways in communities across the u.s we even have an opportunity to promote actual primary at the national public montessori conference happening at lake junaluska this april i sent an email to each of you about it and hope some of you will attend it would be quite an embarrassment to be in the process of closing the only public montessori in western north carolina while that event is happening right here in our mountains it would also be a lost opportunity to gain national attention for asheville's thriving and successful public montessori school of the options you have to
093vote on this evening i hope that you will choose to keep asheville primary in its own space where it can continue to grow and thrive so that generations of asheville city school students can benefit from public montessori please keep the promise made by the board of education on may 24 2021 to expand national primary to fifth grade in 2022-2023 and dr freeman's promise on december 8 2020 to commit to montessori through at least 2026 2027. thank you no and you will have three minutes young lady if you like kids you will keep asheville primary open asheville primary should stay open because one asheville primary is the only public montessori in western north carolina two natural primary we use materials to help us learn three at actual primary you can sit wherever you like and you
094always do the work that is the right level for you do not close our school because because it is the best thank you thank you next i have chase hager and jessen hager hi my name is chase hager my husband has left with the kiddos i'm a mother of two actual primary children i have one in first grade and one in third grade i am originally from the south i have taken that well-worn path from charleston south carolina all the way here to asheville almost 15 years ago i'm i have seen a lot of the larger cities in the south plagued with the same problems that the city school system is currently facing as you make your decision tonight i want for you to consider would a montessori charter school in the asheville primary location
095be equitable i just i just want for for us to really consider that we have over 40 of our students within asheville primary with free or reduced lunch would that decision be equitable i appreciate you guys hearing all of us i want you to think about you know the hard research that is out there that we have presented to you guys over and over again please don't make the same decisions that some of the other southern cities have made let's rise asheville up and this whole community thank you next i have alma romero yes f7 so oh we're okay and then i have shade say that again uh your interpreter thank you all right you have three minutes good afternoon my name is alma romero darla gracias has been i'm here to thank asheville city
096schools i have a daughter that graduated from salsa you need questions [Music] and my son that is at north star bonfire academy um [Music] las cosas i'm here to discuss some of the different things that have taken place since i've been with city schools we have done a lot of great things with the public education through asheville city schools and i want to thank all of you for my kids having the best education through asheville city schools elementary school is lucy harris and this band's elementary school first school that my children attended was lucy herring which was vance elementary school is asheville high school and the second school my daughter was asheville high school um [Music] and then now for my son in seventh grade is north star for academy munchas personas estamos presentes en
097estus meetings many families like myself that are latinx or latine are not present here physically but we are listening to the meetings online and we know what's going on um and i'm here because i've been curious about the things that i've been seeing that are going on and some i agree with and some i disagree and i'm very intrigued for the things that are going to impact my children and then i know that we're short on resources okay and then i know that the schools are short and resources and recognize what's happening here leads me to believe what's going to happen to that portion and what is the most important things that asheville city schools has to do for us as well and thank you so much and i will be here in the future
098thank you thank you good night thank you next i have miss hi good afternoon you have three minutes all right thank you um my name is apollo musta keen and i would just like to say a couple of things my first question is um how many african-american children go to asheville primary school and is it equitable for those students that's there um um i i went back to watch the video and felt the speaking of black families without checking hold on excuse me i went back to watch the video and felt the speaking speaking for black families without checking with us is not okay the part about the pledge to the earth what it oh excuse me the part about pla about the pledge of the earth where what about the pledge to black families
099we have been experiencing a pandemic and it is worse for black families where where excuse me i'm sorry and it's worse for black families where it was the type of effort for us then if you want if you go back and watch the video and the tears of and privilege i'm sure there'll be lots of shame because excuse me i'm sure there will be lots of shame please honor please be honest and and say this this is your desire and do not use black people for your cause thank you thank you last person i have on the list is susan simson susan senzen i think she might be outside well hi susan you have uh three minutes oh thank you i'm dr susan senzan my husband and i have a chiropractic practice in asheville we've
100been here over 20 years tonight i'm here to speak as a parent of a fourth grader at actual primary school i'm also a parent of an eighth grader at montford north star i am honestly just so upset with how this all seems so thrown together yes i understood in may that asheville primary school the building location would need to be discussed again but i really thought the process would be a lot more collaborative surveys started going out barely six weeks ago the main one for asheville primary school parents came out on friday night december 3rd and not only was that not a lot of notice but it was also the sixth night of hanukkah and i understand that asheville city schools speak of inclusivity but that felt a little short-sighted to me my fourth grader
101who spoke at may's board meeting took real ownership of the efforts she made to save the asheville primary school program and she spoke tonight she can't understand the complete closure as possible again she remembers that fifth grade was offered my son at montford can't even imagine having younger children in the building if it were to come to that and i i just need to talk about the idea of merging here both programs at aps and montford are worth protecting and leaving them where they are to merge these schools in particular would ruin what is so good about them they are the best and most attractive schools in the district people moving to asheville have done so for aps specifically friends of mine with children at charter schools and private schools in the area with older
102children have either considered or transfer or transferred to montford because of its outstanding reputation and this whole thing just feels i'm sorry to say just a sad lack of confidence in all the schools involved some things feels very off to me about this sudden move to now close aps i understand the building has needs and i listened carefully to the architectural report spoken of by mr chip howell at the board meeting on december 6th however it seems but that almost all the schools in at the asheville city school district has major problems so why why does a community as affluent as asheville where taxes and cost of living is so high why do we have schools that are structurally failing aps is not the only problem how can as a community can we really can
103we fix this aps is here we're here we're ready and willing to discuss this thoughtfully please keep it open where it is thank you very much thank you so that was the last of our in-person uh public hearing individuals we have seven yes sir mr carter we've had seven folks that have signed up for virtual public comments okay and so we'll let those seven start now and i'll let you call out the names they have three minutes yes um our first one is miss kelly richards uh miss richards if you will going ahead and turn on your camera i'm gonna go ahead and turn mine on so this you can i'm sorry so that you can know how much time you have left you will give me just a moment all right you can begin
104whenever you are ready oh miss uh richard you are currently muted okay thank you for letting me speak um i i've spoken before on behalf of myself but my daughter is a early childhood education um student at asheville primary and she wanted to give her own statement so this is from cora she is in um she's four so she's in the pre-k and she wanted to say um i like my school because it's the best and i don't want it to ever close my mom doesn't want it to close too my teachers are named miss ali and miss molly and they're the best and i don't want you to close my school everything keeps my day a good day um so i just want to for myself echo the fact that everything that has been
105said about keeping the school at its location working with parents talking with the community please do that okay thank you so much thank you all right next up we have a samantha dimick samantha if you will please turn on your um if you will please turn on your video and miss gimmick you have three minutes thank you for your time this evening my name is samantha demi um i'm thankful for asheville primary school when touring the district before my child's kindergarten year hearing about this public montessori opportunity felt like a miracle for my child who's on the spectrum she's now in third grade and is thriving at eps thanks to the amazing montessori method and the exceptionally supportive staff one of the comments she made on the first date like during the first day of
106school excitement this year was mom i've been walking up these stairs for four years it's like her other home um in fact she expresses sadness every friday um when she quote has to take two days off that's cool i'm so thankful for her love of learning which has been nurtured in that environment aps is an incredible community it's our family's community taking away our beloved school not only disrupts our children's school experience it would actually take away our community our sense of support and stability especially after a tumultuous nearly two years of pandemic my child our children need as much consistency and reliability as possible especially during this time i would also add that i'm commenting virtually this evening because i'm a single parent and attending in person tonight with me i would be bringing
107my child with me um i did not feel that was the best thing for her mental health seeing the emotional toll it took on her just a few months ago thinking we saved her school and sharing with her the promises for fourth grade and fifth grade and seeing all that excitement when we got to return to our building so she's been aware that this is even a topic for discussion um because i don't know yet what to prepare her for um and i would appreciate a long-term solution and stability for our kids and our community thank you for your time thank you all right okay next we have mr heaton brooke are you on i am can you hear me yes i can hear you now sorry i just wanted to make sure as i
108said i know that we were having a little bit of issues earlier getting on so um whenever you are ready you have three minutes great uh thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for your service to asheville city schools my name is brooke heaton and i'm the father of an acs preschooler who has attended classes at isaac dixon as well as asheville primary i'm also an advocate for strengthening and expanding public education retaining and rewarding educators and for universal pre-k i'm here today to implore you to keep asheville primary open to keep all schools and classrooms um where they are located fully staffed and to use all the means at your disposable disposal to reverse the near decade long trend in our district of shrinking enrollment which we all recognize as the
109driving force that has led our to our current financial situation we've lost around 400 students at a cost of 12 500 per student in state funds that's 5 million dollars in lost revenue that as you know is the problem and it is a problem of this board's making i believe that you are about to make a grave error that will leave a damaging rip that will leave damaging ripple effects across the district for years because somehow you confusingly think the thousands of dollars you might save by closing the school will solve your five million dollar crisis if you close this school we will not get the school back and we cannot afford to lose this school asheville is a growing city the number of births we've had in asheville has nearly doubled in the last
110three years asheville has become a top destination for families with kids to flock here there is a growing need for pre-k and elementary education and it is shameful that a city that has motels pop cropping up like dandelions and wealth flowing into it cannot find the means to support one of our community's most fundamental needs what happened there are probably more questions than answers but one thing is certain shuttering the doors of actual primary will make it harder to recruit and retain students in a district that has already lost hundreds of students and will result in even more lost revenue there's no doubt that the circus surrounding last spring's misguided effort to shuffle pre-k classrooms and to close aps costs the school and the district enrollment we will continue to lose students and teachers if
111you choose to cut classrooms in schools what's next nearly every school in this district is suffering from years of deferred maintenance should we close hall fletcher the high school what is your strategy here where does it end you are cutting off the district's nose to spite its face you have no long-term strategy and you have no long-term plan many parents have explained that they chose to move to asheville because our city offered a public montessori program these people literally packed up and moved to cities to uh moved up from cities and moved to asheville because of the public montessori program it should be clear to you already that the aps montessori program is an invaluable asset that will not only provide a top-notch education to students including students with special needs but is also a
112critical school to bridge the achievement gap if you close aps you will remove a critical asset it will without any doubt drive up uh drive enrollment up for pre-k in kindergarten in a window of time that is critical for sustaining and growing our enrollment numbers in the long run please don't let your legacy as the last unelected school board be one of a shrinking district crumbling schools and shuttered doors you can and must do better thank you mr heems thank you all right next we have amanda wilde amanda if you will please turn your camera on sorry i'm in the dark here didn't realize that all right um you will have three minutes to speak and i will start you now uh hi my name is amanda wilde i have a kindergartner at lucy s
113herring elementary um i started out this meeting with the objective of expressing my support and favor of moving asheville primary into another school building i came to this conclusion after some talk of our own neighborhood school being in danger of closing as asheville primary students and members and parents will understand i feel protective over my daughter's school community as i believe it deserves a chance to keep thriving after listening tonight to the passionate members of asheville primary i wanted to express my support and slowing down the process and keeping the public montessori option open for the families that would like it while my story is not an option i choose from i would choose from my child i agree that it can be a beacon for increasing enrollment in our district i would like to
114see asheville primary stay open but i'm fearful of another school closing in its place i'm encouraged by the passion and activism i've heard here tonight and i hope there can be a solution that works for all members of our community thank you thank you thank you okay um so sally grah is our next person on that is signed up for public comment but she is not in our zoom room she was here perfect well there we go that's reason why okay uh jerick wilson if you will go ahead and turn your camera on yep okay great and you have three minutes to speak all right i'm an acs parent teacher and a member of the neighborhood association where aps is located the board has heard our feelings so i want to take a moment to
115make some acknowledgements and suggest some actions we can take i want to talk about equity and equality closing aps in order to equalize spending for every student in the district as board members have alluded to is a fine example of equality whether or not the board intended the closure of aps has been tied directly to the future of this district pre-k and montessori have both been proven to improve outcomes and are tightly linked to reducing the achievement gap especially for our bypoc and lower-income neighbors beyond montessori being equitable in and of itself equity in this district would look like opening up all classrooms the building has room for and spending money to recruit and retain our underserved community members compensating these families to be part of school improvement teams would also be a step toward
116equity and closure of aps is an equity issue people are moving here in droves birth rates in welcome county are at nearly 4 000 each year for the past three years according to the register of deeds if even five percent of these babies need pre-k when they turn three in the district we're looking at 600 plus kids over the next three years were these forecasts considered before motioning to remove the school we need the building we need the spaces you've considered adding to the district at other elementary schools we need those spaces that you considered using at central office is it obvious yet that we need to invest in equitable solutions to provide for our bypass neighbors our lower income neighbors and our entire city we need to find a just solution tonight i'm asking
117the board to create a community task force to explore creative solutions aps kids are going to be in the building through the end of the year anyway so why not give the committee a chance to come up with a solution by then the committee could include some of you administrators teachers parents neighborhood association local business owners the person who said we could save 12 million dollars through a bond and experts in education logistics and that architect too who knows what amazing solutions they could come up with heck they could explore how many modulars could fit in the current land that aps sits on so students could use the garden four or five playgrounds and whatever else the building that they need from the building while it's repaired as fun to become available you can even
118put your freezers and some maintenance offices in there until it's suitable for kids to return to the building peyton i'd like to thank you for asking questions that made it obvious to the public that no matter how the board votes tonight there will still be budget issues money will still have to go into replacing many of the critical needs such as the three million dollar plus hvac system along with paying utilities and transitioning the classification of the building to allow your maintenance and nutrition workers to be in the building the budget issues will remain we're entering the last year for two of you martha this will likely be your defining moment and how you remembered on this board and in the city shauna you've been repeating over and over that aps is predominantly white well
119we all know that every school in this district is probably white this leads us to the public to wonder what's actually going on to the entire board when the public gets upset about a lack of transparency or we perceive that you haven't thought things through entirely this is exactly what we're talking about as i've outlined the building being closed is an equity issue closing doesn't fix the budget issue we have building back better funding coming next year which is before dr jean's reference 2023 running out of the funds what is really going on please consider answering and please create a community task force thank you thank you and finally we have olive wilbur good evening board and asheville city schools community thanks for taking your time to hear our thoughts this evening so i'm an
120asheville primary parent my four-year-old biracial son august is in miss caitlin marshall's class in the montessori program i also have a two and a half year old son named roman who i was hoping would attend the school next year with his brother while i understand there are financial reasons for either consolidating or closing asheville primary i wanted to speak tonight to shed some light on what the school means to my family asheville primary has simply been the best first school i could imagine for my oldest son it took us three years to find affordable high quality child care and we were on way on wait lists for months while juggling work connecting with miss paulie at aps and getting into the area's only public montessori program with a full scholarship was a dream come true
121we also live only five minutes from the school in west asheville so any school that it be consolidated into would be a lot farther for us the staff have been have been nothing short of amazing i want to especially highlight the peace based discipline model which is so important i get texts and pictures of my son from miss caitlin and it's just been like really a collaborative effort rather than just harsh discipline um the impact of your vote tonight has real impact and will create real stressors on my family and others the past two years at aps have been uh bittersweet because we love the school so much but there's been constant uncertainty around the school's future when i told my son that aps might be closing his first question was can his best friend
122go to his new school which sadly i can't guarantee for him please take my family and everyone else's experience into consideration when you vote if you must close aps please create and release a long-term strategic plan to expand affordable early childhood education in our community as we all know there is a critical need for accessible affordable high quality child care in this community closing a school that offers just that makes no sense please wait until an elected school board is installed to make this decision thank you so much thank you thank you miss wilber um mr crater that concludes those that have signed up for virtual public comment for those that sign up for virtual public comment thank you very much and we will be ending our zoom room and shortly all right um so
123we have gone through those who had not spoken yet we had gone through those on zoom who were calling in uh to speak virtually um the board has the ability to either in public comment now since we've heard from others that were on the list as well they are more than happy to email the board with their comments and concerns so i would need a motion for us to in public comment a public hearing and we will adjourn the public hearing and then we will go into our regularly scheduled board meetings so do i have a motion to adjourn our public hearing uh so moved you have a second second say it again second all right all in favor shonda hi peyton hi martha george hi and i am and i all right so our
124public hearing has now ended i will actually give everyone five minutes to go use the restroom and then we'll start up our regular schedule board meeting all right thank you and welcome back we are now going to call the regular schedule board meeting to order um [Music] can i have a well no i'm just calling it to order um our work session was conducted last monday and now as we start the meeting i'm going to invite we have our pledge of allegiance and that's going to be from miss nicki's kindergarten class at isaac dixon can we all stand foreign the united states of america and heavenly republic which it stands one nation under god indivisible with love and justice for i'd also like to take a moment i'll do it later all right um can
125i have an approval for our agenda so moved do i have a second second um all in favor shonda i peyton hi martha i'm george hi and i am an i uh next we have our good news with miss actually michelle thublin all right there we go good evening dr jean chairman carter and members of the board tonight i have the honor of sharing a few good news stand out since our last time together first up i wanted to showcase our asheville high school dance classes for the first time in two years our students were able to showcase their talents on stage during their winter performance last week featuring lyrical contemporary jazz hip hop and more audience goers could certainly see how hard our dancers have worked this semester next we wanted to let you
126know that lucy s hearing second and third graders recently participated in a tapas artist presentation sponsored by the asheville city schools foundation local author amelie lewis read her book my heart flies open before leading the students in a yoga and art activity her book is all about movement and making sure you know that you are important students demonstrated some of the yoga moves mentioned in her story before coming up with the word that makes them feel important and at peace additionally i wanted to let you know that our own asheville high school gracie bullock will be continuing her track and field career she will be throwing hammer at the university of north carolina at chapel hill gracie has been involved with track and field since seventh grade but just started throwing the hammer in 2020.
127she joined the cougar family last year and has involved with not only track but also volleyball at asheville high school when she begins at chapel hill she is hoping to major in business and marketing and last but not least i wanted to highlight all the many wonderful band concerts that have been held this holiday season a special congratulations goes to mr workman mr wiley and mr simpson as well as all of our outstanding students i've had the chance to listen to quite a few of their stellar performances and they have certainly made my december all the sweeter plus these are the first indoor concerts the band's been able to hold since the pandemic began so i also wanted to give a special shout out to our families for making sure they wore their masks and
128were incredibly diligent with following all of our physical distance guidelines so that is it for our good news for this month and i look forward to bringing you more next month wonderful thank you so much it's always good to see the great things that are going on in our schools and congratulations to our our newest carolina thrower so next we have our public comment and if you will give me a moment i will uh in accordance with board policy 2310 please note that we provide time for public comment as a reminder the board of education greatly appreciates your interest in the asheville city schools and we welcome your comments to the board please be mindful of the following guidelines unless otherwise provided by the board time for public comment shall not exceed 30 minutes for
129in person and 15 minutes for virtual speakers multiple speakers from a group or representing who are presenting on the same topic may choose to elect one speaker for the group if a single speaker is used by any group they shall be allotted allocated five minutes instead of three to address the board if your group chooses this option please identify everyone in the group when you sign up to speak if an unusually large number of people wish to speak the board may decide to reduce the time allotted for each speaker or require the designation of a group spokesperson substitute speakers will not be permitted and speakers may not donate any portion of their time to another speaker please be respectful any disruption by any person or persons of a public meeting will not be tolerated and
130will result in removal from the meeting incorrect or misleading information presented by a speaker may be responded to at the direction of the chairperson public comment allows you to provide the board of education with your thoughts and or relevant information concerning the asheville city schools therefore board members will not normally respond to individuals who address the board except to request clarification in order to make a public comment individuals must be present and make their comments in person or virtually please understand that confidential student personnel matters will not be discussed during public comments and the board does not accept personnel complaints through public comment if you have a concern about an employee or a student matter please contact or see the superintendent after the meeting our system of public education depends on your involvement so please
131feel free to share with us during the time for public comments thank you our first individual uh that i have on our public comment list is principal derek edwards and mr edward you have three minutes thank you good evening board members i have been a part of this district for 18 years i've sat in this room for countless years watching listening and never responding there have been times i've agreed and disagreed with decisions from this board but it's not our job to question you publicly i come to you tonight as an employee a parent and a community member financial decisions are also emotional decisions each of us love our schools i have been a part of five different school communities in my time here my own child has been part of five different school communities
132in our district each of those schools love the children that show up to their schools every single day last week we sat and we listened to public comment that was at times not exactly civil and at times it didn't contain full accurate information this decision is not just about the primary school nor is it the last decision that we're going to have to make around finances what makes our district special is the people not brick and mortar our local money goes to pay for a full scope of specialist art music pe spanish drama at some schools we have more instructional assistant than anyone else that i know of it pays for assistant principals digital lead teachers even counselors at some schools we also do great things with our local funds that others do not we
133pay a full supplement to all our employees in other districts classified staff only get a small flat payment of a couple hundred dollars we give everyone a percentage of their salary this is a huge selling point in our district there are current inequities in our district and we know it some schools have more than twice the square footage per student as other schools in our own district students and staff ratios are twice as dense at some schools as others we can do better we are a fork in the road for our district i think one path leads us to maintaining the same amount of physical space but with less staff and the other we can track our footprint maintain the staff and services that we provide we have a massive physical plant issue there are
134decades in the making it will take us years to get out it's also true that our projections for student enrollment did not come to fruition the truest statement i've heard in this chamber was that there have been bad financial decisions made for years now we should be held accountable that is absolutely true we are trying to hold ourselves accountable make the hard decisions to ensure our long-term viability whatever decision you make tonight and the financial decisions that you will certainly still have to make in the future find the common good not the good for the small groups ultimately all of our students are all across one stage and we are one cougar family thank you next i have miss nicole kush principal kush sorry gotta make sure you're properly miked thank you sir you have
135three minutes thank you good evening board chair board members and superintendent freeman i stand here to speak on behalf of the decision that you all have to make in terms of the primary school i have had the pleasure to hear the side of parents requesting that you keep the primary school open and the wonderful benefits that a montessori education offered their children i am fully aware of the beauty of the montessori education as my little brother attended a montessori school in new jersey and my parents paid handsomely for that opportunity and privilege but one part of the story that fails to remain is the untold sacrifices that are made for this to occur i drove to this meeting praying that when folks speak to you this evening they will do so with compassion and kindness
136for all kids which is the alternative of what i witnessed last week as community members and stakeholders literally stomped their feet and clapped their hands as they spoke to you expressing racist microaggressions as they demanded what they wanted for their children neglecting to take into consideration the collective our most vulnerable students are our high school students i'm here to speak on behalf of the voiceless representing those students who have suffered at the hands of this decision or lack thereof i am here to represent and speak on behalf of the high school and the fact that we have literally hemorrhaged and lost staff to support the staff that serve far fewer schools i mean far fewer students at other schools our most vulnerable population are our high school students that principal edwards and our amazing administrative
137team and i love so much and serve dearly bottom line we desperately need mental health support at the high school level i believe that elementary principals are well equipped to receive and love and ensure a quality education for the 107 students in question tonight principal edwards and i only have four years to work with this vulnerable population before we usher them across the stage and get them out into the real world the uniqueness that's what's so beautiful about asheville high and silsa every student will come through our doors every student will not go through the primary school asphalt high and silsa students need to be our number one concern to quote nicole hannah jones the burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice and not
138the powerful people who maintain it i say to you i refuse end quote i stand here before you today to refuse to remain silent as our high school students suffer i will carry the burden and fight for those bearing the brunt of injustices that have occurred thus far please focus on our high school students and our alternative program i beg that you choose people over buildings our high school students deserve better thank you next i have miss tanya prashay and you have three minutes thank you board chair and board members i've wrestled a long time um i'm a boots on the ground out in all communities and i've wrestled and it comes a time that you have to speak up so this is my time to speak up for the all the other staff members
139that don't know where we are financially they are part of this decision tonight they don't know that the other parents don't know that their voices are not being heard just so you get it we are broke we are broke there's no way around it we have to make tough decisions in order to rebuild this school system to the greatness that it used to be we have to the other schools may lose positions p.e music all of that if we don't work with the board and support some of their decisions that's what's going to happen that is the truth and that's what's going to happen i may have a contract but i'm worried about my friends that drive the bus ia's custodian they are at-will employees their voices need to be heard as well i understand
140aps parents i really do my child's school has been closed when it was uh randolph and they were doing a four or five or three closed it down it was hurtful because it was a tight community but i'm here to speak for the district born and raised in asheville went through asheville city schools and had three children that went through ashford city schools this is a time to come together and figure out how we can rebuild financially yes our buildings need work they did not get the attention that they rightfully deserve and dr gene has suffered for that and now he's trying to make it right county commissioners know it they know it we have neglected the high school that should have been a priority so i say to you last week was very hurtful
141to me as a black native and a professional you don't get to tell me what i can or what my black community members can and won't do that's disrespectful it's totally disrespectful and i am here to ask the board to make those tough decisions if you can't make the tough decisions move out of the way and step down because i'm about rebuilding our school system financially and if our kids have a safe place and they are seeing the teachers that love them that's what counts we can make it work for aps that is my goal to work with them and see how we can do this this tonight is about saving asheville city schools the state will come in and they're not going to listen to you they're not they're going to do what's financially
142right and shut down all of our smaller schools we're going to lose admin and people are going to lose their jobs that's where we're at thank you next i have miss copeland rudolph copeland you have three minutes why did i go after tanya good evening chair carter school board members and dr freeman i also think both principals edwards and principal cush teed up what i'm here to say um four years ago almost uh four years ago over 800 of our asheville city schools parents grandparents teachers and staff middle school high school and college students gathered together to listen to new york times equity reporter and macarthur genius nicole hannah jones speak to us on the whiting opportunity opportunity gaps and re-segregation of our public schools every minute of her 90-minute presentation was a gift and
143a guidepost for our district especially during hard times and difficult decisions i'd like to share a few brief highlights i re-watched her video today jones believes that we've lost the moral message of public schools which is public schools are about a common not individual good and that means not individual students or individual schools within a system if you believe in the common good of public education then you recognize that every child no matter where they live how much money their parents earn or how much time their parent has to advocate on their behalf deserves an equitable and excellent education including equitable resources and here's the hardest part that nicole had us all say out loud how many of you were there to say it out loud i know a bunch of us and that is
144this we cannot say we want equal educational opportunities for all children and then fight to advantage our own which again as parents is anti it's counterintuitive and it's perhaps the hardest thing we have to do as parents and nicole acknowledged that we are conditioned to fight for our children to have everything we can give them jones was very clear that the burden of creating more equitable schools should not fall on the parents and students of colors who did not create and nor have they benefited from this inequitable system and then she told white parents very pointedly that it is us who will need to rethink that fight to advantage our own children she asked us whose children should be sacrificed to advantage your children whose children who will bear the burden of a school district
145that needs to make tough financial decisions whose children as an alumna of asheville high and the mother of two recent graduates i believe and know that we are stronger together as a community whose children will end up under one roof at asheville high school and sylza as i will say and i want to be clear that our ashley c schools foundation offices were at asheville primary school for five years and we witnessed and we enjoyed being part of that special community absolutely but i also know now is the executive director of the asheville city schools foundation that while those of us who are collectively committed to this school district are busy fighting amongst ourselves there are people busy organizing and attacking from the sidelines and they have no interest in a strong public education system
146in closing as i drove nicole hannah jones back to her hotel room she looked across the seat at me and she said i'm curious is what asheville will do and i was shocked and i said well what do you mean we're going to band together we're going to fight for equity we're going to close opportunity gaps and she said i stand up in white liberal towns all over the nation and they stand up and they applaud and they say it and i come back four to five years later and nothing has changed and so i ask us it's four years later and i ask how will we respond when we must give up some advantages and privilege how will we no matter what the decision how are we going to stand together for all kids
147and teachers we're still holding that question thank you thank you next i have kate shin you have three did i say that right three minutes okay thank you thank you board and dr jean i am a mom of a third grade son at jones elementary school i'm grateful for the dedication that you have put into studying and seeking solutions to the budget shortfalls for your commitment to investing in sustainable solutions for school systems future i do not envy your position i am impressed with the mobilization efforts of the parents who advocate for asheville primary school and i know this is hard work for them hurt work but i'm here to ask for three things first i ask and hope that you will make a brave decision that will be best for all children in our
148district particularly the black and brown students who've been historically failed by asheville city schools if there is a cost that needs to be paid to adjust the budget for a healthy financial future please do not let that cost fall on the backs of black and brown children at the advantage of white children like my own secondly i ask for transparency that includes an explanation to us of how the decision you make is rooted in racial equity and will lead to greater success for black and brown children in nashville city schools and finally i'm here to ask that you don't create two separate schools in the same elementary school building of hall fletcher i think we all listen to the nice white parents podcast and know the inevitable inequities and resources identity and power that this
149will lead to i close by sharing the hope that you will use your power to build a future that does not have structural barriers preventing all children to succeed thank you for your time thank you next i have miss molly mcgovern and while you're back there ask micah honeycutt to come on in as well thank you miss mcgovern you have three minutes hi my name is molly um i'm a only parent of a mixed child at actual primary school we're new to the school this year i struggled with the decision to send him there when i signed up we were told we would go through fifth grade i chose the school because of the diversity this is the first time that he that he's been in school that he is not not the only child
150of color in his classroom we are not affluent this is the first school where i felt we have community the educators are amazing the school has a magical feel to it would be a great loss to our community to lose this school charlotte and raleigh have successful public montessori schools don't we want this for asheville follow the child let's get creative there's viable options that don't mean closing the school it's a perfect school for pre-k and montessori the doors open to a central courtyard and a beautiful garden there's little people sinks and toilets with universal pre-k coming we need a building a school building like this please vote to keep asheville primary montessori school open is the time to do the right thing for children and progressive education thank you next i have mr micah
151honeycutt michael you have three minutes if i may ask i've got 31 comment cards here from people who came tonight and intended to speak but didn't either because they ran too late etc i can read them and submit them however you'd like actually if you'll submit them to miss ashley michelle dublin she'll make sure that we get copies of them thank you so um [Music] we had i counted 137 folks there tonight um still some here and i think it's a lot of excitement a lot of energy um the other night thursday we had 70 folks come out representing 91 kids as well it's a lot of energy being spent and i don't i wish that was energy being spent to boost this district right i feel like even from some of the folks i
152just hurt i feel like the schools have somehow been pitted against each other and it's it's unfortunate like i i don't know how we got here like i said i've i checked out last year courtesy of the pandemic like a lot of people and got involved this year and want to be productive so help me help everyone here be productive i guess i want our school to thrive i want the district to thrive but i can't do that if we're you know under threat of being shut down every six months that's not an exaggeration right we know that so i just think that there's a lot of energy here we parents i mean we want to be part of the solution not part of the problem basically you know i want to work together um
153this rather quick process that brought us here did genuinely catch us off guard and upset a lot of people and i think that those feelings are justified but going forward i would really like you all to vote obviously to keep the school open and respect the energy that we can bring to this community and the capacity for positive change thank you next i have rob lamb he left okay next i have henry blackford and you'll have three minutes mr blackbird all right thank you um good evening board members and superintendent freeman i'm a former montessori student and the parent of two montessori children i've also been a montessori teacher in asheville for 13 years i've taught both in lower and upper elementary classrooms and feel honored to be part of aps's promised expansion into fourth
154grade this year i've been teaching long enough now that some of my first students are graduating from nashville high parents and my former students often report their children's successes back to me giving credit to two fundamental skills they attained through a montessori education flexibility and independence these children go to love learning in whatever environment they transition into upon leaving montessori they're also incredibly good at advocating for themselves as you saw here in middle and high school as well and managing their time as workloads increase for 10 of my 13 years as an educator i had the privilege of teaching in a private montessori school i loved my time there but after 10 years i began to realize a missed opportunity to offer this amazing education to all children not just those whose parents could afford
155a private school tuition maria montessori started her first school in a disenfranchised neighborhood in rome in 1907 studying educational methods with scientific precision she developed curriculum and instructional materials that are just as relevant now as they were over a hundred years ago at its heart the montessori method is about universal access to high quality education that nurtures and prepares individuals for all aspects of life regardless of their circumstances we often throw around buzzwords like equity and differentiated instruction in the educational sphere these are standards that all teachers are told to strive for without necessarily having the structural supports to mold this inclusivity into a traditional classroom space montessori classrooms are naturally student-centered the primary function of the teacher is to spark interest and guide students in self-paced and collaborative learning equity and differentiation happen naturally
156in a montessori setting as students become masters of their own learning asheville primary school provides this unique educational experience to a wonderfully diverse community of families and students if asheville city schools is truly committed to closing the achievement gap and promoting equity across the spectrum of learners in our community then public montessori must remain part of the dialogue there's more than enough data to support how successful montessori education can be towards student outcomes asheville primary school represents the first time the public montessori education has been implemented in all of western north carolina our school could serve as a model for the rest of our neighboring counties but only if this noble experiment is allowed to continue we need stability in our system in order to enact real meaningful change and that can only happen if
157the model established by aps is allowed to continue thank you for your time thank you miss blackford next i have miss marta williams well all i have is marta williams written down okay good evening board dr gene um i don't know that i'll need to use all three minutes because it's very clear i mean my phone has been blowing up since last week with the folks that are not here right we know who the folks that are not here are right the ones that are like miss marta what is this really about what about us i'm not gonna come because who cares about me who cares about the achievement gap for real right we're not when we talk about the gap are we talking about i hear equity equity equity and i heard i just
158keep hearing it and at asheville city schools we say equity for all centering black and black students because that is the gap it's not an opportunity gap it's a racial gap and no matter how many times i heard here this evening and i'm grateful i'm very grateful that you are fighting for your kids school because i would too but i didn't hear how hard we are fighting for the black students and if we are talking about students with disabilities as our achievement gap then we would center that and if we're talking about lgbtqia as the achievement gap we will focus on that but ours is black and brown and we talked about less resources and we talked about economically disadvantaged and guess what there is not a math formula that knows race and when we
159did the evaluation or when we did the statistics that many of you are doing research they showed us that of white students are so proficient and 53 latinos and 21 black how does the mathematical equation know your race so i'm here to tell you that last week with the disrespect when you heard shade and my phone is still blowing up both of them right now personal and work is to say how do people that have never spoken to me or don't know me can speak on my behalf on whether i check my email whether i care what school my child is going to go to and that i have too much on my plate that is so disrespectful and i am not a black mama but i am a brown mama and that feels offensive
160and disrespectful and the rest of the things that are going on here are super important but you've got to check your privilege and you've got to check where this is really coming from is this for really everyone and when we check that and we can answer those things then we can all talk about equity but until then please check yourself go back and like shade say and look at the video look at it and see the tears and then what comes after thank you thank you next i have mr pepia sabo and you have three minutes so i'd like to i guess it's appropriate in this context to point out that i am a brown papa i think that's the terminology that martyr was using i am a latino who lives here in asheville and
161i have seen a lot of weaponizing of equity to knock down parents who are advocating for a school that is making great strides to lift up our black and our brown kids and all kids we have seen uh gosh we've got to be really careful with that we need to remember that when we look at those who is proficient and who is not proficient that is based on a statewide definition that was changed in i believe it was 2012 this was a presentation about six months before you joined the board martha that the state was changing the definition of who was proficient from the bottom 40 percentiles to the bottom 50 percentiles so by definition in the state of north carolina half the kids we label them as non-proficient and we pound this into the
162heads of parents and families and teachers and we blame teachers because the kid is either above the median or below the median and we want to make the biggest deal possible about a kid not being labeled as proficient and i think it's damaging and i think that we have real real racial gaps we have real testing gaps we have real achievement gaps we have real things that we need to address but when we focus on this definition of proficiency i think we fail our kids and our teachers so just be mindful of that that wasn't what i was walking up to say but with all of this heated language i just wanted to make it clear that when we focus on this testing and what the state defines as proficient we lose sight of the
163individual children and everything that they're learning in their schools and every piece that they're growing with so what i wanted to say was as the pto president from montfort northstar academy i've pointed out some months back that the state of north carolina ncdpi recognizes that quality pre-k education is absolutely vital for middle school students and that that is a that determines or correlates with successful middle school outcomes so save aps please expand preschool in that building and i will work with shonda sanford to expand preschool access for asheville housing authority i will work with anybody to promote expanded access to early childhood education thank you thank you next i have miss lara lustig and laura you have three minutes thank you hello um yeah that was me clapping last time i was fired up um
164something i have said this before a lot of these things i've said before because we've been in this place before something i really appreciate about this whole exhausting process is the opportunity to listen to each other i think this is really important and i think it's what's missing and i told you this in may and i still believe it and i am sad that since then there has not been a time for all of us to come together not under threat you know not in an emergency but to say yes there is urgency in solving the issues of this district yes there is yes we need to speak out for black children yes yes we need to solve financial issues yes and the way that we can do that is we can come together and
165we can listen to each other it is not happening in any other place then in this space where it's like ah something terrible is about to happen and people get fired up our community which is a bunch of really great people has a lot of energy and expertise and creativity which they come and they you know are using in a specific way to defend something that feels really good for their kids and we could be put to better use we could do the same work together trying to write this district it has been so frustrating to feel like i'm uh all i want to see is collaboration like i want to hear voices that i don't get to hear and especially in covid i feel really cut off from the rest of the community we
166have got to get together and as like a really smart lady i know said once it's not about me and mine it's not about you and yours it's about us and it's about ours closing aps is not going to solve the financial problems of the district it's not going to solve the equity issues in this district it's a red herring it's a scapegoat and it's the way that people who want to enrich themselves turn us against each other so that we won't unite and make change for good and that's the truth and so i ask you again leave this school open because it's not the problem expand pre-k get creative work with the commissioners get the money talk to the dogwood trust there is money for pre-k we need pre-k for all our kids and
167that building is made for it thank you thank you next i have miss liza kelly eliza you have three minutes i'm stephanie oh you're you're stephanie well you're not you're well where's liza let's get liza well you go ahead stephanie okay you're up here already you have three minutes thank you very much you're welcome okay should i continue go ahead um i have three kids at asheville primary and i spoke before um last week but i wasn't quite prepared because it was so short notice um and we were streaming the video outside and now i've lost all my notes so my phone died so i'm just going to go on the cuff here but i wanted to add a few things to what i said last week i don't have a background in education and
168i think the people that have spoken so far have done such a great job my kids are doing terrific at actual primary and i would really like for them to continue um i do have a little bit of a background in staffing and recruitment and retention and the staff at asheville primary is just a dream team of people and that includes the enhancement teachers we've really bonded with them probably because of the pandemic but they really helped my son get through virtual learning coach ken mr knox mr shawn men miss lauren are just so important to the school and they do so much more than just teach you know art and music and i would really like for them to stay together you know if possible i also wanted to share and it's difficult to
169talk about but i've lived in asheville a long time back when it was worse nashville in west nashville and a couple of years ago once my kids you know we were in the system and i love all the schools um and there's so many great teachers in the whole system and this conversation shouldn't take away from them but we couldn't afford to live in nashville anymore we moved we had to move to candler and that made us out of district luckily we were able to continue in the district with a discretionary admission process but it is very difficult for us to afford that we just scrimp and we save but we pay it every year because actual primary is so important to us so we are considered you know low income and there's so much
170i wish i could give to my kids um that i can't but what i can give them is the best access to education that i can and i think that actual primary you know is gives that and i would like to keep it open not just for my kids but for future generations of actual children um you know we're out of district i have a daughter uh who's now in the buncombe county system at the nesbit discovery academy and i'm very proud and thankful for that that means i have kids in two different systems we're in buncombe county system and asheville city we deal with two different calendars um and it's really hard i have a 17 year old van and that's our school bus but i do it because it's worth it and aps
171is worth it to our family and to future families that could go there and i just think that this is a really big decision um i wish a lot more time would be put into it and i wish that y'all could just please form a committee listen to some of the suggestions from the people and really do a deep dive and a study and have more time to make the decision thank you next i have miss liza kelly you have three minutes good evening thank you i was honored to serve the children and families at asheville primary as an ia for four years i left after the first threat of closure and it was a hard decision to leave despite the enticing promise of a living wage and stability now that we are here yet
172again i'm grateful to be able to speak out without fear of retribution every teacher every year has that kid or kids if you're really lucky they burst through the door on the first day or i meet the teacher they run around the classroom they climb on a table they don't talk they yell they're touching everything and you turn and they've got your coffee at asheville primary we pause knowing the glassware is in imminent danger and we embrace that child on their first day we literally take them by the hand and we show them how to move through space slowly we show lesson after lesson in practical life and sensorial and we show them how to clean up and we shine on that student every single time they demonstrate a pro-social behavior we ask them to
173model classroom expectations to show lessons we invite them to lead through these lessons and these opportunities to lead we build a relationship with that student and we help them build their self-esteem other places they might be labeled with challenging behaviors or suspended but at aps it's different they feel safe because they know that they matter they belong through repetition and tactile experiences and the gentle rhythm that is inherent in the three-hour work block of a montessori classroom the child settles a bit we feel them leaning their warm bodies into ours as we show lessons to other students who are excited and intrigued by the tiny and plentiful golden beads the minuscule objects and the beginning sound boxes or the power of their words on paper we trust the children and we know that they will
174engage with academic works when they are ready when they are grounded and they all do in their own time expectations are made clear through the shine matrix children are grounded in the work block and there's a rhythmic hum to the day we build meaningful relationships with every student and we give extra of ourselves to the child with the big behaviors because that is equity in action children walk the peace path where they learn to advocate for themselves to mediate and navigate conflict with grace when that kid with the big behaviors flips their lid and damages the classroom and relationships they step outside they breathe and they come back to welcoming arms through the practice of restorative justice and they clean the mess and rejoin the group free of shame we learn about their families their
175favorite snacks their cultural beliefs and traditions and we celebrate them every child especially the kid with the big behaviors who brings their trauma with them in their backpack every day every staff member in the building meets them with radical love and acceptance no matter what and 441 haywood road is their home thank you for your time and consideration thank you next i have rachel howard hauser there rachel waiting to talk signed up okay next i have miss lindsey first um i am well aware that when we talk about budget shortfalls for school districts we are talking about years of underfunding from the state i'm well aware that north carolina once a bastion of public education in the south has spent the last decade plus breaking its constitutional promise of a fully funded public education for
176all students i'm well aware that politicians writing budgets in raleigh have prioritized other things on the backs of our public schools and i have a lot of compassion for the fact that they have placed school districts in impossible situations however for years acs has been in the top of per-pupil spending statewide buncombe county schools is working with per-pupil funding that is lower than acs by a third besides chapel hill acs invests more local dollars per student than every single other district in the state which i'm super proud of that's awesome the problem is that despite my understanding of how school funding works my compassion for the position you've been placed in and my immense pride that asheville invests local dollars in our students i cannot for the life of me understand how it is possible
177then that we have schools in such significant states of disrepair as has been presented in such significant states of delayed maintenance and that we are having this conversation again about how short the budget is what i'm asking for is no matter what other decisions you make tonight it is time for this board to conduct a full forensic audit investigated by an outside independent auditor given full access to all necessary records the fact is that acs is working with more money per student than 90 of the other districts in this state it is time to look closely at where it's going and how it's being managed thank you thank you next i have miss beth mayberry good evening chairman carter board dr freeman i am a teacher at asheville primary school this is my fifth year
178i'm working there i've worked with preschool through third grade i'm the teacher of the year and i just this last week i've been talking with the families in my classroom and i've families have had lots of questions i've tried to answer families questions as well as i could i have family members who were not able to attend today and i also wanted to to let people know that our school's demographics are similar to other elementary schools in asheville city schools we do have students with a lot of privilege just as every other elementary school in national city schools has students with a lot of privilege we have white students we have black students we have brown students we have people of color and i want to make sure that the families voices are heard and
179i wanted to share one of the families asked me to share their story because they couldn't be here tonight they're in the middle of a move and i've had this family's children my classroom for the last three years i've had the oldest daughter in my classroom for two years and the youngest son in my classroom for two years and the children are are biracial and their dad is black and they lived in pisco view for about 10 years and over these last four years um the dad has has been going through the process of sex sex section 8 housing voucher and finally last year they were it came through and so the dad has been looking for housing he's looked at five or six houses and he's turned them down because they were not within
180asheville city schools the district limits and because he was looking for something that was going to be within walking distance of asheville primary school so this week the family just moved in to a house in the burton street neighborhood that's seven minutes walking to asheville primary school he asked me to ask you to please keep the asheville primary school building open so that his children can continue to go there through fifth grade and i also wanted to say that we are in support of all of the um all the teachers and instructional assistants staff asheville primary school are in support of all of the other asheville city elementary schools and we do not want to displace anybody the way that we can solve this problem is with the task force involved teachers involved in structural
181assistance involved families we can work together thank you that is all i have for our public comment in person uh do we have anyone virtually mr carter we do not have anyone that signed up for a for virtual public comment during tonight's regular meeting okay so i want to thank everyone who spoke during our public hearing also during our public comment and i just wanted to share a couple of things from the board as well we do appreciate everyone speaking i want to make sure that everyone understands that's listening is watching asheville city schools is a district made up of a lot of excellent schools uh there's it's been kind of hard over the last week because i've been getting phone calls and the other board members have been getting calls and emails saying that
182why my school doesn't matter or why do people want to shut down my school for another school so i just want to make sure that under people understand that we don't have one flagship school we actually should be a flagship district not a flagship school not one school should be a flagship school in our district we should be a flagship district and we were and we can get back to that but we have to do it together we want to make sure that no matter how many schools we have that we want people to know that we are committed to our students we are committed to our making sure that we get the achievement gap under under uh get it taken care of that is something that we have not by admission worked a lot
183on recently and it's because we've had a lot of other things going on that's not an excuse we will be making sure we take this up and make sure that everyone knows that that is something that's very important to us i also want to know one to make sure that people know that our board well first i'll say our central office staff catches a lot of hell and i want people to know that this board supports our central office staff but we support all of our staff as well i was very it made me feel really good to see that staff feel like they can come and speak at a public comment which anyone can do at any time there is no fear of retribution from this board and if you feel like you've been
184you've been you know had revenge taking on you for something you've said this board is here to hear that and and to support you i also want to make sure that people understand that you know we keep hearing it a lot uh people don't have credentials people don't have this they don't have that um this board does not hire any of our staff the only person that we hire uh the only person i can tell what to do is the person sitting next to me he doesn't always like it uh but that's the only person we have anything to do with in terms of what we can do as a as a board but we support our staff we support all of them so you know there's a lot of vitriol that's on websites it's
185on the social media it sucks okay i want people to understand and really you know i keep hearing a lot over the last week a lot of people have talked about uh being mindful being compassionate being helpful but it doesn't make anyone feel compassionate or helpful when you're talking smack about them on social media or talking about their family or talking about them and they have children that are in the district where they have a husband that works in the district or or so forth so let's you know put yourself in that place and see how you think it would feel um you know i've been on the end of that it sucks it's awful no one needs that in their life right now we have enough crap going on with covid and everything else
186right now so as we heard earlier we are one district let's actually prove it and let's work together so i know that tonight there's a lot there's a lot going on we have a lot of emotion but i want you to know that whatever happened this evening um has been something that's been thought through uh on many different fronts and that we will live with whatever decision that this board makes so thank you for giving me a moment to say that on our agenda we have our consent items and can i have a motion to approve our consent items on our agenda somewhat do i have a second second all in favor shonda hi peyton hi martha hi george hi and i'm an i uh next we have our action items on our agenda the
187first item is the adoption actually before i go into this [Music] i i know we had some uh there were some questions so i would like to ask dr freeman to um talk about what or what possibly could happen going forward in terms of the questions that were asked about the study the study also what will happen with i know this was brought up this evening and this product before about staff if if whatever what happened what could happen if the if the board approves the school staying where it is the staff stays where it is if the board approves any um uh change to that there is no furloughs staff still maintains and has a job is that what you're asking me yes yes okay um anything else about what could possibly happen with
188the property oh um i mean there has been conversation i mean we have been meeting with uh county commissioners um there has been conversations i know that the conversation has been uh a pre-k hub for the county and the city um and that has been conversations but to get the building up to par it's going to have to be empty where that amount of work can be done to it and that would take a few years to do but i know that there's an interest with uh the two commissioners who head the um pre-k um organization in that direction yeah so that could be a possibility if the board decides to move the children all right and finally what is uh the recommendation from the administration uh well there's a couple of things i want
189to say before i get into that okay um do have a financial issue um there has been an independent audit already done of this school district and there has been a state audit done of the school district and we could have five more audits done of this school district and it's going to come out saying the same thing our surplus will run out in the spring of 2023 if it doesn't run out before based on our historical spending pre-covered that's just a fact if you look at it that's what it is now you can have people writing things on social media saying that there's a conspiracy or i think the last thing is a shadow government going on but that that's the fact this money will run out based on what our auditors have said
190and our historical spending in the spring of 2023 we will have no surplus to plug a budget hall that we use it for during the school year one of the biggest issues and this is not a fierce thing but this is a big issue we have supplements to pay in may of 2023. we have raises that will go into effect because the state budget has said for two and a half percent raise uh and we pull a million plus from our surplus funds to meet that supplement in may that's going to be an issue our capital funds that we usually take from any surplus over the years is down to 1.4 million and that is at this time already been obligated is that correct georgia we get building funds through our capital commission fund through
191the county commissioners we just don't go and say we need 30 million they usually have about 22 million or they did this year and we received seven or eight they were very gracious we don't get more than that we have a lottery fund that accrues about 275 000 a year we have about 900 000 and that and the idea is to hold on to that in case we have an emergency we just can't go in and ask for more than what accrues in that account we have esser funds that's federal money and it's highly accounted for and you just can't spend it on anything um so we do have a financial issue uh we can't take out a bond i've heard people say take out a bond if you're not familiar with that you can't
192do it some other states or where i came from pennsylvania you could you can't sell a building it's not our building which i had to learn uh so really we're at the disposal of the county commissioners and we get a 15th of what buncombe county gets and that's what we get james has met with county commissioners james and i and others have met with county commissioners that's what we get there's no extra money for us to get and that's the predicament that we're in get other auditors if you guys want to raise money and get an auditor get it because it's going to say the same thing uh miss uh the lady that came up said why are in this position and why isn't buncombe county 40 percent of our employee we have 40 percent
193of our employees paid out of local because we have more staff than other districts in any kind of comparable we have more staff per student buncombe county has if i'm not mistaken around 20 georgia correct me please if i'm wrong we have double the staff coming out of local that's happened over the years and that's we're why we're in the position get you an independent auditor they'll tell you that buncombe county commissioners were surprised when they learned that so with all that said and with the issue that we're in and i understand the heartfelt you know issues appearance the administration is going to make the recommendation to close the school move the pre-ks to other places and just close the school down that's our recommendation and what will happen with the building the building if
194the board chooses can be used for maintenance and for cafeteria for food service purposes we don't have to do nearly the amount of lead removal or asbestos and we'll go from there and then if the commissioners want to do a hub they're going to have to support that financially okay so let me just clarify the commissioners have or some of the commissioners have put forward a suggestion that they have talked loosely about it okay so if that were the case then that building that now houses the four pre-ks and the montessori would become a hub for the entire if they are willing to put up 10 million dollars to fix it okay so that is something that is now on the table that's something they're talking about but there's no contract there's no firm they're
195talking about it and this is something that the board would be discussing and has to discuss um susannah smith is uh prepared to is preparing things for our retreat in january um january 21st we'll be having our all-day retreat board retreat here in the board room and so we will have more information about it at that time i don't think this is going to fix our budget over the long term either i mean but it will get us through a year or two so um does anyone have any questions peyton yes do you have any questions i'm just checking shonda no i don't george no okay so on our action items we have uh for uh well in regards to this issue two uh uh two things that we would have to do one is
196the adoption of the final aps study an amendment uh per general statute 115c-72 and then the next action item after that is action on possible relocation or closure of actual primary school uh we have heard from the administration we've heard from community we've heard from parents we've heard from teachers and staff so one is there a motion or can i have a motion to adopt the final aps study and amendment can we just get um an explanation of what that means from a legal standpoint and what our options are ms lopez yes sir in order to take action particularly to consolidate or close the school you would need to adopt the studies that have been done first so that needs to be your first step once you take that step it doesn't mean you have
197to close or consolidate a school but you would need to take that action prior to and so these are the two studies that have been presented to the board uh there was an uh an original study and then an amendment to that study all right the uh let me also point out that those those records would also include a summary of the public comments and the emails and all the public input that you've received okay does that answer your question it does all right so do i have a motion to it to adopt the final study and amendment so moved do i have a second second are you all in favor shonda aye hayden no martha i george hi i'm an i all right um the next is well i'll leave it up to one
198of the board members to decide how they want to make a motion on this one so it's either to relocate close or leave where it is asheville primary school and the uh pre-k well we'll do separately with the pre-k rooms would we have to do that with three separate votes no it was one it's one motion can be made correct yes sir okay so someone can make a motion i'd like to make a motion that we postpone this decision and i know i hate saying that um but i feel like there are far too many unknowns and what the district's financial problems i do not feel that addressing this issue tonight fixes um our financial problems i think that's been said over and over again and i'm concerned about the lack of being able to
199take advantage of opportunities and options by moving forward on this decision too quickly without looking at the entire school system comprehensively and developing a financial plan that deals with a very real financial crisis in a holistic manner um and allows us to see the full pictures aboard i'm i know that that's pushing us farther in the wrong direction but i think if we want to make this a flagship district we need to understand exactly how we're going to pivot um and start moving in that direction i think we need that strategic plan to really understand the gravity of every decision that we're about to make because this is not one hard decision this is going to be a cascade of hard decisions and i want to get this right i know that was a rambling
200motion so so can you um could could you restate your motion yes i will uh not editorialize my own motion at this point um my motion is that we postpone the decision until the district is able to engage a strategic plan that also incorporates the types of public engagement and involvement that were discussed here tonight all right miss lopez will you read that back please the motion is to postpone this issue regarding asheville primary school until the board has had the opportunity to adopt a strategic plan and to look at the issue further is that a fair restatement is that a restatement of your motion basically yes with the public engagement with until the board has the opportunity to adopt a strategic plan have additional public engagement surrounding the strategic plan and obtain additional financial
201information yeah i think part of that strategic plan even though i i know that they're not usually um the same document is a financial plan or a strategic plan that involves looking at the district's finances on a five to ten year range all right so i'm going to ask you to restate it again okay so the mission before the board is to to postpone the issue of ash what to do with asheville primary school until the board of education adopts a strategic plan and has additional public engagement around the issue of the strategic plan all right a motion has been made is there a second okay i don't hear a second so that motion fails do we have another motion well i mean i i appreciate peyton editorializing i'd like to editorialize for a minute
202um i don't think we can ignore the power of the collective organizing that the national primary parents engaged in um around this or have been engaged in um i i hope that whatever the decision is at the end of this night that collective power can be used to fight for our black and brown students the fact that it took the threat of moving or closing at school for this group to collectively organize um worry um and so i would hope again that whatever the decision is and we've all had time to um to breathe that we can count on this collective group to continue to advocate for all the students in our district i recognize that the board before i came on made a commitment to keep the school open i came onto the board
203with a commitment to close the achievement gap and to advocate for black and brown students and as i look at this study that i've seen and i see a school that even pre-coveted was under-enrolled i see a school that i see a school that has that is over-resourced in terms of its ratio of students to teachers compared to the rest of the district recognizing the immense need that we have as a district to support our black and brown students who we have continued to fail for over a decade i make a motion to close the school cynthia would you repeat that please the motion before the board is to close asheville primary school i think you do need to put a time frame on that would it be the 20 20 22 22 23 school
204year or a subsequent school year um the upcoming school year so the motion um from your notice of meeting could be close asheville primary school as effective for the 22-23 school year and enroll the students impacted at existing acs schools using existing enrollment policies yes please repeat that one more time yes sir the motion that has been made is to close asheville primary school effective with the 20-22-23 school year and enroll the students impacted at existing acs schools using existing enrollment policies there's a motion on the floor is there a second a second all right the motion has been moved and seconded all in favor shonda i peyton hey martha i'm george i i am a no but the motion passes three to two so thank you for those who did not give an outburst
205as we said this was not going to be an easy decision so next we have our personal report number five do i have a motion to accept our personal report number do i have a second second all in favor shonda i peyton hi martha i george hi james isn't i next we have uh the rep the uh deletion of a duplicate um policy it's our policy 4140 appeals of final admission and assignment decisions uh do i have a motion to delete this policy so do i have a second second let me die all in favor shonda i peyton hi martha i'm george i i'm an i as well next i have these superintendents report uh the human resource department will be hosting its second high school teacher recruitment event tomorrow from 11 30 to 1
20630 and the asheville high school silsa cafeteria uh we will also be hosting a pop-up career fair on wednesday january 12th from 3 until 6 in the board room here at central office we will be working in conjunction with mayheck hosting a dental clinic at hall fletcher this spring more details to come on that our finance team is continuing to work with dpi on a salary schedule and specifics for the january payroll we received a 220 000 um 21st century after school program grant uh we had a monitoring visit in november it went very well the cte leadership team is planning career activities for all acs fifth grade students starting the week of january 24th summer plans uh curriculum and instruction has drafted a plan for summer school programming um and getting that draft plan
207for the summer um christie is working hard uh with maintenance budgets for the upcoming year um and we're continuing to work getting uh the board information that request of us to do all right seeing no more information we are can i have a motion to go into closed session we have a second second all in favor shonda aye peyton hi martha george hi james and i i am yes all right uh thank you we have come back out of closed session and we do have an item that we need to have a vote on uh so i'm going to ask miss sarah kane if she will go over with us really quick uh what we need to vote on absolutely i am asking we are asking for your vote to accept a recommended list of
208coveted 19 trainings to be used for eligibility for a state bonus for certified teachers and certified instructional staff all right do i have a motion to accept these the list of trainings for the that were presented so i moved do i have a second second all right uh all in favor shanda peyton hi martha jay george hi and james is an eye thank you very much miss kane uh future announcements oh sorry announcements in future meetings um the monday december 20th through monday january 3rd everyone's off for the holidays we have teacher work days in there for no you know no school for the students and then we have annual leave days i wish everyone a happy holiday season monday january 3rd will be the first day of school for all staff and students there
209will be a board retreat in the boardroom on january 21st starting at 9 00 a.m and we will have a work slash closed session board meeting on [Music] january monday january 10th from 5 pm to 7 pm uh do i have a motion to adjourn so moved i have a second second all in favor shonda hi peyton hi martha hi george hi james and i thank you everyone