001foreign good afternoon everyone and welcome to our october 11th board meeting i'm calling the meeting to order right now we're going to have our pledge of allegiance by our first great class from irb jones miss i'm going to butcher her name so miss licious lift shea okay and we have that on the screen so if everyone can please stand we are the 2021 livestream learners at john's elementary school the pleasure movies from the united states and to the public hello nations thank you to our first graders uh could i have an uh motion to approve our agenda uh actually before i say that i'm going to make a change to our agenda we are going to move our special presentation uh for the family of mr kevin wooten we're going to move that up before
002we do our public comment so uh can i have a motion to approve our agenda i make a motion to approve the agenda with the noted change do i have a second second all in favor aye aye any opposed all right so i'm going to call up miss shonda sanford-jackson to do this our special presentation for the high school diploma presented to the family of mr kevin wooten so i actually won't be making a special presentation today i'm just going to announce the person that is going to make our special presentation um kelvin wooten was my classmate and one of my best friends growing up in schools and coach pete will be coming up and saying a few words for us as we present this diploma to his sister who was actually like mom to
003him so if coach pete if you could please come up so coach pete was a coach and teacher at asheville high school for 20 plus 25 plus here oh 15. you go ahead and give them your credentials oh well okay my dad was the head football coach athletic director so i grew up at asheville high so i was there totally about 29 years i taught and coached there for 15 years and had the pleasure of working with a young man by the name of kelvin lamont wooten he went by kevin he didn't like kelvin so we called him kevin kevin walked into the football field house in 1990 the first time i got to meet him and uh shortly after that his mom got sick and passed away uh he moved in with his sister
004michelle and her brother anthony up in spruce hill apartments which was right up the street from where i lived um so we won't say that that was out of our city school district uh so he didn't have a ride every morning so every morning i'd go pick him up and take him to school which was kind of interesting every morning uh because he was always we went back to sleep after i called him to wake him up so he's running around trying to get dressed so i was late for school for four years but it was okay nobody ever said anything to me because they knew what i was doing kevin got to his senior year he played football and basketball for us around a little track his senior year after football season he went
005out for the basketball team and didn't make the team the day that he got cut him and three of his other friends made a bad decision and got in the car they went somewhere and kevin ended up going to prison for two and a half years while he was there uh i stayed in touch with him and uh got him he went to juvenile prison then i got him moved helped him get him moved to an adult prison out here at uh buncombe county community uh while he was there he graduated from high school he was four credit short so i went to a dr liggett our high school principal and asked to prison bounty and he looked at me like i was crazy he says what does that mean i said well we homebound
006all these girls that are pregnant kevin needs to graduate he needs to go to college so he goes well i said he needs four credits english math two electives he goes okay we'll find four teachers that'll help him come back and talk to me well he should have known by then i reached in my pocket pulled out an index card handed it to him said here they are so he looks at me and goes well okay go ahead so from there i'm going to try to make this shorter i ended up going to the western regional office of the governor's office to get permission to do that at the prison got that permission got him graduate got him all his credits he needed to take the the a.c.t test so i had to get him
007out of prison one saturday morning to go take that uh we got that done once we got all that done he decided to go to a college so he went to northeast oklahoma a m um i made some calls i got him on the football team i got him in admit admitted i got him uh i got his pell grant stuff for him he filled out all the forms got all that we sent him out there to go to school while he was there he met a young lady they got married they have they had a daughter in a short time after that he was in a car wreck and passed away i never got a diploma so i came to superintendent's office last year and asked if we could get his family a diploma
008it's been a long time i always told this story he passed away on march 17 199 excuse me march 17 2000 i'd always tell the story every year on that day uh i won't go into the whole story it takes me about an hour and 45 minutes to tell it but it's a great story okay it really is a great story uh kevin always asked me i'm gonna get off tangie here uh why why i was always there to help him i never could answer that question for him um so i was thinking about that before i came up here but i would just like to tell the the board here and and you here today that the reason i think i did this was um because of what i saw growing up in the
009israel city school system uh down in the boiler room i don't know if you all remember this but in the boiler room it said expect excellence it was there for years growing up i saw principals like dr liggett o.l cheryl bill stanley teachers uh custodians everybody they would just went out of their way to help kids and that's what i always thought the asheville city school system was about trying to help kids kevin made two promises to his mom before she passed one was that he was going to graduate high school and second was he was going to go to college and those were the things those were the two reasons that i kept helping him try to do what he did and he accomplished those two goals okay um i never he kept asking
010me what i wanted from him and i i guess i lied to him i never i just said nothing i really don't want anything from you you don't owe me a thing but actually there was one thing that i was going to ask him to do uh i was going to ask him to help someone else that's all i wanted if i helped you you helped someone else so i guess tonight since i couldn't ask that of him i'm asked out of you so if you're out there if you're in the classroom you're teaching whatever you're doing if there's somebody out there needs some help help them it's a great feeling okay it was just a pleasure for me to do what i did so i would like to present a graduation diploma to michelle
011and anthony and the family for kevin lamont wooten the class of 19 i believe was 1994. 95 excuse me time flies thank you [Applause] so [Applause] would anyone from the family like to come say anything or no no you want i can bring it to you i just want to say thank you coach pete for all you done for my brother and we do need more teachers coaches out here to mentor our kids more um and i think that god sent him to my brother and i don't i just i just hope that more teachers and more coaches because these kids nowadays need it and we need more programs and to keep our kids off the streets and and just tell the kid if they make the wrong decision that that that the world is
012not over that they can start a new beginning thank you coach [Applause] so what coach pete didn't tell you was last year wasn't the first time that he asked about kevin's diploma um he asked for several years and i think they were because you transitioned so often it continued to get lost so i want to thank april dockery for doing the work on that and finding that information so we could get that diploma to kev kevin and his family and i want to thank coach pete personally because every time i saw him he would ask about it and i really appreciate everything he did for kevin as well as other students kevin was just one so we really appreciate your dedication because that's exactly what we need people that aren't going to give up on
013our kids and you didn't just help kevin you went above and beyond because coach pete has a small tribe of children of his own helmet just ten he has ten children he and his wife so with all of that and working two three four five jobs he still found the time to get to stand to get up get kevin to school make sure even when he was getting in trouble he went the extra mile to get out there and make sure that he could get his credit so that he could graduate so that's definitely more than just helping a student and if we had that we wouldn't have an achievement gap so i really appreciate that thank you so much wonderful thank you and thank you to the family for coming in coach pete was
014my tennis coach and one of my teachers when i was in high school and um i think i wat i saw at least five of the kids um when i was in high school so um but a wonderful mentor and a wonderful person so thank you very much for that next we have our public comment and you'll bear with me while i read 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 thank you your comments to the board please be mindful of the following guidelines unless otherwise approved by the board time for public comment shall not exceed 30 minutes for in person and 15 minutes for virtual speakers multiple speakers
015from a group who are pres 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 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 unusual unusually large number of people wish to speak the board may decide to a reduce the allotted time the time allotted for each speaker and or b 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 a disruption by any person or persons of a public meeting will not be tolerated and will result in removal from
016the 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 their 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 online please understand that confidential student and 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 at the podium individuals will have three minutes again five minutes for groups you'll
017have a green light a yellow light at 15 seconds and then red light to let you know that your time is done our system of public education depends on your involvement so please feel free to share with us during the time of for public comments thank you so the way we are now doing our public comment is we have the virtual option we also have in person so in person we will start with those who are here first and then we will go to our virtual uh respond uh people participants then after that so the first person i have on our list is miss honor moore first off i just want to say thank you to you all for volunteering your time and your commitment to our schools i know that it's an extraordinary amount
018of time that you all give up i also want to thank jackie mccarth for her service you will be missed so before i start i also just want to say a shout out that from my 17 year old she loves the delayed wednesdays late start at asheville high i'm sure she'd love for them to always start every single wednesday late just saying i want you to know that um many of us have heard through the rumor mill all kinds of things there's deep concerns um about where our budget is heading and what that could mean for the students at asheville high i sure hope that we never consolidate school systems with buncombe county just want to say that out loud because i think the culture of the asheville city schools is special and unique and
019as many of you know i actually went to the asheville city schools when i was growing up here i went to a school called newton elementary it's very special it was in kenilworth where the biltmore imaging center is now and they employed a lot of montessori um education even though it wasn't a traditional montessori school but it was a highly popular school in the 70s because they employed a lot of those techniques um i'm back because i'm worried that the asheville primary school is low-hanging fruit with some hard decisions that you all may have to make coming up and i kind of want to get in front of it before the budget gets in front of you and you have to make some tough decisions and it is my belief that montessori education does help
020close the achievement gap it's so special and unique we're so lucky to have a free montessori school in the asheville city schools it's a match for our culture and there are many good reasons why it's awesome i can't mention them all but i think the bigger thing is it creates and cultivates a love of learning for a lifetime and i think that their style of teaching over there is so amazing that if we mark continue to market this school to the wider community and the wider community knows that enrollment is secure and that this school is going to last i think you guys will have a a line at the door for people who want to go to this wonderful school so i just really want to make sure you guys think creatively when you're
021faced with some decisions of how we can keep that um wonderful asheville primary school um and also again i really hope we don't combine schools with buncombe county just want to say that thank you thank you next i have mr pepia sibo members of the board can you hear me okay yep okay i um surprise you a little bit all of the board members here i think are aware that my opinion at this point is that it is uh beyond time for dr freeman to resign or find another position this is not news but we do agree on some things and i was impressed to hear that dr freeman participated in last month's asheville city educators association uh meeting and shared with our teachers and our staff that he is supportive of the teacher's big
022push this year and correct me if i'm wrong to make sure that we have living wages for all of our staff particularly our classified staff who frequently are paid much less than 15 an hour it's going to be a big ask but it's not that big of an ask it means that this board and the asheville city association of educators is going to be uh reaching out to the county commission they will be pointing out that we are tenth in tax base but we are 84th in the percentage of that tax base that is used for education there is room to ask for funds to pay our staff a living wage there is room to ask for supplements that are on par with the counties and the districts that have similar housing costs to hours
023and i know that the county commissioners may not want necessarily to you know have to figure out all different sorts of uh budget matters uh that make those adjustments and we're going to have some taxpayers who may be concerned about spending more money but i think that it is important for this board to be proactive as well in making those requests and in working with the county commissioners and working with other agencies because there are more funds out there you have heard my criticism of the hill consulting report that it focuses just on one side of a balanced budget if you're going to have a balanced budget there is both the spending and the money coming in and it is really important that we address all the issues that are related to enrollment including how
024our district is defined and that's what i wanted to share with the board i thank you for your listening thank you next i have miss stacy claude hi i'm stacey claude a parent of two at asheville primary and one of the outgoing co-leads of our parent-teacher collective at aps i'm here tonight to talk about the inequity of ptos in our district specifically within our six elementary schools since excellence with equity is our district tagline i think it's time to shine a spotlight on the inequity within our ptos the fundraising capacity of a pto completely changes the fabric of the school community each elementary school currently operates as an island and we need to switch the mindset to one community one district as opposed to my kid's school all of the elementary schools filter into the
025same middle and high school programs yet each elementary school will provide a wildly different pto funded experience due to the huge fundraising power of a few of the ptos they're able to raise enough money to fund actual staff positions send students on overnight out of state trips build beautiful outdoor classrooms and fund excellent after school programs for the students in those schools while other elementary schools in our district have not a single after school option in their buildings no outdoor learning spaces beyond the few pop-up tents parents have donated and will certainly not be taking any overnight field trips ptos in these lower funded schools are constantly looking for ways to raise a few hundred dollars here and there to buy things like laminating paper classroom supplies or cater lunch for the teachers how must
026these new sixth graders feel when they get to middle school and meet kids from other asheville schools talking about their washington dc trip or how they learn drumming after school in fourth grade i want to be clear i'm not saying that high fundraising ptos are doing something wrong what i am saying is that not every school has the ability the person power or the wealth within their schools to do the same thing and since asheville is not a big city there's a limit to community resources and when they're funneled into individual schools as opposed to the whole district it creates a huge gap for this to change there has to be a district policy regulating fundraising spending and equitable distribution i suggest the board forms a committee of parents who are invested in building a
027more equitable environment to help create a district-wide policy for change simply requiring ptos to publish their budgets would go a long way in creating transparency there could be a cap of fundraising so anything additional goes into an equity fund to be distributed to lower earning schools or a policy where for every dollar you spend on your old school you have to donate a percentage to the equity fund other school districts around the country have started tackling this problem with varying degrees of success washington dc's city council has gotten involved introducing legislation to create more equitable ptos a group of parents in illinois created a nonprofit called the pta equity project to address these exact issues and two years later the whole district not just individual schools are pooling all their money to be equally distributed
028there's been some effort here with a group of parents and an initiative from asheville city schools foundation to create sister schools to increase collaboration but neither effort has gotten much traction and can't without district leadership and policy in our district ptos fill a huge shortage in state funding for our schools which give them a lot of power and with that power certain schools appear more desirable can give their teachers more support and their students more opportunities if acs is truly committed to excellence with equity this issue must be addressed thanks for your time thank you next i have ms shifra allers thank you very much hi guys uh i didn't plan to be back so soon but here i am um good to see y'all i am let's start by saying thank you for [Music]
029all of your efforts um and in particular for realizing that the asheville city schools needs a school like asheville primary school and for giving us the opportunity to continue this year we all saw the financial analysis and we know that there's big problems we probably could have said we knew that without that document but um here we are and um my goal in being here today is simply to remind you that asheville primary school is vital to this community when we talk about excellence with equity we're talking about each child in the montessori program getting what they need the pro montessori teaches personal responsibility which allows a child to thrive and and do their best at every level um they become the best that they can possibly be we know that there is an achievement
030gap that is obvious to all of us and i want to encourage each one of you to go into asheville primary school and check out the classrooms in particular i'd like you to pay special attention to second grade and third grade who've had the benefit of having pre-k and kindergarten in a montessori classroom even though they obviously lost a year and a half in the pandemic i'd like you to see how the classes operate and how um how the students are operating within the classrooms because the students are taking responsibility for their actions in the in the school i also feel like it is important for us to address the fact that we know that budget cuts are going to happen they have to i told multiple members of this board in may that i
031would go with you to the county for grant writing i was and remain to be 100 in and i think it's really important to address this because two separate members of this board said that they would be reaching out to me the following week to go to the county schools to the county commission to talk about some money that would be needed for the school not a single person reached out to me that doesn't necessarily mean anything because i know you guys must be just as busy as i am and life happens but we're back here again so i immediately am going to say that if you want buy-in from your community we need to converse with the community that is part of the issue that we're having you really need to talk to the
032members of the stakeholders the people who are trusting you with your children with their children thank you guys sorry i took a little extra time thank you next i have laura lara lustig hello nice to see you actually it really like honestly it really is nice to be in person [Music] today i want to ask you to provide more of an opportunity for this person-to-person experience when you're thinking about budgeting right so a budget is this concrete expression of our values and priorities and i see the um from ashley michelle's latest email there are some budget meetings scheduled for this month and i am concerned that i'm not sure what the values and priorities are that are going to be held up in consideration of budget issues i know our strategic plan is expired i
033think that there's a real opportunity to bring people together to speak for themselves we don't have to speak for others we don't have to say well you know i heard and i'm going to represent people who are kind of like me or whatever we can just we it's a pretty small community like people can come talk right people have the capacity to speak for themselves i would like to see a budget process that is participatory that is inclusive and um i think that identifies barriers that we all see from our own perspectives and finds ways to eliminate them but also that identifies current strengths like we have a lot of strengths in our district and we should say what those are and we should double down on them um we've got to identify that and
034i think that when we come together with the purpose of finding the common good not the purpose of pitting people against each other so we can get our way and like arguing and fighting over this like scarce resource but if we really come together looking for the common good i really think we can do it but it's gonna take trust and the way y'all are gonna build that trust is with transparency and i'm not talking about just like here's some numbers i'm saying we need to look at the past five to seven years in this district and we need to see what happened to our fund balance in the past five to seven years where did that money go where were the priorities and what were the outcomes from those priorities if we don't examine
035that past there is not a way we can move forward and be successful so i don't think we need to run around and freak out okay i think that part is really important but i do think we got to get together and i think one thing that we can definitely agree is that a real priority is our classified staff we need to be paying everyone in asheville city schools at bare minimum of living wage it's expensive to live here these people are the backbone of our district so i would love to hear support from all of y'all for going ahead and raising that minimum classified staff wage thank you thank you very much that concludes our in-person public commenters we will now shift to our verge uh how many people do we have virtually mr
036carter we have one person here for a virtual public comment um mr desro can you hear me i just want to make sure that first and foremost but we can't hear you he's muted yes i can hear you okay great um we can hear you now so uh you're three minutes we're going to begin confidence gotta love that delay y'all when you are ready thank you uh my name is tom desaro i have a daughter who is a senior at silsa i have two issues i'd like to address today and as many of the speakers so far have have addressed i'm extremely concerned about the uh about the consultant report that was released or at least the draft report regarding the financial situation of our district i believe this is an opportunity for us to
037look at new funding streams and look at new opportunities to increase the enrollment in our schools it is not a time for us to consider hiring freezes it is not a time for us to consider consolidations in our schools um our city and our county are growing this is an opportunity to expand our school system not to contract it it's an opportunity i believe as as lara mentioned before to bring together an open approach to planning we need a five-year plan we need to look at what the future holds for our school district we need the input the effective input of teachers and administrators and parents working together as a team to solve this we need to look also at cost cutting measures for non-essential services outside the classroom this is really an opportunity for
038us to to look at where we've been and really an opportunity for us to look at where we're going um the other issue is a more personal issue to to me in terms of a an incident that occurred with the the child care class um at asheville high where a teacher was terminated after going through an extensive um hiring process earlier in the in the year and we now face a situation where students are being basically students in a child care class they're essentially being babysitted by subs who have no background in child care this is a grave injustice to the students who were there it is basically an uh an injustice to the teacher who was in the in the classroom at the time and i believe it points to some disorganization that's occurred
039at the central office in the in the hiring process that i think we really need to take a very close look at um and i'm disheartened as well that several of my inquiries to the central office after uh getting an initial response any follow-up has uh has basically not happened um so i i hope we can rectify that in the future thank you very much thank you for your public comment tonight that is the end of our public comments section of our meeting excuse me next we are going to go to our consent items on our consent agenda our work session minutes from september 13th our closed session minutes from september 13th our regulars board meeting minutes from september 20th and our face coverings as everyone knows we have to vote on our face coverings
040uh our our policy or our decision to keep face coverings in our schools once a month so those are the four items on our consent agenda i have a motion to approve our consent agenda i moved do i have a second second all in favor aye any opposed all right next we have two items on our action items on our agenda first is our the burton street property this is the deeding the making sure the deed is correct to the city of asheville for the burton street property do i have a motion to accept the the the burden street property motion sorry second is there a second second all in favor aye any opposed next is our personnel report number three do i have a motion to accept our personnel report number three so i
041moved do i have a second second all right all in favor all right any opposed all right wonderful thank you next we have our beginning teacher of the year presentation by dr kim deckett dr freeman and the board it's my pleasure to introduce a special guest this evening we have karen summer sumner who's the chief academic officer from ncat and she is going to present and not just a special award but in my opinion an outstanding award to one of our many beginning teachers um that we are so thankful that come in our classrooms every day and facilitate quality and engaging instruction for our students so i'm going to turn it over to karen and she is going to share with you some exciting news good evening uh it is my pleasure to share some
042really exciting news with you tonight that is a little bit delayed but um maybe more timely now than ever beginning teachers it's always difficult those were the hardest days of my life and i didn't think i would make it i came back home to the mountains i couldn't get back here fast enough and i can tell you right now i was not robin as a first year teacher uh it absolutely was amazing so at ncat several years ago we started a statewide way to honor beginning teachers by developing the beginning teacher of the year award so we take nominations from all charter schools and all school districts across the state we had 108 the year that robin was runner-up we had um of those 108 they go to a regional competition after that so each
043of the eight regions and then the charter schools had a competition as well so we selected or 27 were selected from there they came to ncat in colorway right across across from western carolina university for a week of professional development that was not your normal beginning teacher week we do these folks were rock stars i i can't even tell you how many times i cried during that week and how proud i felt to be an educator and how good i felt about where we're going in education in north carolina you want to feel good come come to that week because you it was just absolutely amazing what i realized was that they came to us as advocates for kids in north carolina they came to us ready and willing to be leaders in education and
044i hope that grew even more during the course of the week robin wowed the judges a hundred times over um some of the things that were written about her that i think it's important for you to hear this teacher's goal is to help students feel comfortable in their own skin feel capable and feel prepared and brave brave really hit home for me i think that's that's just incredibly powerful she provides clear consistent and thorough communication with students families she makes learning fun for her students and seeks out ways to keep all of her students engaged and excited about learning she is described as an energetic and motivational teacher we our children our grandchildren should all be so fortunate as to have robin miller as a teacher thank you so much [Applause] may i just take
045say one second i just wanted to thank um thank karen and everyone for this huge honor but um and just also say that i'm just honored to be a part of asheville city schools and it is i have so much to learn and i learn new things every day and to hear karen say that you know she's been in education so many years and i feel like any time i meet somebody who's worked a year more than i have i'm around giants and it is so it has been a crazy few years and i'm just i'm excited to still be here and it is a day by day thing because as you know we are in dire straits in many in many ways in our schools right now with shortage of personnel and things like
046that but i am just honored to be a part of educators that i see inspiring me every day and i hope i can just follow in their footsteps thank you thank you this is why our system rocks thank you very much next we have uh pfa architects they're going to give us some information about our actual high school building g and if i'm going to turn it over to dr freeman to give us a little bit more information so i'd like to introduce chip howe who works with pfa he's an architect he's also a graduate of our school system has a child in claxton and i think is having another child in claxton next year one of the principals of pfa is scott donald he's here we have ronnie lunsford is here from uh the
047county um and i'll let chip if you'll introduce the and also philip kennedy who's our project manager for the general general contractor okay i'll turn it over to you guys now please thank you well thank you very much just as alumni asheville high and also a parent in the city school systems just want to say thank you for your service and your time on the board and your leadership certainly reaped the benefits of mentors and coaches and teachers like coach p who was here earlier who was at the high when i was there so we wanted to present to you today just an update on the new building at asheville high that will be constructed that's in the that's in the works right now this is what's been popularly referred to as building g uh
048give you a little bit of background about it let you know where we are now and just sort of general update and address any questions you may have just an orientation shot here of the campus from overhead you can see the football field the main building the rotc building is in this photo here that is the building that as through part of the renovations in 2017 to several buildings on campus was structurally condemned uh once work had commenced on the building and it was found to be effectively unfeasible to save that building as part of that process uh the inspector the authority having jurisdiction for the building code enforcement uh collaborated with our structural engineers wells county leadership to make that final decision that the building was structurally condemned as part of as part of
049that process we lost 13 000 square feet of classroom building on the campus that contained several classrooms as well as the weight room facility and the impact was definitely felt elsewhere on campus for instance the media center was temporarily approved to be subdivided in the classroom space the weight facilities were moved to the old auxiliary gym from 1928 which is a facility they were not designed for and that also put locker rooms and weight facilities and athletic facilities on opposite ends of the campus which as you know is a is a larger issue as well the existing locker room facilities in that auxiliary gym do not meet ada they are not code compliant so that's uh it was certainly a strain uh not to mention just kind of curriculum impact uh so here you can
050kind of see the different areas on on campus that were affected um let's see uh we had as part of the process pfa uh and vinoy construction did the 2017 renovations monoi was a construction manager on the project and while they were still under contract were able to provide us with an estimate for replacement building that we then solicited funds through the capital capital fund commission to re rebuild the structure so that was back in 19 what's being the building replacement is what was funded that's 13 000 square feet of classrooms and weight room and locker room facilities over two levels in a very similar footprint to what was there before we have connectivity to the varsity gym similar to what was done before that connects back to the back side of the locker rooms
051and this will also include an elevator which the previous building did not have that will provide accessible access to both floors and ada parking that was previously not provided to the upper level of the gym will be part of the project you see the varsity gym sort of shaded out and the new project on the right uh program-wise inside the building i think principal edwards is going to speak a little bit to that take you through it okay so i'll start on the first floor this is um it was not originally planned in in this building but the women's locker room will be there um it was condemned in the old gym in the upper upper level so that that's gone so that created a need uh when i first arrived at asheville high school
052like we are they had already started some of the preliminary planning of that but that became a very much a need that had to happen we also have added a female training room because currently at asheville high school the training all happens out in the field house which is ultimately not okay for our female students to have to go into a male locker room to to go to training we do the best we can with maintaining privacy there but as certainly that's not optimal situation so there's a training room in there where they will see where they'll get all their you know medical care taken care of before practices after practices before games and whatnot there's also the weight room in there right now in the old boys gym in the bottom part of of
053that main that gymnasium complex over there currently there is a weight room a mat room and it's just a lot like it's it's all just filled up that space so all of that will come back to this building chip talked about our facilities being spread out and our kids going all over the place for different types of health pe athletic things like this will help pull all of it back to that one side of the campus with the exception of the field house would be the last thing remaining so um on the up here uphill upstairs excuse me side of it there is a classroom for sports marketing which is a cte class we have put in a large closet area for that because there's a lot of equipment related to that we've also brought
054back the cougar sports network in which our kids have really enjoyed doing that so it's a natural fit to bring that over into this complex that's close to all of our athletic events and out of the cte building there's also this large green spot on the bottom part of this is a mat room that can serve for wrestling because right now they're having to put out the mats and take them back up in the old gym but also we found this need we have a yoga class right now which is incredibly popular we can teach yoga in there we can also have a place for our cheerleaders to work because right now they have no place on campus so it's just a nice place we could also if we need to pull the mats up
055and have large health classes in there right now in health and pe which all of our kids have to take we teach a ton of sections of that and health is taught in different places in the bleachers which is not the most effective because we're just we're out of space so we heard earlier in the semester about how full we are at actual high so these other classrooms will be a combination of health classrooms driver's ed so that we can have multiple sections of health going on at different points in time did i miss anything we if you're aware of that facility too on the bottom floor there is part of that that is currently coach swain's office coach radford's office is a conference room in there there is going to be a hallway cut
056through that so that's why there's a it's a little uneven on that on the bottom floor because that's a little bit of construction that goes on in a pre-existing space questions about space thank you dear just some pictures of the uh kind of images of the exterior of the building right now as far as the current status of the building we are awaiting final zoning approval from the city of asheville uh shored up with permitting from the building code enforcement so we're actually waiting uh to see where we're going to plant three trees finally on campus through the city of asheville canopy ordinance that uh was triggered by the project as well as a storm drain project that's going on on the other side of campus so we've tried to include kind of several design
057elements such as views out to the rest of campus we're celebrating the football field also increased some kind of accessibility between the courtyard and the facilities inside the building as well as provide some kind of passive shading and energy enhancements to the building so that is kind of where we are now the project was actually uh it came in within budget with all alternates uh that we were able to secure uh for some owner preferred kind of elements with regards to security and hvac control so uh and and obviously ronnie was a big help from the county on that end as far as finalizing that so h m constructors has been awarded the project we will start construction as soon as the zoning approval is complete we anticipate that within the next two to four
058weeks hopefully sooner than later so we're just waiting final direction from the city and thank you very much we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the project i do have a couple of questions um you'll be building on campus so the majority of the construction time i am assuming will be in the summer vacations and after the kids leave campus correct the the construction will be ongoing there's a 365 day duration on the contract so the campus will be an active construction site while students are there okay so there's i'm sure there's a plan to facilitate students getting back and forth to classes etc etc so yes board we actually have multiple construction issues going on right now at the high school so this is obviously the largest of them
059but we notified the parents the students the staff and sent something through um and and miss dublin thank you of all the various things we we have solar panels being installed right now on a ton of buildings we have a project going on for the roof and guttering for the media center this uh large plan we have slope stabilization going on outside of the track between kind of the track and the tennis court area i feel like i'm forgetting something but it's a lot so yes i mean we we've taken plans to make sure excuse me yes um so we're taking plans to make sure that our kids will be aware of where construction is going on we uh we've met with the contractors on multiple projects to make sure things are fenced off the
060students are safe the whole nine yards so we have lots of insurance it's gonna it's gonna be a lot for for a little bit just wanna make sure about that insurance all right any other questions well i just want to make sure that that was a good question we can't put off our work until the summers there's so much to do and the security and safety of students will be an ongoing very daily thing that we have to do well i remember when i was in school they had they were building the fine arts building so there was always something being built on asheville high's campus so well gentlemen thank you thank you so much for all your hard work with this thank you all right next we have good news with miss ashley michelle
061thublin all right so good evening dr jean chairman carter and members of the board tonight i have the honor of sharing four good news standouts since our last time together and also just to clarify due to all things covered we have given our honorees the option to decide if they would like to come celebrate with us in person tonight or if they would like to do so virtually so if someone's not here just know that they are celebrating with us virtually that was because of code so first up we would like to celebrate the conclusion of isaac dixon elementary school's solar panel project so the project was completed in late september and was a true partnership between the school and our community as we did have several members of the community that donated their financial
062time or financial resources and their time in total it took about six years to complete experts estimate the lifespan of the panels is between 30 to 40 years and all the energy savings which they believe to be between 1.4 and 1.5 million dollars over the course of that 30 to 40 years will go directly back to our educational system the solar panels are not only a key learning opportunity for students but also a great step in reducing asheville city school's carbon footprint plus one of the best moments as you'll see on the left-hand side was watching two of our students be the ones who got to flip flip the switch and ultimately turn on the panels for our second one did i see miss coach here there you are okay i'm sorry um miss kush
063if you wanted to come forward i'm excited to recognize you and silsa board members we wanted to let you know that silsa is one of just 1838 schools nationwide to receive a college success award from greatschools.org the annual recognition celebrates public schools that excel at preparing students to enroll in and succeed in college which is something principal nicole kush says is her top priority and reflects all the hard work that silsa has been doing and in addition silsa was one of just 81 north carolina public high schools to win the inaugural college success award gold the elevated level of distinction recognizes silsa's multi-year track record of college success [Applause] thank you so much it's an absolute honor and pleasure to be recognized for all the hard work that our family does for our amazing students
064so thank you guys very much thank you amt [Applause] and i also as a follow-up to last week's presentation from mr dove and miss dockery i wanted to let you know that asheville high school was our first campus to undergo its stop the bleed training which is increasing staff preparedness and handling emergency health situations across our campuses as you know mission health donated thousands of stop the bleed kits for every classroom auditorium media center and front office not only in our district but also in buncombe county schools stop the bleed is a national initiative that began in 2011 as a way to heighten the public's awareness of and ability to respond to immediate life threats posed by major arterial bleeding the kits which are really cool they come they contain a military grain tourniquet glove
065scissors and other needed supplies along with a very handy step-by-step illustrated guide and while asheville high school may have been our first and you can see them in the bottom right hand corner staff at all of our other schools will be trained in the upcoming weeks so it's just another way that we're trying to make sure that our staff and students are in a safe and healthy learning environment and then y'all got to hear a lot about miss robin mailer who was our 2021 teacher of the year but i also am excited to celebrate miss nicole scavato who has been named asheville city schools 2022 beginning teacher of the year um as we heard from ncat the beginning teacher of the year process was developed to honor and retain new teaching professionals who showed promise
066as excellent educational leaders as asheville city schools finalist miss cavado has the opportunity to attend a celebration and week of teacher leadership and professional development at cullouise campus this february if she's selected as one of the regional representatives also even though ms cavado is only in her second year of teaching there's a good chance that you have seen her around the high school's campus because she has been part of the cougar family since 2018. miss gavatto was an avid tutor at asheville high school while she was at unca and she also did her student teaching at asheville high school so she is a cougar through and through so uh we are very proud of ms cavado on her accomplishment and that concludes our good news for this month but i look forward to sharing more
067with you all next month wonderful thank you so much [Applause] well we do have some more good news if christy coats would come up and inform our board of the other good news that's going on that we just found out about this afternoon good afternoon so i'm excited because we just got done with the school capital fund commission and we were awarded seven million three hundred dollars three hundred thousand dollars this is for security upgrades um we're going to be doing film a security film around the fronts of some of our schools uh asheville high maine water and sewer um asheville high hvac pipe and campus abatement and also a new track um let's say that again the track the track yes um so that's my good news any questions just say that one more
068time please do it again my clay pipe moment i want to hear it again say it again let me just add everything we asked for we received yes yes sir so it is a security update i mean upgrades we basically are in partnership with buncombe county schools from the trc report that we received um basically um it's gonna be uh film i don't know if any of you have seen some of the store fronts we're doing the storefront now at claxton elementary it's a pocket that holds an angry parent or whatever if they're trying to get in the facility it holds them within that pocket this is security film that buncombe county has already done at oakley elementary school which is amazing i visited the facility the film actually it goes on the glass but
069even if someone hit it with like a gun or an angry parent hit it with their fist you still have that layer of protection where the glass just doesn't go inside the building or hurt someone and martha you're going to really like this because more at asheville high school is happening but it really needs it it's our only it is our only high school as you all know the water and sewer will be replaced the hvac piping and campus abatement and we will be getting a new track our girls and boys need a new truck i went over and visited the facility derek took me around our track is lifting we have pictures of it we cannot even have practice on this track so when i went over to look derrick walked with me we
070looked at the drainage issue around the track which also needs to be fixed in order to get a new track and it to stay we got we have to do the drainage the fencing around the track is not safe for the girls or boys to be running um it could hurt one of them so dr uh supported us in going forward to ask the school capital fund commission for this money and we were awarded it tonight i would like to thank uh ronnie left but i was going to pull him out ronnie lunsford that works with the county has been really very very helpful to us i'd also like to uh thank um mr queen who's on that commission who uh was very supportive of funding all the projects that were listed he felt like
071they had the money these are things that needed to be done and why not go ahead and get them done so i i'm very thankful to him because like i said the bulk of it came to us so we're a large part so we appreciate it wonderful christie when are they going to start i'm sorry when are they going to start so uh the design and bidding will be this year so they'll design and maybe go out for bid in june that is fabulous absolutely fabulous thank you you're welcome thank you so much for that great news that's wonderful [Applause] next we have the superintendent's report with dr freeman thank you um uh upcoming career fairs uh we have an expo at the agricultural center uh today or tomorrow rather from 11 to 4 p.m
072for custodians bus drivers maintenance instructional assistants and substitute teachers we need a lot of folks so hopefully that will turn out well and we also have one at appalachian state university friday october the 22nd from 10 a.m to 12 p.m uh the company that we're using to manage our substitute teachers ess is taking over on the 18th our substitutes will move from a monthly paycheck to a weekly paycheck which i think they're really happy about uh teachers who are interested in becoming nationally board certified teachers please contact dr adeka and hr and kim thank you for that that's a very important thing that you're helping them with and i'm sure they're very appreciative of your help with that in maintenance we are creating a preventative maintenance plan so that hopefully one day we can get
073ahead of the needs we're starting construction as you heard from pfa on building g at the high school we're working on camera assessment for the sinkhole near the tennis courts at asheville high school construction will begin on or around december that sinkhole is somewhere around 400 to 500 thousand dollars is that correct christy to repair uh hopefully it's going to be less lucius herring is in the design phase for roof windows and mechanical we're working on a design for the hall fletcher roof we're monitoring the hvac issues throughout the district programming and installation for piping also as part of that look into our maintenance improvements from curriculum instruction we had a literacy professional development day for elementary ias on the 7th they were very engaged we had plc work at secondary schools on the first
074late start date september 29th that was successful glad to hear students also like that we are preparing for a federal program review visit on october 14th the ec department is excited to announce that abby mulkey an ec teacher at the middle school is the acs teacher of excellence for the 70th annual conference on exceptional children she will be recognized in greensboro on november the 18th we were lucky enough to be able to go and participate and sharing this news with her last week our early intervention coach miss amy palcek has started a series of professional development for ec teachers and k2 classroom teachers the first session focused on fundations targeted small group intervention lessons planning guidelines and recommended resources our school psychologists have been working very diligently in decreasing the number of out-of-compliance evaluations and
075eligibility determinations due to covet 19. the school psychologists are also meeting as a team to draft procedures for specific learning disability evaluations that will support and guide schools and collected the required data the speech and language pathologists conducted the mass hearing screenings for all the kindergartners and first graders in our district and they continue to plan for other events that are coming up um and a continuation of all the things that i mentioned in my last superintendent report a lot of stuff it's thank you just a little bit there just a little just a little bit so next uh actually no that's it well not not we're not totally done yet uh we have our announcements uh and future meetings um october 13th so two days from now is a two hour delay for middle
076and high schoolers uh optional teacher work day on monday october 25th another two hour delay for middle and high schoolers on wednesday october 27th uh work uh our next actually this is a little off uh we are having a work session uh on october 19th and then a another work session on october 25th then in november we have november 1st will be our first work session in closed session board meeting and then our regular board meeting will be on monday november 11th i know board member peyton wanted to say a couple of things before we adjourn yes if i could ask if we could as a board take up a resolution um opposing the comments made by lieutenant governor mark robinson um for those that aren't excuse me aware last week he made some or
077some comments came to light that he since um continued to stand by where he likened um transgenderism and participation in homosexuality is filth and obviously as a transgender and queer member of the board that hurts my feelings quite a bit but i think the larger issue is the message that that's sending to young members of the lgbtq community and it's not a safe message for a member of our government to be projecting toward our students and since it specifically references educational issues i'd like us to take up that issue and potentially speak back to those remarks perfect we will put that on our next meeting agenda thank you very much next i would like to take a moment to say thank you to vice chair jackie mccarg it has been a honor and a pleasure
078to have you on the board you have brought so many varying opinions uh but you always have our children at heart and i just wanted to say on behalf of the board thank you for the time that you've given and and all the effort and you saw firsthand this is not easy but you have stuck to it and you have held yourself in the highest esteem while doing it so as chair of the board i want to say thank you and congratulations on your new efforts and good luck and do you have anything to say um i i just want to say thank you i am i'm going to try not to get too sappy or anything but that i am i i'm really sad to be leaving um a group that's really has found
079a really balanced way to work together and i want folks to hear that like um there are amazing conversations that folks aren't privy to that happen with every single brain and heart sitting up here um and i am i'm really sad to to not remain as part of that but i am absolutely thrilled to have such an amazing person as george to be joining the board and and continuing the legacy of asheville city schools and um doing everything in the best interest of our our children and i know that that's where your head and heart is and i appreciate everything you're bringing and um i just thank everyone for their uh trust in me [Applause] well we know you're going to be a vocal community member um if anything so uh we are definitely going
080to mention that you do have cell phone numbers so uh but thank you again for your time and and all the effort that you put forward uh we are going to after we adjourn here uh toast or say goodbye to uh miss mccarg so if you want to hang around afterwards you were more than welcome to uh george we're looking forward to having you on the board we will officially swear in george on our night at our 19th october 19th meeting so get ready to hit the ground running sir if there is nothing else uh can i have a motion to adjourn you have a second i'll say one more yes thank you jackie for your service i did want to say thank you um i should have said this i had something to say
081to derek before that i didn't um i wanted to thank derek because tonight at the asheville high school asheville middle school is playing reynolds and it's not often that we were allowed before for our football team to play on that field and you have the community is like giving you props today my phone was going off all day so thank you so much for allowing the asheville middle school team to play on the field today for that game thank [Applause] you all right so hopefully the um the middle school can win again and uh actually score more than six points so uh i don't know i know a win is a win a win is a win so and congratulations to the cougars for their win against cece roberson the other night so keep it
082up guys uh so i had a motion do i have a second do i have a second second oh