001[Music] good afternoon everyone welcome to the brunswick county board of education meeting for june 2021 we will begin with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance led by mr benton please stand us this day is daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil thank you i pledge allegiance next we have a public address i want to turn this over to our attorney for a few words yes sir ladies and gentlemen my name is rick green and um so don thank you my name is rick green i'm the attorney for brunswick county board of education we're about to enter the phase of public address i think we have four five folks who wish to speak
002to the board and we welcome that but i have to tell you that according to the policy 2310 discussions regarding particular individual employees litigation student records or other matters may be required to be kept confidential and may not be discussed in an open forum setting the chairman will have the opportunity to determine matters of discussion that may be inappropriate and can rule the speaker out of order if necessary speakers will be limited to three minutes each and the total amount of time allotted is 20 minutes and again i'm seeing five speakers jenny quaglia is the first speaker did i pronounce your name correctly jenny qualia very close i'm sorry i live in oceanal beach i have two interrelated issues both having to do with the endless push to remake our history and our culture first
003of all i pray this board will return prayer to this public meeting not the moment of silence you voted in closed session to eliminate prayer and so one of you just needs to add it back on the agenda and vote on it publicly i believe that your hidden vote isn't legally binding when it's about something that's part of the public agenda the basis for prayer before public proceedings is consistent with long-standing tradition and case law will back you up its purpose is to lend gravity and to acknowledge the divine in our public institutions and our founding i really don't care some atheist group threatens a lawsuit that's what they do i don't care if they are offended i am offended that it was removed we cannot let a vocal radical minority dictate to our county
004our decisions here when guided by god are going to be better ones for all of us we need god on our side now the second issue i have some simple questions and i hope logic and morality will compel us all to find common ground do you think our schools should support the view that immutable traits like sex race ethnicity or national origin of one child is inherently superior to another do you think our school should support the view that an individual by virtue of those immutable traits is inherently racist sexist or otherwise prejudiced or oppressive do you think our school should support the view that a person should be discriminated against because of the immutable traits attributed to them or be treated on the basis of that classification classification do you think our schools should
005support the view that an individual's moral character is determined by the above mentioned immutable traits or that an individual by virtue of the traits attributed to them bears responsibility for the actions others committed in the past do you think our schools should support the view that any individual should be targeted with any form of distress due to the sex race ethnicity religion color or national origin if you answered no to all of these questions you oppose critical race theory and its sister theories such as sel social emotional learning the 1619 project the list goes on because the football keeps getting moved follow the bouncing ball if you answered yes to some of these questions you are facilitating the adoption of all of them if you answered yes to all of these questions well then you
006have no business being on any board in this country most especially a board of education we cannot ban critical race theory fast enough every day that our children are being indoctrinated to hate or segregate themselves and each other is a day too long let's fight together for the minds and souls of our children i'm almost done if you may allow me to finish thank you i am asking that all appropriate steps be taken to ban this dehumanizing propaganda what are some of the things you might do quickly letters from the board to dpi and the governor a resolution of opposition layers and layers of protection we need spelling it out in teachers contracts be vocal in public there are plenty of resources to help you out and i'd love to to be one of those
007we must prioritize excellence which inspires people from all backgrounds to achieve their potential action action action thank you very much thank you [Applause] is marianne mccarthy here good evening my name is marianne mccarthy i live in southport on april 16th of this year brunswick county unveiled its very own charters of freedom our lieutenant governor mark robinson reminded us that these three documents are the blueprint or set of instructions that have enabled america to be the greatest nation on earth our forefathers brilliantly laid out the basis for the american idea that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness the goal of critical race theory is to destroy these very ideals we hold dear and to threaten the american way of life
008speaking of forefathers did you know that nc teachers are being trained to not use that word anymore because our forefathers happen to be all white males did you know that last week dpi called for changes to this gifted program with admittance based on race instead of academic performance did you know that a member of the school board or nc state board mr ford is a writer and a valid political activist who is leading the charge for critical race theory using his position and the two consulting firms he leads to support to support critical race theory activism and indoctrination he writes that he's encouraged to see teachers using their voices in movements like black lives matter that we need what we need is an educational revolution where teaching is a form of activism and he also
009says we need to start telling the truth about white supremacy in our schools this man is a radical activist who financially benefits from selling racism and in my opinion has no place leading our educational system did you know that during ncdpi teacher training this spring teachers from across the state participated in workshops where the teachers were encouraged to exclude or alter material that shows christianity homosexuals to parent families and america in a favorable light it featured sessions on whiteness while encouraging educators to form equity teams in schools to push the new narrative anti-racism which as we all know by now is actually racism one of the instructors had this to say we have to dismantle the idea of american exceptionalism of eurocentric white culture and focus on minority cultures is this what the founders envisioned
010is this what martin luther king fought for did any of our brunsco teachers attend this training do you know that some schools are violating students privacy which carries legal risks for the districts they're using surveys to collect private data about family life sexual preferences and mental health all in the name of sel or social emotional learning slash equity of course are any teachers in brunswick county participating in this i've heard people say the new standards aren't too bad well i've read them and i think they're horrific and if followed we'll eventually have graduates who may not be able to read or do math but they'll be great radical activists i urge you to immediately stop the weaponization and politicization of our educational system i urge parents to stand up speak out about this divisive curricula
011and be counted it's time for you to begin the process of ensuring that not one single child here in brunswick county is exposed to this blatant anti-america racist indoctrination we expect our tax dollars to fund schools and produce well-educated young adults who are prepared to become producing members of a civil society thank you for your time thank you thank you [Applause] next joan hall good evening good evening my name is joan hall and i have read the information on the social study standards and i find it very troubling the board needs to have town meetings in the schools to tell the parents what they are teaching their children jim ford who developed the social studies standard is a radical race theorist and that radical race theorist is to tear down and erase the history and
012the ideas that created american culture the supporters of crt believe american culture must be destroyed i know the standards come from the boar state board but you brunswick county representatives are our link to them you need to stand up to the plate for our children tell them the truth we the people are against this program and we do not want it in our schools north carolina schools are ranked 38th in the country 38th we should all be ashamed of ourselves for that and how about teaching our children better reading math writing skills instead of social emotional learning let's teach them our history good and bad so that they will love our country i have lived in brunswick county for 19 years what have you done with all of my tax money for education i think
013it is really important for parents to start asking questions because the more parents that ask more questions it's harder for the schools to retaliate against them eliminate this department of public education instruction whatever that is and give teachers raises they deserve it parents need to be more involved and partnered with the board of education now our children will be taught a more concerned citizen as a concern i am more than a concerned citizen i have a granddaughter in north carolina public schools my family is biracial how would you feel if your child or your grandchild called you racist or white supremacist this is what is happening to our biracial families i am very concerned about the survey the students are asked to fill out the information goes to a global company called iskme and with
014all the hacking that is now going on in this system we are putting our children's information at risk i want to end up by saying i want to send a message to everyone that is listening to me ask your children what they are learning in schools and do your own research thank you thank you [Applause] next we have mr mel foles my name is mel foles and i live in leland members of the school board you have an awesome responsibility you are responsible for what our children are being taught in the classroom as you well know our greatest natural resource is our children the greatest gift the good lord ever gave us now some of you have skin in the game in that you have your own children attending schools here in brunswick county i'm
015sure you have some concerns as do one such concern using the ideology philosophy of the crt in our school system here and throughout the country critical race theory was brought to my attention by the various news media and also my daughter who has two two girls in school we decided that we needed to do more research and fortunately i received a periodical from hillsdale college in which chris ruffal of the claremont institute of political think tank ndc delivered a lecture at hillsdale college to the faculty and students there explaining crt it stems from a marxist theory and philosophy pitting one class of people versus another i guess what they're saying here is that we're going to put all the white students in one classroom and tell them how bad or how oppressive they've been to
016the brown and black students perpetuating systemic racism this is a discriminatory philosophy the whole premise is based on the color of the skin and not on the content of their character as martin luther king espoused this is also anti-christian if you look in your bible chapter the gospel of mark chapter 12 verse 28 a command given by christ to the religious scholars at that time which was true then and it is true now is love your neighbor as yourself at a time when our country is so divided the implementation of of this ideology will further divide us this would violate a multitude of civil rights laws treating people differently according to race many states have banned teaching crt and one such state is texas their new bill requires a state board of education to adopt
017civic education to help students understanding of the moral political and intellectual foundations of u.s history and traditions i don't know why that can't be our basis you know as our philosophy and educating our students lastly my brother who's a 30-year veteran of the military has got a iron bar down his back being thrown around in a helicopter was here over memorial day and we discussed the crt topic this is divisive we also talked about normandy june 6 was d-day four thousand men died invading normandy that day they didn't die for crt they didn't care who was black who was white who's pink who's orange we are one people created by god living in a great country let's look forward not behind or not in the rear view mirror do everything you can to get rid
018of this crt philosophy i'm going to never mind i'm going to call it crap thank you thank you sir thank you next we have this emily donovan good evening thank you for having me at the beginning of 2020 brunswick county made national news for having some of the highest levels of pfas in tap water per nationwide study today we still have high levels of pfas in our tap water i have faith in the employees at brunswick county public utilities i know they are doing all they can to better to build a better treatment plant and remove these industrial forever chemicals however the new water plant will not be completed for another two and a half years assuming no major hurricanes tornadoes or construction delays impact progress until the county can provide a long-term solution to
019our water crisis it is the responsibility of the school board to ensure every child has access to health protective drinking water in the short term at the point of use for cooking and drinking i provided guidance and recommendations to brunswick county schools in the new hanover county school board early last year new hanover county school boards even invited me to give a presentation at one of their board meetings i'm willing to do the same for your committee meetings later this month the nation is watching us you have a unique opportunity to be the heroes of this story based on emails with operational staff brunswick county schools only installed one reverse osmosis filling station per school where new hanover county installed three however brunswick county did replace all water fountains with touchless filling stations that use
020activated carbon filters many of these filters begin to clog after six months and must be replaced replacing activated carbon filters every six months for every fountain in every school i imagine is costly it's also wasteful to my knowledge spent filters saturated in pfas cannot be recycled this is why i initially recommended leasing multiple ro filling stations and placing them strategically at each campus to accommodate recess athletics cafeteria use and high traffic easily accessible areas ro is the most effective at removing pfas and requires less frequent filter maintenance the leasing of these systems would be temporary until the county can provide the long-term solution addressing this now before summer school starts is a great opportunity to further protect developing students immediately we know pfas bind to proteins we know they alter us at a cellular level
021we know they are in our blood per local serum studies we know we were chronically exposed to these chemicals at alarming levels and are still being chronically exposed to them in our finished tap water we know they cross the placenta and contaminate breast milk we know they are in the liver and brain tissue of local seabirds recent studies also show some pfas weaken our sacred blood to brain barrier we also know the cdc atsdr issued the following statement at the start of the pandemic cdc atsdr recognizes that exposure to high levels of pfas may impact the immune system there is evidence for human and animal studies from human and animal studies that pfas exposure may reduce antibody responses to vaccines and may reduce infectious disease resistance i encourage each of you to be proactive upgrade
022your leasing agreement and install multiple ro filling stations per campus correctly and clearly label these machines publicly promote their presence and encourage widespread use the last thing i want to see is for brunswick county schools to top yet another nationwide tap water study for failure to correctly or appropriately address this public health crisis it's absolutely avoidable thank you for your time thank you thank you next on the agenda is the board salute mr siemens all right first uh first up is glad it's good to see everybody's face and good to see people back in uh in a full room with all the chairs available that is uh it's a huge i don't know huge feeling these are community meetings and we like to be you know have the community together speaking of that word our
023school logo uh has the phrase community of learners in it uh community of learners is uh is vast it's what i call the brunswick county schools family the bcs family that is the students that is the folks who pick up those students before the sun comes up that is the teachers in front of the students that's the folks who clean the schools and make sure they're safe everybody inside the schools and everybody in the community too because we are a community of learners and uh in uh in the house tonight is a prime example of some i don't i mean community support but talk at a level taller than my five nine uh stature uh the city of southport who is very kind to our uh our southern schools southport elementary southport uh south brunswick
024middle school and uh south brunswick high school what we're looking at here is uh mayor hayden presenting a check and i know the print's a little small in the picture but it's a one with zero zero zero zero ten thousand dollars uh i would like to uh to ask mayor hayden to come join us at the post [Applause] principal bourne would you come join us too so first off thank you mayor uh we want to present you with uh a small token of appreciation certificate of appreciation but first uh if you can share a few words uh with us just about what went into a donation of this size right well thank you and um it is good to see everyone without a mask and being together it's just marvelous i can't wait till our
025meeting on thursday so everyone will be together like this and it's a pleasure to see several of my friends on the board mr robinson mr parker good to see you good to see all of you i am a product of the elementary school system in north carolina i went to rosemary school in roanoke rapids and i tell people that i remember my first grade teacher annabelle daltry because she taught me how to read i remember not being able to read so i will forever be grateful to her in the elementary school system so for southport to be able to donate ten thousand dollars to elementary school it is something that we are proud of and that what we want to continue to do we're so happy to have this school uh in our city and
026one of the most important things that we have in our lives the gift that our parents gave us is an education they made sure that we went to school and and my father got rested so he said you can go to school as long as you make good grades and that poor man sent me to college for 11 years so i appreciate that you know so it's wonderful and it starts at the elementary school system and so we're grateful to do it and we will continue to do it as long as i'm mayor that's for sure thank you thank you and principal bourne do you want to share a couple words about what maybe what this will all mean for the school well i just wanted to extend my sincerest thank you to mayor hayden
027and the city of southport especially from the students and the teachers your gift is very generous and very much appreciated our school improvement team which consists of teachers and administration and parents have decided to use this money for a curriculum resource they would like to purchase a program called iready that helps to foster students reading ability and math ability so we are very excited and we couldn't do it without your donation so thank you very much we're happy to be a part of it thank you so much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i'd like to close out if you don't mind chairman lemon with a couple more photos we wrapped up last week our class of 2021 graduations as we all know these seniors have been through it all in their uh in their high school career
028and thank you mother nature we only had uh one we're looking at south brunswick we only had one little bout with mother nature during these uh highly successful um just celebrations uh for the seniors uh but this was i wanted to showcase just in case anybody missed them they can go to the bcs uh youtube page watch these services again if they have a family member who did who missed out let them know about it so that they can see their family member their student walk across the stage so we've got that was south brunswick high school here we have north brunswick high school sun shining especially bright in the scorpions land early college kicked it off and they shared the facility of west brunswick high school that was a couple weeks ago to get
029get the facilities or the festivities going and then finally uh we have west brunswick they closed it out uh last week and another uh beautiful service but i just wanted to bring these up uh to remind everybody in case they missed them they get a chance to go see the class of 2021 uh take that walk again mr siemens could you speak to the social media analytics that you discussed yesterday we were in cabinet meeting uh we went and you know the beauty social media is obviously uh i mean it's by far the the best way to communicate in today's world um i mean it's statistically you cannot beat it and uh while we're at the cabinet meeting we're talking about uh the graduations and so i pulled up our facebook page just to see
030what our stats look like and last week the the one for seven seven days um and i wrote our analytics our impact our reach and our engagement yesterday was up 354 percent uh i i i fast this morning when i got in i looked at it again and it just it bumped up one more day um to include uh it it jumped up an additional to just over six hundred thousand now you know the reason it's not the reason we talk about it is because it's it helps showcase that means we have a presence people around uh the internet world you know around the world ha are saying some of the amazing things that are going on in brunswick county so we're just going to continue to capitalize on that and um and we're very
031fortunate that so many people did get to to witness our class of 2021 uh take those steps in such a wonderful service thank you mr siemens ladies and gentlemen the board you have the meeting agenda are there any corrections needed to the agenda tonight um mr lemon i would like to take off of the consent items the improvement plan for social emotional learning and school mental health i think this needs to be discussed looked at i would like to read more about it i think it aligns with the critical race theory and i would like to have that taken off please no we disagree that's okay i'm agreeing [Music] i'd like we need to strike action item three if we could uh we're not prepared for perhaps action item action item number three board committee
032structure okay we're still it's still work in progress at this point any others mr lemon i would um before we go any further i'm almost shaking inside when i hear the people that came forward to talk about critical race theory um i stand with you i have been sounding the alarm the last couple of meetings um i've talked to several parents about it i've encouraged people in the meetings to go and look at these social studies standards i have a huge problem with it and i just want you to know where i stand on it i have a graduate of 2019 i had a senior that just graduated last week but i still have a sophomore a rising sophomore going through school it's very upsetting to me to know that our children are being indoctrinated
033and um i just my heart was pounding when you guys were talking i don't agree with it i don't think anyone should be made to feel different about this color of their skin whether you're black brown white or yellow that should not be an issue we should not create division hate we should not ask our teachers to teach it so i don't agree with it and i don't want that to go unsaid from me when i'm documents it's a very sly thing that they're doing they don't really use a lot of the terms but the euphemisms are there and i was reading the social emotional learning i called mr robinson and i was on the phone with him about it today and i said we can't allow this to go through tonight that's why i
034wanted to take it off so i just want to know and i know others on the board agree with it um we've talked to dr oates about it and right we don't agree with critical race theory um and as i said in the last meeting we have to be the gatekeepers to our kids education and um having one in school and and who i'm really concerned about are the little humans you know the little ones that are in k one two three his kids um you know i've got two they're out and thankfully they've not been indoctrinated um they're in college they're getting plenty of it there but um you know we've been able to raise them and my family how we would how we believe and that's not the school's responsibility parents should be
035able to raise their children the way they feel and we should not discriminate against any child we should not make any child feel bad about their skin color or anything their religion their sex anything that should not be taught in school so that's just where i stand i appreciate you guys coming and talking about it and i'm with you i'm with you still um mr london if we could offer four items twelve hours of full item solvable and just to discuss before we approve it again item 12 on the consent agenda i'd like to move that to an action item and just discuss if there's an alternative maybe that might be fairer to those folks who are currently in that position let me just move that to number three yeah replacement four four because you
036got number three miss miss moffett pulled so it'd be item number four she removed it completely down there and remove it then yeah all right do you want to make a motion to approve the agenda as uh revised please we have a second all in favor say hi hi hi hi all opposed so moved ladies and gentlemen the board you have uh minutes from the meeting the regular meeting of may 4th and the opera committee meetings on may 18th or any corrections needed to these minutes listen to approve mr chairman exactly we have a motion to prove uh the minutes by mr barger are seconded by mr benton all in favor say aye aye all opposed ladies and gentlemen the board you have the consent items listed with number one removed and what was the
037other 12 12. i'll make a motion to approve 211. second mr ben's motion mr minton makes a motion to approve consent consent items 2 through 11 seconded by mr barger all in favor say aye aye all opposed action items for approval tonight a new district phone system who is ms bear good evening board members a little background to this project an rfp was posted on april 26 2021 and the district received responsive proposals from offers a new phone the phone system project was presented to the finance committee on may 18 2021 the best bid most advantageous to brunswick county school needs was from dice's solutions inc a part of their proposal the voice over ip services are to be contracted with a third party vendor the project requires that we enter into two separate contracts
038with these vendors the first contract is with intel appear cloud communications llc for the voice over ip services the second contract is with dice's solutions inc for the implementation of the new phone system which includes network equipment cellular failover equipment new phones educational licensing and professional engineering services technology recommends approval of the first contract with intel appear cloud communications llc for eighty three thousand nine hundred twenty one dollars fifty fifty two cents over three years this represents annual reoccurring costs of twenty seven thousand nine hundred seventy three dollars 84 cents per year the contract will be funded from local budgeted telephone expenditure accounts the second contract with dyson solutions inc for three years totals 876 thousand eighty six dollars ninety six cents this contract will be funded from the allotted technology bond funds year one
039compensation of this contract is five hundred and eighty thousand three hundred fifty five dollars thirty and years two and three are each 147 865 dollars 83 cents for annual renewals of the educational licenses technology recommends that the board forward the second contract to the county for approval since it succeeds three hundred thousand dollars and it's being paid through the bond i have a question if i met have we checked the technology to make sure where it is not vulnerable to cyber attack or any of those kind of things is it well secured that we don't have to worry about uh student information being taken phone calls listed in or being shut down yes sir okay and it's compatible with all of our current technology yes sir and i also believe dr mentioned talking about that
040stack before the interface with the laptops and the phone communications in the classroom second mr robinson's motion the motion is to approve the recommendation for the phone system by mr robson and mr barger ii all in favor say aye aye all opposed thank you quick question now miss bear why are we happy up there um [Music] with all the controversy about school systems and businesses and so forth being attacked by malware how are we protected is it is it all local protection or is there through the state software many different members the state gives us a lot of resources at the state level our internet connection is through mcnc and there they have funded a lot of services that watch the connection coming into brunswick county uh for malicious activity we also watch it at
041our firewalls and protect it there we put malware protection on those firewall connections we have malware protection on our devices that are used every day by people within our district one of the recent things we did was cyber training a lot of our staff have went through cyber training that the state purchased for us where they're being trained on how to identify things like fishing that's occurring through emails which is a popular way for us to be attacked so we're educating our staff we're protecting our devices we're watching our outside barriers the state is watching traffic coming to us so many levels do you happen to know how columbus county was attacked how they got through well you may not know that but it's only been a year or so ago i think it was
042through being vulnerable to having legacy type of systems not new updated more modern systems was one of the factors okay i'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to this issue so anytime that you want to recommend to any of us that we need to take a strong stronger look at what we're doing and do we need more protection well please feel free to do that so another i'm trying to think of all the things there's so many things being done one of the things that the state did was purchase a service to where we had engineers come in and look at our entire system and tell us where we were vulnerable and where we could make changes and so they held us to an extremely high standard in the industrial world not just
043because we were educational but you know same that they would hold for how long ago was that yeah nine months or so ago um so we were scored on how well we were implementing uh that as well okay and gave us many topics that we can continue to modify and grow on so it's it's always changing okay well thank you for the information yes sir we've also purchased a insurance policy for cyber attacks we have a basic amount with our school board association but we've purchased an additional one for higher coverage okay the next item is the board policy 7720 mr chairman if i may um i would like to make a motion this be approved uh tonight on the first reading we waive the second reading well i agree with miss moffat what she
044said before i believe now is the appropriate time for all of us to explain our opinions and i believe this policy right here protects us against not only critical race theory but all of the misinformation that's out there regarding history and this is our protection against that this is a board policy in which we actually have the legal authority over our employees if we find out that it's being taught as ms moffat brought up before we all agreed with her having our anonymous reporting system just like we do for bullying for bias and teaching we do hear all of you and we do agree with you but i'm going to sign on to things that are going to help us prevent bias teaching and this policy is one of them so i recommend it for
045approval tonight we're the second reading session presented first pardon got to present the policy right we have to read it first do we have the problem we have to read the policy before we can make a motion on the policy that's correct do we have a policy it's linked on the agenda mr chairman i will be glad to take you through the policy yeah sure policy 7720 which outlines employee political activities it's a standing policy that we adopted in 1994 the crux of this standing policy is basically making sure that political political activity shall not take place during school time involve school monies equipment or materials or make use of an official school position to encourage or to coerce students or other employees of the district to support in any way a political party candidate
046or issue as we go down the last revised paragraph of this policy this policy should not be construed as prohibiting the impartial study and discussion of political or controversial issues in the classroom setting including the dissemination of factual information about serious problems the school system or the community may be facing because of political actions where such teaching or information reasonably relates to the standards of the course both sides of the political issue shall be presented supported by primary or balanced secondary sources so that students are provided an opportunity to be well informed and to be able to make their own decisions regarding political or other controversial issues further this policy shall ensure that social theories of any kind for example holocaust denial theory the 9 11 theory and critical race theory are not presented to
047students unless approved by the brunswick county board of education it is the responsibility of the board to ensure that curricular standards are taught using well-documented factual resources and not opinion or conjecture any other comments my previous mission still mr parker makes motion that we approve this policy change on first reading i think mr robinson second all in favor say aye aye hi all opposed the next policy is 2310 uh public address to the board do you have that doctor it too has been shown this is a minor change to the existing policy to give speakers who wish to community members who wish to speak at board members more time in contacting our office to do so and the change is simply to be able to contact our office by 12 noon on the day of
048the board of education meeting that is the only change in that since that's not a major change do anybody want to recommend we waved all right nick listen we waived the second reading and i'll say that okay mr benton makes a motion we made wayne's second reading and make that change in mr robinson seconds all in favor say aye all right thank you dr oates any other discussion items it's the critical now it's the uh social emotional learning miss moffitt it pulled off consent okay because we pulled it off consent so we would now go on as an action item so doctors do we have a deadline on when that plan has to be submitted to the state july okay so we have time yeah i think it's in the month july 1. our committee
049meetings next week i said we discuss with them i agree all right so we'll just move that to uh committee meetings what was the fourth one curriculum correct the is the critical staff incentive i i wanted to just see how everybody felt about possibly moving to a flat bonus for those folks who already in those critical needs positions so instead of incentivizing people to switch positions and one or two people get a five thousand dollar bonus who've been teaching with us maybe we consider doing something like a thousand dollar annual bonus on those positions so that those folks who have been had 20 years of service in these critical areas are still eligible for some money because it's just not fair to those folks who've been in these positions forever to not be eligible for
050bonuses and i just want to float that by the board i still have mr foster are you going to review that to just to get us back to um what got us here to have it on the consent agenda back on may 4th during the board of education committee meeting we approved or you approved the five thousand dollar recruitment incentive for fully certified uh new hires into math exceptional children's teaching or cte construction positions we brought back to you there was a question regarding whether someone who was currently an employee with us who became licensed or had a license in one of these critical incentive areas as an ec teacher or math teacher or a cte construction teacher whether they would be eligible for the critical staff incentive and i presented back to you on
051at the last on may 4th indicating that we would recommend that if someone had not served in a critical staff position during the 2021 school year and they were fully licensed that it would be helpful to us to be able to pay those folks the 5 incentive to move to one of those critical areas at that point you guys asked to put it on the agenda for tonight and that's where we are and so i was bringing forward with the recommendation that we would approve the trend the ability of current employees who had not served in a critical staff position during the 2021 year be eligible for this critical staffing senate and what was the change you were i wanted to see if we could offer a thousand dollars a year for these folks that
052way the folks who are currently in the positions would still be eligible for money i mean i i think it's wrong that we're both teachers you've been teaching math for 20 years i've been teaching kindergarten and now i want to switch to become an ec teacher or a math teacher and i'm going to get 5 000 for doing the same job as you are we've both been working in a system we're not relocating from another school district and i'd like to see us both get a thousand run a bonus for these folks that are in these positions that have been here and been loyal to us i i just still i think there's inequity there when we're giving one person for switching a position money i mean i understand why we're hiring outside folks they're
053relocating from other districts here they have home moving expenses they're taking a risk on leaving new hanover or pender to come to us i understand that and paying for that risk but when we're internal we're giving three or four people in the county the opportunity to switch titles of their position for five thousand dollars and we're like forget the rest of you who've been in these positions for years providing us great service and being loyal to us and i just feel it's not it's not equitable to them mr chairman may i make a recommendation could we take a look at the dollar amount that would cost prior to doing that because i want to make sure you have accurate information in your decision making um mr freya can you have that meet with you by
054the middle of the month meeting okay yeah our community tuesday that was my question is right miss cahill is good with numbers i don't know if she's not good on top of her head so 22nd 22nd 22nd okay mr prosper delaying that is that going to create a problem we'll continue to delay that we have moved forward with the new hires from outside the district because there was not a question about whether or not that part was approved that was approved before so we've not it would just add to our people who are already here was whether or not we could provide that incentive to internal candidates who were switching uh positions and it wouldn't i mean it could even be a teacher assistant who got their certification and could go into one of those
055positions and that's those were the types of things that we wanted to try to uh open that avenue up to again help us fill those uh critical needs areas when we passed we did the teacher assistance because they weren't teachers were qualified am i correct dr thank you sir yeah we are they are qualified so it would just be teachers switching from one position to another yeah and so even as it stands right now we are able to use it as a recruiting tool for teachers outside the district it's only teachers within the district that the question was about um and just to be clear we're speaking of all those in the critical needs category not just ec correct to receive the correct yeah okay so internal employees just cost out what it would take
056if you could for a thousand dollars for each one of them yes we could a one oh if we could do it uh yeah as long as we're running a critical incentive so each year we would approve it and that and we would not be paying if i'm not mistaken because it's a one-time critical needs thank you it would not we wouldn't have any other costs associated with that correct okay okay thank you mr foster thank you i think we're down to discussion and announcements by superintendent and board members the only thing i just want to um not even discuss announce just to give congratulations and thanks to is to the hard work that our high schools put out this past week for graduation and not only our high school graduation committees but our operations
057department and making sure that everything was flawless so mr rutledge hats off to you and your team for what you've done to make the the outdoor graduations that we haven't had in some time very appealing i don't know about all of you but the feedback that i have received regarding having them on the stadiums was enormous enormous support for doing it i can't say what the future holds but if if umbrellas and and heat is what's stopping us from doing it if you can cope with the the heat and the rain you know we i'm all for it i mean i don't mind it now we set out in the rain under uh somewhat under your umbrella the other day and i wasn't wrestling on my head but they did a very fine job i
058was very proud of all the graduates all of the schools from from early college to west everything was just beautiful i couldn't ask for a better um into a tumultuous year yeah it was amazing and i want to thank you sue for i mean it was amazing and i have a senior so it meant a lot to me and i think i have seniors and kids at my house all the time and they were just saying that they felt such a sense of pride to walk onto their home field their school colors in their stadium that they've attended for four years of football games and soccer games and lacrosse and it was beautiful i mean you and the the turf covers were perfect and you know it just went off without a hitch and we
059did sit in the rain but it was okay and the kids didn't mind it well next year another school can sit in the rain and you have a sunny day that's right north and west came off without a hitch but you know it's okay and the kids it was out they didn't seem to mind that they sat in the rain they just said they were thankful they got on the field and i don't think they're opposed like dr oak said to considering doing it at the home turf you know from here on out it just meant something to them and the sense of pride of being in their home stadium i liked it it's kind of cool any other announcements i got a couple of things i just want to add i'll be quick um
060you know over at west brunswick and north brunswick over the past two months we suffered two student losses and i wanted to commend the staff over at those schools they've done a phenomenal job of getting the schools through this tragedy and also reaching out to the community both schools great job under very tragic circumstances and you know the one over at west was a standout football player there was a memorial service i don't know that i've seen that many people uh in the stadiums in a long time and i appreciate the leadership that coach hickman and all the other staff put into that that was very impressive and i appreciate the speakers who came tonight as well um you know it's going to take us all to address this issue just the board alone won't
061be able to to do it it's going to take the community to address these issues and just like i said we can't do it alone so we're going to need community support in order to do that and so please work with us and to make these changes i want to thank mayor hayden also in the city of southport for coming out with that donation that was uh much appreciated um and and lastly we've already said it but the graduations were just phenomenal i i've gotten in addition to what dr rogue stated the outreach out cry for the to continue this has been overwhelming so hopefully we'll be able to figure this out in the future uh i like to talk with it earlier you know we were sort of fortunate the weather mostly cooperated i
062know how jews can be in brunswick county but being on home turf was great it was unbelievable and these these stadiums look good uh back when i graduated years ago was at west brunswick you know we did it at the auditorium but the football fields then were a disaster uh we had mold crickets i i think i think that was the principal's fault it was great for those that don't know mr brennan was mr robinson's principal so but uh great job given that you know it was wonderful and uh that that's all mister thank you mr robertson and we have a motion to go to closed session please we have a motion uh put forward by mr benton and we have a second second second miss moffat all in favor say aye you