001August 4th meeting. Um, looking at all of the board members seated, we have a quorum. Um, fellow board members, I am going to make an amendment at your pleasure to move close session to below board discussion action items. >> Second that. >> All right, we have a second by Mr. Johnson. Um, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. >> Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. >> Thank you. Other than that, you have the um agenda before you. Can we go ahead and approve it? >> Motion by Mr. Beck to approve the agenda with the uh proposed amendment. >> Second by Mr. Camp. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. The agenda has been adopted. We are going to go ahead and observe a moment of
002silence with Mr. Camp providing the board invocation thereafter. Heavenly Father, as we meet here tonight, we schoolboard members, administrators, parents, students, staff. Lord, we come to you. We come because we uh because we care about this uh county. We care about the our schools. who care about our students. And Lord, we want your guidance. We pray Lord for your wisdom in the decisions we make that we will make uh good decisions for the sake of our county schools. Lord, we pray for um your guidance, your the safety. Lord, help us, your protection. Uh protect us, keep our eyes on you, Lord. Help us to do the right thing, the best thing for our kids, Lord, for our parents, for our teachers and our staff, Lord. And so as we meet, we uh just give our
003hearts to you, and we pray for your guidance, Father. We pray in your name. Amen. >> Amen. >> Please stand for the presentation of colors and the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you to Eastburg High School's JOTC color guard led by Colonel Arthur Scott. All right, moving on in the agenda, we have superintendent updates with Dr. Swan. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Good to see everyone this evening. I do have some great updates to share with you, some exciting things that happening uh over the summer since we f last met. Uh and then some new news. Um as you'll see here,
004we'll also get to recognize Miss Gladen um in her STEM trip to Germany. If you recall, several years ago, Miss Gladen from East Middle School received a STEM uh grant through the Burrow's welcome fund. Uh $275,000, Miss Gladen. >> 175. Okay. Um, so she's been able to uh use that to articulate some services to her school as well as spread some district uh opportunity as well. So, we're excited to share that opportunity. Also, uh myself and several board members were able to visit some schools for our um possible new school location uh in the east uh Hildebrand Elementary School uh location. Uh, as you see here, we we saw some various designs. Um, all the footprints are um DPI, North Carolina Department of Public Construction approved. Uh, we looked at a two-story campus on all
005three sites. Um, and we did send out a questionnaire. So, we'll go over that questionnaire uh at next work session with our plus delta with you guys. As far as um we still need to get some uh survey results in on what we liked. I think it's safe to say that we saw a lot of areas of those three schools that we visited that we really liked and some areas for improvement uh of a new campus. So, we're excited about moving forward with that as well. Um also, if you've been over to the new or our central office location, uh we have updated our pictures in the hallway um with some upgraded pictures uh and you'll see here on behalf of Toss Art. Uh so, they go through periodically and update our student artwork. So,
006we're excited to keep the partnership alive with them. Uh, as you'll see here in our new central office, there will be a gallery area for some art projects as well through art. Also, later in the evening, uh, Mr. Casey Rogers, our CT director, will be recognizing our FFA rec recognitions that we we received after the school year. So, students that are in the seats, we're happy that you guys are here, parents, and our staff members that showed up as well. Uh, our FHS uh had is the silver chapter and Eastburg High School is the gold chapter. Also want to share some highlights of our summer breakfast. Our summer 2025 breakfast, we had 42,942 breakfast served. Uh 46,749 lunches served. And if you look at the breakdown from last year to this year, look at the
007increase of participation that we had. Now, we did change it up a little bit as far as um how we were distributing the uh information. Different sites that worked better. As you recall, I think our first distribution site, we had a traffic jam and department of um or DOT as well as highway patrol uh didn't like how we shut down uh interstate or highway 126 for several hours. So, we were able to to recoup that and and readjust that. So, congratulations to that. uh and our families that are feeding our families on Thursdays as well with enough meals to get them through the week. So kudos to our child nutrition department, Mr. Wall and his team. Thank you. >> Also, our 10 year anniversary um with Valdi's Rotary. Um this I've participated in this every
008year um since I've been in district leadership where we go and let students come out during uh summer reading and they get to pick out a certain amount of books and they get to take home to keep uh to to continue to build their library. So, uh, we want to publicly thank Valdi's Rotary for their contribution to the system. Also, just some programs that we've had, uh, through gear up. Uh, and once again, our gear up is through Appalachin State University. It's a partnership that we have that provides opportunities for our, um, I want to say we're in year 7 through 12, 8 through 12. I got to check the numbers. Uh but basically this allows our students to go on opportunity trips uh on to colleges, universities across the state. Um so some of
009the summer programs we had was cosmetology, healthc care, we took some university tours, Chapel Hill, NC State, uh our construction programs that we have and then as well as culinary programs. So we'll continue to promote those throughout next summer as well. Also, our new central office demo. We just began demo, selective demo a week before last. So, Moss Marlo construction firm out of Hickory received that bid as you see here. Um, where we left it two months ago looks nothing like what it is today. Uh, and we're going our we have our summer institute with our principles, assistant principles, directors Wednesday and Thursday. We will be taking a short field trip over there. So, I invite you guys um if you have room in your schedule, let me know. We can put a hard hat
010on you and let you walk through the c uh the building as well. So, we're excited about that progress. This time next year, um we should be moving into the new central office. also like to highlight our coffee and conversation with school board uh chairman chairwoman Tiana Beechler uh coming up Wednesday, August 13th from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Uh that is being hosted by the Burke Chamber. Um it will be in this room so anybody would like to come. Um it is it does say $15 from members and non-members are 25. Um, so we are checking with um the chamber to find out what flexibility we have to get a packed house in here. Um, we we definitely want to highlight um what Miss Beer and the board has been working towards. So once
011again, that's Wednesday, August 13th at 7 a.m. Also, tomorrow um as you received an invitation from Miss Pam last week, um we got a call from Mr. Hegler, the Burke County, um Freedom High School A teacher. Uh they're doing an a lunchon in partnership with East Burke and Freedom High School. Uh the two FFA chapters, they will be feeding uh our central office location. Um our assistant principles tomorrow and then board members would like to drop by and and kind of break bread with our assistant principles as well. That will be here tomorrow from 12 to 1:30. So we we look forward to seeing you there. Also, once again, these are pictures from last year's leadership institute. Um we will be having that Wednesday and Thursday. We've got a a very packed activity. Um just
012going through our deep data dig, our testing results, our graduation results, attendance, uh and team building. It's important to continue that that team focus with our district leaders. Um so we all set that vision, that allin promise to our um parents and our students. That is once again Wednesday and Thursday all day. Also, next week we'll begin our new teacher orientation. Miss Lisa Day and Mr. Recker and his team, they've been working very hard uh with new teacher orientation. We're excited to get folks back in. Um I will say we've had uh last year, I want to say, Mr. Recorder, you can correct me. We had roughly 115 new teacher hires. This year we have around 40 new teacher hires. So that's a that's a testament to not only um of course we do have
013a budget shortfall, but that has nothing to do with our teaching positions. uh this is a direct result of teachers that are wanting to stay in the field uh in Burke County. Of course, with the help of you guys and our county commissioners, raising the teacher supplement has increase some of that uh that teacher retention that we're seeing right now. So, once again, thank you guys for your support for that. Also, if you've not participated in our YMCA bright beginnings, uh we have that Thursday evening next week at Belulk in Morgan where we um have 50 selected students that participate in the YMCA. we get to go clothes shopping for the students. Um, so it's a great experience to get a walk around with our families. Um, and once again, I'll get some more details
014on that. So, basically, they give you a credit card, you get to go walk around with the families and help them pick out school clothes for the year. So, it's just a great opportunity for us to get our faces out there and meet with our community. Once again, partnership with our Burke County United Ways, Chartwells, and Burke County Public Schools. We have our backpack registration. The link is here. It's also on our website and there is the u the app right here that you can go on register for a backpack comes with the needed school supplies. Um as always that we know there are some supplies that um that are last minute supplies and our staff and our schools are all prepared to handle those supplies uh shortages as well. September 23rd and 25th are
015proposed dates for our community meetings for Ikard and Hildebrand the new school construction. Uh so once again these are tenative dates. Uh we're still making sure that we have all the the required general statute reports um construction reports on both sites as far as um um traffic studies. So we're working with DOT to see if they can get the traffic study done in time. I believe we've got every other report ready um to set those dates up. But once again, these are tenative dates. Uh it'll be seven or six o'clock in the auditoriums of each school on the 23rd and 25th. Uh and Hamilton Court will be present to help answer some questions, go over some plans with you guys as well. >> And madam chair, those are my superintendent updates. >> Awesome. Thank you.
016And what was the date for the new teacher orientation? I'm sorry. >> The 14th, Miss Day. >> 12th and 13th. >> 12th is Olive Hill in the morning. >> Okay. We we'll send you some detailed information on that as well. >> Awesome. All right. Does anyone have any other questions? Hearing none, we'll move forward with a FEMA financial update with Mr. Lawson. >> Good evening. >> I stand before you tonight giving a report on something I never anticipated doing and that is hurricane recovery. We we have three sources of funds uh for hurricane relief in North Carolina. one being the North Carolina state allotted funding and to date we were provided life to date we were provided additional funds to support counselors and social workers and we have spent $133,41 for social workers 98,000 for
017guidance we have summer learning recovery uh Uh life to date we've spent 327,000 and school nutrition 120,000. Now the reason we have a line item school nutrition that the state paid is the way uh school nutrition employees are paid is by meals served and then we're reimbursed by the USDA. So there was no funding source for income relief for school nutrition. So the state stepped in and supported those efforts. So we paid 120,000 to our school nutrition workers that were unable to work uh early on when the recovery process began. So total of $679,000 has been spent and recovered through state funds fully. Next we have our FEMA and insurance recovery efforts. Uh we have spent to date $96,822 in recovery efforts at Walter Johnson. At Freedom High School, we have spent $731,14 life to
018date and then others which would in uh encompass a lot of debris removal and then leaky roofs at various other facilities to the tune of $211,998. FEMA consulting fees. DCMC is who we consulted with. Uh the same agency that the city of Morgaton and the county of Burke also is using and we have been build life to date $10,196. So total FEMA and insurance recovery efforts clocking in at a million50,000. We have recovered life to date $268,672 from FEMA. And I'm very glad to see FEMA money rolling in this quickly because the liquidation date is June 30th, 2030. Uh and obviously we're spending the money. We don't want we're fronting the money. You, the board, are fronting that money. So I I really prefer to have that money recovered sooner rather than later. insurance recovered
019$313,988 life to date. So we have an outstanding recovery effort of $467,371 to date >> uh yes that plus uh and and Dr. Aker could could explain this much better than me. He's in the weeds of it with FEMA, working with the consultants, working with our FEMA rep, uh, logging all this. But there's a lot of recovery of maintenance efforts that's on our books right now. That's just our regular maintenance like payroll, etc. that is in the FEMA portal that'll be recovered. So, I really anticipate when this is completely settled, and it could be June 30 of 2030, that actually we will recover more than what we will show on the books was expensed specifically for the recovery efforts. >> Um, are these final totals? Are we still are these final totals of expenditures or
020are or are we still >> No, ma'am. Uh, >> I'm most curious about freedom. >> Yeah. Uh we have a portal a FEMA portal where all the projects are listed. Uh and I don't know life to date where we stand at freedom. Uh that's where of course the line share of the money is going to be expended and I do know that Dr. Akert has several projects in the portal but if they have not hit our books yet the they are not accounted for. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Dr. Akert's right behind you. Can you add >> Okay. >> Can you speak to that a little more, Dr. Aker? >> I can. Um, with FEMA, we've got uh several projects that are, like Mr. Lawson said, that are uh in the FEMA portal. Let me
021get my information pulled up here. So, we've got one, two, three, four, five, six obligated FEMA projects at this point. And it's like Mr. Lawson said, some of those projects are debris removal, roof repair, uh remediation of Freedom and Walter Johnson, where Surro has to come in and clean up after the flood. Uh but our biggest one of course right now is Freedom, Miss Rocket, and that's the one we're still working on. Right now, just capturing cost. This is materials and salaries, force account salaries because our employees are doing some work there too, which I'm able to capture that. I was able to capture um salaries for debris cleanup, for roof repair, anything like that where our employees were out working on Helen related uh projects, I was able to get that to document that
022salary. Those two together, we're over a million dollars right now with doc with materials and force account salary. And we're not finished. I'm still that's that's the one that's taken the longest. Of course, it's where the most damage was located. >> Do you just curious, do you have a projection of when we might wrap it up? And I mean, no pressure, just asking. Just curious. >> No pressure. Um, well, I can tell you that the um the field the concession stand is is up and ready to go. Uh, the fieldhouse is probably about 85% at this point. Um, they were dropping ceiling tiles and things like that in today and painting on the inside. So, I would hope we've got a certificate of occupancy. It's been inspected. The city has inspected it. Um, heat and
023air is installed. It's got air conditioning and heat inside of it now. So, I would venture to say probably by the middle to end of next week, we'll start moving things back in contentwise. Washers and dryers, tables and chairs, those kinds of athletic trainer tables, racks, those kinds of things. So, >> so, but there's still there's still things to be done. We, you know, today at our leadership meeting, you know, I presented to the group and and I told him, I said, "A year from now, we're still going to find things around our our facilities that Helen probably damaged uh that we'll still be repairing." Uh, but but Freedom has um it's taken a while because it it's suffered the most damage there. So, >> good job. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other questions?
024>> Awesome. Thank you, Dr. and Mr. Lawson. >> Thank you both. >> All right, moving on to student recognitions board. If you'll join me in the front >> and and I don't I don't mind adding this. The other part of my position with athletics, we're all in debt to the maintenance folks, Dr. Akre, Mr. Lawson, and the Freedom staff. The amount of time and energy that's gone in this, Dr. Aker and I were half kidding, but we're like, we've been to Freedom at some weird times this year to check on things. So, credit to those folks and all that they've done to kind of get us in the position that we're at. So, just wanted to throw that out there. Madam Chair, the board, if you guys will come down, this is our favorite time
025of a of a meeting, student recognitions. While they're coming down real quickly, I I really want to before we get into the individual recognitions, want to brag on our agriculture departments at Freedom and East. They're second to none. Re regional competitions, state competitions, community, whether it's a plant sale, uh you know, a fundraiser for a brisket sale. They do a phenomenal job of representing Burke County and agriculture across the state. So, I'll recognize students first, then we'll go to the teachers, but uh it's for for CT it's it's definitely one of our uh star programs and we really appreciate all that they do. So, everybody, if you will, I'll first recognize East Burke uh FFA. I'll call you up. Uh they've got the North Gold Chapter Award, Livestock Evaluation, and or Old Northstate degree. As
026I call you up, you guys will come up. I'm going to hand these certificates to Dr. and we'll get going with some of these student recognitions. So for East Burke High School FFA National Gold Chapter Award, Briana Walker, Mark Calvin Curtis, Hudson Lince, Hayden Dale, Emma Hildrren, Kim Carell, Trevor Freilley, and Seth Ward. Congratulations on the National Gold Chapter Award. Continuing on with East Burke livestock evaluation, Josie Young, Heaven Waycastaster, Logan Browning, and Adrien Rodriguez. Congratulations. and the old North State degree. Got a couple repeaters. So, if you'll come back up here and get it if your name's called. Brianna Walker, Hudson Lince, Mark Calvin Curtis, Hayden Dale, Jackie Beck, and Dalton King. Congratulations. This time too, I'd also like to bring up Mr. Daniel Sartin and Malachi Curtis, a teachers at East High School.
027Again, these programs uh succeed because of the leadership provided by these two folks right here. Uh so again, what a great group of folks up here and we appreciate all they do. It's a good problem, Miss Shuffer, when you got this many people to squeeze in, isn't it? Congratulations, Eastburg FFA. We'll move on to Freedom High School FFA. Again, uh really proud of everything you guys do. First, we'll be uh recognizing the National Silver Chapter Award. Want to call your name? Please come up. Katherine Bridges, Caleb Pearson, Addison Allen, Randy Davis, Reese Garrison, Emily Terry. Congratulations. National Shiver Chapter Award. We will also be recognizing the old North State degree, Gracie Gillson and Jacob Browning from Freedom. Congratulations. Also like to bring up Mr. Dustin Haggler, Mr. Gavin Riddle, uh, FFA teachers and a teachers
028at Freedom High School. Again, I'll put our four a teachers up against anybody in the state of North Carolina. So, if you want to call me bias, I'll I'll wear it. Mr. Hagel, you're definitely going to have to stand in the back. congratulations freedom and again we want to promote that a lunchon tomorrow here 12 o'clock so uh things should work out great if I know anything about those four guys and their programs uh you will not go away hungry and the food will be good and uh the uh conversation the uh enlightenment of the program will also be well. So look forward to that. Uh one more recognition tonight and I'm going to start it. I feel like she's been here a couple times over the last couple years and I think that speaks
029to the job she's doing at East Middle. But I'm going to start with a quote that got out of the newspaper and it kind of sums up everything. I'm excited to bring what I've learned back to my students, colleagues, and school community. I think that speaks volumes of Miss Gladen that she genuinely is excited to bring back her experiences to her students, East Middle, the other middle school PLTWs and community. And uh Miss Gladen recently was one of uh several hundred teachers throughout the nation. Again, she's one of our CT teachers and PLTW teachers that was selected to participate. Let me get make sure I get this right. The transatlantic outreach program fellowship in Germany. She spent two weeks I think June 14th through like the 28th. Yep. All right. Pretty good. During the twoe
030study, she visited schools, businesses, university, government offices, culture institutions to gain a deeper understanding of how different country addresses their needs as it relates to educational purposes uh that we that we tackle, we challenge. Um, so again, Miss Gladen has also won the Burough's Welcome Fund scholarship. Uh, she continues to be a uh, leader in our community, our school system, and she's now become additionally a leader at the state level and the nationwide level. So, Miss Gladen, if you'll come up, we'd like to recognize you for all you do for your students in Burke County Public Schools. Yep. Let's get a picture. Congratulations again, Miss Glad. Thank you. That concludes recognition. No, just drop >> if you can. All right. Vice Chair Wyoff, do we have any public comment for tonight? >> We do not.
031>> Awesome. >> All right, moving on to the consent agenda items. We have open session minutes from June 16th and June 23rd as well as close session minutes for June 16th. What is the pleasure of the board? >> Make a motion to accept. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Beck, second by Miss Taylor. All those in favor indicate by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. Consent agenda passes unanimously. All right. Remember we moved the board discussion up. So we have the personnel board action report with Mr. Recker. Good evening. Welcome. Any questions in regards to the personnel report? If none for your approval. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Wall. >> Second by Mrs. Rocket. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor indicate by
032saying I. >> I. Those opposed? Nay. Eyes have it. Uh, personnel board action report has been approved. Thank you, Mr. Recorder. Next, we have a board amendment, budget revision with Mr. Lawson. >> Yes, ma'am. Budget revision number one for the year. Uh, I won't go through each line item, but I'll certainly be happy to entertain any questions uh you may have. Do we have any questions or do we have a motion? >> Make a motion to approve. >> Motion to approve by Mr. Beck. Do we have a second? >> Second by Mr. Wyoff. Any further discussion? All those in favor indicate by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. >> All right. >> Do we have the school construction? >> So, we didn't quite get enough uh feedback from our um
033surveys, which is fine. Um, we did capture a lot of plus deltas in those that conversation throughout the day. So, we're going to give leave that survey up for another week. Kind of readress this in September. Love to get Miss Rocket on some tours maybe within the month of September prior to um this so we can maybe hop in the truck and go for a day trip on some of these cool campuses if that works in your schedule. >> Absolutely. We'll figure it out. >> We'll pick a day. Um, as again um I think some of we did capture a lot of photographs and some things that we saw. I feel my group and I think Dr. Utton's group, we captured a lot of things that we really like, things that we weren't so pleased
034with and and just kind of a combination of both. Um so if anybody wants to vocalize that, we once again we'll we'll pick up this conversation. Um I think it's important to have the full board's um attention on this as well. So >> well, if you want to just postpone this because I do want Sonia to have um the opportunity to see >> same things we've seen. So >> y >> cool to postpone September. >> Okay. >> Sweet. >> And once again, the public meetings for Ikard Hillbrand look at your calendars and here again I'm going to get with Mr. Akard. He'll call DOT again and get an update. Uh we called them at the end of school last year. They didn't want to do it at the end of the school nor over the
035summer because of traffic patterns. So we're hopeful that they can get in there the first week, second week of school, maybe first week in September. have us report back by the 23rd 25th so that we can kind of report that back to you as well for the statutory require requirement. >> Okay. All right. And then are we >> so considering the >> I'm sorry. Yes. Architect contract. So we have already um unofficially um gone into a um under a $50,000 contract with um McMillan Paza and Smith which is Hamilton Courts company. Um, so because they've done some work for us in the prep work already, so we're allowed to go into contract with them, but I'm going to let Mr. Campbell kind of elaborate a little bit on that. >> Sure. Good evening, board. So
036this is a a good watershed moment with the architecture firm of McMillan Paz and Smith to have this conversation. So many of you that have been on the board for years know that there is a statute that when you enter into before you enter into negotiations with an architect, there's usually a selection process. This is for architects, engineers, surveyors. So the statute has a selection process in which you put it out there for qualifications. You then review the qualifications, decide which firm you think is the most qualified, and then you enter into actual negotiations on a contract. There's a very important exception to that called the prototype exception. And the state of North Carolina established that that if a school is going to be built off a prior design of the school and you use
037the selection process for that school and you're using the architect of record who has ownership of that particular prototype, then you don't have to go through a full selection process. And that makes sense because hopefully there's economies of scale. You're going to be saving money by using a prototype and your construction cost and lower design costs and whatnot. So, the firm that has the prototype that you've been working off of for Hildebrand is this particular firm and architect Hamilton Court specifically. So, while Dr. Swan has the authority to enter into this initial contract of up to $50,000 for some initial work. In conversation, we thought this was a good time to bring to the board that unless the board wants to do something differently. All the design work has been premised off a prototype. Hamilton
038Court has been before you. He's given you reports. He's giving you other things. So, this is a good moment to understand that really moving forward the architect contract to build the school that we will bring to you will be with Hamilton Court. It will be with his firm. And we just wanted to make sure that you understood that and the public understood that now because you will not be going through a selection process. But again, it's because this is a prototype school and that you've got the legal authority to do that. Uh I believe this district did that before with Mountain View. Mountain View was the most recent school in 2018. >> But you also worked off a prototype and we've got a lot of school clients that have used this prototype approach. So I
039have no concerns legally. I know your administration has no concerns and has enjoyed their relationship with Hamilton and working on this particular school. We just wanted to stop and make sure that the board was okay with that. you understand the next thing that will come to you will be the full-blown architect contract that will be negotiated and that will be for you to approve. >> So tonight's moreformational. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Yes. We just didn't want somebody to be surprised and say why are we be being presented with a very expensive architect contract and we didn't know that was coming or we haven't entered into a selection process. That's why. >> Very good. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions, concerns? Awesome. All right. Well, we do have need for close motion. So, I
040move that the board of education enter close session pursuant to general statute section 143-318.11 for the following purposes under subsection A1 to prevent the disclosure of privileged or confidential personnel information pursuant to general statute section 115 C-319-321 which includes employee matters and under subsection A3 to discuss matters protected by the attorney client privilege Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. Johnson. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. We are now in close session. >> And as a reminder, board, we will make our way up to the small room where we had we we break bread. >> Very good.