001First off, teacher of the year. Uh we were able to finally get away and recognize the teacher of the year today. Uh Miss Melissa Mccclure, fourth grade teacher at Drexel Elementary School. Uh we were able to work with Paramount Ford out of Ba. Uh and you'll the picture in a video shortly. Uh the new car that she received. In the past, we've been doing the the presentation of the car at a board meeting. So, no one really in in regular board meeting fashion. We'd keep rolling through the meeting as this teacher of the year would go out and receive her car. So, we wanted to be part of it. Um um Mr. Wyoff and Miss Beecher were there with us as we celebrated this teacher today. So, we were able to sneak in through the
002school, um, met her class and surprised her. And then we walked her out to the back of the campus and surprised her, uh, with her car. So, if I can get the video to work, Dr. Several school members, Dr. Wilson are here. to congratulate Mrs. Mccclure on being our teacher of the year for B County Public Schools. [Music] Congratulations. Great teachers. Another Oh my goow. Those were her teammates that were jumping in the car with her take the car for a ride. So that was a great experience. Come on. Now my face is probably Yeah. All right. Um, as you see up here, we have we're recognizing our elementary science fair winners. Um, first place winners from Oakill Elementary, second place from Iikard, third place from Glenn Alpine. Uh, so we had a great representation
003of our science projects. Um, and then we actually had a sci a middle school science fair winner take first in the state. Miss Bailey Heat from Table Rock Middle School uh did a phenomenal job representing Burke County Public Schools at the state level. Uh, so congratulations to her and we'll recognize her as well. Also, we had math count. Several of you were on hand for math counts. over the years that I've been able to be directly involved with math counts, it still blows my mind how quick some of the students, elementary students can get the uh the problems, get them solved without a calculator, without pen and paper most times. Uh and two of our winners up here, uh one Ezekiel M from Mountain View Elementary and Elijah P from Hillrest Elementary. Uh so those
004teams consist of uh they're co-ed teams. Uh they have a runner up, so they're they're put into rooms. We have individual award winners uh and then we actually have the whole team that uh based on the the amount of points that they receive. Also, um I know Miss Beer and I we had the opportunity I believe Mr. Camp was at the construction rodeo as well. Great opportunity, great partnership. Burke County started it several years ago. Uh correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Rogers, but in conjunction with Western Pemont and it was just a few high school teams and now it's grown. It's a all of our counties. We have McDow, Kataba, and Caldwell County high schools that take place over at the uh construction rodeo. Uh and we, as you see here, we had first,
005second place uh from Eastburg High School and our top 10, we had Drawn High School, Freedom High School, and Robert El Patton. And some of the prizes they they give away, Makita tool sets, uh DeWalt sets, uh for the kids that compete. Um, so just it was a great opportunity for them to get out there, meet with vendors. We had some electrical companies there, some home builders there that are potentially wanting to hire some of these students. And it goes hand inand with our um our opt-in partnership that we do um with BDI work Burke where we have we have 30 seniors signed up right now that will shadow do job shadows over the summer. uh they'll get certificates as food safe um different types of certificates throughout the year um or throughout the summer
006and then if that's something that they want to continue with then they can be employed with that company moving forward. Uh we we've had a lot of great success with that. So kudos to our CT department and our partnership with Western Pemont Community College for the construction rodeo. Also another a um CTE highlight, we had our a day where all fifth graders across the county were able to attend either East High School or Freedom High School to see their um what a agriculture day means. Uh so they had livestock, they had um they had some judging going on. Uh of course they had different stations and one thing that resonated with me when I went to those campuses, the teacher wasn't leading that. it was the A students that were leading the groups of fifth
007graders around. Uh so that's another leadership component that they have to be members of FFA. Uh so we coach Rogers, this is our second year doing third year doing uh the A day. So it's it's been a great uh transition for that and we're happy that the all the fifth graders uh can come out and do that. So great great community. Also happy to announce uh another CTE highlight. Uh Burke County Schools, Freedom and East High School uh received a $100,000 grant. Uh that grant is going to be used to purchase two vehicles for those agriculture programs to help, as you see, they're hauling food now. They're hauling uh live livestock back and forth with trailers. So, they're doing a lot of things. Uh and with our legis our legislators, our general assembly were able
008to help sponsor that as well. So, want to thank everyone involved for allowing us to get that. And those trucks will have wraps, custom wraps on them. One to highlight Freedom A and then the other one to highlight uh Eastburg egg. Also, this is no secret to Burke County. Celebrity Chef Jet Tila came to East High School. All of our high school stu students in foods two classes were able to visit with Chef Jet Tila. uh and I didn't really know who Jet Tila was and I was schooled very quickly by some of the youngsters um on who this gentleman was. So he he is a phenomenal speaker uh even a better chef um and and from what he started with he was a high school's dropout. So that was his message to our students
009in there to say guys stay with school but also we understand there's road bumps along the way um but we can pick ourselves up by the bootstraps is was kind of his message. He he worked in agriculture when he was a young boy, went back to school and finished his high school diploma. Um, so his family had farms, so he was able to kind of take what he learned at the farms and articulate it into cooking and he's done phenomenal. Um, and Mr. Wall, he he won first round of celebrity chef challenge. Mr. Wall, is that right? Food Network. Um, and we were actually I was he he sent me a message and said, "Watch it." So I watched it. I said, "Is this live?" He said, recorded, but he knew he won when he
010was here. Uh, but of course could not release anything. So, Mr. Wall was able to text him that evening when he watched him win and he got a text back and said, "Thanks for, you know, thinking about me." So, just having those networks is very uh very cool. Also like to shout out to our East High School Lady Cavaliers. They made it to the um the semi-finals uh for our state playoffs in basketball. um they they continue to excel in athletics and academics at East High School. So, um we we wanted to do a quick shout out to them as well. Also, um I think I was sick with CO when we had Letterland, unfortunately. So, I had to miss out on that. Um I regretted being homesick, but we had we had central office
011full of little feet. Um and we did letter letter Letterland is our phonics um for the younger grades and basically sound acquisition um kicking king munching mic what are some other red robot as you see here. So our staff and several other outside folks c came over wore costumes for the students to come by uh it was and you see kicking wait kicking king was Mr. Gardener and whirl queen Dr. Autton. So, several years ago, we used to do a program um where we had our exceptional children's students come over and they did trick-or-treating at central office. Uh something that we like to kind of, you know, it gets boring over there for some of the folks that are stuck in the building. I have the opportunity to get out and about and and go
012to different schools, but this is great for them to see students interact with the students. Uh a lot of the folks that we have at central office of course started in our schools. So now they've moved on into something else. Also robotics um if you've not been to our robotics competition phenomenal for those for for you to watch that especially at Glenn Alpine Elementary School. Uh for those of you that recall Thunder um Mad Max return to Thunder Thunderdome with Tina Turner. I like to say Glenn Alpine is Thunderdome. are competing with the robots, those elementary students. Then when we get to our middle school students, how they compete, it is all hands on deck. They're laser focused on what they're doing. These specific robots, you you have to code them to make turns. And
013as you see the turns, some of them have to be curved turns or some of them have to be 90 degree angles. And we're actually going to do a little presentation with you guys at our May institute, our board institute. So Dr. Abernathi is going to be working on that as well. Uh Oakill was overall winner. Mountain View took first place. Oakill first place in STEM and George Hilderbrand took first place in creativity. So kudos to that group and kudos to the teachers that put the time in after school to do that as well. Also like to do a shout out to Mr. Malik Harris. We just found this out I believe today, didn't we? We got an email uh or late last night. Um Malik won the American Legion ortorial contest. first plate first
014place in the state. We've had several I've been a local judge before and we've gotten them to the state level, but we've never had anyone win the state level. So Malik's next challenge, he he's going to compete nationally for a $25,000 scholarship. So that's just phenomenal. Malik is a senior at Freedom High School. Um so we'll we'll get him over here if his busy schedule allows to recognize him as well. Also update on playground equipment at Valdis Elementary. uh having a conversation with Dr. Akre. They will be starting in May uh with Vowies. Um long overdue. Um so we were able to get uh find some funds for a great playground equipment and it's going to the mulch is going to be gone. Um we're very happy that the mulch is going to be gone.
015No more uh what I consider just the the the seepage coming out of the mulch um when it rains or when it gets hot. So we're happy about that. Also, um we will become um doing a school bus driver's class. And I believe we are we've got a new attorney uh here with us tonight and lives in Ba. So if you wanted to get signed up for one of these bus driver classes, we could definitely use you. Um so that that will be at central office for at 8:30 on May 5th, 6th, and 8th. Um and and here again, spread the word at your churches. Spread them. Just some folks that you may know that would like to drive bus. The money is decent. Um we've had several we we did an incentive program last
016two years ago um and and increase the driver pay for our teachers so they were able to kind of see okay this will help out with retirement um when I finally get to retirement. Also some calendar reminders inclusive talent show is coming up April 11th at the comma. If you haven't got your tickets uh please let me know and I can get those sent out or I believe those you should have had your tickets in front of you with your shirt. Um, so that'll be a great and it's not just our our exceptional children's students that are going to be performing. Um, the I know the chorus at Mountain View is going to be performing as well. Saw a student a sneak peek a one of our um, exceptional children at East High School was
017playing the piano with a a group of female students singing behind him. So, I'm super excited to see that. Also um happy to announce that tomorrow is our first night of our online safety program with Mr. Sain in conjunction with our Burke County Sheriff's Department. So I'm excited that for that tomorrow at Patton High School at 6 and April 3rd at Heritage Middle School. So looking forward to seeing our families come out and and see that presentation. Also like to highlight North Liberty Prom May 2nd, Special Olympics May 9th at Patton High School. And just a reminder, our board meeting next week is on Tuesday. Uh we had some scheduling conflicts on Monday. So once again, it will be on Tuesday the 8th. Also, uh just this is just for your information. Miss Pam will
018send out more detailed information for graduation. I know it's just a quick snapshot for you right now, but she'll have make sure that those graduation dates are on your calendars. Also, transfer period uh has begun. Uh transfers basically if if parents live out of our out of a school district, they they have the option to transfer for $50 if approved. Um and there's a lot of different things with transfers that the schools consider. Um several years ago, uh it was up to the district office to decide if transfers should go and we put that back in the the hands of the principles to determine they're the ones that have to deal with these students on a regular basis. Um so they look at discipline, they look at attendance, multiple factors that they look decide if
019they're going to allow a student to come to that school. Uh, and as you'll see here, we are closed at Heritage Middle School, Mountain View Elementary, North Liberty, Liberty Middle School, 8th grade's closed, Freedom High School is closed, and our BCP BCPF self-contained classrooms are closed. So the biggest reason some of these are closed, if you had any questions on that, is so for example, if we have 300 students at Heritage Middle School, we get funding for those 300 students at for at the state level. And if we continue allow nondists coming into that school and it increases the class sizes, we have to break up one class and hire an additional teacher. That additional teacher comes from local funding. Um, so we want to try to pull back on that local funding so that
020we can utilize that money somewhere else. Um, so that's kind of why if you get questions, why is why are these schools closed? As I always revert them back to myself, um, and we can explain that to them. But there is the process of that here. Again, the discipline, uh, the attendance and grades are all taken very heavily in that transfer process. also like to um as you recall last week um by reading the newspapers um we had some things going on in the town of Drexel and I'd like to first highlight the town of Drexel uh for what they did uh during that um and also just highlight our partnerships with Burke County Sheriff's North Carolina Highway Patrol, North Carolina Wildlife, Town of Glenn Alpine, uh once again town of Drexel, Morgan Public Safety,
021and Baldies Police. Uh I I like to look at these these are all of our law enforcement partners. Uh we we appreciate them what they do. We appreciate what they do on a regular basis. Uh and Dr. Sain has continued to mold that relationship with those organizations as well. Uh so we want to publicly thank the town of Drexel and Chief Richie uh for taking care of that situation and keeping us uh in the loop when it was our turn to be informed. Um, so here again, a lot of things out there that uh misconceived within the community. So once again, we're going to continue to follow what law enforcement tells us to do. Also wanted to highlight our finish strong and we had our leadership meeting today with our folks and we'll have our
022principles meeting next Wednesday. Um, so 30 instructional days left after today. So that is hard to believe. 30 instructional days and then we take we have a spring break mixed in there as well. Um, so we're we're coming down and and it's all we're all in it to finish strong. Our students are, of course, our why. That's why I wake up every day, not letting distractions get in the way as we keep the main thing the main thing, which is our students and their education. As always, we'll keep you updated as we get directions on changes coming down from the state and federal levels. Uh, here again, there's things that we still don't know. uh we can we can tell the public, we can tell the newspapers what we think we know and it may
023change within a few days. So, we're gonna as soon as we get information on what could potentially come down, you guys will be the first to know about it. Um and then again, thank you guys for your leadership uh what you're doing. You're several of you guys are a few months into your job. Uh and oftentimes you're probably realizing it's a thankless job right now. um and the ones that have been through it. I appreciate everyone and thank you guys for what you're doing for our students. All right, Madam Chair, those are my highlights. Thank you, Dr. Swan. Um we are going to go around for a second. Um I believe uh Mr. Wyoff had some sentiments he wanted to share and if anybody else would like to um chime in, feel free and then
024I'll wrap it up. Yeah. One thing I wanted to too is also say um thank you very much to Drexler Police Department and their work in preventing you know what could have been a terrible situation. I'm also thankful that God put a hedge of protection around our kids, our schools and um our officers too, you know, who went in and performed executed the area search warrant. And uh we all have kids, grandkids sitting around here. And so I appreciate everything that they did to prevent anything from happening. And I believe that um us as a school district, us as a community, we should be extremely grateful right now for uh the blessings that we had last week. We all agree. No, I was just going to say I would just like to reiterate what Jamie
025just said because they handled it perfectly. There were there were no incidences. There were no there were nobody was ever in danger. It was handled at the right time by the right people in the right way. And it was it was just just hats off to our tiny town of Drexel and their police department. They did a phenomenal job. All right, so I'll wrap it up. Uh, I wrote it down so I don't forget anyone. Um, we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the law enforcement agencies for their swift and coordinated response to the recent incident in Drexel. We understand how challenging it can be to manage these situations, but your teamwork and dedication led to a successful arrest and helped ensure the safety of our community and schools. We also want to
026thank our school administration, including Miss Cheryl Shuffler and Dr. Dr. Dylan Sain for their prompt action in notifying parents and taking all necessary steps to maintain a secure environment for our students and staff. Your leadership and clear communication were vital in helping everyone stay informed and reassured. Additionally, we deeply appreciate our school staff for their continued vigilance, professionalism, and care during this time. Your awareness and attentiveness play a critical role in keeping our school safe each and every day. Thank you all for your unwavering commitment to the community and well-being for our student staff. Ditto. So, we're going to go ahead and move forward. Um, I believe it's Dr. Lanni Simpson with English learners and dual language. Good evening board and madame chair and vice chair. I'm grateful to be able to have the opportunity
027just to share with you a little bit about the programs that I work with. Uh and we'll start with English learners first. So who are English learners? These are students who speak a language at home other than English and they are still acquiring the English language at school. So how many English learners or multilingual learners do we have in Burke County? We have nearly 1,500 English learners or multilingual learners in our district. Um this represents a little over 13% of our total student population. And this is the segment of our population that continues to grow while we're experiencing a plateau or even a downturn in other segments of the population. And so let's take a look at the characteristics and the home languages of these students. So a as I shared earlier, an English learner
028is a student who has a language other than English at home. And so what are the languages that most of these students speak at home? If you'll notice the large blue portion of the pie, this represents, as you could imagine, Spanish. and it's um about 79% of the students who speak a language other than English at home is Spanish. And then you'll notice that the percentage drops precipitously for the next category, the very dark blue piece of the pie. That is our Mong population. And at this point, we have about 167 students who speak Mong at home. Um the Spanish speaking population has eclipsed the Mong population over the years. And as you can see, we have many, many more Spanish speakers than Mong. And then we have many different languages. What you see in
029the top five here are Central American dialects, perhaps languages you've never heard of. Aguao, ma'am, Mayan dialects and we also have Vietnamese speaking students, Kame students from Cambodia, many different languages that we have in Burke. It's a little over 22 different languages. So, it's a very diverse population. So, I'd like to share with you that multilingual learners really do double the work. So they are working to meet the same challenging state academic standards in reading, math, science, and social studies as all students and yet at the same time they are developing English proficiency. So I want to bring this home to us and let's think about that in our own context. And so I want us to put ourselves in their shoes. So let's say you're working for an engineering for firm here in Morgan
030and let's say you have a community college degree and your firm really believes in you. Your firm happens to have a plant outside of Paris and they want to send you and your and your family so that you can work at their plant outside of Paris. They also believe in you so much that they want to pay your tuition at the Sorban University in Paris. So you can get that fouryear engineering degree, but the students that you will be going to school with are native French speakers. you are really going to need that French as a second language teacher to support you and help you to acquire French while you're earning that degree. That's what our students do and that's how our teachers support them. So, let's look at our small but mighty staff. We
031have 24 teachers, two teacher assistants, we have lead teacher who functions as an instructional coach and she also mentors new ESL teachers. And then there's myself. Our teachers have an average case load of about 60 students. the language instructional plan that we have to turn into the department of public instruction every year. We detail how we serve those students. And as you could imagine, as these students English language proficiency increases, our services to them decrease. So we work on a sliding scale depending on our how well our students are doing with learning English. Okay, let's talk about dual language now. So, what kind of dual language immersion program do we have in Burke? It's known as a two-way program. And this is where half of our students in the program are native Spanish speakers. Spanish
032is the target language for our dual language programs here in Burke. uh as you can imagine it's a reflection of our community and then half of the students are native English speakers. So the native Spanish speakers serve as language models for the native English speakers and the native English speakers serve as models for the native Spanish speakers when they switch to English class. So it's a beautiful marriage of students who speak both languages. So how does dual language immersion work? How do students learn the new language? When you think about the way you learned a new language in high school or college, uh you were probably learning a lot of boring grammar rules and learning how to conjugate verbs. These students are actually learning Spanish through content areas of math, science, and social studies. And
033the teachers support them with language learning strategies so that they can learn the science, the math, and the social studies. How do dual language teachers know what to teach? They teach the exact same standard course of study that the English speakaking teachers teach. And another question might you might have is will the same lesson be repeated in English and Spanish? No, we don't have time for that. Lessons build. So, a student may be spending half of their day learning in Spanish and then the other half of the day learning in English. So, let's take a look at a K the K2 um model uh at Mountain View Elementary, which is our oldest dual language program. So, we're going to spend the morning with the bilingual teacher. Those students are going to have Spanish language arts.
034They're going to have small group reading in Spanish. They're also going to have science in Spanish and math in Spanish. At the midway point of the day, about lunchtime, they're going to switch classes and they're going to spend the afternoon with the English speaking speaking teacher. and she's going to of course teach English language arts and social studies will be taught in English and then math will also be taught in English because we spend so many minutes in math that we need to teach it in both languages. So that is what a typical day would look like for our dual language students. The global immersion academy that we have at Mountain View, as I mentioned earlier, that's our oldest program. We started it in 2018. It's fully articulated. We add a grade every year and
035bring in a new Spanish speaking teacher. So, at this point, it's fully articulated. Kindergarten through fifth grade. We have two home rooms for each grade level and 240 students total are participating in the global immersion program at um Mountain View. We have um we partner with Participate Learning. It's an international teacher recruitment firm that goes all over the world to recruit uh dual language teachers. We have teachers currently from Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Honduras, and Jamaica. So, from all over Central America. We also have a dual language prek at Hillrest Elementary. They alternate days in the one day they have classes in English and the next day in Spanish. We also are beginning a dual language program next year at Forest Hill Elementary. You can see here the front page of the brochure that we
036put out. This is a self-contained program, which means that one teacher will be perfectly bilingual and biliterate and she will teach the morning in English and then she will teach the afternoon in Spanish. And we do that because of the size of Forest Hill. So, we will only have one classroom uh for each grade level. Next year will be kindergarten. And the dual language program at Forest Hill as well as Hillrest and Mountain View is considered a district-wide program. anyone can apply and um these students families must provide transportation if they're out of district, but we wave transfer fees for those families. We also um began our middle school dual language program this year in sixth grade. It's at Walter Johnson and it was a no-brainer really because Walter Johnson already has 62% of their
037population are heritage or native Spanish speakers. So, we felt like this would be a good fit and um we are very excited about it. Sixth grade, if you'll look at the schedule and read across on that top row for uh the sixth grade dual language students, they have English language arts and math in English. And then in They have social studies, science, and they have an option to take a world language elective as well. When students move to seventh and eighth grade, it is strictly a world language elective. It's year long and those students will have the opportunity to earn high school credit while they're at the middle school. So, it's a huge win for those students. And so, we also help those students to grow global competencies in addition to um learning the four
038domains of language and they do a really great job. Currently the teacher from at Mountain View is from Bailey's and again these students will earn the high school credits and those students also will be eligible for the seal of biiteracy on their diploma. As you all know as passes, the world grows smaller and it's truly a global economy. These students are going to be poised to be bilingual and biiterate and also be comfortable moving in and out of cultures. So, we are super excited about our program and we'd be happy to entertain any questions you might have. I have one um for students that we have and I believe this is probably a question for Dr. Odin, Dr. Swan and Dr. Simpson. Um students that we have that come to our schools regardless of the
039grade that they come to us in. If they are a native, this is Spanish speaker, they come to us, let's say now, and we have EOGs going on, do they receive any exemption from testing? Do they receive their tests in their native language? No, they do not. Um, North Carolina has mandated that English is the language of instruction except for world language classes and dual language classes and all assessment is in English. And so we flip-flop the coursework content areas like for K2 we you saw we had Spanish language arts, science and math and then it but in 35 we flipped that and so science is taught in English. That's purposeful because we know that fifth grade EOG science is coming down the pike. So no, they are tested in English completely and dual language
040closes the achievement gap better than any um research that we've seen. Um and this is nationwide. It increases achievement dramatically. So around almost 10% of our population is multilingual. 13 Well, it's actually Those are English learners. We also have students who've exited the program and students who come to us fully bilingual. They're called navvers. So, it's actually much greater than that. It's really around 26%. Thank you. Next, we have Dr. Abernathy with testing accountability and advanced learning. Good evening, Madame Chair and board members. Thank you for this opportunity to share a little with you about um the two departments um testing and accountability and advanced learning. So, AIG, um, our academically intellectually gifted students are actually served under article 9B. Um, and I've actually put the hyperlink there. Um, article 9B kind of gives each
041district the guidelines for what should be in our plan, how we serve our students, um, the funding cap, uh, for how much we get funded per year. Um, and it actually all comes from the general assembly uh, 115C. So the total number of students that we have in Burke County Public Schools is um about 11,77 based on our last PMR. Um the total number of students we serve in our AIG department um is 2,174 and that's K12. Um which comes out to be about 19.6% of our student population that we serve um through the advanced learning department. And um we receive 4% funding um from the state of um North Carolina. That is capped out. We're 4% cap. Um which means that about 15.6% of our students do not get funded. Um so we actually
042have to find other ways and local ways and we've applied for some grants and things like that to help with some of the costs to provide for AIG. Um so last year our annual budget was $658,729. um for our annual budget. So some of the services that we provide for our academically intellectually gifted students um we have a program in our K2 um we call pets which stands for primary education thinking skills. Um it's actually a program that we um have set up through a Google classroom to where um teachers have access to be able to pull resources and lessons and um educational games. um a lot of resources in that classroom that they can pull from and do many lessons with students because what they're doing is they're trying to look for um different
043characteristics of gifted students. Um and so we go through those processes for all of our students in K2 um to help provide enrichment activities. Um and then we start looking um and if we have um students that are meeting certain criteria, then we place them on a talent development list. And so we track that group of students until second grade. And then second grade, we have a universal screener that we offer. Um I'm sure you've heard Kogat. We just recently gave it a couple weeks ago to all of our second graders um to help identify any of our IQ kids um that could place for AIG um that way. Then students can also be identified in other ways um and we'll talk about those three different pathways in just a few minutes. Um I have
044a slide for that. Um, we do serve third through 12th grade, really K12 in some form or capacity, but third through 12th grade students once they're placed in AIG, have something called a D, which stands for a differentiated education plan. Um, it's a plan that's customized to them based on their needs and their strengths and some of their weaknesses of things they need to work on. Um, we re revisit this plan yearly because we want it to be a working document for the classroom teacher in the school. Um, so we have teachers revisit that with parents every parent teacher conference annually. We also do um TE transition meetings um both when they go to middle school and then again when they go to high school just to make sure that parents understand what opportunities are
045out there for their students. So how can students place? Well, there are three different pathways in our local plan that we have um created. Um and our plan runs for three years at a time. Um, we're actually in the process now of working on the plan because it ends uh in July of 2025 this year. And so we will be uh coming to you very soon in the next couple months asking you to approve a new revised plan um that will last from 2025 to 2028. So the first pathway is that students have to score 97% or above on one of our achievement tests which could be EOG uh BOG member BOG that's the beginning of grade assessment for third grade. Um Iowa achievement and then also they can place through aptitude which is our
046KOAT test. Um pathway two means that they have to score 93% or higher on one of the achievement test. They have a 90% or higher on the aptitude and they have to have a 22 plus on the TRS. And TRS is um our teacher uh rated instrument that teachers use to give feedback on what they're seeing in the classroom so that it's not just based on testing alone. Pathway three is actually something that came from our last revision. Um before we had an old portfolio process that was very rarely used. Um, so when we started really looking at the last pathway, we wanted to look at equity too. We wanted to look to see are all of our schools at the same advantage of placing kids. And so we were able to factor in a
047local norm, a national norm, a state norm um for this pathway three. So you see it's pretty much we track the students in pathway three that come really close and we're watching those students because we've actually um included some factors and some ways that they can place that the school is already utilizing without us having to pull them out and test them again. Um we use um test scores but we also use star assessment we use grades and motivational scale that is filled out by the school. So what areas do we place? Well we place IG which intellectually gifted. We place AIG which is both reading and math um both for IQ academically gifted and math only academically reading only and then academically intellectually gifted which means they've placed both with academic and um IQ
048as well. So you will see two documents on this slide. Um one is our plan that I was discussing earlier. it does um end this year, this summer. And so we were in the process right now uh this next week, we're going to send out a parent survey to our AIG parents. And um we last week, we sent out a plan to our a survey to our teachers asking for some input. Um and so once we get everything um from the surveys, then we will restructure and revise our plan for the next three years. Um the we also include a AIG handbook which kind of goes over parents rights. Um and so that is also linked to our website as well along with our AIG plan. So some professional development opportunities that we have um
049for teachers um in different schools. Um we have a Google classroom that we've created with tons of teacher resources on it for both reading and math. um that has lesson plans, resources, things they can pull to use in their classroom. We also have provided professional development in math, reading, STEM, rigor, differentiation for different schools. Um we kind of base it on what the principal feels like they need as far as the teachers that they're serving in their building. Um, also we have a yearly Canvas course that we do called our local endorsement where any new teacher that comes in and is teaching AIG students, they have a year to receive that local endorsement. Another opportunity they can do is a regional endorsement through RESA and that's usually in the summer which will make them um
050licensed to be able to teach in any school within the region instead of just Burke County Public Schools. Um, also we did um PD at several individual schools again based on need. You've probably heard of junior grade books and hands-on equations and some of those things um that we've worked with teachers on this year. We've also provided um AP advanced placement um teacher training with College Board this year um to try to help support our AP teachers in the high school with those courses. Um so Steam Academy, I'm sure you've heard of that. that is um we actually have two full labs over at Western Pedmont Community College campus. Um we actually do three interactive hands-on learning project units um that really cover crosscurricular standards. Um we also while thinking about the unit we try
051to think of local business industry and we I think it's super important for the kids to know and be exposed to what's available in their community. Um, so we try to tie someone close uh within the community to that. Um, we serve all AIG students in Burke County at the Steam Academy. Um, we go into schools for one of the units, so we can work more with students um, as far as STEM and sometimes that also includes some kids that aren't necessarily identified as AIG, but are in the same class. They get to be a part of that as well. Um, elementary robotics, I'm sure you've heard of that and um, Dr. Wanda shared that in his update. Um, we just had our annual competition. Um, that's always an exciting time. And we have a
052robotics team at every single elementary school. Um, and we have applied and received several grants to implement more STEM and robotics in our middle school media centers as well. These are just a couple pictures. Um, you'll see there they're dissecting a heart. Went backwards. Sorry. Um, here they are um, working on it's a STEM related field. They're just taking some assessment and measurement. Um, here actually was one of the units that we went into the school to do where they had to program this robot um and build something to attach to it to actually deliver coffee. You'll see that the mat that they're doing it on has roads for downtown Morganson. Um, so we again tried to tie it to the community. Um, this was their forensic science lab u where they're typing uh blood
053type and they're doing uh footprints and analyzing. Um they are also doing a breakout edu box there um to try to solve the case. Um this is actually they had to build a hydraulic arm um by using just different stem related objects and then they were testing it out by picking different objects up. Um again this is one of our robots. Uh it's called the hummingbird and so um they were actually programming and building um something they they would find at a carnival. This is actually our last unit. Um, and it it was a video link. Um, but it um, they're actually working as an assembly line. Um, they have a product that they have to make for NASA and they're given certain specs and certain guidelines that they have to meet. And so they
054kind of became a challenge and a competition. And so they had a they had a time limit um, where they had to build it and then they had inspection after it was over um, for the quality check. Um so it's really it's been a unit they've really enjoyed. Um some other opportunities um outside of steam is um a lot of the opportunities that we have in our high school um are credit demonstrated mastery. Um career and college ready courses through the college in Burke Middle College. Um honors and advanced placement courses, clubs and competitions. A lot of our students participate in a lot of the uh extracurricular activities. Uh we do offer in North Carolina School of Science and Math Connect courses which are online courses through actual NCSSM instructors um NCVPS which stands for
055North Carolina Virtual Public School. We usually uh offer those courses if students cannot find the courses they're interested in taking at their high school. Like we've had some kids take Japanese or um some of those courses that aren't available at our standard high schools. Um also advanced placement courses. We do offer a couple of those that aren't taught in our schools through Apex and then also North Carolina Governor's School. So, we actually just received news that three students got accepted to Governor School this summer. So, we're really excited about that for them. Now, I'm going to transition to the Department of Testing and Accountability. Any questions about advanced learning before I transition? Just to be sure that I understood correctly, we said about 15% of our students are left unfunded. That is correct. We're capped
056out. AIG is capped out at 4% funding no matter how many students you have that qualify. Thank you. Similar to sorry, similar to DC presentation, uh we're capped at I believe 13% from the state, 16% of our population's exceptional children. So that's roughly between 60 students that are not funded that we fund supplement through local. Do we get any reimbursement for No, it's just okay. Thank you. What was it? So, Department of Testing and Accountability um we actually of course required um to do all state assessments and so the following are the required state assessments for this school year. We had bo beginning of grade which we take at the beginning of third. Uh we have third through eighth grade reading and math fifth and eighth grade science uh math 1, math 3, English 2
057and biology in our high school. We give the ACT, preACT and work keys assessments. Um we give ACT in 11th grade, preACT in 10th grade and work keys in senior year for our high school students. Um we do access testing. Um there are EL students. We do checkins um for all of the tested areas throughout the school year. Um most of those are in a two-part sequence, summer three-part where we have A, B, and C depending on those yearlong courses or semester. And then we have read to achieve um which is that is the legislation behind students making a successful score on third grade EOG or BOG. Um it's a alternate assessment to the third grade EOG. Um and then CCA is a an extend one or both alternate assessments um for students um usually
058served through an IEP and then local assessments that we do give um outside of our state assessments. We do that second grade universal screener for Kogat um for second graders and then we do star reading and math um for kind of uh progress monitoring in all of our elementary and middle schools. Just a few things that um we do as far as the testing and accountability department. We do train all school test coordinators. So every single school has their own test coordinator in the school. It's usually a teacher um or someone with extra duties that um serves as the school test coordinator. Um but they go through all of the training with us uh for test security and test trainings for every single test that we do. Uh we set up, monitor, and organize all
059the events through a platform we call NC test. You know, most of our all pretty much all of our testing now is online. Um complete reporting and weekly data cleanup for accountability reporting. Um it's a lot of information that funnels through this department um that we constantly have to audit and look at and make sure things are flowing correctly between all of our platforms and data information systems. Um we also meet with leadership principles um instructional support staff teachers to review data and understand the disagregated data that we provide. Um, we do create reports for schools because every single school has their own needs. And so, um, last year I created a secure Google drive to share with each principal at every single school with spreadsheets and, um, kind of disagregated data for their school
060so that they would be able to really use some of that to share with their staff and their teachers. And then we also complete monthly PD and training with my regional test coordinator. Um, and they complete audits to help guide our schools and student data and graduation for our high schools. We also help monitor that as well. Um, so other measures that we look at and um, work on are our school performance indicators. Um, remember EVOS is the third-party vendor that North Carolina hires to manage a lot of the data and they actually are the ones that actually calculate growth for our students on school performance. And then we also have the North Carolina school report card and then the state and federal designations as well that go along with the report card. Um, as
061far as presentations that I've done this year, this kind of just sums up a few that I've worked on and shared with different parties. Um, I've done presentations on EVOS, goal summaries, check-ins, star data, proficiency versus growth, teacher growth, student growth. Um, really anything that our principles need, I really try to um customized for their school. And this is just a great matrix that shows you what is required in the state of North Carolina for testing. Um, so that kind of gives you a big picture of each grade level and what the expectation is. Happy to entertain any questions that you may have. Um, I have a question about the ACT. We had a little fluffle. Yes, we did with the ACT um, a few weeks back. Now, was I to understand that was statewide?
062Yes. So what happened is this past year ACT and North Carolina decided that they were going to change the platform for the management system for how they control the ACT test. When I say ACT test, so preACT, ACT and work keys are all ACT test. They all flow through the same company. And so they created a website called ACT now which is a platform for test coordinators regions to manage who is taking the test, the students enrolled in the test, ACT, that's how they know what students are taking this test this day and all really the details of it. There's also another site that works off ACT now called ACTCM. TCM is test center manager. And so the test center manager software actually is what crashed that day which kept anyone taking any of those
063tests um to not be able to take those assessments. So um they told us pretty much to just close it down for the day and they had to work on the software glitches. They got it back up and running and within just a few days we were able to pick up and finish testing those students. So So we did not restart that test. We we picked up where they left off. That was a choice of the student parent. So they did have the choice if they wanted to restart from like scratch and start over then that we we allowed them to do that. ACT allowed them to do that. I say we like I have the power. Um but ACT allowed them to do that. So we had a separate session for those students to
064come in and start from scratch. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other questions? Dr. Dr. Be happy to sit down with you and go over the test results um as we've done in the past. Um so please if there's anything you guys want heard, let me know. Thank you, Dr. Abathy. All right. Now we have uh Mr. Wall with the food service contract. All right. Thank you. How is everybody tonight? Good. Good. Um, so this was the uh we're we're approaching the end of our five-year contract with Chartwells. Um it was approved five years ago and uh so beginning in September uh we began our RFP process a request per proposal. Um that's been kind of a long process that we've kind of wrapped up here and uh just just to give you a little bit of
065background what we do. Uh we the RFP itself is about 150ish pages long. We send that out to companies and they have the opportunity to bid on uh what we set as our goals for our food service program. And we had four companies that came to the pre-bid meeting and they all submitted um legal and appropriate bids. And so we invited all four of those companies in to uh to present to the to the committee. There was nine people on the committee and that was uh earlier this month and the four companies that presented uh we scored each one uh and we we uh we have suggested or we are asking the board to consider uh re-uping with Chartwells for a five-year contract that is renewable yearly. Uh it's a it's kind of a complicated
066term I guess but five-year contract renewable every year and uh just wanted to go over the highlights of some of the things that were in the contract. So the mill equivalent cost uh the previous contract it's it was 340 370 it'll be going up to 374. And you might think well why is that? Well, that's kind of what we're getting into with the rest of the the bullets here. Uh the financial guarantee, Chartwells is guaranteeing us a $400,000 yearly return and that's minus the equipment. So, we would we would uh what we spend on equipment wouldn't count towards that. They also are going to increase our food quality because uh we think our students enjoy um should enjoy even better food than what we're giving them now. So, we're going to have weekly premium days.
067Um, and right now we have monthly premium days. Uh, employee compensation is a big thing, and you'll see the chart there on the TV screen. Uh, we ask all companies to please increase uh minimum wage for our or their employees to 1450 an hour. And if they've been with us for uh since 2018, so seven years, it would increase to$,530 an hour. In addition to that, um there's significant bonuses. Uh perfect attendance bonus each quarter. Uh they get $100. Uh if they stay with us for a whole semester at Christmas, we would give a $100 bonus and then at the end of the year, we would give them another $100 bonus. So we're really trying to incentivize our employees with a new contract and that costs us a little bit more, but remember we got
068the $400,000 guarantee. So, we'll still be okay on calls. Another thing that Chartwells is offering is something that that the committee really liked that I wanted to have Aaron come and talk with us about and that's the navigate program. Good evening everyone. So, the Navigate program is an exclusive program that Chartwells has. Um, it was tested this past school year in a district up north. We were contacted by a chef whose name escapes me right now. But the Navigate program is a 12week, very extensive program um designed to provide students, particularly those from lowincome and underserved communities, with access to career opportunities they might not otherwise have. It doesn't focus just on their professional advancement. However, um it gives them skills to go to job interviews, how to balance a checkbook, obviously not public checkbooks
069anymore these days, but your online bank account. Um obviously we're going to focus most of the work here in Burke County Public Schools, but Compass, our parent company, also has relationships with Morrison's Healthcare, who does all of the local health care system. So there are opportunities there. There are also opportunities in Hickory with a division called canteen. So really focused on giving them that development. It combines classroom as well as hands-on training. Um folks would be nominated for this. It wouldn't be open to everyone obviously um because they do want to keep the size small enough so that the kids can get the focus that they need to really use that development. And our main focus obviously would be to use the food truck to get folks those types of experiences. All right. Thank you.
070That's the navigate program which is part of our new contract proposal from Chartwells. Also our food truck. Uh each school would have the food truck at their school for two times a year which was in their proposal. In addition uh we have enhanced uh coffee offerings. You know we have our coffee shops at two high schools that will end up going to all four high schools. uh probably within the fall to early winter next year, we would hope to get it in all four hospitals for those students to be able to purchase uh coffee with um with extra money. Uh so that that is the new proposal. It it was a complicated process. The books that each one of them sent are about that thick. I think we killed 47 trees. Um, but just to
071give you a synopsis of what we went through, I'll be happy to answer any questions any board member might have. I actually have a couple questions. Okay. You know, I told you I was going to keep the questions to minimum, but um, first question is, do I remember correctly that uh, the school system pays some of our some of our um, kitchen staff is employed by us and some is employed by Chartwell. So this this increase here is that for both sides of that or is that for only the chartwell employed associates? We this is just for the Chartwell's employee. I feel like uh that we have done a good job of increasing our employee. I mean I don't know what their rates are. So that's why right our our managers uh really our manager
072is the only one that that you would be you be speaking of because our hourly workers would would be making the state minimum wage. No, some of them are are ours, but there's only like five or six, but they're affected by the state minimum wage that went into effect. So, our managers make anywhere from $18ish $19 up to $25 an hour. So, they would make, you know, more because they're the manager and and they have to manage the people obviously. Yeah. So, the five or six that I don't know what state minimum wage is, I'm sorry. It's 15 1550 15. Okay. 15. All right. And then my second question is I don't know. I don't think kind of hard to see. Max is 1530 if you look at the incentive bonuses. And I didn't have
073room to put them all in here. I don't know exactly how much it bumps them up, but it's it's a rather nice little bump for I had one question regarding the navigate program. Does it at all intersect with CTE? It it would. It would. Okay. Definitely. Yep. Okay. Great. Thank you. I would ask uh for this to be on the action items for next board meeting if you see fit. Everybody good? All right. You're welcome. All right. Thank you, Mr. Wall. Thank you, Mr. Aaron. All right. We have Dr. acre uh with DHS and Duke Energy power line easement. Good evening, Madame Chair, vice chair, board members. Uh, thank you for giving me opportunity to bring um a request for an easement from Duke Power. Um just to give you a little bit of history,
074there's a large track of land beside Drone High School that is going to be developed. Um we had a request for an easement last fall from the town of Valdis uh for some sewer lift stations that will be on this development. Um, and this is a request from Duke Power uh to um provide a uh underground three-phase line uh across Drone High School's property. Now, you can take a look and see that that line is going to run uh beside the student lot uh at Drawn High School over toward the sidewalk at the football stadium and then it will run over to a transformer that is near the fieldhouse. Uh so that transformer will feed over to uh the development that is going in uh beside of Drone High School. So, this came to the
075county of Burke because this piece of property is still deed to the county of Burke. Um, so in talking with Mr. Hanning uh with Campbell Shatley, I wanted to present this to you. There is also a release deed uh that would need to be an action item uh for you to is basically to join in with the county uh in conveyance of that that easement for Duke Power to come to that transform. It's just an easement. Now, one thing that we did find um and it's very easy to miss is that right in here where the the the red line comes across right into drones uh property, this little sliver of property right here, see a little bit better on this one. This little sliver of property right in here belongs to Burke County Public
076Schools. So there's some additional paperwork that'll be need to be done since that line will need to go come under our property, the school system property to get over to the county of Burke property which is where Drone High School since right now. So, I do have the paperwork, like I said, um to be an act ask that it be an action item for next week. Um like I said, to join in with the county in that conveyance, but there'll be some additional paperwork to cross that little piece of sliver of property that belongs to the school system. You said action item is what you're requesting. Yes, please. Any questions? Anybody have any issues with the action item? All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate all. Thank you. All right. Moving on to
077the potential consent agenda items for April 8th, 2025. We have the open session minutes from February 24th and March 3rd, close session minutes from February 24th and March 3rd, as well as a personnel board information report, Mr. Keith Recker, uh, 4825. And if any questions or concerns regarding the personnel report, please remember to use the numbers. So, we have Yeah. The one. Yeah. The 48 because it looks like there's two. Yeah. No, they they'll vote on the action which is the next that's are you looking at the action report? So the information Any other questions from the board in regards to the information and then also I'm sorry and then the action. So for the consent agenda, is everyone okay with moving that to the consent item for next week as a whole or as
078as a a whole? The first list, the first personnel list. Right. So I think what Mr. Beck is talking about or referencing is the action report. Correct. Yeah. Item item six number A. But what we're okay what you're asking if we are okay to move to the consent is item five. Yeah. All of item five, A, B, and C. And C. Mhm. Okay. So, we're good. Okay. Cool. All right. So, that has been moved to next week. All right. And then the potential action agenda items for April 8th. We are going to split that into two. Yes, ma'am. Any other questions that folks might have? I think we're good. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Recker. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. All right. And then we have first reading of board policies. Dr. Autton. Good evening. Thank you.
079We have three um policies before you this evening. The first policy is 2310 public participation at board meetings. And so there were some changes that came through Campbell Shatley's office that we were asked to consider for our policy as well. So there are any questions? I'll be happy to entertain that around 2310. I have a comment, not necessarily a question, but um on page two, I think um each speaker will receive three minutes to present comments. However, the public comment session will not exceed and we had one hour and it looks like we want to change it to 30 minutes. Um, I I realize that within the board meeting if we find that we have more speakers than than can be heard in 30 minutes that we can change that rule right then. But I
080don't I don't really understand why we wouldn't just leave it at an hour just because um I cannot imagine that we would ever vote in the majority to not hear everyone that has come to speak to us. So why create that limit and that extra step? That's just my thoughts on it. Yeah. I mean I think it's the pleasure of the board. I think this is just a recommendation from them. So you can set whatever time you you like. Where did the recommendation come from? All these changes came from Kimble's office. So, Miss Rocket, would you like to see it? Just leave the one hour. I would. Okay. Mr. Camp. Yeah. All right. We'll make that change for the second reading. Anything else for 2310? 4300R. Um, we did make a minor change based on
081some feedback from uh some board members, but I think in conversation with folks that this might be one we would want to table until our May planning session so that we can dig a little deeper into this policy and possibly look at some more changes. So, just want to get your input on on tableabling 4,300 R. Any objection? Yep. Table it. And then our last one is policy 7520. We made some changes so that our policy aligns to the state HR handbook for uh family medical leave. There are no questions. will bring it this one for a second reading on Tuesday night as an action item. Correct? Yes. As an action item. Everybody good with that? Yes. So, we'll do 2310 and 7520 for action on April 8th, May session. Thank you. Thank you. All
082right. Moving on, we have the budget revision with Mr. Lawson. Good evening. I'll close us out for the evening with uh two budget revisions. Uh the first being uh budget revision item number 10. Uh that consists of uh one item which actually is improvements in the sound system. This room, as we all know, can be a bit sketchy at times. So hopefully that'll be resolved with this particular request. Yes, sir. That's correct. And that's for an action item. Yes, ma'am. Correct. Thank you. The next revision uh is not actually a revision but we stay with our uh our numbering system which is number 11 and it's actually a summer capital projects uh which will be completed in next fiscal year but we bring those to you of course early so Dr. Mr. and his folks
083have time to procure uh goods and services to to uh complete the summer projects and you're requesting for this to be an action item as well. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. Any questions, concerns? We're good with that. All right. It will be placed as an action item. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lawson. Do we have need for close session tonight? We do not. Awesome. Okay. Since we do not have need for close session, do we have a motion to adjourn? Motion by Mr. Johnson. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Wyoff and Mrs. Rocket. All those in favor, syndicate by saying I. I. Those opposed, nay. Eyes have it. Good night everyone.