001ready uh good evening everybody uh welcome to the January 29th uh work session of the Burke County Board of Education and uh Madame secretary let the minutes reflect that I'll board members are present and in place and determining that we have Quorum present we will proceed uh ladies and gentlemen you were mailed or emailed the um agenda for uh your perusal are there any additions or corrections to be heard pleasure of the board in regards to the status of the agenda please I make make a motion we approve the agenda second second uh M Craven moved Mr hovic second approval of the agenda is presented any further discussion hearing none all those indicate approval by saying I I I I'll oppose no I have it motions carried and the agenda agenda is accepted and we'll
002proceed in uh regular order Dr Swan for your superintendent update sir thank chairman hunt members of the board pleasure to see everyone happy New Year uh it seems like forever since we've seen each other um I continue to maintain contact with everyone but it's always good to get together and uh break bread with one another so I do have some great updates for everyone as you remember we've kind of highlighted some Schoolboard information throughout the month of January it is Schoolboard appreciation month so publicly um superintendent Mike Swan wants to say thank you to every single one of the board members of Burke County uh and appreciate the support that you guys give me uh our leadership team the principes the staff the students of Burke County public school so we could not do our
003jobs uh without the seven of you guys sitting in the SE that you're in right now so uh thank you guys uh from the bottom of my heart okay um jumping right into uh some very exciting news I know for several months uh the board has we've bounced some ideas around Administration um we've gotten with Mr Lawson Mr chain Gardner um as far as our all-in bus driver loyalty program um so I I want to highlight this bus driver loyalty program with you guys um and I hope a lot of people out there watching this uh that could not make it to the meeting tonight so that they can see uh what this program is going to do for them uh and their amilies and hopefully the school system um we know it's no secret
004Across the Nation across the North Carolina that um we are under a bus driver shortage staff overwhelmingly uh is having we're get having a difficult time getting staff to drive buses uh so Burke County Administration we've put our heads together uh with multiple folks uh and you'll hear about this throughout the presentation to try to support our bus drivers and our staff and everyone that um Gets behind the wheel of a yellow bus at Burke County Public School um so right now teachers and other full-time certified or classified employees um right now our classified employees whatever hourly rate that they're on they would get the 1665 plus time and a half they would get their half of the time so roughly around $24 an hour Mr Garder if I make any uh errors please don't
005hesitate to jump in um so we've we've kind of missed our staff our full-time staff members our teachers that we've lost throughout the years um because they continue to work that full-time job uh they they get done they close the classro door they walk out get behind the wheel of that yellow bus and they're still getting 1665 uh nothing in addition to that so what we've came up with uh what we came up with is paying them uh that time and a half as well uh so all of our certified staff uh will once again will be up to the $24 uh per hour um on their daily route uh so that's pretty big news when we're comparing our routes um pay to other counties that all of a sudden puts us probably if I
006had to guess in the lead of multiple other counties I don't think anyone can touch that right now um and some other other incentives that we've come up with um we've got an infographic that we're sending out um by doing this it'll boost your retirement up to around $1,000 more per year uh we know state employees uh retirement uh your your retirement is based on your four highest years of employment whether it's your first four highest years or your last four or somewhere in between so if an educator can begin doing this for four years that's an additional close to $111,000 onto the retirement uh so that's quite quite a a large sum of money for our folks um now through the end of May uh all drivers will get $3 more per route um
007which adds approximately $150 per hour on average to the driver's pay so in addition to the time and a half you're going to add roughly a $150 onto that as well so you're roughly $26 per hour to drive a bus for Burke County Public Schools um also $30 per week or $100 per month with both AM and PM route that's just kind of to put it in perspective also any new drivers from now to the end of May or end of the year we're having a sign on bonus for new drivers so you get the $500 half is paid at the time of employment and half at the end of the school year um and also as I mentioned earlier we have a great partnership with our Burke County communities we have uh wonderful partnership
008with Burke County United Way um they gave us a $1,500 donation that will help reimburse cost of CDLs uh and that will be paid out after a minimum of 20 routes um as we've said before we we host multiple uh North Carolina DPI bus driver classes in Burke County and we lose a lot of those d drivers to uh whether it's a private school a charter school or whomever within the county um Private Business uh trucking company uh so this will once again allow them to hopefully stay with Berke County Public Schools um and also and this would apply to our board members potentially um $50 gift card for any Burke County Public School Employees who refers someone to drive the bus and they actively get their license and begin driving for us so uh
009here again just some some incentives that we wanted to put together for our folks to try to increase our driver pull and we did create a short video that I'd like to share with the board hello I'm Burke County Public Schools public information officer Cheryl sheffler hey I'm ler and retirement specialist Lisa Fortenberry so I'm sure that you've heard about the school bus driver shortage not only across the country but also in Burke County we are here today to talk to you about some incentives for adding School bu driver to your resume as a Burke County Public Schools employee future and are a vital part of our students daily Journey they are the first school staff members to greet students in the mornings and the last to say goodbye in the evenings it's a role
010that brings Joy responsibility and a profound sense of purpose to reward our bus drivers for answering the call to take on this responsibility and for sticking with it BCPS has created an Allin bus driver loyalty program teachers who also Drive buses will now be paid overtime while on their bus routes this also applies to any full-time certified or classified staff member as on average they will make $24 an hour for driving another incentive for full-time staff is boosting your retirement income as you know your retirement check is based on your highest four years of salary teachers could increase their annual salary by about 20,000 by taking on a bus route that could translate to $111,000 more a year in your retirement income for the remainder of this school year all drivers will receive an additional
011$3 per route as part of the driver loyalty program this would add $150 per hour on average to driver pay if a driver takes both an A and PM route now through the end of May they have the opportunity to add $30 per week or $120 per month to to their pay as for new drivers Burke County Public Schools is now offering a $500 sign on bonus for the remainder of the school year half will be paid at the time of employment and the other half will be paid at the end of the school year with continued employment with a generous donation of $1,500 from Burke County United Way BCPS plans to help offset some of the upfront cost to new drivers by reimbursing them for the cost of a CDL license this will be
012paid out after a minimum of 20 routes finally for any Burke County Public School employee who refers someone to come and drive a yellow bus for BCPS They will receive a $50 gift card upon the person completing training and Driver routes so no matter Your Role with BCPS thank you for being all in with all you do for our students and thank you for considering having a part in transporting our kiddos safely to and from school be on the lookout for information on the next bus class later this winter and in the meantime contact the bus garage with any questions fantastic I do want to thank I'm hello I'm bur County public large it all right I do want to thank Mr Lawson Mr Gardner Mr um Acer for all of us we we sat
013down we put our heads together uh recommendations from board members on different ideas that we can do to try to incentivize this um as we've said before I've been in the system for 26 years it was all always a natural thing for a teacher to want to drive a bus whether it's for athletics or something else and now it's we've lost that um so now we're going to try to get that back within Burke County Public Schools so once again thank you for the board for your support on this is this going to require board action this will not this is for information purposes only yes sir also like to highlight our archery program over the last couple weeks we've had multiple archery competitions um and uh I know I'm proud to say that we
014we have a a board member her son is in second place in the state that correct Miss Taylor okay so congratulations to Mr Zay Taylor uh we've got some other competitors uh within our high school and Elementary School that are making uh waves in archery uh who would have thought several years ago that archery would have been a a school sponsored event uh and we are gaining traction within our elementary middle and high schools as well across the county where more and more people want to do archery so I'm very proud of our archery students uh and our coaches so I want to thank you guys for uh doing what you guys are doing within that program as well board members as you know we are we have launched our 10th Annual superintendent Super Bowl
015can food drive uh which will run through February 12th uh Berke County Public Schools campaign last year raised 32,000 um so that that was um or I'm sorry our $32,000 with our campaigns um so one thing that I don't know if you saw in the newspaper I just saw an article in the paper the other Saturday where um in a local Berke County resident won a brand new vehicle um that was donated by Paramount um so uh that opportunity was available for our Burke County Public School Employees we had three finalists uh within the Burke County Public School family uh that I was able to go down to Paramount Paramount and it was it was pretty surreal to see him get the key and try to walk up to the and start it unfortunately to
016no avail um so it it was fun to go down there and see the excitement on their faces when they were trying to win a vehicle uh so that that was exciting once again it just highlights the community part Partnerships that we have also uh as you know re read Across America is coming up March 1st um the Miss uh Miss Pam and Miss Linda will be sending out a a signup sheet for some for we'd love for the board members to get out in our community and start reading to our students as well um so we we'll send some information sign up sheets um where you guys would like to go visit your community schools it's always a lot of fun it is it is kids love it kids love it Miss sovich and
017I we were able to go visit Three schools today we actually we have a Burke County former student that is an author of children's book she's an author of Illustrator illustrator I'm sorry an illustrator of several Cat and the Hat books multiple other books so they've actually donated six books to each elementary school so we're in the rounds of uh going and and donating those over the next several weeks as well so um also like to do a shout out to Dr Melanie Honeycut as you see um I've notified the board that Dr Honeycut has been selected as one of the regional technology directors of the year so uh congratulations Dr Honeycut where is Dr H what's that where is Melanie stand up I didn't see this doesn't surprise us you know thank you Melanie
018so as we said we're we're leading the way and bur County public schools on several things that we've got going on so Melanie will be representing the Northwest region and if you put it in perspective how many districts I think I want to say 13 counties in the Northwest if I'm not mistaken uh so she was and then multiple other media coordinators throughout those counties so uh we're we're very fortunate that Dr Honeycut will be representing Burke County um also we have a um Cassidy Upton we recognized her at one of our last meetings she is a finalist for the Burke County teacher of the year uh for the state as well so Cassy was one of our art teachers does a phenomenal job job over at Mountain View um so she's very passionate about
019what she does uh with in the the art program uh Mr Hunt and I were we were visiting the School of Science and Math just this evening and to see some of the things that those older students get to participate in uh in in the way their minds work and it starts at this young age so continue to invest heavily in the Arts also just kind of want to share some uh highlights from our school system is just in the top left corner that is Hillcrest Elementary School uh as you recall uh we had a book vending machine uh that uh Mountain View they were able to raise some funds with some private donors uh the van opin sisters um so basically what that that book vending machine is that has approved uh titles within
020that vending machine is as students earn points they get a token so they can walk down and choose any book within that vending machine uh so it's we were there for the unveiling it was it was an amazing site to see some of the students have never you know they've read multiple books but they've never really been able to purchase their own books so it was it was a great that's going to continue to accelerate their reading as well um and down below wa Young Elementary School another great article in the newspaper every single student at wa Young Elementary School received a brand new pair of sneakers uh so thank you for wa young for sending out that information and putting the feelers out there uh as my mom and my father always used to
021tell me you will not know until you ask whether somebody says yes or no um so that's what they did they they sent out a request and they were they were a grant recipient for new tennis shoes for every single student at wa young so um on the top right uh we've got some Heritage Middle School students that we doing a blanket drive for um the cancer center in Val's um hospital so there again it's it's that giving back to the community that you see on a daily basis within our school system um and this was so far our first snow day that we had in Burke County Public Schools not to get everybody's hopes up um I I'll publicly say this I kind of wish we would get one but you know I don't
022know if I can take the Facebook comments much more but um so but no on a serious note it was amazing to see the prek students over at these schools when they had a a fake snow machine they were bundled up they were out there participating and just having a great time so they they let me kind of come have some fun with them so you guys will be seeing a signup sheet over the next week or so uh We've we've able to get this going at all of our elementary schools where snow everybody's going to have a snow snow day whether we have a snow day or not um for those youngsters and here again to put it in perspective we have a lot of newcomers in these programs that have never seen snow
023or anything coming out of the the air except rain um so we're excited to kind of get this going a little bit for our students so was it gave me goosebumps when I saw it all right and that's uh my superintendent's update chairman hunt thank you sir any questions comments for thought this one I'm excited to see what the turnout is on this bus um you know pay thing I am too we'll so after tonight we'll we'll begin the push uh Miss shuffler is all ready to go to hit the go button on this the information deimination will begin tonight good and we will we get a copy of the layout absolutely great thank yep thank you thank you guys for everyone that worked on exra Garner too next up uh Dr Alton you going
024talk to us about some attendance updates yes thank you um as you know one of our big focal points last year and this year has been to increase our student attendance across the district um just like many districts after covid we struggle to re-engage students and regular attendance habits and so we put some things in place um you may have seen on social media this weekend we did push out um we pushed out lots of messaging but then this video came out this weekend so I want to share with you thanks to miss shuffler no I'm not is that you that's not you who's up there uh me sorry it's all right we'll get it back on that's fine that's why at Burke County Public Schools we are all in to attend every school day
025counts and when student we all have high expectations for our children and regular School attendance is a crucial factor in setting children up for successful Futures that's why at Burke County Public Schools we are all into a attend every school day counts and when students miss school it's harder for them to catch up a Miss day of school here or there doesn't seem like much but absences add up did you know that missing 2 days of school a month equals missing 20 days of school a year that adds up to missing 30 hours of math and 60 hours of reading over a school year in fact a student who misses 2 days a month over 13 years misses more than one year of school by graduation in addition to missing instruction same time students who
026miss school also miss key social interactions with peers and teachers now we realize things come up in life such as illness or death of a loved one but we encourage students who are feeling well to arise attend and Inspire parents can help make school attendant a priority by establishing a bedtime and morning routine making appointments for after school or on non school days not planning vacations during the school year having a backup plan for when parents are sick or have car trouble being on time for school is just as important student tardiness also affects instruction time and can be a disruption to other students and the teacher in the classroom please join us in our efforts to be all in to attend arise attend and [Music] Aspire so that's our motto this year is arise
027attend and Aspire so thanks to miss shuffler for making that video and pushing out messaging for us what what are we doing with that with the video so as of right now it's pushed out on our social media sites we're going to be sharing with principals and counselors and then I'll get into some other things that we're pushing down to the school level too to kind of help um help with this effort so some of some of the school level things are the attendance incentives um so we've encouraged School attendance teams we have a district level attendance task force and we have uh principes directors um and other folks involved we have Miss Croy our attendance engagement counselors um and then we kind of develop some guidelines for our schools to say here's what we
028really need for you guys to do and then they have school level teams that that push these things out as well um so we have then continued partnership with our engagement coordinators um we've really worked hard with our data managers to make sure there's some coding consistency across um the school across the district and even between grade levels and just making School attendance visible just some education just like in the video you've seen there's been some other things on social media and push out to our schools to share in their newsletters and things just educating parents like you saw with when students miss one day of school a month what that really equals to it doesn't seem like a lot but then in the grand scheme of things that can really add up over time
029um and again we know that things come up and we just encourage that partnership between the school and home so that we can just help alleviate those those absences that are not NE necessary and then for our goal is to reduce the number of students that are considered chronically absent which right now the state defines as 10 or more in a school year are considered chronically absent and then our goal is for all of our schools to reach 95% average daily attendance rate so I have some good news you can take a look here at some of the data that we pulled um in the green column that was our pre-co measure so you can see that 14 out of 14 elementary schools met that 95% goal in 1819 and on the average our students
030in elementary school attended 95.5 % overall five out of five of our middle schools and two of four of our high schools so 21 of our total schools um preo so you can kind of see the progression there there's the year directly after Co where we hit a huge major um Pitfall in our attendance right for obvious reasons um we were down to just one of our elementary schools none of our middle schools none of our high schools and you can see now already this school year for 23 24 and remember this is only four months 1 through 4 four we already have seven of our elementary schools who are on target for the 95% we have one of our middle schools already two of our high schools um so overall we already have 10
031schools on par for this school year uh to reach that 95% proficiency or or attendance rate so the gains needed to fully close that Gap are very minimal compared to where we were so um we feel confident that with our continued efforts for the remainder of the school year we can continue to close those percentage gaps that you see here so overall we're down 1.2% in attendance across the district so kudos to our principles our counselors our engagement coordinators student services it's been a team effort um but we feel like we're we're directly on the path for Success there there's been new incentives for students to be able to get um perfect attendance as well per semester I think um you know some of the schools I've heard of doing gift cards or drawings and
032different things like that so I think that really Sparks interest and be like you know I don't want to miss I'm going to be out of the drawing there's some peer accountability with their their peers too like we if the if every classroom in the seventh grade is an attendance and there's some kind of incentive sometimes so the schools have been really creative in developing what they feel like works for their their students and their client and I like seeing it on the bill the Billboards or the school monkeys the percentage that's something I like to see when I'm out visiting uh you can often tell whether it's the flu season or something else hitting based on the attendance on that Marquee uh what it looks like during that week if you've gone through a
033car rider line you've probably seen that in the past year or so um and even my kids would make note of it and say oh we we didn't do very good yesterday you know so it's been good just to make them aware right very good questions comments all right uh next up Miss sorry good ah I have to said Thank you m lroy director of student services is going to chat with us a bit of that Vape detectors hello Mr Croy good evening how's everybody right so I've been asked to give an update on um sorry looking at two things going the wrong way a second okay to give you an update on vaping um just some updates and information just to start with um we'll start with the policy I think all of you
034know but maybe some of our audience doesn't know that we do have a new policy this year um it has been very well received by your school administrators um very pleased with it so just a reminder about that um we did start with some Vape detectors last year um we started with one group and we're not very happy with as happy with those as we thought we should be and didn't want to invest more money in those so we've switched to these Halo detectors um and as you'll see in a minute um they're they're definitely better um we currently have these in our four Traditional High Schools we have a total of 40 VAP detectors um they do have an alarm that can go off audibly to notify the staff and the staff have uh
035an app on their school cell phone that they can use and that can notify them am I too quiet on their school cell phone um when there is a detection okay um we did move the other detectors to halberton um and they're using those they have a smaller setting um easier to kind of supervise and how they go to the bathroom is much more supervised so those are working out okay there computer okay it went all right so the next I miss okay the next slide that I'm going to show you is a report that our school administrators can get on their desktop computer or their laptop some of the information that can be extracted includes hotspots uh the air quality index time and locations of Vape detection and the most important thing that we
036all think are the data Trends so that they can look on there and see the trends of the hotpots and then begin to watch those areas um and this is just a sample um of what it looks like so you can see there's a lot of information there um Leslie you look like you were puzzled about that could you send us a copy of that yeah look definitely um but it's just data about you know bathrooms and there's one thing that they can detect some aggression um and say we laugh because one of the schools every night um the principal gets uh an aggression alert on the phone because the custodians in there cleaning the bathroom you know emotion so there's all kinds of data that they get with that and you can look at
037that more closely but all right so now let's look at the vaping data with our students we're going to look at last year first semester compared to this year first semester and they're exactly 78 days for each one so possession of a vape you can see last year first 78 days was 166 and this year's 125 so that's very positive the next one is use of a vape and last year was 41 and this year is 56 so there's a slight increase on that is that probably because more detected than right that's that's what we're going to talk about um and and we've had that conversation because we have a focused effort on it right and we're looking at the detectors and seeing those Trends we are going to catch more people at least we
038think for this year and then I think it's going to dip down that's my prediction um just in conclusion I said it's too early to determine the positive effects of the new vaping policy and our new Vape detectors it's still too early um principal report that The Vape detectors provide good data to analyze Trends and hotspots and as a potential deterrent to students vaping in the restrooms um principles report that the new policy and the partnership with bur recovery are a great help for our school system so remember that's a key part of that policy we put in place is every time a student is either caught with a vape or vaping they are getting that education component which is significant and really important we're very proud of that um and they are doing a
039really good job with that so in the next year we'll be able to collect more data and we really feel like um the policy and The Vape detectors are going to continue to be a positive trend for us questions have we've been in it long enough to to see what our recidivism numbers are like maybe the the first what was it um 42 46 six that were reported actually maybe the whole 100 whatever before because even the ones caught with Vapes get referred right um are we having the same folks getting busted again most of our students that are caught are ninth and tth graders so it it is kind of a different group you see what I'm saying so so the answer is no ninth and 10th graders is it is it on school
040grounds too I mean somebody's going out driving their car out looks like on fire coming from inside do we we get a lot on the buff and and these numbers are not just all based on the detectors this is throughout campus some scho buses everything correct so let me make sure I understand so we we are not having recidivism or we don't have that data are you saying it the re recidivism from last year yeah yeah you had like we can pull it I mean I could pull that for you and try to match up the names any idea repeat offenders that sort of thing I don't know obviously I'm trying to figure out is is what we're doing effective yeah I think from a CL Clin clinician stpoint um I would say we need
041some more time yeah to determine that yeah based on the training all of that other stuff that is happening that needs to happen with these students uh the training out with our birke recovery folks I don't think we could generate that number yet and is there cooperation with law enforcement in regards to availability of this stuff that's close around I mean where where the where are these kids picking this stuff up well I think as we we had a parent at several board meetings come and speak about that and we've we've tried to address that constant communication with the sheriff if we hear of somebody that we know is selling to underage students for example we we'll report those locations um beyond the shadow of a doubt um but there again we have older siblings
042we have students this I don't I know the vaping is not an age-old problem but it's getting something by illegal means that's been around for Generations yeah Miss lroy what do you see or what have you heard is the challenges now now at this point from staff members principes you know teachers however um as to what the challenges are with with the data or with with the system itself and what could we do to kind of help I think the biggest challenge is and and I've said this to people your administrators are instructional leaders right and that things going off do you want them to get up and leave a classroom to go chase someone in the the bathroom do you want them to get up and leave an IEP meeting to go chase someone
043in the bathroom that's the biggest thing so what we've talked about is that I mean that's not realistic there's not enough of them so but to use the data they get to look at those Hots spots and those Trends look at the cameras see who's coming and going and then to increase supervision there but to put some interventions in place for that you see what I'm saying some of the alarms and the alerts have gone to sro's for those schools have they been okay with that been receptive on yeah okay they have and okay and remember too you know we have over 6,000 middle and high school kids and so I think based on that I mean that's that's a very low percentage that we're talking about um and just that that education component that
044you all have added in is is just huge I mean the counties around us are all like how did y'all do that that's amazing other counties do not have that so kudos to you all for that partnership and I think one of the main things we changed on that policy too was was the consequences yes how is how has that been for for principles it's been good it's okay everything okay okay I didn't know if it was more of a than okay they're very very appreciative of that okay and we talked earlier today if you look up there you'll see uh See this one 22 2223 166 23 24 it's down uh substantially we look at that is if I know a trooper AK Johnson's sitting at Exit 113 weak at the same spot at
045the same time I'm not going to speed through exit 113 so this is what we think is happening here um yeah and then same thing for this one so now they didn't know he was there here they still don't know he's here so they're going to figure it out probably next year that that person's still in that one spot so but I know Trooper AK Johnson he is multiple hiding spots pull needs to come from the board do you think no I think I think right now we just we this is such a new policy we need to give it time read the numbers as Sarah said check the hotpots check the cameras those are our those are our boots on the ground we can if it if it goes off and as she said
046and we can't jump up from a meeting um we can still go back and look at that time stamp on the camera and see Don hemr walking out of there um with a smile on his face so we're we're it's like speaking through an intersection exactly so we're gonna go check Dawn and say Hey you know as as I go back to the you know what administrators are allowed to do compar to law enforcement we just have to have a reasonable suspicion that's yeah I think as long as they know y'all know they can't run down there every time it goes off but that they are being purposeful with reviewing it and looking at it when they can well we want it to be more of a help than a hindrance for sure exactly yeah
047I really wish there was some way and I everybody's got got things to do and I get it but if there was some painless way that as this goes on to see if the education thing's working I think in a year we'll be able to tell that yeah since this is our first year doing that so I think next year this time you'll be able to start seeing that are you impressed with this or not Sarah you you've done this a long time I'm very impressed with the education piece okay I am that's good that's the most important part that's the most important yeah any other questions comments or M lroy thank you very much absolutely lot of work you've done on that thank you Sarah chart whales quarterly report Miss Cornelius you're not miss
048Cornelius so miss Cornelius uh fell to a sickness today so we've got Mr our Chef Mr Ryan Yos that you dined on his fabulous meal tonight so thank you good evening board um my pleasure to cook for y'all twice a month um hope you all enjoy it um so yes like um Dr Swan said I'm filling in for Cheyenne today um just kind of go through the quarterly uh Chartwells report um some very exciting things you were going to um see here um so first off is premium day um so in October we did um well myself and another uh employee Rod smoked about six or seven thousand chicken thighs on the the pig rig which was very fun um and the kids loved it um and then going into November uh we we thought
049that maybe Elementary didn't want a double cheeseburger so we uh GI to them with a free cookie and then the secondary we gave um a double bacon cheeseburger then going into the colder months um I've noticed that a lot of kids like breakfast for lunch so we um sourced some sausage from Mills Family Farms and did a um a biscuits and gravy uh with tater tot apples which um the kids love those spiced apples so we try to want them to eat as much fruit and vegetables as they can so um and then moving into the new year one of my favorite meals um is oven well deep fried but oven fried chicken and mac and cheese um again that went over very well and um the Friday Thursday I'm sorry Thursday before the Super
050Bowl we will be um doing wings with choice of different sauces and as we get into secondary we'll do Buffalo sauce and keep the more milder stuff at the elementary level so we move on to the next slide any questions no pizza I've heard some good stuff about ACP yeah ACP is a good one pizza is in March on Pi Day 3.14 so more to come on that so expect to see me and Mr Johnson yeah we'll check that out for you yeah in the we uh We've made have pizza every Thursday so and then square pizza will happen as well during those 5we Cycles which seems to be a big kid it's a lunch lunchroom classic yeah Square um so participation it's gone up um 4.4% lunch these are October numbers um and these
051numbers have stayed steady through the rest of the year if not they've only have grown um any questions on participation congratulations that's great that's great it's very good that these kids are eating so they could focus on um their school workor um this right here is what I've been most excited about this school year uh drexal Elementary pulled off a pizza fractions and the way I approached this was you know kids always say we don't need to know that it's math we don't need know math but I had taught them some geometry um as you can see in the middle picture there I told him to put sauce on half the pizza um and then I told him to put the cheese on a fourth of the pizza and uh as well as to cut
052it into eights so um I was very surprised these kids were very knowledgeable of what I'd said um asked them to do the teachers um it just really showed on how the teachers interact with these kids um we will also be doing them at mole Elementary Mountain View um and raage shers so there's any other elementary schools out there I would more than gladly do it so being Hands-On with stuff is an easier way to learn stuff especially for myself and I'm sure a lot of students as well any questions on these uh Pizza fractions just just don't tell them Pi R square je B says p r round that's that's more my we house p r round good so um moving to the cafeteria Renovations um we got Heritage and Table Rock you'll see
053there on the left the seating has matched their school colors um on the right we have installed new I believe it has installed all the TVs and all the schools wow um it shows the menu for the day it's a little more inviting uh eastberg High I uh received three more being in the size of their lunchroom and the students love it you know sometimes they might not they might just see the little piece of paper but again this is more inviting on a TV any questions so the last Friday before holiday break was half day we had uh patent High School an appreciation day uh myself Cheyenne Ian we' had helped serve meals to 130 staff members with 70 of their children um because you know these 130 people that came plus they're the
054foundation of this program without them I couldn't do my job Cheyenne couldn't do her job and his kids wouldn't be fed so appreciating that is very important and this is the first time it's happened since Co um and um Mr wall behind me held off raffle prizes different levels so it kind of invited people to come so any questions on that all right I believe this is the last slide uh service a certification uh I just want to recognize these three staff members Rod Taylor Tabitha Stevens Amber Stapleton Rod's the food truck manager Tabitha is the floating manager upcoming manager she's in the upcoming manager program and Amber Stapleton who works at Salem Elementary uh Cheyenne is a proctor for surf safe so that being said somebody you have to take the test she has
055to be in the room and she's really pushing everybody to be surf safe certified because you see all those 100s in the schools um if nobody in the school surf safe certified they get docked one so we always want to make sure we have somebody with a Sur a certification so we're very proud of these three it's not always an easy test they're tricky questions so thank you does anybody have any questions any questions comments what was your name again uh Ryan Yos I appreciated your presentation thank you very thank you very much Chef thank you thank you and I do want to brag on our partners ship with Chartwells and what they do is phenomenal uh so just brag on them every day what they do next up uh our good friends Mr J
056louder mil louder Mick church and Company a few gentlemen would come on up and let's see if we can find a microphone and some chairs got over here gentlemen Mr Lawson and sir you have the floor good to see you again thank your report tonight and as I looked at that information on vaping when I was in high school there was no such thing but we did have a room an area for students to smoke in and they did nobody ever Che I didn't go in there but there were a lot of people in there are you suggesting you have a baby no Don want to get this wouldn't say anyway um we as you know we do audit procedures on all the individual schools as well as the school board and in your material
057you have a synopsis of our information from the schools okay and um overall a very excellent record keeping at the school very few small items were found in all the schools as you can turn through there I'm not going to go over that but you can you can see that um most of the schools had no findings whatsoever and the ones we did find were very minor um and also you have another letter in your paperwork um that is our letter to the Board of Education regarding the audit and you see the word significant AUD it matters um that is this is just a discussion of um what we uh some of the things we did and you notice down at the bottom it says difficulties encountered in performing the audit and of course there
058were no difficulties and we always like to thank Keith and his staff for putting up with us during the audit and U further down it says disagreements with management of course there were no disagreements and then I further down if we had found anything of a serious nature we would have reported in this letter so there's nothing reported in here so what we're going to do Rick is going to go over we've got that the report is rather long and complicated Rick is going to go over the highlights in the report and we're going to uh entertain any questions you might have and then we'll excuse ourself after we complete our report so you can carry on with the business um good evening so uh we did Issue the report to the LGC timely as
059we've always have they have reviewed it and it's been approved so that's been taken care of uh we also issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements which is what you want to have it just says everything was fairly stated were any kind of material Mist statements or anything like that um before I get into the highlights I also mention we did a compliance audit on your federal and state funding that's required and we had no findings with any of the items tested during uh the compliance part of the audit so um yeah in front of you or on the screen is the highlights for the year that we sort of go over every year um the top portion is your general fund which is the um the county monies that you get your local
060fund monies um you can see on the highlights you have a 23 and then a 22 comparison and then a change amount on the change column there so at the end of June 30 you had cash and investments in the general fund of $3,995,000 and included uh in cash was included in total assets you had about $4 million in total assets in your general fund uh liabilities you had some payables of about $57,200 up with a about $3.3 million in your fund balance at the end of June in the general fund as far as revenues you took in uh $6,599 th000 in revenues and expended out about $6,500,000 so you had revenues exceeding your expenditures and your general fund was uh just over $100,000 uh the second portion is your other special Revenue monies this
061is local grant money that come in that aren't related to the county kind of things that you can use uh in your local funds cash and Investments and that uh fund was $ 5,448 514 and again that was included in total assets which was 7,747 N4 uh liabilities in that fund was just under 58,000 so you ended up with a fund balance at the end of June of 7,689 9,914 uh total revenues in that fund was just over $9 million and you had expenditures about 6.5 million so you had a a increase or revenues exceeding expenditures of 2,568 th612 in that particular fund um the next section is Your Child Nutrition fund your school lunch and School breakfast lunch fund cash and Investments there was 2,875 4,542 and total assets of about $4.5 million in
062that fund total liabilities 4,626 384 and so you ended up with a positive net position uh compared to Prior years it's always been a deficit you've actually now gotten into the positive of $ 9,956 in that fund operating revenues this uh operating uh re rues consisted of like U just the sales uh in the in the actual cafeteras for the year was $1,892 190 and operating expense was about 8.5 million so um as usual in these type of funds you had an operating loss of 7,6 360,000 grants and the and the school lunch program grants that was $ 7,716 77 so for the year you actually had a net income of uh $350,900 and then last section just a total of all the for all the funds of the school board together cash and Investments
063at the end of june17 m728 58 total assets which includes all your um cost of your buildings less depreciation all that's included in this particular uh total asset number was 13,988 2,178 and then your net position uh was a deficit of course this is caused by the net pension liability that has to be on the books for the full cruel method but you can see this year you had a deficit of about 19.8 Million last year was about 38 million so youve actually decreased that deficit during the year by about $18 million um so all in all a good year all around and I just if anyone has any particular questions I'll try to answer them anybody have any questions to ask or comment sir think not thank you so much all right well thank
064you um Keith is there action required on this uh historically we have always submitted it to you for your approval although it's not necessary I do like to ask for and receive okay your your acceptance so if we may Madam Secretary let's put that on the as an action item for the regular meeting then okay this item if I if I may and and the following few things that I'm going to present I will not be here next week okay I'll be at the uh annual Finance conference in Greensboro so I request unless you all choose otherwise to have items placed on the consent agenda if possible and I can certainly entertain and answer any questions you may have tonight um I'm not sure I consent to be honest I'd like to keep them as
065an action item but we could you know certainly go ahead with your uh with your explanation on the other things okay thank you sir thank you gentlemen so much thank you so much yes sir all right Mr [Music] Lawson okay uh the next item for your consideration would be approval of the external audit contract for the year fiscal year 2324 uh again proposed uh louder milk church and Company uh the fee would be $ 38,9 which is uh the same fee as as uh our previous fiscal year any questions or comments about that Madam Secretary let's have that on the action item please yes sir thank you next is the 2023 24 budget resolution I realize we're halfway through the year before I'm presenting that and I apologize but of course we received a state
066budget uh late into the year again this year uh in the 2324 budget resolution uh first item would be our local Uh current expense budget as you can see the previous year was 16.5 million uh let me let me say that uh minus uh fines and forfeitures and School receivables uh County funding was 16.3 Million which that was three consecutive years in a row that we had received that level of funding from the county as you can see there is a very significant increase proposed for the 23 24 year the year that we are in uh that is in great part thanks to you all the board members uh for the action that you took uh with the County Commission to overturn local legislation restricting operational funds to the school system from local monies uh
067that's a 22.5% increase or $3.7 million uh the way that $3.7 million in additional funding is being utilized this year uh approximately 1.49 million was a restoration of certified supplements that you the board approved uh in addition to that uh we our state low wealth funding was reduced by $1.5 million uh so 3 million of that is utilized by those two specific items the additional 700,000 in funding will be used uh to catch up on the fact that our funding was not increased in the previous three years all the while we've dealt with inflation wage increases and benefits cost so those items will consume the uh local funding next we have fund eight that's our special Revenue fund uh the primary funds uh in in fund eight uh are Medicaid funds uh Mor at four
068and prek tuition that that's the uh primary programs in that fund or or or the large portion of that funding uh next our state funds you can see that's a 4.1% increase year toe that would have been without the state low wealth reduction closer to 6% so that 4.1% doesn't uh uh uh represent any expansion or increased uh funding other than to cover increased uh income or wages um and uh employer benefits costs next is federal you'll see a significant decrease there um that decrease is represented by Esser our elementary and supplementary uh schools emergency relief or covid funds you can see an in decrease of 9.3 million we're nearing the expiration of Esra funds uh uh those are to be utilized completely or reverted back to the state and then I assume the federal
069government by September 2024 uh I will say that we out of 115 local school systems in the state of North Carolina are ranked second in s utilization in the entire State um we will not be reverting funds back um Capital you can see a slight increase we're we're starting to once again lean a little heavier on Capital uh as the uh Sr funds are expiring I anticipate that next year that'll increase the historic spending levels of approximately 4 million uh and then our Child Nutrition program uh year to year you can see uh $31,000 anticipated increase in revenues or approximately 4% that's a conservative estimate on my part as just presented earlier by our Chef you could see that participation rates are up substantially so I do anticipate actually that revenues May uh even didn't
070exceed these levels um there is of course for each one of these line items a uh more detailed tab I hope you've had an opportunity to review those I won't go over those in detail but I will certainly be happy to entertain any questions you may have in regards to that Yen's work to you and the rest of your leadership Dr Swan this was a a big big undertaking it gave us certainly an opportunity to do things that we probably wouldn't have been able to do especially with our Dr AER our hbac systems and our schools and and those sorts of things and so um I know at our Greensboro conference this past year I was with several units and uh several school districts and um one of the breakouts we were in and we
071had a discussion about Esser and they we told them what we were doing they we didn't know we you could do that and it like oh yeah and so you know it's um made you stick your chest out just a little bit more knowing that you know we took full advantage of this we we played by the rules and it um helped us significantly so SE several districts hired human capital uh so in 2024 that human capital either has to disappear or you have to pay for them out of your local expenses and we just didn't do that we're able to maintain what we had so there again kudos to Keith and his team and our administrators and Dr acard and everyone else that helped move that ship forward and reading the fine details and
072keeping us where we need to be that it was certainly a team effort uh and Dr Alton Alton was uh intimately involved she she crafted a lot of the language uh that the DPI that DPI had to accept and approve in order for us to utilize these funds so thank you for that that was what 45 million yeah that's correct $45 million and spend all of it before September of 24 y appropriately spent it that's right absolutely that's a better word anything else for Mr Lawson and we'll put um we'll make sure all that is appropriately Madame secretary on the uh action items as we go forward thank you sir thank you you thank you Dr Swan let's discuss uh next year's sir proposed schedule uh it's very similar to what we have this year
073a uh end of the month work session and the beginning of the month um regular scheduled board meeting uh we looked at the dates Miss Linda and I sat down and kind of went through made sure that we avoided certain holidays as usual uh this gives us an opportunity we meet I know last year we had some had a little struggle meeting not meeting prior to school uh and I anticipated that based on the newness of that calendar so this year we'll meet July 29th uh which will be prior to the start of the first day of school and our second meeting will actually be held on the first day of school so I think that'll hopefully satisfy all of that can I entertain any questions yeah what about an additional meeting in January we've
074talked this a long is that necessary it's a long dry spell from the 1 of December to the end of January very similar to what we're having at this point uh and and the rationale behind that was we get out of school um in early December and we don't come back until the 1 or second second January 8 based on the proposed calendar so that that was the rationale behind that school school information we kind of start shutting down for the holidays uh so there was not a whole it's whatever the board pleasure we can see about working something in and as always we can always call a special call meeting necessary M oh just a minute I'm looking at her just seems like off a big span I mean you know well we got
075the the Gap from July 29th August the 5th that was one of my concerns that we needed to we needed to meet and just kind of regroup and be prepared you know teachers and staff are doing that we we should be expected to do that as well so that they have what they need to be able to start the school year right um so the one from December to January don't don't concern me as much I understand the alignment as far as you know January 27th you know our work session but I think that's more so that we're more balanced to finish out the year that way with with our attorney president and all so I'm okay I my concern got fixed um with the July and August date okay anyone else want to be
076heard okay so we I would I would uh request that we add it to the consent agenda anybody find with consent yes all right um Mr Recker good evening sir chairman hunt board good evening in your packet for review we do have a recommendation for the 2324 school calendar you've also got this as well this is an overview of the requirements for leas from the general statute there have been no changes from last year to current so with that said um with no changes to our board there's no changes that you looked at last year compared to now so as A Brief Review start date could be no earlier than Monday closest to August 26th the end date can be no later than the Friday closest to June 11th it must cover 9 months you
077have to have a minimum of 185 instructional days or 1,25 hours of instruction you do have to embed nine teacher work days you have to have a minimum of two teacher work days in which teachers can take vacation leave you have to have the 10 vacation or excuse me the 10 vacation leave days embedded you have to have the 11 legal holiday holiday school canot be held on Sunday which we do not do and then venners day should be a holiday for all public school personnel and students so with that said when we start to build our calendar we embed the first student work day according to the general statute from there we look at the 11 holidays 10 vacation days and then we look at when the quarters are going to fall and the
078semesters are going to fall and embed our work days for our staff to help them be prepared wrapping up the current quarter that is ending and getting ready for the next so with that said the calendar that you do have for review is broken down as follows we are looking to start on August 26 2024 the last school day will be May 30th 2025 that is the Friday of Memorial Day we will have 170 in full instructional days you will have two half days embedded in there we do have the 20 teacher work days that are spread throughout the year we do observe the 11 holidays 10 vacation days for a total of 172 instructional days it puts us at 1,115 instructional hours so we are to the positive 86.5 hours so we have a
079number of days of something were to come up especially with weather that we are to the good calendar spans 215 days and that is the general statute and where our proposed calendar Falls open certainly open to any questions thoughts exams will be completed before winter holiday correct okay and thank you for including a teacher work day that we're closing schools on Election Day yes ma'am um also to note early November you see a half day and then a work day for our staff that is when we will hold parent teacher conferences the parade is scheduled for the 5th for jerson riddle so we do have a half day on that day for all of our folks to attend and participate in especially for our bands and then with the primaries scheduled for the 5th of
080March and the utilization of some of our campuses we have that intentionally planned for the fifth as well you're looking at 39 days for the first and second quarter and then you're looking at a split of 47 days is for the 3rdd and 4th and graduations will be held when high school graduations after the holiday after Memorial Day okay I don't remember where was our letter training half days were they on their calendar last year they were yes ma'am I thought so yep and we're not reir to do that because we are finishing up that major cohort okay the majority of our staff of course those new hires they have some time built in some funds were given and um Dr Wilson is taking care of all that right okay good thank you from a
081parent standpoint this really helped my student uh as far as being able to get his exam before Christmas break um but I'm interested to see you know just kind of taking a step forward um this year compared to the year before and then looking forward on to next year did we set you know staff up for success as well so I'm I'm hoping that we you know I've heard a lot of positive things a lot of good things but I'm hoping maybe that'll help them on test scores and exam scores and I we are intentional on some of those course our year-long courses are English too we have you know the English to which equates to or I'm sorry communication skills first semester and then it transfers into English to um we try to plan
082our honors level courses in the fall as opposed to um in the spring spring where we do our year-long non-honors courses so we've tried to be proactive in that to for success for our students good and staff yeah definitely is there anything different you'd like to see in this calendar well Dawn that's a loaded question well it needs maybe to be looked at or considered or thought about plan a tree day until the general assembly changes the calendar law I'd like to start sooner than August 26th I think so I think so but that's we'll continue to that's yeah yeah it's it's currently still state law I know it's we're we're making it work and and I think we're we're making it work very well yall do and I really appreciate just see boards put
083in positions that have to Keith look at that March the 5th I'm sorry that's on a Wednesday yes ma'am is that's the elections are on Tuesday election on Tuesday this year or next year it's this year it's on the on the fifth this year it's on the fifth this year I think you misspoke the primary see March 2025 that that W that's on a Wednesday there's nothing on a Wednesday wouldn't it should be the fourth yes ma'am we'll make that we'll confirm that and we'll make that change you see what I'm talking about yes ma'am okay Tuesday November 4th I'm sorry wait I was wrong we'll go back and review that yep yeah take a look at that m and this requires board action Madam Secretary place that as an action item please thank you
084sir thank you sir um had uh a request from Miss Craven uh to add a review of a couple of policies on item number F and uh Dr Alton if you would please start us off see where we go yes thank you so at our last round robin we did have the two um initial policies in front of you that were brought up for review or reconsideration the first one is 4150 School assignment and the other one was 5020 visitors to the schools um and I think it was specifically about um the photography in the schools um which is number four under Section B so I just want to open it up for ideas suggestions and what you'd like for us to take a look look at in these policies what are we looking at
085first the visitor 4150 first listed first school assignment is first okay yeah well there's I if I don't if you don't mind I'll I'll start it out since I asked for it um there's still been a lot of concern about transfers um within our high schools particularly for athletic reasons and this has been going been an ongoing issue for many many years and the board did um several years ago put in some um some extra verbage about that um which because there was kids wanting to transfer during the middle of the year and so we added some um um like number um 13 and I think down there is the one of them but but there's still a lot of um transfers happening for athletic reasons I mean I'm just going to be honest with
086you parents can say whatever they want to say they can put whatever they want on that transfer form but anybody with any good sense knows what's happening and it's damaging some of our high school programs and it's really unfair and I think that um we do have it in our um in our policy that if you transfer that you can you may sit out a year and I think we need to seriously look at that or we need to look at something else I looked at Kataba County's um transfer policy and they have I and I'm not seeing this is the way to go but they have a certain um equation that they use about how many kids are allowed to transfer into the schools um and and I do and I think we need
087to take a look at other school systems policies and see if we like them or how we can put them into our policy because um it you're you're basically what's happening is is you are tearing apart teams that's what's happening and they're not as competitive whereas the kids if they stayed within their school district more I mean there's always extenuating circumstances we understand that but if they stayed within their um where they should go to school then I don't think that we would have such discrepancies within our programs and um I do think that we either need to hold a gun on what we already have saying if you transfer and you want to play a sport you have to sit out a year or you can just stay at your school or we need
088to look at some other options as to how we make that happen cuz it's still not working and it doesn't matter how hard we try to make it work it's I'm not it's not I'm not trying to blame put blame on any one person people can say what they want to say but it's just the reality of it and people know it and I think we need to come up with a better way do we have any information on how many people transfer and and actually play sports that do transfer I don't have the sports information Mr Johnson I do have just just numbers by breakdown basically the four-year cohort rate um so we have 125 students have transferred into drawn High School um East Burke 164 Freedom 165 and patent High School 384 students
089have transferred into pattent high school and that's the majority of of them from are from other high schools a few out of County here and there um but we could probably pretty balanced pardon me that sounds pretty balanced to me I mean you know other than the patent but I I think what what we're seeing at patent that is a large influx of several years ago they redistrict the patent feeder pattern so you had students that were already in that feeder pattern that stayed in that feeder pattern so so they were grandfather D they providing their own transportation um so as far as Athletics that would definitely take some time on uh coach Rogers part which I think it could definitely be done just by acquiring The rosters um that are submitted to the state
090by each team each season each sport um and break it down that way um I don't know how we I'll talk with Mr Rogers after the meeting I think that would be great data Mike if if Casey could could do that like these kids trans F and they are playing a sport and what and what you know what team they're on or whatever sport they're playing just to clarify from my understanding like if if a kid transfers at the end of the year to a different school maybe their housing situation changed they're not it's not required that they sit out of sports no it's only if they transfer back again within the within a year period tce if they leave during let's say a student played student a played football uh at one school and
091they transferred to another school they could not participate in any sports until the following Academic School year okay yeah um want me through like if you get a transfer request that's mailed to the the central office what step who does it go to what steps um so they're getting ready to get released in the next couple weeks we open that window transfer application it's $50 for the initial and then it bumps up to 100 after February it's open April April 8 May 17 okay so that gives us enough time to collect those those transfers to help build classrooms within each School uh and and as you see the patent number 384 that's why we close patent down uh so it'll go to De story once it's paid it doesn't get processed until it's paid uh
092then those that information gets sent back to the principal so the principal has the ultimate say um I know the board was very adamant on that happening several years ago so we put it back in the hands uh years ago Administration was approving who was going into those schools and we felt principles have a more intimate knowledge of those students based on the feeder pattern that they were coming to them from so but here again it's it's the ultimate we would be the override I sign off on every one of them uh Middle School elementary school and high school we have a spreadsheet uh that circulates around the office once they get done uh these ladies if they haven't seen me in a couple of days and they want to get it signed I chances
093are they're going to call me or text me and say hey have you seen that get it done um so they'll they'll kind of keep me on my game to make sure that I'm on top of those transfers and approving them so from Miss story it goes straight to the principle from which the student is it goes into that that that collection poll and then the principal's have an opportunity to review it and there's three levels of signature so the principal signs off on it first so if it stops there it never makes it to any of us if they say no I'm going to support that then it goes to the director either Dr Wilson or Miss Jennings and then Dr Swan so there's three layers of approval y on the application is there
094there a spot that says you know maybe what student entr are yeah there's a reason for transfer well not really the reason maybe you can there's a spot maybe for what your student is interested in at this school so you know you're learn maybe if it's a student coming from outside the county you're trying to learn too a little bit more about that student where they're coming from what their interests are so if they put their Hobbies or something like that you know basketball you know if it was someone inside the county that would make me look to say well did they play basketball at at drum right or you know are we looking to transfer just because of that and so I'm guessing do do they reach out to Casey and kind of talk
095to him because you know Casey knows a lot of lot of folks in the in the county discuss call so they'll ask about attendance they'll ask about behavior and if in County if in County We Talk Amongst ourselves and then okay and what I want to say we have to be cautious because four years of high school what are some of the experiences of high school think about it we have dances we have um all kinds of other events we have RC we have sports so as we start getting in to tell somebody that they cannot do a sport for a year have we robbed them of a high school experience that's where we've got a balance well if we're not going to do it then we need to take it out of the policy
096because it's still there but I guess that's where I I'd like to see some examples on and that's where we could talk about some examples we can talk the high school principl get their input and get their input on and Mike I know we had when we did it a couple years ago we we started the signatures that the principes had to sign off on it um so tell explain to me one more time how y'all do that it goes right back to the principal and for example if student a is coming to Freedom High School from let's say Heritage Middle School and and that principal's reviewing the sheet and they don't know that person they're going to call Miss Denon they're going to look at Power School and see all right let me look
097at attendance let me look at Behavior honestly nobody tells me that they're looking at Athletics right they're not um that's not even a topic of discussion it's um I don't want to take Mike Swan into my school system if he's is going to cause havoc in my school I mean let's be honest with this about transfers that's one of the things they're going to look at um why do I want to take somebody else's issues into my school so that's why we put it back on the hands because as a superintendent I didn't know all those issues until I dug deeper into it so that's where we've given it back to as principles principal Wendy and principal Mike they both sign off on it with a signature no no no just the just the incoming
098principaling yeah the receiving principal signs off on it the other principal doesn't say they release it well they don't have to we we release from out of County um and that's it so I guess if if that's something I guess we could look at so if I had I don't know that we'd be that might be a bar or question here as far as I think internally the thought is been that if a student wants to transfer to a different school as part of parent choice then the relevant decision is the receiving principle or is there space first of all and if there is space is the receiving principal willing to take them and that way you take a what was considered previously to be an unnecessary element out of the equation now you could
099have comment but I think what the superintended is saying is exactly how it practically happens is the receiving principle will call the sending princip and say tell me about this stud okay so I think there is a consultation going on okay I want to ask an even more basic question and I'm I'm not trying to be oppositional but how do we actually know this is a problem well you can look at some of the teams we can mhm just ask I'm not sure I still understand be H well I mean it happened it happens kids want to go to a team that's winning and I understand that but what they need to understand is they all could be winners if they would stick to where they need to to be and where they live now
100if there's this extenuating circumstance I understand that we've got one high school that only has a lacrosse team they're the only school that has that that's a little bit different but there is a problem and there has been for years and years and years and when a couple years ago we did a lot to help that but I still think that we need to continue to look at it and if we're not if we're not going to go by what it says that we can keep them out a year then we need to eliminate that from the policy we can review that we can like you requested earlier we can review some other districts and see what language they have written in there um and and just kind of compare and contrast ours I do
101know that particular paragraph 11 says that participation in athletics is not a valid reason for transfers and athletic eligibility may be suspended for one year from the time of the transfer the way the policy is written if the reason was Athletics that's when it be suspended but as been stated parents rarely say it's for athletic so your points well taken I think the way it is worded is technically correct it's the application that you're concerned with right as far as and and I I think you being a former principal myself as well it's hard we know when kids come to us but here again I don't want to deny a student do a that may keep him in school whether it's it's the the D1 athlete or the somebody that is happy to be on
102the B team to participate that's where I struggle with of of of prohibiting that now disclosure of this particular information would be a violation of is that correct disclosing anything about a student admissions request yes would be a violation of f that's all part of the board's material and board's decision making okay where a student is enrolled can be part of public information absolutely directory information under FR so I guess I go back to if in fact we believe which I think I probably do that parents are not going to say we want them to go here just to play athletics then what's the what are our principles going to do well I'm looking at you I I'm not sure I believe you that seem like a real valid way of doing something to me
103and I don't I know how you crack that nut particularly and we've gone Mr Hunt we've gone to the point where we've had some suspicions being a former High School principal we'd go do home visits I'm sure miss Craven's done the same and Miss Dr auton where if they've transferred into us and then we hear through the gra Vine that they're no longer living in our district right but here again that's been years and years ago so I think it's going to happen it's just written or not you know what sets it all off is you look nationally the transfer portal you look at stuff like that and you think well Prim on you know these guys are jumping around coach players and and I think Wendy makes a good point if you're not take
104it out of there and do what you need to do use your judgment on them I feel like we're doing our the best we can as far as having those conversations you know amongst principles with Casey you know he knows I think yeah that's a valid point she makes Miss Craven we can discuss it kind of on a little more intimate note as well as far as some of the the personal caveats that you're hearing and that might give us I think to taking a look at some other systems and how they navigate through that issue I think that's important and I think we've tried you know but I think we I think there's a little bit more that we need to do and I do think like Chris said about the one year thing
105is it really I mean you know we're not going to do it then all right so so that this doesn't necessarily D on the vine when can we revisit this this the February work session we can talk with our principles in that amount of time and just get some feedback for the board decid February work session Madam Secretary we're going to re agenda that for the February work session all right anything else on on that policy good thank you all right visitation School visitation let's look at policy 5020 all right so this is a we added some things in here about the photographers and I know we've been working hard on this I know um I know you guys have but we still have people coming in just taking pictures and putting them on social
106media and they may not be watermarked but they still have the photography studio name or whatever on it and they're not vetted through us I mean I I know they're not so what can we do Chris about that I think what we've done couple of layers here you know know first from 30,000 ft you've got every parent and grandparent on the planet with a a cell phone wanting to take photos of of their students out there participating which no one would ever want to take away then what I think the administration's been proactive in is who are we going to authorize to actually be on the sideline right or court side and I think you can regulate that then the fact that you're anybody is taking photos from a Burke County Event and using those
107the public sphere to make money that is a huge legal issue I'll just give you the example of every grocery store in Walmart to go to and any Community is selling gear with the local high school Insignia and emblem on it and they're not always paying any money back to the school system or to the high school and that's common law copyright issues and I think that one of the things that the technology age is created as a quandry where I don't know how you would ever police people taking photographs at sport in events because they're a public event and there's just so many different variations in which people could use those photos you certainly could try to police it by seeing what is being used for commercial gain and we could look at that
108but I think most districts just they police who has access to the sidelines and it stops there but if people are taking photos from the stands that that's Public Access I think you kind of hit it like you know your profit versus not for profit right kind of pictures and the ones that would be pulling kids to a side and doing like you know some of the sports networks that that do media releases things like that you know who would be interviewing kids post game you know one all absolutely absolutely but folks taking photos or videos from the stands I just it would be very hard and time consuming to police that yeah even if you can we'd have to look at common law copyright laws and you know obviously there's nothing wrong with the
109grand par taking a video of the basketball game right now if a if a studio then wants to try to make money off that's what I'm talking about yeah and we could look at if the board would like us to we could kind of look into that but I don't know of another District that's trying to police that just because the sheer volume of it but if we have contracts with someone to take our pictures and then someone else comes in that's where I'm that's where I'm asking and they decide they just want to go take pictures but we've got contract photographers or media that we use and then you got the regular media right well I can I mean how can they just come in when they don't have a contract with us and
110sell pictures with their photography studio on you know on it branded on there how can they do that when they don't have a contract with us to come in and do that and we can certainly take a look at that I mean the question is the copyright laws and how they the common law copyright would apply to Burke County schools and the high schools and brandeds and uniforms and things like that and can you enforce a ceas and assist against someone who's making money off your image off your school images your school representations we can certainly look at that hey Chris I guess my question would be so if you've got a photographer at a high school and this photographer is contracted with that school another photographer comes in and does exact like we were
111saying um you know and it would be for profit this photographer who is contracted has a problem with it who or how would they seek any kind of action would it be us to against us or would it be to that other photographer would that photographer reach out to to that one well a couple of things what the the contract the photographer we've contracted with is getting what they contracted for which is access to the sidelines which is special opportunities to take team photos or to be right there beside the action someone in the stands trying to take advantage of the fact they're there and take a photo from the stands is not does not necessarily create a cause of action to that person we're Contracting with because they're getting everything that they deserved our
112job is to police what those rights are and to not let others have those same access rights the other thing again too is representing that you are an official photography studio that that is sanctioned by the Burke County Board of Education is another benefit that somebody would contract with we certainly be should be policing that and shouldn't have people representing that they're in some way taking photos for the Burke County schools and being able to to offer those up um the other thing I'd want to look at in in all honesty is you know how widespread is this and you know are members of the public buying photos of their kids from these other photographers I mean if they're not then I'm I I think you're chasing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist
113right can you define for-profit yeah I mean before we would want to spend the time to look into enforcement mechanisms I would want your staff to to look into a little more and consider you know is is the person we've contracted with really being e economically harmed by any of this or is it so you know my new that it's not really an issue and within those contracts Chris of our photographers within the high schools they are limited on they'll they'll it's it's in writing how many they're required how many events are required to do for example how x amount of JV basketball games four per season for Varsity games per per season uh in each event so that eliminates multiple other games where they're not there to participate does that make sense so and
114Mike we're aren't you guys working on getting a one contract for everybody we've well no we've we've talked to Chris about that that's what we're just kind of if the the board wishes to kind of move forward with something like that that's where he he has kind of said it's it's going to be in a difficult end Endeavor and whereas where can we prove that the profits coming from how do we know that they're they're doing this for profit as opposed to foral enjoyment I think that's your Mr Campbell mler had a question where talking about uh photographers possibly doing this for profit on their own without contract with BCPS does my taking a photo putting my logo on it constitute for-profit if I am not advertising or receiving any kind of monetary value for
115it I think for profit is is generally considered to be receiving some type of monetary renumeration so taking a photo and placing my logo on it placing it on on a social media site would not constitute for-profit not necessarily unless you're getting advertising for your social media site that if those photographs are encouraging advertisers to pay you to advertise on your social media site yeah the the the the questions created by social media are far outpacing our body of statutes and case law but there will still need to be an exchange of currency right yeah so that's kind of think of the first is the Practical question of who's being harmed and to what extent before we get too for and a hours and a lot of work is it a widespread problem I'm I'm
116not what really a question to you I guess I was over here I was looking at you but never mind Chris I mean to speak cly something to look at first when I go to events I it doesn't hit my pervy I pay attention to the people that are down there on the courts I pay attention to what credentials they're wearing uh that we've given them they've gone through through the background check they've paid their money to go through that background check that we've we instituted this year uh with success um but as far as me sitting in the stands looking around seeing who's taking a photograph it does not catch my attention um there again we could talk to the High School principles more specifically and kind of get some candid responses from them
117and share with the board um and see where where this and even Middle School folks where this may become if they're having an issue with it if they've been having issues with it they've not been calling us to answer your question I I do know that the last basketball game I went to you had a the AP SL U athletic director was Shing unauthorized people away from from the uh the end zones of the basketball and Mr Rogers has has prefaced that with with all of our folks as far as it's your job to patrol that during these events yeah I mean and and Jeff was clearly going you know if you don't have a permit move yep don't they have credentials on them I mean or something I mean that and how who do
118we contract with just one now we have two two gentlemen we have two so we pretty well know who the deal is don't we do well I mean you're looking at contracted photographers for the school and you're also looking at media Personnel who do you know news R up so you're you're your I mean your sports network people on this end and that end that sort of thing and people they have working under them and actually one of them on the East End is a student of ours that's working for one of those media groups that actually helps with our you know our school um Stu big Sports network has has really taken a hold of this process and they've gotten outside photographers to come in and do a phenomenal job where a parent may
119not be able to travel but they're sending photographers to take pictures of kids now whether or not these these parents are buying them I I don't know that but they're still looking what do most of us do on Facebook every morning we we scroll through and look at pictures that's and and local media is taking photographs of your students and getting money off of it through advertising because people tune in a you want to no I'm good we'll get some information Miss Craven from our that aren't contracted the media groups aren't contracted they're making yeah any other comments on this particular item okay okay uh Dr Alton first reading of policies item number G yes so majority of the policies you have listed here are from the ncsba with uh technical updates them minus three
120of our policies uh we do have 3200 3200r and 3210 on this list um to revisit tonight and those are media selection policies and I think Mr Campbell is prepared to kind of walk through those changes with the board be happy to thank you Dr Aon so board members if you'll turn to 3200 first and before I begin I'd like to give the superintendent the floor just a minute to talk about uh the process and why we're bringing back administrative revisions to these three policies to you tonight so we we had an organization uh reach out to us um a couple local legislators we sat down and had a had a meeting with um Mary Suma with um North Carolina Values Coalition andc Values Coalition uh representative Blackwell and Senator Warren Daniel we met in
121this room and we we took some concerns that they had shared about our policies uh and we've been since since those concerns have hit the floor we've we've kind of gone back and forth with different revisions uh We've kept missum in the loop on things we've shared information with her throughout the process um and we've we we did our final meeting last Friday I'd say uh another face to face meeting here in this room and we I think we've got it uh very well dialed in uh and something to be very proud of uh this board the administrative staff that has worked on this with input from our community uh input from uh Campbell Shatley um and just I I think we've we're you once you see some of these improvements you're going to be
122really impressed with what we've done uh to this point so most of the these are clarifying changes there are a lot of issues that were raised as we started to look into it where um if you were a third party reading these policies from the outside you didn't necessarily understand the intent that the board had with some of these so a lot of these are excellent clarifying changes and I I want to publicly thank Miss Sim as well they've been she's been wonderful to work with have taken her uh considerations and thoughts and working through this and then your Administration has done a I think an excellent job so let's walk through the the changes on each policies and see what questions you might have if you don't mind let me just walk through all
123the changes to each policy and then I'll stop and we'll see what discussion you might want to have so first of all policy 3200 which is your selection of instructional and supplementary materials the first addition is that the policy applies to administrative review of materials by the superintendent so that just makes it clear that if the superintendent is going to take undertake an administrative review he and his staff are going to follow the same policy directives that you've put in place for book selection so from Cradle to grave we're going to use the same criteria whether it's a book challenge or an objection from a parent or an administrative review by the administration for the distribution of materials to students on school grounds by Third parties including but not limited to Book Fairs and donated
124books the administration shall follow this policy and provide notice to parent of the opportunity for their child to purchase materials so this makes it clear that this also applies to Book Fairs it applies to others bringing books to our campus we're going to follow this policy and the administration will and reviewing the materials and parents will be notified ahead of time if their students can purchase materials so that's a great parents' rights addition that I will know if my child is going to have the opportunity to purchase a book so when my child walks back through the door at the end of the day what's going to be my first question I'd like to see what you purchased so if parents want to give their uh kids money to purchase books they'll know ahead of
125time that that's going to be going on the next changes with regard to content are made available through the internet the school district will comply with all Internet safety laws in accordance with existing policy this one is a little esoteric the federal government requires content monitoring software for internet content that you access through the Internet it's part of your eate process it's the child protection act that you have to comply with and that is for internet websites and internet content that is not for ebooks it's not for Library materials it is for internet access so this policy makes it clear that we'll continue to follow federal law when it comes to internet access the board respects the unique role of parents Guardians and caregivers in the education of their children therefore the administration shall make
126available resources for parents Guardians and caregivers to learn about the content of media resources selected by their student and such resources shall be posted on the school district and individual school media web pages this is a very significant change I think the one comment that was made that was not taken and added to these policies was the request and we've talked about it many times Miss Craven I think you were the first proponent of it there is still nothing in your policy that requires you to try to put a rating system to every single book um you've had lots of convers ation about that I think that there are concerns with how you would do that uh other rating systems that are out there are voluntary things that apply to movies things such as that
127nature there's litigation going on in Texas right now about whether there can be a mandatory rating system and how you would do a mandatory rating system and even if you force the book seller to give you that rating or to put things on there is that compelled speech can you actually compel a book seller and that's being fought out in Federal court right now what your policy does and I know of no other policy in the state that does this though is that you are mandating to the administration that they take every resource that is available for a parent to learn more about a book and to put that on your website so that parents can be active participants in reviewing what their children are reading so it does put the power in the hands
128of parents but nothing in these policies requires your staff to do a 14 plus or a 16 plus rating to every every book and let's be practical for a minute we were talking about practicality a minute ago you have tens of thousands of books 15,000 20,000 books that no one has a problem with so think about the time and effort of going back and asking your staff to put a rating system on books that no one has an issue with what your policy does do and you'll see it a little bit later is anyone can raise an objection or a concern about a book as long as they're a taxpayer of Burke County and if they are then the administrated the administration can conduct that internal review and just like they've done so far they
129can put the 14 plus on there so when an objections raised and I think that's the point that I think really needs to be hammered home and folks need to understand there have been extensive lists given to your Administration they've reviewed those extensive lists they've reviewed and removed books that they did not feel were appropriate after reviewing those lists and for a lot of books they put the for 14 plus rating on there so there's a process in place that has shown it works and the the not the push back but the legitimate point from the administration is to go back and try to put a rating system on tens of thousands or thousands of books that no one has a problem with they that the use of Staff time there is concerned so again
130this is putting the power in the hands of parents and putting that information on the website if you come on down to section B which is selection of supplementary material uh the addition there is nonpublic digital resources made available directly to students by the school district shall be subject to this policy so this is the flip side of the internet content filter you can rest assured that ebooks and other things there is going to be an internal review process just because the federal filtering law doesn't apply to it doesn't mean the administration's not going to conduct the same review so that's a great addition so you know you've got all these hardbound books that are in the library we're also going to apply and your Administration is going to apply this policy to ebooks that
131they make available to students so it really brings this policy into the uh into the electronic agent especially as ebooks start to peripher across school districts staff shall use their professional judgment to select materials which support the development of literary skills in the standard course of study to the greatest extent possible this I think was a good change especially in conversation between myself and Miss Suma it used to say that we would ensure the highest quality in the selection of material from a comprehensive collection of all users and place educational over personal opinion and reason over Prejudice well there's a LOF lot of lofty phrases in there highest quality personal opinion and reason over Prejudice uh and missum I both had to smile as attorneys and say what in the heck does that mean and
132how would you enforce that how would you describe that so focusing your educational materials your supplementary materials on development of literacy skills and the standard course of study is a much more pedagogical approach to the selection of materials rather than lofty language that uh even reasonable people could disagree over what it means so I think that's a that's an excellent change come on down to paragraph two uh it is now a process and criteria for selecting and reviewing the materials the responsibility for selection of supplementary materials and subsequent administrative reviews is Guided by board policy and dedic ated to the professional staff under the ultimate decision of the superintendent or designate selections will be made primarily at the school level with involvement of a school media and Technology advisory committee or the school approvement team
133folks The Buck has got to stop somewhere and this policy makes it clear that we're using staff-based media teams of professional Educators at the schools but if something comes to the level of the superintendent through an administrative review then the superintendent is the ultimate Authority using these criteria of whether the book uh or the material can stay in place after that a member of the public again a taxpaying member of Burke County could raise an objection the superintendent would then do an administrative review if a parent has a problem with a book and is not happy with the outcome at the superintendent level it comes to you and that's your current policy and that's everybody's current policy ultimately a parent challenge would still come to use school board so this makes sure clear though that
134the ultimate administrative Authority lies with the superintendent and then the new paragraph e is the one that I've been talking about quite a bit already let me just read it to you the Board of Education believes that parents and professional Educators have unique and complimentary roles to play in the educational development of students thus parents have a right to object to instructional materials and challenges will be addressed pursuant to policy 3210 in in addition based upon a complaint or objection from a non-parent who is a taxpaying resident of Burke County the superintendent or designate shall respond to the concern and may elect to conduct an administrative review on a case-by casee basis in accordance with this policy if an education material is challenged based in part on an asserted violation of state criminal law the
135superintendent or designity shall consult with law enforcement as part of any administrative review this is now put in policy exactly what your superintendent did he conducted administrative reviews of books that were brought to his attention as far as a challenge and this makes it clear that he can continue to do so and that the origin of that can be any taxpayer in Burke County but again the right to bring a book to this board still belongs to parents and parents only uh pursuant to these policies but others can raise objections about that and of course too and it Bears repeating that uh again again and again that even prior to all these policies and and all the changes if a parent expressed a concern about their child reading a specific material or being exposed to
136a specific book they were given an alternative that has always been standard practice in Burke County to uh to to take the wishes of parents into account with regard to a specific book so those are the changes to 3200 again which came about through this cooperative and um collegial effort that we engaged with others and I have no problem recommending these changes too in my mind most of these are more clarifying changes and they put your practice into policy questions for any of us now who were who was who was the group collegial group tell us well the collegial group was representative Blackwell Senator Daniel and Mary Suma who's an attorney are aware of this yes and I have been sharing with this is that right or well agreement Doc is uh yeah there always
137going to be opin aware of that I I can put it this way every concern raised has been discussed negotiated worked through talked about and recognized in some way in the additions that I'm going through today Miss she's an attorney for the North Carolina Values Coalition so so there was good coverage on and what she did was I think she took a lot of what you've heard in public comment and what your local delegation has heard from constituents and she was able to synthesize those into legal suggestions and concerns for the policies that's good that was a good crw look along with myself Dr Aon Dr Honeycut yeah yeah but to say that everybody is in lock step with every word you asked too much of a stock those loaded questions that's right well and
138in all fairness to them I publicly do not want to represent out that those three individuals approved these policies they did not they provided input and this is the recommendation from your staff back to I think it's a great policy so you other the comments I do have a have a question and just kind of want to talk about it you know to make sure maybe I'm reading it different so um under Part B so if we start start there at using this policy and procedure 3200r principal shall initially address any issues regarding classroom Collections and teacher selected resource individual classes so but the teacher when you go on down is the one that will use their professional judgment to select when you say go on down where do you mean like to the to
139the yellow where it says staff shall use their professional judgment to select materials which support the development of literacy okay yeah staff is meant to be the folks that are selecting the materials to get begin with which is the school-based media staff okay but then we've included the word staff because this does apply to teacher libraries teacher selected materials so we did want to be that broad because we wanted to make sure it was clear that this policy really does apply to what the teacher has behind her desk and the pr I think that's what you're after and the principal my professional judgment is different than this professional judgment the media coordinator's professional judgment would be different than the classroom teacher professional judgement and based on the the parents Bill of Rights we've already begun
140cataloging those Elementary School parent or teacher collections to make sure that those books are not behind but you're not taking away the ability great Point you're not taking away the ability of teachers to have their own collections in their room because heaven forbid no one would ever want to do that so again you've got to be practical yeah you know but we wanted to make it clear that if there's a concern about something the teacher has selected these policy criteria still right and the criteria is reviewed before selecting any you know new new items that's be you know Frank about it occasionally a teacher is going to select something and a concern may be raised later and that's where the administrative reviews come in by the principal and superintendent that's just a fact of life
141you cannot police every book before it walks through the door into a teacher's room but you can address you can tell teachers these are the criteria we're using and then you can apply these criterias if a parent has a concern yeah and according to parent of right your professional View and judgement yeah and parents can see what's in teachers classrooms under the parents Bill of Rights we make that available to them okay absolutely trying to balance what's also practical in the real world yeah any other questions about 3200 um let's actually wait sorry no no you're fine so to the Book Fairs part where it's uh the first paragraph um including but not limited to Book Fairs donated books and the school administration so I know you know when we hold a book fair let's
142say um Elementary or middle level you know those books are coming from either Scholastics or wherever you know the the supplier is are our media coordinators in the school able I know they get a list of what would would be coming but I mean you know they're not able to sit there and go through you know each book that's on that list you know I mean they're able to look at the titles and kind of we did determine that with Dr Honeycut and that that will be an expectation of those media coordinators to look at that list to say okay and they're not that best of their ability to the best of they're not that extensive of a list I was just at uh wa Young Elementary today and they had a book fair going
143on so they roll in those metal crates they open them up they set up their cash register the supplier goes home so yeah it's it's a very doable task they that flyer they can kind of go and spot check okay that was called it's a doable task yes okay it's big all right what's next and to make sure parents know ahead of time that's going to happen so the parent can say what you get at school today right through any others for 32 all right all right what's next let's go to 3200 R sticking with how we select and this is your administrative procedure so this again is not a board policy this is what your superintendent has put in place we want you to see the changes all right again under the C under
144the uh selection factors at the beginning of the policy uh we took out whether or not the resource enriches and supports the curriculum and changed it to does the resource primarily enrich and support the development of literacy in the standard course of study for number two we took out ethical standards because again missum and I agreed whose ethical standards where do you apply it how where do you draw the lines and we replace that with ethical standards applicable to good citizenship which is part of the curriculum and public discourse in our democracy which means all sides should be hurt come on down to paragraph five we took out does the resource provide a balanced perspective of controversial issues that is grade and development appropriate under the guidance of critical thinking and critical analysis again a
145lot of great lofty sounding words that you would be hardpressed to apply definition to and we replaced it with with regards to political or social issues is the work grade level and developmentally appropriate to assist students under the guidance of teachers and their parents to develop the thinking and critical analysis skills necessary for good citizenship and public discourse in our democracy so keeping those as our guiding Factor number six a similar change there in terms of trying to Define what is a ethnic group or a cultural group we've replaced that with is the word grade level and developmentally appropriate to assist students under the guidance of Educators and their parents to understand and appreciate the Many religious ethical and indiv individual differences to help students develop thinking and critical skills necessary for good citizenship public
146discourse and to further the mission of the school district to prevent unlawful discrimination based upon differentiating characteristics as set forth in state and federal policy so your Administration want to be clear that the anti-bullying anti-harassment laws which are laws regardless of people's viewpoints and opinions on things that bullying harassing Behavior because of different is unlawful so I wanted to reflect that in number six number seven staff shall use their professional judgment to select materials which support the development of literacy and the standard course of study to the greatest extent possible took that in place of again placing personal opinion above uh reason or pre or above Prejudice and then number eight again the highest quality we just took that out all together because that's just so subjective and it's really not a necessary Factor uh
147in what's decided come on down and we got some very significant changes in the criteria I think you're going to like because it makes it a lot clearer under reliability we've taken out authoritative treatment so we don't have to get in arguments over what's authoritative or what's not the question is it is it up to- dat and factual and we think your staff can apply criteria to decide if something is current and factual and then under suitability the content of the work shall be developed and grade span appropriate so it's clear that we're looking at things according to Elementary middle and high which your F your staff was doing anyway but let's just make that clear uh and then we added an endnote to the policy to make things very clear and the end note
148is when the staff is looking at the suitability this end note says that works shall not be pervasively vulgar that was the language used in the Supreme Court Pico decision or obscene and we've put the test for legal obscenity right here in the procedure as defined by the United States Supreme Court to be obscene it has to meet three things first of all the average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that the work taken as a whole applies to the puant interest in sex which is sex for sex sake number B whether the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law and then three whether the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary artistic political or science scientific value so those
149are the criteria that the Supreme Court has given us so it's right there in the policy so that the staff can certainly keep that in mind and the last point I'll make on that remember is when it comes a lot of the obscenity and harmful to minor statutes are criminal statutes so if there is any question or objection raised as to whether or not a material might violate the criminal law then the superintendent remember from earlier is directed to consult with law enforcement because there are affirmative defenses and other things that that apply to that as well so again I I think all very good clarifying changes and putting in um actual definitions actually helps questions comments thank you for the endot yeah I think that's awesome that's what needed to be in there because
150that's what we were struggling with yep you know like what is our guideline and now we've got a guideline yeah and I I think it's an excellent guideline right yeah thank and I'll give Muma credit she pushed me on that one and when I put it in there I said boy that makes a lot of sense so you know just always my concern was and we talked about this earlier as an attorney is anytime you graft a criminal statute into Schoolboard policy and procedure that is a that's tricky business because obviously you don't need to be a lawyer to know that the stat that the standards for criminal violation are much higher and are frankly an entire separate set of law from civil and policy enforcement but but I think this is excellent because this
151is the Supreme Court definition in the Miller case does any other school system have anything like this in their policy only the ones that have uh plagiarized your policy so far Y and I think there'll be more who will want to see these changes I know several that are that want to see these changes any other questions about 3200 R if not I'll move to 3210 the last one just to say that we've come a long way in two and a half years yes yeah uh CU you when we first saw what was going on you know it's like we never we got a problem how are we going to deal with it because I mean we really PL out um Uncharted Territory we truly did so we took a beating for it too and
152and I think when you put out still taking a beaten when you put out your first policy changes I think at that time you said you know these are living breathing documents and let's see from our Administration from others how they apply and work so I think this is the way policy is supposed to work so so policy 3210 parental objection just a second just a second number seven is as my um and it may be redundant I just want to kind of get a consensus or thoughts from the board what they think staff shall use their professional judgment to select material materials which support the development you know standards courses stay greatest extent possible in accordance with the criteria set by this policy meaning you know the purpose the reliability the suitability and we
153we can add that yeah clarification y Dr Aon if you'll make a note of that to the end of number seven absolutely because that's assumed so have no trouble reiterating that anything else all right sir what's next all right 3210 is the last one and 3210 um again want to make sure it's clear that what we've done in Burke County which I think is excellent is you've kind of divided instructional and supplementary into two different categor ories uh and deal with them U appropriately and what this now says is parents also have a right to review all records of materials Borrowed by their child from the school media center in addition parents May review School library collections online or at the school following advanced notice to the principal or designes so parents Bill of Rights
154says that parents have a right to see anything that their child has checked out from the media center and we're saying that you can certainly come and review anything you want at the school just with advanced notice additionally before students are permitted to access supplementary materials categorized as 14 plus parents must give explicit written electronic permission regardless of the students age so for anything that's categorized as 14 plus it's now in policy 100% clear that there's got to be that prior written permission from the parent and yes we've said written electronic permission an email is going to be good enough enough a text message is going to be good enough let's face it a lot of parents their primary mode of communication is text messaging so I think in the digital Edge that's a good
155way to accept responsibility and again remember the big picture if someone's raised a concern if it's gone through an administrative review and if it has some explicit language or material and your staff has decided to keep it because it's educationally appropriate for some students but maybe not others and has put that 14 plus on it then this policy is going to apply and no students can check that out without parental permission so short of somebody coming up with a way to rate every book that's ever been written this is a very effective way of dealing with this you're marking them as 14 plus and then the parents got to approv and no Mr chairman I don't know of other school districts that are doing this other than the ones that are following suit with what
156you're doing so that all fits in very nicely and then go to the body of paragraph C and we felt like what we wanted to do was the administration we had a lot of conversation between the three of us about this we wanted to honor exactly what the changes you had made but we felt like they could be worded a little differently so this is kind of what we came up with this is a recommendation of of how your Administration and Dr Honeycut I'm sorry I didn't mean to leave her out she was essential in all of this to to reward this so the principal will notify the media coordinator and District media Personnel if there's a complaint the district media Personnel will convene a District media advisory committee now why District level because you're
157saying that if a book is removed it's removed from all schools so to show respect to all of your schools School a all by its Lonesome should not really be making a decision for every single School in the school district so if we're going to make a decision for every school in the school district it should be a district level committee that's going to look at it so the district level committee gets convened it shall include and we we still need to insert the uh team members there and we can talk about that in addition the final decision of the committee will apply to all schools in the district serving the same grade span all committee decisions to retain a supplementary material in the media collection sell stand for three years this is all what
158you did previously and all committee decisions to remove material from a media library collection stand indefinitely subject only to Future action by the Board of Education I put that in there cuz it's true you know the future board is free to do whatever it wants with specific things you named who is going to be part of the committee I believe is it in this policy help me further up higher in this Pary where it talks about a parent certain names remember help help us out Leslie when we named exactly who was going to be know list the dmac okay so we still need to identify the dmac is listed explicit okay but the okay gotcha it needs to be in there and I assume we need to clean this up a little bit to make
159clear that parent is involved parents are involved on the committee that was the request okay so assume that and your thinking that we're going to clean that up to make that consistent with what your desire was with the m we will pick that up on the second reading yes sir make that in it yeah all right yeah and then the rest of the changes we just took some things out that again were more factors we don't need factors we've got 3200r and we just need to stick with 3200r and then just changing mtac to dmac so we need to just clean up the membership of the dmac committee but other than that those are the changes questions comments so there will be a dmac and a mtac I'm going to need the Educators to speak
160to that because I think may have different roles the dmac is designed for challenges yeah the mtac used to select in the first place wow I got that right the mtac is more school based and the dmac is more District level but that's when they'll be used yeah can we uh patent this and get a little money a lot of work has gone into this it's really been good work that the staff has done and this board has done so all right any other comments questions on okay what's the remainder so those are the three primary the sub substan changes um you have another list of policies for our first reading tonight that primarily came from the School Board Association um with just most of them minor changes so if you have any questions about
161those or want to take a look at in we sure certainly can policy 5210 uh section A under the yellow highlighted I guess those that are changes uh it says complaint as opposed to compliant everybody knows what com P me should be compliant yeah and and someone raised that at a meeting I was at the other day that's actually a typo I think in the school boards Association so I need to call them let them know too yeah it happens that happens thank you for touching but as we say in the legal business words matter shows not read them the order of the a big difference any other uh points anyone like to make Alon thank you Mr Campbell thank you sir Mr Recker for uh your personnel report suggestion for action on tonight's Action
162Report um just as a brief reminder voting on the hiring of the folks listed if you'll know under number two inadvertently by mistake it was listed as an additional duty as well on top of the teaching position so um again Irene and voting for The teach position only I'll make that change for next week and have that corrected prior to the vote all right any questions or comments and remember if you do please indicate by number hearing none all righty thank you Mr recer we'll put that madam secretary is an action item um can we take about a 5 minute break please we and we still have more things to go so we'll be in recess for five minutes and let's come on back finish up having go thank you begin our round robin series
163with the locally and nationally that uh keep it to board business if you don't mind that's what we try to do you looking at just me at that or doc I think I look at you for most things no I I heard an interesting thing in Dr Honeycut and I'm glad she's moving up though uh I was listening to um Charlotte talks this morning about AI in the high schools in the systems and boy there's a lot going on and so if we could just kind of you know so that's good because some of the systems rather than trying to shove it out or embracing it so if we could just get some and I know you're on top of it but just give it some information on that how it's being used and utilized
164because it's coming it's not coming it's here Y and uh so DPI just sent out a release week for last about um AI in public education and we've got a workshop or for your retreat we've got a little session planned with that with Dr Honeycut so oh good good good it's it's some good stuff it's scary stuff it's good stuff too we will be working Dr a and I our be on implementation for good good that's great great and then we're asking the school boards Association if they're going to do an AI policy because a lot of these groups are saying the Board needs to deal with it through policy policy so we're looking to see if they're going to come up with a recommended policy yeah I mean you talking about Cabas over there
165and they're already doing it so I guess there's stuff out there but that that that'll be great yeah thank you that's that's thanks sir Mr tayl I don't have anything new I think um most of my things that I've brought up the last couple times between you know the buses The Vape policy um and then just talking about policies I appreciate the free free flow of uh communication and be able to ask questions as we go so I don't have anything I do I have um a request for the board to see if we could possibly look at policy uh 2310 um which is the public participation at board meetings and section b um putting that time constraint on the public comment session will not exceed 30 minutes total except by majority vote of the
166board um I did cross reference another local um board to see what their public comment policy was and um there isn't a time limit and so I want us to look at that to see if we can go ahead and remove that I am in the opinion of if people sign up appropriately regardless of how long it would take us as the public servants to hear them we should hear them so just putting that on a maybe future agenda we want to chat about that maybe there's a way that you know when we see that there would be an extra you know amount of people a larger amount of people needing more than just three or five minutes maybe that's when we as a board say hey from this point we'll we will we will
167hear you can either choose to speak tonight in the time constraints or look at we'll set this date as a um I guess just an open time to hear public comments for however long it takes for however many people it takes to way that way you know I want to be respectful of our administrator time um you know our central office employee in their time and um you know still still progress but yet still know that we're here for the public and if if that would be an option you see what I'm saying public hearing like a forum like a like once we see that that there's a there's a you know maybe there are 10 to 15 speakers ERS and those people are expecting at least five minutes and maybe you know we say
168hey we're going to set a open comments time on this date as a board will be there and we will hear all of those comments at that time you know in in T and I spoke about it here I don't it's been well a while back at any rate um Aaron and I talked about it as well you know I agree um I'm not sure how to fix it in the policy and I'm just wondering uh to throw this out there that it shouldn't be more episodic as when you when you have you know a significant number of people and it's clearly clearly going to go over what we did I mean this last time we had was it 19 19 20 21 yeah uh we made accommodations for that and I mean I don't
169know that any of us would want to you know cut off necessary comment um even though you know some of the times it's very um repetitive and not sure it's entirely pertinent to things we're doing but be that as it may I don't know I I don't know how youd fix that doing as a case yeah doing as a case by case because I don't I don't know that it would be different from meeting to meeting depend upon who how many wants to show and how many wants to talk I mean have we have we stated as a as a as a matter of philosophy that that we endeavor you know to invite and encourage all appropriate public comment I mean I don't know that any of us disagree with that well I I I
170get concerned when people sign up appropriately to speak at this meeting for us to take that away or move it for our convenience that's where I I I struggle and so from a policy standpoint how it's written it will not exceed 30 minutes except by majority vote and so if everybody gets three minutes because I know I would be upset if I signed up appropriately got off of work drove here sat through however long thinking I was going to speak to only be told I'm not going to be able to that night because of a cut off or I would have to come back at of another date to speak so because who do we have speak I mean we have people who just got off of work who had kids in the system they
171had to go pick them up get them home dinner and they're here with us and so if that means that we only had two people sign up that night great if that means 21 then that's just the night we're looking at unless we're going to I don't know we could set up a mechanism to where you can you can't sign sign up anymore after so many people but if someone signs up I think and they put their name down appropriately we have the obligation to hear them on the night of which they signed up Mr Campbell you got any words of wisdom I think this is a a frequent topic of conversation with boards from time to time I think the policy has written so that it can be episodic so that if you've got
172a big crowd the board can decide to extend the time or make alterations to it but this is purely a board decision of U and I think that uh Miss bickler is has accurately stated the feelings of a lot of folks that come to public comment and I think too that boards want to for very legitimate reasons limit repetitive public comment and other things you've got a lot of business to take care of as well um so the way I've seen boards handle it is to leave it the way to extend it slightly uh to 45 minutes as a compromise I've seen board say that they would even consider allowing public comment at the end of the meeting so that they can complete you know have 30 minutes and then if there are folks that
173want to stick around until the very end of the meeting and give comment there will be an additional time added at the end of the meeting so that the board can go ahead and get its business taken care of and a lot of times you have people that come to board meetings so you can be as creative as you want to and responding to it it's completely up to you well you want to throw something out creative you know I'm not really big on Reinventing the wheel I I I took a look at our commissioner's policy I mean it's one sentence I I wasn't mad at that each speaker will be a lot of 3 minutes period and that's just where they leave it no time frame night no no overall time frame like time
174allotment is just you get three minutes and that's and I can't say that I don't like it for consistency well let's do something let's suggest you want to suggest a change then to to remove the the 30 minute limit and and indicate three minutes per I mean if that's the pleasure of the board if we want more discussion on it and and have some discussion your current policy says each speaker will receive five minutes to present comments how ever the public comment session will not exceed 30 minutes I will tell you 3 minutes is more common for what that's worth so everybody just gets three minutes it's easy if you sign up to the appropriate channels and the appropriate time frame for this meeting then then we will hear you okay is there anybody opposed
175to that then Dr Al why don't you whittle a policy for us to uh to bring back Chris made a point it was interesting that um that if it looked like it was going to be long that you do board business and then see who sticks around and and that kind of you know because we've seen it Go On and On by the time we get to what we're supposed to be doing everybody's so worn out they don't know what they're doing well if do that I want to be considered of Staff time as well our central office and so I'm saying I don't think we've you know I I agree with everybody ought to have their opportunity to speak but I think we've gotten through the hot issues maybe maybe it's not I don't
176know the County Commissioners quite have the stuff we're dealing with but we've seen the load loads of people come in but I agree people ought to have it but let's maybe look at that then do board business so the staff can get whatever they want to do and let them go home and then and I have seen some boards say that public comment session number one is for agenda items only and then there'll be a general comment session at the end of the meeting that that might well why don't you consider doing this let's let's eliminate the 30 minute indicate 3 minutes per okay and then how about leaving leaving the um the agenda location to the existing policy between the chair the vice chair and the superintendent which is how we construct agendas now
177based on the number of people that's sign up yeah yeah yeah I think that's fair I think leaving flexibility is key yeah okay and two and you can just you can just reference that other policy um the construction of the agenda right and since you're going to open that up your lawyer would love to jump in and clarify uh the rules on uh employee complaints uh actual employee complaints of misconduct are not handled by this board you're an appell at board they're investigated handled by your Administration and I think your policy could be a lot better in educating the public as to how that process works and the public comments not the appropriate time and why public comments not the appropriate time for that because it can get to you but it needs to follow
178due process and it needs to follow appropriate channels so if you don't mind expect to see some other changes in addition to the ones Dr a done because I'd like for to consider those thank you sir no um I have just a couple of things the specifically for uh Mr Mr Recker and the HR department um if if we could um maybe have a u information Blitz on people in HR that do exactly what I mean I guess you can get online now and find out the different sections but if we could where's Miss sh there she is if we maybe could could do a kind of a blitz uh perhaps even with pictures of staff and this is what they do and this is how you find them um that seems to be at
179least a little bit problematic with some of the calls that I'm getting with the new website is that what you're referencing possibly or no well with that with that as as well as doing some some sort of up to- dat okay uh media blitz with u you know within our section Cal office H within our district okay so folks know you know who to call and they don't have to go through you know two or three telephone trees to to get what they need the other thing too is I I remember a few years ago we contracted um with a separate employee assistance program group and I don't recall since we've been in that having seen any sort of abstract in how that's being used we're spending uh we're spending a lot of money on
180it and I'd like to know what the utilization is and you know maybe maybe even quarterly what the contacts are or how many contacts and how many maybe result in referrals and just to see what our utilization of this is because uh I don't hopefully it's working I know we have uh I've had express some problems with it but I'd like to see the utilization U that we can include in the agenda the other thing too in in my in my travels about um I am of the humble opinion our cell phone policy is not being universally adhered to certainly some more than others um but I know in just the past couple of weeks you know couple couple of high school kids got busted when we walked into the room my daughter got hers
181hook this week oh did she oh yeah well tell her to stop that miss going she could keep it all week she don't have to give it back to at the end of the day myi you know again where where is Miss lroy I I don't want us to become the cell phone police along with the you know the Vapes and everything else but you know that was you know we um you know that cell phone thing was a big deal and I don't I don't want teachers to have to continue to get in fights over this thing it's just a little bit silly and I think that's it John I'm good I'm good Mr H I just wanted to reiterate some of the things that I'm just really incredibly proud that this board has
182done and some of the policies because we are a Judicial board all we do are make policies or hire or fire a superintendent but we've and we're and we hired you so we're keeping you so don't a but the media policy I hope that with the changes that are being made uh to the current media policy that people are happy with what we've done and that when folks complain about what books I mean I have people ask me all the time well why are people still complaining and coming to the school board meetings explain to me why folks are still doing this I said I have no clue because we've removed the books from the shelves we're reviewing all of the books I'm sure you will have to ask the person who instituted this folks
183coming to the board and and constantly and folks have said they feel like they're harassing us but you know that's part of the job that we all have but you know the cell phone policy that's one thing we listen to our Educators and we've all been in the classrooms and we see kids fiddling with their phones and not getting instruction and I think that policy that we did was real important and I think it was a really good policy and I'm really proud that we did that um Leslie you were the one that brought up the vaping policy and that's an excellent policy that we've brought in um the we established the superintendent Safety Council you know we've really tried to make our campus is safer than they have been in the past and we
184don't sit and talk about all the stuff that we do because we can't I mean you don't want everybody to know all the steps that you've taken but we've we've done a lot and um the resolution that we did is probably one of the things that I'm the most proud of because historically in the past um what we did with that legislation is we changed the legislation in order to restore supplements that it that affected 91 certified staff people that they got increases and that's huge because we don't make those changes in Raleigh what those people get paid but we were able to because we've had such a wonderful relationship with our County Commissioners and with Brian Epley our County manager that was a big historic thing that we did and that resolution that we
185did and changing that bill that was written in 83 was huge and I'm really proud of the board for all the things that we've done the stop the bleed um Aaron took that upon himself and you know the things that we've done as a board I think you know it's hard to Pat ourselves on the back because these are things that we care deeply about we care deeply about all 12,000 of our kids and we care deeply about the policies that we make so hopefully people will be as happy with what we've done as we feel that we've done a service to the people that we have been serving and that's the kids and that's the parents and that's all of bur County so that's all I have thank you very much uh any questions
186or comments regarding the um potential consent agenda all righty then we have a need for Clos session this evening so I would um move that we go into close session pursuant to North Carolina General statute 14338 18.11 subsection a 1 and six for the purpose of considering confidential Personnel matters is further defined by North Carolina General statutes 115 C- 319-321 and pursuant to subsection a and three to receive information protected by the attorney client privilege including information related to the lawsuit of Alicia D iard versus Burke County Public Schools Linda Bradshaw and Michael Alexander is there a second please um have the motion before you to go into close session been properly moved and seconded any discussion I in favor indicate by saying I I I'll oppos no thank you we'll uh be in close
187session uh for those of