001one and welcome to the Burke County Board of Education regular meeting on November 6th 2023 I'm call in this meeting to order I would like to make a motion to the approve the agenda do I have a second second thank you all those in favor thank you the agenda is approved at this time I'm going to turn it over to Miss Jane sov who is going to do our moment of silence and board invocation God excuse me God you have blessed us in many ways you have given us good leaders like Dr Swan and Dr auton and embolden them to build a strong leadership team you've guided us to select good Educators for our students you have blessed us with the guidance and strength to protect our 12,000 students we pray you continue to give
002us guidance strength courage and fortitude to make wise decisions to formulate good policies and the courage to always do what's right for our students and staff you've entrusted this board of education with tremendous responsibilities to always put your children first we pledge our faith to always keep those promises sacred and our number one priority we're grateful for the wisdom and courage to devise a resolution to change an outdated law that hampered our way to compensate our Educators you guided us to develop a trusting relationship with our good County Commissioners and County managers Brian Epley this relationship has enabled us with an opportunity to write a needed commitment with our excellent Educators this opportunity is an important time to thank my fellow board members who supported this change I applaud your courage to do what was
003right today I also honor my mother Ruby Louise who left us one year ago today to join my father and sister my mother was the Cornerstone of my strength courage Integrity Independence principles ethics and most importantly and most importantly led me to my faith in God to my mother I promise and pledge to always do my best and to do what's right towards others amen amen at this time we will have the presentation of our Colors by the Freedom High School jrtc Color Guard I pled ALG to the of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice [Applause] thank you so much Freedom it's a great job at this time I'm going to turn it over to is Debbie Jennings who's going
004to recognize our countywide spelling be winner and runner up good evening Madam chair and board members I'll wait till you get down front so you can congratulate our winners on Monday October 16th the Burke County Public School spelling be was held at Patton high school we had excellent spellers representing all our elementary and middle schools please join me in congratulating our runner up from Heritage Middle School mateline Hudson mine if you'll come forward and our winning speller from eastberg middle school Sam Elliott congratulations to both of these [Applause] students [Applause] congratulations next we're going to recognize our SRO of the year a school resource officer plays an essential role in ensuring the Safety and Security of our school environment their presence brings Peace of Mind Fosters trust and they are a relationship Builder with students
005and staff this officer has gone above and beyond in his role he has made a significant impact on his school Community tonight I'm thrilled to recognize officer Bobby Bowman as school resource officer of the year for his dedication passion and commitment to Heritage Middle School Community he truly exemplifies what it means to be a school resource officer thank you for the difference you've [Applause] made for here work good evening I get the privilege to recognize principal of the year for Berke County Public Schools this individual I've had the privilege to know since 2012 uh when I hired him as a physical education teacher at Heritage Middle School uh then with upon my transition to Freedom High School as principal we had an opening there and um our friendship and our our collegial partnership remained strong
006uh and I was able to hire this individual to come to Freedom High School as a physical education um teacher as well happy to say that he went back to school to get his administration degree uh and has been voted on by his colleagues of Burke County Public Schools as the principal of the year uh congratulations to Dr Dylan S Dr Dr s will recognize or he will compete in with the region seven principles and move on to the next level so congratulations Dr [Applause] s might as well make we were hoping to see the babies [Applause] con all right at this time I'm going to turn it over to Aaron Johnson our vice chair for public comments thank you madam chair it's time we'll start our public comment section of tonight's board meeting um
007before we get started need to um read our statement a persons will speak in the order in which they have signed up to speak each speaker during the public comment section of board meeting shall have a ma maximum of 5 minutes for his or her comments at which point the speaker will be politely asked to bring comments to a close followed by thank you School Board policies state law and federal law have established separate and distinct procedures and forms for the resolution of employee grievances employee complaints against individual employees pupil suspension and appeals and political campaigns to avoid circumvention of those separate proceedings and ensure fairness to all parties concerned no person shall speak regarding a filed grievance pending employee complaint filed with the school district or an outside agency complaint against individual employees employee
008disciplinary action suspension or termination or P suspension or appeal which may ultimately reach the Board of Education additionally prior to elections no person who is publicly announced or filed as a candidate for public office may speak during public comments concerning his or her candidacy the board chair or desit need May terminate any presentation that's not in accordance with these criteria this as limited by this previous provision public comments will be allowed during the public comments board on any subject that is within the jurisdiction of the board our first speaker for tonight will be Mr Roger travar good evening I had thought that this spring with tense public comments that this would have settled down a bit with the district placing books into a parental checkout on only approval um this would be good enough but
009again that's not the case I'll remind folks of previous legislation in court cases without missing parts that has been the modus operandi of previous speakers this is from Cornell Law School in 1973 the United States Supreme Court handed down its first modern decision on obscenity the so-called Miller taste had three components to be obscene it had to include all three parts content had to violate contemporary Community standards in which the court sits taken as a whole appeals of toan interest in sex the work depicts in a patently patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically designed by law or by decision of the courts and lacks serious literary artistic political and or scientific value in other words just writing about people having sex wasn't obscene Justice Hugo Black also joined Justice uh William Douglas and reiterated his
010own well-known point that the First Amendment does not permit the censorship of any kind I was a junior in high school when the 1982 case of the island Free School District VP Pico was decided the it school board to characterize books as any American any Christian any citic and just plain filthy be removed from Junior and Senor Senior High School libraries the Supreme Court justic has wrote several different opinions in 74 pages but they were unable to get a majority behind any of them apparently what it comes down to is the first amendment does apply actions of the school board are subject to Federal Court review although school boards have a wide discretion in deciding which books are suitable for the library they may not remove books from the library simply because they dislike the
011ideas contained in those books the dissenting justices felt that the choice of books for a school library should be left completely to the discretion of the school board a lot of people have talked about religion in this particular case I personally I do not care in whom or what you believe I don't care on what you think of my beliefs that's what it means to live in a free Society I find it offensive that those who want to claim that religion is the guiding reason for thinking this way but more to the point what are my students who who are Eastern Orthodox Roman Catholic Jewish Buddhist Muslim Hindu wian Shaman animist Shinto DST Santos Norse paganism and yes even atheist I've had them all what about their rights as a parent of two students who
012graduated from BPS or BCPS I am great immensely grateful for the instruction given to my children especially the attention given to my son who has autism by Miss Craven and his case worker Philip price however I'm speaking on behalf of other people who either seem too intimidated or unable to speak my children had just as much to right to read whatever was in the library although my children may or may not have checked out one of those books being questioned I would want them to have the chance to do so to answer another speaker's question from March's board meeting I'm from the only planet that that sustains biological Life as we know it so far Earth my children told me everything they did or read when they came home from school so your assumption that
013they would not because they are kids or because his human nature never changes is wrong I taught my children they were just learning to talk proper etiquette honor respect Mutual trust and because of that trust my children did ask questions and I gave them straight answers furthermore I taught them to question everything their love of learning and their innate curiosity was fostered by their fascination with books and what was contained within them my children were taught by some of the most dedicated overworked and underpaid professional Educators in the state of North Carolina and they have thrived as a result however I am going to ask Burke County School Board to at least consider a resolution that prohibits speakers from outside of Burke County from coming in and stirring the pot we have enough issues to
014deal with on a daily basis without outside entities coming into our County and creating Mayhem people from outside the county have no standing they don't live here they have no children here they don't vote here in short what they have to say is of no consequence thank you thank you Mr far our next speaker Mr Brad camp fortunately I'm from Burke County um just so good evening to our esteemed school board members there's been a lot of talk of course and just what he was talking about about and complaints a lot of complaints about obscenity and pornography in our school libraries it's clear the school board has lately lost of trust and respect in much of our community and that loss of trust and respect may be reflected in our upcoming School Board elections in
015the meantime there are things that school board can do to restore some of that trust I recommend you do two of it uh do two things I recommend you two changes to board policy and they're not difficult changes the first has to do with the parents Bill of Rights now that's really pretty good document uh the Declaration is actually pretty good but it stops short of just one thing it guarantees parents the right to examine and dispute textbooks it fails to guarantee parents the right to examine and dispute supplemental I.E library books that is a bit of a careless Omission which is easily corrected I'm not saying the parents don't have that right but the parents Bill rights doesn't mention it so here's my recommendation about that and the parents Bill of Rights just add
016M the right of parents to examine a review the books currently held in the district school's libraries and to dispute inappropriate books based on graphics sexual content and or liberal profanity and obscenity the board's already working on that in a sense and so stating in the Bill of Rights should not be an issue and again it would do a lot to Foster transparency and parents rights the second Rec recommendation has to do with policy 3200 uh let's move for a second to policy 3225 restricted material on the internet this is a current Schoolboard policy I read it to you policy 3225c restricted material on the internet school system Personnel shall take reasonable precautions to prevent students from accessing material and information that is obscene pornographic or otherwise harmful to minors including violence nudity of graphic
017language that is in the policy um the school board has already made a statement against pornography and obscenity on materials on the internet you have made that statement so make an equivalent statement regarding the books in the school libraries it's not painful it would do a great deal to of good to restore the Trust on the part of parents and the community so my recommendation is this policy 3200b selection of supplementary materials under number two process and criteria for selecting supplementary materials you could simply add a third paragraph with the following or or something like it says responsible guidance for library books be included in the collections of Burke County School uh libraries mandates of books contain obscene and pornographic material including graphic descriptions of sexual acts and liberal profanity ofen language are not appropriate
018for students and will not be included in the school libraries for the sake of the parents of BR County please make these two additions to the school board policy I suspect that if you don't make those changes now they'll be made shortly after the election I've included a description of those two changes for you I'll give it to Dr Swan thank you for your time Mr Camp our next speaker Mr Tim buff thank you Mr Vice chair thank you board of education for this opportunity to get to talk to you um it's kind of nice to be in this position instead of sitting up there I've been there before and I know what you're what you're feeling what you're going through and uh pray for y'all often for God's Direction and guidance for you thank
019you for for will being willing to serve good evening to each of you I want to thank you again for this opportunity to speak to the Burke County Board of Education and the school system thank of each of you members for serving and taking the time away from your families I've sat where you sat I know the amount of involvement and commitment it takes thank you candidates and people being willing to run and come forward to serve on the Burke County board for Education serving Burke County citizens from the youngest to the oldest thank you I want to speak briefly about the policies on reading material you're trying to prepare I'd like to remind us of days not so long ago about how a time when things were tough it all started over a controversial
020book The Kite Runner that was one of the triggers Administration said they would take care of it it never happened that was one of the triggers that started it all I don't see our school system in County go through that again I attended the workshop a couple weeks back to see for myself what was going on I had learned a lot that night I've been hearing a lot about it in the community uh different meetings and stuff so I want to come and see for myself two things that I heard that is worthy of of pointing out at that Workshop one was trust the Educators that's what we did some 15 years ago look what happened and here we are again history does repeat itself the other is we must provide material that children will
021read well that's wrong how do you think that would work in the cafeteria if all we provide the children is what they wanted to eat you have to provide them with more nutritional substance than that it's a lot to unpack in just a few minutes so here's a summation all the people in the school system work for you through the superintendent they will follow your directive your board attorney he works for you tell him the policy you want and keep it in the confines of the law not opinion he is not an eighth member of the Board of Education finally you seven work for the people of Burke County we hired you to sit in the seat you're sitting in to represent us in school matters and again I thank you and commend you for
022that when you create your review board hav't equal number of community members on it composed as to staff members have a cross representation there just don't stack the deck where you get the the answer you're looking for have have the log Cutter's wife on there have the farmer on there have the have the person who says welcome to this such and such restaurant may I take your order get across representation of everybody on that board U many of you I know personally are are people of Faith ask your pastors to come and sit on that board don't stack the deck let it be fair representation finally um always support what is morally right and you won't go wrong thank you for your time let's make Burke County that shining example of how school system should
023be and it is a good school system we can always got room for improvement but the community has come forward and wanted to be a part of a partnership I encourage this board to do just that reach out to the community and let it be a partnership walk forward and continue to make this a shining example of a school system thank you for your time thank you Mr Bug our next speaker will be Mr Jean G let me just say I thank you for the opportunity to be able just to speak just for a few minutes to the school board and uh just to go on the kind of public record I am a uh resident of Burke County been living in Burke County now for about 40 years and been pastoring the same church
024in Burke County now for 42 years and um I wanted to I heard I heard that some of the issue has been taken care of and so just wanted to say whether it be to the superintendent or the school board members whichever one it is I heard that a lot of these books uh that are held in question have been dealt with and have been removed and um my um comment to that is I give you a thank you whoever it is that is responsible for moving those books out of the libraries and out of the classrooms of the Burke County system I appreciate that but let me just say that's a beginning it's not the end I was talking to uh Jamie Jamie woff and uh he said there is another at least 13
025more books that need that need to be dealt with and um I encourage I encourage uh the school board superintendent to press on and continue to remove uh these books they're pornographic sexually explicit our schools should be teaching children how to be able to fill out a job application and hold aot hold a job down and I don't think I don't think having and I'm not going to be you can read the material how that is going to help anybody hold a job down or make a or make a living so I encourage you to to um consider moving on getting rid of all these books it it is possible it is very possible and I hope I hope it I hope it never happens I hope it is avoided but it is possible that
026a lawsuit is coming to Burke County it is very possible and uh my desire is that it can be avoided and it can be avoided three simple things I think it's my opinion and I'm not speaking for no group only for myself as a citizen of bur County uh number one REM continue to remove all the SE uh the uh pornographic sexually explicit books out of the library and out of the classrooms need a policy written that none of these books will ever be allowed back in the library or the public education system in Burke County no books like them will be allowed back into the library library or the public school education system in Burke County and I recommend that as the one man has already said I recommend some some extra review board
027members I've asked several times I've been doing this now speaking here for about two years off and on and I've asked several times I'd love to have a list of the review board those that review these books somebody needs to be put on there to balance the review board on these books now I believe I believe a lot can be avoided a lot can be avoided I believe Burke County has the opportunity the school board members superintendent has an opportunity to lead the way in North Carolina this is not just a Burke County problem this is a North Carolina problem and Burke County has the opportunity to be a leader you Schoolboard member superintendent you have the opportunity to be a leader don't follow lead step out in front and lead and do the right
028thing and not one I do not believe one Schoolboard member or the superintendent would like for your child to come home and read some of the material that is being put out there available for these children be a leader I'm afraid when the citizens that get up and walk out every time after the the awards is given I'm afraid that when the citizens of Burke County find out that their tax dollars is going to be spent to defend pornography there's going to be a price to pay somebody needs to stand up somebody needs to be a leader somebody needs to lead the way for North Carolina not just Burke County because this is only only begun I thank you for you that who are responsible for removing those books I thank you and I hope
029and I pray we pray our church we pray that you will continue to remove these books for our children in Burke County thank you for your attention thank you Mr go uh Jamie arov thank you again for the opportunity to uh speak tonight what I want to do tonight is just expand on what I and others were talking about um last week which is the policy 3210 and uh I spoke with some gentlemen last week who stated that a superintendent from another District advised them that his district was looking at the BCPS media policy to possibly Implement as their own so since this policy that we have has been and is currently being presented to other districts to adopt as well uh I think it's imperative to address some of these issues but as it
030relates to 3210 citizens have already voiced their complaints uh last week about not being able to participate in some of the reconsideration process unless they have children enrolled in school and obviously the professional educators are the ones in the best position to determine what is appropriate for their child so I'd like to uh address a couple other issues with 3210 once 3210 C all reviews will stand for 5 years uh the first issue is if a parent requests a book or requests a challenge for a book and it fails another parent who could have a totally different issue with the material would not be able to participate in the challenge process as this apparently marked safe for a 5-year period the second issue is according to both General statute 115 C- 98 and- 7635 either
031neither General statute or the parents Bill of Rights does not place a time restriction with or on a parents right to challenge materials third the bcsp BCPS media policy spe specifically in 3200 refers to following the First Amendment which I'm assuming as it pertains to the freedom of speech however ever I'm unfamiliar with any time restrictions that will affect an individual's First Amendment right to petition fourth I realize other school districts have time restrictions in place however most of them are just twoyear periods and ours was previously two years the second issue is 321c the decision of the school advisory committee will apply only to the school in which the challenge originated now I addressed this back in April of this year when I stated that according to policy if a book was deemed inappropriate
032and removed from the school where the challenge originated it would remain in other schools but however you know it said in the paper that that wasn't true they said if the committee finds that a book should be removed the book is removed from all Library shelves and not just a school where the challenge originated so it was stated in the paper again last month but I along with many others we we don't know any way other to interpret this but having a law enforcement background policy and procedures were both something that majorly affected every aspect of our job and the whole purpose of policy was to have a consistent and predetermined course of action that has to be followed regardless of what we think it should or shouldn't be but since the statement in the
033paper and the policy are totally opposite of one another I kind of feel like this should either be amended or clarified because as I stated earlier you know this policy is being presented to other districts to adopt as well and they're looking at it as it's currently written so thank you for your time thank you Mr Walk our next speaker is Burgess I'm not sure if that's the first name or last name that's the only thing on here Burgess all right Madam chair the one is stepping up at this time that concludes our public comment session thank you as most of you know um we are taking input on the new policies and current policies that um with our new parents Bill of Rights that become effective in January so we appreciate your comments and
034um we've been listening the whole time and we will um be making some changes I'm feel sure we've already done some tweaking and like with any new policy there's always um areas that you know you have to go back and re-evaluate and that's very common and I and I appreciate your input uh Dr Swan could you give us a little quick update about um the most current information about parent response parent response in regards to the survey the survey yes yes so this the the current numbers that I've got right now were pulled from on 10:30 23 um and a total of 1491 resp respondents um from all four high schools or and Burke Middle College as well which we have 131 students enrolled um so we have 86 respondents have selected no uh that
035they do not want their children to read a 14 plus material based on the uh survey and that's 5.77% and we have 1,45 parents that have selected yes that they're okay with their students reading that material 14 plus material which is 94.23% uh total respondents 3,769 so you're looking around 1,700 that have selected not to participate at all in the survey uh and so that's several students just don't check out based on our presentation as you heard last month we've got several students experiencing certain things that are going on in their lives that probably are not our library Checker outers M okay and you're going to send that out again at second semester yes ma'am uh at the semester change we're going to send that out again uh to our families as well uh that
036is that survey there's a link on our website there's a we'll send it out via text message and email to all of our families okay thank you Dr Swan how many times have we sent that information out this is our third we've sent it out three times we've tweaked it each time uh based on input from uh the board and and actually input from the community on what that we need to add as a a kind of a um what you might find in certain text material that are on the shelves thank you okay all right let's turn it over to Mr Keith [Music] Lawson good evening Madam chair members of the board it is with extreme pleasure I come before you tonight and I promise to give you the short form you endured the
037long version last week uh as you all are well aware in 20134 out of financial necessity certified teacher supplements were frozen at 52% of that 1314 annual salary that is still in place uh then in July 1 of 2017 we implemented a new pay structure based on a flat dollar amount uh and that also is in place with certified teachers employed from that point forward so we have two classes or two groups we have 534 teachers that uh fall in the first category and with your action tonight they can expect to receive uh certified supplement increases uh in the range of$ 230 to $992 we have 367 employees that fall into Category 2 that will see an average increase anywhere from 531 to $1,846 impacting a total of 91 certified teachers Madame chairman I would
038move um approval of the U salary supplement increase as Mr Lawson has described it and has been discussed by this I'll second all right I'll second that any discussion okay all those in favor all right it's passed thank you very congratulations teachers thank [Applause] you all right um let's move on to our Personnel report are there any questions remember to go by the number no all right I'm going to make a motion to approve the board action report for November 6 2023 do I have a second second thank you all those in favor all right now let's move to consent items um any questions all right I'm going to move move to approve the consent agenda items do I have a second second thank you all those in favor all right I'm going to um
039make a motion to enter close session for Sant to North Carolina General statute 14338 do11 A3 for the purpose of preserving the attorney client privilege regarding the matter of as versus Burke County schools and 143-30570 18-11 A5 to instruct the staff concerning the position to be taken by the board in negotiating the price and other material terms of a contract or proposed contract for the acquisition of real property do I have a second second thank you all those in favor all right we are now in close session