001good evening everybody call the meeting to order first of all I want to uh thank Mr Carswell Mr M and Mr Epley for being here with us this evening glad to have you here um at this time I would like to make a motion to approve the agenda do I have a second second thank you all those in favor please raise your hand right that's unanimous I going turn it over to Dr Dr Swan for our updates and informational items all right thank you madam chair members of the board great to see you I it feels like an eternity since last June but I feel we've remained in constant communication since then so um once again thank you guys uh looking forward to Shar some exciting updates with you guys um as you'll see up
002on the screen I can get my there we go shuffler put me on the beginning all right there we go let's try this um so just want to highlight some things that we did over the summer uh this is going back to the beginning of August we had our new teacher orientation uh we had new teacher orientation at Mountain View Elementary School we had roughly 89 new teachers uh on board with us and I'll share some more numbers uh as the presentation moves forward but it's it gives us several days to come in District leadership folks talk to the new teachers about onboarding processes at within Burke County Public Schools um and know the several schools I visited today and Dr Aon and our leadership team these teachers day one it you could not pick
003out a beginning teacher versus a veteran teacher uh everyone was on board doing what they're supposed to do with the students so it was very exciting uh also our continuing growing partnership with b or the Kataba County w MCA as you see in the picture here we had another exciting evening at Walmart uh this occurred several weeks ago we have about 50 students that are in the Bright Beginnings program at Mountain View and through Miss Craven we have uh big brothers and big sisters partnered with that so excuse me each leadership team member and principles participated in that night assistant principles as well they received $150 for each student to buy back to school supplies uh clothing things that they need for that first week of School uh so there again that's an exciting partnership
004that we that we currently have with the why um also our open houses uh with our extended work days it was nice to have open houses throughout the week last week as opposed to all of them on a Wednesday or Thursday uh where we had a lot of compliments where parents could actually get to different open houses so uh kudos to our staff for being able to work that out I attended a couple last week as well and it was a lot of lot of exciting things with our teachers going on and today as you know our first day of school uh we had a little road bump at one of our high schools uh uh we were able to get that taken care of as quickly as possible um and I'll continue to update
005you guys as more information becomes available for me um as you'll see some pictures also we have a summer reading Camp so basically what the summer reading Camp is we have several students that participate in the summer reading program we had 39 third graders uh basically it gives them opportunity to retest and out of those 39 third graders 25% of them were able to earn proficiency status on the third grade end of grade um not that testing is the end all be all with us but we that is a a a form of accountability that we are held held on by the state um so good job to our teachers and our principles that participated in that as well Chesterfield feasibility study as I mentioned um we did receive the Grant from dogwood trust uh
006to do the feasibility study uh we're meeting with Dogwood or I'm sorry with Messin uh the week after next um to get that information so I'll have more detailed information uh regarding that feasibility study um with the board as a reminder our our goal is to use Chesterfield Elementary School for some housing for our Educators our law enforcement our EMT uh more affordable housing to get more people into the county um and and better assist us uh we are on year two of our letters training uh and we're going to continue to support that with all of our new folks our new hire started volume one uh this year so we we had our first letters training last Friday uh it was a half a day training for our new folks so we'll continue that
007letters training uh and there again that is a Statewide initiative uh something exciting we like to do uh this is something we've started doing over the last several Summers uh as as we have new principles on board uh we try to encourage our principles to reach out to the communities that they serve uh this is an example popsicles with the new principles uh and they can call it whatever they want we've had uh Donuts uh we've had ices different things where the principles come in so it's just an informal meet and greet where we open up our schools throughout the day where parents can come in and meet th those new principles that are going to be serving the communities also are as you know we have a strong partnership with Western Peach Community College
008so I wanted to share some important data points had a great meeting with Dr Joel Welch last week um over some initiatives that we're going to be doing here in the county as well uh as you see up here um roughly 700 students are comprised of dual enrollment to date within Burke County Public Schools we have 134 Burke Middle School students that are participating in the dual enrollment program and our college career promise we have 558 which which makes up roughly uh I want to say 45% of the enrollment at Western peont so that's that's a phenomenal number for us to have supporting Western peont Community College um also Western peont they accepted 190 of our recent graduates uh and that's the largest some number since 2015 a 21% increase of our most recent 2023
009graduates have enrolled at Western peont Community College so what Mr Welch is doing our partnership is really working uh within the county so we're proud of that partnership as well and um a long waited this is a snapshot of one of our schools with new band uniforms uh Mr Hunt was leading that charge with new band uniforms Freedom High School they had their uh information together on that and with the support of the full board um we were able to get every high school they were able to order new brand uniforms uh and I'll update you guys with more pictures as we come uh Freedom they already had the quote ready so the other schools I asked Miss Shuffle to reach out but they have not arrived yet um so we'll get some pictures of
010those as well everyone's very complimentary I know Mr Payne John Payne did some photographs of the the uniforms and uh just the smiles on the kids faces so I can't wait to see them compete this year also wanted to share just as another reminder an update of our Burke County Public Schools media policy updates that we have currently um as as a reminder our parent Google consent form will get sent out this week uh and that would be going out to our high schools basically allowing parents to opt in or choose to allow their students to read 14 plus age books or not um so and if they don't have that form on file if a student checks out a book um then the media coordinator will call that parent and get verbal permission over
011the phone uh there again that form will go out um my understanding will go out tomorrow at the latest or Wednesday at the latest um in order for the media coordinators to get everything done a lot of things that were happening this week in the media coordinator centers were technology was going out um so a lot of laptops and things were going out in the school so um we felt that it'd be appropriate to send those forms out to the parents tomorrow uh also we have labels on our books uh 14 plus books that are going out in the libraries uh those those books will have labels on there for parent choice and there again if those are not consented by the parents then they will not be able to check those books out um
012parents once again continue to have access to fallet and we'll continue with our book challenges through policy 3200 and another policy that we in uh introduced last spring was our photograph policy uh just an update on that we have approximately 10 individuals that have been on boarded with Burke County Public Schools um Mr Rogers just correct me if I'm wrong if that number is High um last I checked it was around 10 where they've gone through a criminal background check through us um and those those individuals are allowed on the sidelines they have to show a credential uh if they do not show a credential we don't allow them on our Sidelines and that's a policy that's going to constantly change uh as we review different seasons on who's on our campuses uh we want
013to make sure that our students are safe uh with the new parents Bill of Rights what's going on there what type of social media is getting produced also like to update the board uh Department of Public Instruction is in the process of seeking educator and public input on new health and PE standards uh we have three teachers from Burke County public schools that are involved in this process and we encourage the community and stakeholders to also give input through the DPI team uh once again parents as always has been the case in Burke County Public Schools and any uh organization I've been part of uh they can opt out of any instruction related to reproductive Health uh within Burke County Public Schools so once again uh these are not standards that will be taking place
014over the 23 24 school year if this is just an ongoing down the road and as we discussed last spring uh we'll have Mrs rexanna lman and her family with us next Tuesday um as we dedicate uh the Heritage Middle School football field to Mr lman uh his passing uh Mr lman was was a great uh educator uh and coach for Burke County Public Schools and I had a several uh community members reach out to me uh to get this ball rolling uh they've worked on generating some donations and they're going to put a plaque kind of telling who Alan lman was uh what contributions he's made to the community so uh that'll happen next week as well very excited and proud to support that um as I spoke to you guys over the summer
015we do have a new Security Group uh we are no longer with um United special police we are with Delta security group right now uh United went out of business bus so we put out an RFP and we went with what we felt was the best bid so Delta Group has our contract uh they do our gate guards at all four of our high schools um Patton and eastberg have two extra two additional uh as opposed to uh drawn and Freedom High School based on the entrances yeah okay uh vacancy update so just kind of look at our numbers and this is a breakdown growth of our begin teacher program over the last 3 years if you look in 2122 we had 82 beginning teachers 106 the following year and then this year we have
016135 as I mentioned we had roughly around 90 uh at our beginning teacher orientation that additional number are folks that have been on boarded since that time um so then I want to talk to you about our growth of our intern our student teachers over the last several years we have 44 placements went up to 139 and as fall only so the 139 was an entire school year so we're already going to double that number for this coming year so what that'll look like for Burke County Public Schools as these interns graduate in December will be able to onboard them if they're interested in sticking around Burt County Public Schools and I think a lot of it goes back to having that affordable housing here in our County as well um right now our current
017needs as a system we have 17 certified teaching positions now five of those are growth positions to reduce class size and four of those are EC classrooms um so for to put it in perspective let's say we have two fifth grade classrooms that are sitting at 33 so that would constitute us having an additional classroom teacher but right now it behooves us to break those two classrooms up until we have a certified teacher um I would rather have those students with a certified teacher as opposed to a substitute teacher until I can get a certified teacher on board uh so that's why we've got 17 certified positions um really in reality it's 12 positions that we've got um similar to what we started the school year with last year one related Services occupational um physical
018therapy and speech Four maintenance custodial and five classified positions uh and to put it in perspective um Charlotte Mech has 4 474 teaching positions vacant and 413 classified uh ell Statesville has 82 and 78 classified so I feel we're we're ahead of the curve in obtaining uh talented candidates for our Berke County Public Schools and also I wanted to give you guys some summer auxiliary updates um as you've driven around campuses eastberg High School we've got Paving we've got our um bleacher projects going on as you see the new handrailing uh and if you've been to any of the football games we've had all four of our high schools pressure washed the stadiums uh head to toe which that's not been done probably since in my 25 year career I know some booster clubs have
019stepped in and done certain sides um but never as a Mass project like this so they look phenomenal topnotch right now gym floors across the county have gotten a brand new look um you'll you'll be super impressed if when you see Salem if you've been to Salem lately as you walk in and has a yellow had a yellow tint to it now it's been stripped down to the bare floor new designs uh just phenomenal job new doors and windows at Forest Hill here again more hand railings we've listed in the community we several years ago we installed handrailings on certain sections um as we kind of progressed throughout the the years more individuals felt the need for handrailing so we were able to work with a a local welder and our maintenance Crews to get
020hand railings on eastberg and Freedom stadium hva system at Freedom that was a um pretty much an all summer Endeavor HVAC windows and paving at hilderbrand elementary school new safe school entrance at Hillcrest Elementary School I was there today it's doing a great job there uh seamless so very proud of that one ier elementary school media center floor repair as you you see on the image on the left how rotted it was so they were able to go in there and it wasn't rotted so far out that we didn't we did not have to remove the whole en entire joist system it was just that section right there new flooring in several Liberty Middle School classrooms so some of the old carpet that got taken up that was there when the school was built uh
021has been removed now we have tile which school should have tile a new roof on outside area of George hilderbrand H system at North Liberty new hot water heaters at pattent high school refinishing the gym floor at Salem so there again you can see the they take it down and it's probably not been done in the last 30 years if I had to guess urethane over urethane over urethane often times causes the the yellowness of our floors that we're seeing new roof at Walter Johnson look at the construction there uh Dr hem Street we've had some good tree removal um and a lot of just as I drive around our campuses since I became superintendent just looking at different areas and at Patton this morning I saw some areas of trees that I want to
022get cut up where people can't sit throughout the day or sit throughout the evening uh so just that things like that catch my eye so the pictures on the left um the new football field at Mountain View Elementary School some of that brush had grown up to the point where it was overtaking the fence line so I had Mr Acer and his crew go out there and remove that new radio repeaters at hildbrand elementary Eastbrook high school and Liberty Middle School hopefully we can touch some of those schools that are in those valleys out there now that will help uh boost that I've have not heard any complaints today Mr Gardner said our buses all of our buses were home by 5:30 this afternoon so that's I'd say that's a great first day of school
023um and those are my superintendent updates can I entertain any questions before we move on to our cyber security update thank you Mike when is the event on uh Tuesday for Alan lman uh it's our regular scheduled board meeting it'll be here at 6 o' yes I got you okay thank you and they they they will be doing a football game to um announce that uh as well between I want to say heritage and East Burke at a later date in October yeah okay thank you yeah that's great all right Dr Honeycut all right so I'm going to give you an update on on our ransomware recovery and the way we have moved forward a couple of things I want to share before we actually start I wanted to share that the actual Trojan that
024came through on the spam emails hit Durham County's 911 first hit all of their County offices in that area it hit interactive medical which is also our Dental Group for us and it hit uh several other school districts outside of North Carolina it was an incident called emotet which came through we were in conversation with mcnc which is our internet provider and they were with u the community colleges K12 four-year University Systems and they provided our higher level engineer systems we were also in contact with the FBI the National Guard the North Carolina Department of Information Technology secure Works Burke County Emergency Management Mr Willis and the North Carolina local government Information Technology Strike Force and fortunate for us a lot of our data was already in the cloud most of our sensitive data was
025already up there remind me what year was this uh 2020 2020 so just a quick timeline that I'll give you a quick look at so Sunday March the 8th after I returned from NC ties which I'm usually gone a whole almost a whole week for that at 8:00 U Mike wheeler one of my Engineers called and said we'd been attacked by ransomware at 8:20 I called Dr putam at8 8:30 I called Dave Fess who's with mcnc and Amy Walker who's with nickel G uh which is the cyber security lead for them and at 9:30 I was already on the phone with the FBI they wanted to meet first thing Monday morning at my office at 8:00 a.m. FBI came in on March the 9th They confiscated or took all of our hard drives mcnc reps
026Dr Pam myself and the engineering team met with them to discuss how to move forward uh we began to develop a project plan that morning at 9:30 first and foremost for us was getting the wireless up and running because all of our teachers had um mobile devices so without Wireless they really couldn't connect to anything so we wanted to make that the number one priority so we started work on that that week and then on March the 16th we know what happened 2020 Governor Cooper closed all of our schools and we were without networks we couldn't print our teachers couldn't print so we had to go to each individual school and set up at at least two to four printers where teachers could walk in and plug their MacBooks up to print we also set
027up a wireless and Mission critical areas like the office and some counselor areas and some areas like that um all the engineers all the instructional staff in my department worked with teachers to get things ready to go home with students because at that time of course we were not one to one yet so we were making a lot of paper copies which meant that we had to make sure that all of the copers work too which were hooked up wirelessly as well so we had to make sure that those were working we did set up temporary wireless access uh on March the 16th Mike wheeler Ashley BS and a couple of our other engineers in mcnc began the process of rebuilding our Network because of covid we were able to systematically redevelop our Network so
028it kind of gave us a a little break uh to be able to rebuild the network the way we had already been moving forward but we just hadn't got there yet so also because of Co in July and August we were processing 6,000 devices and delivering them via car rider lines uh in plastic bags with um for parents and students so that we could be one to one um and get those devices ready we also set up outdoor Wireless and also made an outdoor Wireless map of the county of where parents could drive up and actually have connection we also um received 900 00 hotspots of which we checked out roughly during that time almost all 900 went out to schools or to students and to some teachers some teachers got some as well we
029developed a cyber security course because at the time we thought it might be a staff that this had happened but turns out it wasn't it was a um non-updated vendor machine that got into our Network and it passed the virus through our Network um we also had to spend the time re setting and reconfiguring student devices all the file servers were compromised uh and Recovery was unsuccessful so we had offsite we had onsite we had all the pieces we were supposed to have in place set but once it hit the network because the network was flat it just took over everything so uh we couldn't get it stopped all staff had been continually told to save things to Google Drive some had some saved it to their individual machines we took took hard drives out
030of machines and scann them and Standalone machines and recovered what we could I spent days recovering uh things off of hard drives we had Protections in in place we had zscaler which is a network security we had content filtering again we had the backups but because one infected machine just spread it like wildfire um we took some steps to begin to rebuild we rebuilt all Surfers we added active directory which is another way kind of like a second way for uh teachers to be able to access things we reloaded all of our software we moved a lot of things to the cloud we moved Mills plus some different things to the cloud uh we did voice over IP phones and a lot of our schools were still in the process of changing some of those
031out but the most important thing we did was we made Vance those are virtual local area networks so we segmented everything so now a device and a camera and an HVAC system and a remote desktop and a wireless and all of those are on different bance casting to these machines is on a different VLAN so if one thing gets infected it's not going to spread all the way across the whole District uh so that was a big that was a huge piece we also segmented all of our wireless if you've noticed sometimes when you walk into school you'll see a faculty Wireless well now we don't give out the faculty password because it somehow ended up on boards and classrooms and students ended up with those rights and they have faculty has more rights than
032students so we took that and we've made that to where we have the passwords hidden that helps we've added things like crowd strike because of the state they have given us an opportunity to have crowd strike which helps keeps our devices more safe we have had all the staff complete the cyber security course they will go through it again uh with more updated things but I will say that our staff in general across the whole District when they get a suspicious email now instead of clicking on it they automatically email it to one of us and the technology department say hey this looks fishy so we know what to do from there so I think they're very aware of it now uh we have also disabled remote desktop protocol so all of the vendors outside
033of our uh group have to go through the virtual public network which is a VPN that we assigned to them they only have it for so long which help keep our Network clean as well um all staff now have to save to Google Drive there's no saving on their local machines we are rolling out two Factor authentication administrators and leaderships have already been through that if you use Amazon any of those things you're already familiar with that uh teachers will be going through that probably in late September as well uh all administrative passwords on any of our mission critical software and infrastructure have been updated we updated switches to allow for better traffic control we've moved student devices to Chromebooks which prevents less opportunities for any malware on student devices as you can see from
034the maintenance piece we've done a lot of HVAC repairs replaces updates uh in order to make sure that any vendor that connects into our network has a an updated piece of equipment and we've moved to cloud-based services so let's talk about money from school funds federal state and local 66,000 848 86 went and most of that was HVAC uh upgrades and updates uh a lot of it was um some of the other little Mission critical pieces we hired some uh people from outside of our Engineering Group to come in and help us rebuild some servers and things like that um insurance payments for cyber security paid US $ 26,43 it's nothing e upgrades $1.7 million we received from E to upgrade uh we did wiring we upgraded all of our wiring in our schools we
035upgraded switches we upgraded arrays we sent all of that so that we can have better control of our Network so all that money does not include the overtime that was accumulated by the staff not just my staff but the staff in general teachers that stayed after in order to print and things like that but looking at my staff from March the 6 to March the 31st over 250 hours of overtime was accumulated by the classified staff so that's people that clock in every day I think that that is very uh important to be aware of that that is not configured into any of that money uh so we need to be aware of that uh also our project plan and design was shared with other districts and ncdpi as part of a ransomware uh design
036for people to follow uh several districts were hit after us and they came to us for how we moved forward and what we did uh also DPI has made some changes to data confidentiality and security agreements for multiple um areas and service providers not just because of us but because of other districts being hit and we are changing the way we are doing software and all vendors are going through something called a vendor Readiness assessment and security agreement with us so I think it's important that we realized that vendors have to have security tests they have to include V vulnerability scans and penetration tests before they can get into our Network and be a part of it and as our technology grows um and we as a PSU we've got to ensure that we have
037the latest equipment infrastructure and training to help keep our students and staff uh very safe so questions so we just wanted the board to see kind of what the what had transpired I know several months ago there was another major um leak in the nation uh so we just wanted to make sure that we had safeguards in place and just kind of put Internet safety at the Forefront well was there anything to have been learned from this sir well I think the biggest lesson to be learned is to educate everyone in the aspect of that and that was something that I felt like we were not quite there yet so I think the cyber for security course and some of the other things that we've been talking to teachers about and staff in general by
038everybody from custodial to um the superintendent needs to be aware of of how all of this works together we've talked about don't use your work email to order off of Amazon you know don't use it to shop online because it compromises things so I think that has grown exponentially out of this so I think that's the biggest lesson honestly Mr Hunt that we picked up uh we had already started moving the network in that direction but the time and the money and the Personnel to be able to do it it helped like I said Ian I know Co wasn't exactly the best thing to happen but it helped having those couple of months to our s and I think to stay ahead of the curve with technology yeah and we do and that's because you
039support it and we're able to be able to to be able to move forward I mean eate saves us a lot of money as you can see 1.7 million we only pay 20% of that the other 80 is all eate so we we get a nice Chunk from them all the time well thank you for what you and your staff did absolutely you and your staff do an incredible job Dr anut well it is definitely a team effort and they are definitely the team uh they they do hard work hard and I appreciate y'all sharing that with them I'll make sure they all are aware yeah please do that I will thank you Dr thank you hello Mr wall hey we've got Mr wall for C update chairman Craven and my twin tonight uh Vice
040chairman Johnson I wanted to share with you some C updates uh we had a tremendous day in the cafeteria today and I want to let you know how we kind of got the word out a little bit um I Heard it this morning on the big dog but we've also been on Facebook uh and in the newspaper um some other articles previous to this week to let parents know about free food and uh free meals first for our students and uh so it went really well um last year we served um uh I'm sorry last year's breakfast was 3250 and last year and this year's breakfast was 3450 and last year's lunch was 5675 and this year's lunch was 6,300 today on the first day of school so we were we weren't sure how it
041was going to be received and all that is also including we had a high school that didn't participate today so keep that in mind if you put them in there we were almost a thousand more lunches last year um because it because it was free and and we credit you guys for supporting that program I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about C or or thoughts about how we're doing well I've only heard positive I've had people come up to me and say thank you for doing this and I think it's going to make a huge impact for our community and I appreciate you Dr Swan and your team for bringing this to the board thank you now as as word also gotten out about what is it the $30 a month
042WiFi credit I'm glad you asked that we're we're still working with the state um Burke County is not showing up on that website yet um but the state is aware of that and they're working to fix it so our families will not qualify for that yet but it could be any day we are working to fix it ran into the food truck this summer feeding the kids that was that was our our staff does great on the food truck Daniel how many did you feed this summer do you know I don't um we're just finishing that up and we haven't audit in a couple weeks so we'll we I'll get that for you all right that'd be great I went to the Drexel um I guess it was the all Drexel High School reunion last
043Saturday and the food truck was there as well serving food and drinks to people that were there so they had well over 3 to 400 people uh come back from drexell high school it was a great event and Mr hold uh Dan hold former principal organized it he reached out to me today and thanked us and and said what a good job our staff did with that so great was very positive how fast that food truck goes said gets a little wobbly at a certain speed is I've never had it I've never had it over 80 I'm not sure yeah it gets a little wobbly about 50 you go down Interstate 55 and the winds blow and it'll make you slow down we had a a former employee that would not drive it no thank
044you Mr wall thank you all right Miss ly it's your turn come on up ladies and gentlemen she's got a small team with her great thanks [Music] you good I was just trying to find a microphone thank you good evening good evening thanks for letting us give an update tonight tonight um as you can see I have my friends and Community Partners from Burk recovery here with me tonight um we want to start um I'm going to save y'all for the best for last so we're going to start um school safety we have been very busy this summer um and you know a lot of that I can't talk about here but I'm always open to any questions you have about that I did want to share with you some training we got to do
045this summer and I do want to thank M Craven and the superintendent Safety Council for making that happen for our SRO um for the first time ever they got to go to the North Carolina Association of school resource officer training in July and I just cannot tell you what it meant to those guys um they were so appreciative they learned so much they had such a great experience um I've shared with you up there on the slides some of the specific training they got while they were there they were there for five days um but I think it was just money well spent and I just want to thank you for letting them have that opportunity too um also Lieutenant Basera and school safety officer Clemens and myself were able to attend the North Carolina
046Center for safer schools conference um we also had great sessions about threat assessments ways to improve school safety um through relationship building um sex trafficking in North Carolina um which we're like number nine in the country for sex trafficking um the role of the leader in school safety bullying and planning for emergencies so that was also very valuable so we've done lots of work this summer um I'm excited about where we are and where we're headed with our school safety um also we thought it was important to talk about our vaping policy as that went in effect today and um on the screen you can see the policy and um the consequences for that but the other charge we had was to work with our partners at bur recovery and to really work on the
047education and prevention component of what we're seeing with kids with the vaping um and so we've come up with a plan um and it's a tiered plan um kind of like we talked about and I think I'm hopeful I'm really hopeful that it's going to be effective um we've worked on our data collection and I think we're I just think we're in really good shape I've brought our um counselors and partners here so if you want to ask them specific questions about any of the programs they're here and O open to answer any questions y'all have about the programming you have any questions for them about the programming I guess I'm just kind of curious you know with our you know how it aligns with our policy so you know you're your your first defense
048you at send school suspension three days and then you know you're enrolled into the program on the second offense how is the program different or what additional things as compared to the first offense that's a great question okay so last year we did basically education only no matter how many times they had been um how many times they violated The Vaping policy so we have an educational program that we found kind of online so we went through you know the dangers the chemicals what a vape does you know healthwise and that kind of thing while they're in ISS we're going to continue the education piece and we're also going to do a screening to see where they are because the bottom line is they're all in addiction I mean I don't think I met any
049child last year well that's not true 85% of the students I met with last year had been vaping for at least a year so they're in addiction so we're going to do the educational piece the first time they're caught while they're in ISS and we can get to them the second time they um offend we're going to do a program called Catch My Breath it's 4 um sessions 35 or so minutes long and I went through it this weekend myself pretending you know with my imaginary student and 35 minutes might be pushing it but it's four different sessions of 35 minutes it is education but it has some the two programs that we be using for the second and third event have more of a treatment component because it has more information on resources to
050quit that they can utilize themselves it has more talk about withdrawals and addiction and tolerance and that kind of thing whereas the education is just that education so the the second and third offenses will have more treatment components in the programs that we're going to use um and you know I guess it's going to have to be done when they return to school because you know they're not going to they're not going to show up if we it'll take a lot of Parental support as well absolutely and that's the downside you know even if I know there's been issues with the de kins and that kind of thing and we really haven't had the parents support for that so um we're going to do the third second and third offenses in school okay so that
051way we have the kids there we don't have to wait for mom and dad to bring them whoever so that can overcome the transportation expense well expenses or just availability so the differences would be that they're going to get more treatment basically than just education um yes yes how do how do we catch it before it gets to addiction I mean what's the program out there to really let these kids know what's coming the parents I mean I mean this is the horses out of the barn right here right all of the horses around somewhere I mean and this is great I'm not being critical of that but somewhere somebody's got to and and I don't know what well sadly I think most of the vaping starts at home not all of it but a
052lot of it at a young age they're exposed the third grade student I met with last year at one of the elementary schools she took the Vape from her sister because it's cool it looked pretty it was glittery so she was exposed by older siblings parents who Vaped and if you've seen any of the ads I don't care what they say the Vapes are targeted for the adolescence more and more and more um so they think it's cool they heard the first even adults who heard the first commercial saying um The Vape can help you stop smoking cigarettes well that's true because all they want is the nicotine and the brain doesn't care how you get it so The Vape can help you stop smoking but it doesn't help the addiction to nicotine so how
053can we get in front of it it's just way too late for that I think um there's too much exposure out there even these vape stores they'll sell to anybody that comes in there that's a problem that was brought up by one of the parents and that is a problem yes sir it is and I think I don't know where we go we've got city council members here and things somewhere somebody's got to shut these things down and it's easy to talk about it but are we doing anything are they did they do anything is there any law no and in fact there's been some you know lawsuits like with the tobacco industry targeting The Vape industry but those are lawyers those are class actions and the money is not coming back to where it
054needs to come back too and probably the best non-scientific explanation I've heard is that for those of us that are a certain age you smoked a cigarette if you needed a nicotine fix you would smoke a cigarette well the problem is with these kids The Vape has no regulation there's not a cigarette and they can smoke the equivalent of an entire pack of cigarettes using that Vape device and they have no idea what they're doing so there's no way to regulate it so they get what I understand is they get addicted immediately because they're smoking the equivalent of a pack or more a day just because it tastes good it's got these stupid flavors and the mind lights up and it's horrible you can see some really scary things about smoking on TV about people
055that have I mean some horrific consequences of addiction and de you know people that are deformed because of surgeries why can't you have a crash course like that and say look kids this is what this can lead to have somebody come in and talk to kids and say you know what's the deal you want to look like me I mean seriously absolutely do sit would beely to take some of those folks in with us and maybe at some point in time we'll be able to do something like that um we mostly operate off funding the federal funds that we have l espe Poli you're not allow to [Music] do or so can we do that can this board do that we've we've had speakers come to our campuses in the past um I know Sarah's
056she's inquired about different speakers out there um I know when I was at Freedom we had the lady can't think of her name she's passed she's passed away since then um and we've had several on in Burke County uh Sarah can definitely research that I mean to me it's preventative I mean we're what's going on is great cry B you got to get there before you get there and if it takes scaring kids a couple I'm sorry no I was going to get before y'all finish I want to make sure y'all introduce yourselves and tell this group who you are so well I will say in the educational program and we had since Sarah there are couple of videos that we use there is a 17-year-old in Michigan I think he has but he had
057to have a double link fund transplant we show that to them I show it to them but are you showing it to the kids before they get to the program no we don't know who they are before they get you just go in and show this to an assembly somewhere and say look guys think about this well any Administration who wants to put together in assembly I'll be more than show the videos we do the the wasted program of course um I did show it during a wasted program even though it wasn't on the agenda I mean some but sometimes it depends on what the kids are saying but I felt at that moment they would benefit from it so I showed it to them and I don't and a lot of people do call
058this fear factors or using fear I call it reality because and you know what you want to just show it well their whole attitude is well you know my friend's been vaping for years she's okay they don't realize you know the issues and that kind of thing so you know the disconcerting thing to me is what you just said La what seems to be parental involvement and oversight and I'm not sure how you crack that n because you know you know we we've sat here and and good faith you know try to embrace parental choice and making sure we're bringing parents in making sure parents have the opportunity to do this that and the other and a lot of this stuff quite frankly starts a home and and again I don't know how you I
059don't know how you crack that nut if um if the parents don't step up I had um three uh third graders that I had to go see last year at an elementary school as well and the one of the students was a repeat offender and 8 years old all three little boys was 8 years old and he was getting it from home he kept stealing it from home and he was bringing it to school and they were in the bathroom trying to smoke it you know so a lot of these parents believe it or not they they allow their kids to late because they think it's healthier than smoking a cigarette a lot of these parents allow their kids to smoke marijuana so if they smoke it at home I rather for them smoke at
060home they smoke out in the streets you know we only have these children like s hours a day they're living in the home so they're seeing the parents that are engaging in substance use they engage with their parents some of them so I mean you know we could continue to do what we do but it's just really difficult to you know try to get them to understand if they see someone that they live with doing it as [Music] well yes' yes ma'am we have laminated we even have an updated laminated picture that we go through and we don't just show them the chemicals we explain what the chemicals uh do to them so we educate them as much as they we can as far as heal risk the chemicals they're putting in their body and
061that kind of thing so um I'll try to encourage if there is one who says they're wanting to quit I encourage them to use that peer support in a positive way to encourage others to quit but you know it didn't happen overnight even it feels like it kind of did um I think the progress might be slow but we just have to keep doing what we're doing well I think what you're doing is great I think if you love them you got to scare them I really do if yall are scared I'm not no no I don't mean y'all are scared you're not scared yeah but I I understand what you're saying but I think if you get it to a level where there's a group that can do something like that that has it
062the capability to put that in front of the students whatever the films are whatever they are to let them see and hear what happens what can happen to you and then the choice is there that it's there but I tell you I I remember when I was in high school they showed these terrible car wrecks I mean really gruesome things I didn't drive for a month but it scared me and I still remember that you know and I'm just saying maybe there's a point at which we really need to take that monkey off your back accept that responsibility as ourselves to kind of get that out there there I would Dr and everyone we work with have been more than supportive right um we do have third and fifth graders violating these policies are let
063us come in and talk to them and they have been open to lots of things so even though we find ourselves in more of a or reactive as opposed to proactive we are getting there and we've been asked to speak with and educate credits this year and I think that's a huge step in the right direction so Middle School is a lot of times where see big increase where students start using or violating policies or become more apt to get into peer pressure and things like that so getting in with those fifth graders this year I think I'm pray that it anyway we're excited yeah thank you that's good that's awesome well you know um the the parents are going to have to be held accountable now because we're sending them home and I know
064people that's the last thing we want to do but you know what if that's what we have to do that's what we have to do and they can stay home with their kids you know Miss Craven here's some of our advertisement that's going around too I passed it out earlier uh these are up in our schools good and I know that Dr Swan and Dr Alton have told our administrators that we want them to follow this and that this board supports them and you know we developed it and I want to thank Miss Taylor she was the one that brought this to our to the board because it concerns that um that some of the students at eastberg high school had brought to her and um so kudos to Miss Taylor for bringing that to
065us just like when Dr Ham Street brought to us about the cell phone and and we we want to listen we're that's what we're here for and to try to make a difference in our communities and um but the our administrators they we have their back and I want them to know that clearly just like we did with the cell phones because the cell phones are addictive to too it's just like this it's a different thing and Co did us no favors when those kids were sitting at home and they needed to be in school um and it caused a lot of mental health issues and we're going to be dealing it with it for years and I really believe that this has a lot to do with that I really do and then parents
066need to supervise their children I mean that's the bottom line can you guys introduce yourselves real quick Sor I'm and I'm ma Robinson I'm the ades prevention for Native and I'm Renee Chapman I'm prevention specialist at cover I'm I'm great so I I worked with this group minus Joe um over my career an administrator and they put pour their hearts and souls in what they do so we're happy to have them on board with us yeah we really appreciate really thank you we we thank you for taking on the challenge right Madam chair those are my updates yeah thank you I also just wanted to say um you brought up about the uh new health curriculum that you know the state does that every how many is it how many years did they do that
067they update every seven years I believe so rolling up on that year seven um so I I looked at that survey I actually completed that survey and um there was a big emphasis in that the new curriculum to talk about vaping and um just things that I've never seen in the health curriculum before that I thought were very timely right so it looks like the state of North Carolina is also pushing that out as well going to be pushing on that and I want to reiterate too one more thing that you said Mike about that is that when it comes to the reproductive part of of uh those curriculums the parents have always always had the right to remove their child from yes ma'am they'll continue to be able to opt out of that something
068something that they choose ex so I want people to hear that loud and clear because I've seen things on social media and I think people don't understand what the truth is but parents have always had that right Dr Swan on our VAP detectors are we set for see we're set we're we're up and running we're up and running towards the end of the spring semester last year not enough data to really track or share anything so yes they are up and running uh Miss lroy will be able to present that at our later meetings as well you thank you thank you Sarah all right uh Mr Lawson good evening members of the board as is customary every year uh when the kids are back in school uh I bring you a list of names uh
069for authorized check signers of each individual school's checking account uh an account to be a check to be issued at a school uh has to have two authorized signers uh uh the principal always is the primary uh person uh the second column indicated on your list would be the bookkeeper uh there's one alternate at each School uh consist consisting of an assistant principal if the school has one if not it's another office personnel and then alternate number two at all School uh schools is myself um I'm the backup as an alternate in case two of of of the three authorized signers are absent or if one of the authorized signers is themselves receiving a reimbursement from the school then I I um act as the authorized signer for that so I request your approval of
070the submitted names all right would y'all like to put this on the consent agenda or the action let's put it on action okay put it on action all right thank you is that it all right yes ma'am Mr Campbell we'll turn it over to you with legislative updates sure thank you Miss Craven and good evening to everyone so the all of the focus and attention lately has been on the parents Bill of Rights so I thought that I would spend uh the time this evening kind of telling you where the par parents Bill of Rights is now and where it will be headed specifically with board action and policies that uh you'll need to consider but first of all it was Senate Bill 49 it was Ved by the governor and then on August the
07116th the general assembly overrode that veto so now it is session law 2023-the already pulling it up right now we our current policies to that as well excellent so what they've done is they've taken current policies and cross referenced it and that's my first point for this evening let me go over the 12 rights with you and let me tell you about the ones that you already had policies for a lot of what is in the act you were already doing you already had policies for what it does is it takes a lot of these rights that were housed in different places and the general statutes and puts them together in one place so the first thing is the enumeration of the 12 right and those are as follows first of all the right to
072consent or withhold consent for participation in reproductive health and safety education programs consistent with existing statutes so that was already referred to this evening it will continue to be an opt out for parents now you as a board could decide to make it an optin but currently it's an opt out for parents and you're once you get the policy changes that you'll be reviewing you can have further discussions on that but that was already an existing right and law second is the right to seek medical or religious exemptions from immunization requirements pursuing to existing law something you were already doing already had a policy on the right to review Statewide standardized assessments as part of the state report card that was already a right you already have a policy on that the right to request
073an evaluation of a child for academically or intellectually gifted programs or to identify them as a child with a disability as provided in article 9 which is North Carolina's equivalent state law equivalent of the individuals with disabilities Education Act for special education students again you already had a policy on that um but you're now going to to shine a light on it the right to inspect and purchase Public School unit textbooks and other supplementary instructional materials there was already a right of parents to review materials upon request that's something that schools have already been accommodating now it will be uh more of a procedure it will be standardized across schools and the right to purchase a textbook is brand new so now parents if they want to can actually purchase the same textbook that their
074child would be using in a particular class so that is new right to access information related to the board's policies for promotion retention including High School graduation requirements you already had a policy on that right to receive student report cards on a regular basis that clearly depict the students academic performance in each class or course the student conduct and the students attendance so the superint it can uh correct me if I'm wrong they students have always received report cards and parents have always had the right to receive information regarding conduct and attendance but I think this is the first time that it'll all be on one document correct okay so that's new so now parents will get an attendance report and a behavior report and a grade report on the the report card so all
075three elements will have to be part of a report card now the right to in uh obtain information about the state public education system State Standards report card requirements academic requirements textbook requirements that'll also be uh emphasized in board policy the right to participate in parent teacher organizations well certainly parents have always had that right but uh we'll be giving them more information about that than we have previously the right to opt into certain data collection for their child this is basically surveys and we've talked about this before but there are protected areas and if a child is going to be surveyed about information regarding any of those protected areas the school district has an obligation to provide the parents with the actual survey at least 10 days in advance and obtain their consent before
076conducting that survey so one of the things we've advised all the administrations to do is to look at what is being surveyed of students if anything right now and get a handle on what surveys schools have used in the past what surveys do they want to continue using and making sure that we're in compliance with this law as far as letting parents know well in advance if there's going to be a survey and what the topics will be the right to participate in protected student information surveys without with parental consent I just talked about and finally the right to review all records and materials that the child has borrowed from the school library uh again if a parent had come to a school library and said I want to know all the materials or books
077my child has checked out that would have been provided anyway that was not something that was withheld from parents but now that's a right as part of the the 12 separate rights uh for that parents will have what else do I want to tell you about it well there are a few other things to uh to highlight for you first of all the law says that there is to be no instruction whatsoever on gender identity sexual activity or sexuality in kindergarten through the fourth grades so that's a mandate that is now Statewide we talked about the surveys already uh there also the media folks will be working hard to come up with a stand standardized way for parents to be able to access the uh materials that their CH children check out of the library
078so we'll try to standardize that again the opt out procedure for the sexed we already talked about there's a new requirement that a student that a no state employee now this one's broader than just School Employees it's no state employee May create a video or a voice recording of a student without prior consent of the parent now the first thing you'll notice is that doesn't include still photography still photography is something we've been doing for years and we do obtain parent consents to be using those so that will continue that's something that's already been in place but this new law says that unless it's for a safety demonstration an academic or extracurricular activity so there's a big exception classroom instruction photo identification cards or security or surveillance all the cameras that are in our schools
079those are exceptions to this rule so really this rule is just no employ frankly can take up their cell phone and video a kit without prior parental permission I think all the other times that we are creating videos of children pretty much fit into the extracurricular exception classroom instruction exception those exceptions and the law also says that nothing in the law is designed to prevent the school employee from acting prudently and reasonably in their official capacity to carry out their job so let's say that a staff member needed to take a video something for a school discipline reason they can still do that because they're acting as an administrator in taking that video I think this is just a proactive step uh to make it very clear that no state employee should be creating an
080audio or a video of a child without permission of the parents so that is broader than just Public Schools so the school boards Association has been working over time to get policies out they issued those policies on Friday uh I reviewed all of those policies and cross referenced all those policies with the law this weekend and I am working right now to finalize our guidance I think all of you know we provide guidance to all the school districts we represent so I'm hoping to have that guidance out to superintendant by no later than Wednesday uh so that they can kind of see it and then it'll be coming to you for first reading uh and on first reading you'll have to look at a lot of these policies and we'll continue to have further discussions
081last things to highlight and then I'm happy to answer any questions there's a new section on information that parents are entitled to information about all these things I've discussed principles are mandated to respond within 10 days to a parent request for information if the nature or the volume of the request is so large that the principal needs extra time the principal can bump that out to 20 days if the principal doesn't respond comes to the superintendent and the superintendent has 10 days to respond if the principal if the superintendent doesn't respond guess who who comes to after that this board and this board is the final Authority on what information a parent is entitled to have then there's another section and this relates a lot to what's going to go in effect on December 1st
082and that is if a parent has a concern about an issue related to the mental physical well-being or mental health of their child and that concern is not addressed then there's a 30-day window to resolve that concern at the school district level and if it's not resolved the parent concern is not resolved at the school level the parent can either go have a hearing in front of the State Board of Education or file an action in court um and and I don't mean to be flippant with this but somebody asked me the other day well what does it mean to to uh to resolve the concern if the parent not happy and I guess our final decision is we resolve the concern to your dissatisfaction but it means what it says if the parent is
083not happy with the response they can go to the State Board uh they can also file an action in court however I do think that those actions are obviously going to be limited by existing law let me give you an easy example you have a parent that's concerned about something related to the IEP of their disabled child their individual education plan they want they have a concern about that there is an entire body of law where you go to the office of administrative hearings you file a petition and you have the right to have that heard I feel very confident that neither the state board or courts are going to ENT conin complaints about IEPs because there's already a legal process for that so the general assembly did not Define concern for us so I
084think again there's going to be a lot of developments in that particular area and that last thing that I mentioned about December 1st we will need parent consent for certain Health Care provision of services in schools after December 1st so we're going to be working with your folks with County Health directors to kind of further Define that which Serv need parental consent uh for example I've been told at least one legislator said that school folks had always had the ability to do first aid and life saving for a particular individual that that is not changed by this law well it doesn't say that it'd be nice if it said that but it doesn't say that so we'll kind of be working on some of those issues between now and December 1st so that's the big
085ticket one and just we'll be talking a lot about this over the next coming months as you get policies we start to review those policies questions so Chris for the most part we we pretty much had a lot of that covered in our correct an existing it's some nuances and it's also tightening up some procedures and I call it a clearing house it's going to make it easy for parents because I know your folks and what they're going to do is they're not going to stop at these 12 rights they're also going to have a procedure that goes with the ones that need a procedure and I think it's going to be a lot more easy for parents to navigate these things once those procedures are in place okay more visible yeah okay yeah that's
086all I have I thought that's the one you'd want to hear about so yeah okay anybody else got any questions right you're welcome all right anybody got any questions for Mr Recker remember you have to go by the number we're good um but that on the action next time all right now we will go to real Robin I'll start with Miss Jane have you got anything you'd like to present to the board for us to start working on no thank you Miss Craven I'm good okay all right Mr Hunt um I just wanted to point out Dr uh Dr Swan is in the process in and Dr AER in process of updating uh restriping and weed removal of our uh driving track at it at a freedom and uh Mr Johnson and I have been
087talking over the Peri I on a couple of months at any rate you know this is I don't know if any of you know this maybe some of you did maybe I'm just the last one that didn't but apparently we're only like U one out of five or six schools that have a a driving range like this in the entire state so I mean it's it's quite a bonus for us to have this thing and uh with all of the groups that use it and this is the punch line that are paying nothing um it gets an awful lot of wear and tear and at some point probably in the not too distant future it may need to be resurfaced and which is going to I'm sure cost a lot of money perhaps did you
088get an estimate I did it'll be roughly 10,000 to get it restriped uh that's inside outside rough 160 just to repave the inside the outer loop was repaved probably over the last five or six years the outer loop has been repaved uh that's the the pull offs the turns and that's roughly 160,000 in today's money now if we wait longer um and that was just a rough estimate nothing official I mean I I didn't expect to get to some sort of resolution tonight but I I do think it's it's it's um prudent to put it on our radar screen that this is an expense that's going to be coming and as an editorial comment you know I think if you use it there ought to be a fee um that you that you pay um
089especi I'm sorry Andy up that's right Andy up you know um but anything you want to say about that okay thank all right Mr Johnson all right well the only thing I want to say is we had a really great meeting on Friday um Miss Taylor and M trunt and I met with uh Dr Swan and some other folks about um some plans for new Elementary School in eastern Burke and so as that progresses we'll learn more but I was just very I just felt very positive about that meeting and some of the great ideas that we had so and I know that Dr Swan Dr AER to will share more later but I just wanted to say that I thought that went really really well thank you Miss Tiana um the only thing I
090have I had a few parents um reach out to me regarding the device fees and our um policy regarding the device fees I think it's no secret that it's a little tough out there for everybody right now um and so having to pay for the device fees and if there is damage to those devices um seems to be a little bit of a burden for some of our families so what options if any do we have for um financial support right um and is there any way for parents who do not wish to participate in the one toone program um for them to opt out and have their children use paper instead of those electronic devices that's um so as far as the the assistance um and I agree if they break a screen that's
091quite costly $2 $300 um what we always encourage principes administrators uh to reach out to those families and try to set up a payment plan um so that's one option that we can have um many schools all of our schools have a needy uh fund where it's just kind of earmarked for certain things that uh some things are a little more uh costly uh to help families out as far as the opt out uh that's something I'd have to check with our ad our leadership team um don't know 99% of our curriculum is face is you know we get things generated uh and it's not all computer-based uh any longer that was excuse me when Co was around but we've gotten more away from the technology um so we're not using them quite as much
092I've got a third grader that I'm very hopeful that she doesn't come home with assignments on the computer any longer as much as she has been in the past uh so that's something I can update you on awesome yeah if we could and then if we don't have one um seeing what it would take if maybe entertain a discussion on what that would look like could I ask a question I I distinctly remember that that we debated whether or not to have a fee and part of the reason to have a fee was insurance coverage correct when these things are damaged so I'm at a bit of a loss not really we're requiring parents to repair these things I mean it's not really an insurance coverage uh that's just the kind of the processing fee
093and that helps repair those devices the $250 coverage Dr Honeycut you can help me out here doesn't necessarily cover the full cost of that that's just an offset of that so the $25 that we charge a family wouldn't it's not an official insurance coverage that covers that it's similar to what you'd get on um your MacBook brand new where you'd pay $100 and it'd be covered for damages and a student is not charged unless it is negligence on the students part like they pick it up and throw it across the room which we've had happen a couple of times or they pick up their book bag and the computer's in it and they know it's in there and they throw it across the room uh we've had things like that we don't charge the student
094unless it unless the principal the teacher and someone on my team feels like it's negligence by the student otherwise it's covered I mean that so a student's walking down the hall and a kid and another student bumps into them and it falls on the floor that's not negligence that's an accident and we cover that they send it over here we send it off it's repaired and we take care of it that's the way it works exactly only for intentional ACC bird dog the money just to te more or it's it's 25 bucks per person and it maxes out at 50 and that would if if there are two more if there's a total of four users the family pays 50 bucks and that's all and so then instead of that fee being quoted insurance money
095that money is is put into a reserve account so it's like an aggregate in essence it's an aggregate Insurance account right yes correct and and then it is the account that we use to purchase for sixth and Ninth Grade every year because because we don't have funds that are available for sixth and Ninth Grade so every year that fund is used to help purchase Sixth and Ninth Grade devices to keep the one to one uh moving forward Title One covers the elementary school computers the one to one and we buy for kindergarten for title one t I'm sorry I didn't no no no you're okay because I understand the The Accidental or the incident or negligence um but coming from a mama who has a fourth grade you know he comes in from school school
096day is over Scooby-Doo on the TV that backpack's flying you know and so that's kind of where you know kids put their backpacks down wherever Here Comes clumsy mom trips over it now it's you know and so while it may appear sometimes as negligence I'm not talking about maybe the high school incidents you're upset you toss it across the room but for those true accidents that may come across as negligence um having to repair the charging cords and or pay for that or anything like that it can accumulate over a school year um and for the parents that I've spoken to they've showed me the bill and it's it's it's it's kind of high for a parent who didn't want the device to begin with correct so I'm seeing if there's an opportunity for us
097to look for another Avenue um absolutely yeah maybe have it as a discussion okay can we can we talk about that next time that's all I got Miss Taylor I don't have anything okay Dr h stre all right I think Miss Jane had something yeah I um I forgot that I had attended one of the um new teacher meetings at um Mountain View or Mountain Crest I always get confused on that school but anyway it was really a great meeting with the new teachers and had an opportunity to speak with them so it was a lot of fun to get around and get to talk to several of them and then just tell them how we support them very much and if they need anything they just need to get back and let us know
098what's going on so it was really a great opportunity to uh have it to do that so I appreciate that uh good group of folks several former students that I've had throughout my career as well that we hired so it it was great to see them as young adults yes all right let's move to potential consent agenda items is there any discussion on any of those okay anything from Mr Lawson or Mr Recker all right we'll move these to the consent agenda items uh for our next meeting um I do want to say hello to Mr Burns I didn't see him back there earlier thank you for being here um now we want to move into close session I know that we need to do that um so I'm going to make a motion to
099go to go into close session way to North Carolina General statute 14331 18.11 subsection A1 and6 for the purpose of considering confidential Personnel matters as further defined by North Carolina General statute 115 C- 319-321 and persuant to subsection A3 to receive information protected by the attorney client privilege do I have a second thank you Mr Johnson all those in favor all right we are in close s thank you