001disabled instructions [Music] right there now the time [Music] it's just that intuition um how are you go can't complain yeah [Music] yeah of course yes I loved it I I I tried to get all of them to go into any camera picture taken in front of them nobody wanted to do it I said I think we should I said let's be good Big Daddy I was giving her the calling I forgot she said how about your doctor's appointment yeah this is North Carolina famous for me no sometimes orange but um [Music] okay I mean but whatever y'all you know it's like you know it's just it's just weird it's just weird but yeah whatever people whatever they want to do I mean thank you hey hey [Music] hey oh my God [Music] how do you
002pronounce it yeah see you later couldn't tell what the last name was though oh my I hate stuff yeah I remember him [Music] I hope you enjoyed the show we're here that's what it looked like to me was that too loud look Leslie was the would have told me first about that yeah yeah oh my goodness windy oh covered was back for a minute good crowd tonight I didn't see the uh billboard truck outside it's out there in the bottom just come on come on I need that to speed up it's in Chattanooga right now I need that to speed up I need that to speed up um okay oh I gotta get mine you know what I mean um [Music] yes too bad I already got the list I really got the list I'd
003like to call our Monday May 15 2023 Burke County Board of Education meeting to order 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 Vape all right we will proceed forth before we have our moment of silence and our prayer I would like to remind everyone that in no way shape or form do you have to participate in our prayer the prayer is for the board we just ask that you respect our time and to remain silent at this time if you would um we would like to have a moment of silence merciful and loving God you are the author of life and the source of all truth As We Gather today we seek your wisdom and guidance protect
004us from self-interest and their agendas teach us humility and make us hungry for your will be with us in our discussions and guide our decisions so we always do what is right and just and serve worthily those who've allowing us to focus the vision set the agenda and ensure the viability of this school system May our service bring you glory you are a loving God and merciful Lord now and forever amen amen I believe we have some students who are going to come up and help us with our Pledge of Allegiance so if you would please come forth all right David wanted to please stand [Music] no word through the flag of the United States [Music] one nation under God indivisible Keys good job thank you thank you students that was a great job at
005this time I'm going to turn it over to Dr Melanie Honeycutt who is going to do our student recognitions for Elementary Middle School Battle of the books good afternoon or good evening board um can everyone hear me good so I'm here to recognize our Battle of the books winners my name is Dr Melanie Honeycutt and I am over the technology and media program here at our school system so I want to recognize first our elementary school winners and if you would please hold your applause to every student is announced if the board would like to come around that would be great would you only have our winner of Elementary Battle of the books was Mall Elementary we will now recognize the students Hunter Bowman please come forward Ada Clark Lucy Greer Isabelle Hennessy Jackson Puckett
006Kerrigan Settles Morgan Taylor Braley wissner Judson Wilson and our two coaches Katie Hall and Lauren Powell let's please give Mall Elementary a round of applause [Applause] I would also like to mention that we had every Elementary participate in our Battle of the books at Patton High School on the Saturday so we definitely appreciate that opportunity as well things take a couple steps on the right um [Music] thank you [Applause] so next we would like to recognize our Middle School winners our Middle School winner was East Burke Middle School we'll go through the students Kaylee Johnson adelisku Aubry Sanders Kaylee sit upon Julianna Underwood Sophia Vaughn Jaden yang and our coach Robin joins okay so let's give a spark metal a round of applause [Applause] so while they're taking their pictures I would like to remind
007everyone that these students both in the elementary and the Middle School we're at at least 10 to 15 books in a year from our shelves and from our North Carolina Battle of the books which are chosen by over a hundred media coordinators across the state of North Carolina so it is with great pleasure as a former media coordinator that I see all these students reading all of these books so congratulations again to both winners and all participating teams foreign good evening board I would like to recognize our elementary school robotics Champs we had our actual competition in April and we had several different categories that students actually received challenges in they receive challenges in stem creativity they receive challenges on just coding in general so there were several different scenarios and actually we had two
008those theme this year was cityscapes and so we utilized different local cities around us with real world problems for students to try to problem solve through coding and Robotics so I am pleased to announce the overall winner for this year is Forest Hill Elementary School students when you hear your name please come forward and receive your certificate if we will just hold all Applause until the end Jamie Cisco Karina Lopez Adela Miguel Jeffrey Rodriguez reading Shannon Vanessa Gonzalez Miranda Chum Eva Linda Andres Cindy Mateo Brandon Lopez Grayson Snyder and Angie Lopez and our coaches at Forest Hill Elementary School is Aaron Shannon and Anna Wilkins Wilkerson we also had a Community member that volunteered I think in support Brandon whisnet so let's get first to elementary school a round of appalls fantastic work we're very
009proud of you [Music] thank you [Applause] the annual Burke County Public Schools Middle School robotics competition was also held this year on April 20th at Glen Alpine Elementary thank you to Glenn Alpine for hosting that teams from each Middle School challenged each other during effects robotics competition spin up East Burke Middle School finished first followed by Liberty Middle School in a Heritage Middle School the team's robots battled it out in a 12 by 12 ring and completed challenges similar to disc golf where they collected covered and flipped frisbees around the pin it was uh unique to say the least so many different strategies uh and it was really fun event to be a part of it was great to play a teamwork innovative ideas and accomplishments and at this time if you guys will please
010join me in congratulating our winners from East Burke Middle School Preston cook Emery peacock Levi peacock Hunter masscroft Juliana Underwood Sophia Vaughn Abigail Gladden Freedom Ramirez Mary Dellinger Vanessa Singh Kum Kong and this team was coached by somebody who's had quite a successful year in the Project Lead the Way area and that is Miss Andrea Gladden congratulations to East Burke Middle [Applause] [Music] thank you that's it audience if I can have your attention there was a golden Civic that was parked in the grass that may have slid down the hill outside from New Hampshire tags so New Hampshire tags Civic out there I don't think we've had that one before there we go all right we'll move on right at this time uh it's time for our public comments um before we do the public
011comments we do have um several presenters this evening so based on board policy 2310 I make a motion to cut the amount of time each Speaker gets from five minutes to three minutes so that we don't go over our 30 minute limit do I have a second second all right all those in favor thank you all right at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr Johnson thank you madam chair before we get started with a first Speaker I need to read rules of public comments persons will speak in order in which they have signed up to speak each speaker during the public comments section of board meeting shall have a maximum of three minutes for his or her comments at which point the speaker will be politely asked to bring comments to
012a close followed by thank you School Board policy state law and federal law have established separate and distinct procedures and forums for the resolution of employee grievances employee complaints against individual employees pupil suspension and appeals and political campaigns to avoid circumventional or separate proceedings and ensure fairness to all parties concerned no person shall speak regarding a file grievance pending employee complaint filed with the school district or an outside agency complain against individual employee or employees employ disciplinary action suspension or termination or people suspension or appeal which may ultimately reach the Board of Education additionally prior to elections no person has publicly announced or filed as a candidate for public office may speak during the public comment section concerning his or her candidacy the board chair or designee may terminate any presentation that is not in
013accordance with any of these criteria except it's limited by the previous Provisions public comments will be allowed during the public comments period on any subject that was within the jurisdiction of the board our first Speaker tonight is Roxanne Becker good evening Board of Education members administrators staff members and others I'm Dr Roxanne Becker a physician with the Physicians committee for responsible medicine and I'm here this evening alongside other experts from the Physicians committee as well as the state of North Carolina to speak out against to speak about childhood nutrition and the decision to purchase the meat smoker dubbed the pig rig as parents teachers and leaders adults have a responsibility to protect our children and to help lay a solid foundation to set them up for Success throughout their lives and in terms of a
014nutrition Foundation we are not doing a very good job between 1988 and 2018 childhood obesity rates have doubled leading leave sorry resulting in one in five children being overweight or obese Across America good childhood nutrition is Paramount not only because poor nutrition leads to many chronic diseases but also because it cements eating habits that children carry with them into their adulthood and pass on to their children processed meat in particular is extremely detrimental to our children's health along with ham bacon and hot dogs smoked chicken beef and pork are all types of processed Meats the World Health Organization has classified a processed meat as a group one carcinogen this is in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos so if you wouldn't smoke around your children or have them learn in classrooms that have been
015used both using asbestos then why would you feed them a processed meat the American Cancer Society recommends limiting or avoiding processed meat altogether because of the overwhelming evidence that shows that even in small amounts it increases the risk of colon cancer prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer just 30 grams of processed meat which is just two strips of bacon every day increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 36 percent the National Cancer Institute says that when cooking meat including beef pork fish and poultry at temperatures that are higher than 300 degrees especially over an open flame exposure to carcinogens can occur which have been found to be mutagenic meaning they cause mutations in our DNA which leads to cancer Smoked Meats also increase the risk of obesity type 2 diabetes and heart disease to name a
016few while I believe the administration's intentions were good when it purchased the unit I believe that this move will cause more harm than good and so for these reasons I implore you to shut down the meat smoker thank you thank you ma'am thanks speaker will be Noah prom yeah my apologies for the complicated last name good evening chair Craven and born in community members so my name is Noah promsma and it's a real pleasure to be with you all here thanks for letting us come I'm a registered dietitian also with the Physicians committee for responsible medicine so we're a health and education and advocacy organization that represents Physicians and other Health Care Professionals across the country and Globe including more than 500 right here in North Carolina so I'm also here to express concern over
017the meat smoker that Burke County recently published purchased um and specifically I'm concerned that something was missed in the decision decision-making process to buy the smoker as we just heard smoked chicken beef and pork are not healthy foods their processed Meats which are class one carcinogens I don't believe that serving students smoked meat is a wise thing to do instead I'd like to talk a little bit about what some other school districts have done with similar funds specifically School Gardens which I think we can all agree are just a really lovely community space to share so I've personally had the joy of working with children in Child Nutrition education programs I was an Americorps member for a year and then served as the Director of a summer camp that was all nutrition oriented for kids
018specifically I was this was done back in my home state of Vermont the state in many cities or in the state have become home to Children of refugees so one of the real pleasures was getting to see those cross-cultural engagement that got to happen in these Gardens specifically exchanging food cultures and learning from each other uh here that paired with an evidence-based health-centric curriculum I really got to see everyone's health literacy grow and it was just it was just so encouraging to watch and it's what put me on my career path today uh so these are the exact sort of programs that we would like to see replicated in places like Burke County they offer Recreation relational growth as well as skills to choose and even cook healthy food so school districts across the country
019have a lot of success with educational Gardens one in particular the farm and school program in Park County Montana they grow fresh fruits and vegetables Harvest them incorporate them into right into their School meals on site the whole process is part of that school district's curriculum and the program has grown to include a network of 47 garden beds two greenhouses spread across five different schools so the benefits of programs like this one include positively influence influencing School culture and increasing the quality of foods available to students gardening programs and healthy improvements to school food could be especially important right here in your for students in Burke County North Carolinians suffer unfortunately for many chronic diseases it's been ranked towards the bottom on a number of healthcare metrics and it's been estimated that 38 000 North
020Carolinian Carolinians could be saved annually by improving prevention and treatment of chronic diseases so turning these troubling Trends around can definitely start with our children and that change starts in schools uh we really hope that the school district can reconsider the purchase of the smoker thank you thank you sir next we'll have Joseph baracus [Music] I get one right I'm doing good thank you everyone uh Board of Education members superintendent Swan others my name is Joe barakas and I am a pediatrician and Internal Medicine specialist in Huntersville North Carolina yeah I know North Carolina's love their barbecue I learned this 18 years ago when I moved here from Ohio social events often revolved around Smoked Meats I had to learn the difference between Eastern and Lexington style as well as the fact that the coleslaw
021goes on the sandwich instead of on the side of the sandwich it was a great new Regional food for me and so there's no doubt in my mind that when you guys purchase the pig rig it was done with nothing but good intentions students could look forward to tasty food and not only that I understand that it was going to be used to help with culinary culinary classes I've seen some of the news reports that came out sounds like the kids have loved it I saw one kid saying that they wish they could have that every day and even at home but I've learned a bit about nutrition since I graduated uh Medical School some almost 30 years ago and as a result I stopped eating meat a few years ago so I know I'm
022here at my Peril when I ask you to reconsider the implications of that pig rig but education at its core is not just about learning specific subjects but it's about seeking to improve kids uh welfare in many areas so what do we as parents have as goals as we raise our kids we wanted to be healthy we want them to be successful we wanted to be happy vaccines in modern medicine have helped a lot in making our kids healthier but the new epidemic is an obesity epidemic it starts in childhood habits build that lead to adult obesity and that leads to problems down the line I see those complications in my capacity as a pediatrician and an internist I see the 13 year old who's already pre-diabetic I see his parents struggling to walk up
023steps or or climb or keep up with them because of arthritis I see their parents struggle from their ravages of diabetes amputations kidney failure Dr Becker already summarized some of the additional harm that eating meat can cause including increased cancer cardiovascular disease and diabetes that's all outside of the risk of obesity but in addition to so it's not healthy well we we want to have our kids succeed childhood obesity has been associated with poor academic performance many Studies have shown that kids who have healthier diets and eat lots of fruits and vegetables generally perform better in in tests in standardized tests in particular kids that are eating as I mentioned fruits and vegetables and avoiding soda these kids need our help to succeed they eat what we provide them and if they succeed we all
024do and finally happiness there's no doubt that overall health is positively correlated with mood overweight children often suffer from lower self-esteem and are increased risk of anxiety disorders and depression processed meat's not the only culprit here but we're not here to talk about vending machines and convenience Foods we're here to talk about the pig rig we've all seen our kids suffer emotionally because of the pandemic we can't control everything in the world but we can control what goes on their plates so finally as a governing body here we feel that you have the responsibility to ensure that meals serve to students in Burke County are healthy and don't contribute to all these risk factors I ask you to please consider shutting down that pig rig your intentions are great we want our children to participate
025in school food programs continue projects like mood boost in Discovery kitchen but let's stop feeding our kids smoked meat fruits and vegetables lots of healthy options thank you and we'll raise healthy people thank you thank you sir our next speaker is Mr Ken care code good evening everybody School Board concerned citizens my focus this evening is on the availability and homework assignment of sexually explicit materials now first a brief history of Burke County Public Schools over a decade ago sexually explicit materials were available and assigned as homework in the Brooke County School System only a few parents actually I know of just one attempted to make changes by approaching the board of education but generally found her efforts frustrated however more recently one parent Jamie wachov approached the Board of Education repeatedly and as far
026as I know prompted revisions to the policy and procedures giving parents a greater degree of control over the access of such materials and important development since parental control over the education of our children has waned Nationwide now as a backdrop when I was in school parental control was unquestioned but growth in what is called in loco parentis that is whoever is supervising the child has parental control that has changed today some politicians and Educators Educators Educators believe that they know what is best and act accordingly even keeping changes in gender identity secret from parents now as a caveat I certainly do not believe that Burke County Public Schools would do that I do not now why is this Saga continued since over a decade and Burke County a truly conservative part of North Carolina I
027have wondered why this is the case why is it so important to have these sexually explicit materials available in the school system one argument presented relates to parental choice that is if the parent wishes to make these materials available to the child let them make the choice well that appears logical since parental control is essential however there's one critical problem here their child a minor now has sexually mature explicit material available to him or her and then he or she may offer it to other manners whose parents have granted no such permission this sexually explicit material is then passed around and may or may not be returned as agreed most adults would figure out this possibility soon enough my solution your parents wish to make this sexually explicit material available that once the teacher gives
028out the list of possible books in the assignment they could purchase it and maintain control over it themselves the wise parent would not allow this material to leave the home since sharing of it may constitute frankly a crime thank you Mr carrico okay our next speaker Roger travaru it's the handwriting I could say it okay good evening tonight I'm going to play The Devil's Advocate meaning a person who expresses a contentious opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing arguments in 2009 we had a majority on the board that tried to remove books from the curriculum based on their moral ideology and almost cost Burke County its accreditation librarian Joe Godwin said a truly Great Library contains something in it to offend everybody I almost thought I had heard the
029last of this case because it was big news when I was a senior in high school and until this past March had not heard it referenced by anyone in 41 years in the 1982 case of the island tree School District vpico in which the its School Board characterized books as any American any Christian any Semitic and just plain filthy be removed from the Junior and Senior High School libraries the Supreme Court wrote justices wrote seven differing opinions and 74 pages but they were unable to get a majority Behind these decisions apparently what it comes down to is the first amendment does apply actions of the school boards are subject to Federal Court review although school boards have wide discretion in deciding which books are suitable for the library they may not remove books from the
030library shelf simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books dissenting justices felt the choice of books for a school library should be left completely up to the discretion of the school board prior to that chief justice Potter Stewart once said and I'm paraphrasing I don't know what obscenity is but I'll know it when I see it Justice Hugo Black joined by Justice William Douglas reiterated his well-known position that the First Amendment does not permit censorship of any kind in 1973 the United States Supreme Court handed down its first modern decision on obscenity the so-called Miller test it had three components to be obscene and it had to include all three One content had to violate contemporary Community standards in the which the court sits taken as a whole appeals to the purine interest
031in sex the work depinks at the work depicts a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically designed by law or by decision of the Courts and three lack serious literary artistic political or scientific value in other words just writing about people having sex was not obscene the more recent availability of adult television programming and abundant sexual content on the internet today's Community standards don't leave much room for obscenity prosecutions then is now the terms sexual imagery pornography and obscenity were tossed around with very little precision the rise of book bands is just the tip of a deeper Iceberg a growing movement to use the levers of local and state governance to control teachers and to push an ideologically slanted vision of what children should learn about American culture society and history on both sides of the
032political Spectrum with that being said according to the previous rulings our board is taking the most prudent steps in allowing books to be challenged in a manner that they have adopted thank you sir our next speaker be Mr Jim Frady thank you board uh thank you Dr Swan so today I'll come again um I think the last time I was here I brought this up um it's personal for me but I think it's prevalent in our school systems um vaping just like every other issue that we have within our school systems is is troubling and not only is it troubling Health uh you know we talk the meats we we talk the other issues in our schools I get that all day long but I can tell you that this side of alcohol graduating from
033Freedom High School in 1988 I didn't know many of us going out to our vehicles uh to drink I didn't I knew the very select few that would go out and smoke out it was in every school and I'm not here to knock that but what I am saying is protecting Children's Health at all costs should matter this school board I will say has stepped up the school administration has stepped up in many different ways to try to um curtail this and I'll self-deprecate a little bit so I'll tell you a little bit about my background and my Approach on this so as a marine it's very very hard to let go of the edge that I carry I get that all day long I'm told I carry that mug all the time and approach
034things that way I want to apologize for that because to me it solves the issues that I needed to solve but the one thing that I have a hard time with is when something happens personally my job at that point as a parent as a disgruntled parent I have to take care of it so I'll say it this way Shanda Eppley handled herself outstanding today I was able to speak with her and she was very very concerned the same way that I am the thing that I witnessed today was three very young children leaving school campus at lunch without permission going to a vape shop for which I have pictures of walking into this Vape Shop purchasing Vape devices walking out going back to school without permission so my question is I get it kids
035will be kids all day long we all were at one time what I would question is a why are they able to leave school campus why was a guard not there to ask where they're going neither of them had permission neither of them had school classes college classes that they were attending neither was going to a job so I will say that I'm more than willing and I think the last time I was here I spoke up there's an agent here recently assigned to our district McQueen he's well aware of this situation I've reached out to Warren Daniels office he is well well aware of this situation this needs teeth we can start it here in Burke County I know it started in other counties and they've got issues elsewhere but I will say this
036this school board this Administration I know you guys want to solve this but I don't think it can just be solved within our school systems until we as former law enforcement officer for 20 years I will say that my conversation with the gentleman today at this Vape Shop was she told me she was 18. so until there's teeth behind the carting of it we'll never solve it thank you sir thank you Jim and our next speaker is Nicholas Scannell thank you hello my name is Nicholas canel I am a citizen here at Burke County I'm also a County employee and after reading about the events of the last board meeting I felt compelled to come here and speak I took it upon myself to read the synopsis and multiple reviews of all 24 books from
037the schools media centers that were recently called into question and one of these novels I had recently read in full having read The Bluest Eye as well as several other Tony Morrison novels and having studied literature myself for years I can tell you that it would be a shame to prevent students from Reading Toni Morrison they do not hand out the Nobel Prize in literature to pornographers romantic relationships and sexuality are a part of the human experience and we read fiction to Aid our understanding of The Human Experience unfortunately for many people addiction domestic violence suicide misogyny and racism themes that are taken up in these novels are a part of life as well these novels work in serious themes we read serious fiction to understand life to inform ourselves to build compassion and to
038be better people I believe that parents should have the right to educate their children as they prefer I do not believe in silencing the less Savory parts of life our history The Human Experience or of any particular groups as a former educator I can tell you that public school systems are typically well underfunded and have enough financial issues without suffering threats of legal action the school board has a reasonable and well thought out system in place for taking up grievances with particular titles lastly I'll just say that if we are to continue to pride ourselves on freedom in this country that must include intellectual Freedom thank you thank you sir Madam chair that concludes our public comments section thank you we will move to um our Western Piedmont excuse me our Western Piedmont Community College
039Board of Trustees um as you know we have one applicant William E Lennon I'm going to make a motion for William E Lennon to become a representative to the Western Piedmont Community College Board of Trustees on our behalf do I have a second second all right is any discussion Madam chair I support Mr Lennon and I'd like to see about maybe setting up a time to where he could come and maybe just speak to the board and just update us maybe just twice a year on what what's going on what's coming up with Western Piedmont and just be um you know build that relationship more to where we're more involved and more aware absolutely I just had a conversation with Dr Joe Welch today about that very topic so they'd be very happy to do
040that thank you very much thank you thank you that is a great idea all right all those in favor huh congratulations Mr Martin all right now we're going to turn it over to our Lottery fund application Mr Lawson good evening members I request your approval of the Lottery application to draw down 1.3 million dollars in State Lottery funds as presented at last week's board retreat this will go towards Debt Service for patent and drone high schools for fiscal year 22-23 I don't see I believe approval of the Lottery fund application all right do I have a second second all right all those in favor thank you you're welcome thank you thank you sir now we'll move to Summer plate cost Mr Daniel wall Mr wall here okay plate cost good evening board thank you for
041having us on the agenda uh we asked your approval of the summer meal cost as discussed in the work session last week make a motion to approve second all right all those in favor thank you we also ask for your approval of the uh per plate costs for next school year as uh discussed in the work session last week as well Russian Madam chair I kind of thought we were going to get maybe an update as to how that cost would be forwarded to to students per you know what the change in that would be I think we'll have something for you uh in next month's meeting to discuss our options for next year okay okay we'll present some things to you um what you're voting on is the Chartwells meal cost for the year
042and it's kind of laid out in the contract with how we do that so but we will have something for you in the June meeting to look at for cep potentially or an increase in meal cost or keeping the cost the same okay thank you Mr wall thank you thank you right I'll make a motion to approve the school year 2023 2024 play cost of three dollars 0.2396 cents do I have a second second all right thank you Tiana all those in favor we look forward to hearing more about that thank y'all yeah I'm excited all right Personnel report Mr wrecker is there any questions remember that you must um use the number and not a name all right I'm gonna make a motion to it excuse me oh I'm sorry um item or individual
043number 62 um I find that I could potentially have a conflict of interest and I would like permission from the board to uh excuse myself from this vote okay and however I would tell you that if you fail to renew this person's contract it's going to be the biggest mistake you ever made because it's the absolutely best teacher Burke County has ever had I know that because she's my wife all right we'll recuse you all right I make a motion to approve the Personnel report Action board action report for May 15 2023 do I have a second all right all those in favor all right thank you all right um a smooth track consent items it's anybody that got any questions um thank you regarding the second reading of any of the policies vaping policies
044anything like that okay all right I'm going to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items do I have a second second all right all those in favor thank you all right the Board needs to enter into closed session persuade it to North Carolina General statute 143-318. 1.11 subsection a one and six for the purpose of considering confidential Personnel matters as further defined by North Carolina General statute 115c-319-321 I make a motion to go into closed session do I have a second all right thank you all those in favor all right we are in closed session thank you all for coming tonight