Orange County Board of Education Special Called Meeting - March 24, 2026

001We'll call this meeting to order. Um, can we get a motion to go in closed session uh, stated in the agenda? So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Uh, all in favor, I. I. Opposed? We're now in closed session. >> Mhm. >> calls this meeting to order. The Orange County Board of Education pledges to its citizens to conduct its business in a courteous and productive manner, showing respect to all of our board members, staff, and citizens. The board asks its citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy towards both school personnel and each other. A moment of silence will be observed before each meeting. In addition to the moment of silence, the board will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The board asks that you check your cell phones and

002other electronic devices to be sure uh they are either turned off or on vibrate to avoid interruptions of the meeting. One of yours? For safety of the participants, please refrain from bringing or eating any food items that contain nuts or nut products. Um one other note I wanted to make is uh since we are in our central office, um you can follow along with tonight's presentation by visiting the meeting agenda on our website. Go to orange countyfirst.com forward board and select board meetings, then you click updating meetings and meeting agendas and tonight's uh meeting. All presentation and supporting documents are linked within the agenda. Thank you for joining us this evening. All right, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

003republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll go ahead and take a moment of silence. All right, we'll go ahead and get started with our recognitions. I wrote right on cue, right? >> [laughter] >> With our last guest, perfect. Well, good evening. I'm just said it's a pleasure to be here with all of you this evening to celebrate um some of our students. I have the honor and privilege of presenting to you the 10 students um here in Orange County Schools that were named their schools spelling bee champions for this year. To elaborate and give you a little bit of context, um each year here in Orange County Schools, all of our third through eighth grade students have the opportunity to participate in a

004spelling bee, which begins with a classroom level bee. Um and then it culminates or it goes next uh to the school level spelling bee and then culminates to the national um level spelling bee at Duke. So, in November and December, all of our Orange County Schools um third through eighth grade students and ELA teachers did their classroom level spelling bees. The winners um of each classroom spelling bee advanced to the school level bee, which took place in January. And tonight, please join me in recognizing and congratulating the following 10 students who have been named the Orange County Schools school level spelling bee champions. These 10 students were invited to represent their school at the Duke Regional Spelling Bee, which was held on Saturday, February the 28th. Um and there they had a chance to compete

005for the opportunity to advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. So, without further ado, we're going to celebrate some of our young people this evening. So, our first champion is Alma Winton from Central Elementary School. The second um spelling bee champion is here with us this evening. And that is Adrian Lopez Sabio. So, you can come on up, Adrian. >> [applause] >> And Adrian is from Ephesus Global Elementary School and we are so proud of you. Um our next spelling bee champion is Omar De Los Santos, who is also here tonight from Grady Brown ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. >> [applause] >> YOU CAN STAND HERE YOU CAN OR YOU CAN SIT DOWN. I'll give you that choice. We may have to do it We may have to do a photo. I don't know. Okay. Our next spelling

006bee champion is from New Hope Elementary School. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I skip somebody? Just kidding. We're going to go with the slides. So, the next one is Hillsborough Elementary School and that is Brandon Earnhardt. Where is he? Not here with us this evening. All right, and our next um winner is from New Hope Elementary School, and she is here in the room with us, and that IS AUDREY LITTLE. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT. NEXT UP, from Pathways Elementary School, we have Christopher Jordan, who was not able to be with us this evening. Um and then from River Park Elementary School, we have Nico Staples to represent um the Tiger Cubs. Then from A.L. Stanback, we have Maryam Kamal. And from Gravelly Hill Middle School, we have Hadley uh Barker. Make sure I said the

007name correctly. And our last, but certainly not least, champion that we want to recognize tonight is here in the room, and that is Makayla McCloud from ORANGE GROVE SCHOOL. >> [applause] >> SO, CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN TO ALL OF OUR SPELLING BEE WINNERS. We are definitely proud of your achievement, and I will defer to Mr. Smith if we need a photo op. Yes, we are going to do a photo. So, all of my Spelling Bee winners that are here in the room will come up. Come on, champions. Do you want to come up? I don't know if they can come here. I don't know if they can come back. Yeah. Right in front of me. Okay, sweet. So, you >> Right in front of the table? Maybe if you Pull your hands out. That's it. All right,

008do you want to And my little shy ladies. Unfortunately, we're going to have to block or I'll say. All right, I can have you all go ahead and walk right to the back so that you're just right. Put your backs to the table. There you go, perfect. [clears throat] Keep going, Adrian. You're doing great. >> fantastic. There you go, Dr. Jones. She knows the drill. >> [laughter] >> I'm going to take this picture two ways. All right, everybody ready? On the count of three. One, two, and three. Smile big for me this time. One, two, and three. Thank you, and I'm going to take one this way. One, Yes, ma'am, Dr. Jones, thank you. On the count of three. One, two, and three. Thank you all. And then maybe let the parents do it. There's

009a bunch of parents with cameras. I think did they get their pictures? The parents? For us to get a picture? Yeah. You want to take a picture? In the picture? No. No, no, we take a picture. Like take the picture. >> [laughter] >> It's all good. One more comment. One more. One more. One more. All right, come up. Come up. One more. One more. Almost done, buddy. I I hear you. I'll send to get it to you. I can air drop the pictures to you. Yes, we're good. Thank you. CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN. >> [applause] >> CONGRATULATIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU. CONGRATULATIONS. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening. Tonight, I have the distinct honor of recognizing someone who has meant a great deal to me personally, and who has meant even more to the students,

010families, and schools of Orange County. I would like to start by telling you a little bit how how I came to know Ms. Diane Chambliss. Within my first 5 days of starting at Orange County Schools, I had the pleasure of meeting her. And within the very next week, she had already rallied every community partner in the Orange Partnership Coalition onto a Zoom call just to welcome me and introduce me to the incredible network of agencies and organizations to serve OCS. That moment told me everything I needed to know about Diane Chambliss. She was not waiting to see how things would unfold. She was already leaning in, already investing, already excited about the work we would do together. >> [cough and clears throat] >> That is just who she is. Over the last 4 years, she

011has been a constant supporter, a champion, an encourager, and one of the most thoughtful partners I have had in my work here at OCS. On the days when the work was hard, Diane had a way of reminding you why it mattered. I'm a better advocate because of her, and Orange County Schools is a stronger district because of her work. But my experience with Diane is just a small chapter in a much larger history. Ms. Chambliss has served as the program director for the Orange Partnership for alcohol and drug-free youth. Say that three times fast. For more than 15 years. During that time, she built the Orange Partnership Coalition from the ground up, bringing together agencies and organizations from across our county around a shared mission to protect and support our young people. She championed the

012Adapt program and worked tirelessly to establish and sustain the collab- collaboration between Orange Partnership and Orange County Schools, ensuring that every student and family across every school in our district had consistent access to critical drug and alcohol prevention and intervention services. What makes her legacy so powerful is not just what she built, it is how she showed up to build it, with passion, with persistence, and with heart. Tonight, we are so grateful that Diane is here with us in person, joined by those who know and love her best, the people who have walked alongside her both in life and in this important work. To each of you, thank you for sharing her with us and with this community. Ms. Chambliss, as you step into a well-deserved retirement, I want you to hear this clearly. The

013coalition you built, the programs you championed, the relationships you've nurtured, and the lives you've changed will continue to ripple through this community for years to come. Your legacy is not just what you leave behind, it is what you set in motion. So, tonight, on behalf of Orange County Schools, our Board of Education, our superintendent, our staff, and the countless students and families whose lives you have touched, thank you, Diane. We celebrate you tonight, and we wish you a retirement filled with every bit of the joy, warmth, and energy you have poured into all of us. >> [applause] [applause] >> I didn't expect to say much. I don't know that I can. Never lost for words. >> [laughter] >> I hear you now. Um It is just been my honor and my privilege to be able

014to work with all of you here, and I am so grateful for that partnership. And for getting to know you, and that you stuck out with all of us. I know that it's not been easy, sometimes easier than others, and I'm just glad for the team that we have in place to continue to work with you. But thank you for this. And by the way, I'm still in New Hillsborough. I still believe in the and I still want to get involved. So, I need to follow up still if there's any of those extra subcommittees. I got you. Okay. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT. GOOD EVENING. GOOD EVENING. I stand before you tonight as we celebrate disability awareness uh month. Um but tonight we celebrate something even greater. We celebrate potential. We celebrate progress

015and we celebrate the bright futures being built every day in our schools. In our district, students with disabilities are not defined by limitations. They are defined by strengths, growth, and possibilities. From our earliest learners in pre-K to our high school students preparing for graduation, we are building skills that extend far beyond the classroom walls. When a child learns to communicate their needs, that is self-advocacy in make in the making. When a student practices problem-solving, that is workplace readiness for uh developing. Workplace readiness developing, excuse me. When a teenager participates in transition planning, that is adulthood taking adulthood taking shape. This is the heart of [clears throat] our work in OCS and we are not simply providing services, we are preparing future employees, college students, neighbors, and community leaders. Across our schools, inclusive classrooms are strengthening

016academic achievement, social-emotional learning is shaping resilience, and transition partnerships are opening doors to employment and post-secondary opportunities. Each IEP goal is not just a document requirement, it is a stepping stone towards independence. And none of this happens alone. It happens because educators hold high expectations and families are partners with us. Disability awareness is not about sympathy, it is about recognizing ability. It is about removing barriers so talent can shine. It is about ensuring that every student, regardless of disability, leaves our district prepared to continue meaningfully contribute meaningfully to their community. Tonight we celebrate the students and adults who inspire us daily. We celebrate the adults they are becoming and we affirm our commitment to the future where inclusion is not an initiative, it is who we are. Years from now, success will not be defined

017by what we taught, but by the lives our students are able to lead. Thank you. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT. THANKS, EVERYONE. UM NEXT WE have uh our agenda adoption. I'm not aware of any items to be pulled tonight. Uh if there are none, can we get a Motion to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, I. I. Opposed? The agenda is adopted. All right. Next we have public comments. Do we have any tonight? We do. We have three. Okay. We will now hear public comments. Speakers will be called in order in which they signed up. Each speaker will have 3 minutes. Yielding time to other speakers is not permitted. If [clears throat] a speaker has written materials they would like to share,

018please hand them to our board clerk, Mr. McCune, and he will distribute them to the board. The purpose of public comment is for the board to hear from members of the public, not to engage in back and forth discussion per our policy. Board members will not respond to speakers during public comment sessions. The board greatly values public feedback and welcomes all comments regardless of viewpoint. However, please be reminded that children are often present at these meetings and our and our public [clears throat] comment policy prohibits profanity, vulgarity, and personal abuse of any person. We ask that all comments be civil, respectful, and free of personal attacks. Any speaker who violates our public comments period or otherwise exceeds the bounds of order and decorum will be given a warning. Continued violations [clears throat] may result in

019speakers being ruled out of order, at which we will move on to the next speaker. And our first speaker tonight is Tracy Lloyd. Good evening, Chair Atherton, Vice Chair Padilla, Orange County School Board members, and Superintendent Dr. Jones. I'm Tracy Lloyd, I'm the president of the Orange High School Band Boosters. I wanted to thank you for hearing our request last fall for the reinstatement of marching bands um transportation funding and to come here tonight to reiterate that request as you prepare for your upcoming budget review. Marching band competitions are a required part of the graded academic course at Orange High School and we ask that you please reconsider directing funds towards the cost of the transportation for the school-sponsored activity. By supporting your students in this way, you will not only strengthen the OHS music

020program, but allow us as band parents to direct our fundraising efforts more effectively towards music education and competition readiness. We look forward to hearing the outcome of your decision. Thank you for your time and your continued support of the arts in Orange County Schools. Thank you. Our next speaker is Yun Konewal. Good evening, Orange County School Board. My name is Yun Konewal and I am the woodwind captain for the Orange High School marching band. I'm a rising senior and I'm here tonight to ask that when you are reviewing the upcoming budget, you please reconsider consider reinstating the band's transportation subsidy for competitions. The OHS athletic department had their subsidy reinstated after COVID, but we did not. We pay for all our own show props, equipment, and travel through fundraising such as car washes and selling

021Dewey's big goods. We also have an upcoming mattress sale in April. A little extra money from you to cover the cost of buses and trailers would be a big help, especially because of the fact that when we compete, we are one of the least funded of all the bands. Please support us and help us to get to our competitions. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And our last speaker is Saru Salvi. It's interesting that they are talking about transportation because I wanted to talk about transportation and the inequity it creates in our school system. 50 about 50% of the total school is is minority. Out of that, 40% is um economically disadvantaged. If you don't supply after-school transportation for students, then you are creating an inequity for low-income students that have no way of

022getting back and forth to events after the after-school programs. These after-school programs are very, very important to build character in students and give them experience outside of the classroom. And I know many of you really support the after-school [clears throat] programs. But unless we have transportation available, then the minority students cannot take part fully in these activities. Thank you. Thank you. And that concludes our comments. All right. We want to move to uh board comments. Uh we'll start with Andre Knight. Perfect. Thank you. So, um first I want to uh say thank you for the recognition for the disability awareness month. Um congrats to all the still and be winners. And then finally, she just walked out, BUT UH >> [laughter] >> I DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO TELL HER, I'll tell her at some

023point. Uh congratulations to Diane in her retirement and all the hard work she's done. We worked together for I mean, since she started when I was a school resource officer and we had the uh tobacco program where we were um [snorts] pretty much um teaching the high school kids about the the side effects and and all the issues with around tobacco and how to stay tobacco-free. So, um we really built a bond there and I had her son as one of my students when he was in middle school. So, we we've uh we've worked together for quite some time, so I really congratulate her to for her retirement and wish her the best in all her um upcoming um life life things. So, that's it. Thanks, Andre. Connie? Yeah. I also I'm going to have

024to talk to Diane about leaving before we could thank her properly. And we did that last a couple weeks ago at the Epling Community Center, but you know, you know, as we all think about this, I think I on and OP have really demonstrated and Dr. Drayer was just amazing partner, but demonstrated the potential of collaboration and partnership, walking the walk to make both our community safer and also building resilience in our families and students. She had put a team in place to continue the work and I'm hoping Franklinton will get a chance to do a background check for her volunteer work for the district. Yesterday I attended the education and innovation lab hosted by Best NC. This is where business, elected, and education leaders get together once a year and this year it was

025the topic was tailored education. The education the sessions were all recorded and once they're posted I'll share them with the board and Dr. Jones. This event will certainly be an annual event for me. I do want to congratulate Dr. Jones and her team for their progress on the strategic plan and on just sharing I am excited to see the overwhelming community support for raises for teachers and staff. Hopefully we'll be talking about that later. Congrats to Orange Design Orange High School Design and Engineering Academy and Brian Newbank for their new STEM [snorts] lab the second of its kind in North Carolina. Nicole Palumbo and IBR [clears throat] teacher Lori Shepley um and IV Art for the amazing show they have at the Margaret Gallery and I needed to do a special shout out to the

026Battle of the Books teams where our students really are asked to dig deep into the content of books that they're reading. Thanks to Gravely and Shera Rogers for hosting the competition. Kudos to Aaron Bradley who moderated the middle school competition beautifully and kudos also to Kenisha Smith of ALS who happens to sit on the state board that develops the competition. That's quite an honor for OCS. And I'll close this just with a question from the competition cuz everybody's always so interested in what our kids are reading. So here's the question. In what book does a character state dreams are today's answer to tomorrow's questions? The book is The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander and that's [clears throat] two points for the title, one point for the author and I love that our kids

027are reading that. Thank you. All right, Anne. I would also like to thank everyone for the recognitions tonight and I had the privilege of working with Diane when I was a principal and when I was director of student services. So she's been here a long time and deserves a nice retirement, [clears throat] but she has definitely done a lot to help this community and help our students and I do appreciate everything she's done and wish her the best. >> [clears throat] >> I too attended the STEM lab opening at Orange High School which was absolutely phenomenal and my grandson [clears throat] is still talking about that room because he's there now and he said first time I went in that room it didn't look like that and I said the first time I went in

028there it didn't look like that either. So it is it is just amazing what they've done. I also attended the Orange High School choral concert a couple weeks ago or a week I can't remember now when it was, but um pretty soon. Um and I am also >> [clears throat] >> enjoyed going to the Gravely Hill showcase last week and I met some very interesting students who are um eighth graders and and they were very willing to talk, very willing to show me what they had done and we had long conversation about what they had done, but about them going to high school as well and they're very excited about high school and everything that that's going to bring to their lives. So I was I was very impressed with the showcase this year at

029Gravely Hill and I thank Ms. Williams for inviting us to come and and talk with their her students. That's all I have. Thanks Karen. Um thanks. Um lots of good comments already made. There's a lot to celebrate. Congratulations to our our spelling bee winners. I also want to congratulate Diane and I'm really glad that she was still here to facilitate be a part of the the the new program at Orange High School that we got to kind of visit around as a community engagement committee last fall um with like self supporting and seeking out counseling services to reduce vaping and and all of her um advocacy and education and doing it with a spirit of um like fun and connectedness with kids really just opens up um you know, other ways for kids to be

030social and find fun things to do and I'm just excited for all of her [clears throat] leadership and community engagement of students. Um also thinking about our recognition for disability acceptance and I like what Ms. Burns said about celebrating potential and um last night we had our student achievement meeting and seeing how much all of our subgroups grew in you know, towards proficiency with all our middle of year data and all the growth just across tiers, across grade levels, and across subgroups and I just huge gains for our EC students. It just was really exciting. So I really appreciate Ms. Burns' leadership as well. Um I wanted to congratulate our um our Board of Education election winners. So Sarah, Will, and Anne, and Lori congratulations and also wanted to recognize our other candidates Suru and

031just everyone's engagement with public school boards is a good thing. So I appreciate everyone who ran and I'm excited about our our new board. Um and also we've also had our budget committee meeting which was really um positive and thinking about the the new STEM lab at Orange. I was glad to be a part of that as well and to me that's an example of um Principal Jason Johnson's leadership you know, his recent recognition at a higher level, but you know, as an as an Orange High School parent he lets he lets students and teachers run with ideas and and that is a vehicle for really positive change and he lets all that happen in his building and he shows up for everything and so I appreciate how he leads and wanted to give a

032shout out to that. Thank you. Sarah. I'm concerned I'm going to have another coughing fit, so I'm just going to say no comments for tonight, but just echo a lot of the other congratulations that other people have shared. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Um I want to echo what everyone has said and congratulations [clears throat] to all the people that ran and won and also hopefully we can see more of Suru involved cuz you can see her passion for the community. And one thing that no one mentioned for this month's celebration was women's month. So happy women's month everyone. >> [laughter] >> Um and the awareness of disability awareness. I'm grateful about that that we continue to create awareness overall. I participated in a few things that some people did not participate on and

033one of the one of them was the OC coalition where it was mentioned tonight where people come together from different groups and come up with ideas and how to help our county and I think it's a great way to partnership. Um you were missed Bonnie. You weren't there. Um and the strategic plan and I did love going to Gravely Hill and sitting and listening to some of the stories that sixth graders and not everyone wanted to share and I said that I it was okay and they were surprised that I said okay and I just walked away. They're like, what? You're not going to ask me anymore? You said no. >> [laughter] >> So um it was great. [clears throat] I learned a lot. The section of the library, one of the things that I

034learned, there were so many different options and what caught my idea was we spend so much money in salt when it snows here and the solution is vinegar. I learned from one of the projects. So that's all I got to say tonight. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you Bonnie. Um I too just wanted to thank and congratulate all of our spelling bee winners and Diane one of the first interactions I had with her was her bringing in a box full of different vaping devices and all of us just awing at that's a making device, and really set some focus. And you know, one of the things that I just wanted to mention is she brings she was bringing together so many different groups within our community that works together to show [clears throat] how we can

035support each other, and I think that was you know, one of the big powerful things that I personally saw, and just congratulations on a well-deserved retirement. Um the disability acceptance and disability month, just wanted to uh thank Ms. Burns for bringing that and us acknowledging it, and thank all of our families and all of our wonderful staff who engage with all of our families uh all year round. Um I enjoyed the spring concert as well. It's always wonderful to take a break from everything and uh hear our wonderful students. I also wanted to thank uh Mia Sky Davison who came in for the first pitch dinner. Uh she came and spoke. She's a very uh >> [clears throat] >> successful professional athlete um that uh inspires so many of our young students, and just appreciate

036her taking the time out of her busy schedule to come and speak to our young athletes, and um visit as a columnist of Orange High School. Um also I uh got to be a uh NC DECA judge at the state competition. There were about 6,000 students there. We had our own students that uh participated in there. It is so wonderful to see all of the students engaged and working through these [clears throat] real-life situations, and giving a perspective and having about 5 minutes before to present a plan. Uh and they work individually and as groups. Uh so it was a wonderful experience. I was very glad I got the opportunity to participate. >> [snorts] >> Um the Bright Speed Lab, uh that equipment in there is better than some colleges I've seen. So very impressive

037for us to have that available to our our students. Um the uh Orange Middle Middle School got to enjoy uh uh drama play there. Was very funny, and great to see our talented students uh enjoy um showing off their skills to our families and and staff. Um the only other thing I was going to mention is um you know, just really appreciate all the family academies that our district is doing, that's doing the outreach and sharing so many different aspects that uh are so helpful to our community. And um I have Sorry, I do have one other thing, the SNAC Committee. Uh we did meet, and um as I've shared with the board, we have a Special Olympics coming up in April that'll be shared with the full community. We haven't had one since I

038think my first or second year. I'd have to look at Sarah's. Very long time ago when we when we had that, but >> [clears throat] >> glad to see that coming back, and hope that will continue uh and allowing our um high school students will be participating and volunteering and helping, and having staff engage as well. So I'm definitely looking forward to that. With that, I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Jones. >> Thank you. Good evening Chair Acton, Vice Chair Pedia, members of the board, staff, and community members. This evening, I would like to begin with the celebration of one of our own, Dr. Chula Pack, our Chief of Academics. Come on, stand up, Dr. Pack. Um she did not want me to share, but Dr. Pack recently graduated as a member of the

03910th cohort of the North Carolina School Superintendents Association Aspiring Superintendents Program. This accomplishment reflects her strong leadership, commitment to public education, and dedication to continuous growth in service of our students, staff, and this community. We are proud to have her as part of the Orange County Schools team, and look forward to her continued impact in our district. To date, 61 alumni of this program have gone on to serve as superintendents. I'm proud to be among them. I can personally attest to how intentional and impactful this experience is. CONGRATULATIONS, DR. PACK. >> [applause] >> THANK YOU ALL. YOU WANT TO COME HERE AND GET YOUR PICTURE MADE? >> [laughter] >> SHE HAD QUITE A FEW with us. I'm also excited about our upcoming job fair, which will be offered both virtually on April the 8th and

040in person on April the 11th. This dual approach allows us to reach a broader and more diverse pool of candidates as we work to recruit talented committed educators. Um attracting and and retaining high-quality uh professionals remains one of our most important priorities as we commit to being intentional about making Orange County Schools a premier district. Another area of progress is the design of our new elementary school. This work represents a significant investment in our community and our future. We have invited our community to provide their input to ensure the school not is not only modern and functional, but also reflective of our community's educational values. A survey was shared with families and staff, and can also be found on our website. Finally this evening, we will present our budget request, and the board will have

041an opportunity to provide feedback. Staff will then incorporate that feedback before bringing back the budget um for the board to approve in April ahead of presenting our request to the county commissioners on April the 30th. At the center of this conversation is our unwavering belief that our staff deserve to be compensated in a way that reflects their professionalism, dedication, and impact. Our teachers, support staff, and administrators show up every day to serve our students with excellence, often going above and beyond what is asked of them. To remain competitive and to honor their work, we must continue to advocate for increased compensation across all employee groups. This is not simply a financial decision, it's a strategic one. Investing in our people is essential to sustaining high-quality instruction, strong school communities, and positive outcomes for our students.

042That concludes our comments my comments. Thank you, Dr. Jones. All right. Next, [clears throat] we have the consent agenda. Can we get a motion to approve? >> [snorts] >> Motion to approve. Second. Have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, I. I. Opposed? The motion carries. All right, that brings us to our work session. First one is the staffing update, strategic plan priority three update. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Uh we're Connie Burmacott and I are pleased to present to you our HR staffing update and our >> [snorts] >> priority three update. Um just a quick note, is somebody driving? I got you. You got it. Okay. Thank you. Um Connie. Well, good evening good evening to all. Um we thank you for the opportunity. I always love to talk about

043staffing. It's the world that we live in um daily, so I appreciate the opportunity. Um so you do know about our priority three goal, and so just to to review that for the folks watching, that is our exemplary staff goal, and that's our commitment to recruit, hire, support, and retain culturally proficient, high-quality staff who ensure every student receives an excellent education in a well- environment. Um so similar to the fall, we are going to work backwards tonight. We are going to start with goal four, and work up to goal one. Okay. So, goal four, maintaining a commitment to supporting the hiring of a qualified and diverse staff that demonstrate a range of skills and qualifications that support student success. So, when we understand who we hire, we ensure every hiring decision and the support that

044follows moves us closer to excellence. This goal reminds us that we're not just hiring people, but we're hiring people, we're training people, we're making sure they have the skills to do the job. It's about aligning the talent, support, and success. Um So, what you see here is the number of new staff that have been hired uh for this school year. We note that we have a large group of our EC staff or EC teachers have um been hired for this year, and so how do we use this data? Why is it important? Well, we look at our data, and then we also [clears throat] break it down to know of those 23 teachers, 50% of them are also BTs. Um that makes a difference in how we develop the training and support for our teachers.

045So, based on that data, um we have worked and collaborated with our EC department to make sure that we had monthly professional development that improved the skills across the board for all of our EC teachers. We've also been able to include other staff as needed. So, for instance, we have new pre-K teachers um that have come to our EC trainings because they also serve our exceptional needs students. Uh another example of how we use this, knowing that we had a large group of um EC teachers, we collaborated earlier in the year, and we heard about that in the fall to create lead teachers at EC teachers at every school so that someone was there who could support with compliance, with making sure that we are on track not just with students, but with paperwork and

046all the other things that come with EC compliance. So this reflects our commitment. This is only one example of how we use this data, but this reflects our commitment not only to hiring staff, but also making sure that they have the skills necessary to so that we have high student outcomes. Next slide. So not only have we tracked our certified staff, we also look at the transfer of classified workforce, particularly in those positions that are critical to daily operations and student support. So for instance, we know we need bus drivers. That's been a high need for for the past couple of years. We also know that in our EC teacher assistant population has grown and we have a lot of new staff they are also. So how did we use this data? So one thing

047we have implemented is that our Orange County employees can now be bus drivers. So we have drivers staff who can drive a morning route or they drive an afternoon route or they serve as a substitute driver. It only it doesn't only give them the opportunity for extra pay. It also serves us to be able to effectively get our students to school. We also look at the retention strategies for our EC teacher teacher assistants. We know that our EC teacher assistants need specialized skills. And and so for example, another thing we collaborated with is that we just recently offered an employee resource group entitled student interactions advice to educators for interested staff. So trying to collaborate to make sure that our staff have the skills that is needed to be successful. Next slide. So as we

048monitor these trends and identify areas of need, it's critical that we're intentional and flexible with strategies. So one of the strategies we have put in place is that we now have partnership we to recruit international teachers. We would have been uh uh partnering with participation, sorry, Participate, which is an international teacher organization, but we're now also partnering with Educational Partners International. Um the difference being that EPI, the late the last one, is able to provide us with more secondary individuals. So if you're not familiar with that, these organizations can recruit and sponsor international teachers on a J-1 visa and who can work in the United States for up to 5 years. They bear the cost of doing that and if you know anything about visas, they're very expensive. So um our school-based administrators have the

049opportunity recently to attend informational meetings. So we're hoping to broaden that out to other schools. Right now we have international teachers at three of our schools, um but we hope to expand those international teachers across our districts, especially in our dual language or Spanish in those areas. I'd also like to give a huge shout out to our retirement retired teachers because we have retired teachers that step to the plate every day. They serve as substitutes. They will work 70% when uh we have leave of absences or vacant positions and that helps us keep quality education in the classroom. Um and then the you know, and there's a host of things that we continue to do. So often times when we don't have staff, I know our EC department does a great job of contracting so

050that we students are not going without services if there's a vacancy in OTPT or whatever the case may be. They are still getting their getting services from high quality individuals. Um so all of these efforts help us to respond strategically to staffing challenges. Next slide. Of course, I had to throw a little bit about beginning teachers. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. We do So we do continue to monitor our beginning teacher data. Um you can see the number of our turn to license teachers compared to those uh who have come through our tradi- traditional teacher ed program. Um so we know that this trend presents an opportunity, but it also comes with a responsibility. Um so while it expands our talent pool, it also requires us to constantly look at our

051support and make sure we're being intentional with that. Next slide. So what do we do? Um so we are looking at revising our beginning teacher support plan to align with recent policy updates and also align with our new strategic plan. As part of this process, we just pushed out a survey [cough] that looked went to three stakeholder groups. It went to beginning teachers as well as lead mentors and then school-based administrators. Uh we aligned the survey with the mentor and beginning teacher standards from the state. So we are asking questions that's aligned with best practice. Um we had very positive results. So So participants were to respond to statements using a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Um so for example, beginning teachers were asked questions such as my mentor provides feedback that helps

052me improve my instructional practices. Or another example might be school administrators are accessible when I need advice or guidance. The lead mentors and the school-based administrator questions responded to They responded to similar questions, but it was role specific. Um so across all questions with all state group stakeholder groups, we had a at least a 70% response of either agree or disagree. Excuse me, strongly agree or agree. Um and a many of those questions fell in the 80 to 90% range. So we had we had some positive results, but we still want to know more. Um next slide. So one of the things that we have done is we also asked our beginning teachers what factors would What factors most influence you to stay to stay in the profession [snorts] and to stay in our district?

053And so the top four factors that were identified were positive school culture and work environment. Two was student behavior support systems. Three, strong administrative support. And four, manageable workloads. So next step for us is we have four focus groups across four different schools that we are going to ask for feedback from and we are going to use those four points to try to identify areas in which we can incorporate into our plan and improve our practices and and and hopefully the result will be a higher retention rate. Um we do have to bring that that our our plan back to you for approval. So we will be back in the fall to talk about that. So Okay. So another area that we have really focused on this year is national [clears throat] board teachers. Uh

054we know that national board the national board process not only supports best practices and higher student growth, it also there's lots of research to say retention is better by national board teachers. So we did see a 16% increase. We went from 81 to 94 national board certified teachers. Um our district's overall percentages continues to rise, but our goal again is 20%. We want to be a distinguished [snorts] um district. So we're going to continue working on that. Um and we do we do have some some new strategies to share. So next slide. So we have 22 candidates right now that are in the process. Some They're all at different components. Some are on component four, some are on two, but they're they are in the process of working toward their national boards. So today we

055offered two virtual sessions in a partnership with NC State. They are offering a national board course. They're offering it to us for free. It will be a paid course in the future, but they're offering it to us for free. They want our teachers' feedback and to know how to revise the course. The course has a plethora of resources. Um so we're we're proud that we're we're able to do that for our teachers who are interested. We had about 10 folks show up today. We also have three staff members that we have we are going to pay a stipend to to out of our BT funds and our lead mentor funds to be act as readers. And our national board standards supports that. So that our folks going through can have a reader within the guidelines

056to be able to get feedback. Next slide. So our next goal, which was three, was that 90% of our vacancies will be filled within 60 working days. Next slide. We continue to track fill rates to establish a baseline for how long positions remain vacant. And it's no surprise that when you get into the year, the the further we get in the year, the longer a position will remain vacant, which is great advocacy for early allotments. So we started allotment process back in January and we have been talking to principals all week. So they will be set to hire after spring break. Our trends do show that it there are some positions that stay vacant longer than others and we will work with individuals, but overall we're meeting that goal of under 60 days. So, we're

057pleased with that. Next slide. So, in addition we've also been tracking substitute fill rates. That reflects the the number of absences that go unfilled. Now, keep in mind that not all absences require substitutes. So, we're talking about our teaching positions and in some cases our ECTA positions. Um so, our fill rates have kind of fluctuated throughout the year, um but they do provide us with valuable insight to consistency and how much coverage is because we know when teachers have to to cover that is disruptive and we want to avoid that at all at all costs. And so, we've done a much better job of that. We have um we have worked with our schools once to make sure absent management, which is how uh subs are coming into our system, that everybody has the same

058procedure. That they know how to use the system. That we have everybody entered into the system in a timely fashion. So, that's a piece of what we what we put in place. We've also um been able to contact subs through our all sub group, which is an email group, to say we have an opening here, would you consider going to try to help schools be able to um get subs when they're when they're they are short staffed. So, please know that um teachers are [snorts] not covering all over the place. That is not the case. Um and I do believe that we are our numbers are getting much closer to before COVID uh in terms of the number of subs we have. Next slide. So, filling uh positions quickly does strengthen our overall impact on

059students and schools. Um so, just so you know, this is our vacancy, our current vacancy as of last week uh we did have we didn't um adjust it for a few new new people that came in this week due to the board change, but these are our current vacancies. Overall, we have uh below a 2% vacancy rate in our certified staff. Um so, I always say before I leave here it's going to be zero. I'm going to keep working towards that. Haven't got there yet, but we're going to keep working. Um but despite this progress, um we still know that there's some areas that are challenging. Um EC is challenging. That is a North Carolina and a a nation trend. That's not um unique to Orange County and actuality, our EC teacher vacancy is lower

060than the state because the state is right at 10%. So, um but we continue to make sure that we are uh recruiting our EC staff. Um and so, one of the one of the strategies that we're putting in place is to make sure that we have we are bringing in student teachers in the right areas. We have lots of student teachers, but we're trying to make sure that we are setting up our student teachers so that we're recruiting in our hard to fill areas. Next slide. So, again, while we look at our certified staff, our classified staff vacancies is just as important. Now, our classified staff vacancy is below 5%, which is still pretty good for this time of year. Um we continue to explore strategies to address vacancies. So, you know, we've talked about

061some in the past. So, for example, if we have we have a pool of custodial subs that when the custody custodians have to be out for a variety of thing, our buildings don't go uncleaned. That is one example of a strategy. Um we have worked with our retired population in our classified staff also. We have a classified uh director right now who's coming back to help us and and so, we're very thankful for that. Uh we will continue to look at and recruit for in our TA population. That has become more challenging, um but we are going to recruit at Durham Tech, Alamance Community, and Wake Community. Why those folks? Because they have the early credentials class, the early childhood credentials that's required for pre-K and many of our TAs go through that pathway. So,

062we will be attending their job fairs, which will coming up in April. Next slide. So, addressing vacancies. Next slide. So again, one of the best ways we address vacancies is through through student teachers and interns. You can see our numbers, they've remained fairly consistent. Um one of the things that we know is that we again, we need to do a better job at recruiting within the hard to fill areas. That's been more difficult and I think that that reflects in the number of folks we're hiring because often times they're ELA, social studies and areas that that that is not as challenging to fill. Um we have student teachers from NC State, Chapel Hill, Elon, Central. We have a student teacher from Liberty this uh university this semester. So, again, if you're out there and you're

063listening, you want to be a student teacher, we would love to have you. We will uh make sure that you have the best experience that you possibly can have. Uh so, again, we'll continue to do that. Next slide. I have to put in a plug because our job fair is coming up. We are going to host both a virtual section of our job fair and a in-person. Um we hope that individuals will attend both. We have 156 people registered right now. So, we're continuing to there. Um we did have our alternative license fair in January. We have hired eight individuals for that in either TA, substitute positions and many of them are interested in being teachers. So, it's a great experience for them also. So, in addition to your traditional recruitment methods, um we are

064expanding to reach uh our our methods to try to reach our candidates earlier and more effectively. And one of the ways we want to do that is through digital recruitment. So, as we work to attract and retain highly qualified educators, it is essential that we modernize how we connect with them. Um we know from being professionals that people connect through LinkedIn, they connect through uh Facebook and social media, but the other way they connect is through texting. And so, we are looking and working we're going to work on the opportunity to be able to text individuals who are interested and who agree to get um information about jobs. That will allow us a broader audience and be able to connect with people who've applied over a period of time. Um so, another strategy we have

065put in place is we want to grow our own teachers. We want our students to see Orange County as the number one employee and employer in Hillsborough. And so, our C&I department has worked really closely with two of the staff members at one at Cedar Ridge and one at Orange High School and they have a future teacher club. Orange High School has 32 students in that club and Cedar Ridge has 24 students in that club. They have attended so far that got universities. Um they have had the opportunity to connect with teaching fellows for scholarship programs. So, we're working very hard um to be able to for our own students to be see us as their future employer. But not only are we doing that with teachers, we're also doing that for folks who are

066interested in classified positions. So, for example, Friday we're going to Orange High School's job fair. We're going to talk to them about have you thought about being a bus driver? Have you if you're interested in the trades, what can we offer you? Um so, that our students come back home to work. Next slide. [clears throat] Thank you, Connie. Continuing on with priority three, um this was the first year that we um created and implemented an annual OCS employee survey with the goal of you can see we're we're hoping resulting in 90% of all employees and employee subgroups indicating that OCS is a good place to work and grow. This survey was um sent out in January. Uh next slide, please. So, first So, we do have some preliminary results from the survey. First is 333

067responses, which is a little bit on the low side. We're going to improve that for next year. We did have a few days out for inclement weather and we didn't want to extend this survey too much. As you as you heard from Connie, we've got a big teacher survey out. We have the OCS survey. This year is a teacher working conditions. So, we don't want to keep these things open for too long, but we do know we have to do a little bit more to get more responses next year. Um one of the questions in the survey did ask our employees um about what is their, you know, interest areas for professional developments. And the number one um response rate that came back was um learning another language in Spanish. We are last year, for

068example, and in years prior, we do have opportunities for our employees to take discounted conversational Spanish at Durham Tech. Um hearing getting the results here just means that we will uh continue with those efforts um to increase that. And again, this was this survey this year was to give us um baseline data, right? We haven't done it before. So, um the other two things I noticed is uh that some of the key indicators of the last two questions that we ask employees uh is your school or department a good place to work and grow? Um we did get a response rate of 76.8% agreed or strongly agreed. So, that's a little short of 90, but on the flip side, it was less than 10% who disagreed or strongly disagreed. So, that neutral category we got

069to work on, right? That neutral category I think for the for this question was about 18% Um and the same data really follows for the last question on the slide there about that Orange County schools is a good place to work and grow. Again, we had 73.4% agreed or strongly agree with that statement, but it was less than 10% that disagreed or strongly disagreed. So, not a bad place to work from and more information to come. It's part of our processes to let our employees know that we're listening, we're asking, we're listening and we're trying to meet them and of course the follow up on what we learned from that which will which will bear fruit. Okay. Um finally, the last goal to talk about tonight which is goal one in our reverse order is

070about the proficient teacher retention rate to be above the North Carolina state average of 89.9%. This we do not the way this data is reported, we don't get official data until a year after. So, we are right now the report has come out to the state, but it's in unofficial form. It hasn't gone to the state [clears throat] board. So, what we should be receiving information on in March or April and March is almost over, but it hasn't been official yet >> [snorts] >> would be the data in 2024-25 that we receive in the spring of '26. So, that data is coming. We will report that out in October when we come back before you for our update. The unofficial data looks like we are in the range. So, but again, we'll stay tuned. We'll

071give you that we'll get we'll be we'll see you back again in October to report. Next slide, please. So, you've seen this slide in previous presentations too about existing and planned strategies. Most of these have already been addressed by Connie in her presentation. A few things that I did want to mention some of the things that we talked about like HR accessibility. We've been out to just about every school to have lunch in cafeterias here, give information to employees, hear what they have to say. That's something we're going to look to continue moving forward. I do want to talk about supporting teacher leadership opportunities under the retention aspect there. Connie's already mentioned about the EC leads, but the ATR grant application that you've heard about before due to state funding that we cannot control from

072the state. Our proposal was I think fairly well regarded in the scoring system, but it wasn't one of the top two. There was only two grants of ATR in this past year. There was some talk about the folks who helped us the consortium that helped us write this ATR grant to try to get private funding. I'm not sure where that I don't think that's going to be feasible for this year. And so, the advice the current advice that we have is that they're resubmitting the application with changes that they learned from this year for next year. So, that's a to be determined. Um but it is still in play as we are constantly seeking ways to support our teachers through through state money and that's again what national board certification is a great vehicle for

073us to do that and everybody wins the more we can support national board certification. And next slide, I think we are ready for questions. Um before we start, I do just do want to say that I think you all do realize how lucky Orange County schools is to have Connie Brame as a for the district. Her and the staffing team just make my job 10 times easier and I suspect makes everyone in this room's job a little bit easier. But any questions, we're happy to respond. Carrie? Uh one brief question. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this presentation and and all the all the initiatives really like meaningful and effective and um Tell me again what the There's Participate which I'm familiar with. What did you say the new newer opportunity [snorts] was for international

074teacher partnerships? And so, the company is Education Partners International EPI is its acronym. And they're a they're a long-established company as well that does the same thing gets the visas, prepares them. We have contracted with them, so they're on the board. The Participate for most of our experience with them has been limited to elementary school positions and like dual language and Spanish and foreign language speakers. Um but EPI has a greater resource for secondary science and math throughout the you know, throughout the world to provide. So, we wanted to expand our opportunities there. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Sarah? Um this was great. It's great to see all of the progress and I'll also say like I think the approach that you're taking to beginning teachers of like surveying them and then digging a little

075bit deeper with the focus groups and everything like figuring out how to retain more of those folks and have them have be very effective and happy is huge and I think it seems like you're approaching it in a really thoughtful way that I'm really excited about as well as um the employee survey and it's great to it's great to know that of that, you know, whatever percent that didn't put strongly or agree or agree like you've got that a lot in that neutral category. So, like you said they're and I'm excited for the ways that you're going to respond to like the themes that you have in that. One like tip I have that you may already know from like these kinds of staff engagement surveys is not just to like do the thing that

076is responsive, but also to like communicate that you are doing that thing in response to the survey. Like cuz people don't always put those things. So, you might just have more Spanish language courses and not say we got this feedback from you and we are acting on it by doing this thing. Like that is it is not everybody recognizes when you're responding to them always. The question I had was around the subs. So, I saw last year we hired a lot of subs and in the higher data it was like 157 versus 103 this year, but then we do have like 140 something subs. So, is there a reason we're like hiring fewer subs this year? Do we feel like we're at a certain capacity or So, we we didn't actually hire fewer subs. We

077made a Usually, we bring back subs every year in the beginning of the year for approval. And we made the decision not to bring back people who were actively subbing. They've already been approved by you. So, that's the gap you see. So, so that's why the numbers look a little different, but in essence I think it's I don't remember the exact number, but we have about 150 I think it's 156 active subs right now. Um so, that would be the That's very helpful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I also had a question on subs. What In looking at pay on on number 14 here, what is the trend on absences that require substitutes? Cuz I see that September 66 and then is it really holiday related November, December and then

078we got February. What is the correlation then of people being out? So, in terms of days, these are only that what shows up in our data are only the days in which school is in. So, no holidays would be included, right? And work days would not be included. So, what this shows you is the number of requested subs that were actually filled by a substitute. Now, there are some nuances in the data and we are this is certainly baseline data. We haven't collected this before. So, one of the nuances I can tell you is that oftentimes when a TA is the person requesting the sub, the school is is saying we would rather our own staff cover it. So, it it I think it's the data is probably much better than it it it looks

079here, but we have to work those nuances out throughout this year to kind of establish a baseline and then where do we go from there? I have one more. Go ahead. I have one more. When it comes to the international teachers, can you educate me, please, on how it works? How do they get paid? Do they get the same pay as our American teachers and do they get insurance? How does that work? My concern is that their rights are being protected as being here working for the United States? Yeah. No, so they get the where they fit in the salary scale for their experience, that's where they get paid. They the There is a fee the the company sort of charges a fee for when you actually make a hire, right? It's there's no charge

080as you're sort of going through the interview process, but if you actually contract with a teacher to come, there is a fee and those fees can be different per company. The district has some savings, okay, when we hire an international teacher. For example, the both Participate and EPI provide health insurance. So, there's no health insurance cost for for from our perspective as it is if it's not an international teacher, there is a district cost to pay for health insurance. Also, with an international teacher, they're not tapped into the retirement system. So, that cost is also not borne by the district and you add up the savings that you don't have for in a sense not paying for retirement, not paying for health care cuz because that's part of the contractual arrangement, those go to mitigate

081the cost to have to the company to to actually secure the services. So, but yes, they are eligible for our supplemental benefits. They have health insurance through their through the organization and they get paid where they should fall on the on the salary scale. Just to finish up, would would they they have all the same legal rights as as teachers who are US citizens, so they're treated as teachers then they're treated the same in the board policy. There is a federal law limit on 5 years that they can stay in the country on the visa. So, that that's just that's just the nature of the visa. Bonnie. Yes, so thank you for this. I don't know if it's me or you, but somehow Ms. Rimmer I'm I'm following you a lot better than I ever

082have. You have so much to say and you say it so quickly. I think you have slowed down or something, but thank you. A lot of [snorts] information. Um I'm thrilled to see what you're doing with the BTs. It feels like, you know, you have so many coming in and to and protecting them and keeping, you know, converting them to experienced teachers seems like that the holy grail for us. And I was curious if you are have any idea of how many of our beginning teachers make it to the 3 years the magic Five. Five. >> But you're not getting They're 1 through 3 is beginning, but it's 5 years is the magic number. Okay, but I would really say if they're getting to 3 we're in good shape, right? So, we do keep that

083data. We report it out in the fall. We don't report it out in the spring because statistically speaking it it really looks really good, but you know, it's only a few folks. And let me also say to you in response to the work we've done. I have to thank our other partners because HR has really been able to collaborate with our other departments. And oftentimes we're facilitating, but you know, like our EC department has been there training people working hard with our staff. So, it So, it's been a great to be able to collaborate with our other departments and be able to push out things that based on our data. So, I I do want to thank them and say, you know, C and I is really working on the teacher cadet program. So, it's

084been a a very collective effort. Okay. But we will come out with that data in the in the fall. >> forward to that. So, I just want Last year, I think it was last year, Mr. Coy, you made a really compelling case that when we track retention, we should track retention of our proficient teachers because I don't really care about the I mean, that's the goal. That's what we want to have. And so, I'm just a little confused cuz um there's a and I'm going I went back to the October data just to see, but there was a one number says that we retained 82.58% of our freshman teachers and then a num- another number said um and it was teacher teacher turnover data NTDPI and it was much higher, you know, it was like

085over 90% retention. So, what's the difference? Wait. Yeah, I'm going to let Connie explain that since she, you know, since she was Yeah, as you said she's >> Yeah, she I have I've got I've got where we're tracking here. Um so, in terms of official official state teacher turnover data, we get a file literally every July and we use that file to determine like why people are leaving. They have to give a reason code and a percent. That is not official state data, however. Now, the file is, but the way the state calculates it is much different. And so, when you go to the official state report they look at attrition. So, for instance, I'll tell you something that they look at that's different. Um if a person is moves from one school to the

086next, it counts for attrition at the school level, but it doesn't count for attrition at the district level. If a person moves from a teaching position position to an administrative position in a different county, it does not count as attrition at the state level, but we count it because they left us, right? So, two two separate things. Um in addition to that, the other thing that would be is that official data is running a year in in behind. And so, the un- unofficial [snorts] data we are giving you is based on the current summer that hiring season for that year. Does that make sense? That makes sense. So, and I would say, you know, as it may be really as we think about the strategic plan and going forward and metric for the strategic plan,

087it would really be nice to to say what's meaningful and really what's cuz you're doing the right things. So, what's a meaningful way to measure it and report it, right? Cuz the state data might not doesn't sound like state data really. I think if we had the druthers, we wouldn't necessarily report it the same way as the state, but we have to follow the state because that's where the numbers are coming from. Right. Right, but when you report internally and to the for the public and the board, you know, you cuz you you're you're holding a much higher standard, right? So. Anyway, thank you. Very good. Very good stuff. All right, any other comments, questions? So, I just uh just a couple. One, thank you for always using the pictures within the district. I really

088appreciate that. Um the the other one is um can you say a little bit more about the the teaching fellow grant? And I think it's so important I got the I got the honor of sitting and hearing a lot more detail in it at Orange High as they were coming in to give us the grant. I think it would benefit the board to hearing about that because it's really to me a way different way to attract at that level beyond the clubs, right? Where we're actually getting I think we got 55K is for the grant we got. Not just for this, but I I think it would be beneficial to just if you can, speak a little bit about it. So, so just a general teaching fellows is a scholarship It's been around for a

089long time. I was a teaching fellow, that's probably giving away my age, but um but it is a scholarship program. The one thing it does do is afford the opportunity to not just for scholarship, but opportunities to learn starting from freshman year on that may not be available to all students. Um and so, we have recently the way the way HR is partnering with the teaching fellows program is that our alternative licensure folks, they have broadened the field of who can participate. So, our alternative folks who are math, science, EC, elementary ed, or STEM can can apply to be a part of that program at there I think there are 11 universities across North Carolina. And so, we have we had someone come in and educate them on what to do and if they wanted

090to participate and they could apply um uh teaching fellows. Now, the grant is separate in that the grant is money we received from the teaching fellow and that may be there different sections of I think I have it back there if you want to see it. But for us there is sections about recruitment. There are sec- there is funding in regards to the clubs and and whatnot. Um I don't know that all the details have been worked out yet, but um we definitely have received it and are working through how that is going to be spent. And we have a a budget um with with line items and whatnot. So, I wanted to ask Dr. Pat if you wanted to say anything. I'm happy to to chime in. Um so, I think Are you asking

091about the the grant what we're doing? Yes. So, a big portion of the grant is focused on current students and recruiting them into the profession. And so, I think Connie alluded to it earlier that we are sponsoring um future teacher clubs at each high school. That's our first step. We have a robust already enrollment in that and those students have been already um field trips and are actually going to be on field trip on Wednesday to one of the local universities. I can't remember which one. Um I know the first one they went to was UNC Charlotte to look at their teacher ed programs. Um and you know, talk to folks there in their teacher ed programs. So, um that's a piece of it. And then we're using some of the grant funding to um

092also build out some pathways for our students. So, um I don't want to get too ahead of the curve cuz we're still working with our uh community college partners, uh but in the future uh soon, maybe in the next year or so, we would should have a pathway for students to be able to start in high school, graduate from high school with a portion of their college already done and go in straight into the teaching profession including like an education course that is like a early teacher ed course in high school. And then there'll be internships around that where they'll be working in the in the schools in our schools, uh you know, getting some early experience. So, um we're excited about that and looking forward to that coming to fruition. And just to add

093on to that, um in the CTE program, we've actually had a recognition of multiple students that have interned at like Grady Brown and have done a fantastic job and those are some other exciting things that paint this picture. I just wanted to highlight those cuz they it's such a wonderful story to see that and the students from Cedar Ridge to be able to walk across the street, get that experience, and and share that out so early. So, I just wanted to make sure, you know, everybody got to hear a little bit more. Thank y'all so much. Sure. I just have a question about EC and if you are running into any problems with other districts offering special supplements for EC. I know I know that some do, but has that been a reason for folks

094not to come here? No. Okay. Um yeah, if you look at individuals in at the university level who are actually going through EC programs, that our numbers are not high. I think um the recruitment is a is a state wide and even a nation wide problem. And again, our vacancy rate is lower than the state's. It's much lower actually than the state's. So, no. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Thank you all so much. We appreciate you. All right. Next we have the superintendent's recommendation for the board operating budget. Good evening, Chair Abernathy, Vice Chair Padgett, board members, superintendent, staff, and listening community. I am here to share with you the superintendent's recommended budget for the upcoming academic year 26-27. As always, I don't think we can highlight this enough. Uh we have had a

095phenomenal year. 100% of our schools met or exceeded growth for the first time ever. Um wanted to take the opportunity again to just highlight the great things that our staff are doing in our schools and throughout the district. I won't spend the time reading this uh to you because I know we've all seen it multiple times, but do just want to take every opportunity we can to continue to elevate it. Next slide. Again, um here what I think I want to highlight is that all of the subgroups in Orange County schools grew in grade level proficiency. Um as you can see, there's all of the data that is listed out there for you for how um those grew individually, but overall we saw growth in all of them. Next slide. Again, um more than 95%

096of middle school students in math one were proficient, and our cohort graduation rate increased by eight points. Again, more data is listed there for you so you can see all the wonderful things that are happening, but I did want to elevate those. And finally, New Hope Elementary ranked in the top 100 in the state for growth. They ranked number one for pre-K through five uh school in North Carolina and number four in the state for any school that has pre-K. And then we had uh five of our other schools ranked in the top 12% for um growth. So, we've been working on the budget for a while now. Of course, before February this time so it's kind of starts basically in October. Um but what I wanted to share with you tonight is what the

097process is going to be going forward. As you can see here, when we come back before you on April the 20th, we will be looking for um approval of our local operating budget for which at that time it becomes your budget. Right now we're making the recommendation to you as the superintendent's budget, but when you approve it, it will become the board's budget. We will then um provide that information to uh county commissioners where they will be able to see our request. The county manager will then um May the 5th make a presentation uh to his board about what he recommends our funding to be. There will be a series of public hearings afterwards, and then uh by June the 16th, we shall know what our funding will be for the next school year. So,

098as we know and we have talked about multiple times, um our funding is driven by our students. So, the number of kids that we have actually show up and sit in the seats in our classrooms are what we get funding for. Um as you can see here and um as we'll continue to talk about throughout the presentation, we are anticipating a 182 decrease uh in funding for our upcoming fiscal year. This is based on actual numbers. Um if you recall, the state changed the way that they provide funding uh for school districts, so they actually look at the previous years actual best of day 20 or best of day 40, and that's how your funding is set. So, we already know that we're going to see a decrease uh in our funding for 182 students.

099Our charter school students are leveling out. Uh we have an increase of 32, and um we had an increase of 24 out of district students, so that net billing base shows us a decrease of 174. This is just a graph picture of what was on the previous slide so that you can see the 10-year trend of what our um enrollment has been. This is not an anomaly for Orange County schools. Uh this is something that is happening across the nation and is definitely happening in the state of North Carolina. Um most LEAs across the state will see a decrease in their funding for the upcoming fiscal year. Overall, uh the number of students decreased 35,000 um in North Carolina. As you can see here, um every grade saw a decrease except for fourth grade and

10012th grade, but overall in those are anomalies, not sure what the explanation is, but um other than cohorts are are moving through, and um just wanted to elevate that our decrease in students is not something that is just known to Orange County schools. Here is a look at what um those demographics or students look like by um race, and as you can see here, >> [snorts] >> our uh largest shift occurred in our white population um over the last five years. That has been the biggest decrease of about 4.3%. Added some new information for us to take a look at um this year that I think would be helpful and beneficial. Um the first here is a graph of our teachers uh in comparison to the number of students. Um this is something that uh

101DPI tracks as well as legislators track, and they they're keeping an eye on this just to make sure that districts are um keeping those numbers close because um when they're not close, that's when school districts are seeing that they are getting uh into trouble expending fund balances when they're not adjusting their staffing to um reflect the number of students that they actually have coming in. As you can see here, we're doing a really good job of that. Um our biggest gaps were in years when we had those SR funds where we were able to have um staffing that was in not as much aligned with our students, but as you can see, we're doing really really good. Here is uh information where you can see what those teachers are uh by funding source. And this

102kind of is just to show you how important local funds are and how um our staffing is shifting because, you know, we are getting capped, we're losing more state funds, and we're having to shift to other resources, and that is what this graph here depicts. Switching gears, this shows what our expenses are by funding source. Um as you can see, the state still supplies the large supports the largest percent of our expenditures with 58 million, uh 47 million uh is in our local budget, and the little box that's broken out there is to show you uh of the local budget how much um is going to support uh where we're capped at on the state side. So, as you can see, for fiscal year 26, we have roughly 3.1 million of our local budget that

103is going to um where the state doesn't fund us and caps us on our exceptional children as well as our limited English proficiency students. Wanted to add this in here because this is a large component of our budget is uh the benefit cost. Um $8,812 is what is projected that we will be paying per employee for health insurance coverage um next fiscal year, and retirement at 25.15%. Um so, when, you know, every time we hire an individual, we have to account for those um costs in our budget. Next, I'll give you a synopsis of where we are on our state budget right now. We have got our planning allotments from the state for next fiscal year, and um you know, we have been talking about that we were anticipating a decrease, and of course they

104are reflecting that. Um, they are saying uh, we're going to lose uh, eight positions. Seven and a half of those will be classroom teacher positions. And um, we're losing six months of employment between our CTE and school building administration line items. Uh, they fund us based on actual months of employment, and then when you look at our dollars, we're actually looking at around 1.5 to 1.7 million. That number is a little inflated. The transportation uh, decrease is 743,000. They determined there was an error, so that number is actually a hundred thousand dollars less, but it's still um, a decrease that we will be seeing in our transportation allotment for next fiscal year. Now, let's talk about our continuation budget. Our priorities remain to recruit and retain high-quality staff, student proficiency and growth, and to continue

105to allocate our resources to where they meet the needs of our student and our staff. I'll take a little time here because um, I know this when you first look at it, you're like, "Oh my gosh." Um, so we know that for this fiscal year we received a 3% increase um, from the county because we were anticipating a budget uh, salary increase of 3% for our staff. Well, we don't have state budget. So, in actuality, we've not implemented any staff increases other than what was legislated uh, to this point. So, the question is um, where's 3% and have we spent the 3%? So, that's what I'm trying to reflect for you here. We um, requested 1.8 million dollars to implement a 3% salary increase as well as the anticipated benefit increases for this fiscal year.

106The county approved giving us 1.6 million. So, uh, that is a $200,000 gap over what we asked for. Of the 1.6 million, 700,000 has already been expended to support the staff uh, increases that were mandated that the state did not give us funding for. So, the state said, "You got to move all your certified staff up and give them this experience step on the scale." Which is roughly a thousand dollars annually per staff, but they did not give us the funding for that. So, we didn't get the funding for that step increase, nor did we get the funding for the benefits associated with it. So, um, of of the 1.6, uh, $700,000 has been spent in support of that. So, if we close out this fiscal year without a state budget, there are um, probability

107that there will be fund balance that will be added this fiscal year as a result of that. However, we still don't know what's going to occur. Um, they they could come back and implement a salary increase. They could come back and tell us to do one-time bonuses. Right now, we're just not sure. I hope after they come back in April that we'll have a better indication, and I definitely want to see staff get pay increases, but um, you know, it puts us in a really difficult position when we're planning and we're trying to ask for funding from uh, the county when we don't have a budget right now and don't know where we could land for this fiscal year. So, Ms. Honda, can I stop you just on this slide? What you're saying is we

108have nine hundred thousand dollars waiting for state raises that you had asked for 3% to cover our right Approximately yes. And since they haven't given us any raises, you're holding almost not you're holding $900,000. I have it reserved for staff increases. >> Okay. Should that be that? And benefit staff and benefit increases. Can I say Because for a lot of the year it we anticipated them passing it, and then that we in the rears you'd have to spend it, but the closer gets to the end of school year, the less likely that is to happen, right? >> They can still um, retro it back to July. >> Okay. Um, you know, it poses lots of challenges, but they still have the ability, and typically when they do implement raises, they do implement them retroactive back

109to the beginning of the person fiscal year. Okay. Thank you. So, now let's talk about our continuation budget for this year. So, um, talking with colleagues across the state, talking with my partner in Chapel Hill, um, we agreed to ask for 4% on our current continuation budget for um, next year because again, we just really we really don't know where to land. Um, so we recommend asking for a 4% uh, salary increase as well as the associated 25.15% retirement and the $8,212 in the hospitalization. And then also um, we've included in here, which we rarely get, is um, a 4% um, CPI factor on our non-salary related items for our utilities, our fuel, all those other items that we're continuing to see our expenses increase, we try to account for those as well. Um, usually

110we've not been funded that, and so we always have to ensure that we are able to cover staff salaries, and then we would just make cuts in other places in the budget to offset any of the increases that we um, actually see in those non-salary related items. So, that gets our continuation budget request to uh, 48.8 million, which is basically a two million dollar [snorts] increase over uh, this current fiscal year. So, next let's talk about um, expansion. As uh, Dr. James talked about in her comments, we think it's very important to continue to advocate for our staff and to advocate for being able uh, to keep compensation competitive. So, our recommendation is that we uh, hold and continue to bring forth the expansion initiatives that we have for the last two years, um, which

111would be increasing our um, teacher local supplements, um, 3% in each band, increasing our classified supplement. Our lowest paid classified supplement right now is 7%. Uh, we recommend again trying to get it to 9%, and then also to take a look at that bus driver hourly pay to try to get us in alignment with Chapel Hill. Um, I'm going to fly through these because they they're just uh, a repetition of what we have asked for for the last two years. So, um, again, here's a depiction of where our supplements are in comparison to those districts that neighbor us. Um, it was asked for us to take a look at adding Chatham, but because of the way that their uh, supplement tier is structured, it it was impossible. We could not get um, an apples-to-apples comparison

112because they give flat dollar amounts, and it's different based upon um, if you're bachelors, if you're masters, it's different. So, it was um, we really had no way that we could do that, so I apologize for that. But um, as you can see here, um, you know, we're we're kind of off the mark particularly um, in our up upper years, that 14 to 20 years. I did want to add um, that I took a look at this data for across the state, and Orange County Schools is ranked 12 in our supplements um, when you look at every um, public school unit across the state. Of course, Chapel Hill is first, and Alamance is 37th, and Durham is 10th. Next slide. Here are our current uh, staff um, by the certified supplement bands. Our bands are

113structured as you see [snorts] here going from 12% to 18%. These are the number of staff that are currently there and what percentage um, they are of the total. Again, this is a breakdown of how the 3% would uh, roughly equate to needing an additional 1.3 million, and that would um, allow us to change our supplement tiers from 12 to 15% and then 18 to 21% in those upper years. Now, let's talk about classified local supplements. Um, the group of our employees fall in 7% range, which is um 253 of our staff. Our recommendation is that we take a look at those [snorts] and try to get funding to increase that to 9%, so we would only have uh two classified supplement bands then. It would be 9% and 13%. This focuses on uh staff

114that are receiving um the lowest percentage and a lot of times it is our lower paid staff. Um, it touches a lot of folks, teacher assistants, bookkeepers, receptionists, custodians, technicians, child nutrition. Um, it it touches a a lot of uh individuals. A 2% uh increase would um average about $617 per employee. That's an average. Some are going to be higher and some are going to be lower depending upon where you are on the scale. Um, 250 plus employees would see an increase and the district would need uh roughly $300,000 to implement that. >> [snorts] >> Bus driver pay, um again, we would really love to advocate for getting in alignment with Chapel Hill if nothing more to be able to do some sharing of resources between the two districts. Um, whereas right now that's challenging

115and we can't do it [snorts] because we don't pay um at the same level that they do as you can see here where the orange lighter orange bar, the red one can be misleading. But um of course Chapel Hill um again is at the top uh here in regards to um what they are paying their bus drivers. In order to implement a bus driver pay scale that would be equivalent, we would need roughly an additional $305,000 [snorts] in local funding to be able to implement that. So uh in summary, again uh our student billing base is going down roughly 174 students to 7,751. Um, we are asking for uh 1. 96 million uh for our continuation increase, which is 4% on our salaries as well as the benefit and all of the benefit cost. That

116roughly is $254 per pupil increase just for our continuation. Our expansion budget um is 1.9 million, which would be roughly an additional $250 per pupil. So between the two we're looking at an additional $504 per pupil. Next slide here you can see what our per pupil funding history has been uh for the last 6 years. Of course the column on um my far right is the increase uh that we have uh seen in each of those years. Rounding out uh local operating fund balance uh for fiscal uh when we ended 25, our audited uh fund balance was roughly 5.5 million. Um, and as I just talked about um if we don't get a budget, um there is probability that we will uh be uh reserving those funds again. I do want to say um keep

117in mind um that as we're adding funds to fund balance, we're also losing federal funds. We're continuing to lose uh state funds and we're wanting to ensure that we're continuing to offer the best that we can for our students and to keep all of the additional staff that we have in our schools um there. So um that's all I have. Um, now what are your questions for me? All right. Go ahead. Bonnie? I'll start with a really simple one. So someday [snorts] North Carolina will have a budget, right? Yeah. So so technically, and maybe better after today. Maybe. Um, technically we have you're budgeting assuming a 3% increase this year, which hasn't materialized yet, plus 4% next year. So a total of a 7% increase if if everything goes well. >> Well, don't forget about

118what we've already had to fund that we didn't get money for. So it's not really truly 3%. Okay, I guess my Here's what I'm trying to get to is from an employee's perspective um and also the county is going to look at this and go, "Well, we we gave you 3% last year. What'd you do with it?" Right? You know, just trying to say true it up and say what's the number? So maybe it's a scenario. Scenario one is the state ends up next year with a four nothing this year, 4% next year, right? That's one option. Option two is they say nothing this year and maybe go to 6% next year because they didn't get a raise. And option three is to do something retroactive. So I'm just trying to say if you're an

119employee of [snorts] Orange County Schools and you get a supplement increase, it's going to be on an increased base salary. Right? >> Right. So that's that's what I'm right? So and it could be a 4% increase of We don't know what it's going to be yet, but I'm I've got my You know, we don't know what it's going to be yet, but um that's all. We just But it's two years of state increases that haven't been delivered. This year and next year. That's not been delivered. One year that's not been delivered and then next year. Yeah. Two uncertain years of of of state salaries. So I'm just trying to say what's the whole number is. The the point The point is it looks better when you add it onto increased staff salaries. So if for

120example, if you give classified staff a 2% increase in their supplement, they'll get an average of $617 plus whatever they get from the state. True, but my my caution would be sustaining that and ensuring that we have the funds to be You know, we can't just focus on this first year. We've got to be able to focus on sustaining that going forward. >> I'm not saying that we do it. I'm just projecting that the state's going to give us something. So assuming the state gives us, let's say 4%, which is what you're projecting. The state does 4% and nothing this year, worst case scenario. The 600 2% increase will be on whatever the salary is plus 4%. Yes. That's all. That's all. I'm not asking for a advance on what the state may or may

121not do. Uncertainty is seems to be our budget principle right now, but um I'm just trying to say it it'll look better for our employees than just this. Hopefully it will be better for our employees than just the supplement increase. I just Right? Does anyone care about that? I mean Yeah. It's it's just confusing cuz it's two years of Just just I don't have other comments, so I'm just going to um and thank you. Thank you. Um, but just to Bonnie's point, I went ahead and it's confusing to the employees because you're actually getting more because you're getting a salary increase and a supplement percent increase supposedly if we can actually do these things. But then in terms of confusing to as we present to the commissioners, it's not like we're really asking for a

1223% and a 7% increase because um that it hasn't gone through from the state. The state's demanded that we increase um pay that they aren't funding us to increase and then we also have all the non-state funded positions that we have to pay for ourselves. So So yeah, there are two ways that the numbers can be confusing to two different groups of people and that's worth it's worth pointing out what you pointed out. >> I think the commissioners are going to ask what happened. >> Yeah. They're they're going to go back to where they they are, right? So I just want us to know >> Yeah. where they think we are and and anything can happen, right? I mean it's really uncertain. It's it's so sad so sad that you're having to work through this

123and the uncertainty. It's a great great presentation. Um >> [snorts] >> Sarah? Um, I agree. It's a great presentation. I like some of the new slides. Um, I think it's a really clear and I'm glad that we have the like walk-through of what happened last year and and this point about there like only about 900,000 of that is left because of the mandated stuff that was unfunded. Um, I think it's a really good point. Um a couple of other things that could be helpful to think about including in our presentation our request to the commissioners. Um, one is um the growth So we have like the student demographics by race, but we don't have like a slide of the student demographics uh growth in our numbers or percent of EC students, English language learner students,

124AIG, economically disadvantaged, like some of the other um facets of our student body that have changed over time that are part of why um you know, we're spending so much more local money on. It's it's like that We're spending so much more money money on locally on exceptional children and language learners because um of the state caps and because of their bigger share of our population I think than in the past. I'm not sure about all groups, but I know for English language learners that's true. Um so something to think about is whether that could be a helpful thing to add. Um and then uh I had a question about the transportation cut of like over $600,000. Is that Is that purely based on ADM? Does that also have to do with our efficiency rating

125and the impact of like has our efficiency I forget the name of the metric >> efficiency has not decreased that significantly. That formula is really um difficult um and has a lot of components uh but ADM is a component of that. Um they look at uh prior year expenditures. Um they factor that in. They factor in your efficiency. They factor in Chapel Hill's efficiency and then they also factor in uh your students. And um so that We We were anticipating um >> [snorts] >> a hit probably not to 600,000 more along the lines of four. But um Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a it's a lot of money I that I imagine we'll have to I I can't imagine we can just like cleanly cut transportation routes the same way. You know, it's one of these

126things that's kind of like step levels of We're We're We're already planning um you know, for this and planning as far as you know, the way that we're stocking for this year in regards to our parts and our tires and you know, all of those things and we're taking you know, some looks at some of those areas that we might be able to uh trim um but yeah, we're we're already planning and taking a look at that. Bonnie. Do you have any sense? I know Alamance I just So they just asked for a $4 to $5 million budget [snorts] increase for staff raises. Um I don't I'm sure I don't know where Durham is. Um or Wake. Right? But I'm just curious Wake but they're cutting the salaries. They're cutting their budget but they're not

127cutting I mean they're you know, remember you showed the competition um and when you showed our rank Wake, Durham, Chatham are all paying master's pay on top of that. So puts their ranks even higher. But um the the um I lost my question. Um I lost my question. Keep going. I'll come back to it. I I'm sorry. I Oh, I'm sorry. Do I have it? So So if if these if these other districts get raises our salaries will fall even even further to You know, so that their salaries if they go up ours will fall even even further behind. My my point being um is and you did this you did a great job with the strategic planning finance group, but you helped shape the supplement is what we use to keep our salaries competitive

128whereas the state raises are kind of baseline for everything. So everybody gets the increase in the state raises, but Orange County schools stays competitive with our neighboring districts with our supplement, which we haven't increased in a long time. So and if So the numbers you're showing today are today's data, but tomorrow's data could be different cuz other districts are fighting hard for teachers' raises. Am I Um so I do know that Alamance has it as part of their expansion budget as well. Um Chapel Hill does not. Um I'm not I haven't heard Durham's budget presentation, but I think um you know, it's something that all districts continually look at is um their local supplement because that is what keeps them competitive with the counties that border and touch them. Yeah. Well, I just you know,

129and Dr. Jones opened the meeting with this. Um You You all are doing everything right. You know, several districts overspent their budgets to give raises. We did everything right. You've got a healthy fund balance. We've been managing the staff. Our Our teachers and staff are doing an amazing job. You know, so how do we So our challenge is going to be to convince the commissioners that this is really important. I mean it's a great job. It's the right thing to do. You know, and we just have to do it. Sarah. Um My question was actually about the fund balance and is Is that whole amount the 5.5 that was left at the end of last year? It Was that all unassigned fund balance? Do we have some part of it that's assigned fund balance? >>

130Um it's all it's all pretty much unassigned at this point. And so there's like this and then on top of that there's like that 900,000 or so that is semi-assigned like kind of just held for in case. What What is that >> It is designated in our budget right now, but if it does not materialize, we're just letting you know that you know, there could be an increase in what is put back in the fund balance that when we close out this fiscal year and and this is why. Other comments, questions? Thank you for the details and I hope that whoever's watching this that they can go to the county commissioners and request that they fund our schools and then all parents go down to the capital and do the same. Um that would be

131great, right? There's only so much we can do with the uncertainty and the funds that we don't have yet. But I have a question for you. It's related to budget and also in a way non-related. Um The We've had people come over tonight or speakers to request to reinstate their uh their their banned uh fund. So what has that been in the past? Do you know like what has been the budget for them and are we can we put that in the budget for future conversation for the board? It seems like Uh I would have to go back and do some research to get you what that number is um specifically uh to be able to tell you. I can tell you it is in the local budget and I can tell you uh yes,

132you can fund it. We'll just have to take it from somewhere else. So um you know, if that's the will of the board uh to do that, um we can do that. We would just have to take those funds from uh another place. Okay. I I actually have those numbers. Um and so Orange High School band um is provided with district local funds each year. Um this year Orange High School band program received $21,390 in district local funds. Those funds have been used to uh for supplies and materials including instruments which equated to about 13,000, instrument repair 3,970, and marching band fee waivers $4,420. Now um when we look at each of our middle school and high school bands that their our allocated district local funds that allotment totals about a little over $70,000 for

133middle and high school bands. Um we do review programming allotments and so currently that is about a little over $300,000 in local funds for programming. Um we also have to fund um uh provide uh supplements or you call them grants for athletics. So it's a little over 92,000. Cultural arts is a little over 100,000 and includes visual arts, performing arts, music. Um and then we have IB and then we also have a special fund for our Swim for Charlie for elementary schools, which is about 22,000. I believe this was shared uh previously and I can share it again with the board so that you can have that um you know, when we start looking at funding um specific programs and increase in funding for one, we really have to take an overall approach and so

134um but we're happy to do whatever um the board's desire is with that, but just wanted to share that, but I'll reshare that um with you as well so that you have the exact numbers. Then I'm wondering how there's issues with transportation. I guess there's issues with That's a question Yeah. Is that in the Is the transportation broken out in those numbers for the No, so we provide the money to the school and the band directors they manage that and so we do have a new band director at Orange High School that um I think the principal has been working with him and I'm just going to be honest, he's quite pleased with the resources that we have provided him coming from out of this district into into Orange County schools. He's been really happy

135with from what I hear with the resources that we are providing um the schools. It is a large sum and the band directors do decide how they want to utilize and spend that money. Along as same with athletics and um every other program. Like they have to have their budget, they work with their principal, they present that, and they deliver utilize that however they see fit. And then when, you know, they do fundraisers to supplement that. And I know all a lot of you have either you support the fundraisers or you have children that do the fundraisers, and we all support them. Right, but that's how they build up their their budgets as well. So we don't know um about the cookies that I can't eat. >> [laughter] >> You can eat some of them.

136Um Uh so we don't know if transportation's part of the budget. That's something that the band director It should be part of their budget at the school level. So we don't manage that for them, and we don't break that out for them. They may have in the past received an additional set of funds for transportation. But [snorts] um I don't know why that we didn't take that away. That I think that's been gone for some years now. Probably due to reduce funding. And so like Mr. Ms. Rath explained, you know, as we begin looking at our local budget decreasing I mean, we're looking at what was it? $600 or so $600 to $700,000 for transportation alone. So it we have to make up that difference somewhere to um we're planning for that now. So you

137know, it's hard to provide additional when you're continuing to get cut. And so we provide the supplements. We're we've reviewed them um the grants, whatever you want to call them for band for uh athletics. Um we don't do it per pupil. But we just we do it just based on historic um historical data on what we need to what they have used in the past to sustain them. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Further questions or comments? This is great. Thank you, Andrea. I I'd like to make a recommendation for consideration for going to the county. Um you know, we we were underfunded to start with from the the county. Significantly, 200k. And then we got hit with unfunded mandates. And we already know the county's going to have a challenge of 21. They got it

138down to 19 million. The state's already saying they're cutting eight positions. [clears throat] And I I believe we should advocate for this and try to get this. But I think we should put another item on there as an option, which is a one-time bonus to our teachers and staff that is actually getting the results done. And have that as an option versus just the pay increases that Ms. Rath as you highlighted we have to figure out how to sustain that. And I I'm worried about our ability to do that versus trying to get a one-time bonus or incentive if you will to our teachers and staff that's doing this hard work and getting the results and us not having a way to advocate in a different way. Um and I I'm I'm just recommending it

139come back to the finance committee as what would that look like? What would be a recommendation? I don't have a preference on what that number would be. I think it would be thoughtful to just come out with a recommendation on that as as an option. Because if we can't do the sustained, I think that would be something that would be helpful if we had it as an option. So Yeah, I I actually I think we should hold that out there. We have $5 million fund balance to mo- 5 and 1/2 million in Um so I I like the idea. Um I think we should be looking at all of it. So cuz I I really and I'm begging if we're on begging the public to come out and to Ms. Pedea's point the public teachers,

140kids, parents need to show up at the county commissioner hearing. We'd like to hear from you if you support the budget, but they need to show up and they need to say that we pay high taxes because we expect our teachers to be paid well. And our staff, not just our So we need to come out. But if the county doesn't come where we want, I think the fund balance is is a [clears throat] good backup plan either to supplement or if you know, but I I want to go in there thinking we're going to get money. I'm I'm saying to put it on there as an option, too. If they say I I'm not going to give you all of that, but I'll give you the bonus, I'd I'd love for them to give

141it to us versus dipping into our fund balance. I mean, we're going with the options to get it. Well, there's others then. We I think we would talk about the committee cuz there's several options to where we can get the money from. I mean, I don't I don't love putting that out to them as an option because I think having it on the table is an easy like way to to give us some money that isn't the full amount of money. Like I you know, as a we didn't get all of this funding and what should we do? I'm like open to discussing that, but like I don't like the idea of proactively putting that out as a choice personally. I think we should ask for the increases that we think are the are the

142like proper like legitimate Let me let me just put it out there. I'm perfectly in support of giving them the supplements and the bonus. I fully support doing both. Because they didn't get anything last time. And this would be a bonus for what they've done and been doing. So I I'm I I I wouldn't propose it as, you know, one or the other. I'd propose it as they deserve it. I think Sarah's point because there's so many unknown numbers. We don't know what the state raises are going to be. We don't know what the state raise for this year's going to be. We don't know what the state year raise for next year's going to be. So so but I think that is a contingency that we could either supplement with or use, but I

143I think that's [clears throat] our business. I don't know if that's the county commissioner's up to the county commissioners. I think that's up to our board when we see how the numbers settle, right? >> Yeah, all I'm asking for is us to come into the finance committee with a >> we we'll with the number and we can go from there. That's that's all I'm asking for. I'm not asking for us to make a decision tonight and we shouldn't. But We can get some rough discuss that. Yeah, we can get some rough numbers tonight based on any whether however you want to proceed with any type of bonus, right? Um the hard part is we're in limbo with the state. That puts us in a hard position. We're also in limbo with the county commissioners. So

144that's going to put us in a hard position as well depending on the decision that they make with um how they plan to fund us moving forward. They have a shortfall in their budget. Um we are uh they are looking at funding us differently than they've been funding us, and we could take a cut there. And so with those unknowns from the state right now we have been very conservative. From the federal government, we have been very conservative. And so yes, we have almost a million dollars in what should have been raises for staff. But that is what we do use to match the state locally, right? And we have to do that. So when we're in limbo, it's hard to know if they pass a budget where that's going to that is retroactive. We

145may have depending on what that is, we may have to dip into the current $5.4 million as our safety net. As our safety net. And the 5.4 or 5 million glasses on Um is a safety net, but if we have a real emergency, it's not enough. It's our like that might be where we think it's a good place for us to land, but in talking with superintendents in on the west in the west of of North Carolina they that is not enough. Because they actually had to continue to pay in their employees while they were shut down. And so and couldn't get access, and they had to use their fund balance for things that in the emergency. So I'm I'm just I'm we hopefully we don't have anything like that that happens, but we have

146to be mindful of sustaining a a safety net because we have a responsibility to do that. And I I think what is our what does the policy say about the county? >> 5.5% of your local. 5.5% of local, which we're we're there. But what is the recommendation with the standard? It's more like 10 to 12. Right. And so, you know, I don't want us to be in a position where um I want us to advocate with the county commissioners, but I need us to understand, you know, where they are and I don't know what what position they're going to be in and then we also are waiting to see what decision they're going to make on how we're funded moving forward. And if that shifts, we're going to take another cut on top of the

147cuts that we're already seeing. And that's going to make it very difficult to do. Um if we have an opportunity where we understand what's going to happen with the state and then we learn what's going to happen with the county, we can move forward in planning and if we have a reserve that we can do the one-time bonus in-house and not take it to the county commissioners, wonderful. If the board decides you want to do both, wonderful. I just want our teachers and staff to be paid. I don't know. You know, I mean that's that I mean that's um you know, what they deserve and so how we get there, but getting there may not we may not be able to come to a decision if it has to be done in-house as quickly as

148you may want to even though we see money and you may even see additional funds and fund balance beyond what that 2. whatever percent we didn't spend because we have been extremely conservative dealing with the unknown honestly for the last 2 years. They've put us in an unfair state, right? To support teachers and staff and to to recruit and maintain and and really, you know, pay them what they deserve. And so is it fair to have to rely on the county for raises? No, that's not fair. The state is supposed to fund us. But that's where we are. And [clears throat] so I just just to level set a little bit, right? Like we may see these this money um yes, we can decide what we want to do with it, but just caution if

149we don't ask for it and get it right away, we'll be waiting and to see what it looks like with the state and then once we pass that, we're going to be waiting to see what it looks like with the county and we'll have to make up for that. And hopefully our um enrollment begins to stabilize. There's no reason for anyone not to send their children to our school system. There's no reason. They have great staff, great environments. Our data's going up. However, um there's this grain of America and I have gray hair, too, so don't be offended, right? >> [laughter] >> But there's a grain of America and there are less births in our area. We're seeing that. We're going to start looking at some of that data. It's expensive to live here. People

150that work here are living outside of our district and so these are tough things that we're going to have to tackle and we're going to start talking about some of those things. But we have to be mindful that we may seem like we are we have a lot right now, but those decisions might come later. So for I'm in favor of whatever the board wants to do with Mr. Atherton's recommendation. Um I'm in favor of asking our county for more, but um just know that we're in a difficult position on I mean all three funding sides, federal, local and state. Thank you. I I appreciate your statement, but I I have to say I'm in line with Sarah. I'm concerned that um we by getting a what you requested like an allotment like that, we

151are not going to get fully funded. So I would rather that we ask for what we need and go with the explanation Dr. Jones just shared. Yeah, I agree and we're going to be I think once tomorrow tomorrow or Thursday we're talking about the the agenda for the finance meeting later this week. Well, I think We don't have a meeting on Thursday. Not you. The agenda planning. Oh, I'm sorry. But I think we can we can talk put it you know, there are different strategies we can use with the county, just negotiating strategies that we can use as a board and I think we could talk about putting that on the agenda and um That's just a conversation. Yeah, it's a conversation. So that's but you know, we Yeah, that's all right. Well, the budget

152will definitely be on that agenda, so The budget is definitely, but then and funding how funding strategies or negotiating strategies I think is important. But we also have to remember that the county is the one that's telling us that our fund balance needs 5.4 or 5.5 million dollars in it. And if we're taking out to do salaries, then that's going to eat into that. And it's going to be harder to get it built back up. If everything lines up and falls just right, we will have some additional funding and then we can the board can explore what they want to do as far as the the a bonus situation because if we do anything with fund balance, it can't be re- recurring. That's right. Um so we just have to but if it falls in

153line and If all stars align >> I will and I'm I'm hopeful, but it is a >> too, but I know what the county is looking at, too. That's right. That's right. It's it's not pretty. And I think we have uh presented a reasonable ask. You know, I I think Ronda's done a fantastic job. She has and it's difficult to fund in under the to to to have a budget and and bring something forward under these circumstances. It's really hard to do. Dr. Jones, we had a request, but I wondered if you could, you know, at the beginning of the meeting you read the statement of why it's so important for us to do this and um you know, I something that maybe we need to put in the presentation or you need to put

154it's but it's um I just think it's so I'm hearing the board wants to go full throttle that we want this money and we want money for our staff. Right? Right? And we need our community's help to do that. We need our community. We need everybody's help to get out there. It's I've been accused of not taking no for an answer. >> [laughter] >> This is the time. All right, any further discussion on this? All right. Thank you, Ms. Roth. Thank you. Thank you. So board, it's time to go back to close session. Given this room does record, I would recommend we go back to where we were. Sure. Because we have to come back in here to end the actual meeting, so. Motion to return to close session. As stated in the As stated

155in the Stated where? In the agenda. Oh, in the agenda. Oh, second. We have a motion and a second to go in close session. Any further discussion? All in favor, I. I. Opposed? We are now going into close session. >> Mhm. >> All right, welcome back to open session. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second. Who is second? Wendy. Thank you. Have a motion second, any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, I. I. Closed. Have a good evening. Thank you all. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. You're welcome. Have a good evening.