001[Laughter] I am hearing that feedback feedback. >> Yeah, a lot of the feedback 1 2 3 using the mic. Boy, that was fun. We're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Um, we are told that the alarm's about to go off, but can we get a motion to go into close session as stated in the agenda? >> Motion to go into close session as stated in the agenda. We >> have a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? I I. >> Any opposed? >> All right, we are in close session. We'll call 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 for fellow board members, staff, and its citizens, the board asked its citizens to
002conduct 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 moments of silence, the board will recite the pledge of allegiance. The board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain they are either turned off or on vibrate to avoid interruptions of the meeting. So, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> We'd ask everyone for just a moment of silence. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll start off with recognitions. >> Good evening, Chair Athetherton, Vice Chair Padilla, members of the
003board, Dr. Jones, and everyone gathered here tonight, including very, very many special guests. We just have a couple uh really interesting dates on our calendar. One was the start of the traditional calendar on August 25th, the first day of classes on the traditional calendar for 12 schools in Orange County schools. And as you can see from the abstract, I'm going to summarize quickly so that we can move things along. There were many wonderful events that helped us mark milestones on the way and we really feel that from looking at the way our community has engaged with these different dates. There were lots of things that were there were lots of new benefits conferred to our community. The back to school fair on August 9th, the first ever in Orange County schools, engaged many, many families.
004Uh we had staff presenting all day. It was a wonderful experience. And not only were the resources offered that day available to uh our students, families, and community members who came through, but we also had 247 access through the back to school guide, a rich resource that became the most popular web page used in Orange County schools this year. On August 18th, the Stars of Education conference was truly a a groundbreaking experience with every single staff person invited to join. Members of the board were there, community partners were deeply engaged, and it was a day full of professional learning to energize and unify our learning community in a whole brand new way. And so, huge congratulations to everyone who organized that and to everyone who participated as a presenter or in any way. The beginning
005teacher institute and teacher workdays took advantage of the two weeks before school started and there was a lot of wonderful networking and professional growth going on there as we got ready for the peak uh in the week before school which is open house on August 21st. Thousands of folks came out across our schools to make sure that they had everything that they needed. And again we felt like the organization and this whole experience of getting ready for the school year has been very very positive. And on the first day of school, August 25th, a wonderful day. And every report that we've had so far is that the start of school has been wonderfully smooth with many great things happening across our schools. We strongly encourage folks to follow along at orangecountyfirst.com and the social media
006networks, which these feeds are growing in all of our schools. We can say that we're watching new schools come online every week to offer new insight into what's happening at their schools. So again, thank you for letting us share that brief recognition on the start of school. And then we just want to raise to your attention on our second recognition that on September 11th we recognized Patriot Day and the National Day of Service and Remembrance. Uh we're coming up on the 25th anniversary very soon. And so we think about the the meaning of these events in the lives of our teachers as well as the children and families who come to our schools. And um we thank you for uh giving us the opportunity to share these recognitions with you this evening. >> Thank you.
007hand over to Dr. Lineer. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. As we observe Hispanic Heritage Month 2025, we take this opportunity to celebrate the profound impact of Hispanic and Latino communities on the fabric of our nation. From September 15th to October 15th, we honor the history, culture, and rich traditions that have shaped the United States while acknowledging the diverse contributions of individuals from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. This month serves as a reminder of the vibrancy and strength of the Hispanic communities in the United States. It is a time to reflect on the diverse histories and experiences that have shaped generations. From the early Spanish explorers to the latest contributions in fields ranging from the arts to business, politics, science, and more. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2025, let us
008commit to not only honoring the past, but also empowering the future. >> Thank you. It's okay. >> Be introduced. >> Uh, good evening. Uh, Mr. Chair, Mr. Athetherton, Vice Chair, Miss Talia, Superintendent Dr. Jones, members of the school board, members of our schools and community, including chief of Orange County EMS, Miss Kim Woodward. Tonight, we come together for something truly special. a set of time. A celebration of life. On June 5th, the quick thinking, teamwork, and preparedness of our staff saved a life of a 14-year-old student who collapsed unexpectedly in his school gymnasium. With moments, a teacher, Coach Caps, recognized this crisis and called for help. The school nurse, school resource officer, assistant principles, and other trained school first aid responders and personnel rushed to the scene. As Coach Caps cleared the gym and maintain
009the safety of the student, other staff member immediately took action with clearing the gym and hallways and escorting students to other locations. Others ran to retrieve the AED, the automated external defibrill, and call n calling 911. The school nurse quickly arrived, assessed the student and began CPR. As the AED was brought to the scene, the school resource officer applied the pads and the device advised and delivered a shock, followed immediately with continued CPR. Our school resource officer played a crucial role in providing real time updates to emergency responders as they were on their way to the scene. Every minute without CPR decreases survival by up to 10%. Yet in just three and a half minutes, all of this took place and the student regained a sustainable heartbeat and began to regain consciousness. As fire and
010EMS arrived, they were and escorted to the gym, which was about four minutes after the 911 call was made. The student had regained full neurological function. The coordinated decip decis actions of this team allowed a lifesaving defibrillation to be li delivered at exactly the right moment. The extraordinary response shows how every link in the chain of survival matters and how training, preparation, and courage can mean the difference between life and death. Orange County Schools is fortunate to have school resource officers and a registered nurse in every school and AEDs in both school and work areas that are not schools. Our school nurses play a vital role in safety by training staff in CPR, first aid, and the use of AED. Developing emergency action plans and ensuring staff are prepared to respond to the unexpected. Because
011of these efforts, and because staff were ready and willing to act, a young life was saved. David or Davided has since made a full recovery, undergone two important heart surgeries that will improve and extend his life. His family has received the most precious gift, the gift of life and more time. Tonight, as we celebrate David's life, we also honor the extraordinary staff members whose courage, skill, and compassion made this possible. Becoming a first aid responder within our school settings is voluntary among our staff. We are deeply grateful to all those who have stepped forward. At this time, I would like to recognize John Caps or Coach Caps, our PE teacher and first aid responder. If you could please stand. >> I set a timer. That was three and a half minutes. All of this happened
012in three and a half minutes. And I'm going to tell you, this is a record. It doesn't happen in a hospital that quickly. So truly everything that everybody did, there was no small task. It all flowed very well and allowed everything to happen as it should. Next, I want to introduce Chelsea Rodeners, the school nurse. Rhden Heisner, sorry, Chelsea Rhdenheisner, apologize. Elizabeth Webb, who is a school nurse at New Hope Elementary, who heard the call over her SRO's radio, who's around the corner, and immediately jumped in her car to assist. Mar Tolber, our school resource officer [Applause] Heather Witherspoon and Win Payton, assistant principles at ALe Standback, >> Miss Bethany Turner and Jose Hidalgo, who are teachers and first aid responders at AL Standback. Miss Sher McKenna, our school counselor at Seale Standback. We also
013have Mr. Joseph Sharp, who could not attend this evening, who's also a teacher and a first aid responder. Please join me in expressing our deepest gratitude and admiration for their heroic actions. Their quick thinking and dedication represent the very best of our schools, our staff, and our community. And most importantly, tonight we celebrate Davidid Gonzalez Hurio. [Applause] You don't have tears I'm shaking right now because this is extraordinary. Just wonderful to see. Uh with us this evening we have David's father Rodo Gon Gonzalez who's standing next to him as well here tonight as well as I'm sorry as well as his mom and his sister uh his mom Mrs. Gonzalez Mr. Gonzalez would like to share a few words with us tonight. >> I want to say good afternoon, good evening to everybody. We are
014very thankful for all of you guys that participated to save the life of my son. I hope that this can be like more opportunities for other kids to have like they have and to have the responders like they have. So if this happen again, he will have so somebody else will have the chance to leave. And we are very thankful for with all the teachers, with the nurses, with everyone here. [Music] So the mom is saying thank you so much. We hope that all the schools have all the staff like great teachers, great nurses like you guys did save the life of my son. [Applause] Good evening everyone. Uh I'm going to speak both in English and in Spanish. Uh first I'm going to address to the family. Um, I had the pleasure to be
015with David at the hospital. Um, and the unity and the hardworking of this family is remarkable. They juggle working and everything every single day. All of the family members were together with David. Um I was fortunate enough to be close to the family and there is I I told this before at another meeting but there is only one hero in here and that's David. Um Davidid in his 14 years soon 15 uh has had three open heart surgeries and uh two in the last year. The first one he stay a month in the hospital and uh it's remarkable what he can do. So there is one hero is David. That's who we should be honoring. The rest of us are just you know doing our job but that's David. Um Thank you so much. [Applause]
016So, um, in honoring our our staff that contributed to this celebration of life we're having tonight, uh, Orange County Schools would like to present them with a plaque. Plaque says, "In recognition of your heroic actions and quick response which saved a student's life, your actions exemplify the highest standard of care and commitment to our school community." And thank you all. Thank you for supporting school nurses at every school, school resource officers, and thank you to teachers and staff that we know have a lot to do and volunteer for this training. Thank you all. Hey, better this time. Thank you so much. >> Great teamwork. Fantastic. >> Thank you so much. You even did this after you were teacher of the year. You want them >> right there. This is smiling. >> I know you're going
017to do you're going to do your best. Everyone's going to do their best. >> I have faith in you all. On the count of three, looking this way for me. One, two, and three. Thank you. Please don't move. >> And three, two, and Thank you all. [Applause] Thank y'all. >> Y'all have a good night. All right, board. That's going to be very hard to follow tonight. Uh it's such wonderful to hear about all of our staff and know that it's about our community at the end of the day. All right. Uh next we have the agenda adoption. I would like to request that we add to the uh consent agenda the first amendment to the superintendent contract. I also would like to ask to add the North Carolina School Board Association delegate and alternates to
018consent and to pull item 800 crowdfunding and item AQ the gifts and besque to uh from consent and add that directly after the consent agenda. Are there any other items to pull? All right. Could we get a motion for that? >> Motion to approve the agenda with the changes re suggested. >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> All in favor? I >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. The agenda has been adopted. Uh Miss Padilla, any public comments tonight? >> No public comments. >> All right. Thank you so much. We'll move to board comments and let's start with uh Miss Purcell tonight. >> Thank you. >> Well, good evening to everyone and um yes, that is a hard act to follow that we just saw and I'm
019so thankful for all those teachers and personnel in that building that were able and willing to help a student. That is absolutely remarkable and just shows you the quality of the people that we have working in Orange County schools. And I'm very proud of them all. I know a lot of them and very proud of what they've done. Um, I'd like to give a big thank you, excuse me, to all of those that worked so hard this past summer to do not only your job, but also get ready for the upcoming school year because I know it all intertwines and I know that when you're when you're doing things like read to achieve and all these other thing programs that we do, um, you're stressed and you have lots to do and you have lots
020of hatch juggling at one time. But I'd like to thank everybody for their hard work over the summer to get this school year started. I was at Orange High School the morning that school started. And and I I I've lived at Orange High School for a while. And I have never seen a school start so smoothly as I did that morning. It was like the students left one night and came back the next morning. Even the freshmen had very few questions. If they did have it, they came and asked and very respectful and and everybody just it just flowed. I can't even hardly explain how good it was. It just flowed. So, a big thank you to our principles, all of our uh leadership team, everybody who had their hand in getting this school year
021up and running. And uh I can't say enough about the um the stars program. It was absolutely fantastic and hope that we do that continually because I think everybody there enjoyed it and I think it makes a big difference as we start the school year and everybody is is just happy to be here. And so a big thank you to all of you for all you do and all you did to get ready for this school year. Thank you. >> Well, I agree. I It was such a smooth start to the school year. It was fabulous. It feels like that all is has t been taken to another level. Um and I think you know the only comment that I have tonight is um uh the way that news and current events progresses in the
022world today. It's like event after event after event. It is a lot to take. Um it is a lot. Um there's a lot of scary things happening. Um fundamental rights, fundamental constitutional rights are at risk. Um various student populations and families, uh their rights are at risk and and it's just a scary world right now. Um, and so I just want to thank everyone um, who's doing their particular part of making each one of our schools a place where our students can come and be safe and feel loved and supported and be learning um, and just be able to be kids who are in school learning. Um, it is um, yeah, it takes a lot to create that space when there's so much noise around it. Um, and I'm just very grateful for that. >>
023Thank you. To add to add on to that or continue some of those thoughts, um, I I want to give a shout out to Dr. Jones and her team and all the principles and, um, all the teachers and all the staff um, who have um, led our district to um, every school meeting or exceeding growth this year. um that that's just a tremendous achievement. Um and some of that energy and hopefulness and sense of purpose um has and and confidence I'd say um really has been palpable um including with the start to the school years. Um and it, you know, it's it's it's a hard time to send, you know, as a parent to send kids to schools. Um it's a hard time to be a teacher in schools. I'm I'm sure it's a hard
024time to lead schools. I don't know. I've never done it. Um, as as I'm quick to say to you, I don't know. I've never done your job. Um, and you know, it it takes even more hope and energy to um to to overcome that, but but the hope and energy does overcome some of those some of those anxieties and fears right now. So, we we've we've seen that with this recognition tonight and we're seeing that with um our data and um I I want to give a shout out. I was at um New Hope uh the start of the school year and everybody now has to have um uh an array of service fraternity and sorority members welcoming all their their students because I haven't seen that before. And there were about 20 UNCC um
025students who showed up to rock in all the kids um to New Hope and it was it was really awesome. So shout out to New Hope's staff who who got all those people um out there early on a Monday morning for our first day of traditional school. >> Thank you Andre. >> Oh yes. So um I want to say welcome back to all the students. So, I think back in June when we were ending the school year last year, I was telling everybody, you know, congratulations, but be prepared because we'd be right back in school before we knew it. So, we're here. We're here. It seemed like we didn't have much of a summer, but we're back. And I had the opportunity to um visit Orange Middle School and I don't think they had many
026traffic complaints, which is really good. Everything went really smoothly. So, um congratulations to everyone on that. Um, and lastly, I just want to add and piggyback off of what Sarah said. Um, you know, it it's it's very easy to talk about the negative things and and you know, I think we need to as we do recognitions on um on a monthly basis at these board meetings. I think it's very important to do that so we can talk more about the positive because the good always outweighs the bad and love is undefeated and it's always going to prevail. So, um I think that's what we need to keep in mind at this time. So, uh that's all I have and congratulations to all the heroes at AL Standback. Great job. at at the risk of being
027redundant. First, uh, tonight happens to be the first night of Rashashana, the Jewish New Year. So, it's happy new year to all who celebrate, but also maybe we can add in a prayer for our peace and freedoms and a prayer of gratitude for our schools. Um, second, I this is a little mundane compared to some of the things we're talking about, but a very big thank you to our maintenance department for their work on efficiency. They're white with this really nice blue stripe down them. So, that was really, really nice. Um, also wanted to um Oh, and I'm sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to congratulate Miss Compton and um the a the and all her nurses and the incredible team at AL Standback um for the work that you did. And you know, Miss Compton
028has this weird habit of bringing tears to the board every time she shows up. So, I'm not sure what we're going to do with you, but that was about as good as it gets. So, thank you so much for that incredible work. Uh, wanted to have a a shout out to Brian Eubank. Um, Brian leads the Orange High School engineering academy, and I got to attend a North Carolina Triangle uh, triangle apprenticeship program graduation, and that's where Mr. Eubank student got signed for a year-long apprentice ship. Um, I'm sorry, a year-long apprenticeship at Seammens. And that means that this student will be paid all year to get his Orange High School diploma, a associates degree in ed in engineering, and after he graduates, he will have a highpaying engineering job at Seammens. For me, it's
029just humbling. Not the only word I know is humbling to see the magnitude of opportunities that our teachers and career development staff create are creating for our high school students. So, thank you so much for that. Um, and finally, we're going to learn more tonight, but just a big congratulations to every teacher, staff, family, and Dr. Jones and everyone but who contributed to the integrate results that we're going to hear about tonight. Thank you. >> Good evening, everyone. I do have a list, but since we are talking more positive, I'll skip all the things that I did. I won't say what I did, but I did do a lot of running around in the community. But I want to um say I'm glad that is Hispanic Heritage Month and also remind people that it's also
030mental health month. And this having those discussions as to what's happening nationally, nationally, and locally, I do find hope within our community. Um the kindness that we see within our community helping each other whether smiling at someone or really stopping and asking how they're doing that fills my heart with I always use the word love. Love is everywhere you have to find it but it's there when someone holds the door for you stops. Let's hold on to that love to keep us going for this school year and thank thank you uh for a great school start. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, I just want to highlight just some of the events. Uh, and I'll start off with just echoing what many board members mentioned. There's a lot going on and a lot to take
031in. And us keeping our schools welcoming, ensuring everyone feels like it's a place they belong, and having the staff and a trusted adult is one of the things that makes Orange County a unique place. and that's why our children are succeeding. I also just want to uh echo that please check in with each other. It takes a minute and just to see how everybody's doing and I can assure you people will be very grateful for you asking and taking the time. Um, I also want to congratulate everyone. Everyone down to our bus drivers, our nutritionist, our teaching assistants, our administrators, our district staff, leadership, teachers. Everyone in the district contributes to our students being successful. We may not always think about it, but they are key and they're a reason our students are successful. from
032making sure our students have a healthy meal in the morning all the way to they have a smile on the way out on the bus. Um, and I think that's very important. Um, just want to also just acknowledge uh the Cedar Ridge FFA that was out at Hog Day with the animals. Uh, talking to our families and future students in the community. Uh, we had Orange High School FFA that was out doing trivia. uh getting students interested in the programs and understanding some of our long traditions at the FFA program. Um I also just wanted to let the board know about ONAC which is the Orange Special Needs Advisory Council that's had a few meetings at this point. Uh I've been very impressed with the engagement from uh the families involved and also uh the
033staff that's putting that on and definitely looking forward to their first newsletter that will go out to the community. Um, I also just wanted to take a second to talk about STARS and just what a wonderful program from an idea to really seeing the just how engaged all the staff is and the value and everyone looking forward to going and seeing what comes of it next year. Um, last but not least, I just want to um just acknowledge that uh Cedar Ridge uh broke ground on the new barn. And I know that's been a long time coming. So, thanks everyone for their patience and also uh Mr. Davis and staff who have been pushing and going through all of the permits to get that facility in place for our students and our staff to have
034a good education foundation for the program there. So, thank you and just acknowledge Al Standback and all of the nurses that engaged. That's an amazing story and it really makes me proud of our community and our Orange County community coming together to celebrate that. All right, Dr. Jones, do you have comments tonight? >> I do. Um, good evening, Chair Athetherton, Vice Chair Padilla, members of the board, students, staff, and community members. We have had an incredible start to the traditional school year. Um, for almost a month, our halls have been filled with the positive energy of our students and dedicated staff. The successful opening of our traditional schools is a testament to the meticulous planning and hard work of many, and I'm very thankful. A lot of those individuals are here tonight, but very thankful
035to have such competent folks on my team. Uh, the strong start is built on the foundation of last year's achievements. I'm excited for the team to share the amazing results from our state accountability model which reflects the tremendous growth and success of our students. These results are a direct outcome of our collective commitment to excellence. As everyone heard earlier, that commitment was demonstrated in a profoundly brave way last school year when the quick and courageous actions of our staff at AL Standback saved the life of a student. Their calmness under pressure and dedication to the safety of every child embodies the very heart of our mission. They are true heroes and we are forever grateful. And just wanted to especially thank Miss Sylvia Compton who is here and all of the training that she provides
036for staff. And when I tell you she makes sure that you're paying attention to that training, she makes sure you're paying attention to that training. Um and you know sometimes we can take those trainings for granted not really understanding that it only one moment in time three and a half minutes where um that can be uh life or death. So thank you so much for all that you do Miss Compton. Um in the same spirit of reflection we pause to remember the lives lost and the heroes made on September 11th 20 um 2001. It is a reminder of the profound impact of selflessness and service and we certainly saw some of that today with our own staff members. the heroic acts of staff, our academic achievements, cultural celebrations as we recognize histo um Hispanic Heritage
037Month and historical remembrances offer separate points of pride and celebration, but together they form our promise to do more than teach curriculum, but also build character. Orange County Schools is committed to the academic excellence, physical and emotional safety, cultural belonging, and personal well-being of every single student who walks through our doors. This is the work and it is the dedication of every person represented in this room that makes it all possible. Thank you for all of your support, all that you do to support our children and this community. And Chair Athetherton, that concludes my comments. >> Thank you, Dr. Y. All right. Next we have the consent agend agenda. Can we get a motion to approve? >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in
038favor? I >> I opposed. Motion carries. We will now jump down to the items pulled. First up, we have uh policy uh 7360/8225 crowdfunding on behalf of the school systems. the first read. >> Thank you, Mr. Cowake. Uh, what questions do we have? We have two members that asked to be pulled. Go ahead. >> Um, one of the members who asked to be pulled. Thank you. Um, and first I just want to say that I'm thrilled that we're going to be introducing this policy and creating like some formal processes around um crowdfunding and around um uh just bringing clarity to this process and that we do in fact hope that staff will do some crowdfunding and bring more resources into the district but according to some criteria. Um, so really my only question related to
039the policy was around the dollar values that like a principal is authorized to to approve versus the superintendent versus needing to come to the board. Um, it seems like different districts have picked different thresholds. So I think in Durham a principal can approve like I don't know if it was5 or $10,000. It was it was a higher number. Um, and so it it seemed to me, especially the like it needs to come to the board if it's over $5,000. Both of those dollar figures felt a little low to me and I was concerned we would be adding too much process here where like there might be a higher threshold that we would be okay with the principal andor the superintendent just signing off on. So any thoughts on those levels or reactions to that? I
040can just tell you what we inserted the 5,000 for the superintendent just to match the grant approval. Um, and that's where the 5,000 came from. Um, other than that, I think we're open to whatever um, changes the board makes. >> Yeah. >> We just like consistent numbers across the board if we're talking about grants or donations or crowdfunding. >> Yeah. I I'll just add in Sarah, this was a I think the audio is up on the Is it up? >> Okay. So, we have the the video from policy that's now being recorded as well. And this was a big discussion because >> just like you're saying, you don't want $100 going to the superintendent. And then there was also discussion about, you know, the tracking and management and how finance gets engaged and uh so
041we were also concerned at what what's a realistic threshold. Um, but I don't think anybody had concerns if if it was raised. That was the initial amount was a thousand that was recommended. But, uh, like the superintendent said, it's currently her her threshold is five. So, >> we would need to modify if we went any higher than that to the full board. >> Yeah. Well, I appreciate the idea of keeping that one consistent. >> As I look at it, I'm like, that feels maybe a little bit low. So maybe we should think about that more broadly. Um yeah, I don't know. >> If you all had a thorough discussion of it and these are the levels you're fine with, then that's fine. I just I don't want to be creating we have like a lot
042of procedure in here for how this all will work and I just don't want to be um creating a lot of extra approvals for the superintendent or for the board if we don't need to. >> So Dr. Jones, is there an a a higher number you would be comfortable with? >> I I would just I'm I'm comfortable with whatever the board is comfortable with. Surely 5,000 is not a a large number in comparison to the budget that we manage. Um but I would just ask that we're consistent with like donations and then possibly grants as well. It's just easier for us to um keep up with the processes. Um, and so if there's uh we're happy to take it back and relook at the numbers. It's it's not we can see how this goes or
043it's up it's up really up to the board. We're we're okay either way. Yeah. >> Maybe I mean maybe that would be my suggestion is we can see how this goes. If there are a lot of things that are like $1,200 requests for like flexible seating and you're like this is this feels like I don't need to be reviewing all of these, then you can maybe bring that back and suggest a higher number. Mhm. >> So I mean I would be okay with raising it to to two as a starting point. I mean given that you still have the ceiling of five >> is would that be >> I mean this is first reading the we still have another reading to come back and and change that number if we'd like. So we could come
044back and on second reading if somebody has >> a number they would prefer to see. >> Yeah. I I was okay. You know, my my impression is when the teachers are doing grants that the thousand dollar number is a pretty good number, but I'd be quite comfortable going to two on that. Um, and I'd also be really com I don't know what how it affects other policies, but for 5 I'd be happy to give the superintendent more authority substantially more. $5,000 is a lot of >> I think we should hold on that though until we could look at the other places like for other >> grant funding. >> So I'd be okay with that. I I did have a couple questions on this one. >> Um >> could we I'm sorry I don't want interrupting
045>> uh could we like decide what to do about this bit and then move to question. >> So does uh feelings on raising that to 2000 or >> I'm fine with the >> I'm fine with it. I have no problem in the wall. Okay. All right. Other comments on the policy because we'll need a motion for this or anything else >> potentially? >> I just had some questions about it. Um, one is it says that the superintendent is going to put together a a list of approved sites and should does it go without saying that donor's choice I'm sorry donor donor's choose will be an approved site? >> Yes. >> Okay. And then the second thing is if our teachers set up an Amazon list and they don't name this their school or the school
046district, that's not covered by this, right? They're free to do whatever they'd like as far as creating is that >> well so from the HR perspective free to do whatever you like is sort of a blind check we don't want to write for anybody. Um but yeah, I mean we if any individual I mean we are always mindful of our employees rights as citizens versus being employees of Orange County schools and respectful of whatever differences there are there. We're we're most concerned with, of course, that we are respecting the integrity of Orange County schools and the gifts that are used in in a way that benefits Orange County students and staff in in an ethical manner. >> Let let me ask the question differently. If I'm a teacher and I'm going to create an Amazon
047list for supplies to to my classroom, do I have to give my principal's permission for that? >> Well, so gifts go to the school? >> Yeah. Right. These are and principles that's why we sort of have we presented what currently the policy says principles have no authority to accept gifts for their school. And so by raising it to a thousand now we can keep those li we can keep more at the school with less involvement from central services for reasonable sort of wish lists. Okay. Or donor choose. Um, so you know, right, we have restrictions, for example, in other policies in conflict of interest, an individual can't accept a gift of more than $50, right? That's a separate policy. So, we're just trying to balance allowing our employees to get donations for the school that
048benefit and we're also trying to make sure that everything stays consistent with all of our policies and ethics and that what's coming in, everything needs some approval if it's coming into the school. So, the process for Amazon wishlist, if I if I'm using my personal account, unless you a lot of people put them on Facebook and they put it out on Facebook to their family members and request school supplies, that they make no mention of Orange County schools or the school that they currently work at, then that's their personal way to do that. However, um the principal has the right, let's say there's a stationary bike that the teacher, I'm just using that as an example, the teacher would like to purchase and put in their classroom. The the principal has the right to to
049say this is not approved to go into a classroom. So, do they need to get approval to fund raise on their own personal time using their personal account? No. But whatever comes into the space has to be uh approved and verified from the principal that it's safe to do so. >> Yeah. >> Can I just make sure that I'm um understanding because I think the like the Amazon wish list there's like variations of that. But one thing that happens for me when I go to open house is I get the paper from the you know whatever English 2 classroom or whatever it is and it says like here are the supplies for your student. we would also love some donations of some Clorox wipes and some number two pencils. And some teachers say, "And here's
050the list of those like because there's a certain brand of dry erase markers or whatever that they think are the ones that work best or something." They'll say like, "Here's some things or here's my list of them and you can just order it from there." I think it's in some cases it's just a way that's evolved of the teacher being like, "We're looking for some classroom supplies because God knows the state doesn't fund that." you know what I mean? Um, we're not saying that that needs to go through some sort of like crowdfunding process. Now, >> I it's appropriate for them to do that at that level. It's just the principles the principal needs to be aware. You know, if you're asking for um Clorox wipes or whatever it is, Kleenex and you know, all
051the things that run out very quickly in a classroom. Um, it just needs to be you can't have an extravagant list of things. We want to make sure it stays within reason. I think our teachers do a fine job of doing that. The purpose for us creating the protocols was not to hinder anything that's been happening, but to just have some sense of order with how we bring things into the district and a process that's uniform across the board. That's all. And some oversight on it as well. But, um, this is not going to hinder anything that's been happening. All right. Any other questions or comments? All right. We need a motion to approve the uh policy 7360/8225 crowdfunding on behalf of the school systems for first read with the amendment of one going to
052$2,000 for the base level approval. >> Like principal approval. >> Principal approval. >> Okay. So moved. >> Okay. Okay, we have a motion. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? >> All in favor? I >> I opposed. >> That uh policy is approved for first reading. Next, we have policy 8220 gifts and quis. Uh first reading. Uh Miss Hower. >> Yeah. So, thank you for that. Um, you know, this is I when I read the policy, I noticed something that that just didn't sound like how we work. And I I was wondering if we could eliminate or soften language, which I read as giving the board unequivocal authority to change the designated use of a of a donation. It's not a new policy. I don't think we've ever, as far as I know,
053I don't think we've ever um done taken such action. And I think what I've seen that's typical and it's even on tonight's consent agenda that we're pretty sensitive in how we handle donations and and a per and whether a donor has a purpose. So So here's a sentence that's that bothers me. It says, "However, the board reserves the right to utilize the donation as it deems appropriate." And that reads to me that the board that I can give you money for books and you could say, "I don't want to use it for books. I'm going to buy dry erase markers or something else. So I I would like to strike that just strike the sentence. That would be the easiest thing to do. We want, you know, or else we can add language that says
054donors, you know, if a a donation is designated for a purpose that donors will be apprised of interest by the board or the district to redirect the funds to an alternative use. My preference would be to strike it all together and but I don't know if there's a reason to >> I I have some context that might be helpful and I good I might need you to read reread that alternative sentence because that that may be okay. But one issue that comes up when we talk about donations is charter schools and the requirements under the law if the school system receives certain general donations that unless they're allocated for a particular purpose a certain percentage has to be given to the charter schools. And some of that can be addressed in a donor agreement. But
055in short, sometimes we need a particular purpose and also an alternative purpose. So to prevent a a large donation from having a percent go to a charter school. So that in a lot of the agreements that I see, there's language that the donor may designate a a specific purpose, but the school system also needs to have an alternative. So that may be some of the the reasoning behind that language is the school system has to be able to to allocate funds and to have that discretion. State was donated to a specific program and that program for whatever reason was canceled. You know what do you do with those additional funds? Um if that helps. >> So >> go ahead, sir. >> Yeah. No, I think I think that makes sense. I'm kind of inclined not
056to change it. Um, separate note, we need to change the up to $1,000 on here to 2,000 to match the other policy. >> Go ahead. So what um so I believe one of the other reasons I was originally told was Title N and issues if a donation was going to specific programs and us having to be equitable across all programs was the other reason I I was told that this was put there. I'm not sure. >> That's another great point. >> Yes. >> With regard to athletics. >> So So the question becomes how do we protect donors? So, I'd say one of our most premier donations is another book fund. They give us about $20,000 a year for and it's designated for books for elementary schools. Um, they pick I think they pick a grade
057every year. And so, I I think they expect us to use the money for that. And if by policy we have the right to change that without notifying them, I think that tells donors we you can give us money, but don't trust us to you. that that's how I read this. You can give us money, but don't don't you can't we can't assure you that we're going to use it for the intended purpose. You gave it to us. I don't think that's right. So, I hear your concern about charters and stuff like that, but I think we have a right to protect the interest of our donors if they're going to give us money >> or any resource. Only other thing I would add is in in my experience large donations can typically be accompanied
058by a donor agreement like I mentioned that could carve out with specificity. This donation is for this purpose. If it cannot be used for this purpose, here's the alternative purpose that I mentioned. So that's likely something that could come into effect with a situation like that. >> So um we definitely need to move forward. Um what is the consensus of the board on this? I'd like to keep it as is. I think I think the exclamation explanation made sense for why the language is the way it is. >> Um, and so I'd rather leave it. >> What What do you tell a donor? What do we tell donors? Just my question. I mean, I don't feel like I need to, you know, donor is going to trust the school system because of how we act
059and then give the donation or not. I don't feel like it's my job to do that. >> It's, if I can just add, I don't think it's our job to protect the interests of the donor. It's our job to protect the interests of the school district. And so, um, I think we should treat people right if they're espe if they're making donations to the school district, but I don't think that we should put something in policy that limits how we use the funds at the end of the day. Like, I think we should follow the intents when we can. >> Yeah. So, I I'm I'm going to vote against this. I I just think our policy should follow our practice and you know and I it makes me uncomfortable to have a policy that's that
060doesn't. So, >> okay. >> All right. To move forward, we need a motion uh and to update the 10,00 to 2000 as well. Can we get a motion? >> Motion to make the change of the 1000 to 2000 to be consistent with the other policy and to approve. >> Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. >> Uh all in favor I >> I opposed. >> I or nay. >> Okay. One opposed. All right. That concludes the uh top of the agenda and the consent. We're now down to the work session starting with the summer 2025 programs. Thank you, Mr. Cow. All right. Good evening everyone. Thank you for the opportunity for a couple members of our team to be here with you tonight to share and highlight about some of the programs that
061were offered this summer to our students here in OCS. Where do I need to point? >> Okay. All right. Um, so our summer programming work is in alignment with our strategic plan um with priority one, teaching tomorrow's leaders. Before I jump in to highlight some of the programs that occurred this summer, I just want to take a minute to recognize, as you all have alluded to in many of your comments this evening, that the work we do in this summer across this district requires a team effort. Um, so I just wanted to take a few minutes and share a few statistics. I think it's important that um we recognize the fact that our fabulous transportation team transported over 400 students this summer. They had 28 buses on the roads um safely transporting students to various
062locations with different start and end times and dates of programming. So, I want to thank them for not only safely transporting our students, but also finding a way to maintain our fleet of vehicles so that they are safe uh to transport our staff every day that are in fleet vehicles, but also have our buses ready for a smooth opening at the start of the school year. So, thank you to everyone that's involved with routing, um finding ways to get drivers and filling in when needed, as well as servicing all of our vehicles. We're also appreciative to our child nutrition team um as not only were they serving two meals a day to our students that were involved in summer camp programming, they were also feeding our community in the summer at various public feeding sites
063um that were available to our community. So, thank you to everyone that was involved in preparing food, ordering food, packaging food, delivering food, serving students, um, and keeping our facilities clean with the feeding of all of the children in various different places as well. Um, and I also wanted to take a minute to thank our operations division for the tireless efforts that were made to keep all of the various projects that were going on this summer across various facilities in our district while also servicing reading camps, moving materials, ensuring that our buildings were ready to welcome students for the opening of the school year, and also dealing with any maintenance emergencies that happened along the way. It truly takes an entire team of people working in coordinated efforts to make the opportunities possible that we
064offer here in the summer for our students. At this time, we're going to zoom in um and focus a little bit on Read to Achieve and our summer reading camps that were offered this summer. So, this year we hosted two reading camps um during the summer. The first was held in June at HS serving only HS um students. The second camp was held in July. Um it was hosted at River Park Elementary School and served all six of our traditional elementary um schools. This year, one change that we had is that we served second and third graders only uh which is what is required in legislation. We had 178 second graders who were eligible and invited to participate based on their middle of the year um dibbles assessment data. We had 83 um or 47%
065of those second graders who um attended camp. We had 187 third graders that were eligible and invited to attend camp based on their middle of the year data. 97 or 52% of our third graders attended camp. There were 25 staff members who worked in summer reading camps. This included a site administrator at the River Park um site, a front office staff member that worked at both sites, certified teachers and instructional assistants to support students in their classrooms. These individuals worked hard every day to plan intentional and learning experiences for our students around the topics of animal kingdoms, habitats, and various adaptations. All of the units that were um leveraged had high interest text and opportunities for students to engage in explicit experiences. We focused on decoding, fluency, and comprehension ski comprehension skills throughout all of
066our learning experiences. One new feature of summer reading camp this year included a collaboration with the Carbor Arts Center. And this was um possible to provide all students with integrated arts programming every single day during reading camp. The artists were provided um the text and the focus topics ahead of the summer and they developed their programming to support and expand the background knowledge as well as um provide ways for students to share their learning through various art forms. There were definitely some data points um that I also wanted to highlight for you and celebrate that came out of reading camp this year. 60% of the students demonstrated growth in their dibbles score which is an increase of 25 percentage points from previous year. Um 23% of the students demonstrated that they are at minimal risk
067with foundational reading skills which is an increase of four percentage points from the previous year. 17% of the third graders who participated in the read to achieve assessment during camp demonstrated proficiency. It's important to remember here that not all students um are eligible to participate in the read to achieve assessment based on good cause exemptions. It is an optional assessment for summer administration. So I only gave you the percentage of students who took the assessment. Um, one highlight that I was so excited to also see was that 93% of our students who attended camp were present for seven or more of the days, which is over half of the instructional days that were able to provide in reading camp. And this is a drastic increase from previous years. Um, and our students really did seem
068to enjoy some of the shifts that were made this year in terms of our scheduling, having that specials with the art integration every day. And we look forward to carrying that momentum in our planning into our planning that has already started for this coming summer, which will be here before we know it. Next, I'm going to share some highlights from the uh multilingual summerbridge program that was led by Emily Lewis. So, this two-eek camp was offered um this year at both Cedar Ridge and Orange High School. The enrollment focus for this program was for 9th and 10th grade multilingual students. There were 25 students that were identified, invited, and who signed up to participate. 72% of those students were able to attend once the camp arrived. And there were two classroom teachers and three English
069language development specialists who supported students during this program. The summer bridge program focused on providing our high school multilingual students with an opportunity to practice and reinforce foundational math skills, reading and writing, as well as reading and writing personal narratives. This program provides a great opportunity to students to lean in and learn more uh cultural knowledge and build their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in the English language. One of the most important opportunities that this camp offers our students is the chance for these multilingual students to increase their sense of belonging and to see themselves as the critical part of the school and larger community that they are. We are working to create a mechanism uh moving forward to help us keep up with and monitor the impact that this program is having on
070these students as they continue to go um forward in their careers here as students and then potentially even beyond. Do we follow these students at this moment? The answer is no. But we are working to build those mechanisms now. Um and we'll hope to have an update on that in the future. At this time, I am going to ask Miss Mariah Morris, our director of strategic initiatives and professional learning, to share about the highlights of our multilingual STEM camp that she had the opportunity to lead this summer. >> Thank you. Good evening. I am excited to be able to share with you highlights from our inaugural multilingual learner STEM camp. This program was designed in close collaboration with Emily Lewis, our district ESL coordinator, and Jordan Hope, our district science facilitator. And I would like
071to take a moment to thank them publicly for their hard work and their leadership on this program. Our vision for this camp was to create a summer learning experience where our multilingual learners could thrive academically and socially through the integration of STEM, language development, and hands-on learning. We wanted students to engage in fun, interactive lessons in a safe and supportive environment, one where they could confidently practice English, acquire new scientific vocabulary, and build leadership skills. This summer marked the first launch of the camp and our goal was clear to provide a proactive support model. By introducing students to the science content they will encounter in the upcoming school year. We sought to ensure that our students entered their next grade level feeling confident and knowledgeable. Just as importantly, we a aimed to help students see
072themselves as part of the vibrant world of STEM because we know the power of seeing in order to believe. We believe our multilingual learners bring a unique and valuable skill set to our schools and this camp was our way of celebrating and strengthening that. Hosted at Al Standback Middle School, the multilingual learner STEM camp was a two-week program. We welcomed approximately 85 students in grades 4 through 8. Approximately 97 students enrolled in the camp in May and approximately 71% of enrolled students attended five days or more. Supported by five classroom teachers and three English language development facilitators, students explored a wide variety of topics including robotics, coding, chemistry, meteorology, gravity, energy, and hydrarology. Y'all are excited, aren't you? >> Okay, just want to make sure. We also included a field trip to the North Carolina
073Museum of Natural Sciences where students were able to learn more about science through hands-on interactive exhibits in Raleigh. We also hosted a guest speaker, a scientist from the UNCC School of Medicine, B Center, who taught our students some valuable lessons from the exciting world of neuroscience. On our last day of camp, we welcomed our families to the family showcase. At this showcase, our students were able to become the teachers and they taught their families not only the science content but more about the engineering design process which was the thread that wo throughout all of the lessons at camp. Finally, part of the vision of this camp was also to embed impactful professional development for our teachers to create an environment where they felt safe trying new innovative teaching methods. A key component of this professional
074development was our newly established partnership with the Duke UNCC University, excuse me, Pratt School of Engineering, where Christy Mabry and Jeff Faulner were selected to attend a five-week professional learning experience where they worked alongside other public school teachers and engineers from the Duke biotechnology department to become experts in the engineering design process. After prototyping these product projects at the multilingual STEM camp, Miss Mabry and Mr. Faulner presented a session at the stars of education and have turned their bilingual lessons into a resource available to all science teachers across the district. Our goal was not just to reach students, but also to use this experience as job embedded professional development for our staff to learn more about how to use hands-on learning and the science and engineering design process to create languagerich learning experiences for all
075of our students, especially our multilingual learners. At this time, I would like to welcome Miss Shannon Braxton, our director of CTE, cultural arts, and social studies to share more about other programs offered this summer. Good e good evening to each one of you. It's always a pleasure to stand here and share some great opportunities through the career technical ed department. Uh this summer, thank you. This summer was our summer number four for our summer careers academy. Um, as a reminder, our summer careers academy is a partnership between Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill Carro City Schools and the Homebuilders Association of Durham, Orange, and Cadam Counties. Cohort number four had 17 students who successfully completed all parts of the pre-apprenticeship program through building our future and the internship part through driving our future. Nine of
076which were nine Orange County School students. We were also excited to know that um five students who went through interview day were hired outright from the company. The companies really wanted these students. These were students that were seniors and so upon graduation those students did not attend summer careers academy but went straight to the industry for work. And we count them as a win. partnership for building our future. In addition to the homebuilders association of Durham, Orange and Cadam were also the local business at businesses and industries that hired these students for a minimum of a 100 hours of on the job. Habitat for Humanity of Orange County schools or Habitat for Humanity of Orange County also provided a build day for our students to go and work on site and our own Cedar Ridge
077High School teachers, Mr. Avery Pipkin and Mike Scully, who actually taught the hands-on classes at Cedar Ridge. Our partnership for driving our future was Chapel Hill Tire in Chapel Hill. uh they provided the on the-job training and the Chapel Hill High School automotive teacher, Mr. Robert Ballard. Opportunities like this are positive impacts on our students, but they're only possible when we create these private public partnerships and we formed that partnership and we've seen that that survived these past four summers. Of course, none of this work would be successful without our two career development coordinators, Nick McGomery and Stephanie Smith, who work daily with these students from the beginning of uh advertising all the way until graduation day. We also hosted Project Lead the Way Camp this summer. Uh they hosted two camps at Orange High
078School. Our engineering teachers, Mr. Jim Janice and Brian Eubank as well as our computer science teacher Brendan Murray facilitated the explosion camp as well as the futures camp which have also been successful the past four summers. The engineering camps allowed students the time and opportunity to engage in the design process of identifying needs, brainstorming ideas, creating and testing solutions, refining them. based on the results until a satisfactory outcome is achieved. We also um added a new camp this summer and we added camp med um and that was hosted out of the Cedar Ridge High School with career development coordinator Stephanie Smith. Um we have in Orange County schools a North Carolina DPI grant for health career promotion. Um and Stephanie also got funds from Piedmont Area Health Education Center to host this 4-day camp. Um
079she jam-packed those four days with activities, tours, and explos uh expo exposure to a variety of health careers and interaction with health professionals. Um it was so successful we are already planning this camp next year. Um next slide. I love this picture. Hope you uh zoom in uh to see what they're standing in front of there. Um we want to make sure that we highlight our partners for this camp. Uh UNCC Health in Hillsbor provided a full day including simulations at the hospital and they provided lunch. UNC hospital in Chapel Hill exposed students to the core lab, microbiology, point of care testing, and the dentistry school. And lunch that day was provided by Jersey Mike's right there in Chapel Hill. The Duke Eye Center hosted our students and actually went into clinical lab um and
080dissected an eye. Um and then they spent the fourth day at the Alamance Community College Biotech Center of Excellent. And then that afternoon uh ended the week with service learning right next to Cedar Ridge at Tabella Senior Living where they partnered with a Mary Kay cosmetic representative. uh Dana Gatis and they hosted glamorous grandma photo shoot. Um and of course Miss Smith said, "Please make sure that we recognize our Orange County Schools bus driver, Miss Carol Floyd, who was able to navigate the bus to all of these sites." And I made it possible for the students to get there. Um and at this time, I'll turn it back over to Miss Wilson. So, as you can hear, the summer was busy. Even though it was short, we were able to pack in a lot of
081fun for our students um and a lot of learning opportunities. At this time, we'll um take any questions or feedback comments that you have for our team. >> Comments? Andre? >> Well, this is great. You guys did a wonderful job with the presentation and it sounds like kids had a wonderful time this summer and um and I definitely got to highlight um that last slide, the uh camp med slide where the students went on to uh went to the different medical facilities and the Duke Eye Center facility. my wife, she works at Duke Eye Center and so she kind of pushed it a few years ago and uh Miss Smith's daughter ended up going through the um aamic technician program at Duke Eye Center and so uh it was really great to see that. So
082um you guys did a wonderful job with that and and uh hopefully we can get more students involved next summer and years to come. >> Thank you. >> Great job, >> K. Um, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for leading these incredible opportunities for students. They all um meet specific needs. And I was excited to see that um we have more than half of the summer career academy um in Orange County schools. And I know originally, you know, we're the smaller district, so that's exciting. But I I just I love the variety. I love the um you know, the sense of possibility and opportunity that this provides for kids and meeting specific needs. Um, I'm just I'm excited that that y'all are continuing to come up with new ideas to
083meet specific needs like the the ML STEM um is also really cool. So, thank you. >> Yeah, I just want to thank you for this. It's great stuff. I have I have two questions. Um, one is we we cut back the read to achieve camp this year and I was just curious how you feel that worked and if that's okay and if we're going to continue that way and then in all these camps you know is there anything that we learned that said hey we're going forward next year or when will we know what the plan is to go forward expand this tweak it whatever >> so as I mentioned um the legislation around read to achieve requires that we provide this intervention for second and third grade students that are struggling readers and not
084proficient um per Dibble's assessments. The legislation states that we have the option as a district to expand to first grade. Here in Orange County schools, we in the past have um made that a local option. Um the nice thing um about the way we did it this summer, it allowed us to leverage the funding that we received from the state to really prioritize the second and third grade students and provide smaller classrooms, uh smaller ratios of adult support and really intentionalize our instruction and focus on them. So there are benefits even though it feels like a reduction of services. Um the intentionality and the direct support to those students felt really great. >> Do less, do it better. I like it. And how about you know is there going to be a time when you'll
085give us you know when you'll know for next year? Are we planning to is this our baseline or we you going to look at it all and say what about next year? So, every time we go to the table to talk about the next year's planning, we bring a lot of data and feedback together to drive our planning and our conversation. Um, as a team, I will tell you that we celebrated a lot of victories this summer with students. Um, we saw growth in a lot of the changes that we've made. So, I will anticipate that we're going to lean into that. Um, one shift that our team is looking at is bringing all of our elementary school students together for one reading camp and hosting that in June, which will allow us to more
086um centralize all of our support and hopefully get some cost savings from that mechanism, which then will allow us to look at how we're maximizing resources um if that yields the results that we anticipate. So, that will be one shift that I can tell you is already in the works. >> Thank you. Nice. Nice job. Thank you so much. >> I just want to say thank you uh and the entire team for this program. I think it's a great way for students to be able to decide in a way those that are undecided as to what they want to do as a career. This is a great way to expose them to see if that's the direction they want to move into. One of the things that I noticed was that um this the program
087the uh the camp med it was mainly females or were they any males in there? >> All females in that camp. >> It was all females. I noticed that. That's that's awesome. And I also noticed that when we went to the celebration of the program, the summer career, there were only males. So I thought that was fascinating. And every year it's a little bit of a different mix, right? It's it um those are uh choice programs. Um and they went through their pro um um application process. They went through the interview process. We did have a female in uh summer careers academy in the driving our future. She was not at graduation, but we did have that one female. Last year we had a couple of more. it just each year's a little different mix
088just based on um who applies and who's interested in that junior and senior class. >> Well, thank you. >> You're welcome. >> I just also want to say thank you because this is a fun part of stuff that we get to do is come to these events that you open the doors and share with us. Um and Miss Padilla took my word just a minute ago. I was going to say that this exposes so many of our students to something that they've never seen before and not had opportunities to be around and that in itself is just um is fantastic and wonderful. So, thank you all. I I know it takes a lot of planning. I know it takes a lot of hard work and it takes a lot of trying to find out where
089the money's coming from and how we're going to fund it, but um thank you for all you do to get this up and running because it really is beneficial for a lot of our students, everything you do. So, thank you, >> Sarah. >> Um I'll just echo all of that. Um and thank you for anticipating my question about um how to monitor whether the the impact of the program for the bridge program and um yeah I think the more we can just understand what is the impact and you all are so good at the reflection process and improving and so like being able to understand for each of these programs what was that impact um later on I loved in um to see the progress and read to achieve I loved um in the ML
090STEM camp um the idea of introducing students to upcoming science standards and pre-teaching some of the acade ademic vocabulary and like that I think is a really uh what a wonderful way to like build their um confidence and esteem going into that next school year. I think we should just generally be doing lots of that um when we can um and just the variety of opportunities that students are having in CTE um and and the pathways to real work. Um all of that is really awesome. Uh so thank you. So I'll I'll finish out I guess. Um so just a couple of things. One I just want to remind the community that's not aware or they are aware is one of the big challenges we had was ESSER funding which allowed us to really go
091beyond just the students that are state legislation and many people have heard it as falling off the financial cliff. And so I really appreciate um the way y'all approached it and also uh the art integration which is making it not just about academics but exploring what the students really enjoy. Um so really excited to hear about that. Um also um really appreciate all the CTE options as well and the expansion and some you know experimentation you all have said around that and really like the the new tagline providing students with more than a diploma. Um I know as we've heard people sometimes haven't heard about CTE and once they do learn that it's not a degree program. Uh it's really the hands-on learning and so much more. Um so thanks thank you everyone for all
092of your involvement and planning and excited to hear about the June potential and how we can leverage that especially looking at common resources and how we've leveraged them. So thank you so much. We really appreciate you all coming and sharing this tonight. >> Thank you um on behalf of our team for all the continued support. >> Thank you. All right. And next, we may have a little bit of news on the uh 2025 state accountability results. Mr. Chairman, Madame Vice Chair, members of the board, Dr. Jones, community stakeholders, cabinet, and attendees. Good evening. I have the honor and privilege of presenting the 2024 2025 state accountability results for Orange County Schools. Presenting with me is Mr. Kumar Sappathy, our OCS district equity facilitator, and Dr. Julie Pac, our chief academic officer. A special thank you
093to April Starbucks, testing and accountability coordinator, for her tireless work in pulling data every day for the past month, including today. The next two slides that we have, thank you. The next two slides are a reminder of our current strategic plan, specifically priority one. Thank you. Uh particularly priority one, teaching tomorrow's leaders. Slide three is a review of the three goals of priority one. Now we will transition to our district's accountability results. I will turn it over to Mr. Saty. >> All right, let's begin with school performance grades. Slide five shows a progression of academic years beginning school year 2017 through 2018 all the way to 2024 2025. 2017 through 2019 will only show a total of 12 schools due to partnership academy. 2019 2020 was the pandemic year and there was no state accountability
094testing that year. A summary of the data shows 92.3% of OCS schools earned a C or better compared to 68.5% statewide. There are no F schools in OCS. I'm going to read that again. There are no F schools in OCS. For the first time since 2017, OCS has five B schools. OCS has decreased the number of D schools from 3 to 1. Both comprehensive high schools are B schools. All three middle schools are C schools. For our elementary schools, three are B schools. Three are C schools and one is a D school. And I do acknowledge that it says four on the slides, but it is actually three that are C schools. Similar to the previous slides, the next slide provides information regarding schools either meeting, exceeding or not meeting growth. To provide context, a
095school is designated as having met growth if their EVOS growth index is between -2 and positive2. A school is designated to have not met growth if their EVOS growth index is below a -2. And a school is designated as having exceeded growth if their EVOS growth index is greater than two. Again, I will point out that 2017 through 2019 will only show a total of squ of 12 schools due to partnership academy. 2019 2020 was the pandemic year. There was no school state accountability testing. The next slide shows state rankings with some of our peer districts. A summary of the data shows Orange County Schools is in a three-way tie for first in the state for all schools meeting or exceeding growth. This is the first time all schools in OCS have met or exceeded
096growth since the state began school performance grades. 54% of OCS schools exceeded growth. Both comprehensive high schools exceeded growth for the second year in a row. Cedar Ridge has consistently exceeded growth since 2015 2016. Two of the three middle schools exceeded growth. Four elementary schools met growth while three exceeded growth. Partnership Academy High School met growth for the second year in a row. We will now move into overall grade level proficiency. The first slide shows a year-over-year comparison of our grade level proficiency GLP from 2018 2019 to 2024 2025. It is safe to say that all school districts took a hit during the pandemic and the result of that is evident in the 2020 2021 data highlighted in red. However, in the next slide, you will also notice that gains were made when we look
097at proficiency of our various subgroups. A summary of the data shows the following. OCS increased overall grade level proficiency GLP by 3.5 percentage points, the highest since precoid. OCS also performed higher than the state by 3.4 percentage points. All subgroups in OCS grew in grade level proficiency. Black students were the highest performing subgroup for growth with seven percentage points. This is the highest GLP performance for black students since 2013 2014. White student performance was the highest since 2013 2014. Asian student performance was the highest since 2017 2018. Hispanic student performance was the highest since 2018 2019. Multi-racial student performance was the highest since 2018209. Students with disabilities performance was the highest since 2017 2018. Economically disadvantaged student performance was the highest since 2017 2018. And as we look at the slide that mentions uh that
098talks about AIG students, I do want to point out that we had um more than 95% in that group and it only shows a rating of above two. But that's just because it's that or higher because we can't graph exactly what that amount is because we only see 95% or greater. We will move fairly quickly through the next sl through these next slides while highlighting both areas for growth and subject specific overall proficiency. Slide 15 shows our 38 reading proficiency. Slide 16 shows our math proficiency. It is important to note that while our sixth grade data shows an area of growth, this cohort of students grew in math proficiency by 7/10en of a percentage point year-over-year and 3.7 percentage points in reading year-over-year. Slide 17 shows our high school end of course proficiency results. And
099slide 18 shows our science data. While this slide with excuse me, with this slide, we did not include a year-over-year comparison. While students in grades five and eight take science assessments and high school students take a biology assessment, new tests that align with the new content standards in science and biology were implemented in 2024 2025 school year and results should not be compared to previous years. However, it is important to highlight that OCS performed 4.3 percentage points higher than the state in science, excuse me, in fifth grade science and eighth grade combined, 2.9%age points higher in fifth grade science, 5.6 percentage points higher in eighth grade science, and 1.4 percentage points higher in biology. A further summary of the data shows the following. OCS performed above the state average in 38 reading, 3.1 percentage points,
100and math 4.7. OCS students in grades 3.8 increased in proficiency by 5 percentage points. Students in grades 38 increased in proficiency in reading by 5.7 percentage points. OCS students in grades 3A increased in proficiency in math by 5.3 percentage points. More than 95% of our middle school students in math 1 were proficient. OCS students in grades five and eight increased in proficiency in science by two percentage points. So again, even though you know we're talking about uh two different tests, but still there was an increase nonetheless. And math three students increased in proficiency by 6.7 percentage points. Next, we will discuss OCS's English learner progress. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires each state to provide an annual assessment of English language proficiency to all students identified as English language learners. In the state of North
101Carolina, the annual assessment is the worldclass instructional design and assessment access for ELLs. Under ESSA, EL progress must be measured and reported for all ELEL's in grades K through 12. As a reminder, EL progress makes up a portion of what counts within the 80% of the school performance grade. As a whole, OCS has continued to make gains from the 2021 2022 school year. A summary of the data shows the following. This is the third consecutive year OCS has made gains. OCS EL progress increased by 6.4 percentage points. So, we can go to the next slide. Thank you. And the percentage of students exiting EL status grew 3.3 percentage points. We uh will now review our college and career readiness data which consists of our four-year cohort to graduation rate, math course rigor, and ACT work
102keys. The next slide shows our cohort graduation rate broken down by subgroups. A summary of that data shows the following. The OCS four-year cohort graduation rate increased by 8 percentage points. Black students increased by 5.4 percentage points to 92.2, which is the highest percentage rate for black students since 2019 2020. Multi-racial students increased by 17 percentage points to 86.8, 8, which is the highest percentage rate for multi-racial students since 2016 2017. Hispanic students increased by 8.2 percentage points from 2023 2024 to 2024 2025. Economically disadvantaged students increased by 8 percentage points from 2324 to 2425. This is the largest percentage increase for economically disadvantaged students since at least 2013 2014. White students increased by 7.7 percentage points from 2324 to 2425. This is the largest percent, excuse me, largest percentage increase for white students since
103at least 2013 2014. Students with disabilities increased by 1.1 percentage points from 2023 24 to 2024 2025. We will now go into lower performing schools. So currently in OCS the only uh school that we have that has a state designation of low performing is Central Elementary School. However, it is extremely important to note that Central Elementary's composite grew 4.5 points and the school met growth. So according to the state, they did what they were supposed to do. Those are two data points that are worth celebrating for Central Elementary. We will now go into our celebrations. So we can go to the next slide. So our schools that moved out of low performing status, AL Standback Middle School with a school letter grade of C and Efflin Cheeks Global Elementary School with a school letter grade
104of C. Next slide. Schools changing letter grades. So AL Standback Middle School is now a C. Effing Global Elementary School is now a school letter grade of C as well. Pathways Elementary School has gone from a C to a B. And River Park Elementary has gone from a C to a B as well. You can see a list here of our schools that met growth. Central elementary school, Epents Global Elementary, Grady Brown, Grapply Hill Middle, and Hillsbor Elementary. Schools exceeding growth, Al Standback Middle School, Cedar Ridge High School, New Hope Elementary, Orange Middle, Orange High, Pathways Elementary, and River Park Elementary. Highest EVOS growth index in OCS, New Hope Elementary with an EVOS growth index of 8.48. Cedar Ridge High School with an EVOS growth index of 6.54, Pathways Elementary 4.91, and AL Standback Middle
105School 4.55. Highest composite growth in OCS, Pathways Elementary School with a composite growth of 17 points. Epents Global Elementary School, 12 points. Al Standback Middle School, eight points and a tie, a two-way tie for fourth. Grady Brown Elementary and Orange Middle School both six points. schools ranked in the top 100 in the state for EVOS growth. So, New Hope Elementary School. Um, they are ranked at number 51 for their growth. They're also ranked number one for preK5 schools in North Carolina and number four in the state for any school that has prek. And our North Central region highlights, New Hope Elementary is ranked number one the number one elementary school and is ranked 19th overall. Cedar Ridge High School is ranked 34. Pathways Elementary is ranked 74. AL Standback is ranked 82 and Orange High
106School is tied for 93. Schools ranked in the top 12% of the state for growth. New Hope Elementary ranked 51. Cedar Ridge High School ranked 108. Pathways Elementary tied for 229. Al Stanback Middle School ranked at 268. And Orange High School tied at 304. Before we take questions briefly, I would also just like to say that our results are due to our leadership from the top. Our phenomenal principles and their leadership at the school level, our phenomenal teachers and the hard work that they did, but most importantly our kids. We have amazing kids in Orange County schools and we could not have done it without them taking in all that our teachers were trying to get them. So, it was truly a team effort. So, we'll take questions briefly. Sarah, make sure you wave your
107pom poms. >> I should have brought some. >> You should have. >> Wow. I mean, it's not a surprise because I've been looking at it, but wow. Um, these results are incredible. This does not happen without a tremendous without alignment across the district and a tremendous amount of hard work from everybody involved. So, just um huge kudos um to everyone. Um, uh, I will add that the state dashboard that they make publicly available, which if anybody wants to look at, you can go on the DPI website, you can click around, they added this little feature over to the side that has these little arrows that show, have you had like one year in a row or two years in a row or three or four of positive progress in your in your percent proficient by
108every demographic of student by every, you know, you can look at all the and just out of curiosity, I And I looked at every single school district in the state and I think there might we have four years of positive growth for every student de demographic. I I think just about just about in in sort of the composite and I think that there is one other school district that has four years of growth except for like students with disabilities you know some there's another school district that's close but no one else has done that and it's amazing. Um, I will also say I really appreciate this great data. Like I love the long-term view on some of these things. Um, so thank you for that. Um, you know, I do think we need to obviously
109continue working towards the graduation rate improvements, um, English learner progress, students with disabil, you all know those things. I just want to I'm glad and know that we will continue to focus um, on continuing to grow. Um, and then the one sort of question thing I'm thinking about is obviously math one was is an area where we still need some strong improvement. Um, I also know that the like the students who took math one in 8th grade like over 95% of them were proficient and I know that they don't get counted in the in that math one reporting right. And so what percentage do you happen to know? Like what percentage of kids are taking it in eighth grade and so they're not counting? This isn't to like discount like that we don't need to
110work on it. We need to work on it. But like I do wonder if you added all those kids back in if it would be like a more similar passing rate to like math 3 for example. Do you happen to know how many kids take it early in 8th grade? So, I do know the number of students that take it by middle school, but I've never done the math to actually see like you were saying if we added them back in. So, I don't I can't I could get you that information, but I I can't tell you, you know, like specifically like what that percentage would be out of our total eighth grade students. >> I think it would be helpful just to be aware of like we need to work on math one and
111you know, we have a new curriculum and that's exciting. Um, I also bet if you just looked at a cohort of kids and added together the kids who took it in eighth grade and the kids who took it in ninth grade or in high school, like it might be a more similar percent of kids proficient than um the way the state reports it. And it would just be helpful to know that. >> So, just to get a sense of an overall pass rate. >> Yeah, just to just to know like obviously the percentage passing math one in high school is way too low and we need to do something about that. Um, but if you look at but it makes it seem like there's a weird drop in in math one and then like all
112of a sudden they're all proficient in math three or something, but it's actually you're just counting different kids like so a bunch of kids you're not counting in that math one. >> Does that make sense? >> Yes, it does make sense. And and to your point, Miss Smiley, I remember when when students took um eighth grade students took math one, they also had to take the eighth grade math test as well. And so when the state did away with that, we saw a huge drop in eighth grade math scores because those students weren't counted there. And it it is fair for them not to have to take two assessments, but again, it highlights the work that we still have to do around our eighth grade math. >> But um math one is a high school
113course taken in middle school when they take it, but it still only counts for the middle school scores, not the high school scores. So the overall picture or of how our students are performing in math 1 when we just report out um the 9th grade or 9th through 12th math 1, it is a bit skewed. It's not really telling the story of how proficient our students are who take math 1. So we can take a look at some of that. But yes, um still a lot of work to do in that area. And I'm excited for the new math curriculum and the work we're going to do um in math overall, but particularly looking at math one. And >> just a big shout out to everyone um who worked on this and has put in
114the time, the effort. And I want to tell you a story that I heard that one of the parents was telling somebody that I know that said, and this took place at New Hope, that the U child came in, sat down with with one of one of you all, one of the team, and went through all of their testing data and went through everything that they needed to work on and talked about, I mean, really had a conversation with a child that had never had that before and the parent was mightily impressed and um I just wanted to share that with you all because I think that's the building the relationships and that is is what helps students excel is they know somebody cares and they know that somebody can sit down and have a
115conversation with them and talk with them about what they're doing and how they're doing it. And um so I wanted you to know that and wanted you to know that that is something very positive that I see and I think is is great. Um and I know as a principal there were kids that I would pull in and say, "Look, this is where you are. This is where you need to be." And and for a lot of kids, they've never had that before. So keep up the good work and thank you for everything that you've done. and we're looking forward to seeing even greater things. side. Um just just real quickly um congratulations and I'm I'm so excited for all of our students and all of our schools and um I appreciate how many different
116ways you are presenting the data because it takes all those different ways to see like the caveats and um and thank you for sharing about the the one you know the cohort that although it's showing um you know a little bit of a dip there that the cohort is growing and I'm thinking thinking about where you know, where were those kids, you know, with COVID, you know, what what how are they impacted there? Um, so I know our our leaders are having to look at this data in a robust way so that we can be um systematic in what we what we put in um districtwide. And I am also excited about, you know, the math curriculum changes and what we'll be able to follow and improve. So, thank you very much, >> Bonnie. >>
117Yeah. Um great work. you know, thank you for recognizing our incredible kids and um you know, so yes, we you know, we I think we always knew that, but it took a great school system with great teachers and a great leadership team to prove that they're as good as we always believe they are. So, thank you so much for that. Um, I have just a question and it's really, you know, I I look at the Spanish kids, I'm sorry, the Hispanic numbers and um, one of the things that I noticed is our and this is always this has been a consistent pattern. Our elementary schools, these kids are like unbelievable. You know, I think Pathways saw a 20% 20 point jump in um, scores for their Hispanic students. That's like really a big jump and
118it's consistent. Most of our elementary schools showed our that pattern. Our middle schools showed kind of a more moderate a couple of point gain but our high schools did not you know really are not showing that improvement. And the reason I raise this is our teachers have said to me, and again, I'm just a board member. Um, but the teachers have said, you know, the kids come in, not the kids that are coming up from our elementary schools, but the kids that are coming in from the outside, and they're not prepared for this. They're not prepared for our schools, for what we have to offer. And we've never offered or talked about offering a newcomer program. I think there's a little bit of work going on with sheltered classrooms that's showing some results. So, so
119the essence of my question is, is there a structural improvement that we should make like that that would really help our our middle and especially our high school students um um to get more out of them. So, it's just it's just a question. >> Thank you for asking that, Miss Hower. And at this time, we're not considering that. I think we we we know and we see that when we focus on good quality instruction and making sure that we look at individual students, provide support where they need it, that we're able to see that growth. Now, are we perfect? We're not. Um, but as principles begin to work with us and work with their teams on diving a lot deeper into this data and making the adjustments, I think we'll see some of those improvements
120come about. >> But, no, we're we're we're not considering um a newcomer program at at this time. I think um there are a lot of supports that we can put in place and with some of the skills that need to be developed as far as listening, reading, um speaking and writing that we can serve those students um within the regular classroom. And um I think we're just working on getting better at that and equipping our teachers to do that. So that's that's where we are. Um, and I think some of the um, support for families that we can offer as well to bridge some of those gaps because I think um, Miss Purcell brought a good point in that um, it it takes all of us to be able to support students and it's regardless
121of where your background or your abilities coming in. We can we can show growth. Students can show growth with the right support. Um, and then one thing I just wanted to mention while I'm speaking is just how thankful I am for the team that we have. Um, you know, we talk constantly and while we're reporting a lot of numbers tonight, this is not about the numbers and you've said it and they have said it that this is really about our students and making sure that they have access to opportunities as they learn and grow and that they can think beyond what's the diploma I think was the tagline, right? thinking beyond that because um we want to make sure that we're pouring into them and if their families are pouring into them at the same
122time and we come together that we can they can see some success. It may look different for different students um they're going to be able to say what success looks like for them but we're here to make sure that they know what all is available to them. So, I went off a little bit, but as far as a newcomer program, no. Some things like a sheltered class, we are trying some of that to see how that works. But at the same time, I feel like um we can equip our teachers to support um the needs of our students. I just want to say thank you for all the work for putting this data together, but I'm so happy to see that change is gradual and so we see it that we're moving in that direction
123where our district is um becoming stronger. Our students are doing well and everybody seems to be happy and it shows by the performance that we have. So, thank you. Um, I just want to say congratulations to everyone. I am super excited to see what our district is going to look like in the future. Um, Dr. Jones, you you just hit right on exactly what I've been thinking um before everybody else started talking. But, you know, it's you we thank the students, but it's a village. You know, Orange County Schools is a village. So, it takes your job, the team, um the staff, the students, the families, the guardians, everybody in this entire community. It takes all all of us coming together um on one accord and and getting it done. So, I applaud everyone for
124the work that you've done and the the accomplishments that we see tonight. So, thank you. I just I won't echo all of the stuff, but um I just wanted to highlight, you know, some of the things around this data because I do believe it's a district celebration of our students at the end of the day. Um you know, we did have some financial challenges. So, we have our excellent uh team in finance at the district office. Let's not forget HR. If we didn't have the right teachers with the right supports and looking at our benefits and what we need, we can't do what what's needed to do. We have uh mentioned earlier all of the bus drivers, the mechanics, the routing, making sure we have a plan that gets all of our students where they
125need to be. uh food insecurity, making sure we have the food, making sure who's needing it, our social workers, everybody that's involved with it. Um not to mention our family support, our family liaison, our uh family academy. We just had Mr. Smoothie and uh Dr. Vonir just excellent work in making sure we're covering everything that needs to be done to support our families. Um I just can't emphasize enough, it's everyone in the district. There's not a single area that's not needed to show this success. And I just wanted to thank each and everyone. And when we go to the commissioners this week, I'm going to send ahead the data that we just covered and remind them that we need to compensate our teachers appropriately, not just our classified, but also our certified staff as well
126because everyone matters in our community and it's a group effort. So, thank you all. All right. Uh, last on our agenda tonight, uh, our buds first quarter update for 2025. >> All right. Last but certainly not least, it's a hard act to follow. Just a I feel very honored and privileged to work in a school system like this. uh Franklin McHune employee ombbudz chair athetherton vice padilla members of the board Dr. Jones, members of the public. Tonight, I'm bringing to you a very robust report from the OMBbud's office. Um, and it's I don't have enough data to prove trends. I don't have enough um information to present to you all tonight because numbers are low. So, per policy, this is part of the reporting structure I need to bring. Each quarter, I will bring reports
127and trends. But as of this time, there are no trends to report. There are no data to receive. Now, does that mean I have received no calls? No, I still receive calls, but it has not risen to the level of the trends and reports to bring to the floor at this time. So, I'll turn it over. Any questions for me? >> Sarah, >> I just have one thought, which is, you know, when we were first sort of creating this role and the policy. I think we talked about the quarterly reporting and we had, I think, a question about like is is that the right cadence to come to the board and this does make me wonder if it should be more of like a twice a year thing. So, I know that's in the policy,
128but just maybe wanted to throw that out in terms of sort of the volume. Um, >> um, I can speak on behalf of my colleagues in the, um, in the state and around the local area. Most of my colleagues are actually annual reporter. Now, not all of them have the same kind of reporting structure that I do. Um, whether it's whether it's, you know, we move to twice a year or annually, but for the most part, most of my colleagues in the K12 space do report annually. That's what I've heard. And so I knew that the quarterly was like more than typical. Um, so just wanted to present that as something to consider. Maybe we want to look at doing this twice a year instead so that you can have sort of a more robust
129trend. >> It's a great suggestion. >> Good idea. >> Any other comments? >> Thank you, Mr. Mcuan, for all your work. We really appreciate it. >> Most welcome. >> All right. Uh board, we are at the uh end of our uh agenda. Uh we do not need to go into a second close session. So I am recommending that we go to adjourn. Uh do we have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> We have a motion and second. Any further discussion? >> All in favor? I >> I opposed. >> We are now adjourned. Thank you all. Have a good night.