Orange County Board of Education Regular Meeting - May 19, 2025

001Good evening, Chair Purcell, Vice Chair Richmond, members of the board, Superintendent Jones, and guests. It is my honor to recognize an extraordinary group of students this evening and the dedicated educators who have guided them. Tonight, we celebrate the 2025 youth poet laureates, students whose voices rise above the ordinary. These young poets use their words to speak truth, foster connection, and give voice to hope. We also recognize the teachers who have stood behind them on this journey. Mentors who have nurtured their voices and created spaces where poetry can flourish. Being named a youth poet laurate at the school or district level is no small accomplishment. These students began their journeys in school level clubs, creative writing courses, and English classes. In February, they participated in a two-day workshop led by our North Carolina poet laurate, Jackie

002Shelton Green, alongside over 30 peers from all three of our high schools. Following the workshop, students submitted an application and an original poem that was judged by members of our schools, our district, as well as published authors from across North Carolina. It is with great pride that I introduce to you this evening our 2025 Orange County Schools youth poet laurate Miranda Silva Choros. Miranda is an 11th grade student at Partnership Academy High School. Congratulations Miranda on this outstanding achievement. You're a gifted writer, a natural leader, and we look forward to your voice shining brightly as you serve as an ambassador for poetry across our district. Joining Miranda, I am proud to recognize our 2025 Cedar Ridge High School Youth Poet laurate, Olivia Keratanuto, a ninth grade student. Olivia demonstrates a strong command of language and

003her impactful poetry moved our review team. We look forward to seeing Olivia grow in her craft as she works alongside Miranda to bring poetry to life for others. And finally, we recognize our other finalists, our 2025 partnership academy poet laurate Alyssa Hathcock. Alyssa's application poem was heartfelt and powerful, showcasing her natural talent as a writer. We're excited to support Alyssa as she steps into this leadership role and shares her love of poetry with the broader community. And finally, before we conclude, I want to acknowledge two exceptional educators without whom this program would not be possible. Miss Amari Batty and Miss Laura [Applause] Eisenhower. Miss Batty and Miss Eisenhower have created thriving literary communities at Cedar Ridge High School and Partnership Academy. They pour their time, their energy, and their hearts into supporting student writers and

004building programs that elevate student voice. Thank you to everyone who supports this growing tradition in Orange County schools. We are proud to share our 2025 Youth Poet laureates. Congratulations. Thank you. We don't have our picture again. Thank you all very much. And if you were at the night of poetry that we had at Cedar Ridge High School, you got to experience these wonderful um students reading their poetry and then other students reading poetry, too. It was it was a very enlightening night. So, if you ever get a chance to come to that, that would be great. You would enjoy it. Thank you to Mr. Fington I see back there. And um we appreciate you all being here tonight. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, up next is the Orange Middle School Battle of the Book winners for

005the state. And I see lots of students over here while while the team gathers, we'll get you warmed up. Good evening everyone. Um to everyone here tonight and watching at home, read books and you never know the places you will go. And I know you all understand that reference. So thank you to the North Carolina School Media Library Association School Library Media Association which hosts this annual competition for elementary, middle school, and high school students. We are excited to bring forward the 2025 Middle School Battle of the Book State Champions from Orange Middle School and their adviserss. Uh, quick facts and then I'm getting out of your way. On March 4th, Orange Middle School won the district competition and on March 22nd, their second consecutive regional contest. And if anybody knows that I'm getting anything

006wrong, it'll be these people behind me who can read 20 books and remember everything. Since that day uh on May 1st when they traveled to the regional con to the state contest in Statesville, they have um they have had a very adventurous life and it started before the school year even began because this the list of books comes out. Is the list of books ready for next year? Okay. They're already they're already there. They're already there and uh they will tell you about it in just a moment. Um they richly deserve the recognition that they are receiving right now and we're very very excited for them. Only 400 only 400 schools around the state participate in this competition. So, you know, to be number anyway, I'm going to get out of your way and introduce

007the Orange Middle School Battle of the Books State Champions. Uh, thank you, chair and vice chair, for inviting us here. Um, thank you, Mr. Smith, for all of the recognition. Um, I just want to say I'm so proud of the students behind me. It's I'm trying not to cry because some of these kids have been with me for three years. Um, they I'm so proud of them. They are not only readers, but how many of you are athletes? How many of you are three sport athletes? How many of you do equestrian or tap dance or other clubs besides Battle of the Books or other things? You manage sport teams. They're doing it all. They're wonderful students. They keep their grades up. They're reading 20 books, not just once, not just twice, three times, four times

008before our competition. Um, Jack, an eighth grader, has been on the team for three years, has been to regionals three times, been to regionals as the winner twice, and has now finally and rightly deserved his state winning medal. So, I mean, we have other eighth grade students that have participated as well. Some of them are not here tonight because they're out doing their other extracurriculars. So, they just deserve all the recognition and just thank you so much for allowing them to be recognized like they deserve. I appreciate it. Thank you. Congratulations. Good job. Great job. Congratulations. I like that better. Congratulations. Great job. Great job. Thank you for everything. Here we go again. [Laughter] They know. They know what to do. Great job. Okay, up next we have uh Emily Meyers who is going to

009talk to us about our governor school nominees for 2025. Miss Meyers. Good evening board members. Dr. Jones, community members attending in person, and those of you watching online. My name is Emily Meyers. I'm the director of integrated academics for Orange County Schools, and I am honored to be here this evening to recognize five Orange County students who have been selected to attend the prestigious North Carolina Governor's School this summer. The North Carolina Governor's School is a 4-week residential program for gifted and talented high school students that integrates academic disciplines, the arts, and unique courses on each of two campuses. Learning focuses on the exploration of the most recent ideas and concepts in each discipline, and it does not involve credit, tests, or grades. Students are selected to attend through a competitive process after being nominated

010by their public school unit or non-public school. We have five students attending Governor School this year, which is wonderful. And we are going to start with our four Red Wolves who have been selected. Um, our first is Olivia Sutton. Olivia will be attending in the area of English. We also have Tara Proctctor. Tara is attending in the area of natural science. We have Isabella Morelli. [Applause] attending in English. And we have Barlay Arnold, who I don't believe was able to be here this evening, unless I've missed him. Um, he is attending in the area of visual [Applause] art. We are pleased to recognize one Orange High School Panther who has been selected to attend Governor's School this summer. Maria Wilson. Maria is also attending in the area of English. Congratulations to our Orange County students.

011We look forward to hearing about your summer experience and are proud to have you represent our district. Congratulations down there. I don't know. What are we over here? [Applause] All right. And now Mr. Smith is going to um introduce our Orange Middle School 7th grade social studies teacher um who is the North Carolina Holocaust teacher of the year. Thank you again, Madam Chair, and good evening again to everyone. We are really honored to have Mrs. Selena Massie, a seventh grade uh social studies teacher from Orange Middle School, come forward uh to be recognized for having been given the award of the outstanding Holocaust educator of the year for North Carolina for your recognition and for state rec statewide recognition because this is the first year this award has ever been given and it's to a

012teacher here in Orange County schools which speaks for itself. Um, I am going to share a couple words of of introduction because we we we found out about the award and then we just ask Mrs. Massie three simple questions. What inspired you to teach this way? What did you hope students would get out of it? And how do you know it's working? And I hope that everyone has had a chance to go and read the story to learn what actually changes in the lives of our students when we teach to the standards because the seventh grade social studies standards changed about 15 years ago. Um, what Mrs. Massie calls the human realities of history are important to teach both in and out of season. The North Carolina standards state that students should be able to

013explain how values and beliefs affect human rights, justice, and equality for different groups of people and also compare how individuals and groups respond to stereotypes, oppression, human rights violations, and genocide. We know that that is exceptionally challenging work. no matter whether you're a student, a teacher, an adult, a child. So, we asked her to help us and again, I would I would encourage everyone to to learn from her students the same as her students are learning learning from her. But we're going to ask Mrs. Massie to share a couple minutes of with you about this exceptional recognition. First, thank you to the board of education, Orange County Schools, my family, colleagues, guests, and especially Sharon Halprin, the director of the Holocaust Speakers Bureau. Thank you so much for being here today. I have been truly

014humbled and deeply grateful to be here today, having received the 2025 outstanding Holocaust Educator Award on behalf of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina. The outpouring of support that I've received since this special recognition was announced has truly been overwhelming. The award focused on the vital lessons of the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights reminds us of unimaginable darkness and the devastating consequences of hatred and prejudice. Yet within this darkness, there are incredible stories of courage, resilience, and compassion that deserve to be highlighted. These are powerful stories that we must continue to tell, especially to our students. It is our fundamental responsibility to ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten and that the inherent rights of all people are not just acknowledged but actively protected and upheld

015by each new generation. Moving forward and in closing, my hope is is that the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina will continue its vital work and strengthen its partnership with me and Orange County Schools. Together, we can ensure that our students, teachers, community members gain a deeper understanding of these crucial lessons. For it is through this understanding that we can cultivate empathy, challenge injustice, and build a future where human life is always honored. Thank you. I did. I did. [Laughter] There's a lot of movement. Thank you. Thank you, Selena. Madame Chair, I think that concludes our recognitions for this evening. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for all your work and helping get this done. It's nice to have students and teachers and principles. And thank you to Jamie

016Bell Williams who is walking out the door from Orange Middle School with her teacher and students. And to Mr. Johnson who I saw here earlier who was with um his student from Orange High School. So we appreciate that. All right. I need a motion to adopt our agenda for tonight. Madame Chair, um I had uh sent a message requesting to pull the uh consent item six new math curriculum recommendation session curriculum. Okay. Okay. I need a motion to adopt with the uh understanding that we're going to pull the math curriculum and and in terms of I mean I'll defer to you but I know um for some things we may have some guests that we might want to discuss that a little bit later. Okay. We have like equity where are we? Yes. So I

017don't know where we want to put it but okay. Um is there preference to where to put that Dr. Jones? Do you have any preference to that? I think if we wanted to put it at the end very end be the best of the of the um work session possibly or actually would need to be at the end of discussion action. Okay, we'll just um make the motion to adopt with the idea that we're moving the U math curriculum for discussion at the very end of our meeting. And that would that would make that 4B. Okay. Second. All in favor? I I Okay. And public comments tonight? No public comments tonight. No public comments. So, we need a motion to adopt our consent agenda. So, moved. All in favor? I mean a second. I need

018a second. Second. Okay. All in favor? I I Okay, it is passed. All right. Into our work session. Um we have our spring 2025 indoor air quality report. Um tonight with Mr. the key. Good evening. Good evening, board members, superintendent. I'm Hankman Key, director of maintenance for Orange County Schools. Our district has a has maintained a long-standing commitment to providing a clean, safe, and healthy environment for all our students and staff. As part of that commitment, independent air quality testing has been conducted regularly since the early 2000s, each fall and spring, as well as on an as needed basis for specific areas of concern. For the most recent spring testing cycle, Orange County Schools partnered with First Call Restoration. They worked in collaboration with the Solutions Group, a firm with 25 years of history in

019our school district. As of the fall, Dr. Cercio, the founder of the Solutions Group, began transitioning into retirement. In anticipation of this change, we engaged First Call Restoration to lead our indoor air quality assessments going forward. First Call already had an established relationship in our district through their work with water damage mitigation and restoration. To ensure smooth transition and maintain expert oversight, they brought Dr. Kercio in to assist in analyzing the spring testing data. Together, they produced the comprehensive report based on their findings. Testing was conducted over spring break with the input from school principles to identify areas of concerns. The process included visual inspections and baseline carbon monoxide measurements. And then additional CO2 readings were taken the week after spring break once the school was full. We're not there yet. Testing was already there.

020This evening, you'll hear a summary of those findings. The team selected for this work is highly qualified and experienced in indoor air quality and public institutional settings. The report will inform you of the continued development in our preservation or preventive preventative maintenance, excuse me, program with a specific focus on preserving the classroom learning environment. My staff has been working closely with them and school administration and custodial team to identify and address potential problems and areas before they become a significant issues. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jeremy for presentation. Thank you. Good evening all. My name is Jeremy. I'm from First Call Clean Restoration. and uh thank you for the opportunity to uh speak with you today about uh what we were uh testing, what we found, and then what recommendations

021uh we have. So to start off, um indoor air quality is um testing um is a process of measuring and analyzing the air in a building to identify the presence of harmful substances. IQ tests measure air for impurities such as allergens, mold, and others. These tests show whether the quality of your indoor air meets standards. And the goal is to ensure a clean and healthy and safe environment for all the building's occupants. So part of the IQ testing is testing for mold and there's a wide range of species and types. Some are expected to be in indoor environments and others are less ideal for indoor environments. The exact number and type can be ascertained through laboratory uh uh analyze tests. Uh the best type of testing for mold is air samples. Uh and is recommended

022that all visible mold be remediated no matter the type. Another thing we we test is CO2 or carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the air we breathe. Uh the uh ideal indoor levels um are below a 100 sorry 1,000 parts per million and uh levels over 1,000 parts per million can contribute to drowsiness uh methodology and poor concentration and uh ideal CO2 levels can be maintained through proper ventilation through the HVAC system. Um what we're looking for in our bial uh inspections um would be uh humidity uh and temperature ensuring is proper for the school. Uh so the humidity range ideally is between 40 and 60% relative humidity. Uh higher levels occur due to open windows, ineffective or underutilized HVC systems or leaks. And uh the normal temperature inside of a school

023should range between 68 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Uh another uh thing we look for in our inspections uh would be um current or or possible water damages. Uh so inspecting for potential water damages, water intrusions, elevated humidity. Uh water damages can be detrimental to the indoor air quality. Uh water damage can be caused by leaks from plumbing or from exterior um uh penetrations, condensation or elevated humidity. Uh finding and fixing conditions conducive to water damage will limit uh damage, poor air quality, and potentially more costly repairs or remediation. So the report rate rates the schools on on a scale from poor to very good. Uh poor being inadequate air quality due to microbial growth, contamination and environmental conditions outside of ideal ranges. Uh fair air quality affected or potentially affected by environmental conditions outside my

024apologies outside of um ideal ranges and then good adequate air quality um and environmental conditions. And then very good optimal or excellent air quality and environmental conditions. So in the next slide we have um you mind advancing to next slide there. So we have a a scale of where the schools are. Uh no schools are in the the poor category. Um three are in fair and of course the rest of them are in the good and very good um category. So for the schools that are in the the fair category, there is a a action plan specifically for them. Um one being investigation and inspection of the HVAC units. Um ensuring that there's proper humidity, temperature, and CO2 levels through proper maintenance and utilization of those HVAC systems. Identifying sources and causes of the damaged

025ceiling tiles uh that were found um and replacing those. and then continuing to monitor the CO2 and humidity readings um to make sure that they're in optimal um levels and to make sure that a a fluke didn't elevate those levels. Uh for instance, mopping the floor when we were doing our inspection. Uh overall, there is a service and maintenance recommendation for the school. Um one would be of course maintain optimal air humidity levels. Uh elevated humidity can lead to mold growth and cause secondary damages from condensation. Um another is regular vent and air return cleanings. Uh identifying and fixing potential exterior leaks and sources of water intrusion. Uh ensure proper ventilation to reduce CO2 levels inside and identify sources and causes of damaged ceiling tiles and replace those ceiling tiles. So, in summary, Orange County

026Schools um exceeds the IQ testing standards. Um most schools in our area aren't doing any sort of testing like this. Uh and Orange County Schools have committed to preventive maintenance to avoid degradation of indoor air quality and more costly repairs. And some of those items include um regular changes of air filters and HVC systems, quarterly vent cleanings, uh cleaning the coils at least every two years or more so when the need arises, uh every 5 years, doing a full HVC cleaning and then um having remediation plans for roof leaks and other weather related issues uh when they are found. All right. And then um we leave uh this open for uh questions from the board. Um okay, any questions? Miss Molly? Uh thank you very much. Um and yeah, and I appreciate you bringing back

027the Sultist group to sort of lay out the report in a way that is um like consistent with how they used to do it, which I think was really helpful and it was a lot of the notes in the report were very helpful to understand. So, I appreciated how you compared like the levels of indoor mold measurement versus outdoor. Um, and I appreciated the comparison of like CO2 and humidity and and all all of those things. Um, I thought were really informative and helpful. Um, I guess my question is a is a is an administrative one, so it must be it's probably for Mr. a key, but it's um how are we monitoring ongoing, you know, the the the register the quarterly vent cleaning it has been on like every report forever and and there

028are some schools that are looking much better now than they had in previous reports. So, at one point Orange High School had some serious issues, I think, um and it didn't really in this report, but like what's the how's the administration monitoring and making sure these things are going to happen? I'll tell you how the process is right now. Um, it's quarterly by custodians and then it's checked by principles. Then it's sent to custodial foreman with a sign off from the principal and the custodian. Um, then custodial foreman Bobby will go and do his he does monthly checks at every school. So if he follows up right after he gets the report, he may make an extra note to check those items to see that it was checked by him as well. With rotation, there's

029always going to be some that while, like you said, Orange High School wasn't great at one point, now it's coming in as great. There's always going to be some of this having to retrain and retach to make sure we're doing it efficiently. So, um, yeah, I mean, some of those pictures were kind of I was like, "Oh, I can that's very visible that that is collecting a lot of dust, which you explained in the report like, you know, then flows out and the kids are breathing it and then everybody thinks there's like mold in the school, but actually it's just like a bunch of dust." Yeah. And a lot of that is on the return side as well. So, it's not going to blow out, but it'll pull in and then get caught by the

030filter, but still it looks terrible and it's not great for our environment. Um, another item that we've addressing this month has been making sure high dusting is getting done better. The vents like the ones in here, they may be getting skipped and we're addressing that to because Jeremy pointed out a lot of the vents that were an issue were up high are up high. Yeah. Yeah. So, Mr. answer. Uh, also I want to say thank you for for updating the report to make it much easier. Uh, my questions on central, we just replaced that mechanical system, didn't we, like a year ago and one of the advantages of that system was better exchange rate. And I noticed that it's saying we need to increase that. So, are we tweaking it or I'm just trying to

031correlate for both Effind and Central? I'm talking with the engineer to get the settings right. Okay. Okay. Because I I was hoping that's what you were going to say is this is a easy fix versus, you know, hey, our mechanical won't allow it. Yeah. So with the data they brought with where we can see where the CO because they took a lot of CO2 testings all throughout and then put it all together as an average for each school. I can see which areas need to be adjusted the most. And I'm working with both Snyder and uh the engineer to address what we need to do to keep the system running most efficiently to keep the school comfortable as well as bringing in outdoor air. And definitely since the new systems there it's much easier. Yeah.

032Um, the other question I had is on orange metal. Orange metal's been kind of a challenge and I'm curious of do we have a different approach because that's not a new the new mechanical but is there something we're looking at there? Orange Middle does not have a great uh fresh air. We are going to talk with some engineers about that um to bring in circulation there. The other thing is um the mechanical closets there really didn't score well. Um, this summer we're going to do a deep plane over the mechanical closets and the uh HVAC uh coils as well as duct work. That's one of the ones that needs to get addressed this summer. Okay. Yeah, because I I think that's one of the ones to focus on since we do have some new It's

033a high focus for us. Um the design there is it doesn't have returns for the HVAC system. It pulls it through the doors on the mechanical closets and that means cleaning in there and so it's addressing and putting a new process in place in there. Excellent. Do do we have a target for new mechanical and orange metal? Not at orange middle. Okay. Thank you, Miss Her. Yeah. Um I just I want to thank Sarah and Will for asking some of the questions. Um, it would really be nice for us to get I think you're making progress and the vents overall look better than they did in the last quarter, but the report repeats itself. So, is is it just possible for us to get progress report that shows the progress that you're making? Um, and

034I'm hearing from your answer to Will's question that the CO2 exchange is a mechanical adjustment. It is not a major fix. So, I appreciated the simplification for the lay person's view on some of these things. Um, on Orange Middle School, there was another set of issues around moisture and I was curious how that, you know, what is that going to take? That's another one when we talk with fresh air about adding fresh air in there, talk about the possibility of dehumidification in some of those units if they're set up to where controls can make some changes. Okay. Do we think it is it that simple? Because there's it may not be as simple, but that's what we're hoping right now and we're looking into it. So So any timeline on when we might have an

035idea? Uh I don't have one right now, but we can get you a timeline. Thank you. And we can get you a follow-up report as well. I'll talk with Mr. Davis about when the best time to come back. And looks like you're making progress. You should be showing off, you know. Thank you. Miss Dole, thank you. I just want to say thank you for the uation report. I have to say the report is is really um nicely laid out. I like seeing the um like the invoices, you know, the records interspersed with the the summaries are great and I am happy to see a picture of weeds growing in a gutter and acknowledging that that's something that needs to be changed. I'm also taking notes. my my classroom in a different district is way outside

036these OSHA and EPA EPA recommendations and I might be sharing your presentation. Um, but anyway, I think it's it's like really I'm really pleased to see the consistency develop and I was, you know, when I was looking at which schools were fair, I'm like, okay, those are some of our older schools and, you know, we're talking about doing some work on those schools and then I see Grady Brown is very good and that's that's really impressive that um, you know, all the proper maintenance and and all that can make a difference even with an older school. So, I found this very informative and I appreciate the work. Thank you. Anything else? Anyone? Oh, Mia, I didn't see you. I'm sorry. Thank you for the presentation. And I remember when you guys did the first presentation.

037It was my first meeting seeing this um since I've been sitting here. And that presentation created anxiety. I remember. So to see this I just want to say it's great. But I have one question is um you mentioned that sometimes the high vents get missed. I am wondering if you guys have like a spreadsheet that is that how you communicate with others how you're keeping up with the maintenance. So some of it is spreadsheet based. Um like Miss Doyle mentioned the gutters that is a scheduled item. New Hope's been getting a new roof for two years now. So it keeps getting bumped off for cleaning gutters and that's how it got to that condition. But it is a spreadsheet and how we keep up with those items. Yeah. Y on some of the the events

038is it makes sense. I worry about the impact the burden we're placing on our custodians and I'm curious if we need to contract any of it because it really is a high burden to so we do contract some of it. In fact, over spring break we had um first call doing the events at Grley Hill. So in the gym specifically up high. So we do contract some of it. Anyone else? All right. Thank you very much. It's a very concise report. It's very well put together. We like the format. So you just keep that little template and we'll see it again. And um thank you both very much for what you do. Thank y'all. Thank you. Okay. Um, now we move into our equity task roundt discussion and I think Dr. Laneir is going to

039join us. I can get to that part. Yeah, you do need to sh Not only do we have Dr. We have a lot of other people joining us. So, welcome to everyone tonight. Can you all hear me? Let's try this again. Oh, can you all hear me? Yes, sir. All right, here we go. Um, so good evening. Let me make sure I am on the right. Good evening, Madame Chair, vice chair, members of the board, and to our strategic instructional leader and visionary, Dr. Jones. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to come before you and speak as an equal collaborator and participant of the OCS Equity Task Force. It has truly been an honor and privilege to work alongside each and every one of the participants in this collaborative think tank. Before we begin

040uh our joint discussion, I would like to begin with reviewing policy code 10:30, equity and education while inviting you back into the collaborative space and understanding we established together on Saturday, May 3rd, during your equity training led by Dr. Dr. Jesse of Western Carolina's College of Education and Applied Professions. During our time, she pointed out several key terms and phrases within our policy. A barrier-free environment recognizes the uniqueness allowing for differences, interruption of systems, structures, policies, and practices to ensure fairness and reimagining. Dr. Wiler also encouraged us to use these three lenses when making decisions for our students and families. When these things are done consistently and are ingrained into the fabric of our culture, we will ensure access to highquality evidence-based teaching and learning opportunities for every single student, as well as a culture

041of belonging by ensuring everyone feels valued, validated, and safe. Over the course of this year, members of the equity task force and equity and student achievement department have come together six times to craft and rewrite priority four of the strategic plan. Before I present the current goals year-over-year data and proposed amendments, I would like to personally thank Kumar Sathi, equity facilitator, Dr. Jessica Dreer, director of student engagement and support services, Sandra Blefco, family engagement coordinator, and each member of the equity task force that attended the meeting and provided guidance and input, specifically Spring Dawson Mccclure, Cara Stewart, Gretchen Holquist, Danielle Price, and Julie Ruer. I would now like to open the dialogue with members of the task force and the board to discuss our collaborative process. Okay. Um, does anyone here have questions that they

042would like to start off with or would they like to start with anything first? Any members of your committee like to start with anything first? We're open to go either way. Okay. Hi, I'm Gretchen Hulquist. I'm a parent of two students at Cedar Ridge. Um, we also had students last year at Standback and my daughter is a Carolina friend, so I've had an opportunity to see a range of educational settings. Um, I have had the privilege of serving on this task force for a little over a year. And what was exciting to me as a parent in this district was the conversations really centered on student achievement and how do we make sure that all students whether it's um you know whatever situation that they're in, whatever needs that they have, how do we make

043sure that students can be successful overall and meet them where they're at? And that is a gamecher for a lot of kids, right? I mean, we've all we've all personally been in places where we feel like we didn't quite fit in and you kind of lean back and you and being able to start to remove obstacles for students, whether it's because of a learning difference, whether it's because of a perceived difference that other students have, um whether it's just they're they're uncomfortable in a particular school because of whatever reason. Um all of the conversations really centered on how do we make sure that students are successful and how do we make sure that um we're giving the tools the um the students, the teachers, the administration the right tools to be able to um remove

044barriers to students learning. And so being able to have these conversations with this group and be invited in um was tremendous and I I feel honored to be able to participate and support this. Well, this board appreciates your participation in this and everyone's participation and um so we're we're very happy to have you here tonight to talk about this. Miss Price, do you would you like to say something? Sure, I would. My name is Danielle Price. I am the parent of an Orange Middle School 7th grader. Um, I've had the privilege to serve on this task force. This is my second year. And I would just like to talk about the differences in the process. This was a very different process. We had a different leader this time. Um, and I feel like we had

045a more organic process. Um, we were invited to to come in and and get our feet wet. It wasn't what Dr. Laneir wanted. It wasn't what Mr. Sathy wanted. It wasn't what Dr. Dreer wanted. They were there to provide us with the data and the information and we were really there to to dig our our feet and our heels in and say, "Hey, as a parent, this is what I see or as a parent, this is what I experience, or this is these are the challenges my child has or this is what I see happening at our school." Um, I think that that was a really worthy and worthwhile process and I so appreciate having the opportunity. Thank you, Miss Dawson Mccclure. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening. I joined the equity task force this

046winter. And I think maybe the most important thing I want to say is that after 10 years of being connected with this district, this was the first time that I've been around the table with folks from central office talking about equity and how things really work and the ways that y'all are supporting teachers and principles in meeting each of our children's needs. learning more about how discipline decision-making happens, how families are supported with attendance. Really hearing y'all talk through your practice in your areas of expertise was instructive. I feel like I understand it better and it was just a real honor to get more insight into the things that are going really well, the ways that y'all are working together collaboratively and strongly to create inclusive environments for all of our kids. And it was

047pretty exciting to be part of it, to be in conversation, to be in that shared Google doc, to get to really think about it together and ask questions. So, I appreciate the opportunity. I'm grateful for the way that y'all structured it. And it feels like a big deal to me that we're sitting around this space tonight and that there's the opportunity to be in collaboration. I've been in deep relationship with my children's teachers, with social workers, with principles and assistant principles. And the central office has always felt like a little bit uh mysterious and separate. And so this felt felt pretty great and exciting. And I think especially in this time when there continue to be such incredible attacks on public education, on our teachers, and on our families and our communities, to feel like

048y'all were like really sincerely inviting us to the table felt like a big deal and gave me hope. Appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else? Dr. Dreer, would you like to say anything? Sure. So, um I have participated in equity task force since arriving here. Um, and each year it has been slightly different. Um, I think the great thing about this time kind of to Miss Price's point about it being organic and actually um working all together to to do one thing and for us it was um planning and getting parent voice and community voice um in how we are making our plans which um should happen all the time but does not happen all the time. So just glad that we were able to give them the opportunity to be able to give some voice

049to um particularly something so official um that we use to drive the work that we do. Okay. Thank you Miss Blco. Any words of wisdom from you? I'm just um agree with everything that everybody have say here. It was a special place where everybody felt welcome and uh we um not only express our experiences and um and and and talk about how our families are feeling and um and seeing ways that how we can support uh our families and uh our staff and our students. Good. Yeah. Thank you. Um that's all wonderful to hear and and I'm glad that it's been a great experience for you all working on this and we greatly appreciate what you're doing. Um board members, any questions? Miss S Molly, thanks. Yeah, I mean I just want to react to

050what you all shared and thank you for coming tonight and um sharing your perspectives. It's really good to hear how open and curious, like that's kind of what I was hearing from you all is like a level of openness and curiosity and like desire to really learn from parents, which I think is essential in order for us to solve some of our biggest problems as a district. Um, as you were talking about this, I was thinking about some of our of our other like sort of advisory groups like the EC parent council. I'm probably getting the name wrong. and um just like the opportunity there when we sit at the table with real openness and curiosity to really solve problems um and really understand the dynamics of what's happening like really understand the experience. Um

051so yeah just it it takes a commitment to participate in that. So thank you to staff for like setting that environment and thank you all for for showing up and and sharing your thoughts. Thanks everyone for for being here and thank you for all the thank you for all the time you've put into this in an on ongoing way and um I echo some of of what Sarah said uh in terms of openness and curiosity. Um I I noticed that you all were talking about and um it's also um similar to what we talked about um when we had our equity retreat as a board or recent equity training. um the focus on removing barriers to student learning and I'm just wondering about some examples that maybe came up and um llur mentioned a couple

052examples and and I'm thinking of one because we had like a um some recent meetings where we were highlighting the um response to student vaping issues and some ways to be more collaborative and supportive and that was like some really outside the box things but there's so many different typ of obstacles. And so I'm curious, do you have some that you would like to share things you've talked through or some that still seem like thorny or intractable? So I think one of the biggest obstacles that we talked about and learning lesson I think for us was around attendance um and what chronically absent looks like and having come here and sat at board meetings and listened to Dr. Dreer present. It doesn't really sink in until you're sitting and having like a two-way dialogue where

053she's giving the information, but I'm given an opportunity to ask a clarifying question. And when she puts it in layman's terms and says, you know, how many days was it, Dr. Dre? 10%. So 10% of 180 is 18 days. So 18 days, but that accounts for suspensions. That accounts for whether or not they are at an athletic event. that accounts for whether or not I take my child out of school to attend a trip with me or whatever that may be. And that really does present an obstacle for kids and success. Um, and I think sometimes that may be something that as a group we don't all think about. Um, and that's probably what I felt like was the most important thing that I learned and it was probably one of the one of the

054last things, but that's definitely something that that was my aha moment that stuck with me. Building on that, um, I also I did not realize that suspensions contributed to absences. I don't know what I thought happened. Um, if you like once you think about it, but when you start talking about you've got a student who um has enough challenges in that particular classroom that they're acting out that you then pull them out, right? So, chances are things aren't going well in that class to begin with. Then you pull them out and take them out of a learning environment. And without creating a restoration loop to get them back and integrated into the classroom, you've now taken that child off track. and we've then put a barrier in place potentially to that child's success where we're

055trying to be removing them. So, for me, the attendance and the relationship to um suspensions and um was a real surprise and it was a it was a big aha for me as a parent. I'll just add briefly. I really appreciated being able to back all the way up from attendance or chronic absenteeism and disciplinary incidents to think about like what is it that helps kids want to be at school? In what ways are our staff and teachers supporting children and feeling like they belong? In what ways are folks creating that safe, consistent environment and then stepping in to provide extra support when it's needed? And that goes to families, too. like what does it look like to really be inviting families in, building relationships with families, helping reassure families that their kids are safe

056at school? It felt specific and it also felt holistic. Mr. Richmond, did you have some? I'll just I'll just throw in there too that um I really appreciate all the work that you do and we know that this type of work never ends, right? And so it takes everybody, not just the folks in the school, but it takes everybody in the community, different organizations to be involved with this type work. And um I'll reiterate what Sarah said earlier, too. It it definitely takes work um and in building relationships with the families because those parents know what their children need. And so we definitely have to go to those parents and say, "Hey, what can we do to help your child?" Right? And so, um, I just I just want to say thank you for that

057work, but I think we also we got to try to chip in to those other organizations, all those community members, everybody being involved to make sure these children succeed. So, that's uh that's my piece. I would like to re reiterate exactly what he said too about relationships. As a former principal, if you don't build the relationships in the school, you're you're in trouble. And it starts day one when everybody walks in the building getting to know each other, teachers, students, everybody. And and especially the parents. The parents have got to see that you're willing to build those relationships and and willing to be able to help their child. And uh it really it makes the relationship piece makes all the difference in the world. Mr. Aton, you had your hand up. I'm sorry. Okay. Um,

058so thank you all for taking your time to look at this and give your feedback and support to the school system. We know you have lives and your own kids and your own activities, but it's the dedication and focus on this that helps us improve our schools, improve the students experience, and also helps us learn from the collective of everyone. Um, one thing that I'd like to say is, uh, ONAC that, uh, Sarah was thinking of, which is the Orange Special Needs Advisory Council. I definitely recommend as it's kicking off to have some joint meeting at some point because barriers come in all different shapes, sizes, and challenges. And, you know, I think people are tired of hearing me say this, but I think when we think about how kids can participate, that's different. One

059of the things I think of is going to one of the elementary schools at a coral concert where an EC child was allowed to participate with lights instead of music and that made all the difference not just to the family but that student and I think as we think of different ways that kids can participate as well I think that's a better outcome for all of us because just saying oh they this child can't do this or this child can't do that there's other ways they can participate and I just applaud y'all for digging in that information and trying to think of new ways to help. Um, one of the questions I had beyond the the snack was um, you know, one of the things that prior um, the equity committee did was meet with

060the student organizations. And I'm curious because that was an avenue too to to get some different perspective beyond the parents' perspectives of what they're seeing but what the students thoughts are. H is that is that planned to do or have y'all done that engagement with some of the student organizations? So that is upcoming work but um our focus this year was specifically on the rewrite for poverty forum. Fantastic. Thank you all. Miss Hower, I just want to add my thanks and I love hearing the enthusiasm around directing this work toward improving outcomes for our for every student group. So, thank you for that and thank you for for that. Um, I'm I'm curious about and I like that you're working with data that really make that really makes me happy. Um, so thank you for

061that work and I know some of you and I know the work the quality of the work I can't imagine I would love to have sat in on some of the conversations I'm sure they were fantastic um so just a couple of questions um first this topic of obstacles or barrierfree education and tore's point that sometimes the barriers are come right it could be a family that doesn't speak doesn't speak English or family that doesn't have computer access or a family that doesn't feel comfortable advocating for their children. So, and and that's just one one set of examples, but um do do you so maybe it's a question about the future and and is this something that the task force might help us look at at the f in the future because we have these

062we have these ideas of what we want, but we don't to we don't unpack it and dig down into saying what's stopping us from getting it. what do we have to do differently to make that happen to make these families engage more? So, I'm curious if the task force is doing that and if that's a role, a continued role for you or if not, what is the continued role that you see? So, I think some of your uh questions or some of the responses I guess that I would give to your question will be answered when we go over our priority 4 presentation. So, I don't want to necessarily um you know, spoil the surprise, I guess I would say. So, how about if I ask it differently? What What do you What's next? What's

063next for you all? Like, I want to say I'll keep you guessing. No. Um I mean obviously of course you know we definitely wanted to make sure that we got through this process but you know we have um you know a part two and and work that we're going to be doing within our you know department in terms of what we're going to try to do to take things to the next level. Um, I will be, you know, very transparent to say, you know, of course, I mean, I'm I'm about to finish my first year in this role and so having to figure that out along with figuring this out. Um, you know, we we've we've learned a lot and we know some places where we need to improve. And so from that perspective, we

064will then be bringing the task force along that ride and you know, when we continue to start moving some of these initiatives forward specifically around these action steps with our on priority four. Okay. And just One other question in in the next presentation you talk about consistency of application. It's a um new new term that we're that I don't remember seeing it before. It's a beautiful language and I was just curious if this came out of you all because it's really a big deal. It's consistent. So all of the um all of the goals and the action steps were um as one of our members stated earlier um was put into a Google doc. Everyone had free reign and access to be able to edit um add comments. Uh Mr. Sathy and I and um

065and also Dr. Dreer would sit and uh go through and review all of the comments that were made and then make revisions and then we would send that out again. when we would meet we would, you know, sit down and have discussion and that continued up to a point where we had to um stop actually collecting certain uh pieces of data and eventually get to a point where we were making some decisions around so this is what we want to this is what we want to present and what we want to propose in the direction that we want to move forward. So um there was again equal voice that was uh that was shared within the creation of the priority and the the goals and the action steps. Thank you. Anyone else can also answer

066some questions if you would like to. Mad. Thank you. I've been raising my hand for a while. I'm sorry. It's okay. I I I just want to thank everyone for uh your work in the equity task force. I notice and I hear you that you have built community within yourselves and that's great and I'm hopeful that you will bring that learning into the community so everyone understands the absentism that we don't really discuss much. Thank you. I'll add as well, uh, this was my first time actually being involved in a strategic planning process, like rewriting a goal, um, because I'm just a few years out of the classroom. And that process was was a bit of a mystery um, to me in terms of how how we got these goals and like what feedback went

067into it and what community feedback um, kind of drove some of those goals. And as over the past few years, as I've looked at some of those goals and trying to correlate it with the data that we provide for you during board meetings, it has raised some questions in my mind of well, where did that percent come from as a goal? And and what does that actually mean? And did someone look at how many students that would result in a change and like is that even a viable goal? Um, so a big part of what we were doing here that was particularly empowering and transparent was drilling down to that data, explaining it to folks on the task force and taking those questions like, okay, here's why we said 3% and not, you know, 4%

068and here's how many students that involved and here's what that looks like for attendance and here's what chronic attendance is. Um and and that format not being a presentation format, not being a everyone sit and listen to us talk for a while, but we're sitting around and ask questions. Um that that was particularly powerful and it helped guide us in the process where we were furiously taking notes. Okay, let's go back and revisit this because they raised some concerns that we didn't think about. Um there were some things that Dr. Dr. Ler and I wrote in the original first drafts of um the rewrite of priority 4 that to be honest the equity task force pushed back on us. Um the the community members and um family members, parents pushed back and said actually we

069want it to be a little bit stronger um than that. And so we we took the feedback and and did what we could with that. Um but that's that that process I feel um thanks to Dr. Lir's leadership was uh it's it was a model for for how we can like deeply meaningfully involve community engagement and doing something as impactful and as important as strategic planning. It sounds like it was a true learning experience for both parties coming together and that's that's what we want and so I applaud you all for that Mr. Aton. Yeah. Just one other comment is, you know, some of you have mentioned you've been on the task force before. I I just want to, you know, talk about some of the great work that's happened in the past. For example,

070you know, we've talked about barriers and what kids want or need to come to school. And I think one of the real important ones that came out of there is having a trusted adult that the student can go to. And that's one of our key questions that we survey our students on to find out and make sure that they have somebody they can talk to, especially whether it's at home they're they have a concern, whether it's at school, another student, that they have someone to talk to because if they don't, that's when we run into issues and they run into frustrations and that definitely was an outcome of the equity task force and their guidance on things we should be looking at. So, I just wanted to highlight that, you know, there are things that

071we've put in place because of these discussions and I just wanted to thank y'all again as well for taking your time and energy to have these open conversations. Thank you'all. Anyone else comments, questions? Dr. Laneir, are you going to go through the Goal four. Is that what we're I'm priority for? Not goal for priority four. Yes, ma'am. Okay. I thought you were. Just want to make sure we're on the same page. Yes. Thank you again for all your hard [Applause] work. So, I'll go ahead and get started while the presentation is loading. So, good evening again, members of the board, Dr. Jones, community stakeholders, and fellow cabinet members. Uh, and happy birthday to Mr. Davis because it is his birthday today. Orange County School song. Happy birthday. [Laughter] Not until my priority is done. Orange

072County Schools is guided by a clear mission and vision that reflects his commitment to students, families, and the community at large. It is these statements that provide the groundwork and lay the foundation for every decision, strategy, and initiative within the district. This evening, our focus is priority four, empowering culture. Priority 4 is a cornerstone of our commitment to inspire, engage, and challenge all of our students. Research shows that when there is a true collaboration between schools, communities, and families, student outcomes are positively impacted. And these values are reflected in the proposed goals and action steps. The goal areas under priority 4 are designed to ensure that Orange County schools, families, and communities work together to ensure student achievement and equitable outcomes such that all of our students graduate with options. Throughout this presentation, you will

073hear from gold team leads Dr. Jessica Dreer, director of student engagement and support services, Kumar Sappathy, OCS district equity facilitator, Daniel Karns Picket, mental health coordinator, and Kevin Smith, chief public information officer. I would like to recognize and thank again the members of the equity task force for their expertise and collaboration throughout the priority 4 rewrite process. I would also like to thank Miss Kimberly Degraphen Reed for her work on making our family academy series this year a huge success. The plan sets out three targets outlined in goal one, goal two, and goal three along with multiple researchbased strategies that will be implemented to achieve each goal. Please know that these proposed goals and action steps come from robust discussion around the work and its objectives. After this brief and brisk presentation, we will be

074happy to take questions. We will start with our core beliefs. As stewards of OCS, we do believe that students deserve consistency in use interpretation and application of OCS policies outlined in the code of student conduct. Students are more likely to uphold expectations when there is consistency in the application of policy among school staff. Parents and caregivers are essential in our continued efforts to support desirable school behavior and school administration should use equitable supportive measures, opportunities, and strategies and interventions for students to solve problems and correct behaviors. I also want to again point out members of the equity and student achievement department and equity task force use these three lenses when considering how to make revisions to priority 4. An equity lens when considering what each of our students would need to be successful, a data

075lens when considering what the evidence says about what students would need and a community lens when considering taking into consideration all of the knowledge that students, families, and stakeholders bring to the table to assist in decision-making. Let's begin by reviewing our uh current goal one. As it is currently written in priority one of the strategic plan, the goal targeted reducing the suspension rate of black and multi-racial students to 3% by 2026. There are three action steps that accompany this goal. We will now review the data as it relates to goal one. Beginning with office referrals. uh we uh will review this data and as you can see on slide nine the number of individual students receiving an office referral has decreased in every subgroup. Slide 10 indicates the top three grade level excuse me the

076top three grade levels policy violations and number of referrals per location. Slide 10 also shows that the classroom is where these policy violations are occurring the most. A review of our inschool suspension data shows that there has been an increase in the number of students experiencing inschool suspension as a result of policy violations. However, when we look at our out of school suspension data, we see that all but two of our subgroups have experienced a decrease. This is similar to our rate of suspensions and the number of students repeatedly experiencing out of school suspension. So in summary of the data, so in the summary of the data, there was an increase in the number of students experiencing in school suspension in every subgroup except Asian, indigenous and females. However, there was a decrease in the

077number of students experiencing one out of school suspension while Hispanic students increased by three and indigenous students increased by one. The only subgroups that experienced an increase in their rate of out of school suspensions were multi-racial and indigenous students. But it is important to note that the indigenous column represents one incident out of 18 total enrolled students. There were no incidents of out of school suspension by indigenous students in the 2023 2024 school year. And there was a slight increase of four male students and one Hispanic student experiencing two or more incidents of out of school suspension. There was no change with our Asian students and every other subgroup experienced a slight decline. As a result of this data, we are proposing the following amendment to goal one. By June 2026, Orange County schools would

078decrease the overall number of out of school suspensions in all subgroups by 10% annually. There are several action steps that I will briefly review. So, monitor and perfect the professional learning community's planning process to ensure the development and implementation of robust rigorous instructional framework such as daily lessons and unit plans of instruction are represented of all students. These two action steps that are here on this slide, I do want to make sure that I point out, link us back to priority one when that review was actually given earlier this year. Provide ongoing professional learning to principles, assistant principles, and educators on the interpretation of the use of the code of student conduct policy and the distinction between minor and major office referrals. and also adopt an objective criteria for office referrals to reduce the risk

079of bias leading to the disport excuse me the disport disproportionality excuse me of punitive consequences for student behavior. Um you can also see in this next slide again district staff and administration will also collect and analyze discipline data using educator handbook. You can see the various ways in which that data will actually be disegregated. Our last two action steps under uh goal one, district and school-based administration will review data monthly of course to examine disproportionate discipline practices and also provide an institutionalized restorative practices training districtwide and schoolwide. So based upon that uh that goal and those action steps, I am now going to turn the presentation over to team lead for goal 2, Dr. Jessica Dreer. And Dr. Dreer, I will drive the I will drive the slides for you. Thank you. I was wondering

080who was driving. Um so looking at um goal two of priority four just a reminder of the current goal two of increasing the average daily attendance rate of each and every student from 89 to 95% or greater by 2026 and the strategies for those three um there of increasing the daily attendance for the three lowest performing elementary schools, two lowest performing middle schools and one lowest performing high school. um increasing the daily attendance rate for black and multi-racial students um and then also increasing the percentage of students who feel engaged in school um as seen through the Panorama survey up to 90% or greater. So as we look at our average daily attendance rate um and we have split this up into elementary, middle, and high uh for you to view. You'll see here for

081elementary schools, um there uh have been 1% decrease in change, no change at two of our elementary schools. Um all of them averaging uh right around um the low to mid 90s. For our middle schools, you'll see a decrease of 1% um for two schools and no change for Orange Middle. again within that low 90s average. And then for our high schools, um, a decrease, no change, and then a 2% increase, um, at Partnership Academy. As we're looking at chronic absenteeism and what that means, again, as we've explained, a student is chronically absent when you've missed at least 10% of um, the total number of days that you've been enrolled in school. Um, so just for an example of what that looks like, if you are in school for 20 days, then two of those

082days. If you've missed two of those days, then you are chronically absent. Um, and when we're looking at what those absences are, it is not unexcused versus excused. It is suspensions, it is excused, it is traveling, it is I'm sick. Any all attendance is considered when we're looking at chronic absence. Um, and again, that 10% number. So through an entire school year, if we're looking at a 185 day school year, 18 of those days, um if you miss 18 or more of those days, then you were considered chronically absent. And so why that's important is we're looking at how to thank you. How to um remove those barriers and how to increase um attendance in school, how to reduce chronic absenteeism um and through educating the importance of attending school. So, as we're looking at

083the chronic absenteeism rate, um again, this is the percentage of students um that are considered chronically absent. Again, based off of missing that um 10% rate. So, looking across the board at our demographics, there have been decreases um year-over-year. Um and one of our groups um actually did see an increase in that percentage. And so what we want to begin to look at is what are those ways again that we can provide awareness but also resources and tools in an effort to um continue to decrease that number because that's what we are looking to do. Next we'll move over to our panorama data as a reminder for that as well. Um in the past we did look at panorama through grades 3 through 12. Um but with recent changes um in law we did change

084that uh remove grade three and so we are doing that survey from grades four uh four through 12. So the survey the elementary survey is done for grades four and five and then the secondary survey is done in grades 6 through 12. Also, what we did as a change this school year was we did remove some questions um and we changed our um notification back to an opt out model um so that way when we are sending those notifications to parents they are required to opt out if they do not want their students to participate in the survey. The next couple of slides are just some sample questions from the survey in the um areas the topic areas of discussion. Um so supportive relationships, self-management, positive feelings and social awareness are those topics within the

085elementary survey. What you'll see is a comparison between fall 2024 and spring 2025. The first slide is for fall 2024. Um and again if you recall what we like to look at um as a measurement is above or below 50%. So if you're below 50% that's an area of concern. Looking at the fall, um we did not have any of our um groups under 50%. Also looking at spring 2025. Um the same, we did have a slight decrease um in some of those areas. Um specifically supportive relationships by 1%. But still looking good where um we did not have any areas of concern where we had any under 50%. And again, that percentage is based off of response rate. Just a summary of the data for our grades four and five survey. We had an

086increase um in the number of students who participated between the fall and the spring in our categories in social awareness. There was no change and there was a de decrease in positive feelings and supportive relationships. And then we are there. We saw an increase in the category of self-management. Moving on to our secondary survey for grades 6 through 12. Again, you'll see sample questions. And for our secondary survey, um they do have a few more categories that they answer questions in. So you'll see school climate, supportive relationships, sense of belonging, teacher student relationships, self-management, cultural awareness and action, diversity and inclusion and social awareness, positive feelings, and then finally social perspective taking. So these next two slides are of the first five topics. First you'll see the fall 2024. Again, we're seeing all high response

087rates, none under 50%. for the spring 2025 for those same categories the same there was a slight decrease in those as well but we are all above 50% for the remaining categories in the fall of 2024 there was one area in social perspective taking that was below um 50% which is a area of concern as well as one group within positive feelings. As a reminder, social perspective taking is the extent to which students consider the perspectives of their teachers. Um so they might look at um do they consider how their uh information that their teachers are sharing with them, if they are knowledgeable, if they care about them, things of that nature. And then you'll see in the for the spring of 2025 survey in the same area it did also decrease. So that is

088an area of concern for us to take a look at um as we are planning for next school year. Some summarization of the data for spring 2025 in the secondary survey. We also had an increase from fall to spring in those areas um of our students who participated. And then we saw a decrease in sense of belonging, teacher student relationship and social awareness as well as school climate, cultural awareness and action, diversity and inclusion and positive feelings. We were able to see an increase in supportive relationships. Um so I think Mr. Aston said it earlier about students um having someone that they can talk to whether it is a peer, an adult outside of school or an adult in school. We are seeing an increase in um students believing that they have those supportive relationships.

089And now I'll turn it over to Mr. Karns Picket to give us some updates on school-based mental health. All righty. Good evening everyone. Um again my name is Daniel Karns Picket. I'm the mental health coordinator here for Orange County Schools. Um, I will first want to start by thanking Dr. Dreer for speaking on my behalf during the previous board meeting in recognition of mental health awareness month and for highlighting all the ongoing initiatives to prioritize mental health and wellness throughout our district. So, this evening, I'm going to be presenting the school-based mental health data for the current school year. Um, this academic year, we expanded our mental health support infrastructures by partnering with four in-person mental health agencies and maintaining one virtual therapy option. This is significant increase from the previous year during which we

090partnered with one inerson agency and one virtual provider and it marks notable progress from earlier years when the district utilized only one inperson agency. In order to better meet student needs and reduce the number of students on weight list, we have implemented a feeder pattern model. So mental health agencies are now assigned to specific schools based on feeder patterns helping to ensure continuation of care as students transition from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school. So looking at this slide, you'll see that gaggle therapy is our virtual option. This is available to all students and all staff at no cost to them regardless of insurance coverage. And then we have Pedmont Health. So this this agency currently serves Epic Elementary with a full-time on-site therapist who has received positive feedback from

091both staff and families. Um we are currently in discussion to expand this partnership to include two additional schools for the 2526 school year. Next you'll see Renaissance Wellness. They provide services at Grady Brown, New Hope, AO Standback, and Cedar Ridge. Followed by Upward Change currently serves Efflin Cheeks, Hillsboro, River Park, and Gravity Hill. Important to note that due to clinician staffing and staffing challenges, Upward Change has decided not to continue its partnership next year, but we are currently and actively working to identify a replacement agency. And then lastly, up there, we'll see youth extensions, who serve Central Pathways, Orange Middle, and Orange High School. All right. and our numbers. So, Gaggo Therapy um this year as of May 6, 2025 received 36 referrals, 36 students seen, zero students on the wait list. Pedmont Health, 37

092referrals seen, 37 students, and zero on the wait list. Renaissance Wellness, they received 52 referrals, 38 students were seen, and four students were on the wait list. Important to note that those four referrals were made 3 to 5 days prior to me collecting this data. So, those numbers have decreased since then. upward change. 27 referrals were made, nine students seen. And as I mentioned previously, um they had a various staffing um concerns this year. So will not be renewing with us next year. And then lastly, youth extensions, 41 referrals made this year, 15 students seen um and zero students on the wait list. So our total numbers are 193 total schoolbased mental health referrals, 135 students seen, and seven students currently on the weight list as of May 6th, 2025. Um, it's important to note

093that the disparencies between the number of referrals and students seen are often due to insurance limitations or the need to refer that student to a higher level of care. So, to address this, Gaggle remains a critical resource by offering therapy services to all students regardless of insurance eligibility. It is our standing expectation that schools and agencies utilize Gaggle when a referred student insurance is incompatible or when agency specific weight lists exist. Um, and so looking at all these data and these numbers and reflecting on our progress, Orange County Schools has made measurable strides in improving access to school-based mental health services. This year, the number of students on the weight list decreased from 16 last year to just seven this year. Um, and by implementing a feeder and patterning approach in expanding access through Gaggle,

094which saw 36 students this year with no weight list, we've been able to reduce service gaps and improve continuity of care. While challenges remain, particularly around insurance limitations and provider staffing, we are proud of the progress made and remain committed to building on this momentum to ensure that all students have equitable access to mental health support that they need um throughout Orange County schools. Thank you. So, with all of that information, looking at goal two, um wanting to uh revise the um current goal for goal two being by June 2026, Orange County Schools will address attendance by reducing the district chronic absenteeism rate from 21.83% to 19% as a way to improve student readiness, engagement, and academic outcomes by resolving a significant barrier to student learning. Strategies under this new goal include building the capacity

095of families by providing annual training regarding attendance and the impact on student achievement. Monitoring the effectiveness of wraparound services, interventions, and programming through continued examination of monthly school discipline data and quarterly district discipline data. systematically tracking and analyzing data while utilizing a three- tiered system of support to provide differentiated strategies for students to improve attendance at all levels. And OCS students will participate in the annual panorama survey with a minimum completion rate of 95% or higher. And the final two, district and schoolbased administration will analyze student climate survey data and will facilitate reflective and critical conversations about the ways in which school processes, procedures, policies, adult actions, and adult interactions with students may contribute to disparities. And finally, expanding the number of questions in the sense of belonging section of the panorama survey to be

096able to get a clear understanding of the student perspective on identifying their school community as a good place to attend and learn and that they feel like they belong. Um, currently in that section um of the panorama survey, there's only one question. Um, and what we wanted to do is expand that um so that we're able to get a bigger idea of the range of their sense of belonging. Thank you, Dr. Dreer. So, moving right along, goal three. So, goal three currently states, increase family partnerships and engagement among black families from 18% to 40% and 11% to 40% for Latino families by 2026. There are three action steps that accompany this goal as shown on slide 56. We will start with C uh with C, excuse me, we will start with campus parent portal. The

097next two slides will show the number of black and latinx families that have an account. Next, we will discuss our family engagement. As we began the 2024 2025 school year, the equity and student engagement team led by Kimberly Degraphinly Degraphenre utilized the results of the family engagement survey to inform our year-long offerings. Mr. Graphen Ree made it her mission to ensure that OCS Family Academy consistently supported families by providing meaningful family engagement training on how to best support students and activities to support their child's learning. She also pointed to the research that shows that more families are engaged in the school environment, the more likely students are to excel academically. So this particular slide shows the month, the name of the session, and the total number of families that attended each month. So, as a

098result of this data, we are proposing the following amendment to goal three. So, by June of 2026, Orange County Schools will implement and maintain ongoing effective and meaningful engagement methods to strengthen communication and relationships between schools, families, and the community. Slide 64 begins to outline the action steps. So, I want to start talking about community partnerships. So, we know that meaningful partnerships provide crucial and critical support, opportunities, and resources. Orange County Schools defines a community partner as an organization whose goals align with the OCS strategic plan to meet academic, college, and career readiness, health, and wellness, and social emotional needs of all of our students. The partnership should serve as a relationship that increases student academic growth and development. Our goal is to ensure entities interested in partnering with us complete the new community partnership

099application process which will launch in June for the upcoming school year and include identifying the nature of the prop proposed partnership. Once vetted and if approved, partners will be onboarded with an overview of the academic and social emotional goals of the strategic plan such that partners are cleareyed on the direction of the district. members of the family engagement uh sorry let me go back sorry members of the family engagement team are dedicated so we're now going into the um and to action step number two um are dedicated to fostering strong partnerships among families students and staff by ensuring clear and inclusive communication to best meet the diverse needs of our community team members prioritize multilingual communication across a variety of platforms and formats This year alone, our team has fulfilled over 1,000 staff requests for

100interpretation and translation services. To ser to further support language access, team members have developed a comprehensive language proficiency assessment designed to evaluate the English and Spanish skills of bilingual staff. This assessment measures proficiency in four key areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Its primary purpose is to determine whether staff members meet the standards necessary to provide accurate and effective interpretation and/or translation services in their school communities. By identifying qualified bilingual staff, OCS aims to both improve the availability and raise the quality of language access service across the district. Through this comprehensive approach, we are working to strengthen communication and deepen engagement with our multilingual families. Mr. Smith will now discuss the final action steps of goal three. I will then close out the presentation and briefly take questions before requesting approval of the proposed goals

101and action steps. Mr. Smith, thank you Dr. Ler and thank you board and Dr. Jones and everyone here. We you've heard a lot about what we're thinking. You've heard a lot from members of our community and parents and uh staff and we're pleased to share with you a snapshot of the work that's ongoing to consistently shore up the commitment that you've heard about to authentic two-way communication. I want to highlight the creation of something called the school champion program which is a network of highly involved parents that we are committed to nurturing as an extension and reinforcement of ongoing district engagement strategies. Simply, the network supports our aims of meaningful two-way communication and will serve as an in-house focus group to provide Orange County schools with feedback regarding the clarity and effectiveness of our messaging.

102Messaging sometimes gets confused with what we want to say, but as we heard tonight, it's what specific people need to hear consistent with our values so that they can act and benefit from our shared efforts. Simply put, in marketing and promotion, we always talk to people about what's in it for me. Um, you and I and all of us walk through space and we are looking for things that will help make sure that we can reach our goals. And we've talked about our students having better outcomes and families are here to support that. So through ongoing engagement, we aim to help them find their answer and tell their story here in our schools and along the many pathways available for them to find success. So families who are accepted and will commit to participating will

103serve as champions. They'll advocate both to and for our schools programs and school staff. OCS will be looking for parents, guardians, adult family members of enrolled students interested in volunteering to engage with current and prospective families about the benefits of being in our schools, the strength of our instructional programs, our phenomenal schools, teachers, and principles, and how receiving that rigorous and robust education offered by Orange County schools will set their student on a trajectory to conquer a rapidly changing world. This will also provide the opportunity for families to build relationships among themselves with fellow champions from neighboring schools and receive information that will help students be successful at all times. Through active listening and engagement with these champions, we look forward to both aspects of their work, bringing schools around a common table and carrying

104that message back to their communities. Finally, we want to highlight our newly constructed website. And this again involves not just uh the work of one person or one team. I want to lift up the work of Jayla Davis and Gloria Moody, our communication specialist and administrative assistant, but also collaborative efforts across the district. When this launched in the fall of 2024, it was designed to serve as a digital gateway into our schools, every one of them, and Orange County schools as a whole, the vision of our district and of each of our schools. This will support priority 4 by sparking dialogue about the schools themselves and the successes that students and educators enjoy in this work and sharing that with the greater community. And I think you see some examples of that if you just

105pull up our homepage at any point any day. So this portal of always evolving content was and is a collaborative effort including school staff, central services, and now more and more our school community as they contribute content about students and teachers um as you again as you've seen and will continue to hear about. So anyone who's looking for what Orange County Schools has to offer will be able to look to us here. And again, thanks to the collaborative efforts of many here around the table tonight, um this website was intentionally constructed not just to be a uh a content uh you know a content management system, but it also models the strategic approach and commitment to reaching every student, every family, everyone in our community and the widest possible segment with the best possible information.

106Um, social media does represent a known method for building engagement and we are active there. But you've seen a website first, social media second strategy that will continue to inform the way we engage with families, engage with schools, and engage with our community. Simply put, we want to own and manage that content directly. Uh, and that helps us when we go to engage consistently, faithfully, and authentically with members of our community. And lastly, of course, but far from least, our website includes an enhanced translation feature so that all our families can access the content in Spanish, English, and almost any world language free of any barriers. So, with that, Dr. Ler, thanks for letting us showcase some of that work. Absolutely. And I do just um I would be remiss if I did not point

107out two other action steps as well that um our public information office will be um implementing in the 2526 school year. of definitely providing ongoing training for our school and district staff on meaningful family and community engagement because we definitely want to make sure that our families do feel welcome as soon as they come into all of our doors as well as strengthening our district customer service at all touch points and establish clear excuse me clear ways to measure effectiveness and inform improvement. So if we're not doing well with our customer service, we certainly want to know and we definitely want to be able to improve based upon that uh that feedback and data that we would receive from our families. So, as a result of those action steps, we are now at the um

108the point of the presentation where we have our current goals and then we now have our proposed goal amendments. And so, we will turn it over to all of you for any questions that you have before we questions that. Thank you very much for this presentation. It's very informative, very helpful and uh a very good plan. based on everything that I'm I'm seeing. Um board, do you have questions or comments before we vote? Miss Padilla, thank you for the presentation. I do have a couple questions. I uh it was noted the black students it's 10% higher in the past for school suspensions. Can you give me an example of the school suspensions and do we um have a plan to make sure this gets addressed? That's one. Um on slide number 22 I I would

109suggest that we removed from using repeat offenders. We are talking about students not criminals. Um I I don't like that word. Um we it says repeat offender students. Uh so it is slide 22. It says students including those with repeated um offenses. So if we can just remove ourselves from using that word and to okay and one of the questions that I had on communication I have many but I I I just I'll keep it small. um you're saying that you reaching out the Hispanic community and on slide 59 it shows that the Hispanic community is not really signing up to get um let me go back the on the parent portal. So if they're not doing that, how are we going to communicate with the families if they're not even signing up to the

110parent portal? How are we how are we going to communicate with them and engage with them? So thank you for your questions and so we will definitely make a note in slide 22 to remove um the language from that particular action step um starting at slide 59 in terms of parent portal. So recognized that when we were integrating from um power school to infinite campus, these were the um the actual numbers that we had received based upon that. Um we do have those numbers by school. And so um at that point we will be um you know of course we will be sharing that information or going back and reviewing that information with school administration um to be able for them to be able to put in action steps to be able to get their

111numbers up. This is not the only way though that we can communicate with our families. This is just one of the ways in which students would be able to receive information, which is one of the reasons why we were trying to implement other action steps aside from trying to get these numbers up. We're not saying that it is not important. We do know that it is important, but there are other ways that we're trying to communicate with our families, not just through parent portal. You had one more question, Miss Padian. I don't know. if you can provide me an example. The question is, can you provide me an example at what is um a suspension for since their number is pretty high. It's alarming how high it is. So, are you what what what is

112a out of school suspension? What qualifies for an out of school suspension? Yes. like behavior-wise, what what what qualifies? So recognize that a suspend the the decision to suspend a child regardless of what race or what gender. The decision to suspend a child is um a school-based decision and that is either from the assistant principles or the principles who are actually handling that. Um that could be something as um simple that could be something as bullying and harassment that could be um a threat. So um that can be serious disruptive behavior which could you know be defined or is defined and spelled out within board policy. So um it so again it it depends on the the incident the situation the investigation that occurs um by the school-based administration and the data that comes out

113of that um based upon that um administration typically looks at the code of student conduct and looks at potential um policies that have been um that have been violated and that determines what the suspension would or if they're going to suspend or not suspend depending on whatever you know whatever it is that they find within the data. Miss Smiley, did you have your hand up? Okay, go ahead. I thought you had I know Miss Do. Um, okay. So, first of all, I really um like all of these revisions. So, I really appreciate um it sounds like the equity task force participated in that as well. I I just I really appreciate all of these revisions to language. Um um a couple of things just on the parent portal thing. I just we h we we

114just have to figure out how to get everybody connected to that and how to help them understand what like why would I use this, you know? Um I was thinking about the connection between attendance and like to this issue of like oh it's only like two days a month or whatever that you have to miss to be chronically absent. Like as an elementary school parent I had very little idea sort of how my children were doing in school. I I didn't get regular updates really on how they were doing in school. Um besides the report card, you know, which is kind of one, two, three, four, you know. Um and then so so now I can tell for middle and high school because I have the parent portal, right? And I'm getting these like grade

115updates, but if um particularly black and Hispanic parents don't have that portal access, like they can't they don't have that information. So I think there's like a connection there. Um, and then, um, another thing on goal three, I do, um, I'm just recognizing it's not measurable right now, the goal, like, you know, it doesn't have like a measurable, um, I would love for us I'm not I'm going to vote for it, but I would love for us to figure out how we can measure the effectiveness of all all these strategies we're doing like um, like how we can measure the reach and how we can measure how effective our family engagement is like I know Panorama has a family survey I think like I don't know if it's any good I've never seen it you

116know I don't I don't know what it is but like are are we getting to parents how do they feel about this you know the teacher working condition survey asked teachers a question that's like my school does a good job of engaging families and I'm like you should ask the families you know what I mean because that they all the schools are really high on that one you know but um I just think there's opportunity there to figure out how we're measuring the actual success of what we're trying to do here. But I love I love all the strategies and I have a little bit more up in the other categories, but I'll pass it around and we can come back. Miss Joel, thank you. Uh thank you for this uh detailed um thank you

117for this detailed presentation and um I know it's a lot of work to identify all these specifics. Um I do like the uh the goal of um the more specific language around office referrals. I know that that kind of clouds data and trying to interpret data when that can there can be so much varying there. Um I was noticing that the chronic absenteeism rate decreased in every racial ethnic group except American Indian which is a very small group even as the panorama data wasn't showing overall an increased sense of belonging. So I was curious what the ideas were for how that happened. Can I can I just throw out a couple questions and Okay. Okay. And then I was noticing I hadn't remembered um that Pedmont Health was specific to Effin Cheeks, which is fantastic.

118I assuming they have some special dollars they get to use there. And it it seems like there's a a real need because they have the 37 referrals which is I don't know roughly a fifth of all the referrals and that's you know 13th of our you know so so there's a lot of representation there needing those referrals. I don't know the I don't remember the history around that. Um I was curious if we do parent logging into parent portal um promotions at laptop distribution and is is my understanding that so the goal is going to be this like asmmptoic experience of every year we're cutting our suspensions by 10%. Is that the goal? 10% annually. Yes ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Miss House. Yes. I I just want to congratulate you because my head is spinning

119with all the data. So, good job. Um I do have um I'll let others um continue on the discipline questions. I have a couple of questions on the other topics. One is on absenteeism. Have have we um understood the causes? And I it's it's something I remember just every principal um in their school improvement plan said that this is something they want to do something about. Um I you know I'm hearing from teachers that it's something they're really especially in the middle schools are especially concerned about. Um and it's not just absenteeism, it's tardies and it's kids that are leaving early. So, and I'm just curious if we're looking at root causes and um things that can be done. So, when when we aggregate the data, you lose sensitivity to what's happening underneath it. And

120also, are there specific subgroups that were seeing the data worse than others? So, a part of what we will be doing is asking those questions. I think to Miss Miley's point about asking parents and getting that information on what they feel like those barriers are um as far as maybe why they're out. Um I will say that for us it's a matter of providing the education and bringing awareness, but I can't force Miss Hower to send Johnny to school. You know what I mean? Oh, I get it. I get it. It's it's but as long as we are giving them resources, we're providing the education, we're telling them and saying, "Hey, this is what why it's important. This is why we're calling you all the time. This is why we want you here." Our hope

121is that providing those resources and that education is going to to increase. Um, we know just by national research, um, that barriers can be transportation, barriers can be negative attitudes towards school. Um, not by the student, but by the parent. If they had negative, um, attitudes or negative experiences in school, then they're less apt to feel like it's important for their students to be in school. um caregivers to older um to older parents or others that are in the home. So, a number of reasons why um across the board as to why attendance is high um across the board. I think we're also just still trying to bring everybody back from from not wanting to be remote, right? So, just a number of reasons. I I feel like our barriers are things that um just

122in research that says what barriers are to attendance um specifically to Orange County, we'll absolutely ask that question um to figure out why. Yeah. And just so and I appreciate that and I I just curious really if you know when I and this is just a hypothetis but do um ele are elementary students more like more vulnerable to family situation are the middle schools and the high schoolers more um is it more the students issue than the family issue? So, and I I don't know. I have no idea, but I just curious about what what is the problem. And I don't I think they're different, but and I don't expect you all to have the answers. Um I I love by the way the mental health Thank you for that for the mental health progress.

123Um cur and I love the referral process through Gaggle and then going to the clinics. That's fantastic. Um I'm curious why some some centers like Pedmont Health is converting all the referrals into visits but some of the others are not and I was just curious if there's something about the quality or the nature of the referrals. So Petemont Health um what we have with them in their contract is there is somebody that is inside effic whereas our other agencies they are sending their clinicians two to three times a week to do their case load. Um, our clinician at Pedmont Health is at is basically a part of the FM Cheeks family. She is there all day every day and is able to initially take everybody in and get those that intake and get those sessions

124done a lot quicker where like I said, our agencies are not there as often. Wow. So, that's tech, you could call that a best practice within the district, right? And there is um there's differences with insurance as well. So, we're able to take all of them. Um, and then to Miss Doyle's question, um, our s our partnership with PM my health is at no cost to us. So, we're able to again get them in and they're able to see students um very quickly. Okay. And then I I'll let somebody else go. I'll come back. Mr. Aspen, so thank you so much for you and your teams putting all this together. It's a lot of great data and also I appreciate the equity task force input on setting some high standards and goals on this. Um,

125one of the things that I was curious about um that others have hit on is the the outreach and engagement. Uh, I know we talked about the campus portal, but I I know that other schools are using class dojo, talking points, you have max, goof, fan, and I realize remind and all of those are all different little aspects and how how are we mapping this for parents? like, you know, we're talking about go to campus, you know, that's really great at middle school and high school, but at elementary, parents really depend, I believe, more on the class dojo. Um, but I think if we are really going to try to get parents to engage, we've got to map this out and say this is these are our methods, right? And then I think we also

126uh I think it would be great value around something like did you know like this is how what you can do in in the campus portal like this is how you can look at the tardies this is how you can look at it because it's it's deep down in there where you find these things and they're very valuable and you'll I think us helping the parents be able to talk to their students in the same manner or their their guardians and their children talking about uh you know how they're doing in school, you know, can I help you with this? I think it helps those communications versus waiting till they get the report card and then trying to understand um on the chronic absenteeisms. I think one of the things that I think is fair

127to put out there for last year is we were still coming out of some very strong variance and also I know there was a very high rate of a respiratory issue and when we talk about chronic absenteeisms I guarantee you most parents don't realize that their excuse absenteeisms can put them in there especially if you were in the unlikely event of having both of those and all of a sudden you're listed there and you don't even realize it. Um, but I think a lot of the words like chronic absenteeism sets a kind of tone especially with county commissioners and others when they don't have the contacts of what does this actually mean? How are we trying to help parents and I think also one of the things that around this chronic absenteeism is how we

128engage the students when they're coming back. you know, how do we help them get their assignments completed or get their tests done and ensuring they get the time they need to do that, especially if they're out sick. Um, but I know those are more comments, but those are just some things that stuck out to me as we talk through these and things that I've heard back out in the community about, you know, how to engage with us. And I think one last thing I'll mention is I think sometimes parents are confused about engagement at the district level versus the school level and then what are we referring to when we say that. Um and I think that helps as well on trying to map it out for parents what that looks like from our district.

129And I think one last comment is in the events that I've attended, I just want to acknowledge I really appreciate seeing all of our family liaison there and with all the equipment handing it out and checking people in and giving us a way to measure the effectiveness of it because I think that's very important as many mentioned on how do we know the these are what our families are wanting. So thank you. the smell. Awesome. Okay. Um, just a couple of other things. Um, I think so much of this data is really good. Like I really like how you presented it. I really, you know, I usually have comments on data stuff and I I really appreciated all of that. Um, uh, I had a couple of thoughts about the panorama, um, data as we

130look at it in the future. one was noticing like there were these slight dips from the fall to the spring um sort of across the board um and in some roles in the past I have administered like staff engagement surveys for organizations and there's like this uh uh calendar pattern right towards the further in the school year maybe everybody's a little t and so it made me think like I wonder what our fall to fall now that we have good participation you know I wonder what our fall to fall spring to spring might look like because it kind of looks at a similar point in the year so that could be interesting interesting to look at next year. Um, and then I also, um, the I'm not sure about the like flagging things as a

131concern if they're under 50%. Um I you know there's some of those where I'm like whoa I want way more than 50% of kids to feel a sense of belonging or feel self-management or whatever you know and so I it made me wonder if there's like a different way to figure out like what are the red flags or priority areas or something you know like if we looked at like because I know Panorama has like I don't know if it's peer districts or national averages I can't remember what it is but they have comparison data right Yes, their comparison data um is national um and then state and then uh schools of similar size and demographic. Yeah. So maybe there's something about the schools of similar size and demographics like are there places where we're

132kind of where we are actually pretty far below or maybe there's some places to celebrate because we're doing much better. But in terms of some places to focus on, it's just a thought thought for consideration. Um, and just noting though that the self-regulation, the self-management was low for like across all grade levels. And just thinking about how important that is for learning. Um, like really really important for learning. So it makes me wonder if there's something there in what we should be doing. Um, and then, um, a couple of us went, uh, to an event that, um, El Centro Espano did this week, last week, I don't what day is it? It's Monday. It must have been last week. Um, where they presented a bunch of data about um, Latinx families and um, or people

133and and sort of how they're doing at this point um, and what the major concerns were. And it just raised all these issues around um issues that are concerns for many people right now, housing, food insecurity, like just all these stressors, like layers and layers of stressors right now. Um, and so, um, one of the things I was thinking about coming out of that, and then it relates to like all of this work y'all are doing with like mental health and attendance and discipline and everything is like, um, you know, we talk a lot on the academic side about like every single student, like each individual student and like sort of having the individual plans and like MTSS and things like that. And a lot of what those external factors are are sort of family

134by family. And made me think, I bet we have like half as many families as we do kids actually in the school district. And it made me wonder if um whether we were whether there was an opportunity to sort of almost like MTSS on the like social work side like family by family understanding like these different needs and we can't solve job insecurity and housing and we can't solve all those things. But in terms of understanding what families need, I know that like as a parent sometimes at the beginning of the year from the school social worker, I'll get a form that's like, "Please check off the different things if you need them and return it." Um, but I wonder if there's people that just don't return that form that have those challenges. So, Dr.

135Jones, you looked like you were going to say something there. I I'll just add, you know, the amount of work that our schools do, it's incredible. And so when we look at MTSS, we're not only looking at the academic side, we're looking at the social emotional side. We're looking at behaviors. We're looking at getting to the root cause of what is causing little Johnny to struggle in school either way, whether it's academic or behavior. And so, um, when we're looking at it on a higher level, we're looking at how we can utilize our support and resources at the district level to support schools. But day in and day out, our social workers, our counselors, our teachers that they're doing what they need to do to meet the needs of every child once they discover that

136there is a need. So, I don't want to um anyone to think that that's not already happening, but because we have limited resources because we want to have community partners like Piedmont and um Orange Partnership to kind of help us um we want to be more strategic in how we get aligned with some of our community partners to help our students. And so, we have to have an in-depth understanding of what's happening holistically. But if I walk into a school building right now, they they could tell me student by student what they're doing to support them. But the strategic plan is to help us as a district as a whole to align those efforts. And so we look at things here, but we can get as granular as we need to. And um are we

137going to catch everything every day? No, we're not. If if a parent doesn't fill out that form, that doesn't mean that the teacher doesn't sense that something is not quite there and that we don't do home visits. We don't call parents and investigate. Can we do that a little bit better? Sure. Do we have all the staff that we need to do that? No. That's why we need um support from our community partners. But um this this plan at least helps us to align our efforts a little bit better and gives us some measurements so that we know whether or not we're doing uh well in an area and our overall engagement will improve if we do all of the things to bring everyone to the table and and do our best to meet the

138needs of our students. But um just reality is that our resources are limited. Um, but I I just don't want us to overlook the work that's happening at every school every single day in this district. And I I just appreciate their work so much because a lot of times they're bringing from their own resources and taking time from their own families to support one child or or many children dependent on the need. Thank you. Thank you for that, Mr. Hower. Yeah. Thanks. Yes. Um I first I just wanted to echo Will's comment about clar clarification of the role of the district and the role of the schools in communication with families. It's a it's a really important um second in to to Wendy's point about um who's participating in the in the portals. Um and

139even in the whole communication process, you know, we make this assumption um and I want to say, you know, I think the new website is fantastic. I think the social media presence that this district is building is really improving the brand and I really appreciate all that. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about reaching parents who we assume they have a computer. They don't. We assume they have internet. They don't. Um we assume they know what questions to ask. They may not. And so, and that's why, you know, I love to talk about that readiness camp that we did years ago at New Hope, but what they did is the kids came in in the morning, then they they got rid of them and they brought the parents in in the

140afternoon to teach them how to work with the school district. And so it's a whole different level of education, you know, and to that and I wonder if we have asked them and I'm looking at Miss Blevco who has probably the premier network into our Spanish community in the county, possibly in the state. It is amazing. And so can we use that network to ask parents what what's on their mind? what do they need? what you know and do they really know how to work with do you think I wonder how many of them know what infinite campus is or why it's important so so we're making assumptions that and we're trying really hard to work with them but we're making assumptions that they understand this language and I just wondered if there's a way

141we could find out more about that and then finally on the metrics um and just as I'm a little concerned about losing visibility ility to subgroups because it's not all the same because we did that for so many years and when we lose the visibility to the subgroups then it's hard to see what what where what's working and what's not working. So so I'm just a little bit concerned about that. Maybe that's a a district versus a board thing but it it's but I I really do like keeping visibility about what's happening with our subgroups. Great work. Fantastic discussion by very proud of the board and and the conversation. I just proud of this conversation and this district is having it. It's the finest conversation we've had since I've been on the board. Thank you.

142Okay. I'd like to add one thing if I could. Um Dr. Laneir said something early on uh when he was questioned about talking with students and he said that this was coming up and as I sit here and think about this especially at looking at the code of conduct and and the the grade nine, grade six and grade eight where the the um um infractions seem to rise. I'm thinking about um how those conversations with students may give some insight into some of this. Um and I think that's very important piece of this especially for our middle school students and our high school students to bring them into the conversation and ask them what they need. ask them what they need uh to help them be successful, whether it's um and I know you're asking

143that on the panorama surveys, but I think a conversation going back to that relationship piece. Um, if you can get some students to talk in a a round table or just, you know, cafeteria, whatever works, just get some conversation with students and I think you'll get a lot of insight into to some of this. And I also go back to thinking about grade six, eight, and nine because I've I've been heavily involved with all three of those. Um, is the student code of conduct being gone through with students in classrooms at the very beginning of the year? Because I know that when I was involved in it, my teachers went through with the students and they made sure that they knew. And at some point in time, parents even had to sign that they had

144gone through the student code of conduct with them. And so I'm just wondering if we've gotten away from that or if that's still something that is being done because for some students it makes a difference. Um just just a thought that I have as I have sat here. Um but I think this is great. I think what you have done um and all the data that you have given us tonight is um helpful and I think um is a wonderful you've got a good plan and I want to applaud you all for for the work the the people that have helped the parents that have helped and then this the staff from um Orange County Schools who has worked on this. It's it's a mammoth job and I appreciate all that you have done uh

145with this. So, Miss Purscell, um thank you for the the feedback and for the questions. There's one um particular comment that you raised up that I I would like to speak to. Um you you mentioned the um like listening to the students and and perhaps having a round table and that is that is really important work. It is also what we're noticing with changes year-over-year with how we're addressing some of these infractions. Um, we have noticed a drop in the use of restorative practices. And what you are what you are getting at is also restorative work. That is that is the restorative work. So it doesn't just have to be a round table where we're hearing from a group of students. The student who is sitting in front of you because they're about to be

146suspended or they're about to have ISS. It's the the restorative work is more about repairing that harm and actively listening to the student as opposed to just kicking the bad behavior out um and removing that behavior. So, it's deeply understanding why they did what they did um what the consequences are and having them actively involved in the process of of coming back into the school environment in a productive and meaningful way. So, I appreciate you bringing that up. I also want to raise um that I heard in in a couple from a couple of different folks um the issue with the parent portal access um and we hear that loud and clear. That's important. My mind is already spinning with some small ideas. So, I just I want you all to know that we're going

147to take this back and have these conversations. One of the things that's already occurring to me is that during our our signin process at our family academy events like we don't really the idea of having a a a campus portal parent portal family event like that may not be the answer there but we do have like a sign-in process where we're asking okay what child what what school does your child go to? We could easily throw in a question and you know by the way here's what parent portal looks like. Um do you do you have an account? Do you need some help setting up account? we can we can get, you know, some help for you if that um if that is necessary. There's some little things that we could perhaps do to start

148to improve those numbers. Okay, Miss Purcell, the only other thing that I will add, not to belabor the point, but um I will just simply say that I I I think and in kind of taking in all of the feedback that um the board has given us with this priority, I will say that I think a lot of um I think priority four and the rewrite that we're proposing for priority 4 and the action steps were needed to be able to lay a foundation in order for us as a district and also for schools and school leaders to be able to build upon particularly around marketing their individual campuses and marketing their individual buildings through that marketing then we we will be able to and you know through assisting you know with school administration and

149being involved in that that they will be able to and we will be able to as a district truly again similar to what you're saying go into you know teaching students around the code of student conduct like when when you were making your comments I was thinking about um camps when I was a principal that that I used to um you know have at the very beginning of the year at my school um I called it pride camp and so if students were coming then I also required parents to come as well. So while my student ambassadors were having conversations and taking students around on tours families were required to come and we we taught them about these particular things. We talked to them about our instructional pro instructional framework what the expectations were in

150classes. I gave a a you know very uh uh descriptive and detailed presentation around interpretation of the code of conduct, what their rights were as parents, what they should come in and ask, you know, parents about when they came in and ask questions, you know, during a parent conference, all of those things. And I'll say that us launching our, you know, not trying to give a little, you know, too much away, but us launching our back to school event that we're trying to have with families, that's one of the launching paths for us to be able to do that. There will be a session on the importance of uh parent portal and signing up for that and all of the resources you can receive. There will be a session that I will be um conducting

151around again interpreting a code of student conduct. So we hear you and a lot of that discussion has has occurred and happened as a result of you know meetings that we've had as a task force um meetings that we've had as a department. So all of those things again like I said are in flux but we needed this as the foundation for all of those things to be able to be built. And I understand that and I appreciate that. And as I said, I think it's a wonderful um change in goal for um a priority. I don't know why I keep calling it a goal, but a priority u for the strategic plan. So at this time, are we ready to vote on this? Do I have a motion? Motion to approve the edits to

152go gold for priority court. Second. Second. All in favor? I I Okay, motion is passed. And again, thank you all for being here tonight and um and for doing such a wonderful in-depth presentation for us. It's excellent. Thank you. Okay, at this time I get my glasses. We will go back to our um curriculum for our U math program. I can find it. Let's see. There's no presentation. Consent item six. Okay. I was looking for part over here, too. All right. Miss uh Smiley had some concerns. I'm not sure. Did anybody else have concerns and want to talk about this? Okay. Miss Hower, Miss Smiley, Sarah, introduce it. Yeah, sure. Um, thank you very much for everything that was shared in the abstract. Um, the reason that I asked to pull it, there are two

153reasons and I'm thinking it could be helpful to just sort of describe our process for um, folks who don't know. Um, the for uh, selecting new literacy curriculum a couple of three years ago now. Um, there was a big literacy audit that found huge gaps in what we were doing. Um the board in a student achievement committee went through a three-hour like science of reading uh training. Um and then uh there was probably some more discussion about needing a curriculum and then a process similar to what you all went through with the math um curriculum, right? So like robust process, scorecard um committee um scoring, community feedback, like a lot of similarity there, but there was a lot of sort of buildup to the need. and the board has talked some about the need for

154this curriculum. So like I'm I'm clear that we have a need. Um and I feel very strongly that it seems like you all had a great process for getting us here. Um so the all of that feels really positive, but there there was so much sort of leading up to it and then when it was presented um there was sort of like a full presentation sort of explaining, you know, all of this. And so um and that included what the cost was and where the funds were coming from. And so, um, like the first thing is I'm just concerned, I understand it sounds like it's still in negotiation, um, with the vendors. And I'm concerned about approving something where we don't know the cost. I'm concerned that like approving it without the cost would like

155hurt our chances to negotiate. I mean, the reality is like if it's going to cost $5 million, like we're not going to, you know what I mean? So, there's sort of the negotiation and what actually is the cost. And there's um uh in the abstract it said state textbook funds and as at risk student funds. Um and so for the atrisisk student funds I'm like I wonder what we won't do. I mean we're using that money for other things right now. So understanding where those tradeoffs might be and sort of what the total cost was. So that was sort of one piece and then the other was just sort of understanding more about this particular curriculum. Um so those were those were sort of two big things for me. So I would like to um

156just amend a little bit what you went through with the the HMH or the literacy. So the the presentation that was given to the board, we went back and looked through all of this to make sure we were following the steps, but the presentation that was given to the board was after the contract had been signed by the superintendent. And so, um, we're at the beginning, we're a little bit different here because we're asking for your approval to go into negotiations in good faith negotiations with these vendors. We're bringing to you what the committee has approved, spent time on, and is making the recommendation to you. So this is like a little step for us to go forward to the next step and actually negotiating with these vendors and then we would bring the contract

157back to you for approval. So it doesn't put us in a worse position to be approving this right now. I mean no. Okay. Okay. So, the contract would come back with the final amount at which point we would discuss the trade-offs in the things that we're not or do we have a sense right now of like what we're spending the atrisisk student funds on now that we might not do like that we might shift to this? So, we've actually planned for this this year and set aside some of those atrisisk funds because of the need for particularly in the middle grades and in the high school for clear uh coherent and standards aligned curriculum. And so we know that math is a gateway. It it keeps folks from achieving later on in life and we

158want to make sure that's strong. So we have clear use for the atrisisk money for the for the math funds. So it's already budgeted for and we're not like not doing something else in order to pay for this. Correct. Okay. No, but I I do want to add that we will continue to evaluate the programs that we're using and to make sure that they're effective. So, some of I don't want you to say, "Well, you said you weren't going to cut anything, but then we end up cutting a math program or two because if they're not if we're not getting the return that we need there or um it's not being utilized the way that with fidelity, then we are going to start looking at some of that and pulling at that." Okay. Yeah. And

159I'd say in addition to that, I mean, we often have a peace mill of different resources that we're purchasing and that we're using. when you do adopt a core curriculum resource, they're often all encompassing and embedded in that. So that's where we would have tradeoffs for things that we typically purchase, we would be able to to have those embedded in the core curriculum. And I just want to add my my questions, you know, what I saw in the agenda was a the evaluation framework, but I never saw the actual evaluation. So you didn't tell us what the scores were, what the feedback was from the team. So it's just like um you know I'm not used to that. I'm used to giving to understand what's great, what's not so great, what some of the concerns

160were. So it's it's I'm just not used to approving something based on a framework. So So would you prefer that I verbalize the ratings here or send the ratings to the board? Prefer to see them? you know, I'd like to see and I'd like to see what some and we've had pretty wide variations from people on some things that we've purchased and then we've seen issues with adoption with problem with adoption. So, just wanted to know what what did the team think just yeah I think it'd be beneficial if they could share some of that with us this evening. We we do have that but u going back to what Dr. pack said they followed what was done previously with HMH. There was a signed contract prior to it being presented to the board and

161those ratings were not included there as well. So we can we're happy to give those to you. I think they can share some of those tonight but um really just trying to keep up with the cadence of how things have have happened in the past. Mr. So to to be fair to Sarah's point, we were absolutely at the beginning talked about this is what's going to happen. Here's kind of the vendors we're looking at and then over the summer the contract was signed and the board came back and said we have what? So, just to be fair that it was signed after the fact and then the board I guess we reapproved it at that point just acknowledging that it was signed over the summer before the board was aware that it was completed. But

162I definitely would not use that model as going forward. But I I felt the same way I guess was it was kind of surprising because I it says there were six. I was like I don't even know who the six were. But not to say I would be qualified to to evaluate them, but I just feel like I I don't have the context of what we're approving. And it's not to say you haven't done great work. It's just I I think a little more data would help with context on it of uh what we're agreeing to. So I do want to say like I don't want us we're here representing the larger work of the committee of um up to 50 there were close to 50 people 40 40 people that were uh involved in

163this. Um so we're we're here representing all the work that they have done. Um we have those numbers so we can go through them. Um we want to start with the the reduction from the Yeah. So, you know, in phase, so we had two phases to this process. And so, phase one of the process, we had 15 vendors that submitted proposals. Um, you know, I would be remiss if I didn't take the time publicly to thank the committee members for the time that they put in. Um, this is it's a it's a herculean task uh to be able to go through what are generally multiple hundreds of pages per proposal. Um, and we're asking and we're trying to strike a balance here where we wanted to make sure that we had we were inclusive of

164all of our schools. So, we wanted to have teacher representatives from all 13 schools. We wanted to have administrative representation across all levels, meaning elementary, middle, and high school. We wanted to have district representation. We wanted to make sure that that student groups, our exceptional children, um, English language learners, AIG, academically, and intellectually gifted that they were all represented on the committee. So the committee of course knowing all those things was going to be fairly large. So we had a 40 person committee. Um because of the time commitment thinking of how much goes into one individual proposal. The decision was made at phase one with 15 proposals that we would have a smaller subset of that committee. So that committee, the initial committee had 10 district representatives on it. Um, it also had math coaches,

165three math coaches that represented our K8 level and we also had multiple administrators representing um, K to 12. Um, that committee worked together using the rubric that was attached, I believe it was attachment B um, in the abstract. Um, we were able to whittle down those 15 to a final group of six. All right, that final group of six, two of those vendors were proposing a K12 curriculum resource. um two of those vendors were proposing a K8 resource and then one vendor was proposing a grades nine 12 or a high school resource. Okay. So at that point we entered into phase two of the process. That's when the larger committee convened. Um we used I believe it's attachment C in the abstract which is an it's an ED reports aligned instructional materials rating criteria. Um

166so that committee was tasked with um six finalists um that they were were reviewing. Um are we okay to to go through like naming? I I will say uh back on phase one I think it's important for you to know that um some you know there was a uh we didn't just say all right these six there was a discrepancy in scores the the six really rose up to the top and then there was a clearcut and then the rest did not. And a big piece of that was looking for a K8, a minimum K8 resource. Um, so some of our folks that u put in an RFP were just K5 and that didn't get us to the K8. And so um they didn't score as high, but that was the the way that we

167ended up with the six was a clear rising to the top. And so then these six are the ones that we Yeah. And so the the six that rose to the top were were SAVIS which is envision math and that was a a K12 proposal McGraw Hill Reveal Math which is a K12 proposal. Um HMH into math which is a K8 proposal. Great minds Eureka Math a K8 proposal. Um Curriculum Associates I Ready um was a K8 proposal and I may have misspoke earlier if I said there were two K8s there were three. um and then coherent math um which was the 912 proposal. So those were the final six. Um at that point in time we went through an extensive process you using that rating criteria but we wanted to make sure that there

168was ample time for the committee to not only be able to to review and writing those written proposals. We also had every vendor come in for a full day brought the entire committee together so that they each had an opportunity to present to the committee um in full. Um, we also provided each committee member had the vendors provide them demo accounts so that they were able to actually navigate and access the platforms from a teacher and a student perspective to kind of see that comparison across each. Um, and then through the process, we made sure that we continue to extend time as needed. So, it's noted in the abstract, but there was a 3-w weekek additional extension as we worked through that process to make sure that the committee had enough time because once we

169we received those ratings for the six vendors, we had two at each band that bubbled to the top. And so, Savis and Vision Math um across the K8 span. So, the K5 ratings and the 68 ratings, they were the top choice in both of those levels. So when combined they had the highest at that at that time. Um HMH into math um had the second highest rating at that time and that was at the K8 band. So K5 and 68. At the 912 level um we had two that were the highest. SAVIS and vision math was ALS was second there. The highest rated there was coherent math at the 912 level. And so at that time we went through a protocol with the committee to to really highlight what are the strengths kind of what

170are the the next steps with these these potential top two resources. Um we then gave them additional time to go back and view the materials. the materials were publicly um displayed at the Orange County Schools welcome center. And that was not only for for the committee. That was for Orange County School staff. That was for community members, excuse me, to to be able to come. We did do that over multiple days. Um but that was a part of and that was a part of the original voting on these six to whittle it down to two. Once we whittleled it down to two, we actually brought those materials back out again for the committee to go back to look at those top two resources more in depth. um and then to give them an opportunity to

171come back with an actual final vote. And so at that time when the final voting occurred um at the K8 level, okay, so this was was K5 and 68 at the K8 level, the top choice was SAVIS and vision math and it received 70% of the votes. Okay. Um there were 8% of the votes that were um that went for HMH into math. So 70% 70.8% 8% were for Savis and vision math. 8.8% were for HMH into math. Um there were also 8% of the committee votes said they were satisfied with either resource. Um and then there were 11% that said they weren't content moving forward with either resource. Okay. So in in looking at that at that time as we went through and deliberated where we are at this point is we are making

172a recommendation based off kind of in totality. So we had roughly 80% of the committee was content with Savis and vision math being the top recommendation and so that that's why we moved them them forward. Um at the 912 level coherent math received 64.3% of the vote is a positive yes. Um Savis and Vision Math received 14% of the vote at the 912 level. We also had 21% of the vote that said they were satisfied with either resource. Um, and then there were there weren't any any folks that voted at the 912 level um that said they weren't satisfied moving forward with one or the other. So when you're looking at that and a combination for coherent math, that is roughly 85% of of the committee that voted for the 912 were satisfied with coherent

173math as the as the recommendation for the 912 level. And so that's what led us to this point. um having followed up with the the nethers. Yeah. And so I think a big piece and thank you to Dr. Pack for making note of this. So we have you know folks on our team one thing that we we wanted to make sure we were very clear about in in the debrief process with the committee. We said going into this process like this is is a super challenging process because every one of these finalists if you you know you can look at ED reports or different things they they all are high quality. We did a lot of prevetting across this process to see that most if not all of these resources are being used at in

174different districts across our state um to to different varying levels of success. And so we knew going into the process and we're very clear with the committee that to to get to where we're at 100% of everyone saying like this is my top choice isn't often likely. Um but we also want to make sure that we're honoring what is being said to us through those ratings. So what was what was told to us through those ratings is that we did have a small subset of the committee that was not satisfied at the K8 level with moving forward. And so it it was shared with them multiple times that that at any point in time if they wanted to come and have not only one-on-one discussions with us, myself, me, I'm going to name me, um

175they could certainly do that, but we also did follow circle back with them as well, members of our team, just to make sure that they were at a place of are you okay to move forward if this is indeed something that moves forward to the board? And and the answer to that was yes. And so we we feel good about that at this time to to be able to move forward with that. Miss M. Thank you for your time and and the explanation. My concern was uh the clarification is better now. My concern was like I didn't want to sign up to just give you a blank check. So with you explaining that is simply to go into negotiation. It makes me feel better. Thank you for all the work you did. Mhm. Miss um

176yeah and I appreciate that process and hearing sort of where the committee landed and and all of that. So thank you for explaining that. Um I think the the other piece I would just love to hear a little bit more about just so we are all going into this. Um, you know, with with a literacy curriculum, we were pretty clear that we were like on the wrong path. And then there's very clear science of reading and we are very clear on what the right path is, right? And with math, there's less clarity about that, right? There's like the math wars and there's different ways of teaching math and all of that. And so um like being clear that no one curriculum is perfect or anything like that like I would just love to understand a

177little bit more about these curricula that you're recommending like where do they sort of fall in terms of that like conceptual explicit instruction you know like what I I'm probably not even using the right terms but like in the sort of like grand scheme of the math wars and the different approaches to teaching math like how do these curricula uh what what can we expect from them in terms of like what students and teachers will be doing? Yeah. So, all great questions. I I think looking at this and I do want to make sure that I'm honoring the feedback that the committee provided. Um so, and we'll take SAVIS and vision math to start with. So, like strengths that were noted from the committee is is the language supports that are provided throughout for our

178ML students. um accommodations that are provided digitally and like interactive tools that the resource provides. Um that they're using math practices in an intentional way. Um that it's visually appealing. Um it's engaging with both print and digital materials that will capture attention of today's learners. Um that the core lesson structure is the same from kindergarten through 8th grade. So it provides that kind of coherence and consistency that we've been looking for. Um that it integrates with Canvas, Infinite Campus, Google. So there there are those pieces. Um and then in in addition to some of those traditional facetoface and the virtual PD options that you get with this like there's an ongoing professional development through short videos for each topic throughout the curriculum um which actually gives examples and models of like how to teach um

179effectively and and so for teachers that are new to teaching content um you know it it supports them. It also supports teachers with time constraints when we're thinking of all the things we're juggling. if you need something that's more quick when it comes to PD. And I think a big piece too is is in addition to that feedback, like we've communicated with other districts that have been in partnership with this resource, this vendor. And so, you know, one thing that was noted by a district we spoke with is that they have a long-term partnership. They've credited the resource um with supporting multiple schools in in moving out of low performing status. Um they credited the resource that it's been a huge support for new and beginning teachers. um and as well as supporting alternative lensure

180teachers because that's been such a growing number for them and this is a resource where it actually helps to equip and support those folks. So the question as far as like explicit so it has elements of both when you think of conceptual and explicit. Now, how we then choose the curriculum shouldn't drive what we're doing. Like, we're making those decisions as a school district with our our kind of uh workforce to decide like what's best for Orange County schools. But, we know that this provides us with the resource to be able to to kind of pick and choose areas that we want to utilize and leverage the curriculum to get to where we want to go with student achievement, if that makes sense, for for Envision Math. And so, Coherent Math, it is a newer

181resource. Okay. So they did they partnered with Charlotte Meckllinburgg schools in 2021 to actually write this curriculum resource. Um and it's the first you know at the high school level specifically to be aligned to North Carolina like integrated standards. Um and so yeah and and it aligns with and Dr. Pat great point. It it aligns with the block scheduling structure. Um, it it also has an element or feature in it that aligns with if you're in a year-long, so if you're in a middle school math one concept, that can be broken out to where it's more of those 45 to 55 minute lessons to fit like a middle school math one structure. And so, a few things that the committee said, you know, there's a lot of opportunity with it for like collaborative discourse amongst

182students. Um, there the digital units can be accessed free online. All right, so there's there's a free element to it. Um the responsive strategies that are provided throughout the units were very helpful. Um there were techniques that were very useful to our te for our teachers to assist learners, students with disabilities. This was noted by the committee. Um and then districts we that we've spoken with have noted how helpful um it is to not have to pick and choose at the high school level and pull from across um different contents to kind of piece your pacing and resources together. This like fully align math one, math 2, math three. Um and so beyond our district, you know, in in speaking with Coherent Math, but with other districts that um it's they're very flexible, willing to

183personalize their supports. Um other districts have raved about the professional learning component to us. Um their understanding of what it means to teach like high school mathematics in North Carolina is something that other districts have found very valuable. Um and and they've also noted that like in addition to the the blackline masters that are public or they are open resource, we would want to to start the process by investing because we want to we want to have that coherence in materials and trying to level set about what our expectations are that continuity for all teachers. But over time as an open resource there there's flexibility there and options where we would be able to also look at how can we then start to piece things together um using using that resource. But but right now

184I think it's more about improving pedigogy. Um it's about you know rethinking how we teach math but then actually having those materials in place to create that continuity is where we're at with 912. Yeah. So I hope that answers it does. Yeah. Yeah. I mean one of the things that I was a little when I was looking at the 912 the it's based on the illustrative math um kind of model is it's super um collaborative conceptual conversation based. And so I worried a little bit about like um some students um with um learning differences really benefit from like explicit instruction and and might um struggle in that context and so like does it include additional sort of like supportive resources along those line like how does that work? Yeah. Well and I think we would

185need more time to dig into it into those resources as we move forward. I I think one big piece with the personalization when you're thinking of the professional development and the support, their ability to walk alongside us so that we're able to build out a process that fits with what our goals are is is super important. So, as a district, we've been very clear this year in PD professional development that explicit instruction is the direction that we're moving. So, we want to make sure that the curriculum can help us get to that place, but we get to drive that conversation as we're working with the vendor to build that out. Yeah. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you, Miss Hower. Um, I really appreciate this uh ex this information. It's very helpful. Just on the conversations with

186the other districts that are using it, was that did the entire team um talk to their peers in other districts? Was there a consideration of a visit but about the product about the implementation and about the transition to the new curriculum? So, uh the vendors provided references that all of the committee members had access to. Uh we then um myself, Dr. Gamin, and Miss Cobb, our math u specialist, um sat down and and called folks that we knew in that district to get a little bit deeper, you know, hey, what's the real story kind of thing. Um and so uh and and one of the districts did invite us to come, but it's not t great timing because districts are beginning their um their testing and uh so we we will be doing that to

187see it in action to help kind of frame what we're doing, but we that'll be have to be a next year thing. Um so that would be more to help with the implementation, correct? As opposed to the decision to Any other questions? I like the the idea that it's um designed for block scheduling. I haven't seen that before in anything. So, that that sounds great. Well, it's also very difficult like um I think Dr. Gammon said, we end up piecing together different resources and curriculum to match what the standards are for math 1, 2, and three in high school. Yeah. and it is just not helpful at all. Either teachers scrap it all together and come up with their own plan or they get uh they they spend time um pulling these resources together. And

188I think that's and maybe you might say this better than me, but like one of the things that um we are excited about with a 912 curriculum is particularly this one is that the time that folks have been spending going out and and really the KA going out and finding their own stuff can be replaced with digging into this curriculum and being prepared with this curriculum. Um and so uh we can eliminate some of the time that teachers are out there, you know, googling and searching and finding things and that's that's very important as we all know. So yeah, Mr. A, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say thank you. The context really helps, especially understanding, you know, where people landed and people feeling either and then how you narrowed it down and the resources

189and all the questions that that were answered really helps the context of what what y'all looking at and definitely moving us in a direction that we need to go with all of the challenges we have. So, I just wanted to say thank y'all and all the committees that have been working on this. Yeah. And I'll say we'll we'll have we'll consider that moving forward when we go back and take a look and try to you know frame things the way that they've been brought to you. I mean practically all of us are new and so we'll um hopefully we're not looking at another curriculum in the next few years but we'll be mindful of that. I think our goal was to make sure that we honor the work of this committee. They have worked so

190hard. It is a a lot of tedious work um to get to a point where we have a high percentage of um members that are okay because we're going to have to have that buy in in order for us to um have the implementation into the explicit instruction piece and I know Dr. Gam mentioned it, but we are full-fledged ready to um u go in and give more professional development on um explicit um instruction and our current math um curriculum that we have is not quite there. And so that's where we really saw a need to um make a shift as well along with some of our um uh math scores that were able to see across the board. I'd like to move to move forward with this. Second. All in favor? I I Okay,

191you have our blessings. Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Do we have any other business tonight that we need to discuss? If not, do I have a motion to adjourn? Second. All in favor? I. We are ajourned. Thank you all very much. [Music] Happy birthday. Happy birthday.