Orange County Board of Education Special Called & Regular Meeting - June 10, 2024

001e e e board school boards of Education uh to order for Monday June the 10th uh I will start by reading the uh public charge the Orange County Board of Education pledges to its citizens to conduct its business in a courteous and productive manner showing respect for fellow board members staff and citizens the board ask its citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy toward both School personnel and each other a moment of silence will be observed before each meeting in addition to the moment of silence the board will recite the Pledge of Allegiance the board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain that they're either turned off or on vibrate to avoid Interruption and we will um Franklin do we do the Pledge of Allegiance both times

002that's what I thought we're doing two meetings tonight we're recognizing all of you and then we're going into our regular meeting so there are some things we don't have to do okay we need to adopt our agenda for tonight do I have a motion to do so so moved second all in favor I okay agenda is adopted and we are here to recognize our Orange County Schools retirees so miss Brimmer I think that falls under your purview so good evening uh Board of Education Dr Jones and our public uh we are here tonight to recognize our retirees and what a a wonderful celebration that is um we do know that retirement is a significant Milestone especially for our Educators who have dedicated their careers to shaping young minds um and the Orange County School family

003would like to celebrate that with all our retirees to give them warm wishes and gratitude and we also want uh to reflect on their the countless hours they have put in um contributing to the success of our students so I'm going to turn around and talk to the reti just a bit I want to tell you first you're all teachers in our mind all of you it doesn't matter what role you held in our school all of you contributed to the success of our students and so although we do know that your alarm clock is probably not set for 6:00 a.m. anymore you probably are not grading papers and I'm guessing you don't have meetings to attend I'm hoping for you anyway we also know that you are still champion for public education and we

004appreciate that and so today Ford we want you to know that you are officially Orange County Schools staff alumni you will always be part of the Orange County School family so thank you for your service and all that you do and I want you to know that together they have 841 years oh my goodness accomplishment so that is quite accomplishment it is so we're going to turn the program over to our principes who wanted to say a few words about their retirees that are here with us tonight and we're going to go in level order and um in alphabetical order so we are going to start with Central Elementary and we do ask as uh retirees as your name is called if you will come and stand um to the side we want to get

005great pictures so if you will come and stand to the side as your name is called good evening board good evening everyone uh my name is Taylor Golding I'm the interim principal at Central and typically the assistant principal but uh I'm privileged to kick things off tonight I usually just like to wing it so I have nothing written or prepared but two um amazing Educators to honor tonight Carolyn Wilson who has been served as a reading interventionist at Central um who's been at Central for 20 years and Becky jarmin who is a grade teacher so if you all want to come up this way and I'll can go ahead and just say a few brief things about each of these ladies um Miss jarmin who is a fourth grade teacher um it's hard to think

006when you spend 30 plus years in education you know uh that you don't have the ability to question someone's heart uh Miss jarmin has been a dedicated educator for 30 plus years in several different school systems um we've been privileged to have her at Central uh for years now I was a classroom teacher for eight years um and now in my role I said I learned more about teaching the actual art of teaching every time I went into Miss jarman's room Miss jarmin holds every standard every student to a high standard and believes that all students really can succeed and that's one of the things that Central will really miss about Miss jarm so I wish you the best of luck in this next season of your life and Miss Wilson who's been at Central

007for 20 years I think she's been in education about 27 um we recently had a retirement party for her last week and another staff member said that Miss Wilson reminded her of a show that preceded my time called Angels On Assignment not sure if anyone out there knows that show but I do not um but she said that she feels like Miss Wilson has been an angel on assignment at Central and we are sad to see this part of her assignment end but we're excited to see what she does next Miss Wilson definitely will leave a legacy at Central she's just one of those consistent Educators I said I told our staff they just don't make them like Carolyn anymore she's got a duty she's there every day I said I'll Miss Carolyn next year

008because she works bus Duty with me every day and she's got the dumbbell put in front of the door to prop it open every morning and I said the first day of school I'm going to walk out and there's going to be no dumbbell at that door and I'll know that carollyn is off doing something awesome so Caroline congratulations I wish you nothing but the [Applause] best so I believe eelyn is next hello everyone I have a couple special guests with us this evening um we're doing our best so um if anybody has ever worked in a school they know that the secretary and the custodial staff they run the school the rest of us are decoration so we are excited to say a giant thank you and congratulations to Mr Blake gtis he has

009been with us for 18 years collectively 13 of which has been at effn cheeks and I can remember my very first day as a teacher at effin meeting Mr gtis he was so patient and so kind and I was so overwhelmed moving in but he has been a huge stakeholder in our community and he literally can see the school from his home so he's not finished with us at all so thank you so much [Applause] [Laughter] good evening everyone um speaking of shaping young minds as Miss Bimmer mentioned uh Miss Molly Compton has shaped Minds for 27 years not only shaped minds but it shaped our youngest Minds at kindergarten she's been anchored in our hallway in the corner classroom for all all 27 years same classroom same grade level uh it's been a same

010chair wow that's fantastic um but but she has been a uh a school mom to not only our our students but to um our teachers who come through Grady Brown gotten a start so we've got to recognize her at an assembly on Thursday we got to recognize her again at our final staff meeting on Friday and here's one more time to say thank you for everything and job well done Molly Compton [Applause] good evening everybody my name is principal Madison Williamson and I currently serve at Pathways and I see so many familiar faces that I am so happy for your retirement all of those in the room who I have worked with but I here tonight representing the pathways elementary school and I am in a unique position where we are acknowledged in two stars

011tonight one of which I never had the opportunity to work with and the other who retired who opened up the door for me to be principal within the retirement so I did write some words down for one of them and then me and Miss Brar are going to tag team the second one so first I am here to honor and congratulate an exceptional individual on her well-deserved retirement Mrs Hughes come up Mrs Hughes [Applause] he is an absolute star although I did not have the privilege of serving as Mrs Hugh's principal I have been fortunate enough to witness her lasting positive impact on Pathways Elementary School its students families and staff Mrs Hugh's journey is one of dedication compassion and unwavering commitment to her students she has touched countless lives and her influence will continue

012to resonate through the halls of Pathways for years to come to celebrate this incredible journey I contacted some of your colleagues for their reflections of you miss Annette and Miss Stephanie shared that Miss Hughes is and was a desicated a dedicated exceptional teacher she is kind-hearted and genuinely loves her students I have always love working and assisting her in the classroom they said no matter how the day went she always had a smile and kind words she would go the extra mile to meet students needs she always took any work home to ensure her lesson plans met every child's needs some sometimes she felt like she could do more but she always went above and beyond we will miss her greatly when I asked the staff to describe you Miss Hughes with one word their

013responses were overwhelmingly positive kind lovable patient will do anything for for you Gentle easygoing easy to work with these words paint a beautiful picture of a teacher who not only excelled in her profession but most importantly in humanity Mrs Hugh serving as an educator is truly an honor and you have exemplified this through your tireless dedication and love for your students thank you for serving your purpose with such Grace and compassion your dedication will continue to Inspire us all as you step into this new chapter of your life may you find the same joy and fulfillment that you have given to so many others congratulations on your retirement Mrs Hughes Pathways Elementary will be forever grateful for your profound impact and unwavering dedication congratulations second honory tonight is miss Lynn Brown can you come up

014Miss Brown and I will pass the mic over to Mrs brimer and then I will follow up after Miss brimer says her words so I actually had the pleasure of working with both of these ladies and so um I'm gonna speak to Miss Brown because we spent a lot of time together I believe I don't even know how many years but I was blessed to get a phone call to say Hey you had an AP opening and I know someone who would like to to consider coming to Pathways that call was a blessing I cannot say enough positive things about my experience with Miss Brown in her time um in Orange County schools and she have spent almost her whole career here I think with the exception of a few short years uh in Virginia

015and let me say retirement looks good on you friend so congratulations this is not goodbye it's just to see you around so and I will be short and sweet I love you thank you for opening up doors for me thank you for the profound impact and the Ripple and the water you have left at Pathways I wouldn't be where I am without you love you [Applause] well this is extra special I was planning on two but I get I get a third here so this is fantastic so this first uh gentleman uh over here to my left is uh the Russell Westbrook um he is um very near and dear to the River Park the hearts of everyone in the River Park Community uh he has served uh at River Park for my goodness few

016years few years 20 plus years um uh he's meant so much to our students and staff um and he uh he's developed so many programs within River Park that have meant so much to our community um he's still very active in our community um and we've had the privilege of having him sub there this year and that's been a blessing to get to spend some more time with him but uh he he is uh dedicated uh he has a heart for children and that showed every single day that he worked with them just how much that he embedded uh life skills and uh desire to uh be healthy um and and do it from a place of love and so just forever grateful for you Russell so thank you bu guys tried to surprise me

017make me cry help together all right so uh next we have Mr Mitchell our beloved music teacher for the past 23 years let's put our hands together for Mr Mitchell come on now so uh a word to describe Patrick is dedication his dedication to our music program his dedication to creating worldclass um events and assemblies um just really delving into the strengths of our students and teaching them um just what music can open up for them uh not just students that have that natural musical talent but but also growing talents within them that they didn't know existed um and and he didn't stop there he also is very dedicated uh in other areas as well robotics we have to talk about that Mr Mitchell is Mr Robot around River Park and has been in Orange

018County Schools just growing the elementary middle and high school robotics programs and just seeing what that can do to uh create new opportunities for students and get them excited about a career uh in the stem field so just so thankful for you and all these years that we've spent together and everything that you've meant to River Park and our students thank you bu for me okay okay we have one more uh Miss Paula Patterson our uh beloved uh reading specialist we put our hands together for Paula PA's been a teacher for over 30 years and she's been at the River Park Community for 16 and she she a word to describe Paula is uh compassion not only does she have so much love uh for reading and teaching our students to grow um as readers

019but also she has so much compassion on who they are and trying to get them to where they need to be so they can be successful as adults she also has so much compassion for every adult at River Park she she um serves in very in very many motherly type roles um she's been great for me just reminding me hey you uh you're looking a little stressed today Tony let's uh let's uh realize that there's bigger things in life than just uh your work and just always looking to be there for everyone that she comes across so just thank you so much Paul [Applause] midle SCH good evening I am here to celebrate two lovely ladies if you would like to come on up Sue Sabo and Kelly Monro Porco these two lovely ladies have

020given many years of service to Cedar Ridge High School Sue Sabo and the exceptional children's Department she was always in the hallways a bright light taking care of not only students but her fellow teachers in her Department which recently was a lot of beginning teachers so um she had a lot in her hands to work with but we miss her um both of these ladies retired mid year so we have had some time to miss them already and I Tred tried to get them to come back for a little EOC testing but they declined um Miss Monro Porco in the English Department always a bright light as well for me coming in as a new principal um she was very encouraging of me very optimistic always has positive words to say for everyone and has

021been that bright light at Cedar Ridge for all of her years there so we really miss them um we're hoping maybe they'll get bored and they'll come back next wi her but um if not we wish them all the best thank you so we have for one second we also have a distri uh employee that is based at Cedar Ridge so we would like Miss Kathy couter to come [Applause] forward go anywhere so miss so miss culture has been our lead speech pathologist for a really long time and I know personally every time I need to place somebody into a mentorship this is the person I go to she has been wonderful I have worked with her throughout the district and even as a principal and I want you to know we really appreciate you

022and it's only six months you have to sit out just remember congratulations good evening it is my honor to bring up here tonight Mr Kent Squires better known as chief Chief uh Kent what's interesting about Kent is that or chief that this is his second retirement he served Orange County well as a teacher and As A Firefighter that's a special combination there um Chief is an awesome guy Chief is well loved by the students by families he reaches out to families all the time and he always takes care of the kids and he always walks around and ask us can I have help you Chief always has your back and one of the things and I said this to the faculty today and I want people to understand this Chief like this building Orange High

023School is over 60 years old at this point it's very hard to say you're the first at anything at Orange High School but you're the first fire chief at Orange High School Fire Technology teacher at Orange High School and that'll never be replaced because what you have to understand anytime you start something it's very difficult right you're learning how to teach and you you're building a program and that will be never that will never be forgotten 40 years from now we'll still be talking about you so Chief I say thanks for being a great Panther and I love you [Applause] okay so we also have Tanya Murphy um who retired from Orange Middle School is she here yes so Miss B William said to tell you that she was on her way and got caught

024up in an emergency so um but she sends her regrets and she'll be calling you she said but I do want to thank you I do know you were the band teacher and you know what I do know a lot of about man in the sense that my children were there and it was I don't know how you got them to play those instruments but uh we thank you for your service for Orange County schools and we hope that you have a wonderful [Applause] retirement transportation so we have here a special special person I have the honor and privilege uh to introduce tonight Mr Curt stagner so this guy has had the attention to detail that this this individual has is my mind blowing so you hear Kurt on the radio there's a horse out

025here on the side of the road it looks to be uh about 14 to 15 hands corner horse in nature and it's out here at the intersection in St Mary's in slide you so you know exactly where you was going and what you was fixing to get into you to the bus is making a weird noise and he'd describe it and again we'd already know what about what we're looking for by the time we got there cuz he would describe things uh um but keeping the kids safe and the dedication that you had is a just a huge breath of fresh air so thank [Applause] you back and we have Mr Michael Barrett is he here not here okay I just want to make sure that we did not miss any anybody so we did

026have some employees that were not here tonight and please know we have reached out to them make sure they got their gifts their certificates um and we to we appreciate you guys taking the time to allow us to do this tonight and thank you um and again congratulations any of the reti would like to come and be part of a group photo all together with cices and congratulations one more in front of me and our hair will match I'm coming all right squeeze in a little bit more for me all right excellent thank you for your patience everybody looking this way for me and that got it thank you congratulations I would just like to reiterate from the board and I know everybody's going out to the reception but we are so thrilled for you

027and um you know everybody Connie says you can come back and come back to a school I say you can retire and come to the school board cuz that's what I did it work it it's a job I'll tell you that but it's good it's good so um we are so happy for you and so thrilled for you and you are so deserving and there are a lot of people in this room that I known for a long time and um have worked with in one capacity of the other and um I'm just so happy for you and I hope that you have wonderful retirement and um do what you want to do that's the best I can say and right now I need a motion to adjourn so that we can U party with

028you motion to so I have a motion motion to adjourn second all in favor I I okay let's go to a reception e e e we need you vote okay I would like to uh open this close session of our um well our this next session of our board meeting tonight and I need a motion to inter close session for the reason so stated on the agenda so moved second all in favor I I okay we will go to close session thank e e e good let's get rid of come on there we go okay I'd like to call meeting of the Orange County Schools Board of Education to order welcome everyone here tonight thank you for being here um we will start out with our public charge Orange County Board of Education pledges to

029its citizens to conduct its business in a courteous and productive manner showing respect for fellow board members staff and citizens the board ask its citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy toward both schools personnel and each other a moment of silence will be observed before each meeting in addition to the moment of silence the board will recite the Pledge of Allegiance the board ask that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain that they are either turned off or on vibrate to avoid Interruption of the meeting and at this time we will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all now

030we will observe a moment of silence thank you all for that we move into recognitions and I think Mr Smith is has our first Dr Dreer okay thank you Dr Dreer uh recognizing Pride mon good evening everyone good evening June is pride month lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer pride month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan The Stonewall Uprising was a Tipping Point for the Gay Liberation movement in the United States in the US the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as gay pride day but the actual day was flexible in major cities Across the Nation the day soon grew to Encompass a month-long series of events pride month was first recognized in 1994 when a coalition of education-based organizations in the

031US designated October as LGBT History Month the federal government first recognized the month in 1999 when President Bill Clinton declared June gay and lesbian pride month in 2009 President Barack Obama declared June LGBT pride month and on June on June 1st I'm sorry 2021 President Joe Biden declared June lgbtq pride month pride month is a time to acknowledge and celebrate the lgbtq plus community's proud history and accomplishments in the the fight for opportunity and equal justice under the law the commemorative month is recognized um as we recognize the impact of lesbian gay bisexual and transgender individuals and the impact they've had on History locally nationally and internationally happy pride month thank you thank you Dr Durer you're welcome I will add that Orange County schools has a a resolution for pride month and that resolution

032is being looked at by the board now and will be read at the next board meeting okay and we move on to graduation 2024 thank you madam chair Mr Vice chair members of the board Dr Jones and everyone here it's um it is the Monday after uh and I won't I won't speak long I'm simply going to uh as promised we're going to share with you some of the beautiful photos smiling faces of hundreds and hundreds of Orange County Schools graduates who enjoyed graduation ceremonies on Friday June 7th here we have some of our students and their supporters and family members uh at partnership Academy's graduation held at the cedaridge high school auditorium it was a wonderful event for everyone involved um Dr Jones is going to share more details during her comments and so

033I'm literally just going to take everyone on a little visual to to remind you of all the fun that we had um staff love to come and support graduates and so watching these ceremonies as they're about to get underway is one of the most beautiful moments of all and we appreciate you all uh making your way wherever you possibly could to be part of the festivities on both Friday morning and Friday evening as well as you can see there Miss Kate's uh definitely enjoying the the company and and support uh and also sharing sh ing some of it back with officer Sykes it was a wonderful Sunset evening uh at Redwolf stadium and I appreciate and have to shout out for Miss Jayla Davis who's our communication specialist this is her first graduation on this

034side of the camera and for anyone who has been through it before when you take 3,000 pictures at one event you have definitely been baptized by fire and so I have to take my hat off to Miss Davis who not only took those pictures but then sifted through them to come with an album that's the good news I will share one detail that uh by the end of tonight's meeting all of the photo albums for partnership and Cedar Ridge and orange will be shared to the landing page for graduation we had a wonderful event everybody seemed to understand the clear bags only policy and all the parking signs seem to have helped um and so getting ready for uh for a huge huge public event like we had as you could tell um at Orange

035it took folks a few minutes to find their final parking places all the way up and down Orange High School Road uh we appreciate everyone's patience but it was a beautiful event and so orangecounty first.com graduation is where you can find uh links to the video streams from our two large Traditional High School graduations partnership has a wonderful tradition of playing some really really fun walkup music not the kind of music that we can put on public videos on YouTube or Facebook and so that's a private video for folks who are wondering why there's not a public link to that but Cedar Ridge and Orange High School links to the Vimeo streams um we had excellent excellent uh help to make sure that the live streamed video live streamed ceremonies were accessible to all um

036we've gotten very good reports on how that went and so for the many people who want to enjoy graduation festivities but can't be here in person or who want to go back and watch later we're very glad to have those um so thank you very much for letting us celebrate and thank you for your support because without an immense amount of support from this board graduation might have looked very very different this year so thank you very much thank you Mr Smith I'd like to um say thanks to Mr Smith and to um everyone who was at the event but give a big shout out to our operations and maintenance folks who did a mammoth job on getting everything set and ready and helping with parking and all the details that we had no idea

037that were going on that went on that night but they were wonderful events and um starting in the morning with with a partnership and then moving to those two in the evening and the weather could not have been any better but um just thank you thank you thank you to everyone on behalf of the board okay um Now we move into uh agenda adoption motion to adopt the agenda with one addition to consent I'd like to add that we um appoint Sarah smiley on the B as our representative on the bond education committee okay second all in favor I I okay so that is adopted with that change okay we have public comments I think we have one person speaking tonight so Mr um Richmond we will now have public comments speakers will be called

038in the order in which they signed up each speaker will have three minutes yielding time to other speakers is not permitted if a speaker has written materials they would like to share please hand them to our board clerk Franklin mckune and he will distribute them to the board the purpose of public comment is for the board to hear from members of the public not to engage in back and forth discussions per our policy board members will not respond to speakers during the public comment session the board greatly values public comment and welcomes all comments regardless of viewpoint however please be reminded that children are often present at these meetings and that our public comment policy prohibits profanity vulgarity and personal AB abuse of any person we ask that all comments be civil respectful and free

039of personal attacks any speaker who violates our public comment period or otherwise exceeds the bounds of order and decorum will be given a warning continued violations may result in the speaker being ruled out of order at which point we will move on to the next speaker our one and only speaker for tonight is David Gaddy good evening Friends of the board Dr Jones and all other District leaders that are in the building tonight uh I'm David Gaddy math teacher and chair of the math department at uh Orange High School I just wanted to give a quick shout out since I was going to be here tonight anyway I was going to use the platform uh to just give a shout out to my math department at Orange High School and this is necessary because a

040positive culture um is necessary because it trickles down uh to the students who hopefully become more willing uh to meet us there in that realm of positivity um it was a phenomenal and challenging year for us as the data will uh show you uh right now it can show you we can show that to you um but the Evas growth data will show that to you too um I just wanted to give a I wanted to give credit where credit is due uh to my math team uh math one miss Collins Miss Blackburn and Mr Campos Allstar team of beginning teachers um they were led by Miss Christine krider who was our curriculum and instructional coach uh shout out to curriculum coaches all over our County um and hopefully more funding will go toward them

041because she was a huge Factor as to why our math one team um has such a huge turnaround of her coaching as well as the passion and energy our math one teachers put into the process is turning our program into something amazing and we're going to reap the benefits of that going forward because now all we have to do is tweak and adjust to a new batch of students or to a new line of thinking on a topic and shout out to our math 3 team who is seeing a huge bump in proficiency across the across the board in not only math 3 standard but math three honors uh miss karasi Mr Amed Mr bogas I can't say greater things about them all three of them come with a wealth of knowledge in their area

042uh but common planning and common PLC time um has helped dramatically um every teacher no matter how many years they have in the game uh became better instructional leaders over overall and they became overall better for our students and the rest of our math department Mr Parker and Mr dish are both phenomenal leaders uh Mr Parker is the most veteran amongst them um his leadership and mentorship to our beginning teachers has been phenomenal as well Mr dish started midy year with us and has already become a teacher friend to many of our students and we're looking forward to him stepping into math one uh next year where it's already as as great is as it is right now and our EC Department has been huge um our EC department has professionals who are not only

043willing to learn content but also teach content um when a teacher is not a not available all while attempting to Mentor students to continue to become their best selves academically and personally so if you ever have any questions for us as a math team feel free to go to those teachers because they are phenomenal thank you thank you Mr Gaddy I have to put a plug for you as well because I know you are an excellent math teacher as well but thank you all right board comments um Miss Smiley sure all right um happy Pride everyone um I hope everyone has a chance to celebrate um this month um graduation I was at Cedar Bridge it was excellent um wonderful time went very smooth smoothly um uh couple of other things that I wanted to

044mention from recent weeks um one I got to well my family is always in the handmade parade and I always think this is such a wonderful creative opportunity for our art classes at the end of the year to come out here make their parade puppets and things and Central Elementary School was there this year the Soaring Eagles and they all had their little Eagle wings or these little star things and it was lovely I was glad to see them there um and that was it's just really nice to see our schools participating in things like that um I represented o the climate Council so this is the reconstituted Orange County climate Council which is the county the towns and the school s school um systems uh at this point the plan is for it to

045meet only twice a year um and um the function of it essentially is to make sure that um all of those um groups are exchanging information and identifying synergies where possible um I want to thank Patrick Florence for also coming and representing Orange County Schools he's going to be at those meetings as well um and so yeah I'm just uh interested in thinking more about what Orange County Schools can do um on the climate front um given the level of Crisis that we're in and you know later we're going to be talking about the bond I think there actually may be some opportunities there as well related to the bond um and then lastly last night I went to this wonderful film um called the road to Brown um honoring the 70th anniversary of brown

046V board um and it had a wonderful panel afterwards um Mr Xavier from Orange High School was there um representative price was on the panel um Jennifer Marsh who's a civil rights attorney for and works at Self-Help Credit Union who's a graduate of our schools um Anna Richards um who's one of our County Commissioners and Betty Ider who um is a retired teacher who was here at that point of um integration who uh worked at Central High School and that at Orange no at um at the time Stanford Middle School um and uh and Dr Freddy Parker was there as well um and it was just really wonderful to hear all of those different perspectives on um what that experience was like um the highs and lows of it and um sort of How It's

047all playing out today but the film The Road to Brown is less than an hour long a wonderful education and I was really glad that Mr Xavier um brought up the role of paully Mur who is um local and had a huge role in the argument that led to the Brown case um the the argument that won um you know she's Orange County um so uh the film was a 1990 film so she was not mentioned at all and I was really glad that Mr Xavier brought her up M um I was glad I got to visit orange middle school before the school year ended and see all the good things happening there um I love getting to celebrate our graduates um from three different programs I want to um give a shout out to

048project search which is um an opportunity for our extended course of study students um a partnership with the dental school at UNCC that's just an an awesome um program um for students to thrive um the partnership Academy graduation um is also personal um and also the Orange High School scho uh outdoor graduation was really lovely um I look forward to attending all three next year hopefully um I want to elevate and focus for a few minutes on the importance of pride month um sharing some data from the Trevor Project which is a great resource um and most of this is a quote or paraphrase um roughly half of transgender or non-binary young people found their school to be gender affirming so half did not those who did reported lower rates of attempting suicide um however

049a majority of lgbtq young people reported being verbally harassed at school because of their identity um I also found this resource from the CDC entitled Adolescent and school health creating safe schools for lgbtq plus youth um they have all these materials I was downloading and reading through they have something called core competencies for professional development lgbtq inclusive inclusivity in schools there's a self assessment tool that's available for all users and they give you a different page reference if you're um just a general Community member or administrator or educator and I took the educator assessment and then you get kind of graded on a scale C is commit to change B is beginning to break through and a is an awesome Ally and it identifies specific practices or behaviors um that truly help to create uh

050an inclusive and safe environment for students and Foster that culture belonging um the CDC notes that quote when schools focus on creating safe and supportive environments that support lgbtq plus youth all youth have improved mental health comes and I'm a big believer in that so um I know we as a board we're um looking at and um you know there's always new data we can add to our resolution from a couple years ago um so I just encourage us to keep growing as a district and board um to fully and consistently support our lgbtq plus students and staff um and parents and families um I hope in the coming year we might invite back equality and C which is a a great resource for um educating us on best practices um and I know some

051other um boards in the area have other approaches um DPS has had an lgbtq task force which has been focused on um some policy guidance and that might be morphing into an Advisory Group um for the board and so I just look forward to continuing to grow and clear support of our lgbtq plus Community thank you Mr Mr richond yes ma'am I um just want to say congratulations to our 2024 graduates um and to our Orange County School retirees um congratulations and enjoy your retirement and then uh finally I had the opportunity this weekend to attend um a gun violence prevention event that was held at Fu um Community Park um and was able to see several of our um District students there along with their family members and had the opportunity to speak at

052that event which was uh very nice and I think it was held on by Mount Zion and me church as well so thank you Mr Aon sure um so first I just wanted to thank Mr gadd for coming out and sharing some of the success with all the teachers and some of the challenges and also welcoming us to come and chat and see definitely looking forward to that um definitely wanted to congratulate all our our graduates uh partnership is always a wonderful event seeing the personaliz and understanding more about students the teachers and staff and the impacts they're having and uh definitely looking forward to the increased numbers we're able to support through that program um uh project search graduation was really wonderful um it was great to see uh our students hear the success

053the mentors and the program and um you know they mentioned it's the sixth year and definitely uh it's been wonderful to see that program grow hear about the students what they're uh going to do afterwards and also um the past two years they've talked about the students that will be coming and so you're learning a little bit about that so really appreciative of that program and love seeing that it's grown so much um I did meet with the AI committee here with we which we created in Orange County and um we're going to have a first policy that comes to the committee to talk about just a base policy to have in place while we get more of a detailed policy and standards to work through um also there's another committee within the AI group

054that is talking more about best practices what are resources uh teachers and staff can use so it's not just here's a policy but here are resources and guides and things you can use to do that and that's wonderful to see because a lot of the the teachers and staff and media Specialists that are on there are have practical experience using it and they're also getting um perspectives from different comp conferences are going to so I'm really excited to to hear about that and see how we develop that policy um the other thing I was going to mention is um I'm really excited about um the crown policy we're bringing forward tonight which uh now expands to include all of our staff and protections around that uh appreciate all the comments from the different board members

055on some of the the changes to and have uh more clear um protections around all of our students and staff as well um so really glad to see we've got that coming forward and as Miss Dole mentioned making sure that we are ensuring our schools are welcoming and protective of all of our staff and students so uh just thanks to the policy committee as well for uh helping develop that um and that's all I have Miss Hower okay well first I want to add my congratulations to all our graduates and families it was a great day for everyone and I have to add that I am a fan of the green of the dean dome but this year's events made me fully aware of what of the incredible amount of work that it takes to

056make these events happen and so special thanks to Franklin mckune and Kevin Smith CU you were the backbone um it was very impressive and of course principal Jason Johnson Anna hips and AP Kathy Kates for uh who stepped in for Mr Fairington but for leading the way for us um also special thanks to the project search graduation of special experience every year um I also um I uh wanted to congratulate the family success Alliance who just ended their year with some pretty cool projects that they're doing in community building pray playgrounds adding Services into the gateway community and other things so that's really cool to see what they're doing um and I did get a chance I was invited to be the keynote at Chapel Hill High School is that am I a traiter if

057I was at Chapel Hill High I was at Chapel Hill High School's tigerfest I was a keynote I spoke about my mother's experience at ashz but the students asked me to pay attention to one thing in particular they wanted me to talk about how we use words and ideas to either unify or divide and that was their their request to me we had a really interesting conversation it was the entire student body about around the Pyramid of hate and how um you know honestly I'll just say the first slide was the Holocaust didn't start with guest Chambers it started with words and ideas that divide us into Us and other so that was kind of moving for me because the kids were great um and then just uh a qu a question I I if

058you look at the consent agenda you'll see that our operation staff is making really impressive progress on our capital projects um in the next few weeks I was just wondering if it's possible for us to get an update on the projects that shows where we are on spending and when we expect these projects to be completed but it's really impressive take a look so thank you thank you very much um well I I think most everything that I attended has also been attended by other people um but one thing that I did attend that um was not mentioned was the senior Awards program at Orange High School um a couple of weeks before graduation and or the week before graduation and um I enjoyed seeing um the awards that students got and hearing the people

059present the awards to the students um and I also enjoyed the uh project search graduation at uh the School of Dentistry in Chapel Hill that is quite an impressive uh program that they have and I'm glad that our children uh not children our young young people in Orange County can take part of in that program um also have been to several Board of accy Commissioners meetings and hearings um and talking about the upcoming bond that you will be hearing about um before too long so um just thank you to everybody for their comments tonight and uh and for going to these things and a big shout out again to our students who graduated in in their families and their teachers and their administrators because it truly takes a village to get everyone educated and uh

060everybody in this room had something to do with that so big shout out to everyone for that so thank you we now move to the uh consent agenda do I have a super oh superintendent oh I'm so sorry Dr Jones I scribbled over your part I please comment I do have a few comments good evening um Madam chair pel um by sh Rich members of the board any students that are present or watching staff and community members um I want to especially thank those that did participate and helped to organize our graduation this year it was a massive undertaking um so to Mr mun and uh Mr Smith who supported our operation staff I sent individual emails to each of them because as I drove by them um on the street and the sun was

061beaming on them I I felt terrible um however they still had Smiles on their faces they they knew you know that that was the work that that we had to do that day so I really appreciate them accepting that call and um showing having so much grace on the hottest day of the year I think so far but um it was a beautiful event um I do want to congratulate our students staff and the community on a successful end of the school year uh last Friday I attended three yes all three even two were at the same time and it as quite a story as how I got to attend to at the same time that I can talk to you individually yes I will remember that forever um but um I want to take

062a few minutes to share some highlights that were shared by each principal um that we are all very proud of so at cedaridge high school they had 255 graduates this year over 50 were awarded scholarships totaling an estimated $1.5 million four students receive athletic scholarships 83 students graduated with honors one student will be attending Princeton in the fall um 17 seniors were inducted into the minority Achievers program um Cedar Ridge High School class of 2024 has 12 International Balor certificate candidates and 19 full diploma candidates lastly there is one fun fact they did graduate um three sets of twins this year Orange High School graduated 283 students um they were awarded three ,1 123,124 million uh do 3 million 1.3 million how about that um in scholarships this year um we did have a Morhead

063Morehead scholar uh 125 graduated with honors um this class had two students to graduate with an associates degree five who obtained um Community College certificates 37 inducted into the national technical Honor Society and 18 into the minority Achievers program of the 71 student athletes that graduated 22 committed to play in colleges and one graduated senior is on the eligibility list with the carboro fire department having successfully completed the fire tech program at Orange High School so we we do have great schools and we will forgive you miss Hower for going to an event at Chapel Hill um we'll talk about that later last but not least I do want to mention partnership Academy who graduated 13 students um five students graduated with honors there and four students were awarded scholarships so we're very proud of

064all of our graduates um this year I am um eternally grateful for all of our principles all of our teachers and support staff that go above and beyond each and every day to ensure our students are are successful um thank you to the OCS Community getting our students across that stage is not just the work of the folks that are in front of them this year it takes everyone it's a K12 initiative to get students graduated successfully and to realize all of the options that they have once they do graduate so I am proud of and excited for our class of 2024 graduates and excited to see all that they do here in the near future and um miss pcel that includ concludes my comments thank you thank you so much okay now consent agenda

065um motion to approve second all in favor I okay consent is approved we move into our work session with the teacher of the year Roundtable recommendations and I think um Miss Mars and Miss Brer are our presenters here good evening chair purcel Vice chair Richmond Board of Education members superintendent Jones and any staff or students who are listening virtually thank you for allowing our team to share with you this evening the progress we have made including one of our most valued internal stakeholders in Orange County Schools our teachers through District leadership opportunities of engaging with the superintendent Roundtable this year we will update you on the board excuse me we'll update the board on the purpose and the structure of the teacher of the year round table as well as share information on this year's

066team this team's Focus area this year um and recommendations that they are putting forth to the district joining me this evening are Connie BR Brimmer the director of Staffing ler and operations as well as as David Gaddy the 2023 Orange High School teacher of the year and our district teacher of the year finalist the teacher of the Round Table meets monthly to engage teacher leaders on a problem of practice that will move the needle forward with regards to teacher recruitment retention and Leadership the purpose of the round table is to provide space for Dr Jones to engage in authentic dialogue with teacher leaders from each building on important issues pertaining to teacher Recruitment and Retention the goal of this round table is to provide two-way communication Avenues between the superintendent and teachers at each school

067it provides a clear structure for Teacher leadership to gather feedback on key items that the district is working on finally this Roundtable is a way for Dr Jones District leadership and teacher leaders to explore our teacher working condition survey data Trends and develop responsive recommendations for our next steps the superintendent Roundtable uses a three-pronged approach of continuous Improvement through collaboration advocacy and teacher leadership the round table provides Dr Jones District leaders and teachers time to collaborate on problems of practice and focus areas for for Orange County Schools the Roundtable is also a platform for teachers to advocate for their school teams especially on important issues that are relevant to them that year finally the round table gives teacher leaders an opportunity to lead into teacher leadership providing teachers of the year with this space is

068a retention tool in and of itself our goal is that each year 13 teacher leaders will form positive connections with our superintend attendant and District leaders and then the following year 13 more and I'm no math teacher like Mr Gaddy here but that number what we hope will just multiply and cause the ripple effect to form positive connections between our teachers and our district leadership every year the round table Begins by analyzing our district trends for our teacher working condition survey our teachers are telling us what they need through this survey and we are listening to them during the 2022 2023 school year our Roundtable chose to focus on increasing the effectiveness of differentiated professional development this year our Roundtable chose to focus on the use of teachers non-instructional time for PLC collaboration protected planning

069and differentiated professional development 57% of our teachers across North Carolina agree with the statement the instructional time provided for teachers is sufficient in Orange County Schools only 44.2 3% of teachers agreed with this statement thus this area was significantly below the state average and our teachers decided to focus on this area based not only on the data but also on their lived experiences across the building so last year you may remember the OCS stars of Education conference this conference was created for our Educators by our Educators with the goal of improving differentiated professional development across the district we heard feedback through the round table from our teachers at our schools that we had too much professional development by vendors on issues that were not differentiated and just how to use a program but not so

070much how to actually improve instructional methods for our students and this conference resulted in that um Round Table as you see on the screen these were some of the different sessions offered they were offered by teachers in our district by instructional coaches who paired up as well as by District staff we look to see if our Round Table was successful by a number of measures one of them being our recent teacher of the year um I'm sorry teacher working condition survey data so in 2022 um 38.855563 with the statement professional development is differentiated to meet the individual needs of our teachers and that is what the round table focused on that year this last year we gave the teacher working conditions survey again and we saw a 14.1% increase to 52.9 7% we're not satisfied

071because that's still not enough but we did see an increase and that's evidence that some of this work is starting to take hold in Orange County Schools so we're very thankful for Dr Jan's leadership and saying that this year uh don't worry the OCS stars of education is coming back um and not only is it coming back but 2.0 version is going to be much better than the one. um o version because it's going to be fully integrated into our Orange County Schools key initiatives plan where we're working hard to align the messages and the key initiatives from principls to assistant principles and teachers in the hopes that that will ultimately touch our children and so one of those ways we're doing that is by taking our key Focus areas and making that a part

072of our Focus for the conference so our teachers will feel that alignment um that their principles will get through the Leadership Retreat and other avenues as well this year our um teacher of the year round table chose to focus on non-instructional time but I think it's important to note that in this you will also see that there's differentiated professional development as well time it's bedtime um so through the um teachers non-instructional time we were able to gather feedbook feedback from all of our schools and we found that what they really wanted to focus on during non-instructional time was that time for plc's that time for protected planning and that time for differentiated professional development and with that I'm going to now turn it over to David Gaddy who will share with you some of the

073processes that we went through um in analyzing where we were and some of the recommendations that we will have moving forward this year we don't have a product like a conference instead the Roundtable developed three key recommendations that Dr Jones has had us bring to the HR team um because they focus a lot on retention through these methods and we'll be exploring that um Mr Gaddy will share those recommendations and then we will hear from Miss brimer about how those recommendations are already being considered by our HR team sorry about the phone U my boys are now hitting the showers so um so because of the data that we got back from the teacher working condition survey and our own conversations on the school levels um at our particular sites uh we realize that there

074are some barriers to the effect Ive use of non-instructional time uh those barriers were um the inside of the planning periods uh teacher absences uh teacher work days and the master schedules for each School uh for our planning periods uh we realize that uh plc's uh and they inefficient hey look at you um plc's they're uh sometimes they're inefficient um the planning behind them the framework of them uh the the time is just not used wisely and so um with the initiatives that the district has been using uh helping us do our planning periods better our PLC our PLC work better um we are trying to make better use of that time but oftentimes inefficient and long um also uh there is a lack of uh working School level coverage plan for Teacher absences that

075leads to teachers being pulled to cover classes instead of being able to use their planning periods and not being able to do PLC work um a lot of times there's multiple meetings back to back to back to back to back uh and sometimes that happens during our planning periods uh which leads to little or no planning at all for um our instructional times um and then the support of beginning teachers often happens during planning periods and so now not only are our beginning teachers struggling to plan well but they're missing out on the time in order to plan well um the teacher absences is a huge issue um The Substitute availability uh or inavailability uh it leads to teachers being pulled from other classrooms and thus planning periods um and obviously as well you know

076as well critical shortage of substitutes and if there are substitutes sometimes they lack um they're you know just warm bodies in a classroom making sure all things go well um the teacher work days again constantly get stacked with meetings back to back to back to back and we have been working on that as a district um but sometimes it continues to happen that way and then for our master schedule um on the high school levels it hasn't really been allowing for common planning especially in our tested courses math 1 math 3 English 2 and by ology um and then uh teacher Duty coverage um a lot of times we get pulled from the planning periods to cover whatever Duty that might be during lunches or whatever the uh classes may be uh absent from so

077um so the planning periods the teacher absences the teacher work days and the schoolwide schedule and so we came up with three initiatives and so the first one of these is we want to strength the structures uh to recruit hire and train substitute teachers um and so we had three teams of people and we were coming up with ideas literally like taking spaghetti throwing against the wall seeing what's stuck what made the most sense um and so there were other districts around and Nationwide uh that were considering a partnership with a temporary staffing agency in order to ease and alleviate substitute challenges um and even then substitutes who would volunteer from the community um we no matter who we pull as a substitute we want the district to consider a process for recruiting and hiring

078but also strengthening the training processes for substitutes not just a warm body but a body who can go in and handle business no matter what classroom they would fall into and then uh consider a school-based procedure to provide positive working conditions for substitutes where they would want to come back to that school because of the environment and the culture that school has now like I said district has been doing some things to help with this and that's where Brimmer comes in you tell we know each other you have my son so um first I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to work with a teacher round table it's exciting to me to be able to work directly with teachers and have an impact on what what occurs in our schools and work

079on problems of practices that can help our teachers and our students um so in saying that just a little context we do know that um substitutes has been an issue really since Co I did a little research today before Co we had um slightly over 200 active Subs now we have about a hundred so we have about a half and when I say active those are people who are actively taking jobs in our school or serving is long-term Subs um so we do know that is an issue and we are looking at um A needs assessment to be able to really pinpoint the issue especially in regards to why our subs are not taking jobs um but I want to I want to also say today that um I think a key phrase is by

080Design and not by accident so all the strategies you're going to hear today are by Design not left to accident and I say that because we have wonderful pockets of things going in our in in uh our schools in all of these categories but we want to make sure that this is happening consistently across all schools um so in saying that the first strategy is our daily substitutes I know that our principes really really advocate for having a daily substitute at each school it is still in the budget currently um so we are hoping that that stays that gives uh um schools access to an immed mediate person when there is an ABS emergency or whatever the case may be uh we do want to Advocate that we might if funding is available that we

081could look at some differentiation of um allocation of those resources because at the high school we may have I think I counted that was like 125 teachers at Orange High School that could require a sub on a daily basis whereas at an elementary school it may be 25 and so look at differentiating that for the needs of our school um the second strategy we're looking at is a monthly substitute Roundup so one of the things that in just doing the needs assessment is that it takes a long time to process our subs and many times we have you know we might have a 100 applications but it's taking three four months to get all the pieces in place so we're looking at doing a in-person monthly um Roundup where those who have applied will know

082exactly what they need to bring they'll bring it with them we'll be able to intake them at that time make sure we have all the port background checks whatever the case may be and that also allows us to provide some training when they come to the monthly Roundup so that is our our second strategy um our third strategy is that we are going to work with our principles about developing a consistent coverage plan that um fair and Equitable to all employees so that the same employees are not being called uh all the time and so we do have some pockets of that but we want to use that model with all our principles to ensure that um and that's going to ensure some consistency for our staff and not being pulled all the time but

083on the the flip side of that we also want to provide a template for our principles um for teachers to leave consistent sub plans because that's the other feedback that we have heard that sub institutes um some schools they come in and they have a plan they have a schedule they have all the things they need and sometimes other schools it might not be as consistent so we want to make sure both ends are touching um and last is the consideration for a staff and agency and um some of you may remember we explored that a couple of years back and we did not find it cost prohibitive at the time however we are still opening to revisiting that option if uh if the f fincial circumstances change and we can negotiate some favor favorable

084terms and we've already reached out to um a couple of the companies and I think there's some new staffing companies out there just to get some information and to see where we stand on there um so we hope and we we will be probably adding other strategies as we do our needs assessment but we hope um to be able to both booster our subpopulation and provide the training that's needed so they can be successful in schools the second initiative uh is to as we're talking about strengthening structures around the district districtwide uh we also wanted to talk about strengthening our teachers and the culture uh that is in the district for them so strategically building a cohesive and strong Orange County Schools employee culture uh to focus in on uh retain retaining teachers um so

085uh we wanted to reframe uh reframe teacher retention as building a better sense of community for Orange High School uh this year uh is probably the first year that I can remember where there wasn't a really big turnover a really high percentage of turnover and I can remember uh principal Johnson at the end of last year saying I'm excited about the coming year because we get to run it back with the same people for a first time in a while and there's something to that there's something about you've already built a culture and now you get to keep it the same exact way with almost the same exact people let's run it back let's do it again that's what's happened with our math program as well and so reframing that teacher retention um as uh

086building a better sense of community because if we can keep the same teachers and the same qualified teachers and the same caliber of teacher um it like I said it like I said before it trickles down to our students um and we want to create a a culture of value within the district and school that extends Beyond academics we want our teachers to be seen more uh more than just an employee more than just a teacher but a human a valuable piece of humanity within our district within um our schools um a lot of our beginning teachers recently talked about the onboarding um and a lot of our new teachers that came in talked about the onboarding into the district and into to the school site and how sometimes it was difficult or delayed or

087it took however long and so we talked about strengthening that onboarding process make it more streamlined let's get it let's get it let's get it and on top of that on the school sites um having people that they can see and Trust right off the bat and say okay I go to this person if I need to know about this or I go to this person if I need to know about the one vending machine that works on campus um so we we wanted important people at each site and we wanted admin to um bring light to those people so that beginning teachers and new teachers on campus would feel more at home on their campuses um the two big ones that I uh loved to see on this uh we wanted to provide edtpa

088support groups um and checklists for alternative licens or teachers um that edtpa is something else and I'm working with one teacher now who is going through it and it sounds ridiculous um along with atpa um something that is very similar that I am uh diving into now is uh providing writing time for teachers for national board candidates to complete the process because that is a bear as well um and so bringing support groups in and bringing uh more people in to help with that those process um is hugely vital because I know that uh one teacher in particular I've heard the story of they love teaching in the classroom but when they move over to having to talk about and do their edtpa they hate the profession and so we want to create groups uh

089where they can talk about those things and be supported in those things um and um and this was the eyebrow raise that Dr Jones gave uh consider retention bonuses um we love talking about money but it's there and so we know teachers are always talking about bonuses and retention bonuses and things like that because they also hear about uh new people coming into the district and getting some kind of bonus along the way to come with them so retention bonus as well but as always the district is working so miss brimer will tell you so this is also exciting opportunity because last um board meeting you approved uh theou for our um our research Grant with the North Carolina teacher Support Program out of UNCC Chapel Hill and so that Grant matches nicely to some

090of the things that we want to accomplish and um and so um Dr gamon and Miss Ronda wood and I have already met and we have started planning uh the use of those funds so I want to share some of those things with you so the fund the grant does give us $10,000 for substitutes and so that is going to allow us to be able to do a lot of different things um so one of those things is allowing our lead mentors time to be able to observe their BT um by providing a substitute um so so that they can go in and give direct and targeted feedback um that's important for our BTS and it's important for our lead mentors to know exactly what they what they're working with and what uh in terms

091of what strategies and skills and so on the flip of that it's also going to allow our BTS to be able to go across not only their own school but different schools and um visit model classrooms um so that they can see in action the professional development that we've been giving them um so that is one of our strategies um so the other thing is onboarding and we did get um $6,200 for stiens and I'm going to tile this together in a minute but 8,126 for alternative license orientation um so let me talk about what we do currently beginning teachers in their first year come into come uh for a three-day pre-service uh it's in August it allows us to orientate them to teaching our policies in our district before they hit the classroom but

092teachers who were hired after the first day don't get that same opportunity um so and keep in mind it's only first first year teachers and not second and third so some of the the funding that we've been giving is going to allow us to kind of fill that Gap and bring in our beginning teachers that are hired after the start date and addition to our twos and three and let them work for three days in the district to and get they will be paid a stien to be able to orientate themselves to the schools to our district just like we do with our others but it will be structured throughout the school year here um and that's an exciting opportunity and it will hopefully be able to close the gap of on on boarding um

093so that is also one of our strategies uh another strategy is we would like to create a onboarding checklist to use with our beginning teachers but not only our beginning teachers any new teachers in the district and that onboarding checklist would not be just about day one day two day three day four but year because there are things that occur periodically about year but it would start with where do you find The copier how do you do a absentee how do you get in timekeeper all the things that we know that if you don't know become very overwhelming for new employees um and then other things may be Ori Orting out of state employees to our teacher evaluation system all of those things will not be left to chance they will be by Design and

094we will work with principles to make sure that's being done across all schools um and again it can benefit not just their beginning teacher teachers but new new employees to the district um so edtpa that's one of my favorite topics so it is so let me explain the atpa most people when they come out of a teacher Ed program have completed the Ed CPA when they come but the state does require the Ed CPA for anybody who is an alternative license sorry or and who um Who come out of state so even if they went through a teacher Ed program and so the edtpa really mirrors the national board process is rigorous it is um at times uh overwhelming and it's very demanding and so I know districts across North Carina are struggling with how

095to support our teachers um because we ourselves don't necessarily have the skills or know as what we need know about the edtpa so one of the things we're doing we're going to expand our lead Mentor population to include a Le lead mentor to work with teachers just on the edtpa and so some of their their responsibilities will be creating a timeline with teachers going through the adcpa doing orientations of folks going through the Ed CPA they can they can be a reader and give advice um they can also connect our teachers going through the Ed TPA so we have listed that on our website and that will be one of our lead mentors we don't know how many yet it will depend on um how many people apply and then how many people we have

096that need to complete the etpa we are also with our grant be able to we're going to be able to provide three writing days for our adcpa just the way we do for national board um so they will have three paid days to be able to work on writing Port their portfolio and then it also there is a cost it is quite costly it's $300 to submit and it's not uncommon for people to have to resubmit at times so we're going to cover the cost of one submission and that is that initial one that's three is the $300 um so um in saying that let me also say we are we did advertise also a um lead Mentor for beginning to boards and so um beginner to board is a program that allows us to

097um get our because the atpa and the national board process is so similar it allows our beginning teachers to start thinking about national awards and so the nice thing about that is even though it's following under the beginning teacher program we can use that mentor to also help cultivate groups for national boards um and I'm very excited to tell you that we applied for the state and we did get money to help support people with the cost of national board s so we're going to be able to distribute that soon also um now in in regards to there there is another component that people struggle with and it is the foundations of math and the foundations of reading which are our stateboard exams that are required for exceptional children and are and required for our

098elementary we have I think about 40 people right now who need to pass uh both one or both of those tests so we did get $10,000 to be able to support that we have a foundations of math class going on right now for for about 15 employees we will be able to offer it throughout the course next year we do have an internal trainer we are looking at being able to send someone internally to become a foundations of reading trainer because we do not have that currently but we can use the money to bring somebody in it is a two-year process to train so it will it we want to do that but we also want to be able to serve the needs now and so that is also part of our grant and then

099last differentiation that is an important part of what we want to do and um we have started that work with our exceptional Children's Program last year and so we are on year two now and we're starting to develop those those plans and we really do want to be able to build that out so that um our other departments start to think in terms of that we we can't do that alone we have to work with our curriculum instruction votes but that is in the works to be able to build out three-year PL so that we're differentiating sorry for our BT and so our final initiative continued to focus on teacher retention but then it shifted into overall staff Wellness um we wanted to utilize those optional protected teacher work days in our staff calendar to

100celebrate teachers and create social emotional learning opportuni um maybe something called invest your invest in yourself days where um it's a mental health check it's um self-care kind of things uh it's creating opportunities for connection across the district Affinity groups uh book days or staff Fitness groups whatever we might come up with or we could partner with local businesses uh to offer services for teachers and staff across the district so um intentional Focus on staff Wellness thank you and on the screen you see some initiatives that the student engagement equity and support team have already started um in Orange County Schools such as the monthly Wellness newsletter or Partnerships with the sports flex and truest Bank um but we're excited to continue our partnership with Dr dreer's team for next year to um increase some

101of these offerings based on this recommendation from the round table um so thank you so much for taking a few minutes to listen to the work of the Round Table um as Mr Gaddy showed you we have amazing teacher leaders who have valuable input to share with us as we're creating and operationalizing District decisions um and it would be um a sad situation if we did not lean into to their leadership we thank Dr Jones for coming in in February um well after the year started um an embracing this team um and then strengthening the power of this team to connect directly with District team so that these recommendations don't die on the screen but as you can hear from Connie brimer um are going to become actual um steps that we take in the

102future so um at this point if there's any questions um or comments we will take those from the board Miss Molly um this was excellent thank you all so much um I am really thrilled that this um the teacher Round Table teacher of the year round table was able to be get so Concrete in solutions to this problem which we as a board have heard about so many times around the use of the non like just how do we solve the non-instructional time problem um this makes me very hopeful um that we're going to really tackle that and make some progress and and um and I think the I'm just inspired by the um the framing of it as like building a sense of community and strengthening just the overall experience as a human of

103being a staff member in Orange County Schools so love love love all of that um I have I think two questions one is um are we able to measure the amount of non-instructional time that's lost and can so that that could be a thing that we see if we're actually managing to move the needle on that so I think one of the ways that we try to get a sense of the scope of the concern is that we have a two-way Communication System where the teachers of the Year talk about what they're experiencing but then they go out into their schools and have time during their staff meeting or through email to collect qualitative data at this point we haven't ventured into quantitative data um my hunch is it would vary greatly from school to

104school as well as from level to level so as an elementary school teacher what you get as opposed to a high school teacher um so that's something that we could consider in the future moving forward but at this point we have not yeah I think if we if we are able to figure out a way to measure that because there's sort of the perception of the thing which you'll get in the teacher working condition survey which is important by itself right your like perception of it and there's the actual thing and I would like to know like how much is perception how much is the real thing are we able to move the needle actually on it um uh my other question is I don't we haven't had like a full discussion of the teacher

105working condition survey results this year right are we gonna are we GNA sort of dive into the like Trends and all of those things that may be a Dr Jones question yeah I'm happy to add that to our um agenda for um maybe next um next board meeting we have one more awesome yeah I think often we have looked at like Trends and you know just some of the things that we're pulling out in terms of successes and areas of challenge that the district is going to focus on um that is great thank you m I'll try to keep this short because it was so informative um there's a lot to um give positive feedback about but again I also really appreciate the specific um how you focus in on those three areas and how

106they kind of bubbled out of what what you were really hearing I know it's a a lot of work for art teachers of of the Year thankfully they're already doing awesome and thriving so they have all this ability to expand and do these other jobs um like the collaborating and the advocating and the leadership and then coming up with strategies um I am enlightened on the um what you had to say about the subs that was a lot of information I didn't know I didn't know we' Dro from 200 to 100 and um I know I just like to walk in as a sub with no training or even be offered a full-time job with no training as a sub um so you know I think working on these processes and the the equity among

107different tiers that you were talking about is really important um also those obstacles about those like programs this you know things you're having to interact with that are so um difficult I I love the support group strategies this is just all really um meaningful supports that that you all talked about and you're finding these specific Solutions um you know from the national board certification funding and the UNCC teacher support program I just I'm really grateful for all this um kind of brainstorming and and um collaborative planning and and um solution finding so thank you thank you Mr Rich um this is a great presentation really was um and I want to thank you for all the work that you all are doing to uh recruit retain and and to train um our teachers and our

108subs I I can say that substitute really brought some light to my eyes as well cuz I I'm sure where students haven't changed but I remember what it was like to be a student and walk into a classroom with a substitute who didn't know what they were going to do as far as teaching me for that day so uh we would have a little fun yes I did did help um but yeah that is great that that that's going to be part of the uh the work that you all are doing to train them and and uh help them better educate um our students and I'm quite sure safety will be a part of that as well U because I have seen where we've had situations where SS just didn't know what to do especially

109when they leave and go to a a different school so thank you Mr a yeah I just also wanted to thank y'all for you know really deep diving in this and it's really good to see the Orange County leadership coming together and coming up with Solutions and ideas and approaches to it um one of the questions I had was um on the training I was curious um what you know not the syllabus or anything but what what was the what's your thought around that that training because we have Subs that go to elementary versus Middle School versus high school and then you know one of our our key things in our district is ensuring our EC kids are in regular class settings and you know substitutes they definitely need some training around how to approach

110how to engage and what is that what's the thoughts around the training and all these different different levels have yall got to that or it's we're going to do it and come up with that approach so that's a great question and a a great insight into into the difficulty of serving as a sub that moves around from different spots um Miss brimer and her team will definitely be exploring that as they work to build out those bimonthly training sessions um but a key component of this is also working with our school-based administrators to build um a program not a program that's not the right word um a process for welcoming and teaching the subs quickly about what is expected at each school um because that will really get to the level the student population and

111the actual building and some so some of the best models are when there's an assistant principal who is assigned to be the substitute coordinator and they make a physical contact that morning with each sub in the building run through who on that roster might need special support in different ways um so we are going to do work at the district level but I think Miss brimmer's team is also going to work with administrators to strengthen those School approaches fantastic I just ask that EC be included because we do have that inclusion in our regular and there may be accommodations like a student wearing a headset because they're overwhelmed and that may be unusual for someone walking in to say hey are they listening to music versus you know being overwhelmed so I I think it's

112a key component I'm excited to hear that so as everybody mentioned they're prepared and know what to expect so I'm I'm so glad to hear that um one other question I had is uh I think it's and excited to hear the grant to allow uh teachers to have the time to focus whether it's on boards or completing something when you're coming from out of state uh and the question I have had is I I get the grant would normally be used for substitutes to allow them to do that and we all know things happen and you may have to tap a teacher to come out of their planning to do that is the grant going to allow them to receive what the substitute was in those cases and that way they're not you know being

113asked to do this and I do know that all teachers say they want their plan they it's not about the money but I'm just curious if y'all have thought about that and part of this Grant and ensuring that that could be covered as well we we work direct we have worked directly with UNC and we're still working to build out the parameters around the grant um but one thing they have focused on for with us is that um anything that we do do with the grant has to be for BDS and it has to be um orange they don't want to go against our policies so if we were to do do that we would need to be able to do it for you know everybody and that would need to be a consistent policy

114that we have that we would be able to do that but we are still working out the parameters for them um the L items they're are Partners in this and and we will you know continue to do that so okay and just one last question the uh and it was to I think one of the other board members points is how do we measure how effective this is right so we have these initiatives but how do we go back and say hey we did these seven these worked really well this one H we probably need to do something different just curious of how yall view this past the launch to come back and say how do we keep improving continuous Improvement that's a key component of the continuous Improvement model um and we need to

115make sure that any investment be it time or financial we have that return on investment so for the 2022 2023 school year we looked at the 2024 teacher working condition survey data and we did see that 14.1% jump we also provided a survey at the end of the conference to capture all attendees um experiences with the conference and they were overwhelmingly positive um and so that survey helped us understand its impact act but then also how to plan for this year's um in terms of this recommendation it is a little different than a one-day conference um and so that is something that as we move into our next year's team we will need to consider how we are going to focus on particular aspects of this recommendation which ones we'll focus on and then how

116we will measure it we'll be part of that work and I promise you the 13 teachers coming are amazing um it's a dynamic group I'm really excited especially for the leadership of Miss um Roger Thorp as the district teacher of the year and her how she will help lead that team excellent thank you all so much Miss yeah I have to in full disclosure I've sent this presentation to some of the teacher this the incoming teachers of the years and they wondering how this is going to transition to them so thank you for that um I had I thought this was great um I appreciated your cander about the real issues that our teachers are facing and that's the start right when we're talking about the real problems um I and I especially like the

117convers the stuff about subs and Recruitment and Retention that's really what it's about so I had just a couple questions one is are we doing enough for time giving the you know planning period time has always been an issue obviously the subs will help but I was curious if we're doing enough and I was even in in policy we've been talking we've shorted up the volunteer policy to make it easier to be to people to volunteer in our schools but are we doing enough to really get resources into the school so that to protect teachers planning time that's that's one thing secondly and this could just be me but it helps me to when I think about Subs Elementary subs and middle and high school Subs are really different and so they're different problems you

118know because of the subject differences and so it help me if we started to disting talk about how we're solving those problems because I'm hearing a lot from the upper grades uh teachers and parents that we can't find Subs in the subject area and it's really undermining our quality of education so it' really help me if we started to be more precise in that conversation and then finally and obviously you won't have the answer today there was a time when we were having really high levels of absenteeism in our schools and there were real disparities school by school and I'm wondering if that has quiet it down so are we looking at who's out and why they're out and what's going on and obviously there's a long-term uh absences but but I'm just curious if

119there's something a problem about why teachers are out um and then and and back to the time thing I wonder that even you know we like the mentors in particular but in general are we giving you know we're asking them to do all these great things and Ed TPA it's like I was looking it up like but um you know we're adding all these things are we giving people the the time they need to do this you know it's not just the money it's the time so I just curious because time was your first thing you put out there so yeah you have three great questions that really get to the heart of the matter um and I think if you ask any teacher in public education Across the Nation the answer is no right

120they don't have enough time um and I think that is one of the large barriers um to job satisfaction in the classroom and if you've ever been in the classroom you know that firsthand um so I think some of these recommendations are not to say that this will never be an issue but what are some of those pieces that we do have control over um and so you mention having uh volunteers for duties that would be a huge support if we can train those volunteers to go in and not need extra assistance to then do their work if that makes sense um so it's a lot in the execution of the initiatives not just providing them but making sure that they are actually helpful um and I think that is why our roundt started going

121into the piece of culture no culture is not non instructional time which is our Focus piece however if you have a strong culture and you believe that you are part of something that's doing the real work you're more likely to be able to overcome these issues of T non-instructional time that's pervasive in public education so when we're giving teachers these connection points and these positive experiences um that will help mitigate some of the negative factors of not ever having enough time um the second one Elementary versus secondary you're exactly right I taught high school English and then went down and taught K5 ESL in second grade so I know firsthand the differences um and so I appreciate you elevating that and that is something that as we move into the next round table we will

122definitely take note of that um to understand how to best support um and to your point a lot of these concerns over coverage were coming from our high school teachers of the year so I think you're like nail on the head with that one um and then with staff absence is um I don't have that data so that is something that we can come back um the team can look into that with Dr Jones and come back if needed thank you so much great work great work I just want want to thank you all for what you're doing because it's long overdue and you're on the right track and you're working together the teachers central office HR that's a wonderful thing to see that everybody's working together to solve a problem and um I commend

123you for what you're doing thank you so much thank you and it was a great presentation we'd be remiss to not thank Dr Jones for coming in February and saying this is how it's going to be y'all are going to work together so thank thank you yeah it's it's great to see thank you all very much okay we're going to move into our uh update on the after school transition with Dr gamon Miss Myers and Mr Perry starting with Dr gamon ium yep good evening chair pcel Vice chair Richmond members of the board Dr Jones and our listening community this evening I am joined by Mr Forest Perry the regional vice president of the YMCA of the triangle as well as miss Emily Meers our director of mtss here with Orange County Schools um we're

124going to provide you an update on the transition of our after school program uh for the 2024 2025 school year so following board approval in March uh members of our district leadership team uh began working jointly with the leadership team at the YMCA to devise a trans ition plan um to ensure Clarity of objectives and to consistently monitor progress a joint meetings have been held weekly um through the months of April May and June um those are the the scheduled joint meetings we're also talking generally daily um more informally um this evening we will highlight a few areas as you can see here on the slide that have been a focus over the last couple of months uh first being communication to staff and families um as well as supporting uh the transition in staff

125hiring um and family registration um as well as the progress with licensing um these three have kind of been our priority areas of focus on this slide you will see our transition timeline uh that we actually shared when I came before you in March um as you can see we have worked collectively uh to complete the formal agreement um and to take purposeful steps around Staffing and registration through the months of April and May um we are also On Target to meet our program licensing requirements and to ensure that all sites are fully staffed and all families who wish to participate in the after school program are supported through the registration process so Orange County schools and the YMCA we're able to work uh collectively through the formal agreement uh to maintain staff wages for

126all current OCS After School Employees who choose to apply for employment um and complete the formal hiring process process with the YMCA um additionally program fees for families will remain consistent with the current program fee structure um for next school year um during the 2425 school year the YMCA will continue offering after school programming um at all of our our 10 sites um as well as intercession camps um Additionally the YMCA will offer holiday Care on designated dates at select sites um as well as summer programming beginning next summer the summer of 2025 so how have we communicated this transition with families um during the month of May all after school program site coordinators and all after school program staff participated in meetings uh with OCS District leadership and the YMCA's leadership team to learn

127about the vision of the YMCA for after school programming the different job opportunities that are available um the transition plan and important upcoming registration events all staff were able to ask questions during these sessions and following each of these meetings all after school staff did receive written communication uh covering all details just to ensure that staff who were not able to attend those meetings were kept up to speed um on progress so on May 17th um all job postings were made available uh and Orange County School staff uh was provided direct communication from the YMCA at that time with access to apply um for the various positions on May 19th the YMCA and Orange County Schools shared a joint update to all kindergarten through 8th grade families um with information about the YMCA and the

128registration process beginning May 31st the YMCA staff visited each School site uh to continue building relationships with our school teams and to provide in-person support as needed for staff who are considering applying for employment um our registration opened last Monday so June 3 um each school does have its own program web page um through the YMCA as a primary registration Source um the YMCA's customer service team is available um online as well as via phone Monday through Friday 8:00 am to 6: PM uh to receive any inquiries from our families um we've also filled it inquiries you know at the district level that we've been able to to funnel to our partners as well um as of June 7th so this is the end of that first week of registration being open um we had

129over 250 students registered um for the after school program which is well over half of what our current enrollment is um and that's just in that first week with that one uh push out of communication so we expect those numbers to grow throughout the summer as we continue to communicate with our families um June 3rd through June 6 so this past week um we did hold four on site registration events that were led by the YMCA they were held at our four Elementary School at four of our elementary school sites um Hillsboro Elementary New Hope River Park and Pathways um during after school operating hours so that we could try to catch families as they were coming in to pick up students um these registration events um and I want to give a shout out

130to Kevin Smith and his team of family Liaisons they were supported by his team each one of the events um for any family who needed translation services to support them with that registration process so kudos to you guys um through these in-person visits the YMCA leaders and our OCS team were able to compile and this is very important compile ongoing questions and points of confusion from staff at all 10 sites um again it's one thing to hold hold meetings to hold sessions to communicate but how that's received is the most important part of that um so we were able to take in any points of confusion we did add an additional check-in session um this past week with our entire staff that could that uh felt compelled to attend um to respond to those questions

131um just so we could let them know we we hear you here's feedback on on your questions um and to make sure that we clarify things such as you know staff pay the hiring process um what this will look like next year with the YMCA and really just to to hammer home our our desire to recruit um and retain as many of our current staff as possible to transition over um at this time I am going to turn it over uh to Mr Perry um he is actually going to update you on some next steps with licensing as well as the voucher process thank you Dr gamon chair pcel Vice chair Richmond board members Dr Jones Thank you for having us tonight um so as Dr gamon mentioned there's been a lot that's been happening

132over the past several weeks as Mr Smith said a while ago is it's the Monday after and for us it's the Monday after registration started so a lot has happened in this past week when it comes to lure you know that it's a very complicated and very intense process and so we still have a lot of work ahead of us but we've got a lot of work behind us as well at this point um so we have uh submitted for the provisional license everything is secure with that um at this point the next step in the process is uh Building Inspections so we have Building Inspections fire inspections all the inspections that the state wants to do that'll happen during the month of June in the first week of July um as we begin in

133July starting with Hillsboro Elementary School we'll enter into a six-month provisional uh window where we'll move from a three- star program to a five-star program um but as I listen to the previous board meeting in May I know that affordability and access to vouchers was very important to this group um and so we are currently accepting uh families that are registering through vouchers um out of the 250 plus uh families so far students so far um over 31 of those have um used vouchers as part of the registration as Dr gamon shared uh previous last year's numbers were around 40 on students that had use that um so given that we're just over the halfway mark of registration but well over the halfway mark of previous voucher usage we feel really good about the the

134number of families that are going to end up um being able to engage in that and so we're excited to be able to continue to to honor that um again uh families have communicated to us directly that they're going to be using and partnering with DHHS um and then we're going to continue working with individual families as we get information from them one of the things that was shared at the previous board meeting that we also wanted to highlight is that in addition to uh being able to provide support with vouchers we as an organization the YMCA we provide financial assistance for all programs that we run so families that may not qualify for vouchers they still have the ability to apply for financial assistance from us and I do know that families have already

135begun applying for that we don't have an exact number yet but we'll have that for you in the coming weeks as far as additional families that have begun applying for that and then really our next steps as it as it comes to the work that we're doing right now so again for from now until August and really from now until the the start of the first program in July um we're continuing to meet with OCS leaders as Dr gamon mentioned uh weekly scheduled phone calls um but I want to uh just recognize Dr gamon and his team's availability to our staff I know uh probably more calls and and text messages than he'd like to get but uh the team has been very available to us and we really appreciate that um registration and launches

136again that's already begun we'll continue to support that with our customers service team will continue to answer questions uh individually as they come in um but again a lot of that each school has its own in uh registration uh link on our website that we'll continue to fin that through um Staffing is an ongoing process so we had several tiers of staff that we needed to hire for uh the coming year uh one of those is um essentially our director of Licensing and that position um I'm pleased to report has it was posted the interviews happened and that position has been filled um so we're moving forward with that one we have a couple of additional full fulltime positions that we're currently in the interview process for and then as you might imagine group leaders

137site coordinators um lots of positions that we need to fill there and lots of applications have come in it's hard to track the exact number of current OCS employees to uh that have registered unless they self-identified through our application portal um but we are feeling good about the percentage of staff that have self identified that they're part of the current staff that are coming over and again I know one of the big uh questions that staff had and that the board had uh at the May meeting was um being able to maintain a consistent level of compensation for staff um both traditional staff and staff through dual employment and we're excited that we've been able to honor that as well um so we're going to continue pushing this forward uh continue finalizing all the licensure

138uh requirements for this year uh we'll begin staff training as soon as we're ready to launch that with sites again uh Hillsboro Elementary will be the first um but in addition we'll begin preparing for the August launch and then we'll begin to prepare for intercession we've sold approximately 350 weeks of intercession care um across the district so far so that's going to be a big um lift for us as well as we prepare for that um and then preparing for next summer as well so that's just a quick recap on where we are with um Staffing and lure and the program to date and so at this point we'd be happy to take any questions that you might have of us at this time start on this Mr Aon so really appreciate your partnership on

139this as uh we're getting this on board um I do know that three stars is the minimum requirement to receive vouchers and uh we were five stars before is the intention to go to five stars um I know it's based on points and you have to get so many points and like you said you have to do all these different things and get them but is the intention yes yes the intention is for us to move to five stars and we anticipate doing that over the first six months of the program fantastic um on the H dolphin Camp um one of the common things that I I used to hear is we would not start dolphin camp on day one of intercession is the approach to have day one intercession uh care for parents or

140is it still offset I think I'm unfamiliar with that I'd have to to hear that again okay yeah if you could if you could just give me an idea if that's because the way it used to work is it it dolphin Camp may start on the Wednesday on the first day of intercession and you know we I would hear about it but I'm just curious if the intention of the program is to start on first day of intercession and there's three whole weeks versus two and a half weeks or something like that so parents have a a known you know child care for it yeah he I mean he could address and I can follow so it's it is starting on day one so it in districts that we've been partnering with previously typically when

141intercession starts we'll start programming the day of um and really it comes down to facility availability so as we continue to kind of work through that with the district as long as we have the available space our intent would be to run the program throughout the duration of inter session starting at the very beginning perfect thank you m yeah I love your enthusiasm sounds like you're making great progress and you're still excited about it so that's great um I I I think my as most of my questions are a little premature for you it sounds like you're still enrolling it it'll be a while so is there a way that you could there's a couple of things that we'll want to know at least I want to know how we're doing one is how is

142our staff transitioning right and are we you know are people um we haven't heard I haven't heard any complaints but I just was curious of people that want jobs are they getting jobs um and so you know so how is how is our staff transitioning for this second is our families is our our family you know our families accepting this are they is it seamless to them and how do they feel about it so just curious how enroll you said you enrolled about 250 family kid so far you know what what's your target number when so we um as we put together the RFP we worked with uh the service numbers from this past year which was around 450 50 students and so for us that is kind of one level of of Target for

143for us is to get to that level but we' certainly like to go above and beyond that as well so based on the registrations we had in the first week I feel like we're ahead of pace of where we'll need to be to serve the number of families that were served last year um ultimate Target again comes down to space availability um and how applications come in okay and just one more um and really appreciate what you're doing with the vouchers and and supporting and the scholarship um one of the impediments for after school has always been Transportation home and so I don't know we were starting to do some things with that and I just didn't know if that's something and it might be premature to look at that but but it's been something

144that's kept that keeps kids who need access to after school out of after school I'm just curious if we're looking at that that's not something that we've discussed at this time but we're definitely we note that question that's something that we can continue to communicate about moving forward okay great thank you great work any questions comments I'll just say this is great glad to see all the progress I know it's been a lot very quickly um and excited for the offering for our students and that how much we're able to maintain um of you know for our staff and our students I just want to thank you also for the collaboration communication with the board and just the nice timeline of everything that's been moving along and and prioritizing students and staff thank you I

145would add to that that we greatly appreciate your time and working with our staff and moving this project along because we know you didn't have a lot of U time to get this off the ground and so we greatly appreciate that thank you so much I just want to again I know I've said this at a previous board meeting but really thank Dr gamon for his work here and um Miss Meyers as well this is this was not their project to begin with and they took it on pretty quickly and they have done a really great job with it and I've had a chance to talk with Mr um Perry as well and um so I'm very I didn't know if it was Mr Forest or Mr Perry you know you have two last names

146going for you um so um just really appreciate the partnership I'm excited for what's to come but really thank you to um our district team for taking this on and really I'm running with it so I appreciate you yeah thank you as well Dr Jones for your support I do want to to definitely mention Miss Meers you know we're talking about the transition but the reality is the last three months we've also had the day-to-day operations of after school programming and she's been there with you know every step of the way with me and responding to schools and being on site and and doing everything so I couldn't could have done it without you so I sincerely appreciate you I wanted to say that publicly thank you we appreciate all that you have done so

147thank you very much okay um update on our bond projects I think Mr Foster yes good evening chair pcel Vice chair Richmond members of the board Dr Jones uh this evening would like to bring a uh brief update on Bond and capital project and uh take us back to the um May 21st excuse me May 21st border County Commissioners uh business meeting uh where we presented uh Bond and capital projects um and uh outline there was a new K5 Elementary School and projects that addressed uh educational adequacy uh and specific high priority uh needs uh feedback uh from the board accting Commissioners resulted in a adjustment uh to the bond and capital projects plan uh and focused on fewer and newer schools uh across the district as a result uh the modified Bond and capital

148projects include a new K5 Elementary School a rebuilt of another Elementary School to be announced uh replacement uh of orange Middle School uh and and specifically to address high priority needs outlined by uh woolper uh at this time we wait further Direction uh as the bond education committee is established to move forward with the outline charge uh of the board of County Commissioners uh as well I we wanted to certainly outline what we are are in terms of bond and capital projects to this uh to this point uh based off uh the couple of meetings that we had both border County Commissioners meeting and our school uh or our school uh uh Capital School needs project meeting as well uh so at this time I will uh ask if there are any uh comments or

149questions regarding uh projects and uh Bond projects and capital projects to this point M Hower yeah thank you for this thank you for all the work on this um I just um have a question because um between now in November you know we have to be prepare the voters for what they'll be voting for and do we have an intention to get more specific about our elementary projects which schools which what locations CU right now we know we're going to do orange Middle School um Walbert had suggested some things with Central and HS but we're not sure exactly what that looks like but do we plan to before November in time to educate the public have be able to have a more specific answer to them about what the projects will be yeah I believe

150that's certainly going to be part of the process the B of to dive into and kind of pinpoint specifically uh which schools those are and we would build out I know that the county has identified uh that they want to uh ensure that there are uh facility managers uh for for for both counties for that matter that will help us move those projects along once those things are identified okay thank you Miss SM um well I mean um you all know that I expressed some concerns in our uh you know when we went back and and discussed these projects about sort of the cost of the three major projects and whether we would have you know how solid those were and whether we would have enough money left over to address our high priority needs

151um which are high priorities um and um I just wanted to share you know I went back and looked at the numbers that that were in their um I think it was a resolution to move forward um and and I think that the reason that is feeling more pressing for Orange County Schools plan compared to Chapel Hills is that um in Chapel Hill those projects their big projects account for 73% of the total funds and here it's 85% of the total funds which just leaves us a lot less wiggle room if costs escalate if an hbac breaks and we need to add a high priority project um I'm I'm just I continue to be concerned about that and actually doing that math and seeing that it actually is that we're much tighter um brought like

152brought some clarity to me um and so I you know I know that Chapel Hill I think is think you know they're getting some feedback they're like looking at those projects and continuing to think about if that's their right plan I am uh the place where I'm at right now is really understanding the value of you know let's have a new school like like the the advances that that can get us by fully having new facilities but I think that three projects is too many for us so I just I just sort of wanted to put that out there that that's where I'm at right now is um you know what I wish we were doing was an elementary school um the middle school and that the partial rebuild funding was channeled instead to the

153priority needs and then there might be a little bit of room for something like um I know the undiz of EC classrooms was a thing that was mentioned in wilper like that there might be some something smaller than the 28 million for the partial rebuild of the second Elementary School um yeah I just I just wanted to to lay that out um in sort of what I'm thinking right now and see what you all are are thinking right now I have a question I was just curious the 85% Y what what's what's your total number that 85% well I don't have in front of me what I did was um their resolution where they listed we intend to give Orange County this much money I took that and then I looked at the estimates for

154those three projects and that's that's how I ended up with you're talking about the 175 million in the bond resolution and there and whatever is in that in in the resolution yes in the resolution cuz you know Dr Jones and I on last Thursday you know we pulled the full County Capital plan and the county Capital plan has another $50 million for us so we have a total of 225 million not just so and honestly I just I have to tell you that when they put that number out there it really confused me too because I said what happened to the 225 million and I went back to there if you look at the County's 10-year Capital plan I think they're going to approve it tomorrow night and you look at all the capital funding

155that's in there all the different projects not just the bond and the payo there's another 50 million on top of that 5 million five 5 Z two that's where the two and I'm sorry Mr Foster's been telling us $225 million for months now and that's the number right I just I don't understand every it feels like every time we look at this there's like a slightly different set of numbers and I don't I don't understand um it is it I mean I don't even know what to do with that because I don't know what that number is I just because I I flipped out when I saw the 175 I said wait a second that's not enough exactly and I know that that isn't all of our maintenance it isn't like what's the leftovers from

156the last Bond and supplemental deferred M like I know that there's some categories otherwise but for that to add up to $50 million is surprising to me I just didn't think it was that you'll have I could send it to you you'll the county 10-year Capital plan from starting next year for the next 10 years it's it's in there there's 11 million next year for something I don't even remember what I I don't remember well I mean maybe maybe then we're fine maybe we're fine but but regardless the like the number that's in the resolution for Chapel Hill they still have 27% of money to go to's high priority projects and we have 15% to go towards high priority projects and so that's uh a difference I think that's why that's feeling more pressing to

157me and I'm like I think we're going to run out of money for the high priority projects and they're not sort of saying similar things is because they they actually when the answer to that is well you can just reprioritize your list like they just have more money to and you know to rep prioritized than we do so just to Echo that a little bit I believe that um Chapel Hill also is asked to do three you know major buildings and they have a larger pot because they're a larger ADM so three there for the larger pot and three here for a smaller pot it's going to be more of a stretch for us and that third project seems to make it too tight to Sarah's point so you know I I feel like we

158had to come along as a board to fully embrace you know I feel like we've made a lot of progress you know embracing much of the plan like you know um the fewer and newer concept you know the um definitely the new elementary school and like this you know major new Middle School rebuild um and then that third one just feels a little too tight um so I appreciate your work and your work Mr Foster and um I know there's just continuing work happening well I'm going to Echo what I have said before in that um um we're a little different than than Chapel Hill here is that they have land within the town limits or they're going to um move schools around and rebuild on that site um we don't have any land right

159now we've committed to build a new elementary school but right now we have no land and that is going to add to the cost of this significantly and unless it is built in town or around the town area um we're going to have to pay for water and sewer hookup as well which is going to be another significant amount of money and um add all that together and and you're you're taking money away from somewhere I don't know where um because I don't think that it's figured in there right now and Mr Foster you may be able to answer some of that I don't know no you you're correct uh certainly you'll be have to be looking at Capital money as well for uh some of those components that you just that you just referenced

160uh as well which means that if you're taking it out of capital that for other things in capital that might need to be done or be fixed or break or have you know some significant issue we're we're moving money that we may not have a lot of both and the short term and in the long term potentially so that is that is my concern one of my concerns right now Mr Aon first yeah I was just going to say that you know I I have concerns of the cost estimates as well not just because of the the land but the middle school that significantly way out and even the discussion of Decon construction and the cost of doing that plus is that the right thing to do in that in that area especially putting Athletics

161in the front and now what is that going to do to pick up or drop off whenever that's occurring and the total amounts uh I mean that's further out um that's a different problem to deal with but I just still have concerns with that not being estimated with uh an index of you know inflation and cost um and I do share the concerns of not knowing where the elementary is going and then also how that will impact redistricting because I am not going to sit up here and vote multiple times to move people multiple times it just that's that's not right and then also we also have to look at how this is going to affect our staff especially as we put a new School in line who's going there there's more population um with

162the larger schools um so I I just share a lot of those concerns and you know would love to understand how some of the key projects that we talked about especially with uh some of the EC facilities and EC improvements accessibility improvements we had planned across the district where we had to step back from that you know how are we going to address that and you know to Bonnie's point the 50 million how does that fit in with emergencies and others that will will come up so I I think we're going to have to get to a real understanding of the total amount how that allocates to our plan and ensuring that's meeting our needs uh and you know how we're discussing the the bond with our community so you know I'll just say I

163you know I I agree that there's a lot of uncertainty and um that's why I think it's important for us because if we're not clear certainly the voters we're not going to convin convince the voters that to be clear our our Clarity is is what's going to make the voters confident that this is the way to go um and it's a lot of money it is more money than we've ever been given so that's why I think we really need to be absolutely clear on our three projects and if you remember what the County's original proposal was of them was a partial build on a school so it wasn't a $50 million project it was a $27 million project a lot less money and there was quit you know and it wouldn't need new Land

164Based on the way they had presented it to us so that's why we really need to pinpoint the um you know these projects and and as soon as we can um the second part that you know it's a plan right it's not a it's not a done it's a plan it's directional and I think we've heard we've all heard the county say more than once and I invite Dr Jones and and Mr Foster way in but the three projects are going to be planned and they will have a timetable and as we get closer they'll be approved at that time and if there's not enough money there's not enough money the rest of that's um I don't remember the the number I think it's about I don't remember how much of that of the budget

165it was about $150 million of the plan the rest of it was is going to be approved year toe so we will have complete discretion year the way we do it now every year we are going to be proposing what projects we want to do with the rest of the money so and that's um right now the county has a 10-year Capital plan for us I was kind of interested in it but I didn't can't say I understood it but we will be able year to year be able to decide which projects we want to prioritize in that timet and however we want I I would say we can request that from the county County's been very clear that it has some views on what we should be doing so I'm just concerned with what

166will actually happen until we have those conversations with the county to understand I mean I I again on the three big projects but on the rest of it you know they even said there's some flexibility you know they said wpr 123 but um priorities two3 but they have been clear that there that is going to be a negotiated process every year so I I'm just concerned with our project of resurfacing a high school has been flagged as not meeting wolford's requirement I mean that's an immediate indication that this is not going to be an easy discussion so again I'm just sharing yeah I mean as you mentioned there is some flexibility but it's going to be flexibility within what ward has already identified and outlined um there so uh have we had opportunities uh to

167um I want to say change a project from a from a wport standpoint where we identified okay most recently for example the uh roof work that was approved at up and cheeks right we like okay wait a minute they identified this but it's still leaking so we need to get this fixed now so that was a shift you I think there's going to be conversation like that moving forward uh where we would have to just lay out and proove you know this is where we are with it for potential be a high priority need for us yeah I just I just want to add to that if our schools have potholes and aren't welcoming we're going to lose more students and families so it's there are important things to make sure and this this isn't

168directed at you this is directed at the fact that we need to ensure that as we're going through this that we're we're going to have to fight for the things that really make a difference um and maintain our our student population our families and ensure that the safety of our schools are are maintained but my only point is I don't think it's going to be a simple request is all I'm getting at sure based on what we're seeing Dr Jones did you want to say something I think Mr Foster covered it I just wanted to kind of clarify that term flexibility um and just you know we're going to continue working very closely with the county and I know we can bring forward projects but I think we are going to have to really justify

169um them being a high priority for us if they're not specifically outlined in the Wilber report Miss Molly just one other comment on the bond um and I referenc earlier in terms of the climate council meeting but um you know uh there are big opportunities for federal funding at this point through the IRA that are good for a certain number of years um so um so that's on um all sorts of Energy Efficiency and um um Alternative Energy sorts of improvements where if we're building new schools we can make them like incredibly energy efficient and incred you know generate their own power and some of these things and there's you know a significant amount amount of matching Federal money for that um that school districts can qualify for um up to 30 50 I saw

170somewhere like 70% I don't think we're the kind of financial I don't think our district is in the financial position where we're going to get that kind of matching but at a minimum 30% of a lot of it um but that sunsets like the year on the schedule where the orange middle school replacement would be built and so that's one of the two big projects right and so if if we can do anything to get that school moved further up in the Cy in the schedule then we could take advantage of a whole bunch of federal funding on that um and then the other one is and I mentioned it when we had the budget committee meeting but the need-based public school Capital fund you know the the state money that's available for us to

171be applying for for these projects is significant um for new school buildings and for um additions onto school buildings um there are need-based criteria but the session that I went to at this Schoolboard conference they said that wealthier districts get this money all the time the state spent billions of dollars on this program they'll give you up to $52 million for a middle school um you know you have to have matching but we could match with the bond so I just I hope we take advantage of all of those other ways to really maximize the dollars available so that if we don't end up using all of the bond money on building the elementary school because we get some matching funds that that frees it up for us to spend it on something else so

172just really looking at all of our opportunities um including whether there are any projects like in the shorter term that where we could qualify for some Ira funding or something and really be able to afford some things that we haven't we haven't identified yet good points so so Sarah can you get us Clarity that if we save money on the project of building that we can actually reuse it versus we can keep that money right versus saying oh well this project over hears over at Chap Hill they have they have said publicly multiple times that once the money is for that District that they have said that overages in the other District they they won't take money away from us because a project there has gone over so presumably if we do a great job

173of maximizing other funds that we would be able to keep that money I think we should it would be great to get confirmation of that but that's Clarity and hopefully Chapel Hill will be doing the same thing for goodness sakes like if the state is giving this money you know I hope we all apply for it for all of the projects for me I'll just say I think the important thing for us is to get clarity on the big three projects and the locations and exactly what we're doing so we will be more comfortable or uncomfortable with what the numbers are cuz right now it's there's a lot of there's a lot of softness in it for where we are in the process and I'm concerned about and you're the bond education committee it's going

174to be really hard to educate the public on we're going to do this or maybe this or that I think we have to be really precise I mean I think the piece of that that's going to be hard is if we don't we can't buy the land until we know that the bond has passed so we can't know where we're going to build a new Elementary School unless we identify that there's space on Hillsboro's campus to put it on the other side of the campus but I think we've already red that out that's that's one Poss that's one possibility the other thing that we we had started to do was have conversations with meban about land banking and to see if the developers I know Chapel Hill has been pretty successful with getting developers to

175set aside land yeah as part of because we've not asked for any you know they're just putting houses in there and they're not setting aside anything for schools so if we were able to do something on a timeline before the bond that would be you know great but so I I have concerns about building a school and extended jurisdiction of meban because they could Annex that at any time and make that part of meban so we this is very complicated right yeah so it's that we we definitely have to have a have a firm commitment and understanding before we build something in that extended area if that's where they land bank us because if they're giving us land in area they manage it's by definition in that area where they at any time could say

176we're annexing this so I just want to be careful why is that a problem if they Annex it they out now on the school if we build a school then if they Annex they just control the zoning of the school they don't have to it will be in their city limit it'll be in their Juris their zoning jurisdiction if they Annex it it will be part of Al Alamance at that point no oh how could a city because there's lots of meban town in Orange County Moraga for example is in meban city limits in Orange County I I 100% I believe we're going to need more guidance around that 100% true no I think if they Annex that's very very different than just they manage the area as a joint jurisdiction all right well we

177could talk about it offline but um yeah it and I know Neil would be happy to research that further for you nice thank you there's there's a lot of meban town land in Orange County by fact the whole Economic Development District manx is in through okay thank you Mr Foster and thank you all um we greatly appreciate it up next we have school nutrition um with uh Miss wrath and Miss bits and I appreciate you waiting Sarah oh no problem we're good Brian thank you sorry I was afraid of controlling my computer up here with okay perfect so good evening board chair ccel Vice chair Richmond rest of the board is superintendent Dr Jones tonight I'm here to discuss the community eligibility provision also known as C and how Orange County Schools May utilize an

178existing USDA program to benefit our schools and students tonight's brief presentation includes how the program works the impact to the students and families in regards to all students being able to take advantage of no cost meals if the entire school is approved and the potential impact to other structures if C is approved approved and a recommendation to move forward to best serve our families in Orange County I came before the board this time last year to present C and the recommendation to approve partnership Academy for the 22 or 23 24 school year since becoming a c School participation in the school nutrition program at partnership for both breakfast and lunch has doubled as students can receive a meal and not have to worry about the balance on their meal account try we go so here's

179a look at the school nutrition financials from July through the end of April and a snapshot of participation in the meal program by tiers it is important to note the participation has been increasing throughout the school year that we did turn a profit in the month of April and that we are expected to turn a profit in the month of May as soon as our reimbursement is finalized however a large portion of our profit increase is a result of a grant all of our schools have students who are eligible for free and reduced price meal benefits based on their family meal application where the family meal income and the size is analyzed based on Federal Regulations the district refers to this information as our free and reduced demographics over the last 15 years direct certification

180was introduced which allowed States and local education agencies to certify eligible children for free meals without having to collect applications currently we log on to the state's website we directly match our students in our Point of Sales system and all of that is uploaded but it's important to remember in order to be approved for free or reduced price meals a student must either be directly certified or fill fill out a family meal application so the community eligibility program focuses on those directly certified students meaning those students who receive benefits from a government entity who directly certified them including Medicare snap and tanif or those who are categorically eligible being mckenny vento Foster or migrant the way it works is annually on April 1st and yes that's a date set by federal law OCS compiles the

181number of directly certified students in each school we compare that to enrollment numbers to determine the percentage of students who are directly certified the resulting percentage is called the identified student population for the school Under C so we We Gather the data and we look at the ISP if a school district approves to elect schools for C the designation can last up to four years and no family meal applications are collected for students attending the C School even if the identified student population for a c School changes so for example under redistricting the C delegation stays with that school so if we take a school C even if their student population changes is good for four years but the benefit stays with the school so if a student leaves an elementary school that may be

182CP and they move to a middle school then they have to fill out the free or reduced application in order to get R free or reduced price meals so the district can also elect to remove the status of a c school if for say the Child Nutrition program is receiving a loss in benefits due to participation or we can also reelect I if the ISP increases so if year one ISP is say 85% year two ISP is 95% right we can reelect that school to get the higher benefit in families with multiple students must submit a family meal application to qualify other students for free or reduced price meals if they're not at C schools however the student who is attending the C school will automatically qualify so they won't have to do anything for

183that student so it's important to note too that the um federal law changed recently to state that any school with an ISP over 25% or greater is eligible to participate in the community eligibility eligibility program however an ISP of 25% does not guarantee our highest reimbursement rate so I probably wouldn't recommend it um and this we will discuss in a later slide so we have a snapshot of our ISP districtwide you're going to note that Hillsboro has been highlighted because it falls underneath the 25% threshold so they would not be eligible to participate in this program so the identified student population is multiplied by the USDA multiplier of 1.6 to determine the number or percentage of meals and that will be reimbursed at the USDA Higher free rate so the magic number that we're looking

184for is sorry let me change that for you is sorry 62.5 and it's 62.5 100% of all the meals that are served at that school will re be reimbursed free so when the identified student population ranges between 25% and 62.5% that difference or the percentage is claimed at the higher rate but the difference is claimed at the lower paid rate and I'll show you that so schools can be responsible for covering any potential shortages with non-federal funds so again the identified student population we're going to take a look at and partnership Academy right now is our only C school but in running isps more schools qualified this year so the thought process behind our additionally recommended schools is that a we need to focus on the highest need schools first this will allow us to

185slowly enter the program to ensure that our profit is sustainable and for your reference we included a chart which shows the USDA reimbursement rates column one is the higher free reimbursement rates that can be received column two is the lower paid reimbursement rates so for those P those ISP percentages that fall below that 62.5 right we're required to make up that difference and then column three is the revenue that would be lost for C schools whose ISP Falls below 100% And that's because school nutrition wouldn't be allowed them to charge for those meals so we would just have to absorb that cost so what happens with the community eligibility provision is this if we have a higher percentage school that has a higher number of directly certified we can leverage that higher percentage to bring

186a lower percentage School up and this is just called grouping and our goal is to balance the school groups as close to 100% reimbursement as possible again if we're not un if we're unable to do that we may have to look at um other ways to recoup those funds so at this point we've completed our April 1st review um have additional schools that have increased ISP percentages and that may benefit from the C program and we've kind of grouped those a little bit for your review so we've prepared three scenarios to look at C for Orange County Schools scenario one looks at the eligible schools with an ISP greater than 25% so it's all of our schools minus Hillsboro if we look at that it Compares our current Revenue right now as of April 1

187to what we would expect if those schools would have been C at this time so if the district elected to go this route it would result in a school nutrition program loss of just a little over aund or $211,000 as opposed to our current just over $62,000 deficit scenario two includes grouping of all Title One schools and Partnership if we elected the title one schools along with partnership projections show that the net profit loss of the revenue would be about $123,600 as opposed to the current deficit of 62,63 and then scenario three which is the scenario that we're proposing for recommendation includes a grouping of our highest need Title One schools for C this grouping would actually result in a net profit right now of 26 $2,633 for the Child Nutrition program so it would

188clear our current deficit and we would have a $2,633 profit at this time so under the Community eligibility provision one of the caveats is the school nutrition May no longer require families to collect meal applications for participating in the program an alternative that several other surrounding districts are utilizing is the completion of an educational or instructional application which essentially collects the same data this would allow us to um not I guess eliminate any benefits that our families may be receiving as their free and reduced application so our recommendation would be to proceed forward with the expansion of our C program including three additional schools those being Central effin cheeks Global Elementary and New Hope Elementary along with keeping partnership as C schools for the upcoming school year of the 2425 and that actually concludes my

189presentation for tonight but I'm happy to answer any questions thank you okay other questions Miss mik um well thank you so much for doing the careful math in looking at all of this um and um thinking about which um variation makes the most Financial sense for the program um so this I mean it makes a lot of sense to to me um just a clarifying question so you said they qualify for 4 years so is the ISP not sort of recalculated in the meantime it can be yes so we can we can calculate it every year and if it goes up then we can regroup those schools what if it goes down so if it goes down it stays the same unless we decide to recalculate one of the schools in that group so the

190only way a school would be impacted is if you know the whole group went significantly up or significantly down MH if looked at it and said it goes down then the intent would be to keep it the same for that four-year lifespan okay great Miss Dole um thank you um thank you this this is really interesting and I appreciate the different scenarios and um the recommendation of scenario 3 um so thinking about the fact that there would be a um if if we're currently so the current program loss when you say current program loss of the 62,000 um that's what Orange County Schools is having to cover for student like what does that mean that it's a loss right now that means right now looking at our expenses versus what we've we've brought in the

191school nutrition program is sitting at about a $62,000 deficit currently okay but not necessarily attributable to covering meals for kids some of that yes and some of it being um just higher costs higher cost for staff Okay so so I was just wondering with you know if we end up with a net program gain and you know the spread from that loss it's like 64,000 all together 65,000 you know I'm just wondering what like I'm excited to see how we can benefit kids with that game and so I don't know if that's like next month's work but I was just kind of curious if you have thoughts about that we do we have um we've been looking at different menu items right to look at how maybe we could scratch cook more items but unfortunately

192with scratch cooking comes the fact that some of our equipment is a little older so we could look at replacing some much needed equipment replacement to be able to do some of those fun new ideas that we have thank you any other questions no yeah just just to clarify because this is what we talk so some of the this all stays in the in the Child Nutrition fund right so some of the some of those meal ideas that you were talking about some of the ideas that you're pursuing to attract especially the older students now all of a sudden this money is you have the flexibility to use this money for that yes cool very cool very cool motion to [Music] approve second second all in favor I I okay motions approved okay I think

193I'm up next again thank you okay um the policy up next yes um I have it noted yep so this is not the exact policy we have approved yes so so it's yeah go ahead so tonight I'm here to share recommendations to changes to the policy 6220 which the is the operation of school nutrition services so this policy is being brought before you um and it was brought before the policy committee actually as a result of Staff requests and the recommendation of the policy committee was to bring it before the board for discussion due to the recommended changes so the first Redline change is to align with a previous NC School Board Association change regarding additional inclusive verbage the next series of changes occurs in section B meal charges the first change outlines how families

194may add funds to their students meal account including via the online payment portal in the cafeteria at the point of sale and by submitting a check to the school nutrition office to align the policy with the district's preference of no plate shaming or no alternate meals verbage was also changed to remove the charge cap for elementary and middle school students and to also add the ability for our high school students to charge a meal so guidelines were also added to describe how the district will collect unpaid meal debt and these are discussed in number one through number four and they include notifying families weekly of meal debt providing principles with outstanding student accounts weekly and for charges on the meal accounts with balances over $25 notification will be provided to the principal who shall determine

195the next course of action and the next course could be involving the social worker right contacting the parent to discuss a payment method and completing the family meal application so I think it's important to note like Mr just mentioned that per attorney guidance additional changes are recommended to the document that was attached to the agenda prior to board approval so in section B number four the recommendation would be to remove the verbiage if the parent regularly fails to provide money and does not qualify for meal benefits the principal May notify the Department of Social Services for suspected child neglect Andor taking legal steps to recover unpaid meal charges in this would be replaced with the verbiage of if a parent maintains an excessive unpaid balance despite the supports and interventions described in this policy the

196district may take legal steps to recover any unpaid meal charges and we do have that copy and we can attach that and get it to everyone as quickly as possible or for second read on the next board meeting thank you I I definitely wanted to make sure that yall know that we did not want the social services part in that and also uh the $15 charge up to 25 based on if the principles getting uh weekly notice of the accounts if you did it at 15 it would already be past that by the end of the week and that way there's some time to ensure you don't jump to step four um so those were the the two kind of major differences on this uh from the policy committee that said hey these are additional

197changes beyond what you're seeing here yes me um can I just suggest that that last sentence be made into like a number five because as it is right now it reads like it's related to the like at the point that it's $25 and you don't pay it we're going to get legal after you and I think it's like a and then maybe we'll do this when it really feel serious um it yeah as a separate item I also wonder if we might want want to include I mean I think it's maybe implied but maybe just say it in number two phone call email or a letter if we should also include text message knowing that some families communicate more frequently via text message um just two thoughts good point anything else M do well I'm

198just having a memory of my second grader buying a bunch of food I didn't know he was buying and we had consequences at home like he uses savings to buy lunch for his siblings for a week like where would that situation fall in here I'm unclear um so what's the intermediate what's the communication to the parent prior to the so what you're referencing right we do have a form that goes out to parents at the beginning of the school year where they can limit the amount of snacks or any snacks right that their their student can buy and I would even say we're looking at changing verbiage because our current practice says they can't use their school funds to provide snacks well we've had a couple creative children who have now brought up cash right

199who have said it's not on my funds my mom says it's okay um so we're we're looking at changing those forms and the communication will go out to principles to make sure that parents are well aware of that at the beginning of the school year and then um to answer your question it would be each week right if a if a child is charging up any debt we would be contacting the parent and usually they're doing it once and or twice as current practice to let parents know that hey your child may be charging you may not be aware here's what it is and parents can always log on to K12 if they have it to determine what those charges are or we can print out a sheet and send it to them and one

200Clarity point I think that's very important is the the charging if you will is only for the the standard meal so they can't go charge extra milkk or juice or whatever they can't do that once they're in the charge mode so it would be really ensuring they're getting a a healthy meal each day yep does it say that in here it does yeah in the policy it says that they can't charge supplementals or extras okay okay any other comments questions thoughts this is just one of these little things that I look at the procedures and I'm like and there's another thing for the principal to figure out how to do in some way and you know I just think about how many of those little operational things like there are just like efficiencies at one

201school that like none of the other schools know so whatever we can do to be knowledge sharing among administrators about how to do this like efficiently and correctly and consistently um would be helpful okay okay are we good with first motion to approve changes changes with the with motion to approve with the recommended changes second all in favor I it's approv thank you yeah just the paragraph go to Five Miss wrath are you going to talk about bus driver legislated additional pay yes ma'am good evening chair purcel Vice chair Richmond board members superintendent and our listening public um as you see presented in the abstract for you included in the house bill that was passed for our budget appropriation Act there was legislation about uh school districts receiving additional funds to increase bus driver pay

202um we didn't know what that was going to be until um earlier in this year and then after that we didn't have any guidance until recently in regards to how those funds had to be distributed so Orange County Schools received roughly $25,000 um that was uh designated as was going to be recurring so going forward that $25,000 according to um our legislators will be included in our transportation allotment so I'll lose visibility of it after this year because it's going to be um included with everything else what most school districts that I have spoken with have elected to do is what was recommended to you in this abstract which is to basically provide a onetime lumpsum additional supplement to our bus drivers annually uh that equates to the 25,000 because um we have nowhere where

203they have indicated that if we include that as part of the hourly rate that they will fund us for the legislative increases that um get passed down each year so for example it was 4% this year that all um classified it was classified staff got 4% on average your teachers were 4% next year it's 3% they are not indicating that we'll get 3% plus the 25,000 so that is why we're recommending that we um allocate the funds as a one-time lump sum payment it cannot be merit-based so um we in regards to that we just elected to look at years of experience experience within the district and to allocate the funds based in that manner so if you have any questions um I'll be happy to take them Miss Molly just want to say I

204think this is great that's a smart approach I like that it's graduated um to recognize additional years of experience any other thoughts yeah it looks it looks great to me I just if people leave so if the allocation not at the end of the year what happen do people leave or people are only here for a few months yes so um I'm researching the legislation much more deeply right now because based upon the way it's written I believe um I'm being led to believe we're going to have to go back and look at anybody who was employed at the be July 1 uh going forward because of the way that the legislation is written um we're going to have to consider those I believe okay m m so do you mean that the part of

205this recommendation which I thought was great like if they're employed in on May 1st then that's when it would be paid out do you mean that that may not be able to actually it's going to be if you were employed on July 1st like at the start of the school year July 1st of 23 and um because it cannot be based upon Merit even um I'm researching to determine if I came to work for the school district and left in two months would I still be elig and um that's the question that I am still researching good question Mr at so part of that that one I think this is great too um so in in part of the the write up here it talks about if you're part-time or permanent part-time so there's a

206graduated scale that would occur based on how much you did or prated it's going to be a flat amount because based upon the legislation we we cannot prate it okay so it would be what is recommended in the abstract that if you are years of experience of 0 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 or 31 plus all right thank you motion to approve second all in favor I I thank you motion to approve thank you very much good plan all right is there anything else that we need to discuss go back to go to close session no ma' motion to adjourn do I have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn do I have a second second all in favor I we are adjourned e e e