Orange County Board of Education Regular Meeting - December 4, 2023

001e like to welcome everyone here tonight and we will um start by making a motion to inter close session the board will inter close session pursuant to NC General statute 43-31 18 um 11 A1 A3 A5 and A6 to consult with the board attorney and preserve the attorney client privilege to consider confidential matters Personnel ma confidential Personnel matters and to prevent the disclosure of confidential Personnel information protected under NC General statute 115 C- 319 and confidential School security information protected under gs1 18189 and gs13 d17 move second all in favor I I we are now in closed session e yeah blame somebody else come on good evening everyone I'd like to call the December the 4th Board of Education meeting to order I will read the public charge Orange County Board of Education pledges to

002its 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 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 before we stand up for the pledge I just want to thank everybody for being here tonight I know that this room is crowded I know that we are in a very small place and and we are here in this cramp space

003because the board of County Commissioners by law has to have their first meeting after an election in their room at the witted building and so they are there for that we had to be here for this so that is why we are here in this space and we apologize that it's cramped we apologize that it's everybody can't get in here at one time that is not what we wanted but we were literally told we cannot be in the wited building tonight because by law the board of County Commissioners is there so I just wanted everybody to understand that that this is this is why we're here all right if we will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance now I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for it

004stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you and we will now observe a moment of silence okay thank you very much at this time we will have recognitions and I think we have two groups here I see smiling faces and U Mr Foster yes we do good evening again board uh our recognitions this evening com from the Athletics space the fall Athletics season in Orange County schools had a ton of success in particular we had uh fall teams that had success at its highest level the state championship level tonight we like to take a moment to recognize two teams that competed in the state championship level themselves first from Orange High School our Orange High School volleyball team uh first we have uh which are led by uh coach

005hope hly uh in any sport it is hard to win games this team won 27 they finished 27 and five and were the runner-ups of the state championship here in the North Carolina High School State Association we want to run off a list of accomplishments just from this past season alone again 275 record pretty impressive Conference record 12-0 uh conference Finish First Place State ranking 16 uh were Regional Champions they had five allc conference players one player of the year won state championship sportsmanship award winning and they will return nine players from this year's team so we're excited even already looking forward ahead into next year they are coached by an 18-year coaching veteran and an orange High School almus uh coach he uh and she want to ask her to come up and kind

006of talk about a memorable moment she had throughout the season I asked her kind of a memorable moment as a result of this uh season that she had and and it's hard to choose one but I I'll let her get into that moment that kind of sparked the team on so bring up coach he all right come on up the Applause is definitely to the girls with all their hard work and dedication that they have put into this season they are a special group of girls they show so much grit and resilience throughout this entire season um first welcoming in a new coach and then letting kind of part of their things Traditions that they are super used to being changed a little a little bit they jumped right on board and broke many records

007this year kind of got out of some slumps they've had ended records and running streaks that other teams even across the road were having so it was kind of nice to start breaking some of those records for them um this team's determination and character was shown throughout this entire season and I've told all the girls this that their winning record is amazing and it is something to be proud of but their true character and their determination and grit is what's really going to make them take them far throughout their lives they set a goal and they do not let anything stop them and they proved that this season and when was when I was asked about a most memorable moment it was really really hard to choose just one because this group of girls are

008something very special and had me laughing throughout different times pulling out my hair at different times but it was a really great experience but it would be our regional championship game and it was the fifth set and we the other team called a timeout and we the coaches couldn't even if we wanted to we couldn't say a word our two seniors stie and Ella took over the timeout with just full excitement and like pretty much let the whole team know we got this look at their faces they're done we've got this and at that moment my assistant coach and I we looked at each other like all right well Panthers on three cuz you and they went out and just finished it off and it's that determination that I know these girls are going to

009continue to have SU UC and we're looking forward to continuing to grow the volleyball program at Orange High School awesome awesome fantastic thank you coach Johnson few words about um I think coach H summed it up well this team showed a lot of resiliency and a lot of grit um I remember the first game of the season I'm sitting there watching I'm like y this team is going to get a lot better they went through a streak after their first game where they were on the road for about seven eight games a row and it just built a certain level of toughness every game didn't go the way they wanted to go but it kept fighting now I will tell you they were caused of a lot of anxiety in especially that carb mat the

010parents walked out they were sweating I walked out I was sweating um but all in all this is a top-notch team I'm really really proud each and every one OFW our second recognition of the evening also comes from Orange High School we have led by coach Brian schneid win our runnerup state cross country team at Orange High School uh talk a little bit of background with Coach snin he he's been the cross country head coach for three years now and in his three years his teams have have been conference champion each year they've been Regional champ two out of three years they finished third eighth and second in state in those three years and and those are just truly tremendous accomplishments uh as a coach we talked about already how hard it is to win

011and be successful and he's established that culture already a few things about this team's accomplishments uh conference finished first place State ranking was second uh they've been County Champions or they were County Champions this year it's the third straight year for that uh as well Conference champions third straight year for that Regional Champions this year uh they have one individual state champion I we'll talk about a little bit today tonight as well uh six All Conference Runners uh four all regional run Runners and uh they only lose two seniors uh so no pressure teams you got all this talent coming back no pressure at all but they only will only lose two seniors uh from last year's team I bring up uh coach SNY win and talk about his M moment as the season goes

012along as well uh so before I start I just want to thank all you guys you know know know some of you guys over the years and uh the time you guys are currently putting into the community but then also over your careers and stuff the time that you've put in and the headaches and stuff that you all dealt with very much appreciated um and uh in terms of uh the team uh defin want thank Coach Collins and Coach car who's not here tonight in the time that they put in and jumping in and supporting a lot of the athletes in the relationship building process that we were able to do regardless of you know the ability of the runners and stuff just get to know the runners and be that kind of sounding board

013um has has been really great especially as I'm not as young as I used to be U for whatever reason you know with Coach Collins they're they're able to connect that stuff um as well um and in terms of uh with this team you know I mean I think you know anybody who any team that finishes you know high up there's some work involved obviously definitely some luck involved as well some Talent as well but um but I what I really want to highlight about this particular group is also their Serv to the school that they've done um and to the community uh it's pretty cool that uh two of our four officers for assing government are the varsity Runners um we have know Gabe who will talk about a couple minutes and his uh

014as a volunteer firefighter um and kind of just the list goes on like you know they're it's you know maybe pretty easy these days see lik to only caring about Athletics when you're pretty good at it but I think they've done a really nice job being you know very very active in what they've done um to the school so that's that's one of you know one one of the highlights and then the other highlight honestly uh no offense VAR guys but uh the JV guys uh uh it was it was really cool to see we got a bunch of freshman coming in uh to the to the team and um one thing we've done over the years as weren't that good at the begin of this year is uh supporting each other um you know

015kind regardless of skill level and all that stuff and it was just really fun uh for me and I remember was our last regular season meet it was just this you know beautiful fall day we uh over in Lake kamik uh in Burlington and uh one of our uh one of our slowest Runners on the female team is just giving an unbelievable effort is one of those things that you know if not for this like nobody would be talking about but she's you know incredibly hardworking and then just watching the the JB guys sitting around and cheering for her um you know kind of makes makes you feel good about life uh and and uh and and the youth uh that that we have here and then the last thing I want to say um

016just to kind of maybe try try to pull a bow on this is uh it's kind of cool that kind of both simultaneously I don't think either team uh rest or volleyball or cross country came in with that high expectations um but it was it's just uh kind of amazing when you start to see when uh a culture that that uh develops you know very very much with the volleyball program as well as the cross country of just challenging each other to be the best and bring out the best in in each other um made it a pretty fun fall to be around one High School athletics so thanks for time appreciate it thank you on this team we also have a state champion uh runner and gab Schmid a little bit about Gabe he's

017a two-time state champion uh this year he finished 37 seconds ahead uh of the second place Runner uh this year which is just outstanding his Awards include this year Regional champ conference champ uh MVP uh and he's the winner of the prestigious greens barrel uh Invitational we've heard from gab before gab get you come on up here say a few [Music] words thank for having me um this is the second time last time I challenged my team to all be here with me and made it um I challenged to win it but we came very close and we came very far so this year was definitely about the team um and in that I grabbed another state championship so um you know it's been awesome the support that my team has giving me you know

018I can't run by myself every day I was doing upwards of 70 mile weeks and that gets very lonely um when you're running it by yourself so having the team and texting them and being able to have them come run with me is great and be able to push me and support me so um it's just an awesome team that I have and it's an awesome family in Orange High School that I have as well and you know my principal uh always congratulating me whenever I do something awesome and also my coach pouring so much time personal into me is just amazing so uh yeah I'm looking forward to this next team you hopefully grabbing one next year because you know the team that beat us La this year is losing quite a bit more

019people than so you can look for these guys back in these seats um so yeah thank you thank thank you all right thank you very much um do would you all like to walk around the table and let us shake your hand for your wonderful accomplishment just a lot and then teams congratulations congratulations congratulations conratulations congratulations conat congratulations congratulations wonderful [Music] wonderful you doing okay congratulations congratulations thank we need to adopt our agenda motion to adopt the agenda second all in favor okay agenda is adopted Miss misser we're having a meeting oh I'm sorry yes um welcome everyone we have adopted our agenda and we are ready for public comments if we have do you have the list I do okay Step Ahead right let everyone get in here first all right we will now

020hear public comments speakers will be called in 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 our board clerk Franklin mcum 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 feedback 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 abuse of any person we ask that all comments

021must be civil respectful and free of personal attacks any speaker who violates our public comment period or otherwise exceeds the bounds of order or 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 the first Speaker tonight is Melinda wooder all right good evening um if my name is familiar to any of you guys I was formerly the Middle School District math coach for stand back and for um gravley middle unfortunately after being hired in August of 2021 I had to go on ABA and then had a medical emergency that put me on short-term disability and which case I was um not released to return to work by my doctor seeing as how October was disability

022employment Awareness Month there are some things that I really want to bring to your attention um regarding my personal situation so um at my doctor's discretion I was not released to return to work um so October 9th I sent an email just alerting the new principles and staff about the end of my short-term disability status in regardless of what the State Medical Board decided that I would not be returning so I was looking to try to retrieve my things um on the 27th um that was a teacher work day so I went to collect my things unfortunately when I got there at gravy none of my stuff was there I was not able to locate anything nobody had a record of my things everything that I had left was unavailable um there were some things

023missing at I'm trying to C on I only got 3 minutes at um standback as well um the new principal at one school was basically like you know that that's out of my hands contact HR which I did um the other principal had already had me turn in my ID my device my keys even though I was still fully employed so why that was requested I'm not sure but I conceded to what was requested that was on August the 7th um I did notice that my that my job was posted on July 14th when my doctor had not cleared me to be released or to return to work so why it was posted when I was still a full employee I'm not sure um I was still on short visability at that point um so

024basically my things were moved at one school because they were rearranging some things and where it landed didn't feel or looked like in the office when I returned there it just kind of looked like a catch off so by my job being posted me having to turn in my keys my badge my laptop and my office being just a space that I to catch y there were several things that I was not able to recover um and that's kind of prohibited me from moving forward in terms of being able to serve elsewhere as a consultant of anything um I asked that things be either located or compensated I gave them to December the 1st which was Friday haven't heard anything back although I sent a reminder email on Thursday um my office chair my rug

025you know unique store solution personal items CU I keep extra glasses contacts you know umbrellas just things in my office and then just to not be able to transition into something that is going to allow me to be gainfully employed at this point is frustrating I don't know what price they can put on my intelligence my intellectual property like flash drives gone 20 plus years of tools resources from workshops training conferences and all of those things are just been stripped for me um and I need some help having that resolved um I was able to Reeve my laptop there was nothing left on there for me to find so that's basically why I'm here and what I'm requesting help with um that's my time thank you thank you our next speaker is Sarah Johnson hi

026good evening good evening first I should say thank you I know that you are volunteering and we appreciate your service um and appreciate the opportunity to give some feedback my name is Sarah Johnson I live in Chon Grove Hi Neighbor you over there um and I'm here tonight because my second grader is at River Park Elementary school I also have a younger son who will be starting kinderen in the fall um so we were kind of surprised a month or two ago to see some of the maps that redistricted CH Gro out of River Park um when my my son started kindergarten a few years ago we looked at our other options we looked at the charters we looked at private schools we ultimately decided not to apply anywhere because we wanted him to go

027to River Park it's a great school there's a community there friends and neighbors were there and we've been so happy my child is happy we're happy he loves his teachers he has friends the administration is amazing um so again we're feeling a little angsty about the idea of leaving a place that we really really love um when my husband and I reviewed some of the maps we couldn't quite see that it was solving all of the problems it looked like one of the options had River parket capacity one had Pathways at capacity I think one map had our neighborhood divided into two which I am told is not actually a viable option so hopefully that is true um but we're feeling uh really worried about what next year will look like for our family I

028know and appreciate that this is very very complicated I will not pretend like I understand the nuances and all of this um I do know a few things I know that my child is really happy I know that we've been really happy at this school we go to all the school events we know everyone there you know cuz it's our whole neighborhood um the kids he play baseball with um we know we're feeling pretty anxious about the idea of living a school that we love where our child has thed um we know that we're looking at other options where we might leave the public school system which is not what we want to do we're both products of public school education um we know many neighbors are doing the same thing so I'm here tonight

029just pleading our case we would love to stay at River Park a school that we chose and a school where we're really happy so I have 30 seconds left I will end with thank you really appreciate the time to share our thoughts so thank you thank you our next speaker is Peter Maddox good evening good evening good evening I come to you tonight as a resident of this County as a taxpayer but most importantly as a father my son also attends River Park he's a first grader um I come to you very bluntly to request that you keep Chon Grove assigned to River Park uh my wife went to River Park when it was known by a a former name and we've arranged our life frankly around sending our children there um this is not

030to say anything bad about any other school in particular Pathways when I learned about the potential change I looked into the school and it seems excellent part of the reason I believe is that people have made significant decisions in their lives on the basis of Chon Grove being assigned to River Park for at least 15 years um we certainly have made those decisions I'm concerned about the disruptions it'll have um to our students especially after the last 45 years of many disruptions that that hurt kids learning I'm concerned about the way that this disrupts families people have made decisions about their job Transportation based on where their kids go to school after school care is also significant because in our case and in many other folks cases it's not the type of thing that you

031can change you change schools I'm concerned too about the process well I haven't been following it as much as I would have liked um this seems to be happening too fast uh it's hard to conceive how the maps are logically drawn and I don't understand how they frankly lack a bit of human touch and understanding um I've heard this these concerns from others I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person that feels this way as is evidenced by a first speaker um and again I ask that you keep tur assign for part thank you thank you all right our next speaker is Patricia herera thank you all my name is Patricia Herrera and I'm speaking about the proposed regulation for gender support guidelines so under the section of names and pronouns um I have

032no such understanding that there's a boy or girl's need but I do feel that a pronoun that indicates a specific sex that does not align with a person's biological sex would be a lie I believe the regulation should state that a school unwilling to consciously affirm a lie through the use of a chosen program be allowed to use only the individual's name and that such refusal to choose to to not use a pronoun but rather solely the individual's name would not be considered harassment under Sports and physical education I want to state that I'm thankful the state of North Carolina will be designating sports teams as either male female or coed and that participation will be based solely on the students biological uh biology and genetics at Birth I only wish that our Orange County

033Schools would implement this change today rather than waiting on the state to isal final determinations some may say that gen transgender student is being excluded or unable to participate in a sport that's not true a transgender student has exactly the same opportunity as any other student of the same sex a student that's being excluded from Sports is a young girl who has no opportunity to join a team because their physical ability when compared to all females limited them to spot on a roster and that opportunity was lost because a genetic male was awarded a position on the team based on other natural and biological differences under restroom and locker room accessibility I believe school lock bathroom and Locker Room Shoes should be determined by sex and not gender if we want employees parents and students

034to be tolerant of individuals with gender identities or Expressions different than their sex let's ask males to be respectful of other males no matter their gender in their restrooms and locker rooms and females respect of other females I don't think the best solution is to allow a male no matter their gender in a bathroom or locker room filled with females however at a minimum I believe the second paragraph under restroom and locker room accessibility should be revised I'd like the second paragraph to include language that allows all individuals to have the right to request alternative Arrangements based on their need or desire for increased privacy the first line of that paragraph currently includes the word any any student which would them to allow that all students may ask for alternative Arrangements however the last sentence

035would suggest this ability to request alternative Arrangements is allowed only to the student who wants to keep their transgender status confidential I believe the last sentence should read any alternative Arrangement should be provided in a non-stigmatizing way whether the purpose is to protect an individual's ability to keep their transgender status confidential or supports an individual that feels a need for privacy from someone of the opposite in a locker room or bathroom thank you thank you and our last speaker for this evening is Christina Clark hi good evening Orange County school board members and Dr Merill um I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of teachers and School staff in my capacity as the president of the Orange County Association of educators at the beginning of the year staff was told during convocation that we would

036have to step up and make sacrifices due to budget concerns this year we know that our job involves many sacrifices both occupational and personal and most of the time we can see the rationale and the benefit to the larger Community the sacrifice that many of us are unwilling to make is one that does not benefit our students especially since it is one that we make to the detriment of our own ability to educate as as you all know teachers receive a planning period once per day and we have asked year after year that this time be kept sacred we use this time to plan lessons give feedback and analyze student data along with other important duties unfortunately this time is now often taken up with covering other teachers classes in other words we perform the

037duties of a substitute teacher when we should have time devoted to our own classes in the past we received a stien for extra duty but this year we were told to sacrifice that stifen because it cost too much money due to the obscene amount of times we were asked to cover classes to be clear we do not enjoy giving up our planning yet the stien at least allowed us to feel a mod come of appreciation when we had to scramble to make up that time I am aware of the budgetary concerns surrounding coverage pay and the solution is clear hire more substitutes central office could make a huge difference just by recruiting and helping our support staff find substitutes or stepping in as substitutes themselves parents grandparents and community members if you would like to

038find one simple way to support teachers this year please sign up to sub in our schools we need you desperately every time you sub you give a teacher that much more time to invest in their students you give an academic coach time to actually do their job um and you elate our attendance secretary who doesn't have to beg a teacher to give up their planning as I have said before when you respect our time you win the respect and loyalty of school staff don't ask us to give up sacred planning periods meant for our students who need more support than ever we see the rationale behind most sacrifices but don't make this unreasonable request of our time thank you thank you very much and that concludes tonight's public comment thank you all for coming and

039speaking all right next up we have board comments board comments does our board have any comments that they would like to make start with Dr Moore yes um I want to give a shout out to the EC Department um I attended the EC craft fair can everybody hear me okay I attended the EC craft fair last Thursday and I was able to purchase some things to decorate my home with for the holidays it was really great to see the students very engaged handson um they were handling the cash writing names for receipts so again I just want to give a big thank you to our Orange High School and Cedar Ridge EC students for their hard work work at the teachers and staff that help to support them thank you thank you Dr Miss um

040okay uh just a couple of things um one uh really enjoyed the Hillsboro holiday parade yesterday um there was so much OCS participation out there so I saw um a middle school band and cheer In Color Guard I saw the two big high schools out there they sounded great um and then uh several elementary schools which is you know usually Hillsboro Elementary is out there that was awesome to see them and then also ethn cheeks and New Hope as well so um I'm excited about the growing participation um never mind like all of the OCS students I recognized in like all of the other like dance groups and gymnastics and like hya and things like that so um that was a lot of fun um sometimes in past year I'm like looking at Dr Merill

041as though he's going to take a note on this but I know he's our interim superintendent but sometimes in past years there's been like an OCS bus and stuff and you know some other sort of District level excitement I didn't there was no school bus in the parade this year so you know maybe maybe next year um and then the other thing is um the week before Thanksgiving I think I went to the school boards Association conference the annual conference and I don't think that I had shared that just some things from that from the with the board um a couple of good sessions um that I went to that I just wanted to highlight one was around um Capital funding and there were a couple of funding sources that I don't maybe we've tapped

042into them in the past but there were a couple that I I were sort of new to me that I didn't remember that we tapped into um so I am going to follow up um with Mr Foster about the names of the uh USDA has some funding for school Renovations and um another state pot of money that I just don't recall as tapping into um and then the other one that I thought was really interesting was the um EC Department from chadam count County talked about their parent advisory uh Council and how they engage um EC families um and um just highlighted some really great um one of the um people who presented was a parent um who um what was beautiful about when they set that up was that they the the um EC

043Department reached out to the parents that they had heard of from a lot who were very vocal in their concerns about their child's experience in the schools and like they literally went out to a restaurant and she was like tell me like what you know what do you need and Etc sort of the pathway which was really cool um but they have like a fundraiser 5K and sort of like a Special Olympics type event and all kinds of really cool things so I'm imagining Miss Kens and her neighbor to the South are very connected but um it was really cool to hear about some of the things they're doing those are two highlights for me thank you um thank you um I want to thank every everyone for coming out and sharing their comments tonight

044parents and teachers um and I appreciate celebrating our our student athletes and we had a um meeting with principles recently where we heard all our school Improvement team uh Improvement plans um and I really appreciate the work of our principls during this busy season I'm looking forward to all the holiday events we have coming up including one supporting um uh our robotics efforts in uh Northern Orange County as well as all of our bands and coral groups and other groups so just want to wish everyone happy holidays thanks for taking time to come talk to the school board on the busy December you think Mr Richmond um I just want to say happy holidays to everyone hope everybody enjoys the holiday break and spends a lot of time with family uh which is really important

045Miss Hower I wanted to first thank everybody for coming out tonight and I know it's not convenient to come talk take some time out on a Monday night to talk to the school board but it makes a difference for us so thank you so much for that and I've been buzzing all day about the holiday parade it was fantastic it was see all the schools there see the chamber we have the head of the chamber here tonight um but uh you know it's like it was so fantastic to see so many schools involved and and I'm a sucker for a marching B it great thank you Mr a yes um I just wanted to start off too I got to go to the EC craft there and it was really amazing to see all the

046students artwork and listen to how they did it and the staff and the support from everybody uh wonderful to get some early holiday gifts as Dr Moore mentioned uh and just wanted to say thank you to the staff for putting that on and allowing them to to be able to do that um also was enjoyed the the par great and got to see everybody out there and so it was really great to see uh the community so engaged especially as you think of where we've been and where we're we're going it's it's great to see everybody out um I did want to thank everybody for coming out tonight to speak on all the different items uh and the many calls I've gotten today uh you know definitely appreciate it and to be able to speak

047about uh the process and items as such um also wanted to just again congratulate our Athletics uh for such a superb outcome and finally just happy holidays to everybody please get time to spend with your family it's it's an important thing to disconnect just for a little bit so thank you thank you i' um I missed the parade yesterday and I'm now I'm sorry I did but uh in seeing my grandson this morning I said how was pray and he said great and I said you see anybody you knew see any of your friends oh yes they were all there and I said well that's great so that that's the important thing that our kids are having fun and they're um getting to experience the holidays a little bit um I too would like to

048thank everybody who's come out tonight I too would also like to thank uh those that have sent me emails that have let me know how they feel about things um I will re again we have not made any decisions we are still looking at things the the the maps that we got on Friday are not exactly where we want them to be so we're going to be discussing that a little bit later tonight um but we are not in any way shape or form ready to vote on anything that that I can see just yet so I just want to put that out there to sort of let everybody have a nice Christmas and not have to worry about this and know that we're doing um the best that we can right now with what

049we have have been given and we are still a ways away from from making any kind of decision that's going to affect your children so I just want to let everybody know that um so I hope everyone has a great holiday I hope I hope yesterday was the start of uh well actually going to the shopping the other day too uh was the start of a holiday I mean that um we may have some Christmas presents here that we going to be giv out but um just take time enjoy and um be with your family and friends that's the important thing Dr Mar yeah thank you um want to recognize Jaylen Brown who now needs to be called doctor um successfully defended his dissertation on November 30th and the title was administrators Perceptions in reducing

050high rates of chronic absenteeism in an urban Midwestern School District he is relocated U Doctorate of Education Ed from Walden University and his quote was I pursued a doctorate degree to model for my staff and students that lifelong learning and Leadership matters to embrace this idea that we must continue to push ourselves to become better for a more hopeful future so Jaylen thank you and congratulations well done no mean task to get done while you're trying to run a school at the same time I'll tell you that from New State yeah yeah yeah remote uh my other area it takes a little longer and I I prepared remarks but I want to address uh an an item on the agenda later that's Roman numeral 4B which is the ored draft redistricting maps and data our

051roll out of the redistricting maps from the beginning of this process has not gone well uh many issues were beyond our ability to manage and control and consequently we started from behind and were never able to catch up the appropriate input from the assignment committee was out of sequence and rushed the community input meetings were rushed and the first set of maps even available for the community to study were delayed beyond the start of our calendar and the schedule that we had built we then lost more time establishing correct capacity numbers at our schools which required the maps to be recalculated all the while the Clock Was ticking we were trying to hit a deadline where there would have been meaningful Community input the board would have approved a final version of clear maps and

052all would have been completed before January 1 regrettably we cannot reasonably accomplish any meaningful redistricting work by January 1 therefore I'm asking the board to consider um my following recommendation number one take the time necessary to have accurate Maps meaningful input from the community and the assignment committee and approve the redist map no later um than the board meeting in March of 2024 that will give us a couple of months to do to to do this better secondly reconstitute the assignment committee by allowing those who wish to leave that committee to do so to get confirmation from those who wish to remain on committee and to make recommendations for new members who would like to join the assignment committee number three implement the redistricting with the beginning of the 2025 20 26 year clearly if

053we've not approved a set of maps until March you could not Implement and roll and start U you six months later five months later and then finally uh if if board you can support this concept then later this month I'd ask you to take formal action on on this recommendation so I share that with you in advance of our presentation and discussion later on the maps but I want to hold that out as a possibility if you want to if you want to grab it full confession we've not done a great job of of treating our community well uh and getting good information in a timely way and then getting meaningful feedback from maps that we knew we were going to keep changing so it's been frustrating for us frustrating for Community the assignment committee

054everybody else so if if this is what you call cutting your losses currently I'm suggesting that buy us a couple of more months to do it right approve it one year hence so thank you thank you very much Dr okay consent agenda move on I um there was just one item that I had wanted to pull from the consent which was number 7 the policy 1320 just so we could discuss that at the same time we discussed the policy 1310 the policy right next to it which is also about parental involvement so I'd just like to request that we move that down there and discuss both at the same time okay do we approve the consent agenda with those two changes so move was one well one CH just moving one to talk with I'm

055sorry I'm thinking to so mve no okay all in favor I think we Oh I thought we got thought M gave us I'm happy I didn't okay all right all in favor okay we'll get back on track okay so uh consent is approved with the pulling of item number seven to talk with um policy 1310 and our discussion and action all right we have we have two pages tonight that's very confusing I'm not used to do okay in our discussion item uh action items we are discussing policy 4305 the code of student conduct uh formal regulations and procedures for 4300 uh regarding the code of conduct character and support and this has been um in first read with the policy committee so Mr Aon would you like to speak today sure uh obviously uh we'll

056have staff here to help um so so board this is a significant change from what you've seen before and if you're looking at it do not reference back to the old policy that's intentional uh the intention is that this is a a very different approach uh that uh staff had looked at and looked at uh other districts such as Durham and others around us to have this similar approach to give the tears and to remove all ambiguities around around our current policy of which one do you apply in which case um after we reviewed this with the policy committee we did feel like this was a very positive change for us in the district to be able to consistently apply it uh the one concern we did have was making sure that the community and

057others get some feedback before we finalize this on a second read and since the policy committee does doesn't have the ability to say well let's go get additional feedback one of our recommendations was that we would approve a first reading then allow this to go out to community feedback and if there is uh some significant feedback or requests for changes we could either uh send it back to policy committee to go look at those or to uh have that discussion as a full board uh one of the recommendations in there you'll see is to delete the old policy that would not occur until our second read and approval that's literally just replacing the existing policy but tonight depending on the feedback from the board if we do move forward with first read it would be

058uh not nothing would change until second reading and I do know from the policy discussions uh there's a request to get this to the schools as soon as possible possible to have consistency and easier application of this with that I'll turn it over uh to our staff to talk more about it uh their process and some of the items they wanted to highlight but I just wanted to give some context first just from the discussion of the policy committee and kind of what the recommendation was but some of the details good evening good evening um hope everyone is well and enjoyed your um first piece of your holiday season um what you have before you is policy 4305 um which is detailing our student code of conduct um as you know we have been working

059over the last uh few months um with engaging schools uh to review and revise our student code of conduct character and support and a big piece of that was the revision of this policy um and so I won't read over again word for word um as you have it before you um but we work through this piece um looking at the um a few other of our nearby districts um and what their policy has looked like as well as some consultation with our engaging schools Partners um on information to be included as well um and so um here to answer any questions um that you may have regarding what you have before you tonight miss m um so thank you for this okay so this is the origins of this are essentially um similar to

060other neighboring school districts this is not like a school board's Association policy this would just be ours to okay um the different levels that are in here so can you just help me understand the relationship between this and the actual like code of conduct with the chart with the dots that show the different levels of response like what is the relationship between that and this is that going away no it's not going away so actually what will happen is the um new chart that will be revised will follow exactly what is here so it will be leveled with those um consequences and violations there so it will match exactly what you see here this is just the written format and then when it's printed in the code of in the revised code of conduct it

061will be in chart form and know just to add that you could have a chart but one thing that's different about this code the other code was a little more rigid in that there were consequence ranges and you were confined to those rang this code allows for departures from in some cases from one tier to another if they're aggravating orating factors so it would while it's possible to develop a chart format uh I think it would have to have a disclaimer or something on it because you won't be able to say for example this type of fence always gets a 5 day to 10day suspension there because this code allows uh this principal superintendent board to consider mitigating factors in all cases and aggravating in some cases one other thing I just wanted to add

062is that um before this was not a policy it was a regulation but after these changes and this is removing several other policies that we have the policy committee felt strong to make this a policy versus just a regulation so I just wanted to highlight that because it it reminded me when I saw it said policy up there this used to be a regulation but again we're removing multiple policies to replace this and promoting it to a policy M do thank you um thank you for the context and the explanation of the process uh I noticed that um one of the um neighboring districts you leaned into a lot was during public schools and um I don't know when you probably know when they most recently overhauled their code of conduct so I'm assuming it

063was more recent you know that they've already been through a recent overhaul and so we're looking at what work they've done recently rather than something there yeah this is a new new pool from them so in the last two years I think their last overall okay um they make small so much like to to ours we can come back and have conversations but they sort of tweak theirs just to be and uting sort of the biases that we're seeing which caused our levels of suspensions to kind of range and cause those inconsistencies especially for historical ex students so in the last year or two great thank you from memory Duram that I worked with Durham on when they they did a complete overhaul of their policy was I think roughly 5 years ago or so

064that they did a complete rewrite and switch to this model which originally was a wake model okay um a lot of other school districts use this tiered model that originated in way germ switch it I think about five more years ago and they've updated it since then yeah this is the based on the latest updated version of theirs with some additional changes made by staff and policy committee yes Dr Moore had her hand up first then miss m just a general question I was wondering if the general code of conduct statements are posted in school just as a reminder that things are in place to create a positive and conducive learning environment that promotes academic achievement personal growth and responsible citizenship so I've worked in districts that had that implemented but it was like short

065blurs that basically tied into the individual schools mission and vision statements it was very it was effective so I don't know if that's something that has done here it's not current um but as we kind of go through that process and get past uh get through the policy and that revision and then look forward to uh writing the getting the book completed um then we can absolutely look into taking out those excerts similar to like a mission and vision statement where that's posted and have it posted around our schools because want to point out is while we're looking at this is the if then right if something occurs here's the consequence for it the whole purpose of the book though is provide a more restorative approach collectively overall so what you're speaking to gets to

066the whole heart of not just a pun punitive situation but at code of care dur in cont how do we want our students to engage how want our families to engage how do we want to engage as community in the board so to that point I think think about and kind wrapping it all together would that be a great piece we could put with our PBIS programs then have that as a conversation within their Matrix pieces of that what we're speaking to at that really gets that the whole book in itself so I appreciate you lifing that up thank you miss m I was going to ask you a question about in this level to some of the things in there but then I realized I think I might be misunderstanding the headlines so this

067might actually be like a wording thing so like um level two says in school interventions Andor School discipline Sloss out of school suspension of up to two days without graving factors and the first thing underneath it was inappropriate language like cursing and so when I read that I thought that a student could get some sort of suspended immediately for two days for cursing up to two days and my understanding that that's like cursing in school interventions unless there are aggravating factors in which case it is a suspension it could be up to a suspension up to two days is that correct yes ma' okay so then I think that I have a suggestion for a couple of these levels in the header that says so level two it's saying adding the word either at the

068very beginning and then a comma after interventions so either in school interventions comma or in school discipline SL Poss out of school suspensions of up to two days if there are aggravating factors or something something like that to make that just crystal clear level two and level three um like in school either in school consequences or if there are multiple serious aggravating factors short some term suspension of a to 5 days possible da or or whatever whatever would accurately describe I hear you do you know what I mean like doing the first one either this comma or if there's more around this then this more significant consequence that frame just wanted to like that's a shorthand just a a caption we could rewrite it at this the actual explanations of the level or at the

069beginning of the policy starting on two there where it I think it's much clearer in the explanation of each level what the consequence ranges are I understand I think I follow yes the beginning yes is it there's the the level there's an explanation of each level so that that's that's where you get the the clear explanation of the consequence range paragraph on it so you're looking at just a head just a title it's not meant to restate the full sentence okay so understood and in whatever way this is represented in a code of conduct document that students get if there's like a shortterm short Shand header just making sure that that is clearer than like the way that it's described in here I think okay okay M just one more question um will I think

070you were explaining this that the idea is that we are going to approve first read and then it's going to go where is it going to go for the the recommendation to the board was for us to seek out uh through through our standard Communications that we have this draft we'd like to get input on it okay give the chance for the equity task force to look at it again uh the principles any all of the stakeholders a chance to give us feedback on what their thoughts or concerns with this since it's such a different approach and that'll give time in between first reading and second reading for us to get that feedback before we make a final decision but that's the recommend and that will include the equity task force seeing it again I

071don't know if we'll be able to get it back for the January meeting in time to be honest I mean December's rough we will try but it's conceivably to get to get enough meaningful feedback might slide a little bit second meeting in in January CRS yeah second meeting for you allall will have Equity task force meetting December 11th so just just just for you guys I'm going do that for you apprciate it thank you very much all right any other just commenting it was really important to us on the in the committee to make sure that it got out you know thater is really important to us that it got out that people got to see it principl got to see it a big change one of the questions so let's say um we can

072get feedback and that's pretty going to be tough to get feedback by even the middle of January I um um what does it and um what do you expect the timetable to be to bring this forward to to actually implement it and change the policy is that something this year or is this something for the beginning of next year I would say hopefully this year um and reason being I know we've had conversations we would like to get this out to change sort of where we are the policy we in pret we currently have is not equ was needs to be so the drive is to get it done but also to respect that we get more Community feedback um we've heard from principes gotten their their piece um but ultimately if we could really

073get this going because we've already started some of the training with the staff right about how to become more restorative so part of the discussion we had over a year ago was that staff was not trained they were not trained on how to implement this code so we've started that Dr Drea has been doing a great job facilitating getting with engaging schools to get that done so I don't want too much lag time there but we started all that implementation and train and then there's nothing nothing nothing then all of a sudden here comes a code remember you were trained on it so ideally if we could get it rolling at least at some point this year at least the beginning of next year would be ideal great she's all right any other questions comments

074all right we're appreciate yall very much thank you for your work thank you for being is yes we have to take action we have action um we need to approve on first read the new code of conduct I'll make a motion to I'm sorry go ahead I'm gonna make a motion to approve this on first read including contingent on getting some feedback on the policy from stakeholders um yesi sentence second all in favor motion passes we appreciate your work thank you much all right academic calendar Reds for 2425 Dr Green there you are well good evening board chair Mel board Vice chair Mr Richmond board members and Dr M so this evening I want to present to you um hopefully a minor change to the 20 2425 school year if you recall last last year

075we brought two calendar years uh for approval this year and next year and in the development of next year's calendar it basically just mov the calendar one day here and so going through this year a couple of uh couple of questions couple concerns came up one regarding language here and how we um indicated required teacher work days protected teacher work days um as opposed to staff because realiz that it encompasses more than just teachers so one change is to change that language to be more inclusive of all of our staff that's involved in work days it does not change by any means the original intent of those days being the required staff days being for uh professional developments for school based meetings for central office Bas meetings and the other language change was the optional

076from the protected day which provides the option for teachers to for their own um planning professional planning options um there to take lead on those days there and in following the guidelines of the telework policy they could be considered for that option so the optional dat is the other language change it still protects the teachers time that they're using there are no Central or School based meetings on those days and then the other change is to um move the October to September 30th teacher uh now staff day work day to October 4th which aligns with the year round calendar so that we could have professional development um and other activities with both traditional and okay Miss Molly um so this these changes make sense to me um the thing that I wanted to bring up

077is that um last year and I think the year before I requested that the calendar have like a familyfriendly version posted on the website that is not this version for staff members that says this day is annual vacation re this day is the kind of work day you can work from home this kind of is the work day you can you have you're required to report but that just is very simple and doesn't have so many colors and just says no school like no school no school and maybe the teacher work days in parentheses say teacher work days just so families get a sense of like when you know teachers are coming or or staff work days excuse me um but this this is just much more complex than like earlier iterations than we had

078from like a parent perspective so it just takes like I have to like look at this calendar be like that red one what does red mean and like look at the code just like no school you know that would be I will toally take it back the calendar committee committee has started work for the the 226 so we're doing that so we certainly can incorporate we developing a family family for next year for I'm sorry 25 because we're about to turn into the year 24th yes beautiful okay beautiful yes no need to change this year's calendar thank you so much Miss do I just have a brief question sometime in the last couple years I don't remember exactly when we had discussion around um staff on teacher work days and at one point they weren't

079paid to work teacher work days and remind me where we are now are staff paid to work any and all teacher work days or only required like if we're calling it staff work work days they need to be paid on them so what's our status of that I believe that for teachers who are working for planning during the planning on those days are paid if um if they're not working on those days then they will be taking their own okay but I mean not teach I mean not certified staff I mean like Tas for example like that was the issue we had a couple years ago so um there was a time a result of budget reductions where we did Implement that teacher assistants did not receive pay um if they on teacher work days

080and they did not work um that is not the case anymore um that um board did approved to uh get that back in the budget and so that is fully back in the budget for Teacher assistance that um they are permitted to work or to take leave on teacher work days and both of those would be um paid thank you so so does like Child Nutrition and bus drivers on a staff workday will they be working typically not no because bus drivers uh do not their transport students when we're not transporting students on teacher work days um typically no they do not work because we're not able to recuit those friends from the state and the same is true for child contraction I thought that was true so then I think maybe the term staff

081work day might be confusing did you all talk about that nurses that also have professional development on some of those days and some of our central office positions are also development I I just want to make sure we're not making like a like clear that we're not making a budgetary commitment to pay all staff because it says the word staff work day on here like we're going to clearly communicate which staff members as staff work day applies to or could we say that unless they are having staff development they will not I mean because sometimes and correct me if I'm wrong sometimes Child Nutrition may have some kind of Staff Development on one of those work days we also developed a professional development calendar um that sort of goes along with this that's out what

082professional development activities are taking place on each day and the audience that P if there's some kind of delineation in there as to if there is professional development or something I just want to make sure clear to could be confusing to some people we take that consideration clarify who which staff are engaged in Miss Hower did you I think Miss I'm just commenting on this if the staff Works they get paid if they don't work they don't get paid right but but it's the like clear expectation idea right that we're like it seems like the change was to try to make it clearer but I worry that it might be confusing them to others like if it's really teachers and Tas who are it's consistently applying to I just feel like I should say teacher

083and ta workday I don't I don't know I I I agree that it I'm the original language at that part and then we discovered that it's beyond just teacher okay those positions right here okay certainly to make sure that it's clear on professional development calendar the staff who's working and and who's engaged in thank you Mr a were you saying something no I was I was asking do we need to do the approval on these I just want I do have one question I I'm all for going ahead with this I have a a question about really the next year calendar because um there's been discussions about introducing a ball break for and but we've never discussed it at the board obviously it's not for this calendar when does that conversation happen actually that's part

084of the conversation that's going on now for the 25 26 school year to take into consideration other options um next year next year's calendar pretty much follows this year's calendar so proposes just to change to next year's calendar which is already approved but we are now in the process of looking at the 2526 school year and and that was the some of the recomend um the fall break was one of the things that came out of the survey and and develop in these two years um along with uh Thanksgiving longer Break um a winter uh break and so when we factor in those items we also have to take into account the number of instructional days that's required um the number of uh staff uh work days um uh staff uh required work so all

085that factors but it is one of the thank you so much you know I think there's enough confusion over title I think I'd like to take it back see if I can clarify so that it's self self-evident can I just make a comment on that which is I don't think the board the requirement is for the board to like approve labels of things like I think the dates are in the calendar I mean maybe Neil's Neil's the policy expert here yeah the format of the calendar is not yeah the label right which day When will school begin and end and when will so you all should feel free we'll mess it up no I appreciate that no good feedback I think that was the acid test and we put it in front of some other

086folks do you understand this tell us what you're reading so yeah we we can do that but and you can still approve with them we need to approve the date change so I'll motion to approve the proposed changes to dates in the calendars second all in favor I thank you thank you okay fund balance appropriation hi good evening so um I am here this evening to take any questions that you may have in regards to the abstract for a fund balance appropriation as uh you read in the abstract there were some unanticipated and unbudgeted expenditures that have arose uh that we therefore need to uh seek approval to appropriate fund balance for I do want to take an opportunity to um just um speak again to Charter School growth and um what that means is

087basically we will receive funding for those students from the county in the next budget cycle however we got to pay for those students this fiscal year so basically we are um uh fronting the money for a lack of a better term and therefore to do that we need fund balance for that because they were not included in what the um Commissioners approved for thisal year so that increase um is roughly 107 students um is what is accounting for the 500,000 as well as I wanted to take the opportunity there was a change in legislation for anyone who is not aware um virtual Charter Schools those students um that attended virtual Charter Schools used to be capped however legislation uh was put into effect this year which now states that uh local education agencies have to

088provide the full per pupil funding for those virtual Charters so we have roughly 20 students um who are in Virtual charters ERS that um we have historically been capped at only $790 which now based upon this legislation we have to provide the full local per pupil to those virtual charters for those students and the amount is 5346 is AIG our local U per pupil funding is annually 5,346 that's what the Commissioners approved uh this past in the budget cycle that we're in now so um is there any questions that I can take uh in regards to this item I I have just a comment that um I fully support the partnership Academy and feel like that's a long time coming and thank you Dr Merill I'm looking forward to that conversation later yes any other

089questions comments motion to approve second all in favor okay thank you Miss R okay project management contract do you want to reference contract yeah come on uh the contract with comings uh will allow uh you know my comment that U my mom used to make as many hands make like work right and uh this opportunity uh with coming will allow uh some additional hands to move capital projects along uh and forward and kind of guiding us um in that way uh what's set forth from a priority standpoint um well with projects um and Beyond potentially uh Beyond in terms of getting what we have on the table done and moving uh as best we can to to to navigate more projects as we approach the spring and summer as well uh this group will be

090able to uh not only begin new projects as well as uh get get their hands into uh current project as we have get those M I like the idea I think we need the help um and I really if I understood this we're also going to get not only um help but we get some tools project management tools that from them and Reporting and yes that we'll be able to kind of see and be hand more hands on that believe it not they also indicated that we be allow access should be able to look into as well Mr you smile when you talk about that well we don't have that so nice to have it's very exciting um I so are they you know I I don't know the net number we had about $50

091million from the county probably have about half of that or 20 million left um so is that the scope of their work is that the count the money that we've already been allotted um committed and then what may be committed and then the second part of that is will they help at all with the you know depending on what happen with ward in the county yes they will now I'll see all of those plans as well and also like I said in terms of future in terms of uh future money that we'll be getting from from the county too kind Dr Mo never mind I was going to ask um they handle some of the finance pieces but I see they'll be handling invoices so that the question Mr so I had a a question

092uh might be for Neil might be for you um I didn't see any terms for travel so I I assume we're not being charge for any I know they're in Raleigh but if they have to go somewhere for us uh how will that be managed um I'm really concerned that in the past making sure that anybody that has to travel on behalf of the school district follows our travel policy versus their own but I I I assume since they're local there is no travel but there is Neil how do you there there's nothing in the contract specifically on travel it's our general service contract so they're Billing at hourly rates for services requested and performed maybe I don't know if Mr wasn't discussed they ask for anyal travel rate in that space so is there

093a reason we wouldn't include that if if if needed to travel to somewhere for us to go look at a vendor or something I suppose if they if if that were NE I don't know if that's necessary at all it doesn't sound like it was discussed they didn't ask about it it was they didn't ask about it and I question them may necessary if it came up I suppose you'd have to negotiate whether you were going to pay them something for TR there's nothing there is no travel reimbursement provision in here right now I think it I assume because it was assumed none was needed that you didn't come up with okay so there's no expected travel correct okay and and if it's not addressed it's easy for us to say it's not in the

094contract and of course we are working as a team as well in terms of maybe one of our team that was May able to navigate that that need be go a little at something all right thank you m d thank you um thank you I have I have a couple questions and thank you Mr Foster um I appreciate the details with the scope of work and the we're talking about uh like a five month time frame and the two days a week and so there's a lot of good detail in here two questions I had um remind me I know that this uh gets us the um benefit of their um Coming software the cap I believe analytics um so one question I have is will we be able to use this after the contract

095period is that software that'll still be available and secondly remind me um I know this is an efficient use of um funds to manage work and that's why it was recommended but remind me how this compares to a position um so it's it's almost 81,000 from Capital funds remind me how this compares to what a like a salar position would be yeah the I I'll do the second part because I've forgotten the first part the first the second part was about will we have continued use of the software the terms I'm not clear you know I heard languages said and you can you can have full use of the software B to end but I didn't jump on it at that point and say okay imp perpetuity so I'm not I'm not clear on that

096um the second part is um you know the cost for six month if you double that for a year that's a pretty high salary M um I didn't equate those two because I looked at the value of experience that we're paying for and I and and a and a stable of experts uh and then depending on the nature of the project uh they've got some if you know coming it's a huge huge company um and they would have people that could be specific and could be assigned and that's the beauty of the flexibility I think within the contract initially I think we'll be assigned uh one one person to get knowledge and and get in control but I um so that was kind of a rambling answer but I don't really equate it I mean

097if the annual cost you know if if you're liking the firm if you have future dollars that are coming in uh starting July of 24 then you may want to renew I mean you re reexamine you look at the need you look at the workload um and that'll be you know future Administration and board to decide um so I think that and including the software at that time in the contract would be included as well I think so I could also add it's a it's a not to exceed amount of $80,000 not a straight payment so it's they provide Consulting Services as requested and authorized on a an hourly rate basis so that can be spread out and but Administration be strategic in terms of what types of assistance that request I did we did

098get positive feedback from County management that this is a concept they like as well um so don't don't anticipate problems from from across town thank you motion all right motion to approve second all in favor all right motion pass thank you thank you for finding this okay we need uh preliminary approval of our 2023 2024 School Improvement plans that we um got last week um so move second all in favor that was simp you did spend a few hours anyway all right but it's very important those are very important all right policy 1310 parental involvement and we're we're talking about 1320 our uh parent and family engagement um policy with this good evening good evening forell I I'll just say on behalf of the folks who are listening and interpreting if we can speak a

099little bit louder and a little more slowly the interpreters have requested a little bit of consideration from us and so I'll try to model that myself okay thank you we're here basically to hear we're here for you to go ahead and take action um the policy committee has done an immense amount of work uh waiting for feedback we're excited that the process that we proposed to you all back in the fall uh he yielded some I think very welcome fruits uh it was exciting to get out and do some Community engagement um you remember that we talked with the equity task force and brought some initial fruits of that uh of that effort there was a survey open for a couple months to our community and we ended up with over 200 responses policy committee

100has had a chance to review that you can uh you'll find that information tabbed into the abstract from the policy committee proceedings from last week um but we also have opened up a whole new Avenue of Engagement with families uh recently um Family engagement team took it upon themselves to go and propose cafesito meetings a little little coffee get together if you will and starting that process uh at gr a brown where uh 10 or more adults came in and and enjoyed the chance to just sit around the table and uh take about an hour or more with teachers and family engagement Specialists uh uh in in a very comfortable environment with um hospitality and taking as much time as it as is required to build trust for these kinds of conversations to happen if

101you've looked at the questions that we brought to the equity task force we brought the same questions to them um it's important for people to feel like there's time and that they are going to be heard I can I can say that every time that bco and her team of the family Liaisons and many other people in the school system have gone out they've they've specifically come into that that conversation is what happens we want to know that we're being heard you may not do everything that I ask we need to know that we're being heard and that's a that's a very important element of trust that I think is going to take some time to continue engendering by going more and more often into these spaces so immediately upon hearing about the gradea brown

102meeting other schools began expressing interest in doing the same thing so this is the kind of thing that um I don't want to jump in and steal the Thunder of the policy committee but there there's there is more work to be done uh even though you have uh a policy before you tonight which represents the work of the school boards Association as well as um your your best help from dington Smith and uh and a lot of review from staff and administrators um this is the kind of policy that bears continual reflection I think there's going to be a process of Contin continuous Improvement in many different uh ways that this is implemented in the district and and we're also learning from our peers um districts all over the state have been undergoing the same

103process and we're learning from the best work that's being done there as well so that's a quick review of Where the policy uh how staff was able to support the work of the policy committee and from there we're putting this to you to to start moving it forward so the only thing I'll add from the policy committee and we have policy committee members here here is just a reminder that this policy needs to be in place prior to January 1st um as Mr Smith mentioned there are things we brought up during policy committee that we'd like to add but we need to get this one approved first such as uh parental rights or responsibilities to go back and say explicitly you as a parent have the right to request a conference right because if you

104just read the policy it sounds like hey the the the teacher is going to set up a a a meeting when needed versus you have a concern you can set it up so we talked about that's just an example of one other item we'd like to go back and look at and see how that would would fit into here um uh the other thing was uh we we did review a lot of items and feedback that the district had had gathered for us to review and see how that fits in um the only thing I think I need to add had is the uh 4341 that's referred to in the policy is a um policy that is a uh School Board Association standard that we do not have so in approving this we would have

105to remove that reference uh because we do not have that current policy which is a policy on parent involvement and student behavior issues is I believe what it's called yes that's right you could you could adopt that policy later and we can add it in fact I think that probably is a good idea we'll see what the policy committee thinks about that policy but right now it's just misleading to include a reference to a policy you don't have so I would agree that for the time being um we could adopt the policy with the deletion of that cross reference but I know the policy committee will takeing be taking a look at that other policy soon we may bring it back for a technical Amendment and then uh I know Miss Smiley had a question

106about we had two separate uh policies one that's specific to the uh title one uh versus all the the schools and the approach that the committee took was trying to follow the model of the school boards Association to to be able to get those updates quicker versus having one big policy and going oh they gave us an update but ours isn't that we need to figure out where in this policy it was um but I mean that's that's really how we came up with having the two separated out versus having a single policy and 13 may have already touched on this 1320 is exclusively about Title One schools right and it's pretty much attracts statutory requirements and regulations for titling schools so it's kind of just restating a lot of law whereas this is more

107your policy in part to implement sp49 requirements but also just your policy where you're collecting and uh sharing with the community ways for parents to be engaged and involved in schools I think we also felt it was a little less confusing if it was the two I think there's no right or wrong though it's there no or wrong yeah so clarifying um so policy 1310 is essentially the Schoolboard model policy except we've already Incorporated some amount of feedback and there will be more policy 1320 which is about Title One family engagement is that essentially verbatim the ncsba policy or have we made this I think it is did you make any changes I thought we did might have been some minor Chang there were some minor changes and again this that is second reading so

108this yeah the title one is here on the second reading this is one we're requesting to wave second reading on so we've 13 TM yes right right yeah I mean just for what it's worth we have a 14 page policy with a lot of detail and a seven page policy with a lot of detail um and like the irony of like this is for family engagement and so like when you're communicating with families usually you like to make things simple is like hilarious to me but um so and I think that some pieces you know it's weird that there's the the definition of what parent engagement means is in the title one one but not in the main one like I just I am fine with approving these for now and I would love for

109us like in when we when we have some Blissful time to like really think about simplifying where we might be able to simplify um and then my other just general comment about the parental in well really about both of them is that they both include um an incredible number of commitments of what the school district will do in action and it is essential I'm sure the policy committee talked about this to ensure that we have uh processes and systems in place to ensure that all of those things actually happen um so I am curious if there are any steps being taken there to make sure that we are systematizing this stuff and stuff doesn't just like you know a school gets a new principal or I mean you know so many things there's we turn

110over I will I will take the risk of speaking on behalf of other staff because every single Department as you can imagine every single one of us who has any kind of um stake in this is is thinking about that and we will be working with principles very very quickly because a lot of this does rest on them and that's not been lost on any of us and um some of those um subtle ironies that you brought up about the fact that parent engagement and involvement is becoming a bigger and bigger topic harder and harder to read and therefore the burden on everyone to to Wade through it is more so we are aware and um Mr a thank you for bringing up these standard Communications that we'll be using because as as any families

111in the district know we've been offering standard Communications all years year on redistricting and reassignment on superintendent input on any number of other things and so some families have indicated that they're kind of input it out so it will be an ongoing process and we don't want to you know we we have to bear all those things in mind um just to add onto that a little bit the that we have clear procedures for all these like all this additional staff work and at what point do we need more staff to do all these jobs because you you know to the extent that it's more things that teachers have to do or more things that principes have to do like this is just a lot to do and so I'm just curious when we will

112get that feedback that sounds like a question for the board Mr well not for me okay that's my question or a great rhetorical question great rhetorical question it an opening for a superintendent to well I mean classic legislative work here's what you must do but by the way there are no resources additional to do it so to paraphrase what you asked yep I think there will need to be a plan that is worked out with principles and and with communication and um a lot of conversation around yeah how this is going to roll I'll I'll borrow 30 more seconds to explain how that's going to work so yes we will be talking with principles and obviously cabinet is going to be laying in on this and lot a huge debt goes to Dr Green to

113Mari Morris our director of literacy as well as to um Dr Jessica Dre director of student Support Services because at the beginning of this process we looked at that dual capacity framework you all have those resources in your abstract from when we first brought the proposal this is really all about building up school's capacity and fam's capacity to that point we have to do that we have to do that together I think that it's a very responsible approach and so I I I wanted to mention that that framework is there as well as the people who made this possible the the very first meeting we had with the equity task force really owed a lot to a a very inclusive an expansive thought process that I think is going to yield fruit in the future

114all right so U I know this is on for Action Mr Adon correctly pointed out we do have the policy reference to 4341 uh that would need to be removed temporarily um and I just wanted to sort of suggest a specific verbage for that before somebody makes a motion if we ready that go ahead the reference currently is school Personnel shall communicate with parents about student behavior issues in accordance with the requirements of policy 4341 parental involvement in student behavior issues and about student attendance as described in policy 4400 School attendance and I would suggest we just delete for now uh in accordance with the requirements of policy 4341 that may that bre may be added back later if that policy is adopted okay can we go on do we have to repeat that no

115I think it's clear for the minutes then somebody could uh could reference that and and ask uh make a motion to adopt the policy uh as amended and also Mr Aon on behalf of the policy committee has requested a waiver of second reading to meet our to meet statutory requirement to have a policy in place by janary second or third I think and there's the other policy that I moved to this item too yes we have another POs to take action on as well for 1310 that would be the motion would be the deletion of uh the phrase that that I have indicated and a waiver of second reading do we have a motion to to so moved second all in favor motion to approve uh policy 1320 uh the title one parent and family

116engagement for second reading second all in favor got it very confusing but we got it okay GRE okay back again and very excited this time to present our beginning teacher Support Program if you recall they were on the schedule of my last meeting here and not only do we want to talk about you know the work that's taken place in supporting our teachers the work that's taken place in retaining our teachers give their capacity the collaboration they have with vuring teacher we want you to hear so at this time I'm going to turn it over thank you Dr Green a good evening good evening so as you can see we have a wonderful team here this evening that we're excited to share this update about our beginning teacher support program did you know that teacher

117efficacy and more specifically Collective teacher advocacy has the largest effect size on student learning this is according to John Hat's work which is a metal analysis of a lot of thousands of research studies um it's an even higher effect size than factors like teacher student relationships home environment or parental involvement an educator who lacks efficacy or confidence is less likely to push students to try new methods or work through challenges and when educators are confident in their ability they are more likely to persist they are more likely to work through difficulties and to be Innovative in their practices so knowing this Orange County Schools have strived to build as you can see on this slide an instructional framework with teacher efficacy um and retention in mind as its foundation to build this sense of efficacy

118we believe it's important to align the work of the beginning teacher support program to the Orange County Schools instructional framework as well as our commitment to plc's uh so that beginning teacher support doesn't feel separate and apart from the work that's happening or the priority areas that we're ultimately working toward as a district because we want our teachers to have long successful careers in Orange County Schools as you saw in the presentation that we provided in advance um there is quantitative and qualitative data that we are using to drive how we're supporting our beginning teachers and our mentors uh the intentional alignment that we've pursued between our human capital division as well as our curriculum and instruction team it's inspiring um to to have worked in Orange County Schools since 2016 and to see the

119way that those um two divisions are working closely together um is something that that I did not experience prior to to where we are now and it's something that I'm I'm truly grateful for and I'm glad that you're going to hear from these folks shortly um we have three amazing leaders that are here this evening uh miss Connie Brer cols will be joining you in just a minute as well as Miss Ronda wood who is our beginning teacher and Mentor support coordinator and I want to take this opportunity to thank you the board for your commitment to our beginning teachers and to our mentors because through your action and previous approval of the beginning teacher and Mentor support coordinator position we've been able to um really work through and sustain um this work work under

120Miss Woods leadership so at this time and and not I don't want to miss because I they're going to announce you too but Miss Whitney Williams is also here she is our one of our lead mentors um and she's going to be sharing some of her amazing work that's happening but at this time I'm going to turn over to M bmer cols and she's going to provide you an overview of the beginning teacher support program so good evening orang Board of Education it's a pleasure tonight to come talk to you about something that is near and dear to my heart heart which is begin te your support So in saying that just want to pause for a moment and I want you to ask you to reflect on your first year of teaching or if

121you're not a teacher think of someone you know or think of your child that was in the classroom of your first year teacher I know when I think about my first year teaching I'm not g to say how long ago it was but I I think about words like overwhelmed joyful exhausted excited stressful and rewarding I can tell you and I think a lot of us can attest that there's not much more difficult than your first year teaching um but we also know a little bit later on that teaching is a journey it takes time it takes patience and it takes confidence to reflect on your teaching practice and then begin to build upon the ability to reach all students but there are ways that we as a district can help so I just want

122to say to tonight that research showed one of the biggest factors in not only the success of beginning teachers but retaining the beginning teachers is effective mentorship and so I'm excited to tell you about the collective efforts because this is not the effort of one person or one Department anymore and so I'm really excited to talk to you about that so just a little background knowledge as you're aware the stateboard policy does outline beginning teacher support and that is for both traditional licensed um teachers and alternative licensed teachers and according to policy every Public School unit must have an approved plan and thank you for doing that uh a couple of meetings back the plan must outline a three-year induction period evaluation requirements and lure requirements the purpose of the beginning teacher support plan is

123to provide systematic and I use that word in B I should that systematic support to new teachers um that aligns to five Professional Standards and you can see the standards and one thing I'll point out to you is that the standards don't not only apply to the induction and development of new teachers but they also apply to the selection and development of the individuals who are working with those new teachers so just a little bit of a recap last year we did come uh before the board and asked for some changes uh we did we were able to well let me back up a little those changes were uh drastically needed as the population of our beginning teachers has changed Dr drastically we have about 40% of our beginning teachers at the time did not

124graduate from a teacher Ed program which is a game changer so the board did approve um the addition of the beginning teacher and Mentor support coordinator who is M Ronda woods and I cannot thank you enough for that she's wonderful um so this position does provide oversight in the instructional implementation of programs for BTS by supporting not just BTS but mentors coaches administrators and others um the board also approved the addition of 20 lead mentors if you were remember we had 80 plus and that was really hard to manage so we did uh you approved the addition of 20 lead mentors with a larger siphon and with the condition that they would be more intense training um we also received additional funding for the North Carolina new teacher support program that program is used to

125provide intensive support for our beginning teachers that we know did not come through a traditional teacher aded program so some successes and challenges it's really important for us to continue to reflect on our successes but also embrace our challenges so every year we uh we look at at a host of both formal and informal data points and we analyze those points to determine what changes are needed those data points are shared with lead mentors and administrators over the summer so we just want to tell you about a few of those data points to kind of lead you to where we think our challenges are so this uh the first slide is the North Carolina teacher turnover report and it is um disaggregated by beginning teachers we do not have the official data for this year

126we do have some raw data and I will say it's looking positive but I don't like to till the state puts it out um but the teacher turnover report looks at teachers that are on the payroll of March of one year but not on the payroll of March of the following year and you can see that uh if we if we look at our Trends we know that year three is where we start to drop off and the retention of um beginning teachers so I think you're going to see when we get that dat to some positive notes there little bit about the demographics of our BTS this year we have 88 beginning teachers and that's way up has continued to increase over the past five years that accounts for 16% of our teaching population

12743 of these teachers are operating off of alternative license so approximately half of our BTS did not come through a teacher Ed program I just want to note that that is double the slots that we have for the new teacher support program so some additional data points we consider in general the secondary level has a higher number of beginning teachers specifically with alternative license when we look at it by site what we know about these employees is they're coming to us with little or no classroom experiences if we look in contrary if you look at elementary ad they have far greater numbers when we look at it by content area however what we know these employees come with far greater classroom experience and this year eight out of 14 of them previously served as Tas

128so being able to hire alternative ler is a game changer in many ways it also is probably one of uh the factors in why our can see rates have been lower than some of our surrounding County so I'm just going to give you for example at the end of October we had 21 teacher classroom teacher vacancies um to give you a comparison as of October 31st there were 51 classroom teacher vacancy listed on our neighboring District to the South job board and 30 of them were exceptional children we currently have one exceptional children teacher vacancy um so that just gives you just a little bit of a comparison um we again I'll go back to we know that alternative lier is a game changer and we have to continue to provide support for those individuals

129to be successful and that is not the same we don't provide the same support for all BTS but we particularly know those individuals in intensive support so considering all the formal and informal data point we continue to reflect improve and so in over the summer we did make some additional shifts so I just want to tell you a little bit about our lead Mentor population we had 31 applicants this year um we did we do use the state criteria to choose those applicants which is they must uh have their principal recommendations they must be in good standing on the last twoyear Summit of evaluation and they must have proven ability to Mentor adults upon suggestions from these lead mentors we did Implement a sliding scale payment for them that was more Equitable we looked at

130the number of bets they served to determine um their payment and so some of our Lee mentors may serve only one person others may be serving up to five we also continue to support with the North Carolina new teacher support program to provide intensive support um for those who are coming at to us through non-traditional routes um we have cohorts at Central Orange High School and Cedar Ridge and we particularly chose those sites because they like to get the most bang for our money so to speak because when they go to those site they're serving eight or so individuals when they go um so some challenges again I've said one we we don't have enough slots right we have to make some hard choices about who we serve um but another challenge that we and

131let me also say that we have talk with the director of federal programs to see if there ways we can maximize our dollars for next year to get additional slots um another challenge we have is that right now we have 22 individuals who need to pass three standardized stateboard tests um these are both in the elementary ad and the EC teacher population these tests are not easy and it is not unusual for people to struggle with them there are specific preparation coures designed for both reading that both the reading and the math test and we are looking in the for opportunities to offer those courses over the summer we do have a trainer in District for Math and I believe we've worked out um but we are still looking at finding a reading person so

132again our beginning teacher support does not lie or rest on one individual whether it's a colletive effort one of the focuses for this year is to make sure that we are developing the skills and knowledge of those who are working with our pts so we have expanded our partnership with the North Carolina teacher support program and and this was at no additional costs um but they have changed their service model to include working with our mentors and providing them support and professional development over the year they also met with our administrators this summer and provide professional development for them we continue to look forward to expanding that partnership um the North Count new teacher support program is looking at and I I say this with great pride they want they are interested in making Orange

133County Schools the model for other districts so with that they are looking at providing some services for us that would not be an additional cost such as substitute uh being able to provide substitutes for begin teachers to go observe some professional development during the summer we're still working out the details of that but we do look forward to continuing to grow that partnership with them and saying that I am now going to turn it over to Dr G wonderful thank you Connie um and good afternoon good night whatever time it is um thank you for allowing me the opportunity to come and talk to you about the great work that our mentors are doing um and that um our beginning teachers are doing it is one of my passions um I love watching um our

134new teachers come in year one and then go in and see them again um throughout their years of teaching um and then when they hit that year three it's it's like you're you've taught a great lesson and they've got it so um I am very very um excited and um thankful to be able to have this opportunity so as Dr gamon showed you um at the very beginning we have our um instructional um framework for the district and this past summer we we took that big huge framework here's our expectations in Orange County and we chunked it into bite-sized pieces so that we could build that teacher efficacy in our new teachers um we're we selected different things throughout their first year um that we hope that those things allow them to be successful right

135and to fill that success and then year two we add on um a different layer and then year three we add on a different layer um so that when they get into that year three they that um turnover rate is not as as intense as we've seen um with that Focus they have three months um that they're working with their mentors and they have side by side coaching they have um one onone one on six meetings during the month um and then they get to go and watch their Mentor so they have that specific Focus they go watch their Mentor do that specific focus and then their Mentor gets to come and watch them within that three months and then within those three months the the um focus May shift or it may say the

136same depending on their needs um beginning year um first year for or the first few months first well August in a little bit of September um beginning teachers one two and three all work on building that Community right because we need to get in we need to get to know our students and we get to um build relationships um before we can get to the content because um we have to have that report with our students along with their oneon-one side by side U monthly meetings our administrators are also involved in that so we have one administrative contact that's on campus and and they're holding meetings with all the beginning teachers and this has been um her feedback that you saw um the informal feedback that we received um they just needed that right like

137that that's their cohort that's their um I still talked to the people that I T with my first year right those are my people that I go and still turn to and so we wanted to build that collaboration build that cohort um so that when I come in and I'm having um struggles with a student I can look around the room and these people are still they're doing the same thing even our mentors um would chime in and say yeah that happened to me too right um and so they it's a safe space um and um they're building that capacity to know that I can come back tomorrow I can do this our mentors also have a mentor log as you saw in the items that were given to you prior to tonight um and

138within that Mentor log they're recording what they're doing with their beginning teacher the beginning teachers um have access and then our administrators are also signing off on that um and they're identifying the D the specific area that they're working in with their beginning teacher as well as um linking in their learning walk document right um and so everything is really streamlined um the vision was to help it be really streamlined um so that our mentors who are also in front of students every day um know exactly what's happening that and what's EXP Ed um and yeah so we also had some um feedback from our beginning teachers as well as our mentors in the slides that were provided um we also have um Kelly Parks also sent us an email um the mentors that are

139on her campus were also the same mentors as last year and they also had UNCC coaches and so the coll collaboration that they built and that they were able to to build with um both the UNC as well as these mentors was really strong and so we talked to them a lot this summer to try to build um and sustain our beginning teacher support structure and so Kelly wanted to share some things that their um beginning teachers stated that are going well in their room in their school as well as what their mentors um shared and um just read this so my mentor teachers have been nothing but supportive and always in my corner I've never felt like I had to ask a dumb question with anyone because they are always so receptive to it

140and wanting to help me in everything that I'm doing everyone who has helped me has been nothing but amazing definitely one of the reasons I have stayed at this school I mean right okay sorry couldn't do this without the support I have the resources provided in the BT meetings have been so helpful the ones that on campus I am thankful for the BT program to help guide and shape me into being a better teacher but I'm most thankful for the partnership that I've had with my mentor last year the program helped me be helped me remember to believe in my students and myself teacher advocacy there um to ask questions always be open to feedback whether it's negative or positive and be consistent I really had I've had really great mentors and have really received

141help in anything whenever it was needed mentors coaches and my team were very supportive they guided me through many situations and new things I was trying to understand so those are BTS here's the mentors last year and this year Anna and Chris created a list of all the areas of need that we BT teachers have throughout the year and created a Google slide document to highlight those during our twice a month meeting we go over different areas really focused on data in planning and work in small groups or oneon-one we share our planning models and methods and give them those resources to use as their own we share the different programs that we use in the classroom and have been successful as the BTS need we set up individual weekly meetings to go over plans

142strategies so that they can help and support them that as well our doors are always open for them to watch us teach ask questions cry or anything else that they need and then Kelly added that we retained all beginning teachers and they have made dramatic gains in their own professional growth and practice and growing with our students additionally we invited new teachers to effin to the beginning teacher meetings so not only is it just first year teachers but anybody that's new on campus which is also super important it's helped us continue to build strong teams and increase colleague mentorship relationships with our new Rockstar staff so thank you Kelly if you're watching um and now I'm going to turn it over to another Rockstar Mentor this is Whitney Williams from the number one school of

143America yeah thank you for that introduction I was going to make sure I put that in there but yes I'm Whitney Williams I teach second grade at Grady Brown better known as the number one school in America um this is my 12th year teaching I completed my student teaching at Grady Brown and have been there ever since um so it's been really special to be a part of um you know the BT program myself and now be on the mentor side of it I've been a mentor in Orange County schools for the past six years um so the last two years that lead Mentor model that we've moved towards um and you know the biggest change that I've seen in those two different models is just the community that I've been able to you know

144facilitate and Foster among our five or six BTS um at Grady Brown over the last two years um so as they've mentioned you know a big part of it is just creating Community for them I think that that's the key to longevity in the classroom I know for me that community and that collaboration and that support is what's kept me at Grady Brown for 12 years and you know what I hope that they feel when they come into our building and come into you know our our classroom so um I can't thank you enough for your support there's been a huge shift in the support that mentors have as well you know in the last two years I've received great training UNC um has office hours that we can go to if we ever need

145to problem solve as mentors so it's not only a very um supportive program for the beginning teachers but also the mentors um so it's been a great experience and um I appreciate it all right so I think the last thing um that we had is um thank you thank you Kelly Parks thank you and um what questions you have for us miss I have S this is great thank you and thank you for what you're doing and um this is great I um first a basic question on the UNCC mentors these are professors are these professors these are coaches that are within so they taught um High School um one has actually been an administrator before um and then they go into this program um um to go to different schools throughout the and so

146the the question there is do they have are they assigned to a school so do they go year to year to the effect to the same schools and they build relationships with the schools so this year we've made it to where there is a cohort um so that they could also build that capacity within and among their um teachers they have been at Orange for the past two years and I can let Connie speak to the years prior to to me coming um and as well as Cedar Ridge so I would say traditionally over the past several years they've been at the high school level um and that has been intentional because at the high school level you have more singular content area folks whereas at the elementary school really most of our BTS are

147just are classroom teachers um so and to to revisit your question they're all hired as coaches they all through an intensive training to be a coach and they work you know they're assigned to different districts so it depends on the number also so this year we have three coaches I think asid us just two just two last year we had three so it depends on the the numbers because they are they will try to serve in the content area um that they are experted in if they can so it's not a committed relationship where they send us back the same coaches every year and I no we have the same coaches they're not necessarily assigned to the same people depending like if if they leave or if there's some transition or whatever so it may

148be a different person we do have the same I have other questions I let it go around I just want to say thank you this is such an important um program um I'm so glad you've been leading it um Connie and um I returned to the classroom myself I'm coming up my first year back after 20 years away and having the mentor relationship and all these supports is really important and I have to say I think it's more robust in Orange County Schools than it is in the district where I'm teaching right now as I'm hearing some of the um processes that you have in place it's it's really awesome and it really does matter I'd like what you said Dr camon about um like the teacher efficacy going hand in hand with confidence and

149you know continuing to approach um challenges and having those tools and relationship so love what you're doing and thank you for um building up our teachers and I will say who is not here but I have to to give a huge shout out as our Co Coes because our instructional coaches spend a lot of time and if if you know when we did the beginning teacher of the year interviews that was evident because every candidate talked about how not only their Mentor their principal but their the instructional coach and was such a great support for them so I would like to say congratulations on being possibly a model for the state that is awesome and just goes to show your hard work that you put in all of you have put into this and that

150is that's phenomenal and um thinking back on my first year of teaching I could have used some of y'all way back Miss Smiley uh me too um so thank you all very much um I am and I just I love that um you move from this model of like 80 mentors to like let's find a few incredible teachers and um like help them build their capacity and sort of focus it a little bit more so that they can develop and and the beginning teachers can develop um just appreciate that and um I guess I'm curious um from Miss Williams actually like um I know you're a great teacher yourself I imagine you are involved in many things in the school and this as well like um how do you sort of of handle all of

151the things that you're trying to do besides sort of leading your own classroom it's a great question and a personal struggle of mine to say no to some things and prioritize others um but this has definitely been a priority of of mine so um I cut some other things off my plate once I knew that I was going to have five mentors or had six last year versus just a one-on-one relationship um because it is you know a little bit of a heavier load and you want to you know make sure that you're having equal um support for all of those um but that's where I think the monthly meetings really they've they've created such a community among themselves which is something that I didn't have just because of the numbers of BTS at at

152Grady Brown at the time too but um I think that you know the the brainstorming and the collaboration that goes am goes on among the vibe of them even myself aside is really powerful because you know like us facilitating it but then they kind of move it forward together so I think those relationships are part of the beauty of it as well Mr at I just want to first thank youall um without y'all's leadership and bringing it to us to understand the needs and us to be able to support you we wouldn't be where we are so thank you um you know one of the things that you know came to my mind about as yall were presenting this is you know this would be a wonderful opportunity to present at the North Carolina School

153boards ass Association as one of the leading items you know we have a lot of districts that go in and I think this is very unique and would be well received at that um one of the questions I had was we we talked about or y'all talked about the the grow your own and how important it is and big fan always been uh I'm curious of how how many have we gotten through high school you know actually giving out contracts right we do that every year and you know I'm curious I I haven't heard of that result coming back because they would immediately come in as a beginning teacher do do you know of about how many we've had that have actually come back through that program so I I would probably have to check

154those numbers I know there were two this year oh that's fantastic that came through and sometime you know it's we try to place them early because that you know we have to also look at what their certifications areas are um probably the most successful way that we have been able to grow teachers is through our TA populations yes absolutely I mean the EC alone is amazing given the market and the the lack of people going through that right now so it's just amazing thank you all so much M yeah so um I have a question about capacity so as we've expanded obviously the number of BTS and alternative license has expanded tremendously and um do we have the resources and enough mentors to cover and by the way we heard some really cool things from

155the principles about some ways they're using people in cohorts themselves anyway do we have the capacity so I will say in terms of our lead mentors when we don't when we don't get the applications that we need we recruit uh so sometimes we need to match you know we need to match their certification are by state law to the to our pts so there are some opportunities when we have to go and recruit but people are always receptive for that so from that end the one area that I think we lack the capacity in is if in the future and again the North Carolina new teacher support program can facilitate in the middle of the year but in the future if there were more slots I think that would be usually helpful to our program

156um because we're making some hard choices and you know we 44 they out you know probably 30 of them are first year and then you know or second year and are not in a Residency program yet so if if there was a the capacity to do more slots in the future I think that and it would particularly benefit our PC teachers to be honest so if you're asking if we need funding to make that happen yes so the question is how much you know do you have an idea because how much are we spending how much is the state State funding for this um I believe it's about $46,000 a year it's definitely under 50 and it's $2,400 a spot so I mean I can bring that's something I can take that have the budget

157commit the appropriate channels but I would use fund balance for this so that would be to be clear they don't have the capacity to do that issue it would have to be a planning so we don't have the people to do it so it's it's not aun money issue now it's a people right it will be okay that's that's a tough tougher problem problem we can't solve that one you can solve you may be able solve that all right any other questions comments thank y'all and I'm sorry we had to put you off a couple of weeks ago and you sat there for so long but um it was well worth the wait for us so unfortunately we wer to have a te and she was actually a TA now tooer right thank you all

158very much okay we move into Orin Mr Foster again evening again got some prev monitors and now for a brief for recipe to raise more money we're gonna have good move okay all right all right as we continue to navigate uh reassignment tonight we have uh from board uh Thomas Dudley and Bri gy who will U talk through and present uh draft 3 maps as well as discuss the data associated with those Maps as well turn things over to Thomas chair ccel other members of the board it's my pleasure to be joining you again this evening to present what is the third draft of your assignment plan we'll Begin by reviewing the four pillars of reassignment this is your policy 4150 which is of course the guing for behind your assignment plan and this is

159comprised of student achievement stability proximity and operational efficiency as a quick note here we're also including a slide from the last meeting U presenting a brief explanation of the differences between the types of capacities that are used in our models uh to reflect the number of seats at each of your schools we wanted to include this if there are any questions U or for future reference these are here for compar comparison purposes next I'll be briefly outlining several of the slides that you've seen before as part of both draft one and draft two but I'll acknowledge as part of this first slide here and again this is just for reference and the slide you saw first in octob over is to speak briefly to the symbology so the blue lines that you see on this

160map are the current attendance zones and then the background colors is the solid fill that is the uh actual proposed boundaries under this draft one with that we have the similar uh format as to what you've seen before where the summary statistics the summary information is provided on the slides after the maps that was draft one incorporating draft one feedback we created draft two which has several modifications including tur and grow going to Pathways and the removal of a couple of satellites as well of course here's the summary information for that which you've seen before and looking at uh this scenario here and what we saw last time the major feedback one of the major feedback items that we received is that not all of the utilizations excuse me the adjusted utilizations are below 100%

161for these schools and that would be the column the second column from the right looking at the adjusted utilizations there you can see several schools are beyond that 100% we're looking at Central New Hope and Pathways to be specific so with that feedback in mind we went back to the drawing board and created what we're calling draft three the differences here compared with draft two uh there is not as many students move from CH grow going Pathways being reassigned there are not as many F cheek students being reassigned to Central and what this does is it balances the utilization between of the schools to show the summary statistics going along with this I'll move to the next slide and I'll bring attention again to that second from the far right col looking at the scenario

162adjusted utilization where they're all below 100% and I'd like to also note that the U differences the the larger gaps that you see there under 100% looking at Ean cheeks then also at River Park those extra seats were allocated there as an intentional planning for growth in the future so you have e cheeks and the growth in mavan and then as part of the scenario you have Collins Ridge being assigned to River Park uh again that was intentional if there are no questions I'll move on to the High School uh but I did want to pause there and ask if there are questions Mr ason how did we get a scenario that breaks up a neighborhood when we said that was not something we were going to do looking at your board policy is what

163was used to derive these scenarios absolutely 100% that what we what we outline there or what we drew from was those policies and that goes from the beginning of the process now that's the best guns and and what my organ what our organization does is we try to take board priorities and create from that bring those to life with scenario Maps so we brought together guiding principles around not doing that yeah just I mean a comment on that um is I mean I don't like the idea of splitting up neighborhoods and it this is not a comment on this particular recommendation at all just to be clear but the the actual policy language say it would minimize splitting neighborhoods it doesn't say like black and white that we won't do it when when we as

164a board discussed it we said we would not do it and there was only one board member that said they had concerns with it but I I'll just say I'm not going to vote to split a neighborhood um but the other comment I had is when we when we all got into individual meetings as groups of board members one of the requests I know that came out of my group that was sitting there was the proximity as a as an hey show us what it would be if you just did proximity so we could have some comparisons to understand what what does that do to um the makeup of the school what does that do to Transportation so we could compare at least have a a comparison to do that and I was surprised that

165it's still in the appendix and I was surprised that the numbers weren't adjusted uh because anything that shows over capacity I don't know how we could compare them right so as an individual board member I was expecting to see that one shifted down with the adjustments that we requested so the proximity model wouldn't show um over capacity as well certainly So to that second point I would certainly classify that as a miscommunication between the expectations about uh edits for that proximity scenario that was presented last time in IND would it be helpful for me to scroll down and sort of talk through that that scenario now while we're discussing the elementary level yeah we can I my my main comment was I know that when you look at the percentages as we saw in the

166other one there's two that's over so it really isn't a great comparison because of that but that that was really my comment is I my expectation is we're going to get that back in the top scenarios with the percentages that adjusted so at least we can have some comparisons on the transportation demographics results Etc I I see exactly what thank you let yeah I I wanted to really thank you about for doing the adjusted capacity which I think is a corrected capacity um but even your report says that um with the adjusted capacity that we'll have schools that will be over capacity within a few years and down the road tonight the County Commissioners are having a conversation about building a new school in mean and that decision hasn't been made yet it hasn't been

167made by our board but it's it's very much on the table and with the capacity challenges it raises the priority and so if we decided to build a new school in Nevan what would happen to this model yeah wholesale changes absolutely be completely different it would be yes okay nice M um to the point on um splitting up neighborhoods which I think we should avoid doing at all when whenever possible um the another neighborhood I want to note that's split up on uh draft three is the Fairview neighborhood um which currently on this map sort of partially going to Pathways and partially to River Park um and I don't I think that's not I and there may be others as well like that was one that out to me somebody mentioned Fox Hill as well

168um oh yes I did actually see the the fox is that what it's called Fox Hill the lot that that one of those rides lines it looked like um it cut through that neighborhood as well so um to whatever extent that helps with balancing capacities within schools or whatever I wanted to go this note that those two are um neighborhoods that are currently split up as well any other questions did you look at um models that took pressure off New Hope This New Hope also is Happ did you look at did you look at that at all as part of this draft three there is if you refer to the far Southeastern part of the River Park attendant Zone there is a redistricting where River Park assists New Hope as Pathways is assisting River Park

169M um thank you for making these continued revisions and um kind of touching a little bit on what Dr Merl said bringing a couple things together but um I know we got to the looking at the chur and grow part or or your team did because originally you had Collins Ridge getting targeted for Pathways um and a number of US releas problems with that because there was a uh a traffic issue because it's south of town and then they're driving away north of town so I mean I think again that this speaks to this is a a complex process and we just we have to have that earlier um input as Dr Merl mentioned um we didn't achieve this time because these are the types of problems that I think you know community members can

170identify um on an at an earlier end um so that we avoid some of these like getting ourselves in some of these spots although I I do think it's it's also overall tricky because you know there there are other part of town that um also could get split up that aren't a quote neighborhood like I think we have to be careful about um using the word neighborhood yeah I mean who else gets aect you know like people are going to be affected and so that it's just it's just tricky there's a lot of nuance we have to consider and so again I just think we need that earlier Community input to um see foresee those problems um as drafts are being developed which which is a lot of work because it's you know there there's

171there's busing there's you know our number one priority is balancing student achievement which is what we're we're trying to achieve as well as solve some our capacity issues and then Bon's point we're also looking at some major Capital Investments so there there's a lot going on but we we do have to do this but we we have to do it well and I think we just need earlier input um to do better just just throw into the factors that we also have an interim superintendent and so we're cing a superintendent and as a board we have not really looked at the service levels and the disparities across our schools which is a whole another level which I think is prerequisite to looking at so you know there's the achievement part which looks at the student

172part but the disparities looks at our role look our responsibility in providing Equitable Services AC Mr as I I think it's also going to be important as we go through this for options that the board doesn't think should be looked at like the satellite right I mean I think it was very clear that I didn't get the sense anybody like that on the board was the satellite so we shouldn't be showing that going forward and then any of them that have the the overc capacity we shouldn't show them because a lot of the questions I got was why would you do this if it's going to be over capacity right so and that's a good question right and and yeah exactly so I think as we go through this we should start moving these to

173backup or prior or something to indicate to the community these aren't these aren't things that are being considered I mean we know that but it's not going being communicated as the just the um presentation is being shared so I think it's important when people look at it that they know is it a option or is it multiple options and then here are things that were looked at in the past and they were changed because of all the number of complexities that we're looking at and I think that will help minimize you know some some of the community you know concerns and then also as it goes through the Committees they'll what they're looking at these are ones that we should consider these were ones that weren't and maybe here's why overcapacity or um satellite transportation

174and issues like that anyone else I just want to I mean I I um like Dr Merl's opening comments about delaying this um and I'm not sure you know and I I actually think we have some decisions that we have to make as a board because we can go around in circles and keep doing Maps but until we make a decision about a school you know and until so um that's probably the most important one but some others I don't know how you know I mean we can you'll run models all day um but but I just wonder if we should put a pause put a pin in this and put a pause in it until we make that decision and then once we make that decision uh let me just put on the back

175end of this if we're looking at doing this for 26 we have time to you know there's there's no magic about March certainly um we have time to get this done I think we have to look at getting the capacity right in our schools before we decide whether we need another school or not because we've got schools right now that far under capacity and we we need to see what the whole big picture looks like right so I thought scenario three it says that if you balance out the schools we're still pretty close to capacity that that's how I read or you know my favorite line in your very long and elaborate report was that if the adjusted capacity is used or the corrected capacity the district will appear to be over capacity at many

176schools within a few years so that's might we also we also have to take into consideration the county because we can't just go build a school and so we have to we have to have that conversation with the county and get their blessing and input exactly and they're having their conversation right so yes that's exactly right so that's why we have to make but that decision looks like we can make that within a couple of months at least whether or not we want to do it and then of course the bond has to go forward and the other things yeah I just I mean I just want to say building building a school we have to find land we have to find ones that have infrastructure and it has to be available we have to

177have the bond approved and we also in there have to figure out how to do the funding because the we we stay with the current allocations it's not like all of a sudden we have 10% more kids which means all of the specials that we have that are beyond the standard we have to fund that plus we have to fund all the materials in the school as well so there's a lot of items I'm not saying we don't do any of that I'm just saying it's a huge thing we're going to have to bite off when we as we go through this and it's going to be a long process is all I'm getting at is we've got to figure out you know if we do this how much funding gets allocated aside to do

178that at some point so I I just think of this as the Enterprise and you know lots of steps to go through that so what are you suggesting in terms of timetable let's assume the county says go ahead we're going to put a bond on the ballot go ahead we're going to support you if you want a to build another school the numers support it we would start having to do estimates we'd have to go get understand question is happen of all we need to know we need to know how much that bond is going to be because we all know that when we have a bond in Orange County it is split with Chapel Hill and they get more than we get the starting number is 130 million and and in a couple weeks

179they're going to talk about whether it's going to be higher but if it's a $130 million Bond what are we going to get 60 65% of that or 60 60 or $60 million dollar of that that's that's a question I have is what kind of school we going to build for $60 million now that and is that the top priority with that limited amount of money I again so I'm not saying not want a debate it tonight I guess the question is that we need to have that conversation as a board and it seems to me that we should decide how we what we're interested in doing and what's best for our students before we make and we can keep going especially if we give ourselves another year we have time to make a decision

180and look at and miss m I'll just say I don't think that we can wait on doing a round of reassignment for the new building um so I'm not in favor of that um and um I don't I do like the recommendation from Dr Merill to um commit to doing this on a timeline like March or you know something something like that where we have a timeline to get quality input from people cuz thank you for acknowledging I think that was a real like Miss in this process um and some quality maths and then get it done for the following year um you know frankly we're going to have a new superintendent coming in and I don't want the very first big thing they do to be like a re like if if it's on

181that timeline and they're just coming in like this is a process we're managing we're like holding the ball and making the decisions and like owning that so that you know the beginning of their tenure is not that's everybody's first impression is some reassignment decisions so so just to clarify what you're saying are you saying that we should have the redistricting buttoned up before the new superintendent comes on not literally when they start but I think we should be well on our way to we've started with some maps we need to have a process that where the maps get evolved through rounds of feedb the process that we intended to do and just sort of commit to making a decision right and that new superintendent isn't going to cut come in and say I'm going to

182shift all this thing like we we've we've been the one sort of holding the ball on it that's that's what I'm saying I mean I yeah I just don't I I I like Dr Mill's idea to get it in place and then we've got a year and we can look at it by that time we're going to know what the county is going to be saying towards um possibly a new school whether they do or they don't I mean I I think that's up for grabs right now I'm not going to I'm not going to second guess the board County Commissioners that's that's not that's not for us to do um but I do know that we've got students that are in overc capacity schools right now and I feel like we need to have

183a plan for those children and we need to continue with working with the the maps and looking at what we can do not being disruptive to neighborhoods as much as we can and and getting a plan in place to get these schools a little bit more even kill just my thought yes M yeah I just wonder if there's a hybrid solution here because what I what I don't want to see happen I don't want to move kids twice so if we decide to build a new school and that happens in a relatively reasonable time period the maps will change now you know are there so I and I'm not sure how to attack that so I don't want to move kids twice because it's going to be a very different redistricting model if we end

184up building another school so that's my that's my concern well when you look at the time it takes to build a school I mean even if we got permission to do that or got the money to do that that it wouldn't start for another year or year and a half maybe two years and then it's going to take how long does it take to build a school do two years two years makes another two to two and a half years to build a school and so we're still sitting here with children that are in buildings that are over capacity and and that not only is affects learning it's a safety issue at some point in time right so I agree so the but the question is if we're going to build a new school will

185we dis will we move them around differently can we move them in around in a way that progresses towards the The Future model rather than you know you know it feels like a um what's the word Whiplash you know I don't want to Whiplash the kids and move them to one way and then we build another school we move them back so that's my concern well that's one of the U great things about waiting till 25 I think is that we may have some answers by the by the county by that time I I hope um as to what we might possibly do so that would be we have a plan if we have to go back and adjust or you're saying Baseline it based on where we are now and then change it again

186if there's some major change than then maybe possibly I'm not saying that's what we would do I'm just saying it gives us a little time Mr Aon yeah one change that's coming is the uh the redistricting policy right that says we want to review it every year versus waiting eight or nine years and then trying to do it so that I mean that's one of the key things is not causing it because what really put us in a strange situation even with the high school is all this spot reassignments and now we have transportation issues and struggling with that um so I think that would align with what you're saying is that there was a change Beyond do course I have and then the other concern I have that I think is going to take

187a little time is looking at the service disparities across the school and how do we correct that before we redistrict because we we know that parents have raised conc concerned about make assuring that when they go to a new school that their children get the services that they use and that I think is a budget committee and an Administration question about resource allocation from the bud like there's a resource allocation piece and some of the um service disparities that I think you're referencing that you have brought up before are you know these schools both have an AIG teacher and this one is choosing to spend that this school is choosing to leverage that person by providing AIG Services two days a week and then if you're for half an hour and over at this school

188they're getting service for one day a week for 45 you know like disparities in how principles are using staff time which is a whole another philosophical choice about to what role the board should be involved in that but I I think it's a I'm looking at bigger issues that's a that's an example that we use but there's we know that there disparities in um teacher turnover and retention and absentee There's real disparities in terms of across our schools in in more than AIG and and we have to I think it's something we have to look at Miss do yeah I hope we can like as we communicate Bridge what what we did well and then where we need to like we did some good front-end work where we had like board priorities we had surveying

189done through the end of last school year like we're good in that to that point and then one thing that did come out this fall was the um like the corrections to our safo school you know capacity are adjusted so that was you know a headache or a hurdle but we we did that you know so like we need to connect what we've done well and um if we're going to have like in the first few months of spring reconstituted committees um we need to have early communication multiple languages we need to know who wants to do it I mean we're going to all be swept away by holiday season so you know we have to have that in um with with robust language access and pursue the people who are interested so that we

190can have you know several successful months of that because otherwise we're it's not going to be in January like it's going to be hard to get broad representation um you know the next two weeks before the holidays so um but but we have done some things successfully some things have been done to a good point of completion and I think we need to make connections to that point and then be clear about where we're picking up um so I think so to um Dr yeah I I just like to add on to what car's saying is some of the things we use all the time like Sappo has no meaning Beyond this room and why are you making corrections to sapo what does it mean what's wrong with it so I think we just have

191to communicate those kind of things so people understand what they're reading uh because a lot of questions I had was well why is sea wrong like you know oh they don't they don't look at uh self-contained classes they don't count prek and you know those kind of things where it's very obvious to us in day-to-day conversations but outside of this room it isn't I think it's important to try to capture those and and help people understand those was the clear language of they're appropriately adjusted for preschool classrooms and selfy classrooms and protecting special space you know just say what it means rather than the link zfo J and I I will just compliment ored and Mr Foster for actually making those adjustments and actually putting it in English in the report that those Corrections have

192been made and I really greatly app and it really made a difference in how our available capacity looks I have one question one question for you there was a time where we talked about getting information about what zones where where are we losing students to Charters and I don't know if you have access to that because that's another question that we have why are we losing students and Are there specific schools that are losing them um and then there's a charter and I wondered if you have any way to estimate how how many students were losing to private school or to home school doesn't have to beise what I'll what I'll start with there is U talking about private school data we received basically no information on part private school enrollments until a year or

193two after the school year where those uh students have been enrolled uh homeschool just barely more information than that there are some things that we can do with Char students uh thinking specifically on the western side of the district I know it's been a couple years but have worked with uh abss and I know there may be some over um on the Eastern side of that District as far as charter schools are concerned so let me check in let me look into that okay and also for us it would be helpful to to know hes which is a non districted school where are their students coming from and and that is information that we have and with staff we can prepare a or some similar okay that would be helpful for us for planning I

194I just wanted to say that we get a bill from every charter school with the address of every student and it has to be verified by our finance department prior to being paid so we we have that data so we know exactly where they're coming from can I make a motion to extend the get um by how many minutes I need to know what I need to know what Dr Merl found the mathematics is optional there are no deadlines in there that must be met they can be rescheduled okay okay we could so I will just have the conversation about partnership this I would like to have right so I'm going to move to extend the meeting by 20 minutes that's it all in favor I so are we allowed to vote on this tonight

195because it's a work item or do we have to move it to a later meeting to it's just a work session item tonight as far as um so do we need to make an official action by the board that we're going to delay this to delay the because there's a lot of families that are pretty concerned Dr Merill had said that that was one of his recomend one of his four recommendations um yes but I think he was planning to Dr Marl did you want us to vote tonight on delaying this or were you coming back at a different no I I before this month's over we've got a committee and I and I was toying with adding a special meeting at the end of uh the the uh finance budget committee for like a

19610-minute board meeting just to approve I I just wanted to give you time to to sit on this for for a week or 10 days and maybe I can work on a resolution that summarizes my comments and that would be action and then maybe any business that we've got in the finance committee could be approved by the board in that 10-minute meeting on the night of the 13th so that's where we could get come back to it so don't don't need any action on this I you got plenty to think about so okay is that suitable okay so there was a motion I think on the floor to extend for 20 minutes seconded I think it is that something that we can ask for the charter school and the estimate of home school private schools

197because regardless of where we go the that information would be valuable to us I think we can probably get Dr Merill and Mr Foster to get that information to I just wanted to be I wanted to be clear what we're asking ored to do next for for everybody yeah so two two quick things that's very important obiously going back to uh Mr Al you talked about maps that are posted right obviously we're being transparent allowing the maps to be be shown but I guess creting language that indicated that that you know these maps are W considered right but I think what's important going back to theor point about well we need maps to get feedback from all right so if we're saying no no no no no in the SPAC of get this tweet get

198this tweet why are we getting that feedback right so I think it's important that moving forward the next set that we get all right that or is clear that we bring these back and we can begin to get legitimate feedback from our stakeholders uh from that space on the table right now now we have obviously want to avoid splitting up the neighborhoods that was put on the table okay uh as well in terms of the next set of maps that we looking for did you want to add proximity version without the over capacity over Capac so that will beate map that will be an appendix okay as well it's not going to be an appendix or no you said you wanted to make that a map correct meaning number four or number five whatever the

199case is so we'll create that space too and my other recommendation was not to put not to remove those Maps permanently but they could be in like a prior view or you know so they know that these are here but they're not ones that are being considered because like I said I think I've heard from so many people about the the satellite one and I was like I I don't think that's actually being considered but I think it's safe to say that when folks go in and look at that that it says we'll create language that that but I don't want to be sure that we have new maps that are being created next that from feedback from today that's what we want to get feed I have one other request which was in an

200appendix the elementary to Middle School feeder patterns um the current and draft three so if we're just talking about draft three here and I realized this apparently exists at Pathways right now but um at Pathways 98.8% of students go to Orange middle and 1.2% go to graly Hill and gosh I I would love to not have you know the schools where it's like 30 60 35 65 is fine like 1% of students going someplace else I'd love to avoid that um so when we develop various iterations also taking that into consideration as you're drawing boundaries or like rwn to the middle school now I mean either way either way as long as you know and then I would like the information on where we're losing students and and where we're losing students are Charters if

201we can estimate the privacy of home schools but also where is HS where are HS to clarify previous points the HS stents we have that data we can create a heat map immediately uh the charter will be a separate request to your Finance depart okay okay that I will I will take care of that yes okay anything else on this get that thank you Mr Bost of all your thank you okay partnership Mr Willam you that I am um so it's actually not just me this has been a collaborative effort by just about every Department in our school system um we're meeting and having conversation I just kind of looked around I said you know out of all the work we've done this time you know course of being here it's phenomenal to see every

202partment come together to do this work so we have Finance that's played a huge part with not only just the funds also Child Nutrition maintenance um Hank I think we're like best friends now we talk all the time um our technology department uh Mr Smith um Mr Foster it has been a this car has been a completely collaborative effort the idea comes from um just walking in the partnership and see that our students are struggling to find Space our staff are struggling to engage our students in more effective manner to provide them space and then not go over to the Welcome Center tons of space tons of beautiful opportunity to the point where a staff number one said uh so I guess we have to leave the Hiatt to go to a shack and if

203that is what we present as a staff for our students we're dead wrong so we had an issue I came in one day talked to Dr Mar I was fussing because we don't have a place place to send middle school students if they do need that you know um alternative setting Dr Merill and his beautiful bedside manner um what did me kind of said what you going to do I said I have an idea I ran the idea a couple times can we make a switch hurry up got it and so we gathered a team together so tonight we're coming before you to uh discuss moving partnership over to Welcome Center and moving our folks in Welcome Center over to partnership um I think it's been a long time coming in um um Sam Cook

204said change has come so we would like to move forward with that um the initial project has partnership going into building two which is where the gym is um that requires a little bit less work and Hank will definitely be the one to kind of speak more to that and then eventually moving into building one when that work is done what this does it gives us a high school and a middle school option it gives opportunity for expansion all of partnership um that's just so y'all know when partner when when the Welcome Center was bought it was bought with the understanding it was going to be partnership and then all of a sudden we had to get people out of buildings and and and in a central place because the buildings were needing the rooms

205that the central office people were in sure and so that's why they ended up over there I would back Full Circle M so as far as the maintenance of the building goes um since it hasn't really been in use the last few years it needs some work and it it really needed work when it was bought too that's pretty much the same thing as what it was bought because nobody's used it for other than storage um some flooring work is set to begin this Wednesday painters started today to paint all the classrooms and hallways and bathrooms um those are the two big things there's Plumbing work lighting upgrades took place over Thanksgiving um to bring those up to our standards our new standards with LED bulbs and and rter classro because they were they were

206suffering over there um so that's for getting us to January that's what that's our goal to get us moved in for that then there will be design work to be done to get building one back to school use it got changed occupancy wise to offices which is not as strenuous as school standards in building and that's going to require some design to change some of that stuff back so but it can be done it can be done good U Mr a I am glad this is finally happening I do want to put in some additional information around this when I started on the board this came up and the proposal came to rip up that Gem and make it a factory or welding and I don't know there's a bigger CTE fan than me and

207I said no way that should be the partnership and those students have an inside area where they can go and be active when it's cold hot raining whichever or have an actual field to go in because all they have right now is a parking lot also um my understanding is going to address the food so they're not eating Middle School size portions that they'll get high school I hope also through this we look at the outside playground area and remove that and put out some and and make sure they get equipment for that's age appropriate out there so they have other items but I U like I said I think a couple of weeks back it's it's about time and thank you Dr Merl thank you Mr Williams for pushing this through um because every

208time we've talked about this something else has come up and hey let's expand partnership where it's at and it's a long time coming I'm glad to see it yes um just to Echo that and again thank you so much for making this happen um tell what is the cafeteria situation we did hear from partnership students specifically that they were getting you know Al standback lunches so what what cafeteria is in place over this teamwork okay oh so they there are not cafeteria facilities at the Welcome Center so we will be working to provide um hot meals out of another school uh location where um we will still be providing those students an option of choice and providing um a hot meal so it will um you know be delivered in um each day and also

209the same for breakfast breakfast will have to be a cold option but um hot we will be able to do a um lunch we will be able to do a hot option okay and is the goal that they will end up with cafeteria facilities over time or do we is it because of the size of the student body that so from talking with Sy pits it's going to be almost and I'll never saying is impossible but to build a cafeteria there with all the Tres that's going to happen it's going to be to your one can build a new school it's going to be a drastic kind of feed so I think they're going to continue to work on how we can provide more option and choice but it's going to be a hard hard

210thing to put a cafeteria because the under underground draining is what really needs to happen and then the school is built on top of that and I said in addition to I'll learn that through this process with Ser yes ma'am I was going to ask about the cafeteria because simply search was not working earlier when I was trying to pull up old presentations about this stuff I see it fix now just pulled it up I was like it's working during the meeting okay um because the suggestion was to take part of the gymnasium and convert it but um to cafeteria and additional learning spaces like keep part of it for a gym and convert part of but it sounds like that's not going to be physically possible there which is fine um I am also

211thrilled about this um we are limited in time so that is all I will say about that except I'm thrilled um at the time where this was the plan there were a couple of ways that the district was thinking about using the partnership space and I understand we're moving staff there right now but I just wanted to put these into the universe because I still think the need for both of these is really is higher than pre- pandemic when we were talking about it before one was using the current partnership Academy site as a location for a boomerang um that was one and Boomerang is a is offered to students when they've been short-term suspended from school and they they receive academic and sort of social supports to to help them reintegrate that was one

212idea the other idea was creating a day Treatment Center site um which would serve adolesence and children who are not being successful in their regular school setting due to Behavioral or emotional difficulties which would integrate individualized education with therapeutic treatment for youth affected by mental illness and behavioral problems as I'm reading that aloud it does sound a little bit maybe there yeah it sounds a little bit Yeah so so I know we're proving staff there but there are some there was some good ideas about additional resources you just find a hard space we don't have space here for for that's sort of central office staff that we do have and so to the point um you know kind of discussing this with Folks at Welcome Center time you're going to be sharing spaces uh might

213have been UC your own office but now we're about to be really close with one another and really enjoy that time you know they weren't exact you know the most through but we're doing this for kids so just to the point we're we're busting at the seams of spaces across all across the area I just wanted to add on Sarah to what you're saying is originally when Boomerang was considered the only option was Chapel Hill and it do now have a site up here right we now do have I mean we used to have it at the government but they moved it but we still have it and we still have access to it so I think that needs yeah yeah yes absolutely just keep this really simple can you just recount the timet table

214so partnership Moves In in January and then in terms of their weight list expanding when does that happen so talk to uh Mr Fairington who is AB watching now stand um partnership will EXP already have kids who are waiting on their waiting list so we ready to grab those in and the way they work is now they're taking kids for their for the upcoming next school year so he has a chance to expand his numbers immediately what we're really looking at and focusing on is what happens in that Middle School portion and that's what's going to take some time there so so stay with me a second because that's my next question but the first question is so do weight list does the weight list go in January or do we okay great and then

215okay so okay yep great waight list January and then that's takes a Time those the time is possibly the fall of no no no no no there's no way for that we'll start probably accepting or putting out applications for Middle School for the fall because what you have here is a unique opportunity you don't only have an alternative school but you have an alternative Choice school and so inuring research there's not really one of those nearby to us um spoke to folks in Gilford County and in Alamance who have effective alternative programs but they're only alternative we're offering Choice as well so what we'll end up with is the choice option first and then students unfortunately that need an alternative setting based off behaviors then kind of come into that seat rotation but for the

216Middle School it takes time to recruit in that would say I would like the smaller classroom settings I would like the choice so you don't see that for the beginning of the next school year okay I quick okay um Just one thought as as the middle school program gets up and running um I because I I do not know anything about Middle School alternative schools have questions about um students being sort of tracked into alternative programs where the graduation rates are lower test pass is lower all of those things potentially at disperate rates and then not being able to successfully transition into regular High School experience um and that is a that is a wondering for me about like the sort of effectiveness of Middle School alternative and like the equity imp of kids being

217sort of put in that direction I love partnership I think what they're doing is brilliant and can see the benefits for middle schoolers but um I would when this comes to us I would like to know more about that and what the research says and you know so the plus side to two partnership is the choice part when you come for alternative then you're there for let's say the duration of 45 days whatever the extent is that the um superintendent deems for you to go and then you are to go back to your home school so you're not necessarily tracked into the alternative setting plus a partnership is the choice and so also what they're working towards is how do we build a better partnership with their own Tech so we may be looking at

218potentially some Early College ideas for our students who are coming in middle school so we catch them before they get to high school and that graduation rate drops we can keep you on cohort kind of be pushing that's the that's our dream we have two minutes yeah the only other one just following on Sarah when we get to that is the how Athletics I mean today if you're in path know partnership you can go be in sports so middle school and then some of the um optional things you know how are we going to do clubs and things like that can they participate with other schools you know just just adding on to what Sarah said would like to understand that just how that would work and we have some time to kind of build

219that I'm also hoping too that instead of going to other schools for clubs they can offer them there at partnership they wouldn't be able to offer priv sports but School option same yeah I I'll be more prescriptive like robotics like a partnership yeah but normally these teams get together and and so like see the ridge is with orange for example is there anyway partnership can be with them as well yeah okay do we need to we've already approved Mr Miller do you need to say anything right I'm I'm looking at everything you need and and I think we've approved that money tonight so we're good all right do I have a motion to um ajour second do we have a second all in favor I we areed