001okay Mr Atherton yes I'm here and what is your um what is your emotion yes I'm sorry yes okay and motion carries we will now enter in closed session good evening everyone welcome to the Orange County School Board of Education meeting regular business meeting like to call this meeting to order I'm now going to read the public charge the Orange County Board of Education pledges to its citizens to conduct this business in a courteous and productive manner showing respect for fellow board members staff and citizens the board assets citizens conduct to conduct themselves with the same courtesy to what both School personnel and each other as board policy Robert's Rules of Order will be used to conduct meetings a moment of silence will be observed before each meeting in addition to the moment of silence
002at each meeting held at a school site the board will recite the Pledge of Allegiance the board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain they are either turned off or on vibrate to avoid Interruption of the meeting let us all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the base of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we will now have a moment of silence foreign thank you next on the agenda we will have recognitions Dr Merrill yep good evening Mr Richmond members of the board Dr Merrill um as everyone is aware because you've probably seen our social media posts and other materials in space this month from September 15th through October 15th
003is Hispanic Heritage Month it's for celebrated in many different ways we'd like to thank the equity department for creating some wonderful resources which are mentioned on our uh on the recognition agenda item for tonight and have been shared with all staff throughout the district um aside from just the the basic information around the history of this month and the fact that it has a long trajectory and track record here and we're very excited that um building on the success of last year's events which included the Encanto Movie experience again co-hosted and really spearheaded greatly by our family engagement team and the equity Department here in Orange County Schools this year the family engagement a whole group because it's even more than Sandra blefko and her team uh who are here with us tonight ESL teachers
004and many other stakeholders really came together to create a wonderful event and to kind of bring you into the vision of that and how it all came to be I'd like Sandra blefko Our Family Outreach coordinator to take you through the tour thank you Mr Smith good evening Richmond board members Dr meru I want this opportunity to thank our members of our family engagement team especially Danette Morales and rupisaro who led the Orange County celebration Or Hispanic heritage Latinas I want to thank Mr Adams we have right here for sharing his point for sharing his poem an ally for our Hispanic students I want to thank Mr Griffin and all of students Spanish honor Societies or Orange High School for volunteering their time at every event that we have I want to thank Mr Sati
005for his assistance with this event I would like to thank everyone they share their poem and gave us the opportunity to understand their struggles challenges and successes and success stories I want to give a special thanks to Elena Lozano Central Elementary Spanish teacher and Miss Caitlyn Lewis ESL teacher for leading the dance group that was exercise Mr Jalen Brown and all the for allowing us to use their schools for this event Our Community Partners like El Centro Hispano El futuro family success Alliance especially Orange Orange County Equity Department all the ptsos during tech for sharing important Resources with our families and finally I want a special thank to you our families for participating and being part of this event you are the Agents of change and we want to Foster our relationships with respect and
006honor and there is still so much growth and all we can do for you guys and I want a special thanks to Guadalupe Luna she is a rock star and a amazing writer and I think is she going to share the pointless so we'd love to have the youth Poet Laureate from Cedar Ridge High School Guadalupe Lino Rojas read her poem and then we'll also share a couple pictures to remind you why we're doing this not just this month but all year long good evening good evening thank you so much for having me um today I brought with me a poem called No limitations you need to understand our frustration when it comes to discrimination fear limits our education we speak in broken English they might ask for our identification and we don't have the
007proper documentation the one who sets the limitation is them not us they feed off our fear of deportation and immigration they don't know the story of how this place is our new salvation despise the Discrimination the generalization we live in a cultural assimilation they will never get my father and mother's situation Words Get Lost in Translation they get the wrong interpretation when having this conversation they don't understand the broken English pronunciation for those trapped in the situation that feel the Suffocation here are a few words of inspiration remember your culture your roots your mother's flavors Remember You have overcome the physical and mental labors you have surpassed many hardships which seemed impossible to ever overcome you're the standing proof of no limitations thank you so much for having me thank you [Applause] so again we'd
008just like to take you on a very short visual tour and remind you why it is that as student voice becomes more and more of a regular feature here in board meetings and other meetings around the district we know that the equity department is also queuing up an awful lot of that same energy as we invite more and more students to share their authentic experiences about what it's like to be in community to be in our schools and to be in the society so here you see the presenters who came to our event called empowering our latinx voices which again we really want this to become a regular feature and I think you should expect to see some of the proceedings from that event published in the not too distant future Ryan we'll go ahead
009and we had alumni from Al stand back coming back and presenting on what it was like to be scientific researchers so that students and their families would hear about this for a long long time to come and the rest of the pictures are really just about kind of the cultural joy that came out during an evening like this and and we know that that this will be happening during events all over the school system and we look forward to sharing some of the beauty of those things with you in our social media and other uh and other places as always I like to try and remind everyone why this is so important to us you've heard me say it out loud and I think just putting it in a graphic form is something that will
010remind us that while our community at large uh demographically is represented by 8.8 or roughly 9 percent families of Latino and Hispanic origin um 27 of our students on a continual growing number come from that cultural background and we'll continue to face issues as long as there is a mismatch between what we're able to do and what they need um in that same vein six percent of our teachers just under six percent of teachers in the classroom come from a Latino or Hispanic background many of which many of whom are coming uh specifically to serve in our dual language program and that's really wonderful and that's exciting but when looked across the whole District three percent of all certified staff and so all of the different ways that we serve students and that we collectively
011work together in schools it's all affected by this and so we continue to recruit and thank you so much to our human capital department for making some of these recruitment strategies happen to keep us moving the needle that's really it again you can always find these links in assembly and thank you so much Lupe for making this possible tonight thank you next on the agenda will be the agenda adoption motion to approve the agenda second so we've had a motion in a second all in favor aye all right Mr sales on she said eyes will uh motion passed next we will have public comment we will now hear public comments speakers will be called in order in which they signed up each speaker will have three minutes yielding time to other speakers is not permitted
012if a speaker has written materials they would like to share please send them to our board clerk Franklin McCune and he will distribute them to the board the purpose of public comment is for the board to hear from members of the public not to engage in back and forth 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 be civil respectful and free of personal attacks any speaker who violates our public comment period or otherwise exceeds the balance of order and decorum will be given
013a warning continued violations may result in the speaker being ruled out of order at which point we will move on to the next speaker Miss Hauser will you please read the first Speaker the first speaker is Lynn Carswell good evening board members Dr Merrill thank you for this opportunity to speak my name is Lynn Carswell I have attended these school board meetings for several years now first wearing my I love Orange County Schools pin and now proudly wearing my public school strong shirt I've heard stories at the board meetings of people who grew up attending Orange County schools and families who have been here for Generations which is a history to be proud of my story is different 18 years ago when my family was moving to this area my main focus was Finding schools
014to provide a strong educational experience for my children and ones that could give them the support I knew they would need when relocating to a new area I did extensive research as I'm sure every parent in this room would do I visited schools spent time with principals got student tours I chose Orange County schools and I'm grateful for my children's experience and education here I still choose Orange County Schools we choose Orange County Schools this is why I and other Public Schools strong members support your work as a board and advocate for honest accurate Equitable safe and fully funded schools with the passage of the abhorrent Senate nine bill Senate Bill 49 North Carolina's own don't say gay bill and a legislative budget that funnels taxpayer money away from public schools we recognize that your
015work is more complicated than ever as you make hard decisions we ask you to continue your efforts to keep all students teachers staff and families safe from those who would do them harm please continue to make policies that broaden student access to educational opportunities and allow teachers to continue to focus on instruction please prioritize your budgeting in ways that work to provide the resources each student needs to achieve academically and yes that includes maintaining funding for Equity services so that all count Orange County School students can thrive the majority of people here in Orange County want our public schools to succeed we all of us here tonight representing Public Schools strong are the majority thank you next speaker is Nina Morley day good evening school board members Dr Merrill and yes I'm Nina Morley day
016I'm here to speak in support of the Orange County Public Schools our Public Schools strong group through Heel North Carolina is in our September surge to support our mission that students deserve honest accurate safe Equitable and fully funded Public Schools please continue to look for ways to provide ongoing support for steam education all levels in all schools our first robotics competition team the Hedgehog has competed in two one-day events this weekend one event was the regular North Carolina offseason Thor West which our team helped start 10 years ago and the other one was a doyan West event the doian event is for our female trans and non non-binary team members during both events our students tried out various Drive roles and they also helped new students helped in the pits we were ranked first after
017the qualifying in both events we did not win but it's all good our students continue to work hard and to interact with each other and the other teams at these events with Good Humor Integrity gracious professionalism our team team continues to lead and support efforts to bring the various levels of first robotics program to each School in our district we ask you to continue to determine ways to help make this happen remember any student can go pro in our sport through our team many of our alumni have found interests they wish to proceed throughout their lives in school and beyond for the team members in the 2019-2022 classes 100 percent graduated from high school 92 percent have gone on to college six percent have gone into the military two percent have gone directly to work
018of those who've gone to college 94 percent who pursue a stem major and 97 esteem major many also are continuing to work with first in the team after graduating we are most excited though that the percentage of our student team members from groups that are underrepresented in Steam Fields including female non-binary Hispanic African-American and differently abled students has increased from 37.5 in 2019 to 56 7.1 percent in the 2023 season we are still actively recruiting new team members for this season but the trend in increasing diversity seems to be continuing and this is also well our overall team membership continues to increase as well thank you for the continued support of steam education and the Orange County Schools each Orange County student deserves honest accurate safe Equitable and fully funded Public Schools we're working to
019make this happen we thank you for your support Mark Mark Dutton good evening Vice chair uh chair I guess she's a distance in the board and Dr Morrow welcome from Evan my name is Mark Dutton I have two student athletes at Orange High School Madeline is the 11th Carter is an incoming freshman promoted from the orange Middle School as the principal paraphrasing the June 2023 graduation ceremony I'm here tonight to recognize and promote National campus safety month for your Collegiate would include your high schools in National hazing awareness week this is week being recognized week wise I'm wearing a vintage Vietnam army pants the past I've got my shoulder belt from the present State active duty it includes Iraq and I've got my new Fort Liberty in the future symbolized in the future as I
020train the next generation of soldiers and passing down the American flag and the values of the doctrines best practices keep us all safe survive and complete and return what I was talking about and I want to talk about the wrestlers over at Orange Middle School I was a part of it I kept the books I care about these kids I got two topics I'm a hazing victim Survivor myself in high school two-way football athlete a wrestler uh to the Appalachian State graduate Hall of Fame Collegiate George Sansone careers 20 years in the military so I've been in the toughest training academically physically I've been in and around those folks that secure our freedom however the most emotional harm it can be caused from your high school teachers in my formal years was when I was
021in high school I was 15 16 and 17. and my son was was is two months from being hazed himself at Orange High School I was degraded humiliated I've talked to my teammates it was wrong we were our parents we're our Guardians nowhere to be found what is hazing and it's an activity that's somehow joined participating in groups the middle aged degrades abuses and endangers in regards a person's willingness regardless of a person's willingness to participate in the state of North Carolina it's a class three demeanor just demeanor and according to the general assembly it's uh it's got the third tenant which is uh regardless of willingness to participate [Music] similar to The Fear I saw when I dated an Ethiopian girl from graduate school Carolina The Who out out to Outer Banks and saw
022the Confederate flag for those time that was the same look I saw in his eyes it's intimidating he's one of the smaller kids uh they call it a ritual a rite of passage and it's a tradition they take two trash cans they hold you down in the past and now it's volunteer they carve an airbender design and this and or and you come out with a beanie or a Dr Evil look the victims goes three through seven and it continues um joking laughing in the locker room um I've I've presented this to the sheriff's department and the principal uh what came back last week is there's no hazing that he's aware of and I'm not a parent that complained a parent that stood up to hazing and I want hazing to stop in Orange County
023Schools next speaker is Wendy Padilla buenas noches escolar semana Mi nombre es Wendy Padilla que Sona Cosa relations finances in La Sala El arunion is a de trabajo I really should put my glasses on uh importante mil prosperity superintendente is orange is good evening School Board I hope you had a fantabulous weekend my name is Wendy Padilla what is one thing that either makes an entity business relationship stronger or breaks it completely money finances money discussions are a must to have in anything we do in life we need full transparency transparency when it comes to finances let's discuss the elephant in the room in the joint meeting between the board of County Commissioners Chapel Hill carboros City Board of Education in Orange County School Board education the skill of major the major scale of work
024in our school buildings was discussed which includes vast Renovations and Replacements of buildings in the next five to ten years the survey estimated at least 100 million in necessary repairs and improvements the community is wondering how the Commissioners plan to prioritize projects between the two districts where would the money come from to make the major repairs needed for our schools I'm sorry to cut you off your three minutes are up I know you understand I know you wanted it but it would be Equitable if you allowed me to finish I am almost done respectfully I asked thank you where would the money come from to make the major repairs needed for our schools we feel that the children in our community have the right to a safe learning environment the community is also baffled by
025the 200 000 superintendent buyout why wasn't she supported in completing her term the buyout funds could have been significant in addressing some of the most pressing building needs respectfully the Board needs to focus on finances school safety and healthy Equitable environment for all children to thrive the hiring firing up teachers in principles is the superintendent's job we ask the board that you focus return to ensuring the Orange County has the best public school system in North Carolina serving the community for the people about the people will be will lead to progress for us all thank you for allowing me to finish yes ma'am is Kelly suttles s greetings my name is Kelly suttles and I use she her pronouns I like to begin by thanking Mr Witter principal of River Park it was impossible to
026fill the Spanish teacher position last year when Mr uruzia left this year I'm so happy that we have a new Spanish teacher and Spanish went from being my daughter's least favorite special to her favorite I feel so grateful that our county has not struggled as badly with the teacher and breast driver shortages as other counties like wake that being said I will continue to ask for fully funded schools from this board the board of County Commissioners and the state legislature you can expect to hire and retain great talent without sufficient compensation over the weekend I sent the board a resolution passed unanimously by the Chatham County school board on September 11th they stated this resolution was necessary to clearly state that while required to follow the laws of the state the board has concerns about
027the potential negative impacts this legislation could have on students and employees in their school system and families in their community I have similar concerns and it sounds like this board does too from the statement you read at the August 21st board meeting I would like to see a commitment from this board that demonstrates support for the work of the equity department is already doing to prevent harm and exclusion while also creating structures of support for students family and staff the support from the board might look like passing a similar resolution or it may be more involvement with the equity task force attending events like pride in the profession or engaging with student-led efforts and equity for others here today please look up the Chatham County resolution as as it is well worth the read another
028idea under consideration in Chatham county is to ask all student caregivers to fill out a form with students preferred pronouns including preferred pronouns when introducing yourself like I did at the beginning of my comments normalizes pronoun identification this way it is not only non-binary people who share them pronouns affirm gender identities and allow people to feel safe and included when they are referred to in the way that feels most accurate to them the National Institute of Health and the National Education Association both have good explanations on their websites as to why pronouns matter would like the board to consider creating a policy with Equity staff to share pronouns at the beginning of each school year it is important that this policy is created and implemented carefully since simply sharing pronouns isn't inherently inclusive until everyone
029who interacts with students understands the value and necessity of honoring their pronouns so it will be critical for the equity Department to continue ongoing training and discussions to ensure teachers and staff honor a student's pronouns and identity and understand the importance of doing so in closing I want to thank the board for all you do to ensure children have honest accurate safe Equitable and fully funded schools in Orange County thank you last speaker is Sarah Tiani good evening board superintendent my name is Sarah Tiani I am a parent of two students that are in Orange County schools and the wife of someone who works in higher education in a state school on this evening's agenda I noted an item regarding Dr Moore's work toward applying for the Academy of boardmanship program I was interested to
030learn through its Academy for school board boardmanship program the North Carolina School Board Association recognizes board members who go above and beyond their statutory obligation to receive 12 hours of training every two years by receiving 30 hours of relevant training in one year I applaud Dr Moore for her work to achieve excellence in her school board service by participating in the additional training hours required thank you Dr Moore [Applause] and that concludes our public comment for this evening next on the agenda is uh consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda second motion and second any discussion all in favor aye aye Dr Moore aye Mr Atherton your vote aye and Miss Purcell you have a vote minutes are approved and next on the agenda um we're going with the approval of the training session
031attended by Dr Moore they could send it includes all of those items I think we're now to The Works sessions all right so next is the work session good evening to Vice chair Mr Richmond board members and Dr Merrill this evening we're very pleased to present to you our end of the year end of grade end of course assessment data you've had an opportunity to look at a wealth of information presented with regard to our student performance in all grades our student performance by school by content and over time this evening we're not going to go through that that slide presentation here we know you have gone through and you have some questions at the end but we want to highlight some information to kind of give you a little bit of understanding around the
032why of the information you receive along with information about the so what of the data what are we doing this year to ensure that our students continue to perform continue to achieve I invite members of my team to come forth and to highlight some pieces of the information you receive and to talk about the next steps all right good evening I know that we provided you a plethora of data to peruse prior to this meeting we are only going to go through approximately seven or eight of the slides um but hopefully that will help in understanding why we provided all that we did knowing that we will continue these conversations in student achievement committee meeting with you all and can get even more in depth at that juncture so the first slide here before you
033is just an overview of Orange County School District proficiency over time as you can see this past year 22-23 is in Orange we chose to highlight this for you tonight so that you can see how our district is done recovering back from covid you we start at 2014-15 on the far left and move through the present time there on the right and you can see the increase in proficiency to 52.4 for this past year we still have work to do to be back where we were before covid but we are seeing a study increase the next slide that is before you I wanted to highlight first of all the format of the way that we built the slides for you this time we tried to put the key takeaways embedded there with the data for
034you in hopes that that helps in just kind of understanding what you're looking at what does that mean how does it translate into daily life at schools we would love your feedback on that as we continue to try to serve you best as a board but also as the community um please note in the proficiency scores here that we did participate in re-administration of eogs at the end of the year those scores do count towards proficiency but they do not count in school growth so we did want to highlight that for you please note that Orange County Schools did see a four percent increase in our composite comparison from 2021 22 to 22 23 and North Carolina saw a three percent growth as well last year the next slide before us is an overview of
035our growth score here please note that nine of our 13 schools met or exceeded growth so that's about 69.2 percent across the state of North Carolina they did see that 72.3 percent of the North Carolina schools met or exceeded growth this past year here in Orange County Schools we did have four schools out of our 13 that did not meet growth so that continues to be a spot that we have to focus and something that we will look to specifically as we begin to work on school Improvement plans the next slide before you is some of the overview of our state and federal designations of our schools we felt that it was important to highlight this slide for you this evening as it shows you some of the specific designations that specific schools in our
036district have so we have abbreviated the school names here so that you know specifically exactly what focuses we have in each of these schools please note in the coming weeks as you begin to look at school Improvement plans and approve those as that is part of the requirement especially for our schools that are TSI CSI designated that you're looking and listening for how our school Improvement goals and actions and resources aligning to this data so we hope that we can make those explicit connections for you as that is the focus of our work as we enter this season as well all right the next slide here you can see the state of North Carolina is in Orange this is our EOG grade level proficiency data let me back up and start there that is grades
037three through um eight sorry needed to think about that for a moment um third grade through eighth grade putting all of the um subject areas together you can see the state of North Carolina in red you can see Orange County schools in Orange and then we put the schools in comparison the highest performing on the left transitioning to our lower proficiency scores on the right so you can see specifically where does our district fall in relationship to the state where does each individual School fall in relation to the state other schools and our district at Large we in the deck provided to you provided that same kind of slide format for all of the individual subject areas for you to look at as well but here we have an infographic that gives you just a
038quick overview right bird's eye view of the growth or change over time for eogs grade level proficiency again that student scoring a three four or five on the EOG um so we saw an increase in reading math and science this past year um for all of those subject areas we can go to the next slide there we go here we have the same infographic but now you're looking at EOC data please note that this data is eighth grade through 12th grade so remember in eighth grade we have students who take math 1 and English one so their data is included here um the 8th grade data that is included in the EOG scores are for students that take eighth grade English and 8th grade math just for that clarity here you can see that we
039had an increase in biology English 2 held steady math one also had an increase in math three dropped slightly sorry we had moved on from that slide so now I'm going to turn it over to Emily Myers who's going to speak a little bit to the connection of how this data is continuing to drive the work in cni moving forward thank you good evening everyone as you can see um here our plan is to continue to stay the course in response to the data that's been shared this evening and that is in assembly our continued focus is going to be on providing high quality tiered instruction for all students installing and implementing a fully functioning mtss framework for all schools pre-k through 12. meeting the social and emotional needs of our students and that extends
040to our staff as well and ensuring Equitable access and culturally relevant instruction for all students our hope is that as we continue to stay the course we will continue to see the steady increases that we have seen this year and our goal is to not just get back to where we were before covid but to exceed where we were before covid I will ask our team to come back up if there are any questions that you all have about this data that we could answer for you we are happy to do that now questions um well yeah thank you for all of that and um yay for the choice to just focus on a few of the slides but thank you for providing all of that information um um I don't think that these are
041questions I just have a couple of other additional comments that I wanted to share about the data um um no one was a clarification okay so the schools that are TSI and CSI they're they're named that for at least one subgroup right so a school might have two particular uh groups of students um English Learners students with disabilities black students um uh for whom they have that identification and so what you were saying um Miss Wilson is in their school Improvement plan you should see targeted strategies to address those areas in particular is that right yes so the student or I'm sorry the schools are are designated as TSI and CSI based on specific student group performance so specifically here in Orange County Schools the two subgroups that we continue to see are ESL Learners
042and students with disabilities and then also partnership Academy has The Graduate TSI designation and if I'm incorrect in any of that Miss Carr CSI sorry thank you awesome but yes you will see that you should see that specifically addressed in school Improvement plans um as we move forward yeah yeah great Miss house first I I want to thank you for the transparency and the information in this presentation really really helpful um and I also wanted to I think it's a nice time to shout out to the teachers and staff throughout the district that made this happen it was an unprecedented year standing so so so I'm going to invite you all to put some pressure on us and and you know resources are precious a lot of people are talking about fully funding our schools
043our schools are not fully funded um that's unfortunate but you know our challenge is how do we put resources where they will make a difference um especially supporting our schools as they continue to make great gains and so I have questions I don't need to answer them now kind of as we move into student achievement and I think Miss Wilson you said at the beginning of this um what can we specifically do to support our low performing schools and move them higher and I'd really be interested to hear what the our print the schools themselves have to say um also when I looked at I haven't been able to see it yet this year but when I look at disaggregated data by school and subgroup there are real differences and I would be curious I
044think there's some magic happening in some of our schools that I wish we could pull out and apply across the district and um so I would love to learn what that is I also am interested in what programs are working and that need more funding top of my list is tutoring you know so I'd like to say how can can we get more funding to these programs mtss and letters how's that going you know we're spending a lot of resource on this we're asking our teachers to spend a lot of time on this so I'd like to know how that's going and um and finally and this is a tougher one so once you ask us for everything that you need what is a reasonable time frame for us to expect to be out of
045the covid world and really starting to make the gains that we've been promising us ourselves for a long time okay thank you for those questions and follow-up information right here we wish we knew the one thing that um that we know about making any progress and making gains is that we we stick to the core core instruction and that um as as Ms Myers would say you can't inter intervene your way out of good instructions so this year one of the very intentional activities or behaviors is our collaboration with the equity office and doing joint learning walks and those learning walks to capture some of that information of what's Happening where the needs what's it what's making a difference what is the impact of some of the inventions sometimes we think another program is what
046we need and it may not be the solution so through the learning walks which will focus around core instruction Focus around teacher strategies and also Focus around those interventions that's making it difference so we are putting our money putting our resources where it's making that impact this door um thank you for this presentation um I'm curious how we're doing um keeping Pace with our continually changing student demographic if we are trying to get back to or exceed the 63 proficiency of 2016-2017 and as was mentioned earlier our student population of Latino Hispanic origin has grown to 27 it was it wasn't anywhere near those percentages and that's a student group with extra need in terms of resources so how how are we keeping Pace with what you all need money for so that we can
047return to and exceed something we can't really return to because we have a different student demographic so I think there's a lot of layers to that question and all um honesty so first and foremost I want to say I think the conversations that we've already started having during the past year around the resources looking at our student teacher ratios looking at our models of support how did we write our liep plan what are we committing to our families and to our students every day in our services for those students but addition to that we're also looking at the instruction that's happening we're looking at um you know building into our teachers with elevation ensuring that they have strategies at hand that it's not just talking to teachers that work with our multilingual students every day
048but also building into our classroom teachers and how are they putting differentiation strategies in place for all kids every day regardless of what designation or classification or eligibility that they have how are all adults engaging with all kids each and every day I think that's really how we're going to move that needle smiley um awesome okay so I just um I've been looking at the data um myself as well and looking over time and so I just wanted to call out a couple of like interesting things um that that weren't noted there um so one is that the district grew faster than the state we saw that you know in in I think in what you presented but that includes for most student groups like almost sort of across the board um and so that's
049really exciting to see that that's you know benefiting all students um uh you know in terms of I'm glad Ms Myers that you talked about going Beyond where we were before the pandemic I just wanted to celebrate that five of our elementary schools are already outperforming where they were in math before the pandemic and three of our elementary schools are outperforming where they were in reading and that isn't where we want to go but like wow you know like that's awesome um um and then the other thing that I thought was really interesting and and um you know is um we have a we have a school that like didn't meet growth but what I wanted to make sure to share with people is that we have a number of schools that didn't need growth
050but it's it's a complex story like one of those schools um is already outperforming where it was before the pandemic in math and is one point away from getting back to where it was before the pandemic in reading this year grew seven points of grade level Proficiency in math and Five Points in Reading like they didn't meet growth but they grew they grew seven percent more kids are proficient in math and five percent more in Reading it's just it's a interesting story um so I think getting underneath um into understanding is really important um and then the other thing is just generally noting the trend that um the elementary school growth is happening faster than for middle school and high school and so that leads me to a question around what are we doing differently
051in terms of resources in terms of the kinds of supports that we're providing um to enable um more of that success in middle schools and high schools so that one is a is a question actually if you if you have a thought about that well yeah I can just speak a little bit to closing gaps in general and we know that the earlier we address those skill gaps and those needs the faster we're going to be able to close them so we are doing a great job at elementary school identifying those gaps and filling those needs we're providing support I think the reason that we are not seeing our middle and high school gaps closing as quickly their gaps are just larger by the time they get to middle school and high school and just
052very transparently the way that we are able to provide the high quality phonics instruction for example for our students in elementary school is because we have teachers in elementary school who are trained to teach students to read if students leave elementary school and they are not fluent readers and they do need that additional support there are things in place to help them however those teachers who are trained to teach students to read are often or Elementary teachers and so you have students in middle school or in high school or you know other places that may have needs that don't necessarily align with the common needs of the grade span and so we're having to get creative in the ways that we are addressing those needs and we are bringing some of our resources forward from
053elementary school into middle and that has been um we have seen some success with that and Hill rap is a good example um so we're continuing to look to ways to be creative just wanted to add to that we have taken a couple steps with Middle School specifically if you remember when we started our journey with letters we added a cohort of participants from our secondary schools with the principals assist a couple of the assistant principals but our literacy coaches as well and then any ESL teachers who were currently working in elementary schools that may now be serving in a secondary school are continuing their Journey as well in letters and they'll be wrapping that up very shortly so in addition to like professional development with Secondary School teachers so that they too can have
054some of those skill sets around teaching children to read and not just limiting that to the ELA block as well having that conversation across all content areas foreign I think Dr Moore had a comment yeah Dr Moore yes um can you all hear me yes we can Okay so I really just have a comment um I just took a training on 11 School Improvement secrets for radically different results where it discusses turnaround approaches to help close achievement gaps and I share that information with Dr Green and she was basically letting me know that it was interesting to see that this training the strategies actually aligned to our school district so you know our district as a whole we still have opportunities for growth to close achievement gaps so I do agree with you Dr Green
055now we need to focus on accelerating tier one core instruction so that all 13 schools will reflect exceeded growth for the 23-24 school year thank you thank you um Miss Molly one other thing I realized I forgot to um share earlier that I noticed in the data is that um to the point of like sometimes a program or a training or something actually does really matter um the Investments that we've been making in literacy we talked about this last year I think that we didn't see as much growth in literacy as we did in math last year and this year um again I think math growth was probably higher but now that we have introduced a new curriculum letters training all of these things you can see the the trend line the the growth this
056year in read in ela uh three through eight was much higher than it was last year and so I think I hope I mean that was the very first year of introducing these things so hopefully that Trend will continue on the on the literacy side this house just had one more question uh one more question and that's newcomer program I was wondering if you know when I talked to our teachers about what's happening with our emerging Spanish students they're saying they need more newcomer support and we're throwing them into classes too quickly I'm wondering if we might be able to look at that especially in the middle schools foreign we spell out kind of what our service model is going to be for that with newcomers we have implemented curriculum in the past two years
057to support them but here in Orange County Schools unlike some districts we do not have like a newcomer intake school um so when students enroll in our school we provide them additional support through their um ELD teacher but they're not put in a separate class or a separate school we just increase that support for a few weeks while also maintaining the services of other students that we're serving in that school so remember in our allocation of ESL teachers and how we spread them out newcomers count as one and a half in that formula but it doesn't necessarily mean that we have a separate program that they go into prior to joining our traditional classrooms but it does come with increased support and those details are in our liep plan the other piece to also remember
058in our schools need to remember that our El data includes students who have exited the program for about two years in North Carolina or how many years three three years and so we include students who are not only currently receiving services but those who have exited the program all right Mr Atherton did you have any questions I did not thank you Miss Brazil no I I did not but I do appreciate the depth of this report and and the work that they put into it all right thank you all thank you just a reminder that we continue the discussion in our student achievement committee so we go into more details around the student group performance thank you thank you all next we'll have student reassignment and redistricting update and Facilities plan good evening Chef Purcell
059Vice chair Richmond members of the board Dr Merrill um this evening I'm joined by Catherine mile our student assignment and Technology project coordinator to provide an update on student we assignment and redistricting um thus far over the last few weeks we've had an opportunity to hear from our outside entities both orid uh and and walport um and they provided updates to help us guide us in this redistricting space I do want to take a brief step back uh a little bit to discuss how it our redistring plan um has been coordinated within the district for that matter and outlined continued uh next steps I think first thing we have to do is ground ourselves in our board policies I don't think we can go anywhere and redistricting without that uh in particular uh 4150 that
060outlines the four pillars of the board um assignment policy for that matter we'll be diving into this a little more closely a little bit uh enter the presentation but I think we we you have to be very important now we always think that we have to start there and understanding where we go with our students some policies uh in addition to 4150 it's important to navigate our stakeholder voices in this space they play a crucial role in understanding our plan play a crucial role help us to help us to guide where we're going with our plan uh for success for that matter as well whether it's our stakeholders are from a parent or staff member from an equity Task Force member or a liaison uh it's important that that all are involved uh and engaged
061with the process so engage our our voices our stakeholder voices we had uh several Town Hall meetings two in May one in June uh we had over 205 attendees uh there uh there were a total of 59 questions and comments submitted all of that has been posted on our website and upline uh and on currently uh online um we also formed a reassignment committee uh and then that student reassignment committee we helped helped to uh one in in June one in July and we wanted to ensure that they shared a role with us in understanding uh how this process works as well we provided the same information to in our talent halls but went a step further as we gave them a task of ranking uh priorities from the four pillars and a few additional
062priorities um that we will take a look at and navigate um with the two slides that you see here the questions that were asked in those meetings were quite different uh in the town hall meetings uh we got any questions ranging from grandfathering uh students all the way to theater pattern alignment and our reassignment committees we had questions on South Pole and equity in the process school performance the committee's role you know for that matter they were uh asked to be on this role and they asked you know how could they essentially help and and navigate the other voices that they represent for that matter uh when you look at the reassignment uh poll we asked them again to take a look at the four pillars as well as a few additional uh uh priorities
063and and rank them we asked them um in this ranking uh where in fact uh the the stakeholders that they represent uh would feel when we look at the priority results we see that academic achievement balance socioeconomic balance uh both in the student achievement pillar with the highest priorities in the committee and the board pillow ranking we did ask you as a board to take a look at our student achievement uh pillar rankings as well um and in doing so uh uh board members ranked the highest student achievement uh in proximity and operational efficiency were tied for a very close second in that space uh so as you can see the results were were mostly aligned uh in both the reassignment committee and and board priorities as I'm sorry reassignment priorities and now that takes
064us to our board program priorities discussion um one of the items that we want to be able to provide to orid as they begin to develop plans uh forces in addition to the the pillars of 41.50 what other uh priorities would be specific into in terms of developing plans for for reassignment uh and here we outlined we asked obviously in um if there were any board members that wanted to provide any additional initiatives to discuss uh and we can certainly later rank them or we can you know kind of finalize uh in this space today um if in fact any new initiatives are planned within the next five years uh it's imperative to make space for these programs now before students are are reassigned you know starting to new schools so we have several categories
065um we have a k year-round school six to eight year round school expanding year round to another school there was a reconfiguration of bell times there were school grade level configurations in five through eight uh there was an alternative Middle School uh partnership style option on the table as well there's Alternative High School expansion on the table and stem we received uh uh related to our robotics program engineering program IB feeder program one of the things that we need before we move forward all right is to be able to provide to Orange all right again and it's the four pillars we know how how the board rank we know how a student assignment committee ranked uh is if in fact um from this list of priorities what would we uplift uh as a board in
066essence what initiatives from this list uh will we be able to uplift to uh to order to help us in in establishing uh reassignment uh plans and redistricting plans so I will kind of open the floor uh in essence uh to you all as a means of discussion to kind of guide us in this way uh to see if in fact there's a space where you know we can decide moving forward uh what those priorities might be or if any yes I'll say in my opinion I think with the absence of several other board members I think maybe Poland would be a great idea uh that's just my thoughts I don't know how others may feel but well I mean I'll go next um some of these I don't like the reconfigure bell times or
067the school grade level reconfiguration like I don't recall us discussing those before are they I'm sorry where did you say that they came from all right so uh these were asked in the uh poll ranking if you wanted to add to these items and these are the things correct yes okay okay um I think I'll say I don't think that any of these should impact our planning of the redistricting I think the of these the Alternative High School expansion is the one that I think um it seems very clear that there's need for more there and what we've talked about is expanding that site or using one of the other sites so I don't think that that should impact any of the other facilities and their capacity um and so you know I would rather
068than I guess like hold space at schools or something for one of these programs I'd just like to move ahead with our current configuration get the redistricting done um you know I think there there are several of these that um might not like the stem program robotics program like all of that is awesome and I don't know that it needs to impact right now how we redistrict okay yeah thank you um yes thank you and thank you um thank you for the surveying you've done on the board and I realized that these came from some individual board members sending them out I was also surprised because we haven't talked about these as a group and so I was a little puzzled by um just the way they're presented you know as if they were board
069priorities but the the context is that they were things that people send in an individual email so I agree it seems like we don't have time to you know these are major changes some of them um to to meet our um reassignment timeline and I agree with secretary's points that um you know partnership is really at capacity and we have talked about some options of um how to do that and and of course wanting stem to expand in our schools this seems almost separate from what we need to do with student reassignment thank you yeah I'll just I'll just Echo that I just the the thing that's a little confusing is we have the facilities plan and the capacity of partnership the alternate idea of alternative middle schools might be better addressed as we think
070about future this capacity you know as opposed to redistricting because we do have to move forward on the redistricting but those needs are important just a question is do they belong in this project or they belong in the facilities project I do know the partnership capacity is something the facilities study is looking at so we'll be hearing more about that tomorrow night so I I think those those fit better there same thing with the K-8 Middle School I'm sorry the K8 year-round school I think it's important to note um that in terms of you know initiatives that as we talked about from future in the next five years you're correct we don't have to add any of these components as it relates to redistricting and our plans moving forward but what is important to ask
071all right if we're going to have anything any of these priorities at all we need to talk about them now so that in the next that we're planning over the next five years where they would fall and you're right as we hear tomorrow night you know that we'll put plan and and moving forward with that guidance uh we will have a better idea what's on the table you know we know we would hear from you and say hey based off of some of these these are some of the things that that we're interested in in doing um I think Mr Richmond kind of circling back another thought I had uh with it and we don't have to do this but in space of doing another up survey with the combination of these and and kind
072of getting and ask so well no exactly hey planning moving forward we know that the board leaning this way on these particular items okay so we can do that let's check on others Mr Atherton I'm Sorry Miss Milan I guess I I understand that that's um like an approach we could definitely take with this set of things I do think any of them maybe with the exception of the partnership expansion like any of them probably would require more discussion and to it just doesn't feel like the right time to delve into it with like an interim superintendent and like everything else that we have going on right now like that does feel more like broader Vision um long-term planning that I would want to wait until we have a full-time superintendent in place too no
073offense Dr Merrill you're great all right Mr Atherton did you have anything you wanted to add yeah I I would just Echo what everybody's saying that we don't want to to dove into this I I would want to have a separate discussion as well I think it I think it kind of confuses a little bit on redistricting versus like everybody's explaining long-term Vision so I'm in agreement to have a separate discussion on this and talk about this with uh the superintendent we're going to have and have those discussions but I'm open to having them just not with the redistricting and having more time and discussion around the impacts and how some of these would work because it's not clear to me how some of these would physically happen as well uh-huh all right thank you
074Dr Moore did you have anything you wanted to add no sir all right and miss priscille what um Mr Atherton has said we uh I think we need to to move uh as at a pace that gets everything done and we look at every corner and aspect of this all right yeah so I just wanted to confirm I'm sorry my voice is gone that within the next few years we will not be needing to move kids for a year-round middle school or that you know developing a stem program then we would need to move kids out of a school where it was housed those are really the reasons that we were asking just to make sure that there's enough space left it's a program that you're considering and I just wanted to confirm I think
075just to um summarize what I I think we're saying we I understand that there may be some risk to that right like four years down the line we're saying we want to do such and such a program and it requires moving moving kids around and that that would be a bridge we cross at that point and we may need to redo some work appreciate you all trying to think ahead for us but I think it does not sound like we're ready to go no that works no absolutely that works and doesn't prevent us moving anything from a distressing standpoint currently as we move forward does not affect that at all okay so are the the bigger question is the timeline right on this and so do you want me to ask a question or do
076you want to talk about well let me finish up man we're going to second question is that that's uh no problem at all uh from a timeline standpoint uh next steps will begin to now be able to provide or it they've been working uh you know on plans for some time uh the pillow ranking uh that we have established uh from the board so they can have an understanding of where we're uh you know kind of maps and and plans are developed uh we'll get those back in October we'll then beginning begin to have our town hall uh meetings to uh educate the public staff schools the board certainly uh with the first straps uh that will consist of um you know meetings twice a week at different sites uh to be able to uh
077engage those stakeholders as well within transition to November where a second draft will then come to board and do the exact same thing uh and and navigating and educating and communicating with all of our stakeholders and then I'll ultimately coming to you in December saying hey what's our final plan look like in getting that approved from that standpoint uh but over the next several weeks uh we'll have from Orit our first drafts to be able to present now so so you suggested because right now the timetable said we would be presenting now so we would have the first draft in the middle of October is that what you're saying that's correct the board gets to see that and then we schedule meetings in not with the stakeholder groups but actually in community where the people
078in F1 are going to hear what's where their kids are going to be going to school so not only will the boys see that we have other stakeholders a reassignment committee we'll see that our staff would see those and community and uh the public as well okay so we have to schedule that would be there's a um the actual meetings in community how do they get scheduled I'm just curious how last time we tried to do this that didn't go very well in terms of what there would the community things were being rolled out took people and they didn't they were unaware of what was coming and provided the data for the town hall meetings with the three that we had when that you know pretty pretty good turnout from that standpoint but whatever in
079addition communication we provide we can certainly do that but that's how they were informed of it yeah I think we're looking at something different I mean I would expect to have meeting in Cedar Grove and efland and New Hope in these communities so that the you know the parents would will be coming out more than 200 people coming out for that no these were those were virtual meetings School sites will have individuals coming to those School sites okay you're imagining them at each school is that what that each school but at several schools okay and just a clarification um here will the reassignment committee look and weigh in on maps and before the board no not before the board not before the board okay so I think something that happened last time um is that
080Maps came not map I forget if it was literal Maps but a proposal came to the board um prior to those deeper conversations happening which then led to sort of like an assumption that it was definitely going to happen and and things like that and it was quite explosive and obviously we didn't manage to reassign do a reassignment so um I thought earlier we had had discussion that at least that the reassignment committee would be involved in shaping things prior coming to coming to the board absolutely we could navigate that space where they they have it as well that's not a problem that they're aware where Islamic committed we'll be circling back with them with our first raps I I only have a question on that and that's does a reassignment committee are they representative
081of the families in the community and so for example I don't want I don't think that the F1 people want new hope to be deciding what their reassignment is going to look like so to me it's important to get to the families that are affected so that they I mean parents want to know one thing where's my kid going to go to school what services are going to be there and the sooner that we can have that conversation as a draft hey we're think here's some of the options that we're thinking about that's what I remember last time there were several options here's some of the options what do you think um what can we do better but to really act like we care about what people are thinking this is exactly what the town
082hall meetings are for that's exactly what those meetings for to provide that feedback see a drive educate them on on the options uh and that's exactly what they would be for assistant principal School social worker family liaison teacher of the year classified employee of the year etc for each school so the staff is well represented um and parents from each School are invited to come the principals provided us a list of parents that we should talk to okay these these meetings will be open to anybody that wants to come correct the town hall meetings would be yes yeah just as Miss Mal was commenting I was looking back at slide three which mentions all the stakeholder voices on the committee and how they were designed to be representative um with one parent per school and
083the different Community groups represented as well as the different staff members from each School that's correct and I mean one of the things I think this committee can do for you is Elevate the questions that are going to be raised by broader community members in a particular school zone or for a particular you know for staff members or what have you so speaking to them early and understanding those questions helps you you know prepare to answer them any other questions comments so so you're expecting us to have the second draft by the end of the year that was the first draft will be in a month uh month from now first draft in a couple of weeks uh we'll have a second draft in November first draft couple weeks goes out to The Community we
084meet with people all over we hear what they have to say then a second draft comes back November and so what's uh thinking about timing on when will be I mean we had we were looking at an end of this year time yeah so December you board will have finalized a final plan or decide on the final plan in December okay sounds very aggressive to me but okay thank you thank you next will be the capital budget plan for 2023 20 24. um yes well this evening's uh CLP spending update I'm joined by Patrick Florence director of construction and capital planning and uh when we when we look at CLP funding our main focus uh is certainly to maintain the Integrity of our buildings uh whether that is the necessary repairs and upgrades that our
085buildings have come into play uh to keep them from failing uh as we go and I'll outline today will discuss in detail components of projects that have been completed and designed products that are in bid phase uh design phase under construction uh and and future and future projects in the spreadsheet that was provided to you uh there were the first 11 um projects I'm going to kind of run through to provide an update of of what those are and what they look like uh and the status of those uh as well uh so beginning with efflon cheeks and the HVAC Renovations that's on going a track work um there includes the replacement of chillers and electrical panels alarm systems roof repair duct work and Fire Control Systems uh are done and and the good thing
086about this work too that a bit of it that's been completed is our drain and Sewer upgrades have been completed in this work now this is work that will continue through spring 2024 but in order to provide a status update where we are and the work that's being done currently uh at Central uh HVAC Renovations ongoing work there include the chill and boiler replacement remaining upgrades include all conditioned uh air equipment uh completed the ductwork and ancillary equipment uh we'll get back online and by November 1st the cafeteria uh over at Central and we'll also get back online half of the gym space come November one so we're excited about that timeline to be able to get those spaces back uh to continue the work at Central and again that work will continue through 2024.
087the modular classroom civil work at efflon cheeks that work also included Sue and drainage repairs some excavation and removal of the old playground equipment occurred uh the foundation for your module has occurred extension of some electrical service and water and sewer lines extended left to do is some Landscaping that'll be done the next 30 days we're talking about some seed and straw to get the grass growing in that space now the modular units itself uh are functional our staff and students and and teachers have occupied that space for some time now left to do we have some punch list items as you can expect anything over the next 30 days that may have come loose right um doors that might settle uh inappropriately and any flooring or trim Corrections and that punch list will occur
088over the next 30 days we've kind of just kind of been eyeballing those spaces and getting reports from staff if in fact something is uh not in place as it should be and we'll be able to knock those punch listen punch list items out over at Orange High School restaurant Renovations we're waiting contracts signature that will get done shortly um we're talking about nine months for that Edition and about a year and a half for the complete work uh um that will occur and that is expected to begin mid-october at Orange Middle School the solar panel project uh solar panels are provided there the install of those to provide electricity to two EV charging stations and we want to also be able to run our irrigation uh pumps for our athletic fields which would be
089a good thing uh the solar panels will be placed on a pedestal between athletic fields and media uh Center uh solar panels have been on back order and that's prevented this project from moving forward uh and um we're expecting the next 30 days to be able to move forward with those Pond Shore is doing the work these are individuals that have done the work for the county as well over at King Street the generator that generator has been on back order for about five months now we finally received it uh so completion expected to be done in the next 30 days to install the generator at King Street the interior Renovations at Ethan cheeks were about 90 of the design complete for that should be able to put this out for bid or the next
09060 days um in that space the Cedar Ridge outdoor AG lab partial design was approved for this about three years ago uh Kobe put it on hold about 90 of the design is is complete uh once the full design is complete we'll be certainly bringing that to the board for that approve of the full design uh should be able to put this out to bid over the next 60 days um the Orange High School band and Corral room renovation lots of talk about that that design there I should be able to put that out to bed for the next 60 days as well and would be a summer construction to complete and they're tracking tennis courts uh just waiting contract signature there uh work to begin there in November at the complete conclusion of the
091Fall athletic season we'll get the get the track and Center Courts done uh over the winter in time for our spring Sports uh opening uh there as well for the remaining projects over the next 10 months I'm going to turn things over to uh Mr Florence to kind of guide us through those thank you join first my apologies to Rhonda because she's been very diligent in helping walk me through this and I guess as a construction person my view of construction funds are different than a finance person so I'm looking at those things that we have projected that we feel like we've got a really good estimate of what they're going to cost and what we can do uh the the big task here was to identify all the projects we had the list you
092have there is roughly 30 38 projects uh 38 39 projects so 12 through 30 as what we've projected based on estimates that we can complete before we run out of funds the priority there are those that came from assessments facility assessments prior to Wolford prior to a lot of the activities we've got to go back to 2016-2018 and some subjectivity in terms of what we've selected one of the big approvals that's been granted is for REI roof Engineers Incorporated to go forward with roof designs and we have that for eight schools and we feel like we can go ahead and place that out as one bid package in the next uh 60 to 90 days that will make up uh seven of the 18 projects that are left so we can accelerate through that rather
093quickly the other seven that we have that are grouped together what we call in-house design which through our own resources and Department of Public Instruction which has staff Engineers they're working us through or walking us through design for some of the smaller HVAC projects beyond that is a matter of what we can execute and the shortest time possible we feel like it is an optimistic goal but we do feel like that we can do that before the fiscal year is out what we have projected right now is 23 million and 43 million so there's 20 left over and if we are able to exceed that goal then we will look for more money but right now we feel like we're going to be right at zero when the next fiscal year rolls around all right
094any questions or comments I have a couple um thank you for this we've been waiting for this as you know for some time so thank you for putting this together I have a just a question on how to read the report so so um just I'll pull a couple of lines off it so you have interior Renovations at F1 cheeks that's item number eight right and it's in design phase and it's showing at 6.4 million dollars then you have outdoor AG Lab at um Cedar Ridge High School 500 that's in design 500 000 so after I spend the 6.4 million or the 500 000 what do I have do I is a project done or is it a design done or what do I actually the project is complete uh these are figures based on
095uh Architects Engineers that have presented us with the design concept the Ag Building in particular was uh in the on the drawing board prior to covet and that brought that to a standstill it uh basically what I call infrastructure the uh the utilities are in place there's a slab in place so that can move very quickly we've had several meetings with uh High School staff the stakeholders there to see the end use so I personally and CRA are very excited about getting that conceptually we can bring in some some renderings next meeting but it's going to look like an AG building at A very upscale School in terms of Renovations at efflon cheeks essentially uh third Engineers has gone through with collaboration with TDW engineers and come up with a basically what we call floors
096and doors so the floors the doors the windows anything on the interior that is a substandard or failing or about to fail will be completely refurbished within that we will have some security upgrades the Locking security systems will be Advanced from what's in place there right now so it will look very similar to River Park in that River Park has had some major interior Renovations it will look like a very classy older school but inside it will be state of the art so 24 million dollars from now we're gonna have all these projects going to be done that is our expectation fantastic thank you now I feel even better thank you so much good that is our goal Mr Atherton yes thank you uh thank you for all the background and information on this um
097the first question I had is I believe the board prior approved two million dollars for playground renovations um I don't see that explicitly listed here I do see some playground ones under that 20 million but is that being tracked differently uh the reason it came up to mind is I saw 29 was the Central Elementary playground replacement and it seems like it would go under that prior two million dollars that the board allocated for playground upgrades and Replacements yeah yeah that's uh that's correct we have playground upgrades at Hillsborough Elementary at eflin cheeks and also at Al stand back that will be an Adaptive playground that CRA has completed a design concept and getting pricing now to put that out for bid within the next 90 days okay but so the the CES are you
098saying there's not enough money from that original 2 million to cover the 235 for the Central Elementary playground as well no no that that would be inclusive within that and there's also been some some um funds from parents that have been donated set aside to help complete that project as well well I thought the fund set aside was for the ale stand back not the central I misspoke I'm sorry uh that is correct uh is set aside and Central is within that that two million okay is it possible for the board to get a breakdown of the 2 million how we're allocating that just similar to this table just so we can see how those funds are progressing for playgrounds yeah absolutely all right thank you my smile just a clarification um and thank you
099for all of this um it's good to see so many projects moving um the the CIP that we traditionally approve that that it has a different layout and then has the multiple years and all that is this essentially like the is this full list of 45 things what was originally on our CIP for this year or is this what is the relationship of this to that document I I follow what you're asking there is um just a cumulative total things that have been delayed but on hold move forward uh Rhonda Rath can expound on this but some of the frustration or some of the challenges we have is reconciling um how we account or have account codes for certain areas that's different from the county so we've got Spanish and we've got Portuguese they're almost
100the same but not quite so there's a certain degree of reconciliation that has to go on there so I think what I'm trying to understand is were we like originally planning to do all of the things on this list and now we think we have money for the first you know however many 30 or so um or is it yeah uh we were task with coming up with a comprehensive list and then as we got um got estimates for that work that could be completed the uh the the money ran out before the projects right okay because all of those things are estimates until we get the actual bids and all of that and some of these things have ended up being much more expensive than we thought they were that's correct yeah yeah I
101think there's one other piece and that's if you remember back last spring the county informed us that we had about was it 44 million dollars is that right that they really wanted us to spend and so when I look at this list some of these projects are from the 2016 Bond and some are things like the uh the band Coral room renovation we approved that came up last month or the restroom Renovations at Orange High School those came up were they were not planned projects but they were added later so there's a little bit of a mix in here a project said right that's correct any other questions or comments [Music] if I'm sorry but I I'm confused and I think some of the board members are as well I think there's other information or
102other lists because I've heard two questions from board members asking where something is I don't see it on here so I want to bring this back to the board in a couple of weeks with whatever set of lists are out there and if they didn't make a cut we need to indicate that and show everything that that was being planned or sought and then what we're trying to fund and cover so it'll be back uh with some clarity at least for me if no one else so sorry guys you all know that shirt that I was talking about right the one with the funding sources and the multi-year okay yeah Dr Moore did you have anything no thanks sir thank you and then next on the agendas the school opening data good evening again board
103and as you uh as you can see from the abstract and from the conversation there's a there are several different departments represented here because responding to a a particular request but this may be the first time that this data has been presented in this form I don't know because my my tenure here is is limited but um we received a question where do we stand in terms of the number of students who have zero absences one absence or two or more absences now and compared to past years and really want to commend the work of all the teams that do compile this information as well as the teams represented by folks standing here who helped to improve those numbers because when we when we pulled this together and huge hats off to Joy Tolland our
104PowerSchool coordinator for making this data poll happen in the middle of everything that goes on you you realize we've hit the first 20 days and she definitely wanted to remind everyone she's not able to join us tonight that the PMR the principal's monthly report sounds like something that would be generated you know once a month but in fact it's generated in terms of 20-day months 20 school day months and so when we reach the next 20 days then the next version of PMR pmr1 pmr2 and so on through the end of the school year will be generated but based on the data for the first few weeks of school uh it was it was interesting and noteworthy to see that while enrollment has fluctuated uh then you know the overall number of students has slightly
105dipped from the past two years but the number of students with zero absences has grown and in fact the students with one or zero absences represent 77 percent of our students more than three-fourths of students have zero or one absences during this first 20 days and so the number of students with two or more is slightly lower than in years past so that's very very good news um and again just that's the that's the Baseline for other parts of the conversation which are to come and uh as a you know as a follow-on to this we definitely Enlisted the help of our student engagement equity and support team so Dr Dreyer and Lee Williams II are going to present some information around how to make all 180 days count good evening what we know is
106that if students are not in school they cannot learn and so what we want to do is to work on a plan a campaign and initiative that will assist in giving our students and our families the tools and the skills that they need to understand the importance of being in school as well as how to remain in school as long as they are healthy and well and so 180 days making Every Day Count is the title of this uh initiative and action plan where we'll be continuing to track attendance data and providing interventions and skills to our students and to our families to be able to um improve or um do better with their attendance so just some examples of that would be maybe small groups mediation action plans individual action plans for students and
107families check in check out a plan for parent notification and communication I'm using the three six and ten day model and then also celebrations because we know yes they are supposed to be in school however when we have small wins we want to celebrate those as much as we celebrate the large ones as well so we are still in the preliminary stages of 180 days making days count but did want to share that information with you on this evening more information to come as we speak with schools get their feedback on what works in their buildings thank you and along with 180 days not just looking at the attendance making him count also academically so partnering with our cni team to make sure that we're having culturally responsive instruction to make sure that we're on
108grade level to make sure that we're attacking the skills that are similar students are missing along with the standards that they should be doing so it's not just a tennis approach but it's also a whole well-round and SEL included intended approach for our students but like Dr Dreyer said what's pivotal to ensure that our students are in schools is also based on health so we provided you with the covet numbers that we have of update as a 20th and so I'll have to give an amazing shout out to miss Sylvia Compton and all of our nurses who have been tracking that we've been going around from school to school to kind of providing information and sending out the notifications to our families we continue to follow guidance from our CDC around what we're doing with
109this this is not a fly-by nights and that she is creating she is following all the guidance has given to her but this is currently where we are in our numbers as we've seen clusters and other things kind of arise in our schools so unfortunately she cannot be here tonight but I'll try to answer any any nursing questions and medical questions that I can but also lifting up we also have other communicable diseases that are causing students to miss school as well so it is not just related to covet at this time foreign so [Laughter] we have to have students show up you've heard me talk about average daily membership multiple times and our funding is based upon average daily membership the state looks at average daily membership at day 20 and at day 40
110and they're going to look at which of those is better and they're going to compare it to what they projected they projected us at 7122 the last time I was before you on August the 14th I had shared with you at that time that our projected enrollment was off 192 students so at that time we were greatly concerned that we had a potential of having funds reverted when we got to day 40. now looking at our enrollment data we are 97 students off so the threshold is either 100 over or above your projected or two percent of your ADM so we're looking at 100 we're right at the cusp so um I am focused on looking at that average daily membership that will start calculating at day 20 and day 40 to ensure that we're
111not at risk of losing additional State funding all right okay and again just for context most of our data managers are working only 10 months and so the team that pulls all of this together has really been stretching to provide support in a lot of different ways this is this is implemented with Fidelity at the elementary level the Middle School level and at the high school level but very differently at each of those levels and so when you look at the amount of Staffing that goes to make all of this not just record keeping but really supporting what's happening inside the schools we want to lift up all the people who are helping to make this happen and again I think a lot goes back to Joy and the work that's been been done with
112both contract help as well as the folks who are doing this on the ground at the school level um I have two questions one's really quick just uh Miss wrath did I hear you say that we are 97 short and as long as we stay within 100 short we don't lose fun is that what I heard so right now we are 97 below um our enrollment is 97 below of what our projected average daily membership is so as long as our students come we're good all right any other questions um Jen a little bit more substantive question um Dr Dre are thinking about um the 180 days making Every Day Count and I know you have a plan for bringing to us the things that emerge whether students who don't come whether it's apathy whether
113they're taking care of siblings whether they don't feel welcome whether it's sickness whatever it is I seems like a little bit of a approach to put some of that context in there for us as well yeah finding root causes it can be as simple as I don't have an alarm clock okay we'll get that for you and we'll teach you how to use it um it could be that I mean create a story right um that there are multiple students at the home or the older student is the one who takes care of everybody so they get everybody else to school and then they are the ones who is late to their own schooling so you know there's a wide range and so for us if we're tracking that attendance um for them if we're
114making that Constant Contact starting in the classroom so it's a whole staff approach it's not just counselors It's Not Just social workers it's not just administrators it's classroom teachers and everyone making that communication helping to build that relationship so that we can try to help to get to the root cause and then try to provide some resources to remove those barriers for them yeah Miss Molly um first of all thank you um I I was the reward member that asked for this information about attendance so I appreciate um that uh we are looking at it um because you all know but I'll just say out loud that uh chronic absenteeism has been um it's gone up massively since covid for a wide variety of reasons including some very valid like kids being home because they're
115sick um but um it yeah you you already said why it's important I do think this piece about root causes is really really essential um and I wonder it makes me think about the mtss model right of the like um most kids maybe their families just needs a reminder that like there is an actual connection to their academic outcomes later if they come on time and every day um and then the 20 and the 10 that need more intensive interventions I'm wondering if there's any like our kids being like like um assigned tears in that way in any kind of a formal way for something like attendance like does a school have a list of like a a set of kids that they're really doubling down on finding out what's going on with the student
116I know right now when they are tracking attendance they're looking kind of homeless and pulling out those with higher numbers um and my conversations um with one of our elementary schools actually um uh there is a model multiple attendance models um one that I look at is the attendance Works model they have a huge campaign of resources and tools available for schools and school districts to use where their tracking is actually tiered um so that you can pull out those that are missing 18 plus days and those are your tier three students and those who are missing 10 to 17 on your tier two those are missing three to nine are your tier one and so you can group them in that way and be able to provide them interventions very similar in the same
117way that you would um in an mtss model all right Mr Atherton did you have anything you wanted to ask or a comment no I get well I guess one question I did have is do so at this point do we know which our students that are enrolled and just not coming versus students that may or families that have decided to do something physically different like homeschool or to go to Charter or moved or anything like that and just haven't told us so I know that our our data managers and councils are still actively seeking for those families prime example today I was walking through the hallways of one of the schools and the data managers like I've called five times I've called different numbers and they're tracking that down the process should be that
118if they are switching schools that we get a records request to send but that doesn't always happen when going into Charters and so that makes it difficult for families to even pick up the phone when we call to let them know but our Council social workers data managers they are avidly seeking for those students that have not shown up in the building yet so they're working towards it and there's also some intervention work that we have in our department um program call I'll put both of us on the spot and I forgot it we got something too but either way they are looking and searching for we just can't you know we're looking still trying to find them okay thank you let's see this works I just will now we're down does that include the
119kids that we haven't heard from or those just kids that are have unenrolled it could be a mixture of both okay so so it's it's more than kids that have it includes some kids that haven't shown thank you Miss Molly um uh one of the things I remember we talked a little bit um at student achievement at the end of last year there were a couple of I think maybe elementary school principals who brought up that the attendance issue was one of the big barriers that they were sort of focused on and then some other principals also just mentioned tardiness as we're being pulled out of school early um do we is there a way to like track that or is like do we have any data on that is that a trackable thing we'd
120have to get back to you on that we have to really dig through powerschools and check that I think we're also talking about tardies where they're coming into school we also need to check with our transportation to kind of see are we part of that in some of our areas um I know Archer City Department is working extremely hard getting kids to school on time um but that has been a little bit of a barrier but we have to check the tardies and sort of find this you have to just give us a little time to kind of see how we can triangulate that to make it meaningful that it's not just numbers right of connection yeah yeah I just know that's another issue schools are trying to tackle so understanding are the things that
121they're trying to do making a difference I think would be helpful if we look like it I don't see Dr Moore on Dr Moore no I did not okay thank you I'm Miss Purcell and you may have answered this I've had a little trouble hearing but of the 97 children that we don't know why they're out have the social workers going out and and tried to meet with parents or see the children at home or anything yes ma'am there have been multiple phone calls home visits um and this is for those that we know there are no shows um that they've attempted to make contact multiple contacts with parents in multiple methods uh to see where those families may have gone and as Lee mentioned earlier for those who have moved so if we are
122calling and we're visiting homes and they're not there they may be in other locations in other schools and so without there being a neighbor or a family member saying that they've gone here for us to seek records requests to make sure that they even rolled at another school um it's a little difficult to track those and so we do try to wait for as long as we can for records requests from other schools so that we can count them as present in another building thank you all right lastly on our work session will be input process for policy 1310 parental involvement thank you all right board we come before you with the the second installment of a conversation that began in the policy committee and so to catch everybody up who who may still just
123who may be tuning in for the first time um there is an ongoing process with an awful lot of movement due to session law 2023-106 Senate bill 49. um and a lot of those policy changes some of the things that happened immediately would be adding information to the district website enumerating certain rights that parents have in their children's education uh spelled out you know candidly in in the new state law other policies are going through a process and will be coming back for a second read and eventual adoption by the board but policy 1310 and parental involvement generally required a more in-depth feedback process and so the policy committee charged first to the board and then um through you all to staff we took away a list of kind of want to haves from the
124last meeting and we were asked to bring back a plan that would help put some of those Concepts and ideas and those wishes into a more concrete form so Dr Greene uh Dr Denise green and I met with other members of Staff we'd like to thank Mariah Morris and Dr Jessica Drayer in particular and a number of other folks have have added their input as well because there's an awful lot that goes into updating a 15 page policy which is what the the current Redline version is and in 15 pages you can include an awful lot of information about how families are engaged in schools and so we we did uh as you can see in your abstract there's a an awful lot of information but B down near the bottom you will see that
125looking through the lens of the dual capacity building framework looking at the fact that both our families have an awful lot to adapt to become more attuned with what's going to come out of policy 1310 as well as at the school level that Educators and people who are serving families and students also will be learning right alongside looking at that dual capacity building framework we we feel like there's a reasonable amount of time to accomplish all of these goals in a pretty holistic way so that we can not only go through the process of explaining and helping folks understand but then also bringing in feedback in such a way that the board has time to digest it and really adopt a policy that you can feel very comfortable and confident with going forward recognizing that
126a lot of those are moving pieces Dr Green is there anything else you wanted to add thank you so one of the things that we recognize is that with your policy changes on one hand several of the things are going to be impacted by the Senate bill um 49 and so therefore we don't want to bring people to ask for something that you have to do so we want to look at what is it that about parent involvement look at it in the more the Adaptive piece that our school system need to focus on so how we engage our parents will be an indication of how we as a school system approaching their involvement so we thought and talked a lot about not only what we want to get from um from different stakeholder groups
127but also the process that we're using to show we really are about involving our community and about using what they state in some way whether it's the informing the policy itself or informing procedures of implementation I guess before we launch into questions or more in in-depth discussion of the plan itself I want to remind everyone that just uh in the past few days uh information that came out with the um passage in both houses of the state budget and being brought to the governor what that meant if if there's not going to be a barrier to that becoming law uh the 2023 Appropriations act then that means that a January 1st 2024 deadline is really being baked in now for most of these changes which have still been sort of pending and we waited for
128them to take shape and what that means is then you can count on one hand the number of meetings that provide opportunities for certain things to take place but we really want to lift up that um there are Community there are there are Community stakeholder groups there are uh I mean the law itself specifically says that this policy has to be an adopted in consultation with parents meaning families teachers all Educators administrators in particular and community members and there was a lot of discussion about whether that includes you know young people students as well so really everyone and as you've seen from guidance from a number of different sources that leaves a lot of latitude to the board for how to get this done but it has to be done in a good faith way
129and it has to be done in a comprehensive way and I think that we've we've tried to bake that into the plan I want to lift up that the equity task force is one of the first places we'll be going uh I'm meeting one week from tonight uh we will be soliciting input from members of the equity task force and again a lot of different stakeholders who have um invested in that space will be sharing some input so we will whatever's coming out of this work tonight and the work that's already been done and so much work to kind of analyze and break down this policy we want to put everything in plain English so that the greatest number of people can have the greatest amount of access and therefore offer real you know truly
130intentional feedback about how we can engage families going forward and using this policy as the framework for how we understand that we do have our work cut out for us but we're going to be ready to to bring a plain English presentation to a very broad group of stakeholders by one week from tonight okay any questions I appreciate it first of all it's really thrilling that we have till January 1st to get this done it really changes everything and I appreciate the work that you're doing to say okay then let's take the time to do it right and when I think of Orange County Schools Community engagement is no light it's something we take very seriously um when I looked at their you know the first cut the red line version of 1310 which had
131come from the School Board Association was kind of a lift of the legislation into the policy and so your idea to bring this into plain English is really really welcome I wondered if it's possible as a first step to do or an early step to do a diagnostic or an assessment of the policy against where are we today because when I read the policy it seems that it's somewhat out of date and I can't remember the specifics and and the other part that was a little confusing to me is what's the responsibility of the district and what's the responsibility of the schools because at the end of the day this is about parents engaging and how you know they engage with schools first and then beyond so just wondering if there's a way to clarify
132some of the policy in the context of those roles and I'm definitely going to stay in my Lane recognizing that some of what you're asking may require legal guidance but for instance I think 2017 was the last time that our policy 1310 had undergone any thorough revision um and maybe even then not very thorough so there may be some some age on the policy itself but also the state law spells out some things really really clearly which again I we spent a lot of time talking in our little working group about where do you even begin do you start with the law do you start with the policy and it's really important for us to bear in mind the policy is the continuous element we began with a policy 1310 we're going to go forward
133with a policy 1310 and what we're working on is how does the state law and everything that we're going to get from the community inform what that new policy should look like going forward so a we must comply right we've been discussing some of the how do we measure wants and needs what we need to do is comply with state law we also feel the need but that's what we would call a want we want to engage our community we absolutely must comply with state law and we want to make this our our community's policy going forward so that the board can adopt it in that in that framework but understanding those are still tiered we absolutely must comply with state law and we have before January 1st to do so right so the process
134has to be thorough but it can also be fully engaging Dr Green anything else on that but we do need to we understand the need to for our communities to understand what currently is the guidance what currently is a part of policy and work and to also when we talk about not only our community but our schools to understand that we're not talking about major shifts in some of the things there will be some some new practices put in place but to understand that many items are already there um well first I want to commend you for um taking seriously this like housekeeping requirement as an opportunity to like really look at how we're engaging families I think that's um um awesome um and maybe the first time that like liberatory design principles is a
135thing you might be considering and revising a policy for a school board so that's amazing um I so I think it's important to take this really seriously and use it as an opportunity and I also am looking at the extent of the work here and um thinking about how it is about engaging the community and it is essentially on the same timeline as the town halls for the redistricting stuff and I just that just feels really hey I'm wondering like is this level of effort to do this taking you all or whoever is going to work on it away from other essential priorities like doing it at this depth does this fit at the top of the priority order against the other things and then like how does that timeline work if they're going to
136be these Town Halls about reassignment and then we're talking you're trying to have other like in community meetings about this that feels tricky to me we take 8 000 bus riders all over this County every single day and they Criss-Cross routes all the time and so it may very well be that we could be in the same situation where certain conversations are happening in and around different space the same space at different times for different reasons I only mentioned that as one model um the reality is that a lot of the work Miss Hauser your question was in some I I appreciate you asking how much of this is at the district and how much of this is happening from the board um a lot of the a lot of the conversations that we've envisioned
137here also um implicate and and help to elevate the work of the school Improvement team because if you read policy 1310 it is woven in as it always has been but it's woven in now in in at one more level of depth and the uh the specific requirement on schools through the school Improvement team to not only engage the whole team in a family involvement program but then to actively solicit you know to promote and and create all kinds so whatever we've been talking about whatever you see happening here is really just kind of a fractal or a model of what also is happening and is going to continue happening at the school level and as anyone who does school Improvement planning here on our team our cabinet knows this is what's already happening and
138we're just really talking about energizing and activating it more to make sure that it's that much more intentional around this piece a family involvement program is taking on just a little more it's moving closer to the top of it's going above the fold on page one if you will it might not be the the only headline story but it's definitely moving up the front page if if you understand my meaning there right so I think that this is something that we're we're just gonna be in constant contact with folks who represent this work now at the school level and trying to make sure that not only are the people they represent and serve being brought into this process but of course you could hear it in the state law administrator feedback is one of the
139things that has to be woven into this in terms of consult consultation for the board so that you can adopt a policy that you're really comfortable with foreign we appreciate your acknowledgment of the comprehensive part of it and so we also applaud that we have a little bit more time to kind of gather some information one of the things that we looked at was where uh things already in place what were things already scheduled that we can sort of piggyback use as an opportunity to gather feedback and we will continue to do that so if there is a way to join a town hall because we also identified two Town Hall opportunities here again it does not have to be in that structure without making anyone more confusing in terms of adding more topics to
140a town hall it might be a separate entity or a separate way of gathering information Dr Moore did you have any questions or comments no thank you Miss Purcell I appreciate the work on this and I appreciate the the thoughts that we have to follow the law all this because that is the best I have to do so I appreciate hearing that Mr Atherton yes I one I appreciate all the hard work and gathering this to be as inclusive as possible the one question I had is how are we going to collect this data so it's consumable by the policy committee and consumable to the full board as we have the broader discussions are we thinking of a certain format that we will gather this data and classifying the area of of impact that's that
141that comment or feedback is coming in because I just worry there's a lot of a lot of the feedback on this and we definitely want all the feedback we can get but at the same time are we going to put this in a spreadsheet or or you know what what's the thoughts around the manner in which we collect the data so we can ensure it's intended focus and then the consumption through the policy committee and the full board and that's a great question Mr Atherton and thank you because we were definitely thinking about that as well um I want to remind everyone who's listening to the conversation that this of course is the this is the board's plan right we brought information to you and you're you're more than welcome to engage with it as
142much as you want um we I think we envisioned a survey that could have as few as one question and thought well that's not really going to work because it's hard to specify to your point uh of making sure that the feedback is targeted to specific areas and so the first aspect of breaking this down and putting it in plain English again is what does policy 1310 been doing for us what does state law mean what can a new policy do and what's your response to that so um I think the the hardest thing for us to wrap our heads around has been how do we get everyone involved to that base level of understanding because there's a threshold if someone says well I think there should be more of this or that that's that
143may or may not prove to be very helpful for us and we have to find a way to code that information as well we got feedback it's not really pertinent to the policy we're grateful for it we're going to save that for later we're gonna have to find a way to sequester information that's not targeted to the policy revision but if we can create you know if we can accurately help stakeholders who get involved parents teachers administrators and community members if we can help them weigh their feedback against specific elements within the policy that's going to be a big win for us and so to your point I think that's what we're kind of looking at is breaking out into pictures with as few words as possible in the plain as possible English what is
144this policy going to do for us as it's being revised and what are your feelings about that is this you know I like you to use a rosebud and Thorn model what's really really good about the new policy what do you love what's still kind of moving in the right direction and what absolutely can't stay and to be frank some people may offer feedback that we will have to end up rejecting or you will end up having to reject because if someone says I think this shouldn't be in the policy but you have very clear guidance that says no state law says this must be in the policy it's like well thank you for your feedback but the board will still move forward and adopt a policy that complies with the state law right so
145I think that we can I think we can accurately code the information by deconstructing the current policy describing the impact of the state law and the potential ramifications of that showing what the the revised and proposed policy is and then asking folks to provide some plus Delta or Rosebud Thorn analysis of what we're looking at in some specific areas where we where we see the most action is going to happen I hope that answers your question it does thank you so much I was just add to that you've raised a point in terms of the design of the instrument used to capture the data because that's going to also um help to inform the questions the types of questions and how that how we're capturing that and how we we will be able to report
146the information that's housing okay I just want to you know and Dr Green you mentioned it Kevin Mr Smith you live it every day and that's you mentioned it earlier that this this the legislation requires that we inform parents about volunteer opportunities about Community organizations these are not policy issues these are tactical operational issues that are and again some of them are school-based some of them are you know so I don't know if there's an inventory process we are already capturing that but that's just makes it even more complicated but probably for our families more relevant you know it it's in a way it could be really positive it's a little bit outside the scope of the conversation we're having right now but obviously getting every school up to the level of publishing that parent
147guide to student achievement really is in many ways the Brass Ring of the way the law was written clearly places an awful lot of emphasis on that kind of a document and all of the as you say kind of website basic minimum features uh that that absolutely must be in place and so we realize the lift for schools it doesn't seem fair to not bring bring that up that there's going there you know every school no matter how active and fully engaged their family involvement program has been up until now there will be more because even more will be refined even more will be clarified even more will be spelled out and every time that you put something in writing on your website or in a document and again the law even specifies like if
148someone's not going to be using the website because they're not um digitally literate you've got to provide everything in hard copy for everybody that there's so much that goes into this um every time you do that it immediately starts to age it gets somewhere you know that the data may change information so let's say that we provide a community Resource page about every resource in the community something spelled out in the law in a week it's out of date what does that mean how do we keep so just we know that these processes are going to become something new I'm going to try to use some value neutral language here this is going to be something new for us at a level that will take us to a different place and I think that we're
149just gonna get those muscles strong as we go through the process thank you any other questions any other questions comments all right thank you so much yes thank you thank you and lastly on our agenda we have discussion and action and we'll be looking at superintendent search update all right so uh Dr Merrill did you want to lead the charge uh really it's got to come back to you but we we uh requested Biz from eight firms that some of us have triangulated on um six responded uh two declined and one declination was sent to you that person's response why they reasons for why they did not respond um times getting to be of the essence for the board and I'll leave it at that so you've got six and you've got to work your
150way through how you want to decide which firm you want to engage was certainly hoping you could get it done tonight but that's that's up to you guys all right well we'll definitely give it a shot would anyone like to have any comments you want me to go okay um I will go first thank you so much for soliciting a variety of proposals I thought that was um full um uh you know they all have different timelines different um past searches some of them have different approaches um I think I mean just to cut to the chase I think that I am personally leaning towards using North Carolina School boards Association um having um participated in the last search using their services I thought they were um great to work with had a good process
151I thought they brought us a really strong and diverse pool um and um I thought of North Carolina folks and not North Carolina folks and they just have a level of depth of experience in North Carolina that I think is valuable I think that's that's one of the things that I saw as a distinction with some of the other firms is a many of them have done some searches in North Carolina but but none of them have done the extent of it and so I think knowing that the school boards Association has four active searches right now and has just completed others I just think they're their pool of prospects is likely to be um of value to and I appreciated that their timeline had us finishing up in January which some of them didn't
152I think it is an extraordinarily ambitious timeline um and I think we're gonna have to push the start date out of it out oh you know the the original hoped for date for establishing the profile was this meeting so we at least need to push it out two weeks but at least that would still keep us through the end of January that is my summary yeah I'll comment Andrew thank you I I agree Sarah um I think having someone you know in Raleigh and someone we've had experience with and you know they've got a huge Network and I think I've learned a lot from last time we had them on you know questions to ask and things to make sure um we get back in a timely manner so I I'm in support of that
153as well the best understanding of our context more missiles are good I I just just to be the contrarian for the for a second and do a lot of work with the School Board Association you know when I think of this I think of executive recruiting and I'm when I think of executive recruiting I think about people who really go out and first of all I don't know that the School Board Association have a conflict event conflict with their clients like are they going into well if they know like what I'm used to is recruiters know their market and they actually go they know who's in schools and they actually might go in and someone might not apply for a job but they go oh I know that person might be a good candidate and
154they may be interested in moving so you know there's a difference when you use a professional recruiting company and I'm just curious if that's something that we want to consider there was a couple on here then that's all they do is recruiting you know and they see more a little bit more aggressive so just throwing it out there okay um Dr Moore did you have anything to add to that um other than just supportive of using the North Carolina School Board Association it's important that we use somebody in North Carolina I think that um we they know us and the people if they that are possibly candidates um I have no problem using the school boards Association for this okay thank you so it sounds like the majority is in agreeance excuse me I just
155need to make the North Carolina School Board Association um I'm definitely in agreeance with it I mean um you know we work with them we attend their their um conferences and meetings and seminars so um why not use them so uh I think it's up for a vote so it looks like the I can make a motion to um uh engage or uh no I'm looking at Lourdes Orange County North Carolina School boards Association services for the superintendent search emotion on the floor by Miss Molly and second by Miss Doyle any other further discussion all in favor all right so miss Brazil I miss the Atherton I am Miss Dr Moore I and motion curious follow-up question about the next steps here so um we've approved that um but you know it did look like
156they were aiming to start some work you know immediately um and so I'm wondering can this wait for our next meeting to have an initial meeting with them like does it work to to push it out the two weeks or do we need to have a meeting sooner than that to initiate things I don't know Dr Merrill if you would have any sense of that but I I can assist where needed but sometimes right at this point I see a board member sort of taking Point communication at least for this sequencing uh and then working with the board I can try and do that for you though if you'd like please as long as I'm clear what you're seeking Dr Moore are you in favor of that of um Dr Merrill going ahead and seeking
157further information from the school board North Carolina School Board Association Mr Atherton yeah I'd like the chair involved as well just just so that there's questions to share back and I agree with Dr Merrill at some point it has to be handed over to the board to push forward in that way if they feel we need a meeting sooner they're both there and now we can get the decision quicker to to get that moving okay and Miss Brazil that's the other other favor that and I just like to thank Dr Merrell for his work and seeking these people out and and getting the information for us oh so big fact here thank you for that can I can I ask what are you asking for right now because I thought I heard something about a
158meeting and then no um so it sounds like that um what we're asking is that you check with North Carolina School Board Association and come back with a time frame is that correct yeah I mean I think just it's been was their their draft timeline involved like advertising the vacancies starting tomorrow um and I don't think we're ready to do that I think we would need to have a conversation about the profile that we want in that vacancy and that kind of thing and so the immediate question I think is do they recommend that we have a meeting before our next board meeting to take some of those initial steps in which case we could get something scheduled or you know do they think this timeline is I mean it's still kind of work would
159it just push the timeline out two weeks in which case I think we're still okay on time well if um is the board open to a special meeting for that purpose if if the school board says that like an evening meeting of an hour or something like that that the school board could zoom in or something if if my discussion with them leads to that sure I'm fine yes Miss Purcell I didn't I didn't catch what he what he asked yeah I mean if if to keep it moving if the school board says could we meet with your board for an hour and talk through what the proposal means what the urgencies what the first steps need to happen and if we needed a 60 or 90 minutes from the board on an evening something
160like that even if it's a zoom is that acceptable thank you for repeating this and that I've seen odds at the table also yes yes okay cool thank you now think on top of that also having the chair involved yep and that would be consensus of the board okay all right so I think we've we've done that part and so we've come to the conclusion so motion to adjourn second all right motioned by Ms duel second by Miss smiley all in favor aye all right all right all right thank you all for all the district leaders for presenting today and for everyone coming out and everyone that attended on zoom in the public comments and we hope you have a great evening [Music]