001foreign and I have um I brought the other candy too okay [Applause] [Music] for the meeting to order foreign we'll call the meeting to order the Orange County Board of Education pledges to its citizens to conduct its business in a courteous and productive manner showing respect for fellow board members staff and citizens the board asks its citizens to conduct themselves in the same courtesy towards both School personnel and each other a moment of silence will be observed before each meeting the board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain they're either turned off or on vibrate to avoid interruptions during the meeting right we'll start off with the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and
002justice for all right we'll take a moment of silence foreign [Music] we'd like to welcome everybody here tonight we have a lot that we have to talk about tonight so with that Dr Felder thank you Mr Everton so good evening to the chair chair Abington Vice chair Purcell to all of our board members our staff students family members community members I know that we are all filled with anticipation about meeting and greeting of 13 teachers of the year um and to get into the other seven recognitions lined up for tonight so tonight is a night of recognitions uh but first I want to begin by handing the mic and floor over to uh Dr Denise green our chief academic officer and where is she I saw her out there miss Shannon Braxton our director of
003cultural arts and Korean technical education because tonight we are pleased to welcome a brief presentations by the theater programs that both Cedar Ridge High School and orange high school and so I want to invite both Dr Greene and Miss Braxton to ikazawa so come on down good evening chairman Atherton Vice chairman Purcell members of the Board of Education Dr Felder superintendent well I'm not the one you need to hear from and I'm gonna turn into my apartment I'ma say she's not the one you want to hear from tonight we are very delighted to hear from our students and so I'm going to have Miss Shannon Miss Braxton to give you a highlight of what you're about to see good evening she just said that you didn't need to hear from me though so I'm going
004to turn it quickly right over to Cedar Ridge Mr yeah yeah yeah are you are you speaking yeah yes Mr Evan Mitchell right Cedar Ridge drama theater department and he's going to introduce his skit tonight uh thank you and thank you for having us my name is Evan Mitchell I'm the Theater Arts director at Cedar Ridge um and you can go ahead and set up uh about three weeks ago we closed um a production called the infinite wrench uh which is basically a show made up of many level 30 uh original student written plays so short um plays and we're going to be performing one of those for you tonight these were written in a specific style of theater that style of theater demands that everything on stage must be true which means that there
005are no characters no pretending no acting essentially which is odd because that's what we are used to in theater but what it allows in the end is students a platform to speak about and perform about what matters to them so to talk about their fears their hopes their dreams their lived experiences I'm at the core of my program is the concept of empowerment that by the end of their time with me they'll know that their voices matter to the world to the community around them so we're going to be performing one of those performances today written by our own Maddie crisp performed by Maddie crisp and Liz Van Dyken called ADHD mental mirror you ready ADHD mental mirror go um yeah we just have to get this done for chemistry but I promise we can
006do something fun as soon as we're finished okay sounds good buddy can you not we really need to get this done oh sorry about that no you're totally fine just right we need to okay this pencil is really bendy I really like it you're right it's a lot bendier than I thought do you think they make them oops why did we do that we knew that was gonna break why did you make us do that I don't know but I mean dopamine somehow okay well you're just gonna have to wait this is way more important foreign [Music] you're making this take a lot longer than it has to okay we just please Focus not count can you please just sit still and pay attention God we need to clean up this place is a mess
007why do do this we just have to do this hold on hold on hold on we should finish this it's gonna be so pretty when it's done we can't do that right now we have to do this or else our grade is going to drop in Mom isn't gonna have to do something fun please can we do something fun we've been doing this we cannot do anything until this assignment gets done why can't you just chill out long enough to do anything productive I'm sorry I can't help it I know why can't we just be normal what is curtains [Applause] right you have that all planned out right that didn't work exactly the right way part of the show love it thank you thank you so much and I wondered because it didn't say which
008one was going to go first so I said do y'all know which one's going first and they're like oh no we did Rock Paper Scissors outside so that's how Cedar Ridge got to go first so up next Orange all right Mr Blake Wilson [Applause] like I said my name is Blake Wilson I'm the theater director at Orange and we are we we do a lot of different styles of theater over the course of of time and so uh this is our foray into British comedy a little bit so uh this particular show is called the 39 steps uh we're actually about still three and a half weeks out from the performance so we are in rehearsal right now so you get to see a little bit of a sneak preview of the show uh so
009the scene you're going to see tonight is um it follows the play follows the story of a guy named Richard Haney who's a little bit down on his luck and he gets unwittingly sucked into a spy Thriller kind of like Chase so anyway in this scene that you're about to see it happens early in the play we meet Richard Haney and he has uh encountered a secret agent named Annabella Schmidt [Music] thank you great so Richard honey how do you know my name I saw it in the lobby oh yes well might I know your name Schmidt Annabella shirt well Annabella Schmidt it was you that fire that shot in the theater wasn't it it wasn't a great show but it wasn't that bad it was a diversion there were two men in the theater
010trying to shoot me sounds like a spy story that's exactly what it is only I prefer to vote age secret agent I suppose for which country I have no kind none of your English humor Please Mr honey I'm being pursued pursued the point of obtaining top secret and highly confidential information vital to your air defense I track those menus at Music Hall Unfortunately they recognized their industry at this moment that meet your English love post how do you believe me all right you will Mr happy I'm going to tell you something now which is not very happy it will mean either life or death but if I tell you then you are involved in what involved do you wish to be involved all right tell me have you heard of the 39 steps what's that
011sounds like a pub no more jokes Mr honey please all I can say is that these men will stick at nothing if they're not stopped it is only a matter of days perhaps hours before the top secret and highly confidential information is out of the country and once it is out of the country God help us all go to help the world the world the world and only we can stop sin now you do not understand what they are like Mr honey how clevers our chief is he has a dozen names he can look like a thousand people but one thing in those guys is joint up his little finger finger is missing so if you ever should meet a man with his top joint gone be very careful my friend I'll remember that and
012Richard may I call you Richard of course Richard yes is a night please I am most dreadfully tired of course you can sleep in my bed I'll get a Shakedown on my armchair ah if you wish and one more thing I need a map of Scotland I'm in Scotland oh I do believe there's one in my room under the section Scotland thanks so as a man we must meet in Scotland by the name of Professor Jordan and he lives in a place called nice Sherlock and the 39th good night Richard good night Pamela [Applause] Dr Felder Ford thank you so much for asking uh the Theater Arts to present tonight I'm not really sure that that's ever happened before um we've shared with you art visual art we've shared with you course performances we've shared
013with you band performances how wonderful tonight to be able to share these theater performances from both high schools there's 32 32 Cultural Arts teachers in Orange County schools these help to make well-rounded students so thank you so much for your support thank you so much Miss Braxton and another big round of applause to all about amazing students and to Miss Mitchell and Mr Wilson thank you for giving our students this opportunity to shine thank you all great job all right or what a way to kick off the night all right so at this time I would like to invite Mrs Joyce Hatcher our chief of human capital to come forward because we have 13 people to recognize tonight and they would be out 2003 Orange County Schools teachers of the year so miss Hatcher take
014it away good evening or chair assistant I mean Vice chair and Dr Felder we are super duper excited about what you are going to receive before you we have 13 not one not two but 13 of the greatest teachers that you will ever see stand before you um I am super duper excited and cannot wait until we um get to actually complete the process where we determine who our teacher of the year will be but I do have and I'm gonna ask that they all just come sitting together um and as they're coming up they're all they've taken their their head shots this evening as well as their group picture you all come on up what y'all doing come on come on [Applause] so I also too want to think they follow instructions very well
015so they came this evening they had their group pictures taken um they had their individual head shots taken I would ask that principals that are here representing please stand I mean I'm just going to call off the names of our 13 teachers that your staff your peers felt you all need to be nominated as your School's teacher of the year and this is a great honor um and do I do apologize if I murder or hit you I'll just get with me later okay so um for Grady Brown we do have the teacher of the year is Katie Ray Katie do you raise your hand he teaches second grade at Grady Brown we also have Jackie minoza who is our Gravelly here from Gravelly Hill thank you it's great EC inclusion and resource math and
016Ela teacher we also have Adam canossa pay five music teacher at Hillsboro we also have sherry Thomas from Evelyn cheek [Applause] kindergarten in the kindergarten through fifth grade and Evelyn I'm sorry news said okay we'll move okay will you do it all okay okay then we have Tammy boss from River Park [Applause] okay we have Savannah Patterson from Cedar Ridge High School to science we have um Katie Ellis from Central she is we have Angie Stevens from Orange Middle School she teaches eighth grade math and math one we have Joe Sharp from ale stand back who teaches eighth grade thank you Shannon gaster at Pathways who is an exceptional children's Resource teacher Gaddy from Orange High School engages ninth grade science wander writtenhouse who teaches Ed partnership Academy [Applause] more but I had to reach
017out to the principal to make sure that I got the pronunciation correct um and this person is Maria Maria is Maria Anton O2 uh did I get that right oh well okay you okay thank you Maria okay it is after the first grade do the first grade do a language teacher at New Hope Elementary so look before you here this is the 13 the greatest 13 here we are super excited about next steps they have received their portfolios and they are due on April the 14th um and then from there the week of the 17th we will start our interviews who determine which of you will be the next Orange County Schools teacher of the year thank you for what you do for our students well you're going to set the boardman's hands [Laughter] congratulations
018congratulations [Music] congratulations thank you so much Miss Hatcher and congratulations I appreciate reading your Facebook about 2023 teachers of the Year thank you so much congratulations congratulations so good to see you so well deserved [Music] thank you for all you do all right nice congratulations congratulations [Music] thank you so again congratulations to all of our 2023 teachers of the year there's absolutely positively no substitute for a great teacher we are incredibly proud of each and every one of you I look forward to celebrating all of you I know you're heading out it's okay I look forward to celebrating all of you later on in the spring and for having an opportunity to work with you as part of the superintendent's teacher of the year round table so stay tuned for more information to come in
019again congratulations all right looks like folks have work tomorrow so they're heading out Okay so uh the remainder of tonight's recognitions will be presented in calendar orders starting with April 1st and I know today is the 10th uh so we've got some making up to do and so that brings us to the next recognition and that would be for the national robotics week which is um April 1st through the 8th and so it just so happens that National robotics week also coincides with another visit from our first robotics competition team 587 the infamous hedgehogs from Orange High School and Cedar Ridge high schools they are here tonight and and not by themselves they brought friends and so with them tonight are representatives from our first Lego league and First Tech Challenge teams as well to
020celebrate National robotics month and also the Hedgehogs back to back that's right back to back District Champion as the number one Alliance in finals again which means they are off to Houston for world indeed so yes I was there yeah for at least a portion of the finals uh but I know that the students mentors and families were there too uh and so I'm not going to steal your thunder so without further Ado I'd like to invite uh Mrs nine a day founder and Mentor uh Mr Patrick Mitchell current Mentor for several levels of ocs's programs would you uh both come on down and share a very brief work with our board and while you're doing that we also have a three minute video that we'd like to play because um Team 587 the Hedgehogs
021also won an impact award and so we're very proud of them for earning this award through community service and so we'll play that as well so miss Mrs day well thank you but um we are going to yield our time to our team co-captain Stuart Doyle thank you um I'm the team captain of Team 587 uh for this current year um for some context um we're about to play our impact video the impact award is given to first robotics teams that show exceptional um exceptional skill um and also dedication to sharing with our community um these past couple of years we've turned a lot of our resources as you'll see um trying to give back to our community in ways that um just in ways that we haven't in the past um and so we
022did something right at least um besides winning but we also made an impact on our community so whoever's will try to play in the video if you want to go ahead and then I'll say some more things hi my name is Murillo and I'm one of the student leads in the Go baby go project Go baby go is a project that builds Mobility devices for students with special needs our team was inspired to pursue this project after seeing it in a video while attending Houston first championships last year's when we talked about this idea of elementary school teachers they were Overjoyed to see that we would be willing to help other students using our robotic skills the teachers were able to help us focus on a student that would benefit from this project a kindergarten
023student named Ellie using grants and donations we secured the materials we needed and constructed two Go baby go Vehicles over the summer months we discovered that the Go baby go parts were no longer available which led to many moments of discoveries and Innovation which lengthened our build process through the fall when we presented this device to Ellie she hopped it right in and immediately seemed to know how it worked it was a perfect fit and we knew that it would help Ellie be more independent this project really demonstrated to me that my technical skills would be a benefit to others and not just to me hi my name is Calvin and I provided the live music samples for an Adaptive music device we made for a fellow music lover Jake loves music but due to
024a cerebral palsy he's restricted from participating in music class we talked about Jake's strengths with his care team and designed a device he could wear on his head subtle tilts of his head would activate a gyro sensor which would trigger a sound for the direction of his head allowing Jake to participate more in music class when team 587 demonstrated this device to Jake's care team they were super excited when we use our robotic skills to help others it's amazing the impact it can have our little project became a big inspiration for Jake's team they're still brainstorming and coming up with ways to help Jake participate more hello my name is Harper I'm on this year's Drive team as well as being cab Captain not only has our team helped students in our school system but
025we have been active representatives of first robotics in our school advocating the program to our North Carolina legislature and making people in the community aware with demonstrations at city and state events our efforts are making people excited about robotics this past year we assisted our feeder Middle School in creating a First Tech Challenge robot team 21501 and assisted our Elementary first Lego challenge teams at their practice and competition when we presented our Go baby go project to the community we had no idea how it would Inspire students to help others we were surprised when a local elementary school presented their projects to us this car senses motion there were so many prototypes and they were all excited to share when we take the time to build relationships and share our passions we become more to
026those around us my name is Michaela and my team is more than just robots so this was a three-minute glimpse into what our team does on our Outreach side um but we do a bit more than our retail robotics um right over here we have three members from my team if they want to stand real quick um that's Xavier Harper and Ben um both Ben and Harper oh and Isabella's here she's from um the orange Middle School team as well um but Ben and Harper you guys can sit now um Ben and Harper on our Drive teams they're on our competitive team um for we've done a bit we've talked to the board a bit before as well as last year about our team um but we compete on international organization called first robotics um
027we just won our district event which takes the top 40 teams from North Carolina um we went down to East Caroline University and we competed in a playoff style which we eventually won um and now we're going to Houston because of it we're going to compete with the top oh we're going to compete with the top um roughly 400 teams in the world um it's we're really excited it's our second year of doing this um it's this is an incredible thing for a student to do um since we're we get students from both high schools so we have a lot of different students coming in um this is getting to see teams from all over the world getting to see people from all over the world doing the same thing you're doing with the same
028amount of passion um for one group activity is really life-changing um every single person at this world event has put two entire months into building a robot and has competed with that robot for about another month and has played through three competitions and done well we all understand where we're all coming from no matter the different backgrounds that all these teams are coming from not just our team but from other teams as well um we get to kind of compete for one thing we also get to meet each other um this past year and actually these past two years we've received an incredible amount of Community Support um we've received and a lot of that has been actually from our school system um and from the school board and also our individual schools a lot
029of what we've done this year would not have been possible without the support we've received from our community and our schools and I wanted to use this time to thank all of you personally and for our team for allowing us to do this because again there's nothing really out there like first um there's nothing really out there like hedgehogs um pulling students from two different schools and competing like this is really unique um and I really want to thank you all the people behind me as well everyone who's donated to our team who's put time and hours into helping us and has come and watched us it's all been helping us push forward so thank you all so much and I really hope that you'll continue Sports in the future so thank you so much
030so congratulations again to the Hedgehogs good luck as you head to world and we hope all of our students in the younger division see this example and stay inspired to see themselves in this same position one day here in our school so congratulations to all of you again [Applause] okay so the next recognition uh so again in keeping in calendar Order April 3rd through the 7th I was National assistant principals week uh and so it's a celebration of the often unsung heroes in our educational system but not here in Orange County schools and so these dedicated educational leaders work tirelessly at the elementary level the Middle School level the high school level to bolster teachers motivate students support principals create safe and inclusive Learning Community environments and face so many unpredictable challenges and opportunities that
031land on their desk almost daily and so we want to recognize our assistant principals as they play a critical role we also know that our schools dedicated time to recognize you for your hard work and commitment to our schools students and professions so board please join me but before you do I see one assistant principal in the audience do I see one I thought I did maybe nope okay well that's all right we're gonna celebrate them anyway so uh boy please join me in celebrating these incredible School leaders who do so much for our students our staff and our families each and every day all right and there they are on the screen so that brings us to the next uh recognition so they're here with us in spirit we'll take it so April is
032school library month and April 4th was a national school librarian day great and so every April the American Association of school librarians encourages school librarians to help their schools in local communities celebrate the essential role that strong School libraries play in transforming learning so of course we have National read aloud day we have read Across America week and even visits by famous authors like Kwame Alexander who joined us a couple of weeks ago at Gravelly Hill Middle School but we know our Librarians are making a difference each and every day for our students so thank you to Aaron Bradley our instructional technology and media facilitator um I don't see her here but okay we are celebrating her nonetheless and uh her colleagues for uh these stats that help us to understand the impact so here
033are some steps did you know that Librarians in Orange County Schools have over 200 combined years of experience in education did you know that the Librarians in Orange County Schools have circulated 065 books so far just this school year alone I'm gonna repeat that 81 000 65 books this year alone um so for these and so many other reasons we are proud to celebrate our school librarians uh during school library month and National School librarian day so let's give them a round of applause all right so time for trivia okay so the first Wednesday in April every year is professionals to be a weather day no okay but thank you for that uh it is actually paraprofessional appreciation day which means this year paraprofessional appreciation day was on April 5th so formally known as teachers
034aides we we no longer refer to our um staff in this role as teachers aides uh because we know that they are vitally important uh and and our wonderful Educators so we refer to them as teaching assistants or teacher assistants and they are truly Educators who provide highly skilled and consistent support in our schools so to more of our unsung heroes our Professionals in every setting thank you for all that you do and we encourage our schools to continue showing these valued uh team members a little extra love this month for the incredible work that they do each and every day so a round of applause for our teacher teaching assistants okay so next up we also want to celebrate our occupational therapist because Abe I tell you April is just loaded with celebration so
035April is occupational therapy month how many of you knew that one person okay well you know now so uh in Orange County Schools our occupational therapist also known as OTS serve students in pre-k through grade 12 who are served in all educational settings uh Karen Beaver is she here tonight okay well if you don't know Karen uh is our lead OT she's our lead occupational therapist and while some of us may not know what an OT does it is a science driven evidence-based profession that empowers people of all ages to participate in daily living or live better with injuries illnesses or disabilities so many students in our schools that's the kind of support that will help them see their way to graduation and to a fruitful life after school so we are so thankful for
036our OTS our occupational therapists and other school staff who make sure Pathways stay open for all of our students let's give our occupational therapists around the book thank you all right and so the next recognition um we happen to have faith Litchfield here and I'll tell you why she's here so uh last uh Wednesday was ocs's night of poetry and so what can I tell you if you were at Cedar Ridge High School on Wednesday night April 5th and if you have been watching our students learn about the beauty of the written word in their poetry clubs and in ocs's youth Poet Laureate program then you know that they have found their voice I know we have just a short time to celebrate the inauguration of this program but be on behalf of the board
037and all three of our high schools I want to send a heartfelt thanks and congratulations first off to all the students who participated to their teachers and to the poet laureates and other authors and teachers who made this possible um and so uh with that uh so we want to uh say that last call uh what the idea was hatched uh as our esteemed Poet Laureate Orange County's own Miss Jackie Shelton Greene um with her deep wisdom if you know anything about her she's deep in wisdom and with energy and enthusiasm um and that is also contagious as Mrs Mariah Morris and Mrs Amber Wilson worked alongside uh Miss Jackie Shelton Greene to bring what was a vision and a dream to fruition and so it grew from that idea to what I truly hope
038and believe will become a movement so tonight we want to honor and recognize the three students who will be asked to serve as their school's youth poet laureates namely Jalen's Sorrows partnership Academy Guadalupe Luna Rojas of Cedar Ridge High School and I already mentioned and she's right here with us miss Faith Litchfield of Orange High School who was also named the first ever Orange County Schools youth party Poet Laureate tongue twister there please stand so you can recognize you so super duper proud of these students uh and so what excites me the most is that the teachers and the organizers have wonderfully broad vision for the students who participated in this program so every student who joined the Poetry clubs from the two-day poetry intensive uh with uh Miss Jackie Shelton Greene and for the
039heartfelt reading of their work last week every student will be serving as ambassadors for poetry in the coming year as they meet with younger students to help them find their voice through poetry so congratulations again miss Litchfield on being selected to represent the district and I sincerely look forward to Bringing more updates about the growth of the youth Poet Laureate program in the future all right and so last but not least this year April 1st through 7th is the week of the young child this week-long initiative is hosted by the National Association for the education of young children to celebrate Early Learning young children their teachers and their families we know that the best possible start for growth all the way to graduation comes from high quality early care and education so thank you to
040Orange County partnership for young children for elevating this celebration we are proud to celebrate the week of the young child in Orange County Schools so board that wraps up tonight's recognitions and I would just like to say we're looking forward to you coming and sharing some of your poetry with us all right um thanks everybody for coming out tonight we appreciate it especially everyone for recognitions thank y'all for coming in and we really appreciate all of y'all all right next we have our agenda adoption uh do we have any items to pull from consent I am not aware of any at this point but I do want to check thank you I will uh Mr Atherton yes Dr Moore okay um I did request about the um I'm sorry the contract for the heel group
041okay we'll pull that and we will add it to the first uh action item under discussion action is that acceptable with everybody yes all right thank you Dr Moore thank you okay with that one change uh do we have a motion to approve uh agenda with the one item pulled from consent to be the first item under discussion action item to move any further discussion all in favor aye okay uh agenda has been passed okay we have uh public comments we have two that are signed up we have two seconds the Board of Education welcomes public comment which are governed by board policy 2310 and North Carolina Junior statute 143-318.17 a person wishing to address the board must sign up prior to the board's regular meeting comments will be limited to three minutes when the
042three minutes in the speaker must stop speaking immediately yielding time to another speaker will not be permitted all public comments should be civil and non-disruptive per policy board members will listen carefully but will not respond to speakers is this Purcell first up tonight is Abigail montandon I hope I said that right all right um hello my name is Abigail montendon I have five children my middle daughter attends Pathways Elementary and I believe that most parents and teachers Librarians are doing their best to inspire youth to aim for their Highest Potential um we all fall short sometimes and our kids have to learn from our mistakes my kids do my mistakes um where where do we look for the ideals that we aim for a lot of it's YouTube Google and books in the library um
043which is very impressive how the circulation that was referenced earlier um I am not perfect and I believe children should be taught that they're they are ultimately responsible for the decisions that they make but especially in the highly impressionable Elementary School age range children are to be taught discernment and where to look for ideals and what good and beautiful is and maybe we don't all agree on what the ideal is or what is even good but I think in a Democratic Society we can agree that the principles of respectful disagreement just self-discipline honesty and kindness are virtues that make good citizens these virtues are most easily learned by good modeling and not by negative example I'm going to read a selection from a graphic novel that is listed on the catalog at my daughter's school
044at Pathways Elementary okay and an angry and apparently intoxicated uses approaching a group of other youth oh I lost my spot uh she opens the door slams it comes out and says um you you think you're so cool but you're nothing but a douchebag with a penis she throws a can of beer at him can you get can you get her out of here the boy says grow the up Duncan why can't you just man up and deal with your and it goes on this this book contains 24 F words nine s words for three Etc it also describes and references um oral sex hiding difficult things from your parents abortion pornography underage drinking smoking and suicide this may be how teenagers act the convent may be relatable to some teens and even young people
045but I believe that we should teach our youth better ways to act and interact let's Inspire them with things that uplift and build I'm not against difficult content and age-appropriate conversations to be had with parents interested adults but when we put content like this available without context elementary school children what messages are we really sending appreciate your time thank you uh Gretchen Smith is up next good evening I'm going to share some comments from um a parent in the district who prefers to remain anonymous oops first I have to take it out of airplane mode station that I actually voted for the first time for some new faces in our school board because I am a parent of a pair of recent Orange County high school graduates who one of whom does identify me as
046LGBT and who does feel like the books that are currently available in the school system for minors to check out are very inappropriate for students my child has and I have discussed the books while I took their position into account and ultimately their position on this box was what decided for me how I you know I should feel about these books because as the parent of a young recent high school graduate is part of the LGBT community and who is an active member of that Community for them to feel like these books are inappropriate to have in a high school really make an impact on me my initial reaction was wondering am I just kind of reading too much into this am I too much of a grown-up here am I being a little crude
047side but you know these books really are when you look at them displaying things are not appropriate for someone who's say 14 years old to pick up and read and that's not saying that I don't feel or my child doesn't feel that we should have LGBT books in schools we absolutely should they just should be age appropriate and the things that our school board currently is pushing to keep in our schools are not age appropriate I have a small amount of information to share from a large study conducted by the British Board of film classification and featured in a series on fight the new drug which is a non-religious organization dedicated to creating understanding and awareness of the destructive power of pornography to individuals and our world this study focused on non-photographic pornography or in
048other words cartoon porn which is often is found to feature favorite characters of children who are often child children themselves the study stated even though non-photographic child sexual abuse material is not victimizing a real child it is training the viewer to see children as a subject of sexual interest and is desensitizing them to the crimes of contact child sexual abuse and or consumption of photographic child sexual abuse material the first sexual images seen by children can include abusive imagery contained within hentai which is a Japanese style non-photographic pornography as well as they can be used in the sexual grooming of children in our state alone we have 60 offenders who are waiting to go to court from our schools who have offended children 40 have been arrested in the last two years for either sex
049crimes with minors or a sex crime committed against others in the school Community 99 of the number six sex crimes against children thank you thank you um all right that concludes our public comments for tonight uh next we have our board comments um any uh comments Dr Moore um yeah just congratulations to the teachers of the year and to our robotics team and thank you to the community for coming out to share your concerns with us thank you all right thank you Dr Moore uh Miss smiley yeah as we were doing this it was occurring to me gosh I wish the pause after each one to sort of say so then then it adds a lot of time but congratulations to the teachers of the year who are still here um and um just uh
050a couple of other things um one um oh and to the robotics team this day um uh really really excited um for how they're going to do in Worlds um a couple of things I appreciated the um the retreat last week where we discussed discipline and climate and was just really grateful um to the principles for coming and just you know having a real conversation um it is um it's so great to just hear about how they're thinking about um you know leading their schools in those ways um and then the night of poetry was just I mean remarkable it was really incredible there were local poet laureates from Chapel Hill and Carrboro there was a local poet from Hillsborough um in addition to Jackie Shelton Greene who sort of read interspersed with the students
051um and all of the student poetry was so powerful and then the vision for the students who participated to then go out into the middle schools and the elementary schools next year to sort of share their love of poetry and engage with the students was really special um Jackie Shelton Greene is planning she started in Orange County Schools but she's planning on her vision is to have a poet laureate in every High School in the state and she's here several years to do it as the poet laureate so it's very exciting that it started here it was a great event highly recommend going next year um it's wonderful um I'm just excited that we got to see so many different student groups in the theater groups and I unfortunately missed the Poetry event and I
052I can't wait to go next year um and so I'm just excited about seeing all that we're doing in our schools as well as I also really appreciated the retreat with um with the principals last week and hearing how they support one another and um work to to Really develop a positive culture in our schools and and handle different challenges so um next one um I don't know I just have a question about the teachers of the year it was really exciting to be able to shake everybody's hand but am I correct that the teachers in the school the teachers in the school select the teachers of the year which makes it the most extraordinary accomplishment so it just is such an honor to have shaken the hands of the people who are really the
053spiritual leaders of their peers thank you so that was fantastic and I also did want to thank the parents for coming out tonight excuse me all right Andre I just want to congratulate all the teachers of the year I think that's a wonderful achievement and um I just really really thoroughly enjoy all the recognitions that we give to uh all the members of our district I think that's special and is definitely needed because uh you know we we can say thank you but just to show it that means a lot so absolutely it's for sale I'd like to take this time to congratulate the robotics team once again I remember when this team was formed and they have come a long long way over the past few years under uh Miss day's leadership and a
054lot of parent volunteers a lot of student hard work and it is really a phenomenal thing to see and I appreciate it so much and appreciate the children coming in and speaking to I shouldn't say children students coming in and speaking to us and um the ones that were here last week or the week before I can't remember um all of them that have come in have been so very well spoken and you can see and listen to the passion that they have for this program and I think it is absolutely wonderful for Orange County schools and so I say congratulations to them again congratulations to our teachers of the year that's a very exciting time and a school to nominate and have your teachers of the Year and have them getting ready for that
055interview process that they have to go through so um look like a great group of teachers up here tonight I know several of them I've worked with them so I know that um they have they all are very deserving of this honor and so I just say again congratulations to all of our teachers they're the ones that do the hard work they're in the school every day in the classroom um doing everything that needs to be done and so I congratulate them um I too would just like to thank all of the teachers of the years and all of our teachers as well it's just so wonderful to to see everybody and really appreciate the work you do each and every day and taking the time to to be here tonight as well um just
056wanted to say thank you to miss day it's amazing work you and all the volunteers do with that team and me in my short time on the board it's been amazing to see how they've grown and the core opportunition that goes on it's just amazing and just wanted to say good luck to the Hedgehogs and worlds um I want to just Echo what uh Sarah said about the poet Lord It's just amazing event it was wonderful to hear all the passion and see all the support from the community and just looking forward to seeing how that group takes it to the next level next year and how it evolves from what we saw um one thing that I I did want to share with the board um is that myself uh and Dr Felder and
057Rhonda went to um the County Commissioners we met with two of the County Commissioners they had questions from prior meetings that they wanted to just ask more in-depth questions and so we figured the best way to do it was just have a smaller meeting and we sat down and we had discussions about initiatives how we're what we're doing to support learning the mtss talking about the funding and some of our challenges and felt like it was a really good conversation to be able to to dive deep into that discussion at the same time let them ask any of the questions they may have um I don't know is there anything else to add to that Dr Felder it was a wonderful opportunity to provide some clarity to to hear from County Commissioners their perspectives on
058things and yeah so very collaborative meeting so I just wanted to share that it happened a little while back at this point but just definitely wanted to share it with something different that we were able to do and I'd be able to answer questions outside of our normal joint meeting all right uh with that we'll uh move on to the consent agenda do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda with the Personnel amendments so moved and we have a motion do we have a second second we have a motion in a second any further discussion all in favor say aye aye thank you Dr Moore all right uh next up we have our work session items um and uh we'll start off with our re-accreditation Dr Felder wonderful thank you uh Mr Atherton
059so as you uh Boyd as you already know on Tuesday March 21st we uh received information with regards to the very rigorous accreditation process that the district was engaged in we were informed that after that very rigorous process that the district is now fully accredited for the next six years uh this valuable Mark of Distinction is recognized around the world and so joining us tonight is Dr Cheryl Allred she is the regional accreditation evaluator for the Mid-Atlantic region so we welcome Dr Allred she's going to give a presentation again and you've gotten a ton of information about this accreditation process including the fact that Orange County Schools earned 355 out of 400 education Quality Index uh and so and as that along with the teacher survey instrument which over 80 percent of our school-based certified
060staff who are mostly teachers completed which gave the districts an overall perspective that our culture is is positive now of course we still have more work to do but that was helpful and so um Dr Allred would say a lot more about the cognia accreditation process but she was amazing in helping to guide and steer the work and um it was just an incredible process and it speaks volumes about the work that's underway in the district so without further Ado I'm going to turn things over to Dr Allred Dr Allred thank you for joining us tonight thank you so much and um I wish I were there but I did join the meeting at seven and I must say I'm extremely impressed with all the recognitions and I Echo everything the board member said in
061terms of congratulations so it was just a warm fuzzy feeling for this last 45 minutes for me to be a part of that so thank you I will move right along because you have a full agenda um quick introduction I started my career as a math teacher and a school front School assistant superintendent for instruction my last seven years as superintendent so I hail from your neighboring state of South Carolina with 36 years of public school experience and um uh retired my late husband was waiting on a heart transplant and I felt that I needed to to be a caretaker instead of a full-time educator and so um anyway after that he did not make it and so I decided that I didn't do very well uh being retired and so I failed retirement and
062started by working with the South Carolina education department and working with low performing schools and then started working with cognia as a lead evaluator and so that's what brings me to working with Orange County schools with this recent Engagement review as lead evaluator and I'm also I also serve as a reader reviewer for report works the others right for school systems to to edit and and synthesize all the material that's put into the report so um my experience here with you tonight is to talk strictly about just highlighting some of the findings that we had for the Orange County schools in this accreditation review so if we will move forward with with the next slide I think Mr Schofield is working with that and so I want to try not to rush but to try
063to give you a very quick overview of of just what this means for you folks in Orange County schools in in terms of what is accreditation and Dr Felder did allude to that it's an international protocol for for institutions whether it's school school systems and helping you to be systemic and systematic with your improvement you start initiatives can you sustain them so we look at building capacity uh for you to improve and sustain student learning you know many schools and institutions will begin several initiatives and they sort of Fall by the wayside and and so student learning is not sustained so we look at the sustainability of your initiatives we also look at stimulating and improving Effectiveness and efficiency throughout the system so you know we are all about um on they're again looking at
064these quality standards and making sure that you as a board understand that this is an international protocol so we are across the U.S so all the domestic side of it as well as International we actually use these same standards and evaluate schools and school systems and over 70 foreign countries so I've had the opportunity uh in the last three or four years of working with with Saudi Arabia Abu Dhabi Dubai Kuwait Jordan Bogota Colombia um I'll be going to Puerto Rico next week to evaluate schools there so when we talk about the standards and the findings tonight just know that it's not just schools in North Carolina it's not just schools in the Southeast it's not just schools in in our country but it's across the International world that we use these same set of
065standards for evaluation purposes so on the next slide please in terms of the role of the Engagement review team so I served as the lead evaluator but basically we had a team of folks looking at all the documentation and then two of us actually participated in the leadership presentation and in your interview of your leadership team and so these items here that that I have um bolded we actually had to gather information and evaluate Orange County Schools performance against the 30 performance standards cognitive performance standards and so it was a Monumental task that you undertook and so we looked at your assurances making sure that you um were meeting you know that you we didn't want to accredit a school that was financially unstable that you had a healthy fund balance that you had Safety
066and Security measures crisis management plans uh all sorts of assurances that you're signing off that you are ensuring as a system that your 13 School just meet the quality standards they had to write an executive summary which was very extensive the standard step assessment document that one piece that standard step assessment document but the leadership team in this District um that doesn't do it justice the hard work that they put into that you had to look at each one of the 30 standards you had to rate those standards you had to give lots of evidence as to why you rated the standards that that you did had to write um an analysis with each one of those in terms of um how Orange County Schools is meeting that standard uh student performance analysis uh very
067extensive review of how Orange County is doing with student performance they formative and summative assessments uh the stakeholder feedback analysis we looked at you know did you have Town Hall meetings did you do you have site Council meetings feedback from different meetings and groups uh and then mainly your surveys your perception data you know what what the folks what do stakeholders think about you Adorama surveys your teacher work and conditions surveys your Academia surveys so gather information from um all the various stakeholders students to teachers parents learning environment observation analysis the district actually used cognitas instrument and conducted in 93 observations and we uh you as a district analyze that data and how you were doing in comparison to others with those different seven different environments that are most conducive to Student Learning and then
068the accreditation portfolio um just out of all of the standards and having to collect the data to support um that those standards so I think you had probably somewhere between 30 and 35 pieces of evidence that we reviewed that helped us with this process the leadership presentation was given in early March all this process started with me in November it really actually got off start starting in the fall with another person and switched over and I I took over working with you all in November and worked very closely with you from November through through March uh in in this whole process and so we uh your leadership for the district actually um had a presentation for the team and then we also interviewed the leadership team and so all of that together helped us to
069evaluate Orange County Schools performance against these 30 standards for Quality um educational programs and hopefully the report provides feedback to you to help you will focus and guide your improvement Journey because the whole process is really about your commitment to improve and never being satisfied with where you are but continually looking at ways you can get better that continue service improvement Journey that we can go to the next next slide please so with that I kept talking about the 30 standards and uh so there's a there's a rubric it's not just a guessing um every one of those standards had to be rated one two three or four and if it's a four it means that it's a very noteworthy systematic systemic practice you're going way over and Beyond the intent of the standard if
070an institution actually gets a four rating on a standard it means that you're going way over and Beyond uh what's expected to do with that particular standard if it's rated at a three the intent of that standard is you are meeting the the intent of the standard you're engaging in practices across the system uh you getting the expected Effectiveness and you're actually meeting the intent of the standard if the standards rated too you have developing practices you're almost there you're approaching that level of Effectiveness but you're not quite there with meeting the intent of the standard and then of course a rating of one reflecting areas with insufficient evidence limited activity so very little is going on in the district with a standard is rating one uh or either it you have some evidence but
071it's it's really insufficient to to rate the standard any higher so all 30 standards had to be rated a one two three or four so that's sort of a just a quick mathematical looking at how those ratings occur next slide please so this is sort of just an overall picture for you to understand a very extensive uh report but the standards ratings for Orange County Schools a level four remember I said that was very noteworthy it was you went Way Beyond the intent of the standard and if you look at I actually listed the numbers of the standards which those numbers don't mean anything to you but what I really want you to know is that 12 standards are listed there that were rated at a level four for Orange County Schools so in 12
072of the 30 standards you exceeded expectations you exceeded the intent of the standard you're going Way Beyond what has to be done level three you have 18 of the 30 standards and those 18 standards are listed there 18 of the standards that Orange County schools actually are meeting the intent of the standard you're doing exactly what's expected for Quality programs um and so 18 of the standards are rated at level three you know no standards in the schools were rated at a level one or a two This is highly unlikely to occur in most engagement reviews for accreditation there are many many twos typically in the in the average school system Engagement review so for Orange County to actually end up with well of the standards being rated at a level 4 and 18 of
073the standards rated at a level three um it's an exceptional review in terms of quantifying what's going on in terms of the performance standards for an accredited school system so hats off to you for such a review and and the findings with that and so the next um slide please just a little more so that when you look at the extensive report it'll give you a little feel for how everything's organized so with those 30 standards and you haven't scored you know 12 of them at a level four and and 18 of them at a level three they're they're clumped together in four different categories and a quality and school institution whether it's a school or a system we look at culture we look at leadership we look at engagement of learning and we look
074at growth and learning and I actually you know Clump the standards that go with cultures so you have six standards that look at cultural learning and that's where you're looking at good um institutions that nurture and sustain a healthy culture um the the stakeholders are very involved all stakeholders involved you're looking at academic and non-academic needs of students so that's basically what we're talking about with culture with leadership for learning uh you see standards 7 through 15. actually um are connected to leadership we look at leaders being engaged in their own learning we look at them supporting the leadership the learning of teachers and certified staff and then of course of the students uh the governing board is under this leadership for learning so how you govern you know do you micromanage do you understand
075your roles and responsibilities all those pieces are under are under leadership um standard operating procedures do you have very strong uh well-defined standard operating procedures do you have highly qualified teachers do you have sufficient materials and resources you know those and then the whole continuous improvement process strategic planning and commitment to continuous Improvement all of that's under leadership engagement of learning standard 16-23 that component that key characteristic that clumps those standards together all about Learners being actively engaged not compliant but truly engaged they're participating with confidence they display a love of learning they have agency over their learning you have high expectations you have differentiated instruction you have diversity initiatives you have professional development plan for training teachers and the whole piece of monitoring and adjusting instruction if things aren't working you have a have
076a very structured instructional framework where you can monitor and adjust instruction to meet student needs all of that is under engagement of learning and how well you're doing with that and then last but not least of course the growth in learning is another key characteristic key area here where you're looking at uh how prepared our students for their next level you know are they are you looking you're looking at gmtss you're looking at what kinds of interventions you have your futures in career planning the whole ballast assessment system and um so you're really looking at student performance results and seeing where there's growth it's all about a growth model and how well you're doing uh showing growth in reading and math and in all of your areas that you're measuring so the next slide please
077so with that with those four big areas culture leadership engagement growth there's a theme we look at all the evidence that presented and there's a theme that's developed by our team for that for your school system those things can be negative they can be positive and I will tell you that all four themes for Orange County Schools all four were positive very strong positive themes in all four of those areas so I'll read this and just talk just very quickly about what what we mean by this so with all of the evidence all the review of the documentation the leadership presentation the interviews whatever the well-being of Orange County Schools Learners is at the heart of the institution's guiding principles as a system as a proactive approach to building a healthy culture and leaders actively
078engage stakeholder to advance priorities so a mouthful of educational jargon but basically we found evidence of a very inclusive culture two of your strategic goals in your strategic plan deal directly with with school culture you had 93 Elliott observations your worker environment observation to 93 of those were done during December and January and came out very strong with supportive learning environments well-managed learning environments Equitable learning environments very strong writings your survey results were very positive in fact I think Dr felder's comment at the beginning uh very pleased with the response if I remember correctly I think over 513 certified staff members from across the district completed the survey so more than 80 percent completion which is a very high return rate so they're very valid and reliable when you've got those kinds of numbers and
079and the words that were used to describe your school system coming from your teachers and your folks that work in the schools um very overwhelmingly positive the words were um welcoming respectful safe and warm and your teachers when they talked about their interactions with one another said there were collaboratives they were um um personable and they're genuine so extremely strong uh findings from all of your surveys and the survey results and and strong strong numbers High numbers of um responses so um very valid reliable findings with those your student performance analysis was you had consistent growth in reading and math with 10 of your 13 schools actually exceeding your your growth expectations your strategic plan your hopes and dreams um statements that um you know you got to think back from so many and those
080hopes and dream statements actually became reality with your your goals and your action plans and all that you set in your strategic plan very culturally responsive um Equity teams in each School uh focused on access and and an opportunity for your I think you you classified it is historically resilient Learners and really focused on helping those so so your overall culture that those standards dealing with that had very strong ratings a very positive theme uh with with cultural for learning okay move to the next one with the thing for leadership another positive theme leaders engage professional staff members and developing communicating implementing monitoring and adjusting the continuous improvement process and so you've got standard 7 through 15 that that correlate directly to leadership and you're focused on Equity you've got a collaborative culture uh evidenced
081by the development of very extensive strategic plan I think the title of this empowering Excellence you've got those four goal areas of teaching uh tomorrow's leaders uh excellence and efficiency exemplary staff and empowering culture so uh very uh detailed action plans to go with those four goal areas found evidence the leadership is very grounded and focused on serving students and putting students first very data driven problem solving um leadership the mtss ex-collaborative leadership team uh committed to continuous Improvement and just fully functional mtss tiered interventions um and so just a very structured uh data analysis process that drives your school Improvement your continuous improvement process so very strong very positive leadership and the next slide so the next group engagement of learning those standards 16 through 23 that actually deal with engagement of learning uh
082the thing that that surfaced from all the evidence and the um study redocumentation professional staff members are focused on providing Equitable opportunities for Learners as they experience curriculum and instruction that emphasize the value of diverse cultures backgrounds and abilities they're again putting students first um very validated it's a driving force that you put students first you're focused on increasing student achievement decreasing achievement gaps um increasing access for all students you have a strong instructional framework your four pillars of the equity framework high quality core instruction professional development is based on it's focused on diversity um there again you Elliott scores those that's the two that you use to measure their the school environments that are most conducive to student learning and of those 93 observations and the results of those you could score as high
083as a 4.0 and the overall District average on those observations was a 3.09 understand the network average national International Network average of all schools and systems that go through this process the network average is 2.75 Orange County Schools network was 3.09 so far above the international average AP scores more than 70 percent pass rate your acts above the average your graduation rates above average so all of those things that are measurable outcomes that prove that you are committed to engaging learners okay and the next the last thing the thing for growth um of course those standards 24 through 30 dealing with the gross and this is another it's a four or four very strong positive themes Orange County Schools professional learning is learner-centered designed around the principles that professional staff members need opportunities to focus
084on improving pedagogical skills and knowledge to better address Learners needs and interests you know you have a robust professional development plan you have your professional learning communities um you have the training to get those those pocs even better with solution tree you have [Music] um literacy and math um coaches uh you training coaches training you know coaches coaching the coaches um just a very strong instructional framework as I've already mentioned you've got high-yield instructional strategies uh curriculum mapping a laser focus on the whole child so very data driven professional development and he's very learner centered so you know typically when you have um those those four things some of them are negative some are positive maybe not as strong as as the four were for you folks but out of those things if they're if
085they're strong enough you can you will end up with ratings that will cause for noteworthy practices for a school district to be applauded for um and then you'll have areas for improvement and so the next slide I will show you um this noteworthy priority so basically let me say that as a part of the Engagement review process an institution be it a school or a system very likely could not have any noteworthy practices to have a noteworthy practice it means that it's not just being done well in that school system but it's be noteworthy you you should be able to serve as a as a consultant at the at the international level national International level you're doing it so well that you're doing it way above and beyond what's expected and so it it really
086is [Music] um typical that a school system Engagement review will result in no noteworthy practices they will have some standards that they're doing very well in those standards but you have to have several standards that you correlate together with ratings of fours that will result in the practices being way over and Beyond what's expected so I'll tell you that Orange County schools ended up with two noteworthy practices with several standards tied to these two noteworthy practices it's very unusual that there will end up with two noteworthy practices and so basically that's drawn from those strong themes and those four big areas of quality standards so the first one the institution has demonstrated a profound commitment to the implementation of ongoing practices processes and decision making that improve the learning and engage all stakeholder groups you
087engage students you engage teachers you engage parents you engage Community all your stakeholder groups are involved in the process we've talked about the surveys you know you've got Panorama surveys you have teacher working conditions surveys you have obvious surveys and you don't just uh administer them you've actually used them to make decisions whether it's development of your strategic plan uh you know looking at what the results what are your stakeholders saying and listening to them and using that information as part of your needs assessment process your performance data is indicative of this um you know your new Five-Year Plan empowering excellence it's very Equity oriented it's very collaborative it's very transparent um it's a it's a true commitment to continuous Improvement and and my old saying and I think we've all heard it is you
088know if you don't know where you're going any road we'll take you but you folks have a very defined very defined roadmap with buy-in from your stakeholder groups yeah right map of this is where we are and this is where we want to be and you have it mapped out as to what what you're um going to do so a very noteworthy praise a profound commitment to continuous Improvement so that is one of your noteworthy practices and the next one please and the second one the system's laser focus on a data-driven problem-solving approach an intentional professional development has resulted in improved instructional practices Advanced student learning and the overall well-being of learners um they're again being repetitive from your positive themes but very strong instructional framework you know you're all about differentiated core instruction you're
089all about data decision data informed decision making and then looking at the conditions for teaching and learning and making sure that you're maximizing those conditions your mtss framework would be embedded in this practice you know fully functional your school-based plc's uh your coaches the system level support um your focus on teaching the efficacy um you're aligned professional developments uh your high yield instructional strategies um you have a very balanced assessment system you have formative pieces you don't just wait till the end to the summative data but your progress monitoring working all along the way um you know basically overall with with these two no worthy practices we found that you have you you're focused on your strategic plan goals you have a rigorous core instructional program you're culturally relevant and responsive teaching is at the
090heart of what you're doing you use data to personalize learning for students and you focused on the social emotional well-being of students the academic and non-academic areas so overall um you're on the path to to accelerated growth for every student in the system so these are two very strong very powerful noteworthy practices that anybody from anywhere nationally and internationally could come to Orange County schools and learn from you and this these two noteworthy practices and then the next slide is an area for improvement and I will tell you that the requirement and the Engagement review process for accreditation is that every Institution will have a minimum of one area Improvement all of us can improve improve there may be those that think they're perfect and that there's not anything that they need to improve upon
091but our philosophy with accreditation is the commitment to growth commitment to improve and that every report will include at least one area for improvement there's something and so many have numbers of areas of improvement so for Orange County Schools the area for improvement that we have is this one expand opportunities for all student populations to recognize their talents and potential by supporting them in the acquisition of academic and non-academic skills imported for their educational Futures and careers and that's a mouthful and I wanted to um breakfast this by saying foreign the internal stakeholders that work on the documentation the rating of the standards and all the preparation of the Engagement review you were extremely hard on yourselves you've actually rated yourselves in nine different standards at a level two you rated yourselves much harder to
092ask we the evaluation team started digging through the data looking at your documentation looking at all the analyzes from stakeholder feedback from student performance data from the observational data we found you were we did not agree with your ratings we did not end up with any two ratings so you were much harder on yourselves than what we found evidence to be otherwise with this area of improvement we went back in and looked at some of the things that you said you wanted the most improve upon and some of those dealt with um you know standard this is sort of connected to standards 17 and 20 and 28 I think but standard 20 I know that the system rated itself a two on that one and that's dealing with helping all all the um students to
093to be more self-confident Learners and have have a love of learning you wanted to do a better job with that and then standard 28 connects to this when it's dealing with Futures and career prep and helping students to um to um work to with their career goals and their graduation plans and being re-prepared for their next level and so forth and so um we saw evidence with internships with your CTE courses with the AVID program the IB program the advanced placement program your college advisors your all of your interventions that you have in place but what you were wanting to do with this one is to really increase the enrollment of certain subpopulations of students and um I think you spelled out your your African-American students your Hispanic students that you wanted to have more
094of those um enrolled in your AP and IB programs and and say you wanted you wanted to look at access for all students um and to help everyone recognize their potential their talents and so um I think with this you know just looking at that you've got 10 of your 13 schools that have exceeded growth you had um thank you I think one of the highest if not the highest percentage of of school systems in the state in terms of percentage of school of your schools exceeding the growth expectations that were set by the state um so your your focus uh is targeting goals to decrease your different achievement gaps and so that's sort of embedded in this one area Improvement that you wanted for all students so Collective you're doing extremely strong job with
095with preparing students for futures and careers but you you went into looking at all of your uh data and trying to Target helping the achievement gaps the areas of uh where there were gaps for certain groups and so that's what this one really deals with and that's part of your you know whether students with English as a second language whether it's your economically disadvantaged students whether it's your exceptional children but just working for all that work all student populations so that's something that every school strives for every system but I think you all have that targeted and basically what we did as a team was to validate your findings with that and the next slide of the index of educational quality is called the ieq and I think Dr Phil made a brief mention of
096that at the beginning of this presentation it's really an overall holistic measure of an institution whether it's a school or school system's overview overall performance and the IQ ieqs for for any accredited institution with cotton it can range from 100 to 400 400 is the perfect Institution there is no search there is not ever and I doubt there ever will be one that will score 400. that means you you know you have no area to improve that you met every standard at a level four whatever so but that's the range that the scores can can fall in the ieq for Orange County Schools is 355. um it's sort of a blow your socks off kind of score um as a retired school superintendent I can tell you I would be extremely proud to have a
097rating of that the average with this protocol for accreditation the average the network average at this time is around 240 to 260. so you know that's where most districts are falling within that range so around a 250 ieq is the average rating for a school system and so you can see that you're well above more than 100 points above the network average in terms of your ratings on culture leadership engagement of learning growth and learning and so I applaud you for um you know a a job well done and for that kind of score um it it really was very well deserved and um I I can't say enough about a score of that kind and and basically it is the commitment to improve and what are you doing in terms of these standards where
098that can be to improve and so very strong School and the next slide please this one is sort of hard to read the knowledge is opportunity and it's a slogan that we at on the accreditation have is a commitment to Growing commitment to getting better never being satisfied with where you are and and I think knowledge is the key to success and this whole accreditation process and his Engagement review um is hopefully you have gained more knowledge about your institution it forces you to analyze and dig deep with every aspect of of these performance standards and you have the knowledge and the action take action and that's what will lead you forward and we'll provide opportunity of course for for our students and that's what it's all about and the last slide um I want
099to thank you it's been my um ultimate pleasure to to be the um lead evaluator for Orange County Schools it was my luck of the draw that I got you folks and um and it was uh just just an absolute delight and a pleasure um I only wish for some other school systems that they were as focused on continuous Improvement as Orange County schools are I look forward to hearing about your continued success I I know nothing but good is going to come from this school system and everything that's going on there and I I do these all the time and I always when I finish with one I always ask myself the question I have um the mother of only one daughter and I always ask the question would I want my child to
100attend school in this school system and when at the close of the day if I can say yes you know it makes me happy to have worked with that school system and many times I'm sad and thinking it's really one big way I would want my child to be and I'll have to say a resounding yes I would be extremely pleased to have my daughter attend school in Orange County Schools so with that I will um stop and respond any questions any comments I know it's been a Whirlwind wide open kind of highlights of of some of the findings but um the extensive report is just that it's extensive and hopefully uh does a much better job than what I've done in a very quick review but I wanted to hear the highlights of how
101important it was how high your ID score was how your all four areas your things were very strong very positive you have two very strong noteworthy practices that are connected to so many standards that were rated at a four level and the one area Improvement you have every system have to have one at least one area Improvement and you've had that you had just the one and um so lots to be proud of and I will turn it over to the board chair and respond to any questions or comments that anyone has for me okay thank you so much Dr alyarad we're going to now see if there are any questions from the board Sarah well thank you very much for that summary and and for what it's worth it's helpful to hear you know
102how this compares to other school districts in particular because you know we're only comparing ourselves um I um one question that I have is um and it was it was helpful to hear the areas where our District staff had sort of rated things lower and then you all actually looked at the evidence and rated it higher um personally I really feel like if you are being hard on yourself like that it's sort of a sign of like where your focus for continuous Improvement um but uh how how do you ensure that sort of the self review is accurate is um is an accurate assessment sometimes it's hard to review ourselves because that that's one of the most important aspects of this whole process is a self-assessment and that standards diagnostic with those 30 standards that
103is where the true self-assessment comes in along with the three analyzes student performance stakeholder feedback and and so um they can't just rate themselves a four or three or two whatever they have to put the evidence in there and then I have to look at the evidence or the team has to look at the evidence part of my responsibility is to serve as a coach up until February 1st all the documentation had to be entered in the workspace and locked down as a February 1st so November December January I served as a coach and and basically um what the leadership team would do would be submit or different aspects of it of the stuff assessment and I would review it and and I would send that question they probably were very tired of hearing from
104me but I would occasionally say did you really have you looked at or you need more evidence to prove this and uh they with each aspect they also had to have theories of action you know if we did this then the if then statements if we do this then this was going to happen if we you know and so um it's um you know being the math analytical background that I had I probably was harder on them than some folks would have I don't circus I don't do holistic things I like to dig in and so I truly um hopefully not thankfully so but I truly force them to analyze and they were so good they were you know they would send me things and I would try to react as quickly as possible to
105get feedback to them as their say their group would work so um but but folks that are good Educators truly I find are more critical of themselves but the process forces that analysis to the point of it being an effective um assessment and if it if they rate themselves higher than they should then it results in okay but your student performance doesn't correlate to your this this and this or your you know your attendance or your discipline or your you know all the different measurable pieces that we have to to use great thank you all right other questions I just wanted to say really quickly I really appreciate your presentation Dr Allred I had read the the documents and the report and the context you provided um and sharing your you know your deep background
106in this work and in schools really helped um bring a better understanding for me so thank you very much thank you uh Bonnie yeah thank you Dr Hobart I was going to ask you if you wanted a math position we have lots of them anyway thank you so much for the presentation it was I was really encouraged by the response from our teachers and staff and and actually and Sarah's point about how we rated ourselves more harshly than you did I think that that's very encouraging for me I was curious if there's anything about the work that um pointed into in to disparities across between schools because not all our schools are the same and as I don't know if that's really beyond the scope of this work but was there any insight into certain
107standards that are not evenly practiced across our schools well what they say you are when I say you Orange County Schools is a systems accredited institution so there are two ways to go about the institution I can't reference in schools and or school systems and so we encourage school systems or school districts to go to the systems approach to accreditation and so my work with this with your particular school system we looked at what was what was systems approaches and and we rightfully so we there's there's Beauty and having autonomy at the school level for making decisions but but as a school system you you give certain autonomy but you've got to have systems that so every Elementary School you know if students move from one side to the other of the of the system
108or whatever that they have similar um um curriculum they have you know same kinds of expectations so I can't answer your question directly with this because my initial comment about Assurance is a system that is systems accredited signs off the assurance that every school is meeting the quality standards that you have this you need to have Equitable resources going equal doesn't mean saying you have to get some more resources to certain schools and others so they sign off some on those assurances so we didn't dig into individual schools as much other than with the overall student performance data that goes selectively now that for example even with the stakeholder feedback we actually got the report of the stakeholder feedback for this system so those 500 and some odd responses that we got from teachers we
109collected we hit a button and we we could get the overall results in I think Dr Feld on her team we showed them how and they went back in and pulled it out for individual schools so they could then study it but for individual schools and they have that access but for our report and for my purposes of analysis we we collectively modified everything as a system thank you sir yeah just one more comment which was um you know some of these ratings and the teacher survey and some of the play even though all of it sort of scored very high the places where it was a little lower sort of resonated with me as places that we do have some work to do so that was validating to see um and um you know
110because it's a system focused on continuous Improvement I know we'll we'll keep working on those things but um also just wanted to say I know that putting this together for all of the people on the district side um was quite a lot of work on top of the regular work that they're doing pulling all of this evidence so just thank you to everyone who took the time to do that it was an unbelievable amount of work many long hours and a concentrated time because by the time I started working with you folks in November to pack all of that in from November until everything was due on February 1st and then anything after February 1st was the leadership presentation in the interviewing but all that documentation all that um you know reviewing of the standards
111and what you know what are we doing here and looking at all the evidence to each of those individual standards times 30. um you know it it was a Monumental amount of work and that they did a yeoman's job and took it very personal with getting things in and getting right and getting it on time and redoing and and so uh very commendable job with the leadership team all right any other questions from anyone all right thank you so much Dr Allred thank you for coming tonight and helping us go through all the data we really appreciate it wish you the best thank you all right next we have our um uh 2023 2024 uh school year allotment process update Dr Albertson Miss Brazil Dr Felder this will be a very brief presentation because much
112of the information in this presentation we have already begun um the allotment team goal number one is provide transparency and a clear communication around our allotment process to all stakeholders it's also to ensure that we have equitable distribution of human resources or human capital across the organization and then more overly um just to make certain that our principals do have a voice within this process um and then also at the conclusion of this our goal is to make a recommendation to the superintendent regarding any additional human resources or um additional considerations will be needed in the budget process next slide so where are we and so some backdrop some backstory to this process there are a lot of ingredients that take place as we all know when making a cake so as we begin to
113talk about our allotment process there are some backstory or some great ingredients that are needed for example um the intent forms are a very huge important process particularly now more than ever since we are experiencing um teacher shortages across the state across North Carolina and across the United States of America so those intent forms are sent out and what we try to gauge there is to get a pulse on who is returning next school year or either who wants or um a transfer or who will be retiring um so those those that particular document has went out it is an electronic document from the standpoint that all staff are required to complete the intent form and that means all staff currently um the intent document we have about 800 staff members that have completed that
114that document that is not where we want to be so as a result of that intent data I have shared the intent document with all principles with all hiring managers the document does have tabs that includes each School each department and we have um strongly encouraged our principals and hiring managers to have those discussions with staff whether or not they are returning another thing that we added to the intent process is as one knows when you intend to transfer that's a form of intent so the transfer process is part of that electronic um document so the transfer window will take place from April 27th to June 30th um and we have been meeting with principals to re review um staff rosters um a 10th intent forms and very much tonight you all saw you approved
115our four-year and one year contract so we had to have conversations with principals regarding performance of Staff all that takes place in this process next slide so on tomorrow um no I'm sorry I'm ahead of myself um and also some of the things that we take and play take into effect when we're looking at allotments we're looking at enrollment data we're looking at as again talked about Staffing vacancies and then we're also looking at the supports that we get from AIG um ell EC those pieces are really important um next slide so on tomorrow April the 11th and April 12th we will start our allotment meetings at 8 A.M in the morning we will have our allotment meetings all day long myself there is a team of us um Mr Everton Miss wrath we also
116have Representatives EC um coordinator I'm sorry the EC director CTE our whole team will sit down tomorrow with principals these meetings are with principals so we can review their allotments at this meeting principals will also be given the opportunity and a document will shared with them that where they can request positions that are not in their allotment um also I said April 18th contract renewals were presented to the board we presented some contracts tonight um and then our first electronic contracts are slated to be sent out on May the 1st and June 1st employees who need to be transferred we will start looking at that process and actually that process will be taken until the end of June I think this concludes next slide Ryan and that's pretty much our overview so I do hate
117that we didn't get before you beforehand but we have started this process we are well on our way Mr Audley is sitting there as well as Miss RAV we'll be all meeting tomorrow to start this process it's just for clarity from the board you you had mentioned my name I'm not part of that I'm sorry I didn't mean yes you were looking at me like who is she talking about but that's what happens when it's 8 59. this is my calendar that's what happens it's okay but um I do apologize no no I just wanted them to know no yeah no he's not on the team guys um but are there any questions yes ma'am this one so historically the intent form when folks don't fill that out at first sometimes people just get busy
118you know but should we draw anything from like how many people have or have not I don't draw and I don't mean that to be funny I I don't because I've been doing this for so long um in previous um districts that I've worked in some people play um the game from the standpoint of if they're interviewing with another district and they're waiting on that District to give them board approval so therefore uh we may not know until the end so that that is someone I'm worried about yeah I mean that's what I'm asking about it's like is it is it I mean do you have any sense of how many people who don't turn in the form do end up I mean we can strongly ask them but at the end of the day
119they you know we can't make anyone do anything and we can strongly encourage we can talk about you know how many teacher vacancies and how much there's a teacher's shortage but even without the teacher's shortness historically and I'm looking at Miss Purcell who was a former principal there are folks that will wait and hold that until the last minute I strongly encourage principals who say well you know I heard that um Mr Atherton is going to retire he's going to leave and I tell them until we get that piece of paper in our hand we can't act on that are there any other questions I'm sorry I'm sorry just a quick follow-up to Sarah's um Miss Hatcher the number that stayed in my head was roughly 80 so it it says in one of the
120slides that March 17th was when the intent forms close and it was around that point that you said you heard from something like 800. current number when when it closed at the initial close day we were roughly around 500. okay and so I have not what number did you say 800. Okay this I thought I heard thank you yeah I have not closed it principals are checking with staff I'm following up with principals because we really need to know as much as we can about who's intending to stay or retire or whatever that will help us with basically the whole thing is to help us make um guided Staffing decisions yes yes ma'am Miss Hauser so so can you just help me because there's two parts of this one is the allotment which is the
121positions to me that's the positions and there's State positions excuse me and there's local positions and then there's the actual filled positions so when do we have come to agreement with our principals on the allocated positions okay so I may be calling on my colleagues but I want to be clear what we give them tomorrow are projections do I have that right Mr Abilene those are projections we will not have accurate and and let me back up uh Miss RAF did receive the allotment from the state but again those are projections we will not have actual numbers until we around about August when we actually count the students that are in the seats so we don't have those numbers until then um and this is the process I spoke of early on back in maybe
122October when I came and started talking about a staffing update and how important it is that we are working from projections um and also too we had to really do some education because before covet people um the state gave us forgiveness so everyone just received the same thing so now that we're not there these projections are very pivotal in this process Mr Everton is anything or you or Mr Raff would like to add I think she met me again she did it's okay I take it I take it a compliment so with the projections obviously we start in December when we bring to you the open and closed schools for transfers discretionary transfers for the upcoming school year because that does impact the number of students are going to be in seats per schools and
123it does have an impact on the allotment process so we are using projections we also use the state projections we use the county projections and we use our in-house projections so that we look keep in mind that we are looking at average daily membership with enrollments it fluctuates and so what we try to do is to make sure we're prepared for the number of students that will be in the schools and it is a difficult process these early stages the next three months because students are enrolling students are withdrawing individuals like Ness Hatcher said not only employees who are leaving and they take their children with them we have new family is moving in and so there's there's lots of number changes we watch the allotments and the projections daily it's a joint process as
124she said between Student Assignment finance and human capital with our principals they have they will have access to their allotment update sheets we review those and then July 1st when PowerSchool switches over to the new school year we will actually use at that point in time the actual physical students we have enrolled for the for the upcoming school year so kindergarten registration is very important you know families register and get students enrolled now individuals that are coming into the district or know they're coming in the district go ahead and register we can go ahead and get you it ready for the next school year so we we know that new housing you know new development those are all things we're monitoring watching because they can impact numbers as Miss Hatcher said there's when you talk
125about the student generated teacher allotments that's one thing but there's also other allotments through the process without getting too complicated you know we have position allotments um that that are set as well and then we also have months of employment to indicate and so we have to look through all of those not just the position allotments but also those other program areas and any additional allotments and then keep in mind as well schools through the school Improvement team and Title One schools especially with dollars that they have they also have the ability to work to add additional Staffing based on their school Improvement plan as well we just a follow-up so from our perspective I appreciate all this work but in a in about a month or two we're going to be forced to make
126some budget decisions maybe some difficult ones and if we don't have a basic understanding about how the resources are being allotted to schools and where some of the disparities or some of the shortfalls might be it's going to be harder for us so is there a way I realize it's not perfect and everything changes every day but is there a way for us to get a sense considering local state and federal funding what the allotments look like across our schools yeah absolutely and that's that's exactly what we do because um we have to we we have to project now there is a point in time when you have vacancies and you have to make a decision do you allow those vacancies to be filled or you wait until you have the students in the other
127process is we may have staff that need to relocate buildings because you may have one building that has X number of staff member already hired and in place but those staff members may be needed in another building so that's why it's important the intent forms not only if you're returning or not but also are you requesting a transfer to another building become very important but yes we always through this process have numbers and have projections and have um an update uh internally when might we see something will we see something say before the end of May before we get our budget our final budget from the county so typically um we have the planning allotment from the state we have the allotment processes that run through April we finish up student transfer hearings in April
128the first week of May and then we would we should know then what our numbers look like with kindergarten registration or anything else to date and like I said we're at that point we're monitoring every week when we get into July towards August staff's monitoring every single day I mean as students are coming in or students withdrawing that's critical information so um Catherine Mauer Student Assignment coordinator works with our PowerSchool coordinator and our data managers and it just it really is a behind the scenes operation keeping track in account of the students um coming in and going thank you so I just have one question so uh next year when we're redistricting so will we do a different process for trying to figure this out because we will have shifts to yeah I'd recommend to
129one would be on your traditional process is what we're going through now and then the second would be to look at any processes impacted by reassignment scenarios or planning which the board should have those in the fall and voted on so you would know any assignment changes that are going to impact the next school year so you would have both of those to be able to make Staffing decisions and allotment decisions including um you know information updates on new housing developments and the Charter High School that was approved for 600 seats it's scheduled open in 23. you know we'll be watching that as well to see any impacts on the school district now whether they actually really open in 23 but that's what the charter said the application that was submitted all right thank you
130so much you're welcome thank you all right so next we have our first action item which is the uh contract approval for financial wellness and efficiency study and uh Dr Moore the floor is yours [Music] okay I just got a text that she had to go offline and she'll be joining back in a little bit yeah yeah we can um uh if the the pleasure of the board uh if we could just uh move that down to uh after the local operating budget discussion is that acceptable um we had motion to do that I believe we do since it is a change and a two-thirds vote Yes okay do we have a motion to make that change to move it down seconds we have a motion second any discussion all in favor aye aye two
131four five yep five votes all right so we'll jump straight over to the local operating budget okay I'm gonna stay here that's okay perfect so thank you very much good evening uh chair Atherton Vice chair Purcell board members and superintendent we are here this evening uh to get a approval of what will become the board's local operating budget for fiscal year 24 that we will provide as our funding requests to our County Commissioners next slide I'm going to roll through this fairly quickly just focusing on the changes um again our we are funded based upon average daily membership that is composed of what DPI projects for us as well as we're fortunate that our commissioners do fund our Charter students um in full for our district but we do have to take out those students
132who are in our seats that are not districted to Orange County Schools so I'm looking at all of those factors our projected student base for the upcoming fiscal year has a decrease of 20 in comparison to the previous year our continuation budget for fiscal year 24 which is to continue operations at our current level is 2.2 million or 277 dollars per pupil last year um with a two and a half percent salary increase that was projected our continuation request was an increase of 137 dollars per pupil this is also the first year that we have um intentionally brought forward a utility and fuel increases to ensure that we try to get some um assistance in funding those items because those costs are continuing to increase very rapidly in comparison to what we have seen in
133other years foreign so um again the highlights of this budget are increasing the supplements for our classroom teachers recognizing longevity in Orange County Schools providing additional supplements for Title 1 schools exceptional children teacher and Tas and Math teachers as well as trying to focus on that classified salary scale that we implemented this year increasing it to a one percent increase we were able to get 3 8 percent in in this budget and we're focusing very hard to get a one percent next slide next one so um this was a requested change based upon the board's feedback that they were interested in seeing the supplements changed for those lower years increased and decreased a little bit for the upper years so as a result of the board's request we went with Seventeen and a half percent
134for uh zero to 13 years and decreased the 20 plus years from 25 percent to 21 percent those changes netted us an increase over the previous record superintendent's recommended budget of 63 000 and 300 this request now comes to a per pupil increase of 251 dollars the next item is also a change the board had expressed interest in looking at a flat two person not a two percent two thousand dollar one-time supplement for classified staff with 20 plus years of Orange County Schools service it was asked that we focus on the classified staff as the supplement changes in the previous slide that you just saw would Encompass all of the certified staff allowing them to see an increase for those years of service previously um this number was 105 when we looked at both of
135our certified and are non-certified or licensed and not licensed staff if we just look at our unlicensed staff it is 49 individuals who would qualify of having 20 years or more service within Orange County Schools so this would be a budget increase of a hundred and thirty one thousand next slide so um I'm not going to hit this slide other than there is no change from the superintendent's recommended budget where we look at providing an additional two percent supplement for our student-facing staff and our Title 1 schools that would be um an increase in a budget request of ninety six thousand dollars I'm sorry I'm it's okay so we had the two percent supplement for our Title One schools and um that is 76 000 the additional supplement on the previous slide of 96 000
136was also for student facing staff this scenario that we're looking at here would be encompassing the anticipated Title One schools that we've anticipate qualifying for Title One status next fiscal year which includes an additional Elementary School and which if the board chooses and the district elects to update the title one plan to Encompass our middle schools that would require an additional seventy six thousand dollars to implement this two percent supplement next slide so also was no change from the superintendent's recommended budget for an additional two percent supplement for our exceptional children teachers and ta positions and all of our schools that would require an additional hundred and forty three thousand dollars in our local per people ask um two million is the request that would be needed to fund our classified salary scale with a
137to get us to a one percent step increase on each of the years of experience that would equate to an increase of 250 dollars per pupil so uh in summary the items that are highlighted here and orange are the ones that changed from the superintendent's recommended budget so uh changing the supplement tiers for our certified staff would require an additional two million dollars based upon the percentages that we previously shared there with 17 and a half percent up to the 21 percent if we um if the board chooses and elects to implement a two thousand dollar annual supplement for our classified staff for 20 years or more of service that's an additional 131 thousand it was also expressed when the board provided feedback and interest in determining what would be needed to fund each elementary
138school to allow them to have two teacher assistants per grade level so at looking at we what we currently have already in our buildings at these schools and what it would require to get to where each of them had two Tas per grade level that would require an additional 1.1 million or roughly 25 additional Tas in comparison to what we have in our schools right now all right um again here the items that were included to ask for funding from our commissioners was the Pre-K expenditures shifting from Title One to the local budget to facilitate as being able to pick up those middle schools that qualify for Title 1 status if we elect to do that and to minimize the impact to our current Title One designated elementary schools adding an additional English language learner
139teacher an additional fifth grade dual language teacher at New Hope supporting our teachers who are applying for their national board certification by paying 50 percent of the application fee um an ad is three additional School nurses um in order to ensure that we allow visibility into what we need at each of our schools and because of the way that we are funded from the County Commissioners I felt like it was prudent that we go ahead and add that to our request so even though these positions are currently being funded by Esser and we have Esser funding available to us through September of 24. we do need to highlight what our needs are in our schools and what we need from our County Commissioners in regards to those nurses so those three additional School nurses have
140been added here which would be 213 thousand dollars and the final oh well no this is not the final but the next item that was a change here is there was also an interest in adding um funding for districts sponsored School field trips within North Carolina this was based upon looking at funding students in all of our schools grades K through 12 the estimate here was based upon looking at um field trips that are currently being taken at each of our schools as well as those that were aligned with curriculum to start a pilot realizing that you know this program can evolve and will evolve each year but to begin with these field trips to provide exposure to our students based upon that list most of them were within um a less than a 50-mile
141radius there were some outliers factoring those in factoring in a 3.45 per mile reimbursement for the bus use as well as fifteen dollars an hour for our bus drivers I estimated thirty thousand dollars because most of the field trips that we have initially started looking at again are um within um Alamance orange and Durham County not traveling very far next slide the uh the final changes here that were requested from the board were the sidekick Academy pilot um I factored in the cost for this for all 13 of our schools realizing that it's 75 000 per school um that is why that cost is at that level realizing that um this is an opportunity where if that's something that we want to dial back and pilot at elementary middle and high or just pile it
142at one school we have the option to do that but what is included here is looking at all 13 of our schools and then we talked about this at our last budget and capital needs about adding a extracurricular supplement for our steam stem and Robotics at each of our 13 schools which would equate to approximately twenty eight thousand dollars to implement that thank you excited so in summary the budget provided here for your approval is a 1256 dollar per pupil increase over our current funding or um 10 million 54 um last year we asked for a our per pupil increase in fiscal year 23 was 1027 based upon our expansion items and our continuation budget or an increase of [Music] um 229 dollars per pupil no excuse me 676 dollars per people was our increase
143um last year finally the last item is this is not for approval this is just for information giving you a look at projected budget for our other sources for next year if you look at the items that are in blue those are what we categorize as our general funds which would be your state local and Federal which are comprised of 73 percent of our total budget the other items are capital then we have our special funds which include our Enterprise funds and our restricted fund eight which are those funds that are Grant Grant funded like boroughs welcome Grant NC Pre-K Etc and then um totally pulled out from all of those are the federal coveted relief funds which primarily were down to sr3 looking at going into next year with 4.9 million taking into account
144that one million is budgeted out of that for the summer programs that will start this summer and um of those other funds roughly uh 27 of the total budget is encompassed in those what questions do you have or um additional information do you need to approve this budget for submission to the County Commissioners so if I could just facilitate for a moment if we could agree on a couple of things before we talk about the specifics I believe we agreed in the or the budget committee really was looking towards submitting everything and going forward that are we in agreement that that's what we're going to do so we're going to go with whatever at the end all items going forward as here's our request I just want to I just want to get that out
145of the way because if that's not true then we're going to go line by line and I just want to know which one we need to do so that's what we said okay well that was at the committee I just want to confirm what was in at the committee of the full board right but the board's binding yeah so yeah got it okay so um with that uh then I would recommend moving to any specific questions or changes that anybody would like to see and I'll step back and see what questions or changes that anyone has Andre um I I would definitely like to say that I would like to change Sidekicks from being all 13 to just one school um for 75 000 as a piloted school got it we will make sure that
146change is incorporated yes ma'am thank you hey other changes sir I have um something it's just a technical suggestion um on the flat supplement for 20 plus years of service at the top it says flat two thousand dollar one-time supplement and so I think you should take out the one time because we're talking about staff receiving that annually after that point is that correct that's where we that's where we landed the recurring that's a proposed recurring supplement as well for those staff members right yes yes so I would take out the 1X the one time in there just so it's maybe I would say flat additional two thousand dollar supplement to da da da da just so it's clear that they receive it every year um just for clarity we're saying that the board would
147like for this supplement to be given every year to those cert to all staff well in this scenario it's the classified staff every year if you have 20 or more years of service you would get two thousand dollars and I just want to make sure I'm I'm clear that that was the intent I personally um I'm ha I have a little trouble with it I I was but I would really like to see a one-time I'm mostly concerned about our teachers who are being recruited through bonuses and so I would like to see a one-time bonus for our veteran teachers which isn't in here at all but that's something I remember mentioning last time but I really would like to see a one-time bonus for a veteran teacher of I'm going to make up I
148think 2500 hours um that's just a thought and I don't know if it should be 15 or 20 years with Orange County Schools not based on years of experience but there are years with the school district these are really devoted teachers that don't want to leave but are being recruited aggressively so just responding to that point like what would stop someone from just waiting a year and then taking a recruitment bonus the next year like I I just I think we we've we've been good about doing the about paying the bonuses out over a period of time right it doesn't have to all be paid out right away I think that's what we've been doing up to now with our signing bonuses that is correct with our Recruitment and Retention bonuses it is a a
149recruitment tool but it is also a retention tool you get half of it um up front then you get 25 of it when you return the previous year in October and then the following year after that you get the final 25 in October yeah I would also just like I don't know if you all noticed but Durham I think is giving everyone that I think a one thousand dollar bonus if they're on the payroll in October which is a but that's a slightly different but but yes I I think that a strat a process like that which means whatever the number is wouldn't might not all be incurred next year right so to provide um a twenty five hundred dollar one-time bonus just to our certified staff with 15 years or more of service I
150believe is what I was asked would be um roughly uh three hundred thousand dollars okay well Andre just gave us 900 so I mean I'm just putting it out there I I think it's important I you know I'm happy to tweak the process but we have gotten so much feedback from our veteran teachers that they are it's hard for them so I mean to me the the we're putting money in the increased supplements which will be in every year you know they'll experience that every year you know getting competitive with other districts so yeah because I'll just say this from just backing up and looking at this this seems like I could get hired as a math teacher walking into the District of 21 years pick up a 5k bonus and then get another 2
151000 2500 bonus because I'm now above the 15 years oh no no no you can't no no it doesn't say that I mean the proposal The Proposal is people with 15 years working for Orange County Schools so you can't walk in the door and be eligible for the bonus you have to have years so we waived that we came in and we said we are going to give you credit for wherever you worked and you automated that's the supplement this is a one-time bonus for veteran for teachers who work for Orange County schools for 15 years or more one time this is for the people who instead of going to work for Durham and getting a bonus we're saying stay with us and we'll give you a bonus because that's that's what so I don't
152want to confuse it with the other supplement okay I'm I'm not sure I I assume we can track that but now we're going to have two different groups of people it's one time payment one-time payment again think of it as a back end of it instead of getting a signing bonus you get a bonus for staying and I think it's what what I've heard is that teachers that have been here for a while are saying we're getting nothing right everybody else is getting something and we're getting nothing do y'all not appreciate us being here and staying and that I think that's what right so it pays to leave it doesn't pay to stay that's the bottom line I I don't have a problem putting it on there because we're the amount is so much exactly
153it doesn't matter exactly that's we'll have to have that discussion later but there are concerns with doing that for me um but I I we can add it it's yeah there's so many variables still over 10 million dollars I just wanted noted so that we have it so we can discuss it when we have to um I I have a question I have other things but I have a question so Orange County why would Orange County want to pay for our Pre-K if we're asking them to pick up five hundred thousand dollars for our Pre-K the to what we've taught we've been using Title One money for why why would Orange County want to do that just a it's a question yes so uh thank you for that question Miss Hauser uh one really valid
154reason is because that is a focus uh in our County correct our County Board of Commissioners have been focused on uh a Pre-K and this would be an opportunity for them to uh support uh pre-K in Orange County schools and so that would allow us to leverage those dollars uh towards as Miss Rath said the two middle schools that are trending upwards with regards to um they're free and reduced price meals rates okay we wouldn't be putting any more kids in pre-k we wouldn't be in expanding all we're doing is asking them to pay what right so that's great I have just a short question Miss wrath um so I'm looking at slide 50 and so just want to clarify for myself so where it says increased years of experience step increase on current unlicensed
155classified scales to reflect a one-step increase that is our one percent step increase that is completing the one percent from the 3 8 percent so is that like an additional 5 8 okay thank you thank you all right it's not an additional one percent it's what we need to get to one percent on the stem supplement or the step I think it's a stipend the way you propose it so so we heard River Park asking us for a stem teacher I thought they didn't they said doesn't work for us to have stem after school it's not accessible to everyone we want a stem teacher in our school so I didn't know when it was a conversation about maybe putting a stem I think Brady Brown already has a stem teacher am I correct they have
156you know and I don't know from my perspective when I again my visibility is just based upon I was not able to locate a stem teacher that is classified that way in our payroll system there is a district stem coordinator but in regards to a job that is classified as a stem teacher I was not able to determine that there are any of those that are classified in our systems that way now yeah so stem like Central used to have a stem coordinator so okay so is the request for stipend or is I I'm hearing the requests for a stem coordinator and maybe said the superintendent's budget was a request for a supplement an additional supplement to provide that to each of our 13 schools it was not an additional position that was in the
157superintendent's recommended budget thank you so much for that Rhonda and thank you for your question Miss Hauser so um so what I understand uh programs like first in what we heard about tonight those are extracurricular programs that we want to continue and actually we want them to grow and they are beginning to grow organically so much like we have extracurricular supplements for coaches and other extra curricula um uh positions that staff take on this would be one so we know that some folks are currently doing that work really as volunteers and that's something we want to grow so that's different from a stem teacher position now to the point around because that is an issue right we have may have children who want to participate after school and and can't I would think if it's
158a transportation issue that may be something we we may be able to help address um but um certainly it is growing organically in our schools and and that's something we would want to continue to nurture and support yes yeah I'll just let me add in because I I did have a a lengthy conversation about this as Dr Felder is saying is the the request from from uh River Park is to have a stem elective and that way throughout the day and throughout the week there's more kids that could go in there because what what they were explaining to me because I didn't understand how it worked was that if it's after school they have one person that can only manage so many kids and then if it's a elective then they can manage that many
159kids over the day over the week and then they could reach more kids that could want to do the extracurricular activities or at least give them a foundation of how stem is and how stem works so to Dr felder's point I think there's there's a couple of different things here one is the extracurricular robotics team and the other was kind of a stem class and an elective in that that students can choose to do that and that would reach more students than what they can just handle in the after school as is how I understand no you are absolutely correct I would just add that um the idea of having a stem teacher to do just what Mr Atherton described uh I believe we will will hear and great uh we will hear from more
160schools wanting that type of position in their school but it is actually both that we are trying to get at I would be perfectly okay adding that to here to adding a teacher just to have the the number like how much it is right have one teacher or one teacher per school or one school one per school because I think Mr cell you had mentioned yeah Miss Purcell recommended that that's what only if we only put one and we don't have one in middle school we'll have a void and then if we don't offer it in other elementaries then you've got the issue of how are we servicing or giving opportunity on all of those but I believe that was the the original record and that was that was that was how it all came
161about after Central started theirs um was what are we doing with those kids when they come to middle school because we've got to there are students that are going to be very interested in it and we need to be able to facilitate their needs when and everybody else's and and build a program and actually heard that from students in the first program a desire from them to start in elementary and have access in Middle yes you know when that feeds into the engineering program at the hospital as well as robots Sarah one wondering I have about this is just which parts of it are um sort of about our budgeting sort of like District directives versus like what's happening at the school and like school-led and I should have so like orange middle for example
162I know has like biotechnology now um as sort of an area which is stem-ish obviously but it's not robotic specifically and so there's a I'm not quite sure to what extent that's like the principles in their purview about what sort of curriculum they have versus like a district initiative um just don't know how we think about that well I would think that if they hadn't if they could get an extra teacher and they were doing biotech instead of robotics or whatever that they would want to pick up on that and and build a program that they had started with that I would think but I don't know if y'all don't mind let me intervene um so we're not implementing it tonight this is a placeholder and when we get to that discussion of here's what
163we have then we would probably request more details or does this make sense how would this fit in and go through maybe the the budget committee or others to get that level of detail tonight we're just putting a placeholder in the event we would do that at some point inspirational budget I I agree at 10 million it it s rounding error at this point but uh but we would need a number tonight to physically do that or you okay time check 9 45. okay um are you able so yes I will provide what I have heard to this point to make sure there's Clarity in regards to what changes have been asked for in this budget that we would then need a motion to approve the changes and to approve the budget so that it
164can be submitted to the County Commissioners by April the 18th as our funding request foreign [Music] change I would like to to modify is for the district field trips instead of being 30k I would like to have that at 100K and the reason for that is to include the fifth grade trips that would be to DC as an as an option again it's a it's a placeholder I think 100K is more oh 300. I was gonna go because honestly if you to me in the spirit of um development it you know so important that we get some of our kids out to field trips early and I'd really like to see early field trips and I'm I think it's a really big deal I mean we're throwing you know it's uh you we could we
165could cut it down the middle and go for two today foreign 000 to 200 000. it's a big number I just want to also acknowledge Sarah's point it's an important one that we're talking about the stem resource but if and when we get to it it there's got to be a conversation with the schools about how they want to you know what are they really what resource do they really want but right that that's coming but stem is a great placeholder yeah I mean I just I think that it is um you know the administration's job to recommend programs and things obviously Dr Felder obviously the district's been very supportive of Robotics but just making sure we play our role in that and schools play their role in the the central office plays their role
166I mean just just for I mean in the budget there are three additional staff for New Hope is that their stem person I'm just more sad that's for dual language or science I mean you know it could be whatever I'm just wondering just trying to be a little bit more and it's really equal not equitable um in this house of those physicians at New Hope are the support the district uh program that's at the school and that would be dual language understand so would they do that is there you know like the way um their dual language Central used to be a stem school had a stem coordinator position that's no longer there but because of new Hope's focus on Dual language are they interested in stem that's really or not I mean that's really
167the essence of the question are there are there any other questions about the dollar amount because we we still have several other items and another closed session and Mr Etherton if I made just a quick question clarifying question and maybe suggestion for the board so I heard several ideas footage from modifications to the budget but I didn't get here like votes on those items is the intent here to do you do you want to kind of walk through and summarize and see if we've got a majority support on each of those items and then also is the plan to make those adjustments and come back at the next meeting for one last look so that staff can vet these numbers and get them into the deadline for submitting the budgets May 15 so we do
168have time April the 18th is when we have to provide it to our County Commissioners that is what they've uh that is statute has May but our county has requested that we provide it to them by April the 18th because the first meeting that we go to where the school boards ask for funding um make the presentation to the County Commissioners is April 24th 27th somewhere in that time frame so um they they needed in time to turn it around to be able to put it in an abstract for Commissioners for that meeting so so that's not statutory but if you want to honor that request that would mean options could include a special meeting just for a final look to make sure because you know just we're talking some big numbers it might make
169sense to get finance and a chance to you know run stuff make sure that what you see put together and that the board still supports it at a minimum I'd suggest you kind of walk through any changes his budget and just vote on them and make sure that there's majority support for each item I heard some ideas suggested that with some nods but it wasn't clear to me you know what is the funnel budget yeah I'd like to take the negative approach where to hear from anyone that has a concern with an item because there's a lot of items and I don't want to get caught up on is it X dollars or Y dollars or Z dollars because again we still have to come back with this huge list when we find out what
170our total is and then decide what is what are we really going to do because it's not even going to be close to this list because they're not going to get us 10 million so this is kind of the the full list of all items but I'd rather ask if there are any items that anybody would like to discuss they have concerns with and if there isn't then we'll move forward with consensus and confirm with Rhonda on the changes because she's been actively modifying it to get us a total amount to move forward with so yes so One Way Or Another We're going to get a vote or a consensus on any changes that's my point is that yeah okay right now yeah that's fine okay so from the board's perspective uh any items that
171we have discussed that that you would like to see changed or don't agree with um and you would like to discuss let's have the discussion Now versus going through each one should we just go through them just a summary I can a summary of all of them or you got it I think we need to get for clarity for the minutes and just to make sure I I agree with you I've captured them but I I believe that's what we need to do to ensure that um we're very clear on your wishes sure I just wanted to make sure if there's someone that had a burning concern with any item we talk about it now and then go through the list the intention is to go through the list and confirm so Andre is a
172fiscal conservative and he was going from 975 for Sidekicks to 75. reducing our number nine hundred thousand dollars right but that was a that's an example that was one board member suggestion so is there are we going to get a vote on that or consensus on each item or perhap what's the plan to make sure that there's we were going to go through all of them and then vote and then we'll go back of course we want to agree on what they are and then if and I think you want to see if there's so Dr Felder has a comment I'm just wondering looking at the clock might you want to extend now or do you want to wait till you get a little closer to 10. uh closer to 10. let's go I mean
173I think I can go to this really quick so Sidekicks one-time retention bonus for teachers with 15 or more years um oh do you have the mounts 2500 is that okay so what I captured that I need Clarity on is every board member to vote on twenty five hundred dollars for teachers with 15 years or more service in Orange County schools and is that going to translate to classified staff as well or classified going to remain at what's in the budget presented here at two thousand dollars for 20 plus years of service so so tension bonus for us for teachers is interests our staff against being recruited by by other by other school districts right it is the back it is a back end to a signing bonus it's the if you stay if you
174come you get a signing bonus if you stay you get a retention bonus that's right the question at hand is does the board agree with those two approaches one is a 2500 for uh 2500 for licensed staff time on time annually one time one time not annually not annually one time okay a one time retention bonus for licensed staff of twenty five hundred dollars with 25 15 plus years service within Orange County Schools equates to three hundred thousand dollars okay okay it will all be payable next year would some of it go to the second year please not let's not work for the details okay fine fine we don't agree on the idea we can we can move on so uh thoughts from other board members about this does anybody have a heartache over this
175item whether it's on the list or not I mean I have concerns about it um from a like the idea isn't even fully fleshed out perspective and I do I am concerned that we're going to give it one time next year even if it's in October or November or whatever and then what's stopping folks from the following year deciding to leave like I just I don't the structure of it is important to me so okay others okay I don't I hear a majority is okay with just a reminder uh this is just a request that we're going to County Commissioners for any staff who may be listening uh or public right this this is not um this is not booked this is not an approval of an additional bonus for staff this is an approval
176from our board to include it in our request for funding are we going to leave in the two thousand dollars for classified staff all right so the only question I have for the board is do we want to be similar you know because that's an annual that's an annual payment as opposed to a one-time and so does anyone care just leave it as it is I mean it was originally fleshed out at the budget committee and I would just leave it with what was eventually recommended okay we'll leave it unless somebody else feels differently all right so I hear we're going to leave it as it's presented in the budget no changes yes we're just going to fix the wording the other thing I had was um putting uh I don't know if you want
177to call it a stem coordinator or a an elective person in I think this would be more effective if Ron oh Ron do you want to play it yeah let's Rhonda just tell us what the item and the amount and then that way we can sure is that okay Rhonda I don't know absolutely okay thank you so the next item that I heard that was a request for a change is a one full-time equivalent at each of our 13 schools for an additional steam stem teacher at eighty thousand dollars annually for that full-time equivalent which includes all of your benefits that equates to 1 million forty thousand dollars the final item that I had captured was to increase the district sponsored field trips from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand so that would be an
178increase of a hundred and seventy thousand foreign so just to recap we are reducing the budget here nine hundred thousand dollars for Sidekicks Academy um where it would only be at one school versus 13. we are adding one million forty thousand dollars for a one-time full-time equivalent teacher position at each of our 13 schools to support stem Steam we're adding a hundred and seventy thousand dollars for district sponsored field trips that brings our total requests to 10 million three hundred and sixty four thousand six hundred and give me just a minute and I will have it's a retention bonus when you just played it back you didn't play back the retention bonus what I heard beforehand was that they want it was going to stay at what it is in the budget that is presented
179here right but we're going to add a second bonus for the teachers one time I did not hear that so I I need Clarity I heard what I heard was that we were going to leave it as it is in this budget since we that's how it was discussed at the budget committee that we were not adding any anything additional for the classified staff is the way it is but I thought we were going to add a one-time bonus of twenty five hundred dollars for the certified staff of that were here for over 15 years and that was 300 000. that's what I heard I heard Sarah was concerned with it but I didn't hear any other objections from the board if that's what the board wishes to do we can definitely add that is
180any is the majority okay with that I mean I agree that some of the details would need to be worked out if that is what we chose to do once we get a budget hearing no strong so adding the 300 000 in to support an additional twenty five hundred dollar one-time bonus for our licensed staff with 15 years of service in Orange County Schools or more that brings our total budget requests to 10 million 600 that's our increase foreign yes so here's my confusion Rhonda and this is just back of the envelope mentally so our original number was 10 million 54 600 and you mentioned the stem coordinator was a million 1 million forty so that would make whatever at 11 million and the number oh okay reduces nine hundred thousand for the sidekicks got
181it so when we reduce the 900 000 add 300 000 and a million forty add 170 000 for the field trips that gets us to a total budget increase of 10 million six hundred and sixty four thousand six hundred or one thousand three hundred and thirty three dollars per pupil and that includes the continuation budget yes ma'am of two million two hundred and nineteen thousand good I get a motion to extend the meeting 30 minutes I don't know how long will it take we have a closed session too okay 30 30 minutes yeah 30 if we finish yeah do we have a second second all in favor aye aye aye thank you Dr Moore uh okay so it any other discussions or comments concerns with this all right can we get a motion to approve
182as amended per every item that Rhonda just recited because we're going to need Crystal Clarity in the minutes on this okay yes I move that we approve the budget with every amendment that Rhonda just recited a second so motion a second any further discussion all right all in favor aye aye all right approved all right uh so we'll go back uh now to the thank you Rhonda so we'll go back to uh the contract approval for financial wellness and efficiency studies so uh the floor is yours Dr Moore foreign Mr Neal um is it okay if I ask questions about my concerns were about the the audit so we I'm not sure if you have legal questions and want to preserve attorney-client privilege we have a second closed session um that would probably makes more
183sense to do then and if and if those need to be answered before voting on the contract we can defer this until the you know after the closed session is one thought I'm not sure what kind of questions you have in mind Dr Moore if it's something that's very straightforward that's not a problem for me to answer an open session I could do okay yes sir just the the cost and the funding source oh the the that's no problem the the contract uh the cost is it's the the Consultants bill at hourly rates which are in the contract it's 150 an hour for the partners 125 for their Associates um they get reimbursed at IRS rate for mileage they're set reimbursement rates State reimbursement rates um and that's capped at twenty thousand dollars total so
184the work could not exceed twenty thousand dollars without a specific board approval and the funding source that's my understanding would be paid out of fund balance okay um I do have a comment um do you rather me save my comment for closed session or is it okay to say no I I'm not really sure not knowing what your comment is I'm not sure what to say yeah business discussion about the contracts for perfectly fine for Open Session if you have thoughts about whether the district should enter the contract or not or the about the cost that's that's all fair game for open all right yeah that's that's what it's about about the support around it so okay thank you so I'm just concerned about doing another audit to me it seems to discredit the most
185recent excuse me audit that has no discrepancies and it discredits the hard work of the finance team so I guess I just really want to know what is it that we're looking for in this new audit do we know what to look for in an educational audit has anyone seen the most recent audit I just feel if we have questions around the audit we should contact The Firm that did our most recent audit and ask questions around the audit process excuse me and what they look for to give more Clarity or give possible Improvement strategies around our current budget or audit processes I I can't support paying for another audit I'm just trying to keep in mind we have graduation to pay for it it's coming up um the Equal Opportunity schools contract that's coming
186up and I just want to make sure that the students have what they need first and that's my comment thank you and so Dr Moore I can just share one piece of information that may be helpful and obviously the board can discuss this um the the this is not really an audit contract that's one thing I can clarify in fact I confirmed with the local government condition uh commission today that they do not consider this an audit contract doesn't require their approval so I think that's a bit of a misnomer we may have referred to it that way but it's a Consulting contract for for some you know for exploring issues and reporting to the board and recommending best practices and things like that so it wouldn't technically be an audit it wouldn't be similar
187very similar at all to what your Auditors do every year just wanted to share that thank you all right any further discussions or comments I move that we approve the contract all right we have a motion do we have a second we have a motion and a second all in favor aye aye opposed passes unanimous all right the next item we have is the the mostly Architects contract Amendment for Cedar Ridge Orange High School and the tennis courts good evening just wanted to bring an update to the board as you have in your materials a little bit of history and information uh with Mosley Architects they were selected through an RFP process in 2019 to complete several services within the district one was tennis courts and track assessments and it looked like there was a
188bid package that was completed in 2020 but due to the pandemic and other issues those the work never moved forward we identified this work as still outstanding and needed to be completed we were going to and had part of our contract with Corley redfoot Architects to look at this and what we're proposing is to amend the contract with Mosley Architects and allow them to move forward with the bid packages and get the bids for the project at the cost indicated within your packet this evening and that is an equivalent cost that we would have paid we will receive a credit back through the contract with a change order with Corley redfoot I'm reducing their contract in the amount of forty thousand dollars and that will the same budget will be utilized for this contract addendums
189before you this evening which total thirty five thousand seven hundred sixty dollars so we can move forward with the assessments and the bids necessary to bring tracks and Tennis Courts at the high schools up to standard I am glad to see this come back any questions if not we need a motion motion to approve second you have a motion the second any further discussion all in favor aye aye okay motion count carries unanimous thank you the next item is this is for Design Services for the Orange High School restroom Edition project we did make a recommendation to um set aside a million dollars that we have sent to the County Commissioners within the bond funds for additional Renovations at Orange High School this was the primary project identified we do have restaurants throughout the campus
190that need renovated one of the issues is because of the number of students at Max Capacity on the campus who really can't stop restroom service in order to fix and upgrade restrooms the ideal time to do that would have been through the geothermal project when wings of the school were closed so that brings us to how do we address that at this point time what we're recommending is adding restrooms to the campus anyway based on the core Services the number of students there the auditorium and that we we feel a better project would be to add restaurants to the campus and you have that design package there this evening for your approval or comment and then as we build that and add that then that will give us additional restroom capacity on the campus therefore
191allowing us to take restrooms offline to complete those additional Renovations throughout the school and Mr Taylor and Patrick Florence our director of capital projects is here if you have any questions about the design if there's no objection from the board we will move forward with this forbid um thank you and that's an exciting project a lot of excited students about that I just I just had a question somewhere where I was reading I haven't found it at the moment but it said something about gender-specific bathrooms and then when you retrofit or renovate the original bathrooms are there going to be any gender non-specific bathrooms are there going to be different types of bathrooms it seems like Cedar ridges bathrooms are not all gender specific yeah there would be once we go back and we're renovating
192and adding on we've identified other areas at Orange High School like the nurse's office really needs a restroom within it not outside it or adjacent to it so there will be other recommendations as we go through the campus and certainly what we did at Cedar Ridge High School with some non-specific restroom identifications we would recommend that we have that as well for the restrooms in this design package the new additional ones they would follow the DPI standards and the standards that are in place sure if you want anything you want to add thank you you're welcome right other questions I have a question on how the you know we we are anticipating a sewer infrastructure project at this on the same campus how do these projects relate and is there uh benefit of approaching them
193separately or would should we be looking at them together we are we are looking at them together so we have RFP for evaluation services at four campuses I believe the team will correct me but we're looking at Rest German sewer evaluations at Orange High School Orange Middle School um effluent cheeks Globe Elementary School and there's one more I'm sorry it's late but there are four schools there are four schools that we immediately um will do an investigation and review and then look at services and bring that back um for a package to identify the funding for renovations but we do have four schools that we do believe we want to do a complete assessment of the sewer lines and any recommendations so this goes forward without that work being done correct well it really happens
194simultaneously but we don't want to hold this part up for for that yeah just just a thought we listened uh whatever night we met last week at Orange High School with high school principals saying it would be nice to have a Commons area or some area where kids could go to I was thinking about if you do this addition to Orange High if you did the upstairs part over those bathrooms you would have a nice Commons area for students to have or even to use for whatever they could come up with but I was thinking about that space I don't know whether there's money there I don't just a thought we do not have any budgeted project for a project like that now certainly we talked years ago about renovation and expansion of the Panthers
195den and looking at renovation projects between the current dining facility and upgrades out to the CTE building which wouldn't enclose the campus more as well but this project we've not discussed any common area additions but there are certainly many improvements that need to happen on that campus that you you could consider that I just when we were talking the other night with the principals that was a thought that came into my head for over there well certainly put that on the list what I try to do is keep the scope here within the dollars allotted well I do appreciate you fixing the bathroom it's long overdue all right kid we get a motion so move you have a motion and a second second uh all in favor aye all right thank you so much uh
196we have one more item tonight so this is uh the reassignment update um again we have a contract for approval the last time we met we did talk about the services um for orad and we are asking that um the board approved the orad contract and also the Davis uh demographics contract contingent upon the attorney review the contract documents and authorize the chair to sign those contracts on behalf of the board I'm going to pause there allow you to take that vote because that's the only voting I'm done I'll make a couple comments about reassignment I'll just say last time or Ed was involved it was amazing they really have a good program and a way to break up data and allow us to look at many many options so I'm just sharing that from
197my experience Sarah I know you were involved as well yeah yeah they're very I mean this is what they do they're very skilled so all right can we get a motion move to a proof contract all right we have a motion and a second uh any further discussion yes oh we can take the vote I have just have a question uh all in favor aye okay that's it's fast okay thank you um so I'm not sure if you want me to you want to keep going additional items I wanted to just mention was I'm Again part of the reassignment process is putting together um the the district's needs in the future and I just wanna I know you put a pin and tabled an item a few minutes ago and I just want to emphasize
198again as we started this process back in August we talked about um at this point there is no planning of expanded programs or options that are district-wide that would change scenarios as far as students enrolling what you mentioned earlier is stem and steam in all schools but we're not talking about expanding School options we have no planned reconfiguration of schools no um you know and again a reason I'm commenting on these because we're getting ready to engage the public in reassignment discussions and I just want to make sure we're are clear that we're not discussing configurations or a K-8 option we're not discussing or expanding year-round options and again we're not reconfiguring schools like we had mentioned a few months ago about moving fifth grade from Evelyn cheeks over to Gravely Hill so we are
199building the reassignment plan the student assignment plan based on current configurations but also looking at where the needs of the district are and the students in which we anticipate to be serving in the years to come so I just wanted to make sure we were clear and understanding that as I approached the public and Community meetings foreign [Music] no no just really quickly because you know we are going to run into a little bit of a collision course to the things that you're talking about with the consultant study that the county has just launched so they're going to be looking at those really big picture items much longer term I'm just curious about what this timeline looks like for us to have this work done and then there was a question about starting Community meetings
200and if you don't want to answer that because people are tired um to start at the end of April 1st of May we want to have those prior to the end of the school year the student reassignment plan and options the orad work completed early fall board approval the goal would be December 23 notification to the public January 24 and then the student assignment plan to be approved for implementation thereafter the following year tight yes ma'am thank you thank you so much all right can we get a motion to go in closed session motion to move into closed session second all in favor aye okay we're gonna head to closed session foreign