Orange County Board of Education Regular Meeting - January 23, 2023

001thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] we'll call this 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 or to ask its citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy towards both School personnel and each other a moment silence will be observed before each meeting the board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain that they are either turned off or on by Ray to avoid interruptions in the meeting foreign we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance before the moment of silence [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with

002liberty and justice for all all right we'll take a moment of silence foreign ER yes good evening chair Atherton Vice chair Purcell to the entire board to our staff community members and families tonight we want to recognize some of the ways Orange County Schools honored the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr last week we started our community celebration and acts of service on Sunday January 18th by participating in the Dr King's wreath laying service at Calvin Street sponsored by hate free schools Mr Lee A Williams II our chief Equity officer provided a keynote speech entitled I have a dollar and a dream that I understand took people to church as the saying goes as part of the 28th Annual Northern orange celebration for Dr Martin Luther King Jr Orange County Schools students joined others

003from neighboring counties in the annual oratorical contest on January 7th at Gaines Chapel AME Church in eflin this year's contestants addressed the theme Imagining the dream fulfilled on Monday January 19th the winners presented their original speeches during closing commemorative service for Dr Martin Luther King Jr's birthday at Mount Zion AME church among the speakers was Gravelly Hill Middle School 8th grader John Williams IV winner of the Middle School Division all the winners received awards from the northern Orange County NAACP and Northern orange Dr Martin Luther King Jr commemorative celebration committee this Committee of local churches also organized to drive through car parade now a regular feature of local MLK Day Celebrations since 2021. the parade began with cars gathered at Gaines AME church and at Hillsboro Elementary formerly Central High School and Al stanback Middle

004School along with a yellow bus not just in the yellow bus it was an Orange County Schools bus that was dressed up as you can see I think it went so there's a Mr Williams in the previous video there's our bus and next year we already have plans instead of just balloons we will have balloons with the uh MLK on either side so it's already set uh and so we're excited about that but I also want to thank board members Mr Atherton Mrs Smiley and Miss Hauser for joining our longtime Orange County Schools bus driver and there she is uh pictured there miss Kathleen long who was so excited so excited to uh Drive the Bus in the parade and she also took board members to the service as she was able to participate in

005the service at Mount Zion where our very own Mrs Marie Tate as well as Mr Atherton and I gave brief remarks and again we congratulate Mr John Williams IV who won the Middle School Division of this year's oratorical contest we are currently planning to recognize him at an upcoming board meeting on February 6th so I invite everyone to come back or tune in uh you will be in for a treat I also want to note that as we honor the legacy of Dr King last week um uh yes I've mentioned that we started our celebration with the uh wreath-laying service at the Calvin Street sponsored by hey free schools and Mr Lee Williams and his speech so that was in my notes twice if you're wondering but it was worth mentioning again so at any

006rate um thank you all for that and then off to our next update or recognition and so at this time with our staff from the maintenance department so where are you all oh here they come It's a larger team any others from the maintenance department come on down yeah they come so Boyd you may recall uh last month we asked out technology team to join you for recognition uh tonight we continue introducing the valued members of the operations team and would like to recognize this team our maintenance team led by the one and only Nick Mincey for the phenomenal work they have done both before during and now following the demands and I must say the heavy demands of the pandemic the maintenance staff here tonight and who are pictured on this slide work in

007ways we almost never see and fully appreciate I recall One Night in particular at Orange High School working well into the night and just so appreciative of their work and that includes over the weekends In the Heat of the summer and in the cold of the winter they are doing the work for our Orange County Schools so we are very blessed to have these dedicated professionals who make sure we are in good working order and operating safely for students and staff at all times what makes their work exceptional and so highly valued is that almost um and that is almost always goes unnoticed we rarely ever notice when things are going well we mostly take it for granted but throughout the pandemic and 365 or 366 days of the year this team is watching out

008for the safety and well-being of everyone who relies on our schools and when there is an issue they respond quickly they respond professionally and with the skills that come from knowing schools inside out so tonight we honor all of you and we say that your service is one of the things that makes us who we are in Orange County Schools thank you is just a start and we applaud our maintenance team so let's give them a round of course thank you and so while Nick comes forward I'd also like to invite Mr Patrick aberly Deputy superintendent to uh come forward to say a few words on behalf of this awesome team as well thank you thank you so much for that Dr Felder um I'm pretty sure that you have broken into my email because

009that is basically my entire speech but also like to say thank you to the board thank you for the recognition tonight we very much appreciate it as a staff and as a department I will also say that we would have more employees here but Hank and I have worked them so hard today that they all had to take a break tonight so um so um I would like to say very very very much thank you so much for the recognizing um the work that our staff does and we are a family at maintenance I think about a lot of times we spend more time together than we probably spend with our families we are at that facility a lot the guys do work in the rain they work when the sun is out in the

010heat of Summer they clean up things that most of us would prefer not to ever have to think about we do fix a lot of things that most folks never have any idea were broken and we try hard to keep everything humming along we work critically through work orders when they come up we fix many things that many people don't understand or don't know what they do I think about the hours that we do spend after hours and I'm remembering Dr Felder was very kind and probably some of the best pizza I think our guys ever ate she was kind and brought us a meal one night while we were working at Orange High School and we were we were very much appreciative of that as a district it's pretty amazing we have completed since

0112003 is when we started tracking our work orders we've completed over a hundred and twenty thousand work orders since 2003 as a as a department many of those are preventive maintenance but a lot of them are requests from school and staff that's a a lot of a lot of work orders we do work together closely as a team and we do really we really do relish when we can make a change for a student or for a staff and I don't think it would be speaking out of turn for everybody that works in our department that children really do relate to our guys they will come up to our staff in the hallway and tell us thank you they will say good day to us they recognized when when maintenance facility staff is in the

012building and they are appreciative and our guys really do notice that we also really notice it from nights like tonight when there's recognition that's given to them so um I'll leave it at that thank you so much [Applause] can you say after Dr Felder and Nick has explained so well what this team does behind the scenes every single day the amount of work that they do the care and the efforts that they put forward is just unbelievable you can only imagine seeing the operation from a different lens whether it's snow storms trees down power outages inclement weather all of those things add on to the Daily work that they do and they do it without question they do it because they love their job they do it because they care about the district they care

013about the students whether it's 12 P.M in the afternoon or 12 a.m early in the morning they're out there making sure that we can operate making sure that schools can open and making sure that it's safe and our buildings are ready when we ask them to do that they also go beyond just the basic needs you know we've had maintenance staff who have gone out and read books with children they've gone out to participate to help out to support and volunteer in our schools as well we just can't thank them enough for the work that they do and I also want to say thank you to a former principal who always every year would make sure that there was a special time and a place at her school to recognize the maintenance department whether it

014was a cookout or a special meal within the cafeteria they recognize that and know that our principals and our schools value the work that they do so thank you and thank you to the district and our community for supporting this team foreign so any comments from board members no being a numbers person I would love to know how many square feet of facilities and how many acres of land you actually serve because I want to it's an out a daunting task I can't imagine the acreage I cannot give you I do know that our total square footage as a district this includes schools and all the other facilities we're right at 1.5 million square feet wow and included basically everybody on staff which would include folks like Donna who is taking a seat our admins

015and our office Personnel we basically have 20 people on staff for 1.5 million square feet wow so that's that's a lot to cover grounds maybe Patrick knows some number don't have that off top of Mind well that's fine that's you've made your point thank you so much thank you all we really appreciate everything you'll do every day and we couldn't maintain our buildings especially the shape they're in and we appreciate everything you'll do thank you all so much recognitions Mr Atherton thank you Dr Felder next we have uh public comments um the Board of Education welcomes public Comics which are governed by board policy 23. I think we need to adopt the agenda uh before comments yes um thank you um so are are there any items to be pulled from consent I am not

016aware of any all right with that can we get a motion to a job adopt the agenda so moved second we have a motion and a second uh any further conversation all in favor aye aye aye thank you all right um now back to public comment the Board of Education welcomes comments which are governed by board policy 2310 and North Carolina General 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 three-minute ends the speaker must stop speaking immediately yielding time to another speaker will not be permitted all public comments should be civil and non-disruptive disruptive per policy board members will listen carefully but will not respond to the speakers do we have up first uh up first

017we have sherry Callaghan Dr Felder chair Atherton Vice chair Purcell members of the board and members of the Orange County Schools cabinet thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Sherry calligan I am a Community member mother of two Orange County School students Orange County Association of Educators vice president and a veteran educator who has worked in the system for 14 years throughout my time in OCS I have built a reputation for being an advocate for students and teachers it is my goal to help Foster environments where teachers feel heard and supported because research shows that Educators who feel valued are more likely to remain in the classroom which leads to positive learning and environments and outcomes for students children are the reason we are all here this evening tonight I

018would like to draw public attention to the efforts of Dr Felder in her cabinet to support the Educators and staff of Orange County Schools first Dr Felder has visited each building in Orange County Schools to hear directly from staff about what is going well and improvements that need to be made both at building and District levels she also holds monthly Roundtable meetings with teachers of the Year where teachers share ideas celebrate the Innovative activities happening throughout OCS and discuss concerns Dr Felder and her cabinet hold monthly meetings with ocae these meetings ensure that Educators have a seat at the table when the cabinet considers issues that directly affect us during our meetings we have worked together to brainstorm ways to retain staff during a national teacher shortage make improvements to District communication for staff and

019discuss the inequities in OCS and how current School assignments perpetuate these long-standing inequities while I have not always agreed with Dr felder's decisions nor have I agreed with every decision of this board I can say that Dr Felder is working to understand the issues that impact those of us on the ground in the buildings with children each day in my time as an OCS educator I have worked under several superintendents Dr Felder is the only superintendent that has taken the time and effort to listen to the concerns of those of us who work directly to impact the future of Orange County Schools children I would like to thank Dr Felder for these efforts and encouraged the board to reflect on the impact this work has on making Educators feel valued Educators who feel valued stay

020our children are negatively impacted when Educators do not feel valued and they will leave our classrooms I will say it again Educators who feel valued stay thank you for your time thank you okay up next is Jennifer Scarlett foreign I'm here to speak on behalf of the Orange High School band about the band room and the possibility of having a flat Band Room I'm currently the band booster president for the Orange High School band my son is also a member of the marching band and the winter percussion Ensemble because of this I volunteer for a lot of band activities and events I want to talk about flattening the band room the band room currently consists of six risers there are a number of percussion instruments that have to be moved up those risers these instruments

021can weigh anywhere from two to four hundred pounds and require multiple kids to move them moving these large instruments causes multiple issues as a parent the most important of these issues is the possibility of kids getting hurt we experienced this during the current Year's marching band season where we had a kid injure their back digging these instruments we also had some close calls as well and have been lucky that there weren't more serious injuries all kids are expected to help in moving these instruments back into the band room after a competition practice or any other performance but for the heavier of those instruments there's only a small number of kids that are able to move these instruments so the risk is higher for these children the second issue is that these instruments are not intended

022to be picked up and moved around they have wheels and are intended to only be rolled into place picking them up and moving them has led to parts coming off and other damage that has caused us money to for repairs um and it we also lose time with those instruments we've thought through solutions to the risers we had a ramp at one point but that's not a permanent solution this ramp was in place and had to be used for a number of years it deteriorated over time and was has it's no longer in use I personally witnessed this ramp in use and it came with a lot of risk as well and did not provide a full solution to the Riser issue a rep only moves the instruments to the top Riser and at that

023point they still have to be carried down several risers to get into place as these instruments don't all fit on the top riser it's also a dangerous experience pushing a two 200 to 400 pound instrument up a ramp at a fairly steep incline it took a lot of strength in multiple kids to still push the instruments and it can still slide back down that uh riser to the uh the best solution is to flatten the band room we want to prevent injuries in the future thank you for your time and consideration thank you okay our next speaker is Seth hanzick school board and Ohs um staff and members we thank you for giving me the opportunity to come out and speak with you guys tonight and I am also here to talk about the band

024room as Miss Scarlett presented before I am that student that got injured due to the extraneous activity I am the current percussion Captain over the orange Band program and during my responsibilities of this I am responsible of making sure these instruments gets moved up and down during our various activities during the two to three month span of our marching season I'm having to constantly move up and down each of these averaging 300 pound instruments takes several of us and as I said I'm having to do quite a bit of work up and down unfortunately about two months in during the third week of August I suffered a severe back injury the left column muscle along my spine was severely severed and I had to go to the hospital for it I was able to recover

025but it took about two weeks to recover from it during these two weeks I had to stay at home do on medical leave and following this I had missed several of my classes one of the biggest ones being my AP Calculus class due to this um two weeks being out it's a very fast-paced class and unfortunately I'm having to stop my studies with it because of this injury um just as a whole this this problem with our band room is one that will impact us for several years if it's not fixed as for the past four years as I've been there it's been very difficult to no one and we just want to find a good solution for this to prevent me and several other students into the future from having to suffer injuries from

026this as Ms Scarlett said we have had several close calls with moving these up and down and a ramp has been posed as a solution in the past but due to this it causes steep angles which is very difficult to push up and down on these very heavy instruments and we just hope that we'll be able to find a good solution for this that'll work thank you for your time thank you okay up next is lashandra strong good evening board and um administrators all over this country there has been a concerted effort for um in schools to eliminate black leadership recently we saw an attack on Dr hamlet in southern Orange and now we now I'm afraid that our own leadership may be challenged this is not a coincidence we saw moms for Liberty and

027anti-inclusion parent groups uh creep into our political campaigns focus on impeding our Equity progress and also um more specifically plotting to challenge Dr felder's place here some of the members of the of our community are committed to a belief of exclusion quite frankly diversity scares them this means that black and brown children and other marginalized groups will continue to have difficult to get in the support they need we cannot let this happen sadly our elected officials are getting the wrong message they are beholding to those who supported the large sons in Orange County untrue websites car line protests and parent groups they have promised to dismantle equity promote false promises I'm sorry promote a single narrative and dismantle our equity in our schools again this is the result of a strategic political it's calculated and

028it's working but that's but not on our watch I've asked folks in our community to come and to talk about how we value having black leadership we value the work that Dr Felder is doing in this District it feels awesome to be able to have someone that we could call on when people have problems in the district and the one thing we know is that she will listen and she will respond I hope you will listen to the speeches that are coming before you and I hope you will take the time to listen to children who have a different story to tell than those that are thinking that Dr Felder is not valued in this District thank you okay Heather Redding foreign good evening my name is Heather Redding and I'm a parent of two

029children in Orange County Schools I'm here to express my gratitude towards one person this evening a person whose leadership in Orange County schools has navigated our community through an unprecedented pandemic and it was deserving of recognition superintendent Felder has Theodore School District through unchartered territory in a climate where right-wing groups have attempted and are still trying to undermine Public Health experts where they are targeting teachers and Librarians for embracing diversity and inclusion are trying to whitewash our educational curriculum and are wanting to deny trans kids their civil and human rights as you well know the extremist group moms for Liberty has been mobilizing Across the Nation to implement a white Christian heteronormative agenda in public schools they brag about their involvement in the termination of superintendents who don't yield to their extremism such superintendents include

030people like Mr Dion Jackson the first but now former black superintendent of Berkeley County School District in South Carolina and Larry Levin a former superintendent of Florida's Union Free School um an openly gay member of the lgbtq community I'm concerned that the local moms against Liberty chapter agenda includes targeting black leaders in public education one Hallmark of systemic racism is holding black folks to higher standards than their white counterparts and expecting absolute perfection in 21 moms for Liberty was up in arms over the belief that OCS teachers were being specifically trained in critical race Theory Dr felder's Administration shared a document a very transparent document called critical race Theory FAQ um which laid out talking points for staff um and it also laid out the scope of the district's Equity framework and explicitly stated that

031OCS doesn't teach CRT moms for Liberty's response was the claim OCS was training teachers how to deflect questions about CRT in short impossible standards are expected of our superintendent who should be evaluated on the progress our county has made under her leadership during the unprecedented World pandemic and not by benchmarks laid out by educational fascists moms for Liberty will try to gutter school district of anything and anyone who stands for Equity using propaganda throughout to draw in those who have held leadership positions in our County names that include that names that appear in the moms from Liberty Orange County Facebook group include people who have held leadership positions in her County like former School Board member Michael hood and people who still hold power like current North Carolina Supreme Court associate Justice Trey Allen until

032last week even NPR's Catherine Braun was also in the Facebook group we are blessed to have such a bold and excellent superintendent here in OCS thank you Dr Felder for your leadership and I hope the board continues to recognize you for your excellence thank you um Hillary McKenzie is up next in 2019 when will Atherton first became chair of the board four men unseated a black woman three meetings before her term as chair was over the four people who voted to remove the board's black leadership out of turn were will Atherton board member Richmond's brother-in-law Tony McKnight board member Hauser's close friend Matt Roberts and vice chair Purcell's friend and former colleague Dr Steven halchiotis who now attends these meetings to make sure the replacement team continues to vote as he directs them Miss Purcell

033and Mr Richmond you were you were endorsed by moms for Liberty in the last election and to my knowledge neither of you denounced the organization or the endorsement so I want to ask Mr Richmond which I'll do by email now why moms for Liberty feels comfortable endorsing him why do they think he will work to do they think that he will work to oust our Equity focused superintendent will he vote to ban books I've heard him say that he wants to unite the county so I want to ask him how he's doing that with his votes here we're still waiting to see evidence of this promise Miss Purcell you said to me in a forum In This Very Room that you feel like one of the biggest issues with race in Orange County Schools is

034black students saying racial slurs to other black students and the lgbtq affirming books should be kept in counselors offices so that kids can get the help they need when they want to access these books it's very clear why moms for Liberty cheers Ivan but our lgbtq students don't need help they need allies our students need board members who understand the nuances of racism who understand that racism rarely looks like proud boys and clan members the way that I have seen racism show up in this boardroom is the is the board taking continual direction from White retired administrators who upheld disparities in this district for decades it's a board taking nine months to make a decision about banning hate symbols from the dress code it's board members believing that black students are responsible for the race

035issues in this County it looks like a majority white board actively undermining a black superintendent all the while telling everyone their Pro Equity Pro diversity and frankly probably believing that they are is present when a board hires someone to close achievement and opportunity gaps but think they know more than the superintendent despite her career of success in doing so in addition to data from her tenure here which demonstrates student outcomes are moving in the right direction the story of a board who's working hard to backpedal progress because it threatens the Legacy and ego of one man members of this board please ask yourself what you're doing to support the leadership of this District at a time when our children need and deserve consistency our students are relying on the expertise of Dr Felder our superintendent

036who oversaw the highest percentage of schools meeting or exceeding growth of any District in North Carolina last year thank you [Applause] next is Megan durab am I saying that right d-a-r-a-b I'm sorry Dara Linda Larkin and Nancy greenkemper good evening school board members Dr Felder thank you for giving us this opportunity to address the audience tonight I'm Megan darub I am an OCS parent a member or a board member of porch Hillsboro and porch coordinator for the OCS porch collaboration located at Orange Middle School and I'm just going to tell you quickly how this collaboration began because it's kind of a a great story about how easy it is to make things happen when you have the right people in place so a couple of years ago I was in a parking lot with Avis

037Barnes lead social worker in our schools fantastic human being I said you know you got some pantry bits happening but we can streamline it for you so she said that's a great idea we could make it a bigger program and then I talked to Sarah Smiley about it and Sarah Smiley made things happen and we then started talking with Dr Felder and later Patrick abley about institutionalizing this program so that every month families in our community are getting the food they need and if you've seen anything that we've written recently it's all about if you want to talk about equality equality Starts with Food equality so our goal is to provide families in need in our community with the same high quality foods that everybody else gets to try and level the playing field but

038bottom line Dr feldersch came into the pantry one day it was you were a celebrity everybody stopped working and uh and greeted you and we welcome all of you to come come into the pantry and see what we're doing here we feed 150 families every month with fresh vegetables and and non-perishables and food and and Nancy's standing here because she started porch 20 30 years ago but in 2011 and um then I fell into doing porch and I left my job actually I left my job I found another job so it's really expanded over the years this Pantry at the school is just fantastic and actually these two people would brought that on so um but we wanted to before as we planned for the 23 24 school year we just wanted to take this

039time to thank all of the Orange County school team that has made it possible from Miss McBroom and Miss um Miss Avis Barnes as Linda mentioned uh Miss Bell Williams for allowing us to come into her school over and over again and putting up with us for the team in her school the the teachers that we have to ask questions or the quality custodial staff when we break and break something but um anyhow yes we're done but I just wanted to thank everybody we wanted to take this time just to thank everybody and the teamwork and what we're doing for our community so a little over but thank you thank you up next is Katie Harper thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I wanted to say a public thank you to my kids

040teachers not just this year it could make me cry but for the five and a half years our family has been in OCS my kids teachers have been engaging and kind they've been committed to their students they've been consummate professionals this year both kids have been lucky to have teachers who are nationally board certified it's hard to put into words how good these teachers are at what they do in the future I hope this board will do whatever you can to support teachers pursuing national board certification please reimburse every part of the process that you can find funds for I also wanted to thank my school's Administration for everything they do day in and day out to support teachers students and families School leaders have made this year of transitions feel smooth seamless and student

041focused I want to thank Dr Felder and her team for the changes they've made in recent years and how reading is taught in our district Dr felder's expertise in early literacy is invaluable to Orange County Schools I hope Dr Felder that you will choose to lead our district for years and years to come I am so appreciative of all you do in service to children in our district thank you to the board for your service please protect the work that our community has done to make our schools more inclusive and please stay focused on how to ensure that every student not just some students receive an excellent education in our schools thank you thank you [Applause] Massey good evening Dr Felder board and administrators tonight I come before you as a concerned citizen of the

042community but more importantly as a concerned parent of the Southern Orange County District about a week ago I was informed that we may be at risk of losing one of the great leaders I we have entrusted to lead the Educators who care for our children on a daily basis as a citizen of Orange County and as a native of Chapel Hill as a proud alumni of Chapel Hill High School I strongly believe in the importance of great leadership Dr Monique Felder is one of the greatest in my time in my experience as a parent of children in the Orange County School District Two to be exact and in working with Dr Felder to address pertinent issues within our schools I can honestly say she not only listens but she investigates she follows up and whether

043the the the favor the outcome is in my favor or not I appreciate that it is most important and that is the epitome of strong leadership it is more than I can say for many of the leaders in our district tonight I stand we stand in unity and in light of this leadership this black leadership Dr Felder is not only a valued leader but a type of mom in our community Dr Felder should not only be supported because she's black but because she's good thank you Amy thank you board Dr Felder for this opportunity to speak to you tonight I have two things that I really want to address first of all um in December uh Dr Felder attended an NAACP meeting for the northern orange branch several of you are members of that Branch

044unfortunately I don't believe I saw you at that meeting she came and she explained the Strategic plan for the um for the district and the plan is pretty incredible it's thorough it makes sense she explained it in a way that all of our members could understand and um the appreciation was so deep um for her taking the time to do that on a Sunday afternoon and to engage some of the oldest members of our community as well as many parents so I really appreciated that but more than her explaining the Strategic plan she hung out after the meeting and and spent time with our community members on a personal level and I don't know of any other leaders in this community that would do that and I think that it just showed and um an

045incredible side of her that not only is she willing to do her job she's willing to go above and beyond for the community and that is something that I personally really value in a leader the second thing that I want to address is the last board meeting that I attended during that meeting you all passed the equity plan and I want to applaud you for doing that I think the decision was unanimous and I think that that shows a tremendous commitment to equity from you all during that same meeting however four of you voted against an improvement plan from one of our middle schools and part of what you said about that was that you didn't feel like there was a concrete plan for that Middle School to cover the staff positions that were missing

046this was the second time that that plan had been presented to you and that plan had been assisted with the central office and you voted not to accept it I think that that was very disrespectful to the central office and the result was us losing yet another valuable staff member in Orange County so thank you for listening thank you [Applause] spring Dawson foreign good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak I want to just start by saying thank you Dr Felder and thank you Miss Hatcher for the way you've been engaging with the Gravelly Hill Middle School parents over the past days and weeks as the search for a replacement for Dr Glenn Rolex continues the community feels a lot of uncertainty and a lot of grief at the loss of Dr rolack and

047we appreciate you thank you the rest of my comments are um will be reading from Valerie Ehrlich who couldn't be here tonight she is an Orange County resident parent and OCS of an OCS student and member of the equity task force less than two weeks ago National Public Radio aired a story investigating the impact of moms for Liberty on Local School Board elections Nationwide they focus on Florida and Minnesota but they could have focused here in the last School Board election an active local chapter of moms for Liberty organized candidate forums and endorsed four candidates two of whom won their elections on the board Ms Purcell and Mr Richmond what I found most intriguing about the NPR story was the examination of the end game for these groups the investigators found that while sounding the

048alarms about books and critical race Theory these groups with the support of national backing were also quietly removing or simply not renewing superintendents it led me to wonder if a similar goal is unfolding in our community the timing of the story was particularly relevant as we see outrageous attacks on our neighboring Chapel Hill Harbor schools superintendent we often like to think that such things wouldn't happen here in this Progressive part of the state but will we look back in a year and a half and connect the dots to our own similar story I don't know but here is what we do know this District exhibited bravery in adopting policy that solidified an equity task force it exhibited bravery to be one of the first in the state to adopt a gender support policy that other

049districts have since modeled it exhibited bravery when hiring a black female superintendent to serve our community when a large Confederate flag still flies less than a mile away from this meeting room we also know that superintendent turnover is rapidly increasing Nationwide disproportionately for women and it is costly moreover the institutional history relationships and knowledge departing superintendents take with them is irreplaceable if moms for Liberty is angling for removal of our superintendent as posts in public groups on social media would suggest I encourage the board to consider the extent to which you are privileging the voices of those who do not represent the broader community I don't know if this is the end game perhaps it isn't regardless I would ask the board to be brave as you consider the incredible power you have to make

050decisions for our entire beautiful diverse growing Community decisions that can increase equity on issues big and small thank you [Applause] all right thanks everyone for coming out and speaking we always enjoy comments and feedback um that is the end of the public comment um we now have our consent agenda do we have a motion to approve so moved have a motion a motion is second any discussion all in favor I I all right next up on the agenda for discussion and action uh is approval for funding for Orange County Schools facility upgrades foreign Atherton members of the board Dr Felder superintendent we have a couple items this evening related to Capital funding within our schools you have an extensive amount of information in your packet this evening and just wanted to highlight the scope of

051work for this project in 2016 we had approximately 14.5 million dollars in bond funding allocated for classroom Edition at Cedar Ridge High School that project is completed and was completed just under 13 million dollars we still have approximately 460 thousand dollars dedicated to the school site for the building of the Agricultural barn or CT expansion Outdoor Classroom and we're recommending that we move 1 million forty eight thousand dollars that's remaining um excuse me one million seventy eight thousand four hundred seventy six dollars it's remaining in that project line item would be subject to the board of County commissioner's approval to complete facility upgrades at Orange High School the primary project is identified as the restroom facility upgrades that we discussed in your last meeting or the questions and comments about the request this evening any

052questions from the board I I do have one question given the concerns with the band room have we done any estimates or review on removing the risers from that we have done some preliminary I'll talk more about that in the next item which will require architectural and structural review okay okay I'll hold till then but if there is money left over from this project once we complete the restrooms that's a project that we would utilize funds for and I I think the other thing to highlight besides the restrooms and this is it doesn't explicitly list those is the restrooms that are in the field house and the sports area those are already being that's an ongoing project at this time that's correct this is uh what we're talking about with this project is indoor restroom

053facilities and then also looking to expand at additional restrooms on the campus for indoor use that's fantastic well just we we actually approved this project a couple about a month or so ago am I correct it's the same project we approved that moving forward and so now you're getting the move from four pieces which includes the design contract uh moving of the money then we have the design contract and then we'll go ahead and start the formal bidding process it'll take about six months for us to get the designs and get approval for the formal uh bids and and the project to start we will have to require DPI clearances there's a few steps still to go but we'll keep everyone informed as we move along it's hard to do a project without the funding

054so we want to make sure we've got this money tied to this project all right if they're in no other questions do we have a motion to approve motion to approve second I have a motion in a second any further discussion all right all in favor aye aye any opposed okay motion carries thank you all right so the next item on the agenda is uh quarterly redfoot and Associates this is a Design Services contract addendum last month we brought a number of services before the board with architectural and Engineering following an RFQ request for qualifications this fall we had several other projects that we identified that we would like to complete and so this evening we're asking for a contract addendum in the amount of 391 thousand dollars which will include architectural design and facility

055review for structural review of the cultural arts area at Orange High School in the Orange High School restrooms the project we just mentioned so with the design of the cultural Ultra Wing there's a slab movement issue we have some door issues on that end of the wing and then with the risers our understanding is they're concrete and they are tied to the slab which is part of the structural design We Believe from the original building and so we just can't go in and remove that until we have a structural analysis completed that will tell us one you know structurally how it was designed and tied in as a part of an anchor system to that or is it simply just something that was laid on top of the existing slab from that we'll be able

056to decide the projects to move forward into what direction would best be served by re removing relocating expanding Etc so it's really hard to tell exactly what we can do at this point in time until we have that review and Analysis completed and like I said there's other things going on in that area of the building so this is important for us to go ahead and look at that wing of the the building and uh we'll say Mr Nick minsey's here as well and he may have additional comments he would like to add on that this second project was the orange middle school media center several years ago prior to the pandemic we started renovating media centers and we just obviously stopped with the pandemic and so orange Middle School was next on the list

057and so we will need additional services to assist us with that there's a quite a few number of doors and entries ways that we want to redesign on that school and we certainly have to make sure it meets Life Safety egress and Code Compliance and then the other project we had talked about was looking at the AL stand back and partnership campus for expansion of additional future facilities there or the Corporate Drive site and so these are the services with Corley riffford allows them to do the site surveys and the investigations and review for Designing those projects and so um Nick do you have any you want to add anything on the cultural arts in this lab yeah I do um as far as the cultural arts building goes there is a corner of the

058cultural arts building that provides exit for the band room itself over years that was built on a section of of a fill and that Phil has settled and caused that corner of the building to drop um we've already done a door replacement in that area and header repairs and we will be headed towards needing to do that again and we also have done some preliminary investigation on the foundations and the footings for the band room building the front wall of the band room which faces the front driveway the footing for that is actually higher than the floor where the conductor would actually stand so there are some concerns with how we'll be able to navigate that elevation of that footing in relation to the main floor of the band room it will create it'll take

059some real creative to creativity to support that exterior wall just like Patrick addressed so we do know that it is higher we just have to determine how that could be handled foreign go ahead um thank you I'm just curious about timing um in light of the concerns about um safety it seems like we'll definitely need that address the marching band season starts in the summer and so I'm imagining a project like this is longer in scope than six months so the operations will address the concerns could very well we met with the architect on Friday and just expressed we laid out priorities of all these projects that we've presented last month and this month and we have this designated as high priority um and or and actually urgent to make sure that we can go

060ahead and get the reviews completed so that we can start the um process for any remediations and what the next steps would be thought I know that their risers also in the music room at Orange High School are those being looked at as well as is coming out or are they ADA Compliant and so the way we wrote the contract was to look at the cultural arts wing and so anything in those areas that are concerned we will address and look at as part of this process those have not been brought to our attention as a concern what was raised as a concern was accessibility and certainly understanding you know students having to Traverse risers and making sure um that if there were any Ada codes or any compliance and just functionality certainly understanding trying

061to conduct you know instruments and trying to have students placed in the correct locations that could be very difficult even if we met ADA requirements um you know we wanted students to be in the appropriate location so um did not know about some of the other information that was mentioned this evening and so we'll be reviewing um that as well but yes we certainly know there's an urgency to address that as Nick said once the team went over when the concern was raised and started looking at other structural issues then we knew we had a bigger concern on our hands and it was more than just trying to remove one item in that wing of the building thank you but we will certainly review while we're there Bonnie yeah Dr Felder has been visiting our

062schools I think one of the speakers even mentioned it in getting some important facilities upgrades from our schools and some some actually affect the safety of the schools and I was curious how those requests are getting Incorporated I don't know if it's here or in the capital plan but how do they get on the list how do they get prioritized and then how do we feed back to the schools and let them know what we're doing so thank you a couple different ways one is we have direct conversations with our principals both with on-site meetings site visits this year we specifically also gave them a forum and a format to provide a like a 30-day window to submit any prioritized capital projects for us to review we always start with a Life Safety Systems we

063look at things that are end of life things that certainly have identified in facility reports maintenance reports things that are issues on the campus we also look at planned upgrades and how can we improve the spaces within those upgrades and so there is a form for input with that the second piece of of that is understanding this year what was already on the books I I totaled up just a little while ago and so we gave every principal backed looking at a master listing of CIP projects that still haven't been completed to date and so so every school principal has a listing of projects and the appropriate or amount of cost on those projects that to be completed and so that helps them understand that yes there's there's emergent needs some of those needs fall

064under the maintenance department some of our Safety and Security needs we address through our Safety and Security funding we don't typically talk in the open public about those but we do address those we do have money and every year we set aside money and in fact this board even prior to having set aside monies with the bond did a special allocation when I first came into the district several years ago several hundred thousand dollars devoted directly for safety so every year there is money devoted to safety so smaller items whether it's access controls blinds in classrooms those projects are completed through maintenance work orders or if it's identified during a lockdown drill are identified by our sros or other individuals they raise those concerns either to the director maintenance or to our director of security

065and then we make sure those projects get completed if it's a project that's beyond the scope of a one-time ask or it looks like it's going to exceed you know more than fifty thousand dollars then obviously we have to start looking at a longer range CIP budget item and tagging it as an individual project versus just a small project we can do um with our allocated resource so we have two avenues that we can cover we can cover it through our normal maintenance processes or we can cover it under our larger projects which is what you see under the CIP plan I'm just clarifying so so just to so so so these meetings happened the request came through you've given the principles a list of what you're planning to do so you're asking the principals

066now to add those things to the list so so the list the the school has to now formally ask for those the things that they asked for in a meeting is that what you're saying no the larger scale projects we formulate as part of the superintendents as part of our Capital plan that we bring to you which is the list you'll have later on this evening the smaller projects the smaller items principles request those and then we either do those or complete those through the maintenance process because if it's something that's broke needs repairs needs fixed or if it's an addition planned item if it's a small project we take care of it through those routes if it's a larger project and we don't have the funding identified for that then we're going to add

067it to the capital list so that we bring it before you thank you but what we what we've really tried to do is be more transparent in the process so that folks understand there's an Avenue and even our staff members um you know understanding part of the process that maintenance has been going through is evaluating maintenance work order systems so staff members get a status update and they know you know something that's not working or something that needs to be addressed or are we with that is it due to you know we just can't uh fix the item if are we waiting on stock are we waiting on supplies or are we waiting on like this you know these processes that we have to do for the larger processes which is you know incorporate and

068then the based on the funding and the process we we bring it before you we also go through bid processes and so those projects do take a little bit longer to get completed okay thank you um just one comment from me uh given what we've heard tonight about the concerns with the 300 pound equipment and moving that around if we're not able to address it I would like to have the board have an update on it interim plan so we don't have kids that are having to do that and put them in some kind of risk all right any other questions oh this is a voting item yes any other questions oh sorry no go ahead I just gotta make a motion to approve okay we have a motion do we have a second second

069the motion is second any further discussion all right all in favor aye opposed okay motion passes thank you all right next we have our working session and I believe it's the Draft plans for the 2023 summer school program foreign president Appleton and vice president miss Purcell board members and Dr Felder superintendent Miss Wilson and I are very pleased to bring to you and share with you an update on the summer Scholars for 2023. if you recall back in September we shared the outcome and success in some not only quantitative data but some qualitative data of our summer programs of the summer of 2022 one of the recommendations or or the recommendations coming from that presentation was to start start to look at a start stop and continue protocol which looks at what worked what we

070need to tweak and what we want to continue with to begin planning earlier and to continue to look at the impact of the summer scholar program on our student performance throughout the year so I'm pleased to bring to you an update on the summer Scholars Program this is sort of part one of our summer programs update for you next month we will share with you additional summer programs offering this evening we're going to look at the read to achieve program and summer Scholars foreign good evening I'm happy to share the beginning um kind of plans with you so before we talk about what we might look at for this year we just want to take a moment to look at kind of historically what have we done and some of the why behind that as

071you know RTA Camp is legislatively bound to some restrictions with the schedule the number of hours and the students that must be served in that program so 72 hours of literacy instruction so it's not just instruction it has to be direct literacy instruction must be provided to at minimum second and third graders Senate Bill 387 does allow us the opportunity to extend that program to more students and it even suggests in the bill to consider first grade or earlier we're also required in that program to provide pre and post-assessment data that also has to be submitted to DPI along with the attendance in the program and there are coding that has to happen in power school now for students that are participating in summer programming both for RTA as well as other summer programs that

072we offer through summer Scholars summer Scholars does not have the hour requirements in the schedule requirements of RTA and in the past we have historically served different groups of students with various programs outside of RTA last year we had 800 students who were invited to attend RTA camp and we had about half of them 400 who attended last year with Summer Scholars we invited about 700 students and 250 people said that they would come but only about 70 percent of those actually attended based on their attendance each day additionally um we saw that participation in the grades four through eight as just noted in that data was lower and it was much more challenging to get the students to bring back the forms and a lot of hours went into calling and having to make

073those appeals with families to get their students registered and then once we got them registered to actually get them to come to camp and if they did attend to attend consistently um research does show that earlier intervention is more impactful than trying to intervene later on in the schooling life um and many questions that we've gotten around planning for summer programming is you know well what did our data look like how many kids do we think are going to qualify this year so here I've provided for you the beginning of your data please note that the beginning of your data especially kindergarten can be very misleading and we are currently in the middle of the Year assessment window currently we have about 78 as of about 11 o'clock today we have 78 percent of our

074middle of the Year assessments completed and I would estimate roughly around 700 students qualifying for read to achieve camp one change that we are proposing this year um that I'm excited about is that we are going to offer eligibility based on Moi period we are not going to pull back eligibility if a student demonstrates proficiency between Moi and eoi because what we know is that a student who demonstrates proficiency at the eoi window oftentimes has not truly solidified those skills they are still solidifying them in extra practice being offered to them would be beneficial in maintaining that growth through Boi of the following year so all family letters will go out the end of February we already have those in the works with our PowerSchool manager Joy has been fantastic at helping us get the

075system to work for us and generating those letters and we hope that our families are excited to have earlier notification so that they can plan for the summer and we also hope that that impacts our enrollment [Music] um the other camp that we will talk more about later but we wanted to put on your radar is recognizing that we need to do some sort of middle school math support that will be housed at Gravity Hill this summer and eligibility for that will be determined on multiple data sources that we've listed here for you in addition to teacher recommendations the grade levels that we hope to serve of course we have to serve second and third graders as part of read to achieve that's legislatively bound but we would like to think about serving K1 with

076our summer Scholars Program and even considering if there is additional spots for us to bring in some Rising kindergartners focusing first on our Title 1 schools and our current Pre-K classrooms and we would model that after the kindergarten Readiness program that was previously run in this District was success at New Hope Elementary School the dates and hours of the camps are here listed for you so there will be like a summer session one and summer session two um Hillsborough Elementary School would be the summer session one there will be some other programs offered at the high school level and CTE programs that we'll talk more about later but they would coincide with these dates you can note here um with those dates Hillsboro will get 13 days of instruction in order to meet that 72

077hours of literacy instruction we need their day to be 30 minutes longer than the traditional schedule because they have two more days so we have calculated the hours pulling out transitions recessed lunch and we can provide all the literacy instruction and run a very similar schedule to what we offered last year at Hillsborough Elementary and then High School Credit Recovery is listed but I think more information will come at the next meeting around those in terms of the summer programming that's utilized in summer Scholars and RTA focusing on our early learners k-3 we've just listed for you again some of the programs that we utilize for phonics phonemic awareness small group instruction language comprehension ensuring that we're building all of the facets of literacy as well as providing opportunities for our students to have stem

078enrichment engage in their speaking and listening standards as well foreign just some final information I want to share with you um the summer Scholars will be housed at Pathways and New Hope Elementary Schools transportation lunch and breakfast as well as after care programs will be provided and you will note here we've identified the pave for certified classified as well as the site facilitators foreign as noted we will come back next month and provide you an update on the other summer opportunities and programs that we plan to provide for our students that concludes our update we'll pause for any questions Carrie thank you so much this is really great information I remember this time last year our Educators were really exhausted and uh we had to or y'all had to plan on scaling back the summer

079programs because people um just were really exhausted teaching through the pandemic and not as many people wanted to teach in the summer programs and I'm just curious about the numbers and I know um I know how persistent you are Miss Wilson so I know um no no stone is going unturned but I'm curious are we seeing um if I heard you write um foreign there were let's see about 700 qualifying at this point for a reed to achieve and last year 800 were invited is that an indication that we're making some gains so as as I mentioned only 78 of our data is in currently I have 620 students who are eligible um as of 11 o'clock today okay I looking at the percentage that's not in and kind of the grade levels and the

080schools where those are and kind of digging into that a little bit my rough estimate is around 700 students will be eligible currently we have 620 based on 78 completion of assessments thank you and in terms of the Staffing we did look at the dates to try to match that up with the preference that staff indicated based on last year they indicated that they liked having a break at the end of the school year they kind of got to recharge their batteries they can come in and teach it's only three weeks five days a week um and then they have another break before they come back for the school year so that was staff preference and we hope that that will help us in leveraging getting our most qualified teachers to be a part of

081this and those that are really interested in helping our students succeed this summer in addition Additionally the schedule for the summer Scholars and and read to achieve the July 10th through the 28th that three-week window will not have any breaks for students that was the one thing that we also saw whenever we had holiday break or any other time the attendance was impacted so it's it's uninterrupted period of time there are also teaching bonus teacher bonuses for teachers that have demonstrated exceptional growth exceeding growth via evos there are bonuses that are attached to that for them if they teach in summer programming and then for any teachers who teach in third grade and their students demonstrate proficiency as a result of the camp there's also an additional bonus for them per child other questions Bonnie

082my first want to thank you it's exciting that we're so we're so far ahead and they're using the mid-year assessments to decide who's eligible so thank you so much for that and of course I think you know that I'm really excited that we're looking at the Readiness Camp as a as a basis for some of this work we have kids and especially our most vulnerable kids are pretty far behind there's lots of them and so I wonder about grades four and five I wonder about um you know should we really take and also even three weeks if that's enough so just curious are we looking at this big enough and the earlier we could know you know then the earlier we can start begging for money for it so just so you hit the nail

083on the head with that one so based on the funding that we have available from multiple sources we can serve about 600 students comfortably 700 is going to be really tight and we have met with Rhonda and her team to try to make sure that we are squeezing every bit of that that we can and trying to make decisions you know scaling back the things that we can scale back on so that we can expand for more students um you know even the ratio right um last summer we ran at one to twelve this summer we're going to come out of the gate with at least one to fifteen um just so we can have more students and still be able to get you know serve at least 600 students in our budget let me

084ask that question differently you know the Commissioners pressure us all the time for more accountability and so um and we can only do so much with the money we have and if we can go to them and say we have enough money to serve 700 students use your number but we really would like to serve 2000 we're going to need this much more money from you to do that is it possible I mean let's make this a perfect world right we're just right is it possible to put something like that together for us because I think we all want to say yes right um and going back to your point I think we also have to have the Staffing we have to have the bus drivers our staff have to be able to lift it

085and then also thinking about Mr Avila's team also having schools ready to reopen and that was one of the reasons that we also looked at three weeks being really intensive it's only one day less than what we offer when we did it four days four weeks so the other part too and if I can can Echo what Ms Wilson said with regard to the other factors that we have to consider whenever we're looking at programs and ideally we would love to to be able to serve all who qualify one of the things that we looked at was attendance of our upper grade students and of the students who qualified the percent of students that actually attended also impacts we are not closed on looking at upper grades and including um that the students in the

086summer programs certainly we had to make some hard decisions and in targeting a smaller number and and also looking at where we're going to try to get more bang for our for our dollars and and put in the supports at the early ages early stages we saw higher attendance uh greater outcomes and if indeed you get that windfall of money yes indeed we will go back and see how we can can use it and add additional students thank you other questions so I have one Clarity question so so last year the way it worked is a family would receive a letter that says you may qualify for this and then like you said after the integrated test then they would get oh you are qualified and then they had to make a decision that point

087so they had two kind of notifications one that was uh maybe maybe not and then the one that says you are I just want to confirm the way I read this is we are saying based on the middle of the year you are not a you may be yes sir okay there will be one letter is like congratulations you've been selected you're eligible to go right for summer scholars in RTA Camp we're so excited that you want to be a part of this like that's kind of the tone of the letters that we send and we'll go ahead and give parents the specifics the dates the times the transportation breakfast lunch they'll respond back to us yes my child plans to attend I need Transportation I need after school care all of that will be

088um part of that letter and then once we get closer to the end of the year we will ensure that they remember that this opportunity exists for their student and then we will also double check that there wasn't a student who was Green at Moi or not demonstrating um that they're not going to be reading proficient that comes up you know at risk at eoi we will also make sure that those students get looped in if we have that occur which is not usually very often we will check for that fantastic and I'm also excited to hear about the potential for the Readiness for Kay I know there's been a lot of success around that and having that expanded and getting the opportunity to lots of incoming kids I think is a great way to

089give those kids that opportunity before they get into the school setting we are hopeful that but you know we will have the funds available to make that happen in the spots available yeah so just for clarity you should come to us with what the funds are and let us ask for the funds from the County Commissioners we should not be limiting ourselves to what we currently have we we're here to fight and so is the community so please let us know eligibility we can come thank you well can I add something to that our budget cycle happens at the end of the year so we don't know until June what we're actually getting which is too late so the earlier you can give us it doesn't have to be we're not looking for a detailed

090number we're looking for if we have 700 students it'll close this if we have a thousand of course this if just rough numbers you know you said also the resource constraints which has me a little concerned but um yes if you can come back to us so because we're we could in our earlier meetings with the Commissioners we could start to raise the topic thank you all right next we have the capital investment Capital Improvement or capital investment plan CIP all right so thank you I'm back again we do reference our capital investment plan as the CIP I do want to recognize Nick Muncie director of Maintenance Hank McKee assistant director maintenance and Patrick Florence our director of capital in construction projects here this evening as we formally bring before you our capital investment plan

091just for the general public and knowledge we develop a 10-year Capital plan the year one of the plan is the plan that's funded annually by the board of County Commissioners this is the first step in the process typically December January time frame we bring the capital investment Plan before the Board of Education the Board of Education once finalized after our next meeting or so or when approved by the board we will submit that to the board of County Commissioners they will work on the funding process for that and the approval of that while they're working on the other budgets for the school district and then we actually do not or would not receive the funding for fiscal year 24 which are the projects we're reviewing this evening until July 1 and so there is a

092little bit of a time frame between us presenting the projects and we receive funding there are standard funding formulas from several different pots that the county uses primarily those are debt financed projects and so those you we will refer to those within the plans we also have recurring capital article 46 sales tax which we use primarily for technology and then we do receive lottery funds from the state through the board of County Commissioners and so all of those funding sources consist of our capital investment plan you heard me speak previously about our bond funds and so we do have carryover projects from either previous CIP funding that has taken place in the district or through Bond funding or other supplemental funding the County Commissioners gave a three-year supplemental deferred maintenance funding of 12 million dollars

093a couple years ago we're using those funds for identified projects but also in reserves as we complete the bond initiatives which primarily consisted of the large project I talked about earlier the classroom Edition at Cedar Ridge High School over 10 million dollars was spent of bond funds on the mechanical system upgrades at Orange High School and then there's an additional 15 million dollars in mechanical systems that we're currently working on roof projects and other projects and the bond funds and so before you this evening is our fiscal year 24 facilities requests that would go to the County Commissioners for new money for fiscal year 24 as mentioned earlier we utilize our previous facility assessment from 2013 our safe havens which was a safety audit that was conducted a roof assessment that was conducted in 2016

094and then the board of County Commissioners has authorized an RFP was completed a comprehensive facility assessment of school buildings that includes Orange County schools into Chapel Hill Harbor City Schools they are in the process of reviewing and analyzing those bids for the facility assessment and so at some point in time we will get back an updated facility assessment and that would be included in the long-range facility plans starting years two through year 10. and so at this point in time we're just presenting again this evening year one waiting on the additional facility assessment and then we will provide you additional updated information for years two through ten that are all unfunded again it just see it's funded each year annually we do understand last week the board of County Commissioners in an amendment in motion

095passed an additional 12 million dollars to be identified for Capital and we're still waiting the actual amount that we would receive and that would be applied to this year's Capital Improvements so projects that may have been unfunding I will talk about a gap that we're seeing next year we could apply those funds for upcoming projects as well but it's non-recurring money and that was due to sales tax projections I believe so I'm looking over at the 5 finance officer because she'll help keep me on track with that one all right so projects again won't go over all the projects you have a packet of materials you can see the projects that we're going to be focusing on in the fiscal year 24 funding restrooms as we mentioned intercom systems roofs mechanical systems classroom improvements we

096have two large projects that are continuing at Central Elementary School and at F1 cheeks Global Elementary School site surveys everything from looking at structural issues and deficiencies to expansions of Renovations Paving projects and a priority on playgrounds so those are just some of the general areas we'll be focusing on this year I want to think about capital in as capital 365 no it's not the card that's in your wallet we really as you heard the summer program struggle to complete projects especially in older buildings large-scale capital projects is impossible to complete those projects in six weeks time frame during the summer months and so for the last couple years we have collectively as an organization scheduled and reviewed some are programming to coincide with capital renovations to coincide with maintenance projects to coincide with getting

097schools ready and prepared for opening for a new school year we are busier in the summer just about that any point in the year because right now we're operating on a daily schedule of operations in the summertime we're doing all of those things we're we're helping and logistically working to coordinate summer programming while preparing for the next school year while getting contractors in building Etc we have to look at ways and identify ways to get projects done 365 days night work weekend work scheduling during off sessions or when school's out of session utilizing swing space that was a priority we talked about with bringing mobile units into effluent cheeks in order to kick-start those projects plus prepare for capacity needs we'll do the same thing at Grady Brown we've talked about that several years ago

098with the County Commissioners we do not have additional swing space in this District to move students to why buildings are being renovated we have older buildings those buildings certainly have hazardous materials those buildings require individuals to be on the campus and lots of noise that takes place for some of these projects and so it just becomes very difficult to do it and that does contribute to the backlog it's not an excuse it's just a reality so part of our project and our planning is addressing how we move forward as we receive Capital dollars but hear me say It's never enough we don't receive enough money to keep our aging facilities open and can keep them up to date to today's standards and so you see a wide variety of projects you see projects that are

099continuing you see projects that need to be completed but will always consider in and move projects forward that are Urgent or projects that need to be completed I don't think we do a good enough job of talking about the projects you don't see the things that are on the roofs or things that are behind the closets and so we need we need to do a better job of that of communicating to our schools to our staff to our to our principals and to our families about what work is taking place and what work is coming or is scheduled to be done on the school campuses so when you look at the categories of projects we've identified 2.956 million dollars in new projects for next year year one of the CIP our technology funding needs we

100have it 1 million 24 136 dollars and then we have some carryover projects that were scheduled for carryover funding or funding to utilize in the next fiscal year and those total 2.652 million if you add all three of those categories up that's 6.641 million six hundred seventy four thousand dollars we're scheduled to receive as of today again the whatever was passed or information that's forthcoming is not updated in our numbers that were submitted last week we're scheduled to receive 3.159662 that leaves us a funding gap which what up we have on paper today of 3.48 million dollars for our Capital needs for next year and that the carryover projects we had identified New Hope Elementary School Bradley Hill Middle School we have just a small project at River Park and a small project at Orange

101middle our roof projects carryover was 1.7 million safety upgrades there is code compliance with fire doors and dampers we had allocated 1.5 million but we still have an additional We Believe 500 000 in need we talked about structural building repairs those are carrying over we do have an ALS wall that also needs an assessment that will be completed and we talked earlier about the Orange High School cultural Cultural Arts so at this time this evening I'm not proposing we cut anything from the list we have a need identified of um just over 6.6 million dollars I recommend that we continue to advocate for the identified need for next year and then await the facility study to identify the longer term need again the money we currently have on hand that we're utilizing the Architects and

102Engineers for we're going to move forward and get those projects completed and I want to advocate for an additional funding that we have which is our local recurring Capital we receive as part of the capital budget each year and those recurring Capital funds are used for unexpected repairs things that were not a project identified where we have something that breaks or water our heater goes out and we we need to repair that it covers all of our service contracts it covers some of our painting projects carpet projects all of our athletic equipment facility repairs floor refinishings and the gymnasium there's just a whole host of items buying ceiling tiles light bulbs all those things come out of our recurring Capital funds I will tell you I've never seen a time with recurring Capital funds that

103we have depleted our funds at this to where we are at this point in a school year we're over 90 percent are right at 90 percent of our funds depleted in recurring Capital everything costs more money every service contract every supplies we buy every thing that we're utilizing or individuals we're calling to assist with repairs and so I would continue to Advocate that our recurring Capital funds needs to be increased from the county as well um that's the information I had uh comments I uh prepared to share with you questions or comments about individual projects or identified need for fiscal year 24. Carrie thank you Mr ability just a quick question when you referenced um the 3.5 million dollar funding Gap and that the County Commissioners mentioned or identified an additional 12 million is that

104split with Chapel Hill where we usually get slightly less than half or is that so that has been the when they base it on ADM we would receive somewhere in the 40 percentile range but I believe that funding is going to get split three-fold there's some County funding that's coming out of that based on their Amendment there's also paying for the facility study um out of that and then we get to whatever that split might be so at this point we're still just waiting on what that number will be thank you and I know one time you came and we we when we were talking about the trailers at eflin have you determined how many trailers are going to need to go there because you're going to be doing renovations as well as as other

105things so have you determined exactly how many we plan 10 uh mobile units at eflin that's what we're mobilizing for we're writing the contract for um and what we plan to have all the furniture furnishings and that was A Five-Year Plan not knowing the future and knowing additional excuse me Renovations that may come out of the facility study you know we felt like a Five-Year Plan would work well on that campus just with the extensive need that needs to happen plus unlike some of our other campuses we have the space for them and the service area with the utility sewer all of the connections it just it lays itself out better for us to to have the additional space there um you know we we would like to have mobile units at Central Elementary School

106for their project we just don't have room really on that campus as limit as we are with the space to be able to put mobile units yet we're still looking but at this time we we don't have a project there I know the ones that you had at Orange High School did not have bathrooms are these going to have bathrooms there is a bathroom facility on these and the way we've designed them is try to keep them all enclosed just for safety and not have individual mobile units but keep them as a unit with the hallway and and keep everything together on the campus and that also helps us on running technology running Life Safety Systems canopies walkways steps all of those things that have to be co-compliant if we had individual buildings so this

107is designed as a one Mega unit that gets pieced together sounds good thank you funny just building on Carrie's question so after you know we don't know how much exactly that we're going to get from the county of the uh 12 million but does it it sounds like it's pretty close to what you're proposing you know you're 3.4 million 3.5 million dollars short looks like we're might get 3.5 out of that Mike something close to that correct we don't know yet and that's on fiscal year that's on this current fiscal Year's funding from the county 2122 now as they look to the Future because again that was based on their projections for the for this year I still think that they're reviewing and looking at what could they add to projections that will come in

108for the next fiscal year as well so I think we don't know um you know what was decided last week our understanding is was based on the current fiscal year and they're still reviewing the next fiscal here if there's any additional Capital allocations that can be made and I don't know where that discussion is or at what point that will be discussed or if that will come after the facility studies completed yeah we we haven't that that's not a part of this plan at all it is not that was new information that came up last week that we were in a county meeting we we actually um we have been working to do a quarterly reconciliation with the county on Capital just to keep everyone on the same page and understand what projects were were

109happening where we are in the bidding process because again as the county is taking on debt financing of projects we want to make sure we time things right that they're not drawing down money prior to us being ready for the money to hit the books because you're you're paying on that debt and so um we we've all been very busy and struggling through the pandemic but we do have a great process we feel going forward with reconciliations on quarterly basis with the county and then like we did last week in our meeting it also gives us an opportunity to talk about the projects we're doing so you know we we get Beyond The Narrative that we have some funding we're not using we we have plans for funding it's getting the vehicles and getting the

110processes rolling again in order to get the work done but there's there's a greater need than what we're funded for that's been documented for several years now no question not close right not close not close all right other questions and this is just for information tonight yeah so thank you uh for presenting this and the background um definitely supportive of um going in with our full need versus what we think we may get allocated uh I just had one question about um the project around efflon cheeks we know that they've had um sewer issues in the past is there a current project on the books to look at how we address it more holistically versus as things pop up yeah so we we've looked at multiple issues um at EC um F1 cheeks we have

111had CRA is planning exterior looks at storm water which has been a big concern around the exterior of the building we've talked about that at length now so that is in the process of being designed or studied as far as the interior portion that will fall under the second phase of efflon cheeks which works through Suds contract in conjunction with DTW architecture out of Durham Paul Young is the principal for there and Mr Florence myself have met with him and we're continuing in discussions on how to make repairs to the classroom restrooms which are the largest concern for that school not going into detail some of the past piping was an odd configuration needs to be updated excellent thank you thank you both hence why we think we need mobile units on the campus for

112five years get it right thank you thank you all right next up um we have an update on the work of the family Liaisons chair Atherton Vice chair Purcell Dr Felder members of the board thank you for for having us come and present uh this is the second part of a presentation that we began a couple weeks ago and I'm very pleased to have Sandra blefko who is the esteemed uh Family Outreach coordinator and in many ways an architect of a lot of what we're talking about and you all know because you've been there and helped uh helped along the way so you will have seen a lot of what we're going to talk about in your abstract but there's one thing that's that's kind of brand new and that's the fact that our annual

113targets have been updated we have a lot of new information from Dr sarfo surrounding the key performance indicators in our strategic plan and it's kind of daunting I'm just going to be honest with you it was a little um uh it's a got my coffee to keep going because um we have a steep goal to double the engagement among our African-American black families in the district and quadruple our engagement among our Latino and Hispanic families in the district and given what we talked about a couple weeks ago it's a good thing that we have a lot of different angles on this problem and we're going to talk a little bit about that tonight so the family liaison team the family liaison role and the work that they do is what we're going to talk about

114tonight and again Sandra is going to share some stories we also have a couple testimonial videos that I think are going to be really exciting to share with you all what we need you to take away from tonight's presentation is that interpreting and translating is in many ways part of the DNA of the role except everywhere else it's done family Liaisons Navigators people who operate as a concierge or support Advocate all the different words that you would use they provide so many meaningful skills and translation and interpretation are included among them and we're going to be trying to tease out the priority among those as we look for the how the liaison role is going to work in the future so you're seeing here some of the slides that we presented earlier and had these

115a couple weeks ago and again they're in your in your abstract but what we'd really like you to understand is this framework of helping families navigate and get over around through under it doesn't matter how you get there you have to get to the other side of a barrier and so on the on the left hand side you can see sort of the the Genesis of the role translators and interpreters um case in point so um this began when there was a need perceived in our schools and using language skills first among our language teachers then ESL teachers then staff you you know the whole story I don't have to rehearse it again but translation and interpretation have been raised to a very high level in the understanding of the family liaison role and as

116it has grown in the past few years we really want to draw your attention to the right side of this right we're reading from left to right our family Liaisons are becoming well known for helping families navigate both the school and the district as a whole they are connecting families students and staff with resources and again I'm not going to read the slide except to draw your attention to the bottom they translate and interpret when necessary and as you heard over the past few weeks and months the number of newcomers continues to grow quickly we've added from the from 33 languages in our district to over 40 just this year alone so things are changing almost as rapidly as we can keep track I'm going to share with you some slides again this is in

117the abstract that you have for reading on your own as well as after after the meeting so Sandra is our team leader she is in many ways like I said the architect and um you know Trailblazer for this program um before I skip or slide though this slide used to look different and Sandra doesn't know this slide she hasn't seen this one yet she's not used to having schools under her name so as you know we've been doing some reconfiguration and in this past year we are in the hiring process to bring on our first liaison who is exercising just liaison skills for whom language skills will be optional and not their primary role um so Sandra has been filling in and doing work at Evelyn cheeks River Park and Gravelly Hill and that means

118that there's a little bit less time to do some of the other things which we'll get into later so senya is one of our team members who does an amazing job I'll share anecdotes about each of these folks as we go through Ruth is doing a you can almost always catch with Pizarro at Orange High School except she has two other schools and stays very very busy shuttling between them and Donette is the newest member of the team who spends an awful lot of time at Cedar Ridge which you would expect because there's a huge population of students there and we also have students at Stan Mac and partnership who need assistance as well so these are some slides that we're not going to dwell on these These are slides that you would see if

119you were coming to an introductory presentation which our schools need some assistance in learning how to use liaison time and help our families need assistance and our Community Partners need assistance that the job of the family liaison role in all of its manifestations is to build relationships and to build capacity to break down barriers uh and open Pathways so there's all very often this question what do we do and that's a really long list only that one's even longer right so we tried to boil it down for you what is working well when our family liaison roll is at its highest promoting communication first of all tracking translation Expediting translation and interpretation but overwhelmingly making Partnerships work uh the number of ways that I can see Sandra's time pulled on her calendar boggles my mind

120I try to get on her calendar she tries to get on mine between seeing the family success Alliance the orange partnership and all the other different organizations that we're working with it really is daunting to get on Sondra's calendar and yet this year we managed to bring back I've highlighted the Orange County Literacy Council again because even tonight right how many people are well do I know because he was in a school night for the students but yes uh that's right they took a break yes yes so the ESL adult classes are back at Orange County schools and we started with Evelyn chicks it's been a success we have over 55 parents there have been learning English language in there and soon we're gonna start with New Hope Elementary in as early as March yes

121March the second so we're very excited because the schools have been supporting the program glad to see Ms Parks here and we know that Dr Mayer is likewise eager to have these families in her building so we just wanted to highlight that this partnership aspect of the role is one of the things that can easily get lost when we're doing the day-to-day we have to have both we have to have really good air support and really excellent support on the ground and these work together and the work continues and Dr Dreyer was here Lee Williams the SEC uh we're all out there growing the relationships that make this program work but what's if if we're not careful we're going to miss the day-to-day as Visionary and as exciting as the program is the day-to-day really

122matters and Sandra has been fastidious I'm so proud to say that because this data is helping us understand where we really are and where we've been this is part year data uh and again this this is probably probably actually two three weeks old so the numbers continue to grow but what what I want you to see is the numbers tell a picture notice how variegated this pie chart is we are in all the schools the family Liaisons are serving all the schools but some clearly take precedence and you can tell where they are what kinds of requests are coming in it's really interesting to note that uh an awful lot of verbal interpretation results come in as well as uh you know the translation written translations mean a lot we're going to talk about the

123case studies of a couple different schools when we get to the end of the presentation to kind of talk about the path forward and what it might look like verbal interpretation uh you know parent-teacher conferences take an awful lot of the work I mentioned senior miralda who's at Grady Brown and a couple other schools and one of the first ways that I got to know Sanyo was walking into the school and asking her what's that stack of papers on your desk and it was a list of between 75 and 100 names all of whom she was about to start making phone calls cold calls to set up parent-teacher conferences all those families at one school needed assistance and were going to get a direct phone call from a liaison not from the teacher not from

124other another staff at the school but from a family liaison creating connections but also overcoming Language and Cultural barriers that's a big deal going through if any of you have done phone calling I did telemarketing in college um 75 to 100 calls takes a long time and especially when you're trying to build relationships so it just really kind of impressed me what these what what our family Liaisons are looking at when they start the day and then when they end the day so contacting families for parent-teacher conferences do you need help about half of them actually needed help just get like navigating the process that's really daunting for families this is the part that um Sandra you should explain you should explain this one I I find the data really haunting you do you remember

125n is 365 on the slide before so yes 300 or 300 365 responses so for translational interpretation and around 300 they are you know around the the whole District but this is the informal one so every family liaison had to record whenever when every time they receive a call from the nurse from the Consular from the um principal about anything and we have more than double requests they are informal that we do they have no requested on the form so we record about yes so most of that is to and also our families call us and tell us we need to contact transportation we need to contact the North and we record all this information and this is uh what this picture shows for every one request that comes in through the normal Channel like

126hi we can help you right through the normal form that's been shared with everybody there's one informal request from a family member and another informal request from the schools so while we're busy tracking the data to try and understand like where can we where can we be most effective only one third of the data is actually coming at us through the normal Channel and the rest is just playing a big game of Tetris catching what comes at us and trying to make it fit until we can get through the day to the next day the next year and so on so I just wanted you to to try to grasp that if you maybe that's what it's like when we all do our day jobs but I don't think so so it's really impressive how

127the family Liaisons as a crew as a core are doing something really pretty dramatic I've obscured the names of the schools here but again I want you to see that there are some schools yet that we're not picking on anybody but I want you to kind of see that there are some real frequent flyers we do an awful lot of work um and and a lot in a lot of schools those requests come in informally right so it's just very interesting how we're trying to we're trying to really work on and refine the process Sandra and her team do an immense amount of transitioning notice how much of the work is in these brief interactions And yet when you start adding up those 30-minute interactions one hour two hours or more Sandra I'm pretty sure

128you've spent up to three hours in some of these meetings yeah talk about that for a minute when we had to mediate with families when there are problems with discipline when we had to use do an emergency um a meeting with with the families and the counselors so yes this can take up to two hours so I've been in those kinds of meetings as a parent I've seen those kinds of meetings you know when when there aren't other barriers and so it's just very impressive what they do and how much they do as a member of the school team which is one of the things that we continue to try and reinforce is that each of these uh staffers they are full-time staff members supporting students and families and staff they really are embedded and

129part of the school at Cedar Ridge at Gravelly Hill right at Grady Brown they are a valued member of the team doing something that no one else can do um Ryan are you gonna if if I just push the button will it go so Mr Miller is going to play a couple videos for us and I've I've taken the liberty of uh including the text translation the first one is in Spanish and the second is in English but for clarity's sake we want you to be able to understand what the families who experience the work of the Liaisons what they want to say back of their own accord thanks Ryan it'll take a second by the way I can actually talk for a couple seconds because I know she eventually she'll come around to the

130scenery don't worry wanna see us is Etc beneficial guess the nails gracias is familiares is familiar program is so I have no doubt we're going to continue the family liaison program the question is how will it function best and so we heard from a from a mother who speaks Spanish and again it's sort of like Arts are stereotypical vision of what family Liaisons are doing um Mr soch is different and I was fortunate to meet Mr Socha when he was coming to Al stand back and Sandra and her team have done a lot to help someone like Mr Socha whose family speaks uh he's I think he's from Poland right not the stereotype right out of our normal sphere of influence from what you might think of as our family liaison team except that what

131they're doing is helping people cross barriers so right hello my name is Christoph Socha I wanted to express my gratitude to me Sandra blavco and family engagement for help in an enrolling my son into Orange County Public School System maybe my situation is a little bit more unique than average parent originally I'm from Europe and I tell recently I didn't have any exposure to American educational system and enrollment process so to be able uh ask someone different questions and gain understanding have help in the navigating the whole process was extremely helpful and made the whole experience less overwhelming and stressful I'm very thankful for this assistance I consider this process this program to be very beneficial for persons in my position and I hope it will continue for a long time thank you very much

132bye so again I was fortunate enough during like my first weeks on the job to see this family to experience not just Sandra working with this father and his child coming to school but I also saw the principal engaging in you know hour long hours-long conversations to try and make families feel welcome feel comfortable understand how to navigate a very complex and complicated process that can go any different way depending on your family's situation so it's really exciting that families then want to come back and share this kind of experience with us um oh Ryan I'm sorry boss so that's the day-to-day then there's the programmatic work there's so much more and as you know from looking at our strategic plan we have key performance indicators we we have committed ourselves to uh successfully expanding

133the events that we have right getting more people into the ones we already run running more events creating more opportunities to get families in the door and connected to our schools and yeah I think you might have remembered seeing this what you can see here is um our team passed and past present and future uh melee who is now back in the classroom um Mary Prada who is an ESL teacher and our you know again dinette at this point was a very new staff member and they were all at stand back for for a number of different events during the during the fall the parent portal event you can see that like it's not there are so many different ways that we're putting information out in front of families and the parent portal event at

134Orange High School was so exciting of course the one we tried to have at stand back was canceled by a really Rogue weird power outage um but then there's also the Community Partners coming in and here you can see one illustration where latinx Ed which is an amazing uh non-profit doing Yeoman work to create new connections everywhere around the state and especially in communities like ours because we're so close to their nerve center we're really excited when they come to us and when we also like we're we're at the same table we are around the table with people who are making things happen so this is what the calendar looks like if you go on our website and you look up the Family Academy events calendar you see an immense number of things going on

135and you can see that there are virtual events that's what the v stands for um the Hispanic Hispanic heritage movie night really want to thank Mr Williams for helping to put that on and make that possible Sandra and and it was just mind-blowing how much fun we had if you were there you know um but events at the high schools at the Elementary Midland High School level and bringing in so many people from outside if anybody came to the newcomers event you can see it on the calendar I know you had a good time um these are upcoming events and so Sandra I wonder if you could explain what a platicas familiaras what does this mean a session where we have with our families where they can talk freely about anything that they have in

136their mind or they want to learn about the schools and it's just the space that we created and we did that last year and we continued doing that this year we did one in the fall and we're gonna do another one in the Sprint so the beauty of that is it sounds a little bit like a round table yes or listen and learn or a town hall right so the good news is that these opportunities and doors are open to everyone and we want to make sure that that's happening this is probably the most exciting thing is that Sandra and her team have been as I said nothing if not fastidious and keeping track of who comes where they're coming from and how we can continue improving so notice the the most recent events in

137the past couple weeks since we just met right 55 families coming to efflon cheeks 37 individuals checking in about our choice schools programs that means they just wanted to learn about either the Cedar Ridge IB program or Hillsborough Elementary School and the year-round program and then communication tools so what's it like when a family comes asking about how to use communication tools what did you talk about Sandra so we talked about different ways that they can um also reach out to us that way and we have many of our parents calling us through WhatsApp but we also have other tools that teachers use at the school like ClassDojo talking points so they are also making that connection and we were teaching our families that there is many ways that they can connect with the schools

138as well so we're at the end that's my last slide um but I've heard you talk a couple times tonight about making sure that that you don't have to go begging for money that and that budgets really are kind of are the way we show our priorities and how what's what's truly important where our values are so I ask principals to give a little bit of feedback on like where the liaison program is today didn't throw it into a slide but it's I think it's some interesting data one school said you know last year to this year it's been about the same I really appreciate the help um they're an amazing tool for connecting with families providing support and communication um both for translation and interpretations and for parent nights um but while my school

139is at about 43 percent Hispanic and Latino today it could be around 50 by the end of the year or early next year that's a capacity issue um another school I'm not sure which families have worked with Liaisons in the past I know we've used them for interpretation and translation again pretty common story um and that's comparable I would love for for them to work with families who might be interested in my school and help them navigate the application process well there you go and that is we love working with Equity teams we love working with school administrators and it's been really exciting to look at how marketing and promoting within the community not at the community but from within the community again that's one of the initiatives that we're taking in part because of

140what we learned from the survey data which was really hard to to stomach another school it seems to be working out well I don't hear any feedback from parents or otherwise it seems to be working out well and it's a great way to communicate with our Spanish-speaking families biggest use parent-teacher conferences so again it's helping to meet a very real need one school says I don't have an assigned family liaison this year that's a problem for me they've been filling in the void of translating that's wonderful our liaison last year was amazing but we don't have one this year um so without a family liaison some things could be improved and and the principal says I've brought it up okay that that stings a little bit um the translations are happening on time wonderful but

141here's what's missing actively reaching out directly to families to spread the word about events questions and concerns it would be beneficial for families to have an assigned liaison for our school again focusing on proactively supporting communicating and advocating for our Spanish-speaking families and our English learning students some of us have been to events at schools like this where we've seen amazing communities come out and they really are looking for that kind of support um our family liaison seems a little bit overworked and stressed by being asked to go back and forth between different schools okay I don't we have capacity issues and we're trying to do many more things again there was a team of five at this point last year Natalie and Sandra and the team there were five four Liaisons plus Sandra working

142over 13 schools and at this point we have four so you can do the math right there's a there's a capacity issue last last principle this year we are using our family liaison less for translating written materials and weekly messages and more for outreach to families so someone is being strategic out there and that makes me very very happy but we would love to have even more time and availability we're making it work thank you for helping us make it work thank you for joining the vision this is not an action item right we're just we're just sharing some information but there's clearly a vision for what this can do and our strategic plan we have been directed by our community by our Learning Community to double the number of black families who are engaging

143with our district in meaningful ways and quadrupling the number of Latino and Hispanic families that are engaging in meaningful ways we can do that I know that we can and this team knows that we can so we're here to answer any questions that you have and thanks for letting us share about the work of our Liaisons tonight questions from the board Kerry just a comment um Senora lefko a gracias poor Alan tarme a studio espanol um solo estoy practicondo but not only are we working and serving in a district that historically wasn't designed to serve all children we have a rapidly changing and diversifying District of students and you know my oldest who was a kindergartner here once upon a time is 20 and our MLL population has grown so much in those 50 years

144we just need to keep working and better represent the students we serve so thank you so much for your incredible efforts to that regard thank you so much thank you okay I just would also like to say a big thank you to Sandra because I've worked with her before and I know that she is a very hard worker and she wants to help every parent she comes in contact with and I'm glad she's got some more people working with her now and um I thank you for what you're doing thank you so much and of course I am a huge huge fan and um and it's not just the translation but the relationships and the trusts that you have built between our schools in the community is extraordinary and I am so so grateful for

145that I have some questions and I know you've been at this for a lot longer than me um and when I was looking at some of the short some of the short encounters some of the longer ones I know the need for translation services for non-english speaking families is huge um and I don't think that we've quite met our commitment of having Spanish-speaking um bilingual people in every school and and there are disparities in our schools some schools have many more Spanish kids than others many more Spanish kids with non-english speaking parents and and real disparities in the amount of bilingual staff in the building and my guess is the pie chart that showed the differences in schools that has something to do with it the staff and the capacity of the school to deliver

146its own services so as you think about expanding this and plus I I don't never ever want you know this I never ever won and you never would step on the schools you work closely with the schools so as you envision how this program evolves the question becomes to what extent should the family Liaisons be part of the school-based team versus your team at the welcome center right so I would I'll give you like what it makes sense to put a bilingual person in the front office that can step into a translation in a second and would that alleviate your team and it might be a slightly a different level than just a base although the front one the folks in the in the schools are they do a lot of anyway you understand my

147point is when should they be on your team um or how much routine stuff should be done in the school especially a high volume school and how much should be done by the your team in the Welcome Center yes thank you Miss Hauser um I uh I see that uh yes we have a team and they spend most of the time at their schools and uh on Fridays they have a flexible schedule where they can come to the Welcome Center but uh like for example if it's an emergency they will travel uh from school to school or we have the person or doing the phone call um three-way communication or we do the zoom meeting but I know what you said we we need more help yes the need is growing and we need help

148and um and we saw uh our partner School Duran public schools and see how they work and they have uh it is a little different uh they have more help like family Liaisons interpreters and translators and things like that so and uh family relations will be helping not only the connecting and navigating but just like you say building relationships with the schools this and this any families and so I mean uh just like you were saying yes we need more winning I guess I was wondering if I if we doubled your step I'm making this up right if we doubled your staff should they should we put them in in high volume schools or should we keep them and and could we create a dotted relationship for some people between you and the principal so

149the person would report to this or the social worker you know of course so a little bit more more richer structure anyway uh I mean it will be ideal to uh you know have more stuff that will assist our families and at the school I know you have some uh receptionists there bilinguals not in every school um but that's when the the schools can contact us the secretaries the principals um uh but what I'm saying like parent confidence you won't ask the secretary to help you with that you will ask the secretary there's bilingual to help you with uh call okay your child is sick you need to come and pick it up but for other types of uh it will be better to have a family liaison got it got it and that's scheduling

150stuff those 15-minute calls it would seem that that the 50-minute calls would be a just forsake the children that are sick but we and also um a attendance or parents yes so it's the way that we communicate uh or email a staff about attendance about a questions that the parents have so that will be in the 15 minutes when we have and not noted everything that the parents say or when we know that everything that the teacher or the staff is requested and those are like four Images yes yes one more thing is it's part of the goals family engagement goals or do we look at how how to what extent students participate in Orange County school programs and I'm thinking about CTE and FFA and Avid and and music and you know are we

151you know and are we identifying obstacles to kids participating in those programs because the parents might not fully understand it or have the resources for it yes ma'am and we have a program that's called avancemos where we talk about all these kinds of things and we did one in the fall and see the rich and we're gonna do another one in the Sprint at Orange High right thank you that's a start in the what you were just describing the program is great we're talking about making sure that it actually percolates throughout the whole school instead of waiting to come to the family liaison team we're talking about a team of five which does an amazing work but there are a thousand staff in Orange County Schools right so we I think that's more the vision

152where we're going is how to expand this across the whole District yes any other questions from board members so I would just also like to extend my thanks to you miss plefko you started the program and you're a fantastic staff so much positive feedback on the program and we just appreciate everything you're doing thank you thank you so much and I just want to thank um also the family Liaisons they are amazing they work really hard and uh right now one of them is recording the Spanish session and uh I'm just um very humble and um I've been here with Orange County school since 2006 and I just want to thank you Dr welder and um all the stuff in here for uh giving us this opportunity to serve our families thank you thank you

153Sandra excuse me this is Dr Moore hello Dr Moore Miss blefko I want to thank you and your team for everything that you do and as far as your evening events if it's anything that I could do to be of service I make myself available to you thank you again thank you so much [Applause] foreign with that that completes our agenda do we have a motion to adjourn so move second we have a motion and a second from Dr Moore uh all in favor say aye aye all right this meeting is