Board of Education Meeting - January 10, 2022

001foreign [Music] welcome everyone this evening and we'll call the meeting of the Cleveland County Board of Education to order for January 10 2022 like to welcome everyone to the New Year hopefully you had a good Christmas holiday and a good New Year and if you're experiencing some of the sickness we pray that you'll get better soon first on our agendas our invocation we have Mr Aaron Hinton who's associate vice president for advancement at Gardner-Webb University Mr him let us pray dear God we thank you for today and for the opportunity to gather in this place we know that there are those in our community in our school system who are hurting we pray for the postings who still grieve the loss of a daughter and the hordans who grieve the loss of a husband and

002a father and for our communities we grieve the laws of John as a friend and a decorated law enforcement officer we pray for those within our school system who are grieving we pray tonight for our teachers our administrators and this board God lead God and direct them as only you can give our Educators strength to continue to pour into our children and youth as your word says to us in Philippians that we are not to be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving to present our request to you and your peace which transcends all understanding will guard our hearts and Minds in Christ Jesus as this meeting begins tonight Lord we pray your peace on this place we thank you for your love we thank you for your grace and

003we thank you for your gospel and your son Jesus it is in His holy name I pray amen I did forget to announce that Mr Shores is joining us by phone this evening Joel do we have you Mr Shores I'm here okay all right speak up here don't let me forget you all right we have some recognition of guests do we have any principles or assistance principles with us this evening it's Nichols Mr Allen you gonna raise your hand we have you folks any teachers assistants with us this evening any ncae Representatives or elected officials already next we have some special recognition for Cleveland Early College High School Dr Fisher thank you Mr chairman members of the board as Miss Nichols comes I'd like to just remind you of the Strategic plan that this board

004worked on um about uh about a year ago began that work and finalized that strategic plan about six six months ago in the mission of Cleveland County Schools is to cultivate Excellence by providing student-centered exceptional educational experiences while challenging all students to perform at their Highest Potential our vision is to cultivate excellence and Student Success Through exceptional educational experiences and when I think about our mission and our vision I really think about what's going on at Cleveland Early College High School and a little over 10 years Cleveland Early College High School has has developed a unique and uh top-notch reputation for Student Success and the things that they're doing in their buildings every year when you go to the curly college graduation you see students have graduated with their high school diploma an associate's degree

005or multiple hours towards an associate's degree it's pretty impressive what they're doing tonight we would like to honor the early college and their staff for achieving a commendable graduation results for the class of 2021 and for the class of 2021 The Early College High School had 100 percent graduation rate and what that means is that every student that entered the class of 21 when they entered the ninth grade they graduated with their cohort there wasn't a student that needed an extra semester an extra year all of those students graduated and that's just an exceptional accomplishment that defines what we're looking about as exceptional educational experiences what they're doing with Charlie College from from a college transfer standpoint from a career opportunities transport standpoint at Second To None I've got here principal Amber Nichols Miss Nichols

006uh is you know is I guess the third and the long line of a fourth in a long line of exceptional principal exceptional leaders at the early college and we appreciate Ms Nichols leadership and we appreciate the work of that staff when you go to the Early College you see students engaged highly engaged in learning and we talk about in our mission and vision about the exceptional educational experiences and and they personify that at the Early College it's just not the lecture it's just not the things they're doing in classroom it's the total experience that they have at the Early College we've seen the Early College grow over over years just over a decade of having the Early College I've been fortunate to see that in several roles was was a part of that the

007beginning of the Early College High School and see where we are now uh Miss Nichols and her team they do a wonderful job and so I'd like to congratulate her and her staff with 100 percent uh graduation rate for The Clevelander college class of 2021. [Applause] Dr Hunter I believe you're next thank you Mr chairman members of the board Dr Fisher thanks for giving us the opportunity tonight to recognize an outstanding achievement of a group of young student athletes we have with us tonight the 2A football state champion Shelby golden Lions the golden Lions beat Wallace Rose Hill 55-34 at Carter Finley Stadium on the campus of NC State University Shelby completed the state championship run with a 15-1 record and the only loss coming against South Point High School of South Carolina who actually

008won the 4A State title in South Carolina it is our pleasure to cheer these golden lines on the field however they also put the work in the academic area as well over 55 percent of these student athletes have a 3.0 or higher an overall team GPA of at least 3.1 the golden lines have won seven out of the nine last state championships one might even say Dynasty hmm one of the reasons they're so successful because the continuity amongst their coaching staff seven of the ten members of the coaching staff have coached five years or more coach Wilbanks 16 years coach hollifield 19. coach Emory 11 Dunaway nine Barclay 9. coach Scott seven Coach Collins five Raper three Weber 3 and Ward in his first year what a great coaching staff and continuity they've had over

009the time I'd like to invite coach Wilbanks up to say a few words about his team please join me in welcoming him [Applause] thank you Dr Hunnam board members thank you and Dr Fisher thank you and the administrative team here at Cleveland County it is uh truly an honor to represent Cleveland County throughout the state everywhere we go whether it's sports related or not people know Cleveland County they know the schools here they know what a what a great reputation we have so definitely thank you for your support of our student athletes one word I would think of to describe what I feel is pride if you've been on our campus if you go in our facility you'll see the word pride and we break it down on Pride that's something that I kind of

010our catchphrase and it's an acronym the P is for passion R's for respect eyes actually a one we don't use an eye we use a one we have one Team One mission one goal D is discipline D is effort and so we chose that word pride and uh it's a pride of lions you know a group of lines is called a pride so that's kind of a double meaning there but also taking pride in what we do in everything we do and I'm so proud and I'm proud of that uh the 3.1 GPA I mean we had 60 members on our team and get a 3.1 average out of 60 people I think is quite an accomplishment uh and it's it's a credit to our players our teachers and our coaches uh and our principal

011Mr Allen I'm thankful for him and to work for him you know when we uh talk about our coaches and our players I have Coach Collins here with us tonight Coach Collins is our wide receivers coach and also our track coach and then uh players you know we have 60 players 22 of them are at basketball practice right now uh I think three of them are wrestling practice and another handful are swimming and just got done with baseball workouts and a few more working so it's hard to get them a school our size they all do everything but we had Jay McNeely with us tonight Jay's a sophomore defensive lineman uh played on The Varsity this year we're expecting good things out of him and then one of our senior captains Santana Hopper who's been

012just Mr everything for us this year if you've read anything about Shelby you've seen him and he's going to continue his education and his playing career at Appalachian State University in the Falls we're proud of him but I'm just so proud of their effort if you think about I know everybody's view of 2021 is different we played 25 games in 2021 we played nine in the spring 16 in the fall not many schools in the state can say they played that many games I think maybe Vance and Tarboro maybe a handful of others but just the resilience of them to keep pushing through and pushing forward and to accomplishing the goal they set forth and uh Dr huddle mentioned the loss to South Point in South Carolina that was that was a turning point for

013us we scheduled that game on a Wednesday we lost the game we had scheduled with high Brighton so South Point called one to play uh and we took them we took them home and it didn't start out so well for us but our kids fought back really hard and made it a great game at the end but we grew a lot from that game and and so I was proud of them for that and then just pushed on through to the state championship which we won and uh you know we had uh Luke Williams if any of y'all know Luke Williams he was named uh he received a sportsmanship award before the game the state gives that out for every state game so Luke Williams got that dalen Lee our quarterback was offensive player I

014mean the overall player of the game Malachi Hamrick who he's already at Chapel Hill right now he he graduated early and he's enrolled he started class today I texted with him today and he had a good day today but he was Defensive MVP of the game and Marquise Adams was offensive MVP so just a great year and I'm just lucky to be the the head coach I got a lot of people who do a lot of work like Dr Hunter mentioned our coaching staff I'm so blessed to have a great group of men first and foremost their their husbands and dads and but also great coaches and we have a great group of guys to work with like Santana and Jay were sitting back there and just a great place to be great Community to

015work in and a great school system to work for so just thank you for all you do and looking forward to more success in the future thank you foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] next we have adoption of the agenda was the pleasure of the board motion by Mr Fitch second by Mr Hunt any questions or discussion those in favor of the agenda if you'd raise your hand Nick how about you Mr Shores uh okay okay I almost forgot you all right next we have public participation we have four folks that have signed up first is Doug Arthurs Mr chairman members of the board my name is Doug Arthurs I'm an attorney from Gastonia I'm here tonight to speak on behalf Mr Mike Brown who was the high bidder to purchase the property located in in Kings

016Mountain at 105 East Ridge Street Kings Mountain Central School he was the high bidder at us at a price of 750 000 he placed a bid pursuant to an advertisement that read as follows all bids should be sealed and delivered to Dan carpinsky at 400 West Marion Street terrible chair Shelby North Carolina by 4 pm on Wednesday November 3 2021. the five percent deposit will be required from the highest bidder by 4 pm on Friday November 5 2021. my client received a call from Mr karpinski and said he was the high bidder and he needed to get that deposit delivered by that Friday November the 5th at four o'clock which he did thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars that was on your agenda for approval on the November board meet that was postponed until tonight

017I requested a copy of the agenda this morning so I could speak on it this item wasn't on there but it was added later as item 1401. my purpose of being here is to ask that this board do what it advertised it was going to do sell to the highest bidder Central School in King in Kings Mountain there's another item on your agenda that was also sold at the same time under the same advertisements it's on here for approval of that sale and I would ask that the same be done to Mr Brown where he's been given no reason why his bid has not been accepted it was offered to City of Kings Mountain they rejected it it was offered we understand it was offered to the Cleveland County Board of Commissioners they didn't want

018it it was declared Surplus and advertised for sale we would ask that you instruct that that sale be completed my client did pay his deposit he received the check refund and then he hadn't cashed that check he's ready willing and able to close on this transaction and we would ask that the board approve it tonight it's on your agenda for approval thank you okay thank you [Applause] Michelle do we have the timer available it was behind me okay all right thank you second is Mr Robert Williams it's interesting seven months three quarters of a million dollars and you guys don't want it I don't know what's going on here uh my name's Robert Williams I live in Boston I wanna I've got several items we'll see if we can fit it into three minutes number

019one is the secret American Legion World Series request it's on the agenda I call it secret because there was nothing in the agenda hyperlinks or anything about what it's all about so there's no way that I know what they've requested and there were anybody else I don't know anybody knows except the American Legion World Series and some of you I don't know if all of you even know that but anyway I wanna that that I personally plan to file a Title IX complaint against Cleveland County Schools because of all the money spent at the Shelby High School for the baseball field and more money coming in and I hear the football team and you know they they they're doing well and that's well and good but what uh what equivalent facilities and spending do you

020have for the girls at Shelby High School I'm sure I'm going to include all of that uh critical race Theory uh certain months and months ago I filed a public records request for uh lesson plans all clay all classes in all schools Mr Queen you made a statement that uh critical race theory is not taught at Cleveland County Schools to your knowledge I believe you're wrong I asked for that information have not received it perhaps a lawsuit may be in order on that too number three auditoriums Burns and crest I have good reason to believe that the specs and plans are not sufficient to construct auditoriums suitable for the purpose of an auditorium I'm inviting the school board to bring your plans and specifications and bids and whatever to my house and I'll go through

021them and point out the deficiencies thank you good afternoon I guess the last time I talked to school board meeting was when you guys I got voted in I guess I was back in December of 19 is that correct and I was hoping I wouldn't have to come back and speak no more but at the last meeting I was sitting back on the back and there's a group of people here that had never been here before she kept saying when do I get to talk when do I get to talk I'm just going to make a suggestion as as meeting starts just tell people you can speak three minutes if you sign up they just didn't know the process or procedures of the boys school board meetings kind of felt sorry for him you know

022the way way it ended and I heard also that there was going to be some school schools closing here in Cleveland County I'm going to make another suggestion that you have some Town Hall meetings with the children not the children but the parents of these schools that are closing I also been on my mind about the meeting at some of the school board members had with some other people they had reference to Danny Blanton and I'm just going to say it guys then help y'all get elected back in 19. it breaks my heart that you know y'all trying to get rid of him he's not the one you need to get rid of Mr Scruggs the Board of Education doesn't have any for view over that well my understanding was that a few of y'all

023was all right to meet but you didn't say anything but when the other was talking about it there's a lot of head shaking not to me that has nothing to do with Board of Education business we can we do have a plan to town hall for discussion of the School recommendations those are the things that we can control Mr Williams you can be glad or you can leave that's okay that's okay that's okay that's okay just just want to expect it and Mr Square did you know I'll talk to you anytime you'd like to talk yeah okay but Danny Danny's not the one you need to be getting rid of guys that's all I got to say thank you [Applause] fourth speaker is leonhardt and that's up to you my name is Nanette Linhart and

024I'm going to speak on SEL AKA CRT AKA transformative social emotional learning excuse me which is being taught in Cleveland County Schools [Applause] I want you guys to just look at the second page pictures worth the Thousand Words down at the bottom right hand corner it of course the source is parents for america.com this picture shows how CRT is Incorporated in the sem it injects and Hyper focuses on race and racism what happened to reading writing an arithmetic lesson plans in Cleveland County Schools I hear more about race and racism and transformative SEL tsel social emotional learning then I hear about student achievement you know mastering the three r's what are our teachers teaching our kids I think we know so uh anyway flipping through on the very last page is a press release from

025one of my favorite groups Education First Alliance here in North Carolina I think they're in Charlotte and now they're going to and I think you guys can see that it's like the second page from the back the press release the title is group suppose North Carolina's teaching disabled preschoolers three-year-olds to deconstruct whiteness in class why are we talking about this area this subject so seven million dollars is been given by our superintendent Catherine Truitt to put this into effect to teach in three three-year-olds disabled three-year-olds what does that what difference does that make there I mean so the very last sentence on page five is this summer members of the superintendent's party Senate bill to the state's Governor that would ban teaching critical race theory in schools in September Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the bill

026we are teaching CRT it's being taught thank you thank you [Applause] next we have approval of the minutes first is the approval of the minutes of the December 13th uh business session and general account of the closed session what's the pleasure of the board motion by Mr Fitch is that g Mr Hunt second by Mr Hunt any questions or discussion on the minutes those in favor if you raise your hand Mr Shores aye aye we got you thank you second is approval of the minutes of the December 13th closed session what's the pleasure of the board by Mr Glover second by Mr Humphries those in favor of the closed session minutes if you'd raise your hand your showers aye and that carries non-zero next we'll get into committee reports first is finance and personnel and

027Mr Glover's going to do the honors for Mr Silver thank you Mr chairman the finance and Personnel committee met on February the 17th 2021 at 10 30. meeting was called to order and had a brief update on the approved state budget was informed that a memo was sent out to all staff highlighting the budget impact on all employees members members of the human resource and finance team emphasized that state bonuses and retroactive raises would not be paid until January and or February this money has not been sent from the state to local distance at this time there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about the pay and bonuses Cleveland County Schools paid and Esser retention bonus in July in Cleveland County Schools supplements for teachers and classified staffs were paid in November Mr Glover

028asked if principals could be given information to go over with their staff about the paychecks in January concerns were raised about the January and February checks being so much more to bonuses and retro pay that there would be some confusion about how much people's actual checks were going to be Miss wapler and Dr Fisher echoed the concerns and stated that it would be in the that it could be March before employees had a normal paycheck information will be sent out from Central services staff to school administrators to be shared with school staff members during January it was also given a 2021-22 budget resolution draft this draft will change slightly prior to our meeting this evening and will be presented for approval at tonight's meeting Dr Fisher reminded the committee members that as their money was

029well as the auditorium money will be in the budget as a result it appears their budget it is slightly larger than in years past but this is primarily because the Esser and auditorium's Auditorium funding Cleveland County school is still operating on similar budget as in years past this information is important for clarification in the budget resolutions approved process this is an action item for tonight's board meeting Jennifer Everly highlighted the continued continued Excellence of our teachers and achieving national board certifications Cova did have an impact on the number of teachers working on their certification locally the district and board will recognize all teachers getting their initial certification in any recertifications at the February board meeting Miss wapler notified the committee on changes in the substitute teacher pay scale she also shared that many assistant AP

030teachers and CTE teachers will receive a bonus in January due to their students passing AP exams or earning credentials and qualifying CTE areas last year Eric Lamona led a discussion about employee benefits enrollment for the 2022 benefit year went well there's been a question about the employee employee benefit selection process and whether or not the district should go through the vendor selection process for the 2023 Insurance year everyone agreed that by the end of February would be the idea in March would be the latest in order to fairly go through the extensive process as an update the foreign information from SAS survey has done this year was presented to the committee when asked about employee satisfaction with our current vendor the following percentage of employees expressed they were either very satisfied satisfied or neutral with

031their products it was 95.4 percent customer service was 97.9 percent and over uh open enrollment process was 96.7 percent as part of the discussion the committee was reminded that rebidden would be for services and would not include prices during the initial negotiations after some discussion the consensus from the committee was that we would not rebuild employee benefits for 2023 Insurance calendar year Dr Fisher provided a chart of coveted relief and has some money for the committee the eight page documentary included allotments expenses to date and remain in balances charts were included the Highlight those type of expenses information will be posted on the district's website Dr Fisher reminding everyone that we were scheduled for Esser audit in January Dr Fisher stated that staff from all areas of Central Services had already met and were working

032to put together the needed audit documentation he appreciated everyone's hard work and was competent in the teams Readiness for the audit the committee discussed kids around and the amount of money that was being put into the Enterprise fund Ms Whopper reported that we currently have 35 students participating in the morning session in 122 in the afternoon session this is a total of 157 which is duplicated student accounts and several students attend both morning and afternoon with no new business the committee went to Executive session to discuss Personnel information during the executive session Dr Fisher presented some Personnel data to the committee at their conclusion of that session the meeting was adjourned and the next meeting for the finance and Personnel Community will be scheduled for February January Friday January 28th of this year at 10

03330. thank you Mr gilliver we have two action items from the are we going to have any discussion on that we can yeah uh I don't ask for money um that we gave back in July I pulled up 21 different school districts and they gave from one thousand five thousand dollars per employee and by my understanding in my if I'm correct if we give 500 because I that's correct how could these other schools when I know for sure because I call Raleigh and found out myself that we got an extra amount in our Esther money because of uh we're like a title uh free lunch and everything like that I might not know all the low wealth low wealth okay uh thank you uh how did we come up with just giving five hundred dollars

034and I've got 21 of them right here they gave from 500 to 5 000. to their employees uh why could we not do a little better Dr Fisher can you address that please I'll be glad to miss chairman a couple different things that Mr Blanton mentioned we did uh Cleveland County Schools uh and Board of Education appreciate the work that you did early on and yes or process that jumped out front and gave all employees a 500 bonus at the very beginning um Mr Blanton mentions 21 school districts that that did that and I'm not sure that total uh but as you know we have 115 leas and I know that there are some leas that gave no bonus on I gave a bonus like we did some gave some larger bonuses and if that's

035a direction that the board wants to go we'll be glad to do that we are looking at uh things in our Esther funding such as HVAC processes we've just recently spent over almost 1.5 million dollars in classroom technology to to put into our classrooms we've done higher school health technicians to help with covid so we've used IRS or money in a variety of ways we still have extra money that we can we can definitely do that with um you know we have until 2024 to spend that extra money and so this is a little bit of a marathon not a Sprint to do that I know some districts and talking to some superintendents they did not have things like HVAC needs and that type of thing they could put to that and so they've done

036that I also know that there are some districts that that said they were going to do this out of Esser and have have had to realize and come back and say oh no we can't do that much in employee bonuses because of things that they've got going on inside their system I know Mr Blanton did mention some some funds that um that are they're really State funds that have come in to um to our district and districts were funded at different levels depending on whether they're low wealth and I think 96 of or 95 of the 100 counties got some uh in Louisville money uh that we will be getting uh and our teachers and staff will be getting that money uh that's probably looking at I would say a February payout because we've not

037received that we've not received you know information on how to pay that out we're still working through the bonuses with the DPI and the school business office about how to implement those uh bonuses whether they're the Thousand or 1500 bonus for teachers and staff the thousand dollar bonus for training or the additional supplement bonus that's paid from the state so all that information is still evolving in a working process our human resources and our finance team will continue to work through that a lot of that money we don't have yet we've sent some applications we've applied for that money there's an application process we've done that we're working through that we do anticipate some of that bonus being paid in January we also we also anticipate some of that bonus in the back pay to

038be paid in February just because of when that money gets sent to us from the state so we're somewhat at the mercy of of when that comes from the state that's why the committee uh report that Mr Glover read you know it will probably be March it's earliest before our employees have a normal paycheck because they're going to have bonus money in January bonus Monday in February there may be still bonus money coming into March there's a process that we have to go through and do that so we're working Our Miss Guffey uh Rob McDaniel Donna Piercy Dan garfinski from our from our finance office working with Miss Wampler uh Mr Milana and Miss albertley from our Human Resources office to really make sure that we've got a you know our plans are in place

039uh Miss go forth Tamara go forth is our NC sip representatives and she puts all that into the federal system so it's complex it's just not uh here's your money go pay those bonuses there's a lot of you know when the state announced that the bonuses were coming the money was coming okay that's it but there's lots of things that have to go on uh in terms of being able to do that so um I hope that answered the question that that also is is and I guess that's coming from the afternoon too where we had these four high schools uh uh the architect check them out and what needs to be done at them we'll be using after money to work on fixing those HVAC the roofs the windows or whatever does that come

040out of that money too we've budgeted testimony for that yes sir so obviously just like anything else there's a there's a there's a a pot of money you budget that money and but you can only budget the the allotment that you get so um you know we can we can move that money to the direction of the board um you know and I think uh we also discussed in that committee meeting you know the the ability for us to do another bonus uh sometime in the spring but we'd like to be able to get through these State bonuses to be able to to push that into another extra bonus and maybe some time in this spring any other questions on the finance Personnel report thank you Dr Fisher you have the Personnel report and substitute

041list in your packet of what's those are on the recommendation of the superintendent what's a pleasure of the board motion by Mr Hunt second second by Mr Glover I don't think we have any recusals tonight those in favor of the Personnel reporting substitute list you could raise your hand any opposed uh okay sorry about that Mr Shore it's eight to one I'm sorry I'll vote um next we have our budget resolution update Mr karpinsky good evening Mr chairman board members Dr Fisher in your package you have the 2122 budget resolution as discussed this was talked about in draft form at our last finance and personal committee meeting the budget for the local current expense fund is on page one section one and two it stayed the same at 27.3 million for Appropriations as well as

042the revenue expected [Applause] section three and four which remained the same since the committee met at 104 104 million sixty nine thousand dollars for State funds to be received as well as the Appropriations that we're expecting on page three of eight this is where our Esser dollars are section five and section six section five is the allotments we added uh sr3 money for homeless after three funds for State grant for EC and sr3 funds for idea preschool grant for a total of 62 million two hundred forty one thousand on page four of eight you have section seven and section eight this is where we added kids around right now it's our best estimate that the kids around program will need approximately a hundred thousand dollars to sustain operations till the end of uh end of

043this year on page five of eight section 9 and 10. we added funds to pay for sros as well as the money that will be required for the kids around for the hundred thousand dollars and as you can see the revenues that are coming in from that fund will be approximately 8.5 million dollars on page six of eight uh section 11 and 12 it's the same as was reported to the committee for 2.3 million dollars of Head Start dollars that are going to come in and how they're going to be spent for instructional system-wide and non uh payments to other governmental units which is indirect costs section 13 and 14 on page seven of eight what we added there was the 20 million million dollars for Burns High and Crest High School auditoriums other than

044that same as went to committee and with that said we need the board to approve this budget resolution as submitted any questions for Mr krampinsky yes yes okay where's the rest of the money for the auditorium is going to come from we have a presentation later on auditoriums okay well that's 22 million 280 000 is that correct the amount in the budget right now at this point would be 20 million dollars is 20 million okay okay mine showing up sideways so I'm having to look at it sideways you should be looking at page seven of eight and you see the Burns High School auditorium at 10 million dollars Crest High School auditorium at 10 million dollars uh that 20 million dollars will be coming from local sources and then 15 million dollars from the need-based

045school Capital fund um okay any other questions for Mr Mr you have to call me in I want to commend your your staff you know sitting in these committees and listening to them uh the this is a big complex um bucket that y'all having to work out of especially with this extra money coming in and funding from the state and your staff that you have are very knowledgeable and is doing a really good job and I appreciate what you are doing and what the rest of your staff is doing these finances that are coming in and trying to to get it in the right pot and uh you know it's not as easy as well Dr Fisher said you here's your here's your check y'all divide it by the number of employees it just doesn't

046it's not quite that easy but I just want to come in and appreciate everything that y'all do thank you my staff and human resource works hard to make it happen thank you any other questions I just want to take you back on that you know I know you know there's a lot of extra money coming in and we hear a lot of things over the news and people talking about uh teacher bonuses uh classified and certified uh I'm just appreciative for the teachers having that opportunity to get some bonuses uh their way on the paid and any any money that they can get you know they appreciate and certainly they want it right now but we want to make sure we do it right and get it in our hands so you know we're not

047asking them for anything back once we put it in our hands and you know I was reading something where there was one school district but that was stating that they were giving bonuses to teachers that had to come had to go back on it because they were horrible budgeted about 15 million dollars so you know we haven't had to take back any money and and take back anything that we've told teachers and and classified staff that we would want to do as a board so we appreciate you thank you any other questions or comments I have one more uh I'm an account County appropriate in other words they've done approved the county has done approved that one point uh 400 million and seven hundred thousand yes the county appropriated 1.4 million and then gave us

048700 000 for the school from the cap School capital reserve fund oh they it went to the capital reserve so and then we're taking it out of the capital reserve to pay on to the auditorium we actually get one twelfth of that 1.4 and 1 12 that's 700 000 on a monthly basis to fund capital projects other than the um the auditoriums right any other questions those in favor of the budget resolution as presented if you'd raise your hand excuse me I didn't get a motion in a second was that you Mr Taylor motion by Mr Glover second by Mr Taylor now all those in favor of the budget resolution you raise your hand Mr showers uh any of those I've got questions now as you said was coming back to those auditoriums I've got

049questions about those auditoriums otherwise I'm good to go all right so you're voting in favor of the budget resolution uh if we're going to discuss this auditoriums I am I will but if we're not if we're not going to be discussing at least some numbers well it's only agendas I just I need a yay or an A whether you're voting board okay eight to one thank you next we have educational programs Mr Humphries okay the education program committee met on Friday December the 17th at 10 30. the meeting was called order Paula peeler provided some updates and information from Head Start The Head Start performance standards these may have been updated with recent information on vaccines and masks specific information has been communicated with appropriate staff and parents with students in Head Start the approval

050of the Head Start committee minutes and the Head Start budget will be an action item for tonight's meeting the information was given a favorable response by the committee and we will be recommending it to the board for approval of c c a c f t which is child and adult care food program had a federal audit this week and CCS did very well Dr Little John gave a community life center presentation this Community Builders Group would like to implement these programs number one first program would Target three and four-year-olds and their parents the focus will be kindergarten Readiness especially in the area of literacy children will receive instructional support along with the parents in an effort to empower the parents to continue supporting the home second program would be an after-school program that would provide

051tutoring and homework assistance along with some enrichment activities Atrium already has established a community health clinic on site the Child Academy will also be established on campus in the near future Dr Littlejohn would like a committee to be formed including Cleveland County School staff and the community life center staff that support these programs coming up this month the committee will meet to discuss the next steps Dr honnell gave updates related to high school final exams in the act the minimum passing score for the ACT was 17 that will now be 19. our high schools administered EOC and CTE exams during the last five days of school in December testing went well except for some quarantine situations and testing results are positive in most cases fall ESC results have met or exceeded free pandemic levels Dr

052huntle reminded the group of our educational educational program goals for our District's strategic plan our instruction Focus will continue to be on 90 percent reading goal proficiency and act proficiency mastery-based learning and District dashboards were also discussed Dr Ware shared and we have a program called finish that has worked out for some students the education program committee's next meeting is scheduled it is a Friday January the 28th at 10 30. Mr Hunters next we have a school calendar discussion with Dr Fisher Miss Wampler good evening good evening you have a couple calendar drafts and a little chart that kind of helps you to compare the two calendar drafts both of the drafts that we have given you um follow the current calendar law the big difference between the two drafts is the first draft has

053the first semester ending in January and the second draft has the first semester ending in December there's really good and bad to both of them and fortunately this year the calendars kind of take a hit because according to the calendar law the the first Monday that school can start is the Monday closest to August 26th which makes about August 29th for this calendar and so in both calendars you see us starting somewhat late and for the calendar or draft two where the semesters ending in December that makes the first semester in the second semester very unequal with the first semester having 79 days and the second one having a hundred that's a good a calendar in that you're ending the semester before Christmas but it's not a great calendar in that you have very uneven

054semesters when you look at the first draft that's why we drafted one where it ends the first semester in January and so that's good in that the semesters are balanced but poor and that students have to wait to take exams until after Christmas and then that can cause issues with college courses and things like that so we've given both of these to you and they do match the law but there are obviously issues with both of them that's true go ahead Mr Mr Wilmington prime example about these calendars when he was standing right there just a few minutes ago football players has already done checked in the Chapel Hill on Appalachian or some a job right there we don't keep them exams beforehand then that means that child would have to wait until the first

055semester the fall to start school how many children have we checked into scams from January to August to start school to college that does not follow through and go by that time breaking there we're going from Christmas right straight home to college or the community College I know the Community College here in Arthur Thurman would pick up quite a bit those children there that that go to that community they have to wait to August well the last two years we have ended at Christmas I think and that part of it is for that very reason we had the exam right before I'm so headed in the past of children that did not follow through because they had to wait a whole mess I mean I think in the last two years we that hasn't been

056an issue because they've been able to graduate so you know early in to do that no I've not looked three years back well I'll talk to Ted Alexander today in fact I called twice I talked to him he called me back again called me back again at 4 30. that rules death not coming out a house did approve it again and uh I asked him what was it going to take to uh to get this uh off of that rule stage and I asked him how many senators was he said 50. I said well how many Republicans are he said 28 I said but he says and I said well some of them Republicans against Republicans too so there it goes is it about I think that our school district needs to get with other

057school districts we need to get a team together and carry to Raleigh if y'all don't I'll be in front I'll take the first shot Mr Blanton not to interrupt but uh I believe Dr Fisher's got something to go along with what you're saying and we have voted last year to go ahead and team up with other school districts to do a joint resolution and that's still in the works Dr Fisher do you want to go ahead and well you're not to chair the meeting and if you interrupt again you'll be asked to leave well are you interrupted me really well I'm trying to uh Dr Fisher's going to cover it okay well why could not finish me every time okay wait thank you Mr chairman uh members of the board um we have and I

058appreciate Ms Wampler and the work of her team we did uh bring uh faculty staff from across the district in to give some input on the calendar and as you know just just to really quickly summarize that they've done a great job putting together two calendars that uh meet the definition of the law but do not meet the instructional and academic needs of our students and uh County so you know tonight you know we obviously can can can talk about these calendars and we can go through these calendars we can put these out calendars out for for um public comment my my opinion is and based on uh things that other districts have done conversations that we've had with other districts and and what we've done in the past the calendar that uh finishes Before

059Christmas will be overwhelmingly supported by community staff and students uh and the calendar that's that's academically balanced but ends in January will not be as favorable however in this year is almost the worst case scenario starting on the 29th is as late as you can start really puts the first semester in an academic bind from the from the instructional Integrity of the courses we would teach first semester second semester so I say all that to understand we've been battling this calendar law for I think for 20 some years I was a teacher when the calendar all changed I was a young administrator with the counter law who was adopted as it is now in 2004 and we've been battling that battle fight ever since um and and so I bring you now you've got a

060copy of a resolution that I would um was asked to kind of put together and so uh after this I'm going to go through this resolution Mr chairman and then the board can can take it as as it is but and I hate to read it but for the uh not reading to you guys I understand you can read it but for the public to understand where we're going uh the Cleveland County Board of Education 2022 resolution supporting local control school calendars whereas the Northline General statutes give local Boards of Education powers of supervision control of the local school systems and whereas local control over establishing school calendars in the integral part of school system supervision and administrative Powers with which local Boards of Education have been vested and whereas in 2004 the North Carolina

061General Assembly seized control of setting school calendars and opposed a one-size-fits-all mandate on how school calendars will be set and whereas the current one-size-fits-all school calendar start date no late no earlier than the Monday closest to August 26th and the end date no later than the Friday closes of June 11th and whereas the state mandated late August start date means high schools do not complete their first semester until mid-January and whereas the current law essentially requires high school students to take first semester exams after the winter break which negatively impacts test scores according to students and Educators and whereas the high school semester start two to three weeks later than Community College and universities creating schedule scheduling and logistic roadblocks that never negatively impact Student Success calendars that completely comply with the currently written calendar

062law are not in the best interest of students student an achievement or sustain Student Success and whereas superintendents report that the calendar misalignments make it nearly impossible for high school students a recent run of graduates to take courses at nearby community colleges or University's second semester and whereas exams for advanced placement and international Baccalaureate classes are given on the same day Nationwide and current school calendar law shortens the amount of time North Carolina students has to learn the material prior to test day and whereas with a little flexibility building to the calendar scheduling makeup days is extremely challenging and we're asked all sports and band begin August 1st schedules for extracted extracurricular activities enough change to coincide with the state mandated calendar law and whereas local Boards of Education are best equipped to understanding The

063Balancing Act between meetings and communities needs and maximizing Student Success and whereas restoring local control of school calendars will allow local Boards of Education to best meet the calendar preferences of the families Educators businesses in our community while allowing for more Innovative experimental approaches to improve student achievement therefore for be it resolved that the Killian County Board of Education requested the North County General Assembly pass a resolution to support calendar flexibility be it further resolved that the Cleveland County Board of Education request that Cleveland County Schools district leadership staff create a calendar proposal that best meets the instructional and academic needs of the students of Cleveland County preference for calendar decision should be given to the instructional and academic needs of the students and staff of Cleveland County Schools adopted this day by the adopted

064by the Cleveland County Board of Education this 10th day of January so if the board chooses to adopt this resolution it it you know in summary it requests that the general assembly um recognize that the the challenges that the local calendar or the calendar Bill creates and the lack of flexibility creates in our community with our schools but it also by adopting this the Board of Education instructs District staff to create a calendar that is in the best interest of students in our community and that essentially follows the calendar law when applicable but really gives preference to what's best for students and staff so we'll be glad to answer any questions that the board may have assume you'd bring if assuming we approve this resolution then you would bring a new calendar to us in

065February that is correct if you approve this resolution we would bring a calendar to you in February that we feel like would best meet the instructional and academic needs of our students and schools uh it would it would start prior to the August 29th date and it would be a balanced calendar where we would have a more balanced calendar where we would have exams before Christmas I do not believe if we're instructed to do so uh that we would just you know we would try to follow the counter law when applicable but at the same time preference will be given as stated here preference be given to what's best for our students and our schools can can we have a draft of that ready say in a couple weeks so that we'll have time to

066put it on the website and folks will have time to comment before I think our next meeting is February 14th we can have that we can have a draft ready if the board wants to go ahead and tell us to do that put that out we can have a draft uh calendar done by the end of January and have it out on the website prior to February 1st and the board consider that at their February meeting if that's if that's what the board chooses to jump back on one of your questions um you know I I did right before we came in here I was on the phone with a conversation with the superintendent um and uh assuming that the board passes this tonight then uh this this resolution will go to the uh super

067incent superintendent Association executive committee meeting tomorrow to be spread out over the state now I can't promise you who's going to jump in and adopt it or not I can't assure you that other districts will jump on board but I know that there's some superintendents that I've talked to that like this and and I think that we make it at least a handful to go along with us is that correct that that would be correct the calendar that we would bring you would finish would finish uh first semester prior to Christmas okay I'll come back to you a couple of things um escte scores but it kind of makes sense to me that we're doing better by giving these tests before holidays do we have any statistical data to prove that I know we haven't

068completed this year's stuff yet yeah and I think that when you look at that obviously it would it would make sense that if you tested prior to Christmas you would do better that have a continuous semester test before you go on for Christmas then to go home for a two-week break come back for two weeks and test it just makes sense that that happens um you know fall comparing fall data from year to year is really challenging because some some years you may have uh three honors classes in the fall some years you only have one honors class but but I think it is it you know it aligns with students do better when they have some continuity through their semester while I think that that you know test scores are important and our Student

069Success on eocs and CET exams are important I think the biggest factor to me with a balanced counter that finishes prior to Christmas is the alignment we do with the community college and College University system we have Dr Hunter helped me almost 2 000 enrollments this fall in in C in CCP classes our students are are you know getting a a leg up for their Futures they're taking college classes you know to me you know the EOC data and CTE data and support it uh that that's you know tells the academic health of our district but when you're talking about what's best for students and what's best for our community that having students to be able to complete that community college class in the fall and start a community college class in the spring makes

070sense to have us to have the Community College semester end in December but a kids college class goes to mid-January it's just it doesn't it doesn't align it doesn't make sense not to mention you know and Coach Wilbanks talked about we have lots of kids that live to college and we have that's a that is a challenge trying to work with that uh every year and but those are the exceptions the the the vast majority of our kids are going to Cleveland Community College and it makes sense for them to uh to finish their studies in the um in December and move on to January but it's just not about their seniors we have 11th graders to do a lot of that so it just makes total sense to be alignment with the college so

071the other question unfortunately we know the Senate leadership is not going to change I'm all for the petition don't get me wrong the resolution but we've all probably got a pretty good idea that that's going to fall on deaf ears with the leadership and Senate sings how they created a calendar law to begin with they're not going to back down um calendar law has that got any teeth in it what if we just didn't know what if we do what's best for our students in Cleveland County exercise our local control and provide a sound basic educational like we're supposed to what if we just do what we need to do I think that that is is why you know we're getting the resolution I think the resolution has two things first it asks it basically

072request the Senate and general assembly to change the counter law which I agree we've been beating nedron for almost 20 years and that's not changed but but this resolution has the Board of Education directing staff to to to put a calendar together that that is is in the best interest students and and um I feel comfortable if the board directs staff to do that our staff can put someone together and um you know we're in that boat together okay you know I got one more question before any more questions on the calendar before we entertain a motion on the resolution okay one question explain to me again why we can't start on the 25th on that calendar because we normally can but it's the 29th now you can start no earlier than the Monday closest

073to August 26th all right it's the Monday okay yeah that's the part that got me talking about the Monday you know with this calendar the 29th is three days from the 26th or the 20 seconds four um and I tried you know old math teacher I tried every math trick I could get to convince that the 22nd was closer to the 26th and the 29th and I just couldn't get there the math line so it could just couldn't make it work you know I tried all sorts of math tricks and you know he looked sideways a little bit it looks a little yeah you know I kept coming up with the same answer yeah so um anybody else with questions on the calendar you know that one there is one uh District that has already

074set their calendar and they are going to school prior they are being they've already decided to set their calendar before the 29th so you know we're not well if we do this and approve a calendar for the 29th we won't be in that boat all along all right we have a resolution that requests the legislature change the calendar law and uh direct staff to give us a better one are you there are a hundred thousand people in this County I mean there are a whole lot over the whole state why don't we just have a Model start calling down after that sentence office I'll get them the phone numbers and they everybody can call me and I'll get their phone number for them for you why don't we do that Dr Fisher well this sounds

075like the start of it with the resolution okay y'all heard it folks start calling you senators I'll call in the morning or tonight did you want to make the motion for the resolution so I'll make a motion as long as it's going to be before Christmas motion but Mr Blanton is there a second by Mr Fitch any further discussion on the resolution I do want to make it clear I don't think it's our senator in Cleveland County that's holding this up that's great I want to give him I want to give him credit I mean when you say college you got to call him too I understand but I just want to give our Senators for credit then I appreciate that on my side I think can I say something Mr showers yes you've been

076very quiet so you get a turn I think what we need to do is find out what committee it is in and find out who the chair of that committee is that's where the phone calls need to go that would be the rules committee under Senator Rabin r-a-b-o-n okay there's there's your answer so all right we got a motion on the floor any further discussion on the resolution those in favor if you'd raise your hand Mr shower aye all right and we have the Head Start minutes and budget approval that is coming from committee as a recommendation for approval any questions or discussion those in favor of the Head Start minutes in budget if you would raise your hand Mr Shores aye all right next is our operations committee report operations committee met on Friday

077December 17th at 9 00 A.M um Mr Eddie Holbrook was recognized and presented a request to the committee for approval of proposed American Legion World Series projects to be done at the baseball field at Shelby High School Mr holbrook's proposal included the expansion of the canopy down the first and third Baseline stands the installation of fans under the newly installed canopy an upgrade and replacement of the lighting and improvements to the batting cages Mr Holbrook was asked about the plans for the existing lights at the field and it was suggested that those lights be relocated to the tennis courts at Shelby High School questions were about the proposal's impact on Title IX Dr Fisher expressed some concern especially related to improvements to the batting cages the district is currently remodeling the softball batting cages to

078match the existing baseball cages Mr Holbrook thanked the committee for their consideration of the proposal and Dr Fisher stated that the committee and District would consider the request and be back in touch McMillan president Smith presented updated information to the committee regarding facility options for the Shelby Kings Mountain attendance Zone the committee was able to ask questions to MPS and gain a better understanding of the work being done MPS will make a more formal presentation to the board tonight Dr Fisher informed the committee that the district had received an inquiry about the property in front of Shelby high school at the corner of 74 and Dekalb Street Dr Fisher stated that the district had no interest at this time in selling the property and the committee agreed Dr Fisher will communicate with the potential investor

079in addition I'd been approached about the availability of a house in the district owns adjacent to East Elementary Dr Fisher members of The District staff recommended waiting more information from the district's facility study before doing anything with that house and property Dr Fisher updated the committee on information from the state budget of a new approved need-based Public School Capital fund applications are due in March and Ms lumper provided an operations update included in her update was the capital projects report an update from cmta on their air ceiling bids and a reminder about the auditorium bid opening specifically no bids were received for the air ceiling of our four high schools this one for shared that cmta believes this is primarily due to supply chain issues and their more favorable outcome will result from rebuilding the

080air sailing project at the end of January or early February bids were open for the auditorium project on December 21st and more information will be presented later tonight with no new business the meeting was adjourned and the next operations committee meeting is scheduled for Friday January 28th at 9 00 A.M next we have our facilities assessment presentation we appreciate you gentlemen be impatient with us we have Ben Thompson Hamilton Court and Peter Nielsen with mcmillan-paston and Smith good evening members of the board great to be with you again Ben Thompson with mcmillan-pazn Smith it's been a pleasure working with you over in the district over the last several months as we've been investigating and really going on a search for information a search for for facts about the school district as it looks at its

081strategic plan for improving facilities across the school district tonight we really wanted to kind of summarize where we are in that process and this will be one of several meetings where we where we go and continue to do the work of the facility needs assessment so what is a facility needs assessment that's really what what this is all about and we're going to go through a lot of that this evening of course but it really has four main factors one of those factors is demographic of Trends and demographic forecasts for this school district in addition to our team here back behind us our engineers analysts and demographers to really drive that effort when we look at the forecast of demographics and we have uh we'll share that at a top level view with you uh

082as well we also the second factor is we also look at facility utilization that's really about how you use your existing portfolio of buildings how well it is uh really uh tuned to the spaces that you need for teaching and for use so we do look at utilization how well you're utilizing each one of those buildings third is we do look at the condition the overall physical condition of the building that has various categories obviously HVAC is one of those also cite the building envelope whether that's roof or exterior walls or Windows building interiors and of course code criteria as well so those four those three really those three factors really form a lot of information back behind the scenes about what's going on for the school district both in terms of right now in

083the mediate and what will be forecasted in the coming years also last factor is is uh is really your guiding principles and that's where do you want the district to go overall over the course of the next decade and that's really what we we look at as far as how do we judge maybe improvements uh in Into the Future so tonight again overall in progress review this is more for information than anything else and and we're going to be looking at that 20 000 foot level of course where we're where we're trying to disseminate a lot of information to you obviously you have access to all of the reports and and the uh and the update the executive summary in front of you we'll also look at how that those guiding principles begin to apply

084uh specifically how they may apply in the Shelby Zone and we'll talk about the next steps after after that bear with me get our technology to work all right so first first Factor uh demographic uh study do you have the foreign so we completed a demographic study about six weeks ago and McKibben demographics was the demographer for for this portion of the work and what they they specialize in school district planning and demographics uh and Analysis so they come they came back with several factors that really inform how we look at Trends and forecasts for the school district overall over the next five years and over the next 10 years obviously and as part of that report the next five years is fairly well known the further out that you get is a little bit

085more ambiguous but that five year is is based on the way that he analyzes this is a pretty fundamental uh forecast for for how the school district either grows stays the same or or declines so as a result of that demographic forecast we were able to see overall how the district may be performing a population standpoint and how that affects enrollment but we are also able to look Zone by Zone school by school and grade by grade for each one of the schools to see exactly how that population growth is going to affect enrollment for each of your schools for each of your zones over that course good news is if you look at it from an overall planning perspective all of Cleveland County there is virtually stabilization of the enrollment for each for the

086district overall that's a good that's neither high growth nor decline in a in a significant way stabilization means that you know what you have and you can plan for it accordingly so that's not to say that some zones are not growing in some zones are not declining some some are in in your four major zones we've broken down how that growth and how that decline happens of course Just for information as a God as far as the facilities go of course but overall the district seems to be fairly stable in its population and therefore stable in its enrollment overall Peter's going to kind of walk through a couple of those Maps just overall to to kind of show you how that affects those demographic forecasts affects those so if you look throughout the the map

087of the district areas that are highlighted red those are the areas that are increasing the most over the next 10 years and which is good so that we can understand where those are maybe they come as a surprise maybe they don't but areas that are kind of Darker Reds to library those are areas where you're getting an increase in your enrollment areas where it's grayed out you're staying neutral over the course of the next 10 years you're not getting an increase or decrease enrollment and then in areas that are green that's where you're actually getting a decrease in enrollment so this map is when you're looking at your elementary schools only over the course of the next 10 years you're your Elementary School enrollment is actually increasing overall when you go to the next slide

088we start to look at the intermediate and middle schools you do over the next 10 years have a little bit of a decline in your enrollment overall for these zones obviously you can tell by the map which areas are having the most decrease but for the most part staying like as Ben said fairly stable and then we went from elementary to middle and now we're going to the high schools and seeing what your overall enrollment is doing for these zones for the most part there's a slight decrease in enrollment but for which is a good thing as we mentioned before for how we can actually look at your facilities and how to use them in the future so a little bit about the forecast right so we're not profits here we can't we can predict

089the future based on what's happened in the past and what we assume uh based on all available evidence is going to likely happen into the future if things change in a big way obviously that updates your your demographic forecast that would be you have an enormous industry moving in for instance that would affect your demographic forecast you have catastrophic events or you have infrastructure changes those kind of things really affect your demographic forecast we don't project any of those major events occurring so that's the basis of of the forecast is that everything stays stays in the economy and in the the community of of Cleveland County uh the same over the over the course so just a little note on that is that again this is the the BET based on the best available evidence

090evidence for demographic Trends and forecasts from that demographic Trends and forecasts that allows us to evaluate each school and how you're using it how you're utilizing each one of those spaces so in addition to the work that we've done in demography we've taken a look at all of your schools we have cataloged all of your schools with cataloged all of the spaces inside whether they be instructional spaces administrative spaces support spaces every single space within your buildings as they are right now and functioning right now to evaluate what their capacity is and then judge that capacity on on the current enrollment and in the five-year picture and in the 10-year window about how how that will likely be utilized given the results of the demographic study overall it's a lot of data so we won't

091spend a whole lot going through there but you can start to see heat maps of how that might affect every everything right here you're looking at the uh the four district-wide facilities there the top of the page starting out at a population of 400 now um and uh looking at the popular and then the target capacity of the schools current Target capacity is 661. so you're the the capacity you've got capacity in those schools in Kings Mountain you've got a capacity of about a population of about 4 000 but of a capacity of about five thousand so you're at about a thousand uh extra seats there in Shelby District you got about 2 800 students you've got seats for 3 700 so you've got about 900 excess capacity there and you can see over time

092um that at 936 now 924 and five years and a 907 going forward so that's that stabilized number that we've we've shown you but you're going to continue to have that excess capacity uh going out in the foreseeable future and then the crest um you've got an excess capacity there of 300 uh increasing to 500 and then maybe about six seven hundred in in the long term again uh just a lot of information and certainly review that independently of this presentation because it is just a lot of information to kind of go through but really this is the pairing of that demographic information how you're using that building and the capacity that your buildings currently have for either for future growth for Cleveland County Schools overall um I won't spend a whole lot of time

093on this but I'll just kind of go through this really quickly is that chart uh those three charts that we just shared are also color coded on that map so that you can see in graphic form how those either utilize under utilize spaces or utilized spaces are located within each one of the zones each one of the four uh main main zones overall again we're talking about under capacity not not very many schools have that under capacity of of more than 200 seats really it's mostly stable what that is from and that's not a bad thing that's really a good thing from a planning standpoint because that gives you flexibility overall and and if you do have growth into the future obviously additional growth uh into the future we've looked at that from both the

094projection of what happens in five years uh and what happens uh in 10 years of course and and those are included uh in your packet as well so uh third Factor facility assessments that's the physical condition of each one of the schools like we said that takes the most time from our group to really go through stick our head above all ceilings and get on the roof make sure that we look at all nooks and crannies within uh within a given school so we have done that process for both the Kings Mountain Zone and the Shelby Zone we will continue to do that process for uh for for the rest of the zones or for the rest of the schools here in Cleveland County as well so this is more in process but what we

095tend to do there is we break those into categories like I mentioned earlier building site Health Safety and Security and and other categories like that and really rate those based on based on what we see out there overall we've got these overall scores and I want to I want to talk a little bit about the overall scores this is nothing more than just bringing every factor and making the average of of every Factor one thing that you get as soon as we finish our facility assessment is really to be able to look at those factors from a cost standpoint as well so that you have a scale of value about what those what those physical conditions actually mean and can quantify those both in the short term and in the long term so we're in

096process with that right now I just wanted to point that out in the overall scores is they may represent just you know a 3D being a fair School an operating school and that's just the overall median of the of the scores that we have for each of your facilities the way that we do this is that we look at 268 individual components of of each school to give recommendations on and each one of those 268 components gets a cost associated with it so again again see the scale of value there and make Improvement plans within the short term and in the long term won't spend a whole lot of time on this since it is in progress but again the same exercise of going uh and looking at those overall views with overall scores to

097kind of really get a an idea of where you are in the in the and as Ben said you know these um have implied through the Kings Mountain and Shelby's um but this is as part of the Third Kind of tier that we look at the schools is really important to for us to not only understand what the physical condition but also how you can project forward because when you start to take into consideration the trends of enrollments how the buildings are being used and what the physical conditions are then you really get that full picture for which you can start to think about the future with your facilities not just not just now for five years but also ten years down the road so lots lots and I know I'm spending a very short

098amount of time on on these components but it has taken several months to kind of gather all that information present it to not only Administration and staff but also a facility committee building committee as well that fourth and last area in which we look are the are the guiding principles and this is where we really need the district's help so we we went through an exercise with the building committee uh to to really understand what are those principles that the district sees in the future to meet its strategic goals and to meet a strategic plan and to be in line with his mission and vision so I'll spend just a few moments talking about uh each each one of these I'll try not to go into the weeds here but these these were as we

099presented to the committee the principal The Guiding principles that we should look at as as um as assessors to really make recommendations for improvements to each school or to each zone so the first one is it seemed like the best uh or the it seemed like everyone really grabbed onto and gravitated towards this is uh it it everything should be as efficient operationally efficient and as effective as as possible for the school district that sounds like a very simple statement but you know that really guides how you look at maybe recommending improvements per zone so that was that was really a first and foremost we should always apply good principles of operational efficiency and Effectiveness in how we make key decisions in maintaining uh improving or changing each of those campuses the second one was

100as maintaining those School District zones so you have four main zones so we're going to continue we're not changing attendance lines for the four main zones overall so one of the gaudy principles is to keep those zones keep those communities as they are right now from a zoning from a a tennis standpoint third is continuing to maintain and improve each of the school systems for high school campuses and their current locations we looked at facility assessment from a physical condition standpoint obviously the utilization and the demographic trends for high schools for Cleveland County Schools and it appears that you have high schools that meet your needs for each one of those areas there's no there's no need to combine or do or do additions or anything like that from a you from a space utilization

101an educational standpoint kind of overall it's really about improving those schools and making them a quality environment overall from a high school standpoint number four in each one of the enrollment Zone campuses were designed by grade are continuing to be designed by grade level groupings now this is where we're a little different because zones are are different here in Cleveland County overall it looks like the best educational approach that was presented and discussed at the committee was to group schools by by cohorts being Elementary being kindergarten through fifth Middle School comprehensive Middle School which is grades six through eight and again high schools keeping those the same at Ninth through 12th so our guiding principle then would be look at scenarios in which those those that guiding principle can be applied from a cohort standpoint

102when we looked at how that might happen what are the optimal sizes for an elementary school given that configuration the middle school and high school given that configuration we went through and looked at certainly the Department of Public instructions uh standards there but what is it what is it for Cleveland County specifically what we found was the optimal size here in Cleveland County is for elementary schools the optical sizes between 400 and 600 students for Middle 800 to 900 students and for high school anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred students and demographics support that that that grouping as well as space utilization overall final one of those guiding principles is to really continue to offer the choices that you do have within the district and what we mean by that is early college or

103any of the programs that you have throughout the district so we're not trying to the guiding principle change that in any way when we talk about Improvement plans kind of kind of overall so with that that's kind of the overarching of all of where we where we are again lots of data back behind it what I want to take now is that are those guiding principles and apply them show you how we might recommend applying them to one zone and that's Shelby tonight obviously you have four so they'll be there'll be additional discussion about those of course but Shelby seemed to be one of the zones that we could we could look at and and start to really discuss and then we've presented these these findings and recommendations so when we look at the Shelby

104zone right away you can see there's there's a couple schools that we've labeled as twos on on the scores for the facility assessment uh Graham and Marion we also have James love as a two as well but what we want to think about is how can we use those guiding principles to align what you currently have with what you actually want to do as a district so when we start to look at what the recommendations can be for you know if you want to have a true Middle School you don't have the intermediate that starts to allow us to shift some options and look at creating this really efficient use of facilities throughout the district uh so Step One is uh converting the existing uh Shelby Middle School into a complete one so instead of

105just being seventh and eighth grade it's sixth through eighth grade students still go from the Shelby intermediates to Shelby Middle School uh what that then does is you're gonna have to do a little bit of realignment with your fifth grade students who are currently not at their their home elementary schools so that's important thing to consider is when you do that then your enrollment numbers in those elementary schools are going to increase um so that's kind of step one step two um so then what that allows us to do and is we'll go back uh there we go is to actually consolidate uh the existing Four elementary schools into three elementary schools and that would be done by combining Graham Elementary and Marion Elementary into one Elementary School which then since you've moved your students

106uh your seventh and eighth grade or sorry your um your students of Intermediate School to the middle school that allows us to actually use that Intermediate School as the location for where you'd have that combined elementary school once that happens then that's not the final piece of that you still have to make sure that all these schools can handle that increase in with the fifth grade students going to those areas and make sure that the physical conditions of those schools match what you need to have for learning environments so there's always that need for improvements and that's part of the facility assessments identifying where those improvements need to happen so what does this kind of look like then in the future for that well the first thing you have to then look at is when

107you have those two buildings go offline you've got decisions to make as to what you want to do with those properties whether they are sold or disposed of in different ways that would be up to the school board is what those decisions would be um as Ben mentioned earlier when we're we're not ignoring the high school obviously there's always improvements that you have to do to the high school and so that's always going to happen in the background as we're making these kind of decisions and changes throughout the district um obviously improvements to the schools that are not the high schools so again your other Elementary Schools Jefferson James love North Shelby's in new school so there's really not a whole I have to do there and then obviously perhaps if you have to do

108anything to Middle School you probably wouldn't have to because again that's also a new school one of the other things that we're also considering and this is completely up to the school board is and do you want to have a centralized pre-k program or do you want to keep it as it is currently now at their home schools you now have that option to do that because when you move the Graham and Marion students to what's currently your Intermediate School you actually could centralize them at that location that's an option that's not necessarily a recommendation but those are things that you guys about the guy consider is what you want to do with the pre-k program um one of the kind of things that results from this is when you take two buildings offline is

109you're no longer paying for utilities of those locations so what we did is we took the utility costs that you have for the average for the last five years and to supply that number uh projecting at 10 years obviously utility costs are probably gonna go up so it could be a different number but just based on the last five years and averaging that and putting that into the next 10 you have just just under 100 or 1.8 million dollars that utility costs alone are going to be saved with that so the other thing that we think about again is those fifth graders are going to go back to their home elementary schools and so we have to then look at make sure again do the schools that you have can they support that that's Again

110part of this process just so to summarize and what we're really recommending and we've we've looked at your schools we've looked at the the size of your schools the capacities and and the main recommendation is uh integrating the in the uh intermediate schools into the middle schools both in the Shelby district and the Kings Mountain district and um and bringing them into alignment so the whole the whole the whole district is in a traditional elementary middle and high school model we presented both of those to the committee as you remember and the Shelby District actually based on the utilization and the growth rates and everything like that a realignment in in making all these schools a lot more efficient um really doesn't take a whole lot of uh capital investment in new facilities to accommodate

111that you don't have to create an addition here or put temporary temporary classrooms and a location to accomplish that the way all the numbers work and the way all this all this schools kind of lay out Shelby district is able to be accomplished relatively simply without a lot of that capital investment the king's Mountain District when we when we utilize that approach of integrating the Intermediate School back into that middle school system is a little bit more complicated because a lot of the schools are a little bit closer to capacity than they are in Shelby the growth rates are a little bit different everything's just a little bit different in Kings Mountain but we wanted to bring you our our recommendations on Shelby because things seem to be working out pretty well there in Shelby

112and again we're going to follow that up with continuing to have that conversation about not only Shelby but also Kings Mountain Crest Burns as well we've presented this kind of a recommendation um and and really it's up to you right it's not it's not up to you to us how how you how you want to proceed but tonight was just more about information here's our recommendation for the Shelby Zone here are the guiding principles here's the data that supports all of that all of those guiding principles and improvements uh and and let's start to go to work for the rest of the zones complete the study complete all of the information so that we can again provide you with the best information available to make decisions so with that I'll answer any questions that that

113you guys have just to give board members an idea of process and the public that uh we've had a recommendation presented if that's something we want to move forward with then we would schedule a public hearing that would give a community chance to provide input it wouldn't be any action taken that night would we you know to the following meeting to take any kind of action so that we've got plenty of time to to study and gather information at the public hearing we would have more detailed information from our local staff as to where would the lines exactly be we'd have information possibly about bus routes things of that sort so there would be more detailed information I'm assuming we can get this information out on our board docs after the meeting so folks will

114have time to review this information we'll have time to comment at a later date and we can pick that date tonight if you so choose and then continue on from there but with that are there any Mr Black yes uh I knew you you made the statement and I appreciate y'all bringing that up about the king's Mountain Zone that it was uh showing that the recommendation there because y'all done the assessment there and just like you did the Shelby Zone and uh I just wanted to clear it up because there was some statements Scott made over the week of the last week or two that uh there was nothing taking place well they are not nothing taking place because we really don't know what the growth is going to be down there for sure right

115now that we've got to check in to do to this bill all this building that's taking place down there but Dave was a recommendation from y'all on that Kings Mountain Zone because y'all done the assessment on that and I just wanted that clear that uh as that wasn't fiction it was true and uh and here's a copy of the paperwork that came from you yeah and everything and it's not it was not in that the king's Mountain talk was not in the presentation tonight except for what y'all brought up the Galatians and I appreciate y'all bringing that up and thank you and uh but I know that we have got to do some studying because there are a lot of building going to take place at Kings Mountain and we've got to be very careful

116on what we do down there with our builders thank you Mr Glover Mr chair I just want to clear so you was talking about the intermediate um switching over to an elementary in in the capacity there if we were to switch that over could handle the Pre-K yeah with the numbers that you have that you decide what I understand yeah correct so even on this the slide that's up there the last page of your handout when you add you know it's approximately 10 years to have about 150 152 Pre-K students that um need to have need to have a home so right now based on the projected enrollment at that new we'll call it the new Elementary School even though it's at Shelby intermediate you could still integrate that uh that enrollment into that school

117and still go meet within your targets based on the guiding principles of enrollment at schools okay thank you I just want to clarify thank you Mr Humphries so kingswell uh I think I've smoked y'all before I'm on the planning board down there yes sir so I'm probably in a unique situation you know to understand the Dynamics going on down there So currently there's 3 000 approved homes there um seeing another subdivision tomorrow at the meeting there's a couple hundred more Town Homes coming and at one location and there's another location under study right now for another several hundred Town Halls so I'm glad we're going to take a beat on Kings Mountain before we start looking because we don't I think we see a trend in where those homes are being built but we don't

118yet know some of them are Senior Living some of them are not some on recombination someone's got pimple ball courts and Rodham might be moving down there pretty soon and they got teams too from what I understand but so Kinder Keys is our consultant in Kings Mountain and when I talked to all the last time they had predicted the population to double in 10 years they've they're going back and starting their study again and and what I'm gathering from the planning department is the Kings mountains population will probably double in the next five to eight years so that's a very Dynamic situation down there I feel like I have no idea how many of those will bring children with them and how many but I do feel like there will be the wave is not

119going to hit like a tidal wave it's going to be a deal but that's something I'm glad we're going to take our time and study that before we make any decisions on that right and really that's a really good point uh too which which kind of relates to Mr Patton is there are there are more unknowns um at Kings Mountain and and to what Hamilton said uh you have to approach it differently based on those guiding principles than you would at Shelby so we're not ready you know we weren't ready to make a recommendation then we certainly did talk about all the options available um for for the district uh for for Kings Mountain but the the more information that we gather the more informed decisions that you guys can make and the better the

120recommendation will be overall I'm sure that I don't know exactly when candy Key's information will come in but I'm sure it will be made available to you all when it does that's great check with the planning department down there and I'm sure they'll hand it over to you fantastic all right thanks guys thank you for your time sure sure great there is thank you very much thank you I'll make a motion that we have the public hearing and that and we do answer questions for a person if any way possible that we do when we have this public hearing that we be able to answer questions too what day is that on your motion to have public hearing and answer questions to the public [Applause] representation yeah okay I'll make sure you get that that

121would be January 25th Tuesday Mr Queen I believe your microphone's not on I'm not hearing you real well I'm sorry Joe you're correct uh did you understand the motion yes I've got the motion okay for this year we attend that is correct any further advice any questions or discussion on scheduling the public hearing so Mr Williams please stop interrupting we are discussing the Shelby's on no ma'am we've already had public participation so Mr Arthur she had a question the Forum is a standard public hearing format so it's more of an interchange I'll have to look we'll have to review policy and check with our attorneys and make sure we yeah follow what the law requires yeah public it is more of an interchange than you usual any other questions or discussion all right those in

122favor of the public hearing on January 25th at 6 pm in this location to discuss if she'll be school zone if you'd raise your hand Mr Shores you're a little weak there Mr short it's your vote aye oh there okay we got you that time yes all right next we have under operations we have the American Legion uh World Series uh resolution that is in your packet to summarize uh American Legion is requesting to extend the canopies down the left and right field sides add some more fans upgrade the lighting on the baseball field and the old lights are to be transferred to the tennis courts in any changes to the batting gauges must have superintendent approval before making any changes what's the president of the board motion by Mr Hunt second by Mr Blanton

123any questions or discussion any questions or discussion all right those in favor of the American Legion World Series resolution as presented if you'd raise your hand I think that's non-zero we have uh Duke Energy easement at Fallston Elementary uh Duke Energy has requested an easement to repair a leaning power pole they'll need to install the guy wire so they need a little extra room and that information is in your packet any questions or discussion on the easement that has been reviewed by the attorneys what's the pleasure of the board thank you make a motion by Mr Glover I think I heard Mr Hunt any questions or discussion yes uh that that guy wire is not going to be in the any danger as our people checked in the bank that's checked in that is it's

124not going to interfere with any of our property of where that it's going to cause the issue is it I see Mr Childers back there okay good enough this Minister Childers approved he's my buddy any further questions or discussion I'll make a motion we prove it we've already got our Motion in a second all those in favor if you raise your hand Mr Shores aye operations has had a busy time here okay we've got a resolution to sell the grover house and property uh that resolution's in your packet the board approved I think it was in October November to put that property up for sale I can't remember the exact date but the upset bid process has been gone through and the high bid is 132 000 for the residential property behind Grover's Elementary School

125what's the pleasure of the board what's that yes motion by Mr Taylor second by Mr Fitch any questions or discussions approval of this resolution will allow our attorneys to finalize sale of the property all those in favor if you raise your hand Mr Shores aye auditoriums update Dr Fisher thank you Mr chairman members of the board first of all I want to make sure make sure I'm clear when I start that um I am not asking for uh a Sit board decision tonight I want to try to make that clear uh in communication with that uh that tonight's just an update not not a recommendation uh or a decision maybe tonight uh as as Mr karpinski's uh stated in our budget we do have 20 million dollars in the budget uh for the auditorium already

126in the budget um as you know just recap a few things uh bids are open on Tuesday December 21st that afternoon we did have three bids for each Auditorium of being construction was a low bid with a combined base bid of 27 million 476 thousand dollars you have this information at your spots um I did had a few questions about what that included uh and as you know looking at the plans and discussing that there was quite a bit of site work on those campuses at Burns will be we're actually building a new road a new exit and entrance student exit student entrance to the to the school there um actually not a student entrance and exit but a drop-off entrance an exit uh there at the school redoing lots of parking lots moving some

127things on both campuses so I have highlighted there in blue in that base bid really included over 2.6 million dollars of site work I mean you can see what that includes at Crest and over 2.3 million dollars of slack work it burns so there's an extensive amount of site work being done if you remember those were done in stages during the summer as far as student parking drives all that information due to the fact that the amount of bid versus what we had in our budget our operations team and Holland Hamrick and bean construction are really working to Value engineering to look at all aspects of that Pros bid we were doing you know reviewing the finance options in terms of our financial ability to to fund this project just as you as you remember

128based on lots of conversation in the past we did receive a state needs basic Capital funding Grant in terms of 15 million dollars we have have a three to one match with that and match that with capital reserve funding for five million dollars which put us at a 20 million so we will need if if this recommendation and the board does approve that we will need to look at other funding sources which could include but not limiting to additional capital reserve dollars Capital fund balance dollars there also are additional future Capital grant opportunities that we are able to apply for uh in the past if you've got a grant you couldn't reapply for a certain amount of time now we can reapply and so we are beginning to work on the Grant application uh to

129be able to hopefully put all this together um you know given the ongoing work of the value engineering and the alignment of funding resources more than likely we're going to need a special called meeting sometime maybe next week to look at this if if everything works out to look about approving that which is Our intention uh we we obviously have until January 21st to um the bed's good until the end to make work on that so again not asking for approval of that tonight I just wanted to update you on the status of that our ongoing work with with uh beam and Holland Hamrick with our finance team looking at all those different options too uh to see where we can save some money and then what we can't afford to do at that time

130I we will by the end of this week we'll look about a proposed date for a call meeting during the day uh one day to potentially look about approving those auditoriums be glad to try to answer any questions I got several questions 577.8 cents a square foot is absolutely ridiculous that we've been awaiting 52 years and maybe due to covet time that might be a fair price but I went to DPI and I pulled and those bid dates you asked me about the bid days they were during the code the big dates the average price was two hundred and forty two dollars and 57 cents for all the jobs of building an elementary school a high school and two elementary schools another County worked we've waited this long and we would drain our uh what

131do you call rainy day funds or whatever you want to call that to build I'm going to afford building these auditoriums but it was 2017 that we had an estimated price of eight and a quarter million not counting the site work so use the site work that came up which is five million 957 thousand dollars use the site work add that to it telling me that it's went up that much hey beans construction has done a lot of work for us over the years good work excellent can't complain a bit but I really think that this School Board needs to think twice and we need to have another public hearing to allow the people to speak do they want us to spend that kind of money now or wait till these prices start coming back

132down some I know they're coming down I can prove that just by me building a carport and I know that's realistic a carport versus an auditorium but just for an example right over here at Lowe's for one piece of soffit is 19.87 with my discount right now you can go to Gastonia and buy that same piece of soffit for seven dollars and eleven cents so what I'm getting at prices is coming down I know a lot of contractors my son's a contractor but he ain't gonna build nothing like this but prices cannot stay up there the way they are and if they are it cannot go much higher I think that we need to have the Public's input before we go to spending 27 million dollars for something that we had a price on four

133years ago at eight and a quarter million plus the site work Mr Blaine let me let me make sure and a couple of things the the price that was presented in a board meeting you know about five years ago or so that was just an estimate that was not a bid price that was not anything like that should never bring it before the public then if it's not a price that's standing good well it's the way I look at it when you say standing good you're talking about a bid price that was an estimate we feel like this may estimate costs if I may interrupt yeah that those were budgetary numbers at that time based on a sixteen thousand square foot facility and that was the best estimate of what we thought we needed after

134going through and getting all the community input our staff input administrator input and understanding what we really needed in an auditorium those auditoriums are twenty four thousand square feet so that's a fifty percent increase over the original budgetary numbers so if you go eight and a quarter and add fifty percent you're at 12.18 so you're right in line with about what these are going to be no no then quarter was both of them then you've got two and a half million dollars of grading cost per school so um it's as I understand there were about 10 or 11 folks that were going to bid on the projects up until about a week before the actual bids were due and just I hate using the excuse and everybody's using it but it's the coveted times we're

135in and the supply chain issues that we have that with steel heating and air and roofing materials they're just out of sight and it's it's not going to come down anytime soon and delaying these there are there is a drop dead date on the the grant money now if it's five years absolutely not they told me that today as long as we keep the auditoriums in in that we were we're going to build them they would not be no ending day that they told me that today Mr Blanton can you can you clarify who told you that yes can you can can we get the information so Dr Fisher and staff can bear yes sir I'll get it to him just as soon as we get through here thank you but as I understand tonight

136where there's no that there's no action requested uh you Mr Holland staff are working to finalize the numbers the exact cost of the building and then we're digging up all the mayonnaise jars we can find to pay for the building without completely killing ourselves on a rainy day side is that a fair summarization that is a great summarization and then at this point at some point we'll bring that back to the board and and um make a decision on whether we want to move forward or not well we'll have to decide one way or the other before the 21st so that the bids are still good yeah also on that estimate or y'all said that was just an estimate they will stay in classrooms at Crest High School and eight at burns on those with

137those auditorians at that time uh you can go back to our November or December meeting and pull the minutes up and it'll it'll show that they will stay in classrooms so the thin classrooms didn't cost anything are those eight classrooms that's what I'm getting at so that estimate was brought to us and like I say uh I'm all for it but I think we ought to let the people speak when we're spending this kind of money and especially when we got Burns Crest Shelby and Kings Mountain that we're doing an assessment on that it needs uh some major repairs on HVAC and roofs and windows that we need to make sure that we got these buildings safe and up to par before we spend all that money too uh which I know that we can't

138use the auditorium money I know that for sure that we cannot spend it on that but we need to get them buildings in uh good shape thank you all right policy committee Mr Humphries okay uh the policy committee has not met since the last board meeting the uh the update was provided at the December meeting and policy commanders oh man yeah okay two policies have been discussed for several meetings will be presented to not for first read the committee continues to work on policies 4335 and 5120 put the focus in on investigations my law enforcement the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday January the 18th at noon okay there's two policies for first read That's 3205 is academic freedom and 32-10 parental inspection of an objection to instructional materials I think most of

139those are grammatical that Corrections there's a little change okay you can find those on board docs and the uh changes are in red we have two policies for approval these are coming from committee recommended for approval as policy 2310 which is public participation at board meetings is primarily grammatical Corrections and adding one sentence clarifying comments policy 1760 as prohibition against retaliation those are grammatical Corrections if there's no objection we'll take both policies at the same time any objection all right those are both policies are recommended for approval from committee those in favor if you'd raise your hand Mr showers hi Safety Committee Mr Fish effectively Dr Fisher introduced Terry Butler I'm Jerry Putnam and Ryan is a five-year Grand during one of only three districts in the state part of the grand living development but

140are not limited to the suicide and Friends through the process for our first living School level smart Kings of Michigan Dr Melissa Reed last week Dr Greg chill and sending Amber daddy son inside about collaboration of all areas of the district the level of dictionary GameStop the importance of the protocols and convenient training and District practices closure doesn't Grant additional funds will support the level of work no dates on the rubber traffic no updates on the Rover traffic situation some free details from the areas of their expertise that will relationship thank you Mr Fitch next is the superintendent's update hey I think Mr chairman members of the board um trying to run through a few little data with you fairly quickly just as a as a couple updates staff return to work as you're all

141aware on teacher work days on Tuesday and Wednesday our students return to school uh Thursday uh January 6th and been in school Thursday Friday uh and again today upon return to school Cleveland County Schools like our community and like uh everyone seemingly across the nation state and Nation have exceeded significant increase in covert cases and activity primarily to the president uh through the presence of the new variant I think that's not just in Cleveland County Schools but that's on the news everywhere I continue to fight that again giving you a chart have you seen this at most of our updates I did start this November uh the first if I go back and put August September and October there the font will be so small you wouldn't be able to read that so you can

142see the active positive cases and the active contacts and just remember those are those are active students positive uh in school or that were counted that day that's not a cumulative number that is the number of active positives and active contacts quarantines that we've had over time so you can see how that Trend especially in the contacts started to increase in December and then where we were January 7th on on that Friday I've got uh the graphic uh uh display of that you can and this does go all the way back to August to see where we were in August and you can see the significant increase that we've seen as we've come back to school after Christmas that is the act of positive cases uh this is the active contacts and quarantines uh you

143do have a chart at your spots um the uh miss schools and the health department pulled today's data as of four o'clock with a number of active positive and active contacts that we have as of today uh January 10th that data is not shown on this chart because they pulled that at the end of the of the day-to-day um this data was pulled at 11 A.M this morning the positivity rate was 24.9 I do believe that that has increased uh updated since then uh but this data was pulled and put together at 11 A.M this morning uh the number of new cases in the last 14 seven days and over the last day again when you put I've tried to to make sure I include like in this Slide the time that day was pulled

144because it seems to increase uh as you as you go along there um just a few things in general as far as the tool kit the toolkit I think has since we've been back to school I think the toolkit's been updated two or three times uh the last major update was Friday the 7th uh updates include that students and staff can considered fully vaccinated if they're 18 and up must have the primary series and the booster if they're to be eligible for considered for exemption from having to quarantine and that has changed prior to Christmas it was just if you've had the your uh you've been vaccinated you've had both series of the full series of the vaccination but now to be considered fully vaccinated you must have the booster for students and staff that

145are 18 years and above students 5 to 17 must have completed the primary series to be considered exempt students and staff in this category the person is not to be excluded from school if they have had no symptoms after being in close contact with someone with Kobe so if you're fully vaccinated and again for 18 and above that means you've had the booster you do not have to quarantine if you're a close contact uh you must continue to wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure to minimize their risk of affecting others and and recommending get it tested day five that's not a requirement that is a recommendation um if you do not meet the criteria you'll be required to quarantine for five days returning on day six and but we return on day

146six you must mask through day 10. uh one change in the accounting of days um in in the uh the old uh prior to Christmas prior to the New Year the guidelines were that the day of exposure was day one and you counted from then now the day of exposure is Day Zero uh you count uh the next day is day one two three four and five so it's five foot if you're a close contact and you've not been fully vaccinated uh it's uh required five days of quarantine if you're not asymptomatic you have no symptoms you may return on day six but you must wear a mask through day 10. um now um one change uh with mask on mask meaning if both people have the mask if the person that that is covered

147positive and the contact they both have a mask then they do not need to be excluded from school and that was the same uh prior but now it applies to extracurricular activities outside of school settings including athletic events and school transportation if if you have mask and mask neither one of those people has to isolate or the person with covet has to isolate but anybody that would be deemed a close contact does not have to isolate if they're masked on mask I've included some other information here uh this is just I've emailed this to you this is just a part of of the quarantine exposure uh again I think that the Highlight there would be if people are symptomatic they should not be at school they should not be at work should report that if

148you've been a close contact even if you're vaccinated if you become symptomatic you don't need to think well I've been vaccinated I've got symptoms I still go if you become symptomatic then in regardless of your vaccine size in that second bullet uh then you should quarantine for for your five-day period um and then you may return after day on day six if you know too long time have symptoms excuse me um the 90 days from the prior if you had covered in the last 90 days that you said if you're exposed you do not have to uh quarantine but you should wear a mask for those 10 days there is some exemption for household exposures and that's changed just within the day of how to handle household exposures then they do recommend testing on the

149fifth day if you've been exposed returning to school and I know it went through that quickly I've been here for a while but any questions about the new coveted guidance if a person is retiring and then they get quarantined is that held against them uh when they have to go home and be quarantined for uh for 10 days or five days or whatever does does that uh would that count against them or or is their retirement date still coming up when it comes up it wasn't in fact their retirement date wouldn't affect anyway okay I mean if you're if someone is a close contact and they have to quarantine um there's a prospector of days well there's there's a process and procedure they go through in terms of contagious disease leave but I wouldn't it

150wouldn't impact anything as far as Retirement and all that all right any other questions for Dr Fisher and this chair just as a reminder we do need to take board action about my estimate all right one quick question yes we've been back for three days since the holidays how many college rooms have we shut down we have officially shut down uh our first classroom today our uh the classroom uh Shelby Middle School uh that we clap shut down today we've had some Pre-K issues where we've had to combine some classrooms because of staff so we've at this point we've shut down one classroom I believe that's correct as a reminder Senate bill 654. we have to vote every 30 days to maintain uh well let me back up right now our Mass requirement is mask

151optional except for on Transportation on our yellow buses and white buses that's still mandated by federal law so we need a motion to maintain what we're doing or a motion to change something I'd make a motion that we leave it as it is People's Choice Emotion by Mr Blanton second by Mr Humphries any questions or discussion Mr Taylor if you check your money I'm sorry on January 7th and January 10th you show 63 staff positive 48 on the 10th is that cumulative number or or some of those counted in January the 7th counted again in on the 10th so and the reason the reason I ask is when if we get to the point that we have we have to start closing classrooms because the staff where does that put us so um great great

152question great point so on January 7th when that data was pulled on Friday afternoon evening we had 63 staff currently that were positive for covet uh and so when we when that data was pulled uh this afternoon uh my guess is many of those 48 were accounted in that 63. but some of that 63 that were counted on Friday uh there have been several of them that maybe their their days quarantine days would have ended either Friday or Saturday uh or something you probably had some new in that 48 so it's not a cumulative number but some would have been counted in both some would not have been now the uh and the data on the January 10th today was pulled about four o'clock so I was in my office and actually I was on

153the phone with one of the board members and that date I could see that data populating in on my spreadsheet as that was entered in by the health department so that is that moment in time when that was reported we had 152 students positive today 692 contacts and 48 staff members that are positive I will say you know you bring up a good point in terms of Staff positive and how that impacts School the classroom we had to close was not because of students it was because of Staff positive and so as we've looked at a couple of our Pre-K classrooms that's been the issue we've been able to say okay we had staff positive we've been able to take you know some of the kids had to quarantine some did not so we've been

154able to move those kids into combine some classrooms so you know I think that and one of the questions I had from a board member was is there a number and I think we can really evaluate how can we safely run our schools and if it comes a time where we can't run out of school efficiently and and keep it safe from a staff standpoint then we'll have to look at whether that's a classroom a grade level or even a school from that perspective but you know as of right now other than that classroom we've not you know we've had not have concerns we do have a our staff is is working extremely hard I can't say enough about the efforts of our entire staff because it's not easy when you're having staff out having

155static quarantine and these are just that positive so you've got other staff members that are quarantining out so we've got teachers covering other teachers classrooms you know uh finding substitutes is very challenging and difficult we've got teacher assistants covering classrooms I mean we've got you know a lot of people that are covering uh classes so that that is a challenge and it's something has really risen to the occasion to do but it it's not easy okay thank you Dr Fisher is you know you mentioned that acceptable number of Staff positives depending on when when that when that that point reaches all right do we shut down a classroom or a grade level is that something that's I'm just I'm assuming that something's being looked at Daily that if that if we if we start start

156experiencing higher number of Staff positive which directly correlate with student positives that can be addressed it's sooner than Within within the following months yes sir and the uh General statutes in a way you know the the guidelines or protocols will work in North Carolina right now is the board cannot uh make a decision for us to go to full remote we cannot go into plan a but basically the board and and the superintendent has the authority to uh do short-term closures like we've done with the classroom we closed that classroom for the rest of this week uh we plan to reopen that classroom Monday given the the staff so the one good thing about the the um the court the changing quarantine guidelines is that quarantine time is shorter we are seeing a lot of

157people that have very mild or asymptomatic and so that quarantine time is shorter uh those folks can go back that doesn't apply to everybody so we do have folks that that are still symptomatic again what we would emphasize is just because your quarantine time's over if you're still symptomatic you're not to return to school not to return to work uh there's not uh there's not a you know my I'm a six and that means I can go back if you're still symptomatic and you should not return but uh that's something Mr Taylor that we look at not just daily but constantly I will say my email is constantly populated from our school-based administrators uh letting us know we have positive student positive staff positives um Ms Wampler and I probably talk 30 times a day

158just about coveted positives and and those type of things and just as a reminder not the first vote back in early August we empowered the superintendent that to take care of those day-to-day things if he needed to make a decision to close a classroom or a grade level he he has authority to do that from the board yeah yeah and and thank you I just my my question I guess as I didn't clarify if the if the numbers start increasing significantly can we as a board reevaluate if we see the need that we may have to reinforce the mass that's my question I think if you get to the situation and you know anytime that the board can say hey we need it either a special call meeting or an emergency meeting to to change

159our our Mass growing we can that's one of those things that uh you know I try to keep this this information is pulled on Monday and Friday this is pulled directly from each school has a covid uh database that that either school health nurse or school health Tech is entering that data this data is pulled together by the health department sent to us but yes that's something we could constantly we you know Ms Wampler and I can really kind of predict what this is because we're getting those in on a daily basis so we know oh my goodness we're getting bombarded in this area and one of the big concerns is special area things small sections whether it's a Pre-K whether it's a specialized class and that type of thing because those are specialized situations

160where you have unique staff there you know it's not as it's important but it's not as dramatic when you have just you know students that are that are regular Ed teachers or those type of things Mr Hunt I think we need to pay attention to the numbers uh what I've noticed is uh with this various uh we're getting a lot more people to sit uh they might not be as sick as long or some of them that's been fully vaccinated uh uh may not experience their serious symptoms but the numbers are increasing in the schools and we need to we need to look at how we protect our students and how we protect our stands as we you know as we make a decision on for the how we're going to mass if we're going

161to mask and and at what level we match [Music] Mr showers are you okay we're gonna attack on my dog yeah uh I have one question for Dr uh uh Dr Fisher I know I'd mentioned to you maybe last week about tests to stay is there any update on yes sir we have met uh we have met with our health department about tests to stay um as you know we do have some nurse vacancies and tests to stay uh we are nurse vacancies in our school and talking with our health department right now um they they didn't recommend tested today just because of the amount of of work being done already by our School nurses and our health Techs in addition there's some language in the health estate conversation right now about vast mandatory and

162so I think if we're Mass mandatory then test to stay becomes a bigger possibility than test to stay comes if we're Mass optional test to stay requires students to uh that can opt in for testing to if they're an exposure and they're not fully vaccinated they can test on day one day five and day 10. and so the health department is concerned about the available Staffing they have and and the amount of testing that would require and we are testing now we are testing with parental permission consent for students that are symptomatic uh in our schools now but the you know there was some concern from the health department about just The increased workload with the limited staff from from Health Care situation they have I do think Mr Shores that we we didn't say

163we're not going to do it I think we um kind of left that on a pause for right now um just uh with the increased number of contacts and um the the volume of students that that would uh would um would incur the other factor in that is the short quarantine time many times that by the time we get a positive result and we contact trace and do that work then the students quarantine time is almost over uh if they're asymptomatic so test to stay would in some cases would be a tremendous amount of work for really a day or two of alleviating quarantine but that's something that's not off the table it's just from the health department and managing the perspective of that it was um quite a bit to manage one quickly one

164quick question on the North Carolina tool kit um if you have exposure the person must get continue to wear a mask for 10 days even if they have filled out an exemption form in the past that does not apply to that of course that's correct that's correct so this is totally different when we say optional that's not an optional on that part that is that's correct Mr Governor that's a great point so if you're a close contact you and you're if you're a close contact and you have not been fully vaccinated then then you've got to quarantine for five days you are eligible to come back on day six if you're willing to wear the mask if not your quarantine is the full 10 days so you're exactly right to to qualify for that short

165quarantine you have to wear a mask coming by so if a student is in close contact and they're vaccinated they don't have to quarantine at all but they still have to wear a mask so to be able to reduce that quarantine you must wear a mask if you don't want to wear a mask then then that's fine you just have to you just have to do the full quarantine I just want to clarify that so there's no misunderstanding with that's right if we vote if the vote goes for optional that does not pertain to that part of the school that's right you're optional if you're not a close contact once you become a contact then all these other rules fall into place thank you that's all right at that fifth day or the sixth day

166and they choose not to wear a mask so they have to go 10 days or is that excused or unexcused uh by that field to the from the fifth day to the 10th day but it's coded as quarantine absence and so that's an excuse that okay now um you know we there is a code for attendance called present remote and so if those kids are working online they're doing that they're meeting that they can be coded as president remote but they can be recorded as that code is quarantined and a quarantine is an excused absence okay screen well they asked the two questions I have but I wanted to know how do we look on testing because we're hearing that there is a shortage on a lot of the testing do we still have ample

167testing in the schools right now our meeting with Friday with our health department they were there was a little concern um of hoping they got new supplies in and that type of thing but right now uh there did not need there was not an absence of or lack of supplies for testing in her schools but I do think that if if they cannot get new supplies in you know within the next week or two then there will there could be some issues there okay um so did I guess you talked to Tiffany about the peak so we're looking at the peak being this week next week somewhere in this range well you know no one really knows well you know but I I wouldn't you know I think we hope that you know we'll get

168through school we always talk about this and you know even from the very beginning when we started this and we came back to school in the fall of 2020 and looking at this in really 14 day cycles and so I do think still we look at that as a 14-day cycle of what if we can get through this first 14-day cycle then what does that look like you know uh the middle or end of next week you know I would I would think that we'll start to see some improvement I would hope that we start to see some improvement but you know those are things that we're you know you just look at science you you based on you know data from this variant from other places other countries it seemed to come quickly and

169it didn't seemed to go but you know we're we're hoping that it's the dagger that they're they're saying it is yeah curve but this one appears to be virtually Peak the train you can see in the presentation of the number of positives has just you know it did not it was not a steady incline it was a very steep incline and so you know we'll know more as we're as we're in school um longer from from the break uh you know there's some data released from Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools today uh they've been in school all week last week so they've got you know six days in school where we've got three um so we'll we'll be able to look at that and see yes so what type of test are we using because we've been

170told the record desk itself that is a as a health department question they are doing that I'm pretty sure I wanted to see how good you did for that one I'm pretty sure they are using the which we're testing in school I believe that's a uh I think that's a PCR test but don't quote me on that I could have to get back I guess I believe it's the PCR test PCR rapid that the health department is using but I'd have to confirm that because they are doing that testing I believe that's what they're doing now you know we do have students taking that home test you know one of the things if you're if you're symptomatic and then you're coming back you have to have a PCR test if you're symptomatic and then you

171if you if you've been exposed and you're symptomatic you have to have a PCR test to come back to school so that they do require that PCR test to be able to do that okay all right thank you any other questions we got a motion on the table to maintain our current coveted protocols with optional mass and then we've got a second any further discussion all those in favor of the motion as presented you'd raise your hand uh I all opposed I got six three board member comments Mr Taylor you got anything is green Mr Brian yes uh when we talked about the insurance uh deal while ago about our employees insurance I believe I was told a year ago that we would check into this in 22. for the 22-23 and I believe it

172was a boat went for us to stay as we were not to check in to other companies I believe I understood that right if I didn't I'll correct myself right here that but I believe it was in the report the committee report that on on that insurance that we would not be looking into it in 22 of checking out on Mr Shores do you have anything uh Mr George was the one that said that the last time he was the one who made that motion a year ago Mr Shores do you have any comments yes uh at the time my understanding of that was we would be able to get prices Mr Blanton that's great I was informed that it would only it would only be services that we could not compare prices and with

173us not being able to compare prices there's the potential that some folks could actually lose their insurance if they had a Term Policy and they left the company and went with another company there was a number of folks that really liked the Aflac that the other companies did not offer so the thought was that we're not going to be able to compare prices and I said that's five ninety six percent who said we couldn't compare prices now Insurance it can only be for services it cannot be we cannot compare because we this is a there's like 11 umbrellas under each company from long-term disability short-term disability life insurance there's all kinds of things you just can't pinpoint and pull one from one company and go to others there's Mr shorts if I can if I

174can Joel can you hear me if I can interrupt that that's our finance and personnel and we've been through that we can discuss that again during committee instead of uh drawing out our board member comments do you have anything on a personal note no no have a good night okay Mr Hunters yeah all right I need a motion to enter into closed session in accordance with General statute 143 318. 0.11 subsections A3 and A6 as to consult with our attorney and for confidential personnel discussion do I have such a motion Mr Hunt is there a second I think I heard Mr Taylor who's in favor of entering closed session if you'd raise your hand Mr Shores I know you don't get to go but we're going to call it a to zero all right yeah

175yeah I don't get to go okay we will make sure you know when we return foreign okay [Music] everybody back do we have a motion to re-enter Open Session I'll make a motion motion by Mr Blanton second by Mr Finch those in favor if you raise your hand all right that's unanimous in closed session we discussed a new administrative salary scale and approve that the second item we discussed sale of the central school property and that is the next item on our agenda um in November the board voted the table a decision on the central school property until January 10th and it's now January 10th and let's see we have received an initial offer to purchase this property in the amount of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars so what is the pleasure of the

176board okay got a motion by Mr Fitch second by Mr Taylor and what this will do is accept the bid for 750 000 it will start to upset bid process which will be at a 10-day rotation until that's done with any further questions or discussion those in favor of accepting the bid of 750 000 for the old central school property if you'd raise your hand and that's unanimous now we'll note to Mr Shores decided uh not to join us after closed sessions uh those votes are eight zero do we have a motion to adjourn other or whatever that you brought out at first it's already been voted on that was voted in closed session oh oh motion to adjourn so okay all right we're adjourned