001good evening everyone I would like to call this month what education meeting to order I would like to thank everyone present and everyone that's listening to us at this time we will have a moment of silence by Melinda Fagundes and she will also lead us into the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] at this time we're gonna have a moment of silence before hand I would request people to remember okay get singer and her family she's one of the teachers that passed away during the first week keep them in your thoughts and prayers and just the safety of our schools we've had a great start and just a continuation that we we move forward through the school year in a positive way Heavenly Father I ask that you receive these prayers and concerns lifted up this evening
002give this board wisdom and courage to make the best decisions for our students and staff lead us with integrity that our decisions may reflect what is right and good Oh glory be to you loving God now and forever amen at this time are there any adjustments to the agenda hearing none is a motion to approve the agenda as presented so Shinjuku has been moved in second that we approved the agenda all in favor interposes okay and it was Robert that moved move you Belinda and Robert that second it ain't worth moved it worth me Robert second okay okay let us move in then the next item then is public expression and I understand we have one public expression tonight is there other other sets fees set down I don't see it right here this is
003it I found it okay amber yo-yos is here tonight and you only would be given three minutes to speak and we do not respond to you we listen and we do not call anyone's name or that means staff or student in terms of the your public expression so this time with Miss amber just come forward and she has given us a copy of her concerns okay thank you for your time I was getting five minutes since we were coming as a group so I'm gonna have to cut this extremely short are you a group or individual there's a group of us okay okay well you have five minutes representing the group awesome okay thank you thank you held their annual tryouts and these were not conducted in a fair manner my daughter has played many
004sports from volleyball softball soccer and most recently cheerleading making the cut is not a huge issue for us as we are all well aware you either have the skills for the team or you do not it's just life the last two years she's been on JV team and is roughed it going to Nationals both years she has worked hard and has gone above and beyond to make sure that whatever stunt she has been asked today she has gone out full full out for the last two years I have sat back and watched a lot from the sidelines related to what has been going on with the varsity side of things while my daughter has been on JV and the first thing I noticed was that the varsity coach doesn't really care about the athletes themselves
005as she is all about her image and winning as a coach for example when athletes are hurt they are pushed to compete regardless of their status the attitudes of the athletes closer to nationals got very intense toward the varsity coach because of her lack of motivation encouragement for the girls it has been about win-win-win we all want to win I that but that but they also join to have fun and build camaraderie the second issue is that the contract clearly states that parents are not to be allowed to in practices and as a paid employee I feel like relationships from coach to student parent have gotten lost and therefore creating a favorite is favoritism it is issue the varsity coach has told the girls that she is only coaching until a certain student graduates that
006right there put the rest of the athletes feeling as if they aren't worthy we were not allowed to practice and tryouts but one parent was able to attend practices while others were removed as well as tryouts it has been reported that the particular parent has apparently charged things for the cheerleading account even though she is not on the account she charged $60 to the account for senior flowers as well as $250 for shirts that she took upon herself to create order in turn this made the account to be more of a deficit than it had been due to athletes not paying their dues on time as stated the part that this particular parent was allowed to participate tryouts which was against the rules and I concerned that her input was taking into consideration along with
007my daughters or with her daughters from my daughter to not make the cheerleading team this year her daughter and my daughter used to be really good friends and had a falling out last year in which it was relayed to other girls by the varsity coach that my daughter would not be on the team two weeks prior to tryouts even taken place nothing that happened between the girls should have been brought for up for trials it should have been based strictly on skill and points the parent in hand has intervened when children are injured making it difficult for parents to get to their child she is not a medical professional and should therefore back off and let parents make decisions and handle situations themselves along with whatever medical professionals are available this leads me to another
008issue the judges for tryouts were picked from EC cast staff in which the cheer team practice is that this is fine but the coaches chose coaches chosen are also best friends with the mother and daughter so from what I have heard from a former JV coach we feel my daughter scored high in but in reality in reality and should have been on the team but they have changed the scores to reflect otherwise along with the already premeditated decision two weeks prior to tryouts that my daughter wouldn't be on the team this is very unethical and should have been based on whatever the girls scored but like I said before the decision for my daughter to not be on the team was made by the varsity coach in part of my daughter and another girl having
009a falling out there was also a girl who made the team but never physically tried out because she recently had surgery so the judges watch the prior videos from other years this is also unfair on many levels the varsity coach is known for being close to a particular student and her mother and has taken vacations together party together and simply hung out at the coach's house this is fine to an extent when it comes down to being professional the friendship needed to be placed on the back burner and this was not had toward the end of the season last year the varsity cheerleaders were looking to the JV coach for help and encouragement because their own coach didn't take the time to do so and cared about her image and winning I received many emails
010and texts from other parents and even current and former students regarding why my daughter wasn't on the team and the messages ranged from this is rigged and to fight to get the varsity coach out of the cheerleading program before it falls apart completely my daughter has moved on to volleyball and has put cheerleading on the back burner for now until a resolution is determined but meanwhile the paper mentioned student continues to carry the cheerleading drama over into a completely different sport in which she doesn't participate in this has been verging on to bullying like I've said before we have we have been parents of many sports and making the cut is like making the interview for a job you either have it or you don't I'm not only fighting for my daughter but I am
011fighting for the program and for future students so they don't have to be treated this way because some child her mother don't like that individual I'm fighting for the mere principle thank you thank you miss Yost and that is the only group that we have for public expression this evening thank you so at this time we will move into consent agenda and this does include our transfer hearing it's also a part of this so could I get a motion to transfer it has been moved and seconded by Carol moved by Mary is it for the entire list of items yes I second okay especially to approve the sent items thank you it's been moved in a second to approve the consent agenda Mary made the motion in Caroline second it all those in favor say
012aye okay any nays okay ass have it now we go into our new business okay [Music] a year early literacy research okay that's Elizabeth Swagerty you were left off my list okay ECU literacy faculty will share the imaginary library efforts of getting all Pitt County's children aged zero to five enrolled in a program which provides a free book every month sent directly into their home with the board members okay so miss Wagner thank you for being here thank you I've heard your presentation and another key organization so this is a awesome way to share it with us well honey next time you can do the presentation for me thank you very much for the invitation to be here I'm so happy to make the trek from East Campus at ECU and come over here and
013hang out with the superstars of Pitt County I want to take a moment to thank each of you for serving Pitt County I know that you work tirelessly well maybe that's not the right word you might be a little tired with all of the worthy to do but from the perspective of a teacher educator and parent of two public school children I really appreciate all you do to advocate for public education here in our area so I had to do that plug really quickly as she said I am Elizabeth Swagerty I teach in the literacy Studies department that you see you in the College of Education and I brought along with me two colleagues dr. Terry Atkinson and dr. Kim Anderson we are all on the research team but we don't have very much time
014to do this presentation so I'm the designated talker they will be here to help answer questions at the end so I will get right to it I'm going to start with a question I'd like to pose to the board members when do children learn to read what is your opinion about when children learn to read hmm at home okay before before school before preschool to preschool before kindergarten okay I should have known asking this question to a roomful of school board members that you guys would be smart in your response that the answer to that question varies depending on the community members that I am that I'm speaking to but I'm trying to kind of get at this idea that that literacy does begin at birth in this picture there's a baby and this baby
015is learning about how literacy works you see the baby holding a book the baby knows that you hold books if we were sitting next to this baby you probably see pages turning you might hear some gibberish you know the baby is associating talk with reading and meaning so these are the beginnings of literacy skills developing and we call this the emergent literacy theory so it really acknowledges that literacy learning begins at birth and continues and builds over a child's lifetime so that foundation of literacy learning begins before formal schooling begins whether it is in preschool hopefully or in kindergarten so we know that children's readiness as literacy learners at kindergarten entry at that spot strongly predicts their early literacy reading acquisition and their trajectory toward reading success throughout school conversely if children are not good
016readers by the time they start third grade they are four times more likely to drop out of school have poor health and have limited future income and social mobility compared to those children who do have a good start so clearly investing in early literacy pays dividends when it comes to successful school journeys and particularly high school graduation I think some of you in this room are probably familiar with this lady her name is Jennifer Christensen and she is a former Pitt County speech and language therapist and she found that children the children that she worked with in their homes who developed more slowly and speeching language in their early years often shared a common factor and that was that there were few or no books in their homes so she would ask these children to
017go find a book for her and they didn't have any books or they just had you know one or two books so she began to talk to community stakeholders about the possibility of an early literacy coalition and in 2014 this coalition started and with an overall commitment to literacy and particularly early literacy in Eastern North Carolina so here are a bunch of the stakeholders from early on and and currently to address the current the concern the initial concern of access to books the Coalition first implemented the Dolly Parton Imagination Library book distribution program as its first major initiative and as program males high quality developmentally appropriate books to all the unrolled children from birth until their fifth birthday once per month at no charge per families at no charge for four families it was very
018important to Dolly Parton who grew up in rural east eastern Tennessee that regardless of income all families would have access to these books and I think so the program actually started in 1995 and it's grown exponentially it's now available all across the u.s. in Canada the United Kingdom and even Australia so children can be enrolled anytime from birth until they're five years old but if they are enrolled from birth they can potentially get a library of 60 high-quality developmentally appropriate books by the time they enter kindergarten so here's a quick flash of the age bands the baby books the early books are board books so they're the kinds of books that babies you know chew on and throw and end up you know in the sink and whatever and then as the children get older
019they get these paperback books and they actually have books specific parent suggestions in the back of each book as well okay an update on Pitt County enrollment so the imagination library provides the infrastructure of the court program including managing the central database for the book order system coordinating wholesale purchasing the cost of the program's administrative expenses coordinating the mailings etc etc Pitt County children began receiving the imagination library books in 2016 through the efforts of the early literacy coalition and the United Way of Pitt County recently the North Carolina legislature granted over 10 million dollars in smart start funding for imagination library so Pitt County United Way through Martin Pitts partnership for children enrolls kids here locally and pays a portion of the wholesale book cost and mailing fees which is about $2 per month
020per child and it amounts to a cost of $25 per year approximately per child enrolled and this is a true bargain to receive an entire library of these high-quality books for a child so there are currently 12 thousand six hundred twenty-five children that fall in that age band of birth to five years old so that's our total number of babies okay of those children seven thousand one hundred seventy two children have been enrolled in the program at some point since its inception and keep in mind that over two thousand Heaven aged out of the program so they turned five currently there are five thousand forty six active participants in total more than ninety thousand books have been distributed since 2016 just for picking those numbers are pretty amazing aren't they a lot of work went
021into those numbers okay okay so now I'm getting to the point of me being here tonight I part it part of my job as research team member is is to share the results of our research efforts so I am on as I said I'm on a team with my two other colleagues and our job is to research the impact of Dolly Parton Imagination Library on kindergarten readiness in Pitt County over a five-year period and reporting it back to the community so that's one reason why I'm here today this is a way to report back to the community let's see we are examining relationships between at home shared book reading we call it SBR for short we like acronyms for everything children's interest in books and reading and children's literacy skills at kindergarten entry and we
022are collecting the data that we're collecting in a nutshell is a parent Guardian survey that we collect that from parents and guardians at while they're in preschool when their children are 4 years old and district measures at kindergarten entry in class you're probably familiar with that Thank You Pitt County for providing us continually that data and working with us in such an amazing way all the time plus additional measures that we are collecting including a narrative retailing assessment and an additional comprehension measure this is a a graphic that Kim created that shows our entire research study on one slide ok this is what it looks like across all of the years essentially our model is responsive it is dynamic it has changed since the beginning of the study slightly based on the data that we're
023receiving and the needs of the community so we anticipate that it will continue to be tweaked a little bit as we proceed as far as short term outcomes grow we expect that the presence of these Dolly Parton Imagination Library books in the home while not a panacea will be a catalyst for increasing shared book reading frequency and will in turn lead to more positive attitudes about reading and motivation to read we expect that children who are enrolled in imagination library for three or more years will benefit in ways that will be measurable at kindergarten entry that's a really important finding we're not going to get any immediate amazing results in terms of achievement it will take time finally we expect that kids who enter kindergarten with stronger emergent literacy skills and more positive attitudes about
024reading and motivation to read will lead to measurable improvements in literacy attainment by the end of third grade so we're hoping to continue to follow these children so this is where we are we have collected baseline data in 2016-17 at kindergarten entry at four Pitt County elementary schools we had 152 parent-child dyads last year we narrowed our focus to NC pre-k children to focus on those households that are more likely to have fewer books in their homes and where shared book reading was less likely to be occurring we collected data from 117 parent child don't die at K entry in actually at 17 elementary school so we put a lot of miles on our cars last year this year and for the next couple of years we'll do the same so we will continue to
025recruit at NC pre-k sites and follow them to the kindergarten schools that they enroll in probably around 17 again dyad that's that's our way of describing our data is connected so the parent Guardian survey is connected to the child data so we have a parent survey that includes demographics and at home shared reading practices and then we collect data from the child and match it to analyze those relationships thanks for the question okay our work differs from previous Dolly Parton Imagination Library Research in three ways one we have baseline data we were able to at the last second we slid in before imagination library cane and was implemented and we collected some baseline data so we have that baseline data before children started receiving books the second way is different is that we are including
026a much broader range of language and literacy assessments that measure that measure not just the easy to measure skills like letter naming and things of that nature but we're really trying to include more robust assessments that look at unconstrained skills related to reading comprehension and motivation as well so we're collecting more stuff that's going to hopefully provide a richer picture in terms of achievement the third way is different is the formative design of our study this has been a little bit of a struggle for us because as researchers we like things to be clean we want to have a plan we want to stick to it we want to collect the data that we set out to collect and match everything up and you know there we go here's our numbers but the formative design
027of this study is has has made things a little bit Messier but much much richer because we are working with the community we're working with the United Way Martin Pitt partnership with Pitt County Schools and you know changing things up based on feedback we're also making decisions as we get data so the formative design of the study is not a thing that you'll find in in the research on imagination library studies so far so that sets us apart okay so prior to Dolly Parton Imagination Library implementation we found that not surprisingly higher household income and parental education were in fact associated with more frequent reading at home as I said this many of us in this room might have made that guess and that is already in the available research so we weren't surprised to
028to find that but what did surprised us was that only 23% of parents reported reading to their child every day regardless of education and income level and when we looked at the reading everyday data not even the college-educated group reached 50% so we learned that we still have some work to do as a community to get the word out about the importance of shared reading when kids were read to every day they were more likely to enter school at or above the designated cut-offs for proficiency more familiar with narrative story structure and and story comprehension and they were more likely to ask to be read to or to look at books on their own so that's key indicators of reading motivation because this is what I think is the most interesting data that we collect
029I'm going to share a little bit more about this with you we followed as I said we followed the children into kindergarten and do a one-on-one narrative retelling assessment with them so picture me sitting down next to a kindergartner in the hallway of whichever school you're familiar with and essentially I show them this book and I say you get to listen to the story and then when you're done you get to tell the story back to me so I play the recording of the story and then I turn the pages and there are no words in this book so they just listen to the story and they look at the pictures and then the recording Ribbit's and I know that I'm supposed to turn the page and at the end I hand the book to
030them and say now you can tell me the story so then they hold the book and turn the page and they tell me the story it's real it's the highlight of the whole entire study to get to do this you just they all they all follow such similar patterns but then you always have that kid who just does something that you've never seen before you go home and talk about it at the dinner table it's great so this is a story about a boy with a pet frog in a jar the Frog escapes while the boy is sleeping and then the boy and his dog tried to go out and you know find the Frog and bring him back this is an example of a transcript of a child whose data was matched with their
031parents who reported little to no shared reading prior to kindergarten so this child said a little boy he got a frog a dog looked at a frog a little boy he had a pet frog a boy say the Frog is gone little girl is sleepy there's no little girl in a story the frog out now a little boy look at he boot and no frog was in there that little boy said frog where are you a little dog a dog fall him was okay now a paw is not broken now the little boys say a dog and then it goes on after that okay so I wanna show you that for comparison purposes here's the narrative retelling transcript of a child whose parent or guardian reported more frequent frequent reading at home so a little
032boy had a pet frog when the boy was and the dog were asleep the frog jumped out of the jar so the next morning when the boy and the dog woke up the little boy boys frog was gone where are you frog the little boy said he even look in his boot he yelled and the dog and then the dog try looking in the jar but when did his head got stuck the little boy called out the window where are you frog he said the dog was too heavy he fell right down the little boy climbed got out of the window and made sure he was make sure he was okay so you know this is real kids this is how they talk I I want I share this with you too to share how
033much more robust the second retelling is and how many features of narrative story structure are present here that weren't present in the first example and this is what we see over and over and over again and it's turning out to be a real indicator of achievement and we're hoping long long-term achievement as well so in year one we call this year 1 after baseline in your 1 children started receiving imagination library books so this is the first chunk of our data in which the children were receiving the books we saw an increase in parents who reported reading to their children's 3 or more times per week thank goodness an increase in children's interest in books and reading again this is a very very good sign this is consistent with our short-term goals and with the
034previous research and gives preliminary support to the idea that Dolly Parton Imagination Library books serve as a catalyst for the shared book reading however we found that nearly a quarter of parents did not know that the books provided suggestions in the back almost twenty and almost twenty percent indicated that they knew about the suggestions but did not use them and this is something we're really paying attention to because these suggestions are actually really good in terms of giving ideas to parents and guardians about how they can make the most of the books and engage their children and some really high-quality interactions around the books so when we're out and enrolling new children now we have sample books with us and we make sure we point those suggestions out to encourage parents to look at them
035because I think many of us aren't really accustomed to looking at that inside back flap of a book and paying attention to it so we're really looking to get get past the idea that just receiving books is all it's going to take you know it's the we're highlighting the interactions around the books as being important as well so in terms of our next steps we will continue to collect data for years three and four and also in order to link our research with the community we are continuing to partner with United Way and Martin Pitts partnership to publish quarterly newsletters they're called free your imagination and you have I think you have all three of them in your purple folder we wanted to make sure you had all all the handouts okay lots of reading
036material these newsletters to go out to imagination library families and one of the continuing features is age-appropriate suggestions for sharing the books with children we have really benefited from this partnership this community partnership especially in terms of refining our knowledge and our ability to communicate our research findings to the public in ways that are engaging and easy to understand at a glance this has been a real challenge for us because we are accustomed to writing really long research articles and being able to explain all the details of the methods and results of something so we also put that research article in your folder for your reading pleasure as well but these newsletters have been really they've stretched us in a lot of ways and challenged us but we've benefitted greatly from doing this kind of
037public writing with community organizations so now I'm sure you're all sitting there thinking how can you help right I don't want to let you down so I'm going to tell you how you can help okay we always need assistance with enrollment distribution because as you can see even though you probably can't see these really well you can tell that those dots are really concentrated in the middle of the county so we have some work to do in terms of reaching families particularly outside of the center of our County to make sure that families know that this is a quality program that they can enroll their birth to five year old in free of charge and we found that some families are kind of skeptical of free things sometimes so helping us get the word out
038about that and if you know of any community events that we could put up the dolly parton the cardboard dolly parton cutout and our our tablecloth and all of our things and make sure that that families can be enrolled we would really appreciate that there is a team of folks who are dedicated to doing this Duane Cooper and Marie Miller Atkins Center at the United Way and Sharon Cooper at Martin Pitts partnership for children this is part of their job so I think you'll find that they are at a lot of community community events already but you may have more ideas so please share them with these folks or reach out to us and we can pass it on on to the team another way to help is to think about how you can be
039involved with the early literacy coalition in the community solutions action plan which Terry is going to talk about really quickly Thank You Elizabeth I've put together a quick handout in the back of your folder because as you step back and think about well what does this research that we've talked about tonight have to do with the big picture of what our community is going to do as as a whole in terms of our literacy coalition so we know that school readiness obviously is one factor that we know has a huge impact on whether children are reading at third grade level reading at grade level by the end of grade through three also important though is what they're doing during the summer because we know that the average reading loss is one to three months over
040the summer so addressing summer learning is one of the other goals of our community solutions action plan and then lastly what Pitt County has been a huge partner in is addressing the whole notion of school attendance we know and we have found in going out to these 17 schools to meet with these little ones and do assessments that guess who often is not there and we know this attendance issue is huge at the k3 level so I included for you the proclamation that if the blinker just issued across Pitt County this is part of a national effort to really target school attendance during the month of September we will be putting together a subcommittee and asking a member of the school board to be a part of that subcommittee to address school attendance in some
041substantive ways and we have some excellent guidance from the North Carolina early childhood foundation to help us and give us resources about what works and what can really impact and help families not only in in terms of how to get them to school but if there are barriers how we can identify those and address them collectively at schools so all of these leading indicators we will see hopefully an impact impact data within three to five years the long-term indicator of course would be to see that children are reading on grade level by third grade I just wanted to include for you and a program that Pitt County is looking at it's on the back of this front page it's called kids read now I just wanted to get it on your radar because this is
042a program for children ages k3 that is much like Dolly Parton Imagination Library but what would happen would be that in the schools during the end of spring they would receive books at their to take home over the summer and then they get books in the mail all summer and the data is very clear that this program works we know that kids who are enrolled in the program over the first year show at least a month's growth in terms of summer learning loss and those who participate in multiple years do even better so we're looking really seriously at this program Pitt County will do some investing we're looking at getting an outside funder to help support this to see if this can be another way that we address the summer learning loss in addition to
043putting up a Parent Portal all cataloging all the summer learning opportunities in Pitt County lots of parents don't know what they are and then of course addressing addressing school attendance at the district level so just a little data on the back for you for those of us who say does attendance really matter that tells us what scores look like when we look at kids who are in school and aren't so we've tried to just select some key information for you to take with you you'll be hearing more about the literacy coalition as this community solutions action plan goes out to the campaign for grade-level reading for review if you don't know what the campaign for grade-level reading is about I encourage you to google it and find out that this is a National Alliance of
044states of government agencies nonprofits foundations that's been in business since 2010 and they've helped over 300 communities across the United States write a plan for how we're going to help all the kids in our community be reading on grade level by third grade and the resources and the support that they provide is really impressive so we're excited about being a part of that and you'll be hearing more about that plan and its review in the future whom we hope you'll be joining us as we seek to address this as a whole community yes [Music] yes oh I'm sorry get over the summer you know swoosh it's starting back but we have I know my family and I'm sure other families that have grandparents dead their relatives they come to spend the summer down something or
045they go up north to spend with their grandparents how could this help them can these books go to their grandparents house and be waiting for them what can they receive summer vacation hey there grandma grandparents house up north well one of the things we find is a benefit about this program is that parents are very much involved as well as teachers in setting up where these books will go over the summer so the parents make a commitment to being contacted by email text or telephone so there's interaction between kids reads now and that the parents or the grandparents or whomever so the parent would designate where these books are sent and then they show up regularly nine books across the whole summer good question thank you but imagination library not the case for any others
046licensed yeah and other questions I have one another question I in terms of the purchase of the books do you have certain authors that you are getting them from or and I guess I'm getting to my point is having a diverse collection of books that kids can see themselves in the book so we can begin to I love that we help them understand who they are and let other people know who so you can learn from all cultural yeah question and a great concern to us as literacy educators and researchers in that area who love children's literature and understand the importance of windows and mirrors you know reading books that you can see yourself in and books that you can learn about others books that are like your life and books that are not like
047your life so this the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program is has a panel of children's literature experts who select the books and so they definitely keep and eye eye toward that when they make the selections and the books do reflect diversity in lots of different ways and there's I'm not sure how many books are bilingual Spanish and English that's the only language that's represented but in terms of the summer reading program one of the things that really drew us to this program is that they're very receptive to feedback about adding additional titles our reading faculty plans to be a part of that discussion which we're very excited about also about 30% of the books at this point are bilingual in the summer reading program so the sample books that we brought to show dr. linker
048and some of the curriculum folks were we were really really pleased with the selection but I think it's something that they're willing to look at and accept you back about if we wanted to broaden those possible great okay sure I have a question are is there information like it throughout the community for instance in pediatrician or OB offices I'm a nurse practitioner in the intensive care nursery and strongly encouraged my parents to read to their babies and I know that that might be where you could capture a lot of participants when they're getting health care prior to delivery big advocate for reading and that is right in our community solutions action plan and we actually have a group that's getting ready to work on that one thing that we didn't tell you about is that
049we've been working really really hard with Vidant and we had a pilot this summer to get babies enrolled at birth before they even get out the door it was a highly successful we had a team of ECU golden leaf scholars who did this for us all summer and we kept the data and even looked at where these babies were born and indeed only 40 percent of the babies that fight are picked on pick County residents they come from all so but it doesn't matter since we have the state funding mm-hmm so we enrolled an incredible number of babies during the summer and siblings who weren't enrolled so we feel like that is really a system in place that we can use to get babies enrolled so we don't have to be chasing baby carriages down
050which I don't we lose as well you have a baby then we can work on helping parents know how to use the books rather than trying to trying to color yeah I just want to thank you so much and to ECU for from the very beginning purpose I believe he chimed in and said we have fun this research until we find some funding for it and I don't even know if that's happened or not really appreciative of that partnership and I think it's important for people to know doctor linker also was very early in this coalition and it's a coalition it's not like a well-funded project or anything that to me just speaks volumes about the wide variety people who come together who see this as a really great solution intervention for for our families
051here I did want to ask a couple of quick questions I know last year we were able to make sure that the kindergarten classrooms and vic county schools had the set of books that the children who started kindergarten last year would have received I guess for the previous two years and said that to me that's one of the greatest features of this program we delivered those boxes of books that we have right so it so did to get that - that our vision of this program is for all children to go to their kindergarten classrooms and to see what this book on the shelf and for them all maybe they don't know each other but they're all going together going oh so that was our vision for that and we did provide all the books
052for kindergarten teachers last year but I don't know that that's been and making sure those books are there and together certainly we need to reap we just did that in the NC pre-k classrooms last week to make sure all the books are there we have a basket for them if any books have been taken home to read we're gonna replace them Oh God it's just insta community among the kindergarteners that the shared readers that they automatically have things in common [Music] that's means one of the most exciting features and and to kindergarten teachers as well absolutely embrace that with both arms it's it starts school off as a positive experience I'm along here I belong in this little reading group it can color their whole education I think they start off in a way that
053they connect it to already at home until it's that connection as their resources that from home to school and gives them so many ways I think to build build on that I see it as a major game changer I was actually really proud of our legislature in fact talking to some of the other coalition's for instance in New York and in other places they are amazed that our legislature did that so my only real question is if you plotted I saw your scatterplot there are grants for the last three years about where the enrolled children live do we know where the other 7,000 are that aren't getting that the 5,000 the other set out 7,000 that live in Pitt County from zero to five and are not getting their books is there any way to
054look at where those are so people in the community can target their efforts for getting the word out and taking the cut out of Dali and whatever else needs to happen to communities where their concentrations of kids or not well we can thank Ron mitchellson again for his focus on that he's a geography guy so he is has a GIS specialist who's putting these maps together for us and overlaying it with where are the children themselves not just where are the children enrolled so we're expecting updated maps and then the folks on the enrollment team are going to be using that information to help them know where they need to be don't worry we did get this out Oh fantastic it's out in the hands of every elementary students did wanted to get lost in
055that first week of school perfect permit so perfect now to get out of business and it should get the attention so that at least if they have younger siblings at home their parents yeah it's been through those that through these presentations like this that we had a conversation and she said hey could you do a one-pager a handout we could give it out to all the county schools so it's those kinds of requests that we have been responding to so the handout that's in your folder that has the blue kids has like a teal color that was created at Caroline's request mm-hmm they're growing readers at home yes but again feedback about where those events might be we were just at the West Greenville block party we're any public event where we think there might
056be babies and families who are not enrolled we have people to be there we just need to find the the right places to be so we'll really count on you to keep us informed about where there's spots might be we'll be there and so you want a board member to volunteer to be on your committee attendants yes I want that tonight or they can just call you I think that dr. linker said we would work on that during the month of September and try to have our first meeting in October correct there's the points on the spot and further it would be a group across the community including representatives within the schools themselves but certainly someone from the school board thank you thank you so much be sure to to reach out let us know
057we have a website we try to keep it updated with most of the materials that we've that we've shared with you so yeah happy to give you more information if you have any questions thank you thank you thank you you think okay so our next presenter this Labette award director of federal programs is coming before us and she will discuss the 2018-19 title 1 plan with a gym which Wendy and request approval [Music] good evening everyone thank you for allowing me just a few minutes to provide for you an overview about 2018 19 title 1 plan before you you have the title 1 funding budget I do want to just highlight a few changes from last year to this year and I'd have to start with some negative news we were cut by two hundred
058seventy nine thousand nine hundred and four dollars which impacted just a little at our schools and in our district and so with that impact I will go over just a few things with our summary we have 28 title 1 schools with that we have 17 that are the CP schools which that means that 100% of all of our students at those schools receive free or reduced lunch which as you know that is how we come up with our title 1 budget I also want to share with you that many of our monies are going into the district to support some district initiatives as well again with the cut that was cut a little bit as well so it's impacted us in a negative way but we are resilient and we'll be able to go forward
059with the plans all of our title ones schools have to submit plans and everyone hands and so from that will be monitoring to make sure that they are using those dollars wisely and in a fiscal manner I would like to call your attention to the projector 2018-19 title one allocation and let me try to get it Carol might need you to help me please right here all right and I believe you have it cuz it's gonna be kind of small to look at those numbers but you'll see here at the time those schools listed at the top are the schools that are above the poverty bin and you can see that the majority of them are RCEP schools where you know 100% of the students receive free reduced lunch and then at the bottom you
060have the other schools that are below our poverty being the schools at the top they receive four hundred and eleven dollars and two cents per free and reduced lunch students and so if you will look at for instance Belvoir they have four hundred and one students that receive free and reduced lunch and so that's how you come up with a figure four hundred and one students time to four 1102 and then that's how you get your school allocation which is it the far right but then if you will look at a non CEP school which is Bethel you'll see that they have a total of two hundred and ninety students but two hundred and thirty one of them are students that receive free and reduced lunch and so you can see here where their allocation
061to the far right is ninety four thousand nine hundred and forty six thousand seventy three cent well you might say well why is this school here receiving only ninety four thousand but then you look at Lake Forest and you see that they're receiving three hundred and twenty three thousand it's all in the numbers Lake Forest has close to eight hundred students and they are a CEP school but then you have Bethel that is a smaller school two hundred and ninety students but two hundred and thirty one of them received free and reduced lunch so that's it's all in the formula the band or the cutoff the threshold for schools that received title one is thirty five percent so if you'll go all the way to the bottom and I'll try to move this down and
062you have it you'll see that went to green intermediate and primary they are right there they're at 36% 37% so if they go below 35% then they will not be able to receive title one funding for next year so they are right there so I just want you to know that it is all in the numbers again we will be closely monitoring their title on plans to make sure that they are using it in a fiscal manner I will take any questions that you have but just a few changes that we have we will cut two hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars I'll keep saying it but that's where we are and at this time I do seek your approval of this title one plan okay their questions are comments okay it's been moved by
063Mary and second by Robert all those in favor any opposes it's been approved thank you so very much like to say something else on this board I know it's a difficult one for you to do this for us but I see a lot of the work that you are doing in our community and you're in almost every school expressing about how important it is for fund allocations and parent involvement on parent night I want to thank you for being in my district I know the two visited at least three schools in my district already plus include an open house this man so I want to thank you for the job that you're doing and to continue to do so we wish you much success in your new world thank you so very much you're welcome
064okay so now we are down to testing and assessment program by mr. Steve Lassiter okay I thought we just voted on okay thank you okay the next presenter is Steve Lassiter and this is the first reading of revised policy 34 tenth of testing an assessment program and he's our new assistant superintendent of educational programs and services welcome to all board members as stated I'm here to present revisions on the testing and assessment pop assessment program policy 3410 it was discussed at our board work session on August 20th by our high schools director Miss Mary Carter okay thank you okay so no board action is required on this Thank You mr. Lassiter so now we are down to close increments by a superintendent first just like to say I've had the privilege of visiting thirty thirty-one
065schools in the last five days in a world limp FN very exciting but the conversations that with schools the teachers and involved in the classrooms the principal's the the focus are our data and where we're at how we're moving our kids for has been at just Adam I've been just amazing but super exciting news to see all that this first week we would like the district mind if you actually get a chance to go look at one of our high schools you will notice that the injury reporters core groups have been installed they're not actually wired yet but they're installed and doors are functioning to be able to go and see that in process you will go to some of the other schools you'll see where the access cards or the swipers have been installed
066they'll be as we move forward up in that Johnson is getting more and more of those done on weekly basis so you'll see more safety items and installed our schools over the course over the next several weeks I hope somebody will mention the SRO grant we received we've added ten additional ten maybe even 11 additional sorrows into our schools and it was mentioned that earlier that awareness attendance awareness is huge and Pitt County Schools taking part of the national push to make everyone aware of attendance so we certainly appreciate our support from our community East Carolina's been a major support and making this happen and we appreciate that be here to I think thank you madam chairman okay thank you about to maker and we'll start with our board member Caroline that in we really
067appreciate your taking the time to come here tonight I will not get at Cheryl Olmstead several years ago impressed upon us that words bill cranes and more words a child ears from there from I guess prenatally but certainly at zero through five makes a huge difference when you minutes a day I will not forget you said twenty and twenty five twenty minutes a day of reading is no matter what you reach on they just need to hear some words and see you breathing and a twenty five that seems like there's a threshold of 25 books in a household those two things are happening you've got somebody who's going to be a learner and he's going to be successful in school that's what the research I don't never get at this before this ever get started
068these sort of literacy initiative everything's our day she was teaching us about that and this is Cheryl fast meaning with us as well last names of your last days Fridays thank you so much thank you taught me a lot learnt so much from you and the way you shared that important information that's just been easy to manage want to say thank you to all of the storied intermitted all of the community organizations who have helped to get our students ready including one of our board members who sponsored a wonderful event and as well as the teachers and then pull the money out of their pockets to make sure their students have the materials they need and again thank you to the backpack Buddies supporters that started back this week our children do need to eat
069on the weekends we think our church partners but after my lender ii disappear well i had the privilege of attending three open houses the night one to two elementary schools as a board member and then high school for the parent and so all three schools it was wonderful and i'm sure it was like that across the county i want to say thank you to all the teachers that have worked so hard to get ready for this upcoming school year and spending time with our children to get them excited and teach them all the things that they need to learn to be successful in life i would like to say thank you thank you thank you thank you to the imagination library and all those wonderful people at ACU reading is so important to me I
070have a daughter who's dyslexic and only a struggled struggled and so I know how hard it is for some students to be able to read but how important it is to read and I just cannot tell you how important if you can read you can do anything and I stressed that at home and I stress that in the intensive care nursery that reading to children is so important it's great for them to learn but it's a bonding thing also and that's really all I have to say tonight thank you trying to keep it under a minute I just want to say how fortunate we are here in Pitt County and I say it every time that we have the best school district in all of North Carolina but one of the reasons I feel like
071we are so fortunate is because we do have East Carolina's here in our backyard and we have so many partnerships that have been shared with us over the last few years and from the lab well the community school and this partnership with the imagination library we're just so fortunate and so lucky but also this is a great example of how data works and all of these programs are fantastic but this is a program where we're able to share our data with your data and we can really see what makes an impact with our students and that's important to me as a board member and as a taxpayer right so that's really important to me but also I think one of the biggest challenges that we face in our school is not what's happening in the
072classroom that's challenging yes but I've said it before that the community and the students when they arrive to our school is something that we as board members and leaders in our community really need to make an impact and this is a way that their East Carolina and imagination library is reaching out into our communities to help our kids so that when we get them because we expect so much of them when they walk