001If you said we believe it [Music] All things are possible when we believe and all chains unbre [Music] it. You're a man of your word. We have this confidence started with me. make the best decisions possible for the children and families as well as our teachers and staff within Hornet County Schools. Lord, we pray for a great school year and we worship you and thank you for all you do. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. Mr. Godfrey, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Yes, >> sir. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. And you may be seated. >> Mr. Chairman, I move
002that we approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion hearing? None. The chairman votes I. >> Abate I. >> Gay I. >> C. I. >> Hearing. No. Nay votes. The motion carries. >> Mr. Chairman, I move that we go into close session pursuant to general statute 143 31811A1 to prevent the disclosure of confidential student records under GS115C 402. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? Chairman vote. Abate I >> gain I >> hearing no nay votes the motion carries. We're now in close session. Oh Lord, I need Just to find out your ways, [Music] oh Lord, Jesus, Lord, I am so thankful for the ways that you bless me. Everything you say making waves like a jet. You
003love me even when I was messy. Now I see the beauty. So I can finally provider your ways. Even my darkest days you're a lighter me. [Music] Search the world just to find out your way better. Oh Lord, Jesus, I need you now. Would you put my heart back together? I search the world till my head just Find out better. [Music] Oh Lord, you're always better. Jesus, you're always better. It's better than the rest. Jennifer, >> is she ready? >> Oh, I don't following a motion and a second. We are now back in open session and we're moving along now to item D on the agenda. special presentations and we have three of these tonight. The first of these special presentations is a chamber champion plaque presentation by Miss Vicky Ingresol, the director of the
004Coats Area Chamber of Commerce. So, Miss Ingresol, if you would come forward, please. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Vicki Ingresol. I'm the executive director of the Coats Area Chamber of Commerce and I'm here tonight to thank the Hornet County um school board for supporting all five of your Hornet County Chambers. Um but tonight I'm here to present the plaque for our chamber champion. Um which is going to be going to Mr. Brooks Matthews and we appreciate y'all's involvement and we're looking forward to our upcoming meeting with the other five the other four of the five chambers and what we can do together with y'all moving forward. I've just been the director since December. So, I'm excited to see what we'll be having involved with y'all going forward. My camera. I got to get
005my phone. Let me get my phone. >> Look behind you. >> Vicki, >> she camera shy. Get out of here. >> And y'all, he was one of my principles in high school, many, many weeks ago. [Music] And we appreciate all the chambers do to support our schools. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Well, thank you, Miss Megar. So, and congratulations, Mr. Matthews. Next on the agenda, we have the uh CTE recognition of summer interns, and that will be Miss Lindseay Hardy, our director of career and tech education. >> Good evening, Chairman Powell, members of the board, and the cabinet. Thank you for allowing me time tonight to present a certificate of completion to two of our wonderful CTE students, one a recent graduate for their completion of their CTE internships. Before we recognize the students
006and their sponsoring supervisors sort of, um, I just want to give a few remarks about this program. Steve Jobs once said, "The only way to do great work is to love what you do, but how do you figure out what you love?" And so, career and technical education allows our students just that opportunity. It's equally important to work and experience work-based learning where you see what you love and what you absolutely do not love. And so both of these students have seen things that they love in their internships as well as working um outside in the very hot summer that we have had and maybe deciding they may want to continue down that path or not. Work-based learning opportunities such as internships enable our students to make early informed career decisions which is very important
007because that maximizes what they can take advantage of as a high school student. And some of those examples are career and technical student organizations, dual enrollment opportunities, part-time work, and internships like you're hearing about tonight. Internships also teach our students invaluable skills like responsibility, diligence, commitment, teamwork, dedication, reliability, and so forth. And tonight, I'm forcing communication skills out of them when they talk to you very briefly about what they've learned and experienced in their internships. Our internships are not possible though without the partnering businesses and agencies that are willing to host students. And so even though we're highlighting two tonight that were summer internships, we have hundreds of students that are involved in CT internship throughout the school year at private businesses. And those are some really remarkable stories that I could share later with
008you. Without people to host students and take a chance on a teenager, they're not able to explore careers that they may connect with that they would find a passion for to do for the rest of their lives. We do welcome any new potential partners who may hear about this tonight, whether they're live streaming the the meeting or here tonight to reach out to my office and we'll be happy to talk to you about how to host an intern and the return on investment that those who have have experienced at their businesses or agencies. So without further ado, when I call your name, please come forward to receive a certificate from Career and Technical Education. And we're also going to ask their supervisor to come up here with them as well. We'll start with Fischer Pope.
009So Fischer Pope is a student at Triton High School and he's in his second year working as an intern with Harnet County Schools Maintenance. And we have Mr. Nate here tonight as his supervisor. And Fischer is gonna give a few words, but very few. He said, >> "Well, things I've done with Horn County Schools was um I've done carpentry, painting, electrical, and other stuff like that for most stuff I've done. But I just want to keep it short and sweet because I don't really talk talk a lot in front of a crowd like this." So, thank y'all for everything I've done and thank you for giving me a chance to be out here and work for y'all. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> No, I'll get another. >> Good job. Next we have Natalyia Ruiz
010and she is a graduate of Western Hornet High School and she worked with Hornet County Soil and Water Conservation District under supervisor Lynn Lambert. The Hornet County Soil and Water Conservation Conservation District has actually hosted I believe three interns for us and um we greatly appreciate your support and I'll let Natalya speak as well. Good evening. My name's Natalyia and I just graduated Western Hornet High School. And this summer working at um Soul and Water, I first got to learn about farmland preservation. Um I was auditing the voluntary agriculture district program acorage and I used the Harnet GIS viewer to help me do that. So I got to learn about what farmland preservation looks like in Haret County and the tools that are used to learn about Hornet Haret County soil. That was pretty cool.
011Um, I helped with social media and creating flyers and infographics. I even got to go on a couple field visits, one of which I got to learn the process of how to remove or blow up a beaver dam. That was pretty cool. And then um one of my favorite things that I did was get to sit in at the stormwater board and the a advisory board meetings. Getting to hear conversations about current issues in Hornet County agriculture from people that have been involved in Hornet County agriculture for so many years was really really inspiring. And I honor this time that I've had at Sil and Water. and I honor the support from the school board for an experience like this. Everyone that I met and spoke to was really really eager to see a new
012young face in agriculture and I think that's really important for students in Hick County. So I appreciate that. [Applause] >> Thank you. In closing, I just want to express my gratitude to the board in Haret County Schools for your continued support of career and technical education. My career with Hornet County Schools started when I was 15 years old as a CT intern. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Hardy. And congratulations both Fischer and Italia. We're very proud of you and thank you very much. And the chair recognized Vice Chairman Abante. So, what uh Miss Ruiz did not mention, she was actually an excellent representative of the soil and water uh board at the Haret Career Fair a couple weeks ago and was just an outstanding ambassador for both Hornet County Schools as well as uh
013Haret County Soil and Water. So, we really appreciate you and good luck in college this upcoming year. >> Thank you, Mr. Bate. Next we have international teachers and we this will be presented by Miss Shelby Kana. >> Hi, good evening. My name is Shelby Ka. I'm a recruitment and retention coordinator uh for Hornet County Schools and I work specifically with our international faculty. Um so what I'm going to talk to youall today about is kind of the background information about our teachers. Um how we hire them. um the support in place for international teachers um and give you an update about the upcoming school year. So we are going to start with what is a J1 visa. So our international teachers are hired on a J1 visa. Um a J1 visa is a non-immigrant visa
014for people coming to the US to learn, teach or share their culture. um they must be sponsored by an official exchange program. Um and I'll talk to you about the two programs that we utilize. Um just a little bit of information, they are allowed to teach in the US for up to five years. So their initial um visa is good for three years. If they are still in good standing with us, we can apply for an extension for an additional two more years. um their role is to share their country's culture and their education system but also really learn about the American teaching system um our culture our methods and take it back to their country uh to implement. Okay. So the two the two agencies that we use that we uh work with that
015help us recruit these teachers and who we hire from are EPI and participate learning. Um so EPI they offer a lots of different lensure areas. So we have EPI teachers that are licensed to teach elementary K through 5. Um secondary subject areas such as math, social studies, science and ELA. Um we really utilize them um with our science and math vacancies. Um they have EC teachers, so qualified licensed EC teachers. Um, and they also have enhancement teachers. So, we have a few teachers that teach art and music throughout our county. We also use Participate Learning. Participate Learning helps us um find licensed teachers that are uh licensed to teach in K6, so kindergarten through sixth grade. They are our dual language teachers. Um, our ESL, they help, we hire ESL teachers through participate learning as
016well as foreign language. Okay. So the next part is the eligibility and admissions. So these two agencies do all the screening. Um they go through extensive background checks. Um we'll talk about how they t they go through criminal and reference background check checks but also financial background checks. Um verification of teaching experience. Um must be proficient in the English language. Um and they help us uh verify their license. So like I said, these teachers are licensed teachers in their home country. The agencies help uh make sure their license translates to North Carolina lensure um to make sure they're they're qualified. Um financial eligibility and requirements. So the US Department of State actually has these requirements set in stone. Um these are requirements that the agencies have to follow. Um so because it is an exchange
017program where they are expected to go back to their home country they must demonstrate strong ties to their home country. So they have to show like proof of property ownership um bank account balances or other financial assets uh to meet these US Department of State requirements. They also have to uh pass a financial background check and complete the family family formula. And what that means is they these agencies know how much teachers will make in the state. So based on the North Carolina state salary scale um they must be able to support their family. So if if they have two dependents that are coming with them that that affects the family family formula and if they are they do not pass the family formula they are not eligible for the program. Um something too about
018the finance uh both both EPI and participate learning a big part of their orientation is uh budgeting. Um and so they also if we see a teacher struggling to adapt to the United States and uh budgeting um when they move here we um they really advocate for us to get them back connected with their agency to help with budgeting um and and working out their finances. Um, oh, next is how do we utilize them? Um, so these international teachers, they bring cultural diversity to our schools. They they bring global perspectives to our schools. Um, and they also bring strong teaching skills. These international teachers are master teachers in their home country. So, they bring with them a wealth of knowledge of the the content and years of experience with them. um they serve in full-time
019teaching roles here in our classrooms. Um so it helps us recruit qualified licensed teachers um in our vacant areas. Um just but they are just like any other licensed teacher. So one big misconception is that they get paid differently. Um they get paid on the same North Carolina state salary scale as our North Carolina teachers. So, say they come from Jamaica with 17 years of experience. They get paid just like a North Carolina teacher with 17 years of experience. Um, we encourage them to share their culture. Um, oftentimes schools will have cultural programs where parents in the community can come and and learn about their culture. Um, but we do encourage them to share that in their classrooms as well. Okay. The hiring process. Um, I just included this because it's kind of interesting how
020how do you, you know, hire and recruit these teachers from across the world. Um, so what I do, it really starts in January, our hiring for the next year. I really work with principles and communicate with them on what are your needs, like what are your anticipated vacancies? Um, what fifth year international teachers do you know are leaving next year that we need to work to replace that position? So that starts in January. So in January and February I work with EPI and participate learning um regarding lensure needs. So like we really need EC teachers. Um we have a lot of math and science vacancies. Um so what they do is they send us candidates in all the lensure areas and the RNRs we team up and we interview all of these candidates. Um and
021we decide based on a team and the needs of the school. um we can then extend district offers um to these international candidates and then we share these candidates, we share their resume, we share their intro video and we share their recorded interview um on a website like we have created a Google site platform where these principles can go and view the candidates themselves. Um oneote participate learning does require a principal interview. So they'll interview with us and then they interview with the principal to ensure a good fit for their school. So then we communicate with the agencies um about their school placement. Um we send out welcome emails in May and that's like welcome to Haret County. That's your uh your official school site. That gets them connected with their principal um their teacher
022ambassador which is their mentor. I start sharing housing recommendations and things like that in May. So, throughout the summer, I'm in constant contact with them as much as I can. End of July, um, our new international staff arrives. Um, we have a big welcome event, which I'll talk to you about. We have required orientation before they can report to their school site. So, this hiring goes on through January. We are still currently hiring right now. Um, so it's um an ongoing cycle. Um, so pre-arrival support is very similar for participate learning and EPI. One thing I really want to point out is that both agencies um offer and set up these teachers with bank accounts with cell phones um with um uh full insurance benefits. So their benefits are through their agency, not through HIT
023County. Um they cover their travel to the states. Um and one thing that is a great advantage is these teachers um receive a startup interestf free loan. So participate learning they get $2500 um as a startup loan um and then that money is taken out of their paycheck. but $2,500. Whereas EPI, um, same thing. They get all the same setup, uh, full insurance. They get $3,000 startup, uh, $3,000 startup loan. Um, so that's nice. That helps them get their deposits done on their house. Um, you know, just all the things of paying for your TB tests, you know, your physical, that's $85. Um, applying for a driver's license, all the fees, and helping h uh set up their home. So they attend orientation with both their agencies before they arrive here. So once they arrive
024to the states, they attend orientation. Participate learning has orientation in Washington DC. Um EPI has it in Raleigh this year. Um during this orientation week, they provide all meals. They put them up in a hotel. Um they go over various topics to really set them up for success when they arrive to their schools. and they um have um they arrange transportation to their school districts. So then when they arrive to us, my goal is to get them connected with as many of our returning international staff um before they arrive. So like I said, I send out that welcome to Hornet County email in May. Um I send them updates throughout the summer. um make sure they have housing before they arrive. Get their information so we can have their online account set up and ready
025for them. I share um recommended housing from our international our veteran international community is wonderful here and really help with recommendations on where to live, tips and tricks of navigating the social security office and the DMV. Um, but our goal is to really bridge the gap and ensure a smooth transition to Hick County. So, one of my very favorite days has become this welcome event. Um, and this uh we this year we had two different welcome events. Um, participate learning arrived Thursday the 24th. EPI arrived this past Friday. Um, this year we held it at Gentry and uh principles were invited. Um, we have our local adviserss. some of the cabinet members were able to come. Um, and it is so fun. They are so excited when they arrive. Um, and we have welcome bags
026and in the welcome bags, um, we had lots of Hornet County gear for them. Um, I had a welcome packet with lots of upcoming dates, important information, recommended DMV, um, their health form for them. Um then they also had our local area chamber um chambers provided some goodies for their welcome bags as well. Um so they were so they're just so excited to be here. We're so excited to have them join our community. I will say participate learning, they have local um local adviserss in place and local adviserss are returning participate learning teachers already here and that local advisor takes them under their wing, helps with them with transportation um and get gets them settled. EPI does not have that role. So we have taken that on ourselves. Um and we have six um strong
027EPI teachers that have been in the county for three to five years and we have assigned them their little mentees and they are in contact with them throughout the summer and they are there to help welcome them. Um I want to give a huge shout out to our trans Uriah and our transportation department. you uh EPI doesn't have uh transportation when they first arrived to Hornet County. So Uriah and his team, they have um gladly helped us make this event be a success. We they they take a bus to the Fagetville Spring Lake area. They have their their staff help with their luggage to make sure that they get to their home safely. Um then there's always another bus that does the Lilington Buoys Creek area. So, um, it's a team effort and we are
028so appreciative of their their help. After welcome, after the welcome event, we have our required Hornet County Schools orientation and that's where I I have been all day today at Gentry. Um, what this is this day, we serve breakfast and lunch. Um, we in the mornings we talk all things Har County, okay? payroll, um, setting up your classroom for success, how your sick days work, right? Um, things every teacher needs to know. Um, they got to hear from our international teacher of the year, Sheniki Cardial. Um, she was our district winner this past school year, so she came and shared some words of wisdom. Um, and then in the afternoon, huge shout out to our technology department. They got them all set up with their Hornet County emails. They all left with an ID badge.
029Um they got logged into all their accounts. So when they get to their schools tomorrow, they are ready to roll. Um so that was a day packed of learning and again another team effort. Okay. So let's talk now that they're here. What does support look like? So we'll start at the school level support. So every new international teacher is assigned a teacher ambassador. And what that is is that is their mentor. Um these teacher ambassadors ideally if the school allows it is a returning international teacher. Um if we're able to we try to connect them with someone that is their same content area or same grade level. Um and if if that's not possible then it is a a a North Carolina teacher that fills that role. um their role is to help them adjust
030to their school um and get to know their school. Um I collaborate with teacher ambassadors. The principles assign these teacher ambassadors. We all work together. Um these teacher ambassadors must meet with them once a month and and we we document that and there's an accountability system for that. But our goal is to kind of like give them a safe go-to person that's been in their shoes that they can go to and ask all the questions. Um, we also have, you know, we have instructional coaches, we have our administration, um, our instructional technology facilitators at the school level that help in their areas as well. um when the school level support has been fully utilized um additional help and additional help is needed that's when they call me in and then I also um arrange further
031support and support them myself. So that's where um my role comes in. I'm the international teacher coordinator. So, I am constantly going around to their schools, checking in on them, um, seeing how they're doing, um, support them with classroom management and other support as needed. I collaborate with the teacher ambassadors, the principles, the instructional coaches, um, and district level support as needed. We have a weekly newsletter and, um, there's a picture on your handout with that. Um, who would have thought that that has just been the biggest hit. Um, but it's a one-stop shop for our teachers and principles and instructional coaches. I include all of them on it. Um, and what I include on that are little PD, like we call them byite-size PD. Um, little tips for them. Uh, reminders of upcoming dates.
032I may include things like, hey, tax season's coming up, you know, things for outside they may need as well as um, haret happenings. So, if there's fun local events going on in the county, um especially like with Campbell University, if they have free events, I try to share those. Um in that newsletter, I have DMV updates, anything I may think they need to be successful. We also have fall or monthly PD sessions. On that handout, you'll see my fall semester PD dates that have already been set. Um teachers are required to at least come with come to one. Oftentimes principles require it. Um or they just come too. It's a time for all of us to be together and it's all relative to what they are needing. Um Oops. Agency support too. There's always the
033agency that's uh checking in with them offers um any legal assistance J1 or helping their their spouses and their families join us. We have a big partnership with them. We're constantly in contact with them. Um the the agencies will send people to the district to check in on their teachers as well and um start coaching cycles as needed. So then I'm going to end with some celebrations. So ways we celebrate our international teachers. So we have a worldclass teacher of the month. That's kind of like the rookie rockar for our beginning teachers, but um this is for our first year international teachers. Um, so I I try to have one elementary and one secondary. Those are nominated by IC's and principles. We also have an international teacher of the year. Um, and then one thing
034that I'm super proud of is according to EVOS's data of the teachers that had EVOS data, 85% of our international staff met or exceeded growth. Um, so that that that tells you how effective these teachers are, how qualified these teachers are. Um, so I'm pretty proud of that data. Oh, look. And so is the presentation. Thanks. Thanks, Jennifer. Um, okay. So, for this new school year, we are setting in stone new requirements. Um, so they are to attend all trainings. They have to meet monthly with their teacher ambassador. They are required to observe another teacher. um attend my my required PDS um and then obviously complete the NIS's um evaluation process and then complete my surveys as I send them out. So just to end with some statistics um this year we have 64 new
035international faculty joining us. That number changed today and I'm expecting it to change the the rest of this week. Um we have 159 returning international faculty. um 103 of those are participate learning teachers. 120 of 23 of those are EPI. So that gives us a total of 226 um international faculty across our schools. Um one number that's not on there that I really wanted to share is 24 of these teachers are licensed EC teachers. they come with that come to us with experience um in the EC setting and they um are licensed and qualified to do that. And as y'all know, we have a really hard time recruiting EC teachers and so these teachers really help us in that um that setting. Um and last but not least, across our county, we have 19 countries
036represented. >> All right. Do y'all have any questions for me? Are there questions for Miss Kanye? >> Thank you for being here. >> Thank you, Miss Kanye. [Applause] >> Well, that concludes our special presentation segment. And now we'll move along into our public comment. And each month, a part of at least one regularly scheduled board meeting will be set aside for citizens to address the board through public comment. A signup sheet will be available for any individual or group to indicate their desire to address the board. The chairperson will decide the amount of time. Each speaker must complete each section of the signup sheet. Each speaker may only speak for three minutes. No balance of time may be yielded to another speaker. A maximum of 30 minutes is allotted for public comments. This allows for
037approximately 10 10 speakers at three minutes per speaker. The speaker signup sheet is removed at the beginning of the board meeting. There will be no disruptions. So, beginning tonight, first on the list is uh Miss Angel Pavey. Did I say that correctly? So, uh, Miss Pavey, if you'd come forward and also when someone comes to speak, if you would once again give us your name and also, uh, tell us what area of the county you live from. >> Um, you have three minutes. >> Thank you. Um, uh, my name is Angel Pavey. Um, so, uh, we're we're in Lilington, so um, I'll go ahead. I drafted because I get nervous with this stuff. Uh, close enough. >> Uh, my name is Angel Pavey and I'm a parent of a student at Over Hills High School.
038I'm here tonight not just on behalf of my own family, but as part of a growing community of concerned parents who are deeply alarmed by the conditions at Over Hills and the lack of accountability from its leadership. Our school is in crisis. It is severely overcrowded, dangerously understaffed, and led by a principal who has consistently shown a lack of awareness, transparency, and responsiveness to the issues impacting our students and teachers. There is no enrollment cap in place, and the result is packed hallways, overwhelmed staff, and a growing number of safety concerns. Even more concerning, students with IEPs and 504 plans are being neglected. These are legally binding accommodations, not optional suggestions. Parents are being given excuse after excuse. We're short staffed. We're behind on paperwork. We'll get to it. Meanwhile, children are denied the services
039they are entitled to. This district has already faced lawsuits over these violations. And if this continues, more will come. Our teachers, many of whom are passionate and experienced, are leaving not because they want to, but because they have to. They feel disrespected, unsupported, and burned out. And while that's happening, this board has voted to give itself raises. Yet somehow, it is too much to offer our teachers a competitive stipend to help retain them in this district. People notice, people are paying attention, and they are not stupid. We are calling on this board to act. Put a cap in place at Over Hills to control the overcrowding. Ensure full compliance with all IEPs and 504 plans. Support and protect the teachers who show up for our kids every day. And most urgently, replace the current principal
040with someone who is qualified, engaged, and committed to leading with transparency and integrity and growing an environment of culture where our teachers want to come to work. You have a choice. You can fix this or it will be fixed at the ballot box. Military families in this district are watching closely and if you continue to ignore these issues, we are prepared to withhold impact aid paperwork until our children's education, safety, and well-being are treated as a priority. We're not here to threaten. We're here to demand better. And we're not going away. So, I'll leave you with this question. What are you going to do tonight to start fixing this? Thank you. >> Next, we have Alyssa Smith. >> Good evening. Um, my name is Alyssa Smith. I am here representing uh Hornet County military families.
041So, sorry, I'm a little nervous about doing this. Um, I'm coming today because of the experience I've had and my family's had as a military family. We came into this district thinking that it was the best school, the best district in North Carolina for our family. My son has been neglected. He has not gotten the support he needs on his IEP. I have called the superintendent's office. I've gotten nowhere with you guys. and I've gotten nowhere with anyone in the state. I've had to call DPI for backup and help. It is frustrating that my son has to suffer as other students have had to suffer with the lack of support from the principal. We've had to fight our way. We've had to scream out on social media to get support. I'm coming today because there
042is no support for my child for any child with IEPs. And the difficulties that we are having is that the program that they set aside for him, they have decided to retain my son again and telling us we have no choice. We have no say in anything when it comes to him and his school. The program is a great program for children with the OCS program, but the problem is a child who is autistic and has autism, they do not gather the information like a regular child should. And the math requirements are out of this, just out of question for him. And I am asking that this get fixed because no parent, especially a military family coming in with an a child who needs help and has an IEP, they're getting fallen through the cracks.
043We need help getting the resources they need, getting help to make sure they can graduate on time when they are promised. And I can tell as a parent, I am frustrated with the lies, the promises they do not follow through. And I cannot and I will not support a school system when a child is getting nowhere. So that's all I have to say. Next we have Justin Garrett. Uh good evening members of the board. My name is Justin Garrett. I live in District 2 in the Woodshshire neighborhood. Um, I'm here tonight to suggest a policy change for EC students, especially students that have RBTs coming into the school from outside agencies. Um, the reason I'm saying this, I have an EC child of my own that attends Anderson Creek Primary School. And we were not
044made aware until Sunday night at 7:30 that our RBT would need to redo the paperwork each year even though he just did it in November. Um, so I'm asking you to change the policy to either send out a notice at the end of the school year or at least one month prior to the school year beginning just to give those students that um bring in RBT from outside agencies to get them to notice, hey, get your paperwork in. It needs to be done at the beginning of each year. Um, the second thing I'd like to bring up is the um the recent administration changes that were done. Um, I understand that people change and people move and things need to happen, but administrators being pulled from from the school that my child attends to go
045to other schools and be switched around and flipped around, it seems a little chaotic to happen over the summer. um with no notice or no anything like that. So um I would like you guys to reconsider your policies of administration changes that happen in schools. Um you know it it is it is a little concerning for parents that have especially EC stu students that my child was very comfortable with Mr. Brier and Miss Trudeau. And now he's going to show up um next week and see brand new faces uh one of which has never worked in primary education before. And so it's a little concerning that these changes are made and there's little to no um um notification to parents that this stuff's going to happen or the staff because they had no idea they
046were leaving either. We know this from their um going away message that they gave us. They had no idea they were leaving. So um I hope you guys consider my proposals for the for the EC policy change and um also consider moving these administrators around. They should be rewarded for the hard work they've done to make their schools great and not pulled out of them to go to other schools to try to make them great when they're suffering. So thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, >> Thank you, Angie Collins. >> Good evening. My name's Angie Collins. Um, I live in District 4, I guess you would say. Um, what I'd like to comment tonight about is the afterchool program uh with the Piney Grove Baptist Church at the Northwest Elementary School. I understand that this
047has been going on for for several years now and um I just became aware of it so I'm late on the punch and um I have some concerns about it. Um, first of all, if it has been going on for several years and this is through one church, it seems like this is being promoted as the favorite church or the favorite religion. If we're going to allow religious organizations to have an afterchool program in our schools, shouldn't we have some variation? Are we just saying that just this Baptist religion is okay for after school or um you know can we bring in some Lutherans or some Jewish people or you know some other different religions to show some variation? Um one course that I took in high school was biblical history. Um are there any
048courses like that available? This is something a way that you can learn about the history of our Bible and religion without actually being indoctrinated into a religion. And this is the part that concerns me. Um they say they want to serve 100 children. Well, where did those 100 children come from? Are they already members of this church or do they actively recruit children from this primary school, elementary school? Um, is this something that the parents are aware of when they volunteer, when they sign up for this program, or do they see it as like a, oh boy, I've got Tuesday afternoon daycare for my child until 5:00? Um, I also wonder about, you know, the the whole program name, the building good character, which I certainly agree with, and I'm not against religion in any
049way, but I do know that there are what, like over 65, maybe 70 different factions of the Baptist faith. And um, if they can't all agree on what is good character, then who is agreeing on that and presenting that to our children in this afterchool program? Is there any oversight to this? I know that one thing, one reason that that I don't support the Baptist faith is because of their position on women. I'm one of those women that think we should have equal rights. I know that that the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't uh think that women should be in the pulpit or in positions of power. And this concerns me. So, in conclusion, my time is running out. I see. But if there is going to be these kind of programs allowed, I would like
050to see some variation and some equal dispersement of different beliefs. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Michael. Is it Mahes? >> Yes, it is. >> I appreciate you. >> Good afternoon. Well, good evening. Um, so I just have a comment. Uh, we've lived in North Carolina roughly four years now. four and a half years with my wife and I and our three children. And my my comments specifically with regards to Over Hills Middle School, I do have a senior uh I'm sorry, a sophomore and a recent graduate who's headed to NC State, but it seems as though um in the middle school, every year that my daughter has been there, there hasn't been a teacher and some of her core classes and that she's always behind the power curb. So when the
051time comes for testing um or or any type of uh uh you know it it's never it's never on par where she needs to be and she's just one kid in the class of you know 20 so other kids are in that same boat as well but I don't know if there's something we can do to address the teacher shortage. I know Miss um Shelby was kind of alluding to that but I don't know if it's competitive wages. I don't know what the answer is but it is a concern that I have specifically with regards to my child and every other child that attends that school. So, right now she'll be starting 8th grade. And the first thing we said today was when she got her her class list is we need to know immediately
052when you do not have a teacher. Um, we've come out of pocket on our own to try to address some of the shortcomings with regards to her education with Silven Learning Center in Favville or in the surrounding areas, but it is a concern that we have not only for our child, but everybody every other child in the class. So, thank you. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Laura Phelps. Hi, I'm Laura Phelps. I'm in the Broadway area and I also wanted to voice my concern about the rental renewal application for Piney Grove Baptist Church. They're housing um a character formation club, character development club on school grounds and encourage the board to actually question if this is really in the students best interest. Um I I just wonder in advertising and recruiting for
053the club, the schools basically endorsing this denomination specific interpretation of the Bible above others. Um in allowing an individual church to host an activity, you're opening the door to influences that parents might not be aware of or even actually approve of. I just feel like schools should teach and encourage values in a way that encompasses all religions and not one specific denomination. >> Natasha Thompson. >> Good evening, board members. I'm Natasha Thompson in District 2. I'm currently the parent advisory board president for the Over Hill Schools. Um, as I've been working very closely with the principles of all three school districts, it has been brought to my attention by many of the the teachers and the parents of the issues that they've been coming across. Um, the question I have here is with Over Hills
054High School being so overcrowded, when can we have some type of resolution of the Highland High School being built? There isn't a cap in Over Hills of when the students of the enrollment. I currently have a daughter who will be going into her senior year. She has been excelling, but I can't speak the same for all students that are running into the issues of not having a teacher in court classes or not having a teacher that comes in one year and the next year they don't return. That is causing an issue. There are issues with troubling students of fights or whatnot. The principal and the teachers are doing the best they can. But with these issues of overcrowding, it does cause an issue with how the district is zoned. Western Haret is not in those
055zoning districts for taking in more students. So the question I asked you all, how can we help this? How can when can we expect for Highland High School to be built to take some of that burden off of the staff at that school to help the parents some of their questions to be answered with how can we help them? Because they're asking very valid questions. I want to help the the teachers and the parents with hey, can we get another high school? We build another middle school. That's part of it. But the other high school is we're in Thailand being built. We only have two high schools in our district. That's not helping the problem. There's another the biggest issue is here. We need another high school. There's more kids coming in than there are
056going out. So, we're stuck with four more years than there are with the middle school kids. >> That's all I have for you. Thank you. Have a blessed night. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Next, we have Tanakia Arnold. Good evening board. I am Tena Arnold. I am in district 2. My children attend Over Hills High School. I am also a product of Hornet County Schools. And with talking about the overcrowding, I was a student that dealt with overcrowding. I went to when I moved into Hornet County, Over Hills Middle School was being built. We went from Western Hornet to Over Hills. Then our senior year, we were split. We went from Western Hard to Over Hills. I've seen it done. It does hurt the students in friendships and things like that, but it is something
057that needs to happen. It needs to happen. Um, we need your support as our board members to help us help our teachers and our staff get the support that they need. The teachers do not feel supported. I am a parent. I am in over hills once a week. How can I help out in the classroom? You need me to sweep a floor. You need me mop a floor. You need me to work concession stands. I am in the school. I am an active parent. I'm going to continue to be an active parent. I am a product of this county and I want to see all our schools succeed as well as all of our students. So, how can we help? Call on your parents. And you all know being on the board. Getting help from
058the parents is like pulling teeth. But a lot of the people that I graduated school with, our children are now in the school and we are willing to do the work to help you all get this support for this staff. That's all I have. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Rebecca Brock. >> Board members and staff and parents. It's really good to see you here at the meetings. Um, and it sounds like you have some issues to address. Anyhow, I'm going to be cut to the chase uh about two issues. One is of course the character formation club that has been submitted to reapply for use of the building at Northwest Haret Elementary. They're a Wake County church and they've been using it apparently for a couple years. I have to agree with Laura and with
059Angie that there are different platforms that could be used for youth development such as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and the Girls Club and Boys Club of America. Um, I find that there's supposedly a separation between church and state in this country. And we do have a new Muslim church here in Haret County. If you weren't aware of it, it's in Northwest Hornet. They have a temple there. Would you allow them to have an afternoon program at your schools? Would you allow a Jewish synagogue to have an afternoon program? I think you've opened up a door you may not have mentioned, you may not have intended to do. Um, but I feel like this is something that you ought to reconsider doing. And if you consider, if you're going to have it, you ought
060to ask them to come in and present their platform to you so that you can see if they're presenting a neutral program. Secondly, I would like to ask the board and administration that you put a your policy for ICE on your website so that we know that you all are all being especially your entrance staff being trained on what to do if ICE were to come to a door. And I'm hoping that it requires a judicial warrant and not an administrative warrant because I know you guys know that you have undocumented students in your schools. I know you have DACA students in your stool schools and I know you probably want them to feel safe. So please get that program up and I hope you I I can't remember it. I think you did discuss
061it last year, but does it have a judicial warrant versus an administrative one? It's not on. Thank you. Thank you. I'm done. >> Tony Spears. >> Thank you, sir. I about three minutes back to the superintendent. >> Thank you, Mr. Spears. And oh, thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comment session and now we'll move along into our superintendence update. Mr. Matthews, thank you, Chairman Pal, and members of the board. U, it's really difficult to believe that uh the summer break for our schools on traditional calendars is almost over. Today was an optional work day, teacher work day, and Wednesday will be our first mandatory work day. uh for our returning uh teachers and staff uh on the traditional calendar. Our convocation will be Thursday morning at Campbell at 10:00 a.m. and I'm looking forward
062to seeing our teachers and staff return. Uh central office and school staff have been very busy preparing for their return and we're excited also for the students return in a in a few weeks. Uh so as I said it is an exciting time for all of us in our senior leadership. We'll share more with you about uh preparations that have been made in their particular areas uh to prepare for beginning the 2526 traditional calendar school year. Uh of course it was good to hear the news that the federal grant money that had been frozen is going to be released. Uh hopefully we will get a state budget adopted in the near future. Uh still of course some uncertainty regarding that but we're still hopeful. Uh, I also wanted to share with you that today Miss
063Tara Tara Fish, executive director of the Hornet County Partnership for Children and I traveled to Raleigh to present to the North Carolina task force on child care and early education on our educare um pilot that I shared with you last year. Uh, of course, uh, we are still working on, um, receiving the funding to be able to implement that, but we did receive quite a quite a few favorable comments today. Uh, answered a lot of questions and uh, we're u excited for the opportunity afforded us to be able to uh, speak to the task force today. Uh, and I I do want to applaud um Miss Fish for her work in uh in uh working the details of the plan out uh for us to be able to try to move forward with that. I
064will keep you updated as we continue uh to seek funding. And uh that concludes my report. It's probably a good thing I'm about to get turned through here, but that concludes my report unless y'all have some questions for me. Are there questions for Mr. Matthews? Thank you, Mr. Matthews. Next, we have our auxiliary services update with Mr. Pearson. >> Thank you, Chairman Palmer of the board. Um, updates for you on our ongoing construction projects, Miss Bird. I think we'll put a couple of pictures up there for you of Flatwoods Middle School as well as um Lilington Shawtown Gym Edition. Um, so that is Lington Shawtown Gym Edition. As you can see, it is uh you know getting getting to the dried in stage. Uh consistently having conversations with contractors to make sure that is staying
065on schedule. Right now they do still feel like they are on schedule which is a substantial completion date of late November. Um Flatwoods Middle School some time you've been out there from the groundbreaking obviously that site has changed a bit. There are some footers and some foundations in place and block work happening. you can start to see roads and uh ball fields and that type of thing taking shape. And so again, um you know, throughout throughout the summer, this is a time when weather can really kind of play havoc on that type of construction site. We've been fortunate that we've stayed on on track there and we'll continue to give you updated pictures uh as they come in. Um we will be um pushing out RFQS for new schools. Um, so we will push out
066this week an RFQ uh for Highland High School, Buoies Creek Elementary School, and a CTE High School. So this is the initial step in the process of kind of selecting designers uh kind of get budget numbers, those types of things so that we can put you all in a position to go to the county commissioners um soon with information needed for what it would take to uh to get those schools going. There are our next ones on your priority list. And so this week should be the first step in that planning phase. Um update on our cooler freezer project. We last well on tonight's board meeting you have a agenda item about a site survey group and tomorrow we are opening bid packages from folks for architecture, building design and construction. So again trying to
067keep that moving forward. I know that's kind of become the joke that's kind of the unicorn project, but uh soon enough there will be uh re real pictures to demonstrate that it is uh it is in the the process. As Mr. Matthews mentioned, school opening preparations are happening uh frantically at all sites. Um new parking lots being put in at South Haret as we speak. Um certainly a lot of mulch going out, grass being cut, you know, last minute work orders. We do have open house at all of our school sites next Monday night on the 11th. And so, uh, from the departments that I oversee and the conversations we're having, they they feel like they are on track for that. Uh, fingers crossed that the weather continues to cooperate, uh, through the week. Uh,
068update for you on bus drivers and and kind of that situation. As you know, we uh, shifted to this staggered start time and one of the big goals of that was to create a pool of flex drivers so we would have substitute drivers to be able to kind of cover some of our routes. Uh well, as we would have it, since uh May 1st, we have lost 28 licensed bus drivers. Um that is 20 through resignation and eight that have moved to non-dual employment positions. So certainly uh we are proud and and happy that folks are moving from TA positions to teacher positions. That's a positive thing that we're growing our own, but we are down 28 drivers from the end of school. So that will certainly impact our flex pool. Um the good news
069I think is if we hadn't made this change to where we reduced some bus routes that 28 driver loss would have had a much more substantial impact creating some double routes and things like that. So we are still hoping that uh you know that this shift has has helped us to cushion that. And then just again statistics for you in a calendar year um since J July 1st of 2024 we've lost 66 licensed drivers and we have licensed 48 drivers during that time. So we are negative 22 drivers from uh July of last year and uh continue to you know be the squeaky wheel in all the places we can be. Uh but you know I I would say that I think that staggered start change is going to be critical to us uh even
070with this loss that we had. So hopeful that we have a positive impact there. And lastly for me just to update you on fall sports. Believe it or not fall sports official start date was July 30th. So, it was kind of summer sports, but uh they are out there and practicing away um and have a lot of different events coming up with regular season games starting in a couple of weeks. >> And unless you have any questions, that concludes my report. >> Other questions for Mr. Pearson. Thank you, Mr. Pearson. Next, we have Miss Brookie Ferguson with curriculum and instruction updates. >> Uh good evening, Chairman Powell, members of the board. So tonight I'm going to give you the updates what our department has done during July. We often hear school's out. What are y'all
071doing during during July? That's actually our busiest time. Um sticking with the summer theme because it is the last harrah. As Mr. Matthew shared, we are starting our um traditional schools. So during the summer, we focus on our summer programs and our curriculum and professional development. And there was a lot of work in those areas this um year. Jennifer, are you working it or I'm working it? >> There we go. Uh, we had the the big celebration is the work that we have done this summer for the Golden Leaf grants. We have worked with Hornet Central Middle School and Dun Middle School. We had our first annual convening uh conference in Greensboro in July. It was wonderful. As you can see, the teams, the new people on our CNI team have fit right in. They've
072jumped right in. As you can see, there's Dr. Murphy at the conference. um they're doing a great job. This involves a lot of work scheduling PD materials and resources, but it was a very uh beneficial conference. It was based on Marzano's high reliability schools. Um so a great investment, but a lot of time there. We had our reading camp. Our reading camp continues to do well and be very successful. And I'd like to thank uh Mrs. Leslie Tyson because she's in here tonight. They do a great job. It's for grades first through third. You know, we focus on literacy, but our big excitement this year is we had 547 students participate. So, we were excited over that. You can see the breakdown. I did the breakdown by the attendance areas for you. And there's a
073couple of pictures um from our students at reading camp. >> Good. >> And of course, we have summer track. And this is a program that continues to grow every year. Um, and Mrs. Wendy Nash and her team, they do a great job with this. Our teachers come in and do this for us. And there's some students and it's truly fun for all. If you go to the next slide, Miss Bird, you can see it's for fourth through 8th grade. And our numbers, we topped the 200 mark this year with 202 students participating. We continue to focus on steam, science, technology, engineering, art, and math. And we've have everything from crime scene investigating um to cooking to multiple art classes, chess, and so much more. But again, a very popular event. This is what we're very
074proud of this year. When our teachers return for curriculum and pacing, we have pacing guides that our teachers and our coaches have developed. They are standards aligned. resources are embedded in those as well as progress checks, our common formative assessments that come from school net that are aligned to the standards that we are tested on. So, it's available in all content areas. It's available to all teachers and I put the link there. You're welcome to check it out on the staff internet. We've also spent our summer working to make sure everything is in place for our teachers and our schools. We have our consumables every summer that we reorder um for Eureka materials, our social studies, science, things as that. We had new textbook adoptions in science. This year we were able to purchase benchmark
075advance for our ESL students. So our ELA curriculum in K5 aligns in every tier. So we have it in our core K5 classrooms. We have it in our dual language classrooms. And then we have it in our ES ESL classrooms. Um going back to that slide, Jennifer, please. This year, um our credit recovery changed a little bit. Credit recovery now involves a tier 2 step where we want to work with students before they fail the class. So we have purchased edmentum and in those there will be modules in edmentum. So, if I'm a student in a class failing, a teacher will assign me to those modules before I fail the class. The whole goal is to prevent the student from failing the class and having to go to traditional credit recovery. We um have purchased
076uh math consumables with our DODIA grant and we're also able to purchase those same math consumables for schools that are not in it. We're hoping to carry over what we learned from all the grants to schools who were not served in the grant. We also have subscriptions that our teachers um use and rely on. Elevation is for our ESL student and our ESL teachers. This is great for the classroom teacher. If I'm working with a multilingual student, I can pull up and I can not only see that child's test scores, but it'll tell me what the child's capable of doing and what skill they're not capable of doing based on that score. So, I can differentiate for him. um I Ready, we were able to purchase it for grades K8 in math, this supplemental to
077support what we're doing in core and we also purchased it for reading in 68 because we did not have a diagnostic. I Ready changed and upgraded, made a lot of changes to be more um interesting to our middle schools, but our teachers really wanted that I Ready data, that diagnostic piece to help plan for instruction. We have offered PD all summer. This has included our district PD, out of district PD, E, lots of ECPD, school-based, and then of course we always have our AP and CTE summer conferences. And we have a lot of teachers attend those. And then um I've given you copies of these. We have planned our PD out for high school, middle school, um, and elementary. These are the ones that's required for most or all of teachers. And you have copies
078of those. principles have copies of those and we're excited about the offerings that we have this year as we start the new year. Worthwhile Wednesdays, these were probably three of the best Wednesdays we've had. Um our principles gave us really good feedback. They loved what we did during um summer leadership with the nieces and they thought that uh Mrs. Thompson and her group did a great job bringing in the speaker. But then they gave us topics that they wanted to dig in with us. So that we set aside these three Wednesdays and we did um lots of work. The last one July 30th we had Dr. Sidbury from Durham County who came down and worked with them and they are now equipped to go into the teacher diagnostic and have those conversations about EVOS with
079our teachers. And there's were some of the um the overview of the EVO EVOS um PD. It was to increase academic success and our principles now know how to take that and to assess the teacher impact and the student growth. Looking at the diagnostic piece, they can strategically match classes based on EVOS insights, aligning the teacher strengths um with student needs. You might look at a teacher's diagnostic and see, wow, she she's great at teaching that middle group. Um but then you can have the conversation, hey, what happened with your higher and lower groups? they were not meeting growth. So, it was a great um PD that our principles had on July 30th. We have worked with our instructional coaches and our teacher feedback to continue our instructional framework. We always h have the question,
080how do we get there? So, our instructional framework and monitoring piece has those steps for the principles to help them get there. We also have our non-negotiables that um we can share with teachers and we're all speaking the same language and then the principal I'm sorry about that Jennifer I will fix that. And then our um principal can have those conversations in their school and address their non-negotiables because every site's a little bit different. >> The instructional resources, you have copies of those, but this is electronic for our teachers. And Jennifer C, it was working today. So see if you can go to K5. Okay, you had that on your paper. It's the colorcoded, but in every one of those it puts out there, it states what we do in tier one, what we do
081in tier two, what we do in tier three, and um the link is there for the teacher. They don't have to go any further. And then finally, assessments. Um you also have a copy of those. We have laid out for each grade level K5 68 912. What assessments are giving? What are progress checks which are formative assessments and they're in the pacing guides when to do the NC check-ins that align with what we've taught. And then finally, we have the EOG and EOCC and you have copies of those each year. Um HR includes us in the beginning teacher orientation and we love that day. We call it CNI day and these are just some pictures from that. We held that on July 30th and we do a really good job, not I say we, my
082people do a really good job of making it very personalized. We had a K5, a 612, but then they'll break it down. We had one PE teacher, so we had one of our experienced PE teachers come in and work with her that day. We have EC come in and work with EC. CTE does a great job with theirs. We used our teachers to have a teacher panel and I think one of our guests is in here tonight. Um, Miss Abate is so great. I'm not saying that because Mr. Abate is here. She's great by herself. Um, but she helps us out with everything. She's phenomenal. Um, one day I will talk her into crossing over. But, um, she was a guest speaker that day and we also had our um, beginning teacher and if you've
083ever met Mr. Rhymer, he motivates everyone just because of his genuine pure love for what he does. So, it was a great day. And then I've also printed you off a copy of the special programs list. So you'll have all the dates there, the people who you would contact if there were any questions or concerns. Um, and everyone's done a great job of getting those dates lined up for us. So I wanted to share with you that that has been our work this summer. We have three principles who are going to participate in the effective leadership for school turnaround series. We're excited over that and so far we know that we have one principal participating in the NC Papa early career principles academy and we think we have some more but always looking for leadership
084opportunities and that's just the flyer that you can read about the um principles who will participate in the school turnaround series that is something our region is doing um we have a great region our Sand Hills region as far as working together this summer we worked at Lafayette Elementary school. We added sixth grade. And I have got to give a shout out to Mrs. Hodgej, Mrs. Clar and her staff. They they've done a great job getting the school ready, getting that sixth grade added. We have Mrs. Lynn Nash. And if you know Mrs. Lynn Nash, she is a phenomenal teacher. We're excited about that. But most importantly, we are excited that we have um we have added a new career lab for fifth and sixth grade. I want to thank Miss Lindseay Hardy for the
085work that she's done there. So, just like all of our other middle schools, they have a career lab. So, we're very excited over that. Our next steps, August the 12th, we're expecting our science scores. That is that is the date we're all holding our breath for. As you, as we've shared before, they cut a year off that process. So, our teachers had to teach new standards and our children had to be tested with new standards and a year cut off that process for us to do the work. On August the 27th, embargoed school performance data will be in. I'm looking forward to working with Mr. Pearson and the support that he'll provide also in that process. And then um we have already scheduled our school walkthroughs. When I say we, our team, we're going to
086focus on the school walkthrough and feedback cycles with our schools this year. Um and starting off strong with those. I think that's it. A very busy summer, but a lot of good work done. >> Okay. Are there questions for Miss Ferguson? Thank you, Miss Ferguson. Next, we have our human resources update with Miss Thompson. >> Good evening, Chairman Powell and me members of the board. I first want to say I know Miss Kanye had to leave, but I wanted to thank her for that u presentation. I know it was a lot of information and maybe some things you already knew, but I wanted the board and the community to be aware of the requirements and the support around our international teacher program. I believe there's a lot of misconceptions around that at times and I
087just want our board and our community to know how well qualified these individuals are and once we did that data pull for that 85% of our uh international teachers meeting or exceeding growth that's pretty significant and I'm so proud of that for them. Now this is the best news that I have had to deliver. If I had a marching band, some drums or something like that I would have brought them. I just didn't have time to prepare. But you just imagine how excited I am to say this. These are our vacancies for the beginning of the year for Hernick County Schools. We have only eight classroom vacancies. Compared to last year on this state, we had 42. >> So we have done a lot of hard work. our principles, our RNRs, Shelby Ka, and the
088entire HR team has really worked hard to turn around the vacancies here in Har County along with the hard work that our board and commissioners are committed to along with supplement pay that we know is we're talking about in the future. So, that's great news. High schools have zero classroom vacancies. Over Hills Middle, no vacancies. >> So, I hate that everybody's not here to hear that, but there's good news all the way around for that. We have three enhancement vacancies. Last year on this date, we had 23 enhancement vacancies. So, let me just say there are four elementary classroom vacancies with one prek, three middle school vacancies, zero, and the high schools. At enhancements, we have one vacancy at every level, one at elementary, one at middle, and one at high. So, that is pretty
089significant. Now on the EC side, as you well know, we have struggled throughout the years. We have only five EC vacancies in the district today compared to 19 on this date last year. So that is pretty significant work. We also we are still on the little bit on the struggle side on the clerical on the classified staff. majority of these vacancies are um TAS, but last year we had 46 classified vacancies on this day and this year we have 26. So we've done a lot of significant work around that and like I said, I just must praise the the work. I'm just going to have to bask in that a minute. That's a big big deal. And so we are super proud of that and certainly our international teachers have helped fill that gap for
090us and we are very thankful and I'm glad these presentations were together tonight to really go hand inand to show their qualifications on that. So I am super proud of that. Now we'll talk about some challenges we have. Um Mr. um Pierce and I work together on bus um issues and we are working around the DMV issues that are still continuing. I do want to note that there has been some issues and he is aware of this as well with the federal motor carrier system having communication issues with do DMV and DOT as it relates to Hernick County and so those systems were not talking for a little bit. Uh they were all supposed to be able to sync up on June 30th. Of course we were not able to do that. So there was
091a backlog and there was a lot of concern around that because people's license they have a certain amount of time that they can apply for their license based on when they took the class and lots of those folks were going to run out on August 30th but they think they figured out a workaround. I've got my fingers crossed and I'm saying my prayers at night about that. I'm sure Mr. Pearson is as well as we work toward getting our folks licensed in a timely manner. The next bus class is planned for the fall and we're working alongside of them to help with these new tiered route schedules. So, we've already mentioned that we have 64 as of today international teachers and I think there'll be even more. And I'm not going to speak too much
092beyond that because I think Miss Kanye covered that well also with her full day of the orientation which there was one last week and one this week. As I've mentioned previously, we are implementing a new classified evaluation tool for our classified staff and principles, directors, and senior leadership members were trained at summer leadership. And we have recorded a training for principles and other district leaders to be able to use as they complete the training for the evaluation at their sites at each site. HR specifically uh Caitlyn and um Miss Taylor have worked to set up the evaluation plans in NICE. It seems like that's not a big job, but every school through the NICE system has to set up individually for the evaluations for each teachers and that's a uh each teacher cycle. So that
093has to be done on an individual basis. That takes a lot of time and they have to meet separately with the principles to make sure that's done so when school begins that that can immediately start. there's no lag time in that. So, they've worked all summer on that. And we've also created information for principles to use for their smart goals as well as for teachers to use with their smart goals along in the NIS's process. We are working on, if you remember last spring, we honored an advanced leadership institute of APS that we worked with and we have already selected and notified the new participants and we're excited about working with them for this upcoming school year. Miss Courtourtney uh Hatley worked on a employee handbook, an employee handbook for this year. It's great. It'll
094be linked online. It has all of our procedures and policies in there. And I think it's a great resource for staff members as they plan for events in their life and just everyday planning in their classroom. Compliance training was updated to reflect policy changes and will highlight pertinent board policies. And this will be housed on the safe school platform. As you know, many of you at your jobs have to create uh complete a safe a safe work environment course work and our folks are doing that as well. Hiring is well underway and we're busy processing all the new hires to Harnet County. We also this uh this summer institute a new selection process for our AP pool and now what we are doing I feel like it's a much more inclusive and collaborative work all
095the senior leadership members we previewed and interviewed all the AP candidates and made a selection for our principles to be able to interview AP candidates from a pool we selected for them so everyone had input on that. I feel like the pool is much more up to date and much more has a lot of rigor involved in our process. And so based on our new hires that are coming up probably later tonight, we probably will need to host another one of those early uh September or late August to keep our pool up and going. But that's a new way that we are trying to recruit and uh make sure our pool is strong here in Hick County for leaders. We had a very successful beginning teacher orientation. Our theme was teach like a rock star.
096We had approximately 32 alternatively licensed teachers on Wednesday July 23rd and Thursday July 24th and approximately 69 teachers that were new to the profession on the 28th and 34 31st and we participate. We appreciate all the stakeholders who came together to welcome our new teachers and give them information to help us have a successful start. Also HR has implemented two new processes. We have a leadership loop. I'll have to bring it maybe next time and let you see it. Uh, Miss Taylor is doing a leadership loop where we're trying to have some a resource for our leaders and staff. It's like a short video presentation instead of an email or a note or a newsletter. And Miss Courtney Hley is having the HR minute. Just some short reminders for staff and an auditory kind of
097presentation. We are also helping to carry out the principal and AP um uh the year uh like voting cycles and we are working on that as we uh move forward this week. So I did mention about safe schools has started. We had our annual workman's comp meeting to remind us our folks of all the workman's comp procedures and just a note student accident insurance is available currently if parents are interested in purchasing that. And that's all I have unless you have any questions for me. >> Are there questions for Miss Thompson? Okay. Well, thank you, Miss Thompson, and thank you to you and Miss Taylor and your staff for your hard work and being able to bring us this excellent report with regard to the vacancies. >> Thank you. So appreciate that hard work. >>
098Thank you. Now, we'll have our student services update with Mr. White. >> Thank you, Chairman Powell. Members of the board, inside of your board packet, you will find the district release reassignment report through July 31st, 2025. Here are a few quick updates from student services. For a few years, Central Carolina Community College had been using one person to serve as a liaison for the Lee Early College and Hornet Early College. After a few discussions about how to serve our Hornet Early College students better, we agreed that our students having a separate liaison was the way to go moving forward. In addition to her current responsibilities, Mrs. Allison Castle will be working as the first Hornet County Early College liaison starting next week. I'm excited to watch her development in this role in addition to the
099support that it will provide for our students uh who are at the early college with CCCCC. So, we're excited about that development in our department. Um Harney County Schools has made significant strides in expanding how our students learn and engage and plan for life beyond graduation. So this summer, we began shaping what will become a cornerstone for our student engagement model, a district-wide service learning initiative, which we spoke about at the last board meeting, model of successful programs across the state. This initiative is designed to connect classroom instruction with meaningful studentled service in the community. The draft Haret County Schools student services learning handbook outlines how students can earn recognition for our serve, reflect on their impact, and link their service to academic goals. So the pilot phase will begin this fall in select schools
100and plans are underway to present the finalized framework um ahead of the 2627 school year with support from local partners, teachers and counselors. Students will be empowered to lead, serve, and grow as responsible citizens. So again, very excited about the service learning initiative that we're going to embark upon this school year. Hornet emerge. Um, last Monday evening I had the privilege of meeting with homeschool families from around the district to discuss opportunities with Hornet County Schools. That was a very lively group and a very lively conversation. And so recognizing the growing number of families opting for homeschool education, Hornet County Schools has launched Hornet Emerge, which will be a responsive and flexible support model designed to help families customize their child's learning experience while still accessing highquality district resources. And so the Hornet emerge program
101is centered around families who are currently being homeschooled having dual enrollment options through our traditional schools as well as the Hornet Virtual Academy. Um and so we're excited about being able to create um a platform um and opportunity for them to be able to re-engage with our school district which will help um them in multiple ways be able to understand the resources that they need to uh for their students to be successful and will help us as a school district be able to get to know um that part of our community and engage those students at a different level. So I'm excited about that. U we have a strong start for Hornet Virtual Academy. Um the July the 22nd through the 26th marked our official Hornet Virtual Academy acceptance week. We have a nice blend
102of students that were accepted into our Hornet County Virtual Schools so far. Um our K5 program is the Young Achievers. Our 68 program is the Inspired Learners. Our 912 or the Future Ready Now Leadership Program. And so starting this week, students will get the opportunity to to meet their teachers and get confirmations um of their schedules. Um in a poll with HBA families, um they've selected HBA for its flexibility and personalized support and our ability to be able to provide instructions from our own Hornet County Schools teachers we think will be a plus um on multiple levels, K through 12 this school year. Um and so in looking ahead, we feel like these initiatives um are more than programs. We appreciate the board's continued support as we empower our learners to lead and thrive across
103the district. And this concludes my student support services report for this evening, unless there are any questions. >> Further questions for Mr. White. >> Thank you, Mr. White. >> Thank you. >> We'll now move over to Mr. Andrew Cox for our financial services report. >> Thank you, Chair Pal, members of the board. We're still putting our fin, excuse me, finishing touches on our fiscal year 25 and finance and our auditors are here on site this week doing their work for our audited financials for the year end June 30, 2025. Um the finance team is processing new hires like the HR team is getting them set up and payroll and benefit system so they can enroll and select their uh benefits uh as they choose as they become new employees here in Hornet County Schools. As
104we begin the 2026 school year, as you know, we do so on a continuing budget resolution. The state has not passed a budget um for the 2026 fiscal year. Mr. Matthews alluded to that. Um the general assembly did pass a mini budget last week that will fund enrollment growth for districts. Um adjusted the employer contribution rates for the state health plan and retirement systems and a few other minor changes, but nothing significant. It's been presented to the governor, but as of this afternoon, when I checked, he had not signed that into law. Um, I do expect it to become law. Um, though, so we're still in a waiting game for the general assembly to know what our funding level is um with a state budget so we can truly begin the initial budget process for
105the 2026 school year. Mr. Matthews also mentioned this in his update, but we did receive word last week that the federal government will be releasing about $1.5 million in federal funds that were being withheld from Haret County Schools. And this will be a big help, especially to our uh teacher professional development work and beginning teacher and teacher recruitment retention work, our student support um services, and our limited English speaking students. Uh and they're the programs that those funds support. Um, that concludes my report unless you have any questions for me. >> Are there questions for Mr. Cox? >> Okay, thank you. >> Next, we'll have our public information office update. Miss Frell. >> Well, good night everyone. Um, Chairman Powell, members of the board and community, good evening. This month has been filled with staff
106and student development that showcases success with HCS. School is out, but students and leadership are still in. Um, for our new administrative appointments, Hern County Schools announced several key administrative appointments for the 2025 2026 school year, reflecting the district's continued commitment to strong student focused leadership. The board approved Mr. Ron McNeel as the director of grades 912. Dr. Steven Murphy named director of grades 68. And Mr. Ashley Porter has been appointed as the director of federal programs. And I have the pleasure of working with each one of these every day. In addition to several school level leadership transitions were also announced. Mr. Robert Brier from Anderson Creek Primary School is now the principal at Irwin Elementary School. Mr. Timothy Justice, who was an assistant principal at Over Hills High School, will serve now as the
107interim principal at Anderson Creek Primary School. Miss Britain Sullivan, former principal of Highland Middle School, is now the principal of Western Hornet High School. And Robert Carver, you may know him as TJ, who served as an assistant principal at Highland Middle School, is now the interim principal at Highland Middle School. We are excited to see these dedicated educators take their next step in careers as leaders and in their new roles. Lafayette Elementary School welcomed back our their year round scholars um on July 16th. It was the first day of school for our year round students and we couldn't be more excited to kick off the school year of learning, growth, and discovery with our year- round students. Look at all the bright smiles and our eager eagles that you see on the screen. And I'm
108I'm sure all of you just wish that they continue soaring with success with HCS. Worthwhile Wednesdays. You all heard about the Worthwhile Wednesdays earlier, but in July, our curriculum and instruction team hosted a dynamic professional development series designed to empower school leaders and strengthen planning for the upcoming school year. Summer Trek 2025 was an adventure in learning held at Western Hornet Middle School from July 14th through the 17th. This enrichment program brought together 202 academically gifted students in grades 3A for a week of hands-on exploration in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. From designing games to cracking crime scenes, students were immersed in creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. New teacher orientation. We rolled out the red carpet. They said that earlier as well with the dynamic theme, teach like a rockstar. Look at our new
109rock stars, guys. From building strong foundations to sparking creativity in the classroom, our new teachers are gearing up to take the stage and s and shine all year long. The welcome event for the international teachers. Our human resource department worked hard in the summer and especially for our newest international teachers. Hornet County Schools welcomed 64, we heard tonight, new international teachers just this week and we are excited for them to join our team. And according to the presentation this evening from Miss Kana announced we have 19 countries represented in the district and a total of 226 international teachers in our schools. So that's awesome. This school year, I'mma let you know again cuz we all love the word free. We are proud to announce that all of our schools in our district are now C
110schools for the school year. So parents don't worry about money on those lunch accounts and you don't have to worry about packing a meal. just pack them up on the school bus and bring them on to class. It's time now for convocation 2025. It is here already, guys. The summer's gone. This event will take place at the Gore Arena at Campbell University at 10:00 a.m. this Thursday. um all district employees in our district, all of them will attend this event with their school spirit and hcs pride and we will have a powerful and motivational mixture of music and message from Grammy music educator award recipient Mr. Mickey Smith Jr. Parents, we're back. So, back to school night, please note uh districtwide is August 11th, 2025. Please visit your school's website and social media for your
111school's um students time. Um you can also you probably have also received some type of correspondence from the school already. And just a final note, online enrollment is open. So if you're ready to join our Hornet County Schools family, go to our website. All of the information is there. This process, we've made it very simple, um secure, and 100% online for you all. So, if you need help and can't follow the directions or you get a little confused, contact your school directly and our staff will help you. Chairman Powell, this concludes the public information report. Thank you for your time. >> Other questions for Miss Frell. Thank you, Miss Frell. >> Okay, that concludes our reports. We'll move along now to our next uh item on the agenda, which is discussion items. And uh one
112item we have there is pack the bus update and that would be Miss Sharon Gayy. So Miss Gayy, >> thank you. Um Chairman Pal, members of the board and everybody um the community actually packed the bus. I've cried all afternoon and I'm going to try and get through this presentation without crying, but you all are going to be very very excited on what happened um with pack the bus. First, I'd like to thank the First Bank and Trust of Virginia for inviting Hornet County to actually participate um in the event. And I'd also like to thank the community for making the many donations and the school supplies that we have. Um on Saturday morning, I met with Bird Dog and the Southern Southern Riders of Hornet County. Um they filled my car full. Um I
113couldn't even see out of the windows. I had so much stuff in that in that vehicle. So, we thank the bird dog and the southern writers of Hornet County. Today, I met with um Hornet County DSS. Miss Harod from DSS. These are some of the items that we received from them. So, look at that table, guys. It is full. DSS packed half of a truck. Okay, half all of that stuff was half of a truck. And then later on this afternoon, I went by the bank to pick up the supplies. You don't see the supplies there because they had supplies in every room, so I couldn't get a good picture of that. But here you see um First Bank and Trust, their employees. They have a check in their hand. They also supplied the last
114half of the truck. So when we left there, we had an F-150 full front. You know, the entire truck was full. So, we appreciate them very much, too. The most important one of it's not the important thing, but they presented us a check for $2,500 that I will be giving to Mr. Cox today. So, we want to tell No. So, thank you. Thank you um to the to the community for um everything you did to make this a success. truly Hornet County Schools. And I can't say only Hornet County because I know other people also made donations too. But thank you to the community for helping us pack the bus. It was a great success. Thank you. [Applause] >> Thank you, Miss Gayy. And thank you again for spearheading this uh effort and making it
115all possible. We greatly appreciate your work toward this. Okay. In action with the agenda, we have consent agenda items and I'll entertain a motion. >> Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented which includes the Piney Grove use of Northwest Hornet Elementary. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Consent agenda. Chairman votes I. >> Abate I. >> Gay I. >> I. >> Hearing no. Nay votes. The motion is approved. Next we have action items. And our first item is review and consider approval of the 202526 EC related surface contracts. Miss Ferguson. >> Uh Chairman Powell, members of the board, these are contracts for our speech language pathologist or speech language pathologist assistant. These are EC related services. >> I will entertain a budget. I move that we approve
116the 2025 through 26 EC related service contracts as presented. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none. The chairman votes I. >> Abate I. >> Gay I. >> Hearing no votes. The motion is approved. >> Thank you. >> Next we have review and consider approval of the 202526 healthc care staffing contract. Mr. Quiet. >> Chairman Powell, members of the board, this is just our renewal contract with the marriages who provide staffing for us in multiple areas. Um, not just limited to health care, but we also um allow for um school counseling. And this year we added um athletic trainers to that particular contract as well um for you to be able to review. And so they've been a great partner to us and we look forward to continuing
117that partnership this year. >> Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to approve the 2025 2026 healthc care staffing contract as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, the chairman votes I. >> Abote I. >> Gainy I >> hearing no votes. The motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Next we have review and consider approval of continuous improvement plan asurances. Miss Ferguson. Uh, Chairman Pal, members of the board, CCIP is the comprehensive continuous improvement plan. It's the web-based grant management tool that um, NCDPI provides to us. We house all of our consolidated federal grant applications in CCIP. It is designed to see integration and collaboration across all of our federal programs. Tonight I have the assurance statements for each grant and it's that means it is our
118understanding of what we have to do our responsibilities in order to receive federal funding and these assurance statements cover title one title two title three and title four of our federal grants and we'll just upload that into the program. Okay m >> M mr chairman pursuant to the recommendation I move that we approve the continuous improvement plan asurances as presented. Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? Chairman votes I. >> Obate say I. >> Gay I. >> Dr. I. >> I. >> Hearing no votes. The motion carries. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Next we have review and consider the approval of utility plant solutions incorporator incorporated rather as the contractor for the chiller removal and installation project at Over Hills Middle School. Mr. Pearson, thank you chairman Pal
119members of the board. In your packet you have uh the documents related to this quote. We did receive three bids and utility plant solutions did come back with the best price of $225,128 for this chiller replacement at Oville's Middle. This will be done out of uh county capital improvement project monies. >> Okay, >> Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the utility plant solutions incorporated as the contractor for the chiller removal and installation project at Over Hills Middle School as presented. Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? >> Hearing none. Chairman votes I. >> Abate I. >> Gy I. >> Dr. >> hearing no nay votes. The motion carries. Next we have review and consider the approval of the Timmans group for site assessment services for the school nutrition
120freezer cooler project. Mr. Pearson. And as I mentioned before, this is uh kind of step one in moving this cooler freezer project forward. This is site assessment. So evaluating the soils and all the things underground where we plan to put this. Uh we put out an RFQ had multiple responses committee um including Sarah Brown from child nutrition reviewed these responses and we are recommending the Timmans group to provide the assessment of the site um so we can find out what's underground before we build there. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to approve Timman's group for site assessment services for the school nutrition for cool project as presented. Second >> we have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Chairman votes I >> about I >> gay I hearing no nay votes.
121The motion carries. Next, we have review and consider approval of Musco Sports Lighting uh LLSC as a contractor for the sports field lighting upgrade replacement project at Triton High School. Mr. Pearson. >> So, members of the board, we had some storm damage to the lighting at the softball field at uh Triton High School. Uh and those lights were out of date where useful replacement didn't make sense. and on our CIP plan with the the county over the next several years is to transition all of our fields to LED lighting to meet the current standards. So, this is actually the first project we'll see of LED lighting being put in. Um little higher price here because we are having to replace the wooden poles that hold the old lights with steel poles to meet uh today's
122standards and coats. But we did receive three quotes and Musco lighting came back as the the best quote. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve Musco sports lighting as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? >> Chairman votes I. >> Abante I. >> Gay I. >> I. >> Hearing no nay votes. The motion carries. Next we have review and consider approval of J&M Heating and Air Conditioning Incorporated for South Hornet Elementary rooftop heat pump replacements. Mr. Pearson. And so again, I bring you one more of our capital improvement projects. This was on our list to be done here uh this year and uh we have solicited bids and J&M Heating has come back with a best price of $120,375 for this needed replacement at South
123Hornet. >> Mr. Chairman, I like a motion to approve J&M Heating and H Incorporated for South Hornet memory rooftop heat pump unit replacement as presented. Second. >> Have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? >> One comment. I'm really excited to see a local company working here in the county on our projects. So, >> I am too. And an additional comment there. Not only they're a well-known company with a good reputation, uh, but also there's quite a discrepancy in the prices there. So, it pays to, I guess, shop around, take different bids and pay close attention to what we're bidding on. >> Big difference. Chairman votes I. >> Abate I. >> Gain I hear no nay votes. The motion is approved. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chairman. I move that we go into
124close session pursuant to general statute 143 31811 A1 A3 and A6 to prevent the disclosure of confidential personnel files under GS115C 321. Consider matters relating to initial employment of an individual employee and consult with the board's attorney in order to preserve the attorney client privilege. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Chairman votes I. Abate I >> gay I >> hearing no votes the motion is approved. We're now in close session. [Music] Kev after a motion and a second. We're have returned from uh closed session and are now in open session. Uh do we have any further business? >> Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve teacher contracts and administrative contracts as presented in close session. Second. Have a motion and a second personnel item. Uh most chairman votes
125I about say I >> gain I >> hear no votes the motion carries. Mr. Matthews do you have anything else? >> No. >> Is there any further business for the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Please. I. >> Any opposed? Hearing no nay votes. We are now adjourned. Thank you very much.