001[Music] Testing. Testing. That's it. You can mute it. [Music] What's the May is it? I'd like to now call the May work session of the Hornet County Board of Education to order. I'd like to begin with the invocation and Miss Gayy, would you lead us in prayer this morning, please? If everyone will please stand and after which remain standing for the pledge. Dear precious father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity to worship and to serve you through Hornet County Schools. We ask that you just bless our meeting today. Help us to make decisions that are in the best interest of the students, the faculty, and the staff. As the children leave to go on summer break, we ask that you protect them, keep them safe. Don't let any hurt, harm,
002or danger come upon them. This is my prayer in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Miss Gay. And I now like to ask Mr. Hayer if he would lead us in the pledge of allegiance. 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. I will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, the agenda is read, Mr. Chair. Second, we have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, the chairman votes I. Abate I. Gain I hear no nay votes. The motion carries and the agenda is approved as presented. All right. We first start off this morning have a very special presentation and we have several of our uh
003students graduating seniors that will are recipients of the state employees credit union scholarship. And this is indeed a great honor. And so I'll recognize Mr. wide at this time to make these presentations. Thank you, Chairman Powell, and members of the board. This morning, I'd like to ask Mrs. Natalie McCurley, who's one of our student support services coordinators, to come forward and introduce the students and their families who received the State Employees Credit Union scholarship this year. Miss McCurley, good morning everyone. We are very fortunate in our district that we are aotted five scholarships through the employion foundation that allows these students to receive $10,000 towards their college education. This is a great honor and they were among many who were selected from some highly qualified candidates and some of the quite wonderful students we have
004in our district and each school gets one choice and we have one additional one as kind of our homeless scholarship. So, I'll start at the top of our list and kind of turn ways. We have from Tron High School, Palmer Foster. And from Oh, excuse me. Haret Central High School, we have Lauren Godfrey. [Applause] Then from Western Hornet High School, we have Irish [Applause] [Music] Delgado. And over Hills High School, we have Jaylen [Music] Bird. And our fifth scholarship comes from Triton High School, also Ireland Hall. So, we appreciate all the wonderful things that these students have done for themselves, for their communities, and for their schools. They were also chosen as um folks who have given back to their communities and to their schools. So, we appreciate all their efforts. Thank you. And to
005their families as well for being here today. Thank you, Mrs. McCurley. I'd like to ask the parents of all of our scholarship recipients to stand as well. We thank you um for rearing such wonderful children. [Applause] Thank you so much. And at this time through those doors, um you all will exit to take a quick picture for social media, you know, because we love those things uh with parents and and students. And again, we appreciate you being a part of our board meeting this morning. Thank you. Okay, what a great honor and congratulations to the recipients on this award and also for the hard work that led to this uh award. So, congratulations. We'll now return to Mr. White for a principal presentation on yonder pouches. Chairman Powell, I'm sorry, Chairman Powell and members of
006the board. Uh once again, uh thank you again for the opportunity to be able to present about yonder. This week we have declared in Hornet County Schools yonder week. Um and so what you will see um is letters going home to families of rising sixth graders and rising ninth graders as well as students in our current middle schools and high schools to let them know that we will have yonder pouches in all of our middle and high schools next year. So we want to be proactive with that and have those discussions with families now so that they can prepare throughout the summer. Also during the summer, we'll have four beyond the classroom sessions to discuss yonder pouches and any other issues um that families may necessarily want to discuss before the school year begins. The
007first of those will be I believe it's May the 30th um and we'll do that virtually and we'll have that posted on social media for families to be able to attend and then we'll do two in-person sessions as well um to be able to discuss those with the community. And so we're excited about it. uh we're getting a lot of buzz regarding it. Um and so we invited the principles of our pilot schools this morning to speak briefly about the effect of yonder pouches in their buildings. Um and so in order um I'd like for Miss Don Young to come first. Behind Mrs. Young will be Mrs. Britain Sullivan and behind Mrs. Sullivan will be Mr. Ryan McNeel bringing up the anchor. Um and so Miss Young, if you will prepare yourself to come forward
008um and discuss the impact of yonder pouches in your building this school year. Good morning everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Uh it was indeed a pleasure to be one of the pilot schools uh for the implementation of our yonder pouches uh at Star Academy. I push button. Okay. So, we sent out the initial um information about Yonder by front-loading parents and students with it uh in the forms of emails uh voice text messages, that sort of thing. We sent these out in in January around the 7th and the 25th. And uh the full implementation was made at STAR on February 7th. uh when we say fully implemented that was the delivery and the actual putting them in the hands of students and it was a very smooth transition into using them. The students had prior
009experience or exposure to uh the use of the yonder pouches at other places and then they already went and looked them up on the uh they googled it so they already had an idea what to do with them. And uh during our family intakes uh we would also introduce the uh use of yonder pouches to the parents. That way they could see and understand that their student still had access to their phones. They just couldn't actually take them out of the pouches. But the assurance that they were able to contact their student or the student could contact them using our office telephone took took all anxiety out of their uh situations. And then for our future use going into our next school year, I think our current handling and use of the yonder pouches are
010still going to be uh effective and keeping down the distractions that uh as you see in our data. Uh we started in January um tracking of how many referrals we had through um educator handbook of our cell phone referrals and they started out with 32 31 and as you see in the data that we had a significant decrease just off of the conversation of having these pouches in place and then as you see it went down even more so in March uh where we had even another 50% reduction in the use of the yonder pouches and that was with full implementation going on February 7th and then in April which is usually our highest enrollment period as you see the yonder pouch is still in place but they were still able to be effective and
011keeping our referrals total referrals for the month to eight and right now here we are heading toward the end of May and we're only sitting on two so for us at our school uh with the students the yonder counter pouches are very effective. Uh what I'd like to show to you are some of our teacher and staff testimonials. I'll let you read over those, but as a staff 100% they were all for it when I introduced it. They like the idea of not having to compete against the cell phone for the attention of their students. They enjoyed the opportunity not to have to have that conversation repeatedly in class. Put your phone away. put your phone away. Put your phone away. Uh it made a very big difference in how much engagement they were able
012to have with the students and the students were being very productive. And again, parent push back, very minimal, probably none to be honest with you. But again, the reassurance of you always have contact with your student and to remind them back in our day when we didn't have cell phones, where would you go to get to contact your parent? You go down to the office by asking permission. So, they it it really does work well. The parents are also in agreement that cell phones are a huge distraction and so they were all for it. Um, are there any questions? Mr. White, do you think we could sell some of these testimonials back to Yonder for uh advertising purposes? Absolutely. We can figure out a way to at least promote kind of the the good work
013that our principles are doing with this. Um we've been approached by Yonder a couple of times and there are a lot of school districts across the country that have implemented this. uh and maybe it's because we pay them, but they do come back and tell us that we're one of the uh better school districts from an implementation perspective uh that they've brought on board in the last six or so months uh because of our strategic uh way of rolling this out. And so we do appreciate them for acknowledging us in doing that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Did she Oh, yeah. Okay, good. I was like, please don't make me have to do this on my own here. So, um we are Highland Middle School and we have about 750
014students. Um and we um started off the implementation uh the same way. We actually all planned together um rolled it out the same time period. So it didn't start at one school and then you know they complained about it there and then the next. So we set our implementation dates to be very strategic in making sure our parents had the information. We had time to meet with our students. Um so in our building um HCS talks is apparently what started it. So everybody got their information from there. Um, but we met with each of our grade levels and we talked about the impact of social media and how they felt about phones impacting them in school. Um, and most of them we we talked about um the data analytics and you know if I were
015on Tik Tok it's not going to look the same as as your Tik Tok because our interests are different. And so we talked about how social media tends to feed into some of the things that um that may not be academic. So during the school day um and h and how the purpose of social media was to draw you in. Our students are very very addicted to their phones for everything. Um and I will say in going through this so are their parents um in in the idea that they want to access their student whenever they want, however they want. And that has been some of the issues that I've I've addressed with parents. But our implementation was in meeting with our students. Um they understood the need for it. They didn't like it, but
016they understood the need for it. Um and then what we did was we passed out the pouches to our teachers. We had numbered each one. Um, and so they were assigned out to students in case somebody lost theirs, we could return it, um, if somebody tried to take someone else's because they lost theirs. Um, so we had an accountability piece um, to those pouches as well. Um, as far as the the parent concerns, um, one of the things that we did hear a lot from is my student doesn't have a cell phone. Um, and a lot from our sixth grade. They don't have a cell phone. They don't need a cell phone. we don't or they may have one but we don't send it to school with them. So, one of the things that we
017did is we kind of created um a piece that was kind of in between. Um we did create a parent letter that we sent home um that stated that their child does not bring a cell phone to school. The parent signed it, the student signed it, and they turned it in. Once they turned it in, we actually issued them a pass um from the school um and that's what they used in the morning. So they either had to show us their pouch or their pass. So um that had another accountability piece to it. Um if they had this signed agreement and they were found with a cell phone, the pass was taken back and a pouch was issued. And so this kind of became null and void at that point. So we were trying to
018listen and respond to some of the parent concerns with that. Um, the other thing that came up a lot, it just in the conversations um on HDS talks was emergencies. If there was a school shooting, if there was this, I'm not going to be able to get a hold of my child and and all of this. And my initial response is, we don't want you involved if there's an emergency at school. To be quite honest, the last thing we need are, you know, 50 parents running up to the school when we're trying to deal with this situation. Um, however, we have assured them all of my grade level teachers in each hallway have a um have an unlocking unit that can be passed around as needed. Um, so there are mobile unlocking um stations that
019they have. Any student is able to use a classroom phone if they needed to contact a parent. We also have a student phone that is in our front office as well. So, they always have access to a phone. Um, so taking that away is not the issue. Usually it was the parent wanting to text and check in with their kid or the kid going to the bathroom and saying, "I want to go home because I feel sick." Or and so that's where a lot of that communication that they lost that they did not like was that direct communication. Um, but all of that could be taken care of through the front office and the classroom. Um, and then the last issue that tended to come up was students with medical issues. So, we do have
020students who are diabetic and they monitor um their glucose levels through their cell phones. There are special yonder pouches that are velcro that they use. So, they are able to actually access um their phones throughout the day, but if peeling it open, you can hear it. Um and so that is how we accommodate um those students that have medical issues and the parents are completely fine with that. Um really as far as direct issues with parents, I think I maybe talked to three directly. Um there was a lot of talk and you know kids will be like well my parents said this and I said but in our building this is what we're doing but directly I think I had three parents that I spoke to and after I spoke with them they were completely
021fine with everything. Um, I did send out a a survey to our teachers just to kind of get their thoughts and feedback because they're the ones on the front lines. Um, and honestly, it was anonymous. They did not have to put a name to it, um, or attach their email so that they would be able to be completely honest. And, um, when we got those results, um, this was Oops, sorry. I think I'm on a delay here. Try it again. All right. So, the first question was, prior to adopting the yonder pouches, approximately how many incidents per week did you address um that involves cell phones, headphones, airpods, etc. any sort of personal technology? And the results um there are fairly split. And these were all of my teachers. So this included elective teachers, um
022our core teachers, um media coordinator, um it so this was our entire staff. So you can see it's kind of split and it's probably going to be conditional on to where you work with those students. After um adopting the yonder pouches, the question was approximately how many incidents per week? Um and we had obviously a a huge increase of none. We did not have to deal with those issues. And then obviously we didn't have any that were more than three incidents. And then overall, how did they feel? Sorry, this is not my thing here. Overall, how did you feel that the use of the yonder pouches have impacted your classroom? And 87% felt that it had a positive um a positive impact in their classroom. and the 13% there. Um, I could probably tell you
023where those came from, but these were again some of the the the comments. I had a place that they could leave any comment that they wanted about how they felt about it. And these are just some of the comments that they had um regarding it. And most of it was that they just felt it it took away the distraction even having to address it with students. Put your phone away. Put your phone away. They're hiding it under their desk. they're over there texting in the corner. They're, you know, is what is that in your pocket? You know, those types of things. Um that it completely eliminated those pieces. And I also, um did a just with some of our students, I did a survey with them, which was interesting. Um these are my positives, these
024are my negatives as far as the comments. So, it's about 5050. Um, and it was funny, uh, one of the students comments was, "I think there's there is less distractions because our phones are in a jail." So, I thought that was that was an interesting interesting comment from them. But my direct observations is that we really have had no issues with social media stemming from in school. All of the issues we've had to deal with involve outside of school after hours. You know, their Instagram chats, all of these things, but none of them have um been in our building. Um we've had no videos of fights, conflicts, um pictures being taken of students. Every school, if you look on um social media, has a fight page, a sleep page, a you know, a making fun
025of student page. And we have not had any of those issues come up um this year. Um, and the other the biggest thing is that there's just no argument about the consequence. So, if a student is found with a phone, um, they know here's the consequence, here's your letter, they have a day of ISS and we're done and we move on and they know what what that is. So, there isn't that back and forth. What do you mean? I didn't do this. Um, they know that the expectation was to have the phone in the pouch. And so, it has eliminated any of that um those issues. I feel like I hit There we go. Um the benefits overall was that again there's a clear expectation of engagement. Um that technology is meant for learning and
026and the social media and the social aspect of it has no place during the school day. Um it has had a decrease issues again impacting um the online bullying, the social media issues, the texting, the meeting in the bathroom, the Tik Tok videos. Um, and again, it just comes down to we are here to learn. That's why we're in this building. And so, we're going to do everything to help you with that. Um, and again, just some things as far as as we're rolling it out to the middle and high schools um, countywide is that the the messages I would send to those um, those principles is if you're going to implement these pouches, it has to be done with fidelity. Um, if you are doing it just because you're told to do it, it's
027not going to have the impact that it should. If you're not going to follow through with the purpose and the reason for using the yonder pouches, it it then becomes a waste of time and it becomes a waste of money for our county. And so I think that um parents need to know consistently whether your child is at the middle or the high school that the expectation is the same. They will try to circumvent the system. They will try to open it. They will try to put a burner phone in their pouch and keep their real phone in their backpack. They do all that. And the and honestly, I've told Mr. White this. I don't care if they do that as long as I don't see their phone during the school day. And so, in
028the end, that's what the benefit is is that they are they are learning and that they are not doing the other things um that they shouldn't be doing. So, with that, I think are there any questions? I think that's my last slide. It'll be about five sec. There we go. All right. Do you have any questions? I would say that it's been a great tool for our school and we have greatly appreciated um being able to pilot that. So, thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Uh thank you for allowing us the time to to speak with you. I appreciate that. Um I am a huge proponent of this. Uh I I think what everybody needs to understand about this the the yonder pouch is uh it didn't change what our school policy was, but it
029was a tool, a resource that allowed teachers to be able to implement the policy that we had with fidelity. And I I think that's how we need to see this moving forward. Uh when you've got uh 1300 kids in a building, uh it's very hard to kind of implement those things. I'm on that delay. uh when you don't have that proper tool or resource. And and so this is one of those things for me where uh it is it has from day one changed our school uh for the better. Uh staff responses uh there has not been a negative uh comment from any staff member. Uh every time that I talk to the staff, it immediately is I got my classroom back. I don't have to worry about figuring out you, you know, who's on
030a phone, who's not. I don't have to tell them to take the phone or or put the phone up. What we did at the at the high school level is uh if a teacher saw a phone, they would Google chat us, they would email us, uh let us know who it was, administration would go in, we'd ask for the phone, they'd give us the phone, and then we'd take it to the office. It stays in the office for the rest of the day. And then per our policy that was already in place, one time you get it back, two times and after parent has to come pick it up and then there's some consequences as well. ISS is is typically what goes on. Parent support just like everyone else. You hear a lot of things
031outside uh through social media and everything else, but it doesn't come to me. Uh, I believe I had maybe three or four parents that spoke to me specifically about this. Uh, and when we had conversations, I was able to ease their concern with uh, the pouch itself. Um, knowing that the kid has their phone on their body uh, all day, either in the book bag or in their back pocket or something like that, just in the pouch um, helped a little bit with that. Um but then also understanding that we have processes in place for those emergency circumstances that Miss uh Sullivan was speaking about to where we want the right people in the building at the right time. And so when we if we have an emergency, having our emergency services people being able
032to come in without there being a lot of other people around so that they can do their job immediately and we can get uh kids to parents. We can make sure the parents are aware. We do all those things without the cell phone so that they're they understand where we are in those kind of situations. And there are there are processes for that at every school. The student perspective, if you were to ask a group of high school students, every single one of them would tell you that they hate it. But when you talk to kids one- on- one, uh they start to open up and tell you that they understand why. uh our student advisory board, the one of our students uh told us that after 2 weeks it was just what it was.
033It it it was no longer a big deal. The first two weeks they go through that withdrawal symptom of not being able to to pull their phone out. Um and then after that it becomes the new norm and and everything's fine. What I will tell you is from day one, the difference between device use from the day before to the day of was night and day. Walking down the hallways, there's no earbuds, there's no headphones, there's no cell phones out. Uh in the classroom, there's no cell phones out. Teachers don't have to constantly stop class time. They can teach because they're not there. Uh and the kids are able to to follow the directives. they're able to socialize more and and be a uh a better student. Um so discipline uh they spoke about cell
034phones. I wanted to talk about some other things uh with that. So before the implementation uh major dis discipline referrals were around five uh after implementation it dropped down uh one a day. So we went from five to four. Uh a total reduction of 160 discipline referrals from the time that we implemented to when it wasn't. What I felt was more important than giving you cell phone stuff was the things that I I think stemmed from the cell phones. So for us with insubord insubordination, disrespect, disruptive behavior, a lot of those things came from the cell phone. I've got my cell phone out. I'm told to put it up. I'm going to argue. Uh I'm I'm being asked to give my cell phone up because it's not supposed to be out. It's not supposed to
035be seen or heard. And then I'm I create this disruptive behavior. So you can see that after the the implementation, both of those types of behaviors dropped. Uh and so teachers were able to spend more time on teaching in the classroom. Kids were able to learn more because there wasn't that disruptive behavior. there wasn't that insubordination when asking them to comply with the cell phone policy. And then what have we seen? Um improved social interaction. Uh two weeks in in the cafeteria, kids were bringing cards to school and playing uh playing cards. Uh now we had to make sure no money was being um being transacted, but they were they were playing cards. They were talking. there was a a a much clearer um back and forth between the kids in the hallways and in
036the cafeteria, those those unsupervised, less structured times. Clear expectations. Again, the tool, the resource allowed for those clear expectations to where kids really didn't have a an argument. Uh if the phone was out, we know it's not in the pouch. You're not in compliance. We got to go. Uh, and then the the students, like Miss Sullivan said, when kids come in, if you ask them, they've been grounded, right? The the kids, we've got good kids, but apparently as soon as those pouches came in, everybody got grounded for like life. Um, because when you would ask, "Hey, where's your pouch?" "Oh, I got it right here. Where's your phone? I got grounded. They took my phone. I don't have it." Those are kind of things that, okay, I I I feel like you're probably not telling
037me the truth, but that kid never had their phone out. We never saw the phone out. We never saw the headphones in. And so they were complying with the directive of what we had of not seen, not heard. And and so we're, you know, we're not going to sit there and search a kid for a phone. Where's your phone? It's in the car. Okay. Thank you. Where's your phone? I'm grounded. it's taken away. Okay, thank you. But at the end of the day, they don't bring it out, which is the the whole purpose of this pouch, the whole purpose of the policy so that they are able to learn. And then teacher satisfaction. Um I I I think again there has not been something that has been done in the middle of a school year
038that has caused as much of a positive impact with teachers and then teacher student relationships than this. uh because that teacher is not having to be the judge and warden of the phones. Uh they're able to teach. The kids know what the process is. They don't bring it out because they know what happens if they do. And so I I think it is a it has been great. I appreciate being given the opportunity to be one of the pilot schools. Uh and and I'm glad that we're moving in the direction uh that we are so that all of our students are able to get a a better education. Any questions? All right. Thank you'all very much. Thank you. Thank you uh principles for presenting on the yonder pouches this morning. Um as the superintendent has
039discussed and we've kind of discussed with yonder. There's no silver bullet here to kind of solve this issue. But you can certainly see that our principles have put the effort into doing that through collaboration. What we talked to our principles about at the last principal meeting was consistency across the district when we do implement them in all of our middle and high schools. Um, and so all of our middle schools should look the same. All of our high schools should look the same with regards to implementation so that there are no complaint well people are going to complain anyway. Um, but so that there aren't as many complaints um about the yonder pouches being in schools. And so we're hoping that those sessions this summer um will kind of alleviate some of the tension that
040may be present when we start school back on August the 13th. Um but we feel very good about the fact that we have a a good plan in place um to support our students and their families in the buildings. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. White. Thank you, principles, for your excellent presentations. We greatly appreciate you appearing before us this morning, bringing us to good news. Moving along now to item C discussion items and our first item here is the Har County Schools turnover report and that will be Miss Thompson. Um Chairman Pal, members of the board, uh we come to you this morning to talk uh briefly about our 2025 teacher turnover report. Um I've I have mentioned uh our status in this region uh at a couple meetings but want to take a deeper
041dive into that and I want to introduce some of the hardest working people in Harik County Mr. Greg Griffin, Griffin, Michelle Vancan, Carol Bllelock, Alicia Washington, Jessica Moss, and Shelby Kanye. And um this morning they're going to present you a little deeper into this um but because of their hard work. I know we talked about this last time, our vacancies, but we are really kind of closing a gap there with our vacancies. I have high hopes for this school year. Their hard work paired with the principal's hard work. I'm just really proud of the progress that we've been able to make and I feel like that we'll be in a much better place in the fall because of this work. But these folks do a lot. They not only um serve as a lure expert
042in this district, they also help imp help new teachers transition to the classroom. They do a tremendous amount of work around recruitment and around retention. So, at this time, I'll turn it over to Mr. Griffin. Thank you. Good morning, uh, Chairman Pal, members of the board. I have the least anxiety I've ever had presenting attrition data to you. So, that might be a good sign. I just want to clarify that the uh the current data is for the 2324 school year. This is not data for the school year, the current school year that we're right now closing out. the uh the state releases numbers from the previous year in the um in the early spring of each year and then we take some time and tease it out to see what it looks like for
043our district. Uh Miss Kanye has prepared a graphic that she's given to y'all that has a little bit of information especially on the back page that may not be contained in the slides that I'm about to go over. Uh but I do mostly bear good news today. So as Miss Thompson has said, so that's that's good. So, I want to talk about the the brand new state attrition rate for our district and explain what that number is. So, uh if I'm a leader on the state level, that's the number I'm going to be concerned with the most because that number shows the percentage of teachers that the district is losing for the state. They're leaving um us and they're leaving education in North Carolina, at least seemingly. uh they might be going to another state
044that's going to take in any military people that are transferred out and so forth. But we have improved upon that number because it used to be 13.7%. So we are definitely headed um in the right direction. Okay. So then the LEA attrition rate um is going to bring in those teachers that have left us for another district or a charter school. So that number is going to be uh higher of course and but on a state level you know I don't think they're as interested in that number because they're keeping them for the state. They're just going to a different uh LEA. But that number should be of interest uh to us for for sure as we watch teachers uh be trained up in the way that they should go here in Harnett and then
045go elsewhere um to to do good things. But that number is also getting better because it used to be 21.8%. So we're headed in the right direction. um with that number as well. Uh if you have a question, by the way, as we're sharing the data with you this morning, feel free to to let us and we'll do our best to see if we can try to answer it for you. The mobility rate is also going down. The new mobility rate is 6.5%. That number captures the teachers that left us for another LEA. So if you add the mobility rate with the state attrition rate for Harnet County schools that will give you the LEA attrition rate. Okay? And so uh all of those numbers are going down. The rec recruitment rate reflects the percentage
046of number of teachers that were total attrition that we regained from another district. So that's going to show the teachers that are moving to us from other districts. And Miss Vancan is going to talk a little bit about that in just a few minutes about where they're coming from, also where they're which districts they're leaving us for and where we're we're looking with that. Okay. So now I wanted to look at some trends over. Now this is all of the North Carolina districts um averaged together over the past few years. Okay. So, as you can see, the uh the state attrition rate, the attrition rate for all of the districts in North Carolina average together is down from last year. It went from 11.4% last year to 9.9% this year. That's a drop of 1.5%.
047We actually beat that here in Hick County. So, that's something that we can celebrate. Um our drop was from 13.7 to 11.10. 10. So that's a difference of 2.6%. So definitely another celebration. We have lots of of glows in this data set. I'm so glad to report uh now the LEA attrition. Sorry. Uh that drop is even larger when we bring in the numbers that that capture the teachers that left us to go to another uh LEA. Um it went from 21.8% to 17.6% which is a difference of 4.2. too. So that is also definitely something that we are happy with. Uh right now before I pass the torch to my colleagues over here, did y'all have any questions about what I just shared? Okay. All right. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Powell, members of
048the board. Thank you so much for allowing us to speak with you this morning. Um so nope, there it goes. a sensitive little little remote. Um, so the the this is what Greg had mentioned a little bit earlier, the recruitment. Um, and again just highlighting what Greg had pointed out, this is from the 2324 school year. So this does not reflect the current school year that we're in. Um, and you can see the first column represents or reflects the numbers of teachers that we're getting from other districts. That's that's the good news, right? And then the second column reflects the teachers that are leaving Hornet County to go to other districts. All right. And so what we've pulled here are the big districts that we are seeing either a pull or a push from. Um
049and then in the final column you can see the net gain or net loss if it if that is indeed the case. So you can see that the one district that we are gaining teachers from is Cumberland County. So we got more teachers from them than we lost to them. You can see that the big I'm waiting for this 5-second [Music] delay. Okay. Well, the the other slide must not have um populated. That's okay. But you can see that the two areas that we are losing teachers from in larger amounts are Wake. We would almost expect that. Um and then charter schools. that um was a little bit surprising to our our group as we were looking at that. Questions about this before I move to the next one. Okay. All right. So here you
050can see uh how Har County's attrition looks as compared to our other LEAs in the North Central District 3. Okay, this is our particular district that we are part of and you can see that we're middle of the pack here. All right, now this is actually good news especially when you look at where we were la the previous year with the same in the same cohort. Okay. So, we uh in the previous year were only doing better than Granville and Edgecom County. Now, you can see we're doing better than more than that. Okay. So, we're we're we're gaining ground here, which is good news. When you look at the Sand Hills district, which is not really our district, but we have some neighboring districts that are in Sand Hills. So, that we wanted to highlight
051Sand Hills District 4. Um when you look at this group, we are also about middle of the pack here. And if you look at the previous year, y'all, we were dead last in this cohort the previous year. And so again, we are gaining ground in terms of our attrition rate. So, good news to report for both districts. Okay. And I'm going to uh let Carol come speak. Good morning, Chairman Powell, members of the board. So, this is these are our vacancies by subject and grade level. And as you can see from 2022 all the way to 24 2024 our 40th day vacancies have trended we are trending down but staying kind of stable. So we're you know but we are gaining um some growth there. Um if you look especially at our elementary um positions
052those are really trending down. We've gone from um 43 down to 28. And I think there's a lot of of reasons why that one is trending down. Um we tend to with student teachers, we have a lot more elementary uh SP1. They are traditionally trained teachers coming into that area. And it's also from a residency standpoint, that is the um for our college graduates, that's probably the easiest uh one to qualify for as far as coursework. um as far as having the relevant coursework that they need for that area. Um EC, we're a little concerned that's continues to trend upward in our vacancies. Um that is statewide, nationwide, a high vacancy area anyway, but we are are trending uh toward having more vacancies in EC. Um and also in middle grade core areas are are
053um showing some higher vacancies with the exception of science. Um we've made some um trends in a positive way in the science. Um and then high school has tended to stay steady. Um I will tell you with this data though it does not reflect our um international recruiting which we've done a lot more of. That's why we extreme we expect that this will continue to trend in a positive way because uh we are staffing EC classrooms and middle and grade uh especially science and math with our international staff and they're doing a great job um in those classrooms. Okay, the this is um our separation reasons. As you can see, uh, the largest chunk of this pie, um, is leaving to go to another public school system. And this data is is on your chart.
054If this is a little bit difficult to read, it is over on the right hand side. And then other reasons, and those can be a variety of things. Um, we we don't know. Sometimes they just check other and we don't necessarily know but you can kind of see that most of them are are leaving for either another district or something in their maybe personal life. Okay. So we had exit survey general data. We've shared this in the past. Um, we had 55 51 certified responses for the 23 24 school year. And it's an optional survey. And we know from our own experiences, sometimes we're more likely to fill out a survey if something we we perceive as a negative experience. Sometimes we're more likely we go to a restaurant or something. Um, so but most
055of them indicated that they left Hornet County Schools for family or personal reasons. And that can uh be attributed to a lot of our military families. You know, every few years they have a change of station and they leave us. Um and then uh the same number left for a better salary. Um and that, you know, kind of out of our hands and then 25% retired or they're relocating. So anyway, any questions about any of this? Okay. And then we'll just leave you with some of our comments um from the exit survey and and we'll see that not all of them um had a neg a lot of them had a very positive experience here and they leave for reasons that are out of their control. Okay, that concludes our um presentation. Thank you. Thank
056you for allowing us to present our attrition data. Um, we are excited about the good news that we have here and ready to continue the hard work to continue to improve in this area. I hope for great hiring this summer. So, thank you. I got one question on the EC on the EC. Is that I can understand why are they going back to other teaching positions or just leaving EC just don't want to do anything? I think they tend to leave DC. I think there's a lot of um It's a very difficult job. There's a lot of differentiation. There's a lot of paperwork, a lot of accountability. And I think it's overwhelming for new teachers. And it's also very overwhelming for teachers that are coming in from an alternative path. It's it's a lot to
057learn. I can understand the reason for this ma'am. We don't have a lot of traditionally trained um PC teachers as well. A lot of those vacancy are filled with residency teachers. So that's also traditionally trained. They kind of know what they're getting into. If they're residency, they have no and so we have increased population also in EC. And so we having to hire more teachers and and later today we're going to talk about maybe some solutions to help with that. So a little bit little drop at the time will help with that. So thank you. Are there other questions for Miss Thompson or for the RNR team? Okay. Thank you, Miss Thompson, and thank you. Next, we have our uh athletics policy, homeschool student participation, Mr. Pearson. Thank you. And uh thank you, Chairman Pal,
058members of the board. Um this policy actually kind of touches on three departments. Mr. White in student enrollment, Miss Ferguson in curriculum, and myself for athletics. And so we've kind of collaborated here. Um we have an existing board policy 3620 which addresses homeschool athletes and participation. Um what we are bringing here is just some specifics and an FAQ document for this. Um I probably get asked 10 to 12 times a year about homeschool participation uh in athletics. And most of the time their reason for wanting to dy enroll is athletics. Um and so some of the things we've had to navigate are um we're guiding that our board policy already mentions a half a 50% enrollment. That's what our dual enrollment policy is. So we want to uh kind of convey to parents in that
05950% you can't just come and take all elective classes. Um you need to take some core classes and some. We've defined what the half day is. So we've defined for middle school students that a half day would be three classes. Um and really the big thing we want to define here is the timing of this. Um so for instance had a family that was pursuing this uh in the January February time range to participate in spring sports at the middle school level. Well they would have then enrolled in our courses in February which had been being instructed since August and they would have been responsible for taking a state test at the end of the year where we did not provide their instruction for greater than 50% of the year. Um and so what we
060really want to codify here is that um you know whether it be athletics or we've we've had some ROC interest in uh joining dual enrollment or other things. Um we need the timing of when they enroll to be at the beginning of those courses. So, at the middle school in August, at the high school at a semester change. Um, and so again, not really any changes to the policy, just asking for permission to kind of put this document out there to parents of here's the procedure that we follow uh when you pursue dual enrollment. Um, so certainly Miss Ferguson may have any uh anything to add, but if you guys have questions about the specifics there, um, the other kind of caveat that does come up is do you have to attend in your attendance
061area? And we do feel like that would be important um that you can't eny enroll across the county because you want to participate for instance let's say their baseball team is better. So you want to homeschool and drive across the county to participate. We we think you need to do it in your attendance area uh if you want to pursue this. So questions you have for me? Are there questions for Mr. Pearson? Mr. Chairman, um being that this is a discussion item and not an action item, can we put this on the uh consent agenda for next meeting? I think so. Yes. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Give you guys time to look over. Okay. So, Miss Johnson, if you'd add that for your next meeting. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Pearson.
062Moving along now to action items. And our first action item today is review and consider approval of TA toteer partnership with Campbell University and funding proposal. Miss Thompson, Chairman Powell and members of the board, you might remember a month or so ago u Miss Vancan presented this proposal to you for uh this teacher assistance tuition re um reimbursement. Um, and we're saying we Campbell has approached us about this a number of times and they've wanted a pretty large cohort number. They've allowed us this time to have as few as five in the cohort, which we feel like we could manage. We are asking for approval for this. I don't think there should be any uh real cost to the district because there is a um tuition reimbursement grant that we get from the state that
063we feel like we could recoup our money from that that we pay out to Campbell. So, we're asking for permission to go ahead and start this again as a way to help with our EC teacher issue. We feel like this is a really better model because most of the time folks that are TAs in our classrooms understand the load of an EC teacher better than someone from the outside. And so if they're willing to do this um it brings some experience to the role of knowing what's going on, experience in the district. And we hope to maybe uh in the future these folks can be leaders and mentors. That's one of the things that we're seeing that we don't have a lot of experienced EC teachers. So there's no one in the school to help
064lead them like there are in other positions. So this will help us create not only teachers but a future uh cohort of leaders to help us with those EC teachers. Okay. I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve all Horn County Schools BC. Mr. Chair. Okay. That's the wrong item. Yeah. the U TA to teacher partnership number number one. Okay. Motion to approve this participation with Campbell for TAS. Mr. Chairman have a motion and I have a second. Is there additional discussion? Hearing none. The chairman votes I. Abate I. Gainy I hearing no votes. The motion is approved. Thank you Miss Thompson. Next we have review and consider approval of all Hick County schools being C community eligibility provision and Mr. Pearson and Miss Brown. Thank you members of the board as uh we discussed briefly
065at last uh the last regular meeting this was something that's been studied by Miss Brown and her staff. Um and you know I think that overall we feel is a very positive thing. Um I I do want to share with you that uh the numbers we've run an increased participation of somewhere around 13% would essentially be a break even uh for the district. If we did not have that increased participation, there would be some financial cost to the district. Uh but Miss Brown and her team have done such a good job managing resources that we do not have any concerns that we cannot carry that um that financial uh obligation for multiple years. uh we didn't want to go into this and and only be able to cover it for a year. Um but we
066do believe increased participation will happen. The other thing I do want to share is that um all of our calculations are based on current numbers within the USDA and those are obviously subject to change at any time based on um you know federal guidelines. And so if those numbers were to change and where qualifiers and multipliers were to you know significantly change, we may need to revisit this. But the revisitation of this would not be based on Har County Schools financial situation would be based on changes to federal programming. And so do want to share that with you that that our goal is to enter into this for multiple years, but we certainly need to to have a caveat that the federal government is making pretty rapid changes and we need to just be ready
067for that. So um certainly entertain any questions you have. Uh but I think that this is something that is pretty favorable amongst our uh our schools. I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move to approve all Honey County schools being C as presented. Second. Have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? I have a couple of questions. Uh first of all, approximately how many schools would be affected by this? It would be all of them. All schools. All schools. Uhuh. Yeah. Well, how many how many are we moving from currently C to full? Is that what you mean? Like how many would be adding to the program? Well, total, you know, how many adding then how many in total would be? So, it would be all schools. This would be every every one
068of our schools. Y we're adding 10. Well, great. Okay. And my second question is, will this be paid for primarily by grant money or how we be? This is still all funded through reimbursement rates um from USDA. So, every child that goes through the line, we get a reimbursement as of right now anyway. So, we they would all get the free rate. So, it would help. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Are there additional questions? Hearing none, the chairman votes I. Abate I. Gy I hearing no nay votes. The motion carries. Thank you. Next we have review and consider approval of standardized start times for all schools for the 202526 school year. Back to Mr. Pearson. Thank you, Chair Pal. The agenda is rather lengthy for my part today. So, thank you all. Um, again,
069discussed this at the previous meeting to give you guys a chance to gather some feedback. Um, you know, I think we acknowledge that change uh causes discomfort uh and that there's certainly um, you know, amongst families whenever we we propose these kind of changes, there is always a little pros and cons. Um, I do want to, you know, should reiterate as we've discussed and and we shared at the last meeting, um, that this is no more than about a 15minute change for most of our schools. Um, we have about 12 elementary schools that this would be a 15-minute change. Um, so it's not significant. I do know there was, you know, a little bit of public concern in like drop off times and getting to work and those types of things. our elementary schools are
070already starting after 8 a.m. And so, um, you know, if you're a pre8 a.m. work person, this this change doesn't really help you. You're already, um, we're already starting after that mark. Um, also just kind of, you know, getting the pulse of those around us. Uh, for instance, you know, students that attend elementary school in a fquay area, they're a 9:15 start time. Students that attend elementary school in Benson are an 855 start time. Um, so we're still significantly ahead of that. Uh, we would be a little later than Lee County schools, but um, kind of in the middle there. And then on the other end, the early start time is the other part we hear about. Uh, and this is a 10-minute change for high schools. And so again, recognize that there is a
071little bit of discomfort with change. Uh, but we're not asking for significant uh significant changes. Um, I do have I asked Miss Sullivan and Mr. McNeel to to stick around in case you wanted to get a principal's perspective uh on this change and the impact. I think the greatest thing for us is uh creating this pool of substitute bus drivers, 44 substitute bus drivers is significant. Uh we have schools currently that when they have to use a double route substitute driver, those students are not arriving to campus till 9:15 or 9:30. That's a substantial impact on a student's uh education. And so again, while we know that discomfort exists with change, we feel like the pros outweigh the cons in this case. Um, and certainly we feel like our principles are in support of it.
072Um, you know, and our bus drivers are in support of it. Um, but something that would, you know, as we said with yonder, take a little while before it's the new normal. Um, but we do feel like it would be a positive. So certainly think there may be some questions and happy to entertain those. Okay, I'll entertain a motion. I move that we approve the standardized start times for all schools for 256 school year as presented. Have a motion and I have a second. Is there further discussion? Mr. Chairman, um this has been something that's been in my personal opinion needed for a long time. Uh we were presented last year, I believe it was last year or two years ago with a I say a similar proposal but quite different and whereas that was
073a little too far outside of what we needed. U I think this on a again on a personal level I really like the staggered start time and me personally the times actually work better. Um, but I've had a number of people reach out and I mean a a large number and where I really like this personally. I can't go against what um what folks have reached out to me and and presented to me and their issues. So, if I was voting for myself, I would absolutely vote for it. But for the record, and when we vote momentarily, I will vote against it. Okay. Is there additional discussion or questions? Miss G, I'd just like to ask the principles, do you have any any comments you want to make about this? Um, and I'm just the
074the opposite from Mr. Albate. The the few emails that I received were positive, but everything that I've read in social media, of course, was negative, but what came to me was positive. So, if you have anything you can share with us, I would say that the conversations that we've had is is individual people speak from their individual point of view and I think as the principles had the conversation at some point you have to do what's best for the district and the students overall and if we have 44 bus routes that can be eliminated and allow our APS less stress in trying to cover subs I know personally my head custodian will drive two and three routes a day. I know regularly I get my son is at Western High School calls that the bus
075will be 16 minutes 90 minutes late. So while I understand individual families and perspectives that they may have, you will adjust and you will figure it out and the schools will work with you. Um and those times are tardy bells. So schools often open 20 to 30 minutes prior to those. Um, but I just feel like something has to be done about the busing issue because it's not going to get better right now. Um, especially with increasing enrollment. Um, I just think that's what will help. I think it will improve the quality of our drivers as well. Um, having a pool of people to pull from. So, that's my personal Thank you. And I agree with with Miss Sullivan and what Mr. Pearson has presented. the the 44 bus routes that we're able to to
076kind of consolidate, do whatever it is that creates that pool for us to where um when when a bus driver is out, we've got somebody in the building or somebody that that we can call on that we know is going to be available to where these kids can get to school on time. And for us, uh, 10 minutes, you know, starting at 7:20 instead of 7:30, uh, opening the doors, you know, a few minutes earlier so that the kids can get in and get to breakfast and do all the things they need to do is something that I I'm willing to do that I would believe that all principles would be willing to do to make sure um that we can get the school the kids to school on time. And I think that's the
077wii with with this it allows a little bit more flexibility with that. And so I I'm all for it. Thank you. I would add I appreciate both of them sharing. Um all of our schools this is the tardy bell time and so all of our schools work with families for when do we open our doors. Most of our carpool lines start significantly before our tardy bell. So I think that would also lessen the impact some and something our schools may have to be flexible on. uh in relation to you know parents and needs and we have a number of complaints that come through Courtney's office about late buses a number of complaints that she gets on a regular basis and I will say for my part second Mr. Harry's motion on these times is I'll
078tell Mr. Deal, Mr. Svin. Most of the comments I've had have been positive about this time. Very few negative, you know, because of the busing situations. Anything to take care of helping us with the busing situations? Is there additional discussion? Chairman votes I. Abate no. Gainy yes. God, a vote of 4 to one. Motion is approved. Next, we have review and consider selection of the firm for special inspections and testings testing at the Flatwoods Middle School project. Mr. Pearson, thank you again, Chairman Pal, members of the board. Um this is approval of a uh essentially look at as a third party to monitor our construction um and oversees some specialized testing to make sure all that the construction and is meeting standards. We actually had uh entered into negotiations with a a different vendor um
079and were very unsatisfied with prices we were getting. So entered negotiations with this this vendor uh and got a price that was um almost half a little about 60% of the other one. So feel very good about this and we have worked with this vendor. They're actually currently our special inspections group on the Lington Shawtown gym and have offices out of Dun. So very accessible to us. So we recommend this approval. Okay. I would entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve um Building and Earth Sciences LLP as presented. Have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? Chairman votes I. Abate I. Gay I. I. The motion is approved. Next we have review and consider Pearson virtual schools platform for HRE virtual academy K5 and that is Mr. White who has
080stepped out. Is there someone else who is right now? I can. Miss Ferguson, chair, I can speak on behalf of Pearson. We have used Pearson this year. Yes, ma'am. Um, next year he would like to just to use it in the K5. Um, our parents are used to it. The students are used to it. Um, it has worked well this year. I think he has some long-term goals and plans, but um, it's not a new program that we're using. It's not a new platform. It's something we are currently using. Okay. I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve Pearson virtual school platform for Horn County virtual academy as presented. Mr. Chairman second. We have a motion and a second. Is there additional discussion? Do we have to have virtual schools? I will uh I'll kind of
081weigh into that. Um we have um some me some students who are medically fragile where this provides an option for them to be able to continue uh and be students of Hornet County Schools. Uh we also have some situations in which there are and may be some behavioral issues which also lend itself to having that option. Uh I do think we still have a few that um are choosing that option from our uh pandemic time but that number has dwindled to some extent. Uh so will this ever uh morph into some huge uh amount of uh students? I don't see that in the near future. Uh but I do think it provides a viable option for a number of our or not a number but some of our students so that we can continue to
082serve them through our our school system. Thank you. Anything else? Chairman votes I I gain I hear no nay votes. A motion is approved. Next we have review and consider board of education members attending the 2025 COSPA federal advocac advocacy conference in Washington DC. Mr. Matthews uh chairman uh pal members of the board uh this is a uh we have a couple of our board members who have requested to be able to attend the Cosba federal advocacy conference in Washington. Mr. Abate and Miss Gayy and uh as you know uh out of state um uh participation in in events such as these are requires board approval. So I just bring this to you uh to approve their attendance at this conference. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve members
083to attend the COSBO 2025 federal advocacy conference in Washington DC as presented. Second. Have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Chairman votes I. Abate I. Gay I. Hearing. No. Nay votes. The motion is approved. I will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that we go into close session pursuant to general statute 143, 31811, A1, A3, and A6 to prevent the disclosure of confidential personnel files under GS15C 321 to consider matters relating to initial employment of an individual employee and to 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? Hearing none, the chairman votes I. Habate I gay I the motion is approved. We're now in close session. Following a motion and a second, we're now reconvened
084into open session. Uh, Mr. Matthews, any action from the closed session we needed to take at this time? Yes. Chairman Pal, members of the board, I would like to recommend the approval of Lesie Dernard as assistant principal at Coach Elementary School for the 2526 school year. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to the recommendation, I move to approve uh Leslie D um as presented for Coach Elementary. Have a motion and a second. Personnel matter. Chairman votes I. Abate I. Gany. The motion is approved. Mr. Chairman, I'd also like to recommend the teacher contract list as presented in closed session be approved. I'll entertain a motion. Make a motion we approve this list. Mr. Chairman second. Have a motion and a second. Personnel matter. Chairman votes eye. Abate abstains due to conflict. Gy I the motion is approved and
085I would also like to recommend approval of the one-year principal contract extension as was dis discussed in closed session Mr. Chairman uh so move pursuant to the recommendation second have a motion and a second personnel matter chairman votes I abate I gain I motion is approved that concludes mine Mr. Pal thank you Mr. Matthews. I will entertain a motion. Motion to Mr. Second. Have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Please. I. We are now adjourned.