001not for [Music] walk yes sir to [Music] e e e and might ask Mr Godfrey if he'd leave us in a word of prayer all bow your heads and pray with me if you will Our Kind gracious Heavenly Father we thank you for being here tonight dear lord for keeping everybody safe as they came down I pray Lord that you'd be with us during this meeting Lord that we would do your will and that father we would do what's best for the students and the stakeholders of Hornet County dear Lord L that we would strive to make our schools better and better and better father Lord be with us tonight Lord carry us back calm safely look after each and every one dear Lord for it's in Jesus name we pray amen amen Mr haer
002would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please pledge of alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with li justice for all thank you you may be seated are there any adjustments needed to the agenda Mr chairman I move that we approve the agenda as presented have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes I AB i g i there I hearing no nay votes the motion is approved let's move along now to we have two special presentations tonight and they indeed are special and our first one is our academic growth award presentation and Miss Ferguson we'll turn it over to you yes chairman pal members of the board uh Mr Matthews will
003help me present to the um schools their um academic awards for this year the Department of Public Instruction is pleased to congratulate Harnet County schools for our school's performance during the 23 24 school year whether for academic growth or graduation rate these certificates showcase the dedication to academic achievement in the school system of both students and Educators and we will begin with the first award the certificate for outstanding graduation rate at 95.8% it is presented to the Hornet County early college Dr Jasmine Nixon okay [Applause] is Si standing congratulations the next award is the North Carolina exceeded academic growth award it is proudly presented to the following schools for exceeding the goal of expected academ um exceeding academic progress for the students for 23 24 and the first school recognized will be D Middle School
004Mrs Megan [Music] [Applause] West also receiving this award is Western Harnet Middle School Mrs gelle cadr [Applause] next we would like to recognize the schools for the North Carolina academic growth award this award is proudly presented to the following schools for achieving the goal of expected academic progress for students for 23 24 school year and our first school is Ben Haven Elementary Dr Laura [Applause] stre B Bo Creek Elementary Mr Brian [Applause] Graham coats Elementary Mrs Jamie [Applause] West Irwin Elementary Dr Steven [Applause] marphy Hornet County early [Applause] college Hornet Virtual Academy Mrs da Young [Applause] Highland Middle School Mrs Brittain [Applause] Sullivan Johnsonville Elementary Mrs Renee Gilmore Lafayette Elementary Mrs Elizabeth [Applause] Hodge Northwest Hornet Elementary Dr Kimberly Smith [Music] over Hills Elementary Mrs Tracy [Applause] Labowski Overhills Middle School Dr Bona Thompson South
005Hornet Elementary Mrs Mr Thomas [Applause] bakus Triton High School Mr Marshall Jones [Applause] next and along with our academic Awards tonight we are also excited to um honor Ben Haven Elementary and Dr Laura Street for uh the US News and World Report published their 2025 best elementary schools and Ben Haven Elementary placed at number 37 in the schools in North Carolina and this is their second year in a row [Applause] okay thank you U Miss Ferguson and uh big congratulations to each of you i' like to thank each of you principles for all of your hard work you know if all your hard work as you often hear me say to make Harnet County Schools among the very best and then our goal to become the very best schools in the state of North Carolina
006we can't do it without you and your strong leadership and all of your hard work so thank you so much for all you do for us thank you okay moving along to our public comment and uh 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 is available for any individual or group to indicate their desire to address the board the chairman would aside the amount of time devoted to public comments the superintendent ATT shall develop additional procedures to ensure that public comment sessions proceed in an efficient and orderly manner board members will not respond to individuals who address the board except to request clarification of points made by the presenter except in cases of emergency information
007received during presentations will not be acted upon at the time it is received it will take unanimous vote of the board members present to take action on a presentation considered to be of an unusual or emergency nature at the time it is presented disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with General statute 143 31817 if the board does not hold a regular meeting during a month the board will not provide a time for public comment at any other meeting held during that month unless a majority of the board votes to allow public comment at the meeting or unless the purpose of the meeting is a public hearing so uh participants can speak up to three minutes and we have our very first one is Mr
008Jerry Rivas so if speakers coming forward if you tell us what part of the county you're from we'd greatly appreciate that Mr chairman yes sir may I ask that all that speak tonight please speak up a loud voice so we can clearly hear you thank you Mr gy yeah I live in uh the southern part of Harnet County uh This concerns the joint resolution that is on your agenda further down the agenda between the Board of Commissioners and the school board about using schools as polling places this morning uh I made the comment uh that I think superintendent Matthews ought to resign from either his position here or his position on the chair as the uh on the Board of Commissioners you're spreading yourself Way Too Thin and something just stinks about this whole situation
009going on I I don't know how but but you know when you perceive something is wrong there's usually something wrong there's usually truth in perception and I I noticed tonight y'all are giving out a lot of awards for meeting expectations I noticed you didn't give any awards out for exceeding expectations in 2023 2024 53% of Harnet County schools are underperforming 53.6% North Carolina is ranked 46th in the United States on the money to spend per student I have 10 grandchildren that are enrolled in Harnet County Schools five in middle school or high school and it it I almost weep when I ask them what's the First Amendment amendment to the Constitution what's the Fifth Amendment what's the Fourth Amendment what's the 14th amendment can can anybody here tell me what the 14th Amendment is it's
010pretty important you know that's the one that says a black man is more than three fifths of a man he is a whole man it also gives the right to do process when did the school stop teaching government and Civics when did the school stop having textbooks I mean you you know it's ridiculous to do all this remote learning you kids aren't learning anything remotely they're goofing off all day there's still a lot of parts of this County that don't have uh decent internet accessibility so a lot of kids have trouble signing on but anyway and school security that that's your whole issue supposedly about not using school as a polling place what about the other 163 days of the year where early voting is not going on I can go to Highland Elementary right
011now and walk right in the back door of that school because you got all these temporary Huts out there that don't even have bathrooms for these kids they got to walk out of that classroom and walk all the way to the main building and go on an unlocked door there's no uh school resource officer why is the sheriff's department budget $1 million more than the budget for our schools how come our kids aren't important enough for y'all to keep armed security guards there if you're so worried about their security why don't you hire [Music] guards thank you okay next we have Mr Bill mcnut good afternoon ladies and gentlemen uh I'm a um Board of Elections member and uh I I enjoyed the presentations I'm sorry I have to bring this back down to reality
012and the reality is that uh as the Board of Elections member I attended seven public meetings over the last uh month and in that period of time uh we were talking in terms of the realignment of the voters in the voting places that was our issue at uh each of those meetings uh the issue was brought up about this joint resolution that's being presented and and why are they trying to kick you out of the schools well that wasn't the appropriate spot to go through the details of that so we said we're working through it or trying to work through it but the big question was why are they doing that uh well you know that's my question why are they doing it what's the rationale what's the reason well what was said as the
013rationale now was safety issues safety issues and they talked in terms of uh uh labeling the voters that come in as gun toting sexual deviants and they didn't want them interfering with their children well I wouldn't want them interfering with my children either but there's no documentation or report of any such event it's a fabrication it's a hot button item it's something that gets publicity and that's one of the reasons why I believe that it's being brought forth uh the one of the things that I did last month was present to you folks uh a what I call a brief and it points out that the joint resolution uh is not following two articles of the State Constitution and four existing statutory directives it's just not in compliance uh and and and of course my
014concern is uh we have to follow our Oaths I took the same oath as you did the oath that we support and defend the Constitution and the laws of North Carolina why aren't we doing that there are other ways of resolving this alleged issue they should be addressed I know that the board act as asked the uh executive director of of the Board of Education to contact both boards either their chairman or their body and reach out and discuss this issue so we could resolve it amicably but the response from the commission was no the response from this board of education was it' be a waste of time my time's up thank you for your time unless you have any questions thank you thank you next we have Mr Jason Kimbell all right good afternoon
015members of the board I come to you today as many of you know uh who I am but I'm not here as an attorney and I'm not here as a district court judge but I'm here as a parent and a father and I am here today um for the actions that have been taking place not only to my son but his best friend where they were mistreated and arbitrarily and capriciously removed as members of the Triton High School baseball team by an unethical and deceitful head coach Mr Reese and a corrupt and arbitrary athletic administration of Tron High School let me preface this with starting with that in the words of a great great great human being and the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr that an injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice
016everywhere and that is what we have here at Triton High School where an individual head coach can arbitrarily and capriciously pull aside two boys for alleging that they conducted in some sort of prohibited contct that being a fight when there was no such fight that ever existed on the Student Activity bus there had been no investigation whatsoever prior to pulling not only my son aside by himself alone in the hallway to tell him he's kicked off the team and doesn't want to hear an explanation from my son same thing happened to the other fellow pulled to the side said you're off the team he said for what he said for fighting he said well let me tell you what happened he said I don't want to hear it on top of that when I I
017get a phone call I'm sitting at at the courthouse that I need to go to Triton High School so I get to Triton High School to figure out what's going on well by the time I've got there the wagons had been circled and the decision had been made without one student one athlete on that bus being interviewed by either the head coach or the athletic director only to be met with the phrase from the athletic director that I will back my coaches I will protect my coaches they ought to be ashamed if that is what come out of an athletic director's mouth his job is to protect our students and the Integrity of High School athletics not to protect his coaches How about if that was somebody's daughter that went to a coach or a
018to the athletic director with the concern of some serious misconduct I'm sure that would not be swept under the rug well neither should this when these boys they have an interest a constitutional right to participate in these Sports which brings me to the matter of these boys were kicked off the team without any investigation whatsoever the head coach was the judge jury and executioner these boys were afforded no due process which involves something as simple as one notice of what they did or did not do two the opportunity to be heard and they were denied that and arbitrarily kicked off the baseball team I could go much further but I said thank you your time time is expired thank you I can be available many of you have my contact information I'll be happy to
019speak to you thank you thank you Mr Jesse Godwin I can assure you three minutes is going to be too much for me I'm not going to be talking that long but I'm just following up on what Jason presented tonight I'm the grand father and I'm the one that goes to the school I'd say 75% of the time I was in this meeting with Mr Smith and Coach Ree and I first want to say this I think Hornet County has some of the best teachers coaches and all in the state of North Carolina and one of the best Su uh Brooks Matthews is one of the best on the board too but I'll get back to the real issue I was in this meeting and Jason's right this athletic director Mr Smith to me he
020made a statement my co I'm backing my coaches what they say goes and that's the end of it he says and if they get if he gets messed up or moved I'm resigning and I told him you know I said that's the only good thing you said you should resign if you're not going to protect these kids and I tell you one other thing if you look at this team for the last two years when a when a guy gets on the team he makes the team he's not guaranteed he's going to be on that team cause reys will kick him off and move somebody else up there to replace him if he makes an error who ain't never made an error and that's and that's the way he looks at it so yes our
021grandson and his best friends if you go by 95 Brandon Drive you'll see these boys at my house every Friday night or Saturday night and one other statement I want to say this team if you look at it needs diversity for the last two years there's been no diversity on this team and if you come to my house on a Friday night or a Saturday night you'll see kids of all color and race in my house that's the way my grandson is so I'm very upset with it and I think this board will be taking care of a problem down the road if you deal with this issue with Rees or at least do your own investigation to find out what really is going over there at Triton High School and I'll say again and
022I'll close we got some of the best teachers some of the best coaches and all at this school but it's like a rotten apple if you don't get it out of the pile you're going to have all rotten so thank you for time thank you Rebecca Baro good evening part of education and staff Rebecca Brock I'm in the Northwest Harnet area um I wanted to congratulate Brookie and all of the principals and staff who've done a great job to move that needle just a little bit I know that we're still facing lots of extreme issues but man congratulations that was really nice to be able to see uh the improvement over the last years it was hard one and small advances incrementally change things and I know this system has a large low-income population that
023have a growing ESL population they have behavioral issues and they're short of teachers right so the I'm just saying as an individual I am paying attention staying engaged and I have to speak up the budget season is coming and Mr Powell you just said you believe and want this to be the best school system in North Carolina then put your money where your mouth is because you will need to listen to what the principls are going to tell the staff about what they're going to need for their needs for the next school year and because Mr Matthews you are sitting on the commission board which you know I disagree with I would hope that you could be educating your Commissioners about what it's going to take to have a first class school system here in
024harck County because it's really important for all of us to depend on you and the board to get a first class system going and I don't think it's just by taking the same thing and the same budget that you all gave to the Board of Commissioners last year that you will give this year so I am hoping that you will hear from these principles what they truly need which could be better pay more assistance some kind of student involvement with mental health I don't I don't know EV I don't know but there's probably many things that these qualified people could tell you what will make a first class education system in Harnet County I'm tired of it always being a low wealth County we could have better schools better than 15 DS 8 C's two
025FS 1 a and 1 B so please put your money where your mouth is it's March budgets due in may we still they have still have time to talk about it thank you that concludes our public comment session and now we'll move along to our superintendent update and Mr Matthews thank you chairman pal I appreciate that uh members of the board let me just Begin by giving you a brief followup on the brush fire that um I notified you about about this weekend behind Western haret Middle School uh thanks to the efforts of Mr Jamie Johnson with our maintenance department and Mr Garland McDow with our uh grounds uh department and their staffs we were able to have school as scheduled today uh while there were still a smoky smell around uh the school and
026inside the school this morning conditions improved quickly and the day progress normally uh while we're certainly hopeful that the conditions that we're currently uh facing right now concerning the fire danger will improve uh and that hopefully will happen without the uh possible severe weather that they're talking about on Wednesday uh we uh we stand Vigilant and trying to make sure we have the uh safest environment possible for our kids I would also like to recognize Mr Godfrey I believe March is his birthday month March 15th I believe Mr gy so happy birthday to you um also like to remind you uh day like savings time comes in March the 9th I don't think they've changed that yet but anyway there's been some talk about it but right now it's still on the calendar for March
027T night and our next board meeting will be a board work session that be scheduled for March the 17th at 9:00 a.m. and Mr chairman that concludes my comments unless there's specific questions for me does anyone have a question thank you Mr Matthews you next we have auxiliary services update and that will be Mr Pearson chairman P members of the board thank you um last week we had our um five-year review from DPI of our school nutrition services they come in every five years and um really go over everything with a fine tooth comb records um you know cash registers systems uh serving portion sizes all of those things um and our staff did a great job and our exit um report from that the corrective actions that we have to take are extremely minor
028um some small adjustments in some procedures but they were super complimentary both of our uh office staff and our our school nutrition managers and so thank you to those sites that they visited they were well prepped and well prepared it's a nerve-wracking time to have DPI in but um again they were very complimentary and the actions that we have to take are are minimal and easy to fix so um until they come back in another 5 years we should be good to go um but we certainly were glad to get through that uh that review um you'll see on tonight's agenda uh multiple things related to construction so we'll cover those as we get to those action items and I'll give you updates on the ongoing construction projects on the school safety side uh the
029Statewide tornado drill was scheduled for Wednesday that has been postponed because of the incoming weather so that is now moved to Friday of this week so all of our schools will be conducting uh their annual tornado drill in in correlation with SE severe weather Awareness Week across the state we did get some good news last week we were awarded a grant by the North Carolina Center for safer schools we had applied for back in October uh so we did get a decent amount of funding uh the plan is to use this for uh increasing access to aeds in many of our schools increasing Vape detectors in our schools uh some support for schools with radios and communication needs that they have as well as some Access Control some areas of weakness so U really excited
030about that all things that we need that we would have had to spend some of our own money on here upcoming so appreciative of that great um also do want to just keep you in the loop you may be aware that um House Bill 605 requires every North Carolina school to have a threat assessment team just want you guys to be in the loop that we are um presenting all that to the principles they've been preliminary trained on that and as we've spoken with each of them they will uh get formal training and forms on all of that here in the coming weeks uh part of this requirement is that we report back to DBI the number of threat assessments that we con uh conducted and so I will also share that information with you
031guys as we uh reach those benchmarks essentially what this is is when we have a student who maybe has some concerning behaviors or concerning statements gives us a chance to really kind of dive deeper into them um you know unfortunately many times in some of these tragic school events there's always been warning signs that people have said hey we noticed this we noticed that so this is a chance for us to to be working on that so I think it'll be very positive thing as it is established on the athletic side uh winter sports have concluded with the exception of of the over High School women's basketball team they have made it into the third round of the state playoffs so the sweet 16 they play tomorrow night at Roseville High School so uh good
032luck to them and congratulations to Kevin Spears from Harnet Central High School he was the state champion for the triple jump in indoor track so we've invited Kevin to the April board meeting hopefully for some recognition and then um I've been giving you updates about the realignment of conferences draft three of that realignment did come out um Overhills High School Conference did adjust a little bit a little bit better travel um they still do include Richmond County so they're right about an hour from there U but that's not really that unfamiliar for instance Triton High School will travel to Union Pines High School for games which is right about an hour as well so overall we were pleased with the adjustments in that third draft and those should be being finalized here over the coming
033days the state was actually hearing appeals on that today so um pretty much good news on that end so unless you have questions for me that concludes my report other questions from Mr Pearson one question how many schools were involved in the audit there were five schools that were visited uh during the school day thank you any others first of all please give our regards and thanks to Miss Brown and her staff for this good report absolutely and I'm also happy to hear that Overhills will be a little bit closer anyway than cuz that was a long lot of long distance drives for draft one and two so hopefully draft three is better so thank you Mr Pearson moving along to the curriculum and instruction and Miss fergison chairman pal members of the board um
034our access testing continues in K12 as you know this is the test that we have to give all eel students for English language proficiency every year um we're having midye meetings with our principles and reviewing all available data we're discussing plans from now until May we discuss resources pacing guides progress checks walkthroughs teacher vacancies and any support needed our element middle and high schools are participating in the NC check-ins walkthroughs continue with the principles making this a priority to support instruction and just want to give a shout out tonight to our top 10 schools um for the number of walkthroughs completed by the principal Triton High School Johnsonville Elementary School Harnet Central Middle School Highland Middle School Dunn Elementary School Overhills Elementary School coats Elementary School Irwin Elementary School Harnet Central High School and Western
035Harnet middle these are our top 10 and I can also say for all of our schools they have doubled the amount from last year at this time so they're really get in those classrooms giving feedback to our teachers um schools are offering tutoring schools have during school and after school tutoring available at different sites so I would encourage parents to communicate with your child school if you feel that your child would benefit from tutoring our mclass middle middle of the Year data had increases at all kindergarten first and second grade levels we were especially excited over an 18% um in the kindergarten number of students who met or um exceeded the Benchmark and just look at the top three schools at each grade level um at kindergarten uh Lafayette Elementary School had a 36% gain
036Ben Haven of 34% and done Elementary of 23% so our kindergarten teachers are really killing it right now now um first grade Anderson Creek Primary School with 12% Highland Elementary with 12% and Ben Haven with 10% and again this is the number of students who met or exceeded the Benchmark um second our top three were Anderson Creek Primary at 12% Johnsonville Elementary at 8% and Boon Trail at 7% all schools participate in black history month I've shared a list of events and activities with you you have that we had um Harnet County's first Lego league tournament for our middle schools at Western Harnet Middle School on February the 1 17th all of our middle schools did have teams and participated first place was Dunn Middle School second place coach Irwin middle school and third place
037Harnet Central Middle School we had the District spelling be at Irwin Elementary School on February the 25th congratulations to Antonella Guzman from Highland Middle School she will represent Harnet County schools at the scrips National Spelling be in Washington DC the high school honors course was held at Overhills High School on February the 27th this is always a great event all schools had participants and everyone did a great job and as you know they practi that day and perform that night um AIG we are offering a local endorsement class taught by Dr Chris Godwin Campbell University this allows our teachers to be locally endorsed for AIG in Hornet County and hopefully this will lead them to completing the requirements to add AIG certification to their license and we have 30 teachers participating in this class we
038are working on a golden leaf Grant um we are hoping to have a grant for Harnet Central Middle School that will focus on math and it's based on Marzano's High reliability uh schools model and um the next one we're hoping to do is the personalized Competency Based education at Dunn Middle School the competition is pretty Fierce there will only be 10 for each cohort across the state but um we do feel good about our chances and we're working on those applications now they're due March the 21st and we'll keep you updated and both principles um I have reached out to them and they're in support of this okay oh want to tell you real quick of our upcoming events we have the battle of the books and this is always a fun time so Elementary
039is March the 13th at 9:30 a.m. at Gentry March the 14th is the Middle School Battle of the books that's also at Gentry and March 18th is the high school battle of the books at 9:30 at Gentry and again uh Mrs Jennifer bird and her staff do a phenomenal job with this but it is really interesting to hear these children and what they know about these books um we had the horn Kane school's Elementary first Lego league on March the 21st at Irwin Elementary School and then we have our all count jazz band Clinic performance and as you know this started out of a group of students and a teacher wanting this and it has grown so we're very proud of this and they will practice after school on April the 1st they'll practice all
040day April the 2 and perform that night and the site is to be determined but the performance is April the 2 and I'll keep you updated and those are my updates for tonight unless you have questions are there questions from Miss Ferguson okay thank you Miss Ferguson okay moving along to Human Resources Miss Thompson good evening chairman pile and members of the board uh a quick update on hiring we are at an all-time low here for a while we only have 19 classroom vacancies and 16 EC EC and other various vacancies in that area and we have 33 classified vacancies that's an all-time low for us over the past few years so I think the principles and schools and the district Personnel are working really hard on filling in those vacancies I will no longer
041be telling you the fully hired sites because next year's information will be bleeding into this year's information it really won't be completely accurate because now we have resignations we've sent out intent forms to schools and that information has been shared back with us so we know of vacancies there are people still working that we'll be leaving at the end of the year that you know their vacancies will bleed over into each year and so I hope that I'll pick that back up as soon as we kind of clear that up maybe in the summer I can give a better picture of where we are on that but as always if you have any specific questions I can't answer them and tease out the data that way if you have any questions uh normally at this
042time I always talk about the nieces report and I am holding off on that until the work session because we had a few snow days and our principes have worked so diligently to keep those numbers up I know some of them needed just a little bit more time and so we decided to give them a few more days to catch back up to their normal standard on that so I will report on those numbers at the work session this month the RNR team has been attending multiple university job fairs over this over the past months and in future months they'll plan to attend at each Fair we share candidate information and resumés with principles this month we were NC State and Campbell University and in the coming months were scheduled to attend App State East
043Carolina UNCC Wilmington and UNCC Penbrook we will host our annual job fair on March 31st from 4: to 6 at the Harnet County resource center and library we're also thrilled to announce that we've extended District hires to highquality Educators from EPI and participate learning for the upcoming 2526 school year to support this process an international um staff new hires 2526 Google site has been created and shared with principles allowing them to view and select teachers for their school sites it's regularly updated with new candidates as they're recommended for hire we're also working to schedule another round of interviews with Epi to bring on more EC Math Science and Elementary candidates one thing we do extend that District hire invitation principes hire they are free to hire any any graduates of North Carolina schools and then
044they fall back on that pool first of the of the international teachers for hire before they hire any staff who's going to be licensed in a non-traditional way our International staff continues to participate in professional development and this month they're working with the EC Department we are hoping that all International staff attend that HR and transportation met with all schools last week some virtual and some in person to discuss Transportation issues currently uh our biggest concern is the lack of subd drivers most schools are okay with their drivers as long as they don't have a missing driver for for sickness and this has certainly been a hard time of the year with all the sickness that has been going around remember uh DMV the same plan is in place and I've spoke about that many
045times that we really don't have a hiring issue with bus drivers we have a training issue with bus drivers and uh we continue to be able to train two employees a week for uh driving the bus we have 18 employees scheduled to complete their driving training between now and the beginning of May and then we'll um we will continue to have training from the January bus class as time permits in the weeks to come so you can see if we could if we could catch up and get all of our people trained we would have a good number of Subs because we've got like 40 or 50 folks waiting in the wings to try to be trained on the school but so they go through the written part and then they have to go through
046the bus part and it's just a long it's a very long and tedious process we plan to have another bus class in May but you know that's a even when you have a bus class your Ms in in the in the trenches trying to get them trained we'll be working around the EOG testing of course we have completed meetings with principles uh we we're calling this teacher Equity meetings because this involves the access of uh students have two highly qualified teachers and Mr Pearson and Miss Taylor have visited identified sites and discussed about supports in place to help those teachers and and um how we can ensure the success around those teachers and make sure we have effective teachers no matter where the students are assigned a focus of this year for HR has been
047something called stay interviews at the school level and we have encouraged principles to have conversations with key employees at each site to learn more about why folks stay in Harnet County schools and in keeping with that practice HR will host our own round of stay interviews with principles later this month to learn about why leaders choose to stay in Harnet County how we can better support their leadership efforts from an HR perspective and discuss other HR issues and concerns as part of that teacher Equity plan we support schools with a disproportionate percentage of beginning teachers we choose to work um with assistant principles at those sites to lead some professional development with them and we've been recognizing on building climate and culture that promotes a retention of quality staff so that new employees like beginning
048teachers are in need in fewer numbers and we using the data from the teacher working condition surveys from last year and leaders are soliciting feedback from current employees to best understand the needs of the school in that same vein uh HR is working Mr Matthews has asked has task us and he's working with tear fish at the county level um the possibility of us having a having some child care support for our employees and so we have surveyed our employees to ask if they could have um Child Care here in the district would that impact their um um retention rate here and um so out of that response it's about 5050 we have about 55% of our employees who do need child care 45% do not so that tells you we probably have a young
049teaching Force right now and the age range for that is is Broad from New U new born to 5 years old most all those people survey that needed it 93% will be interested in their children being able to attend the prek associated with the school district and of course they're looking for something that's affordable quality close to their schools that's safe and has flexible hours so we are continuing to work on this to find Avenues around that then maybe we might be able to um have some pilot sites for that at least one site maybe for the upcoming year but um when asked do you think a preschool program would help you stay in Harnet County longterm that answer that was 77% said yes and do you think that it would a preschool program would
050help retain other staff members and that was 89% yes so that shows that that's something that we should look into if we could do that to help our teachers here in this district and support them in that area and we have our continued work with mentors and of course we our our our staff did a great job during the snow mitigating any risk management things that happen when snow and ice are around we are going to continue with our national cohort meetings you know for national boards and our continued work with International teachers you know we have a podcast called teacher talks um to go and we'll be continuing those into the spring that concludes my report unless you have any questions for me are there additional questions from Miss Thompson chairman P I got
051a comment I'd like to make uh thank you m Thompson and uh many people don't know but we'd like for you to know that we've got people to drive if we can get them trained I mean you know we can't get them trained the DMZ has been in shambles for the last eight years under the former leadership of the government for the past eight years it's been a mess and it's still a mess hopefully this new governor will get it straight or do something other than what has been the last eight years so we can get put put putting stress on our bus drivers have enough of Subs to where they can step in and take over and sub for them well I hope that'll happen this this next four years hopefully anything else from
052Miss Thompson thank you Miss Thompson next we have our student services update Mr White good evening chairman Powell and members of the board inside of your board packet you will find the Star Academy report and the district release reassignment report through the last week of February this month you'll begin to see transfers populating for the 2025 2026 school year as is normal starting in February here in haret County March the 2nd through the 8th is recognized as National School Social Work Week National School social week is a time to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions of our school social workers across Hornet County schools throughout the week we have asked schools to highlight the essential role of school social workers in playing and supporting our academic social and emotional growth of our students our Hornet
053County Team Works to unite our community to ignite positive change in the lives of our students families and schools and we appreciate their contribution to our district so a big shout out to our school social workers they they work very very very hard and I'm proud of the efforts and strides they've made this year as a reminder the window has opened for all 25 26 school year in count transfers that window will be open from February 1st through April the 1st 2025 as a reminder for in-county transfers families do not need to complete the application every year if they've been approved previously families approved for transfer are allowed to stay at their reassigned School through the highest grade available at the school in addition to the staff that we have have on our mental health
054support team our district will launch our virtual Mental Health Partnership with hazel Health beginning on March the 17th 2025 at the pilot schools of Harnet Central Middle School Lillington sh toown Elementary Star Academy the Harnet County early college and our Virtual School Hazel health will provide mental health teele theapy to students and their families upon request and so the hours of uh availability for the mental health the virtual mental health program will be from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and students can access that at school at home or after school and so if this pil is successful um we look to expand it across the district this year um and we're also going to have an opportunity for families to be able to benefit from that during the summer months as well I would like
055to provide the board with a Yonder pouch update which has kind of been a Hot Topic um around the district uh I want to talk to you a little bit about we've seen some positive results at the pilot schools of Western Hornet High School star and hland middle school all principles have reported a decrease in the number of distractions involving mobile devices and discipline referrals since we started the pilot I had the opportunity last week to watch students enter Western Hornet high school and it was great to see how they have adapted to having the pouches in school and how organized the process was since implementation we have had Johnson County Schools come and visit us to see what we do and we've spoken with other surrounding districts about our experiences and have been able
056to share what we have learned learned in a short time since launch before the school year concludes it's our expectation that our Pilot School principles will present to the board and share data with you to see if this initiative is worth expanding to other schools next year as we told student advisory this past week we don't think it we're not going to expand to all 29 schools next year um it's kind of a peace process here and so we'll look at um the next slate of schools uh within the next few weeks to determine if that's something that we want to do this spring we'll be expanding our digital Hall Pass Program to more schools here in the district and we also be pting the school status digital attendance program at North Hornet primary Andrew
057Elementary and Lafayette yearr round Elementary here in the spring School status is a digital program that will allow us to be able to track the attendance data for students um a bit more efficiently also that program will send the attendance letters out um um for us as opposed to us having to put those letters together and mail them which will save us a little bit of money as far as the district is concerned with regards to doing that what we're hoping is in areas where we're not able to provide a social worker every day this platform will allow School status to be a I mean will allow School staff to be able to access it and be a bit more efficient um in the the process of trying to get students in school and keeping
058them there and so we're excited about it Johnston uses this platform we've talked to Johnston fairly regularly over the last few months to see um their pros and cons about it and so there are more Pros about about it then there were cons um and so we'll start that pilot here in the spring and see how it goes Haron County Schools will receive the state's first ever Legacy award for our work as a military friendly District representatives from ncdpi will be here at our May or June board meeting to present that award and we'll keep you updated on that and finally a huge thank you to Harnet Central Middle School for having me as a guest speaker at their black history programs last Friday the program was great and a big shout out to Mrs
059black Mr Davis and the entire staff for doing a great job of pulling everybody together and working together those students were well behaved and it was just a really good time this concludes my student Support Services report for this evening unless there are any questions other questions from Mr White not anymore think you had a few but you answered them so that good thank you Mr White moving along to Financial Services report and Mr Cox thank chair pal members um here are a few things that we recently happened in finance or we have going on for the month of March um we successfully processed another payroll for our staff last week um I know they appreciate that stiens for additional letters modules that teachers have completed it will be paid uh the month of March
060um speaking of payroll our payroll uh folks have been working on getting payroll system set up for summer programs that you approved uh last month at the board meeting there we're also working up working on cleaning up the payroll system for leave balances that have expired based on North Carolina General statute for teachers who have terminated employment with Harnet County schools and did not pursue employment with other public school districts and transfer that leave um last week we also met with Mark 3 who was our provider for supplemental insurance benefits to begin discussing the upcoming supplemental insurance offering for our staff um for next school year that open enrollment period has been set from April 28th to May 9th the only changes they recommended on that call were the providers was to increase um our
061employer paid and voluntary life insurance by one cent per thousand of coverage um we'll also be having some follow-up meetings with them and their representatives to ensure that these benefit offerings are the best that we can currently offer our employees before accepting what they presented um Mr Matthews and I have a meeting later this week to further discuss the superintendent's recommended budget and we'll have more to share at the Mark work session and the budget will be the superintendent's budget in the closer line to the board priorities um the smoother the budget process go so with that said any priorities that the board has that you would like for the superintendent considered please reach out so we can consider those as we were working on our budget prep um and a reminder for the budget
062calendar that uh you approved last month March 17th uh at the work session we will have budget discussion uh currently scheduled for the superintendent recommended budget will be the April 7th meeting um if it follows Trends from last year uh we pretty much talked about it March at the March work session we brought any recommendations back to you at that April board meeting and approved uh took the superintendent's budget and turned that into the board budget at that same meeting um don't have to follow that process but that's what how it worked out last year if it doesn't work out that way then we'll have to schedule additional meeting because we don't have an April work session um to approve the board uh the budget as the board's Budget on May 5th the intent is
063to have the budget delivered to the Commissioners and then we'll follow up with a to be determined date to actually meet as a joint session with the Commissioners to present the local budget and the local budget priorities of the board um and that concludes my report unless you have any other questions any other questions thank you Mr Co next we have our public information officer report Miss frell chairman Powell members of the board and Community good evening I'm excited to share this month's public information update highlighting moments we've celebrated across the district and previewing what's to come at the beginning of each school year the public information office provides all School administrators with the district celebrations calendar that includes information on special observances and holidays this calendar can be used to plan scho school activities
064and incorporate these dates into instructural activities in ways to stimulate and broaden student learning this past month we had the opportunity to recognize the following Black History Month honoring the past inspiring the future Harnet County School celebrates the change makers and achievements resilience and contributions of black leaders innovators Harnet Central Middle School hosted a black history program and fashion show assistant superintendent Mr White was a guest speaker Dum Middle School will hold a black history Bowl to commemorate the achievements of black leaders in history and Highland Elementary's fourth grade students will host a musical assembly with a wax museum of prominent black leaders CTE month to took place and so during our February board meeting our CTE director Miss Hardy presented highlights from our CTE Department Community as you know CTE programs prepare students for
065high demand careers equipping them with Real World skills and handsone training national hot breakfast month took place a Nutri a nutritious breakfast fuels our students daily for Learning and success our dedicated School nutrition team works hard every morning to serve warm healthy meals to keep our students energized during the day love the bus month February is nationally recognized as love the bus month schools and communities across the country come together to honor the iconic yellow school bus and the dedicated drivers who transport our students safely every day our transportation department did an amazing job highlighting many of our bus drivers on our social media pages so when you see a bus driver just go ahead and give him a smile National School counseling week took place February 3rd through 7th during this week we celebrate
066the incredible impact of our school counselors Middle High School and Elementary School who support guide and Inspire our students daily we appreciate their DED our dedicated counselors for their commitment to Student Success for our athletic Spotlight in February we spotlighted The Hornet Central swim team The Hornet Central High School swim team represented the district at the February ncsaa 3A swim meet congratulations to all of our swimmers the cni team has had a lot of success with HCS this past month and held many special programs including middle all all count Band Middle School first Lego league and our high school cores along with many other events tonight we are highlighting our spell and be Champion um during in our spelling be each School crowned a spelling be champ and these talented students competed for a district
067title congratulations to our spell andb champion Antonella Guzman from Highland Middle School we are proud to celebrate the incredible spelling skills of our students Miss Wendy Nash and the cni team did an amazing job and had a room full of support from the community as we look ahead to this month we have even more exciting things on the horizon as you see our Harnet County School's job fair will be held um on March 31st from 4: to 6 at the haret county libraryi and Resource Center please follow our social media Pages for more information on how you can join our team and love it here horned Off Broadway we are celebrating music and arts in our schools don't miss this year's haunted Off Broadway performances celebrating music and arts education Mark your calendar and grab
068your tickets go ahead and get your phones out um and scan our QR code for tickets um the program was initiated over 30 years ago to encourage creativity and effective teaching and to increase the cooperation between our community and the public school system so every dime that we receive goes to classroom learning through our minig grants that we give out to our teachers board members thank you for your time okay thank you does anyone have a question for Miss frell okay thank you Miss frell okay moving along to act uh number item number 12 consent agenda items and I'll entertain a motion motion to approve consent agenda Mr chairman we have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes i abat i g i hearing on N votes the motion
069is approved moving along to action items our first action item is the review and consider approval of structured cabling for Western Harnet middle and high schools and Miss Bird good evening Mr Po and members of the board the harck County School's digital teaching and learning Department would like to leverage eate funding to replace the structured cabling inside of Western Hornet middle and Western Hornet High School for the next school year um this work is completely erate um eligible because we're filing under the state's contract um I use the vendors that they had already vetted and of all the vendors that we sent it out to we had two to respond um applied Network Solutions and Encore Technology Group and you can see the prices down below you can see the total cost what usack will
070pay what ncdpi will pay and what Harnet County Schools will pay Harnet County Schools is zero as you see so that's the reason we want to leverage the state's contract with that and so we recommend that um you approve for us to move forward with Encore Technology Group okay and this will be at no cost to us just for the record none whatsoever thank you okay Mr chairman I'd like to make a motional approval for struct cab for Western Hornet midle land high school as presented okay I'll second we have a motion and a second is there additional discussion just a point of clarification that's the Encore Technology Group correct yes sir is that your motion Mr gfer Encore Technology Group yeah yes sir okay any additional discussion or questions from Miss bird chairman votes
071I abat I gy I hearing no no votes the motion carries thank you m bird okay next up we have a review and consider approval of updated summer program dates Miss Ferguson chairman board you approve these dates at our last meeting but if you look at the highlighted and added it for the year to their schedule the highlight were the changes and we just wanted to have those changes approved by you also okay it's just to add the year round school to the reading Mr chairman I move that we approve the amended uh summer program dates second have a motion and a second is there additional discussion hearing none the chairman votes I AB G hearing no n votes the motion carries thank you next we have uh cons review and consider a joint resolution
072by the haret County Board of Commissioners at the Harnet County Board of Education regarding school buildings as voting sites and Mr Matthews yes uh chairman uh Power members of the board uh just uh you have before you the uh recommended re resolution U this initiated at the Joint legislative meeting that the Commissioners had at uh with our legislative delegation and shortly after the first of the year uh in which uh a request was made to the delegation uh to help us to give you the Board of Education the say over whether schools would be used for voting sites or not rather than the Board of Elections and they asked that uh the Board of Elections and the County Commissioners provide them with a joint resolution requesting such and that's what you have before you tonight
073I know there's been quite a bit of uh uh controversy and feelings expressed as to as that this was to remove schools from voting sites uh I would quote that the uh uh resolution actually says quote remove Harnet County Schools as voting places unless expressly consented to by the board of education so in other words you as the Board of Education would still have uh authority to Grant schools as voted sites if if you so determine so that's basically what I'm presented to you this uh this evening it was approved by the Commissioners on the 11th of February and I would recommend your approval as well read it in read it in first yeah he want you to read it if you won mind okay joint resolution by the haret County Board of Commissioners and
074haret County Board of Education requesting a local statutory Act that would remove school buildings as voting places whereas pursuant to NC General statute 163-182 as the Board of Elections retains the sole authority to establish alter discontinue or create new election precincts or voting places as it may deem expedient and whereas pursuant to NC General statute 1631 1229a the Board of Elections retains the sole authority to demand and use any school or other state county or Municipal Building or a part thereof or any other building or a part thereof which is supported or maintained in whole or in part by or through tax revenues provided and whereas the Board of Elections uses multiple Harnet County Schools as voting places for early and election day voting and whereas the Harnet County Schools as voting places for early
075and election day voting is disruptive to normal school operations and presents inherent health and safety risk for the students during school hours due to the access and presence of the general public on school grounds and whereas pursuant to North Carolina State Board of Elections numbered memo 222-2548 and whereas the Harnet County Board of Commissioners here and after referred to as the Board of Commissioners and the Harnet County Board of Education here and after referred to as the Board of Education desired to remove Harnet County Schools as voting places unless expressly consented to by the Board of Education and whereas the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education recommend that the Board of Elections use public or privately funded buildings other than schools or to provide or procure by loose other suitable structures or parts thereof
076in which voting may be conducted in haret County now therefore be it resolved that the Harnet County Board of Commissioners and the Harnet County Board of Education jointly request that a local act be adopted for the benefit of haret County whereby North Carolina General statute of conducting registration and voting of any primary or election and be it further resolved that this joint resolution be forwarded to those General Assembly Representatives who serve Harnet County adopted this 11th day of February 2025 by Harnet County Board of coners Commissioners met niichel chairman thank you Mr Matthews Mr chairman I move that we approve the joint resolution as presented now second we have a motion and a second Is there further discussion further discussion hearing none chairman votes I AB I gaining no God for with a four to
077one four eyes one a the motion carries next we have review and consider approval of Flatwoods Middle School bids for project chair P members of the board in your packet you see the uh the bid tabs which is essentially um we received all the bids for the various subcontractors for Flatwoods middle school as well as the GMP greatest maximum price um so probably of greatest interest to you there is the greatest maximum price that metcon has tabulated all the bids and they they see Flatwoods Middle School costing 77 m738 6083 for construction uh this is what they're saying is they guaranteed maximum there are a number of contingencies in there that we feel like do give us some good uh protections so first action is to approve this guaranteed maximum price that they have provided
078okay I entertain a motion Mr chair I move that we approve the greatest maximum price uh the metcons provided as presented have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes I abat i g hearing of n votes the motion carries okay and next we have uh review and consider approval of Flatwoods Middle School change order Mr Pearson so this change order is related to the contract with metcon um now that we have approved a guaranteed maximum price our contract obligations with them would change and so the original contract of $382,500 and bid services this new contract change order would include that guaranteed maximum price so that it is their pre-services that they've already provided plus the construction services make a motion appr Mr chair second have a motion and a
079second Is there further discussion I'm sure this will be the first of many probably so based on our past history definitely chairman votes i abat i g i hearing no n votes the motion carries and I'll entertain a motion Mr chairman I move that we go into Clos session pursuant the general statute 143 31811 A1 A3 and A6 to prevent the disclosure of confidential Personnel files under gs15 c321 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 in a second there additional discussion chairman votes i i i the motion carries we are now in closed session e e e after a motion in a second we're now back in Open Session uh Mr Duke
080thank you Mr chairman uh it uh I just like to announce that there have been uh three settlements and I want to put those uh in the record the first that the board settled in JVG versus the harn County School Board um the agreement uh included a reimbursement of $9,000 and confidential non-monetary terms um the second was uh HB versus the Harner County Board of Education uh that agreement uh resulted in reimbursment of attorney's fees um and again confidential non-monetary terms and then finally that there was a bond issue uh State versus Serrano that was reached an agreement to foro the board's Appeal on that Bond forfeiture and that has been settled satisfactory for $2,500 so I want to make those announcements Mr chairman okay thank you Mr Duke now the board the chair rather
081recogniz as Mr Matthews thank you Mr chairman uh Mr chairman board it would be my recommendation uh for the uh appointment of Dr Maria Mano as an assistant principal in the vacant position at over Hills High School Mr chairman pursuant to the recommendation from Mr Matthews a move that we appoint um the candidate to assistant principal at over Hills High School second have a motion and a second Personnel item chairman votes I AB I motion is approved is there anything else that'll do it for me Mr chair thank you I entertain a motion I a motion toour Mr have a motion a second all in favor say I I we are a jour