001like to call this uh Friday the November the 17th 2023 special meeting to order uh first uh item on the agenda of course is to Let's approve agenda can I get a motion to approve the today's agenda motion to approve have a second we have a motion to approve on a second any discussion hearing n take the vote those in favor of adopting using today's agenda please signify by say I I opposed hearing none motion carries the purpose of today's meeting is to hold interviews for the osot County Board of UC education General Council request for proposals for Legal Services went out September the 5th 2023 we had five legal firms to respond by the October 6 2023 due date uh for those rfps all Board of Education members have had an opportunity to review
002the rfps and today members of the board will be able to ask questions posed to each of the five legal firms as each firm is interviewed Board of Education members are asked to rate the responses using the 5 through one rating scale which you have in your packet five being the highest the most favorable ranking and one being the lowest the least favorable ranking each firm has 45 minutes to respond to the 11 questions that we have before us here those questions were sent uh to each of the five firms uh uh several days ago so they'd have an opportunity to prepare after the 11 questions which is uh we have the 45 minute period will that'll be followed by a 15minute break for each member scoring Andor reflection and to take care of personal
003needs M Ramsey will total each scoring sheet and calculate an average score for each firm results will be reported to the board members at the end of the interviews after all five firms have been interviewed and score sheets tabulated board members will deliberate and a decision will be made all right today our first uh firm to be interviewed will be the Vogal Law Firm PLC and uh just again we will have our timer in in an action here we have as you can see in the bottom corner of the screens that you see here we have 45 minutes so I do ask uh each firm to just be aware we we got the time posted just be aware as you respond to the 11 questions just be cognizant of your time we'd like to of
004course do all 11 questions for sure so just be aware and we may even help you with uh that that time frame just to make sure we get all the 11 questions taken care of so I think what we'll do just to kind of spread the responsibility around we'll just uh start with Mr Rogers and Mr Rogers if you can ask the first question uh Mr Garvey the second question and so on we'll just rotate and then um as as we go through of course board members if you'd like to make any notes of course that's certainly uh your option But be sure to score each one either as you hear or at the end of the 45 minute session whichever you prefer are there any any questions everybody clear okay let's let uh Miss
005Crowder let's let the 45 minutes begin and uh Mr Rogers okay good morning we're just going base off of yes okay um all right okay tell us about your firm in terms of what services you offer areas of expertise Etc and articulate why you would like to serve as enle County Schools general counsel thank you for your question um if it's okay with the chair I'd like to uh reference a PowerPoint presentation Absolut helping me to answer that first question which is a a general question but good morning everybody good morning morning morning morning chair Mr Vice chair and uh and the board it's a pleasure to be here pleasure to kick things off for you this morning I know you've got a lot of uh interviews a lot of law firms and uh we're
006happy to be your first one and excited to be here and speak with you um I'm Jonathan vogle the managing attorney of the Vogal law firm and we're going to talk to you about uh things and we're going to answer Mr Rogers first question and I want to start off by saying that um the law firm represents clients in K through 12 and higher education and student loans and from the outset I want to tell you that we are here here today to pitch to you that we want to be your board counsel that is we've been watching some of your board meetings we've been following some of the news reports of your board meetings and other activities of the school board and what we are suggesting to you is that as a school board
007we think that you might need independent board counsel whose experience in education law so what we're presenting to you today is an opportunity to be your separate and independent board counsel and that you would have a different Law Firm who would work with the superintendent and the school district on day-to-day legal activities in other words that law firm would be doing the implementation Human Resources operations and the like and our Law Firm would be your board counsel providing you independent uh board counsel um this first slide up here has your faces on it because the focus again is on you so what we're talking about is being able to represent you at uh board meetings uh being able to represent you in connection with any uh board committees you may have and what we call
008board consultation and that is advice and counsel in between meetings you know very often that takes the form of conversations with the leadership the chair and the vice chair but it could also um involve conversations with uh with other folks on the uh board um as the board leadership uh deems uh appropriate in other words we would be your strategic legal advisers we would help you in representing the board in connection with third parties whether it be County Commission or other uh third-party uh stakeholders we would be there for you um and preparing you for and representing you at board hearings um we're talking about challenged book appeals and the like that might make its way that's happening in lots of school districts and school boards across the state there are board hearings as I'm
009sure you've seen for um recommend recommendations for employee terminations uh recommendations for student expulsions and various other areas where board hearings arise another important area where we would provide board counsel is board policies board policies are very important uh as a board and as a school district you're bound to follow the law you're bound to follow the US Constitution and North Carolina Constitution and any federal laws and state laws but the board policies are where you as a Bo board can put some of those things and where uh uh in writing and codify it and where the school district can have an easy easy access board policies are very very important because School District employees are looking to the board policies as for what their requirements are and how they should be implementing certain laws
010and then finally there's board training and professional development that could take the form of ethics and hearings uh and the and the like experienced um I have been a lawyer for almost 30 years um I've been practicing education law for the better part of 20 years um my experience in education law began in Washington DC as a councel as awyer to the uh Judiciary Committee and the US House of Representatives where I counseled them on issues regarding charter schools and desegregation court orders I was tasked then to work for the uh United States Department of Justice and the Civil Rights division where I was one of the top legal advisers to the head of the Civil Rights Division and then I was asked to be the deputy general counsel one of the top lawyers in
011the US Department of uh education where I worked on many issues that included uh K through 12 and Regulatory um actions um I've been a prosecutor in the US Department of Justice as well when I moved to North Carolina um 15 or so uh years ago working out of the Western District of North Carolina which is Charlotte and and Parts West uh so I've been a prosecutor as well and that type of experience both in government and in the private sector where I've worked for law firms and represented educational entities including uh School boards uh provides a certain amount of uh credibility um experience um You can call it expertise um and uh knowledge and credibility in advising uh clients on all sorts of issues uh Terry Wallace is someone who we hire to work
012on an as-needed basis Terry has been a lawyer for almost 20 years um he in his um in his separate law practice he uh represents Charlotte meinberg Schools he previously worked within Charlotte meinberg Schools in the legal department there where his Focus was primarily on human resources and other uh Personnel issues um he earlier this year won a very high-profile high stakes Title 9 lawsuit uh on behalf of CMS that went to trial uh these cases don't typically uh go to trial and I'll talk about Title 9 a little bit later uh in response to one of the other uh questions that you have but we're experienced lawyers so you know when I talk about being separate board counsel this differs maybe from what you have today and what some other school boards have today
013where they have a lawyer who's local to the county who's not necessarily an education law expert you know or someone who has focused on that and someone that's had the um experience from Washington DC and and things that that uh that we have um so we're talking about experience that that matters we will be proactive responsive and respectful and let me tell you what I mean by that um first of all we will um encourage and suggest regular calls with board uh leadership you know check-in calls we're not talking about anything that's timec consuming and and annoying but we have found that when you have a regular opportunity to speak there are things that are on on the client's mind uh and they're happy for the opportunity to have whatever it is 30 minutes 60
014Minutes it could just be 15 minutes to have a check in and say you know what Jonathan there's something I've been thinking about there's something I've been hearing about or something I've been reading about can you look into this and provide the board some some advice um as I mentioned earlier we're available to other uh board members as the board's leadership uh uh permits and sometimes that's very helpful because other board members can bring very good ideas and uh perspectives um to to the to the full board um I mentioned board policies earlier we will review board policies we will support any policy committee uh we will proactively examine your policies if you'd like us to proactively examine the policies and we will uh propose new ideas uh again we follow education law and policy
015on a daily basis uh this is what we do and sometimes we'll come up with ideas things that we're seeing things that we're hearing things that we're reading about that that you as a board might be interested in will be available it's very important to be available uh 247 um by cell phone uh to immediately respond we know that things come up um at at strange hours sometimes and sometimes there are very urgent matters that need to be addressed regarding uh school safety you know and the like um you can count on us to to respond we'll be there for you 247 and we will always keep in mind that you the school board are our client and you have a mission to help students and families and so we will give you advice and
016we will work with you in a way that always respects the rights of families students as well as staff we're not coming with our own agenda we're coming with the hope with the desire to help you to help you achieve what you want to achieve we're going to be client focused which Builds on what I just said um we're F we're solely focused on education law we're going to advise you on legal and policy initiatives right you can call us your strategic you know legal advisers right we're there for you uh giving you the independent legal advice um the uh superintendent and the staff and they're working hard and they have very important ideas that they're going to bring to you as a board and we are not suggesting that that should be decreased or
017diminished in any way what we're suggesting is that separately there's a very important role for a law firm to play in providing the board independent uh legal advice we represent fewer school boards so we're able to provide individualized attention right we're not looking to represent as many school boards as as possible that's not our business model and when we counsel you we're counseling you on the importance of legal compliance and risk mitigation and what we mean by that is following the law because you're supposed to follow the law and you're sworn to follow the law and also ensuring that you're doing things and you're making decisions in a way that minimizes your exposure and I don't just mean lawsuit exposure and dollars there's you know bad publicity exposure there's um the risk of families leaving
018the school district um with the uh recent expansion of the um Educational Opportunity scholarship program there's going to be increased competition for students like school boards have never seen before I mean we're we're about to enter a whole a whole new world and it's important for you to keep that in mind and we will keep that in mind as we provide you advice we will encourage transparency and accountability and again respect for Eno County families we understand and we have followed the issues regarding concerns of uh student and staff safety in the schools we know that generally there's always a concern among special education parents EC parents and the uh respect um that they that they seek we'll we'll get to that a little bit later in response to another question but these are the
019client Focus matters our last slide touches on cost savings and again I'll I'll mention a little bit later that legal services aren't necessarily cheap and when you're um when you're advised by someone who has um kind of specialized experience and and knowledge and at the US Department of Education US Department of Justice um there's a little bit of a of a of a cost to it but even still what we propose to be your independent board counsel uh one way to do it is to put us on a uh monthly you know flat fee where uh you have unlimited hours um everything's included uh including uh travel um uh for a flat fee of let's say $112,000 and uh that's one way to do it another way to do it is is hourly billing where
020the lawyers keeping track of every email every phone call every everything like that um we've done that and we're we're happy to do that too but what we find is if there's a monthly flat fee then you as a board are encouraged to contact us right you don't have to think twice before calling us or emailing us or or anything like that because it's it's it's all included and I think it's a good deal um considering that in the past with the Irwin Law Firm you had a deal where uh their monthly uh minimum was was even higher and then you had uh other law firms that that you were using uh with respect to implementation and and we're suggesting that you still use a separate law firm with respect to implementation but we think
021in all it's going to uh come out to your uh benefit financially as well and financial considerations are obviously important you are accountable to the people and and and to the taxpayers um but what's also important is is getting it right and getting the right advice from people who have um special experience I did make some notes about the questions I wanted to get through that PowerPoint I do think it was responsive to Mr Roger's question um but I want to note that you know in asking the question of who we are um as the managing attorney of the firm I want you to know that in addition to the government experience I've worked in the private sector with amlaw 100 law firms that are some of the you know largest law firms in the
022country as well as I've worked in the corporate legal Departments of Bank of America and a publicly traded education uh company now I left the corporate environment some years ago to launch an education Law Firm because I saw a need to restore excellence and legal compliance to education and then during the pandemic I additionally saw a need to respect the legal rights of parents and to ensure transparency under the law with respect to public K through2 we represent School boards and School District um and as I noted we want to represent uh your school board as your uh board counsel um as I noted earlier you'd have a separate law to work with Dr Collins on day-to-day School District issues uh that law firm would support the school district with implementation and our Law Firm
023would work with the board on the big picture issues policies transparency accountability things that would include academic achievement student safety teacher pay appropriate books bathroom and locker room issues athletic teams and other issues on which the public expects you the board uh to lead now we've spoken to board members from all over North Carolina and they tell us that The Establishment education law firms have a tendency to serve the superintendent's needs but not necessarily the board's needs and we want to serve the board by providing you the independent legal advice that you need to best serve the families and the community of enlo County now just to be clear we're not bmer merching um Dr Collins or the staff or anything like that Dr Collins plays an incredibly important role in the school district you
024don't need me to to tell you that but he's indirectly accountable to the people and you as you as the board you are directly accountable so you could think of it like this when you need surgery your general practitioner is not the one who performs the surgery rather you hire a surgeon someone who has specialized knowledge and in this case we're a firm that understands uh you know where you want to go and where you're coming from uh we want to uh help you accomplish what you want to accomplish what I'm saying is we're in touch with uh the changes in in education law in the last few years we're in touch with needs of this you know um evolving and increasing uh you call it a parents rights uh movement and the and the
025Quest for uh more transparency and accountability and that's where we want to help you things have changed a lot in K through2 public education over the last few years uh and we're a firm that wants to help you navigate through those uh choppy Waters uh we again we'd focus on providing you legal advice uh to help you accomplish your goals as a board issues of academic achievement student safety instructional materials and the lack uh bathroom locker room issues sports teams so I hope that answers your question Mr Rogers thank you right you're welcome Mr Garvey excuse me um has any member of your Law Firm formed and established relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity and or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence their vote for your firm since proposals
026began being accepted if if so who when and why no all right so that's an easy one the answers are are no and no missy okay okay number three um does your Law Firm represent individuals groups or entities who are associated with members of the Eno County Board of Education no the answer is no another another easy one all right question number four what role does national state or local politics play in your ability to resolve issues among and between stakeholders and the school system thank you for your question Mr chairman um K through2 education has become politicized it seems but we want to assure you of this politics plays absolutely no no role in our ability to provide the board with legal advice uh we pledge to provide legal advice to the board without
027any regard to politics in other words you won't get a republican answer or a Democratic answer from us you will however get something that differentiates us from The Establishment education law firms from which you'll hear today you'll get from us a range of options that fall within the bounds of the law as opposed to getting only the one option that the particular Law Firm or a particular staff member would want you to consider we will give you a range and we will advise you on which of your options might have a stronger or weaker basis in the law and then we will let you decide which option to pursue now you might think that that sounds very unremarkable but we've spoken to board members from around the state who tell us that that that is
028remarkable that too often they believe that they are not given the full range of options they believe that the law firm that they uh use is pushing them in a in a certain direction whether that law firm you know is ideologically driven or that law firm is espousing a view that the staff wants them to espouse and they're not giving you um your options your full range of options words they're not independent counsel for you and that's why we want to be your independent uh board counsel we want to give you the full range we're not going to push you one way or another we're going to give you the full range explain to you the strengths and weaknesses of the various legal positions and then let you decide we might make a recommendation we
029might say this is a stronger position or based on how we understand you as a board view transparency or accountability or whatever the issue is here's what we recommend but the decision the decision will will be yours and you'll have the full uh slate of options your question mentioned um stakeholders uh stakeholders uh parents I should say are the most important stakeholders for any school board because they are the board's customers and considering the recent expansion of the opportunity scholarship program to provide every North Carolina family regardless of income with funds to attend private school the school board's focus on families is even more important we know that a parent's focus on his or her child education and safety at school transcends politics everyone wants their children to learn and everyone wants their children to
030be safe it doesn't matter what political persuasion you have but we do recognize as I mentioned earlier that K through2 education has become politicized and as a result we will be mindful of the political considerations for example at the federal level we're mindful of the political divide on Title 9 and the use of bathrooms and locker rooms as well as issues ises relating to athletic teams and participation and at the state level we're mindful of the politics involved in the recent enactment of the parents Bill of Rights and the fairness for women in sports act as well as with respect to funding at the local level from which school boards derive about 25% of their funding we are mindful of how local politics could impact the board's funding thank you Mr chairman all right Mr
031Williams can you please share an found upon in a detailed way some specific examples or approaches and outcomes handled by your firm regarding matters related to one challenged controversial books and two issues related to Title 9 absolutely and thank you for your question um we have handled these types of issues and we've handled these types of issues recently I want to be clear that I I cannot and I will not divulge any confidential uh information or confidential Communications between us and and other uh clients that we have um but a lot of these things uh are are public um a couple of months ago uh in our representation of another school board uh that board conducted uh a hearing following a parents unsuccessful challenge uh of a book uh that was made at the school
032level by the parent and uh when that was denied the parent took it up to the school district level uh and that was denied uh so there ended up being a hearing at the um at the board of education level it was uh the most publicized issue that that school board uh handled the entire year and it attracted a lot of community response um to put it mildly um so these are very very important issues and we've handled these issues we advise that board with respect to its published board policies and procedures uh to conduct a hearing um in order to provide the board with its options or I said we advise them as to whether to conduct a hearing um with respect to its options regarding the logistics of how to do such a
033hearing so for example um the board had an initial decision to make and it was public with this that it had an initial decision to make about whether to even entertain the appeal it had the option whether to just you know not entertain the appeal because it was a discretionary um appeal not a mandatory appeal for them and if they were going to hear the appeal then they had the option whether to hear it in a public hearing like in this room or whether just to review the relevant documentation and and make a decision on the papers um and ultimately the board uh voted an open session to entertain the appeal and to have a and to have a a public hearing uh we also researched for the board the applicable legal standard under state
034law um for these types of challenges and there is a a state statute that is on point uh with respect to to these types of uh book appeal uh challenges when it makes its way up to the board and the different factors that the board looks at and we researched the uh First Amendment issues and how the federal courts have looked at these uh types of issues as well um and we advised the board at a very early stage and we repeated Our advice to the board on the applicable legal standard um in fact during the um public hearing on the um on the book appeal uh as the board attorney I even from the said it out loud what the what the legal standard was and just so that you're not you know wondering
035you know what it is it's um it's in the state statute and it's derived from a Supreme Court case which wasn't uh necessarily clear that that this was the standard but different courts have uh interpreted that Supreme Court case that uh for a certain standard and our legislature has codified that the standard is that you can remove a book you as the board can can remove a book if you believe that it is uh educationally unsuitable pervasively vulgar or not appropriate for the age grade level or maturity of the students so that was the legal standard that the that the school board um had and we advised them um we also advised the board and we stated this in the open session that the board had options within its policies and procedures as to what
036it would do um in other words um it could decide that the challenge material should be retained um in other words deny the parents challenge uh the board could remove from the school district uh the book entirely or it could remove it to another school level let's say instead of Elementary School move it to a middle school level for example or the board can restrict its availability in some other way these were options that the board had for itself and its policies and procedures and so our role it was very important for us to ensure that the board understood what its options uh were and then allow the board to make the decision ultimately the board decided to conduct the public hearing as I said I think it gave each side 15 or 20 minutes
037to uh to make their case and by each side we're talking about the parent on the one hand and the school district the superintendent and his uh design on the other hand the board asked questions and ultimately the board made a decision the board's decision was to remove the book from the curriculum uh but to keep the book in the school's media Center you might say that's a you know a compromise approach of of some sort but that's the decision that the the board reached in in that matter um that matter was very busy uh a lot of research a lot of advice a lot of conversations with the board as a whole in closed session providing advice and uh with the uh board leadership so the board leadership kind of understood you know how
038how this would work and would prepare for the uh for the hearings um there haven't been many of these types of hearings um across the state historically but they are popping up more and more now and so it's important for the board to be prepared for that important for the board to have legal counsel who has experience with that as we do the other part of your question Mr Williams uh regarded uh issues related to Title 9 the title 9 issues that are challenging right now involve bathrooms locker rooms and Athletics however the typical Title 9 student issue uh involves sexual harass ment or sexual assault federal regulations that were issued by the US Department of Education require school districts to take certain steps to ensure fairness and safety for both the complaintant that is
039the accuser and the respondent that is the person who's accused and our approach has always been toward advising with respect to Title Nine is to counsel the school district to respond to a report of sex discrimination including sexual harassment by closely following the Federal Regulations which should all be within your board policy and to otherwise ensure a prompt response that ends the Discrimination that protects the children Andor staff and works to prevent the Discrimination whether it be harassment or assault from reoccurring uh that goes to the uh standard of deliberate indifference um the courts have uh stated um that you cannot act in a manner that would be considered deliberate indifference which means that you need to act promptly in response to a report of sex discrimination now Terry Wallace who would uh support us
040um in providing uh board counsel as I mentioned earlier tried a high-profile Title 9 case all the way to a jury uh for Charlotte meinberg Schools in January and he won the issue in the case centered on whether the high school responded appropriately to the students's report of sexual assault assult that is did the school exhibit deliberate indifference it was um covered uh by the media uh if you Google it you'll see all sorts of Articles uh about it it was a a very uh sad situation of uh of two students that went off in the in the woods next to a high school and as the um as the complaintant uh testified um she was sexually assaulted um the issue in the case was not whether she was sexually assaulted the issue under title
041n for you is how you respond to reports of sex discrimination including sexual assault and sexual harassment and Terry Wallace uh litigating that case all the way through trial and winning trial has established himself as you know one of the top if not the top title n lawyer um in in North Carolina um you can just imagine the amount of preparation and and research that went into preparing that case all the way through to uh trial and he was uh successful of course for you knew we're not hoping for any lawsuits and trials what's important is and I could tell you this as a former Federal prosecutor is once you're in the trenches once you have tried cases um you see where it can go when things go sideways which puts you as the lawyer
042in a very good and important position to provide advice to the client as to how to avoid that right in other words we say we've been there all right we know what these what what happens we know how this plays out at trial here's our advice to you you to help you uh avoid it here's our training here's what we recommend training for you training for uh training for school administrators now with respect to bathrooms and locker rooms usage by individuals who identify as a sex other than their sex at Birth the law is evolving this is a really new area of Law and it's being played out in two different places and a lot of folks don't don't realize this I'm going to try to help you to understand this because this is relevant
043and it goes toward you know the experience that that we have the issue is being played out in Washington DC at the US Department of Education Office for civil rights where uh they are um issuing uh regulations uh they have not issued final uh regulations but they have issued a memo as of a couple of uh months ago uh excuse me a couple of years ago about how they're going to enforce it what they consider to be sex discrimination the current Administration views this issue differently than the prior Administration and we won't know uh for another 12 months or so who will head the next Administration that begins in 2025 um in the meantime the current Administration is poised to issue fed federal regulations that will for the first time state that discrimination on the
044basis of sex includes discrimination based on one's sexual orientation and uh gender identity the issue is also being played out in the courts and this is because Title 9 the statute provides plaintiffs an opportunity to sue school boards I just told you about how Terry Wallace tried such a lawsuit on behalf of Charlotte meinberg Schools and so you might say well you know why is that significant it's significant because the courts May reach decisions that are different from what the US Department of Education is reaching with respect to the interpretation of of Title 9 uh and courts might differ from each other so for example the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit which has jurisdiction over Title 9 lawsuits brought against School boards in North Carolina has spoken very clearly on the issue
045and has held that title 9 sex discrimination includes discrimination um on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation at least in the bathroom and locker room context but at least one other federal appell court the US court of appeals for the 11 circuit has taken the opposite approach so this is an issue that is you know we say ripe for US Supreme Court review there's there's no case right now that is going up to the US Supreme Court but we have what's we call a a circuit split right different Federal appell at courts that have jurisdiction over different parts of the country are coming out completely differently uh with respect to the interpretation of of Title 9 this is all to tell you that this is a very evolving issue a very important issue
046and it requires um Good Counsel and independent uh counsel SP you you are uh 11 minutes now so I just want to give you a little update on where you are okay thank you um the issue of athletic teams is another evolving issue I'll just say very quickly that the general assembly enacted the fairness for women in sports act that requires school district to separate teams by sex of the students uh their sex at Birth the office of civil rights has proposed a regulation that's going to get into this area as well uh so it's a very complicated area in which you need uh independent advice thank you okay all right Mr ler number uh question six Mr vogo what are the three most common Public School issues regarding exceptional Children's Services in education that
047your firm has seen across the state with the in the last three years with school boards and what are the ways you have helped navigate through these issues with constitutional federal and state legally binding Solutions thank you for your question um two of the uh common issues that we've seen you might expect to hear and one maybe you wouldn't expect to hear the two that I think you'd expect to hear is the impact of covid-19 and staffing issues um during covid-19 there were a lot of school district that had lapses in Services you know um uh like every other sector it was difficult to deliver Services during the pandemic particularly when schools were closed to students and students were confined to virtual education while the pandemic placed limits on the mode of services such as
048you know making in-person learning difficult it didn't alter the school district's legal obligations to deliver uh the services through virtual learning but during that very hectic time of of concern of Health uh and safety for students teacher and staff and the technological transitions that were made there were some lapses in services so we see that that's that's common and when that happens there's a need to provide what we call compensatory education services um that is you know acknowledge that uh Services weren't provided and there was some educational harm and to make up for that we're going to provide you some extra extra Services the other issue is staffing issues and I'm sure you know all about about this and your Human Resources folks know all about this it's a very tough time in the wake
049of the pandemic and Inc there's increased stress being placed on teachers um including EC teachers and maybe especially EC teachers um and because there are so many federal and state requirements uh in the EC Department regarding identifying students requiring specially designed instruction and requirements to conduct IEP meetings and implement the IEP meetings uh Staffing shortages hit hit very hard so one school district with which we've worked received a state a state complaint uh that was filed with DPI this is not a due process petition but a state complaint it's something different and it alleged that the Staffing shortages were getting in the way of the school district being able to provide uh services and that it was causing educational harm and in response to that the school district came up with a remedial measure that
050was required by DPI with our support and the school district devised protocols to address Staffing shortages so as not to be caught off guard by uh resignations and DPI accepted those remedial uh measures now the issue that maybe you didn't expect me to to mention are um uh that that reoccurring is communication issues with with parents uh we have found that most problems with parents that lead to investigations and lawsuits and complaints and bad publicity and phone calls to board members or problems with communication between the schools and uh the parents um and what we're seeing is that parents just want to be heard they want to be acknowledged and respected and this is not to say that uh that teachers and your your folks in the administrators of the school don't acknowledge or or
051or don't respect but I'm saying the the parents feel like they're not being acknowledged and they're not being not being respected um I mean there was a time before I was representing school districts where I was helping Public School parents and they would walk out of IEP meetings crying uh calling me on the phone and if you're walking out of an IEP meeting crying and calling a lawyer that's not that's not good for the school district so one of the things that we did was we recommended to the school district that it take some measures we recommended that the the school district put on its website encouraging parents to contact the EC Department including the EC director if they have any questions or concerns that way the things can be addressed and not escalated to
052an external uh complaint we suggested contacting uh the exceptional children's Assistance Center ecac which is a state designated nonprofit that works with parents provides assistance ecac was delighted to hear from me and organized a seminar within a few months uh training the school district's EC teachers and administrators on listening respecting uh documenting um and the like thank you all right uh question number seven good morning Mr vogle what do you see as your role or responsibility during board meetings my role during board meetings would be to support the chair in presiding over the board meetings as board attorney I don't preside over the meeting but I can and should assist The Chair by ensuring that the meeting is run in accordance with the Constitution federal state laws board policies and Robert's Rules of Order and
053this ensures fairness and it mitigates the risk of lawsuits and investigations um many uh board attorneys around the state sit at the dis with the board uh for the purpose of more easily being able to provide advice to the chair some even sit next to the chair which is something that is suggested but not required by uh Robert rules it's up to the chair it's completely up to the chair either way I would only interrupt uh the meeting by asking the chair if I could be heard and uh and if so then providing input that I determine was urgent I'll also be prepared to address on the spot any issues that are directed to me by the chair sometimes board members uh try to direct uh questions or concerns to the uh board attorney and
054I understand that but uh if the chair would like me to defer to the chair and wait to see whether the chair wants me to speak I would I would defer to the chair thank you okay all right we have question number eight Mr Rogers we are at 5 minutes and 20 seconds just to give you all right well I'll be quick uh what can you bring our school system that is unique from the other applicants um well we're unique we're a departure from The Establishment Raleigh based law firms uh the legal landscape in public education has changed and school B School boards would be well served to adapt to the new environment and that's where we come in we have unique experiences and perspectives we're doing things differently because we're we see things differently
055right it's a fresh perspective we understand what's happening in k through2 we understand and appreciate the emerging parents Rights Movement requiring more transparency and accountability from school boards and districts we want to help you we don't come with our own agenda we want to help you respond to these emerging things um we provide you the full range of legal options and we're not pressured or or hindered by what any particular you know person or outside um Force wants us to say or advise we're going to give you the full range of options and that's how we differentiate ourselves thank you okay okay all right Mr Garvey what role would you play in staying current with federal and state law that affect education and providing updates to ano County schools on current federal and state laws
056affecting education yeah thank you Mr Garvey we stay current with federal and state law regarding K12 through a variety of means we subscribe to alerts from the US Department of Education and DPI and the State Board of Education and the North Carolina School Board Association we attend legal conferences and web ARS throughout the year including those that are held by the School Board Association the North Carolina Bar Association the UNC School of government and the Carolina's academic leadership Network which is a new organization formed by the John Lock uh foundation and other groups providing networking and uh training we are on list serves with other education law attorneys and we follow uh developments on social media and social media gets a bad rap because a lot of bad things happen on social media but it's
057also a place where uh governmental entities and non-governmental entities are pushing out uh news and uh and policies uh and we would offer the chair an opportunity for us to provide updates to the board in Open session like General updates and maybe legislative developments if if the chair so chooses and we would provide updates in closed sessions um updates that would uh generally generate questions and the provision of legal advice that we'd only want to provide to you confidentially in closed session thank you okay okay one more to go after this one um what is your firm's greatest strength and what is your greatest weakness we'd say that our greatest strength is our uniqueness uh we don't shy away we embrace the fact that we are not one of the establishment education law firms that
058has been around for decades we're a newer firm that is more responsive to The Changing Times we bring a fresh perspective and commitment to providing the school board all options uh we don't Aspire as I've noted earlier to represent as many boards around the State as possible rather we want to provide individualized attention and legal services uh we're also the only firm presenting today uh with experience at the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice and civil rights and uh prosecution um if we have any weakness it might be that what we can propose to you is a good deal financially but but there's a premium for you know getting advice from someone who is specialized in this area and who brings experience from Washington and the US Department of Education there's
059just not another lawyer in the entire State who who can provide that to you um so that's so that's special I'd say also maybe a weakness is I'm sorry that we didn't Market ourselves to you sooner uh because I think that uh getting an independent board counsel is is really important um and getting it from someone who's not you know just a local person but someone who uh is focused on education issues and been doing it for the better part of of two decades is important uh but you can't blame us because the pandemic led to this rise of a parents rights movement that made it uh more apparent that school boards like enlo County need legal counsel that supports the board and is responsive to uh to parents needs more than ever thank you
060all right and our last question Mr fugle we got one minute is there anything else you would like uh us to know about your firm or is there anything else you wish we had asked you yeah well I guess these are my concluding remarks so thank you Mr chair for the opportunity um we're the first firm you're seeing today so please don't forget about us when you sit through the next you know 4 hours or so of of uh law firms don't forget about us we'd like you to ask yourself as you're hearing from the other firms um uh this morning and this afternoon wouldn't the board be best served to have its own lawyer its own Law Firm who's knowledgeable and who has experience at the US Department of Education uh to provide the
061board with independent legal advice that's what we want you to think about as you're listening to some of these other firms um wouldn't it be helpful uh for you to have that uh now we're sure that the other firms that you hear from that are part of the you know educational establishment are going to attempt I'll I'll I'll be brief I promise are going to attempt to uh scare you out of having your own uh board counsel I imagine they might say things like well having another you know Law Firm would just make things more contentious or be more expensive for the board but uh you have had more than one law firm uh for the last many years and several boards have have more than one Law Firm they have a a local lawyer
062that helps them with some things and they have one of these establishment law firms that helps them with implementation the HR issues the EC issues the operations issues uh so there's nothing you know wrong or extraordinary or or weird about it and and there's nothing that's going to be contentious about it and good go ahead and finish up Mr B yeah so let me let me finish up then but we will work tirelessly to serve the board's interests um law firms work collaboratively all the time uh and you can and should have two law firms and nothing in state law or your policiy is prohibited and you've had multiple law firms before um they might say the cost is prohibitive but the cost is not prohibitive because you've had multiple law firms and that there'll
063be a division of of responsibility so I'll wrap it up there and and uh thanks for the Indulgence because I went over a minute or so thank um and I want to uh thank all of you for your time and the opportunity to present to you today and please please please don't forget us just because we were first this morning uh ask yourself as you hear from the other firms wouldn't you be well served by having an independent uh Law Firm provide board counsel thank you very much for your time thank you thank you all right we had now have a uh have a 15minute break and uh we have some opportunity now to um Mark your uh your sheets and Miss Ramsey will uh come by and pick those up at the end of
064the end of the 15 minutes so all right thank you thank you like St outside Mr chair well I won't stay I just want to say thank you again thank you thank you all right welcome back um just a little announcement before we get started with our uh next firm uh farington Smith LLP um we are out of school so there's going to be a bell we you just heard the 10:05 Bell okay so don't be alarmed if when you hear a bell at 10:35 there's going to be a little gong like you just heard and one at 10:40 so just uh you if you want to pause a second then certainly that's fine um we have uh 11 uh questions and uh certainly some questions require more explanation than others so just be aware
065of the time we will post the time in the bottom corner of the screen and that screen over there if you want to periodically just take a look at at the time so uh next up is uh fingon darington Smith LLP and we're going to be asking questions uh one at a time if you'd like to use the podium that's fine if you'd like to use a table that' be good too the first question uh will go will be asked by Mr Rogers and uh we'll just go right down the line and just be aware of your time 45 minutes Rogers good morning morning um before I ask the questions I would like to get your names absolutely I'm Carolyn do I need to turn this on or can you hear me no oh okay
066great my name is carollyn merkus thank you Steve R thank you okay um tell us about your firm in terms terms of what services you offer areas of expertise Etc and articulate why you would like to serve as Eno County School's General Council thank you thank you so much um as I just said my name is Carolyn merkus I joined thanington Smith um in February 1st of 2000 and since I've been there the only clients I have ever had with the exception of a small community college for about six months back in 2001 has been local Boards of Education um I'm incredibly committed to the work that you do into the mission of serving our students as are the two folks sitting next to me and the other 19 lawyers that practice exclusively on behalf
067of boards of Education back at Arington Smith um from the materials we provided you think you are aware that our firm was established in 1964 at that time initially it was a primarily a criminal and civil practice it shortly thereafter added a family law practice and in 1978 uh we began representation of the Wake County Public Schools as well as the North Carolina School school boards Association and we have continuously represented them since that time um our education practice has since 1978 grown into the largest education practice in the state um we are very um blessed to be in The Firm that we're in you know I remember when I joined thanington Smith the thing that struck me most as a young associate is that there was not a courtroom that I could go into
068in the state where the judge didn't tell me how lucky I was to be able to practice with Wade Smith or any of the lawyers we we we were hear that all the time we would have other lawyers in the courtroom come up to me and let me know that I work in a pretty special place and I've since learned that it is a pretty special place um we have a commitment to Excellence that I don't think you always see um in practices we have um first tier ratings by the US News and World Report in all three of our primary areas criminal family and education and many of our lawyers including myself are listed in the best lawyers in America as I've already indicated our education practice is the largest in the state we
069represent as general Council over about two dozen school boards in addition to that representation we also have relationships much like the one we've had with you all for the last several years decades in which we do specialty work on your behalf while the board itself has local Council in some other capacity so we're very comfortable with that model and that can mean different things in different places and if that's a model that you all are still interested and remain interested after today we would be very comfortable moving forward with that as well well um absent local Council we provide the full gamut of services um we have and and I think the beauty of working with us is that we have lawyers who recognized are recognized by other lawyers in the state as being excellent
070and the person in the field to look to so we have resident experts you know we don't I myself don't need to know it all we have Rod Malone who is the expert in the state on school Construction Construction management construction litigation and bond forfeiture there isn't legislation that's introduced by the general assembly on Bond forfeiture that doesn't have Rod Malone in involved in discussions about what that might look like what the implications could be and so on and so forth Jonathan blumberg our most senior member in our practice um wrote the book uh figuratively and how to effectively guide human resources for Boards of Education specifically and that is on everything on the basis of how we assist boards and how we all assist boards in providing Personnel that's the structure of what we
071do and you're going to hear from Steve rosson uh a little bit later about how we do that because that's a big part of his practice but we do everything from developing strong Personnel procedures and guidelines conducting effective investigations training administrators on effective supervision and oversight um I joined sington Smith in 2000 as I mentioned my first U thing that I did in March of 2000 was my first special education hearing and I haven't looked back um I am really incredibly proud of the special education practice that we've grown at farington Smith um we are um Barn non the strongest education special education practice in the state and we are looked to as in all of these other areas not only to train boards and administrators and teachers but we routinely train other attorneys who
072represent local Boards of Education or aspire to represent local Boards of education so that they can be more effective in their roles and in what they do many other areas we've already gone through um you can see in there there isn't really an area we don't touch on a couple of very small exceptions we don't do a whole lot in Immigration um we do some in Immigration um but if you actually wanted to sponsor somebody say through an H um B1 Visa we would probably advise you to get an immigration lawyer up until recently we didn't do uh real estate transactions we have brought a real estate attorney into our practice so if you would like us to do real estate for you we certainly have the capacity to do that but there's not really
073very many other areas that we wouldn't be able to help you with um we also do insurance Defense work you all are members of the North Carolina School Board trust and we have been assigned by the trust to represent you and Steve rosson can talk about his great win on your behalf last year and the court of appeals which was a wonderful Victory Mara to my left is currently representing you in another matter and she can let you know about that as well um so if you were to choose us as your firm we could provide you with cohesiveness not only with all of the needs of the board or Administration but we also can handle all of your litigation all that said is our goal isn't just to give you top- knock Legal Services
074you know we know what your mission is you know you are public schools right we understand that that's your mission and we keep an eye on your role as a public school system so we want to provide our services to you in a way that's respectful of your time and the time of Administrators because we don't want to pull administrators and teachers out of the classroom it's way too important so we do whatever we can to avoid litigation and costly Ventures that are going to keep them away from students we also know that you do not have Bottomless Pits a bottomless coffers right you don't have money so we are very very mindful of that and we do not um provide services in which um that that involve two lawyers when only one needs it
075we like to write ourselves out of a job so we do a lot of training that of people who can then train their staff so Mara does an amazing job for instance of training people on how to do childt N9 investigations the idea isn't that you bring Mara in every time but that she gives that skill set to the people and in central office and then to administrators so they can then do an equally effective Ted online investigation and we're very very mindful of that so the last question why enlo well this is personal for me um I've been coming to Eno for over a decade and um you know you come to a community and you really start to care about it and I know I don't know any of you up there but
076I hope that changes I'd love to get to know you um but I have been working with with your special ed department for a decade I know the people in central office I've met many of your principles I've been in many of your schools I've known your teachers your speech pathologists there is just amazing people in this District um who are really dedicated to the mission of elevating your students and when you see good people you want to work with good people so that's why we're interested in this work thank you thank youber has any member of your Law Firm formed and establish L relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity and or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence their vote for your firm since proposals began being accepted if
077so who when and why so I can answer that very briefly no um I I in full cander to the board I will confess that I did greet several of you at the reception in Greensboro on Tuesday night uh and you may have a fingon Smith pen that came with that experience but other than that no get one of those I have some in my car if you I was left out of that social but my question is for you and good morning does your Law Firm represent individuals groups or entities who are associated with members of the Eno County Board of Education other than as Carolyn just said the board itself in certain specialty matters no you know and we do as she said we have a family law practice we have a criminal
078law practice that sometimes within the triangle area uh we may have some a crossover between clients and we have a very careful conflict avoidance process and procedures but uh we I would be stunned if any of their clients uh are are in enlo County uh at this time so no all right the fourth question is what role does national state or local politics play in your ability to resolve issues among and between stakeholders and the school system so I'll be a little less brief with this one all right um I focus on really two principles in response to this question the first is that your Schoolboard attorney should be nonpolitical um you are the elected officials that have been chosen by your community to guide this school system and decide its direction uh we are
079legal counsel and our job is only in that sense to make sure that whatever Direction you choose that we help you get there in a way that is legal and efficient and effective uh to meet your needs so we're very proud of the fact that as a firm we represent a wide variety of school districts around the state and that's not just the kind of stereotypical blue red divide I mean yes we do represent some of the bluest counties in the state and we represent some of the reddest counties in the state and they get the same high quality legal services from us um but in addition to that uh politics little PE politics it takes a much more complicated uh role particularly in public education and so that can be on Urban school districts
080and Rural school districts that have very different needs and we represent both and they both get high quality Legal Services um there are districts with significant military populations and districts with almost no military population and they have different needs but they get the same high quality Legal Services there are districts with 165,000 students in 200 schools and there are districts with three schools and 600 students and both deserve and receive the highest quality legal services from us um so so in that sense you know the politics to us uh are not relevant in that sense they that in terms of guiding our decision- making and our advice and our services uh the second principle though uh that that runs parallel with that is that knowing the community that we're serving is essential to doing our
081work well and that means being aware of those political issues and again not just red blue right but all of the complicated ways that local politics and educ education politics and County Commissioners may impact the advice that we need to give you and so we stay a breast of what's going on in the communities where we serve uh and and I know some of us keep um alerts on our phones that are uh uh directed to local news sources within the counties that we serve so that we know sometimes before we even get a call from the school system that there's been a bus accident in in in the town right and and we're already aware of that or that there's a there's a growing Community concern about a specific issue we do need to
082know about those things so that we can effectively advise uh the boards and we build relationships so that we can effectively advise uh but that's not about our politics it's not about uh us trying to shape policy decisions because that is not our role uh but rather being aware so that we are best prepared to provide uh the high quality legal services that each School Board deserves okay Mr Williams morning can you please share and expound upon in a detailed way some specific examples of approaches and outcomes handled by your firm regarding matters related to One Challenge controversial books and two issues related to title n thank you so I'm going to start with uh talking about the uh controversial book issues and then I'm going to uh see the floor tomorrow who's going to
083address Title Nine I mean as you can imagine um and as you know I'm sure the the book issue is a pretty hot topic these days um and our colleague Neil Remy who's another partner in The Firm this summer spoke at the North Carolina School boards Association Summer Conference on this issue and we have a memorandum that we're going to pass up to you if that's all right um which was something that he um put together and as a part of that and again that's only if you're interested but I think it is an idea of a sample of the type of work that we do and I think it because it's a topic that's of interest to you I wanted to share that with you so we'll go ahead and send that up we
084is if you'll give that to yeah uh let's let's do it let's let's do it at the end I think that'll be best yeah so our advice on this as you can imagine I mean boards as you know are comprised of individuals who have widely different thoughts about all sorts of topics and this is one that's pretty pretty hot right now and what advice we've given to other boards in any granular sense we can't really get into specifics because that would be attorney client privilage but I can share with you some larger Pi picture ideas of some things that we say to boards as a general rule you do have a statute in North Carolina that governs when and how uh boards may want to uh limit or remove items of materials from libraries or
085instructional material and that policy says there's three opportunities or for three reasons that would support a book removal that is if it is educationally unsuitable um if it's pervasively vulgar or if it's inappropriate to the age maturity or grade level of the students so those are the three issues now I also think that we can say pretty clearly that courts are likely to defer to Boards of Education in their decision to remove those items if they meet one of those three criteria like I I I think that's actually pretty safe to say on the other hand and this is where it gets a little tricky um there there are challenges sometimes and there's two areas where it can get tricky you you've got to make sure that you're removing the books for those three stated
086reasons you don't want to remove the uh uh books because of the ideas or the viewpoints that they that they represent because that is clearly patently constitutional um and you don't want to remove books for a basis that is an unconstitutional basis even though you're stating one of the positions that are in the statute that would be pretext so you want to avoid pretext and to avoid that our guidances it's extremely important that boards have a clear policy on how you handle book challenges and that you scrupulously follow that policy and how you implement it and that's the best way to insulate yourself from challenges that your motives are pretextual and I'm happy to talk more about that if you're interested in terms of our title n work most of the attorneys if not all
087in our section have at this point assisted a school system in navigating a Title Nine investigation sometimes those title mind matters pertain to student on student claims of sexual harassment and misconduct sometimes they involve staff um and therefore I find that I'm relying on lots of different offices in kind of your Central Services office when I'm assisting a client in navigating those matters like Carolyn mentioned we can't really get into the weeds certainly of specific cases we've handled but I can say that many of the cases I have handled have involved school systems facing claims of sexual misconduct by students regarding other students or staff members in many of those cases that's triggered some form of mandatory report so reports made to law enforcement and I've advised clients on navigating conducting their own robust investigation
088and then based on the contents of a complaint from a complaintant following their title n policy ensuring that both parties have notice an opportunity to be heard and that the FactFinder is really aware of all the key information to make a determination as to whether sexual misconduct and violation of the policy has occurred I've also worked with school systems to ensure that their relationships with local law enforcement remain intact and strengthened during that process oftentimes law enforcement has concerns about ensuring that they can get inform information from Witnesses quickly and that the school system doesn't delay that process or otherwise impact the Integrity of information they get um and I found clients really happy that our firm has significant experience working with law enforcement on behalf of school systems to kind of bridge that Gap
089we also as Carolyn noted at the outset really look at ourselves as folks who are there to pick up the phone when a complex case arises but also folks to give you on the front end really clear procedures or practice pointers that staff are able to implement independently and with less and less assistance over time from us that not only respects your financial resources but I think it also really ensures that in areas like Title 9 and areas like other discrimination and harassment claims under title 7 your staff at the central office are better and better educating their colleagues out at school sites who are really on the ground seeing potential violations and are really going to be the first point of contact when a complaint is raised um several clients have asked to crib
090PowerPoint sides that we've provided for tit on line presentations I have no pride of authorship and encourage clients to use those share them with principls and other staff they're working with so that at the end of the day they have a really defensible record underlying any Title Nine investigation they've done so if they do face litigation later they have a defensible position in court thank you okay Mr M L what are three three most common Public School issues regarding exceptional children's services and education that your firm has seen across the state within the last three years with school boards and what are the ways you have developed or have helped navigate through these issues with constitutional federal and state legally binding Solutions only three um so you know I say this principles all the time
091you know when you are thinking about where you are most vulnerable financially it is in the realm of special education you are most likely as a principle to find yourself in litigation in a special education matter Baron than any other area um and it is a really complex area of law it is hard to navigate it is hard to implement um and the obligations of schools are really really high so I really appreciate this question because I think sometimes we think only about or we start first about thinking about general education but special education is just so very important and such a integral part to how a well well effectively run school is maintained um that being said I don't think there is anything about special ed that hasn't been impacted by the pandemic and
092is still being impacted so the remnants of the Fallout from the pandemic are really pretty crucial to how I'm going to answer this question number one Mental Health crisis of our students I mean our students are suffering we're seeing far more people struggling with depression and anxiety and all sorts of issues that go along with mental health issues um and that is trickling down into our schools the very first part about that is I would say is how that impacts our schools is we see more and more challenges by parents um for placement in private schools because their children are having a mental health crisis and those placements are not cheap um thankfully they have not come to Eno yet I know because we manage a special ed workk but almost every other client has
093seen them we have children that are going not just to private schools in The District in which they live but to schools in other states and all the way Utah Idaho Connecticut you name it and then there's an expectation and a lawsuit following that here is a child that was suffering maybe during the pandemic may maybe immediately after you did not pick up on it you didn't refer for testing he's now or she now is in a private school we want you to pay for it that is a huge costly burden for districts to one defend those cases they're very very tricky they're called child fine cases it's whether or not you've really picked up on the signs initially and um and it's and it's really scary to folks when we start talking about them
094because of of the implications for the district because these schools are so very expensive so I think being able to recognize and council districts on here are some red flags that you can look for um if you see a child that has come back from a a institution maybe just for two or three days maybe they have had a mental health crisis historically folks may say we don't ask about that right that's medical well now I say don't don't not ask about it absolutely reach out to the parent is there anything we can do do you have a new diagnosis is there anything that we need to do to support would you like us to meet to talk about whether or not there's additional needs we need to address we want to be proactive about
095that helping people recognize that we have some level of responsibility um trying to help people think about the fact that instead of students just being disengaged maybe that's a sign of some other struggle that we're going to need to pick up on so we help at that end with these issues by simply through training our training in um well let me let me hold up on the training a little bit because I I I want to talk about they're all kind of together in addition to the mental health we also have as you know not only teacher retention but teacher vacancies I mean it is extremely hard to get good people in special ed and you know when you get them you want to hold on to them so having the number of vacancies that
096I I'm assuming you are experiencing as everyone else is puts a huge stress on as you education and your special education department and your ability to meet their needs under the idea um and so we work with districts to find creative ways to stretch your staff as much as possible right so that if you've got a vacancy that's a long-term vacancy say in a district level class that manages students with autism how can you make sure that they're getting um supp how do how can you bring in people who might be retired or people from another area um so that there's other people supporting that long-term sub you may have in there how can we ensure that you're actually doing data collection on the on the goals how can we provideing support are there Consultants
097that we have out in the area that we can bring in that can support that team who may be struggling frankly because they don't have a a certified teacher in the classroom so there's lots of things that we do on that front end um the third area that I think is really critical to how what's happening special deed right now is both discipline and behavior and when I say Behavior I don't mean just code of conduct issues I'm talking about children who have really significant behaviors in the classroom that are related to their disability um children who might have autism um there's more and more children with autism in the community I know that many CH families in the military come to enlo County because of the resources that they have on the base and
098so you have a an unusually large number of students with special needs here that goes for children with autism your uh your special education department is well ahead of the curve on this Ian they have for years had behavioral support therapists in their school system that have not been there in other places board certified Behavior analysts they they have some excellent programs in place so I think what how we support folks is on the front end we do training with uh our model for a special ed is is kind of comprehensive we start with regular meetings virtual telephone call that's set up at a pace and and at a time that makes sense for the district to go over the tricky situations things where how do we manage this we're having these conflicts with with
099parents over here or we've got this situation at this school how might we resolve that so we provide training and guidance on those individual situations with the central office staff and with maybe compliance folks and then once once they have that knowledge they can then apply it at the next level we also Pro provide training to administrators it's uh training that's really geared toward them How to Be an Effective Lea representative in IEP meetings and and what do you need to know to what do you need to know as an administrator in terms of things that you want to minimize or or focus on in your District in your school um if you will to minimize the risk that you will have due process you can't avoid due process but if it comes how can
100we be in the best position to support it so we support our principles we do training directly to teachers as well um so our model is really proactive we don't want to wait until something's wrong we want to actually work with your team to make sure that we're providing support in advance so that we minimize the chance that you're going to have litigation and honestly we are really proud of the fact that although we've been coming here for like I said probably 20 years there has only been one situation that has actually led to a due process hearing I'm really very proud of that and you should be proud of your team you have an excellent team who does a good job with your special education you okay um than thank you um what do
101you see as your role or responsibility during board meetings I think our most critical role at board meetings is really something that we do ahead of time and that's helped prepare uh the board chair Vice chair and staff will be presenting to board members and ensuring that the board has all the information it needs at the meeting to do its business right board meetings should be business meetings of the board where you all have information you have opportunities to ask questions and you have time and space to make admittedly challenging decisions the more preparation support we can give to central office staff in advance we find the smoother those board meetings go that can range from meeting with the board chair and and the superintendent before a board meeting a week ahead of time to
102talk through what's on the agenda maybe advise that some things go on the consent agenda if everybody's had a chance to review them and that's appropriate talk through whether some things should be moved to close session remind folks about the parameters for what can be discussed in closed session and what can't so that when the meeting starts my personal goal is always to say as little as possible in Open Session um I say more and I view it as my role to say more really inclosed session and that's where I think our firm's experience on really challenging employment matters and student matters allows us to proide provide really good critical guidance in the moment not necessarily because we knew that a Personnel matter was going to be discussed but because a really great question comes
103up and just wait okay there's that Bell right there's that Bell and we we know how to respond to it based on our experience I also am proud of the fact um that the practitioners in our section when we're in closed session providing updates on litigation matters I think we're particularly good at identifying in a blunt way for Boards of Education whether the case is going to be something we can defend or whether it is really going to be challenging to defend the case I pride myself and I've learned this from my colleagues at this table on really evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a litigation matter very very early on so that we can ensure the board has information about what the case looks like we can try to resolve it quickly and if
104we need to talk the board through its different options you know expensive protracted litigation settlement for this amount we're able to do that with a lot of cander and really based on knowledge not only of changes in the law but how different judges in different forums decide cases okay all right Mr Roger number eight right what can you bring our school system that is unique from other applicants so I think I I'll talk about three things specifically there are others but but I do want to respect y'all's time um and stay within the clock here the the first is I don't want to repeat what Carolyn gave you at the start but I want to highlight a couple of those things um that farington Smith is the longest practicing and the largest education practice in
105the state of North Carolina um that's just a fact and what that provides is a unique level of expertise um a unique depth of understanding not just of legal issues but of the school systems throughout North Carolina there are very few school systems operating in North Carolina today Public School Systems um that we have not at some point done some work for and built some relationships with um and so that depth and breadth of not just knowledge but relationships uh brings a unique perspective and a unique expertise that you're not going to find from anyone else the second thing I would highlight is um the the mission that we take on as education attorneys within thanington Smith which is that we are firm Believers in public education uh probably half of our section have been
106public school teachers um I was a middle school science teacher before I decided to be a lawyer the hardest thing I've ever done right being a lawyer is way easier um and and what and I know Mara was a teacher in Northampton and i e yes um and that brings several benefits one it means we went into law school in our career knowing what it's like in a school uh but two it means that when we walk into a meeting we have instant credibility with the staff there because we've been in the trenches with them um that that I can say yeah I've had this student before I've been hit by this type of student before I've tried to teach this lesson I've dealt with a parent like this um and and that's true not
107just of of those of us who were teachers but also the rest of our practice all we do is public education and we believe very firmly in it um and and we bring that to our work every day uh the third thing I would say is is related to that and that we is that we as a section within our firm have made the determination that we do not practice with Charter Schools um and that is I think another unique thing that you find with our firm it is public school districts County based and the few City Schools uh City systems that still exist but we found uh over the years that the conflicts that can arise with Charter Schools um and the tensions that can arise there uh could get in the way of
108our zealous representation and effective representation of our County based and City based Public School Systems so we made the decision that even though that business was available it was not something that we were going to pursue and and I think that is that has um improved and benefited our practice and benefited our clients as a result okay Mr Garvey what role would you play in staying current with federal and state law that affect education and providing updates to enzel County schools on current federal and state laws affecting education so it's easy for everybody in our section to stay current on changes in federal and state law impacting education because we all have a native interest in it and Natural Curiosity about it as Steve mentioned lots of us are former teachers many of us are
109parents of students who are in the public school system so what is happening in terms of federal and state law impacting the lives of students teachers and Boards of education is something we're just interested in learning more about okay should I think I think this Bell is attacking me a little bit this is twice during my time I I warned you you did you did for me um and what I'll also say is that all of the members of our practice are members of different associations have subscriptions to every Journal Under the Sun electronic and print so we get lots of updates and that's how we learn about and stay AB breast not just of changes and regulations or forthcoming statutory changes but what we can anticipate about those um this summer with anticipation of
110the parents Bill of Rights we put a lot of time and energy in our practice to thinking through what the legislation might look like and what advice we would give clients stemming from that legislation so that when the legislation hit we were prepared with a client memo that we sent out to all of our clients giving them guidance on really thorny and complex issues so we see ourselves as really immediately sharing our knowledge with clients we don't wait to be asked we try to impart any information we can as soon as we can um I think the other piece that's really valuable and really comes from the size of our section and breadth of our practice is that just as important is knowing about a change in the law is knowing about a change in
111how a court or a judge is interpreting that law or applying it so we'll invariably contact one another when we've got a case assignment we want some more information about how the judge has ruled in Prior cases how the judge has construed that law and we're able to give clients guidance that's really informed from that perspective as well what is your firm's greatest strength and your greatest weakness so I don't want to be rep itive um but but I guess I will be a little bit because I do think our greatest strength is our size and breadth and and that may be perceived as a weakness because it doesn't feel very um very intimate at at first blush but but I do think it is I 100% believe it's our greatest strength um it allows
112us to get in the Weeds on issues that are important to our clients in a way that if there was fewer of us we just wouldn't be able to we all have as as said inherent interest in public education but we also have inherent interest in specific areas of law that impact you all so my interest in special education runs runs deep right and and I can share that with colleagues whose interest might be first amendment or constitutional issues and vice versa so what that does for for you from your client's perspective is that you're able to get really really great advice on any area that might touch on you without me or the face of the attorney who you're going to be seeing in the meetings having to do all that legal research so
113it's incredibly economical for you because we have a a breadth of knowledge across many different areas of practice that impact education that we're able to access at moment's notice so I think that is actually our greatest strength is our size in terms of weakness um I don't know what our weakness is but I know what our perceived weakness may be um and I think that would be the fact that we're not local I mean I recognize that you all have worked with the same attorney for I think 32 years 36 36 okay I missed a couple that is a long time um and um and that's wonderful um so I can understand that there might be some hesitancy to think about what changing to someone who's not local what impact that would have on the
114day-to-day transactions on your principles in your schools and so on and so forth um but I actually think that um being not here is a is a huge asset to you all for reasons that Steve touched on before we don't get in the trenches in the local politics um and we can provide you objective advice the pandemic has taught us lots of things um but one of the things that taught us is how to do a zoom call right like we have gotten really good at that um and um and we are not far we're two hours down the road by car but we're instantly available um by telephone or by zoom and while you may not always be able to get me on the phone and I think we've put this in in the
115presentation materials and if you do select us I would be the one who would largely be working with you um there are 22 lawyers that dedicate entirely their practice of special EDS so we always have people that are always working with you you may I may be the face that you see mostly like most frequently but uh there there's going to be another person who's going to be working closely with your HR department there's going to be another person that's working um with some of your other folks in your um operations there would be a different individual so we're really able to give you really good advice quick quick feedback and I think that is only able to happen um because of our size and I think the distance from us um from you in
116terms of geography really shrinks down to nothing when we think about um how quickly we're able to be there I don't think you really need us to be in your schools instantly what you need is us to be available and we absolutely would be available at any time um I do want to stress that a little just a little bit I'm going to stand that for a little bit because the changing to a model where you're going to a a firm that is our size um Can Feel impersonal and we have heard that from other folks before um but I don't believe that working with us feels at all imp personal we do a we we want to be very intentional about how we have folks coming and working with you we try very uh
117we're very conscious about developing relationships and making sure that the same one or two lawyers as much as possible are working with the same group of people so that we do develop those relationship ship and it's actually what we really enjoy the most one of the one of the best parts about our job is the relationship that we build we don't want to remain strangers to the people we work with I mean we do our best job when we get to know each other and understand where we're all coming from so we work very hard at making our world feel much smaller than um than the distance it is between here and Raleigh okay and we're at 6 minutes and 50 seconds and our last question is there anything else you you would like us
118to know about your firm or is there anything else you wish we had asked you so I think uh Carolyn hinted that I would do this um and and I do want to talk a little bit about personnel and then I think I'm going to put them on a spot here but uh I thought it' be useful for you all to hear what the three of us each do individually just in of what boards we're involved with and what kind of work we do to give you a sense of that variety uh but from a Personnel standpoint um many of our clients are the largest employer in the county um and the their ability to manage their personnel to hire uh to train to retain and when necessary to shape and or uh part ways
119with are immensely important to the effective operation of the school system and a lot of our work goes into uh helping school systems navigate really complicated issues around human resources and and what I want to make sure that I share in this um is our ethos around those issues some people think okay call the lawyer because we have to fire this teacher and that happens it happens um but let's all be honest here applicants are not beating down the doors for a lot of our positions which means we've got to keep the people we have and we've got to make them better and we take that very seriously so um for districts that I do a lot of personnel work with one of the things that I will do is go down twice a year
120once in about November um and I was just in Harnet County doing this last week and once in about March or April and we'll schedule time for principles to come through uh just an entire day and I'll meet with HR and the principles will come through and we'll talk about okay where are your struggle points where are you you having some issues with personnel and let's talk about Solutions not how do we fire this person but how do we fix this situation how do we put this teacher this this ta uh this Child Nutrition service worker in a position to succeed and only if we try those things and it doesn't work then here are the steps that we might have to take to fairly and legally separate uh from that employee so there's a
121whole process that goes into our Personnel work and um and there's a a need to be proactive there's a need to be intentional um and all of that is based on the trust that we build with HR departments that when we say yeah I know your principal is really frustrated with this person let's talk about how we can fix that let's talk about how we can resolve this in a way that's going to lead to better results for your kids rather than another vacancy but if you need to depart from this person here's how we do it here's how we make sure we do it properly well documented in a way that if we get an EEOC charge if we get a lawsuit that you're going to be in a really strong position um to
122defend that so we have lots of attorneys that do HR work uh very very specifically as I said because y'all are the largest employer in your county in many cases and uh you know that HR work is is absolutely essential to a functioning school system so we believe very firmly in that and that's something we hadn't hadn't yet talked about so I wanted to bring that up um and then I I think if it's okay with with y'all we'll spend the last three minutes just telling you a little bit about what we personally do um in our work so you can get a sense of that and so uh in in my work um I've I've been with the firm um coming on 11 years now and I have three boards of Education that I'm
123the primary general counsel for uh the bofer County Schools uh up north from yall uh the Lee County schools in uh San Vera and the Scotland County Schools down on the border with South Carolina um so I go to their board meetings uh not bordt they don't ask me to drive out for the board meetings I they have me call if they need to but I go to Every Scotland County board meeting I go to Every Lee County board meeting and and operate as their general counsel and then as far as specialty work um I do a lot of work in student discipline and if y'all were at the uh conference in Asheville uh this summer with the North Carolina school I'm sorry just last month rather with the North Car School boards Association I
124did a presentation to board members on student discipline there um I had as I think Carolyn mentioned a case go to the court of appeals for y'all uh last year that that we got a significant win from the court of appeals in a student discipline and and disciplinary reassignment case um and then I do litigation defense uh so whenever School Board get sued and this takes me all over the state uh in in any form whether it's employment uh or construction special education is a big one um student injuries and things like that um I appear in court and defend School boards uh all over and as Carolyn said a big focus of that is how do we resolve this without going to court because once you go to court relationships get broken and it's
125hard to repair them so if we can resolve things effectively before we spend all that money and before we break those relationships that's a really important piece of our work so as I mentioned earlier I've been at thanington Smith for 24 years or close to 24 years um and as you can imagine my practice has evolved over time U for for many years I was um heavily focused on litigation and predominantly special education litigation although I certainly I certainly did many other things as well um as I've um as I've matured and my children of age I have three children who are products of the public schools um the youngest is 20 so I'm now at a different stage in my life and I'm like you know I've done a lot of litigation so I'm
126I'm transitioning out I've I've always represented boards as well and served as general counsel but I'm doing more of that work I'm doing more work where I'm actually um focused on providing that preemptive support that I talked about before in special education where much like the model that Steve talked about in educa in uh the employment Arena we do the same thing with special education so we meet with administrators or teams that are having difficulty and we kind of provide a roadmap for how we might be able to get things on track so that the student can start making progress again or the relationship with the parent can be rebuilt because a lot of times the trust has been broken so I spend a lot of time on that um as I said I do
127represent boards right now I'm working with uh the Rowan Salsbury schools as their general counsel I've also been the uh councel for Leno County Board of Education for over a decade so I go to all of their meetings and board Retreats I manage all of the things that come up in those contexts um do a fair amount of transactional work these days um and also dabble in uh a fair amount of personnel and other student issues so I'm becoming a generalist as I as I'm aging um much to my surprise and and delight and I have the least history at the firm so it's appropriate that I only have a few seconds left I'll just note that I do a lot of work with law enforcement and the role of SRO in schools very good
128all right thank you all right board members at this time uh if you'll um um get your sheets and make your your appropriate uh marks thank you ladies and gentlemen appreciate it as a fan of uh bold socks yeah I noticed that too right I'm wearing teenage mut Ninja Turtles by the way patch that's my favorite fantastic my grandson would fight you for those thank you all very much we appreciate your time all right welcome back everyone at this time uh in this time slot we have the uh Irwin Law Firm PC and um Mr irn we have 45 minutes as you can see if you have the occasion to glance over at that bottom of the screen you can see 45 here and 45 there so just to kind of keep you on track
129and if need be I'll give you a reminder or someone on the group here may give you a reminder to keep your remarks within the 45 minutes all right Mr Rogers if you'll start us off with question number one morning thanks for coming thanks for having me tell us about your firm in terms of what services you offer areas of expertise Etc and our culate why you would like to serve as Enzo County School's General Council sure I'll I'll get to that um I just wanted to First apologize I don't have any slides or fancy presentations for you guys uh today um I'm just going to speak from the heart I F you're you're gonna probably see enough of those anyway um but before I get to the questions I had a a brief intro
130if you don't mind sure okay um I want to first thank you everyone on this board for your respect and professional courtesy for the last several months as I've helped serve this board I remember in one of the appeal panels uh specifically asking Miss Miss Oakley Mr Rogers and Mr Garvey Garvey earlier this year to just give me a chance that you wouldn't be disappointed in me and I feel confident that you haven't been I've gotten to know each one of you personally and it's been a challenging year no doubt but I'm optimistic in the future of this board I've been blessed to have worked at a prestigious South Florida law firm trip Scott for six years in a city of over 3 million people before eventually moving back home at trip Scott I was
131able to assist in defending and defending Ponzi scheme victims from the largest Ponzi scheme in the State of Florida American Greed and CNBC did a special on that Scott rosin to working on a patent infringement case against one of the largest companies in America which resulted in a $30 million verdict for our client represented NFL and NBA star athletes to representing one of the largest financial institutions in the nation and mediations throughout the State of Florida after the 2008 foreclosure crisis but I can honestly say that representing this board has been the highlight of my legal career and it has also brought me the most satisfaction you see I was born and raised here in enlo County I rode the bus to Morton Elementary attended Tabernacle Fifth Grade Center one of the first classes at
132Hunter Creek Middle School where our basketball District Championship banners still hang yes believe it or not I was the point guard on those teams it also happened to be where my athletic prowess ended I'm proud to be a graduate of white o High School I was fortunate enough to have two of the finest teachers Miss Ringo and miss long a North Carolina teacher of the year and probably the finest chemistry teacher ever to walk this Earth among my fellow classmates now include engineers and Physicians attorneys musicians and hedge fund managers Naval Academy and West Point graduates professors Blackhawk helicopter Pilots Marine Corps officers and federal agents NFL draft picks not to mention a NASA astronaut who just happens to be currently training for a trip to Mars and these were all friends or Close Associates
133of mine at White Oak needless to say when I was among one of only three kids on my freshman Hall in college to attend public school it was something that I championed I flaunted it and it without a doubt has made me the person I am today the education and more importantly those social experiences and relationships that I developed were invaluable and it's something that only Public Schools provide I I want you to know I'd be happy and thrilled to serve as general counsel or in whatever capacity this sport so desires now on on to the first question Mr Rogers um some of the things we do I'm sure you're aware of some of them uh representing the board during all regular and special meetings actively participating and representing the the board in closed session
134representing the board on all Bond forfeitures and lean holder petitions and district and Superior Court advising the board during student expulsion hearings and outof District appeals advising OCS Administration and staff on the legality of various court orders which I did yesterday subpoenas and public record request researching legislative updates and assisting in the adoption on revision of board policy and every now and then drafting those Infamous band letters why uh the second part of that question I believe is why I would like to serve well I've kind of already addressed that I'd like to serve because this place is home these schools were my schools and I take pride in this school system and being from here and living here now and I take pride in this board people in the community recently have asked me
135why I even want to be here doing this with all the drama on the board well it's personal to me I guess I mean you're my board when someone attacks you guys they attack me and I believe in you thank you okay Mr Garvey has any member of your Law Firm formed an established relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity and or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence their vote for The Firm for your firm since proposals began being accepted if so who when and why no I have no conflict there all right Miss hugley does your Law Firm represent individuals groups or entities who are associated with members of the Eno County Board of Education no conflict there either no thank you okay Mr irn what role does national
136state or local politics play in your ability to resolve issues among and between stakeholders and the school system it's an interesting question I wasn't exactly sure how to address this when I was prepping for this but I guess I'll preface and I I could be going on in a different route here but I guess I'll preface my answer with a political issue that recently arose with this board um a cease and deist letter from a a citizen we received represented by the freedom from religion Corporation requesting that we put it in to prayer when opening our board meetings I mean I could have addressed this with the board in a variety of ways I could have advised you that the law may not be on our side and we should follow some of our neighboring
137counties and go with a moment of silence instead avoid the conflict other attorneys certainly would have that's unquestioned but this is a great area in the law and with our courts and some things are worth standing for standing up for so I spent 3 hours on the phone on a Saturday morning with some big North Carolina litigators who support our cause and will help provide legal assistance pro bono have called upon I'm not sure what social media has said if anything about me but I'm a conservative I'm a Christian it's hard to grow up here and not be one it's even harder if you marry a cuban-american girl from Miami a girl whose family lost everything they had and fled Cuba when Castro and communist troops seized their businesses but whose family worked hard and
138made a life everyone should be proud of I think it was Carl Samberg who said that a good lawyer should argue the law if the facts are against them and if the law is against them then argue the facts and if both are against them then pound the table and argue like hell but in today's society politics influences so much even in the legal profession I think you'd be naive if not blind to see it otherwise that's just reality but I can assure this board that politics with me is not a concern Mr Williams War can you please share and expound upon in a detailed way some specific examples of approaches and outcomes handled by your firm regarding matters related to One Challenge controversial books and two issues related to Title 9 okay uh fortunately
139I don't think we've had any book challenges recently to date but I know Miss Oakley was instrumental in getting a form adopted and added to our current board policy 3210 it gives the parents and the appropriate channels to address controversial books and or alternatives to the assigned work and I know I actually spent some time researching this very issue uh in more detail which I provided in a legal memo to miss Oakley um highlighting the Supreme Court's decision in in Pico even though it's 30 years old 40 years old now I think it's still the law of the land today um and that that decision basically stands for the uh the ruling that school boards have broad discretion in the daily operation and management of school Affairs which you guys know and that includes determining
140which books are inappropriate for students but this discretion is not unlimited and it must be balanced against the student's First Amendment rights that's unquestioned law right now um that's a deciding question with the courts that they still post today is whether a school board's motives in removing or Banning books tend to suppress ideas or impose an official ideology on the school so there's other there's case law out there that's where school board banned all Harry Potter books from circulation Court said because they said it glorified you know the cult the cult and or Witchcraft and the court struck that down because it was uh imposing an ideology on its students um it's it's question however you can ban obscene books vulgar books that sort of thing but you you skirt this fine line when you
141pull books um for any other reason um and then second part of that question I believe was asking in issues related to Title 9 I mean that's just not something we've been asked to represent the board on uh on the federal issues certainly um it's something that I could uh take on in the future if that was something the board desired um I know it's not something I have expertise in but it's not something I couldn't learn and I know from being a law clerk for almost a year you don't you uh you figure out how to do just about everything and I I'm sure I could figure this out as well okay thank you all right Mr Lind here three most common Public School issues regarding exceptional children services in education that your firm
142has seen across the state within the last three years with school boards and what are the ways you have helped navigate through these issues with constitutional federal and state legally binding Solutions a lot to handle there um I mean that's going to kind of mirror you know that Title Nine question with this centers around those Federal issues that our firm hasn't been asked to represent the board on I know I have um sat in some IEP meetings in the past and I would think nine out of 10 of these issues with EC children um centered around that IEP um but that's where my my experience with this ends certainly something I could follow up on and and learn in the in the future um but the federal courts aren't our specialty they're not I don't
143know many people in the area that practice it um I think the nearest Federal Court's an over an hour away so unfortunately that's just not something we've been asked to represent the board on okay all right good morning Mr good morning what do you see as your role or responsibility during board meetings I guess that just depends on the board meeting um no it's it's a lot of it is beforehand um meeting with the board chair clarifying the agenda and the script um preparing for any potential issues that may arise I feel like 90% of the homework is done beforehand um I mean the board meeting is your time to shine um I will say those sometimes I feel like I should be up there with you guys on the Das you know I I
144represent you guys and I know issues arise and you call on me to give advice and that's what I'm here for of course keeping everyone on the same page with parliamentary procedure is a job in itself um I'm not ashamed I haven't quite mastered Robert's Rules yet I don't know many that have I think it's probably a lifelong Quest but I'm up for the challenge and think I've certainly adequately addressed those specific issues when they've Arisen in our past meetings thank you okay all right Mr Rogers what can you bring our school system that is unique from other applicants um I think our local connection certainly our local Rel relationships um our relationships with District staff and with you guys um I guess I'm an incumbent I mean I know the system I know the
145the uh the principles I know the staff and I think that's helpful um I don't believe any other firm that's applied are members at the Eno County bar or practice law here um I have a great long-standing relationship with many of the judges and our relationship with local attorneys has its own unique advantages I mean I think just last week I spoke to a local attorney that's going to was going to have one of our teachers and tied up in court all day that would require us paying for a sub da da you know these are just the daily occurrences that happen and I was able to get the the uh attorney who knows me to put the teacher on Telephone standby so they didn't have to be up in court all day they didn't
146have to take time off they didn't have to hire us up so little things like that moreover I feel my my time practicing law in Fort Lauderdale in Miami has given me a legal experience which very few attorneys possess and I'd be remiss not to mention Alec he's practiced education law for over 30 years that's longer than anybody I know in this state and having just someone to talk with and ask questions and ask for experience like that is invaluable finally I think my ability to get along well with others shouldn't be overlooked people have always told me I'm a peacemaker most think a great attorney has to be a bulldog and while at times I am and you have to be for your client I think a strength of mine is that I can
147balance these competing treat traits very well and my desire to make peace is always front and center that's just how the Lord made me my grandfather was a Baptist preacher here in Jacksonville for 40 years he always shared with me scripture when I was when I was gone in school and when I lived in Florida Philippians 4:13 was among his favorite but also Proverbs 151 without which I'll share with you today a gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger that's something that I'll I've never forgotten especially in the practice of law it's a challenge but I think it's certainly something that makes me unique garby what role would you play in staying current with federal and state law that affect education and providing updates to anzo County schools on current
148federal and state laws affecting education I think just working uh closely alongside this alongside the School Board Association uh to stay current with changes in state and federal policy I know ano County schools has a contract with the school boards Association which uh provides legislative updates warranting modifications to our local policy and our monthly policy meetings include all of this as we some of you all know um these these legislative changes um annual School Board attorney conference and the school law seminar put on by The Institute of government are are uh conferences I've attended in the past um and they provide similar legislative updates which I report back to the board accordingly if anything were to come down which is rare from the four DCA or F from our state supreme court I mean that's
149obviously something I would share with you you guys but it's it's mainly just that relationship with the school boards Association and just making sure you guys are upu at speed with with any changes that may may arise okay what is your firm's greatest strength and your greatest weakness um yeah I mean I think I've addressed a little bit of this before um just our local connection uh my availability I don't represent other districts or or boards you're it I guess you know that could be considered a weakness today but the fact we don't represent other districts um I see it as our greatest strength nobody comes before you also our ability to respond quickly and effectively just yesterday for example student services in an elementary school contacted me in a somewhat frantic State I was
150as I was eating a sub needing help and advice interpret a local custody order there was an issue with which uh determine which party had access to pick up a child from school later that day this wasn't something I could get back to them um at a later time and then within the hour I had reviewed the 15 pages of court documents and invid student services and the principal how to handle the situation moving forward so I think these are just some of the you know the issues which require immediate action which we handle just about about on a daily basis and I think are vital to uh this school system um as for the biggest weakness I I guess I would say the infrastructure I mean you want to know who Irwin Law Firm
151is you're you're looking at them um but I don't shy away from it I wouldn't have it any other way so I may not have the the infrastructure some of these other firms have that doesn't mean I don't do the job just as effectively or if not better Mr IR the last question and you can expound as long as you like you have plenty of time oh man is there anything else you would like us to know about your firm or is there anything else you wish we had ask you no I'll just say something briefly um I had a ethics professor in law school that always tied in video clips to his presentations they were usually legal movies uh rain maker time to kill um my cousin Vinnie was a favorite obviously um and
152I was going to do that with with with M but I couldn't do it he would he would have rolled over but I'll just say this um I I I was going to say I stand before I sit before you today as the embodiment of what this board represents I'm the very product of this school district of Eno County Public Schools and I think it's something that you shouldn't ignore something you shouldn't just discount it's something you should embrace to take the words of the great alpacino and sin of a woman you hold his future in your hands committee it's a valuable future believe me don't destroy it protect it embrace it it's going to make you proud one day I promise you okay thank you Mr win all right uh Mr Irwin at this
153point we will take our time our few minutes here to deliberate Mark our sheets and we thank you for coming today thank you so uh we've heard uh from our morning um firms and uh we're going to take a lunch recess now and we'll be ready to get back at at 1:00 thank you welcome back to our afternoon session in our interview process for um general counsel for the Alo County School System um first this afternoon we we have the Schwarz law firm uh Schwarz Law PC and um Mr Schwarz as you can see on the screen on either side of the room we have a timer 45 minutes for the uh questions which you certainly have copies of those questions uh we sent sent to you earlier so if you can uh somehow uh
154use your time as wisely as possible so we can get all 11 questions we may uh give you just a little uh friendly warning if necessary to move things along but again uh our goal is to try to cover all 11 question so we're gonna ask you to uh we're gonna start off with our very first question uh from Mr Lewis Rogers and uh we asked the same 11 questions uh all morning Rogers good afternoon good if you don't mind you want to start with your names I'm Richard Schwarz and let me introduce uh my colleagues here here I've got Alex grir next to me and Beyond him is McKenzie skin and they are three of the members of The Firm awesome okay first question is uh tell us about your firm in terms of
155what services you offer areas of expertise Etc and articulate why you would like to serve as Eno County Schools general counsel okay thank you before before we do that Jody is this loaded up the the PowerPoint that we sent you is it loaded not work let's see if it let's see if it's on where's Dr BR if you throw it stop their time I guess since we're having a tech issue thank you ma'am okay great than unless she just did it that's always my response too feel it's not working Dr Barnes has a secret clicker over there that's what it is he's got [Music] it yeah light on but it's blinking forie going that have one in my bag in the closet worst comes to worst will resort to an old film strip thing I'll
156just go Boop and some make a move all right thank you all right you ready ready all right I'm ready too uh first of all I'm Richard Schwarz and as I mentioned this is Alex grer and that's McKenzie skin uh Beyond him and um we are three of the members of the Schwarz law firm and this one's not working either can you there we go all right okay now it's working okay all right um great technology and let's move forward here um so um we have uh five attorneys in our firm and uh they're up there on the screen in addition to the three that you have in front of you uh we also have Ashley white and John El day and in our proposal there are resumés for everyone in the firm um we
157also have um a new attorney who's going to be not a new attorney an experienced attorney who's going to be joining us in two weeks um her name is Christina Hayes and um she's been a licensed attorney in North Carolina for 14 years and um she has had uh experience in the Attorney General's office in North Carolina she's been an Assistant Attorney General and a special Deputy attorney general in the tort claim section and the education law section of the Attorney General's office So Christine is going to be joining us in uh in a couple of weeks um so uh and we're adding more attorneys as well um so we're growing and uh that works well because um it works well with you because you're growing um and we're excited about the growth that you
158have and that's one of the reasons that we're excited about the possibility of serving you as theano County School's uh retained legal counsel um you are a vibrant growing school system um you've got the problems that come along with growth and the opportunities that come along with growth and we're excited that you're adding new schools um and uh uh that's a great thing for your school system um you also have a really good reputation um as a public school system and um one of the things that uh uh attracts us to you um and makes you an attractive school system is that you do have a good reputation um as a school system um we have uh in terms of the services that we offer we do nothing but education law um I practiced education
159law with Arington Smith um back when they were thanington Smith and Hargrove uh many years ago I began practicing with them in 1979 when they had a fledgling education law practice um that we built up into a thriving practice I left that firm in 1990 um uh to open a law firm that would do nothing but education law and at the time it was the only law firm in the southeastern United States that was dedicated solely to the practice of Education law which is in my soul and in my blood uh my dad was a uh teacher and a guidance counselor and a um very successful um basketball coach and the principal and an assistant superintendent a superintendent my mom was a school nurse um all of our family friends growing up came from that
160um that set uh from my parents friends so it was Educators all the time and it was dinner table stuff all the time and so I gravitated quite naturally to that um in the practice of law um prior to going to law school I worked in the general assembly and uh that should be right okay that should be the only bail for the rest of the day okay um I worked in the general assembly and uh worked on a lot of Education policy matters um uh and then contined to do that throughout law school um here in North Carolina so um we are an education Law Firm that's all we do and uh that's what we're set up to do uh but that means a lot to a lot of different things to a lot
161of different people um education law is very very specialized in many different ways it's also very Broad and General in other ways so what it really means is we have a boutique Niche but it's a bouquey kind of set of clients we represent school systems uh we represent Public School Systems and that's what we do um that's our entire focus our entire dedication so you know uh that in many counties the school system is the biggest or one of the biggest employers so you have a lot of employment law you're one of the biggest Property Owners you have property law you build buildings you have have contractors you have leaky roofs you have um all the problems in uh and fund that go along with building projects you have a lot of constitutional law in
162the school setting we deal with First Amendment uh the right to petition the government people come before you um we have Establishment Clause cases in religion um we have free exercise of religion as well uh under the First Amendment we have um speech uh freedom of speech under the First Amendment and we have symbolic speech as well so it's people come and speak to you at public settings or students uh exercising their rights to to free speech in the in the school setting or school newspapers um so all kinds of constitutional questions we get Fourth Amendment questions of unreasonable search and seizure dealing with drugs and alcohol and weapons in schools we have due process cases under the Fifth Amendment we have equal protection cases under the 14th Amendment um so it's um a lot
163of constitutional law it's a lot of employment law a lot of the employment law is very specialized dealing with the rights of teachers um teacher termination investigations uh we deal with a lot of agencies a lot of federal agencies a lot of state agencies we have equal employment um issues with the EEOC the equal employment opportunity commission we have discrimination issues with the office for civil rights under the US Department of Education um we deal with state agencies we deal with the State Department of Public Instruction the general assembly the State Board of Education um occasionally you'll have you'll have Asha um uh issues uh we deal with uh uh environmental issues sometimes um so it's uh uh and and it goes on and on and on we deal with Title Nine matters um we
164uh it's just a very robust practice and it's constantly changing education Law changes all the time I've been doing this a long time if you would have told me five years ago the things that I would have been doing in the next five years I would have told you you were crazy starting with what's Co um and uh you know what do you mean we're all going remote learning and dealing with with the many legal issues that attended that um and the funding issues that attended that um and then look at the culture wars that are being fought out at in Schoolboard meetings now um those things weren't around five years ago um so we have um you know lgbtq and and and book Banning and we have um diversity and and equity and inclusion
165issues so lots of culture War issues that that tend to play out lots of times in public common and in Schoolboard meetings um um and uh so it's a dynamic practice of law um it's what we do it's a people uh intense practice of law one thing I love about this is you have to stay on your toes all the time the Law changes all the time every time the general assembly comes to town um we're sitting there with our head spinning sometimes um and then we have to train School boards we have to train School administrators um in what the general assembly has done and what it means anticipate what it's going to mean how we deal with it how we adapt to it how we um uh how we U uh Infuse it
166in this in the school system um case Law changes all the time regulatory Law changes all the time we're waiting for the new title 9 regulations to come down right after the old title n regulations came down um in August of 2020 and a lot of people are still trying to figure out what to do with those so um it changes all the time new 504 regulations are going going to be coming out soon um and uh and then beyond that it's a people practice and it's um you never know what's going to come next the phone rings and you're sitting there going okay never heard that one before um or please tell me you're making this up um and uh you know my phone rang at about five o'clock yesterday afternoon with a superintendent
167who had a bunch of people in his office and uh they were dealing with um a student who was um hearing voices and U uh communicating with the devil and um had suicidal ideation and uh so it's uh it's it's really a wonderful area of the law it's an amazing area of the law it's a dynamic area of the law um but the most important thing to us is it affects people and it affects kids and that's where our heart is that's where my heart is um I don't begrudge any other person who practices any other type of law but if I was representing the folks who wanted to put in the new Shopping Center and they had to get a zoning permit and um uh went before the Town Council to get that done
168and they came away with a win they might make a lot more money than I'm going to make practice an education law but it wouldn't do anything for me here um and every day when I go to work and every day every night when I come home from work and sometimes it's really late nights after school board meetings you know that um I know I've done something at some level that's helped kids and that's what has um driven me um and that's what drives our firm and that's the passion that we look for in everyone who works for our firm so um we're here for you we're here for the kids and that's that's what we do um so these are the members of the firm and U uh so far and we've got one
169more coming in two weeks um and more coming beyond that we're actively hiring right now so that's a really long-winded answer to your question Mr Rogers thanks all right our next question is uh from Mr Garvey has any member of your Law Firm formed an established relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity and or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence their vote for your firm since proposals began being accepted if so who when and why no all right next question do you have anything else no Okay good does your Law Firm represent individuals groups or entities who are associated with members of the enow County Board of Education not that we're aware of okay thank you Mr Schwarz um what role does national state and local politics play in your
170ability to resolve issues among and between stakeholders and the school system well I'm going to defer to Alex on that um and let him answer that question hey I appreciate all of you taking the time to sit down and actually interview us um in response to your question for us the law is the law we're going to give you what the law tells you and we understand that as board members you are elected officials but as your attorneys we would we are not elected officials we are here to tell you what the law says and allow the board to act in the way that it sees fit so we understand that there may be political calculations on the board's side but when we are giving legal advice we are never taking that into account and
171we think that's what the board deserves and we hope that you respect that you will always get our best legal advice straight down the middle um without political shading and we'll leave it up to you to do the political calculus um we're not elected members of the board we don't have a vote we don't want to vote um and and we'll leave that up to you okay all right Mr Williams good afternoon can you please share and expound upon in a detailed way some specific examples of approaches and outcomes handled by your firm regarding matters related to one challenged controversial books and then the second part is issues related to title 9ine all right well um we've done a lot of work dealing with challenges the controversial books and um I'm going to defer to
172Alex again because because he's done some of that work and uh and give an answer on that yeah so um book bands I think are a thing that have been growing in the past few years and boards are learning more and more about the process um there are both National implications with Supreme Court cases there and state law that guides what parameters set what the board can do we've worked with our various districts to develop policies that um allow them to have the flexibility that they want to consider book challenges well at the same time meeting those constitutional standards of um pervasive vulgarity and educational suitability when you're considering those materials so our goal is to help our clients develop policies that meet their needs well at the same time meeting the legal standards that
173they need to under both state and federal law so um we actually have a slide I think it's um coming up but we've worked with um one of our districts uh and train trained them and helped uh train various um committees there who were reviewing books um in their District so we have already gone through the process of helping them work on their board policy consider a policy that allows them the flexibility that they want and the considerations that they want and then can provide training to those District officials while they're reviewing those books to make sure that they're complying with any constitutional or state standards one thing to consider with that is most of the time when you're dealing with um book bands you're going to have a committee appointed um particularly if you
174get I'm not sure what kind of challenges you've had here but um if you get uh 40 books that are challenged um and you've got to have 40 books reviewed you're going to need committees to review those um we' set up a system uh where uh there's a template that's used uh by different committees to um evaluate the books evaluate the books consistent with the policy uh that was adopted by the Board of Education which is consistent with the standards adopted by this the Supreme Court um and uh a form for them to follow a format for them to follow and forms for them to utilize uh to come up with their decision and uh also comply with the open meetings law requirements that they maintain minutes of the meetings and properly notice those meetings
175and so on so um we've been through that we're doing that very actively now um and the second part of that Title Nine okay issues related to Title 9 um I've been dealing with Title 9 for um since before it began um or when it began um I was uh an undergraduated Duke in 1972 when Title 9 was winning its way through Congress and uh uh first became aware of it when um uh a bunch of uh female activists from East Campus on Duke which is where all the women were at the time decided to demonstrate the disparity in and athletic uh facilities at Duke on East Campus the East Campus gym was a building that was um uh cautioned off with yellow tape uh because you couldn't use it and that was where the
176women were and on West Campus we had Wallace Wade Stadium and Cameron Indoor Stadium and all the facilities that the um the guys used back then and uh uh they decided to take over the sauna in the men's locker room on West Campus and they didn't realize the wrestling team was being punished um for having lost the previous night uh so we were there for a 6 AM practice on a Sunday when uh when they came to take over the sauna and that was my first awareness of Title Nine um so that goes back to the year at past Congress 1972 um and we we thought of Title 9 for many years simply in terms of Athletics um and athletic opportunities well it's obviously uh grown to be a lot more than that since then
177so um in uh in the 1990s we had the first lawsuit that went to the US Supreme Court on Title 9 it was Christine Franklin uh uh versus the gwet County Board of Education and that was the case 20 years after the enactment of Title 9 that established that you could actually sue for private damage under Title 9 and um up until that time the courts had said no we think you can just um enforce title N9 through the office for civil rights um and look for changing practices as opposed to private damages getting money for suing and then in 1998 and 1999 um there were two cases that came along the gibster case and the Davis case um that established the standards for liability um so you can see now but what's the standard
178for liability um and what's the standard for liability in peer-to-peer sexual harassment or when it's an employee sexually harassing a student and the gibster and the Davis cases established that in 1998 and 1999 and then after that um a lot of it was all regulatory action and it was um from the US Department of Education primarily and sometimes the US Department of Justice and in the Obama administrations it got very activist beginning in 20 the Obama Administration sent out what are called dear colleague letters and there were a series of dear colleague letters and they're called dear colleague letters because that's the first line in the letter it's addressed to Dear colleague and it goes to the president of every un college and university in America and the superintendent of every school system in America
179and it starts out Dear colleague and it tells you this is how we're going to inforce Title 9 and this is how we're going to interpret the regulations under Title 9 and these are what our expectations are and the expectations beginning in 2011 started really swinging the pendulum to the point of we're going to protect victims of sexual harassment under Title 9 and the primary focus was what was considered to be the date rape culture at colleges and universities where students are partying and then um uh there's sexual activity or sexual harassment that goes on um and uh it was felt that was being tolerated too much particularly at the college and university level and it wasn't being enforced well enough at the K12 level so the um there were a series of these letters
180and in reaction the the the threat for that is cut off of federal funds if you don't comply with with the changes so a lot of colleges and universities in particular started revamping their hearing processes and um uh then there was concern and there were quite a few lawsuits from students primarily males who were being kicked out of school with very little due process um and uh hearings that were not very fair um or based upon uh uh good procedure um and oftentimes based on poor training um so uh the pendulum had had swung mightily and then the Trump Administration came in and the Trump Administration said remember all those dear colleague letters you got when the Obama Administration was in well we're sending another dear colleague letter to say forget about all those dear
181colleague letters and we're going to start um uh the the process of developing new regulations so they developed new regulations and they went into effect uh they were they were published in May of 2020 um and on August 14 2020 they went into effect and they swung the penum back to um uh an even more of an even ke and established due process but they also created an incredible amount of procedure and made it extremely difficult particularly at the K12 level to um to carry out all the obligations dealing with sexual harassment and sex discrimination under title 9ine and in the meantime in between May and August of 2020 when the regulations were published and when they went into effect the US Supreme Court came out with the bosck rulings there were three different court
182cases and they're generally uh lumped under the bastar case and the bastar case was the ruling that under title 7 which is employment discrimination interpreted title 7 to incorporate sex prefer gender preference and gender identity as protected under the laws dealing with sex discrimination and employment now Title 9 was built on title 7 it was modeled after title 7 and the language is that you can't discriminate on the basis of sex and so up until June of 2020 when the Supreme Court acted the courts had generally said that sex discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination based on what it says on your birth certificate okay what was your gender identified as when you were born not what is your gender identity or your gender preference um later on and uh the courts had
183said it's up to Congress to change that and we look at what Congress meant in 1964 when they passed title 7 in 1972 when they passed Title 9 and if Congress wants to change that it's up to Congress well by 2020 a lot of things had changed um in society and in 2015 the Supreme Court had approved same-sex marriage so you had the anomalous situation where you could actually get married after 2015 to somebody of the same sex but you could be fired the next day based on your gender preference and that wouldn't be employment discrimination on the basis of sex so um the Supreme Court in 2020 said we're going to interpret title 7's verion of on the basis of sex to to in to include protections based on gender identity and gender preference
184but the Supreme Court said we're not interpreting Title 9 because we don't have a title 9 case in front of us so then the question came all right well how are we going to interpret title N9 with regard to gender identity and gender preference so in August of 2020 the new Trump regulations went into effect by January of 20121 just a few months later we had a new president who started issuing executive order saying we're going to interpret on the basis of sex for Title 9 purposes the same way the Supreme Court is doing it for title 7 purposes so now we're going to have protection for gender identity and gender preference being enforced by the US Department of Education and oh by the way the those new regulations that went into effect we're revising
185those too so originally the um Biden administrations new regulations were going to come out in May of this year that was pushed back to October of this year that's been pushed back again to January probably not going to be ready for January either but we're going to have new regulations coming out that um are going to streamline the processes um for dealing with these things so there's a lot going on with Title 9 I do want to mentioned that oops um two of our uh Team of attorneys John El day and Ashley white the two who are not here right now um are certified uh uh title n um uh coordinators and um investigators um uh investigators and decision makers so they're they're certified tile line investigators and decision makers um we've all done a
186lot of Title Nine investigations and um we've done quite a few um Title Nine workshops so um these are all these workshops uh the what I'm showing you here are cover pages for Workshop presentations that we've done with different school systems just since um uh just since February of this year um so you can see um we've done this in various school systems um at the um we've talked about the changes that are coming um current Title 9 requirements and how to address them um uh at the uh pank conference the Personnel administrators of North Carolina which are um CJ and all of her colleagues um I have been speaking at their um they have two conferences a year in the spring and the fall um and I've been a speaker at every one of
187those conferences almost every one of those conferences for I don't know about 30 40 years a long time um and uh so uh at the spring conference we did a Title Nine update and I talked about the proposed regulations that are coming as well and what to anticipate um so those are just some of the title n programs that we've done um we knew we we do an awful lot with Title Nine okay all right uh M lir what are the three most common Public School issues regarding exceptional children services and education that your firm has seen across theate within the last three years with school boards and what are the ways you have helped navigate through these issues with constitutional federal and state legally binding Solutions all right well McKenzie does a lot of
188our special ed work so I'm going to ask McKenzie to respond to this one sure so three of the most common EC issues we've seen across the state in the last three years are first the EC teacher shortage um an increase in due process petitions filed by the parents as well as an increase in law firms and advocacy organizations representing parents and then finally postco compensatory services so with regard to the EC teacher shortage some of the issues it presents are those vacancies start driving the IEP decisions rather than the students needs and then the special educ ation services are being provided by people who are not certified special education teachers so some of the ways that we have helped navigate that include consistent trainings and retraining to teachers and administrators and I don't know
189if the PowerPoint has some of those up there that's one of them or there several so um we've been doing trainings um this go ahead we've been doing monthly trainings for one of our districts um to EC teachers and administrators on various topics those are just some of the examples okay um we have also helped navigate this by attending IEP meetings to ensure compliance while school officials are working to fill the vacancy as well as to ensure that compensatory services are addressed during the meeting um other ways revising policies related to Recruitment and Retention um assisting with contracts to procure additional service providers and you know making sure school officials communicate the vacancy to the parents at at the beginning of the vacancy um second as for an increase in due process petition positions fed
190by parents and an increase in attorneys and Advocates representing parents we have helped navigate that issue by again providing trainings professional development opportunities um maintaining positive relationships with the parents attorneys and Advocates um proactive communication on our part and the school systems so for example if if we receive a request for Student Records um we will reach out to the parents attorney and you know what see what the concerns are and we'll have school officials reach out to the parent to see what can be resolved um we also emphasized the importance of establishing and maintaining a positive relationship with the parents because to me often the impetus for a due process petition is a frequent breakdown and communication between the parent and you know School Personnel school officials um finally postco compensatory Services we have
191helped navigate that by again providing regular trainings and ret trinings to teachers and administrators um following up regularly with AC staff uh to ensure that special education services compensatory services are provided with Fidelity and then we also suggest different ways that those compensatory Services might be able to be provided so staff are less overwhelmed okay um MD thank you for being here today what do you see as your role or responsibility during board meetings okay well um let me take it back a step if I may and I think the role and responsibility during board meetings starts before the board meeting um and that is to make sure that you've reviewed the agenda that you've thoroughly reviewed the board packet um that you've communicated with the superintendent and the board chair who are usually the
192ones who put the board packet together or the agenda together um to uh anticipate issues in advance and be prepared by the time you get to the board meeting um it so it always starts before the board meeting um and then during the board meeting um the role of the board attorney should be to be able to respond thinking on your feet and respond quickly on your feet knowing what the board's policies require and because often your board policies will um in some way uh preempt Robert's Rules of Order and then you have board policies that always defer to Robert's Rules of Order so um then you've got to know Robert's Rules of Order um and if you don't know Robert's Rules of Order you've got to have Robert's Rules of Order handy so these
193two things go to every single board me the public school laws and Rober um in the event that there's a really nubby question that you may not be able to answer off the top of your head um and then uh uh during board meetings um our role is to try to help guide the flow of the meeting in the event that there are questions of parliamentary procedure or legal questions um also our role is to make sure that you're not stepping in it in some way um if there's some legal issue that comes up that wasn't anticipated or just comes up in the course of discussion and conversation um our role is to step in and let you know that there's a legal issue there um and some in some cases that means you know
194we may need to go into Clos session to get legal advice out to the board um but uh uh our role is to let you know that there's a legal issue here if you're not aware of it and what the legal parameters are based on case law statutory law um and uh and make sure that you've got the tools that you need to make informed decisions we don't have a vote we don't want a vote um we never confuse the fact that we're the board attorneys and we're not elected representatives our role is not to tell you what to do thank you all right what can you bring to our school system that is unique from the other applicants well you've got some very good other applicants um you've got some that have a lot
195of experience in education law um you got others with not so much experience in education law um I think it's very important for a school board to have Council that are extremely experienced in education law um what we bring is complete total dedication to the practice of Education law um that is what we do um and in in doing that we've touched on everything that you that you deal with um and um we've got a uh a long history we've got got incredible resources um we've got um uh connections um and we're plugged into a lot of different organizations uh that deal with um education law education policymaking um and uh the policy and practice of Education law in North Carolina uh so anything that affects schools we're plugged into and um I think that
196u a lot of those connections make us unique um you know for example example um uh I'm on the board of directors of the in the executive committee of the uh public school for of North Carolina the public school Forum just came out with their um road map of need the 2023 road map of need that um does a data analysis of a lot of different factors dealing everything from health care and mental health and poverty and and everything dealing with um not only school systems but also um uh you know the well-being of the entire community and um you might want to take a look at it because they're they're two of those measures are educational inputs and educational outputs and um educational inputs include um things like state federal and local funding and
197teacher vacancy rates um educational outputs include things like different measures of test scores Reading Writing math graduation rates and everything else and you are on the positive side of that by a long shot um in um uh in North Carolina out of the out of all the different school systems um out of all different counties you rank 81st in educational inputs that means the amount of resources that are coming into you you're 81st out of the 100 counties in terms of educational outputs that is the bang you get for your buck and the good things you want to see coming out your 29th so um you've got a basically a plus 52 rating which is very very high um in the state and it shows that you're getting a bigger bang for your buck um
198here in Eno County than most school systems are now it's never going to be enough it's never going to be where you want it you always want to raise the bar I know that's um that's an initiative you've got is raising the bar um but in terms of what you're doing um and what you're getting out of what you're you know what you've been given the resources you've being provided um you stand pretty in pretty good shape um so that's just you know one example um I think of something you might want to take a look at um what role would you play in staying current with federal and state law that affect education and providing updates to Enzo County schools on current federal and state laws affecting education well I think I've touched on
199most of that um as I've been going along here we we stay constantly um on top of everything dealing with federal and state law that affects um education um we're a big um uh this firm is a big believer in um uh continually educating our our folks and from the day I opened the The Firm every single attorney in The Firm has always gone to every single conference that's available we have webinars all the time that are online um every member of the firm is a member of the North Carolina Council of school attorneys the National Council of school attorneys the national school attorneys asso Association um the education law section of the State Bar um and um uh wide variety of other organizations I helped found the North Carolina Council of school attorneys um
200with uh uh my then partner George rogister um I've been president of that organization I've been on the board of the National Council of school attorneys um and on Boards of most of those other organizations um we uh we go to conferences all year long um everybody goes to the school of government conference in February um we go to the national uh Council School attorneys meetings that are uh we go to the uh the education law section of the State Bar has an annual conference uh the North Carolina Council School attorneys has a Summer Conference for two days um we have uh we help we help found the uh uh School administrators um uh law conference um and uh we just were in Nashville a couple of weeks ago at the national school of attorneys
201Association conference I spoke at that conference um there's the pain conference that I mentioned earlier um the School Board Association you folks were probably in Greensboro or some of you um earlier this week as was I um and so it's um it's constant it's year round and then and then on top of that there are webinars all the time um McKenzie and the special ed folks will go to the to special ed conferences um she got one coming up in Savannah and in May in May and they're um so it's um we're we stay on top of it all the time in addition we're very plugged in with the general assembly um we write legislation sometimes we get asked to write legislation we get asked to review and comment on legislation sometimes before it's introduced
202um and um so you know we're on top of all that as far as um uh and then we're we're very big Believers in preventive maintenance we're very big Believers for our clients in um did you give me the the next half of that question that's providing the update updates Tom County school yeah just excited we're uh um we do training all the time and you've seen some of them and and I'll give you um you know some other uh uh some other trainings we do training with boards um you know so this is an example of board governance scenarios and essential policies um so these are are board trainings on had to become a more effective and collaborative cohesive Board of Education um uh and then these are examples of talk about staying on
203top of things so these are examples of new legislation um that we've given uh trainings on uh recently paid parental leave um act to protect opportunities for women and girls in athletics um board workshop on charter schools and the charter school onnibus and Charter School review board uh parents Bill of Rights we've done a lot of training on that in different places um recently um obviously a big topic um and uh this was a big topic for one of our school systems in Robinson County uh Family Medical Leave Act we just did it at pink um so you can see that these are and again these are all just since uh uh February of this year um uh and so uh if you look at the things I'm scrolling through here you can see the
204range of issues um that we've been dealing with um and uh it covers the Waterfront so we provide updates all the time to our school systems in addition to that we send emails out um uh regularly to our clients um with this has just passed the general assembly or these are some issues that you need to be aware of with regard to what just passed the general assembly these are things things need to anticipate with regard to policies and practices and so on um this is a program I just did a couple of weeks ago in Nashville at the national school attorneys Association um on school administrator and superintendent contracts um uh we do work on school construction and bidding requirements uh contract development and contract Administration bidding and procurement requirements and so you can
205see there's a tremendous array of uh uh different workshops and and trainings that we do okay what is go ahead what is your firm's greatest strength and your greatest weakness um I think our greatest strength is um knowledge history connections and commitment I'll sum it up like that and I've tried to give you a taste of that as I've been going through this um our greatest weakness right now is um um um not sure what the greatest weakness is uh getting things um getting it right rather than getting it quick um we can often answer questions right off the top of our head or we've got a resource available because we've done something similar or something that's exactly the same um and we can just go to it immediately instead of spending hours and hours
206researching it we've got it already um in a file someplace or in in the computer or someplace um uh if not we want to get it right and we'll make sure we get it right we'll try and get it back to you quickly but we'll get it right before we get it quick um and U uh that may be the biggest weakness okay all right Miss shorts our last question is there anything else you would like us to know about your firm or is there anything else you wish we had asked you um there are a number of issues we haven't talked about um too much uh for example military issues you've got um you know Camp Lun right here so military issues are always going to be an issue for the school system in
207terms of how you interact with and best serve the students on the military base um we represent the Wayne County Schools they've got a military base in Wayne County suor Johnson Air Force Base and we were instrumental in helping them put a school on the base they don't have a Department of Defense school there but they do have facility that we worked with sour Johnson and the US Air Force um in getting a new school for um technology um on that base and set up a situation where it's a 5050 split in terms of the students that go there students outside the base and on the base there's a lottery system for outside students to get on uh to get in that school um it's only the second school in America that is on a
208military base that's part of a public school system as a part as opposed to a Department of Defense school so military issues are are one thing you haven't asked about um that I know are significant and always significant in serving the needs of our military families um that's a um that's something that we're very proud of and and and big on um policy issues I'm not sure how you do your policies and and what what kind of a deep dive you do into policies but we do a lot of policy work um in um uh work with the schoolbd association PLS system um for the legal updates um and then um uh I guess um we're just about out of time but those are um things I would have liked you to asked about not
209about and then the other thing is our proposal um if you have any questions dealing with the specifics are proposal all right thank you Mr Schwarz all right thank you and um this time we'll uh thank you for coming and being a part of the interview process and uh board members you have a few minutes to reflect and score thank you thank you very much really appreciate it and U good luck with your decision making alrighty welcome back uh this is our final um interview for uh this afternoon um the uh Legal Group we have in front of us is pointer spru LLP uh as you guys know we have 45 minutes for this process the 45 minutes is posted up on the screen on the bottom right and here on the bottom right so
210kind of keep your uh your eye on that and uh if you know things get out of hand we'll REM we'll remind you about your your time if if that's if that's necessary so we're going to start uh today uh with uh Mr Lewis Rogers on down here on the end question number one thank you for uh coming than you for start with uh finding out who we're talking to great um as by way of introductions I'm Katie Cornetto with the law firm pointer Sproul and we had just a few slides that we were going to share and you all tell us if that's acceptable also um with me my colleague Rachel hitch Brandon mcferson and Laura Crumpler um we just wanted to orient you to our firm very briefly it won't be long I'm
211sure it's been a very long day did did you want Mr yeah I think the question will probably oh great yeah yeah tell us about your firm in terms what services you offer areas of expertise Etc and articulate why you would like to serve as enzel County School general Council thank you so much I'm sorry to preempt the question good afternoon board members um I'm Katie Cornetto I I am a 20-year practitioner in the area of Education law I am a partner at the law firm pointer spru we have four locations our Raleigh Office Rocky Mount and we have Southern Pines as well as Charlotte so we've got we're just in North Carolina and we um we we all serve out of the Raleigh area but um go anywhere that our clients need us to
212go the firm is actually a partnership that started out in the 80s between a law firm of pointer and spruel both of them out of Rocky Mount North Carolina our firm has in the neighborhood of 90 attorneys that are scattered through those four offices and we have a variety of different um areas that we work uh to to help our clients with um the most important thing is our firm decided in 2021 to have an education Law Practice Group now we all didn't start practicing then but we came to the firm with the intention to give our clients the most responsive and best service for educ ation in our state so behind me and including me there are 96 years of education law practice and there's more where that came from and I'll get to
213that in a minute on the screen um it will explain to you who we are uh we have a a well- earned reputation for providing prompt costeffective and professional legal services and we align our Resources with your needs as a client and your budgetary constraints recognizing that you are a government enti en our strategy enables us to assist our clients effectively and efficiently in a wide range of legal needs and transactions when emergencies arise our team is with you 247 we provide high quality education legal services and staff training by our experienced education law attorneys you will see here 11 attorneys this uh represents the education law attorneys at Point Rule and most of them I would say half actually have been teachers in North Carolina Public Schools we think that's a wonderful Advantage particularly
214from the perspective of working with Boards of education and working with your staffs and finally you as the enlo County Board of Education are focused primarily on enlo County Schools it's the center of everything you do and therefore it's the center of everything we do to help you you have issues like public records policy development Community concerns board governance school safety School nutrition and the list goes on and on your job is not easy and you've been elected to do a very difficult job that you need to have sound legal advice to be able to help you that's our entire Spiel so that's the answer to um number one except for why we want to work here is because we are committed as you are to serving the students of enlo County Schools to the
215best of both of our abilities and to give you um a cost-effective way to do that and someone you can rely on 24 hours a day seven days a week all right has any member of your Law Firm formed an established relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity and or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence their vote for your firm since proposals be began being accepted if so who when and why no okay thank you good afternoon does your firm represent individuals groups or entities who are associated with members of the enow County Board of Education no thank you all right uh question four is what role does national state or local politics play in your ability to resolve issues among and between stakeholders and the school system I will
216let my colleague Rachel hitch answer that okay Katie probably chose me because I'm passionate about this issue to be honest with you it plays politics plays no role in my ability to serve a school board the way I feel about it is you are the elected official the best case scenario is that I advise you on what your options are what the pros and cons are for each each option what the exposure is for each option and as the elected officials you decide what choice is the one to be made my politics should not even be known to you good afternoon can you please uh share and expound upon in a detailed way some specific examples of approaches and outcomes handled by your firm regarding matters related to one chall controversial books and then issues
217related to Title 9 so I'm going to take controversial books uh that's one of my areas of practice um my name is Brandon mcferson um and I will tell you uh sorry thank you um that uh in North Carolina we're very lucky um and I was just reminded that this week um when I was talking to a calag from South Carolina who was lamenting about the fact that the area of book challenges is particularly gray on a national setting because in South Carolina they do not have a state statute that outlines where the rights are in North Carolina we have what's known as North Carolina General statute 115c 98 B1 which authorizes a school board at its sole discretion to pick and choose what textbooks and what supplemental instructional materials belong inside the district's classrooms
218and libraries and so uh there is a recommendation in that statute to establish what's known as a community advisory committee um which I have done with multiple school districts at this point I think that's a a wise decision it's also in the guidelines from DPI um I will tell you um in the past three years I've handled well in Access of of 25 uh board level book challenges and assisted multiple districts dealing with controversial books I would say that um that's not going away um my hope is is that we will get more case law on this point but like I said we're very lucky in North Carolina as far as where the clarity is on the case law because the case law um isn't really at play because we have a state statute that
219outlines and gives that discretion to the board and the board gets to make the final decision the reason I think uh that the use of a community advisory committee is preferable um is that it allows on a districtwide decision for the uh entire uh variety of stakeholders in a school setting to have an input on uh on a it's approximately a 15 person committee based on the recommendations from DPI which includes your principales your parents a high school student to get together and make recommendation of the board based on their Collective years of experience and their viewpoints from the community standpoint because I think it's a great sampling in addition to the board's on opinions on a book after having read it the thing I like to say about uh book challenges is uh boards
220and superintendant get themselves into trouble when they start making statements about things before they've read them and so I always uh I I think that um there's a lot of judicial Defence given to local boards uh both nationally and in the state of North Carolina um when you uh follow a process and comply with um the case law and the statutes as they're written so thank you okay I'd like to address Title Nine um uh as you know the regulations for Title Nine the federal law prohibiting sexual harassment in order to access public education in our um nation and state recently changed and required of all of our Public School Personnel to to be mandatory reporters in the event that they're suspected sexual harassment of any kind either between uh students between staff or staff
221to student um that required an inordinate amount of policy adoption training uh for the boards and for their staff um and we are expecting that those regulations will actually change um soon they should have already been out but we expect early 2024 for some revisions to those um on our screen here our education law team there are three certified Title Nine trainers and investigators that work with our teams um of school district Personnel in processing complaints and dealing with uh litigation in the event it ends up there thank you what are the three most common Public School issues regarding exceptional children services and education that your firm has seen across the state within the last three years with school boards and what are the ways you have help navigate through these issues with constitutional federal
222and state legally binding Solutions thank you for the question um it's I'm Rachel hitch and I have practiced for 21 years in education law with a focus on special education defense um so you know I could talk all day long about Special Ed I know we're the last ones to go and you all don't want me to do that on a Friday afternoon so just to talk to you about the three issues I thought kind of long and hard about this I think the first issue would be kind of an intersection of a couple different things that have been exacerbated since covid I think and that has to do with mental health issues behavior issues and safety issues all kind of converging into one big ball for us to deal with at the school system
223level right so that would be one issue the second issue that I would say would be staffing issues um and the third would be just kind of a litigious climate surrounding the area of exceptional children's services so I'm going to take each one of them and talk to you a minute about them and kind of talk to you about what we've done on each of the levels to try to to have come up with solutions for our clients because we're committed not just to you as a board in terms of helping you comply with the law but where we can help make things better on other levels we want that for our boards as well so the first issue the behavior mental health and safety convergence right there um I know I was just at
224office for administrative hearings where Special Education cases are heard in North Carolina was there this morning um because they're trying to consult with some Schoolboard attorneys to try to figure out how to make that process better and they're doing the same thing with parents attorneys and you know as a big indicator of how much more of an issue that's become recently last year at the office of administrative hearings we had four um cases that had to do work with expedited discipline issues and that was a lot for a year at in litigation for special education this year already we've had 12 and so that's a very high number and a great increase and so and it's and we don't have the mental health services in some places that we might have had in the past
225and so it's kind of working through all that and with all that as a backdrop you know we're also under a very high level of scrutiny right now on school safety so it's trying to balance all of those rights how do we honor students educational rights if they're student with a disability and even if part of their their disability has to do with some behaviors that could be problematic and also honor the the need to protect everyone in the school environment which we're expected to do um and and we've done on several levels so on the federal level um there's there's a group of school lawyers that kind of gather that get consulted by the National Council of school attorneys who in turn advises the like the National School Board Association and Congress on the
226really big issues on things like that and we've involved oursel heavily with that in terms of writing papers for Congress and trying to have an influence on how burdensome that process is um on the state level we have many connections at the state um some some we've forged along the way um Katie and Laura both worked at the state level um so they maintain relationships with folks there but it's great to work at that level because you can call them up and say do you know this is what this is looking like for our school systems do you and so we are very proactive in in volunteering our time to work on those kind of Consulting committees at the state level to try to help make the process better for our school systems and we
227actually think better for parents the special ed process to be honest with you is bad all around it's expensive for everyone it's you know it's burdensome for everyone so just trying to work through that and certainly on the local level I think talking about this issue of the behavior and the mental health and things like that I think it's making sure that your administrators and staff understand what their options are one of your biggest enemies in Special Ed is a lack of experience or knowledge so they just really need a lot of training they need somebody who's walked that walk to come through and tell them here are your options we can do this we can do that you know you're not powerless in trying to educate this child in the face of the of
228the difficulties that may present um on the staffing issues I mean I've written National articles about it because the special ed turnover rate is so much higher than the Reg turnover rate for teachers and it's only getting worse we have placed a very high burden on that staff and so I think the the way that that influences the way I practice with our clients is that I always have in the back of my mind that I'm trying to solve the problem but I know that I'm also trying to retain good teachers on behalf of the district so when I'm working through that problem I'm Consulting the teacher if I have what I think could be a solution I want to hear from her is that feasible for you in the classroom is that going to
229be overly burdensome from you in the class let's talk it out I want to hear from the principal whether what I'm suggesting could be managed in that in that school and if not you know how could we make it manageable for that person and then on the litigious um climate piece of it I would just say when I started doing this 21 years ago people would know the school systems I represented and they would just call me on the phone and say parents attorneys and just say I've just had a meeting with such and such and they're telling me that their child didn't get the speech services can you check into it I'd check into it if we found out that we had had missed speech services of some way or another we'd make it
230right and we'd all move on and those days are long gone so now many times the first time we hear about a problem is when the lawsuit is filed and so again it's just I in that realm I see our job is helping to kind of protect the school system so the board and the administrators and the teachers can do their job so when an issue comes up that involves litigation I feel like it's my job to be a buffer let me help defay that piece of it so that you can go on with your mission so I hope that answers all that question that was a big one thank you thank you for being here today what do you see as your role or responsibility during board meetings thank you for the question um
231as board attorney it is our responsibility to make sure that we are prepared to support the board that means understanding items that are on agenda both close session and open um we often serve as parliamentarians during uh Open Session to be able to assist the board with voting um also uh in an effort to make sure that the staff is well prepared um making sure that the agenda is viewable and the public to be able to view the agenda ahead of time with the items um last minute items do happen and it is our job to try to help uh if that needed um but we also like to be able to have time to evaluate whether it's a personnel action or a contract action or some other um a book challenge um or some
232other type of appeal hearing that happens but during the board meeting um we work with our board chair and vice chair to make sure that it runs with the highest level of decorum and make sure that the public has access at all times to the Open Session thank you thank you what can you bring to our school system that is unique from the other applicants so um you have several experienced high quality firms interviewing with you today um pointer Sproul uh is unlike any uh other firm because of our size and our ability and our resources Frankly Speaking uh we have an extraordinar experienced education section but in addition to and beyond that we also have the other 80 attorneys who have expertise in their own areas that can be brought in to bear at
233an exceptionally reduced rate to assist you in whatever your problems are whether they're intellectual property construction data privacy employment litigation um we bring that experience to bear for you and on half of you um and are able to to have that power and that reputation uh for you um that makes us fundamentally different in addition to to not only our size and our abilities we have an unwavering commitment to being here for you and showing up and being boots on the ground um I by way of example when hurricane Florence hit the state of North Carolina within you know 24 hours I was boots on the ground in eastern North Carolina being with my clients as they were walking through and trying to figure out what to do to get um temporary power put into
234their buildings to get contracts put together to get vendors aligned to ensure that their schools are getting dried out to get school back in session and that um our commitments in addition to um you as a board is to ensure that you're able to execute your duties in times of uh great and in times of want uh we show up is anybody else I just want to add a couple of things and I don't I haven't even asked permission to say these things so if I get in trouble I'll be running to anelo for help um I'm Laura Crumpler and um I have like about 44 years practicing law alog together uh 34 35 of which have been in education law I taught school right out of college because that's what we women did back
235in that day and what my parents wanted me to by the way I'm from down East so I have a special place in my heart for everything that's east of I95 I'm from Clinton um and we were surrounded by military bases there um anyway I went into teaching and I loved it and I loved my kids and I was teaching in a very very poor school system and it hit me so hard the difficulties these kids were having and the reason I decided to go to law school much to my parents' dismay um I didn't know what law school was really but I wanted to change the system I felt like I could make a difference in a different sort of way I didn't go to law school to make more money that wasn't what
236if I had I wouldn't work for the state all those years um but I went because I wanted to see change in public education and in the opportunities for these students I spent most of my career with state government um as um Rachel has already mentioned uh working with the Attorney General's office and representing the State Board of Education and that has come in quite handy but the reason I love pointer sprl and I never thought that I would love a private practice is this is not about a bunch of boastful lawyers especially in the education section as it's been pointed out about half of our section were School teachers um this is about lawyers who genuinely care about their clients and about these kids and about these teachers and that is critical in terms
237of representation of a school board and that is what I'm I'm here to just say I feel strongly about um and with the the cast of lawyers that come to you every one of them is available 247 and you don't always find that with every firm either um holidays weekends nights the crack iton whenever the need is there and so I just wanted to say that that I just feel like pointer has a gift that is worthy of giving to these School boards in terms of just the the amount of care that comes from the attorneys thank you what role would you play in staying current with federal and state law that affect education and providing updates to Enzo County schools on current federal and state laws that affect education so uh first off uh
238would be uh emailed update as things happen I think that you need to hear from your lawyers when things happen and have an understanding about critical uh passage or Vos or uh things that are affecting you um in addition to that trainings I think uh having a working understanding of the state of the law or what the law is going to be in short order is going to make you better educated in your decision- making and sort of forecasting how you're going to go about doing the business of leading this school district and so between professional development for the board the staff uh the teachers in providing uh updates that is what I as a threshold providing that wraparound coverage of professional development information sharing um for example there there are Avenues in which we
239get information because of the relationships that we have formed at the state and the federal level that we pass along to our clients over the years of our practice and the ability to to share that information with you so you're informed better than others um because you have us as your Advocates is the advantage of having specialty counsil to come in and help you is that you know you get access to information before other people do and are better informed so hi what is your firm's greatest strength and your greatest weakness so I'll say something that I often say to my children I have two kids in public schools in North Carolina and um I always tell my kids that a lot of times they're part and parcel of the same characteristic right so one
240of the things that we've talked to you about one of our greatest strengths is that we are all intrinsically motivated towards education law um as as Laura has said we have a lot of teachers some of us have Educators in our family or have long lines of Educators in our families and so one of our greatest strengths is one our team you know I think in the same way that you all probably feel about your schools one of your greatest strengths is your is the team that you lead um your administrators and your teachers I would say the same thing about Pointer we have a phenomenal team they're very experienced they're very smart they're very knowledgeable and they're motivated intrinsically there's a passion for representing School boards that you can't create it just H it
241has to be there someone feels that way or they don't so I think that's a huge strength um on the downside you know another thing that that is our strength but can be a double-edged sword is this issue of representing people and being available all the time right we all know how how um that works so I would say you if we had to pick a a weakness one that would be that our strength also sometimes presents a personal weakness because we are on call 247 we I have answered the phone in the middle of the night more times than I can count I have been on the road at 4:00 in the morning I've been on the road at midnight and so they go hand inand if you're going to be 100% committed then
242that's a wonderful thing it's a huge benefit it's a great strength for your client it can sometimes be a personal drawback to to have that kind of availability but we consider that to be worth it because we are so passionate about what we do and I know for myself I like my kids to see what you can do and how you work hard when you are passionate about something and how that how that causes you and drives you to do your very best every single day all day thank you okay all right we're down to our last question and you're good on time um is there anything else you would like us to know about your firm or is there anything else you wished we had asked you I think we're all going to be
243able to answer that question in part um I'd like to take the first stab at it um from our perspective um I look at a bunch of lawyers and I think oh wow you're just doing your job transactional or whatever that's not what it is for us it's a calling and um in my high school days I was recruited from out of state to come to a state school here in North Carolina that paid uh me a full ride to go to school and when I got to college I realized wow there's such a great disparity between K12 education and the second the high the higher education in our state and they took a chance on me and I feel a debt of gratitude and that's why I do what I do our firm is
244full of people that are driven that way and I think that what you neglected to ask was what drives us individually personally every day all day and and that would be my answer I wanted to mention too something that I should have mentioned when we talked about the special ed piece is that um my my father is in the military and I understand that you know I looked at your numbers and this doesn't relate to the military piece but you have about 4700 special education students in the Eno County Schools it's a very high number of students many of those students are military students and we have worked for years with military families with regards to their students on all kinds of issues but particularly on special education issues your number one parents attorney if
245I had to guess in Eno County on special education might be the military attorney and we have known her for years and have a wonderful working relationship with her that has served well for kids and Boards alike I think so I just wanted to point that out as well I'm going to tell you in no uncertain terms we want to work for you I don't I don't mean to be CAD about that but I think it's very clear I want to if that's the question we won't to work for this District we want to put our very best to work for you each and every day um because we believe that you guys hold in your hands the future of not only your county but also the state and Nation so we want to put
246our shoulders into that effort to help improve education in enlo County I will be quick this time um I I don't know that there's anything you didn't ask um I do think again to point out what's already been pointed out we are a full service firm you know we have access to a lot of expertise outside our little circle of education lawyers um so when questions come up about elections or um you know Municipal issues that involve Municipal we have sections in pointer that deal with those things um you know in addition to to the other things that we bring to the table um which is a lot which Miss Cor showed in in her slide um so I do think that that's important I think the other thing that means a lot to me
247is I do think that we are very very conscious of the budgets of local school systems you know we're not representing for Citizens Bank we're not representing Walmart we're not representing you know these huge companies um you know we recognize um when it comes to billing you know what's involved that we're dealing with taxpayers money and we're dealing with relatively small budgets and that the money really needs to go to the kids and not the lawyers thank you unless there are any further questions uh we are done with our part of the interview and we appreciate the opportunity all right thank you all right board members if you'll uh please rate your sheets and um thank you so much thank you okay we're back um like to ask at this time are there uh any
248board members that would like to have any more time for contemplation praying or anything or are we ready to to to start the delivery this is not a discussion as much I just do you need more individual time anyone all right well today since nine o' we've uh We've uh listened to uh five uh I think excellent uh law firms I don't think we'd be unhappy with any of of the of the five law firms for general counsel um but you know our job is to select what we feel like is the most qualified for firm to serve as our general counsel and um we've had an opportunity now for literally weeks to review the um the uh RFP yeah or uh the proposals we've had an opportunity today to see these people uh firsthand
249to listen to them to hear their um the areas of expertise and all the other questions that they uh certainly answered there well um so what I'm going to do now and if you guys would like to get your pencil or pen I'll I'll give you the results uh tallied by uh by Miss Ramsey and these documents are for public consumption they'll be posted Jody right so U you know it's it's there so um the the vocal Law Firm received a rating of 3.5 Fairington Smith LLP 4.1 the Irwin Law Firm 3.6 Schwarz Law Firm 3.7 and the pointer spru Law Firm 4.4 so those any of those repeated do we need to repeat any of those are we all good okay so th those that's the way they they ranked according to the responses
250uh that we we gave so um I think that's it um so at this time the way to get discussion started would be of course in the form of of a motion so at this time I'll entertain a motion to uh for a nomination for the uh uh for a law firm um Mr chairman if there be no other I would like to make a motion to um recommend and adopt um por and spr as our Board of Education General Council okay we have a motion to approve pointer spru is there a second second all right we have a second all right now discussion well I guess I will go first with that um it's obvious that Porter and spru is highly qualified they have a number of um qualified attorneys that have Specialties under
251their belt um to provide us a wide range of services they have the experience in the classroom that could benefit our teachers as they conveyed um to benefit um training those teachers in ways that could benefit the students especially our EC population who are some of our most vulnerable students um as well as our military population and both of which seem to go overlooked a lot of times so um those are just two of the things additionally again they've had their own classroom experience that can benefit um their professional experience and certifications are just outstanding now I would like to also mention that um regarding one firm and I don't know if this is the time to do that so feel free to hit me with the gavel if you if you need to but
252um discussion but I would like to go ahead and point out something the reason that there was one of the questions asked that was asked um I wrote it down so give me one second here um when asked has any member of your Law Firm um found found it and established Rel or found I guess it was found I guess I don't know um I can't read my own writing anyway or established a relationship with existing board members beyond their official capacity or sought outside parties to contact board members to influence your vote for your firm since proposals began being accepted if so who wi and why well when I asked that to Mr vogle this morning whom um if any of you have read these proposals I met Jonathan in 2021 um established a
253professional relationship we've had several um just passings professionally and things like that um I think he's a wonderful person attorney have had great Eng M with him um but for someone to sit here and say no and I'm knowing this because on September the 7th I received a phone call from someone I hadn't spoke to for two years and then I got a text message to follow up with that phone call to tell me that you know um one of his Partners Jonathan sink had contacted this person this third party person to talk to me about voting for their firm because they claimed that they had lost my vote well the way you lose my vote is by trying to influence my vote and in case anyone is not familiar with our code of ethics
254um we're not supposed to be politically or individually um influenced by interest groups or politics and I actually take that very seriously um I don't know Mr sink I never met Mr sink I didn't even know he was a part of his firm at that time um to be quite honest about it so that was false and I find it very important to have um a firm that would have enough ethic ethics and integrity to stand there and just tell us the truth because if you lie to me about something small how can I trust you with 30,000 plus people and 4,000 plus staff members so I take that very seriously um I did not feel very confident with um swarts um for various reasons but you know um I I believe that porn SP
255is our best choice and that's all I have and if anybody would like to see um this text message I will be glad to make that a public record I will send that to you jod Brent whoever wants to add it in the cloud I will make sure that people can review that for themselves thank you anyone else yeah um so it so the Motions uh on the floor I just want to be sure don't have any legal counsel right now um but uh just want to be sure uh so she put the motion on the floor for the attorney that she picked are we suggesting ours or we we're just this discuss we have a motion we have a second so we're just discussing any you know any aspect of the if the motion
256if the motion doesn't uh pass then we'll have another one there you go um in in regards to the motion um unfortunately uh I I I have to disagree with my colleague um pointer SP spru uh if I'm not mistaken uh actually does have a relationship with the board now right are they not representing us yeah in in certain in in in certain areas absolutely so the reason why I asked that is because we we kept asking that question and I think that was a difficult question for every Law Firm that is currently representing us to answer because they are representing the board in some kind of way because the lawsuit comes against the board um they're the ones that are litigating those those lawsuits uh however um after looking at the the past experience
257of pointer Sproul I've I've seen them politically um support uh not only legislation but also uh cases within the state that are uh somewhat inflammatory I I I believe that um they've verbalized uh their political stance it's on their website they talk about a lot of racial politics um and that's not something that's going to be here shouldn't be tolerated within our school system um however um the law firm that uh I I I decided to go with um is the Vogal Law Firm um because out of all the law firms that uh presented his Law Firm adequately stated that he would represent the board in such a sufficient way that I I believe the service is there that's what we're doing there's this board of seven this is the body here and what we
258did was we we listened to them say how they were going to be able to support us and represent us um while I I respect what you're saying um to my colleague uh that being said Vogal Law Firm did explain exactly what we're looking for we're looking for a board attorney and he was able to ad adequately represent that now um he also made another note that I actually agree with that and actually I'll just go ahead and read this here um this is from District administration not not our district uh da Administration says as court cases involving special education students Human Resources human resource issues and staff grievousness continue to increase for all districts School leaders have had to rely more heavily on legal council for decades a single General Council might have handled
259all litigation but the ever growing complexities of State and federal regulations and expansions of the district's legal needs have changed um and with that being said uh I recommend that we move forward with Vogal law firm as the enel county school board's legal councel is he is the only firm to demonstrate how he will directly fulfill his role in serving as individual counsel to the board however um after listening to th theren and Smith uh they have significantly demonstrated their sufficient size knowledge and overall cap capabilities to handle the everyday needs of uh the Eno County School District they even conveyed to me that they can handle um a pletho of legal affairs with the diverse backgrounds of their uh attorneys um I think the landscape has changed not just in Eno County not just
260in North Carolina but I think it's changed throughout the United States and to uh have one firm represent both a board and a district is it's just not something that is sufficient these days um and what we saw here was two different attorneys or law firms I'm talking about thanington and Bogle that they know exactly what their abilities are and they demonstrated that and their ability is uh through thanington to support our district and I believe we're still we're working with them now in some capacity right yes um we don't want to sever that relationship because they are working with them but to have a fresh new attorney come in here and demonstrate that he can support this board on an individual level that's that's what we're looking for while there's seven people here this
261is One Singular body and the attorney um in the vocal Law Firm he demonstrated that he can handle that okay oh for me I I also agree that uh boogle was explained himself quite well um as I simp empathize with Mr Irwin but that he hasn't been really given the opportunity to conduct business in various areas and maybe that's not going to be um sufficient for us at this time I do believe that um V I do like the idea of having a board attorney and the district possibly having their own attorney um to represent them because I think that things are getting complicated in the in our community and our Nations as well and so that would be my recommendation as well um interestingly as I ranked uh through that sheet that we had
262I came up with the same order um as far as the numbers although I didn't I just added my numbers together I guess jod took averages uh but I left feeling that pointer and spr and Thon and Smith could adequately cover uh both the board and the district needs should that um be necessary um I believe that vogo explained himself very well but I'm also concerned that they don't have the resources I know there's other occasions where they have uh asked for potentially hiring another Law Firm to help them and I look at their web page and the way that he presented it they have two attorney two attorneys that also practice law on their own and we're already spread thin enough in some cases and I just feel that poter and spru or Thon
263and Smith are have the resources to adequately support us um I thought that all the candidates Express themselves extremely well but uh like Mr Williams said darington Smith and pointer spr I thought um stood out amongst the rest of them for a variety reasons and again number one is H for both of them is the fact again their size they bring a lot of experience a lot of the resources and a lot of the expertise that that is needed in education nowadays uh for me a big plus for both of those firms was the fact that they uh had a lot of former teachers on their staff people that can relate to what's going on in the schools what's going on in the classrooms on a day-to-day basis um those are my main reasons right
264there for those Mr chair yes um sure out of all the the law firms that presented today do we know can can you let us all know which law firms are currently working with the district right now uh fair fating and Smith and Porter spru are the two that I'm aware of is that right Jody are the two I'm aware of that uh we're working with currently and who of course and Irwin Mr Irwin okay and how many of those do we have a contract with yes Mr Iran okay no contracts um Daron Smith says they've been working with on County schools for 20 plus years is that correct so we um um after looking at the file and also pointing on spr it looks like they're offering a discount should we go into contract
265with them okay um so have we been paying discounted rates for services for the last 20 years or are we Mr Hollman can you help with that question uh I think the question is uh is hasing darington and Smith and hor been giving us discounted rates over the years or just how change the bird what they actually had stated reduce rates um for retainment services um I'm not sure exactly what the r they charge anybody versus US whatever but they do have stated rates for us that we've been doing with them I think the proposals that they had put in state break where they can provide addition putain yeah if we were to go with them do we know the difference in what our average yearly fees would be um withington or uh pointer and
266spr based off of how we've been working with them in the past that depend on volume that goes long during the year um but you they're all from lower rates they charging well uh I apologize to keep asking but the the the average rates that we've been paying them for the last couple years versus the the contracted rate so we have an average because we've been with them for a significant amount of time but once we go under contract we can compare that average to what their contract is going to say correct uh enter into a contract with where they would agree to specify the rates throughout that contract period I think uh depending upon the The Firm some of specify certain Services just included in then we have R for additional hours that Okay
267do um as far as I'm concerned H and spru would be the choice but there's something I did long before this process started which was I kind of researched a basic checklist of what we look for when we look for an attorney for the school system and oddly enough in not knowing and finding out today the checklist that I found was written by Richard A Schwartz Richard Schwarz and Associates Raleigh North Carolina now Schwarz law BLC this is one this is what was said concerning accessibility your attorney should be present at all board meetings your attorney should be readily available able as needed to consult with your administrators you should also select the firm which has knowledge and experience backup attorneys who are familiar with you or excuse me with your school system and school
268law whether we work with specific attorneys law law firms many districts do and many of them share the same attorneys that we share the questions that were asked were primarily determined if there was undue influence from any outside or internal sources that with the law firms or the community that were designed to influence our vote I think Miss Oakley brought something to light that we should all take into consideration if we had not thought about it that being said I paid particular attention to what Mr vogle was selling first he wanted to represent the board and not the district that is not the scope of who we are as a board it's not a part of what we learn concerning what we do as a board we represent not only as board we represent the
269district but we represent the district to the point that we are specifically engaged in policy and practice which means we call balls and Strikes we don't pick winners as we determine what's going on outside of the outside of our board itself concerning Community or whether we're concerned with our with what goes on inside the school district we are a neutral party of which we get to vet information we act as a conduit to accommodate the community and in turn we accommodate the district as they have challenges inside that come to meet us in the middle as well at the end of the day when there's a conflict between community and the district we can't pick sides no matter how we want to paint it from our political point of view we can't pick sides we
270have to look at it puritanically from the facts as presented according to the law every firm here did such except Vogal which raised itself as a clear danger not only to the community but the district because what he was telling me as he clearly said that his firm sets up policy committees inside his firm that is not their job yeah I wrote it down the lawyers are there to decipher law and change the law so we can make the best possible decisions concerning education in this County period my choice is cor Sproul thank you Mr chair and anyone else have anything may I add um I just wanted to point out something poter and spol spoke very highly on supporting Community advisory committees for book issues we've had those starting to trickle down um Community
271committees are something that I have actually recently had conversation about and I think it's important for us to engage that aspect um of of the issue but to point out something else um beyond that I just wanted to throw that out there because they're talking about school issues that are key topics that we are facing right now um if we're going to talk about websites and things like that well okay um some some could say that you know all of these firms have some kind of political tie it is very clear that um um with the phone calls and emails that I've recently received not only just that text message ever since then in September on the 7th I have received calls and emails even today while we were in this forum I have had
272phone calls from people attempting to tell me how to vote um if it's about the children and it's about the Constitution and the education and all the things that we do here it's not going to involve politics or political influence because the Constitution doesn't change and it's for everybody um um there have been issues if you just Google with bogle's firm as well like public records issues um no fulfillment um Mass Exodus of Staff we heard about Staffing shortages but there's apparently reports out there that they contributed to some um I I'm just not for again the the being bought or bullied campaign that has um been going on here and just to be clear I believe that I actually myself for me to be saying this I want to make it a point that
273for me to be saying this as the person that introduced Mr vogle to at least one two three four board members aside from myself I hope you can take that in and make it clear that this is about me making the best decision for this board and most of all the students that we serve in this District that's all okay I U I I think probably I'm drawn more to established firms firms that have seen the highs and the lows of public education firms that have resources that uh certainly can be tapped within their system which is not to say that law firms don't go outside for help they do they they I'm sure they depend on on one another quite a bit I'm sure a lot of the law firms are friends and and
274consider themselves colleagues in the legal field um I guess the thing that caught my attention with today's events was um the question are we aboard here the seven of us are we separate and apart from the superintendent are we separate and apart from staff are we separate and apart from teachers and administrators the community the students I I just had this feeling that in fact Mr Fogel said not to diminish the superintendent I don't I just I just felt like there was not U there was not not this Spirit of of us being a team I always thought we were about a team I don't I'm not here to challenge anyone I'm here to try to bring peace and Harmony if if we can uh come to that but uh I I I just I
275just sense that we I I just think we need to be in the all moving in the same direction which doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree how we get there is oh that's multiple ways to get to excellence in education which is our our driving Mantra um but but I I guess I I guess I'm most concerned I just had this sense it's there there's there's going to be a wedge between the board and the various groups that make up this great community that we live in I I just I I just didn't feel comfortable with that articulation I mean if you're if you can't articulate you don't need to be a lawyer I think they all did a a great job and like I say i' I'd be comfortable with a number of
276these firms so uh I I do believe it's time to vote uh unless there's unless there's yeah okay a quick point the W the wedge I think you're talking about is called accountability Mr chair that's what it's called and it's there for a reason when we say that we're going to hire a law because their staff is comprised of mostly Educators you're what you're saying is we want mostly Educators in our District staff we want mostly Educators on our board and we want mostly Educators in our legal representation that doesn't sound fair to me Mr chair yes Mr lir um I would have to counter that to point this out no one on this diet said any such thing I just repeated what he said is that what you said yeah I just repeated what
277he said you said the wedge no I'm also you beyond that okay okay all right we need to um call the question all right we got to call the question so at this point the the motion was to would you please read the motion Miss Oakland um hold on it's somewhere I did write it down there we go um Mr chair I'm I move to approve um Porter and P as our general councel to the onso County Board of Education beginning March 1st 2024 and um to expire contract um honor about May 2nd 2026 with a transition plan to be negotiated um by staff and yourself um During the period of January 1st 2024 through March 20124 want a clarification um the duration of the contract if we're having having a law firm represent the
278enzel County board for the first time in its entire capacity um would it be wise to have an extension or a contract that long or should we at least initiate it with the 12-month contract first good question two years um it is from March 20 March 1st 2024 through May 2nd 2026 with the transition so all right so so so in the motion that Miss Oakley read you'll notice that she uh threw out the put the dates in there in the motion March 1st of 2024 this coming March because Mr Irwin's contract ends February 28th right so that would go from the march of 2024 until May 2nd 2026 and the reason why that date is on here and I'm not saying we're we're married to that date you know I'm just saying that's the
279date when our superintendent's contract runs out May 2nd of 2026 typically throughout um uh many uh uh throughout the state throughout many systems the um the board attorney's contract runs concurrently with the superintendent it's not a rule for sure but it's just typically the way it may work so I I'll just say that just for clarification nothing else okay so then I would just request from my colleague that she amend her motion obviously she's free not to do so but I would ask that she make an amendment to her motion for the uh duration of the contract to extend um only being one year so it would extend to May 202 uh 20 all right so we have an amendment to the motion do you agree to to that amendment that would be a friendly
280Amendment right friendly I think um no I don't accept a friendly Amendment all right so the the the motion then is to um go from March 1st 2024 until May 2nd with the transition period with a transition period uh between the irn law firm and the um point of spru Law Firm okay a motion that's best the motion we're closing discussion excuse closing discussion calling the question I called the question earlier she call the question so if if second all right Chris are we good with this we're at the offer a friendly Amendment all right okay those in favor of the motion as read by uh Miss uh Oakley we please signify by saying I I those opposed no no all right motion carries uh five to two all right uh I think the next
281item on our agenda is the adjournment so I thank everybody for your patience today and your stamina for being here this long and U going through this very arduous process it's a it's an important process and a necessary process remember we haven't done this in 36 years so uh I've got a feeling it won't last 36 years this time but that's the thing of the past so this time I uh entertain a motion for adjournment adj and have a second all in favor I I opposed hearing nonee adj