NHCS Board of Education Agenda Review Meeting | July 29, 2025

001The agenda review meeting is called to order. Uh, Miss Buie, will you call the role? >> Good afternoon. Melissa Mason, >> here. >> Josie Barnhart, >> here. >> Pat Bradford, >> I am here. >> Judy Justice, >> here. >> Dr. Tim Merrick, >> present. >> David Perry, >> here. and Pete Wabbor >> also present. >> All right, we're going to have the invocation and after the invocation I've asked Mr. Wibbore to lead us in the pledge. But um let's do the invocation. >> My name is Germaine Armor and I am the pastor of the St. Luke Church here in the great city of Wilmington. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, in some circles you are known as teacher. So we ask that you would bless every teacher in our school system and every employee in every

002school. Christ came to us not as an adult but as a child. So Lord bless every child enrolled in our school system and those who will soon be school age children. And Lord, bless our school board members with wisdom, insight, and love as they lead us in the development of our most precious gifts, our children. This we ask in the name of Christ. Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. I will uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> So move. >> Is there a second? All right. Uh discussion. Miss Bradford. >> Um I would like to rearrange um taking close session and personnel report and putting

003them at the end and then um that would be after new business. And then um under the personnel report, add the B and put the superintendent's contract there. >> So those are three things. >> Okay. Two related. >> You're make you're amend making an amendment to them to the original motion to move close session consensus item personnel report and add >> um the superintendent >> contract extension to after new business. Yeah. >> Is there a second? >> There's a second. >> Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? That passes 7 to zero. So that was the amendment. Um I will entertain a motion to approve the amended agenda. Mr. Perry. >> I'd like to amend the agenda to add uh an item under all

004business regarding um the perform ad hoc performance bonus committee. I'll second that. >> Okay. Uh, any discussion? >> Um, I'm going to have Crystal, will you call the role on that one? >> Dr. Mary? >> Hi. >> Miss Justice. >> Yes. >> Mr. Perry. >> Yes. >> Miss Barnhart. >> Yes. >> Miss Mason. Um, it doesn't really matter, but uh, yes, >> Miss Bradford. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Wore. >> Hi. >> All right. So, that goes >> under old business. Um, so again, I will entertain a motion to approve the amended agenda. >> So, moved. Second. >> All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed. That passes seven to zero. All right, let's go through this agenda. Miss Barnhart, >> can you

005keep the time for me? >> Yes, ma'am. >> All right, so we have our call to order. Our roll call, invocation, um, national anthem, pledge of allegiance. Madam >> chair. >> Yes, ma'am. >> A point of order. I thought that the singing of God Bless America was absolutely wonderful and I thought the audience loved it and it just set a really good tone for the meeting. I had mistakenly thought we were going to do that every month and it sure would be nice if we did it more than once a year. So just just a a comment on that. Okay. >> I was going to make the same thing. Can we make a motion to add >> to add go the singing of God Bless America? Miss Justice, >> is this an addition to the

006agenda today >> to to the agenda for next week as we did last month? Um, board members want to add God Bless America to next week's agenda. Mr. Dr. Merrick, sorry. >> Yeah. As much as I love the song and I love singing, I think that there are several issues uh with it. Uh, I did believe it was just for one meeting. I don't think it's appropriate to keep adding more and more issu, you know, things onto our agenda. It's we're pretty busy already. We fight every time to get out of here at 9:00. >> I think there are also many people that I saw in the audience who looked around quizzically because of some of the concerns they have about what's happening in America today. And I don't say that we should, you know,

007not stand for the pledge of allegiance or anything like that, but I think we have done a pretty good job of signaling our virtues already by saying the pledge and doing the national anthem. I don't know that we need another one. My thoughts only. >> Any other comments, Miss Justice? And then Mr. Perry, >> I think it's really appropriate that we take care of business and focus on that. We're already doing the national anthem. We're already pledging allegiance. Um, and it is v virtue signaling. Let's be real. I love the song when I was a child. Things have changed. I've learned a lot in life. I still love it in its proper place. I don't see we have to do this. That's three different things that we're doing at the beginning of the meeting. That

008that shows that we're so patriotic and love this country, which we do. I mean, we wouldn't have we wouldn't be here if we weren't. But, I mean, this is taking more time. It is virtue virtue signaling. I don't care what you say. And as I keep saying over and over again, we got to focus on what our business, focus on what's best for the schools. Don't keep adding things that are actually, in my opinion, politically motivated. >> Mr. Perry, >> I'll just kind of repeat what I did the last time last month when I asked for this to be added to last our last regular meeting. I just think that it it sets a good tone for the audience and that uh uh that we are despite our differences that we are all Americans first

009and foremost and uh uh the and we're not um we're asking for uh God's guidance when we sing this through through the night with the light from above. I I I don't see the problem with it. I think it takes what a minute and a half. So um but >> um Mr. Wilport >> once again I would like to apologize everybody for missing the last two meetings. Uh I and I was not able to see that. So I would be in favor of doing at least one more time because I'd like to I'd like to see it and hear it myself. So >> did you have anything you wanted to add? >> No. Um my my biggest concern is one that has been brought to me by board members uh multiple board members is that

010we are we don't have enough time to do what we need to do. Um and I don't want because July 4th it it really felt like it was it was the right time to do it. Um but my concern is that I don't want to keep on adding things to the agenda um when many months it is it is already pretty full. So those are just my thoughts. Um Miss Buie, will you call the role on that? >> Madam Chair, is there a motion on the board? >> Uh yes, there was a motion to add it to the >> first and second. >> Was there a second? >> I'll second. >> Okay, there you go. >> Yes, Miss Barnhard. Now I have questions. Thank you. Um point of clarity is this for a one-time ad

011or continual? I do agree with my colleagues to to the right of I thought that this was a one-time addition for the 4th of July um month. So I I would like some clarity in the motion. Is this a continual ad of this song sing along or is this a one-time ad? I would probably venture to guess at this point since uh Mr. Werboard didn't get the opportunity to witness it the last time. We just for this moment just for this month then we can re-evaluate whether we would want to do it. >> So solely for the month of August. Solely for the month of August. >> All right. Uh Miss Buoy, will you call the role? Motion is to add God Bless America to um the agenda and it would be where did we

012have it before? It would be after the invocation and before the national anthem or was it before the invitation? >> Before the invocation. >> It was before the invocation. So adding God Bless America before the invocation. That is the motion. >> Miss Louie, will you call the role? >> Oh clarification. >> Now I'm a little confused. One time only. >> Mhm. Okay. And then that's it as far as we're concerned. Unless somebody else brings it up again >> until it's brought up again. >> Okay. >> Mr. Wore. >> Yes. >> Miss Bradford? >> Yes. >> Miss Mason? >> No. >> Miss Barnhart? >> Yes. >> Mr. Perry? >> Yes. >> Miss Justice? >> No. >> And Dr. Merrick? >> No. Uh that passes four to three. Write that in. All right. Um pledge of allegiance.

013We ha have um Miss Justice leading that. Are you good with that for for then we can change it? Um Mr. Perry, will you lead it for for this time? That's fine. Absolutely. Um then we have the approval of the agenda, the approval of the minutes recognitions. Do we have a lot? Two. So do you need 10 minutes? >> You can name that tune in five to seven. So let's let's go with seven just to be >> Yes, ma'am. >> Just another comment. um the way that you're doing that, it's making the start of the meeting really friendly and kind and you can tell that the response coming out of the people there are enjoying it. And um overall in my time on the board, what we're doing now is working and we've even gotten

014an email or two that said, "Hey, that's the most pleasant feeling as the meeting starts." So, you're doing a good job. Um, next we have administrative introductions. How long do you need for that, Miss G? 10 minutes. Okay. Um, superintendent report, board chair report, call to audience. Um, then under information, we have MTAC. How long do you need for that, Miss Princeton? >> So, let's go with 10 just to be on the safe side. Um, Miss Bradford, >> can you give us a heads up on what expand on that just a little bit more and just you're going to give us an update on what the MTAC committee does or is doing or it's got a proposal or >> this was in response to a board request >> for more information about the INTAC committee's

015>> okay >> responsibilities and what they do. >> Okay, cool. Thanks. Y >> uh continuing on, we have um consensus items. So the title one application 2025 to 2026. Does anybody have any questions about that? Dr. >> I just like a little bit more clarity, right? I mean it's like wow that's really dense information. Uh >> yeah. >> So the document that provides actually a copy of the application that we have to submit. um it actually goes to um NCDPI program monitoring section um for approval. And so I can give a summary if you'd like of what's included in the application if that's helpful. Okay. Um so the total um request in the application is 7.3 million. Um and that's the total amount that we're eligible for based on the planning numbers that we've received

016from NCDPI. Um we will be in this application we are setting aside um 96,000 for parent and family involvement. um 54,000 for homeless. Um administration cost um is at 636,000. That includes some PD um some software that we use to collect information from the schools and some administrative type um services that we provide for the federal program. um our TSI CSI schools, we have additional funds set aside for them, 150,000 to provide some additional services. Um we are picking up prek this year because of the reduction on the county side. We originally were not going to do that, but we have put that into title one now. So that 975,000 um reduction along with transportation and some things that we've provided for prek in the past is included in this application. um 10,000 for foster

017care transportation and then we've set aside about a h 100,000 not budgeted yet. We think we may need for salaries um because we don't have our raises and benefits. We don't have that state budget yet. And so those are the things that we set aside prior to giving the allocations to the schools. The total allocation to the schools in this U application is 4.7 million. Mr. Barnhart, did you have a question? Yeah, >> I would just love if you could expand. I know you said 50 54,000 uh for homeless students as well as 10,000 for foster care transportation. Could you elaborate on how many students that are currently classified as homeless and I know that could mean living in a hotel or not that we are currently able to serve? I know last time I

018we had an update I don't know how many years ago it was roughly 800 for the whole district is I don't know if that's >> okay. Do you have that, Lisa? >> Looks like she does. I do. Okay, good. Thank you. >> I can give you an exact number, but um I believe we are at we were last at 864, but let me double check. >> Thank you. >> Number of students. Yes. >> 864. >> One of the questions I had was whether >> Yes. Nope. You're you're good, Dr. Mer. of whether or not the the the carryover from last year was included in this at all. >> And the 100,000 that is set aside potentially for salaries, those salaries would only go to title one schools. >> Correct. All this funding would just go

019to title one schools first as I talked about in the beginning. >> So it sounds like there's a little bit of room in there for us to absorb some of the losses we've had around prek and ask for more. So thank you. As you may recall during the budget process, our original plan was to pick up um prek or um and EC some expenses in local um and and to be able to free up some title one money to give more funding to the schools. However, because of the reductions that we've received, weren't able to do that. So, we've had to go back and put prek back into the title one budget. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Thank you. >> And obviously, we have to match the raises and benefits that the state gets. to

020all of its employees. So we have to have since we don't know what that number is, we have to to build that in. >> Miss, >> not 864, 829. >> Thank you, >> Miss Bradford. >> So, um, Ashley, the 7.3 million total eligibility, I didn't read the fine print on this sucker. Um, are we asking for all the 7.3? We've identified all those things and you've just hit the highlights for us here. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. And this is >> the 2526 application. >> That's correct. >> Is this things that should have been funded by July 1 that weren't yet the impound or is this after that or was was the impound from the year before because I know it's in a rears, right? So, um, this funding includes, as we had mentioned, carryover

021from the fiscal year 2025. And so, we continued operations, assuming we would get the carryover. And we've already started using that carryover to continue operations. And so, our plan is to get this application in and to get the new money um down to us before we run out of carryover. >> Always a good idea. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. >> And then each school is responsible for building their own title one plan based on their own school's individual needs, >> right? >> Who knows? By the end of the year, we might actually all understand all of the titles. [Laughter] >> Optimism. Uh, next one is 2025 budget amendments. Does anybody have any questions about that, Miss Bradford? >> I do. I am curious. Let me see if I can pull it up. I I took my little

022handy calculator and I calculated all those that were in parentheses that look like minuses to me and it was $2 million and some 2.148 million of negatives. Am I reading that right? The budget amendments. Are you looking at the agenda item that has the information listed that's up on >> Yeah. So the parentheses actually are increases. It was just me saying this is a dollar amount associated with the alignment. And so in state as you recall we receive position a lotment. >> And so what that means if a teacher um the cost of a salary for a teacher is 60,000 or 90,000 they're going to pay for that one position. So when we were estimating the budget related to that, the actual expenses were a little bit higher by that $49,000. So we ended up

023doing a budget amendment to make our budget match the actual expenses knowing the state was going to pay for that um whatever that expense was. >> So that's a plus or a minus? >> It's a plus. >> Okay. All right. >> But it's not um cool. It's not necessarily uh new money because it's related to a position aotment if that makes sense. They were paying for that teacher no matter the cost. Um and then the same thing with the guaranteed allotments of the 490,000 once our expenses hit for our um I'll make sure I use the right wording non um contributo employee benefits. And this is these are things like longevity pay, retirement payouts, disability pay. Once all of those expenses hit for state paid employees, the um state will come in and cover all

024of those expenses. So once we knew what the actual expenses were for those things, we were able to budget that. Um so that was the adjustment we made there. Under local current expense, um we did have some transfers. The overall budget did not change but within um different functions we did have some adjustments. Um our instructional sub um support was a little bit higher than we had anticipated and also our final charter school payment based on their enrollment was higher than we anticipated. So, we ended up using some um lap salaries that we had available and also um some departments have some budget remaining. So, we're able to move that down and cover those extra expenses just to close out the year. And then for federal um same thing, our total federal budget did not

025change, but we did have to make some movement within um the children with disabilities program and our school improvement programs where we were over in c certain lines but other um over in some and under in some. So we just adjusted within the programs. >> Um and then we also for our capital outlay amendment, we had some savings. We finished up some projects. Um, we finished the track resurfacing project and some the security camera project. And the amounts you see in parenthesis were the savings related to those two projects. And so that money will go back. We'll complete a final report and it will we'll submit that to DPI. DPI will pull those funds back and then we'll be able to um submit a lottery application to use those funds for another project in the

026future. So, we'd like as soon as those projects in to go ahead and submit the paperwork so we have access to it um whenever we need it. And then the last amendment was our other restricted revenue. Um we did receive some Medicaid um reimbursement after our last board meeting. And so I was very excited about that because as you may recall, we included when we were building this year's budget, certain revenue would come in this year that we would carry over and use for next year's budget. Um, and we had estimated an increase of about 500,000 in revenue. And I'm happy to say that came in plus a little bit more. So we were super excited about that. So we have the revenue that we had anticipated when we were building the budget has now

027come in. So, um, that was the final amendment you see here. >> Thank you. >> Madam Chair, >> uh, Dr. Merrick. >> Yeah. Um, if what I'm hearing is correct, a lot of, you know, kind of massaging the different places where we had a little extra, we had a little need, >> no new cuts to any programming, no new cuts to any personnel, no new cuts that we didn't know about in our original budget that we presented. >> That's correct. >> We haven't already shared with you. >> That's correct. money we haven't already shared with you. >> And and just just to be clear, everything I just covered was technically last school year's budget. This was our final adjustment to last year's budget to clean everything up, >> get everything finished to close out the

028year and start getting ready for >> Miss Redford. >> So basically, it's not found money, >> but um it's not a reduction either. No. So it's something to celebrate. >> Yes. this everything here. We were on target. We just had a few adjustments we needed to make for for year end, but we were on target with what we thought was going to happen. And then we also, as I said, um picked up that a little bit more of the Medicaid money that we were hoping for when we were building um this this school year's budget. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> All right. Um, so, um, I was just notified that there is another consent item that needs to be added. Um, so I'm going to pause before we go to the next one, and it

029was Miss Barnum. So, this is unexpected. Um, we it wouldn't normally need to come to the board for approval because it's a contract for an amount less than $300,000, but we issued a request for proposals for speech services, contracted speech services to cover um where we have vacancies or to cover additional speech services for students with IEPs. And I don't want to wait until se the September board meeting. Um, so we issued a request for proposals but only got one bidder, one company saying that they could take on the work. Therefore, and because these are covered by federal dollars, this would be a soul soul source provider and soul source providers need to be approved by the board. So, it's not the dollar amount and we didn't expect it until the RFP closed and now

030we just have one uh one company. So, I would want to add that. I don't have the name of the company, but I will I will provide that to you shortly. Um, I will want to add that to the consent agenda for next week. >> Point of order. Uh, Madam Chair, >> go under like G. >> Don't we have to have a a twothirds vote to add that? I hope we can make a motion. >> I would like to move move that we had that too. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. >> All right. And it would read something like um approval of an RFP for a sole source provider and put it under G. >> Or would it be speech services? >> It would be right. Um, soul source provider of speech services. Yeah,

031here we go. Miss Justice, >> just for my information sake and other people, could you describe what a soul source provider is as opposed to a wide open provider? >> Yes. So, um basically um because we only have one bidder um bringing their proposal to us, we need to choose them as opposed to choosing from a range of providers that responded to our RFP. So that makes them sole source and this is the only one we could possibly use at this time. >> M can I add when we say soul source that means we only have one vendor that can so it is a little bit different than how you probably heard that language used in the past but this really is because we put out a RFP and we only had one responsive vendor

032and we need to be able to provide these services when school starts. So, I I think it's still the same thing. We want to make sure the board's okay with us only having one responsive provider and us making a decision based on that instead of bidding that out again. >> Okay. Uh Mr. Perry, >> uh quickly, um obviously there was only uh one response from one vendor. Um but given um what's usual or typical, you didn't see anything extraordinaryly out of the ordinary about the the the bid or the amount? >> No. And um we already use some contract providers, but it's the only additional contract provider that that came forth at this time. >> Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary. >> All right. So there's a motion to add um soul uh soul source

033provider of speech services to consensus. Um all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? That passes seven to zero. So going back up to see u contracts extending into fiscal year 2027. Miss Bradford, do you have questions? >> The first one, Holly Sheler, Committee for Children. It's not a whole lot of money, but what's committee for children? What's that vendor? Yeah. Yeah. Committee for children um hosts our um darkness to light training that is a part of our sexual abuse prevention. Any other questions? Okay. Uh disposal of surplus property. Mr. Perry, >> how much is I've got a couple of questions. So, um how much do we um are we estimating how much the the uh this uh auction would raise and is that is that money in in our budget

034or would this be over and above what we're already? >> So, we do budget for the year how much we anticipate receiving for surplus sale, not necessarily for each individual auction. and it's really based on the past four years, how much during that time frame we've received, and then we do like an average of that um when we're building the budget. So, since this is the first one, of course, we won't have any extra yet, but it could be at the end of the year, we our surplus sale exceeds what the budget is. Um, and then we would come back and budget that additional funds. I don't know if you recall or not, but we did, I believe in May, we did go over that original um revenue amount that we had in the budget

035and we did come back to the board and budget that additional revenue. >> So, right now it's not the upcoming sales are not budgeted in. It would be later, >> right? >> So, we do have revenue budgeted in the current budget for surplus sales >> prior sales or from this upcoming sale or an estimate. Um we just I've budgeted for the whole year. So all the surplus sales will do for the whole year. I've created a budget of what I think I've estimated what that revenue would be. Well, the reason I ask is um this I see that this I went through some of the list of some of the stuff uh and uh in my mind it would be great if we could give our our teachers and perhaps some of our disadvantaged students

036[Music] some opportunities to get these at a first dibs at a discounted price. um the some of these things as a as a bonus to our our our employees u and you know there's stuff personal computers and iPads and all sorts of things in there uh which people might want um so but you know I I want I don't want to kill the budget at the same time but I would like to be has any thought been uh given to offering this stuff to our employees andor for disadvantaged parents. >> We could research that. My understanding is by state law, we're required to surplus um to be able to get the most funding we can unless we have an internal use for that. But as far as um giving first dibs to our employees, I'm

037not sure if we can do that. I think we would have to research to see if that's allowable. >> Um Mr. Mr. Lord, >> I hate to be bring this to your attention, but uh there's no such thing as a scroll saw. >> There's a typo. I'm sorry. >> Scroll saw. >> After Smartboard, there's scroll saw. >> No, just say heard the new invention. Maybe >> there you can work on that scroll for us, please. >> There's actually only one of them. >> Oh, yes. >> Miss Bradford. Um, I know that we as board members can't bid on surplus, but I I'm pretty sure employees, which would include teachers, can't bid on surplus either. Um, can somebody correct me on that, Dr. Morgan? >> So, um, employees can't. So, if you are part of the

038process as far as determining what goes to surplus and approving the surplus items, you can't also go and then bid on those surplus items, but if you're not involved in the process at all, then you could go and bid. And we are >> and attorneys can help me out if I've said anything wrong related to that. >> Um, >> trust me, I would have done it. >> Just also just a little um editorial. Refrigerator doesn't have a D in it. >> What if I >> It's in there. Thanks for all your help. I sincerely sorry. >> Well, there goes my plans to get my hand on a school saw. >> Sorry, sir. All right. Any other questions on the surplus? >> We let this one go. >> Oh my lanta. >> All right. >> Next

039we have the memorandum of understanding between New Hart County Board of Education, New Hart County Health and Human Services, and Coastal Horizon Center uh Inc. LFA Revised. Miss Barnhart. >> Thank you. Uh Miss Barnum, I know this is the what we have to submit to DPI. So my questions and we've had conversations about it. I just like for it to be and open to the public so they can hear is talking about our temporary or transitional staff. So our substitute teachers and things. So in response to um our all of our staff receiving these trainings so they can be responsive as well as our nonprofits that come into our school and support our students um to support this plan for suicide prevention and mental health. >> So I I think the question might be related

040to a different item. Okay. Um, is your question related to the school mental health plan that we will submit? >> Yes. Mine comes in process to the training that are that our staff go in behind it and that includes our temporary or substitute staff, our people coming in, volunteering, nonprofits, things like that. How >> Yeah. How are we how are we helping to train them and bring them up to par so everyone's on the same page with the same information so we're all in a cohesive boat together? >> Yes. So um all of ourus such as this one require that our professional development um crosses um um employments. So if you are working in our schools in a um in a collaborative position under anou or a contract then you are provided the same professional

041development along with our staff because you have the same requirements for duty. Yes. Um and then I want to clarify about this one. It's a revision. This was already approved >> y >> um by the board. The revision is in 7D under indemnification and this comes um at the county's request, county legal request to just add a statement that has been there before under indemn indemnification to begin that sentence with to the extent permitted by law. Public health and coastal horizon shall be responsible for action. Oh, I see it. Okay, now I'm good. I was just trying to get a general understanding of what it was, but I think in what Julie just said, I've gotten it. I've read it a couple times and I still wasn't sure what it is, but I think I

042do. >> Uh, next contract for service on that, Mr. But just quickly, does does this um contract as far as terms or policies differ in any significant way with the one we have with New Hampshire County Sheriff's? Um maybe Mr. Blanch could respond. >> No, only in that it is serving just four schools. Excuse >> WPD. So we have one we have one SRO for WPD for the four schools. um powder in over and just to point out the only reason that you're getting this now is because you signed theou at the last meeting but we didn't have this contract with it and so we thought it was important to go ahead and send it forward as well. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Dr. Mayor. >> Um just for us folks that are still getting

043our feet underneath us, can you explain why we have some with the city and some with the sheriff? That's a good question. Yes. I think years ago, honestly, it was it was well before my time, I think it was set up as a relationship thing to have the Wilmington PD placed in our downtown schools so that they were working in conjunction with the sheriff's department and they were also working, I think, to establish a relationship of folks who live downtown and attend schools downtown. >> Appreciate it. Appreciate. Um and then we have the uh soul source provider speech services contract that we have already discussed. Does any have any other questions for Miss Barnum about that? I'm going to share that the company is salient health which we generally contract with on an annual basis.

044>> Thank you. All right. Next is policy and I'm going to ask Mr. Wabore. How long does he need for policy and policy consensus? >> Well, this one's going to be a little bit shorter. We have something unusual. So, I'll ignore that in a second. Next one. Um, I'm going to need half the meeting. So, just letting you know, we put everything off. >> So, for for next time, we'll just everything else, you know, policy will take half meeting. >> How about a second policy meeting? >> Yeah. Follow up. >> Um, for this one, um, we I do want to highlight um, and I'll go back to the top, but 2610 um, actually Mr. Krokkey uh kind of brought that forth. Well, Miss Justice brought it forth and Mr. Krokkey um and I think we

045would like to have probably a good at least 15 minute discussion on exactly what um you know there there's questions on how we should word that. Um you know just to for overview for everybody that may not know basically used to everything funneled through the chair. >> The chair would say yes you can contact the attorneys or no you can't. Uh during my time as chair, we kind of loosened that up a little bit. Um and um but now there's a question, you know, well, if if I go to the attorney and discuss something, say for instance, then you know the question is that then he would share out to everyone what was discussed and um Kroky shared it if he did that his bill would probably double um because it just would take a

046lot of time. So he asked that we would have a a time to discuss exactly how we want to do this, whether we want to, you know, because in in all defense of uh Mr. Ky, Mr. Blanchard, they don't want to, you know, send in, you know, you know, massive invoice a whole bunch of, uh, you know, u money from, you know, from us. So, u, so if we could, you know, a lot 15 minutes for that, I don't think the other three would take probably five. So maybe 25 minutes total just to be sure. >> Okay, >> that sound good. I mean, it sounds like if that's what we need. Miss Bradford, >> um, the attorneys, you're keeping up with House Bill 804, which was veto overridden this morning. Um, House Bill because it's

047got the word biological in there attached to the word sex and the ramifications of that on the policies that we've had on our on our plate now for months. >> Listen to me. >> I don't know why. I just I was just enough. >> No, it happened today. I mean, and and >> hang on. >> I don't know that I can tell you what it what it is. Um but it I know I know part of it is the word biological. So, um >> I agree. All right. Um so, that's for the attorneys to kind of look up. Um Dr. Merrick. >> Yeah. Um I'm having trouble looking at this document and knowing what it is. you know, I see some scratching out and I see some uh you know, some indents here and there.

048I I I don't really know how to read it very well. >> I would just ask that. Can we clarify this a little bit more? And I think >> that came actually Miss Justice, you may because she was the one that actually brought in the pink part here that uh that basically every board member must be informed of the question response within 24 hours or prior to any board or committee meeting, whichever comes first. So basically that they would have to again you call you know you call them if you go through the super the superintendent the board chair or you talk to them directly that they have 24 hours to report out to the rest of us what you ask and what their response was. >> But is that being removed or is that

049being added? >> That's what you would like to add. >> I see. Yeah. And and all these other uh scratch marks in here. I I'm sorry. I I wasn't there at the meeting and I >> Are these things that we can kind of add to the conversation next week that we can get some clarification on? Um just because we do have some things we need to cover and we do have to get through this. Uh Miss Justice and then Miss Bradford real quick. >> Really quick, but I had the exact same concern when I first looked at it and it's still the same. I said, "Can we clean this up so we can understand it?" I don't know who put that because usually when we do policies it's a lot clearer as to what the

050changes are but this is messy and confusing and so I guess it's still the same. It hasn't changed. >> Somebody could clean it up by next week and make it everybody's life. >> Yeah. And and tell us you know language in red is new language here whatever. >> We can do that for sure. >> But all right. Absolutely. >> And madam chair I want to just point out something to think about when you're thinking about 2610. I went to the superintendent's office and looked at the last year's worth of legal bills and in um November attorneys build for the December month of December um $8,440. By the December billing for the month of January, it was $10,000. for the February billing in March, it was $16,000 and the May billing in June of this year

051was $20,000. So regardless of the number of of of bond forfeitures and the number of PRRS, we have doubled the amount that we're spending on the board attorney and you should just keep that in mind as we deal with this policy. >> All right. Um I'm sorry I won't be fast. Just be clear. And this happened Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. This this is due to the fact that you're catching up on the public uh >> so this won't be happening. This is was way backlogged. >> For what it's worth, it was 30% less this morning. >> Miss Barnhart still. >> Well, from the conversations I'm hearing, it sounds like the concern of potentially adding and changing this policy and hopefully it's going to be a little bit better addressed. um the where the additions are,

052but potentially the concern is coming from the amount of finances that will come with that. Is that what the concern I'm hearing bring up from a fellow board member? >> Yes. Okay. >> Um >> All right. We really need to keep going, but Mr. very quickly. I mean, I I'm going to propose and and I'll even write a motion, an amendment to this proposed just that we leave it upon the board member himself to report the query and the response within 24 hours and not burden our attorneys. >> I think this is a discussion for next week. So, let's let's keep that for next week um and continue on. Um the next thing on here is the budget update. Sir, how long do you need for that? Um, let's say five for me, five for

053y'all for questions. >> So, 10 minutes. >> I can do that. >> Okay. Don't don't hang up yet. Um, ironically, wireless communication. >> So, this is really just an overview and an update for you folks. Uh, I've had a team researching the legislation regarding cell phones and our current policy, and we're making some adjustments that we want to bring to the policy committee. I can give you guys an update in five minutes >> uh during our meeting. >> Yeah, >> during the meeting. Yes, this is this is just that how much time he needs. Um next, um Sally's Law Resolution. Dr. Merrick, how much time do you need for that? >> Um I I think that we can do that in 5 minutes. >> Five. Okay. >> Yes, Mr. Willation. Um I did try to

054open that to see the resolution and it won't open. >> Oh dear. I will I will send you everything today, Pete. >> Okay. My technological skills are >> can't we just get it up on the thing because the wants to read it too. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> So I will send it to both you and to uh Miss Buoie. >> And I think that um hearing from them they said it's a word document that has to be downloaded. Correct. So that might be some of the if you don't have Word on your computer that might be a challenge but we can kind of >> need to be in Word. >> It is in Word. >> Oh PDF. >> Would that be PDF would be better? It would be better. >> And madam chair, if

055we could add 10 minutes so we can have discussion with it. Okay. I don't know if >> do 10 minutes for Sally as well. That's fine. >> Of just the next two items so that they it's not just a >> 10 for Leandro as well. >> I don't know how much you wanted, but I just I I would like to have some time for discussion. That's all. >> I think that's appropriate. Is important for the public to hear it. Um, I just wanted to make a quick mention that we have both uh Charlene Zorn for Sally's Law and Rebecca Traml for the Landro Plan here with us today. I just want to acknowledge them for coming and for doing all the background work that allows us to bring this to the public. Thank you. >>

056All right. Um, and then next on there is close session, which we will need, sir. Yes. So, we've got just we're closing in on the formal person. >> And do we know how much time that might take? 30. Five. Five. >> Look at you. We're going to put 10 just to be safe because >> then you're going to look like a mirror. >> I know better. All right. And then we have the personnel report, correspondence, announcements, and adjournment. Um, I'll give Miss Barnhard a minute to calculate >> 3 hours and 17 minutes if we're going with Miss Baggie's suggestion of a 7 minute recognition, but 3 hours and 20 minutes if we wanted to. >> Did you include uh restroom break as well? >> No. So add five minutes to that. So 35 >> 325.

057Okay, >> we can talk really slow. >> Um, no. >> We might get out of here on >> Will you people stop jinxing it? All right. Next. We have on our this agenda um the discussion of board business. This was brought to us a couple months ago um by Mr. Perry who had some concerns about um how much time we we have as far as meetings go and if we have that there's a feeling that there's not enough time for discussion of things. And so, um, he had requested that we talk about how we can make more time for discussion. So, I'm going to kind of hand it over to you, Mr. Perry, real quick and, uh, you can kind of start the discussion. >> I'll try to be quick. Um, so yes. So, um,

058this is what this is about. Can can we make more time for for discussion? often times we are we are going through pretty heavy topics and sometimes controversial topics. We don't always agree and uh but we are so stretched for time sometimes is is that we end up eliminating the debate. I know I've got frustrated at least on a couple of occasions where I felt I had one more point to make but we didn't have enough time to do it. Um, and I know we can always have private conversations over coffee and stuff, but I do believe that the that we owe it to the public to have most of our conversations in public so they can hear what our rationale is. We want to be fully transparent to the community on not only what

059we do, but how we do it, how how did we get there? And um so I think transparency is something it feeds into this whole transparency for us to have robust debates here you know on whether it's on the dis or whatever because the more transparency the more we kind of get it out there the more public goodwill I think we're going to inspire people know that we you know hey this is why they think this it's not only how they vote but why and I think that's going to instill better public confidence in our thing. So, you know, there's some suggestions. You know, I I've made the suggestion before. I know it's uh about having a quarterly uh awards and recognitions. I know some people don't like that, but also could we have a

060second meeting in the midmon to take care of some other stuff? Or I'll just open any suggestions. How can we get more time so that we don't have to cut off discussion just because we don't want to stay after 9:00 p.m.? >> Uh Dr. Merrick. Well, it kind of dovetales a little bit with what we talked about earlier. If we're going to add four minutes for a song, it kind of, you know, that's a funny argument, right? If we're going to add time for a song and yet we want more time to discuss. I do though, uh, agree with my colleague that I think we could have some of the fanfare. That's wonderful. I love watching our students parade. I love listening to them uh do their presentations. I don't know that it needs to

061be monthly and you know there's a possibility that we could have you know the ROC come in uh on a quarterly basis or something like that. There are there are other options that we could do to reduce the amount of time. I don't want to take away um the pageantry because that's how we celebrate our our kids. Perhaps we have an extra meeting which is simply about celebrating our students. >> Miss Barnhart, um I appreciate my colleague I'm trying to bring up ways that we can speed up the process. That'd be a nice way to say it. But I think that there's been a lot of streamlining of communication especially under this administration of making sure that we have access to information that we are sharing that information um once we receive it with individuals.

062This meeting in particular was agenda review came after my honestly my initial frustrations of being one of three people called into agenda review and I said so I have access to information all my colleagues don't before I it was a crazy thought and a process because how can you um allow yourself to make informed decisions if you're not even part of the discussionary point. So having this meeting was very important. Um and I'm something it's proud I'm proud of our board to do this because we are able to openly have that dialogue and some yes some points are repeated in um the board meeting next week but it allows us the opportunity just like my colleague said to come together to have those honest dialogue and conversation but in addition it's highlighting um the intentionality

063of the transparency that we have built to create um that this leadership is continuing to facilitate and engage with. So, I appreciate this. I think that it's part of the process of working together. Um, we all come from different backgrounds and many of us did not have a relationship prior to sitting into this role and so there are going to be um communication hurdles that come along the way. I do not in any way, shape or form want to eliminate our students and our staff coming here and highlighting what the good work we are seeing being done in our district. And so I try very hard to get to one to three schools a week. That and that literally is I cannot get to every single school, even just doing one a week in a

064year. And so I I think it's an opportunity for us to come together and to stay focused on the decision-m that we have to do for our staff and students. And so I don't want to see that be cut in any way, shape, or form. I just want to say that. Thank you. >> U Mr. Worth and Miss Bradford and Mr. Well, um, all due respect to the ideas brought forth, I think that they, you know, I I don't disagree at all that we we're here for a simple reason, and that is to do the business of the school system. Miss Justice and I remember the days of multiple meetings that went on and everybody got a chance to talk and talk and talk more. Uh, so maybe we need to think about that when

065we talk and and really think about let's say the point, say what you need to say, and don't need to say it for 15 minutes. Um, I mean that would also give us some more time. I I don't agree that we need I mean it's about the it's it should be everything we do about the kids. So for us to say well let's go ahead and not do the kids and let's not have the kids do this or do that. I mean I I disagree with that 100%. I mean the students and the faculty that are here that come out here and the you know uh you know the teacher voice, the student voice, >> I mean I I don't want to cut that out. I mean to have, you know, those those young men

066and young women to get up here and, you know, sing their hearts out and sing the national anthem or whatever. I mean, to say, "Well, let's not do that." I mean, what, you know, I mean, that's that's the joy. I mean, it's I think all of us would agree going into school, seeing school, the students doing what they do and and and the teachers do what they do, that's that's really the joy of this job. And, you know, and and say, "Well, let's go ahead and cut some of that out so we can talk more." I I I can't agree with that. So, I mean, I I'm I think we need to maybe find other ways, maybe limit what we say, you know, to hear a little less of us and a little more of

067them. That's my thought. >> Miss Bradford and then Miss Justice. >> I would agree with everything that Mr. Worth said. Um, you know, the agenda review was brought in and we set the times for what these things are going to take, but we're supposed to talk to each other in the interim and say, "Hey, what's this about and how do you feel about this?" So we get a feel for what the rest of the board thinks, but sometimes we just throw things on the agenda that really probably don't belong on the agenda if we just talk about it beforehand. Um, and you know, and if we'd actually read the board package before we got here, that would cut down on the amount of conversation you have in the meetings. Um, and we're allowed to reach

068out to the staff person and say, you know, hey, what is that, you know, the part about JC Row, you know, what what's that about? and reach out to the chair, reach out to the vice chair, even reach out to the super who's uber available and say, "What's that about?" So, we don't have to take so much time in a meeting to do it. Um, it just it puts the homework part on us. But, if I'm mistaken, Madam Chair, are we not I mean, don't we follow some kind of Robert's rule of order to where, you know, we we we make a motion, we make a session, we have discussion, and everybody gets roughly two shots at at discussion, and then we vote. that's set out in in in the regulations. So, um, so so

069asking for four or five shots at speaking at something isn't going to isn't going to play because it's already set out. You need to be concise in what you say in those in that one or two opportunities you get to speak and not repeat something somebody else has said. But, um, I am totally against changing anything about the top part of our meeting. That's the part that carries me through the rest of the night. Um, I love seeing the kids come up. I love seeing the teachers do their part. I love all of it. And, um, when you go to the county commissioners, you know, and I told Dr. Barnes this so I'm not talking behind his back. The county manager does the recognitions. Why? Because they value their staff. Guess how high the staff

070retention is at the county level? Probably higher than ours. You know, the fact that we recognize staff members for the things that they do good, that's helping us with retention is a huge reason why we do all of that. And while it might seem boring um to some people, it's not. It's just a huge part of what we do. And I would I would strongly fight against changing any of that. >> Miss Justice, I pretty much agree with everything everybody said. Um, I would like to thank this particular group and this current superintendent for what has changed over the last four years when they Pete and I went through it. We actually had people from Raleigh tell us we should be doing this and the past leadership on the board refused to do it. That's

071why we had meetings till 12:00 and 1:00 in the morning. And I mean, I even put together committee and we even the committee said we had to do it this way and they still refused. So, thank you very much. I like what's going on. You know me, you can't leave them kids out. Certainly can't leave them parents out. Certainly can't leave our staff out. That's the best part of the evening. That's why it's a buy in. Sorry about that. That's the way it is because there this is this is all together. work together in this and that shows that this is the reason we have everything else that goes on after the beginning of the meeting. So I just mainly wanted to say I I'm very impressed that this particular board group did what should

072have been done years ago and could have been done that and and it was all about transparency. The previous board was trying to control I don't know what because it never really seemed cohesive to understand what was happening. uh it was like more confusion the less you know less people could understand what was happening. This is very the steps are very clear. We commute quate well and and some both of you everybody spoke has said we maybe we just need to cut off some of this stuff and stop saying things over and over and over and over and over and over again you know. Okay. Anyway, thank you. >> Um I'm going to speak because I haven't yet. Um and as chair uh my colleague is correct. I've been trying to make sure that we

073follow the Robert's rules procedure so that we're not um extending the meetings beyond what we should be. Um there comes a point I think for everybody in the room where our brains are mush and um things don't decision good decisions don't get made when our brains are mush. Um we know this. So I think that I've tried to maintain that procedure. I don't always do it perfectly and so I appreciate the grace that everybody gives me for that. Um, but that's something that that I have tried to do and and in an effort to make sure our staff is home at a reasonable hour as well or that we're home at a reasonable hour, but we're also getting things done. Um, for me when I sit and I am watching all or or when I'm

074standing and I we get to be up there and we get to thank all of these these teachers, it makes it much more personal and is such a positive thing for me as I'm sitting because this job is hard. We know this job is hard and so watching the good things and seeing the good things we have to have the good because there is going to be the hard things that we have to do as well. Um for every positive thing no for every negative comment you need five positive and I see that as a that's what these these awards these recognitions those are the positives that we need as we move forward because it's going to be hard decisions that we have to make especially in this budget season. Um, and so for me,

075I can't justify getting rid of any of these celebrations. Um, and then one last thing, um, I know that at one point that we did have, um, a celebration a few years, a few couple years back. Um, we did have one big celebration of recognitions, >> but it wasn't necessarily wellreceived by our staff. Um, >> true. >> And so I don't want to mimic that if it didn't work. the the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And so I I don't think that's the best approach in my opinion to go. I think that what we're doing now is positive. I think it boosts the morale. I think it keeps our staff here. I think it keeps our families engaged. I think it keeps our kids

076engaged and I think it's just such a positive thing. So I can't I can't justify getting rid of anything. And I can't remember who had their hand up first, if it was Dr. Merrick or Miss I was going to call in order because we are at time. So, you were going to call a point. >> Well, that we're at time. >> I had a point to say, but it it's fine. >> Um, >> but we are at time point of information for Miss Justice and our other new board members. If you don't know, that was a bipartisan effort between on an ad hoc committee between me and Mr. McManis. We worked on it for months. We interviewed every county board and we asked them how did they do it and that's how we came to

077that. It took us probably three months to enact that and it was a little bumpy in the beginning. Um, but it was a hard effort on the people sitting on this side of the room and and we did it and it's definitely better. We noticed that one board member would fall asleep around nine o'clock. So, there's really no point in having and then some of us would go like completely crazy by 9. So, we figured nine was a good arbitrary date their time to just cut it off and that's how we got to where we are. >> All right. Um, so super fast, Dr. Merrick and then we're going to move on to the next thing. Uh, I did not know that we had Oh, >> I did not know that we had tried that.

078Uh, and I I take your point because I don't want to shut anybody down. We We love our kids. We want to We want to showcase them. So, I'm I'm appreciative for that knowledge. I'm also appreciative for what I believe to be an increased con uh collegiality that we're starting to see over the last little while. And I appreciate that. And so I don't want my comments now to go against that. But I do need to say um having talked to some of the students uh in student voice and some of the different educators sometimes there's a feeling that what we call student voice or what we call teachers voice doesn't necessarily give them as much movement to express themselves especially their concerns. And I would like to revisit that at some point. I just

079want to put it out there. >> Okay. All right. Uh Dr. Barnes, you do want to talk. >> Sorry. >> You're fine. >> But specifically for that to encourage staff members as well, there is a process for discussing concerns that you have as well. It it is hard for a staff member to come to speak directly to the board when we have policy directing them to speak to their supervisor first. So, it is a you know, but that's why we have listening doors. That's why I put myself out there as well. And again, if you don't have my cell phone number by now, you're just not trying. So >> all right thank you >> I think tomorrow night is perfect. So I just want to highlight that in case anybody's watching listening that you know

080that tomorrow tomorrow night you know that there is an opportunity for >> actually if you could explain I've had a lot of people call me and say hey what's the format for this should we come should we not come you know what's going to happen so there is some apprehension in the community can you tell us what's going to happen tomorrow night sir >> well and just after you get done with that you can just roll right into the next thing >> all right have you ever seen American Gladiator >> no yet Yes. >> Okay. It's going to be like that. >> This just an opportunity really. It's just a roundroin. I'm going to model the same listening tour process that I did with schools when I went with them. >> Most of what I

081want to talk about tomorrow night. Five to six with fam parents. Dang it, I did it backwards. Five to six with staff, six to seven with families. One is to get feedback from the last year, anything they felt. Show showcase the goals that I've been working on with you guys for the upcoming school year. give them a brief understanding of where the budget sits and then just get feedback in regards to what they want to see is the biggest thing for this upcoming school year for the district. >> So is that at tables or an audience and they can raise their hands or >> I'm going to I'm going to put a big circle of chairs right here and anybody is welcome to come in and weigh in. >> So nobody's a spectator, everybody's a

082participant. Okay. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Oh yeah. >> All right. So next, if we can discuss information number B, >> number you get me on that every time. Uh, obviously we have a new principal at JC Row. Her name is Michelle Cornnegie, and she has been sitting and doing exactly what we encourage new principles to do, which is listen to their staff. JC Row is currently actually titled the JC Row Center. she would like to propose that we change the name of it to the JC Row Academy because the main focus of that school is academics. So, if I've I've clipped the policy 9300 in there about renaming, the board would have to give a 60-day waiting period and then vote on this in October to officially change the name. Um, it's really not

083changing as much as is updating for where this school is going. And she feels very passionate about the direction that school wants to go in. So, I just brought that to the board first. >> Uh, Dr. Merrick, >> I'm I'm fine with that. And I apologize. I may have read the policy a little quickly, but it seemed like it said if you're going to change it, it had to be about a geographic like I didn't understand that part. And I'm I want to make sure that we're not breaking our own. that that is if we're naming a new building, I think. >> Well, I think it said new or existing. But, um, look, I'm not against it. I just wanted to know whether or not we needed to change the policy or vote to ignore

084the policy, you know, as a whole. >> Yeah. Unless approved by the board after waving the requirements of the policy, I would think. And I think this is more it's a I don't want to call it a gray area, but it is sort of like we're not changing the name. We're just changing the description of the name. But obviously, that's why I wanted the board to be aware of that. Can can >> do we need to do anything for you? Do we need to make a motion? Do we need to >> I don't know. I'm going to let um Miss Burnhart go and then Miss Bradford. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to ask the question, should we hold a hearing in the process? I mean, I understand that this is a small

085>> a small thing, but kind of not at the same time. And so, if we're if we're having to do a waiting period should we have an opportunity specifically to the public to engage in this regard. Um, I know that I was not able to be present and I'm grateful for how the prek thing happened with last month, but I know that there was a lot of community conversation and engagement and so I don't know if this is an opportunity for our board to have a specially called hearing and engage our community in that way. >> Miss Bradford, >> um, I would be in favor of doing this for the obvious reasons. Um, and whatever we need to do to get it started, if there's going to be a 60-day wait, I think Dr. America's

086on the right track, we need to add it to next week's agenda with a board vote now so that that we can then vote on it next Tuesday to get the ball rolling. And we would if if we have to, we would put in that motion to wave requirements in policy so it can be just named academy and not have to do something weird. But so I would I would make a motion that we add it to next week's agenda >> as as an agenda item because right now we can't vote. It's under >> it's not supposed to be voted on. It's just for information. >> It was just on information today. So we could if we wanted to >> Oh, we want to add it to um Mr. Perry and then I have a

087question. So the rationale I think Miss Mason gave me on the phone last night was is that the current center is in some ways kind of get the wrong connotation that it's a detention center or something like that. >> Um which has a negative effect. My only my only question I don't have a problem with the word academy but it my understanding is is that you know if they were going to go there until they graduate then and some some probably do then I would have no problem with it. We have all kinds of different ones calledmies but my understanding is some people may go for a while and then transfer somewhere else afterwards. Is that not the case or >> each individual's child has their own It varies. It really does. >> So I

088hesitate calling something in an academy that may only be transitory to some students. I'm saying >> point of information. >> Yes, ma'am. >> It was the principal's suggestion that we change it to academy or staff >> along with staff >> based on the focus. >> Then I would think they know what they're doing. I think that you could also use call to audience as the place for public input if so because it is for two months. >> So here's my question. We this according to policy and maybe I'm reading it. We cannot take action for 60 days unless we suspend but we also want to make sure that we're getting feedback from our community. So, I would hesitate, that's why I'm kind of hesitant to put it on the agenda for next week. Um, because

089I don't want us to take action before we've heard from the community unless we're thinking of something different. So, if you could provide some clarity for me. >> I was thinking put it on the agenda to go forward through the 60-day period. Does that make sense? >> So, put out information for next week. >> No, because there would be she she wants to do a vote. So that's that's the bullets. What I'm saying the board says we want to take the recommendation of the staff and go through the process. Does that make sense? Am I am I explaining myself? I don't want to I don't I don't I mean it would be nice to up the clock, but I wasn't trying to change the clock on the 60 days. Um if um if there was

090a requirement that it has to be geographical, that was what I would say wave that requirement. And I can't read this right to tell again I don't understand it either. But the 60 days I wasn't trying to change. Okay, publish it. I'm saying go forward, publish it, and then take information for 60 days and then put it on the agenda 60 days out again to then have a vote on it. But to have a vote to get the ball rolling was what my motion is on the table. >> I guess my question is is that necessary or can we just allow for that to happen? is >> do find out about it if we don't >> and yeah as as part of the discussion what I'm hearing is uh my colleague just say potentially adding

091under new business and open to the public discussion even though we're having one now of the starting the process of potentially renaming >> JC Row Center to JC Row Academy and start that 60-day clock publicly on Tuesday. However, um having within that 60-day window allowing intentional time for public input and from feedback from other from the superintendent just said maybe having specific called audience times having that opportunity session or especially called meeting to do to do just that within that 60-day window. So, not on if we did if we added this to agenda. Not to officially rename it, but to start that process. >> Yes, ma'am. >> of it. That's what I'm that's what I'm gathering from. I could be mistaken, but that's what I'm gathering from. >> We took a lot of black over

092how because there wasn't any advanced notice, so I'm trying to head that off at the pass. >> Um, Mr. uh Dr. Merrick and then, Mr. Wore. >> Um, I appreciate my colleague. I love anytime that we give the public a chance to weigh in. I also don't know if it's a I I don't know that we would anticipate that this would be a big deal or not. And if it's not, why do we want to set up a whole meeting to try to like tell the public you should have a problem? Because I don't think it is. You know what I mean? Uh so I I do like the idea that call to I mean, how's this? if we do start to get a lot of letters, we have 60 days in order to put

093together a meeting, you know, to to listen to the public if there is a lot of outcry and we'll know pretty quick. >> Uh Mr. Wor, >> just to clarify, at least my reading of this, it says, you know, um such a proposal placed on the board's meeting agenda no sooner than 60 days from the date it was published as an information item on the board meetings agenda, which is I think what we're doing next week. So, we're going to publish it to begin with 60 days later and then to do to my colleague way over there's uh thing it does say way above well up here in a as you can see it now that any naming or renaming. So, we would have to um >> wave that part because it does say clearly

094you know that it has to be named only we we would have to rename the whole building uh something in that area or a mascot. So, that would be something we would have to wait I guess. So, >> so the motion the the motion is to add this to information >> or >> published information >> because according to this it says information >> it says information item >> published as an information item >> it's information do we need a vote to go forward >> or no well we need to vote to put it on the agenda but as far as to go forward no >> that's all I want to do is I want to get it on the agenda >> miss justice >> okay >> this is a little technical question for our attorney

095possibly the fact that we have it on our agenda review which is an agenda the agenda review can we consider this the start of the 60 days because it is on the agenda of a sense >> yes I I can't see why not it provides some notice that's the idea behind it >> speed it up got an extra week >> faster >> yeah instead have to go through all that next week >> you think about it I don't know how much merch they order or you know what they do but you know you're going to have to change all the logos and the mast heads and all that stuff so the sooner they get to do it better be a continual process sign and things like that. >> Yeah, there's a lot lot more to

096it. >> Point of order. Our agenda does not actually say what we would be renaming it to. >> Truth. >> True. >> Okay. >> All the complications. All of them. >> Oh, did I not say Chris Barn School of Excellence? Did I not mention that part? >> Just changing the word center to academy. But I'll I'll get that into next week's thing. >> That's fine. Well, we got to vote it in. So, um there's a motion to add this under information for the regular meeting. Um and just to kind of make sure we have the time >> start the clock. >> Well, no to to make sure we have the time allocated for that meeting. How much time do we think we will need for that? Just to >> I'm going to say five minutes.

097>> Five minutes. >> So, um >> stop that back there. All right. All those in favor of adding this to next week's agenda um under information signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? That passes seven to zero. So that adds five minutes to um next week's agenda. Um are we good on JC Row? I hope so. So the next thing is um the board meeting schedule. Now, we started to talk about it, but we had some um board members that were unavailable, and so we wanted to make sure that their feedback was heard as well. Um so, we I believe only got to through the first three meetings, and then we stopped at the Tuesday, October 28th meeting. Um so, for uh that's the agenda review. the regular meeting after that we need to determine

098um and it would be the November meeting and so we need to determine whether we want to do it on Tuesday the 4th which is election day um municipal elections um and then or um Tuesday the 11th which is Veterans Day. Nope, I'm sorry. Options are the 3rd or the 5th. delete all of what I just said before. Options are the third or the fifth. So gracious, it's not even been that long. Dr. Merrick, did you have something you wanted to say? >> Oh, I I was just picking up what we talked about at the last meeting, which was >> um you know, obviously we don't want to have it on the fourth. I'm not even sure we could. Um there are some of us that are more involved in the election process than others.

099Uh, I know that I will be busy. Uh, and I would really not want to do it on November 3rd when there's a whole lot going on. >> Um, I would much rather do it on the 5th. I mean, that's just for me and I >> Okay. Any other suggest? So, you're requesting the fifth? >> Okay. >> Miss Justice, >> I'm going to agree because I think yeah, this it's not just him. There's other people probably in this room that will be involved in some form or another possibly with the elections. So, >> okay, that seems to be enough. >> All right, so next we have That was easy. Thank y'all. Um, next is the um the following um agenda review meeting. Uh, so it falls on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. So, thank you.

100We can we can keep it on the 25th, we can move it to the 24th or we can move it to the 18th. >> Um >> I I just want to kind of double check with um Mr. Work because I know that policy is what the is policy the third week of >> the month. Yes. >> You can't do it on the 11th. >> The 11th. Okay. So, we're it would have to be the 18th then if that was because I would rather I know people travel for Thanksgiving and I'm sure staff are going to want to travel. I would say keep it away from the week of Thanksgiving. >> My suggesties when >> policies the week prior >> the 11th >> Oh, no. It can't be >> is Oh, I thought he was saying

101>> gotcha. Oh, I misunderstood then. That puts us to the 24. >> Um, >> so we have policy on the Wednesday. >> All right. Um, Miss Justice. >> Uh, yeah. I I don't see any What's What would be the problem with doing it on the 24th? Is there any discussion about that? That seems close. >> Pardon? Yeah, some people, >> but that's before Thanksgiving. I mean, we don't have that many people taken off the whole week, do we? I I don't know. >> When When do kids >> What's the school calendar? >> Thanksgiving, >> Thursday and Friday. >> Yeah. Wednesday. >> So, Monday wouldn't be fun. >> I think Wednesday is a teacher work day. >> Yeah. But Monday to me, >> I would lean toward if we're going to do it, I would lean

102toward Monday. >> I can do Monday. >> Keep it as close as possible. >> Yeah, >> that's the Yes. The agenda review. Okay. >> And that would be the 24th. Okay. Next, um so the 3rd and fourth Tuesdays of December fall during the Christmas winter break. Um >> so starts on the 19th of December. >> We have the regular um >> where am I? >> The regular meeting. And so I I don't think there's other options that we have for this, but this is just kind of a heads up that the uh agenda review is going to be on the 16th, whereas the next meeting is going to be on the 6th. >> Did I read that? >> Agenda review would be December 16th. >> Yes. >> What does that do? Just call us Tuesday.

103>> Monday, but what was the second date you gave out? The second one is the January regular meeting will be on the sixth >> fifth of >> sixth of January >> January. Um and there's no other conflicts for January and February and coming into March, but at the end the agenda review um at the end of March kind of needs to be determined because of Easter and spring break. So, um options for the agenda review held in March um for the April meeting are March 24th, which is a Tuesday, and that's before Easter spring break. >> Um Tuesday the 31st, which is the week of Easter. >> Um I think those are those are the options. >> I vote for the 24th. >> Yeah, 24th makes >> All right. me. >> And while you guys

104have your calendars out, we are looking seriously at um August 27th for the next finance capital and bond. Counties bought in and our business people have bought in. So I just got to get Jenny to send that out. >> All right. And then >> did we say did we going to be >> is that is the 24th a reasonable adjustment for everyone? >> Okay. Just agenda review on the 24th. agenda review on March 24th. >> Miss Justice, >> I'm not sure what Bradford was just going over. >> That's a separate that's a separate thing. It's not related to this. Yeah, that's a separate >> entity. So, um and then the last one that we need to kind of determine is the regular meeting and that's the regular um April meeting. So, because of Easter holiday

105and spring break, we have um options of Wednesday, April 1st, April Fool's Day. >> Um, >> when does spring break start? >> Tuesday, April. That is listed the 6th through the It's This says 6th through the 10th. >> April teacher. Okay. Okay. So, we have Wednesday, April 1st, as an option. Tuesday, April 7th, which is the week of spring break. >> Um, Tuesday, April 14th, which is the second Tuesday of April, which isn't going to interfere with Mr. Wore. Yes. Perfect. >> Um, if you're still chair of policy at that point, who knows? Um, >> so those are those are the options. The first, the seventh, or the 14th. I would say the first because we follow last year's script. We have to have the budget ready in April. So the sooner we get the

106board meeting done, you know, it's because we we may be, you know, it seems like it was around April 15th that we presented the budget, wasn't it? Yeah. So I'd say go for the earlier date there. >> Any thoughts from any other board members? Dr. where >> how about on uh Tuesday the March whatever we still our April meeting but do it the last day of March >> the 31st the BOE for the 31st >> um how much Hold on >> Tuesdays are better than Wednesday for me so >> yeah exactly it holds to our schedule >> hang on guys I just want to kind of check with Miss Buoie how is that does that align with like as far as policy and all of that like would that be a viable option or no

107>> for the April meeting to be in March, the end of March. >> March 31st. >> It's still a week apart. Just like >> Yeah, it's a week apart. >> Yeah. >> So, it So, uh Mr. Blanchard, do >> any any thoughts as far as if we could have the April meeting at on March 31st? That kind of seems >> one day early. >> Yeah. I don't know if that'd be >> problem. I mean, you have to have one a month and you can do that 30 day. publicity. >> Okay. >> I haven't read that statute in a while, but um and it also specifies >> Oh, one day apart. Um, >> so if we have the agenda review as we've said on the 24th, the first would align with that time frame. I I

108would think so because you're required to have other special >> right >> so your agenda or special meeting within April wouldn't necessarily qualify as your requirement. >> Gotcha. Okay. Um, I'm going to lean toward the first. That's what I'm going to lean toward just to be on the safe side. Um, to make sure that we're it's an April meeting in April. >> Um, those are just my thoughts. Are we are we Mr. Perry? >> Um, you can do the >> the only um concern seems to be whether we would have uh if we had it on the 31st or we fulfill our obligation for Tahoe for April. I mean certainly we we're going to have another meeting in April which will be our agenda review for the May meeting. So just open it up then

109have a caller orient with it. >> You're talking about statute. >> I I'm hesitant to adjust the way this meeting is run. This meeting was established for a specific purpose and that was >> it's only 24 hours difference. I mean we're talking about a Tuesday or Wednesday unless somebody's got a conflict with that day. >> Look, I'm saying I'm I'm leaning toward the first. So that's my my thought process on the same 5:00 at the same time, right? So >> yeah, it's the same time. It's just Okay, that'll work. All right. Thank you. >> Thank awesome. All right. So, >> consensus seems to be April 1st for that one. >> Yep. >> All right. And that I think um I'm just going to um make a motion to approve all of the changes that we

110have made um and allow Miss Buoie to be able to post all of our meetings. Is thank you. Uh any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? That passes seven to zero. >> Point of clarification. >> Yes, Miss Bradford. A number of people complain to me that they can't find our calendar and they can't find out when meetings are and I say go to the website >> and I actually showed somebody you know and they're like well you can go into your assembly and find these things but we can't. So what do I say to those people? Um >> this and that's what I've done. >> But if you look at that >> Yeah. >> and that's what I mean that's >> it's pretty simple. Yes, that's Dr.

111Barnes. Are you in assembly as yourself or is that what the public can get? >> I'm right now. >> All right. It it gives the dates. It just doesn't give the information. >> Yeah. >> No, they were just fill out their calendar >> because we don't have the information as I have had a number of complaints and I'm I'm just like I don't understand what you're complaining about. I I think you're wrong. But you confirmed to me that they just need to go to the website and look at the calendar. >> Madam Chair, I think Miss Baggy has something she wants to say. >> We have it on our calendar on the front website. So if you go to the website and you click on the calendar all events for the entire board policy etc

112are listed on. >> Okay. >> So because the announce meetings only so many of them show in advance. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Yes. >> If you get more they're all there. >> Cool. Thank you. >> May I make a comment? >> Sure thing. Dr. Merrick. >> Thank you so much Madam Chair. Um I keep getting uh complaints that while we sit here in agenda review, we are talking about things that are going to happen in our regular board meeting and we all sit around in here and look at our assembly and look at the events that are on that are going to come up at our regular board meeting because we can see it. But those who are trying to follow along with us online watching YouTube or whatever, they don't know what we're

113talking about because they can't see it. So I really believe that when we p when we come to this of agenda review meeting, we have to have, you know, our agenda up on assembly that the public can see because they can't follow along with us. I think that um and and then I'll have Miss Barnhart go. I think that the reason that it is not is because it hasn't been approved yet and we don't want to post an agenda that has not been approved yet. We there are things I know that through the course of our meetings, our agenda review meetings that we have removed from there um that we have added to. And so I I don't want to have us publish a document that is not complete. Um, I understand what you're saying.

114Um, >> but I don't want to there's a there's a reason that it's not published yet because we haven't approved it yet. >> We could say draft. I mean, right, it's it it's and honestly, according to open records law, if it's if it's even a draft, it's public. That's the law. >> Um, Miss Barnhart and then Miss Breer. So I was going to mimic the same thing you said madam chair with this but I mean this this was part of the frustration coming on to the board is some people had more access to information than others. So as a board for us to get access to the information with the understanding that sometimes there has been adjustments made. We just heard from staff today that we needed to add something that wasn't ready yet. And

115there has been in the past there has been frustration from board members um because we would check once and then a couple days later there'd be a new document and then a couple days later there would be an updated document because by the time of the board meeting being published when the public has access to it. We want to make sure that we are disseminating accurate information >> and so there has been feedback and that has been something that staff has worked on to ensure that when things are being uploaded we're getting the most accurate up to- date as we are looking over and asking questions. Um so I think that's that's where the concern for me is. I hear what you're saying to say um even publishing this in draft, but if we're even

116pseudo disseminating partially true information that sometimes is more of a concern for the public than than once we have it finalized because we want to make sure that we are sharing the most accurate upto-ate. I mean, I know there's been things I've personally asked about and like, hey, what about that? Oh, yeah, you're right. This is we we got to change this and update this. So there are times that as we're working through whatever it is that we say this doesn't look to be the most up to date um from based on what we know. So I'm I'm hesitant with making this document open prior to us publishing it because we have to ask questions and sometimes our questions leads to saying hey maybe next month is the more suitable. So that's where my hesitation

117is but I hear what you're saying and I appreciate it bring it to attention. I just I feel like it's um better for us to be able to come together and fully ask those questions prior to sharing it to the public. >> Um and just before I cuz you I think you had your hand raised. Um looking at policy 2335 advanced delivery of meeting materials right at the bottom it says the proposed agenda and supporting materials will be made available for p public inspection 48 hours prior to the start of the meeting. So it is made available. It's just not made available as soon as but it is made available. >> Um Brad, >> so I have a a question. Um when we're in this agenda review committee meeting and you're showing stuff on the

118screen as the people are listening by YouTube, as Dr. Merrick said, can they see that screen? >> That's that's what I thought. Um and again to echo part of what Miss Barnhart said um you know we did a whole lot of housekeeping Miss Justice during that period we're making changes and one thing that we did was hey in policy would you please number them consecutively so if you drop the whole big policy stack you can actually put it back together and the staff is now doing that but there were a lot of little housekeeping things and one of them Miss Barnhart and I were talking about something this week. We got to check that agenda again because it may have changed. And it would be nice if staff when something when a document changed like

119you're asking on policy 2610 to have a new version. So when it's saved as a PDF, could it be saved with the date it was was was recreated or amended or at least have it at the top of the page so that when we look we know we're looking at a new document or we're looking at the same one we saw last month. It's just a housekeeping item, but it would make my life a lot happier. Um, and make things flow faster. And and and if we looked and we said, you know, oh, look, there's a new document. It's got a date on it from today. Then we know to open that document because I might have looked at my stuff last week and that document wasn't there or it may have changed. And that

120happens a lot. And I'm not complaining because it's a good thing that it happens. >> Mr. Wavore. >> Oh, good. Um, so I'm wondering if we could solve this whole problem. Maybe is it possible to do like a split screen >> where you see us and all this stuff and then but the the actual agenda is still up there the whole time so that the agenda would be there and all the pieces are there. >> Yeah. Is that possible? >> I bet you could do it. I bet you can. >> Oh my goodness. >> Oh my gracious. Mr. Perry, >> I'm in sort of agreement with Dr. Merrick on this one. I think we should be pro >> we get this >> yellow >> in all the documents >> and it's proposed which is different

121from what our actual agenda is for today. I mean, you know, even if we don't want to list it as in simply a as the as what the agenda is, couldn't we at least have it as a supporting document in for the agenda review like this is the proposed agenda? Not update the the the regular board meeting agenda and make it make it thing, but just as a as a document. This is the proposed one so people could see it. Could we do that? >> No, but you can see it. >> Um, I think we're kind of track on this whole like this is not part of the >> the discussion for today. Um, so I kind of want to redirect us. Um, because we do have we do have some other things that we

122need to address. Dr. Barnes, you had your >> one one caveat. Sometimes information we learn today, we change what's in there for next Tuesday. My only concern would be the turnaround time for for our staff to get that information correct and up there. >> And two, sometimes we talk a lot about miscommunication >> and if something changes, someone gets the information today, it changes for next week and then they're like, "Oh, well, I thought it was blank and it was blank instead." You know, I think I don't want that to cause greater confusion >> in the process. >> I just want to go back to three of us. >> All right. I'm going to continue on with our with our agenda. Um, and that's something if if you'd like uh Dr. Merrick or Mr. Perry,

123you can throw on the agenda for for next month, fill out that form. Um, the next thing we have is the uh employee bonus ad hoc committee and uh Mr. Perry, you brought that forward. So, >> yes. Uh, we approved this committee um back at our April regular board meeting. Um as of yet we have uh we haven't received any committee assignments uh uh to that um it's almost 4 months so I was hoping that we we would uh that would be done. I think there is some concern by Dr. barns over you know the finances and um I would really like for us to you know follow through get the this assigned what what the the plan that assuming that I am I am named the chair and and I think Dr. Merrick and

124and Mr. Wervore have agreed to serve as well if we could be appointed today um is our initial thought was to have just a organizational meeting one with Dr. Barnes, uh, you know, and Miss Sutton, uh, the usual staff here and, um, Miss Keller, um, and then so we could organize to see like who who would we want on this. I I I had a very good suggestion from Mr. Well, well over the phone uh I think it was yesterday who said, you know, we should maybe invite our a couple of our Republican commissioners to onto this thing to get get their buy in, let them get invested in this thing. So, there's a lot of ideas as far as, you know, also with the which kind of staff we would like to have on

125the committee. Um, I'd like to at least be able to, you know, move forward with this committee. It's going to take a long time for us to actually get through uh developing a plan so that we can actually go and try to sell it and get the funding for it. I can't promise you that um we're going to get the funding. I I absolutely can't promise them or the public that we're going to get the funding, but if we don't try, we're definitely not going to get the funding. So, I'd like to get this thing moving. Um so, I I have we have some people that have that uh who volunteered to to start working on this. Hopefully, we could get it going, have our organizational meeting in August and then, you know, uh and

126then we can decide from there when's the best time to have the full-blown start of this committee with everybody in it, you know, as a group. So, I I guess I just hope and I could um get your support on that. I think I wanted the um the so that we can get this name finally and so we can get going. So I guess I'm making a motion that that the board approved me as chair and also approve Mr. Will the board m Dr. Merrick to serve on the committee as well and so that we can begin. >> Okay. So there's a motion. Is there a second? >> All right. Hearing none. Uh Mr. thrilled where you had your hand up. If >> I could just clarify, I I did say we need to have

127county buy in both sides of the aisle. Republicans. >> Thank you. >> Your two faces just you know I I because you know on our finance committee we have two folks from the Democratic party. I think we need to have folks from both sides. That's all I >> Okay, Dr. Mayor >> Republican. Um, you kind of said it for me and I just I I want to remind my colleague that we may have run on a specific ticket, but now that we're sitting here and and on the board, we represent everybody. We don't represent one party or another. >> All right. Is there any other commentary, Miss Justice? >> So, there wasn't a second. >> There was no second. >> You're not going to second till we form the committee? Well, you were asking about

128membership. That was what the >> membership as himself as chair, uh, Mr. Vibore and Dr. Merritt. >> Um, >> go ahead. I I would like to hear first from from Dr. Barnes. I just kind of heard through the grape vine that there were some concerns about beginning this now, and I understand those concerns. In fact, if I've heard them correctly, uh I I agree. But I I think, you know, here we are in a public meeting. I don't think it's right that we're sitting here not talking. You know, there's an elephant in the room. Let's talk about it. Um did I hear that correctly, Dr. Barnes, that you had consum concerns about starting this this committee at this time? >> I'm going to be clear that board business is board business, superintendent businesses, superintendent business,

129never the two shall meet. Um, but I would say that obviously we have gotten what I consider promising news about the federal funding. Uh, but as they said back in the old days, trust but verify, I am waiting to make an official announcement until we have the award letter. Did I say that right? Notification of award letter in my hand. Right. Um, but it's a step in the right direction. I have a request and a proposal for you guys about another funding possibility next week. My only concern that I have is currently we do not have a state budget. Right now we are balanced on the head of a pin. We have not made cuts to our staff and I plan on not making cuts because it goes back to our subsistence level that I've

130talked about before. However, a raise that we have not calculated or planned for could upend our our our proposal. I mean, we had $5 million in in potential cuts from the time we gave the budget out in April till today. I I um fools go or angels fear to tread, whatever you want to say, I would caution to at least make sure we have a state budget and we've balanced ourselves and we're moving forward before we make any sort of inroads in something else. >> Mr. Bradford, >> and I would pick up where I have literally been in trauma over our financial picture and to say great, the camera's running. We've been in a financial crisis because of what has been done at the local and the federal and the state level all combined. And

131so when I got the news this week that the federal government was going to actually fund some of the title money or maybe all of the title money, we still don't know until he gets it in his hand. I literally wrote down and wept because we were we were at a pos point of he said it well balancing on the head of a pen. So to to take up this is called a um employee bone bonus adhob committee to take it up. This is going to sound harsh and I don't mean it because I want the employees to get as much money as they possibly can but we're tonedeaf to the the financial situation of the district right now to add anything new that would be looking at a single dollar coming from anywhere until

132we solve the dollar requests we have out there. So, so I'm going to vote. Well, we're not voting because it didn't have a second, but um I I I I can't be I can't be for adding anything that would take a dollar. The pie is only so big, and we need every dollar in that pie, and we still might not make it. So, I can't I can't in good context do that. >> Miss Justice, >> um when we first decided that this was something we wanted to investigate and put together, we didn't have all of these cuts. all of them. All of them. And even now we're talking about possibly hopefully getting back a big chunk of money from one of the cuts. But so so the circumstances have changed. And because of that, uh

133maybe it would be a good idea to maybe wait until the next budget cycle to investigate something like this. I mean, this is just my take on it because right now this is going to be scary for the next gosh knows how many months. It's going to be >> Is that a motion? Okay, that's a motion to prop postpone the U committee looking at employee bonuses until the U next school year. >> What time frame? Like what what >> uh 20 Okay, we're talking about 25 26 27 school year. >> Second. Yeah. >> Okay. Um Dr. Merrick and then Mr. Perry. Um, we seem to have every year budget issues and I do not see this changing dramatically in the future. However, having said that, my colleagues idea is not is not uh is not

134a bad idea. We do want to be able to reward our um our educators. And I know that we talked when we first talked about creating this committee that we might think about trying to find finances uh in the public sector. And because this committee doesn't have any actual power, it has to bring everything back to the board anyway. I see no harm in having the committee if they can come up with some great ideas, do some networking with different corporations out there, you know, Enino, uh, Live Oak Bank, whatever. You know, I don't think that's a bad thing and I do appreciate uh what my colleague is trying to do. So, I would amend uh I'd like to amend the motion on the floor to say that we begin that committee as soon as

135this budget has been clarified >> from all the levels. >> Sorry. >> From all from state and federal level, that's what you're saying. Okay. um >> yeah I mean the when this was first proposed u and we were voted upon it was never for this school year it was always going to be at the very earliest the 2627 school year it's just a matter of uh we if we were even going to ask for money we would have to have a solid plan in place so it's to begin work on that and that's going to take some effort to to to to learn how we can fairly evaluate all of our employees over diff with different kinds of jobs and make sure there's employee buy in. And in addition, you know, you know, sell it

136to as as as something that's going to help us, you know, recruit, develop, and retain the best employees possible. And but if we never get there, if we never start, we'll never get there. I don't see what the harm is. We're not promising anybody that that we can guarantee the money. Obviously, we can't. I mean, even if everybody on this board wanted to do it, it was 100% sold, we can't promise what they're going to do. Even if we could convince Dan Scle and all the rest of those people that this was worth doing, you know, they don't know what the budget's going to look like next year. They can't promise us anything. But I'll tell you right now, if we don't, we'll never get it if we don't at least start working on it.

137And I do want to say one more thing as far as this thing. I a lot of the job of this committee is going to be how do we eva evaluate fairly? How do we evaluate our employees fairly and rate them? Part of it's the money, but I think that it this the work of this committee is going to be beneficial in improving our general evaluation of our employees because we can do it. We're going to get their input. we're going to be able to maybe evaluate our employees regard better regardless of whether we ever get the money for the for the for the bonus or not. So I think that there's valuable work that could be done with this committee. Um, obviously this is just an advisory committee and so you know if if

138we get our plan done and you enjoy and you like it but you and we get it done by next next June and we have something ready for you and you say well maybe let's let's propose this for the you can always say we like the plan but we want to delay uh asking for the money until the 27 28 year or whatever that's fine but let's get started get to because otherwise we don't even have anything to talk about. >> Miss Bradford, >> um I I I need to confirm, but I'm pretty sure I heard the county say not this last meeting before that sales tax revenue is off and they expect that to carry for two more years. And I really pondered about that and asked a bunch of people and Dr. America

139and I talked about this yesterday. I believe it's because all of us are ordering online and the sales tax doesn't come in to the county if we're ordering online. Um so there the county is already looking at staff reductions. They're cutting people right now and they're cutting resources and they're cutting committees because they don't want all the people that are in this room that are staff that could be back in their office working towards educating our children sitting here in this meeting. So, um you know, we need to keep every employee that we have now should be our number one focus. Hang on to every employee we have now. And and and and so I just think the timing is off. When we did this, things were completely different than they are now. And there's

140only so many dollars of resources. There's only so much staff time. One of the things the county manager talked about is, yeah, this is a committee and it doesn't cost us anything, but the staff that have to be there every time the committee meets and get the agendas ready and do all the work, that's their time away from educating and you're cutting our staff back. So that was his logic for cutting three committees that have been longstanding. Um, so again, I think that I think the timing is just off and so I would support Miss Justice's original motion, but I won't support an amendment. >> Um, Miss Barnhart, >> I do want to point out a couple things that um, if you look at the retention rate and turnover rate on the state level, New

141Hor County is doing better than that. So, we have less people than the state average of retention. So, we're we're able to hold more Am I saying that backwards? I'm saying I'm saying it backwards. we're able to hold more of our people than what the state is seeing in turnover in staff. And I think that is a testament to lots of different things. Um, but looking at our budget, uh, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's roughly $20 million from our local level is going to local supplements. Um, that's a substantial amount of money. That's awesome. We love that partnership that we have with their county and our county commissioners for doing that because that puts us, if I remember correctly, number four because a couple counties squeaked in right above us

142because they didn't they want to be >> top five. >> Okay. Top five. Top five for how we pay our staff. So, I like this idea and concept. Um, but I think the time that we're going to put into it knowing that we already have a substantially large $20 million is a lot amount of money. So, if we're talking about wanting to make sure that we're seeing more increases, I'm concerned with I mean, you know, we asked for a lot more than what um the budget ended up landing for this year. And so, my concern is the time and effort to put into it, I think is a really good idea. But the reality and the likelihood of potentially asking for additional $20 million, I just don't see that happening. I know that we've been

143able to um get the advanced teacher roles from the state and that's an initiative that allows our teachers to make more money and to continue in the field of education while also mentoring kind of the role of other staff members and I I see that potentially being able to expand and provide more of those opportunities as well as effective teaching practices in the classroom. So, I like this idea, but I do not see the feasibility of it happening. Sorry. >> Uh, Miss Justice, >> I want to say this to our staff. They are evaluated constantly every year. This concerns me. If you do want to do this type of project, we need to use what we already have. We don't need to put them through any more evaluation processes right now. Even though we are

144in better shape than other districts, thank goodness, the whole state is in trauma in many ways. Education, we're losing education staff in droves across the state, across the nation. Last thing they need is to be put through another process that's going to distract them from what they need to be focusing on, which is what's going on in the classroom. So, that's another reason to put this off and rethink it. certainly don't need to be adding any more evaluation processes to an already overload evaluation processes to our to our staff and the schools. All right. Um so there is a motion on the table to delay this um committee until the budget has been settled. >> That's the amendment. Yes, >> that's the amendment. Um, we just lost one, but >> she'll be back. Uh, Mr.

145Perry, >> just a point of clarification. So, what is the definition of the budget settled? >> Well, as we know, and as I'm sure Miss Sutton will tell us, it's never settled. >> Not anymore. But um when we know what money we're getting from the state, what money we're getting from the feds, what money we're getting from the county, you know, in round in in round numbers, we need to know what that is. Um I I I was only responding to my colleagues who said we're in the middle of of figuring out our budget and this is not the time. So let's wait until the budget is is more settled. So I don't know if there's a definite you're saying you don't there's not like a definite this date right here is when it'll start.

146It's when we get the information from state federal. >> I could amend that to say let's uh it's today is uh we'll let me ask the question by September do you think we're going to have a pretty good idea of what our budget looks like? >> I think we will know about the federal by then. We obviously know where the county is. The state came back into session today. Um, we have seen it as early as August. We've seen it as late as October. >> Is that accurate, Miss? >> I will amend my amendment to say I clarify >> I can't amend it, but I will clarify just for clarification to say that we will bring this back up at our October meeting. So, I'm going to say >> if I if I understand correctly,

147my colleague to the left uh said suggested waiting until next year and I I asked for an amendment to make it to October. >> October. So, as soon as the budget has been settled slash October. All right. Um, so the amendment is to delay the start of this committee until the budget has been settled slash October. Miss Buoie, will you call the role on that? >> Mr. Wleborg, >> yes. >> Miss Bradford, >> no. >> Miss Mason, >> no. >> Miss Barnhard? >> No. >> Mr. Perry, >> yay. >> Miss Justice, >> no. >> And Dr. Merrick, >> yes. >> All right. um that motion that amendment fails. Um so going back to the original motion of delaying it until the 2627 school year. Um Miss Buoie, will you call the role on that? >>

148Miss Mason, >> yes. >> Miss Barnhard, >> yes. >> Miss Bradford, >> yes. >> Mr. Wore, no. >> Dr. Merrick, >> no. >> Miss Justice, >> yes. and Mr. Perry. >> All right, that passes four to three. All right, next up on the agenda is the presentation of the proposed uh new Henburg County Schools mental health improvement plan for the 2025 2026 school year. And that is >> Miss Barnum. I think for a break we'll pause right and take a about a minute break >> darn getting up and Mr. One more. >> I'm here. >> Oh, yeah. But and so is Miss Bracker, but we only have three. >> Yeah. Anyways, um I don't know how to get people back that have left the room. >> I mean, so we can continue on, >> please.

149And thank you. >> Come on back. >> My window. >> Oh, yeah. Well, go work your window. Although it's not too bad on this side of the building, the other side. >> Maybe you just have a cool down car when you get out there, Miss Jess. >> All right. One, two, three, four. >> All right, board members, we are back. So, if you could please come to the table and we will hear from Miss Farnum. out. >> You do you have a handout. >> Okay. >> I'm going to walk you through um the information before you have to get to all of that. Um some of the information in the handout was provided in your board update. Um but I'll get to that part. So overall, oh, and by the way, I have Lisa Briner

150here with me, director for student support, and she is a subject matter expert on the vast majority of this information, and she is here for any questions that we may have. Notice I said we. Okay. So um in accordance with uh general statute and state board of education policy, we are required to adopt a school ba school-based mental health policy um or plan that includes mental health training program and suicide risk protocol and um this is based on um like I said general statute and then state board policy which is uh in regard to student health issues. So as of August 2025, plans must be approved by local boards of education every 5 years. In this um requirement, the plan components are identified for us. A model training plan is identified for us and then

151the reporting structure. So that that outlines what you'll see on the next few slides. So our objectives for this time together is to understand how the school-based uh the school mental health improvement plan aligns with state board policy. And again, it's identified as an improvement plan because this is a continuous improvement process. It is not that New Hver County Schools has been determined to require improvement in this area. Every district's plan is an improvement plan. and we'll be focusing on the compliance areas and overall um the promotion of student well-being. So we will highlight the collaborative approach to the mental health services which includes our partnerships with our community organizations all for the benefit of enhancing services to students and then we'll discuss the district-wide staff mental health training plan and the suicide risk referral

152protocols that um equip our students with um responding to their needs. The state board policy like I said um requires that we shall adopt and implement a plan for promoting student mental health and well-being and for assessing and improving upon the effectiveness of these supports and these are with regard to mental and social emotional health as well as any um substance use needs. The components are pretty extensive as you can see. These are all required. Um, universal prevention and then that's included in our core instruction, our curriculum and our environments. Uh, early intervention for mental and social emotional health and wellness. Of course, referral, treatment, and re-entry. Re-entry is really referring to those students that may need to leave the school district for some period of time for a part of their um mental health

153supports or um treatment plan and then coming back into the district. Um memorandum of understanding. I'll go into that um more deeply with regard to our community partners and our um local management entity. Next, the suicide risk referral protocol, our stakeholder engagement, liability, reporting to DPI, and of course, the timeline. So, going a little bit deeper into the required components, universal prevention. Um, as you see here, we've got our bullying prevention programming. Um, this is a component within, um, our middle and high schools, our Safe Promise clubs, Soldout Youth. There's a substance use prevention program. Of course, you've heard about our reframing behavior staff training. You've heard about safe and civil schools, the CHAMPS training, our annual mental health plan, which we update annually, and then our anonymous reporting, which is through the say something

154anonymous reporting system. Our early intervention covers zones of regulation. Those are elementary and middle um intervention supports for supplemental and intensive needs. Of course, you know all about our multi-tered systems of support, which is our multidisciplinary problem solving model uh to support our students who may have academic or some type of other social, emotional, mental health or behavior needs. And then wellness champions and committees to support student and staff wellness, our referral, treatment, and re-entry. First and foremost, our uh we have a major component around providing parents and caregivers with the resources that they need to connect students to needed services. And those resources and referrals will be mentioned a little further as I talk about theus. We also have a strong focus on developing transition plans for students who are re-entering the district after

155acute or residential mental health treatment. And then maintaining ourus with service providers to address student mental health and substance use issues and of course you are knowledgeable of those as you are the approving body for those. the memorandum of understanding component of course you know um ourus with health and human services um first and foremost providing school-based mental health therapy in all of our elementary and middle schools and then ourou with coastal horizons for our watt clinics and for Lake Forest Academy. Those are covering schoolbased mental health in those two areas along with other additional services. And then not to mention our Trillium partnership where um Trillium serves on our school health advisory council and um with regard to Trillium, they are often the funer for some of our additional resources um specifically sold out

156youth substance use prevention program and then also um additional supports for us with schoolbased mental health provided by Coastal Horizons. Um, and as a reminder, um, I am an I'm appointed by a county commission to serve on the Trillium Regional Board for, um, for our region to assist in advocating for these resources. Now, our suicide risk referral protocol, I did provide this for you um, in your board packet over the last couple of weeks um, to protect the integrity of the protocol. It's not necessarily something that we want to um overly share just because we need to make sure that that protocol is beneficial when we are assessing our students. Uh our suicide risk referral protocol is aligned with an evidence base and best practices. It emphasizes school and parent caregiver partnerships. That is absolutely

157essential to this. And then our annual training for all of our support staff. Um our stakeholder engagement um the primary method of our stakeholder engagement as Miss Justice knows is through our school health advisory council um where Miss Justice participates where we have our community partnerships, agency providers and professional organizations, parent and caregivers on school and district committees, and then student panels um specifically around our um school health advisory council. I don't know if there's anything you want to add, but if there is, feel free to jump in. >> You're doing great. Okay. I want to move to next to our reporting to DPI. Uh we have our healthy active children's policy annual report that is due September 15. Uh we are um feverishly gathering all the necessary information for that. Our specialized instructional support

158personnel annual report was due on June 30th. That was submitted in its entirety. and then our school mental health improvement plan revision which is right now uh which is due every five years. So our timeline um beginning July 1st of 2021 we had to adopt a plan begin implementation and commence our mental health training plan and that was provided to this board in June of 2021 and then of course the plan must be approved by the local governing board and rem uh renewed every five years beginning August 1st of 2025. So we're ahead of that by a couple of days. So as you can see our plan components mirror the state board policy um around schoolbased mental health policy training program plan requirements. Uh we have a model plan uh model program and risk referral

159program. uh we provide the six hours of content for initial training within the first six months of employment um to our staff at no cost. And then um in addition we have uh the K12 staff completing our required 2hour child sexual abuse and sex trafficking training. Um we completed that in 2425 and our next round of that will be in 2627. And um as mentioned earlier that is our darkness to light component. So before we get to questions I want to bring you to the handouts you have. As you can see on um the first document in your packet you can see the extensive list of um shack members very robust team. Um as you move through you can see in our plan we have covered the content questions and the description and action items.

160Um I think we can go to the Anita can you go to the next document. Thank you. Oh and I don't think this will work on that. Will it? Okay. Yep. Perfect. Um, so our strengths and um, I won't read through all of these, but if there are any questions, um, we've got just in general the strengths being schoolbased therapists available in every school. We do have solutions for any weight lists that would occur. Again, that was a a solution provided by Trillium grant dollars, our crisis response team, um school-based wellness, parent and caregiver academy that provides um family engagement activities and additional skill building. Um existing, as mentioned, our existing um initiatives through instruction are the reframing behavior zones of regulation. And then moving on to that next page. Um the again extensive list

161of resources and initiatives. And then on um with our timeline many of these are are continuing. Um I'll move to the next one. Um how are we building and aligning our infrastructure? Um specifically around um our training program and compliance with state board policy continuing the suicide prevention awareness and district protocol. uh making sure that all of our staff um are trained and our school personnel who work directly with our students, our teachers and administrators know exactly who they can go to and who's trained to implement the protocols. Um annual prevention and intervention referral training for our school-based student support staff. Again, those are our school counselors, school social workers. Uh parent and caregiver academy, parent workshops will be continuing. bullying prevention, cyber safety, substance abuse prevention. The ongoing collaboration with district and community partners

162through school health advisory council to support the whole child is essential to this process. Um let's see, how do we collect our data? As I mentioned, um the first of um the DPI reports were due on June 30th and ours was um already submitted to maintain appropriate data for specific areas that included school nurses, school social workers, school psychologist, nurses, and schoolbased mental health. We have a strong collaboration with our curriculum and instruction team to support all the instructional areas. Um, and then in support of DPI's portrait of a graduate, which brings us back to the whole child. Um, physical activity. Um, yep, you can move on to the next one. Our physical activity components are included here. There is an additional high school component for a recommended fivem minute brain break um, per class.

163And then our evaluations. We of course use feedback from administrators and schoolbased student support staff. regular communication with our school-based mental health staff to discuss referrals, maintenance, and processes. And then, of course, continuing to administer our assessments around multi-tered systems of support to make sure that everything that we think we're doing to benefit students is actually benefiting students. Um, early intervention, we utilize research-based uh warning signs to identify students who may be at risk of developing or experiencing mental health issues at school. and then that's when we know to use our interventions. Um, schoolbased mental health services, of course, those are on referral basis. And schoolbased mental health is never provided to a student without expressed written consent of the parent or guardian. That is not something that we determine is needed. That is something

164that we make a referral for and the parent guardian uh is able to determine if that is an appropriate measure for their child. And on the last one, um again, uh highlighting our efforts for treatment referral and re-entry. And as I mentioned, um we utilize those our parent and caregivers with um with additional resources, community based services for um their students and their families. Making sure that our transition plans are appropriate based on the types of services the students have been receiving. Ourus are are again essential to this process. In in this continuum of of supports, we have Lake Forest Academy as a day treatment program which is again such a an amazing resource for our community. And then our um back to our student support staff, they are trained in behavior threat assessment, suicide

165risk referral protocol. In addition, our administrators are trained in behavior threat assessment. Now, the suicide risk protocol is specifically reserved for um our student support staff to um to implement. So, you have it's a lot of information. Um and then the last thing in your packet is the training program that is attached to this plan. And you can see the um minimum training content required. And then your um chart has all of the requirements across the top. It's the chart that is very blue um in our district colors. And yep, there you go, Anita. Thank you. That second page, it provides our topics uh required topics in the far left column. who participates in that um for how for the um two hours who needs the six hours and then existing staff the refresher minimum

166of two hours and then new hires and this goes through all of the details of the specific trainings that I did mention. There's a lot of information there. Lisa, what did I miss? [Laughter] >> They don't want more. >> All right. Are there any questions before I ask you for your approval? >> Uh, Mr. Wleborg and then Dr. always question. >> Yes. So Lisa, do you want to jump in on this? I'm looking down the list. >> Nope. High school principal. So that was not an exclusion of that. Um I think at the time these were the two principles that agreed to serve. We are in the process of looking for the upcoming school year. Um so we can certainly reach out on that. As far as the counselors, we have not had a counselor

167from a school building actually serving on the committee committee often meets during the school day and so we've been really cautious about pulling them out. Um we have over the last year as part of trying to um increase our student voice uh the meeting has moved from school to school. uh we've had elementary, middle, and high school meetings. So, our counselors have been critical in participating in the meeting at their school identifying the students um who have served on a panel to to share with us their experience. >> Is that on Dr. Merik and then she had to say okay >> at the schools are out even though they have students there during the time they stop in and speak to the groups. Yes. >> So there are counselors there during the day of the

168schools that we are visiting. >> So Dr. Merrick and then Merrick. >> Um this is a lot of work and I want to acknowledge uh not only doing all this work but also making sure it it dovetales with the with the laws and everything else. I'm very much impressed. And you know here on a board level we just want to make sure that the policies and the procedures are in place and obviously they are congratulations. My concerns is that well the devil's always in the details and how well this gets implemented and things become a lot more gray and less you know nice and clean. I you know uh I met with the special education PTA child advisory group and listened to their concerns about bullying and how it affected their mental health. This weekend

169I attended uh United Methodist Church uh group that was a bunch of uh LGBTQ kids and I listened to them talk about their concerns not just in school but in the community. But again, their perception of being bullied and harassed and both of those groups had mentioned that teachers watch them being bullied and do not interfere and intervene. And I'm wondering how we take all of this and get it down to the granular level where well we're protecting kids >> who are being harmed. So first of all, bullying is a grave concern. It remains a grave concern and our plan is to utilize every reasonable effort to prevent to deter to identify alternative social skills so that bullying is not the means of student interaction, peer-to-peer interaction. Um, and there is always plenty of work

170to be done, but having specifics around those, um, we have our bullying investigation protocol that is essential for identifying those specific situations. Um, and again, going back to, um, some of our initiatives, the say something anonymous reporting system is a way that that can be very specific details can be reported without um, uh, while providing anonymity, without identification. and then providing specific details so that can be investigated. And that investigation process goes through a very specific protocol in determining if that bullying meets that definition of again that persistent. And I'm I'm not ready to to announce the definition, but it's it needs to be persistent and it does need to be not necessarily ongoing. Um even one incident needs intervention, but it might not meet the definition of bullying. Either way, either way, um, antisocial,

171um, peer communications that are harming to a student have to be, uh, intervened upon. So, we need specifics so those can be investigated. >> So, you would >> Thank you. Yes. >> Um, I do appreciate you if you >> what they have shared with you. Um, I will say that u myself and our two uh supervisors of school counseling elementary and secondary met with the um special ed PTA parents this past school year. We also met on several occasions with the students who shared their stories. We did take that back as um Miss Barnum said at the very beginning this is an improvement plan. Um so we took back all the feedback that we received from that. I want them to know that their voice mattered and um that we have been continuously looking at,

172you know, the notes that we took during that time. Are we addressing it? We've shared their voice with our counselors and our social workers, too. So, it does make a difference. And I appreciate you lifting that up. >> Thank you so much, >> Miss Bradford. You've been waiting a hot minute, so [Music] how many people So, so a lot of it is um who is actually willing to serve in in a an area of need as a a content area or expert and and then for um board member that's determined by board committee of course. Um, and then like Lisa mentioned, if we've got administrators that know that this is something that they could they could tackle, they could be um, you know, a a support for, then they want to they want to participate.

173I don't know if it >> we we will we are we're not afraid to ask people to serve, but we also are not afraid to to um, accept requests for service. >> Yeah. the um increasing the uh community representation has been a a commitment of our team over the last two years. Am I not in um over the last two years uh so we have we have reached out oftent times um people have reached out to us because they've heard um about the work uh that everyone is doing and I will say um it's been really exciting to watch the change over time because the community does show up and says hey this is things that we can offer this is how we can support the work you're doing in schools and this is how

174we can show up for the parent academy. Uh but that has been um a constant uh intentional. >> Miss Barnhart. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to highlight and grateful that you highlighted that anybody participating this has parental consent because we value that um relationship with our families. Um but mine kind of along the same lines with the accountability. I know um looking at the different formats and I think it's so wonderful how many opportunities that we give to have engagement because students are going to pick and choose how they want to engage with individuals and so any any sort of feedback we can get from them so we can be responsive is so important. But can you just speak to some of the fidelity with um with anonymous things and how how

175we go and respond to that just so that we know that if if you're submitting a a co a concern that it's not going unheard essentially, >> right? And then Lisa would be able to speak a lot about the um say something anonymous reporting system as well. Um, I can I can share that when there is a life safety alert, um, Lisa and I are both contacted immediately if it's, you know, right now in a few minutes or if it's 7:00 p.m. tonight or if it's 1:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. And if somebody doesn't log into the system to provide immediate information, we start getting phone calls. It is it it's happened more than um times we can count on our our fingers this year that one of us has provided contact information for um

176an immediate concern. Um say something anonymous reporting system is provided to us by the state. It is linked in with um 911 dispatch so that there can be an immediate response to ensure safety um for those situations that are referred that are not considered life safety alerts. Let's say that um a student logs in and says um you know they they can provide their name or not. Um but if they provide their name, they're not contacted outside of that necessarily unless it's by their school staff. Um but they may say, you know, I witnessed something happen in class today or you know, I have a friend that texted this to me or I saw this on, you know, social media and this is a concern for me. Um those are linked to the school team,

177the school administrator, school counselor, school social worker, um assistant principal, and we can see the communications with the say something um counseling team or crisis support team. We can log in, Lisa and I can both log in to any of those reports that are um presented to our school teams and see those communications. And then we also have those we sort of triangulate our data by making sure that every bullying report that is made is then investigated through our protocol and then logged into our system. So that's why this um report that we've com um we completed and submitted to DPI by June 30th is so important because it does identify the um number of interventions that our school social workers have provided. the number and I and I provided some of that in an

178earlier um board update um earlier in the year. Uh the number of situations that are coming from that they're assessing or investigating from an anonymous report or whether it's anonymous or not. But that's just as an example. So those systems are are available for us to look through. >> Um Miss Justice then Mr. Perry. >> Okay. Um I can't emphasize this enough and you guys are all very aware of it. The concerns that Dr. Merrick brought up everything that you're saying now. We are so handicapped by our lack of staff. We need more bodies, we need more adults, and we people that kids can talk to in smaller groups of kids. Our class sizes are way overloaded. Um, and this is a matter of resources coming from through the state, the county who just cut

179us back, which they shouldn't have in my opinion. And then we have the federal government, too. So I want to say it's not from the staff not being a not wanting to. It's just and not being able to and that we don't provide resources. It's just in all practicality they are totally overloaded in just about every situation these days. I'm just being real straightforward here. You know that's that's the biggest challenge of all. And they themselves have their own mental health challenges because they're so frustrated for not being able to do what they want to do which is educate these kids and wrap them around support them. I wanted to say that on behalf of all of us out there in classrooms dealing with this every day. >> Mr. Craig, >> I had a couple

180of questions. Um, first, it's obviously you put extensive amount of uh work into this. How long you've been working on this? Uh, uh, sometimes good things take a long time. Uh, and secondly, uh, what is the, um, you said you got some additional funds. What is the cost of these programs uh for this for the district at this point? >> Uh so how long have we been working on this? Lisa and her team and I have been communicating on this um every month. Um always I think um Lisa and I have a standing weekly meeting and this is one of the items that is generally there and especially the content on here. Um the so it it's a it's a work in progress always. the the bare bones of this plan like I mentioned was

181provided to the training plan and details of our mental health plan in accordance with general statute was created in 2021 and then we've just continued to add to that and revamp with additional data. Um the the next question you had >> money >> the money. Thank you. Um so the the vast majority of this is provided to us through partnerships. So we have to make sure that we're engaging with our partners to have all of the information. The parent training sessions are um provided as a part of our relationships with Coastal Horizons, with um Trillium, with the county health and human services. So, um dollar yet with DSS, our dollar exchange, we did not build contracts to accomplish these. We made sure we could do this through the partnership and leveraging the resources that our

182neighboring agencies have and um making sure that we are braiding our our efforts to reach the families in need, reach the students in need. So, um, a a good part of this is making sure that we, um, acknowledge where our gaps are, acknowledge where our lack of resources might be, and spend time in collaboration with our agencies around us. And especially Trillium as our local management entity that has the responsibility to provide us with resources that those are the additional dollars that came through to make sure we didn't have a wait list. >> I'm not saying it costs the district money. as as I understand you're working through through other funds and other providers and funds and such. I'm just asking for a dollar a month. >> So, I would just say the school-based mental

183health in and of itself in the past, and Ashley can maybe help me go back in my way back machine. And the the last time we paid for the school-based mental health services just from the county was I feel like it was like 1.7 million, but we could we could come back on a dollar amount. This is um more than a million-doll effort. I would say this is this is a several million dollar effort, but I can give you more specifics at another time. >> Well, thank you. Yes, sometimes good things cost money. >> Um and we are way over. So, Miss Bradford, if you could close us out. >> Well, I just in listening to you saying I have a question for Dr. Barnes and the 42 positions that we're waiting to hear from

184the endowment on school specialist. Would that impact this at all? >> Sort of yes and no. I want to reflect back to what Miss Justice said before. Every time that you have more adult eyes on children, children are safer. So, I think that it's more about building in redundancies and early warning systems so that we can get kids the help that they need. You know, I'm built into the same say something app, so I get those responses when something comes up and I'm always like, "What's happening?" You know, so I think that those 42 specialist positions put more eyes on kids and keep kids safer. >> Would you agree? >> Absolutely. >> Thank you so much, Lee. >> So, I just need approval on the plan. >> To approve the plan and second. >> There

185we go. >> Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Any opposed? That passes seven to zero. Thank you, ladies. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, next on the agenda is breach of board policy and confidentiality. That was brought forward by Miss Bradford, so I'm going to hand it over to her. >> Okay. Um, this is an unpleasant item. Um, breach of board confidentiality and policy. And if someone wants to ask which policy at a minimum 2120. Um but this is about a discussion on accountability, about ethics, about not maintaining a double standard for board members uh versus the staff as well as board member to board member. And the facts are one board member's actions are seriously negative negatively reflecting on our school system and on

186our superintendent's goals for the district. And it's a pattern of behavior that's inappropriate. The facts are unrefutable. um actions and words from one board member are negatively impacting the superintendent's ability to operate the school district. So, I am making a motion to hold a special meeting for the purpose of hearing this breach of board confidentiality and policy um by board member Perry. And I would suggest that we do it on August 5th in front of our regular meeting so we don't have to call all the staff together. Although, you know, I could we board member board member Werbore had said, you know, you could do it on Monday, but I'm just always aware that when we ask the staff to come to there, they're like this. They're away from their desks and they're away from

187their work. So, that's my motion. >> And I will second that for purposes of discussion. Is there anyone who has commentary? Mr. Perry, >> question. >> If I understand your motion, >> is your mic on? Oh, >> is your mic on? Because I can't hear it very well. >> Yeah, my mic's on. Sorry, wasn't I wasn't speaking loud enough. Um, if I understand the motion, uh, you want to have a hearing before our next before this next board meeting. >> I want to have a hearing. I suggest that it be before the next board meeting just for the the the time element of Yes. a special meeting for the purpose of hearing about the breach of board confidentiality and policy. Do you want to put a time on that or do you want that to

188be a separate issue? Do you want to first just have a a motion to have a hearing or do you want to say we're going to meet at 4:30 5 uh sorry uh two whatever? >> I I what do you suggest? >> Well, I think that that if if if we might um you want to separate it. >> Can we separate? Sure. Can you separate? >> Okay. So, yeah. So then it would read uh I move to hold a special meeting for the purpose of hearing uh breach of board confidentiality and policy by board member Perry. >> All right. And I seconded that. So um Mr. Perry had his hand and then Miss Justice. >> You're asking to have a meeting but you're not giving very specific charges are you? You talking in generalities. So,

189how about being lay some specific instances? You got to ask for a hearing uh regards the charges towards me without mentioning specifically what it is you that that I think the public deserves to know what you what you actually are accusing me of doing. So, why don't you put it out there instead of dealing with generalities? >> I'm going to let Miss Justice speak and then I will if you would like to respond to a lot of that. So >> I'm not sure how we could modify it, but there's also also another concern with outbursts that are inappropriate. You've been caught on mic before. There was just an inappropriate outburst that occurred here. Um I think we should roll that into also your other concern. And as far as the specifics, this involves a child

190and parents. I don't think we're allowed to really go into that legally. >> Talk about child and parent. >> Yeah. I'd ask you to remember the fura part of it. You know, there's there's two parts to that. Student record and personally identifiable. >> It has to be in the third person, >> right? >> The parent the >> Yes. >> Hey, parent. >> So, I guess I I want to modify the purpose of the hearing. Is that what I should be doing now? Adding it to the >> Miss Justice, if you look at policy um um that's the wrong one. um 2120 it outlays the things that board members should do and not do and I think your concern about posting social media and outburst during meetings that's all covered under there and I' I've got

191competency and policy it may not be the only one um but >> so just using the policy itself we don't have to go >> that's what you're asking in my opinion >> thank you because that needs to be concerned >> Barnhart thank you madam chair um I know in previous conversations with you and I'm just having it in the open the discussion with my fellow colleagues. um it has been serving alongside of you in leadership role when an issue arises. You attempt to address individual board members and so I want to openly ask you has there been an attempt to address and in turn um curb behavior uh because I do not believe holding a special hearing is even should be a consideration for this board if that has not been done under your leadership

192madam. Um it has uh there have been phone calls, emails um and individual conversations >> as well as consequences that have been given. >> Mr. Perry, >> um first I have a question for our attorney before I begin my comments. Can I speak Can I speak in general terms of of of the nature of the thing without as long as I avoid personally identifiable information? >> Yes. Yeah, that that's what I was trying to get at right there a minute ago. You know, when you talk about a parent or an appeal um as long as you know what you say is not going to be um such that somebody can identify the parent, the child we're talking about. >> Thank you. There was a parent in the crux of what this is, especially when it

193comes to confidentiality accusations. Um, there was a parent who had made a request of our board for uh to appeal uh a student assignment decision. Uh we um and this was recently within the last few weeks. Um the we were in a close session and we discussed the matter and as a board we decided to grant the appeal and then we decided uh to schedule uh that appeal for uh 8 days from the current date that we of that closed session. Having known the parent and knew that he was extremely anxious about what was being decided, whether there would be an appeal and when it would be because he was this this parent was hoping that it might even be the very next day or he also needed to know whether or not um he

194would >> we're coming real close to be careful. >> Yeah, you're coming real close. So there was very anxious moments but work might work time might have needed to be taken off to accommodate this. So how knowing the person as an acquaintance as soon as the special the close session was over I simply texted the parent what uh that the appeal had been granted and it was at such a date and time. This was information that obviously I should not have given um this parent. This should have been left up to Dr. Barnes. But this was information that this parent was nonetheless entitled to know if I I am going to freely admit that I stepped out of line as far as stomping on Dr. Barnes is um you know lame and and I freely

195admit that. But to say that this is a confidentiality issue, it would you'd have to say at the same time that that Dr. Barnes was wrong for telling this parent the same thing that I told him. I mean, I think and and I'm not saying I didn't do anything wrong and I promise that I won't do it again, but you're making a capital offense out of I'm trying to help help a parent I know who's feeling very anxious about something. I didn't think the least of it. It wasn't like I was disclosing other information. This is information they were going to eventually hear. So, I I I admit that I'm wrong. I admit that I will do it again. I won't do it again. But I I I think this is just an honest mistake.

196uh you know perhaps being new and perhaps this is the first time I've uh been involved with recently was involved in student hearings that I think any person who just wants to as a board member try to try to be sensitive to where our parents are and how much nerve-wracking stress they're going through while we're waiting around for bureaucratic moves. So trying to relieve their stress. So, I mean, I admit I made a mistake. I admit I do a thing, but I think this is overkill. >> Um, I'm going to just kind of step in because I think that there was a bit of an overstep um on my fellow board members part. Uh, Dr. Barnes's responsibility is the district's responsibility is to have contact with the with the families and the parents. So, Dr.

197Barnes did not violate anything. Um, and I you Dr. Barnes was in the right. It was his responsibility to do so. It was not our responsibility to do so. And the problem of the matter is where do we draw the line on confidentiality? Because right now it's being drawn by one board member in one way where other board members feel very differently. Um when close session is happening, it's closed session regardless. and that information is to be discussed with only the people that are in that room. Um, and that's the concern. It's not the exact offense. It is the fact that it was close session information and it was shared with someone who is outside of the room. Uh, Dr. Merrick and Miss Bradford. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, um I do

198not believe that it's in the best interest of the board to, you know, overly punish our members. However, there has been multiple attempts by more than one of us to modify certain behavior. And I don't think we need to litigate this in this meeting today. The motion on the table is simply whether or not to have a hearing. And I have to say I was against it when I first heard about it. But when you start to add up all the different This is not just one thing that you're talking about and we will litigate this later. But there have been multiple instances and today just now has put me over the edge >> and I know how Bradford >> I agree with Dr. Merrick's comments. So, I will just say this. The part that

199I'm really having a hard time with is the double standard. If Dr. Barnes's people at the table had done this, he would have dealt with them. That's his lane. If we don't deal with people that get out of their lane and step into the superintendent's lane that are on our board, then we're saying that there's a double standard. And if we if you I always lead from the top. And so I hold myself to that standard. So how can the the teachers and the administrators and the schools know and have any faith in us the board if we don't do this? And the thing that's so egregious is this was done immediately after the closed session or in the closed session after we had just said make sure you don't share this information with anyone.

200And then before the meeting was even over it was it was shared with the parent. And when anything we do in an open meeting represents the entire board, when we do something outside this the meeting, like we make a post post on social media that's heinous, that's between you and you. You know, it looks bad on the board. But when you say something in a board meeting or you break policy right smack in the middle of a board meeting or you divulge close session information to a parent that was supposed to be highly protected that's really grievous and I believe as a board we should we should deal with it. Yes, there are other things that you know that that that make a pattern here but um and I'll just stop with that for the

201sake of time. Okay. All right. Um there is a motion to hold a hearing um over the breach of board policy and confidentiality. Miss Buoie, will you call the role? >> Mr. Wbore? >> Yes. >> Miss Bradford? >> Yes. >> Miss Mason? >> Yes. >> Miss Barnhard? >> Yes. >> Mr. Perry? >> No. >> Miss Justice? >> Yes. in Don Mer. >> Yes, >> that passes 6 to 1. Um, as far as time frame goes, we do need to have enough time to notify the public of the meeting. Um, if we were to have it on the 5th, is that enough time? >> Okay. Is that our board meeting? The fifth >> the Oh, that is. So, we don't >> we could do it like at four o'clock before the board meeting, but that could

202run us but we had a fairly light I think we're what three and a half hours right now. >> We're at 3 and 1/2 hours. Um, >> start at five. >> Yes, we have to start at 5. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, is there a time frame set out in policy for special hearings in terms of how timing goes? >> No. Uh, Dr. Merrick, >> I would like to uh request that we do not have this on the same day that we have a board meeting. It's >> it's emotionally draining, not just not just for one person, for all of us. This is this is a bit traumatic. Um I don't like having to do it. I don't like the idea of it, but I don't want to have a board meeting right after it

203either. >> How about that Monday, >> Mr. Perry? I think at the very least we should uh wait until after our regular meeting in case any and get some reaction from our public and see what they think about all this. >> Okay. So, we have um the day before, we have after. Is there any time frame that let's if you could all open your calendars and um I am not available on the 7th. So that date is out for me. Um >> I would just move that we do it on the 4th and agree on >> is okay. Uh is the fourth agreeable for >> what time? >> in the afternoon. Is there a specific >> 100 pm on the 4th? Okay. >> Um, is that do we need to make a motion for that?

204I don't think we do because we've already So, August 4th at 1 p.m. Um, I it says on here the contract extension, but I think that was supposed to be under the consensus items after close session. So, I am going to call for a motion to go into close session pursuant to general statute 143-318.11c for the following purposes. To prevent the disclosure of information that's privileged or confidential pursuant to general statute 115 C-402 and not considered a public record within the meaning of chapter 132 of the general statutes. To prevent the disclosure of student records rendered confidential under the family educational rights. To consult with an attorney in order to preserve the attorney client privilege between the attorney and the board. and to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or conditions

205of initial employment of an individual employed or considered for employment with the school system or to hear or investigate a complaint, charge or grievance by or against any individual employee. Do I hear such a motion? >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We are enclosed. Yes, ma'am. >> But where did >> you know you get better looking as the night goes on? >> I know. Did you see his Tweety Bird picture? >> Yes, I did. >> Shirtless. Yes, I did. >> I wasn't either. So, let's be honest. >> All right, >> that's when I put my goals away from >> We are back in open. Um, >> we need to do a personnel report. >> First move that we accept the personnel report. >> Second. >>

206I'm sorry. There's some Tom Foolery occurring. >> That's exactly what it is. >> She got the job done. >> Yes, we're doing two motions. Okay. And then do we accept the personnel report >> and I will Okay. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? That passes 6 to zero. >> Madam chair to extend the superintendent's contract from 28, 2028 to June 30, 2029. >> Second it. >> Oh, >> there's lots of seconds. All right. Uh any discussion? hearing none. >> Wait, I think it's a great idea. >> I I I would say I wish I could give give him another five years. So, >> we'll talk about it. >> All right. Uh all those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? >> That passes

207six to zero. Uh we have no committee reports. Motion to adjurnn. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> You beat them. Oh, >> and don't forget next week's meeting on Thursday. Jesse and he and anyone else who wants to come to >> finance, bond, and >> capital. >> All right. >> Uh, all those in favor of adjournment signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Opposed. >> That passes 5 to one. We are adjourned. >> Thank you. Well, I've never heard anybody. Hey, have you