001e e all right welcome everyone to our agenda review glad you're all here thank you for being here today uh I will call this meeting to order at this point Miss buy would you please call the role good afternoon Pete wildor present Melissa Mason here jie barnhard here Pat Bradford I am here Stephanie kille here H mcmanis here and Stephanie Walker okay I'm sure she's on her way we've not seen her yet um at this point we'll go on to our invocation heavenly father thank you for the new han County Board of Education and father I want to thank you specifically for Pete wildor for Melissa Mason for Josie bar heart for Pat Bradford for Stephanie Crill for humc Manis and for Stephanie Walker and father I would ask that you would give them great
002wisdom uh on how to lead the New Hanover County school system and all the different ages on how to lead and care for the parents um of the students that are in the new hanare County system I pray that you would give them wisdom on how to guide the administrators the principles and assistant principles on how to lead and care for the teachers and I pray father that you would give them uh not only wisdom but great tact and tenacity and determination as they do their job uh the ability to make tough and difficult decisions and then stand by those decisions father I pray that you would bless each of them I pray for Unity and strength within the board and uh father I thank you for our education system I thank you for the
003freedoms that we love and enjoy in the United States and I pray your great grace and your great blessing on this gathering in the mighty name of Jesus we pray amen Isel M fox church just giving an opening prayer for the school board thank you and askance Le Us Al to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and Justice all welcome M Walker all right we will carry on we're going to try to go through this pretty quickly so uh you know we have a lot of important things to talk about but we do have a very full agenda today uh at this point uh I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda so move is there a second second we have
004a second first any discussion M crille yes so two things um wondering if we could move the seab breze under information um instead of new business because we're not doing any thing right it's just for information um for that and then um I needed to make a correction to the task force um committee under main points it has a lot of stuff written there and um the only thing I asked for was for us to discuss what type of committee it was and was hoping that it would be lumped in with you know student voice and the Safety Committee for smmes but if we are not ready to talk about that I just wanted to make sure that we were talking about the same thing I wasn't looking for um any report from Miss Walker
005or Dr fa on the work the status the goals any of that I just was thinking that we need to make it did you change it it says here that the board will review The District's t uh task force committee to determine the status of the committee and review its goals and outcomes this far I take off the whole second half because I'm not interested in in that because that's not my committee and it's not what I need to hear at this point in time okay so I just wanted to make sure that just the status part not even status what kind of committee are we so I don't know if that's what you call status because when I hear status I'm thinking where are we and that's not what that's not what I was
006looking for okay that's I have no problem M Walker um well I think the question was asked whether we talk about or not no October is the time that the full presentation is going to be there and I had suggested maybe the the chair and vice chair get together with me and discuss that maybe we can bring that up in October but have conversations in the meantime so the full board well everybody can have a conversation so I don't think we're ready for that today then I would make a motion to remove it from the agenda is that what you're saying yes ma'am second first second to remove the uh item D task force committee any other discussion I I say no I think that we need to decide what kind of committee it is
007so that we can protect the work of the committee um going forward it doesn't matter in October it in October it it will it will Define who makes the report the district makes the report or we make the report but um so I guess I'm happy to take it off but I'm I'm not happy to take it off but I will if it's going to cause AA but I think that we need to discuss what kind of committee is because it will inform your work as the chair um and then it will also bring us into compliance with policy 2230 where it's not listed there as a board committee as a board advisory committee as an ad hoc committee um you Miss Walker is on it you know she was assigned to do that by
008Dr fa so she's on it so that if she's leading it then it's a it's a it's a committee that we own so we just have to figure out you know who co-own sure that's fine but can I call the question okay call the question okay oh unless Miss Bradford wants to go I I'm I'm happy to wait okay well why don't we take a vote on it then would you please follow the RO M what are we which which are we voting on voting on M Walker's Miss barnhard Mo second it right uh motion to remove item D under um information thank you Mr RoR yes Miss Mason yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss Bradford yes Miss Crill no Mr mcmanis yes and Miss Walker yes okay so that will be removed uh that passes
0096 to1 Mr then M Bradford um if I could speak to the new business local history um the history incoming is set for a specific time and she knows it's when it when it is and um it's specifically put it under new business because I will make a motion when it is over so this is an agenda review meeting where we typically don't do old business and new business and we went through a whole process with Miss Bradford leading it that this is what we do um we don't vote on things unless it's an emergency or unless one of the senior staff has a deadline that they have to meet and I'm just curious as to why this is even on the agenda at all but if we move it up to um item F
010of information it doesn't change the timing on when our guest is going to arrive because we don't have any old business um I don't know why it's on the agenda and then new business the it when you look at it it doesn't say for board action it says for information so I didn't come to this meeting ready to vote on anything I came to this meeting ready to hear a presentation so I think that we need and I say it every time I think we need to follow our own rules are you making a motion then I I did make a motion that I I made a motion to move the seab breeze from new business to information okay so there's a motion to move seab breze from uh from new business that was the
011original motion okay from new business to information is there a second hearing none we'll leave it at new business so we do have an amended agenda now we have uh deleted uh item D we'll move item the uh item e up to d uh do we have a motion to accept the amended agenda is there a second I the motion was this is not an amended agenda it is because we we deleted the task force oh okay sorry Mr chair I mean did we get a second first if I wanted to just ask second oh second okay sorry discussion um I I don't know if this is appropriate time to ask um I know we haven't gone over the next week's agenda yet um and I know we've already met deadlines in that but would
012it be appropriate at that time to ask about maybe an addition or are we oh yeah or you can do it next week you can do it at the beginning of next week's meeting too okay to add what I don't know yet I don't know yet I'm trying to figure out when the right time is to do it she want to add something yeah yeah okay okay all right so we have a motion and a second to approve the amended agenda uh all in favor please signify by saying I I all oppose no okay that passes 6 to one we will carry on as we normally do and again we've asked Miss Crill to carry up uh carry on with our timing so I do appreciate that thank you very much um we will go
013ahead and start again if you need to stop me please do so uh call the order order uh roll call approve the agenda uh reflection national anthem who would like to do the pledge next week okay all right we move on to approval of the minutes recognitions we have 10 minutes for that we are going to do our classified recognition for August as well okay so we need probably 15 then okay let's go to 15 what about for admin introductions uh we've already introduced everyone there is one more that I'm going to actually try to bring to you next week I was waiting till close session came up okay but um I think we're caught up so 15 is still good so should we cross through administrative let cross through that repl it okay uh
014teacher voice 10 minutes superintendent's report 5 minutes that good okay um Mr in the superintendent report is that where we're going to get some information that didn't make it to the agenda when we talked last week I was going to bring you guys a staffing and a budget update as a part of that superintendent's report okay just making sure that that gets in there thank you Mr chair I have question um student voice is on is that because the students didn't have anything this month I don't know that we have a good question well I mean usually standing um I do not have a point person for student voice student voice did not participate in the month of July so if anyone would like to instruct me of where we are on student voice then
015I'll be happy to include I haven't designated okay that was one of my request okay well I didn't know if anybody's communicating with the students about it I didn't know if they had prepared anything you said you spoke to them I have not I said I haven't had a chance to designate anyone to take over that yet but I will okay okay all right um call the audience to 60 minutes we have the New Hanover County this one update how long do you think that will take wait a minut I'm on information a information a are you in the orange sheet because most of our um detailed data is still embargoed it's probably only going to be about 5 minutes unless there are particular questions that you have so I would consider that Mr can
016we get a clue of what it is it's the um same level update that I gave last summer which is a a comparison of the prior year on total number of out of school suspensions total number of ins schole suspensions incidents reportable offenses so it's that high level data I just can't go deeper because the data hasn't been verified by the state yet why don't we say 10in that way there because if there are some questions I we're not going over over the top and if if there are questions ahead of time let me know and then I'll be ready for those okay M well I have one but when you're speaking just now um you so you will not be able to dive deeper so specifically in regards to students who are potentially repeat
017offenders we would not be able to dive into and really go into analyzing the data because I think that um that goes into a deeper conversation for us to have as far as decision makers and so if we're not going to have that information we're not going to be okay all right thank you so what did you say on that after all this discussion five 10 10 10 10 Mr MCM thank you I think this falls under in right area it's mind understanding uh that every principle does in fact call parents before they suspend them I'm referring this to discipline that's our that's our expectation I I know that some parents are some parents are hard hard to reach oh real hard difficult but but they are trying to contact correct especially in that k12
018and three so is that in writing um I will check but that's that is our expectation but we'll make sure make that clear I just if they're all calling then sure then we we we' resolved an issue okay and if it's in writing and I believe the principales certainly are calling right then it just resolve that issue immediately right that we can take care of that okay thank you I mean um Miss bar is this the report that says you know there were this many uh assaults there were this many um weapons in the school is this part of that report that you're bringing so the coming or I'll just watch so um I mean there's all kinds of reasons why people don't show up you know the their their kid got sick and they
019can't come so I think we need to kind of you know narrow that down to make sure that is it going to be the same that we can put 150 people in here um but where are we going to put them all you know kind of deal we'll have that for next week yeah I I asked our folks to bring together tomorrow next week sort of a protocol and a format for how that's going to work L pressure over there we have a a sign up for how many people we need to right but that's going to have to go out pretty soon like after this meeting is when we normally put that out right so people have time to decide if they're going to come or they work it in if they're going to
020come you know set up people time and you know I think we also had talked about doing like we did before some where we had two rotations of you know so it wouldn't be like the same group for two hours we be a group for an hour if you don't mind I can you know can we send out the protocol sort of to them by the end of the week it's two weeks not one week well mean Town Hall's two weeks right yeah okay I just want to make sure that everybody who wants to get in can get in or we tell them that you may not get in you just so that everybody's clear before we go okay very good Mr chair I just had a question about um are we going to discuss
021that day about the format and everything like times and Stu yep um so then we're carrying on to our consensus items oh that's a good question well let's say 10 minutes I think 10 minutes was fair 10 10 um consensus items we have five minutes again we'll go one by one if you have a question please Now's the Time to stop and ask as high school Marine Science mou care yes ma'am I just have one question is this brand new what year was this established it is not brand new it has been here since I've been here I do not know what year we created it probably 10 years ago it's been around for quite some time you have some insight SM man share with you the catalyst is that was is for Mrs Smith
022who was one of my teachers at hogard and was big into the environmental Arena and when they buil Ashley she went and each school had an identifying at least academic arena and that's why I believe that's why that given as because she was the lead on that well the my children were still in school when theems were started when when the specialty you know Dr Markley was here and my kids were in school so it's at they're at least 10 years old at least yeah she can answer that somebody want to contact well we could probably just look it up I have a question yes M you have a question oh next one okay Title One application 2425 you Mr chair um I just wanted to verify because I know we were estimating financially to
023have a loss of about 15% of our Title One funding um that did not happen Mally um did the allocations for our Title One schools did they go equally out to those schools again in the budgetary process or so Trish um cook has done allocations to the schools I think you're actually in the middle of that process actually getting all that entered based on the plans that were submitted by the schools but remember the amounts that were given to the schools for them to build the plan was based on an estimate um we do not have the actual Federal title one allotments as of today okay all right but if if that estimate is different is the allocations going to be evenly distributed among the title one schools there's actually a formula that she has
024to use to do the allocations and she would use that formula to allocate the remaining amount and then of course that will come back to the board for approval thank you for that clarification M Bradford so the 15% could be applied I thought I'd read that it wasn't being applied the 15% loss title so when we finalized um the last budget um resolution that came to the board we did not include a 15% reduction because Dr F had spoke to some people at the state and we were not we were hearing that that had change and then we were not expecting the 15% so we we held um the title one amount the same as last year for our estimate and we'll know for once the allotment comes through we'll know if that was a
025good or bad estimate and adjust accordingly okay thank you there was some confusion regarding whether or not the federal money reduction also included the Esser money ending and so people were thinking that that 15% cut also included that Sesser funding as well so the title one money specifically may not been as cut as B there 15% wasn't it like $6 million that's a lot of money 15% of6 million all right carrying on we we're on letter C under consensus items new han County Schools technology and digital learning plan faor yes I um the plan is very thorough thanks Don your department did a good job you've been working on it for quite some time um I had a question though when I was reading down through the people who are responsible that um the digital
026teaching and learning Specialists and curriculum and instruction Specialists um are listed on a number of places and I was under the impression that some of these positions were not um were being eliminated and we transferred people in so do we have to make a change to this or um how how is that going to work when we have a whole lot less people go ahead doc we still have the digital teaching and learning specialist we just have two instead of six so um they're the responsible party of making sure it gets done doesn't mean they're doing all the work necessarily so and the curriculum Specialists they're still in place as well in the core areas so we don't need to change the responsible party because those groups can still meet and make sure that those
027tasks get accomplished um the plan is to for a lot of these we are bringing in other people not just within the two departments we'll be bringing people from the schools and um even possibly some parents in some areas to to help get some of this work done so second question is um this is a working document I'm assuming right correct and so when we have in in some of the timelines you know we have you know June 24 to June 25 um and some of them we just have you know annual review some of them we have ongoing and you know total quality will tell you you can't have ongoing you we need to have like when is this plan going to be that we're going to look at it again or are you
028counting your annual review as that we have to do that like do we have to report this I guess to DPI or report this somewhere on a you know annual basis you know by biannually Tri anually how how does that work there is no report to DPI that's required um we've done this plan for for a couple of reasons um Dr F at the time asked me to create a plan because there wasn't a separate technology plan and it wasn't seamlessly integrated in our strategic plan um as well as with DPI in order to do some applications for some of the grants they require to have a technology plan so um like example under goal hc2 where it says continuous that just talks about um certified staff having um one goal on their PD plan
029that focuses on you know learning so it could say yearly instead of continuous but basically the same thing we expected every year for them to have that goal so this is going to be reviewed annually and then and changes made and back to the board for approval or are we going to say like every two years or that's a lot of work for you correct we are going to do a plan from this we're going to create a yearly plan of what we're going to accomplish in each year okay and then what we're going to do is we're going to go through try and accomplish everything that we say we're going to do and then there will be a report saying what we have done and what we haven't done and What needs to carry
030forward and then there'll be a new year so every year we will be doing a yearly plan that makes sure we meet the goals of the technology plan M Bart thank you Mr chairman um I just had a clarification question for you you said that we would be playing in different people um we've even talked about you know where it's feasible location wise can we have high school students go to the middle school and do it there so we're trying to work through to see what it is all we're allowed to and able to do but yes we do I appreciate you sharing that thank you and Donald if you please the board what we can do is is use this plan just every year give you guys an update on goals and objectives absolutely
031yeah and that's kind of where I was going is that the if you're going to review it um then we should see what the review is that has been done kind of like a financial audit or any other audit that we do um would the review take place would would the stakeholders who helped create this plan be involved in the review or is that just um because when you look in like let's just go with you know dps1 because that's where I'm sitting um the director of network security the director of technology and Client Services senior leaders and Technology division that's who's responsible for this so um would they be the ones that would be annually review reviewing or would you have like a a review team that's what I'm getting to is are all
032the stakeholders going to have a chance to take a look and see the plan that they created um will um will you at least have a representative helping review that or is that just strictly kind of going to be your your purview no we are going to be bringing other people in so um in creating the plan we actually um invited a large group of principles large group assistant principles and all the different stakeholders um there were actually multiple um Zoom sessions done to collect their input so we won't be able to it's not feasible to go to that whole group to kind of get their input but basically when you're talking about like the dps1 as far as the um I just picked that one yeah so it's not going to be the director
033of network security who's going to basically um make the determination whether we're you know doing what we need to do it's going to be a group of people we have an EAC committee an educational technology advisory committee they'll be on this process we'll be bringing administrators on this process so there'll be multiple people working in on you know making sure that we accomplish those goals and then we will summarize that for the board on a year year basis that makes sense okay thank you right it's a great it's a great plan you guys did a lot of good work Mr chair I just have one it's just a general question and it's probably doesn't matter but do it cost um budget money to do a plan like this it did but it was very minimal
034thank you thank you good question um going on to D prek mou 2425 M Bradford you had your hand up I um actually no it's the next one I have a question on Miss Walker uh this this is just to deal with the county the county um funded programs and I guess I just had general questions I was looking at it it looks like it's for 12 sites but I guess I'm confused um because we just got additional funding from the Endowment for two classrooms but that's to shore up this amount or not that's in a separate mou I believe correct or it's in a separate account so the endowment is separate so that's actually separate grant that we'll receive from them for the two classrooms that's um so that was my question so is
035it 14 now or still 12 um we have so the county says that they're providing funding for 12 classrooms however their funding actually wasn't enough to fund all 12 so we ended up putting some Title One money with it to actually fund those 12 okay so this but the so this is that's what where you said but the endowment that's is that two addition yeah so if you say the 12 from thatou plus the two from the endowment that's 14 putting Title One money in with it to actually fund the 14 because we couldn't do it without that that was a misconception I just thought that we didn't have enough for the 12 and we needed the endowment money for that but this is for an additional two on top okay barart um I I
036appreciate this ml um I know we did not received the Head Start Grant and so some Forward Thinking I don't know now that it's not being funded with a grant fund Head Start if there's an opportunity for us to potentially ask the Endowment for a head start Grant not for this school year I think that turn around time would be too but forward thinking since the grant is already pretty much filled out and created um that might be an opportunity for us to try to pick up some more of this Brie students next year so I don't know if Miss Miss miles or Dr Cook we are we are already thinking and working and wonder kind of putting our heads together about what we can do next year because the tital one money that we're
037using this year would not be sustainable for next year so we are um thinking of all different things to see what we can do I appreciate you on that thank you Mr chair I know I'm um I've learned so much more about prek than I ever thought I would ever know about the funding for fre um and so I know there's been a lot of discussion about the budget the money part and the and I had asked the question about enrollment um I know Dorothy Johnson B Johnson is going through something right now but um I I asked the question if if funding came available could you enroll students and they said yes they could so I mean it doesn't end just because we can't enroll right now doesn't mean if we don't get funding
038so I don't know how we work on getting more funding I know we moved some Title One money around which I think is great um but the loss of the grant was very hard I think it reduced our classrooms in almost in half PRK classrooms and I think that's awful because I mean we really wanted to build the program and that's part of the reasons the county funded more classrooms because they believe in it um I don't know what we could do to get that back but we don't even know who the the the the recipient is I think we'll find out do we know if we're going to find out August still haven't we we still haven't been notified but I I will tell you that since you mentioned um Johnson that we actually
039will have seven regular a classrooms there and three EC classrooms at this time and they did they move Freeman free over there um yes we did move um our Freeman classrooms and and I want to say that's what we had discussed and yes we did can stay with that trying to keep all those students together um I there was a question about prek being at free because the students would roll on into Elementary but now that's kind of separating them from the school yeah well what it also did was it allowed us to keep because if I remember correctly um we could not have the three-year-olds at at at um Freeman so it allows the the brothers and the sisters and the parents to have one location okay and I I do want to say
040that's from my memory of a lot of discussion like you said we've been deeply engrossed in prek M up sorry I wanted to add some question clarification the county also um approved I can't remember if it's in this final draft of theou or not but they did approve for any of the carryover that we had last year related to those grants would carry over into this year so that also helped us fund those 12 classrooms I just want to make sure I said that because that was an additional funding that they let us have and before we carry on board members uh I just was alerted that uh the Ada that was speak to us uh later on uh is here why don't we carry my thought would be we carry on through the rest
041of this and then instead of going in close session why don't we if if it's all with everybody why don't we hear from the Ada and and then we can go into session is that okay by consensus we need to vote on Yeah by by well by consensus we can vote all I make a motion that we move uh the um cell phone use uh under information up uh after this before close session is there a second second okay any discussion all in favor put cify by saying I I I all oppose Carri 70 thank you board members let's carry on with this then um we just talked about D so uh e budget amendment would you like to give us more information on that misson so I did receive some questions I'm going to
042try my best to answer the questions but if I miss one just um let me know um so with the budget amendments what happened we um signed a resolution I believe it was in May to allow me to finish closing out the book so any Revenue that came in during June um we could go ahead and maximize our funding um to be able to not revert any funds back to state or federal and so that's the amendment that you see here this is our F final amendment to close out the books and so as you can see um we received um for State um we had an amendment of 1.1 million and I'm just going through the net um for local $750 um for federal $239,000 and Child Nutrition we received about 965 th000 more
043than we initially thought we were going to receive and so that money just hadn't been budgeted yet so that didn't necessarily all come in in June but we made the adjustment in June and then we also had um 433,000 come in for our other restricted funds so that's where we keep our grants and donations that we receive and so some of these funds we had anticipated receiving we just hadn't actually received the revenue yet um at the time um the due date for the June board meeting for agenda review but if you and a couple more things so with State um some of that funding the state will provide funding for example if we have retirements or terminations and we have payouts that we um process the state will cover whatever the cost of that
044payout is and so some of what you see here the revenue that we've recorded um was to have our Revenue match our expenses because we know the state is going to cover those things so if you look at all of these um adjustments through the budget resolution you have in front of you um the additional Revenue that came in um that was things that we hadn't adjusted for our plan for um were some federal funding um that will carry over into next year and that was about 239,000 um we received um some EC funding of about 216,000 some Title One about 188 ,000 and um supporting effective instruction was about $3,500 that we received all those funds will actually carry forward into this year um so that'll be part of our budget plan for this
045year and I'll bring carryover information to the board for approval um once I have all that information I usually bring all the carryover at one time um and for state so um excluding the federal that's going to carry over the of other Revenue amounted the net change was about $472,000 and so that would fall into our savings or our fund balance and so that's part of the calculation we were estimating our fund balance that I shared before did I answer all the questions I know I didn't go line by line so I might I may have missed a question okay yes so um on page one of the document that you know that we're are going to sign where it says local current expense fund amendment number five and the last paragraph uh the last
046sentence says adjust findes and forfeitures revenue to actual collections um are we down significantly because um Mr vogel's lawyer didn't show up to a lot of the hearings to collect money or to make claims on that no actually um comparing the difference between what I estimated and what we actually collected was only the $750 that I have noted here so it was very a small difference from what we had budgeted versus what came in okay um I just I when I was looking at this the I'm not familiar with the budget rethink Grant so I'd love um it doesn't have to be right now but just to get some more information about that of what we're doing with that it's that says the budget rethink Grant with um our special needs students with disabilities point
047is it it was under the state I believe the budget rethink Grant and I will have to go back and um look at my notes on exactly what that PD is so for some reason the state decided this past year to start instead of paying our teachers directly for attending this professional development they decided they would start running it through our book so what that ended up being was they gave us that money and then we wrote the check to the teachers for attending that PD okay all right thank you for that carrying on um disposal of surplus property what happened to did just update the sewing machines or there's 27 that are going out the door is the program closed or I'm sorry I'll get an answer to that I don't know that one
048I just was wondering what was happening with the sewing machines there's 27 39 sewing Parts I I if a program closed on the soda machine how would you three Hospital you know as we sew so shall we reap so we'll find out where they are oh yeah a lot of iPads too oh gosh there's a lot are they updated iPad are they like modernish no I don't know we don't Surplus modernish devices though they are ones that can no longer be updated as far as operating system and chances are they're proba also broken Beyond um cost effective to repair youbody want all right contract with new han County Health and Human Services for Health Services School nurses questions um looks like it's $1.6 million where do the funds come from um sorry I didn't have
049that's yeah I have the budget code here and it um we're pulling this from local funds at this point in time okay thank you I have a follow to that so local school funds or from from County funds because they do they provide the I know they do nurses they do these as well mental health or is it just yes this is for so these two are separate so um the 1 56 million is for our school nurse program and so that is all coming from local funds so both are local you just said the the mental health is not a contract it's a it's anou and there's no dollar amount attached to that next we'll talk about the M for uh the between new han County Board of Education new han County Health and
050Human Services for school-based mental health you have questions walk right now I had there is no cost there is no cost thank you okay let me clarify it is a very expensive service there is no cost to the school district Capital outlay fund project transfer okay oh wait I have a question um can't read my writing um I guess this goes well I don't know who it goes to Eddie um how did we save that money that we're moving over because there's really no such thing as a savings but where did that money come from so when we submit a budget request a lot of times it's based on an estimate and we were budgeted based on that estimate and the actual bids come in under budget thank you all right thank you and our
051final item is J uh North Carolina educational lottery applications for the uh year 2425 including the public school building Capital fund and the public school building repair and renovation fund applications oh lots of hands go over that one go ahead Mr Walk are you first well um I guess that we are applying right Mr Anderson for these but we don't know if we'll get them right so the projects are identified in the capital budget process and um we anticipate Revenue um and base the dollar amount on that anticipated Revenue so these projects there is currently uh Revenue within the North Carolina Education Lottery allotment for these projects think you mentioned last time we get about 2 million for that um it's about this is you know 1.8 million I feel like you mentioned that some
052some other meeting that we get about 2 million maybe it was at weekend I don't know could yeah Mr MC you have your hand up no sir okay M bford he answered your question thank you okay Mr barart I just have a question for clarity Mr chairman I know last month the board had voted on asking to receive funding for a full workup for new han High School of all of the total cost of what it's going to be so I see structural repairs on here so I'm assuming that these are specifically things that we've already targeted and isolated requesting those because we I to my knowledge we have not received that full list of things for okay thank you so we're not we are it's down yeah yeah okay all right um so then
053we carry on Old business there's nothing at this point new business nothing at this point committee reports yes ma'am well that's where I was waiting for I didn't know if the board would want to um add an item I mean it's up to the board obviously but um I come to my attention that um I think and and someone had a discussion probably few of us about the women's wrestling program whether it was coet or not whether it was any kind of title n issue with fairness about you know their sport um and I didn't know if we could add it just for information or if I mean I don't know it can be an action item I just don't know anything about it and I was hoping we could gather information about the status
054and and maybe a potential cost for hiring or you know supplementing you update on that so right now right now asked John Henry give a wave Mr Henry um to do a little more research on that we have female members of all of our wrestling programs most of them are considered a co-ed program rather than two separate groups Laney is the only school that has several um members so what I asked John to do is check with the North Car School Association sorry North Carolina High School Athletic Association find out how many schools and districts have separate teams rather than combined teams yeah so most of them right now they are a combined co-ed team um so the question would be whether we want to put that into the budget to have separate teams or
055not right so that's kind of where it sits but I wanted him to do a little more leg work to make sure I knew how much we were getting into would he be able to Mr Henry do it by next week or no is that too short um I can update the board as I get information I don't know if um he'll have that by next week quite frankly so we've been asking so I guess whenever it's ready could we put it on the agenda for discussion and possible vote if we need to okay and what what I would suggest that why don't we we're not sure if we're going to have that report by next week if we do we'll just amend the uh at the beginning and we can just first and second
056that and then vote on it as we need to and the wrestling season is not until winter correct so we do have we don't have to rush through um and then we obviously would want our athletic director to weigh in in conjunction with Henry Miss barnhard thank you Mr chairman I was going to say as far as doing research and reaching out to high it might be nice for us to know that threshold of minum competitors if we do split it to so that might be and one of the things we're looking at too is whether or not have having separate teams would create more interest in the program or not very good you know so that's one of the things we're looking at researching as well I guess if as if we're being true
057to the I guess the title if there's a need and a desire and and when program is already doing that I mean it would create probably more interest for female athletes that will live them do wrestling and I don't know co-ed wrestling doesn't I don't think they and and tell me if I'm wrong I may be wrong but I I don't think that the boys compete against the girls I think girls am I wrong no they compete in the co team it's obviously divided up by weight class and so often a girl will wrestle their the wrestling can be both ways because generally there wouldn't be enough females in one weight in all the different weight classes to qualify so you're going to do the study on what's happening around us I just ask to
058to do a little more knowledge so we know we're we're looking at before we jump in there are females out that want to pursue wrestling you know in a college career sure I have a lot of scholarships out there so that great okay um so just finishing up um as we had said um we have all old business new business committee reports I don't think we have any there I do you do um that's for today right I can do it today yes yeah it's under today you the finance um Clos session I don't think we'll need one but we may yes our committee reports done by the committee chairs typically I think so yeah okay I believe so unless unless say delegated to someone else okay yes Mr willar I would ask um we
059are closing in on the final principal hire for holly tree okay so if you can do a Clos session so that we can bring a Personnel agenda next week I'd appreciate it okay so let's head and yeah gotcha 15 minutes in for that Mr Crill for me oh would you have 15 minutes in for the Clos session well let's say 20 minutes for Clos session it'll be an additional Personnel agenda but it will be very small okay so then we will have to come out after that and vote correct or no well you have it over here for you have it on the number 17 number 17 thank you my my uh Roman numeral game isn't on point yeah we have we have a closed session but we would need to come out and vote
060afterwards correct or no well you have closed session but then XV i i i is consensus items Personnel report is that for today or that that's for that's today yeah that's on next week so we do have to add something to come back and vote so we have to put in the V xv111 okay 18 and then move everything down okay well I guess it's been updated already you showing me this I got you just so we can have one I appreciate it if you would add that in please okay and then did I hear that we are having committee reports at the board meeting itself or are we just having committee reports today today I believe unless somebody has something okay very good strike it we're just not going to having time okay so
061um and then putting in 10 minutes of break time okay so it's 170 minutes okay hours oh do not start bragging do not start bragging do not there it is 14 and 1 12 hours later wow okay it's two hours in 83 minutes roughly 3 hours thank you thank you thank you okay uh at this point uh as we had uh voted on we are going to hear from uh assistant direct uh assistant district attorney Herring uh and um Ashton Herring Ashton Herring will be providing an overview of cell phones used by Miners and potential of charges associated with illegal actions is that in person or she's here okay while we're waiting for her to get on at the safety conference um or the safety Summit that the center for safer schools is putting on
062this week um that was a big Topic in several different of our um of our s sessions and um trying to get more schools to actually allow people like um RDA to talk with our students um about this because they have a program that is tailored down to students you know for adults to hear but also for students to hear kind of like what Ben David would go around to the ath writers and yeah and she's yes and she presented um to the Sha team you know like twice welcome adaa hearing thank you for being here today thank you thank you for being here okay does everyone know what I'm here to talk about do I need to introduce myself okay um my name is Ashton Herring I am an assistant district attorney for the
063new han and pendy count District Attorney's Office I've been with new han and Pender County District Attorney's office for the past almost 5 years now before then I was briefly at the enlo District Attorney's office um during that time period for the past four years a little over four years now I've been the juvenile prosecutor for new han County I'm not the juvenile prosecutor for Pender County um they have a much different case load than I do um and then also along with being the juvenile prosecutor I prosecute felonies and Superior Court and have been doing that for over four years as well um but I'm here mostly to talk about what I have seen um being the juvenile prosecutor for four years um what trends I have seen um in particular with children and
064cell phone use um and in the school system thank you thank you um so this slideshow is titled obscene materials and cell phones um it's just a portion of a um PowerPoint that I typically give to our school resource officers I train them every year um and then recently gave it at one of your Retreats um to the administrative staff of new hmer County Schools um I created this and put this in those PowerPoints because over the four years that I've been the prosecutor for juveniles in new han County um I have seen a significant um number of cases arising from the schools where kids have possessed OB team material on their cell phones and it typically um either is distributed while they're at school in possession of those cell phones um or it is
065discovered while they're at school in possession of those cell phones either by um law enforcement seeing it on Instagram or SnapChat or um a student telling a teacher or law enforcement officer in the school about a Snapchat um or a group chat where these images um have Arisen so a lot of people call it child pornography um what the state actually calls it with statute is this sexual exploitation of a minor um there are three different degrees of this offense you have first degree sexual exploitation of minor it's a class C felony and that importance um will come in a little bit later we don't typically see this with juveniles being charged as a Class C because as you can see it's usually um producing a recording or um a picture of a minor engaged
066in sexual activity um or recording photographing it or duplic ating it for the purpose of pecuniary gain um those don't typically happen with kids because they're not typically taking these photos for production um they're typically taking these photos um as I'll get into a little bit later to send to other people's other people as part of a dating relationship um or to impress someone else typically what I see is the class E felony which is second degree sexual exploitation of a minor um which is recording photographing duplicating Distributing receiving or um exhibiting material of a minor engaged in sexual activity um those are typically the images um that you would think of when you think of child pornography so you're talking about an image um of a minor engaged in sexual activity so you're talking
067about nude photos where U minor genitalia is exposed you're also talking about videos of kids engaged in masturbation or all sex um or V vaginal or anal sex those are all photos and videos that I have seen on mine or cell phone and distributed it's very easy to be charged with this class C because um it's the recording photographing duplicating Distributing or receiving this photo most kids are getting in trouble or or this is being um brought to people's attention because it's been distributed so sent to someone else or posted online um and then you have have third degree which is a class H felony which is just the possession of the material of a minor engaged in sexual activity what most kids well for one most kids and most parents do not know that
068this is illegal that it is illegal um and you can be charged with a felony to possess or distribute um photographs of a minor even if it's a photograph of yourself so if you are under the age of 18 and you take a nud selfie just possessing that photo on your cell phone is that class H felony now if you send that photo to someone else say your boyfriend or your girlfriend then you have the class E felony um and when we talk about felonies if you guys aren't familiar class a felony is first degree murder that's the most serious offense we have in North Carolina and then the seriousness of the fence goes down the alphabet so you have a class B Class C um which you have first degree class D Class E
069Class F class H class I so these are a Class E felony is a relatively high level felony um and a class C felony is certainly a very high felony even though we don't see that one very often it has been charged in juvenile court and then the class H felony is still a felony um one day I had a kid who was 16 um charged with the secondary sexual exploitation of a minor it happens very often when I have a juvenile charge with this type of offense they come into court and they're like well I didn't know that it was a crime I didn't know that it was a felony especially and the parent has no idea either so they're not only learning that for the first time but when you're 16 or 17
070in North Carolina and you learn that and you learn that you're charged with the class E felony you also learn that it can be a mandatory transfer to Superior Court for trial as an adult um so the 16-year-old girl came into court she was charged with the class E felony um with her mom I think she was laughing about this cuz she was like this can't actually be serious like you guys are joking it was just um essentially a Revenge case where she was um in an argument with a friend didn't like the friend and so she had received a nude from that friend and then distributed it to other people and so she's laughing about this in court and judge corpening who's our chief district court judge in New Hanover County and also presides
071over juvenile court looked at her and said this is mandatory transferred to Superior Court for trial as an adult unless the prosecutor decides to keep you in juvenile court and and suddenly her and her mom both start crying because they had no idea so how is this happening I just want to give you guys a little background even though I've talked to you a little bit typically it starts with a student taking a video or a picture of themselves and then the student sends the image to someone the student trusts or wants to impress so that you're talking about the boyfriend girlfriend or girlfriend boyfriend um relationship you're also talking about the friend relationship so like a female sending an image to another female saying hey what do you think how do I look um
072and then those two females no longer get along and one of them um decides to get back at them by sharing a new image that they had received in confidence um and then eventually that image gets distributed to usually a group of individuals through a group chat um I've said multiple times to parents and kids nothing good ever comes from being in a group chat as a kid um and so then it starts circulating in that group chat and eventually it gets posted online which is usually how law enforcement or a teacher um gets alerted to the material sometimes it's someone in the group chat itself who alerts teachers or law enforcement about the material um sometimes someone will post an image of themselves online I've had cases like that sometimes people will operate exposure
073accounts if you're not familiar with exposure accounts they're typically operated on Snapchat or Instagram where they're an anonymous account there's like for example there's like Wilmington spill the tea or new Handover County spill SP the te or um new Handover High spill the tea um and then various other accounts with similar names um and their purpose is exposing individuals and usually they're exposing individuals um by posting obscene material um there's usually accounts that do gossip like The Spill the tea and exem material can be part of that gossip right um but there's other accounts that operate just for the sole purpose of uploading nude images or videos of of minors or other people that they know engaging um in sexual activity um so people will either operate as an exposure account or they'll send something
074to an exposure account I've had kids send pictures of themselves to exposure accounts because they want it posted for to see what the feedback will be of their video or image and then I've also had that Revenge situation where either two exes break up and they want to get back at each other um or two friends are mad at each other and we'll post it that way um for the dating relationship part of it it's typically they'll send to their significant other then significant other would be like sending it to their group friends in a group chat saying hey look what my girlfriend or boyfriend just sent me um it can also happen when you download an image from the internet if it's an image depicting a minor engaged in sexual activity that's the definition
075right of the seene material for the statute they download that from the internet and they have it on their phone even if they don't send it to someone that still that class H felony um and then taking a video as a joke give me one second so this is something I've seen it a lot over the past four years but I've seen a significant increase and I would say the last six months um what will happen is it's typically either Middle School age boys or High School young High School age boys one boy will be engaging in the actas masturbation in the school bathroom and another boy will be in there at that time hear it or you know suspect that it's going on and they stand up on top of the stall take their
076cell phone and DRP their cell phone over the stall and start recording the other kid and then immediately press send because kids have that instant reaction just say everything from their phone to their friends so they immediately press send um and send it to a group chat and either someone in that group chat will post it on Snapchat or they themselves will then posted on Snapchat without even thinking about it because kids these days just share their entire lives how they share and communicate is through their cell phones and through the internet and group chats um so they do it almost without even thinking and let's see here I've had five cases I think since March um about that exact scenario um three separate cases and then at least five individuals were charged um from
077those three seate separate cases um and when I asked them or you know a therapist asked them or the defense counsil asked them why did you do it their response in all three of those cases all five of those individuals response was we thought it was a joke and they don't understand that they just distributed an image of someone that everyone at that school knows because while New Hanover may be big all these kids pretty much know each other because they had that communication and that connection through social media so that kid has just been humiliated beyond belief um for what they thought would be a practical joke and as we all know it's really hard to get um images taken back from the internet once it's been put out there even though that's the
078goal that law enforcement has once they get word of this case so if you are lucky enough to stay in juvenile court here are the consequences of committing these types of offenses um you'll get placed on 12 months of supervised probation you'll get a sex offender specific evaluation and then receive sex offender specific treatment based off of that evaluation because sexual exploitation of a minor is a sex offense under North Carolina General statute and then you'll get you could get Residential Treatment Facility based off of that evaluation which is where you get removed from the home and placed at a treatment facility you'll get a leas or close to 100 hours of community service no unsupervised access to the internet no unsupervised access to a cell phone may be required to register as a sex
079offender it's not mandatory in juvenile court that you register as a sex offender because of how our law is written with juveniles but it is something that I as a prosecutor could petition a court to have you registered as a sex offender as a juvenile and then your cell phone seized which for kids is like the end of the world um honestly sometimes kids are more concerned about the fact that their cell phone has been seized than they are about the fact that they are charged with a felony and have to do all these things um and then you have a felony conviction which in new han County as I'm sure you probably are aware of you have a felony conviction um even in juvenile court which we call an adjudication um you can't play
080sports I think for Four Seasons but typically if you're in high school and you get a felony adjudication um that means you can't play sports for throughout the rest of your high school career which we know Sports and extra curric activities like sports are huge protective factors for our kids um and so they get that protective Factor taken away from them because of the adjudication so if you are 16 and 17 as the law stands right now in North Carolina um and you get charged with that class C or Class E offense um then it is a mandatory transfer to Superior core unless I and only I as the prosecutor elect to um adjudicate you in juvenile court George corpin doesn't have the power to do that the defense attorney doesn't have the power to
081do that it's only me um and so that's the position these kids are placed in and if they do get transferred to Superior Court it's mandatory registration as a sex offender because this is a sex offense and for an adult if you commit a sex offense in North Carolina you must be registered as a sex offender if you're a class C felony which is that first degree sexual exploitation of a minor you're looking at a minimum sentence of 4.8 years in prison um to a maximum sentence of I think it's 6 years in prison sorry I don't have my glasses on um and if you're if it's the class C felony it's a mandatory prison sentence you don't have the option of probation if it's the class E felony it's a minimum sentence of 1.6
082years um to a maximum sentence of two years and then if it's a class H felony it's a minimum sentence of um five months to a maximum sentence of six months if you are eligible for probation and a judge sentences you to probation then it can be up to three years of supervised probation um you also have an adult felony conviction on your record um and your cell phone is seized and you're likely not getting it return to you so this is the dire situation that we're in right now the law is changed that starting December 1st 16 and 17 year olds who commit Class A through e felonies will automatically be charged as an adult there is no election for me to keep you in juvenile court you are not you do not start
083in juvenile court you do not get that confidentiality right um You do not get that sealed record right you are charged as an adult it is public record you are given either a secured or unsecured Bond um and it will show on your criminal record that you've been charged with this offense at 16 or 17 years old and we just talked about how easy it is to commit this type of offense and that kids are committing it all day every day it's very popular in the school system there is it it's called now a reverse waiver it's going to be called something different starting December 1st but it is a way to bring a kid who's been charged as a 16 or 17 year- old as an adult to to juvenile Court's Jurisdiction um which
084hopefully we can utilize but the problem with that is once a bell has been wrung it's really hard to unring it so once a kid has been charged as an adult and exposed to that adult system um that's one already damaging and two that public information is already out there hopefully we can um get it expunged from the record so that when someone example colleges or scholarship committees or employers run that criminal record it won't show up um but if it's not expended then it will show up on the criminal record even if I take it down to juvenile court so that's all the information I have for you I did create um we called it last fall like risky behaviors in social media or in the media initiative um it's an outline of what
085I would hopefully like to talk to kids and their parents about to inform them um that this is criminal activity that it is a felony that you can be charged um with this felony how does it occur how can it be prevented what should you do if you receive this type of information or this type of material um if you would like to see it I have a few copies of that um I think it's already also been shared with a few School administrators um and also have copies of the PowerPoint too if you'd like that do we have any questions for first so thank you very much for that very uh eye openening presentation it's very very good um and I guess I'm going to start with a question um you had mentioned you
086know talking to to to students uh how would you you know how would you like to do that I mean through through ptas through um what do you think the best way to do that we had talked about doing it through ptas there was some scheduling conflicts with that of um getting it advertised for ptas and then the type of parents who come to the um ptas and it reaching only a limited amount of people oh I I'm more than willing to do that I think the message is good to go to parents but those parents have to be willing to have those conversation with these kids and I'm not sure that they're always going to be doing that it's a very uncomfortable subject matter for parents to talk to kids about so I would
087really like to talk directly to kids I've talked directly to kids about this before I've talked to a few Scout groups um I have actually a presentation that I give to kids saved on that flash stb if you'd like to see an example of it um but I I mean going into schools and talking talking to kids extra activities and talking to them I'm willing to do whatever I actually heard your presentation at the um Retreat and um at that time we we just talked about every student needs to hear this presentation and middle school and ele I mean High School definitely so we have pulled together some of our Middle School principles and they are working with curriculum and we'll be reaching out to you and also with the digital teaching and learning because
088it is also one of the standards there and with our PE standards so they want to do it doing navigate um it's a digital teaching learn Neptune navigate at the beginning of Home rooms so I think they're going to reach out to you for some resources and information and then the principles are actually going to go into each classroom and also have those conversation so we have that in mind for Middle School um we're still thinking about the best way to our high school students but we are working on some things and I'll I'll add in um this is on an agenda for discussion with all of our athletic coaches and to include part of this information in our um required sessions for parents and for athletes along with some other like fentanyl prevention um
089components as well and I was part of this past spring I think we did about five sessions it was with a few Middle School um principles where where we went to every Middle School in or not every middle school but most of the middle schools in in New hanor County in a geographical area that pulled from other middle schools it was called um wait until wait until 8th about the program of wait until 8th grade to provide your kids with cell phones especially access to social media it was a really wonderful program and we had access and talked to parents and when I told parents this and this was part of that presentation I mean they were just completely shocked um unfortunately you know we reached a good amount of parents but I mean there
090would be about five parents who came to each session so it was a limited number um but it was a really great program we also without asking first could offer to record you doing the session and capture that in a way that we can produce it for our students to see and that way we can kind of continually update them with that reminder as well well first thing just just a comment what happened to oldfashioned assemblies I mean I know when I went to school every was in that gym or a lot of you know grades were in that gym I mean it's a good way to capture everyone although I mean if they've got their cell phones they're probably not paying attention um well I had a qu I had a question the Law
091changes December 1st um was there a reason why that law was put was it because there was such a rise in um student sharing you know that types of material um no it wasn't specifically because of these types of offenses actually I mean I would guess that they didn't even have this in consideration these types of offenses in consideration when they decided to enact the new law that will take place December 1st what they most likely had in mind are the violent offenses because most Class A through e felonies are violent offenses it's your armed robberies which is the class D felonies your assault with intent um to kill with a deadly weapon inflicting Serious injury or assault with intent to kill with a deadly weapon without even inflicting serious injuries that's likely what they
092had in mind because we've had a um an increase recently with um violent offenses committed by 16 and 17 year olds and there's the process now where I talked about that mandatory transfer to Superior Court um and you know if you it I think they created the law because there's a lot of steps if a kid starts in juvenile court to get them to Superior Court and then public defenders are appealing the the transfer to Superior Court which is creating more steps so um my assumption again I wasn't at the general assembly when this happened was that they created this in order to avoid all those steps to be taken and it was mostly for kids who were committing violent offenses is just unfortunate that this while a serious crime especially serious if it's committed
093by an a told still serious when committed by our kids um but not really deserving of being in Superior Court I think we can all agree for prosecution as an adult so I assume that the DA's office is in favor of the school board doing something with cell phones yes okay m m you have your hand up I don't think they could emphasize some some process to get this into the schools uh of course parents parents are parents and that adds credibility to discussing what we want to do with cell phones um I don't have an answer I can tell you I think M Walker City best good old assemblies whether the parents there or not at least they heard it I mean it's it's uh I what percent of the students today if you
094walked into a ninth grade at one of our high schools do you think really knows the law knows exactly what's going to happen so when I talked to that um Boy Scout group um this was probably about a month ago um included in that PowerPoint I decided to take a step back and just start with the legal World um and I asked them how many of you guys know what a felony and misdemeanor were and none of them I think maybe one or two rised hand so I mean they don't even have a concept of what a felony means um let alone what it means to do this type of offense and then be charged with a felony thank you um you said you saw a significant increase in the last six months do you
095have like an exponential for us um about this particular topic of what it was and where it's at that you're seeing this uptake um I don't know particularly why this practical joke uptick happened in the last 6 months it is a little bit of an anomaly to see so many cases come in particularly dealing with the same type of issues of the the cell phone over the stall um I do keep track of the adjudications in juvenile court so I do have the data of of basically since I've been doing juvenile C at least the past four years of of what kids have been adjudicated for when they were adjudicated consistent data has shown over the past four years that kids are consistently engaging in possessing and distributing obscene material why that whole practical joke
096of I'm not asking for justification of that I'm just saying the uptick of what you've seen what what has been consistent at and where it's at because you said a significant increase in the last six months what does that look like significant like increase um that looks like three cases in a row from different schools all dealing with the same issue okay thank you yeah so this question is kind of for um Miss faram and Dr facon the presenting it as part of the school day you know as part of a curriculum um so and then to combine you in here do do the the presenters are they going to need training to do that or are we going to um invite you know Ash to come in and do that because I'm thinking I
097mean I like your I've heard your presentation now like five times and um I think that having you be able to answer questions you know in real time on what the legality is to me is more powerful than having her be on a video that we show and the principal walks around and says now don't do this um so I was just wondering what what the what your thoughts were on that yeah well I I know the principles um and this was just the Middle School principles we have not spoken to the high school principls yet but the small setting and actually being able to answer those questions and of course face to face is always best so we have a number of middle school and um high schools and I know one person could
098not go and do that so we are actually going to reach out and work with um um uh Assistant Attorney hering and um have her provide the information this is part of our PE standards yeah so it is a line now keep in mind PE when you get to the high school the 10th and 11th graders are in 12th graders are usually done with that but we still have to address them and we'll have to find another way and it might be through digital learning or some our CTE but that's why we want to work with her because doing a small setting and and letting them really hear I know one of the students according to the principles actually came up to the principal and said I remember when you and I talked about it
099you came to my classroom you answer my questions and kind of came and shared something with her when something came up so we don't want to just send that video out or we we don't do it the we're going to work with her and we've got a plan it's just we haven't gotten it yet we just started I think we met with the middle school principals last week and also too just wanted to bring up that and I forget what the topic is you may know um attorney David you know he goes around and I know when my kids were in middle school years ago they came to theia and bring in several different groups and what was the topic just so he Mak good choices yeah pretty much making it he talks about drinking
100and driving he talks about obsene material on cell phones but he covers a variety of topics that it's a great um it's a great thing for kids to hear but I think this message gets a little bit lost in the chaos of it oh no I'm just saying that maybe yeah so it's too much to do it in that format um I mean he's been doing that for 20 years and kids still don't seem to understand that this is a felony okay so I I do want to add in that in order to see Behavior change in this area we need to make sure that we're providing explicit instruction and giving time for those students to interact and in assmbly setting you don't have the opportunity for kids to interact and to assess that they
101really did learn it cuz this is this is really essential that we get this we get this right for their safety and sorry and I also want to add one piece that I forgot and I think we talked about um we are also planning to send information to the parents along with them and say and that'll come through talking to you these are the questions that we would like to you know to dialogue with your parents or this is what your child learned so this is just not for stud students this is for the families because we have to do something to educate everyone about the seriousness of this thank you for tying that together May if I may just add a few things for one Mr David is retiring in September so you're no
102longer going to have that resource at least at this moment in time until we get a new elected um you're not going to have that resource for someone to come and talk to the schools um which I think has been a good great valuable resource I know Mr David still has kids who are now 24 in this community say hey I remember when you talked to me when I was 14 um and then also it's very important I think to get the message out to parents um and also you know educating teachers and staff because if you are even trying to help and say a kid comes to you your child or a student comes to you and says oh my god look what's on my phone look what I was just sent and it's
103a it's an image depicting sexual activity of a minor and the parent is like okay I'm going to help I'm you do not need this on your phone I'm going to send it to myself and then deleted off your phone that person just committed a felony so we need to educate them and be like okay this is the procedure that you should follow if you come across this material because even though they're doing it with the best of intentions they just committed a crime thank you very much for this it's just as shocking the second time hearing it I know Dr Bon and I were just freaked right out when we heard it and we're so grateful for you coming I love Dr barnes's idea of literally recording you face on and we have the
104technology to do that and using that in the schools I don't know what it looks like but I love that idea and I think the question being followup would there be a way if if they did that that they could send questions to you or something you know I don't know but like you know that way there we could you know have that interaction because I think that there with tr's point is you know that interaction is a big part of it yeah if you can come up with some type of way to get question to me I'm happy to write out responses or record a response back we can figure out how to do that I think keeping into what you both said individual direct attention is how this gets fixed so even if
105we did something we video room maybe we scripting with principles what do we think are going to be commment FAQs are going to get asked you can give us the answers and we can communicate them the real piece is making sure that we can tie it directly to a child and say this is the answer and this is the problem so we can certainly work with that as well M Walker so I just had a suggestion I mean obviously the more we do the better I think all these ideas are good but if we have everyone's email could we not do a video and send it to everyone even the students I don't just a public like Service Announcement type of deal where you're like this is important this is going to happen to you
106if you do this I mean I don't think we one there's one answer I think there should be multiple answers because especially if we're transitioning Das then we're not going to have that um person right now and December 1st is coming very quickly and I think we want to avoid the students having records for the rest of their lives or being put in prison so yeah I wish we got Communications here too I mean there's so many things we could do we should do multiple things I think yeah that's probably a good idea anything else or any other questions from anybody yes sir and I have a question on the definition of receiving some of those felonies what does it mean if a child is in a group chat and someone else sends it out
107they're guilty of the felony if they received it and it's on their cell phone yes that's where we use discretion so what law enforcement typically does in these types of situations is they get notified that there's this image out there they then start backtracking where has this image gone they do that by interviewing kids and also taking cell phones and doing what we call an extraction which allows us to see more on the cell phone than kids think we can see it's actually quite amazing when I tell kids this they just look at me like oh god um like Snapchat my eyes only I could tell you all the ways kids are hiding things on their phone and when I tell them we can see it all they're just um but so so that we
108see where the image has gone and when we see a group chat we see that five people in this group chat receed this image we go talk to the or law enforcement not me myself personally we go talk to those five people and if um you know Adam says yeah I got the image but I didn't do anything with it in the group chat I didn't even download it to my phone and law enforcement goes well yeah can I see your phone just to make sure because let's keep in mind that while this person may have taken an image or had an image taken of them consensually they did not consent for it to be distributed worldwide so we are trying to to ceriz the wound so to speak so they look at their phone
109and say okay you just received it on the group chat and you didn't download it onto your phone it's not in your photos it's not in your downloads they just delete the image and hand the phone back to the kid and my um advice to law enforcement because it's my role to advise law enforcement is to say you need to tell a teacher next time this happens it's a felony for X Y and Z reasons here's your cell phone back you're not going to get that felony today um now if they look at the phone and say that they did download it onto their phone it's in their saved photos then we're having a different conversation and then especially having a different conversation if they send it to someone else does that answer your question
110I know it was a little bit long-winded thank you Miss I know we mostly talk about students and we talk a little bit about parents I'm a parent of two young men um and good luck I have a one-year-old who's a male and I'm just dreading it interesting my question would be what kind of resources can we as a district provide to the parents if they can't come to a PTA meeting if they can't are there is there paperwork like if for example because I know for me I keep very a very close watch on any activity on my on my kids phone um if something like that were to come up it's just some direction for parents to avoid any of this from happening to innocent kids I think we came up with maybe
111a pamphlet at one point to maybe send home to parents so but you know parents have to read that pamphlet but it would provide information of what is obscene material and then what should you do if you come across it yeah and we connected this with our parent and caregiver Academy but again it it we can communicate it but it the interaction needs to be there yeah M Bart thank you Mr chairman along those same lines um somebody brought up in an FAQ I think it would be a great idea you know we have a great technology department to be able to have a landing page of just frequently asked questions like if my child does have some like L what do I do as how how do I process it in a way that's
112going to you know give Justice to whoever was sharing the information but also you know to respect the person that they're sharing it with and so I think I same I was like you know as a as a parent and as an educator too of saying if this is happening making sure the steps are in place that we can try to nip it in the butt as fast as possible and the least amount of damage I want to mention one more thing um sometime in the past year we did host a town hall for the community and for families regarding social media usage amongst students and part of that dialogue and conversation was really about the dangers that are included in in these type of behaviors I said I wasn't going to say anything else
113and I also think maybe we could get you in front of all the staff um because our Educators also our teachers and staff need to be aware of everything with this and if we're talking about educating parents and staff we also might want to educate them on child Predators on adults who are trying to solicit information from kids if we're talking about cell phone use is just something to to think about I know that's something my office cares deeply about is preventing adults who are soliciting this type of material from children and and looking for those warning signs the other thing too oh the um kids have iPads laptops they can get pictures on their computers just as easily as they can get them on the phone so this this applies to that I mean
114we're talking cell phones here but it applies all electronic devices where you can send and receive correct right okay so that that might need to be part of our message too it's not just the cell phone like we'll take the cell phone away but you know I got my laptop you know I can still do all that should I want to and I can sit it down here and dance over here in the corner but the um easier than I could with my cell phone not that you know doing that but I know we're asking a lot of question I mean because this to me is very hugely important I mean 16 1 old being being um classified as adults and in charge of FS is a big deal um I guess my question is
115what is the obligation of the district I mean I know we have Sr in our schools in that I don't I I mean if if a principal or I mean that's we're get in front of staff and stuff like that like what's the obligation is it automatically chargeable offense you know what I mean so that is when we talked on law enforcement so there's two parts to that first is mandatory reporting there's a statute that is new but not really new it's more broad than the previous statute where we just talked about having to mandatory report abuse neglect and dependency the other statute talks about reporting um if anyone has been engaging or taking advantage of a kid with sexual activity there's some debate does this Encompass is is this type of behavior encompassing sexual
116activity in that statute I'd say you know my advice would be play it on the safe side and say that it's mandatory reporting to law enforcement or DSS um even if it's child on child um and then the second part is you know does a kid have to be charged that's where discretion comes in no one ever has to be charged with an offense um well actually certain offense you do you know is mandatory from law enforcement to arrest and charge someone let me clarify but in these types of situations um most kids are not charged I advise law enforcement if this is their first offense um and it did not reach a a wide variety of people give them that talking to and say this is illegal inform them it's illegal and that it's
117a felony confiscate their cell phone completely wipe their cell phone and tell them not to do it again that hasn't really been effective recently so I mean they are charging more and more I've also had kids who we gave the talking to we deleted everything and because of how kids can store things in the I loud in other places they are then redownloading it back onto their either new phone or their phone that we gave back to them I actually had a kid it's the title of my presentation I give kids is do you want to see something that can catch me a felony because the kid who we had previously talked to said hey we're not charging you right now but don't do it again redownloaded the same image went up to another kid
118in class and said hey do you want to see something that can catch me a felony and then showed the exact same image um so you know hopefully we don't have to charge these 16 and 17y olds is the answer to your questions in some circumstances we may have to um I would like to not see a 16 and 17y old charged as an adult for these types of offenses that would just not be pleasant want the behavior to stop H you just would want the behavior stop that's correct which is why I'm here I think this is something that's easily preventable if we just educate parents and students are kids going to still engage in this activity yes but they're probably going to do it with a little bit more apprehension and maybe not
119do it as much because they right now just don't understand the consequences they think they're just engaging in normal teenage or adolescent Behavior not realizing the consequences it's very easily in my view preventable um and what we've been doing in the past at least for the past four years since I've been the juvenile prosecutor has not been effective so i' say um looking at the policy committee maybe I would I mean because we try and align our policies with law um I don't know just I guess we just need to really look at all that right that's what's on the agenda so it's part of the Safety Committee right any other questions if not thank you again I'm sure we'll be in contact and moving forward thank you very much for your time today does
120anyone want copies of the PowerPoint or the yes [Music] please thank you yeah we make copies okay at this time we we're going to move on into Clos session um I would entertain a motion to move into close session pursuant to General statute 143 31811 C for the following purposes one to prevent disclosure of information that's privileged or confidential pursuant to General statute 115c 402 and not considered a public record within the meaning of chapter 132 of General statutes to consult the attorney in order uh to preserve attorney client privilege between the attorney and board and three to consider qualifications confidence performance character Fitness conditions of appointment appointment excuse me uh conditions of initial employment of an individual employed or considered for employment within the school system or hear an investigate a complaint charge grievance
121or On To Me by or against any individual employee do I hear so we have a motion is there a second second any discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying I I all oppos [Applause] always one funny uh okay that passes 70 okay we are now in closed session e e e all right we are back in Open Session welcome back lots and lots of stuff going on we are going to carry on with our cell phone bag discussion at no we're not we're going to go on to uh I'm stepping over Personnel report we need to vote on that okay we have that we have a first and second any discussion if not all in favor signify by saying I I all oppos that pass to se 60 60 uh now
122we carry on with our cell phone bag I believe we're doing that remotely [Laughter] EXC snort free we need to why don't we uh I think that's remotely anyway so why don't we uh carry on to our next discussion session which is new han high school and we will go back to the cell phone that work okay um just in essence of time I did want to share on the front end that we had a very uh good meeting uh yesterday Miss Mason Dr Barnes myself Mr renar and uh Mr crude um we did uh they are going to uh bring the discussion topic up on the 19th uh we were all uh asked if we could be there for that um what time uh commission meeting commissioner meeting is at 5:00 they usually start
123at 4: 4 4:00 okay 4:00 then um that's the soonest we can get on uh they they have a meeting Monday and they said they couldn't get it on by for Monday they've had it at 9: before so we in they usually start at 4 I'll find out and let you guys know yeah we we'll let you know we'll send it out there but uh you know they they were in in the discussion anyway very favorable in looking at that RFQ and U for looking exactly what we have going on at new Handover so um I just wanted to share that with the with everyone and especially with the board uh I do appreciate my fellow colleagues being there and uh Dr Barnes being there too and I think it was a very uh profitable
124discussion uh and I think you know they they definitely hurt us and you know I have mentioned before when we weren't able to meet with them but I think it was a very profitable discussion at that point so uh we're on to new Handover so um that was a really good lead in because what I was going to say is if you think about the work that we're doing or work that is needed at Handover want you to think about it in two buckets there's long-term needs this uh money will provide us us um funding for a facility a very comprehensive facilities conditions assessment and a master plan the outcome of that should be and will be what are what are the needs what are the cost and what's a general schedule uh for implementing
125this and I'm not talking about you know and giving you a date I'm talking about year one year 2 logistically how would we implement this so that's in the long-term bucket short-term bucket or um are the immediate needs which we um we've talked about what the immediate needs are the funding and what we're doing in terms of construction what we really want to do today is give you an overview of how new Handover will look when that school opens in August how will we ensure that there's absolute separation from construction activities and Student Activities and how that campus will function Lan's going to do that briefly and then Mr Sutton is going to talk about how that message is being communicated to parents right good afternoon and for the sake of time we're not going
126to talk about the the scope of work we're in phase one which we've talked about I think in the past of what exactly phase one means um what you're looking at on the screen here defines the construction zone we want to look at where work is occurring in context of student and and staff use of the building so the we're looking at an aerial the area that's in orange represents all of those offices and classrooms that are south of the main corriddor facing Market Street um all three floors we're vacating all of those spaces um that will be the construction zone where the contractors are working within the building there will be no overlap between where construction work is occurring and where use of the school um occurs so for example the main Corridor that
127runs east to west will be fully functional for students and staff the doors that lead from the corridor into these classrooms that are represented with the orange block that 16 classrooms and roughly 15 or 16 offices those doors will be locked and sealed off the contractors will be circulating within that orange area they will not go into the corridors they will be entering and exiting the building from the exterior you see the red line that that is wrapping around the front lawn of the campus that is a construction fence 6 fo high fence if you go out there right now you'll see that fence um privacy screening will also be added that will be branded so so we we'll have a nice curve appeal um in all of that construction zone um defined by that
128fenced in area is where the contractor will have their lay down area and they will circulate in and out of that space they will not be going in there will be no mix between the construction zone and the area occupied by um students and staff because we are um impacting the main entrance to the school we will be relocating the visitor access for the campus to the U north side of Brogden where that Arrow you see that Arrow coming into the campus that will be the new visitor access there will be visitor parking as as seen on the slide that will be designated with signage there will be signage that leads visitors from the parking area along princess into this particular access um area it's an existing access it's ideal because there is an accessible
129handicap ramp that leads to that door we're doing some modifications within the building when you enter there that makes it function as um an entry for visitors students and staff or or excuse me for parents and students um when students need to access that area for checkin and check out things of that nature one of the things I wanted to note is that we are making an improvement that overall I think is going to be very significant for the campus we're introducing a lot of signage that's going to assist with wayfinding so it's not only related to the construction work that's occurring but it's also General wayf finding that's going to greatly enhance the campus so I think you'll be pleased when you see when you arrive and when school starts this year um it
130will be a lot more apparent where to go and what buildings are in what direction so we're I'm really excited about the the the new signage we're going to add because we are displacing classrooms obviously we're introducing mobile classrooms to the site the mobile classrooms will be um located on the George West Side of the campus in that oval area it's if you're and I know you're familiar with the campus you have the wait room to the south of that what's an existing parking area um admin south building as we call it toward Market Street borders the area to the north um the mobile classrooms will be Anita if you don't mind scrolling on down will lay out on the site um as shown where we will have um three mobile classroom buildings each building
131will contain two classrooms um so basically each of those rectangle rectangles that you see will have a dividing wall in between two classrooms each each classroom will have its own restroom there will be an elevated aluminum walkway system that's kind of shaded in that lighter color that will connect all of the um the classroom units with a handicap ramp that will lead down to grade and um these units are um brand new they've been constructed they are sitting on site at the manufacturer's location when we receive the building permit they will be shipped and we will get rolling our goal is to have these ready for the start of school that is an optimistic goal we are obviously pushing for that but preparation is being made by the school in the event that they don't
132they don't arrive by that time and regarding the preparation that's being made by the school I'd like to turn the um Podium over to Mr Sutton and he can talk in detail about the inner workings and of his planning thank you um first off I thank you guys for all the support uh that you are providing new Haner High School um I want you to know that we're we're going to be ready um and um we are taking a sunglasses approach to the school year um and I've got my sunglasses on um and I'm going to put them on just for a second UMO but I'm going to take them off because I don't do them Justice my my family my boys um and my wife bought me these sunglasses and they are nice but
133I I'm not that cool um and but they believe that I'm that cool uh so I wear them uh and that's the kind of approach that our staff has um they believe in each other uh they believe in our students um and they believe that um that we can we can do incredible things and um they've been challenged with a lot of things over the last three years um and they believe in each other and they believe in our students um and so we're going to be just fine and I I do I want you to know that and I I appreciate all the support that you're you're giving us um but we um to begin with we have we've talked to our staff we had a staff Retreat a couple of weeks ago brought
134in the staff kind of talked a lot about some of the same things that were presented here um kind of rolled out what is happening in the building to make them aware um and collaborated with them um and and said hey what are the things that we're not seeing what are the unintended consequences um uh what are we not seeing um what are your concerns um and got some feedback from them what do how do we need to communicate with our families how do we need to communicate with our students um and so they gave us some good feedback and we're working through some of that uh with them right now um and uh we are also um we've got multiple plans um um that are going to be activated depending upon uh some of
135the timelines that are in place um some of the needs of our students um and and we're ready to to put those in place for example uh the modular units that that have been discussed um you know our plan is and and hope is that those would be ready the very first day of school if that's not ready and and it could be then we've got a plan for that and we've got uh about um 8 to 12 classroom teachers that would float uh if we don't have those the very first day and that's okay we can we can work through that um and then once those modular units come into place um you know we can cut that in half and possibly even less um we have you know to begin with uh made
136uh connections with Mosley uh and Mosley performance Learning Center about the possibility of uh students going there um and we we made decisions to uh to move uh some students there our SDA team um but we also found that that we've heard from our parents in some ways that we need to listen to them a little bit more um and kind of get some more feedback um before we make final decisions uh on that um and then based on some of those things over the course of this week and next week uh we'll make some decisions about uh how we're going to move forward forward with uh with those next steps um communication uh with our families is going to be important and I've told them a couple of times already on some uh phone
137calls that went home that I'm sorry I'm not able to give them uh a a full plan and all the information uh but we are planning to do that over the course of the next two weeks uh in a letter that goes home but also in uh videos that are going to go I've got a a slide presentation and a voiceover uh video that's going to go out to them kind of overviewing what's happening with the building and then our our plans for uh those next steps uh I got to give credit Miss Miss beam and Miss baggie uh have been awesome uh they sat down with us and uh have orchestrated a a website uh that we're going to uh push out to our uh families that are going to go into detail about
138the renovations but also about our plans and uh to answer questions about about what they may have um they've been great and in working with us so uh that's our communication plan um we are ready I want you guys to know that I appreciate your your support um I got to tell you we've got a great team U Mr Haney at uh new Handover one of our assistant principles uh has taken on the load of our our facilities and with scheduling and both of those things have been impacted big time uh he's been awesome our counseling staff has been displaced uh a little bit right now but they've jumped in together uh our EC staff Miss Evan KAS they've really come together our department chair to collaborate with Miss soua Miss fornham uh to figure
139out what's the best thing for our our students so um again and I know I'm missing Mr Lawrence holy cow Mr Lawrence and Mr Anderson uh thank you guys for for jumping right in and saying all right we got this issue let's make a plan let's make another plan let's figure this thing out so again thank you guys and I appreciate your support um and if I need to answer any questions or any questions board M Walker I just have a question first of all I know it's going to be really tough and I know we're thinking about you um what can what can we do what can the community do to help you through this because I know it's going to be hard and I know you don't know what's going to happen with
140the buildings and all that stuff or the you know no well I I'll tell you um you're you're working through Miss Lawrence Mr Anderson on helping us meet the physical needs that that we have uh as well as the scheduling needs and um and so we appreciate that you're doing that that through them your presence is also good you've already uh stopped by and visited and talked with me um Mr M maners thank you I appreciate that your presence in our uh building is is going to be important um to let them know at open house and the start of school um Miss crell she is a staple at our school on that over over pass um and um our kids know her um and so if you can come out uh we'd love your
141support and being there to to let them know that our building's safe um and that that we're going to be okay when 21st of August uh 5:00 5 to 7 I'm trying to decide how to say this because I don't think I'll sell it say it as well as I'd like to Phil you are the ideal human being principal accessible visible honest of anybody I know and if anybody can make this a positive it's you just from listening to you for the last few minutes and so I say that and I have come to see this the building I went in the first day after Mr hon I don't know if he realized how bad it was really going to be uh the schools of MS I mean I've walked it this absolutely the best
142you got to be I am just so proud of you and your staff and what you've done and communication is the best way but you just said you're going to do it so you stay in touch with those parents you just you let them know and it'll work out because I believe with all my heart and soul that you you're the one to make it work and that staff would kill for you they would literally kill for you maybe I should say maybe I should say figur fig I appreciate that thank you that speaks volumes about who you are and what you're doing and I want you to know let us know what we can do to help please well but thanks for saying got some flaws and I'm picking up on some of those
143as we go along here um and I I appreciate the patience of our families um and you guys in this process always have so thank you so much other thank you Mr well and mine might not be as directed to you as these guys behind you um so I know that we secured funding and this is 16 classrooms setting down is obviously not an ideal thing to start the school year and so we commend you we're here for you and really um the displacements of students is is something that we want to make sure that the transition process is as smooth as possible in a chaotic time and so my question is with the three mobile units that we have placed at the new Handover site is there feasibility for any more on-site mobile units
144and if so can you talk us through if there's that we can support that way so when we were looking at putting mobiles at new Handover we look at really two things one where we could place them well three things availability number one cuz believe it or not um getting mobile units right now is next to impossible so we were looking at uh availability where we could place them on site and what we could afford with the funding we have now the reason we went with two class three two classroom units is because of that location we think that's the best location because it's centrally located it's safe you have a lot of visibility uh in that area and utilities are readily available when we looked at other areas whether it was one of the
145other parking lots with the tennis courts or back behind the auto shop or back behind uh Brogden we felt like it was very remote you didn't have good visibility um we have safety concerns and accessibility concerns and then but we dug into it and then we found that um you know access to utilities was not readily available so you know you can you can do anything um it just takes money but to place mobile units in any of those other uh locations would probably be twice the cost of um installing the mobile units there so once we picked that location we put just as many classrooms in that spot as we possibly could confirm that we're hoping that they're going to be in place before school begins but we looking like it's probably not going
146to be when you're in a construction business you learned a long time I learned a long time ago you have plan a b and Z MH um we are shooting for plan a um and F we have to go to plan B we will I don't think we need a plan C and Mr Sutton and his staff again uh he mentioned Chris Chris Haney uh but they are absolutely amazing in uh in what they do and um we're going to that's our that's our goal yeah I like I like the the discussion on the communication because I think that's going to be um definitely key to making sure everybody doesn't get really upset and worried and concerned well and I think you're exactly right I know that um you know there's a there's a lot
147of misinformation out there I think this is a good opportunity uh I had a discussion with um new han High School Foundation I'm going to reach out to The Advocates I want to make sure that we're all on the same page and that we partner with them to um to get the message out and to get the right information out just wanted to add two real brief things first off I'll Echo what Mr mcmanis said you and your staff Phil I can't think of a person I want to have more at new Handover this year than you you and I have had a lot of conversations and you said this is is the school I want and I think it really is evident and it shows uh I wanted to own a little bit of
148one thing as well myself initially as we were talking about just the unbelievable space needs that new Handover has initially one of the thoughts that we had was putting some of our um students over to Mosley for the bulk of their day I ended up talking with some parents and honestly we've talked a lot about the survey result and things like this about listening and valuing our stakeholders feedback and when I talked to parents Philip they said we have to be at new Handover because that's where my kids belong which I think is a Real Testament to the work that you're doing and the stuff that the staff is doing at the school so I did ask Philip I want to clear up a couple of misconceptions Philip is going to take it upon himself
149and his staff to contact every one of those parents individually and build an individual plan that's going to work for their kid in in addition they're working overtime to make sure that nobody has to not be at that school now there are some logistic issues and some safety issues that I think you want to work through with all those folks but the work that Julie's done to make sure that we're looking at transfers from Eddie and Leanne and Philip I just wanted to own my part of that and say sort of that that part of listening remembers that I need to listen before I make a decision and so I appreciate you backing my play on that and looking at that more carefully so thank thank you you got it so much anything else from
150board members is there is there a um and maybe I missed it because you were talking and I was being soothed into the um open house is you know coming up and will parents get any communication prior to openhouse just to kind of keep them kind of updated on where we are on things yes so um I've I've got a a a slide presentation uh that I'm going to do a a kind of video voice over that's going to be pushed out to them that kind of overviews what's happening with the building um and overviews uh you know what to expect um just some some major nuts and bolts types of things um also will'll send that out in a written form uh so that they'll get that uh in a in a letter form
151or an email type form that lets them know what what to expect with the with the building um the website is going to be pushed out before then before the uh 21st as well uh so they'll have access to it um and a lot of their questions are going to be answered I know with with that um we've also got plans that you know we need to be able to video and show parents how you come into the front office and where that's located and where you're going to park for visitor parking and those kinds of things so uh we're going to try to to to create our own videos that are going to be pushed out um to to parents through uh social media and through um uh our Communications through school messenger so
152we'll we are our plan is to do a lot of that before uh the 21st um we do a call almost every Sunday we did a call this past Sunday night uh letting uh parents know uh of upcoming events and things like that uh so we're going to include a lot of that information on those those Sunday calls coming up and I'm assum that you're going to do those in also in the languages of um the majority of your students we we will do you know every call uh that uh we send out goes out in in those uh different languages okay um but that's also something with the videos we're going to need to make sure that we're communicating those as well great lastly Mr Sutton I coming on to this board you know
153new hand has a lot of needs the board is not fing on years um we're waiting to hear results from the study um the board voted last month to move forward on stepping into what a bond looks like and doing that and providing the needs this is one step like Mr Anderson said the initial getting you know stopping the school from falling into the ground um but the long term is we need to have a bigger plan in place and so that is not falling on deaf ears I just want to reiterate that so I appreciate your leadership during that time I appreciate the um stepping in with all of our students with IEPs really meeting their needs and being receptive to the parents and providing uh as continuous education that we can for our
154high school students so um I appreciate everything you're doing thank thank you for for taking a look at the shortterm and the longterm for us it's um you know it is a special place and um you know we're talking about getting perspective um you know that place is the bricks and mortar um but it's even more than that it's the people uh it's the community um it's it's the things that it's been through uh that make it that way and um and so that's why folks feel so strongly about it and we appreciate uh the the support you're giving it just want to throw you sit down Walker has one uh well this might not be for Mr suton but one you got a lot of alumni behind you also we just need to let
155them know what's going on no I had a question about the study itself and I i' written it down and I forgot to say we um approximation is about 300,000 you said that came from um could we not use the study we had as a as a road map and make it I'm not trying to be cheap or anything just wondering why it's got to cost that much money I mean it's important study so I'm not it's like engineering design um think about this and you the first thing I want to do is a very comprehensive facility conditions assessment that's probably going or or probably going to take some destructive testing right uh geot Tech work um civil uh Structural Engineering I mean there's going to be a team of people working on this and
156that's just to determine you know what are the physical needs of the building and then what I really want to do in master planning is very similar to what we did at Isaac bear where we involve students staff parents community and we have visioning sessions and we kind of narrow down focus and in the and you know we come up with a concept um that everyone has seen everyone agrees with and uh you know recommends okay thank you everyone else involved thank you very much for being here today and bringing it out and uh thank you for letting us know about your open house we you know we'll try our best to be there so thank you so much Mr wior so we have like um 14 minutes left we've got a lot to cover
157on the agenda um is there anything that we can take off and put on to the um to the agenda on Tuesday because we have an hour um we've got um 15 minutes on the cell phone bags we have guests here um 20 minutes on the seab breeze we've still got two committee reports so can we possibly move the committee reports perhaps remove the cell phone bags and the committee reports the that's what I since we have a guest I would you I would make a motion that we um postpone discussion on the committee reports and the cell phone bags until the Tuesday regular board meeting awesome okay first and second any discussion all favor please signify by saying I hi all oppos thank you okay thank you uh that will'll move those three items
158on to T next Tuesday so at this point uh since we don't have cell phone bags the add station is that Dr fa Dr fa we could have moved that one too I should well it's real brief every year we just have to bring to the board the attestations for the school Improvement plans and that's what you have in front of you there is no approval needed it is just an FYI for you any questions I just had one um one of the one of the requirements of school Improvement plans is to make sure that we're having our meetings at a time when parents can attend and so I'm just wondering if um you or your executive directors track that a little bit because the times all appear to be the same they don't ever
159appear like I glance through them all you know some are at 2:15 some are at 10 some are you know we discussed this last year and the schools have tried to do um talk to the parents and get some parents in I can be honest with you it's hard too to also accommodate the staff and make sure they can get to their families and pick up their children so it has been a discussion um and we'll continue to look at it but trying to accommodate make sure staff can get home and pick their kids up and also the parents and fortunately when we talked to the schools last time most of the parents who were involved could make those meetings okay because I know the um the lady that talked to us at the Leadership
160Retreat she was awesome by the way you know and could talk you know in French you know the school Improvement plans and that was one thing that she brought up to us too to make sure that we were being cognizant of our parent um and guardian you know um participation and I remember last year we actually had some parents to come up and share that with me so we actually looked at it is it perfect I'm sure there are parents that we're not catching but we are aware of it okay thank you all right and now we're going to finish up with a wonderful time we're going to uh turn it over uh Miss Bradford why don't you lead us in the seab breeze discussion here do we have some guests or a speaker awesome
161she's coming okay we're going to share with you about the Freeman Family in new Haner County and the community known as seab breze thank you um a North Carolina Highway marker was put out May 31 just just north of Snows cut Bridge the date coincided with the 194th birthday of Robert Bruce Freeman who lived from 1801 to 1901 this is about new han County North Carolina and the nation's history the earliest Settlers of this area were of course indigenous Americans Native Americans to the best of our knowledge Alexander and charity Freeman and their ancestors including Alexander's Father Abraham came from Brunswick County and Columbus County they were listed on the 1860 census as free people of color never having been slaves you will hear in a minute how the they most closely identified with their
162indigenous Native American ancestry the patriarch of the Freeman story in this story is Alexander he was a Myrtle Grove sound fisherman at the southernmost end of the county Alexander and charity acquired land some 99 acres of land in 1855 with Alexander's passing it was almost double that 180 acres of land ultimately in the 1870s their son Robert Bruce Freeman senior and we believe that's Robert Bruce Freeman in the picture at the back the tall man at the back um with his wife Katherine they amassed a far greater amount of land which now encompasses the towns of Carolina Curry Fort fiser the story is it came all the way up to Monkey Junction that was an enormous amount of land um and included two plantations this is the story of an incredible entrepreneurial American Family their
163stories of a significant is significant in our history and I'm introducing you to historian Rebecca Su Taylor she is the former director of the Federal Point historic preservation Society you should have a copy of this little pamphlet um I've passed them out a number of times that is from the uh Highway marker um ceremony in at the end of May and then two pages here with some more information you can take home um and then you've got this is what the seab breze resort looked like you've got an example this was Bruce Tavern on the water um looking out at myrtal Grove sound looking at what's now Freeman Beach across from it Bob city was out there um and at the end of this presentation I am hoping to hear a unanimous vote to do
164whatever is necessary to adopt into our curriculum the wonderful story of the Freeman family and seab breze beginning with the 2025 26 school year and with that Miss Taylor come on up here I'm going to move around okay um can I have the clicker yeah we may jump around because I'm going really fast and I'm G to get you out of here um I had a little bit longer talk I I've been studying seab breze for about 10 years I worked at the Federal Point History Center which is at Carolina Beach but covers all of from Monkey Junction to zek's Island at the at the ferry um that's Federal Point um the the importance of the Freeman Family where do I point this there we go okay this is what is going to become the
165largest Park in New Hanover County it will be called a Freeman Park and it is named after the Freeman family because they managed to hold on to that land against developers of many voracious kinds and has been left in its natural state it will still be a beach but all of the Inland everywhere that's green or brown will become a Nature Park permanently for every as part of the nature conservancy and um and be um completely dedicated to the environment and it will be the largest park in New Hanover County so that's part of why it's important for us to look at the Freeman a little bit the Freeman's Snow's cut didn't exist Snow's cut made an island where there wasn't one so the Freeman owned both sides of what's now snows cut they owned
166most of what's the Carolina Beach State Park they owned okay this is Robert Bruce Freeman senior he was um in the 1870s he was the largest land owner or one of the largest land owners in New Hanover County he bought up failing plantations in the Carolina Beach area he had two families from first wife and second wife fairly far apart because it was in his 50s when he married his second wife who was 16 um they were fishermen they were Lumber they lumbered all of the longwa Pines and they were farmers one thing to point out is that the Freemans were never slaves we have them as free people of color all the way back to the 1830 census and in 1830 slaves didn't get their names in the census so he Robert Bruce Freeman
167bought up the plantations this is his second wife come on and he and both his first wife and second wife were major Community leaders they gave money for a camp to St Stevens which was the largest black church in downtown wimington and there was a camp that they came to every summer to hold camp meetings they started uh and gave land for three or four of the small churches down at Federal Point they um donated money to schools Robert Bruce Freeman served on the black School Board of the oakill school which was down there um I have also found that Robert Bruce and his eldest son served onur IES in downtown Wilmington with white leaders of the community this is the 1870s 1880s before Jim Crow and the troubles and this is a good place
168to jump off to 1898 because before 1898 they were major significant citizens of New Hanover County um in uh Robert Bruce fan died he had 11 kids between the two wives it a lot of the property got left in very strange not very well documented legally ways and divided up and so come on there we go the heir's property is a legal term that that was used that comes from the British where basically um I how to explain this quickly um okay you have three children each child inherits a third when child number one dies their land goes to child two and three not to child one's children okay it was an oldfashioned way of doing it and they didn't think it was fair in those days but if you left if you didn't leave
169a will that specifically divided up land it made for very they had to have a commission 10 years after he died to figure out how to divide up the land because he had a deed but it wasn't very clear as to which children got what okay so the Next Generation comes along in the early 1900s by now Carolina beach and wres Beach are booming Resorts and so two of his children decided Well if they can have a resort we can have one too and of course by now segregation and Jim Crow has set in and they can't go to rville beach or Carolina beach so they set out to create their own Resort they named it seab breze and it was the biggest Resort for blacks in North Carolina there were others they came from
170the fields of Eastern and Central North Carolina by bus by truck by car by any vehicle known to man to get down to their Resort there on the ocean um this is again the Heyday of the resort it begins in the 1920 early 1920s and exists through all of the 1930s if any of you have heard of the Spaldings and the um North Carolina insurance company that was so big in Durham they had their convention down here um lot of uh black groups had conventions at seab Brees um there was a Dr brunette in Wilmington who wanted to build a camp for kids down there it never quite got off the ground but he had big plans come on what am I doing wrong there we go this is um Bruce this is where the
171pier that's the other side of that picture the pier was out over the water where it was nice and cool to dance and um they also talk about crabbing off the sides of it so I guess you danced in the middle and crabbed off the side um lot of people invested in hotels the woman in the top is uh one of the uh investors in the um there were five hotels I think um as I said they came by every kind of vehicle just think about working in the tobacco in the fields in North Carolina all summer and you get a week off and you've got some tobacco money in your pocket where are you going to go to recreate you're going to go to seab breze again we're going to go fast these are
172some of the developers what am I doing wrong okay th this this is um I F this gal is a Harlem New York um columnist and she came down and visited seab breze and she wrote about it and how um it was almost like the t- rooms in Harlem so they thought a lot of it um Snow's cut comes in in the 19 1929 1930 changes the Ecology of Myrtle Grove sound drastically they deepen it to put in the interner coastal Waterway and it becomes uh it's beginning to cause a problem with um the people who would basically Wade across Myrtle grub sound to get to Freeman Beach to go to the ocean um they did have a ferry um but it didn't always run um there's been lots and lots of erosion that's the
173real problem the um inter Coastal Waterway and then snows cut Inlet H oh World War II um the the kind of the end of the height of the resort was World War II the so black soldiers from Fort Brag and Camp Davis in a now integrated uh military had nowhere to go on leave they if they came to Wilmington or rville Beach or Carolina beach they couldn't stay they would get off the bus and stand in downtown wilington and look for some place that would welcome them on their leave and seab breze was in fact the only integrated Hotel complex uh or complex of hotels where they could stay it was quite a a real um boom and the federal government even gave them money to build some infrastructure for the soldiers who were pouring
174in from these two camps particularly the biggest cultural influence is the music um again um by the 1950s you had Soul music rock and roll um becoming popular on Ed Sullivan um traveling around the country um um BB King Chubby Checker um I can't bring him right now I and Tina Turner were here um Fats Domino glest night in the Pips all of that is performing in big crowds of white audience nowhere to stay in Wilmington can't no hotels so they came after their shows back to sebres where there were hotels and places bars and places to glit off steam and of course that music took over and they called it in those days race music and um it it took over so much that the boys from the Carolina Beach Boardwalk and Skippy winter
175told me this would take a boat a rowboat across the inlet go in the back door because they weren't allowed to go in the front door and dance with the new performers behind a rope there was a rope that separated them and we get race music music they take this music back to the Carolina beach boardwalk get um the Tiana in to play it and it becomes the Shag and all of really all rock and roll is really based back to the influence of the people who came to seab breze uh Carolina Beach Inlet was the last of the big devasta well the next to last it was cut it's an artificial inlet and it badly damaged um seab breze and the inter Coastal Waterway and of course they're still fighting to keep it open
176this is the Monte Carlo um one of Robert Bruce Freeman's granddaughters and her husband Frank Hill built this out on the beach it's the only structure that was really built out on the sand of of the ocean it was called the Monte Carlo it was um a a place to change your clothes go to the bathroom get a snack dance um there seemed to be like a juke box out there and it was very very popular for three years it was built in the early 50s and it washed away in Hurricane Hazel so it lasted um less than 5 years um they continued there's an inside picture of of it apparently they had wonderful uh Fried Chicken um but they did use it a lot um while they had it um Hurricane Hazel we all
177know about the devastation just simply swamped everything at seab breze now this is an unincorporated area never could incorporate as a city because the go City County government wouldn't let them um they couldn't apply for federal aid they mostly didn't have insurance because to run a business right there on the water you mostly couldn't afford insurance and so a lot got completely washed away there were a few buildings that managed to stagger on into the 70s they were it mostly um uh bars and dance halls it was pretty rough um the hotels were all gone and of course once we had integration there wasn't the same need for people to come down to seab Breeze to get to the ocean I think we're just about done oh yeah we had Freeman Park got kind of
178abandoned uh well not abandoned but it was fisherman and bird watchers and turtle Watchers for a good 20 25 years and then a few cultural things yeah that's sort of what it looked like when I moved here in the 70s then they put in I40 and I don't know if you all were here you remember they said everything's going to change it did and then they invented four-wheel drive Jeeps that were cool and everybody had to have one and everybody had to have someplace to drive it and then the Land Development started and water firm property went through the roof and Freeman Park just became on on holiday weekends there would be 10 to 15,000 people in their Jeeps out there or four-wheel drives I won't pick on Jeeps but and so the town of
179Carolina beach was being bombarded by the taxpayers why don't you clean it up why don't you take care of it well it didn't belong to Carolina beach it was County property the county didn't want to deal with it and didn't have the vehicles or staff to go out there in the sand and deal with with it and they didn't want to hire a bunch of deputies to go out there so they made an intergovernmental agreement that Carolina beach would take over the administration of it if they could charge enough to pay them back for vehicles and infrastructure to supervise it that's where we were until about three years ago at which point Town Council of Carolina beach worked a deal bought from some developers and bought from the descendants of Robert Bruce Freeman the last
180to the land with the promise it would become a Perpetual Park and it is in the process of being developed they have a $6 million Grant from North Carolina Wildlife Resources somebody Parks people North Carolina Parks people and it's moving slowly they can poor Carol Ina Beach can only swallow so much Park project at a time and their lake has sort of subsumed them but they are working on it and they're making plans So eventually it will become a fairly major pedestrian Park not a four-wheel drive except along the ocean so that's why it's important and I spent uh about two years getting historic marker put up at cbze and Pat and I think that it's something besides 1896 because I think though there's some sad parts to the story this is a happy ending
181and the happy ending of this story is a middle class family held on to their land until it could be preserved and I think that's a story that should be told along with the other parts of our history question I'm going to step in real quick because we are well past our time but I'm I'm just going to ask if we could add another 10 minutes so we could finish this conversation I make a motion we add 10 minutes second okay second all in favor please signify by saying I I I all oppose okay Carry On I'm sorry anybody got any any questions I went really fast are these Freemans related to the Rachel frean yes it's Rachel Bill Freeman the sort of patriarch of the family now is his H her husband so these
182are the descendants of Rachel Freeman yes yes that's another reason why it's important this is dorian's great great grandfather yeah this is Rachel's great great grandfa well she married into the Freeman she she's she's a Freeman by marriage but okay any other questions yes sir I'm pleased to report Mr Blanchard helped Carolina beach facilitate the purchase of Freeman Park that was to buy it sell it on eBay it was a great vision that they had that they battled it I mean cuz they'd been trying to yeah it was amazing yeah thank you for sharing yeah thank you very very interesting right so I make a motion that we do whatever it takes to you know instruct the staff to adopt this into curriculum not this year but um 2026 school year and Dr Bon tells
183me that we actually taught CB at some point in the process but it got discarded along the way somewhere or it's optional or something yeah so local history to um the standards actually say you can embed some local history so we have a number of teachers who currently teach SE Brees I know some of the ones on our team some of our curriculum Specialists when they were in the classro they taught seab Brees so I would imagine that it is being taught throughout the district this is aligns with our standards it's like I said we um have um areas in our standards where we are to incorporate some of our local history but I would imagine that we have a number of classrooms who are already bringing this in so I would wonder if you
184would be willing to talk to some of the classrooms if if they I was just going to say I was a librarian for my career for 30 years all I wanted to be was a teacher a history teacher but um when I graduated from college in 1970 history teachers were were driving Pizza trucks there were no jobs and adviser sat me down and said unless you can coach football basketball and teach driver saided you can't be a history teacher so I became a librarian instead wonderful career loved it great great thing but I am at heart a teacher I would love to meet with various levels of social studies teachers provide them um resources talk with them about the this oral history about the various families I I would just love to do workshops um
185for teachers and share what I have with them and and Mr there is some enthusiasm and we expanded on this we talked about having oil history because um Robert in the handout you have the gentleman in the picture the top left he is living that is dorian's grandfather and we could do oral histories with the people who are still living from the premum family we could involve um Miss Bron in terms of filming them I didn't really get a whole lot going on with this I just want to get them all ball Mo rolling with emotion okay so you have a motion I'll second it any other discussion question Miss Mason since um Dr pH this is probably for you since you mentioned that there are teachers and staff that have taught this do we
186have any informal curriculum already developed to do so and if that's would that be something that they that would need to be reviewed or so normally when our teachers I know um Mr Bailey who is our social studies curriculum specialist um and Mrs jalinski are English specialist they both were aware of this and and talked about it um I know when he did it in his classroom he shared normally with items like this they go to the historical sites so I have talked to Miss Bradford and um our nice little lady here will be sharing some information with us so things like this we basically have to go to historical sites and and find that so we're working on that I also want to say Miss Bradford we've talked about this oral history and we've
187got to get it going I would love to do it with our CTE classes and actually have them participate in that I love theide that willess okay I was just thinking that I not that we don't value um Dr fa's input but I would like to hear from um our lead social studies teacher just like we did with Travis when he was here and we were T and he explained to us about the 1898 I think it's kind of a little premature to say that we're going to put it in without having you know seen it or anything like that I'm not I'm not opposed to it but I would like to um have our teachers our subject matter expert you know kind of weigh in on that just a little bit you know to
188make sure that we aren't going to step on anybody's toes um inadvertently Miss Mason and correct me if I'm wrong Miss Bradford but you just want the ball to start rolling so those conversations you want those conversations to actually start to happen more is that correct I want approval of the board to get it going just to get it going to get the conversation started okay not to put it into curriculum with the go she said next year like to roll out we start the world histories and all that sooner because these people you have some age going on um all the more better to the staff to figure out when they can do it how they can do it and so on I'm not I'm not I have no other than this is a
189resource here that is so invaluable um that's that's my only suggestion and we auction talked about the oral history not just for seab Bree but also for the Holocaust we have valuable people in our community that can share that knowledge so we need to get that in 1898 we so um it is something we will be getting going cuz we talked about it I've got it okay so we have Motion in a second all in favor put signify by saying I I I all oppos that carries and we have a motion to adjourn is there second second all in favor put signif by by saying I I I thank you very much for coming young lady