001sure absolutely good evening uh welcome to the uh September 5th regular Board of Education meeting we are glad you are here I'd like to share just a few quick reminders please keep the aisles clear during our meeting to allow members of the school system and Sheriff's Department to be able to move about also except for when honoring their flag or opening prayer and participating in the cold audience please remain seated during our meeting we hope to have a productive and efficient meeting and your hope is your help excuse me is greatly appreciated uh at this point Miss Bowie would you call the roll please good afternoon Josie Barnhart here Stephanie Walker Pat Bradford I am here Stephanie craybill I am here Pete wildebeard present Hugh McManus and Melissa Mason here and I do want to
002remind everybody that the seats up front are wide open I know that not everybody wants to sit up front but we have plenty of seats up front those are fine oh did it say reserved yeah I think those are for parents of the singers okay I'm sorry I misspoke I apologize I I think they are reserved I believe they are reserved yes sir I'm sorry um next we will have a moment of reflection or invocation uh that will be done by Pastor Doug Falk of the Kingdom Impact Church thank you for being here Pastor thank you Mr chair Mr chair the agenda reflects approval of the agenda that's the next line I'm sorry one second roll calls I apologize I did jump ahead I do apologize uh we do need a motion to approve the
003agenda so moved is there a second second first and second any discussion Ms Graybill yeah the I'm not opposed to the items that we have on our agenda but I am opposed that we do not have supporting documents that were asked for in items 18 B and C so should we approve the agenda without any descriptions or and supporting documents 18 . let me just get down it's review of the ad hoc committee the only thing there are Miss Bradford's notes that we saw at the agenda review but there is no proposal and we're supposed to be voting on something and then call to the audience I thought we agreed at the agenda review that somebody would have a proposal for us to read and um to discuss and there is nothing there and um
004that one we're supposed to vote on so I'm I'm not happy about voting on things that we haven't seen okay yes ma'am if you look careful Care at the ad hoc committee piece that's in there there are proposals for everyone except item six which has none and it says proposal none proposals are right there in the document I did read that Miss Bradford so what would you what would your emotion be my motion would be to remove these items from the agenda until such time as we have a clear written proposal okay so we have a motion to amend the agenda to remove items let's see what we got here 18. 18a no 18 B and C okay is there a second I like the second for discussion sir yes I would like to second
005that first and second to remove items 18 B and C any discussion yes sir Miss Walker I know Mr Craig was gone um I'll tend to agree with the I mean I don't know what we're voting on with called audience um there's is nothing attached here and um I would say I have read um the documents Mr Bradford had put up there for ad hoc but then again I don't know how we're voting are we voting on each one I guess I just want to make sure we're prepared for whatever we're voting on Mr Bradford would you like to respond to that some proposals on one but it hasn't changed in just the few days since we were together in less than seven days so it's exactly the way it was at the agenda briefing
006okay okay it's Mason if I recall correctly at the agenda review we did talk about cult to the audience we talked about the broad like that there were three separate issues that we needed to discuss and that we might need to set up some sort of committee to do so um so I don't know if there was any proposals that we had really talked about but that we were going to discuss how we wanted to move forward with it that was my understanding that was mine and I think you even asked for somebody and I thought it was kind of vague but you asked for somebody to put together a proposal or get you information and we didn't get any and I think that's going to be pretty explosive for the people who are here
007today and the people who are coming forward if we just start throwing stuff out and winging it by the seat of our pants well and it could be that we the answer could be that we we decided to form a subgroup to look into that but okay we have a motion a second is there any other discussion if not all in favor and again the the uh amended motion is to remove items B and C under 18 all in favor um would you call the role dude Miss Barnhart now Miss Walker yes Miss Bradford Miss crabill yes Mr wildeborg no and Miss Mason now says defeated four to three excuse me four to two I'm steak working my math uh so we do have in front of us a motion to approve the agenda first
008and the second um any further discussion on that if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed no that passes also with a count of four to two now sorry about holding you up but uh we would ask you to go ahead with uh pastor with our uh invocation please absolutely Proverbs 3 13-14 says joyful is a person who finds wisdom the one who gains understanding for wisdom is more profitable than silver and her wages are better than gold let us pray father we just thank you for the wisdom and the leadership in this room we thank you for everybody in the community that came out the tribes Lord to let their voice be heard to make this this communication father and the school's a better place father we just pray
009that we all seek wisdom that we all seek understanding that we're quick to listen slow to speak and slow to anger and we seek to see see the other side before we speak our peace Father look at the end of this meeting God let all of it be a place God that for our kids that can at the end of the day they can leave a better than they came in they can leave safe they can leave secure and leave with more understanding and more wisdom than they had when they first got there we thank you for it God We Just Praise You In Jesus name amen amen thank you the presentation colors will be done this evening by the New Hanover New Hanover County Assuming New Hanover High School uh ROTC color guard under
010the command of Captain Lance and first sergeant redwine principal Sutton one thing all right our national anthem will be sung by the Eaton chorus under the direction of Corey Bland and rosemary wheeler principal can they stand up on top there's a second group that comes behind me that was a job guys can you see [Music] who are so proud yeah Bright Stars [Music] please [Music] the Monster Machines [Music] whenever [Music] [Applause] at this time I've asked Miss Mason to lead our pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right thanks thank you I've asked this plan to help introduce all her wonderful students great job guys everybody you're gonna say your first name
011in your grade fourth grade can you hold it say it loud Mandy fourth grade Ava fourth grade um Kate fourth grade Walker fourth grade Sadie fourth grade Phoenix fourth grade Jensen fourth grade Willow fourth grade Elena fourth grade Sienna fifth grade Walter fourth grade adley fifth grade Britain fourth grade Ethan fit fourth grade Ashton fourth grade Alexander fourth grade Delilah fourth grade Parker fourth grade Harper fourth grade Leo fourth grade Everett Forest Grade Abigail fourth grade Ian fourth grade Winnie fourth grade Olivia fourth grade Blake fourth grade Layla Kate fourth grade James fourth grade Autumn fifth grade Oliver fourth grade Reeves fourth grade Hazel fourth grade Brock fourth grade Gianna fourth grade oh that's fourth grade Zachary fourth grade Brooklyn fourth grade Avery fourth grade Oliver fourth grade Sophia fourth grade Evangeline fourth grade honey
012fourth grade Charlie fourth grade give them another round of applause great job guys thank you and we're gonna ask the color guard to come back and introduce themselves also please be careful good job nice job wow foreign if we could get the color guard to come forward please here you go cap hello everybody this is your New Hanover height Army Junior ROTC Color Guard I'll let them introduce themselves I mean I'm Haley Allen I'm Kyla Jones Isaiah Allen Jaden Cheshire that's it [Applause] Mr wildebear can we come over here Stephanie crabill can we just say welcome to Captain Gaither this is his first year with us so thank you for joining the team [Applause] well now we can all go home because that was great we're going to carry on with the approval of the
013minutes do I hear a motion so moved they have a motion to approve the mess second second the first and second any discussion Miss crabill yeah the um give them just a second to head on out I'm sorry I probably should have waited myself you just want to be loud I can talk about it okay yeah the um I just wanted to make a note in our July 25th meeting in the minutes where it said there was discussion about keeping the two call to the audiences separate Mr wildebear recommends that the first hour for any topic and the last 30 minutes will be for book removal um I just wanted to go on record that I just didn't think that that was appropriate for us to say that we already were talking about book removal
014before the the audience even had a chance to speak other than that I'm okay Miss craber what date was that again it was in the um the July 25th meeting which was our agenda review when we were talking about um the public hearing and then it got switched to miss Barnhart made a suggestion for one hour for CTA in the remaining 30 minutes regarding books so she actually spoke correctly there and then you had a concern for 30 minutes I mean all that is accurate it was said but I just wanted to call our board's attention to what we actually said before we had a discussion okay do we want to change that no there's no need to change it because it was said okay all right very good so we have a first and
015second to approve the uh excuse me the uh uh all in favor of approving the minutes as stated please signify by saying hi off all opposed passes 6-0 we are now on student voice welcome good afternoon everyone we're happy to be here my name is Tanaya tune I am a junior at Laney High School [Music] I'm miles Pollock I'm a senior from Harvard High School and I'm Cassidy Thompson I'm a senior at Hoggard High School again we're happy to be here with you guys today for anyone here that is not familiar with us we are the student ambassador team one of the structures in the nhcs student voice policy we are a student-led group that allows students to feel more involved heard and valued student ambassadors aim to create a safe space for students to
016vocalize their opinions and share their experiences regarding decisions that impact all students on the district level first off just wanted to thank all the board members and adult allies who have supported us throughout this process it's an honor to have the space to collaborate with you and we are incredibly grateful for all you sacrificed for students like us we have some cards to give out to you as well if we can approach would that be all right thank you thank you thank you very much wow it's very nice thank you um so we've been working hard this summer and have finalized our application the application is live as of today and we are super excited to finally get our student ambassador team up and running all students are encouraged to apply the application is due
017September 22nd and our kickoff Summit is planned for October 31st since our kickoff Summit is approaching we would love the support of any community members and adult allies that are willing and passionate about helping students share their voices to contact us please email us using our first dot last name through our New Hanover County email addresses and follow us on Instagram at nhcs studentvoices this summer we have also worked with the communications division to film a promotion video that will be published and help spread the word about the different student voice structures and the student ambassador team application once our student ambassador team is selected we are excited for new faces and voices to come here to speak during our designated time slot bringing new student perspectives and having the opportunity to share their voices
018with adult District leaders we look forward to coming back to you with different topics that students are interested in discussing and providing their perspective on as the greatest stakeholders in our education who know the ins and outs of our schools firsthand we are very excited to be able to provide our valuable insight to District decision makers like you thank you so much for this opportunity and we look forward to collaborating with you this school year we also have a little treat for you can I go get that real fast go for it Chris miles's idea he's full of all the fun ideas yeah just thank you guys so much yeah here's a little treat for you can have it during your closed session or now or whenever um but yeah thank you so much we're
019looking forward to this year thank you very much [Applause] [Music] and let us know if you guys have any questions as of now we're we have any questions Miss Walker um thank you well you know I you know I love you guys I I think um we've been very very happy to see the progress you guys have made and I'm very happy to know that you're gonna start this process to leave a legacy for the next students that are coming behind you guys and uh I just want to tell you how impressed I am if I've not said it before I will say it again you guys are very impressive and um we just appreciate your hard work thank you you know I'm gonna jump in and say you know as you said before are
020the most important stakeholders we have a lot of very important stakeholders but our most important stakeholders are our students so we thank you for all your hard work and getting things together and I did see Miss grable's hand go up so miss crabill uh yeah um hello and thank you for all the treats the notes and the goodies all those go a long way um the um just wondering how other than your Instagram page how are you guys getting your application out so that um we can people who are listening you know their parents might hear I'm sure no kid is listening to this tonight but their um their parents might be so how are you getting that information out yeah we have a lot of different ways um we're working with Communications to send
021it out in a district-wide email so that'll be a big way students can find out um also we've been in touch with a lot of principals over the summer so that they're aware of what student voice is and what the student ambassador team is so we're going to reach out to them again and send them the applications they can distribute it at their schools we also have some contacts at different schools that are going to help spread the word so a lot of a combination of a lot of different ways but we'll make sure that students know about it because we really want every student to apply and be a part of it if they want to go so um are you going to like everybody who applies is just basically on your team to
022or are you going to have a selection process in that yeah we are going to have a selection process which we've worked on because we're probably thinking like about two students per each school but we're also going to collaborate with lots of other students and the students who apply and don't get in we're going to make sure there are ways that they can still stay involved and make their voice heard and there's also lots of other structures in the student voice policy that we will Point them to um for instance the engagement teams that are on school levels is a great way for them to get involved as well so we will definitely make sure that all students who want to get involved will be some way but our student ambassador team that comes here
023every month at and speaks to you and has our time slot what we're thinking about two students per each School great thank you any good deals if not um first of all thanks for all the gifts man I do want to hear how was your how was your first week back to school how was your first week back at school I can take this one um you know you know the lack of sleep it's not too great but it's a great time um schools back in session everything's running smoothly um it's going pretty well so yeah um I think now this year since I am a junior since I have I do have those more difficult you know classes you know my teachers are really you know understanding and helpful with you know studying habits
024and you know more guides to help me help me study and you know having textbooks you know to help me figure out certain things and you know they're really open to um answering questions and things like that so you know classes are more difficult but they are you know easier because of the teachers that I have mine is great as well thank you so much for asking uh senior year definitely tough with all the applications and things that pile up but it's fun it's kind of a fun process I'm ready to just get it going yeah thank you for asking well thank you thank you again thank you for everything thank you so much thank you next we'll move on next we'll move on to our September recognitions I can't speak today Cardella thank you
025I'm struggling tonight Mr Cardella all right good evening everybody I am privileged to stand here before you to recognize some of New Hanover County Schools superstars so if you are here if I call your name if you could please come up to be recognized Deb trafton are you here tonight yeah so a little bit about Deb she is being recognized as a Rising Star Award director of Transportation Deb trafton was named a 2023 rising star in student transportation by school transportation news magazine more than 60 Transportation professionals Nationwide were nominated and Deb was among the top 10. she will be featured in the October issue of the magazine Deb has been in the district since 2009 when she joined Human Resources where she was a creative and conscientious Problem Solver helping Transportation directors with their
026hiring they used to joke about her joining their team and at the beginning of last year she finally did Deb is a star at communicating with our families and answering their concerns which she can do in either English or Spanish when parents of special ed students had concerns about bus routes she met with them monthly until they were resolved she also headed up the books from your bus program where bus drivers give new donated books to students who are showing good citizenship and finally we say often that bus drivers are part of the team educating our students they are the first and last faces from New Hanover County schools that students see each day Deb is the champion our bus drivers deserve and we are proud of her for this recognition thank you oh okay
027the next is uh three being recognized for the Wilma women to watch so Laura Rouser you here um I know caress Clegg she will not be here tonight but she will be recognized in Ella King are you here okay so three nhcs employees were finalists for the women to watch Awards through Wilma magazine Laura Rosa a special educator in the district has been an incredible advocate for inclusion opportunities in our schools including Theater Arts programming and the unified Champion schools where students with and without disabilities work together as leaders and teammates she worked tirelessly to teach students without disabilities to advocate for others and to teach students with disabilities to advocate for themselves in her interview with Wilma Laura Sheard shared these inspiring words it's only when our young people both with and without disabilities
028see a disability as a natural part of the human condition that we will no longer have the need to create specialized programming for inclusion we must build systems and develop our youth to be that natural support in a class of sports teams and later in life on the job and on the local pickleball court inclusion is where it's at thank you [Applause] [Music] and and if I may just read through the other two that aren't here the second finalist was caress Clegg a true nhcs success story she started working part-time at Ogden Elementary while she was in college and over the years worked her way up to the communications supervisor while earning her master's degree and raising her daughter caressa is a huge defender of public education and the opportunities it affords all students she
029has served on the equity diversity and inclusion committee and was involved with the girls with pearls at Blair Elementary mentoring young girls in leadership and self-confidence in her interview with the magazine caress said this is not just a job for me but a passion that drives me to take action I believe in creating a Level Playing Field for everyone regardless of their background or circumstances providing a fair chance at education and knowledge is essential and I am dedicated to making it a reality and that's caress Ella King thank you she's probably watching Ella King who graduated from Isaac bear last spring in his in her first semester at Yale University was named a rising star though by our estimation she's more of a shooting star Ella was valedictorian of her class she won the national
030community service Ambassador through the United Nations she received the national gold zero hunger award through Kroger for her work in combating hunger she won the North Carolina Community impact award and she was a page for the governor's office and that's just to name a few she recently completed an independent foreign study in Uzbekistan and she plans to continue her Russian and Central Asian studies at Yale we are proud to call Eller our student during her time in New Hanover County schools and were prouder still to call her an alum okay the next award is for Congressional app challenge salmon ban are you here okay we're going to recognize him anyways it Minds it might seem counterintuitive to develop a phone app that encourages you to get off the phone but it was exactly that Innovative
031idea that one Hoggard student salmon Bahan top prize in the Congressional app challenge the app creatively named look up nudges users to put down their phones and reclaim in-person interaction Simon developed look up after noticing that he and his friends didn't interact face to face as much as they used to a man wise Beyond his years salmon said we were right in front of each other only a few feet apart but not truly present our weekly conversations which were previously filled with joy laughter and stories had been replaced by quiet isolation mindless phone scrolling Simon's app uses behavioral economics in the science of decision making to help scrollers be motivated to put the phone down many nhcs classrooms are even adopting the app as a way to positively reinforce students for staying engaged while learning
032Simon's creativity Innovation dedication to research and development and willingness to think differently has made him a CEO before he graduated from high school we are proud to call him an nhcs original [Music] and our final award for participate learning teacher of the year Paola weinman are you here Paola all right we're still going to do it Paula Wyman who is a participant learning exchange teacher from Argentina was named the Teacher of the Year by that organization as a global studies teacher at the International School of Gregory Paola had demonstrated her dedication to Global education through professional development leadership roles and sharing her expertise and ideas with colleagues locally and around the world she strives to provide her students with opportunities connect with others around the world and become Global Citizens who are prepared for the
033future she also encourages her students to share their learning and change making ideas with their entire School community and the world they have presented projects to elementary school students made class from the classroom connections with students in Argentina and the Dominican Republic and participated and participate learnings model un as well as a model U.N in Washington D.C through her teaching and sharing her Vivid experiences Paola is helping her students evolve into the future citizens of the world and those are our Awards but finally um I do want to recognize caress Clegg one more time we would also like to recognize her for her dedicated and faithful service to New Hanover County Schools over the past 15 years a sincere and heartfelt thank you from the communication and Outreach division as well as all who have
034had the pleasure of working with you we wish you all the best as you pursue your career Ambitions elsewhere thank you caress [Applause] sameen who's not here he was not missed up at the podium he is a member of our student Voice team and so congratulations on that accomplishment as well Sammy thank you Miss crabill uh we're going to continue we will be skipping B administrative introductions and actually carrying on with the classified employee recognition program Dr Barnes I'd like to invite my executive director Jennifer we'd like to again appreciate two of our amazing classified employees of the quarter so Jen you can take it away good evening it's my pleasure to bring and present to you the last recipients for this first year so we will Begin Again a new school year with recognizing
035our employees that show um excellence in the work that they do every day they go above and beyond to really I think be a model for their colleagues and of course for our students as well so this evening I'd like to ask Sebastian Florian to come up here please join me up here if you'd like and if you remember these are nominations from peers anybody within the School Division as of right now so if you look up Excellence exemplified you will see a picture of Sebastian Florian Sebastian is a true asset to Ogden Elementary and new New Hanover County Schools as a whole his friendly demeanor and helpfulness to staff and students is on display each and every day Sebastian is always making sure new students and staff are set up and ready and stays
036on top of any potential problems which ensures that stop learning learning opportunities are maximized He makes himself available to staff even if he's been pulled away to another job in the county Sebastian's excellent communication allows us to know where he will be and how to contact him in case issues arise Sebastian proactively checks to make sure iPads and laptops are in top working order which again ensures optimal learning can take place everyone that interacts with Sebastian benefits he puts our school and Community First is easy to work with has a wonderful work ethic and attitude Sebastian makes it a great day to be a stingray so thank you very much thank you and next I'd like to invite Brian massing up if he is here might not have made it this evening it doesn't appear
037too okay so Brian massing is the glue that holds the school together a couple of years ago Brian became the head custodian and has done an amazing job ever since even when he might be even when we might be short staffed the work gets done like never before staff satisfaction and morale have been as high as I've ever experienced regarding the cleanliness of the building even when short staffed Brian will work his shift and stay longer if needed to make sure the building is clean and ready for all eight buildings that sit on Laney's campus Brian's attitude and work ethic have never wavered and he performs above and beyond expectations and there is no way to describe the appreciation that our staff has for Brian he's always happy and willing to jump in when needed
038and he takes enormous pride in his work Brian does whatever he has asked without question or complaint the best quality I see in Brian is his personal relationships with each staff and student Brian takes a genuine interest in others always asks how they are doing and makes everyone's day better Brian deserves at least our praise and appreciation and he needs to know how grateful we are for what he does every day so again thank you Brian [Applause] [Music] thank you very much and again uh congratulations to everyone who received uh recognition today so glad you're here and congratulations um at this time we're going to continue with the superintendent's report Dr Faust on August 28th we welcome back our staff and students at our traditional schools we're focused and dedicated to providing our students with
039the opportunity of a rigorous education and a safe and peaceful environment our proficiency data is most promising we are on track to reach our 90 of our students reading on grade level by third grade and we are determined to achieve this Milestone Additionally the district remains committed to using our strategic plan as a god Encompass throughout the journey in preparation for the start of the 22 23-24 school year we held several caregiver academies to assist families in enrolling their students we appreciate the great turnout at these events which helped make the process so much easier a big thank you to those who made this success made this a success and again we're excited and we look forward to the 2223 school performance grade accountability results this will be released tomorrow September 6th around about 10
04030 11 o'clock um and we anticipate anticipate a huge celebration across our district I will say this that again I want to thank our all of our teams for making our schools of success no one really understands what goes on behind the scenes but I reach out to the staff over here a lot and thank you so much for the work that you're doing um Eddie I know this is you're like the the the stellar and the star the the contact go-to person right now um transportation wherever Deb is I want to thank you so much for um how transportation is progressing this year we were talking now we're talking about it and how we've just kind of transitioned and gotten better over the years we um Transportation it's we still got some work to
041do but it's still it's not the eyesore that we've had in the the past year so thank you Deb thank you to all of our bus drivers everyone who is in transportation those the routers the um individuals who ride the bus with the drivers um just a big shout out to them and you just don't understand what they go through on a daily basis but I just want them to know that I appreciate all the work that they do thank you thank you Dr Faust uh my my comments are going to be very short but uh first off welcome back to school we welcome our new Pre-K students and kindergartners as well as all our new students and our new faculty members and staff members we also welcome all returning faculty members and our returning
042students we look forward to a successful and wonderful 2023-24 school year we want to thank our faculty members and staff for all they have all the hard work they have done to prepare for the beginning of school and welcoming all our students we also want to take a moment to welcome our new school leaders and those who have moved to different and new schools I also need to comment on two laws that have recently been passed by our general assembly the parents Bill of Rights and the fairness women's in sports act Dr Faust and his team are working diligently to ensure that we are in compliance with these laws they're getting legal advice from Doc from Mr Vogel excuse me as they implement the law so that is my comments at this time we will
043carry on with our call to audience I think we have the listing good evening first up um anyone who that's new that signed up the names are going to be up here you can just count if you don't know the people in front of you behind you feel free to come up when it's your turn I don't have to call you but I'm going to call you Barbara Garrow is first the thrust of this message is twofold so please focus on the consistent implementation of policy 4351 and an amendment to help keep to children in school last year the Board of Education voted 7-0 to end out of school suspensions for children in kindergarten in first and second grades except for the most serious infractions our youngest Learners can be suspended for bringing drugs or
044guns to school they could also be suspended for making serious threats or committing an assault Based on data we received from the office of communication this chart shows how many suspensions of five six and seven-year-olds were given during the past two school years the most serious infractions are highlighted in yellow the chart shows that the past school year there were 13 suspensions based on policy 4351. the chart also shows that there were 30 out-of-school suspensions for minor offenses minor offenses that did not involve dogs guns threats or assaults this is disturbing aggressive behavior is a gray area the term aggressive behavior is not explicitly mentioned in assaults and threats policy 4331 and it is listed as a level one offense in the student code of conduct so out-of-school suspensions are not a corrective action clearly
045the implementation of policy 4351 needs to be consistent additionally there were 28 suspensions of our youngest learners for aggressive behavior we propose that if these students had had the right to have a parent at the hearing where a principal can kick them out of school we suspect some of these children could have stayed in school for their offense the short-term policy 4351 must be revised to include parents at the hearing and implemented across the district consistently treat all children with dignity and respect thank you [Applause] foreign good evening in many recent board and committee meetings you have had long discussions about the problems you see in the call to audience I would like to address some of those the call to audience is too long you are elected by an accountable to the citizens of
046New Hanover County call to audiences the primary way we have to communicate with you email has been suggested but board members have said they get too many emails and don't have time to read them too much repetition perhaps this is because issues such as suspension and seclusion are important policies that you are responsible for and many people in the community think are critical if you refuse to change policy these issues will continue to be discussed people sign up then don't come the called audience sheet is available at the sign-in desk just have people check their name when they arrive teachers and faculty never speak in Spring 2022 I learned from teachers at many schools that their principals told them they were not allowed to attend or speak at board meetings without permission when asked the
047principal said the directive came from the central office this has apparently been backtracked and that all the principles misunderstood but do you really think anyone would come to a meeting when the possibility of retaliation has even been suggested called audiences required by state meeting laws while many are shorter than here particularly because meetings are held at unconvenient times others are much longer the state marine fisheries Council allows at least five hours of its quarterly meeting to the audience and everyone speaks with no time limit this has gone to midnight and at least one case that I know of you talk about call to audience time preventing you from doing your business maybe you need to remember that the things most of us talk about are your business and you would do well to listen your
048continual efforts to control who and how many people speak simply reinforces that your goal is not to do what is best for the children thank you [Applause] growing up I always wondered what I would do during the Holocaust and Civil Rights Movement would I recognize evil and be brave enough to stand against it yeah I can confidently say that I would I support Hitler's censorship book bands and hate towards Jewish lgbtq black and disabled people no because I reject censorship and book Banning and I denounce hatred towards historically marginalized students what I stand alongside the United Daughters of the Confederacy promoting racist propaganda for school curriculum nope because I denounce moms for Liberty who are pushing racist propaganda and curriculum in our schools would I have been a white mom screaming at Ruby Bridges and
049fighting against School integration nope because I denounced segregation in our school district would I stand with the KKK absolutely not because I denounced the proud boys future Generations will read about your book ban and will find history repeating itself some of you will be compared to Hitler for Banning books and restricting speech some of you will be remembered for your hatred of lgbtq students and your support for segregation as you push our black and disabled students out of the classroom through just disproportionate and punitive practices some of you will be compared to the white people who screamed at Ruby Bridges 63 years ago while they held signs that said all I want for Christmas is a clean white school you'll be remembered for aligning with the proud boys and moms for Liberty my legacy will
050be on the right side of History some of yours will not you will be remembered alongside history's most Fame Infamous bad guys who restricted speech banned books supported segregation and promoted hate [Applause] good afternoon everybody um this is not personal thank you very much for your service to the community but tonight you're going to be getting a briefing on legal services I don't know exactly what it's going to say in all respects or they're overpaying um the disaster that was your five and a half hour marathon joke of a meeting I mean Pete we were doing Robert's Rules together what four five six times and I don't know what sunk in but that was less organized than a kindergarten first day of school that was a joke that your decision uh was arbitrary is not
051strictly in a legal sense you know problematic a good attorney should be able to get you over that if it is challenged and assume it will be but the 14th Amendment uh mandates that governments and this body is certainly one of those must offer equal protection and consideration under the law there's a process for hearing complaints or at least there was when I was on the board and the process exists so you don't make arbitrary decisions think of the absurdity of the precedent that you have set that now exists in New Hanover County a single parent with a single complaint about part of a curriculum can now be granted an opportunity to air this ignorance and imbecility before this board for five hours how would you even begin to deny another parent's request for appeal
052after you have granted this one on such pathetically weak ground look I teach at the community college and I promise you that I have students who understand founding history very very well they know nothing of Emmett Till They are wholly ignorant about the events of red summer in 1919 they come from your system and they are holy ignorant of the Pequot massacre in Massachusetts in 1627 and I can see from some of your looks that you are as well they've never heard of Tulsa Oklahoma you have denied them knowledge [Applause] thank you for the hours each of you spent preparing for last Friday's hearing have faith in God I assure you you can say to this mountain may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea and your command will be obeyed really believe
053and do not doubt in your heart you can pray for anything and if you believe you can have it if we have the greatest gift of faith that can move mountains but have never learned to love then we are nothing I pray that you constantly chase after the realm of God's kingdom and the righteousness that proceeds from him I pray our love is large and Incredibly patient our love is gentle and consistently kind to all that we refuse to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else our love doesn't brag about achievements nor inflate its own importance our love does not traffic and shame and disrespect nor selfishly seek its own honor I pray our love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense our love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no Delight in
054what is wrong I pray our love is a safe place of shelter for it never stops believing the best for others love never takes failure as defeat for it never gives up Love Remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten so above all else I pray we let love be the beautiful prize for which we run your kingdom come in Jesus name amen Melissa mission Melissa miss you you hear anybody named Melissa okay Tiffany Salter according to recent census and voting statistics there are over 200 000 people living in north New Hanover County there are 180 000 registered voters only 52 percent of those registered voters came out to the polls in 2022 and that low turnout is exactly why this board is being allowed to fulfill their personal agendas I am here trying to
055get the attention of our community members those members who are not coming out to vote in local elections we have to come together and vote for candidates who truly hold all our children and their unique experiences in mind candidates who value our children's actual safety above spending their time discussing which books to ban and revising hard-won policies that worked to deliver inclusivity to students for the last couple years I've been following the progression and proliferation of groups that aim to dismantle public education I've been anticipating the arrival of these issues to our district one of those groups is moms for Liberty and they have the ear of several of our board members by the way the Southern Property Law Group labels them as an extremist group based on reports of their harassment of community members
056advancement of misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans this group directly States their intention to reclaim and reform the public education system now for the moment moms for Liberty might have found a foothold in our County but I know there are a whole lot of families out there who don't agree with their extreme views I am urging those families please band together and let this board hear your voices because it is your silence that will allow this to continue race has historically been used to gain and to keep power creating environments that separate and silence Silence about race reinforces racism because children draw their own conclusion based on what they see and let me tell you our children are watching should not be silent [Applause] I would love to be
057using my time to push for life back or speak about potential items uh to the legislative committee they could Lobby for like changing the statute of limitations on obstruction pertaining to child sex abuse since the Attorney General confirmed former administrators were guilty of obstruction yet the statute of limitations ran out instead I need to speak about the called audience none of you campaigned on reducing call to audience time yet time and time again you all have targeted the one system that allows community members to speak freely about what is happening in our district since this past election you have removed one-third of the time slots and the latest changes suggested at the agenda review yet again impede our community's voices it is frustrating to watch the teacher voice idea be manipulated into being for teachers
058of the year instead of being open to any teacher who wants to be heard numerous community members brought this idea up when teachers were not able to sign up to call the audience at 8am was given as the reason for the new Lottery system a reminder that the previous previous board used to allow unlimited signups for call to audience and allow the board to vote on whether to allow the extra speakers or just keep it at 30. chair Stephanie Adams unilaterally changed the call to audience system to not allow extra signups and allow board members to vote on whether to allow everyone to be heard after losing a split vote she felt the chair position had the right to make this change and this board has never even discussed whether that move was acceptable by
059policy much less whether we need to revert back to the previous way last the last night unlimited signups and board vote was allowed was when Nelson Bollier was acting chair and he didn't know the rules regarding seating time so all hell broke loose and the meeting had to be ended for the night I feel like the entire Community was unjustly punished for the ignorance of a few also it appears that y'all took a vote at the previous agenda review to have more signups at the door there was only five slots opened at the door so I don't know where that disconnect happened but I figured I'd bring that to your attention as well you'll have a good night thank you [Applause] testing he's very tall foreign because I have having an allergy attack do all
060the wonderful things blooming because of our hurricane so I am here today to ask you at this point the four Republican majority members who are making all the decisions to please do your job stop ignoring the many problems facing our district while carrying out political actions deemed inappropriate to a small number of people in your party this is becoming a very destructive pattern in New Hanover County Schools the Attorney General's office recently reported that there was evidence or wrongdoing from previous School administrations that led to ongoing sexual assaults of dozens of if not hundreds of our students for at least three decades that happened while the school board was under control of a report Republican majority their lack of proper oversight allowed our students to be sexually assaulted by up to 16 known staff members
061because of the statute of limitations they can't bring charges against those administrators when I was elected in 2018 a group of concerned citizens brought evidence to our Board of seven cases of improper sexual behavior by staff along with discrimination against our District's black students the board Lord refused to acknowledge the facts and refuse to investigate at the time I was the only member who publicly called for an investigation who knows what would have resulted if the rest of that board had done their job at that time instead of ignoring those incidents the administrators who allowed those sexual assaults to continue could have been held accountable now they will not since the Republican control board failed to do their jobs currently we are still short on qualified staff our facilities are in dire need of repair
062our transportation system is a mess and we have 13 identified failing schools we have access to 1.5 billion dollars from the hospital sale that was promised to help our public schools and you all are ignoring that promise instead you are focusing on carrying out some cultural war between political parties you are elected to run our schools properly not run them into the ground do your jobs help all our students staff and communities not just a select few who supported you in your political campaign successes two words molasses George the lassets members of the board I'd like to ask that when you go home tonight you reflect on what the function of a board of education should be it seems to me that at least some members of this board have lost sight of their charge
063I would offer this as a starting point the purpose of a board of education is to establish policies that offer to every student in our Public School System the best possible education to prepare them for their future if you agree with that framework then I would hope you would see how some of your recent actions do not advance that goal Banning a book that focuses attention on one of the most critical conflicts in our society today does not prepare our young people to be productive members of a diverse Society discriminating against transgender students and others from marginalized groups does not help our young people appreciate all of our differences instead these actions weaken the ability of our Educators to do their job I'm a retired High School teacher your actions over the last several months
064are sending a loud and clear message to teachers like myself stay away at a time when it is increasingly difficult to recruit and keep staff at all levels this message will only add to our problems if I were asked to put together a program to weaken public education I couldn't have done a better job as I said previously our Schoolhouse is burning and unfortunately you have been throwing gasoline on the fire thank you human fall now please short-term suspension policy 4351 States no student under age eight or under grade 3 will be suspended out of school except in response to incidents involving violations of policy 4325 drugs and alcohol policy 4331 assaults and threats and policy 433 weapons bomb threats terrorist threats and clear threats to safety Based on data received from the office of
065communications there were 71 kindergarten first and second grade out-of-school suspensions during the past school year two were for possession of a weapon two were for communicating threats three were for fighting four were for assault one was for assault on a non-student without a weapon and one was for assault on a student without a weapon those are all serious infractions of the student code of conduct and I can understand why they receive suspensions so why did one get why did one kid get kicked out of school for insubordination and why was another child kicked out for being in an unauthorized area based on your policy those are minor infractions in fact the data shows there were at least 30 out of school suspensions of five six and seven year olds for minor infractions in violation of
066your short-term suspension policy this is one more reason why children deserve the right to have a parent present at the informal hearing before they are kicked out of school revised policy 4351 by using the data and have principles implemented in an equitable and just manner thank you [Applause] good evening the student code of conduct can be found in New Hanover County schools New Hanover County student handbook it includes a document that describes six levels of corrective and restorative responses quote the goals of assigning corrective responses and disciplinary action are to maintain a safe environment maximize all student learning and improve students behavior and problem solving skills level one is entitled classroom and bait and building based corrective responses it says quote level one corrective responses are appropriate for unacceptably unacceptable behavior that should be managed
067by the teacher in the classroom these behaviors are low level intensity and can be passive in nature and non-threatening examples of level one Behavior include inappropriate behavior being in an authorized unauthorized area and excessive excessive display of affection examples of level one corrective responses include a student conference a timeout and a behavior contract out of school suspension is not a level one response and yet New Hanover County data shows that last school year there were 18 out of school suspensions of kindergarten first and second graders for level one behaviors this is one reason why love our children shows up month after month to speak for our youngest Learners who do not have the right to have a parent present at an informal hearing where they can be kicked out of school revise short-term suspension policy
0684351 and stop suspending five six years and seven-year-olds for minor infractions [Applause] the book you voted to ban temporarily restrict says quote I wish I learned this history at your age but there were no books telling the complete story of racist ideas end quote when we don't teach the actual history of our country because it's uncomfortable we're choosing for Injustice to continue to be passed down whether because of race gender identity or sexual identity this board says it's protecting all students but the kids that need protecting are the ones experiencing racism and inequality they are the ones being silenced being told by your policies their experiences do not matter this band says loud and clear that the comfort of those in power is the most important it is not for those with the power the
069privilege of being straight and white it's easy to assume we know the truth about the past the present about other people but we can only know our experience reading teaches us through the experiences and talents of those different than us this board is silencing important conversations about race and about gender identity the equity diversity and inclusion committee has only discussed disabilities recently and that's important but there are many other student needs to be addressed I would like to ask the board members who attended williston's graduation recently why you attended what you learned from attending an event that was necessary because of racist policies and then voted to stop people from learning about that history you spoke of finding another book to balance out stamped what does that even mean we can't create an equitable Society
070until we learn our history of inequity it's time to do the uncomfortable messy work of learning from our past so we don't throw away everyone's future [Applause] I'm sorry [Applause] Sonia good evening my name is Sonya Bennington Patrick I'm with the national black leadership carcass and many of our members represent an estimate of about 80 black churches here in New Hanover County and surrounding areas the New Hanover and I'm responding to your decision on September the 1st 60 years after the March on Washington abandoned anti-racism book is a national political agenda to oppress black and brown children in the school system it was challenging for the African Americans to sit through that hearing and listen to Katie Gates the parent who filed the complaint and the four members who supported the band Gates expressed that
071there is no systematic racism in America she argued further that there should be another perspective in the book this statement is implicitly biased when the American history books have very little or no history about African Americans the hearing had an impact on the mental health of African Americans that were present the decision of New Hanover County board of education has divided the community in a faith-based church religiously and socially we are confused how a national non-fiction anti-racist bestseller can become educationally unsuitable for New Hanover County School Board the decision on September 1st have established a new chapter of racism in New Hanover County for the history books the black carcass would like to thank all those who stood in solidarity with us for we are descendants of those that were formally enslaved and many of
072our four parents bore the burden of segregation Jim Crow segregation and will still bearing it today God seeks high and he looks low there's only one race to human race and Only God is superior and he will have no other gods before him and he will not have any other races before him in the words of Dr Martin Luther King we must accept disappointment but never lose infinite hope thank you for listening [Applause] all right before I start I just want to say this is nothing personal it's just business good evening board I watched last week's meeting of the Katie Gates hearing hearing I thought you made the right decision although it's unfortunate that Mrs met Mrs Melissa Mason excuse me Mason's motion uh to get rid of the book stamp completely completely didn't go
073through didn't go through I thought that was a tragedy now on the other hand I heard a fellow member of Mr McMahon's say that getting rid of this book at schools would uh be offensive to the black community now what I would know is when did Mr McMahon's become a voice for the black community I'm from the black community and I find the bookstamp very offensive go ahead please I'm from the butt Community I found the book stamp very offensive my fellow Patriot Katie Gates does as well as well as many other Patriots who I've talked to talk to the context specifically is offensive to white people in questions questions as someone who has white people in their family and has white friends if they find it offensive then I also find an offensive offensive
074the other thing is that it is offensive to Christians which I have to be one of why is it according to Mr McManus that it's offensive to white people and Christians but it's not offensive to black people it should have never been in our public schools to begin with in the first place Tony black people does Mr McMahon know that support this book stamped now as I representative of the black community let me explain something we don't need this book to represent us especially a book that doesn't tell the truth about the true history of the USA this book doesn't represent me and it doesn't represent the black community just because we are black doesn't mean that we have to support all black everything everything I've had people get mad at me when I've said
075I don't support black lives matter because who are they married to there's a lot to discuss next time thank you Veronica Lauren Brown have you reviewed the latest data from the office communication on kindergarten to second grade out of school suspensions the level of detail is extensive there are filters that report which schools and staff are involved suspended children can be sorted by grade ethnicity and gender there are filters for English language Learners special education and gifted students out of schools suspension data can be started by 23 different student code of conduct infractions multiple years of data can be compared imagine the effectiveness of our school board policies if they were based on this kind of data data that would help us ask and answer important questions two years ago there were 73 out of
076school suspensions for kindergarten first and second grade last year there were 71 suspensions for the same group even though a new policy was implemented where our youngest Learners would only be suspended for serious offenses guns drugs assaults so why were 43 percent 43 percent of the out-of-school suspensions for kindergarten to second grade last year for reasons other than guns drugs and assaults why was a young child kicked out of school for excessive display of affection why was there only three percent drop out of school system three a three percent drop out of school suspension for five six and seven-year-olds from two years ago to last year the policy committee needs to undertake a thorough review of policy 43-1 and change it and allow students to have representation at out of school suspension hearing love our
077children North Carolina has asked each of you to meet with us to talk about the data we hope that you will thank you Miss Brown good afternoon my name is Jill Hoffman chair of the New Hanover County Democratic party and an immigration and human rights attorney for the past 15 years I regularly work with children during administrative proceedings and lately this board seems oddly intent in Walking smack into a very avoidable lawsuit I've listened to the testimony regarding short-term suspension policy 4351 and the district is basically saying well we don't want parents at disciplinary hearings because then they defend their children and things get messy or we already offer bear protection so shrug we can just ignore these other standard due process issues but how can a four to seven-year-old possibly understand what mitigation means
078or how to call a witness or how to request an adjournment without adult guidance you are going to get a sued what will the board do when a conservative student gets suspended for say writing slurs in a textbook or bullying an immigrant student or the first time an African-American parent with all the public disproportionality data to takes the district to task over discriminatory punishment you're on the record discussions will prove to a court that you could have prevented harm had you just instituted a simple policy to allow vulnerable students to have representation instead you're leaving a gaping loophole that can easily be closed and that would put everybody in a stronger and safer position for a board that ran on parental rights and one with such impressive credentials as we heard in detail on Friday
079it should understand that parents have a specific interest in protecting their kids from unnecessary and punitive actions that may ruin their Futures maybe this doesn't matter to the underqualified law firm that you overpay maybe they advised you to ignore this like they advised you to ban a book based on partisanship despite it being explicitly unconstitutional maybe it doesn't matter to you that Ms Gates misleadingly cited only to the dissent in Pico not the actual controlling Supreme Court law maybe you're going for a lawsuit or two for the press and precedent but it is the students teachers parents and taxpayers of New Hanover County who will ultimately pay the price thank you thank you [Applause] foreign my name is Dr Kimberly Hardy and as this is a purely political effort right now it makes sense and
080I stand before you as the second Vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic party the highest ranking African-American woman in North Carolina politics right now and I can tell you that uh while no one book speaks for any one particular population the book stamped isn't very accurate reflection of the history of African Americans and racism in this country I was here several weeks ago and listened to all of the arguments on both sides of this issue as a scholar does and at no point has a valid and educationally sound argument been made relative to a ban of this book the issue of parents rights which I can assure you is a former School social worker has never been in question and has always been in place was satisfied at the granting of the request for
081one person's daughter be to be excused from reading the book to enact a ban against the book at this request of one parent amounts to overreach and a violation of everyone else's parental rights as a mother I more than adequately am prepared to make decisions about my son's education and would not deign to let my personal or religious beliefs both of which have been used in support of this request for the ban be brought to bear on the choices of other parents if those in support of this band were approaching this issue in good faith and a genuine openness to an honest discourse on issues of race and racism toward the goal of healing awareness and Community solidarity these proceedings would not be necessary we are here today because of an ideological culture War designed
082to divide and distract us from the real issues impacting our children's education we must and can do better I refuse to believe that this assembly of people here tonight cannot find a more robust use of time and Collective voices than to stand in opposition to free speech fairness and honesty we started the proceedings tonight watching children of different races stand next to each other and sing about the promise of this nation and how dare we stand here now to ban a book that would teach those children to continue to stand beside each other as adults thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] good afternoon uh last week when she advocated to remove stamped a speaker expressed her belief that systemic racism is not real my question to her and to all of you here
083is what if it is surely you don't believe that systemic racism is not real what if we observe disproportionate retreatment toward people of color and especially toward African-American people as a sociologist I know that systemic racism is visible in racial disparities such as health disparities like disproportionate adverse outcomes for pregnancy or educational disparities such as suspension and expulsion practices in Educational Systems perhaps some of you will recall from the groundwater training at the racial Equity Institute that many of us attended we have ample data available that proves the reality of systemic racism in fact the inclusive economy report from the Cape Fear Collective points out that quote overt racism remains a barrier for residents of color it impacts children in public schools and is proof of systemic racism here what if instead of denying the
084fact that systemic racism is real we decided to take it more seriously as a community who cares about all of our children in school James Baldwin once said it not everything that his face can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced failing to tackle the ideas that drive systemic racism we ensure that it will continue to contaminate our community we have seen 125 years of pervasive systemic racism in this town we've seen 10 young people including students in our school system wrongly convicted and sent to prison when they protested systemic racism they experienced when integrating New Hanover County Schools I saw many of you at the Legacy graduation for Williston where we finally celebrated the students whose educational aspirations were denied by systemic racism we can do better as a community
085we can tell the truth we can reckon with it we can repair it and we can create a more Vibrant Community eating ever [Applause] to the four majority board members I'd like to congratulate you you have indeed upheld your promises to protect our children and ensure parental rights that you advocated for during your campaigns on Friday the decision that you made cements the fact that you are working to ensure the rights of a very select group of parents and that you picture in your mind a very select group of students worthy of protecting so congratulations yes you won on yet another battle in a well-orchestrated war across our state and Nation on educational Equity inclusion and representation in our schools two of those state level legislation pieces were referenced earlier tonight however sadly all of
086our children continue to be the losers in this politicized game which we have formally known as public education are these really the issues that are of most pressing priority for you as a board are we not worried about the crisis of mental health that's facing our students suicide overdoses that's happening that's real that's in our schools where's the five hour debate on those issues I would love to be invited to that as I'm sure other parents and teachers and community members would as well you have allowed one parent the opportunity to have unfettered access to you in a dialogue that disparaged the writings of a black author two authors and yet forgive me Miss Walker Miss crabill and Mr McManus I do want to thank you for all that you've done to try to uplift
087the needs of all of our students it doesn't go unnoticed I will say it's very disturbing to know that the board will be looking at a policy later tonight that will effectively vote to ensure that those debates are censured you're out of time [Applause] the Stackhouse yes ma'am good evening this past school year there were three out of school suspensions of kindergarten first grade or second grade students for showing disrespect to a member of the foul of the faculty or staff although showing disrespect is a problem it's a teachable moment No 5 6 or 7 year old should be kicked out of school for making that mistake in fact short-term suspension policy 4351 says no student under age eight will be suspended out of school except in response to incidents involving violations of the drugs
088and alcohol policy assault and threats policy the weapons bomb threats terrorist threats and clear threats of safety policy clearly showing disrespect is not part of any of those policies if our youngest students had the right to have a parent present at the informal hearing before it's decided the child will be suspended that parent could ask two important questions first which Positive Behavior Support Alternatives have you already utilized because the policy states that out of school suspensions will only be used as the last resort second did the child have drugs alcohol weapons make threats or was the child involved in an assault the data shows that there were at least 30 out of school suspensions of five six and seven-year-olds for which the answer to that question is no you cannot undo the harm that those
089children experienced but you can revise the policy what are you waiting for you can spend five and a half hours on a book thank you [Applause] good evening today I've come to pray first The Lord's Prayer Jesus said to pray like this Our Father Who Art in Heaven Hallowed Be Your Name let your kingdom come let your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil for yours is the kingdom yours is the power and yours is the glory forever and ever amen and Lord Jesus I do pray that your will be done here tonight at this meeting in our schools and in our
090community and I also want to pray a prayer out of Colossians 1. in Jesus name I pray you are filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding I pray you walk worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to him I pray you are first Jesus I pray you are fruitful in every good work I pray you increase in the knowledge of God I pray you are strengthened with all might according to his glorious power I pray you are patient and long-suffering with joy I pray you receive or have already received Jesus Christ as your lord and savior then you can give thanks to the father who has qualified you to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in the light I pray you know the power of the blood of
091Jesus to deliver you from the powers of darkness and convey you into the kingdom of the son of his love and I pray you know Jesus in whom you have Redemption through the blood your time is up thank you Ruth Hall so my name is Ruth Hull h-u-l-l and thank you very much for letting me speak tonight I appreciate it um your vote to remove the book stamped from our community's curricula has already had a profoundly negative impact on our community as a whole and particularly on our children they are being force-fed in our elementary schools through High School history classes and textbooks partial truths about our nation's history of racism and its institutionalization in our country and in this community in most classes no mention is made of the cultural biases or any inaccuracies
092of the textbook themselves yet even a cursory look at any of them will reveal many perhaps you should look at them with the same scrutiny with which you have supposedly looked at stamped and please go back and look at the actual complaints against this book especially those stating that sources were misquoted or twisted and look up the sources and read them yourselves you will find that the text holds true to the sources on its interpretations and quotations the authors do make their own conclusions about impacts and meaning but those are based upon the sources themselves and actual events the deliberate twisting of facts is being done by those who oppose the inclusion of this book in our classrooms our history books in this District still do not present much of the truth regarding the enshriment
093of black enslavement in our U.S and individual stake constitutions the history of slavery preceding our country's founding or how our government and societal institutions have perpetuated the effects of slavery through to our present day your search for a and I'm going to do quotes here balance to stamped can be found in our District's history textbooks by the time our children are in an AP class they have been steeped in this balance and an aside here there were many assertions that the content was not the issue miss all your time is up foreign [Applause] good evening my name is Dr Timothy Merrick and I'm here to talk about the decision the incredible decision that you made last week but I'm going to let others talk about the inanity of the reasoning behind your suspension instead tonight
094I want to call you out for some of the worst governance that I have witnessed in a board of your size and stature I have been a member of many non-profit and educational boards over the years the most important lessons I've learned were about governance how this board comports itself in relationship to the superintendent the teachers the staff the students and the parents is vitally important you do not enter the classroom you are not teachers you have no place there you are in charge of hiring and causing to be higher than many people who do the fine work for this District you ensure that there are policies and procedures in place you hold others accountable for the following those said policies this is called governance look it up Ms Gates who went through all the
095proper channels in regard to her complaints about the book stamped the professionals you hired are caused to be hired did their jobs according to your policies and procedures her complaints to you should have been referred to appropriate channels in fact they were and those channels were taken up and no required action would be taken but you decided to take up this case in a Monkey Trial to that completely disregards your own procedures and shows your distrust or disrespect for the people you have hired your superintendent did he fail to do his job if not your place is to work with him your job is not to take the instance of one parent and my time is up so I thank you [Applause] wow this is my third school board meeting ever and all right here
096and after 24 people commenting I'm saddened um and I'm in awe of all you board members who are taking your time to run for office your precious time here all the staff you're all here you're listening this is the Democratic way to listen to the concerns and then tough decisions have to be made and so I'm here to encourage con prayer for every meeting of the school board because we need prayer after what I have just witnessed tonight we need with God's wisdom and guidance and everything we do when I look back at history of this country the pilgrims ask for guidance God's wisdom George Washington asked for guidance and wisdom before his constituents in the Civil War he has Abraham Lincoln asked for guidance and wisdom Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked for guidance and wisdom
097a Democratic president for term consistently on record asking for God's wisdom and guidance in all our presence since then have asked upon God's wisdom guidance and so I ask for continued prayer for God's wisdom and guidance from this board humbly because we need wisdom and so I thank you for serving and giving your time thank you all right thank you very much thank you for everyone who has spoken today we are going to continue um with our information section board members we need to take a five minute break we're good we do okay we will take a five minute break um I have 8 41 so we please return to the dice by 8 45. we oh yeah yeah let me hold my watch a little further out 6 41 please remove return by 6
09845 yeah yeah same same kind of numbers I was like please don't take us back please if we get asked the board members to come back to the dice please thank you very much board members and just by myself all right well there's two of us we're getting closer well I thought we had two she kept going all right let me see board members we want to continue so board members if you make your way up please once we get four we'll start it up and she just kept going we got four or six all right that gives us four uh if we could have the audience have a seat please thank you we're gonna go ahead and carry on our next item S one two three yeah we got four yeah all right we're
099going to continue with our information section uh again those in the audience if you will please have a seat thank you uh we are going to ask Dr face to come forward oh my goodness look at that I look up and she's there already thank you Dr Faison we will let you carry on good evening and I will be very brief I just want to take the time to let um our audience know about our first grade reading buddies program so we actually have um we're working with another Community to have first grade reading buddies in every elementary school that's awesome so what I want those of you who are listening and those of you who are here and I noticed that some of your names are not on the sheet back there I look
100I think I look but some others are not sorry so we have a sheet in the back and we ask that you please sign up if you cannot sign up and you're not here please go online and what we're asking with our first grade reading buddies is you will just give some of your time to about 30 minutes a week to read with a first grader to listen to a first grader this will be very beneficial in our literacy Journey so just want to remind you of that and let you know you can sign up tonight and I'll take any questions but I really want if you have not volunteered in your list saying please give your time to support our schools I mean it's 30 minutes a week to really get invested with our
101literacy program and we'll appreciate it Dr face and I want to say that I think this is outstanding you know we've talked about reading reading is fundamental you know we've all heard that and we put a kind of a line in the sand for third grade reading but if they don't get it in first grade then they're always behind so I appreciate this very much board members Mr crabill so um if they didn't come tonight to put their name down you know for you to contact how do people um do they contact a school do they contact you do they contact our Communications Department so we can get background checks and all that stuff they can do all three whatever their choice they can actually reach out to their school we also have it on
102our website they can reach out to our Communications Department Miss Gene Hall is also partnering with that and they can reach out to her so I think most parents who would probably be interested in this will probably be comfortable with contacting their child's school so they can do that any way we just do the volunteer check and we're hoping to get started in October and we want to make sure that all of our schools have some first grade reading buddies we're going to start we know not with every first grader having one but I'm gonna be honest we really want to be the first County that can say every student in first grade has a reading buddy and I just believe in New Hanover County we can do it so that's why you're going to
103hear us talk about it over and over again because we are a district and a community that supports and this is what we need and we know our community will rise to the challenge Mrs Barnhart I was going to say for the people listening you go to our New Hanover County schools and you can click on the community Tab and looking the second block down that's how you can sign up online to do the reading buddies and this is a great program to prevent Community engagement Miss Bradford thank you Dr Faison how many first graders do we have oh you've got me Dr Barnes look that up really quick for me how many first graders or um are we short well we have not I can tell you right now we are short tremendously because
104initially we just want to make sure we get it so it's in every school the next phase is so that every school every child has it so our first push was to make sure that every school has a a reading a program so we're we're not at the point we're not close to having every school at this point I mean every student at this point 1800 ish and you can actually you can actually go to a school and read with several first graders and and let's be real you probably can read with two or three first graders in a 30-minute time block um and you know so you're not we're not asking for a lot of time we're just asking for a commitment because our students do look forward to this so if you're going
105to do this we ask that you'll be committed to them Miss Walker thank you um so this is ongoing this is for the whole year you're asking right 30 minutes per week for a whole year I would just say um that this is a great program this is a great way for anybody out there listening that wants to get involved that doesn't know what to do this is an easy easy thing to do and it's very very rewarding thing to do um you know you can be a parent you can be retired whatever you need but we really need to get involved with our schools and this is a great way not only to do that but to actually become part of the community in our schools it is one of our part of our
106strategic plan to do so that's really from our side when I say that but it's um it's very important I used to do it it was I used to do it with my children at their schools and um anything you can do to help us Elevate um you know volunteerism period and also reading is is essential so anybody listening if you and you can come up to any one of us too and ask us if you're not clear about how to do it we'll be able to help you my question is how great of an oven for those who are bilingual students whether it's Spanish or sign language or I I know we had acute speech transliterator here this evening um how how big is that need that's a large need but I will tell
107you what we've done with this program is we actually want all of our first graders to receive this so the principals have the autonomy at this point in time to select where they begin but I could you know that's a great need um definitely but we whether you are one of our struggling readers um or a top reader we still want you to have that opportunity to be able to increase your reading capacity with one of our community members all right Miss Gribble take us home so I know that we have um encouraging to have protected you know core instruction time so is there a time of the day that you think um so that people are planning they may not be able to come in the morning or they may not be able to
108come in the afternoon so um is there a suggested time frame for for folks great question the the thing about it is I would say reach out to your school because first grade reading is going to be at different times during the different day different schools so the principals would work that in and it it will look different at each school so reach out I would imagine that each principal will be able to find a time that will work with you and work with some of our first graders and we're going to carry on with Mr engine thank you Dr thank you so much awesome we're looking forward to that April of this year the board authorized us to proceed with a demographic and facility utilization study we contracted with Cropper GIS and McKibben demographic
109research and we're going to present the findings of that study tonight before I introduce the speaker I want to just ask that one if you don't mind if you could hold your questions to the end of the presentation I would appreciate it is this presented for information only we're not here to take any action on this and I'm sure there'll be a lot of discussion in the upcoming weeks and months so take some time with this information read it on your own digest it and feel free to reach out to myself and Dr Faust with questions and ideas for next steps so at this point I'll turn it over to Matthew Cropper with Cropper GIS and he'll give the presentation thank you okay thank you Mr Anderson members of the board Dr Faust thank you
110for the opportunity to be here tonight Matthew Cropper with Cropper GIS Consulting I was here a few months ago talking about this project that we were working on and I'm here tonight to give you an overview of our findings and the results of our study so just to recap as Mr Anderson said we were hired to develop an updated demographic study a 10-year enrollment forecast for every single school by grade look at that demographic study in the forecast enrollment as it relates to utilization or school capacity and so we've got some things to share with you on that in this document and then develop some recommendations as it relates to uh to address the long-term facility needs for this County so a utilization forecast is basically looking at forecasted enrollment as like I said as
111it relates to building capacity so when you look at utilization utilization means uh how full is the building it's 100 if it's full it's 100 utilized we take took that forecast enrollment compared to capacity and then put it on a 10-year time chart and we've color coded the time chart uh to give a good visual depiction of over utilization or where there may be some excess capacity so everything that's a darkest green symbolizes areas that have more capacity all the way up to the deepest red or areas that have the most critical overcrowding which is over 105 percent um and the the darkest green is under 65 percent this is hard to see because it's of course on a projection screen but as you can see one of the big takeaways with this is there's
112a lot of deep red there is a lot of overcrowding that exists in this district there are some Pockets where there is some available capacity but um looking at just trying what this tells me is that you cannot solve the challenges of overcrowding in this County by just moving boundaries you need to address uh the overcrowding by adding capacity into Key Parts throughout this County we have a map here that kind of puts that table into a map format that kind of gives you a little bit of better visual of how utilization looks across your county so this is Elementary current utilization and you can see most of it's red and red and dark red and pink you do have some pockets of green that exist throughout in some parts of the county but as
113you look at the next five years you can see it starts to get more red and pink and not as much green and then the 10-year forecast shows more red with some pockets of green so looking at middle schools it's more of the same what we've seen and high schools there's really no no way to resolve or relieve overcrowding just by moving boundaries just because the capacity does not exist if you look at all the seats in the county versus all the students you just don't have enough capacity so moving boundaries is most likely just going to move an overcrowding situation from one school to another again looking at the map charts you could see this is the current Middle School utilization and then if you go to a five and ten year window you
114could see it's it's not going to get any better the overcrowding exists here in in the county now and it's not the demographic forecast does not show relief through population enrollment decline looking at your high schools again current and then a five-year and a 10-year shows some some areas are green but mostly if uh overcrowding and if you look at it as a whole again there's not enough capacity to resolve and bring everything into the green which sometimes we see that in districts but that does not exist here in New Hanover County um so basically our summary of our findings is that there is overcrowding at all levels um boundary changes alone are not going to resolve the issues with your schools as it relates to that uh it does require Capital Construction adding capacity
115at all three levels to help address the overcrowding try to get your schools more into the green uh per se and this is not a matter of uh of building for students that you are anticipating this is a matter of building for students that are here now so it's not a matter of if we build it they will come this is build it because they are here and that's really what uh what my takeaway was and and as a result of this uh this exercise looking at school utilization and balances our next step was to try to determine what could be done or what what could be done to help balance out utilization and to to pressure test uh different things that have been identified by the by the county and capital and construction and
116to see how does that work is it enough is it going to give you a relief and what could it provide some balance of utilization in your in your county this just shows um uh the the color coding on here really is looking at things as it relates to the average utilization so anything that is green tells me that if this is Elementary any school that is shown in green or within 10 percent of the county average of utilization if it's yellow that school is between 10 to 15 percent high or low from what you're compared to your total uh utilization at the elementary level and anything red is over or under 15 utilization as you compare that to the county utilization for elementary school it doesn't mean that any sometimes you'll see green cells
117that are over a hundred percent and that doesn't necessarily mean that that's it's not an overcrowded situation it's just pairing it as it relates to all the other schools really looking in terms of how Equitable is the utilization in the in the county and is where are the imbalances this is the first step we do when we start looking at ways to provide relief for schools and you'll see we've also included with and without Portables so you can understand how the Portables that you have uh throughout the county are providing relief again middle and high schools you could see the middle school at the top a lot more green on the right side that just shows that with the Portables that you have in play are helping to provide a better balance of utilization and
118providing the relief they need and then your high schools have some imbalances as well as well so one of the things that we were looking at was talking I talked with the district and said you really can't boundary change your way out of the situation and got a list of the information that they were considering for Capital Improvements and I plugged those in to a model to see how could it how could it look as it relates to providing relief and and is it enough or is it being done in the right spots to provide relief that we um that you're trying to help resolve and this includes building a new elementary school with 525 seat capacity near Williams and that new Elementary will be paired with Williams Elementary School so you'd have a Pre-K
1192 servings in one building and then third through fifth grade in another building and it would be one large Zone Pine Valley rebuilt in the same site with a larger capacity Porter's Neck expanded to 700 Masonboro and Alderman both expanded by 130 seats bringing them up and then building a new middle school on the ctec property for a thousand capacity and then using that Trask Middle School that you have right now and converting it into High School space and using that for Laney High School so that's re repurposing that building and using it for high school bringing Laney up to 2500 seats so as you can see what we did some modeling and just to show proof of concept and you could see as with Elementary School with the capacity editions that have been identified
120it does bring most of your schools into into the green some in the yellow that new Elementary School you see is was left low intentionally because um that that provides the ability to offer a pre-k program at that building so once Pre-K gets offered in that building that will bring that up to a green per se utilization so um so it does show that at the elementary level the the capital projects that have been identified do provide relief and you can balance utilization in an effective manner and then for middle and high school as well like I said re uh building that new middle school and the ctec property and then repurposing Trask uh for your high school space does uh does provide balance of utilization and give you the relief that you need um
121one thing to note with the rolling grice is it's it shows that up at 106 there percent but that school does have an eight classroom modular and Murray has a four classroom modular which can remain to help provide some additional capacity relief to those buildings um we also tested other things like how would it impact your feeder patterns and doing so helps provide a great Improvement to your feeder pattern continuity and that's elementaries progressing to a middle school and then middle schools to a high school trying to make sure that that's efficient and if you have to split a school make it a balance split try to try to avoid like a five percent of Elementary going to one school and 95 to another and so we did show and were able to demonstrate an
122improvement in your feeder patterns your middle to high schools as well you could get to a lot more clean feeders and not as many feeder pattern splits in particular three-way splits from middle to high school can resolve a lot of those and you have a lot of opportunity here with uh the the Capital Construction that's been been identified what we're looking at and this just a proof of concept is that you're doing so with this Capital Construction and and helping the right size the district you could potentially impact around 1500 elementary students 350 middle and 950 high school students so it's not a small task it's something that would take a lot of effort to get done but it's something that I feel is absolutely necessary for the students in this County so just to
123summarize uh that concept that I that I developed demonstrates that it can that all the pla the plan capacity additions uh can be fully leveraged and utilized to help provide relief to schools across the county even those that don't have a capacity um uh project planned it's uh it can be done in spots where you can equalize enrollment and help make things uh provide relief to all schools even with the new added construction you'll still still be operating near 100 so what has been identified is not I would say an aggressive Capital plan it's really a conservative plan and you're still even with the building adding space to your schools you're still going to be operating about 100 percent so that's certainly no um that's that's not an aggressive uh asking for too much to
124to to get this done um and this District's plan will leverage all of the existing implant space without much extra and again the the just to recap it's really something that's needed for the students that are here now not for forecast enrollment but this is a need that is that is here now for the students that are that you're serving right now and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have we'll remember any questions I think it's very concerning what you just said that this is only looking at the capacity infecting now because that's not allowing us any wiggle room for uncertainty so if we're looking at potentially expanding different things my my biggest question I'm concerned with Portables and safety when we're seeing the S capacity so I'm grateful that
125there's room but there's also a concern with that when we're adding those to properties but then the other question becomes do we have the possibility to vertically expand and how many of our schools would allow us that possibility to allow pasting capacity increase you so um I think we're going to be limited on vertical expansion but the majority of our schools and sites and campuses have space where we can add on most all of our schools or all of our schools that have been built since 1999 have a core space that's larger than the number of classrooms the building capacity so that we and and we did that anticipating mobiles or additions to that campus so we've taken that into consideration in the design of those buildings and I think a lot of our older
126campuses actually have uh have larger sites so yes we can we can definitely look at other expansions and one thing I'd like to mention when you know looking at the utilizations this is without mobiles and we do that purposely in planning because um be quite honest we've had some mobiles that have served us well but it is time for them to be retired and so just keep that in mind and looking at these numbers and also in this proof of concept this is this is just one of many different uh variations um you know if we want if we decide we want to lower the utilization get closer to 85 than 100 or or if we want to look at building larger schools that um you know than what we propose we can certainly do
127that this is just this is based off the the school data that we've constructed schools over the past 10 years but that's not written in stone and this is just one proof of concept there could be many more variations forever um Mr Anderson I'm missing something here I've added the elementary capacity the middle the high and then I've added the draft concept estimates and it's lower than our enrollments um by a couple thousand students so what am I missing so this doesn't include Pre-K or open enrollment sites this is only looking at schools that have boundaries per se when we're working through it which there are a number that do not that make up that difference so I think Eden and Coddington alone would pretty pretty come pretty close to making up that difference the
128other questions board members this book it doesn't matter I didn't see you this is a lot to take in I appreciate you doing this so this is definitely a discussion we're going to need to have very soon um especially now that you're telling us we're already pretty full um I guess I had a question technically about the the downtown schools primarily what we're not calling magnet schools right now that are way underutilized I know you made the comment that um that districting is not going to really help I guess in the long term short term though maybe it would help I mean I don't really know our policy is that if you don't or you're districted to say Snipes you don't have to go to Snipes or you're districted to a particular school it's about
129the choice if you decide you want to change schools did you guys look at any of that I mean I don't really know if you look at our policies as far as that's concerned there there we did there is some opportunity for uh adjustments um Snipes is the really the only school that has some excess capacity to work with if if you look at the others they show in the green but you're really talking about 60 70 seats to work with before they get into the pink and so there is some opportunity I would just say that it's important to keep in mind the minimizing the impact and doing something and try to minimize the movement of students if you're going to move students and you're going to move them sooner than later make sure
130that they don't have to be mindful of them when you start to look at a larger Capital plan and have to move a lot more students to not impact them again so just be mindful of the movement of communities more than one time as you work towards providing relief to all your schools yeah thank you Mr Cropper I have a couple questions for you the um so in some of the pictures well the the graphics you were showing us about the green areas especially in the northern part of our County are those areas of land developable is that not even a word the but like a lot of it might be Marsh and so it looks big but it's really not correct there is a lot of territory land up there that that probably will
131not have residential development on it certainly not all of that area that you see Castle Hayne is one that sits in the northern part and it shows in green at the early and the early Maps but then when you look at the five and ten year Maps it starts to go into the paint and so there is ongoing development up there that's occurring and it's eventually going to further fill that that building in those buildings up in the north but to answer your question yes there is a lot of land and you look at these large zones that is Marshland Wetland lowlands that are probably not going to develop ever so I'll just add to that one of the controlling factors in that part of the county is availability of water and sewer and I
132understand it will be expanded into that area and when that happens while development is going to occur fast okay yeah the um so I was looking at the when looking at your figures for the Mason Borough that area seems to be growing pretty fast is 130 seats um enough for the the pace that it's growing so we're looking at expansion of Bradley Creek and Masonboro the 130 seats may not be enough but again if we're if we're designing a school for 500 we're designing the core capacity for 700. if we get over that core capacity it's going to overload restrooms media centers cafeterias and just the site in general I mean if you've driven down Masonboro Loop Road you know what traffic conditions are like already so we do you know we do want to
133be mindful of that and you know not over build on a particular site like I'm kind of tagged on to what you were just talking about Miss cravel I would kind of like to see a more aggressive approach in some of our areas like did not plan for just what we have to have a little bit be proactive I know many of us have inherited the problem with Porter's Neck Elementary and just how much growth that they're seeing and so many questions so many times the question has been asked why wasn't it just built bigger and so I think that's something that we need when we're looking into this the investment and we're discussing with our County Commissioner is that we should be cognizant and maybe be a little bit more proactive and I like
134to see that in reflected in the plants as we discuss further all right Ms Graybill the all right so when we're looking at this I know you've said a couple times that we can't just you know whack-a-mole it and move the kids around but we've got to have some more stuff so um does this plan two things um I had the opportunity you know years ago you know to be on the school building um Team where we talked about the um the necessary requirements that we need at elementaries middles and high schools so um when we're talking about making our schools bigger is there a standard of some sort that we don't want to go over for the size of elementary schools for all the infrastructure reasons that you just mentioned but also for if
135we get too big then we have to have another AP and another this and that you know to because our schools are big so is there anything like that that we need to you know be cognizant of well we do have educational specifications that do um provide number of classrooms capacities sizes spaces and so forth I can't remember the last time that was updated but it's been at least 10 years it's been 15 at least and I I think that you know if schools are a reflection of the community we are growing more and more dense and whether we like it or not at some point our schools are going to have to do the same because you just just we're the second smallest county in the state and you know there's the availability of
136land is going to catch up with us so I guess the next question would be to Mr Anderson we're going to put figures to all of this perhaps money figures to all of this and I mean the recommendations that are given and probably have to present at some point to the Commissioners and I know they're having active conversations about this right now but I guess also my next question that's the same as that is the effect of legislation and on Charter Schools I don't know if that's going to affect enrollment numbers to a point where Commissioners might be looking at it differently I mean y'all are projected Mr Cropper that we are going to grow regardless of that um well the Assumption in the demographic study is that Charter Schools will not expand to that
137to that degree okay so if there is a change in state policy and they open up charter schools and it brings a large influx of Charter enrollment that will certainly have an impact on our forecast so I guess Mr Anderson I guess that was the sorry I meant that I did a piggyback but like the The Next Step here for us is the school district um so yes I mean the next step is to to have some conversation with senior leadership in the board I think there's some questions that we've asked tonight that deserve further conversation about the size of our schools and then what is our Target utilization rate so we can address some of those questions and then you're exactly right we're gonna then start um you're finalizing list of improvements uh locations
138and cost estimates so as we're talking through this question comes to mind um a 10 year ago redistricting plan you know proximity of students to school from their home and so we did a whole redistricting plan where in neighborhood School kind of thing so is there any thought to um that you know like suppose I live here but um equidistance from here to here can some of this be resolved by just draw on the line that say I live on this side of the street I go here I go live on this side of the street I go here um I would say just in looking at it generally um and and Matt looked at it as well him and his team um there is very little Improvement that you could make by minor modifications
139in District Lines is that fair that's correct yes so would this mean that we might also have to look at the location of some of our choice specialty schools like our year-round schools that maybe we need to have a real not a real school that's not pardon me year-round people you're a real school um we need to have a Traditional School in an area that we right now have a specialty school would some of that come into play as we're talking you I said before we took those uh open enrollment schools out of the equation so we haven't looked at that um I I don't think that it's going to have much of an impact because you know our year-round schools are not multi-track so whether it's year-round or whether it's a traditional you're you're
140going to have the same number of students either way but some some students may not some parents may not want their their children to go to a school if it's located in a certain area which we found with our year-round Middle School option when we were trying if anything that's helping us at this point okay thank you all right Mr Cropper thank you so much for your time today I'm sure we'll have a lot more discussions about this in the weeks and months to come so thank you board members I think it's with the idea of looking at this very closely is a great idea uh let us continue with our consensus items is there a motion to pass the consensus items emotions are second second first and second any discussion if not all in
141favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed passes six zero we will continue uh Miss Nobles is here and we're very excited to have her she is our former teacher of the year and she um region oh I'm sorry yes yes Regional yes let me thank you but also point of order we're not following the agenda would I skip it's supposed to be policies thank you I apologize yes I'm jumping ahead once again skipping skipping so we have our policies for the first reading and Miss Nobles I do apologize for that uh we'll turn that over to Ms Barnhart yes there are two policies for first reading and I apologize when you're looking I was looking at my notes for the automatic notification messaging system in the policy that you see it should have
142crossed out phone and text and it should say automatic notification messaging at the top and then our committee also discussed adding the language at the end of the first paragraph the school system will offer multiple forms of language communication in the notification process other than that that is the only change I sell on that for five zero zero eight and again these are for first reading so uh there's no action needed at this point uh again we will carry on policy amendments uh no we didn't I had questions about um we need to talk about the new proposed policy for opening invocations before regular board meetings crabill yes so um if we could pull that up on the screen that would be helpful there it is okay so um one of the things that I
143wanted to bring to our attention is that um throughout the process of it's number five um letter B number five in the event no invocational speaker signed up for a particular meeting a board member May provide an invocation and I um and vehemently opposed to that option that I would prefer that we have a moment of silence rather than having a board member um do a prayer or um in a religion that may not be appropriate for all of us here in the audience but um and also maybe we could even um just read an inspirational you know passage I had to do that several times when I was the board chair and I just you know Googled inspirational School passages so I just don't think that our board members need to get in the
144habit of um giving invocations when our board clerk will have developed a big list and you know she's been very successful in reaching out to our faith-based communities and getting somebody every single time so I don't know why we would move away from that Miss Mason I also have a problem not a problem but concerns um with that exact number and it's not um I grew up going to church and our pastor never talked politics and he didn't talk politics because he was a leader um I taught for 13 years in an elementary through high school classroom I never talked religion or politics with my students because I was in a position of authority I think that we sit up here in a position of authority and I though it may be legal I'm not
145sure of the ethical ramifications of it because we do have a position of authority and when you have that position you do have the power to influence and I think we need to be very careful of that another discussion Ms Walker I just want to add my half a cent in I'm I have a problem with number five as well with all the things that were said here I don't think we need to start venturing into this I actually don't even know why we need this policy um I don't know if it was recommended it doesn't really matter I guess but we've been doing fine the way we have been doing I just want to just voice my concern with number five so I guess if anybody else out there that is listening and we
146have this is first reading it's not going to be passed tonight so any other concerns you probably want to just let us know and it will be you can I just add one more thing for us to look at I'm just one as the as the policy committee comes back together is I'm wondering why we need to codify the exact announcement um in there um I know that um in the email that I sent you guys when the after the first policy committee meeting that there are only six out of 82 ncsba sponsored boards not sponsored but um supported boards and two of those the only reason they're on the list is because they mention invocation you know and there's nothing in the policy other than invocation but the others two of them are from
147large districts that have bylaws and this comes straight out of um bylaws that two of our larger school districts use they may have some reasons that they need to do that but I'm just thinking that we don't necessarily need that especially when it's um says in in the second paragraph the religious leaders are chosen leaders of any assembly that periodically worships or regularly meets in New Hanover County for the purpose of worshiping or discussing their religious perspectives are invited for a brief invocation um so it's it's just what are we going to call religion you know like we're going to get into the Scientology you know definition of religion who's going to decide if they are religious enough um and then we're down here in the non-affiliation with any faith based or religious denomination they
148are allowed to speak too so if we're putting it in our message that you must be worshiping or discussing religious perspectives and then we're saying that you don't have to be doing that so we're kind of contradicting ourselves in there and then I just was hoping that Mr Vogel could give us a little bit of an overview on what this legal reference was that the Town of Greece North Carolina versus Galloway and Marsh versus Chambers um what why are these cases important to this policy Mr Vogel those are both United States Supreme Court cases that establish the proposition that school boards or city council boards can provide an invocation at the start of a meeting for the purpose of conveying the solemnity of the of the meeting and they set forth various ways in which
149a board can properly have an invocation that is consistent with the first amendment's Establishment Clause so those are important precedents interpreting the first amendment that bind the entire country I I guess at least the question I asked before why do we have this policy now why now maybe that's a question for our legal team who decided to bring this policy forward chairman of the yeah I will address that so we had an ACLU complaint and there had been um conversations in the community about what is the process and procedure and there had been alluding to the fact that certain members of certain Faith affiliations were chosen over others and so I had discussed is is there a format that we could model so that we have everybody on the same playing field and so that
150was the discussion of Bring It forth this is a first reading so my understanding I mean I'll make a motion to send this back to policy and take the suggestions of the board um if anyone wants to step out the motion is there a second second second first and second any further discussion so the motion in front of us again is to bring it back to policy so that they can take the suggestions by the board and use them so we have a first and second yeah I just wanted to ask too um when we're taking it back so to give to give circuit wasn't cited as a legal reference hello no particular reason it's a case of the United States court of appeals for the forest circuit is within our jurisdiction and and binds
151our actions as well so I would like to see that you know um included since that's that is most relevant to the work that we do within our community it's not necessarily most relevant but it is case precedent thank you Bradford so Mr chair I would like to um ask the attorney the point with I thought the point with of this was to make sure that what we were doing would fit the legality of it so that we were because your job is to advise us to stay on the right side of the law and is that what this is doing did I misunderstand Google no that's precisely um the task um Miss Barnhart the chair of the policy committee asked me to provide a proposed policy that would keep the board in legal compliance
152in conformance with First Amendment and I surveyed the different policies in various other school boards in North Carolina researched the First Amendment precedence at the U.S Supreme Court and U.S court of appeals level and and provided a proposed policy for the policy committee's review in order for the board if it chooses to to have invocations that comply with the United States Constitution First Amendment okay so we have a first and second furnace we have one minute left in our a lot of time for this all in favor of taking um get the right one here and returning that to um policy committee and passing uh or allowing 58-0 excuse me five zero zero eight to continue on for second reading next month please signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed okay so 23 15
153we'll go back to policy 55008 will move on for a second reading next month I just had a question about that policy that we just I think Ms Barnard said there were changes that weren't on here is there um is there a way we can make sure the correct um yes and I'll repeat those changes I apologize Mr chairman um it should be titled automatic notification messaging and when you see it displayed in the recap it says it correctly but then the document upload was not notif with the change and then the other sentence that we added after the last after the first paragraph excuse me was the school system will offer multiple forms of language communication and the notification process and the conversation that came in policy for that justification we have a heavy
154Hispanic population but then we also reach different thresholds um German Ukraine whatever whenever we get to a certain threshold in the district to make sure the length the translation options that we have are available so people can opt in to basically get their messaging in different languages in the county okay thank you for that I just want to make sure the correct versions up here for everyone that's all okay all right so we'll continue with policy amendments back to Ms Barnhart yes and like I brought forth before and the agenda review there was two change two small changes in policy 2123 it should be Carolinas with an s and then 2120 B24 should change subcommittees to just committees and it would be adding also the cross references to the board committee and policy 2230. with
155that I would make a motion to accept the policy amendments as second presented the second discussion we already discussed at a general review where we holding some of those policies for discussion I know I asked for 2120 I think Ms gray will ask for 2123 is that correct do we want to pull those off yes sir you said 2120 yes 23. 21 23 all right so with the exception of 21 20 and 21 23 we have a motion in a second I make a motion to pass all but 2120 and 21 23. second first and second um all in favor please again in front of us is everything but 21 20 21 23 uh all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed pass the six zero let's start with 21 20 please
156do you would you like for me to start this discussion or would you like from his partner why don't you start once you start since you had it pulled off okay thank you sir I um gosh I have so many problems with this policy um I know originally when we had asked for it to be sent back to policy committee it was um hopefully to may have made it better but I do not think it is better at all I think and in fact I think it's even worse than it was when we asked for it to be sent back so I guess what I'm asking for is why there's a lot of red in here a lot of red and I'm just asking why maybe the policy committee or the majority felt like it
157was okay to put lines such as we will criminally prosecute you if we find you unethical I just don't know how that's conducive to getting along as a board and why someone felt that need to put that in there in in what guidance legally would someone like your hands well I'm just gonna I think oh you're on the policies go ahead yeah no I was just going to say that I questioned that myself when we already have a policy that discusses that policy 2116 removal from office so um I think that the paragraph that Miss Walker was referring to is using pretty intimidating language in order to keep some board members um from speaking but if we are if we're making criminal choices then yeah but we already have a policy that deals with that
158so why do we have to have it in this policy Bradford I would just Mr chair asked it to make the request of the attorney because I believe that that came from the recommendation of what we should do and the legality of it I don't understand it but you know just local that particular sentence uh to which Ms Walker Ms crabill were referring is not legally required it's a sentence that at least one other school board in North Carolina had included in this type of policy that followed a paragraph like the paragraph that precedes it here about potential consequences for um for violations of of ethical conduct but it is completely discretionary I mean the the statute says what it says it could be included in the policy or it could be excluded from the
159policy it's not legally required can I ask what other school district does this uh I don't have a a list on the top off the top of my head but I do recall at the very least reviewing a board policy from Cleveland County thank you sir um well it I I imagine you guys on policy committee got legal advice to put this in here based on I guess Cleveland County but y'all did not have to put it in here and so my question is do you why do why does the policy committee feel like we need a line like this in our policy what it what do we feel I've heard I've heard um opinions about accountability which this won't do this is not going to make board members more accountable for what I don't
160know there's some pretty lengthy stuff added in here as well about what we can and can't do which I think borderline's on you know not allowing us to be able to speak our minds which we are elected to do by many many people so I'm just confused period by this I I don't know y'all are trying to pass this now but I don't think it's ready to be passed right now because I think it's awful I think it's worse than the first one so what do we need to do here to help Rectify this I would and well to answer your question we would entertain a motion so that we can do you know something with this Bradford MS crabill MR chairman I move that we adopt policy 2120 removing the paragraph or the you
161know there's two sentences that we're discussing a board member's willful failure to discharge with the the general statutes reference removing that from it and passing it um and I'm since I'm going to be out of time if I don't do this now I think Friday was a perfect example of why we need this um we had personal attacks on board members um we we the we're trying to limit the amount of time we spend in these meetings and yet we probably had a good 20 minutes that was sucked up by that of the five hours that we were here um Robert's Rules of Order is something that we have adopted as policy and so it's not an all our cart menu you can't pick and choose which part of Roberts you want it's either all
162or nothing and so if we want to do away with Robert's Rules of Order as the way we conduct our meetings we can just have the wild west here that will work just fine but it's a process for debate it was created so that everyone had a chance to speak it creates ground rules for us but it's not about you and it's not about what you want to have or whatever you want and it's about maintaining decorum and all marks are required oh remarks are required to come through the chair we're not supposed to dress each other by name we're certainly not supposed to to to to make negative remarks about our fellow board members Roberts Rules of Order says the fact that you think someone is an idiot doesn't give you the permission to
163say that from this Deus there seems to be some confusion over the fact that we operate by majority rule there's seven people on this board and whatever the majority decides is what goes for the last two years it was a six one or six to a 5-2 vote and no one complained no one complained that Mr wildebear never got a vote to go through and he was polite the entire time he kept his decorum he never made attacks against other board members we've had some things happen in the last couple of months that that have been really interesting and we're going down the wrong path we need to have some accountability we have accountability at every level of the school district every level there's accountability except in this body we hold our staff to a
164high standard we hold our students to a high standard but here it's anything goes if you've got the guts to pull it off you can do it and it's time that stopped it's a time that we had some accountability I'm not going to go on to some of the things that happened in the last couple of months I'm not going to list them out because that's embarrassing to me to even think that they happened but we need accountability this school district has had a new superintendent for three years we were in a bad place before we before he got here we've got a whole lot going on for ourselves but this board is the weak link now and it needs to change and it changes with accountability for the seven of us sitting at fear
165to mind our manners and act like adults when I was a child I acted like a child I thought like a child but when I became an adult I act like an adult it's time to put away our childish ways yeah we do have a moment before I'm going to let Miss Mason speak but before we do that do we have a second on Miss Bradford's motion I'll second up again that's to pass it without the section that says the board members willful failure to discharge duties okay so we have we have a first and second and Miss Mason please do need accountability amount of bills I've said to several individuals on this board the greatest accountability we have is every two years there's an election every two years and if we are not doing
166the right thing please don't continue to vote for us if we are violating ethics please don't continue to vote for us that is I feel so strongly that that is not our job it is not our job to police each other it is the community's job to let us know where they feel we've crossed the line and we are starting the second round because we have a motion in front of us he's Craven that's what I was going to ask are we on the first round since we just had a motion we are on the first round but we're we get started so start my five minutes then um so I um want to just ask a couple questions about good for me is good for thee and so I need some clarification on what
167just exactly what kinds of things do you does this the the committee other than me think that is important like are we are we talking about um when we some board members talk back let's say about um things that the some board members don't want to hear about is it rejecting motions because of B number three allowing controversial issues to be presented and considered fairly and without bias are we talking about letter four B number four render all decisions based on a bearable facts and independent judgment and refuse to surrender the judgment to individuals or special interest groups nothing like having the GOP put some pressure on four board members in order to um vote so and if we're looking at um no oh I'm sorry one second okay uh we do please calm down
168back there thank you the if we're looking at number six respecting the confidentiality of information that is privileged under applicable law and refrain from unauthorized disclosure of matters in closed session what about if a board member talks at a um at a meeting outside of here and gives away information um what about working with other board members to establish number seven establish effective board policies to delegate Authority for the administration of the schools to the superintendent not us in there you know trying to write policy and I mean not right policy right procedures and pick curriculum and pick books how about number 15 represent the entire County without fear or bias this proposed policy is in direct conflict of that that some of us who want to try and represent everybody here are shut down
169what about number 16 avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using the board member's position on the board for personal or partisan gains what about people who have businesses and use our use our positions to try and better our business what about trying to have people removed from other committees within the county by reaching out to other elected officials what about number 22 remember always that a board Member's First and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students attending public schools are we always doing that what about 23 to seek individual retaliation of other board members motives for personal reasons I.E religious or and or political we just spent five hours on Friday discussing that what about to understand our roles and not to overstep as a
170board member a chairperson liaison or an appointment to a committee we are a governance body and we do not set procedure that is in the standards of the superintendent so we're already violating that what about coming back to the beginning when we are talking about a board member number one we will attend regularly scheduled meetings insofar as possible and become informed concerning the issues by considering by to be considered at the meeting what happens if a board member states publicly that I have not read that policy and what about if they're reading the policies and reading the stuff as we are trying to deliberate them on the dice so I there are a whole lot of things on here that um I think our board is trying to micromanage and it will I don't feel
171like it's in that the board chair should if the board chair believes that a board member has violated this code the chairperson May afford the board member an opportunity to make an apology but it doesn't matter if we make an apology because the board chair can still subject us to disciplinary action censoring removing board members from committee assignments um just all this stuff and I want to know what privileges this committee wants to take away from me we don't have or me any of us we don't have privileges so there's a lot of ambiguity in here and a lot of it is placed on the shoulders of our board chair and I can tell you I assure you that I know it's difficult that there is a lot placed on our shoulders that we have
172to pay attention to you know at each meeting we have to listen and try and participate okay but also try and keep order there are a lot of things that the board chair has to do and I don't think it should be on the the shoulders of the board chair to decide if what is good for me is good for thee so those are my objections to this policy thank you mrible it's Barnhart I'm looking at time we have one minute left but just from this discussion it's an acknowledgment that individuals on this board are concerned that board members are not acting ethically from this discussion here alone and we have acknowledged through a discussion that it's no longer about should we be following the code of ethics what it's about is being called out
173on it what this outlines for every single one of us myself included is in the event that somebody oversteps a boundary there's a process in place that we can openly address and openly be able to move on from it so with that Mr chair time's up okay I'm gonna let Miss Walker finish and then we'll be done then we'll vote I just want to make this point too I think we just said here Robert's rules are I just want to remind people Robert's rules are also to give the minority a right to be heard as well Robert rules are not just about the majority and I feel like a lot of this policy here is all about what's good for the majority and I'm honestly as a minority member feeling kind of like I I
174guess I got no chance because if somebody deems me unethical according to these gazillion um lines in here then you know what am I supposed to do to stop it I mean obviously you can't arrest me and put me in jail although you might want to it seems to me that this is the the idea behind this policy is punitive is to be punishing it's to try and make people be quiet and honestly I put some asterisk beside some of these too I feel like there are members that probably have done some of this already and so I I'm I'm not for strengthening this policy just to make it look good just so I can turn around and try and be careful about what I'm supposed to say um you know I'm very fine with
175how I'm acting I generally try to be respectful and I try and adjust the chair but at the same time what if somebody doesn't like that and four people want to just go ahead and get rid of me or kick me off of something or take away my privilege I don't like this policy I don't know if I can amend it to basically send it back again I would like to do that um or just put it back to the way it was um well you know what I'm gonna go ahead and do it I'm going to try and I'm going to amend the policy to not just remove this line but send it right on back so we can take a look at it again and get some real input from board members on
176how this should be written okay so we have can so your your emotion is to put it back into policy Mr chair there's there's a motion on the table though right so to approve it okay but she's making a motion on top of it which you've allowed before it's not a motion to amend it's it's so the the primary motion is is all right emotions Agony saying we can't that's an amendment to put it back so what is it then what can I do I mean I'm confused what is the motion to vote to accept this policy as written except for taking out the word subcommittee and taking out the that one that is it okay so at this point Miss Bowie would you please call the roll yes duties as well as so we
177have a motion second just to remind the board member since we have six present board members it would take a four so it would be a four member to to pass so three three tie who would fail just make sure everybody knows that okay Miss Bowie would you please call the roll Barnhart yes Miss Walker no Miss Bradford yes Miss Graybill no Mr wildebear yes and Miss Mason no so that fails three to three so miss you can make a motion that's what I think Miss Walker actually had to do the motion I'd like to make a motion that that he sent it back to policy committee again to make better changes okay so we have a motion to send policy I don't have it right in front of me 21 2120 yep thank you
178back a second we have a first and second any discussion well I'm just gonna go ahead and take a shot at all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed there we go six zero okay I'm passed all those and so we're still looking at 21.23 and Mr chair we're at time but the only I would make a motion to correct to accept this policy with the change to Carolina's MS okay thanks we have a motion a second and second any discussion Ms crabill yes um I do not believe I'm going to use the um the reasoning that Miss Mason used for one of the reasons she used for Banning stamped because it had only been in use since 2020 this organization has only been in existence since July the 5th and
179they've had no training whatsoever yet and so how can we possibly accept them to be one of our approved go-to trainings when no one's even been to a training so I would like to just throw that out there I know we approved it but I voted no the last time so that's what I don't think we should pass it thank you Mr chair I'm signed up for training in the next couple of weeks and I would very much like to attend it I'm looking forward to learning more about Robert's Rules supporter and some of the other things that this board struggles with any other discussions all right uh so we have Motion in seconds so I'm not doubting that it's any good and you're certainly more than welcome to go to it and you are
180welcome to get paid for that reimburse for that all I'm saying is that in order to get credit through the ncsba then we have to have something that we all approve so you can go and we can go to any trainings that we want they're just not approved okay this is Barnhart Mr chairman I'd like to offer a point of clarification the board already voted to approve this Carolinas academic leadership Network the justification from the policy committee was to update the policy to include that language so I forget the date off the top of my head forgive me for that but that was the reasoning behind adding this to policy because it already passed on a 5-2 vote to approve this to allow for that subsidy to be used okay Ms Billy please call the
181roll Miss Barnhart yes Miss Walker no Miss Bradford yes Miss Graybill no Mr wildebear yes and Miss Mason yes that passes four to two that policy is now approved you will carry on all right so we've passed all those correct yes we have my goodness Miss Nobles we're going to try again I am so I cannot apologize enough I I'm so sorry that I jumped ahead and I want to thank you so much for being here this evening yes thank you so much our regional teacher of the year the Board of Education I hope this commitment to teacher leader voice proves to be fruitful this year as you hear from teacher of the year Representatives called from your excellent highly qualified Educators in New Hanover County I also want to show gratitude to the Director
182of Human Resources Dr Charles Barnes and my principal Mr Phillip Sutton as well as my rise team co-workers for supporting me during my 2022 Southeast Regional teacher of the year experience in the 2022-2023 Academic Year together we have met remarkable milestones in our educational Journey throughout the past year I truly embraced the concept of yes I wanted to engage in as many professionally engaging and charging experiences as possible my goal was to immerse myself in many professionally enriching experiences I had the opportunity to visit 30 schools nine districts and attended eight educational conferences as well as participating in eight professional speaking engagements and to clarified those 30 schools were across the Southeast region of North Carolina these intense and invaluable experiences provided me with deep insights at the local Regional State and National level and
183I'm eager to share with the board my personal reflection from this journey during this time I attended a variety of superintendent advisory Council meetings at the state and District levels I also saw different levels of involvement from Boards of Education across the state that utilize teachers as advisors consultants and think tanks this year I've listened intently and spoken when called upon I have worked to increase the power of student perspective and voice across the state and collaborated with the New Hanover County Schools teacher of the year cohort of 2022 to elevate teacher perspective in New Hanover County through the superintendent advisory Council as a competitive and desirable District in the Southeast New Hanover County is the one District that all in our region look toward thus New Hanover County schools superintendent advisory Council focused this
184past year on the power of teacher collaboration to inform District leaders to the board of education and our district leadership yet let's say yes to genuinely seeking answers to questions and asking teachers let's not fear responses but position ourselves to learn from the classroom experts as Educators we know the power of questions and how those questions beget higher levels of thinking and deep collaboration among stakeholders and the teacher voice item on the board agenda is a good first step to clarify school-based teachers of the year are voted on by their staff certified and classified employees they represent the voice of all building level stakeholders including parents and students oftentimes teachers are afraid to discuss the real impacts of legislation policy and decision making in fear of their jobs or sounding like those teachers all they
185do is complain however it's my experience with Educators and building level stakeholders that we want to do things the right way we care immeasurably for our children in New Hanover County our desire is for parents Guardians and decision makers to trust our perspectives and expertise and hear our hearts for the children we serve we want to say yes to help you solve problems build Bridges and provide for you a pulse for the climate and culture of our schools during my year of yes learning and asking questions I had three people from across the state tell me you were the expert here and ask me number one what I thought about their school or program and two if I had any advice for their school program or leadership style and I realized wow I'm a professional
186my experience is valuable people actually want to listen to me my name is Abby Starling Nobles I'm a native wilmingtonian an active member of my local church serve on the board of directors for rise up Community farm and I'm a former board member for the dance Cooperative of Wilmington I love running dancing riding being in the sun and interior design I'm a product of both public and private schools in New Hanover County I try my best to have a life a full life outside of the classroom but it is difficult teaching is all consuming especially for those striving to have a solid work-life balance and I like many Educators feel inadequate standing here in front of you today we don't always know the value and worth of our experiences My ultimate Reflection from this year
187is that teachers will always go above and beyond in their workplace to the detriment of themselves their relationships their families because of how high the stakes are for them to make each and every student feel successful along with their strong desire to see our district and students thriving I'm entering my ninth year teaching at New Hanover High School and I've seen much in my 11 years there for my internship to long-term subbing to employment my experience in the classroom extends from bilingual instruction to instructing students with intense academic and behavioral needs to honors four-year college-bound students some teacher experiences can't be listed on a resume but it's an invaluable measure of intellect capability and value it's vital to who we are as Educators it's what sets us apart it's vital to who we are as
188Educators it's what sets us apart when we think about the decisions that are made for us it's easy to get bitter resentful or just Retreat back into our Silo and close the door but when we are involved as advisors or key stakeholders as experts in our Fields with our robust experiences we feel valued re-energized and part of the collective whole my message to you today is to continue the work of engaging with your teachers it's to the benefit of all of our school children the retention and recruitment of our teachers in New Hanover County and the responsibility of the Board of Education to be involved with the stakeholders in meaningful ways it's vital to have our teachers at the center of our conversations these individuals need to be given an opportunity to showcase their levels
189of expertise experience and actively take part in the decisions that affect District policy and impact the daily routines of our school day thus my charge is this as our Board of Education let us continue to focus our attention on the key stakeholders in our district teachers in the transparency in the spirit of transparency and unity among all stakeholders families board members teachers school and District leaders support staff and all people within the school building it is imperative that we allow District leaders to empower to the teachers who in turn Empower their students daily resulting in students feeling valued positive curious and educationally motivated it shouldn't come as a surprise like it did to me that educators are asked for their input thoughts feelings and classroom expertise it should be commonplace the norm and used for
190the public good of bettering our district and schools so thank you chairman and the New Hanover County board for being pioneers of teacher voice in New Hanover County Schools And to clarify based on some questions and comments I heard today the teacher of the representatives do represent all the voices at their individual schools and again this item on the agenda is a step in the right direction we must all remember that change does not come from yells and screams but through Whispers And tactful solution-oriented discourse thank you Miss and I'm going to speak to miss Noble just a bit um first off this idea came I'm not going to say it was my idea it was her idea but I I really uh I like to Champion it because uh when we were in In
191This Very Room with the teachers of the year and the uh principals of the year uh my you know I was smiling like I I did when I my my own child was born because it was just such a wonderful thing to see the wonderful uh you know passion from all the teachers of the year and the principles of the year and we kind of talked a little bit about it and again 100 your idea but I think it's a great idea and so I would like to make a motion that we add this to uh to a permanent as a permanent spot on our agenda each month a 10-minute teacher of the year um presentation um is there a second first and second discussion Ms Barnhart thank you Mr chairman Miss Nobles I like
192how you said that you encompassing your voted on for being teacher of the year but I do think there's something to be said to hear from all the components of the school operating system and so the decisions that we make and what that looks like and so I I'm in favor of this change but I would like for the board to consider for moving in this direction I know Dr Foust does a quarterly superintendent advisory Council and classified staff and bus drivers and things and so I think maybe we also need to include a staff highlight to allow those individuals to come speak as well and maybe have a rotating schedule so we can have different highlights otherwise we could we could list 10 or 15 minutes for every single one and so I think
193that might be a good way to help to help make sure those voices are heard from everyone but again I like this idea Miss Mason so I know that there were concerns that were brought to me about is this simply a way for teachers to come and tell us what's wrong is this for any teacher can you just clarify specifically what would be addressed what would not be addressed who would be doing it yes so um the original idea and there are a few other districts in the state that are doing this and I'm going to do some more research on how exactly that happens but the original idea was to rotate through the primarily through the overall elementary middle and high school teachers of the year on a monthly rotation since we would just
194be starting this I obviously did the first one I would offer to Mr O'Neill because he's part of that 2022 toi team that he would do the second and then the new 2023 teacher of the year would take on the third and we would figure out who would rotate around obviously I've not consulted with them so if we haven't had our an initial meeting for the year yet but the original idea is to let it rotate around the middle elementary middle and high school teacher of the year and we would focus in our superintendent advisory Council meetings what does advocacy actually look like so we don't want to be taking up 10 minutes of your time yelling and screaming as I said that's not how anything productive happens in my frame I was um I
195had the opportunity to be on an educational policy um leadership Forum this year it was called epfp um with the state and we learned a lot about advocacy and how change is made and so we would focus on really highlighting that teacher passion like um chairman wildebear said when you're sitting in those teacher of the year interviews I mean the passion is intense and that's when I said Mr older we have to get these people to speak about what they're passionate about and remind our our district decision makers what it's like to be in that classroom daily what we see how we're problem solving um so we would really refrain from being just problem oriented and being solution driven with our experience so that you all because you all have lives outside of what you
196do here you can be invited into our world so that when you are making decisions you can think oh Abby told me this story or oh Fatima told me this story or Melissa told me this story you you can have those in the back of your minds as you're making decisions well Mr Walker I think you were did you ever end up I think you did before I was making sure miss Bradford I didn't know she had a reason okay thank you um uh I just want to say first of all um I like this idea a lot just like I like student voice a lot as well the more we can hear from you guys the better in my opinion and um I hope we just take this opportunity as an opportunity and not
197just you know just because we're going to have you on here we really listen to what you're saying because I agree with you I think we need to support our staff a lot more you are the professionals and you do a tremendous job and I'll have to say what how I feel about you personally is I've seen you in action I know how well respected you are in this District how much the students really appreciate you I've seen you um several times in Mr Jones at our Equity teams and I hope that continues because that is a very powerful thing that you're doing and anything we can do to lift your voice up I am very much in favor of thank you Miss Bedford thank you Miss Nobles congratulations on your success and thank you
198for coming up with this idea one of the things that I think that isn't realized that we really hunger to hear these kind of comments and so we're very eager to hear them um Miss Barnhart had a sort of a suggestion and if it's not an impropriety I would ask you how you feel about that to add that component in in some way do you feel like that would enhance or yeah I think that would absolutely enhance we really want to ensure that all of our stakeholders I work closely with um two Tas in my Rise program at new Hannaford high school and to see their voices also heard obviously we work in close proximity so I hear what they have to say and I could definitely add that to what I'm saying but I
199what the teacher Spotlight would be saying but I think it would be really valuable to navigate some sort of way to have those perspectives whether it's a few slots in the called audience or if it is embedded within um that Spotlight I'm not sure exactly what that could look like but I love ideas so and just generating that it could be a few minutes maybe the two Representatives come together it'd obviously be something to coordinate but if two Representatives could come together and split the time or if we just have a section dedicated to um dedicated to those individuals that come from the superintendent advisory with that specific with the is it with the um certified I'm sorry I think she's talking to you I'm sorry I'm sorry so am I allowed to ask a
200question I've never done this so you're fine okay well if if the superintendent advisory Council meetings that aren't the teacher one the other ones that were referenced um if that could be generated the topic or idea and that could be an opportunity I also do know how vulnerable it is to stand up here and speak so I would you know it would be it would have to be when if people are willing um but I I am very interested in creating some sort of for the teacher advisory Council this year just some more conversation about advocacy and what does that look like to be productive um so perhaps we can talk about that with the other teacher or with the other superintendent advisory as well yeah so um two things I wanted to pick up
201on something that you had said that you would invite you know us into your space into your world which is important um because I one of the emails that I received this week that said I'm always interested in credentials people claim to have when they judge Fields with which they are not familiar so um there are many of us up here who have um not been in the classroom in a number of years so the world the teaching world is a little bit different so that perspective is nice and I did want to mention that I have been to the Brunswick County school board meetings on several occasions when they do have the teacher voice and the teacher voice there was um a lot of it was to brag on you know brag on themselves
202and and the programs that they were doing or to talk and I'll just say I'll use letters as an example that to talk about you know concerns that we had when this training came on but how we plowed through and got it done you know so there is a benefit um and it doesn't just have to be a complain session you know that there are many things that we don't brag enough about um and you know superintendent report you know his brain is all clogged up you know not that's not right he's not clogged up he's got a lot going on in there and and we don't get to hear from all the clogged brains over there either talking about um the important things that are going on so I know you you have have
203interactions you slash teachers have interactions pretty much with everybody over there too so I think it's a great opportunity you know for us to be invited into your space and you to be invited and to hours and I think that focusing this as the first step and perhaps building something out after that we all don't want to take on too much too fast so if we build this in perhaps we can generate more conversation about what does it look like for other stakeholders in the school buildings to to speak as well um so I believe this could be a good first step and for those individuals who are speaking those teachers of the year to really engage and we would emphasize that please engage with all stakeholders in your building so that we can portray
204a really good image of what's what's going on yeah and our time is up on this so we are we have a motion a second to add teacher voice as a permanent part of our agenda all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed pass the six zero we'll get with you and we'll get it get started thank you so much let us carry on we have our Legal Services uh discussion X Mr Vogel thank you Mr chairman and thank you members of the Board of Education and Dr Faust for providing me this wonderful opportunity to speak with you about our successful first two months representing the board and the school district as you well know the past two months have been very busy for the board and school district and we have
205proudly partnered with you every step of the way providing responsive thorough efficient and excellent legal advice and legal services thanks to all of you on the board and to Dr Faust and his senior staff we were able to hit the ground running we held initial meetings and coffees with people in early July if not in June and transition quickly to become your board attorney and we could not be more proud to be your board attorney our success over the past two months is a testament to you the board who have been sincere and willing partners with us as well as the Dr Faust and the many hard-working central office staff administrators and Educators who have welcomed us with open arms as lawyers we represent many different types of clients but our representation of school boards
206and school districts is the most meaningful because of the public mission we take seriously your mission to strive to provide children with an opportunity for Superior education in a safe and positive learning environment where they are prepared with the skills to succeed lawyers sometimes get a bad rap and clearly some lawyers deserve it but as education lawyers we like to think that we're Cut From a Different Cloth the children are our future and we support you in the hard work of the over 3000 administrators teachers and staff to deliver high quality education to all students in New Hanover County Schools several times each month the public sees me up here on the diocese at board meetings or occasionally participating in board meetings virtually and board members frequently hear from me behind closed doors and closed
207sessions when I provide the board confidential legal advice however most of our work for the board and School District occurs behind the scenes on a weekly if not daily basis we work closely with Dr Faust his senior staff and others on a variety of issues we work with them to ensure the school district and therefore the board is in legal compliance and working toward achieving its goals for the children of New Hanover County Schools the board has asked to hear about our work over the past two months and we are delighted to share that information with you I'll discuss our work by subject matter in no particular order as you will soon hear our work touches every Department in the school district there is a lot of ground to cover I'll be as detailed as
208possible without divulging confidential information that is protected by the attorney client privilege or legal requirements that protect staff and student confidentiality I want to begin with a little known and rarely discussed area of Education law Bond forfeiture and vehicle seizures let me begin with a description of bond forfeiture and then I'll describe our work in the area over the past two months in criminal cases we have all heard of the concept of a defendant posting bail bail is a refundable deposit that allows a criminal defendant who has not yet had their trial to remain free until their court date the deposit is used as collateral to ensure that the individual will return to court for trial or perhaps other court proceedings the bail bond is a financial instrument co-signed by a bail bondsman or Surety
209who charges the defendant a fee in return for guaranteeing the payment if the individual does not return to court for trial when a defendant who has been released pursuant to a bond fails to appear in court for trial the court must enter a bond forfeiture order it's a fun forfeiture order in the amount of the bond in favor of the state in other words the bail bondsman must pay the state the amount of the bond the forfeiture order which is mailed to the defendant and to each Surety includes the date on which the forfeiture becomes a final judgment if it is not set aside before that day and the order may be set aside for any of several statutorily enumerate enumerated reasons such as the failure to appear by the defendant was stricken by the
210court or the charges were disposed of or the defendant was already incarcerated at the time to set aside a forfeiture the defendant or The Surety or the bondsman must file a written motion within 150 days of the notice of forfeiture which must be served on the district attorney which is the prosecutor's office and also the school board a school board attorney which is our Law Firm the district attorney or School Board attorney May object to the motion to set aside by filing a written objection within 20 days of being served with the motion in some counties the District Attorney's Office takes the lead and files those objections in New Hanover County though the District Attorney's office looks to us as a school board attorney to file the objections and if a timely written objection is
211filed then the court must hold a hearing on the motion to set aside the forfeiture as with the filing of objections to motions to set aside the District Attorney's Office in New Hanover looks to us as the school board attorney to handle all the hearings in court now the reason why the school board attorney is involved at all in this process is because under North Carolina law the bond money that is forfeited as a result of the defendant failing to appear in court goes to the school board so the school board attorney in collaboration with the District Attorney's office is working to secure money for the school board and the school district to use for the education of children in New Hanover County over the last two months led by our attorney Leah sync we
212have reviewed a large volume of bond forfeiture notices and motions to set aside Bond forfeiture New Hanover County has an extraordinarily large volume of bond forfeiture notices when it is appropriate under the circumstances we on behalf of the school board file objections to the Motions to set aside the forfeitures sometimes we negotiate a resolution with The Surety other times we go to court and Advocate on behalf of the school board I have personally appeared multiple times in court over the past two months on behalf of the school board in these matters we have found the judges to be fair and faithful to the law and we have enjoyed a terrific working relationship with the outstanding people in the clerk's office within the courthouse who process the numerous Bond forfeiture filings and keep us apprised of
213filing scheduling of hearings and other matters as a result of our advocacy with our written objections our negotiations with bail bondsman and our successes in court we have already recovered for the school board and School District approximately forty thousand dollars and that's just the amount of money that we have obtained for the school board when we have advocated there are plenty of times where no advocacy is needed because no motion to set aside the forfeiture order has been filed and so the school board and the school district has received many thousands of dollars on top of that forty thousand dollar figure I just shared with you a related area is vehicle seizure and that's another area in which the school board and School District stand to benefit under North Carolina law law enforcement must seize
214a motor vehicle if any of the following occurs the driver is charged with an impaired driving offense and his or her driver's license is revoked due to a prior impaired driving offense the driver is charged with an impaired driving offense and he or she is not validly licensed and not covered by an auto insurance policy or the driver is charged with felony speeding to elude arrest under those circumstances the law enforcement officer must seize the vehicle even if the driver is not the owner of the vehicle however prior to the defendant's trial it's possible that an owner or lien holder of the vehicle may be able to obtain the release of the vehicle and after the defendant's trial if the vehicle still is subject to seizure law a judge will release it to the owner
215or lien holder or turn it over that is forfeited to the Local School Board in those circumstances where the vehicle is turned over to the school board under North Carolina law the proceeds from the sale of the vehicle go to the school board and School District to use for the education of children in New Hanover County Schools defendants and owners of the vehicle May file a petition in court for the release of the vehicle and if the District Attorney's office and the school board attorney consent to the petition the clerk will release the vehicle without a hearing however if this attorney's office or the school board attorney do not consent then there will be a hearing in court on the matter as with Bond forfeiture matters the District Attorney's office here in New Hanover County
216looks to our Law Firm to handle these vehicle seizure matters and as with Bond forfeiture matters Leah Leah sync leads our firm's efforts in working closely with the clerk's office to submit positions of consent or non-consent to petitions that are filed for the release of vehicles I have personally appeared at several vehicle seizure hearings in court to Advocate on behalf of the school board for the denial of petitions that seek the release of vehicles and to date we have successfully advocated against the release of well over 10 Vehicles all to benefit the school district and the children of New Hanover County Schools shifting now to exceptional children one of the most active areas for school board attorneys as a general matter is exceptional children also known as special education the individuals with disabilities Education Act
217or idea is a federal law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensure special education and related services to those children the idea governs how States and public agencies provide early interventions special education and related services to the approximately three thousand eligible infants toddlers children's and youth with disabilities in New Hanover County there are many complexities in the idea so legal compliance is vitally important the idea also provides dispute resolution rights to parents so there is potential legal risk to the school board and School District as well our firm has offered to proactively meet with the EC Department in the interests of legal compliance and risk prevention and we have been responsive to many requests for legal advice regarding any number of students and any
218number of legal issues our team is led by Jonathan sink and me Jonathan sink as you may recall spent several years in the legal department of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools working on EC matters and I have worked in the field of EC on behalf of both parents and then on behalf of a large school district outside of Charlotte we got off to a fast start and we have quickly forged a terrific working relationship with EC director Joanna Souza and assistant superintendent Julie varnum who oversees EC among many other areas as you well know many times throughout each week we communicate with Ms Souza and or Ms varnum to answer general questions related to compliance with the idea and to discuss particular matters that appear headed toward a dispute resolution process in one matter we are assisting
219the EC Department in connection with its compliance with a settlement agreement that was reached several months ago prior to our work with the school district we further support the EC Department by responding to requests for Education records from EC parents and strategizing in connection with matters that are heading toward the dispute resolution process or matters that are already within the dispute resolution process in those matters we review education records and other documents we interview administrators and Educators and take other actions to provide Miss Souza and the EC Department our best legal advice in hopes of reaching an amicable resolution our focus is always on serving the interests of the school board and School District but we never lose sight of the fact that the school board and School District's mission is tied to the success
220of its students so we focus on the students interests as well EC legal work is perhaps the most rewarding work that we do for school boards and school districts student privacy requirements preclude us from talking about particular student matters here in Open Session but suffice to say that we are busy working on several particular EC matters we have briefed the board as necessary over the past two months in closed session to provide legal advice and to protect the privacy of students now I want to switch to human resources Terry Wallace leads our firm's work in the area of human resources and he quickly forged a good working relationship with Dr Christopher Barnes the assistant superintendent for human resources Terry you may recall spent many years working in the legal department of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools focused on
221human resources matters and still does some work as outside counsel assisting Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools in that area here too we have offered to proactively meet with human resources and we have responded quickly to requests for legal advice specific Human Resources issues are kept confidential pursuant to Public Employee privacy requirements for our purposes today we can report that our firm worked closely with Dr Barnes over the past two months in connection with sensitive employee matters including potential disciplinary matters we have additionally worked on human resources related matters relating to background checks potential board policy revisions regarding employee conduct and other issues impacting employees potential employee grievances compliance with the training requirements and the settlement agreement that resolved the John Doe's lawsuit and reviews of public records that may raise employee privacy issues there is a lot
222more that could be said about our work in the area of Human Resources but again privacy requirements preclude us from saying too much into the area of communications in the area of communications legal support is occasionally needed to review documents particularly emails that have been pulled by the school district in response to a public records request we review the emails for responsiveness to the public records requests and to determine whether any privilege such as the attorney client privilege or whether any privacy laws requires that the documents be withheld or redact the school district as you may know has an excellent system called next request that tracks incoming public records and makes the records publicly available on the school district's website the North Carolina public records Law requires public agencies like the school board and School
223District to respond excuse me to respond promptly to public records requests and we have worked to help the board and School District comply with that legal requirement in the area of public records request support I lead our firm's efforts and I have worked closely with Chief Communications officer Sal Cardella and media relations manager Russell Clark together we have forged a strong working relationship in the lead up to last week's hearing related to a challenge to instructional materials the school district received an uptick in public record requests for media outlets and others interested in that proceeding even still we have worked to support the Communications Department in responding to all such requests we internally track the time it takes us to respond to the Communications Department after the department reaches out to us for support and
224we can report to you that we respond quickly and thoroughly this of course does not include the time between the date that the Communications Department receives the public records request and the date when the department ultimately reaches out to us for support we responded to the first few requests for support that we received in a few short weeks and since that time we were we have responded to the department in just a matter of days for example some of the first requests were responded to in 22 days and then 19 days and then some of the more recent requests our firm has responded to the Communications Department in just one day after receiving a request for her support or nine days or eight days so we started out good and we got better point of
225order I'm sorry Mr Vogel we've passed our time on this so I think we need to entertain a motion to continue this discussion if we want to as a board and I'll make that motion to extend by 10 minutes sure thank you I mean I feel like this is going to go a lot longer leaves no time for questions to I will amend my motion to 15 minutes well I mean looking at me but I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions so I don't know I don't have a good suggestion because I don't know how long the survival is gonna talk for we can amend again I'll admit my motion for 15 minutes discussion okay opposed okay I was speaking about our work in support of the Communications Department occasionally our first level review of
226documents that we've been providing indicates an error in the school district's pull of the records in other words from our review of the documents it appears at the wrong set or an incomplete set of documents were pulled by the school district it's okay these things happen in those instances we have quickly contacted the Communications Department in an effort to work collaboratively to ensure that the correct set of documents are pulled and that the school board and School District are fully responsive to the public records request with mutual trust and cooperation we have successfully supported the Communications Department or in the process of supporting the Communications Department in connection with a dozen or so public records requests now let me turn to operations in the area of operations Jonathan sink leads our firm in working closely
227with assistant superintendent Eddie Anderson the legal issues that arise in this area pertain to construction real estate transportation and much much more as with the other areas discussed we have offered to proactively meet with operations and we have responded quickly to their request for legal advice for example we responded to requests from operations in connection with the legal parameters regarding School Bus camera video stop equipment and potential Revenue sharing with outside vendors we provided operations with advice regarding the issue of construction insurance for vendors we work closely with operations on various construction disputes devising proposed next steps for contract dispute resolution now let me turn to student Support Services we work with assistant superintendent Julie varnum to respond to her request for legal advice in connection with a whole host of matters including draft contracts
228mou's potential policy revisions and other issues we have offered to proactively meet with student support services and we have responded quickly to requests for legal advice currently our responses to Ms varnum are handled by either Leah sync Jonathan sink or me over the past two months we have provided legal advice on a diverse set of issues including matters relating to Coastal Horizon Center Child Development Center for the center-based education for children with disabilities procedures and protocols in the schools Faith action ID child custody agreements and potential revisions to board policy subpoenas for Education records to just name a few of the areas in which we support student Support Services turning now to academics in the area of academics we've worked with Chief academic officer Dr Patrice Faison to review contracts and mousse such as those
229with the North Carolina education Corps The Innovation Project Spark NC as well we also had the pleasure of accepting Dr Faison's invitation to present at the Leadership Retreat on the subject of the importance of the school district ensuring a culture of compliance every organization from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies should work to create a culture of a culture of compliance with laws regulations and policies as a former Federal prosecutor and former deputy general counsel of the United States Department of Education I know a thing or two about the importance of compliance I had to prosecute or otherwise hold accountable those organizations that were non-compliant so I was flattered to have EC director Joanna Souza come up to me after the presentation to thank me for my remarks and to tell me that she planned
230to use what she learned during the presentation with respect to a culture of compliance so kudos to Ms Souza who manages an area of Education law in which strict compliance is a necessity now finance and Technology where we occasionally work with Chief Financial Officer Ashley Sutton an assistant superintendent Don Brinson regarding the review of contracts and mousse including in finance having to do with Marine Quest Services of UNCW Wrightsville Beach School Foundation software agreements and in technology a matter involving Fallout School Solutions we also do board committee work over the past two months we have been asked to support one or more chairs of board committees most notably the policy committee and Ms Barnhart I have served as the firm's contact for board committees again uh generally and for the policy committee uh specifically the
231policy committee did not meet in July but committee chair Ms Barnhart asked us in July to examine several issues and to draft a proposed revisions to certain policies including those that we talked about today regarding the legality of invocations at board meetings policy to address accountability of board members and so on and so forth in August we worked with Ms Barnhart to prepare for the Committee hearing and in mid to late August we worked on issues relating to the newly enacted parents Bill of Rights and the fairness for women in sports act both of which would require revisions to the board's policies now on to board meetings and council with a new board attorney in July came a new opportunity for board members and the chair and vice chair in particular as the leadership of
232the board to work with and to obtain legal advice from an attorney who may have a different or fresh perspective on the legal issues that face the board over the past two months I worked hand in glove with board chair Mr wildebear and vice chair Ms Bradford in connection with issues arising at regular and specially called board meetings and I have attended all such meetings I attended in person when requested by the chair and I otherwise attended virtually as a board you are perhaps one of the more active school boards that I have seen in North Carolina in terms of number of meetings regular meetings specially called meetings and committee meetings advice sitting up here on the diocese to provide parliamentarian advice and working with the board to provide advice after action is approved or
233denied is a vitally important role for the board attorney and I am honored to have the opportunity to work with you in that capacity there are too many issues on which I worked for the board over the past two months to list perhaps the issues that took most of my time concern the board's annual evaluation of Dr Faust and the recent Hearing in connection with the objection to instructional materials in connection with Dr Faust annual evaluation the board chair directed me to lead the board through the evaluation process as is customary for board attorneys in order to ensure adherence to the superintendent evaluation process manual that is published by the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction the evaluation was a multi-step process of the superintendent compiling relevant materials or artifacts and
234the board members review of those artifacts and the board members analysis of performance and the assignment of inputs by board members and calculations performed by Me based on board member inputs followed by goal setting for the coming school year and this year it all culminated in a contract renewal and that's all I will say about that process here in Open Session because it is a confidential Personnel matter but I'm proud that our hard work was done in ensuring a proper timely and thorough process the superintendent position is obviously one of the most important positions and some would say it is the most important position in the entire structure of County Government I'm proud to have been able to play a small role in the process and from the feedback I received from board members and
235from Dr Faust I know that you were appreciative as well to conclude it is truly an honor and privilege for us to represent the board and School District we have thoroughly enjoyed working with you these first few months because you are true professionals we thank you for welcoming us to your community and want to let you know that we don't take your trust for granted rather we take it as a challenge to work even harder and better for you to achieve even greater greater success for the students families and employees of New Hanover County Schools in the future we look forward to not only continuing to provide you with responsive thorough efficient and excellent legal advice and legal services but we also look forward to getting involved in the community Through communities and schools Special
236Olympics or other avenues that benefit the school district and the students it serves thank you very much Mr chairman for the opportunity thank you I'm going to go ahead and use the same kind of order we used the other day because I do know we have probably answered some questions so we'll start with Mrs Barnhart questions questions oh we're going in this order okay oh gosh I guess are we just going to keep going crazy like that yeah I know you are I mean I just looked I know we looked at some financials I guess first question I have is why is it all I know some of it has to be redacted but does all of it have to be redacted um this is more of a curious question because I don't know what
237number I am and I don't know I don't think I've spoken to Mr Vogel if y'all look at the finances or not it's all online okay so my question generally is um so you're charged by the hour 235 an hour I guess I see on here and I can't tell what these charges are if they're for board members or they're because you went through all the topics but you didn't say board members so Mr Vogel I mean am I on here did I did I do any charges in August or July uh your question was did you and I have conversations in July yeah it's all redacted so I can't tell where I am on this list I'm just curious to know how much I I charge the district for your Council I don't recall
238having a one-on-one conversation with you at all let alone one that was charged okay um are we gonna just keep going okay go ahead Bradford um I'm gonna Reserve not at this time yeah the my first question is what NC exclusion are you using to redact each line because I believe that we as board members and the community as a whole is entitled to see what where you have exactly spent our money of course other than Personnel matters and student matters so what exclusion are you using um for and it's for line by line yeah so I didn't redact this invoice um Chief Financial Officer Ashley Sutton redacted the entirety of the uh note section I think she can address you but I think she did it to be uh quick and efficient to to
239get this uh invoice in in front of you for purposes of our discussion um certainly a lot of the information in the notes is confidential and and perhaps protected by the attorney client uh privilege you as the client are entitled to see all of that and in closed session and would be happy to allow you to do that but we're here in Open Session and I think that is why Ms Sutton um kind of uh redacted the entire thing for our purposes tonight on this agenda agenda item matter I'd be happy to allow the chair to let Miss Sutton speak if he so chooses that is correct just in essence of time that's I just went through and um indicted all the notes because I wasn't sure what was okay what wasn't okay and we
240did have a brief email correspondence back and forth to make sure that that was appropriate and we thought that would be appropriate for this setting but I certainly have the entire invoice I think I shared without any adjustments to the invoice with board chair so he got all the notes because he had requested that prior to this coming up as a discussion as a board item but I do have the information and I can share it out and I apologize if that was a mistake um I make a motion to continue to utilize the Vogel Law Firm transitioning to a retainer payment option and extending the contract through June 30th of 2024. second kidding me oh no absolutely I make a motion to continue to utilize the vocal Law Firm transitioning to a retainer payment
241option and extending the contract to June 30th 2024. Bradford again I'm really confused right now why we're doing motions for this this is what's not even on here well okay we'll leave that there for a second um I guess I guess since we don't we don't have August so we only have July which was 32 000 um I mean if you multiply that by 12 that's puts us at over 384 000 for the year which I believe blows our budget I don't really know I think the last Outlook our budget was lower than 300 but you know that was with civil cases as well my next question is related to travel it costs us over sixteen hundred dollars for there and back and then whatever hourly rate it takes um I guess while while he's
242here so that looks like we have a date in July that was um two thousand six hundred and forty one dollars for one day I don't know where if we're being fiscally responsible if we're gonna be extending contracts that we haven't even had a chance to look at we originally made a motion for six months six months is what we should stick with and reevaluate then I don't know why we're doing this right now think it's fairly disingenuous I guess I got no questions except I have um statements so I'm not voting for that that's ridiculous okay um I'm pleased with the firm's work I appreciate the advice we've gotten I appreciate the fact that he doesn't interject himself into the business of the board with suggestions I um I anticipated with this bill that
243some members would wave their hands in the sky and say sky is falling sky is falling so I took the opportunity this afternoon to look at our public records requests for the invoices for thurington Smith from it's it's odd it runs August 2021 to May 2022 in one request and it runs from August 2022 to February of 2023 for whatever reason that's all that was pulled highest bill was forty five thousand four hundred and fifty nine dollars um there were others that were thirty five thousand six hundred dollars uh thirty four thousand thirty four thousand three fifty um so to to to to freak out over this bill um here's a here's a Darrington Smith for September 27th sixty one thousand four hundred dollars um October twenty two sixty two thousand fifty eight dollars so
244there's um there's been a lot of high legal bills for this board in the past and the fact that my experience in business tells me that there's a startup there's a startup yes there is okay there's there is there's a startup cost to get running in terms of getting used to the board answering all the initial questions um I don't find this this this bill out of line I find it's interesting that the highest bill was um the second highest bill was um where'd it go the super evaluate and that's the fourth highest bill was the Super evaluation so I think it's amazing that you um I can't think of the right word you advocated for the recovery in the bond forfeitures and and brought in forty thousand dollars so is you know could that
245actually be an Enterprise fund I mean it's more than your whole month's bill and that's not counting the cars so for me the point of order Mr chairman we've reached our time on discussion we're at a time second point of order Mr wildebear said we were going to go three rounds and so if you're going to shut us down we're going back to 2120 that you don't like what we're saying so you say no okay point of order yeah I got you and we're going to continue three rounds go ahead we do need a question please um so you want me to do three things now or no just that you we have four rounds that was her turn and we need a question not a statement well I asked Mr Vogel if this could
246even be considered the bond forfeitures in the in the vehicles I would love to see later on in in how we compare in bond forfeitures this month with say for example this month last year I like to go year to year on comparisons but it seems like a lot of money um so I'd be interested in knowing that and that was my question um thank you Mr chairman well I made a note of that and we'll see if we can provide you that data okay okay carrying on to miss miss craville your round one question yes um my observation is 5.9 of the Forty thousand dollars is what we spent to get that 40 000 but my question is this um when I made this request to go on there it's because when we were
247in closed session Mr Vogel outlined a lot of very specific things that he did for us has done for us that should have been outlined here and so to have everything redacted and he obviously had to approve the redaction um the I'm not saying Miss Sutton did anything wrong but I'm having a hard time with the board chair and the board Vice chair deciding on what we can see and what we can't see so that's another one of those overreaches that we're talking about so what a privilege personal attacks on the Deus are just absolutely not appropriate they are not appropriate I do not want to be in a position of having to defend myself constantly I never saw those numbers from Miss Sutton I am tired of having to explain myself to another board
248member when they attack me on the dance make your question and stop excuse me you did the exact same thing so now I'm going to finish my question for that so what I wanted to ask was that question is that I don't understand why we can't see and any of these names that are redacted that are ours we are public servants and we should be accountable to what we're asking for but one of the things you mentioned that you spend a lot of time with Miss Barnhart on policies only 634 dollars that's not a lot of time and but if you add up the policy committee and the ad hoc committee I just want to see what kinds of things that you are doing when different committee chairs call you up or email you and
249ask you for questions because the rest of us don't get that information so that is what that was my intent when I asked for this was for us to see very clearly transparently who's talking to you and what information is being withheld from the majority of the board with respect to the activity related to the policy Committee in July the policy committee did not meet in July so there wasn't as much activity in July supporting the policy committee as there was in August as far as what the board can see as I stated earlier the board is the client and so the board can see the entire unredacted invoice that is Miss Sutton stated the chair has a copy of it and that would be a perfect uh item if the board so chooses to
250review in closed session because so much of the information within the invoices confidential protected by the attorney client privilege student names perhaps and um and employee names so there's there's no there's no issue the board can review an unredacted invoice and closed session is really the best place to do that okay thank you I'm going to pass my term Ms Mason do you have anything does that have to be a question should be a question yes comment on the on the motion why don't we why don't we do two rounds of questions and then then everybody can make their comments okay is that fair for everybody okay good enough so no questions so we're going to carry back to miss Barnhart this is round two okay let's walk around two this is a question and
251we'll have a statement one more round do I have to have a specific question can I ask any question I want to ask any questions well I'd like to know why this motion was brought forward today that is my question because that is clearly undercutting the rest of the board when when this happens we have already made a decision for six months I don't see why we got to go back on that now I think in six months we can look at the bills continually continuously we don't even have August so I think for us to make a decision after two months is wrong so my question is why I guess nobody wants to answer that question why they thought that was okay to do well they may be a well in their statement when
252they get their opportunity Ms Bradford what do you make one two now no I I you know I I I I would if if we're gonna look at unredacted just for fun I would love to see that thereington invoices from February 2023 it looks like there's two of them on this public records request that was answered so I don't understand it one's dated 2 7 23 and the other one stated 2 28 23 and one of them is 49 220 the other one's twenty nine thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars and some change so I would love to see those at some point just so I can compare apples and apples because that's a good way to do things can you give can you give me those dates again yes ma'am February 7 2023
253and um this actually has reference numbers I can just give it to you later if you want okay okay thanks Miss Mason last question nope miss crabill your last question then we'll have around for statements okay my question is and I guess this is to Mr Vogel and to miss Sutton and to Dr Faust the when we're talking about comparison comparing Farrington Smith to Vogel on um public records request that is completely am I am I right in assuming that that is completely dependent on the number of public records requests that we get and if you recall last year we had some people requesting things um that were like 40 you know 400 000 you know emails and so that has he the the attorney has to do that so in comparison you know are
254we having the same amount of you know that kind of costs and is this amount 32 000 comparable with Farrington Smith in total for one month's worth of work when school is not even in session so so I did pull some information just for last year for Farrington and Smith and the average invoice amount was around 28 300 with the maximum being 32 500 approximately some of the payments of invoices were two months so sometimes so you had mentioned I think 61 000 that's actually two months versus one month so the maximum invoice for last year was about thirty two thousand five hundred okay um Dr fast well the question for the February it wasn't a question it was just saying you know Jacob just looking at the highest ones for last year just if
255we were going to look at unredacted just if if people need to see you know talk to a superintendent fast on this day for this time and that's what we we charge just want to see the comparative just to a reference like that from the previous year just apples and apples that's all I was looking at February 28th 0.7 thousand years this was a public records request and it says 228 2023 29 125 and it's got I mean it's just a public records request somebody filled it that's the previous balance it says less payment and then pay this amount all right so last question going around Miss Barnhart oh Miss Walker question we'll have a statement after this well I would like to make it make a motion to lay this on the table for
256another time because we haven't clearly not looked at the numbers clearly not seen August clearly not seen the unredacted information I don't think this is appropriate time to make a motion and so you are making a motion to lay it lay so future time did I interrupt nope it's your turn there is a second need there's a second needed for your second um I would like to I will second it but I also want to ask you if you would amend to postpone to a certain time where we say we postpone this until the December um or maybe the November or the December board meeting you're choosing because that's when we're slated to talk about it um thank you Mr crib I will amend my motion to to include a Time certain period which would
257be the time we originally suggested which was December I believe yeah July to December six months okay so we have a motion and second to lay it on the side or wait on the table into a certain time discussion it this says you can't have discussion but does this supersede the motion that's already on the floor okay and this is a majority vote which would be a four vote um at this time because we have so um Miss Bowie would you please call the roll Miss Barnhart no Miss Walker yes Miss Bradford no Miss Craig Bill yes Mr wildebear no and Miss Mason yes point of order yes ma'am so this is the second item that is on our agenda where and I brought this to your attention earlier today where we have not clearly
258stated that we were going to vote on anything we did that with the teacher voice and now we're doing it with legal services our board Norms State very clearly that be transparent in our actions by not surprising the board chair and each other at the last minute at meetings in the media or on social media so I am assuming that this is a surprise to you or that would be a violation of policy 2120. okay however we want to handle that vote that we just took we are back to our original motion it's in front of us it is under old business so it can be voted upon um we are at the statement portion so we'll go through Ms Barnhart please make your statement it's very clear that there is split votes on this
259board I am also concerned with having a financially responsible decision making allowing us to utilize a retainer option will allow us to continue to utilize services and also be fiscally responsible with the budget so and we can continue to go back and forth and there's going to be division of what is going to be the best approach this was a compromise to be able to continue to move on so that the work of the board can be done but instead it's been an hour-long discussion of just people being frustrated Ms Walker your statement please thank you Mr chair um I will disagree a little bit with it I think we are trying to be fiscally responsible and I don't see this as a compromise I see this as us as a unit doing the right
260thing with the taxpayers money which is really looking at charges that are going to be coming out and having a real comparison not doing it right here on the fly so I was very surprised by this vote um this move to vote that kind of undercuts I guess not only the chair but the rest of us when we were just having a discussion and I don't think this is the time to do that I think we revisit like we intended to do in six months and then we see where we are from there thank Miss Walker um just a point of clarification since the motion consists of the option for a uh stipend a sorry retainer what is the could you refresh our memory on what the retainer would be so that we know that
261or if it changes or if it changes yeah well I can pull up your well I know that's okay I got it right here we can say it out loud so um twelve thousand dollars I don't know what you're talking about can I answer the question please thank you um Ms barnhart's motion was just for retainer I suppose that can be negotiated you know outside of this meeting I know that what we offered at the time back in April May was a 22 500 a month retainer to cover everything other than litigation and investigation matters which would go on an hourly basis um I think today knowing how busy it is and uh and hearing you know the average you know thurington Smith invoice and things like that again this doesn't have to be made
262a part of the discussion today but something in like the 28 000 a month range is is more reasonable and understandable thank you um Miss Bradford I suspect that if we research every attorney contract that we've ever had it's been in for a minimum of a year at a time don't have that as a fact but I suspect it we um I believe I voted against a six-month agreement but there in any business contract there is a lead up time and there's a lead down time in the beginning um when a contract's going on we're two months in and there's just a few months left if this were to have waited until December we would then be in a headless operation if someone sprang a motion to go somewhere else it took us a probably
263six weeks or two months to get to this point where we had attorneys to choose from so the delay I mean right now we need to be thinking about what we're going to do in in December and January because that's how a good business is run you're Forward Thinking about where you're going to be we just signed four-year contracts for staff that's how it's done and the the you know I I just have to comment we we don't want to have any accountability but we rely on the board Norms which nobody abides by but we can't adopt an accountability policy so um you know it's just to me it's it's just this is just partisan stuff and it needs to stop I am voting for this okay bill so tell me what we're doing right
264now you get to make a statement on your thoughts on them again the motion which was to extend Mr vogel's contract or his firm's contract through the end of the year with a um end of what school year the end of yeah through the the normal full year so it'll be until June the end of June extend his contract and to retainer payment option and extend the contract through June 30th 2024. okay point of order sir didn't mean to table this or am I crazy did we not just table this whole voted no they wouldn't they in partisan format they did not vote okay so I'm going through so spray bill I am excuse me what we don't need to hear in partisan you know no enough it's my statement I'm making a statement you
265make a statement there is only one person who voted against the six months um contract and we only gave three-year contracts to our senior staff um so we just want to clear those points up but I am just very a man to the point where nobody follows the rules well only some people follow the rules the like do we use the board portal do we ask questions for clarity before meetings um do we prepare for meetings by reading on time um here's one that we don't do treat each other respectfully and professionally at all times I think we push each other's buttons just to see who will say what but my I am just adamant that we cannot continue to surprise each other and I feel like surprise that four people surprise three people and
266it is not on our agenda that we are going to vote and pretty soon we're going to come around and talk about the agenda review format which we're going to have to talk about when and where we vote I just think that it is um yes we're frustrated yes I'm frustrated because of the constant undermining of three people on this board's opinions and to shut down by I'm being called out I am blah blah blah I just don't think that that is the way we act as grown-up professionals thank you my turn to speak oh my goodness bless you uh you know I could I could bring myself to discuss a lot of the things uh it seems like we have some board members that the rules apply to everyone but themselves you know I'm
267not perfect I said that from day one um I do try to follow the rules as much as I can but I mean you know we can't continue this back and forth dialogue negativity uh calling each other out you know bipartisan bipartisan all this kind of stuff so I'm going to talk about the legal services I was one of the folks who voted against continue to to extending to a year originally but if we're going to have monthly meetings to discuss Mr vogel's Services uh you know I think that you know maybe that may I don't know I'm still up and down on this this whole vote but I do think that we as a board need to come together and start you know we're not going to agree I mean we have one board
268member that has told me directly we don't agree 7-0 or 6-0 tonight on everything we don't but we could at least you know try to you know work with each other in a respectful manner um I mean that's what a person that is a professional tries to do and I know that sometimes you know as somebody mentioned before I spent two years not getting many of them you know not uh on the right side of a lot of uh votes but we just need to start really listening to each other and working with each other I don't like blindsiding each other I agree 100 on the other hand um you know the purpose of this was just to hear from Mr Vogel um but then we then we said we have to have questions on
269part of it so it does say for board information discussion but it is under old business so it can be voted on at this point so uh I'll leave my conversation my vote to a minute after this we'll carry on with Miss Mason in a few minutes we're going to be talking about some of the discussion that we had with our senior staff and one of the comments that was made by individuals that work for this District was no surprise parties no surprise agenda items um based on the fact that I saw responses from some of the other board members this was a surprise party this was not emergent this was not um in any way absolutely imperative that we vote on today I'm concerned because this is not the first time and I know
270at one point I was part of that and I was guilty of that and I did apologize for doing so but as a board we need to be transparent with each other if if we are to take a vote I think that we need to say that we're going to take a vote and I know last week it was clearly asked by one board member to another board member is this an actionable item and that board member responded with no and so that was what I know I went into this with the knowledge of um and so I have concerns I have zero concerns not zero concerns I have I would like to see Vogel prove themselves and I don't think two months is enough time for them to prove themselves I think they need
271more time to to be able to do even more I think they've done a great job so far but I think that they need a little bit more time okay thank you thank you board members uh Miss Bowie would you please again so we're all making sure we're on the same page Miss Barnhart would you please uh again read the motion I did not have an opportunity to write it down I make a motion to continue to utilize the Vogel Law Firm transitioning to retainer payment option and extend the contract through June 30th 2024. yeah we have a motion we have a second would you please call the roll Miss Barnhart yes Miss Walker no Miss Bradford yes Miss crabill no Mr wildebear yes and Miss Mason no that is defeated three to three so
272we will carry on with our next uh agenda item again that would have taken a 4-3 vote that will carry on with our next um line item which is agenda review ad hoc Miss Pratt oh cool do we need a break I appreciate one okay let's let's take a five minute no more than five minute break but that clock is 9 15 let's return by 9 20 please foreign so tell me about next week until next week there are some of us that starts but there's a spark conference too or sometimes that one's on a win win Wednesday on Wednesday There's the okay and where's that is so one one okay and then there come you know foreign all right we got one two three four people's right there five you guys we ready to
273start up again I know I know I'm cutting you sure but that way we can get going too Miss crabill I'm sorry I know again I said we're gonna get more time but if we're if we're all ready let's go ahead and start back up maybe we'll get home before midnight tonight I know I know short I apologize but I'm like let's let's carry on all right our next one two three four five six yep everybody's here let's carry on with our uh discussion of the ad hoc committee uh Miss Bradford thank you Mr chairman everyone has in their packet the same recommendations that we had in the agenda briefing meeting except for two clarifications one for spelling and um one to make the recommendation seem a little bit more concise um I'm more than
274happy to go through them one at a time again a reminder for those who haven't been up to date on this we've had um discussions for the last couple of months on the key themes from the senior staff we met with the senior staff the ad hoc committee did and got their comments they're all here you can go online and look at the documents they are not organized by um alphabetical or anything like that I just didn't put the names of respecting people's privacy I didn't put their names here um but the key themes were to protect the board meetings as a business meeting board meetings are not the time to rediscuss an issue and you all can read that for yourself topic number one public participation the proposed recommendation number one it's on the
275bottom of page four the policy committee to look at the following policies that are related 2330 2310 23 35 35 determine if board is conducting meetings in compliance with existing policy and or changes as necessary we determined that we weren't actually following policy on some of these and so we felt like it needed to go to the policy committee to tighten it down do you want me to go through all six at the same time anyone have any questions why don't we go one and if there's questions so we're not trying to and Miss Mason um Mr McManus isn't on Livestream right yeah okay so miss Mason feel free to chime in as member of the committee Miss Walker had a question I do I don't I I guess this was my um I'm sorry
276it's late um are we voting on these things one at a time or are we doing I just want to know procedurally what we're doing here we could do whichever we'd like to we could either take one at a time and vote on it which probably makes more sense to me than doing the whole thing and then trying to go back over the whole thing but um it's really the will of the board so I just wanted to piggyback on that just a little bit is um and I'll just tell you the first of all thank you for the board for the the committee you know for doing the work that they did because they did do a lot of homework um what I was expecting to see was a procedure written up you know
277basically on what we're going to be doing not having to pick one and do it one at the time um I'm just thinking that especially if we look let's say we only vote on topic one yes and then we vote on topic two no um where what is our end goal you know how will we be able to put this into play at our next agenda review on September the 26th if we if one of these things I mean do we have to do them all in order to move forward and that's what I think that we we might want to just sort of come to grips with that because there's nothing wrong with um any of these suggestions necessarily but there are a lot of Blanks on there and personally we can adopt a
278new policy or a new procedure if we've got policies hanging out there in the wind you know so you know to the point on topic number one we need to we think that we're violating policies so then how can we move forward um without looking at those specific policies at the policy committee meeting which will be on the 19th so that's what I'm just I I'm having a hard time going one by one I think we could discuss them one by one and then we need a whole procedure on this is what we're going to do so you as our board chair can at the next meeting you go okay here we go and then you're out of order Miss crabill if you don't ask your questions now or you know that kind of thing
279that's all I'm suggesting is it one by one I don't think is an efficient use of our time and um creating a new a new procedure it's Mason um I can see how the going one at a time is definitely going to be very very time consuming and based on um how late it's getting the more the later we go the longer we argue um so I would suggest that if we wanted to prioritize the top three that we could take we could go through all of them look pick the top three and one of either Miss Bradford myself or Mr McManus can sit down and just type up a proposed or we can get together to type up a proposed idea to vote on just like Miss crabill is saying I think there's lots
280of great ideas there are a lot of things about policy in here and so I think that that does cause a little um it kind of blocks us from being able to do a lot when it has to go to policy first and I would agree I'm gonna jump in I think Miss Mason brings a good suggestion here that maybe you know we don't have to do it all tonight or even at all you know all at our next agenda meeting maybe we can do as she said maybe the top three things put them into play see how that works see how the flow of the meeting is and then you know maybe look at other things so um do we want to talk about it tonight and go through the the various steps um
281so why don't we and so I guess I'm hearing overall let's go ahead and go through uh Miss Bradford if you lead us through the you know all the topics and then maybe we can as a board decide what were the three top so there there's actually if I remember correctly there's six and one has no recommendations if you wanted to add seven and is that that one has no recommendation so if somebody wanted to propose a recommendation for number seven they could do that but we as a committee didn't have one so we have six so um half of these we're going to prioritize to our top is our highest priorities so topic number two is set the time limit on the length of the meetings we need a real uh established timeline um
282so that we don't end up I mean we've tried tonight and we've we've failed in a lot of ways to do that there's two recommendations there and that's the one that has the replacement recommendation you see that last on page five so that's replacement recommendation Miss Mason made some corrections to that one and they seem to be to be quite fine but proposed recommendation number two was the time should be kept when the time is up discussion ends and is table to the next meeting in other words if we were past our limit now we would table this discussion until the next meeting and we almost started to adopt that tonight by having Miss Barnhart keep the time so that one's that that that's to be considered there and the replacement recommendation was establish the
283time to end each meeting I have noticed it four hours we all get a little fuzzy we start calling each other by the wrong name and so on so I don't know what the time to end the meeting would be but this recommendation was to limit the number of items on the agenda to blank in other words if we have 12 now maybe we cut it back to 10 if we have 15 now but to come up with a number of items on the agenda and that's all that we allow for that meeting not to have it open-ended that we could have 247 agenda items on one meeting and agenda items that have not been addressed or pushed or table to the next meeting or a motion to extend the meeting would then be needed
284so um that's that's one to consider there topic number three was the biggest one we got the most common from staff and everyone else it has to do with agenda items themselves and you're going to go down to did we get both of those yeah I did on page six um proposed recommendations there are three and actually there's fours one's mislabeled the first one is to to play something on the agenda briefing for a board vote topic needs to be fleshed out this one we could actually adopt for the next meeting completely describe as to what information is needed to be discussed on and or vote for example Mr Anderson no offense on this example it was just easy to come up with if the school bus agendas school buses were on the agenda briefing
285what do you want to know about the buses what concern do you have about the buses what action do you want to take on the buses so we present him with our request and then he comes back and presents to us in the agenda briefing the answers to the questions that we had rather than him trying to decide what we might want to ask he prepares for that and we have completely different questions so that's number one number two the chair to ensure all board member questions are asked during or before the agenda review meeting and prior to the monthly board meeting so that we're not asking questions at the business meeting of the board only new items brought forth are any word changes would be an open topic an open topic tip to place
286on the board meeting or discussion before a vote that's enough that's number two to consider propose recommendation number three amend policy 2300 is this the one that have the wrong policy number one type of meetings and this is just a housekeeping thing add subtypes agenda review um into the language it's not necessary to continue with that just trying to be um just squeaky clean we don't have agenda review or agenda briefing or agenda review briefing as a subtype we don't have to do it but it would be in keeping with trying to be squeaky clean um last proposal there pulling off the consent agenda items like mou should be done at the agenda briefing another example and that's the time to ask the questions unless there's a super majority vote to pull an item in
287for discussion these items should be itemized noted on the regular board meeting agenda for example if you know if we're going to vote on um you know I I'm a member of the the pugs United dog committee and we're about to get a a vote on pugs United dogs I would tell you what the gender briefing I'm pulling myself off of that I won't vote so we don't have to go through that process in the in the in the the business meeting we don't have to duplicate that language again it's our I'm already off does that make sense okay thank you um and a possible proposed recommendation is that the board chair to college board member prior to the regular business meeting of the board to ask if they have any questions I found that
288very helpful that you did that um recently so any questions on that I'm gonna move on to topic number four presentations to the agenda briefing meeting agenda review meeting whatever we've got a favor we're going to call this thing um you must have clear concise expectations for senior staff what information is needed to be presented so proposed recommendation we're going to review policy 2330 section a format to move the presentations by guests and staffs to the agenda review meeting they will now everything that is information and for example The Proposal that Mr Anderson and I can't think of the name of the company that that brought us this tonight that would entire would have moved to the agenda briefing could he have come my question would be could he have come at three o'clock on
289a Tuesday just for that yeah we would have scheduled it um with his schedule he could have been here thank you um and and those things are no longer a part of the regular meeting we just need to cross-reference that with policy 23 30. 2310 it's not imperative but we do that before we start doing this it's just a housekeeping item proposed recommendation number two [Music] um also amended to make the presentations by board members for example is there a reason why the superintendent's comments and the chairs comments have to be made in this meeting could they in fact be made at the agenda briefing meeting especially once we train everyone who wants to listen to listen either online or come in person those meetings are completely out open so presentation by board members committee
290reports letters um add that to the agenda review meeting that's going to save us probably 15-20 minutes at this time of night 15 20 minutes is a lot proposed recommendation number three we're going to review 2330 again to reflect the consent agenda will be itemized and the votes will be on each item versus all consensus items if that's something that we need to do again these are just the recommendations they're not necessarily something I came up with number five call to audience um this just got included because it was a part of the agenda it's a part of the business meeting um proposed recommendation review 2310 to make sure we're in compliance with what that says now a recommendation from a board member is an on a Committee Member was to move the call to
291audience to the end of the monthly board meeting and amend the agenda again it's just up for discussion um topic number six closed sessions at Agenda review and board meetings move those suckers out of this meeting discontinue the middle of the board this monthly meeting board meeting closed sessions hold your board meeting closed sessions for the monthly board meeting before the meeting either at four if we feel like we need an hour and a half at 3 30. um adjourning to close come to the meeting adjourn into closed session have the meeting come back start the meeting at 5 PM so people who don't want to sit through our board closed sessions don't have to um again we need to look at 23 30 if it needs to be reflected in the change or the
292change needs to be reflected there discontinue the end of the meeting agenda closed session if necessary just take it right off the the sheet discontinue additional closed sessions at the end of monthly meetings except by a super majority vote that's the only difference there that was proposed that it'd be a super majority vote to have a closed session at this time of night proposed recommendation number three this is again a board member recommendation Committee Member recommendation conduct a straw vote at the agenda briefing on items that will be voted on in the general meeting we kind of sort of did a little of that the other day and it kind of worked again proprietories these number seven is board meeting agenda briefing schedule there was a concern that Ms Bowie addressed that the agenda briefing
293is usually on Tuesday unless it falls on the first day of school or on a holiday or something like that there was also the concern to have less piggyback meetings grouped together but we as a committee did not have a recommendation for that y'all can make one if you want and that includes um I might as well tell the public this we had a question can we vote in the agenda briefing review meeting and the answer was yes and we actually did that the other day so we can't vote in that meeting if we needed to um it doesn't have to be restricted to this meeting so that ends my presentation board members what is your pleasure you know do we want to look at two three one of these and put them in for
294the next time it's Mason go please um I would suggest my understanding standing save us time things that I feel are going to save us the most time are topic three topic four and topic six so I would propose that we focus on those that's just my suggestion what were those numbers again so topic three is agenda items topic four is information presentations to the agenda and topic six is closed sessions at Agenda review and board meetings make a recommendation on how which of the the proposed yeah recommendations you would since you're since you have the floor okay um I think one is definitely good that is making sure that we're getting all of our questions all of our information to our senior staff as far as what we are looking for what information we
295want them to present I think that that is absolutely important um and I would say probably recommendation number two I have some concerns with the um the second one that says the proposed recommendation number three and I don't know if it's um for me I sometimes have to be I have to pull myself off of some of these mous because of my employment with one of the other places and I want to make sure that that is abundantly clear so even if I did it at the agenda review I'd still want to be able to do it at the meeting so that the public knew there was no um conflict of interest for me so that would be I would say for this particular one which is I know topic three I'm gonna say I
296would go with recommendation one and two for what about the subtype just adding subtype to the agenda I feel like anything that that goes with policy should be discussed in policy um so I don't think that we should be voting on anything as a full board that is going to be the responsibility of the three policy members I I just what I said yeah um and then topic four which is information uh presentations to agenda um going to that next page page seven um I would say actually I don't think it's in here my recommendation is that we have our staff make their presentations um I don't see that specifically listed on here but I would say that we ask our staff to present day of agenda review and then when we come to these
297meetings we can then vote um and we can ask all of our questions add a gender review and that would give them a little bit of a little bit of rest during regular meetings and it would get all of it out of the way um I guess it's the first one amend a new presentations by guests but that's a policy committee thing so what would you strike the policy part if you don't yeah that's what is a part of number one that's what I would say for that um topic six closed sessions and agenda review and board meetings um I would say one comment that was made is that when we have the closed session in the middle of things it kind of interrupts the flow of everything and it's a start stop start so
298if we can get all of our closed session business done prior to I think that that's something that we need to um we need to do so I would say the recommendation number one for that one oh that's awesome okay so um I agree with um Miss Mason on um topic number three the the what I I don't agree with well first of all I think that we have to fill in whatever those blue blanks are for number three oh I'm sorry that's number two wrong thing I was scrolling too fast so she got it yeah yeah so um the it's I am talking about number three page five number three um proposed recommendation number one is absolutely Paramount because we've already messed up two times tonight on our on our agenda we have to
299put it on what we want to hear and what the main points are and that's written right in our right in our assembly thing it it talks us right through you know main points and proposed actions so that has to be on all of our meetings no matter it's a gender review or um Regular meeting when we're talking about um the I don't what I would like to see is as not having possible recommendations either we're going to recommend it or we're not but I am in favor of the board chair um calling each board member to ask them their opinion and that would replace a straw vote in number six I'm not in favor of straw voting in in public because that gives the false impression that we've taken a vote and um that
300is fuel for fodder for the community and for um are our Media Partners so the um and so in in number there was one the informal presentations that's good um I think we should just leave out topic five completely because that wasn't in the purview of this ad hoc committee um we don't do call to the audience as part of a gender review and so that we're going to talk about that next so I would say we strike completely topic number five um I don't know why it is a problem to put closed session as needed in our agenda anywhere so that we don't have to just worry about a super majority vote we just are able to you know plop right into it if we need to um with that and then the last
301one was discontinue the end of the meeting agenda closed session if needed discontinue additional closed sessions at the end of monthly board meetings except by a super majority vote favor of the first one but not the second or both of them well first of all I'm a little confused that we keep jumping back and forth between the agenda we're we're making recommendations for the regular meeting when we're supposed to be making recommendations for the agenda review so I am I am thinking that what harm does it put does does it present for us to put on our agenda that says closed session as needed so that we don't have to stop take a vote in a super majority vote it's just they are ready to use if we're ready to use it because it doesn't
302mean anything it doesn't mean we have to it just means if we're going to have a closed session we'd like to have them at the end of our meeting recommendation number two that's your opinion you know yes I don't I don't I don't want to take them out and I don't want to conduct straw number three I don't want to con cond conduct any sort of straw voting um because it it's I don't know if that's even allowed um to do that's when we just talk to each other and we give you know give ourselves opinions but in the I'm trying to find where it was where we talked about consensus items I was trying to follow along oh in um topic number three where we're talking about um pulling items off the consent agenda
303that's not what I meant it was we have two consensus sections on our agenda we have um Regular consensus item like mlu contracts and we have policy consensus so um and maybe I'm reading this wrong but I'm getting the impression that we want to vote on each item separately and we went to consent item agenda so we don't have to go down through 12 things so you know help me understand if I'm reading that wrong that's how it was presented that was the recommendation and from this I didn't remember hearing that um from anybody that said that's the reason you have consent agenda items so that you can go all in favor of a through F go you know yes or no I don't like it no I don't I don't like I like consensus
304items where we vote on them all at one time except if we do need to pull off individual ones occasionally we shouldn't pull them off for I don't understand because I should have asked that question before but pulling them off for conflicts of interest or new information that has come to light I think those are appropriate for pulling off okay um I'm gonna go take a step back because I think Miss Mason actually made a motion and I don't believe I ever got a second on that I don't think she did you did you make a motion okay I was I was gonna make a motion that was a suggestion not emotional okay very good Mr Mr wildebe yes ma'am I would like to make a motion that we that the ad we return this
305to the ad hoc committee and they can take into account all the things that we've said so anybody who hasn't said anything now go ahead or send an email to the board to that committee so that we can put it all together and so this is getting a long-winded motion motion is to send it back to the committee um and then and have them develop a procedure for us not all these I got to figure them out just this is what we propose we want to do based on what we're reading okay we have a motion for Mr Bill I can repeat it if we need to but I'll cut it down we all heard it right yes okay yeah we do is it a second I'll second the space in seconds Miss Bradford um
306Ms Grable would you consider amending that I like to amend that I'd like to I move to amend that motion that we focus on three four and six as Miss Mason suggested rather than try to do all of them at one time unless you want us to do all six at the same time well number five should come out anyway because that's your opinion but it's not part of the gender review it never has been and we haven't talked about that we're going to be talking about it again in the next item so I I don't want to I guess we could yeah I don't care I'm in the motion Okay so we've made a motion to go the ones that I just erased uh three four four and six we're gonna focus on those
307if we have recommendations for the others we'll put them at the bottom but for now is there a second on her Amendment second you second okay good all right any other discussion if not all in favor this is for the amendment first to focus on three four and six all in favor say aye aye then we go back to the original motion uh which is to um send it back to the committee to again focus on three four and six all opposed I should say all post me sure okay that passes six zero six zero and as Ms crabill just said we will carry on thank first of all thank you again to the committee um it's a point of clarification Parent Portal clarification so is the intent for us to review this record this
308new recommendation at the next agenda review or at the next at the next board meeting and I'm asking that question because are we expected to be following something different at the at the January I mean at the um August September 24 whatever our next agenda review meeting are we being are we expecting to follow this uh I'm I'm going to answer that um because the board will not have an opportunity to change the agenda before the agenda review before the agenda review we were going to follow what we've done in the past for the agenda review we'll discuss it in the October meeting and then put it into play hopefully by the November meeting I make a motion that we move to continue the meeting format that we have tonight for one additional more month
309so that we can get to that point of October does that make sense this next month will be the same as tonight maybe we can just sort of morph a little bit at the things that we think that might happen but whatever well oh sorry Mr Vogel do we need a motor I can just take that upon myself we made a motion the other day I I'm sorry but I don't I don't understand what the motion is at the agenda briefing we made a motion and passed it to continue what we would do um we had passed the trial period that we said we were going to do this so I felt like if we're going to do it one more month then we maybe needed a motion to do that if not I'm fine
310well I suppose if in the past there was board action to only do it up until a certain time then it requires board action to continue the status quo okay so we have a motion to continue what we're currently doing uh I'll second that any discussion MS crabill I just want to be really clear on four and this is mainly for our senior staff are we expecting them to make in full information reports at because we didn't expect that last time but yet we asked them to do it anyway so um oh just give us a little hint you know so I just want to be clear that before we vote on this is that we are not going to ask them to have presentations and things ready for us at the agenda review Barnhart
311I would like to amend the motion to include to allow them the option to present to us at the agenda review so that we can actually shorten our meetings which was the point of the agenda review itself so if they come and they do their information [Music] I second that Amendment okay amended motion from Miss Barnhart seconded by Miss Bradford and that is to allow them the Opera the opportunity you say correct the option can I question yes Corner clerk so allowing them the option means I can do it if I feel like it you know so um and I don't think that we need to put that on them like Julie might be ready but Ashley might not be ready and so it either we're all ready or we're all not you know I
312think we need to I mean you guys weigh in whatever you think I mean it just seems kind of arbitrary to say if you're ready to go go yeah I mean do you guys like saying in this life anyway now someone's look at me like what is there any I'll just share I'm not ready right now just kidding at the will of the board and I would say that we're probably all in agreement on that which one is that at the will of the board whichever you choose okay so we have an amendment in front of us to give them to give the senior staff the option we have a second is there any other discussion on that if not um would you please call before you call the role yes so I think the
313only thing that would help them is if it's going to be an agenda item if the individual who is requesting the item for them to be ready to give them all the information they need but that way they can prepare it for you okay thank you Miss Mason this is actually what the committee is supposed to be deciding so right kind of making the decision for the committee right now that's I guess what I'm confused about okay all right important clarification a committee cannot make the decision and so we're sitting together as a board this is a suggestion I think everybody agrees with and so I'm saying let's try that if you guys have already said to reconvene to see all the processes and procedures but why can't we try this if we all are
314in agreement it's going to come back before the board anyway that's great bill so if you if you take that approach why can't we just come to policy and say huh let's just skip that today and move right on so this is this is our procedure so either we send it to the committee to give us a proposal or we step out of what we just voted on and tell the committee what to do so that's that's not the point of having a committee Ms Walker I just want to say we just voted to send it back like they just said I don't think we need to be confusing everyone I just feel like the staff has already answered they'll do what the will of the board is of course they will because they're good
315staff but the point of it is we shouldn't be mixing this all up I like what the committee is doing I think we're moving in the right direction I think we focused on three four and six and I think that's what we should do I don't I don't think we need a motion for that that's my opinion all right Miss blue would you call again the motion in front of us is the amendment which is to give them the option to either present at the agenda review or at the later on at the actual meeting Mr Blue would you call roll please Miss Barnhart yes Miss Walker no Ms Bradford yes Miss Craig Bill no Mr wildebear no and Miss Mason no that's defeated back to original motion to send it back to policy and
316assuming that the policy to the ad hoc committee to focus on those three areas all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed carrying on thank you board members that passes 6-0 call the audience uh I'm going to speak first on this one um there was a question why don't we have a proposal here because I really think as we talked about last week uh there's there's I don't know that there is a clear uh one one this is definitely the way to do it we've heard from a lot of folks you know the old way was definitely the better way to do it we've heard the new ways better to do it we have a very intelligent board here maybe somebody has come up with an even better way to do it
317uh the one thing that I would like to say is that it does uh irk me I'll say that word irk um when we have somebody called and they're not here so I really think that we need to continue to as a minimal uh minimum excuse me uh add the the in-person sign up where we can actually have if Miss Jones or Miss Smith or Mr Smith doesn't show up we can pull another name and have that person speak I think that I'm going to say as I said before I think is it's important that we hear from folks and if somebody is not here heaven forbid they got in an accident or or if they got sick but if we have an open slot that we should be able to fill that with a
318person that is is definitely here because they signed up at the door but besides that I am definitely open to the will of the board I think there's going to be a lot of discussion on this so I'm going to go through my list and if you have a great idea please bring it forth Miss Barnhart if you would start please sure thing Mr chairman I I move that we continue to use the lottery sign up of 20 individuals and after that opens after the conclusion of the agenda review expanding to include the option of having an interpreter and or translator present as well as the five additional call to audience signups in addition I would suggest that we utilize an alternate called audience sign up that would be open to in the event of
319what you are referencing an individual is not present okay so we have a motion is there a second of course there will be discussion afterwards is there a second okay first and second and that is to use what we're using now with an additional sign up ability uh for going through our list we have Miss Barnhart so we have Miss Walker next I'm I'm really hoping we could have discussion before you threw emotions out there because I not prepared to vote on a motion I don't know about half of what you said honestly because I I'm not prepared to talk about it um but um it's Mr Voldemort's point I do like the idea of extra time slots in case someone doesn't show up I think that's fair um I'm I'm not really sure on
320the sign up I obviously I've been in the camp of first come first serve I think you had brought up the fact of that is an early sign up although we're doing it now after agenda review so it's more afternoon now right when we started to do it because originally we did it at like eight o'clock morning and now we're doing it I mean I still think that's a good time for people that want to sign up um I don't know that we need to change that but I know um we've had discussion about up to 60 minutes I think the expectation is that we're going to go to an hour and I just think that we should fill it with people as many as we can um I don't understand why we went from
32125 to 20 I get it's a time thing Scrabble says often that we we um we don't have to do the full 60 but I like to hear from folks even if I don't like to hear from folks I think it's their right to say what they want to say and I don't like I like less restrictions so that's just my two cents I like a couple ideas that you brought up I don't know what we're voting on I hope we don't again the motion in front of us right now is to continue the lottery with the additional signups at the door so that's what was that was that was the more motion was there was a it was long is that the gist of the motion yeah basically as I understand it the just
322the motion was we continue what we're doing now with the lottery system but we would have additionally uh we'd have the five normal signups and then we'd have that list continue so that we would you know there might be another 10 people that in case we had but the extra people would come from that list so we get a supplementary list we're going around the list so we're going to give Miss Bradford her turn Damon's crabill um I track the call to audience tonight we started at 5 46 we ended at 6 40. one person didn't show up I thought it went really quick people people were very responsible to you know to to queue up it was It was kind of nice um and we we had five people sign up so we we
323had 25. um I do not want to go over an hour um but I would I would think if we're gonna do this this way and I haven't thought about it a lot I wasn't expecting emotion necessarily but um if if we do it we've got to figure out how if they're signing up that well I don't know if all of you are aware but tonight we had people come to the door to try to sign up all their friends so now we have to police the sign up list out front because people don't follow the rules but maybe we can post the rules and then they would follow them but somehow we have to tell them if you're one through five you're you're in if you're 5 through 47 you may be an alternate
324so you want to stick around but somehow we have to inform them of what they're signing up for so they are not like number nine on the list and they get really mad they don't get to talk at the sign up out front and then the other thing would be the dialogue we've never tried to say you know congratulations you got in you got selected by the lottery whatever it says if you cannot attend please let us know by three o'clock on the day of I mean we haven't ever told people to do that maybe they would do it maybe they wouldn't but it would be an option just to add to that little dialogue thing that they get when it says congratulations you've won the lottery um and again we just keep drawing stuff
325until it starts to work we got to figure out a way to keep people from cheating somehow so um anyway I I'm in favor of it just because I don't have any other suggestions Miss craigville yeah we are never going to keep people from cheating and we have bigger things to worry about than if somebody signs up two friends um and doesn't show up because some people might say that I signed up and I want to spot and I'm just I'm not coming because I just want to hold that spot so nobody else can have it I mean people have all kinds of you know rationales for what they do I have no problem with continuing the lottery and then um and then pulling from the wait list of the people who are here the
326um I might I would like to suggest that perhaps if you did the if you were selected in the lottery that when you come to the meeting you sign in so we know that you're here and so we already know that we're going to maybe have to pull three new net or we're gonna not pull three new names we're gonna come down to first come first serve so um and if somebody signs up a friend who's not there we just can't worry about it that's just too many details that are not essential to educating our children thank you Miss craval next is myself and I'd actually like to ask Mr I'm gonna I asked Mr Cardella if you would share with us maybe his thoughts I know he's relatively new to it but I'm sure
327you're you're uh you can you know your your group over there has given you some insight on this yeah I could definitely speak to the the process itself so there you know there's no confusion um so it doesn't matter what the number is um you know you can pick any number if you get to that number or below that number all of those people speak so if it's 20 it's 20 but once you go over that number that's when it kind of triggers the need for that random selection and it's all done right on the website so I don't know if Jay could go to the uh New Hanover County Schools website and all you have to do is just kind of float over Board of Education and go to call the call to the
328audience and click on that and everything's right there so right after the agenda meeting there's a determination it's going to be open for several days so it's it's fair in that respect that you know for 24 hours for three three to four days people have the opportunity to sign up so for example this week 31 signed up so we had to do a random selection and it's very clear on that if you go ahead and scroll down Jay it's very are you on the right page okay yeah you are so it's it's very clear right there in that green section exactly what the rule is and when it's going to close and then you know when the random pick is going to happen now if you scroll down even more you keep scrolling keep going
329so right there you could actually watch the process so what Anita does is she actually videotapes that whole process as she's going through it and if there's for example somebody signed up five times all the duplicates are taken out first and then it'll be listed and if you were to click on that you can see the whole process and how they're randomly selected it's rather quick and it and it's rather easy and then you come out with the list so on that list it'll list one to twenty who they are now of course it's not going to list the five that sign up here or any supplements to that but you do have a pretty solid list and the nice thing about it is um emails will go out to those people confirming that they've
330been selected okay now let's just say somebody comes back the next day or that day and says hey I'm not going to make it we will randomly select another individual and send out an email to that individual and I know sometimes the you know an individual because they'll also get a an email if they're not selected you were not selected okay great and then somebody says hey I'm not going and now they're selected they they have to be mindful that they may get an email saying hey guess what you're in now because somebody dropped out so that's the process I mean in my short tenure here this is my second board meeting and this is the way we've done it so I really can't speak to you know how it had been done in the
331past thank you sir thank you very much we will carry on Mr Wellborn Miss Mason oh oh I'm sorry we're going to listen I'm sorry uh I've been saying for a while I'm not a fan of this Lottery system um I I'm much more an advocate of the first come first serve if we're doing it for the sign ups here we should do it for the sign ups online but I believe that we should have a separate sign up because we know that that's possible for staff teachers anybody that is unavailable at eight o'clock in the morning so perhaps 15 for the community five four staff teachers and then five here um for first come first serve second go round Miss Barnhart um I did not hear any mention of anybody if they're interested in
332entertaining the idea of having an interpreter present because we have roughly 25 of our population is Hispanic and I know not all of them are only Spanish-speaking but I think it's something that we need to be cognizant of when we're talking about representing our community and so I'd like for us to consider that as well as interpreter we've seen a growing population of individuals with hearing impaired needs and so for us to be aware that we have individuals wanting to speak to us that have a barrier to us I think that we can be proactive in that approach side for like for us to discuss that as well as I'm not necessarily in disagreement with what Miss Mason is saying here as long as you are also an addition discussing the alternative sign up list
333in those 15-5 slot allotments and then just having a fill-in what I like about the lottery system is it allows us to adhere to our policy of an hour called audience but also remain consistent when we have more people wanting to speak than we have slots available it is not limiting the voice of anybody I would question for my board members who want first come first serve basis do we operate our choice schools like that do we say children that sign up whoever signs up first gets in the answer is no correct and so what I wonder is why is it a good precedent to do a lottery system for children signing up for choice schools in the county but not a fair precedent for the call to audience when it's a system that would
334remain in place and intact for the entirety whether not 20 people are have signed up or 500 people have signed up so I think providing consistency is the whole point of the system and I'm fine with the additional alternative slots I think it's a good use of time to make sure that we fill them but I'm just confused why the pushback for that Walker I don't think I have the capacity to answer that but I will just say um I just just in a general sense I'll say this I am just I'm in favor of people being able to speak and I mean I don't I don't think I can explain to you exactly why I prefer first come first serve except for the fact that it shows intent and it shows what somebody really
335wants to come and talk to us so that's about the only reason I can say that I mean do I hate the lottery system no um and so obviously it's the will the board what we want to do about that um I there was a long motion so I think there was a question about interpreters I think the only thing I would say to that is we should have a sign up that is um I guess if someone that speaks a different language or I guess Spanish is what we're talking about here mostly right um then we we should have that on here that's clear and if someone is going to sign up that needs an interpreter then we could probably fill that I hope but we haven't really talked about that logistically or who
336we could get to do that so I hate to throw it in a motion that we don't know the answer to that yet maybe we should just pull that out and talk about it um but so far it sounds like to me the extra time slot is a good idea it sounds like everybody kind of likes that idea so I think that's a good one just in case people don't show up and I did kind of like what Mr scribble said about if you come in and you have signed up to let people know you're here I mean that might help in some way shape or form uh with information but I don't know I mean we're speaking on to this motion right is that really what we're just speaking to this motion that was
337just made her just in a general sense okay um well I don't really know what else to say about it I think I've said everything thank you Ms Bradford um I'm gonna throw in for the lottery sign up we'll try it again I think we miss Barnhart when I seconded I seconded for The Interpreter and the sign language um Miss Walker just brought up another point with my housekeeping we're gonna need to put dialogue that's that says on the sign up out front we're gonna need to put Dialogue on the green section the Mr Cardella mentioned saying you know notify us if you can attend we'd need to put something in the green sections notice them that you know that that we would have these interpreters and signers here um but there's one more thing
338that we haven't considered yet tonight was the first night that we had um the kind of the alternate opportunity anyway there was a problem with the sign ups tonight where one person was coming trying to sign up a bunch of people who weren't here so if we're going to do the first come first serve at the door for the extra five and or the alternates we're going to have a staffing issue we're gonna have to put somebody out there because Miss Bowie was out there and she just kept trying to get it right and and telling the people no you can't do this and and it just the the the passion for wanting to speak was just more overwhelming than Miss Bowie could keep people from stopping to do that so it wasn't fair um
339and and so we're going to have to assign a staff person to sit there I know at the county they have the staff people sign you in if you're going to speak so they're sitting there but right now we don't necessarily have a person that's here at four o'clock that could be out there so that's that's going to come into this mix I'm a housekeeper I just think of logistics Mr Scrabble I forgot what I was going to say the um I forgot what I was going to say and actually I don't take my my question and ask and ask oh I remember just now um so are we talking about just to get this off the table housekeeping are we talking ever about moving call to the audience to the agenda review or are
340we still keeping I mean I don't think that we are but miss Bradford had made the comment we're still working on that so I didn't know the I mean I want to voice opposition if we are going to take call the audience to the agenda review because that's in the middle of the day and people can't come okay you could but no one could go oh I know what it was the second thing um yeah I'm sorry the um please I had gotten some feedback from you know teachers and employees that would we consider having several spots left for them and I tried to explain to them that you know we um it's not a matter of you can't get there at eight o'clock anymore you know it's open for a week and so um
341but I felt that I needed to just say that out loud so that they knew their voice had been heard around that I'm not a huge proponent of saving spots because that's just going out there saying um oh I'm sorry you know we're saving spots you know so I just wanted to make that a point for us to just weigh in on it you know should we decide that all right I'm going to ask my quick question Mr Cardella um how difficult would it be to add some of the things that Miss Barnhart has asked like sign language uh interpreter or a Spanish interpreter and and also to the sign up you know where somebody would have to check a box that I need uh one of the two I mean as far as you
342know putting putting the language on the website that's the easy part um I can't really speak to or you know I don't think I have the authority to get an interpreter or a sign language person that's that's somebody else's um Lane um unless you know unless I'm wrong about that it just we'll all help you drive in that lane okay so so I'm not familiar with that process as far as you know what it takes to do that um I guess what I was trying to say is we we don't have a sign language person as far as in my division um but I know we probably have access is probably the way I would think about it I know they're out there I saw one here today they all occur at an expense yeah
343I can answer those questions we do we have access to um if we are given notice then we can make sure that that takes place we have to have have those for our students um so we don't want anyone to have any legal issues we do have access to sign language Spanish you let us know what interpretation German we can definitely get it for you yeah and that language as far as the website that's the easy part and we can definitely put it in there so if somebody is requiring that kind of service that could be put in there very easily Dr Barnes think you had your hand up there I regretted it afterwards I was uh you were volunteering if we if we have noticed we can of course accommodate any needs in that
344manner okay and the Staffing person is that doable if we are made aware yes we will okay all right so that's my turn uh Miss Mason close us down um I'm just gonna say I'm not volunteering to be The Interpreter though I am fluent in sign language that is not what I would do um I think it's very important to have that access to that language but that would require some notice you can't just ask for it and then immediately because there's you have to check availability having that experience in the deaf Community um I I know they need notice so I definitely think that that that's absolutely important we absolutely need to have that time when it comes to why I prefer first come first serve rather than the lottery um frequently it's been
345brought up by several board members that the same people keep coming over and over and talking about the same things which is 100 their right to do and if we want them to stop then we need to do maybe maybe provide more clarification I don't know that's a different subject but what I'm seeing is the same people are still signing up the same people are still getting picked so I really don't see a difference between the lottery and the first come first serve when you compare it to a lottery for students with choice and a lottery for community members to come and speak that's apples and oranges student choice for school is their academics it's a full year or four years or five years when it comes to community voice it is a couple minutes
346and it's their their freedom to speak um what they want and it doesn't impact them for a full school year or or more I don't see the change that's occurred between the lottery and the first come first serve and so those are my thoughts thank you very much miss boo so the motion in front of us is Miss barnhart's motion again to um to go to continue the lottery system to add the additional sign up at the front door and to also make sure we have um sign line sign language excuse me interpreters as well as Spanish interpreters as needed for the silent is that correct what you said yes tell the role Miss Barnhart yes Miss Walker yes Miss Bradford yes Miss craigville yes Mr wildebear yes and Miss Mason no that passes one
347two three four five to one so we will continue that um until the board decides to change that all right carrying on Head Start report um yes so it was actually the first day of start staggered all my share our Pre-K students and as you see we have funded 260 slots and we have 250 of those filled so last week our staff did a lot of home visits to get introduced to their students and then I'm going to address I know two times ago it was asked about the support that we provide for specifically single families and so the idea of family needs assessment for every single family that comes into our district they make sure that a family specialist is connected to All Families to make to make aware of the resources that we
348provide um because family Partnerships is one of the goals and we have Partnerships with the following and it's not limited to these but these are the highlights so nourish and see we have a program with the Brooklyn Arts Music Academy raising a Reader Library a diaper Bank Cape fears Children's Museum and Coastal Horizons and so those are just some of the resources that we have for our Pre-K students but it's we are cognizant of the population that we would serve any questions board members yeah I have one quick question where it says under Dorothy B Johnson Center um IEP children we have 17 but by end of year we must have 26 I mean do we have quotas we have to fill yes and so that will be done through the process of our students
349that get identified and and we we as the mtss process that we assume they'll need some extra support so while they might not have an IEP right now they might be in the process of being diagnosed for one any other questions if not thank you Miss Barnhart any correspondence if not announcements I do Mr Voldemort Sue um hold on let me get there um I just wanted to um since now we have all of our children back in school I wanted to I I Googled some inspirational words for them and I'm hoping that kids will listen or their parents will listen but um Good Luck to all the children and youth as they begin yet another year of school give them peace when they feel nervous focus when they feel distracted energy when they feel
350tired open their minds to the lessons that they will learn both in and outside the classroom help them to make friends that build upon build one another up and be friends to those who need them guide them in making good choices as they grow in wisdom and maturity be ever present with them in the classrooms on the school bus on the playground and at home and may they feel the loving care of all those around them teachers good luck to those in the profession and I added in the ministry of teaching future Generations as teachers embark on a new school year grant them energy passion discipline and endurance for their daily tasks infused into their classrooms with an atmosphere of care and mutual respect that all interactions there will be bathed in patience and understanding
351help their lessons to grow pupils in both knowledge and character and help us all to support the work of these teachers and all that they do in building up our community and our future thank you Miss cradle we are any others Miss Walker I'll try me less than a minute but I just wanted to I know you guys have been probably board members have been reached out to by the New Hanover PTO which is The Advocates I wanted to give them a shout out one because I'm hoping you guys go in tour the school like I hope to do this week but um you know they've done a number of things painted bathrooms catered lunch they have purchased flowers and Mulch and so I just wanted to say like because you know Hanover is where
352my heart is I just feel like you know the more we can love we can give to Hannah over the best and so if anybody wants to know more about this you can reach out to principal side and get contact through there thank you thank you very good okay uh I have several announcements the equity and diverse the equity diversity and inclusion committee will be meeting on Wednesday September 6 to 2023 at 5 PM in the Board of Education Center the audience seating capacity is 150. the general public will have an option to view remotely on the New Hanover County tv YouTube the legislative committee will meet on Monday September 18th at 10 A.M and the Board of Education Center the uh audience seating capacity is also 150 and again the general public will have
353an option to view remotely on the New Hanover County tv YouTube policy committee will be meeting on Tuesday November 19th at 10 A.M the Board of Education Center The General September okay sorry they I'll read it again the policy committee will meet on Tuesday September 19th 2023 at 10 A.M in the Board of Education Center the general public will have the option to view remotely on our TV station uh TV channel excuse me the curriculum committee will meet on Monday September 25th at 3 45 in the Board of Education Center uh the audience seating capacity is also 150. general public will have the option to re to view remotely on our YouTube channel the Board of Education will hold our next agenda review meeting on Tuesday September 26th here general public will have the option
354to to view remotely on our YouTube channel and the October regular board meeting will be on Tuesday October 3rd 2023 here and again the general public will have the option to view remotely on our YouTube channel we will not have a closed session this evening I know you guys are all very disappointed on that we will continue with our German is there a motion to adjourn so amazing you have a motion to adjourn a second second yeah first and second all in favor please signify by saying aye aye we are adjourned